On Monday (26/1/15) the strategically important city of Kobane/Ayn al-Arab was liberated from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) by the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG) following a battle that had lasted for 134 days and claimed the lives of 459 Kurdish fighters.
Away from Kobane however the rest of the theatre of operations against ISIL in both Iraq and Syria remained painfully quiet. The big event of the week occurred in London, UK on Thursday (22/1/15) when Britain hosted an international conference in response to Islamic terrorism of which ISIL are just the largest threat. Rather then offering any solutions the main purpose of this conference was to allow the UK to find out where everybody stood on the issue in the wake of the attacks in Paris, France that occurred between January 7th (7/1/15) and January 9th (9/1/15). For example France is obviously furious about this and wants to step up efforts to defeat Islamic terrorism while the US still seems desperate to pretend that it never happened in order to avoid having to defeat Islamic terrorism.
The big shock to come out of the conference though was that an Iraqi official made public an assessment by the US-led coalition that its now 6 month long bombing campaign had killed an estimated 6,000 ISIL fighters including the more then 1,200 who were killed in the Battle of Kobane. This US responded angrily to this release of information officially because they didn't want comparisons made to the body-counts used in the Vietnam war that succeeded in turning public opinion against the war.
However in reality the US were keen to keep this information secret because although it is not the be all and end all along with other factors such as territory held the enemy death-toll or force depletion helps to give an indication of how the operation is going. To put it in its most stark terms ISIL number around 32,000 fighters. If the coalition kills 31,999 of those fighters ISIL stops being a terror organisation dominating Iraq and Syria and instead becomes just one guy running around the desert in his underpants. The fact that the coalition has already killed 1 in every 5 of ISIL's fighters indicated that the operation is going far better then predicted. It also directly contradicts the comments made by US President Obama in his State of the Union address the previous day that the fight against ISIL will take months if not years to complete.
On the issue of territory held the Iraqi official went on to announce that with co-operation of the coalition it could mount an operation to liberate Mosul in a matter of weeks and the city which has become ISIL's de facto capital in Iraq could be fully liberated by early-March at the latest. While it continues to try and buy time to train and arm Sunni-Arab insurgent groups similar to ISIL in Syria the US is adamant that planning for an operation to liberate Mosul couldn't begin until the winter of 2015 at the earliest.
This pressure by Iraq and the European members of the coalition appears to have paid off. On Thursday evening the coalition received permission to act in a close air-support role for the Kurdish Peshmerga as they advanced on positions in and around Mosul. By Saturday (24/1/15) evening and following some 46 air-strikes against ISIL fighting positions and defenses the Peshmerga had succeeded in liberating the town of Tal Afar which sits around 70km (42 miles) to the west of Mosul on the main supply route between the city and ISIL positions in Syria.
Acting without close air-support from the coalition the Iraqi army launched and offensive on Friday (23/1/15) to liberate Muqdadiyah - a town in north-west Diyala province some 1km north-east of Baghdad. Despite the loss of some 58 members of the Iraqi army that operation was successful and Muqdadiyah was liberated from ISIL on Sunday (25/1/15). The liberation of Muqdadiyah means that the Iraqi army has now succeeded in liberating all of the eastern Diyala province from ISIL. This province hasn't been a main priority for ISIL but its loss further reduces the grip they have on the country as a whole.
Further evidence of the speed at which ISIL are starting to come apart at the seams was provided by the series of hostage videos they have released in the past week. Previous ISIL hostage videos have involved the group moving a convoy of vehicles into the desert outside of Raqqa where they establish a large cordon and film the video. There are rumours that the execution of UK hostage Alan Henning was actually captured on by a coalition spy satellite as it happened. Obviously if that satellite had been an armed drone then the search for the "Jihadi John" character would now be over. In the video of Japanese hostages Haruna Yukawa and Kenji Goto that was released on Tuesday (20/1/15) ISIL attempted to hide their location by filming it in a basement in front of a green screen onto which images of the Raqqa desert were added in post-production. The big clue being that while the rest of the region was experiencing a snowy and cloudy winter in ISIL's Raqqa it was still late summer.
By the time they released the video on Saturday (24/1/15) confirming that Haruna Yukawa had been killed ISIL were unable to produce any sort of video and instead released a still photograph of Kenji Goto in front of a white wall holding another photograph of Yukawa's decapitated head. They had also changed their demand for USD100million to the release of Sajida al-Rishawi from a Jordanian prison. This was an effort to lay the ground work for a larger prisoner exchange for captured Jordanian pilot Moaz al-Kasaesbeh and promote discussion about amnesty for deserting ISIL fighters.
Following the liberation of Kobane on Monday (26/1/15) ISIL's interest in amnesty became more urgent so they released another still image of Goto. This time he was holding a photograph of al-Kasaesbeh and the voiceover demanding that unless Sajida al-Rishawi was released within 24 hours both Goto and al-Kasaesbeh would be killed. However if al-Rishawi was released then Goto would also be released but al-Kasaesbeh would remain a hostage. This morning the Jordanians announced that they will be prepared to release al-Rishawi but only in return for both Goto and al-Kasaesbeh. After all any exchange would only encourage ISIL to take more hostages so there can be no suggestion that al-Kasaesbeh can be used to bargain for the release of more prisoners. With the 24 hour deadline expiring at 14:00 GMT today we are waiting what ISIL's next move will be.
Although a looming collapse of ISIL is undoubtedly a good thing it actually adds another serious problem to the US' already deeply flawed plan to fight ISIL. That plan seems centred around delaying the defeat of ISIL in Iraq in order to buy time to build up similar Sunni-Arab insurgent forces in Syria. As ISIL grew out of the Sunni-Arab insurgent groups in Syria this approach carries a substantial risk that the coalition will simply be building a replacement to ISIL rather then defeating them. The delay also puts Kurdish, Iraqi and coalition forces on the ground in a great deal of danger while we wait.
For example on Monday (26/1/15) Canada confirmed that its special forces in Iraq had been forced to engage ISIL in direct combat on several occasions. Just yesterday the US was forced to carry out air-strikes against ISIL forces who were once again attacking US troops stationed at the al-Asad airbase just outside Baghdad while civilian flights in and out of Baghdad international airport were suspended after aircraft came under ISIL fire.
The speed at which ISIL are starting to disintegrate also adds a substantial time problem because it now looks as though the coalition is going to need ground forces to move into ISIL controlled areas in a matter of weeks. The US plan to train Sunni-Arab insurgents isn't expected to begin until March if it is even approved by Congress. If the ground troops are not ready in time then as ISIL splinters the security situation will become even more unstable as some ISIL fighters leave for places like Yemen, Somalia, Libya and Nigeria, others link up with the groups the US intends to train in Syria and others simply melt into the background. This means that the risks of the US building up a new ISIL in Syria or having to relocate the entire operation to another country such as Nigeria are both massively increased.
As such it is time for President Obama to accept reality and stop trying to fight the war he wishes he was fighting and instead fight the war that he's actually fighting by using the tools already at his disposal by backing the Kurds and the Iraqis as the ground forces of the coalition.
16:30 on 28/1/15 (UK date).
Wednesday, 28 January 2015
Monday, 26 January 2015
Operation Featherweight: Month 6, Week 4, Day 7.
For 134 days battle has raged between the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) for control of the strategically important city of Kobane/Ayn al-Arab which sits just 1km (0.6 miles) from Syria's northern border with Turkey. For several long weeks at the start of October it appeared that Kobane was just hours away from being over-run and all it's Kurdish residents exterminated.
Today the Battle for Kobane has finally been won.
In my post last Monday (19/1/15) I said that ISIL occupied only around of 15-25% of Kobane. However because they could only confirm their control of 70-75% of the city the YPG were being more cautious in their assessment. On that Monday the YPG mounted small, successful operations to clear ISIL fighters from positions around Dibistana Resh on the eastern front and around Kobane hospital on the southern front.
On the Tuesday (20/1/15) the YPG mounted a much larger operation on the southern front to clear the remaining ISIL positions from around the hospital and the Kobane to Aleppo road. This operation was a complete success and without losing any fighters the YPG cleared the entire area. At the same time they mounted another large operation in the south-east of the city from Mishteneur Hill which they'd liberated two days before up through the 48 neighbourhood to the 48 road where they linked up with fighters who'd been advancing on the eastern front. Again without sustaining any loss of life this operation was a complete success and with it the YPG succeeded in liberating the entire southern front from ISIL control.
On Wednesday (21/1/15) the YPG continued operations to clear ISIL positions around Dibistana Resh in the Sukul Hal district. Unfortunately on the south-east front ISIL succeeded in mounting a small counter-attack in an effort to reverse their losses of the previous day. This counter-attack was quickly and successfully repelled but not before two YPG fighters lost their lives.
On Thursday (22/1/15) the YPG cleared the last of the ISIL positions around Dibistana Resh and discovered there were no further ISIL positions between it and Dibistana Serica which was already under YPG control. With the two Dibistans linked it became clear that the YPG had succeeded in liberating the entire southern part of the eastern front all the way from Mishteneur Hill, through the 48 neighbourhood up to the Sukul Hal district. The YPG also launched commando raids in the villages of Minaz and Alipur in an effort to push ISIL even further back from the ridge that sits to Kobane's west.
On Friday (23/1/15) there was a similar collapse by ISIL fighters which allowed the YPG to liberate much of the northern section of the eastern front from the Sukul Hal district up to the Sinai district. The YPG were also able to advance into two streets in the Sinai district amid heavy resistance in which two YPG fighters lost their lives.
On Saturday (24/1/15) the YPG concentrated on liberating the villages of Mermit and Termlik which sit to the south of Kobane while they planned their assault on the Sinai district. That assault began on Sunday (25/1/15) and following more then 24 hours of fierce fighting the YPG were able to confirm this afternoon that the last ISIL positions in Kobane had been over-run and the battle had been won.
Obviously this is a huge victory for the YPG in a long battle that will surely go down in the history books as an outstanding example of the triumph of overwhelming heroism and a pure stubborn refusal to die against overwhelming odds. However it does not mean that the YPG's job in the Kobane canton is at an end. First they must clear the freshly liberated areas of mines and booby traps. Then they must continue to push out to liberate the villages to establish a buffer-zone around Kobane while establishing a defensive perimeter and a safe-zone. Then in the coming weeks and months Kurdish refugees can slowly begin to return to Kobane where they know they will be safe.
Ironically Turkey today opened a vast and semi-permanent camp to house up to 35,000 refugees just across the border from Kobane in Suruc. So I guess ISIL weren't the only ones to underestimate the Kurds.
20:30 on 26/1/15 (UK date).
Today the Battle for Kobane has finally been won.
In my post last Monday (19/1/15) I said that ISIL occupied only around of 15-25% of Kobane. However because they could only confirm their control of 70-75% of the city the YPG were being more cautious in their assessment. On that Monday the YPG mounted small, successful operations to clear ISIL fighters from positions around Dibistana Resh on the eastern front and around Kobane hospital on the southern front.
On the Tuesday (20/1/15) the YPG mounted a much larger operation on the southern front to clear the remaining ISIL positions from around the hospital and the Kobane to Aleppo road. This operation was a complete success and without losing any fighters the YPG cleared the entire area. At the same time they mounted another large operation in the south-east of the city from Mishteneur Hill which they'd liberated two days before up through the 48 neighbourhood to the 48 road where they linked up with fighters who'd been advancing on the eastern front. Again without sustaining any loss of life this operation was a complete success and with it the YPG succeeded in liberating the entire southern front from ISIL control.
On Wednesday (21/1/15) the YPG continued operations to clear ISIL positions around Dibistana Resh in the Sukul Hal district. Unfortunately on the south-east front ISIL succeeded in mounting a small counter-attack in an effort to reverse their losses of the previous day. This counter-attack was quickly and successfully repelled but not before two YPG fighters lost their lives.
On Thursday (22/1/15) the YPG cleared the last of the ISIL positions around Dibistana Resh and discovered there were no further ISIL positions between it and Dibistana Serica which was already under YPG control. With the two Dibistans linked it became clear that the YPG had succeeded in liberating the entire southern part of the eastern front all the way from Mishteneur Hill, through the 48 neighbourhood up to the Sukul Hal district. The YPG also launched commando raids in the villages of Minaz and Alipur in an effort to push ISIL even further back from the ridge that sits to Kobane's west.
On Friday (23/1/15) there was a similar collapse by ISIL fighters which allowed the YPG to liberate much of the northern section of the eastern front from the Sukul Hal district up to the Sinai district. The YPG were also able to advance into two streets in the Sinai district amid heavy resistance in which two YPG fighters lost their lives.
On Saturday (24/1/15) the YPG concentrated on liberating the villages of Mermit and Termlik which sit to the south of Kobane while they planned their assault on the Sinai district. That assault began on Sunday (25/1/15) and following more then 24 hours of fierce fighting the YPG were able to confirm this afternoon that the last ISIL positions in Kobane had been over-run and the battle had been won.
Obviously this is a huge victory for the YPG in a long battle that will surely go down in the history books as an outstanding example of the triumph of overwhelming heroism and a pure stubborn refusal to die against overwhelming odds. However it does not mean that the YPG's job in the Kobane canton is at an end. First they must clear the freshly liberated areas of mines and booby traps. Then they must continue to push out to liberate the villages to establish a buffer-zone around Kobane while establishing a defensive perimeter and a safe-zone. Then in the coming weeks and months Kurdish refugees can slowly begin to return to Kobane where they know they will be safe.
Ironically Turkey today opened a vast and semi-permanent camp to house up to 35,000 refugees just across the border from Kobane in Suruc. So I guess ISIL weren't the only ones to underestimate the Kurds.
20:30 on 26/1/15 (UK date).
McCartney Really Must Do Eurovision.
I had hoped to retire the "Operation Misery" prefix.
In the very early hours of Sunday (25/1/15) in the UK (Saturday evening/afternoon in the US) Rihanna released her first single following the "Unapologetic" album and the Diamonds World Tour that supported it. The song "Four, Five Seconds" marked a dramatic change in style for Rihanna featuring her singing acoustically in the country/folk-punk style that is synonymous with Ani DiFranco. Her album "Out of Range" was very much my soundtrack to the Diamonds World Tour. In the first part the song "You Had Time" kept playing in my brain during the first US leg of the tour. Then there was that moment just before the European leg when I stretched my back in my police cell and thought; "I can't go to prison now, I've just brought a lot of stuff on Amazon."
A duet with Kanye West "Four, Five Seconds" is also reminiscent of "Jackson" a famous duet between Johnny Cash and June Carter-Cash. This is a song I often use frequently to mock intelligence operations that keep going on long after everyone has lost interest. It seems particularly relevant to the US attempts to force Rihanna into a relationship with first Chris Brown and then Drake. The vocal hook about mistaking kindness for weakness is directly stolen from the song "Forever" by the Dropkick Murphy's - a band that is so poor and so scummy I'm pretty sure I was in it for a week. The song also makes reference to "Wilding'" which makes me think of the "Wildlings" who live in the constant winter wasteland beyond the wall in the TV Show "Game of Thrones." That TV show was very big in 2014 being referenced both in the Eurovision Song Contest and the Ceremonies of the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
On a very superficial level the stormy duet between a female and male vocalist could be interpreted as a reference to the abusive relationship between Rihanna and whoever is currently cast in the little black boy role. Also on that superficial level you could interpret the references about there being three days until Friday as an attempt to give the song a commercical boost by making it the sound track for the mid-week blues as everyone's waiting desperately for the weekend. However on a deeper level it seems to be an examination of my role during the Diamonds World Tour which perhaps prevented the US from disrupting the COP19 Climate Change summit. The references to worries about someone going to prison at any moment are pretty self-explanatory but there are also lots of weird little references. For example I tend to only drink alcohol on Tuesdays and Fridays leaving a three day wait until Friday.
The song was written by Paul McCartney who closed the 2005 Live 8 concert amongst a few other things. Obviously I can't speak for him but it strikes me that the song was intended as a something of a palate cleanser or a pipe cleaner. The idea being to get Rihanna in a studio to look back over the Diamonds World Tour. That way once she'd come to terms with it she would be able to move on and prepare her comeback. I don't think the intention was ever for the song to be released as a single but due to Rihanna sort of emotional/narrative connection to her fans it may have made the cut as an album track. I however cannot stop thinking that it would have made a perfect UK entry to the 2014 Eurovision Song Contest because being snubbed in the Baltics Rihanna ghetto would certainly have been an improvement on what the UK actually managed.
Four, Five Seconds should never have been released as a single and it certainly shouldn't have been released just as US President Barack Obama was arriving in India for a state visit that will cover climate change amongst other things. As it was it is clear that Rihanna won't be making a comeback and will be continuing down the same tired old road. It also increases the likelihood that the US will be using the soon to be released album and the so-far mini-tour in 2015 as a way to look back on the Diamonds World Tour and its role in run up to COP19. Although that particular fire has long since gone out this doesn't seem particularly helpful because it just adds another level of pressure in the run up to the COP21 in summit in Paris which has already had to see a massive increase in venue security.
So buy Rihanna's new single or don't. However if I hear it on the radio I'm pretty sure all I'll be thinking about is the far superior songs it reminds me of.
12:00 on 26/1/15 (UK date).
In the very early hours of Sunday (25/1/15) in the UK (Saturday evening/afternoon in the US) Rihanna released her first single following the "Unapologetic" album and the Diamonds World Tour that supported it. The song "Four, Five Seconds" marked a dramatic change in style for Rihanna featuring her singing acoustically in the country/folk-punk style that is synonymous with Ani DiFranco. Her album "Out of Range" was very much my soundtrack to the Diamonds World Tour. In the first part the song "You Had Time" kept playing in my brain during the first US leg of the tour. Then there was that moment just before the European leg when I stretched my back in my police cell and thought; "I can't go to prison now, I've just brought a lot of stuff on Amazon."
A duet with Kanye West "Four, Five Seconds" is also reminiscent of "Jackson" a famous duet between Johnny Cash and June Carter-Cash. This is a song I often use frequently to mock intelligence operations that keep going on long after everyone has lost interest. It seems particularly relevant to the US attempts to force Rihanna into a relationship with first Chris Brown and then Drake. The vocal hook about mistaking kindness for weakness is directly stolen from the song "Forever" by the Dropkick Murphy's - a band that is so poor and so scummy I'm pretty sure I was in it for a week. The song also makes reference to "Wilding'" which makes me think of the "Wildlings" who live in the constant winter wasteland beyond the wall in the TV Show "Game of Thrones." That TV show was very big in 2014 being referenced both in the Eurovision Song Contest and the Ceremonies of the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
On a very superficial level the stormy duet between a female and male vocalist could be interpreted as a reference to the abusive relationship between Rihanna and whoever is currently cast in the little black boy role. Also on that superficial level you could interpret the references about there being three days until Friday as an attempt to give the song a commercical boost by making it the sound track for the mid-week blues as everyone's waiting desperately for the weekend. However on a deeper level it seems to be an examination of my role during the Diamonds World Tour which perhaps prevented the US from disrupting the COP19 Climate Change summit. The references to worries about someone going to prison at any moment are pretty self-explanatory but there are also lots of weird little references. For example I tend to only drink alcohol on Tuesdays and Fridays leaving a three day wait until Friday.
The song was written by Paul McCartney who closed the 2005 Live 8 concert amongst a few other things. Obviously I can't speak for him but it strikes me that the song was intended as a something of a palate cleanser or a pipe cleaner. The idea being to get Rihanna in a studio to look back over the Diamonds World Tour. That way once she'd come to terms with it she would be able to move on and prepare her comeback. I don't think the intention was ever for the song to be released as a single but due to Rihanna sort of emotional/narrative connection to her fans it may have made the cut as an album track. I however cannot stop thinking that it would have made a perfect UK entry to the 2014 Eurovision Song Contest because being snubbed in the Baltics Rihanna ghetto would certainly have been an improvement on what the UK actually managed.
Four, Five Seconds should never have been released as a single and it certainly shouldn't have been released just as US President Barack Obama was arriving in India for a state visit that will cover climate change amongst other things. As it was it is clear that Rihanna won't be making a comeback and will be continuing down the same tired old road. It also increases the likelihood that the US will be using the soon to be released album and the so-far mini-tour in 2015 as a way to look back on the Diamonds World Tour and its role in run up to COP19. Although that particular fire has long since gone out this doesn't seem particularly helpful because it just adds another level of pressure in the run up to the COP21 in summit in Paris which has already had to see a massive increase in venue security.
So buy Rihanna's new single or don't. However if I hear it on the radio I'm pretty sure all I'll be thinking about is the far superior songs it reminds me of.
12:00 on 26/1/15 (UK date).
Sunday, 25 January 2015
Operation Featherweight: Month 6, Week 4, Day 6.
With world leaders still swarming around Saudi Arabia I am somewhat hesitant to call events in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) into sharp focus. Plus my brother's been up and I've been to the pub. However on Saturday (24/1/15) ISIL rushed out a video confirming the fate of the two Japanese hostages following the expiry of the Friday (23/1/15) deadline.
Strictly speaking this wasn't actually a video. Instead it was a still photograph of Kenji Goto holding the decapitated head of Haruna Yukawa. The voice over explained that Yukawa had been killed because the Japanese government had not met ISIL's demand for USD100m to secure his release. The voice over went onto explain that Goto had been spared because ISIL now wished to trade him for Sajida al-Rishawi - the sister of Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi who said to be the senior lieutenant to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi who founded ISIL when it was Al-Qaeda's affiliate in Iraq. No deadline was given for this exchange.
As with the demand for USD100m while I doubt they would say no I don't think ISIL seriously expect their demand to be met. Instead in the first instance they want the international community to put pressure on the Jordanian government to explore the possibility of prisoner exchanges. That way when ISIL come to demand a much larger prisoner exchange for Moaz al-Kasaesbeh the Jordanian pilot who is said to be close to the Jordanian Royal Family members of the coalition that pushed for the release of al-Rishawi to save the life of Goto will not be able to object.
In the second instance with the failure to seize Kobane/Ayn al-Arab ISIL appear to have realised that they will not be winning this war. For example Tuesday's (20/1/15) video appears to have been shot in a basement in front of a greenscreen in order to avoid giving away the hostage takers location. In Saturday's video they couldn't even manage the greenscreen. As such ISIL seem to be bringing up the question of prisoners in an attempt to discuss what will happen to them should they be captured. The UK is sadly still seriously talking about allowing ISIL fighters to not only return to the UK but also to walk away from their crimes free and clear.
Therefore on this point I should explain that through their behaviour in Kurdish areas such as Kobane and Shingal/Sinjar ISIL have attempted to exterminate an entire ethnic/religious group. This most certainly constitutes a crime against humanity and one on such a scale that it has only been seen twice in the modern era - at Srebrenica in Bosnia in 1995 and across continental Europe during the 12 year Nazi holocaust. I even exclude the Rwandan genocide of 1994 because that was more a frenzy of civilian killing civilian then the orchestrated actions of an organised group.
So as we approach the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp and once more pledge "Never Again" it is clear that ISIL members must receive the most serious of punishment not only to act as a deterrent but also to make sure they can never re-offend. As such the only fate that can await ISIL prisoners is trial by military tribunal and if convicted either a whole life term of imprisonment or the death penalty. Under those circumstances it wouldn't be a great loss to humanity if they were all killed on the battlefield.
19:50 on 25/1/15 (UK date).
Strictly speaking this wasn't actually a video. Instead it was a still photograph of Kenji Goto holding the decapitated head of Haruna Yukawa. The voice over explained that Yukawa had been killed because the Japanese government had not met ISIL's demand for USD100m to secure his release. The voice over went onto explain that Goto had been spared because ISIL now wished to trade him for Sajida al-Rishawi - the sister of Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi who said to be the senior lieutenant to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi who founded ISIL when it was Al-Qaeda's affiliate in Iraq. No deadline was given for this exchange.
As with the demand for USD100m while I doubt they would say no I don't think ISIL seriously expect their demand to be met. Instead in the first instance they want the international community to put pressure on the Jordanian government to explore the possibility of prisoner exchanges. That way when ISIL come to demand a much larger prisoner exchange for Moaz al-Kasaesbeh the Jordanian pilot who is said to be close to the Jordanian Royal Family members of the coalition that pushed for the release of al-Rishawi to save the life of Goto will not be able to object.
In the second instance with the failure to seize Kobane/Ayn al-Arab ISIL appear to have realised that they will not be winning this war. For example Tuesday's (20/1/15) video appears to have been shot in a basement in front of a greenscreen in order to avoid giving away the hostage takers location. In Saturday's video they couldn't even manage the greenscreen. As such ISIL seem to be bringing up the question of prisoners in an attempt to discuss what will happen to them should they be captured. The UK is sadly still seriously talking about allowing ISIL fighters to not only return to the UK but also to walk away from their crimes free and clear.
Therefore on this point I should explain that through their behaviour in Kurdish areas such as Kobane and Shingal/Sinjar ISIL have attempted to exterminate an entire ethnic/religious group. This most certainly constitutes a crime against humanity and one on such a scale that it has only been seen twice in the modern era - at Srebrenica in Bosnia in 1995 and across continental Europe during the 12 year Nazi holocaust. I even exclude the Rwandan genocide of 1994 because that was more a frenzy of civilian killing civilian then the orchestrated actions of an organised group.
So as we approach the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp and once more pledge "Never Again" it is clear that ISIL members must receive the most serious of punishment not only to act as a deterrent but also to make sure they can never re-offend. As such the only fate that can await ISIL prisoners is trial by military tribunal and if convicted either a whole life term of imprisonment or the death penalty. Under those circumstances it wouldn't be a great loss to humanity if they were all killed on the battlefield.
19:50 on 25/1/15 (UK date).
Saturday, 24 January 2015
Greece's Looming Suicide.
Back in 2009 the nation of Greece went bankrupt. Fortunately the Greek people were protected from the worst of this crisis by the European Union (EU) which stepped in to save Greece from its creditors. All that the EU asked for in return was for Greece to enact economic reforms to solve the problems that caused the bankruptcy.
After six long years those reforms have finally started to pay off and in the last two quarters of 2014 Greece experienced growth of 1.7%. This means that no only is Greece technically no longer in recession it is actually the fastest growing economy in the Eurozone.
The problem has been the leader of the Radical Left Coalition (Syriza) Alexis Tsipras who has looked at the suffering of his fellow countrymen and seen an opportunity to make a name for himself. With the Greek economy improving Tsipras realised that this is now really his last chance to seize power. So in December 2014 Tsipras brought down the Greek government forcing an election to be held on Sunday (25/1/15) which Syriza hope to win on the open lie that the EU's economic reforms have failed and Greece is still in recession.
Obviously the hope is the Greek people will not be foolish enough to fall for this and vote against Syriza. The next best hope is that if Syriza are elected simply having power will be enough to sate Tsipras' ego and he will abandon his plans to force Greece back into bankruptcy before the gains of the last six years can pick up momentum and economic growth can spread throughout the country.
Of course if Syriza does win and Tsipras remains intent on bankrupting the nation by defaulting on its remain debts it is now time for Greece to be cut loose from the EU. After all with so many people working so hard over the past six years if the Greeks think they can find a benefactor more patient and generous then the EU they should be welcome to take their debts to the market and give it a go.
15:30 on 24/1/15 (UK date)
After six long years those reforms have finally started to pay off and in the last two quarters of 2014 Greece experienced growth of 1.7%. This means that no only is Greece technically no longer in recession it is actually the fastest growing economy in the Eurozone.
The problem has been the leader of the Radical Left Coalition (Syriza) Alexis Tsipras who has looked at the suffering of his fellow countrymen and seen an opportunity to make a name for himself. With the Greek economy improving Tsipras realised that this is now really his last chance to seize power. So in December 2014 Tsipras brought down the Greek government forcing an election to be held on Sunday (25/1/15) which Syriza hope to win on the open lie that the EU's economic reforms have failed and Greece is still in recession.
Obviously the hope is the Greek people will not be foolish enough to fall for this and vote against Syriza. The next best hope is that if Syriza are elected simply having power will be enough to sate Tsipras' ego and he will abandon his plans to force Greece back into bankruptcy before the gains of the last six years can pick up momentum and economic growth can spread throughout the country.
Of course if Syriza does win and Tsipras remains intent on bankrupting the nation by defaulting on its remain debts it is now time for Greece to be cut loose from the EU. After all with so many people working so hard over the past six years if the Greeks think they can find a benefactor more patient and generous then the EU they should be welcome to take their debts to the market and give it a go.
15:30 on 24/1/15 (UK date)
Thursday, 22 January 2015
The Yemen Correction.
Between roughly 960AD and 1960AD the territory that makes up modern day Yemen has been run by the Houthi tribes that practice the Zaidi form of Shia Islam. In 1967 following the Aden Emergency the British Empire withdrew leaving Qahtan Muhammad al-Shaabi - a Zaidi but not a Houthi as President. He was replaced by Haidar al-Attas another Zaidi who ruled until 1994. In 1997 Abdullah Saleh another non-Houthi Zaidi was elected President and remained in office in 2011.
As I explained in the Hebdo Matrix the al-Saud family in neighbouring Saudi Arabia have used an extreme form of Salifi Islam known as Wahhabism to maintain their grip on power. Although the Salifi/Sufi split cuts across the Sunni/Shia split so you can get Salifi-Shias and Sunni-Sufis the fact that Shias believe that the Prophet Mohamed is just the latest and therefore the most important in a succession of Prophets the tend not to fall into the trap of Salifi absolutism quite so easily. So when the people of Tunisia and Egypt overthrew their dictators in 2011 the al-Sauds suddenly became very alarmed by an arc of Shia power running through Syria, Iraq, Bahrain, Yemen and their own oil-rich eastern province.
So in Bahrain and their own eastern province the al-Sauds sent in the troops to brutally crush any suggestion of political reform. In Syria and Yemen they sent in Sunni-Arab insurgents to attack the Shia-Arab governments. They then got the international community led by the US and the UK to lie about these insurgencies and instead condemn the Shia-Arab governments on false allegations of brutality. In Syria this has led to the rise of the Islamic State of the Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
However in Yemen it forced President Saleh out of office to be replaced by Abdullah Rabbug Mansur Hadi - a Sunni-Arab who acted as an envoy of the al-Saud family. One of his main roles was to trick the US into using its drone program to wipe out the traditional Al-Qaeda members of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) so they could be replaced by Saudi operatives. Apart from the recent attacks in Paris, France AQAP's main duty for the al-Sauds has been to build up al-Shabaab in neighbouring Somalia in order to destabilise East African nations such as Kenya and Uganda.
In September 2014 Hadi announced that he would be going back on an agreement with the Houthis and introduce a constitution which gave him and therefore the al-Sauds all the power. Since then the Houthis have gradually been increasing the pressure on Hadi to change his mind and today Hadi and his puppet government stepped down resigning from power.
We are now waiting with baited breath to see whether the international community will support Yemen's right to self-rule or double down on their mistake. Well I say waiting, the Al-Jazeera arm of Qatar's Sunni-Arab Royal Family are positively frothing at the mouth.
20:05 on 22/1/15 (UK date).
Edited at around 11:40 on 23/1/15 (UK date) to add;
Last night it was announced that Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud had died. Although it is not clear how old King Abdullah actually was he was certainly older then the nation of Saudi Arabia and is believed to have been around 90 years old. Towards the end of the December 2014 and the start of January 2015 he developed pneumonia and had to be placed on a ventilator. This procedure normally involves the patient being heavily sedated so it is unlikely he was aware of the panic that has gripped Saudi Arabia due to its plan for Yemen unravelling.
It seems likely that King Abdullah was actually far more ill then was being admitted to publicly and was not only on a ventilator but was actually on full scale life support. This created a significant power problem within Saudi Arabia with the titular King still attracting support whilst the Crown Prince was actually making the decisions
As such it seems likely that the resignation of their envoy in Yemen prompted the Saudis to turn off King Abdullah's life support in order to allow them to respond in a uniform way. After all even before the death of King Abdullah was announced his 80 year old half-brother Crown Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud had already been crowned King and Muqrin bin Abdulaziz Al Saud named as the new Crown Prince.
Plus the death makes Saudi Arabia the centre of attention at a time when much of the international community would prefer not to be talking to them. US President Obama has already delivered a mournful farewell to his master and dispatched Vice President Joe Biden to a funeral that has already taken place. It must be said though that non-Crowned heads of state are not under any obligation to acknowledge the event in any way shape or form.
As I explained in the Hebdo Matrix the al-Saud family in neighbouring Saudi Arabia have used an extreme form of Salifi Islam known as Wahhabism to maintain their grip on power. Although the Salifi/Sufi split cuts across the Sunni/Shia split so you can get Salifi-Shias and Sunni-Sufis the fact that Shias believe that the Prophet Mohamed is just the latest and therefore the most important in a succession of Prophets the tend not to fall into the trap of Salifi absolutism quite so easily. So when the people of Tunisia and Egypt overthrew their dictators in 2011 the al-Sauds suddenly became very alarmed by an arc of Shia power running through Syria, Iraq, Bahrain, Yemen and their own oil-rich eastern province.
So in Bahrain and their own eastern province the al-Sauds sent in the troops to brutally crush any suggestion of political reform. In Syria and Yemen they sent in Sunni-Arab insurgents to attack the Shia-Arab governments. They then got the international community led by the US and the UK to lie about these insurgencies and instead condemn the Shia-Arab governments on false allegations of brutality. In Syria this has led to the rise of the Islamic State of the Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
However in Yemen it forced President Saleh out of office to be replaced by Abdullah Rabbug Mansur Hadi - a Sunni-Arab who acted as an envoy of the al-Saud family. One of his main roles was to trick the US into using its drone program to wipe out the traditional Al-Qaeda members of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) so they could be replaced by Saudi operatives. Apart from the recent attacks in Paris, France AQAP's main duty for the al-Sauds has been to build up al-Shabaab in neighbouring Somalia in order to destabilise East African nations such as Kenya and Uganda.
In September 2014 Hadi announced that he would be going back on an agreement with the Houthis and introduce a constitution which gave him and therefore the al-Sauds all the power. Since then the Houthis have gradually been increasing the pressure on Hadi to change his mind and today Hadi and his puppet government stepped down resigning from power.
We are now waiting with baited breath to see whether the international community will support Yemen's right to self-rule or double down on their mistake. Well I say waiting, the Al-Jazeera arm of Qatar's Sunni-Arab Royal Family are positively frothing at the mouth.
20:05 on 22/1/15 (UK date).
Edited at around 11:40 on 23/1/15 (UK date) to add;
Last night it was announced that Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud had died. Although it is not clear how old King Abdullah actually was he was certainly older then the nation of Saudi Arabia and is believed to have been around 90 years old. Towards the end of the December 2014 and the start of January 2015 he developed pneumonia and had to be placed on a ventilator. This procedure normally involves the patient being heavily sedated so it is unlikely he was aware of the panic that has gripped Saudi Arabia due to its plan for Yemen unravelling.
It seems likely that King Abdullah was actually far more ill then was being admitted to publicly and was not only on a ventilator but was actually on full scale life support. This created a significant power problem within Saudi Arabia with the titular King still attracting support whilst the Crown Prince was actually making the decisions
As such it seems likely that the resignation of their envoy in Yemen prompted the Saudis to turn off King Abdullah's life support in order to allow them to respond in a uniform way. After all even before the death of King Abdullah was announced his 80 year old half-brother Crown Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud had already been crowned King and Muqrin bin Abdulaziz Al Saud named as the new Crown Prince.
Plus the death makes Saudi Arabia the centre of attention at a time when much of the international community would prefer not to be talking to them. US President Obama has already delivered a mournful farewell to his master and dispatched Vice President Joe Biden to a funeral that has already taken place. It must be said though that non-Crowned heads of state are not under any obligation to acknowledge the event in any way shape or form.
Wednesday, 21 January 2015
The State of the Union 2015.
Last night US President Barack Obama gave the annual State of the Union (SOTU) address to Congress. Of the 68 SOTU's that have been televised this one was delivered to the most overwhelmingly Republican controlled Congress. As such in the face of such a comprehensive rejection by the electorate of both his policies and his party you would have expected Obama as a Democrat President to be contrite as he attempted to re-launch the lamest of lame duck Presidencies.
Unfortunately Obama has always had significant problems accepting facts that he disagrees with so seemed to be painfully unaware of his surroundings. At one point he even claimed that he had no more election campaigns to fight because he had won them all. This comment was met with a stony silence by 70-75% of the chamber although obviously the footage being circulated by the White House itself ignored that by disregarding any wide shots in favour of a tight focus on the President and the small group of his supporters seated to the right of the podium.
In the speech itself Obama again repeated the mistakes of the mid-term election campaign by focusing almost exclusively on the economy at the expense of almost every other issue. The economy took up around 60% of the speech which is unusual when the Union is in a state of war as it currently is. Fortunately there was a small sign of progress from the mid-terms with Obama seeming to acknowledge that although the global economy has begun to emerge from one of the worst recessions in history many everyday Americans are not feeling the effects. Unfortunately rather then offering a solution Obama tried to exploit these concerns to force through a range of policies that would make the American public more dependent on the Federal government and therefore Obama's Democrat Party.
For example there were plans to introduce Child care tax credits. This is a policy that has been lifted from the UK Labour Party who introduced them in 2003. Central to Labour's 2010 General Election campaign was a thinly veiled threat that if the electorate dared to vote against Labour they would be stripped of tax credits. Needless to say this strategy failed and Labour were kicked out of power. There was also Obama's plan for two years of free - at the point of use - community college. Again this is simply a rehash of a UK Labour Party policy that was introduced way back in 1998. Over the past 17 years this change has done little to close the skills gap in the UK but because if 18-20 year olds are in full time education they're not classed as unemployed the policy should make Obama's economic miracle seem even more miraculous
Obama's plan of how to fund these new welfare programs is quite simple - he intends to increases taxes across the board. The main tax increase will be the closing of the so-called trust fund loophole that allows the very rich to avoid paying inheritance tax. This is actually a very sensible policy and one that the Republicans would be very unwise the block because although unpopular inheritance tax is essential to prevent a society from turning into a patrimony where all the wealth rapidly ends up in the hands of a few very rich people. However with Obama estimating that closing this loophole will raise around USD210bn you can't help be feel that rather then spending it all on more welfare he could also cut taxes on the lowest earners by raising the income tax threshold to prevent his proposed increase in the minimum wage turning into a tax on job creation.
Long after most people had dozed off Obama finally changed the subject and dedicated roughly 10% of his speech to foreign policy. Here Obama told possibly the most whopping lie that has ever been uttered in a SOTU by claiming that he had ended America's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although it was kept quiet by Obama the US' mission in Afghanistan most certainly did not end in 2014 as he had planned. Instead some 50% of US troops deployed to Afghanistan are still there and will remain there for the foreseeable future. The reason for Obama's dramatic U-turn in Afghanistan has been the spectacular failure of Obama's premature withdrawal from Iraq where US troops left only to be sent back in again as part of a whole new war.
On that current war in Iraq Obama did acknowledge that it is taking place but claimed that it will take a long time and that it will eventually be won. However he offered no explanation of why a war that should have lasted for little more then a month has now dragged on for more then five. Nor did Obama acknowledge the delays he is imposing are allowing the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) to move resources out of Iraq and Syria and start to blend into the background reducing the likelihood that they will ever be defeated.
While he went to great lengths to avoid directly linking the two Obama also made reference to the increased threat to global security that his painfully slow war against ISIL has produced by finally acknowledging that a series of terror attacks took place in Paris, France between January 8th and 11th. Sadly this only seems to have been the product of a plan by members of Congress to show their support for the victims of those attacks by waving pencils during Obama's speech. When details of this plan began to emerge yesterday the White Houses' response was extremely bitchy to say the least with them demanding the names of any member of Congress that was planning to participate. Therefore I can't help but feel that without the protest Obama would have continued to try and pretend that no attacks had taken place and everything he is doing is just wonderful.
Being forced to acknowledge the Paris attacks was particularly embarrassing for Obama because he then went on to cite the sanctions against Russia as an example of his leadership on the world stage. This was an odd example for Obama to use because it's accepted by all concerned that Obama has only imposed sanctions on Russia because he has been ordered by Saudi Arabia to punish Russia for its opposition to Saudi backed Islamic terrorism including ISIL. Plus when you factor in the damage done to the Eurozone economy (including France) by the sanctions the US ecomonic recovery suddenly doesn't look so great.
It also seems strange that Obama decided to cite sanctions against Iran as another shining example of his global leadership. While there are many to choose from the Iran sanctions represent one of the biggest failures of Obama's foreign policy from a time when his expected Democrat successor Hilary Clinton was Secretary of State. In fact most of the international work being done regarding Iran at the moment is trying to unpick the damage done by Obama's intervention in an issue he clearly hasn't understood in the slightest.
Reflecting the spectacular lack of detail Obama gave to foreign policy compared to the economy he also found time to squeeze Cuba into those 10 minutes. I'm not even sure if Cuba really counts as foreign policy because much like the Superbowl internationally sanctions on Cuba are considered a weird thing from the 1960's that only Americans do. As such Obama's attempts to end the embargo will have little to no impact internationally. They will though have a huge impact on domestic politics with the Hispanics who will be disproportionally benefit from Obama's immigration actions also gaining the most from open travel with Cuba. Therefore I think that rather then being a foreign policy issue Obama's campaign to end the embargo is more about importing a fresh wave of Democrat voters further increasing the tension with a Republican Congress.
Obama also used a short period of the speech to raise the issue of climate change and re-affirm his commitment to see a global deal on the issue signed in Paris, France at the end of 2015. This is an issue that I have been working on and the majority of my work involves allaying the twin fears that Obama will not be able to get such a deal through Congress and that the Gulf States will use Islamic terrorism to intimidate nations into not signing up to a deal. Nigeria who are currently dealing with Boko Haram are a prime example of a developing nation that has a lot to gain by signing up to the new deal.
If Obama is going to persist with immigration action which he himself admits is un-Constitutional and undermines the values of democracy which Obama claims to support by referencing the Voting Rights Act then Congress are going to have to block it and possibly even impeach him. If the threat of Islamic terrorism is going to be reduced then Congress will also have to block Obama's plans to fight ISIL because they are not fit for purpose. Faced with all that aggression and confrontation from Obama it is unlikely that Congress will be in any mood to do him any favours by ratifying a climate change deal.
As such is no deal is signed at the end of 2015 a significant part, if not all, of the blame will rest very firmly on Obama's shoulders.
The remaining 15 minutes of the speech was really just Obama waffling platitudes. As part of that he re-affirmed his commitment to close Guantanamo Bay which he claims is helping to fuel Islamic extremism. To me this further served to underline the fact that Obama really doesn't understand the current terrorist threat. In the past some Muslims may have been radicalised by the US' mis-treatment of prisoners but this new wave of terrorism is being fuelled by a sectarian spilt within Islam that Obama himself is helping to fuel by continuing to make up lies about Shia governments in Iraq, Iran, Syria and Yemen. Faced with this new threat there may actually be a need to keep Guantanamo Bay open and rushing to close it by sending Sunni Jihadist prisoners back to places like Qatar and Yemen is certainly not helping.
Obama's main message though was of the need for bipartisanship and co-operation. This seems to be a clear indication that rather then attempting to govern Obama intends to spend much of this year doing stupid things that Congress is forced block so the Democrats can bitch about obstructionist Republicans and their do nothing Congress. This is obviously sad news for anyone who was hoping for an end to posionous partisan politics.
17:30 on 21/1/15 (UK date).
Unfortunately Obama has always had significant problems accepting facts that he disagrees with so seemed to be painfully unaware of his surroundings. At one point he even claimed that he had no more election campaigns to fight because he had won them all. This comment was met with a stony silence by 70-75% of the chamber although obviously the footage being circulated by the White House itself ignored that by disregarding any wide shots in favour of a tight focus on the President and the small group of his supporters seated to the right of the podium.
In the speech itself Obama again repeated the mistakes of the mid-term election campaign by focusing almost exclusively on the economy at the expense of almost every other issue. The economy took up around 60% of the speech which is unusual when the Union is in a state of war as it currently is. Fortunately there was a small sign of progress from the mid-terms with Obama seeming to acknowledge that although the global economy has begun to emerge from one of the worst recessions in history many everyday Americans are not feeling the effects. Unfortunately rather then offering a solution Obama tried to exploit these concerns to force through a range of policies that would make the American public more dependent on the Federal government and therefore Obama's Democrat Party.
For example there were plans to introduce Child care tax credits. This is a policy that has been lifted from the UK Labour Party who introduced them in 2003. Central to Labour's 2010 General Election campaign was a thinly veiled threat that if the electorate dared to vote against Labour they would be stripped of tax credits. Needless to say this strategy failed and Labour were kicked out of power. There was also Obama's plan for two years of free - at the point of use - community college. Again this is simply a rehash of a UK Labour Party policy that was introduced way back in 1998. Over the past 17 years this change has done little to close the skills gap in the UK but because if 18-20 year olds are in full time education they're not classed as unemployed the policy should make Obama's economic miracle seem even more miraculous
Obama's plan of how to fund these new welfare programs is quite simple - he intends to increases taxes across the board. The main tax increase will be the closing of the so-called trust fund loophole that allows the very rich to avoid paying inheritance tax. This is actually a very sensible policy and one that the Republicans would be very unwise the block because although unpopular inheritance tax is essential to prevent a society from turning into a patrimony where all the wealth rapidly ends up in the hands of a few very rich people. However with Obama estimating that closing this loophole will raise around USD210bn you can't help be feel that rather then spending it all on more welfare he could also cut taxes on the lowest earners by raising the income tax threshold to prevent his proposed increase in the minimum wage turning into a tax on job creation.
Long after most people had dozed off Obama finally changed the subject and dedicated roughly 10% of his speech to foreign policy. Here Obama told possibly the most whopping lie that has ever been uttered in a SOTU by claiming that he had ended America's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although it was kept quiet by Obama the US' mission in Afghanistan most certainly did not end in 2014 as he had planned. Instead some 50% of US troops deployed to Afghanistan are still there and will remain there for the foreseeable future. The reason for Obama's dramatic U-turn in Afghanistan has been the spectacular failure of Obama's premature withdrawal from Iraq where US troops left only to be sent back in again as part of a whole new war.
On that current war in Iraq Obama did acknowledge that it is taking place but claimed that it will take a long time and that it will eventually be won. However he offered no explanation of why a war that should have lasted for little more then a month has now dragged on for more then five. Nor did Obama acknowledge the delays he is imposing are allowing the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) to move resources out of Iraq and Syria and start to blend into the background reducing the likelihood that they will ever be defeated.
While he went to great lengths to avoid directly linking the two Obama also made reference to the increased threat to global security that his painfully slow war against ISIL has produced by finally acknowledging that a series of terror attacks took place in Paris, France between January 8th and 11th. Sadly this only seems to have been the product of a plan by members of Congress to show their support for the victims of those attacks by waving pencils during Obama's speech. When details of this plan began to emerge yesterday the White Houses' response was extremely bitchy to say the least with them demanding the names of any member of Congress that was planning to participate. Therefore I can't help but feel that without the protest Obama would have continued to try and pretend that no attacks had taken place and everything he is doing is just wonderful.
Being forced to acknowledge the Paris attacks was particularly embarrassing for Obama because he then went on to cite the sanctions against Russia as an example of his leadership on the world stage. This was an odd example for Obama to use because it's accepted by all concerned that Obama has only imposed sanctions on Russia because he has been ordered by Saudi Arabia to punish Russia for its opposition to Saudi backed Islamic terrorism including ISIL. Plus when you factor in the damage done to the Eurozone economy (including France) by the sanctions the US ecomonic recovery suddenly doesn't look so great.
It also seems strange that Obama decided to cite sanctions against Iran as another shining example of his global leadership. While there are many to choose from the Iran sanctions represent one of the biggest failures of Obama's foreign policy from a time when his expected Democrat successor Hilary Clinton was Secretary of State. In fact most of the international work being done regarding Iran at the moment is trying to unpick the damage done by Obama's intervention in an issue he clearly hasn't understood in the slightest.
Reflecting the spectacular lack of detail Obama gave to foreign policy compared to the economy he also found time to squeeze Cuba into those 10 minutes. I'm not even sure if Cuba really counts as foreign policy because much like the Superbowl internationally sanctions on Cuba are considered a weird thing from the 1960's that only Americans do. As such Obama's attempts to end the embargo will have little to no impact internationally. They will though have a huge impact on domestic politics with the Hispanics who will be disproportionally benefit from Obama's immigration actions also gaining the most from open travel with Cuba. Therefore I think that rather then being a foreign policy issue Obama's campaign to end the embargo is more about importing a fresh wave of Democrat voters further increasing the tension with a Republican Congress.
Obama also used a short period of the speech to raise the issue of climate change and re-affirm his commitment to see a global deal on the issue signed in Paris, France at the end of 2015. This is an issue that I have been working on and the majority of my work involves allaying the twin fears that Obama will not be able to get such a deal through Congress and that the Gulf States will use Islamic terrorism to intimidate nations into not signing up to a deal. Nigeria who are currently dealing with Boko Haram are a prime example of a developing nation that has a lot to gain by signing up to the new deal.
If Obama is going to persist with immigration action which he himself admits is un-Constitutional and undermines the values of democracy which Obama claims to support by referencing the Voting Rights Act then Congress are going to have to block it and possibly even impeach him. If the threat of Islamic terrorism is going to be reduced then Congress will also have to block Obama's plans to fight ISIL because they are not fit for purpose. Faced with all that aggression and confrontation from Obama it is unlikely that Congress will be in any mood to do him any favours by ratifying a climate change deal.
As such is no deal is signed at the end of 2015 a significant part, if not all, of the blame will rest very firmly on Obama's shoulders.
The remaining 15 minutes of the speech was really just Obama waffling platitudes. As part of that he re-affirmed his commitment to close Guantanamo Bay which he claims is helping to fuel Islamic extremism. To me this further served to underline the fact that Obama really doesn't understand the current terrorist threat. In the past some Muslims may have been radicalised by the US' mis-treatment of prisoners but this new wave of terrorism is being fuelled by a sectarian spilt within Islam that Obama himself is helping to fuel by continuing to make up lies about Shia governments in Iraq, Iran, Syria and Yemen. Faced with this new threat there may actually be a need to keep Guantanamo Bay open and rushing to close it by sending Sunni Jihadist prisoners back to places like Qatar and Yemen is certainly not helping.
Obama's main message though was of the need for bipartisanship and co-operation. This seems to be a clear indication that rather then attempting to govern Obama intends to spend much of this year doing stupid things that Congress is forced block so the Democrats can bitch about obstructionist Republicans and their do nothing Congress. This is obviously sad news for anyone who was hoping for an end to posionous partisan politics.
17:30 on 21/1/15 (UK date).
Monday, 19 January 2015
Operation Featherweight: Month 6, Week 3, Day 7.
Since the beginning of the January the middle-east region has been blanketed with snow and ice. This sudden cold snap is as about as rare as hell freezing over. In Gaza, Palestine at least 3 people froze to death.
In Saudi Arabia one of the nation's top Islamic clerics introduced a ban on building snowmen, snow-women, snow-dogs, snow-cats etc. That is because not only does their interpretation of Islam ban any offensive cartoons of the Prophet Mohamed it also bans any artistic representation of anything deemed to have a soul. Needless to say there is something of a shortage of Saudi doctors and nurses.
In Syria and Iraq though this extreme weather has almost had a positive effect with the conflict being almost literally frozen in most areas. So for example on Tuesday January 7th (7/1/15) only 7 people were killed in all of Syria with all of those deaths occurring in Kobane/Ayn al-Arab. This is the lowest death toll seen in the country since the Sunni-Arab insurgency began back in the spring of 2011. Since the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) took over much of neighbouring Iraq in August 2014 the death toll in Syria alone has averaged at least 150 per day.
Despite this drop off in the intensity fighting has continued and it has been almost a month since my last update. Therefore you'll excuse me if I skimp on some of the detail while I try to mention the main developments.
In Kobane the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG) have continued the necessarily slow process of mounting patrols and liberating the city from ISIL control house-by-house, street-by-street. Since my last post they have succeeded in liberating around half of the 48 neighbourhood as well as the cities water supply which sits on the eastern outskirts. From there they have been able to move to the foot of Mishtenur Hill cutting off ISIL fighters in the south-east of Kobane off from ISIL fighters on the hill. Prior to those gains I would have estimated that ISIL were in control of 25-30% of Kobane but that has now fallen to around 15-20%. However unlike ISIL the YPG are happy to cautiously downplay the extent of their gains.
Knowing that they are now clinging onto Kobane by their fingertips on Thursday (15/1/15) and Friday (16/1/15) ISIL launched a series of Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Device (VBIED) attacks on YPG positions around the main street running through the 48 neighbourhood which has become the de facto front-line. These were intended to blunt the YPG advances and although they failed in capturing any territory 15 YPG fighters were killed in what was a significant loss to the YPG.
Today it has emerged that the YPG have succeeded in liberating Mishtenur Hill. This is a substantial gain for them because it not only denies ISIL a position from which is can fire artillery into Kobane it also provides the YPG with a position from which it can fire artillery onto either ISIL positions in Kobane or ISIL positions between the hill and the YPG controlled villages of Helinj and Jalabiyah to the south-east along the main road to Raqqa.
At the time of my last update Kurdish Peshmerga forces across the border in Iraq had just carried out a successful operation liberating some 700km^2 (420m^2) of territory between the Shingal/Sinjar Mountains and the Iraqi Kurdish capital or Arbil that had been occupied by ISIL since August 2014. They have since been able to hold onto that territory and liberate more territory around Gwer which sits to the south-west of Arbil. ISIL did not take the loss of territory around Gwer in good grace so January 10th (10/1/15) they launched sort of commando-style amphibious raid along the Zab River. Primarily being a harassment attack this raid never seriously threatened the Kurds control of the area but it did succeed in killing 26 Peshmerga fighters. These are obviously fighters that now cannot be deployed elsewhere in the fight against ISIL.
Across the rest of Iraq the situation has remained largely unchanged with the US continuing to use the training of the Iraqi army as an excuse to avoid forcing ISIL from the territory it has occupied. However the US has finally been forced to admit what everybody has known for months - the 5,000 US troops that have been sent to Iraq as part of the training mission have been forced into a combat role. In a low key announcement on January 5th (5/1/15) the Pentagon announced that troops stationed at the al-Asad airbase and Besmaya just outside Baghdad and at a base near Arbil were coming under frequent, almost daily attack from ISIL. Obviously with the US troops in question being elite Reconnaissance Marines and Green Berets this hasn't been much of a fight but if US President Obama continues to increase the number of US troops in Iraq you can't help but feel that over time US combat deaths are going to become inevitable.
As the US-led coalition has been keen to highlight through its largely symbolic bombing of the Free Men of the Levant (FML) who are part of the Islamic Front (IF) grouping there has been a growing concern that Syrian government forces would soon liberate the City of Aleppo from the Sunni-Arab insurgents including the Free Syrian Army (FSA) grouping, the IF grouping along with ISIL and the Al-Qaeda affiliated Al Nusra Front (ANF). Therefore the United Nations (UN) Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura has been pressing for the Syrian government to call a truce in Aleppo to save the insurgents from defeat. That truce came into force on Friday (16/1/15).
Unfortunately since then the Syrian government has used the truce to focus its attention on attacking YPG positions close to Heske/Al-Haskah close to Syria's border with Iraq. So far 7 YPG fighters have been killed and numerous civilians have been injured. This has clearly been done because the Syrian government view the YPG as the most viable opposition fighting force in Syria and despite all the rumours from the Sunni-Arabs about the Kurds being allied with the Syrian government the Syrian government intends to reclaim all of its territory including the Kurdish cantons.
To me the truce in Aleppo let alone the attacks on the Kurds seems like a mistake by the Syrian government. That is because despite the recent attacks in Paris, France by Sunni-Arab insurgents linked to the Syria conflict the US announced on Friday (16/1/15) that it intends to begin training and arming up to 5,000 Sunni-Arab insurgents in Turkey in March 2015. The Aleppo truce will obviously aid with that training by giving the insurgents time to re-group and strengthen themselves.
The Syrian government's calculation seems to been that as has happened in the past the supposedly moderate opposition will then ally themselves with ISIL which will force the anti-ISIL coalition to destroy them on the Syrian government's behalf. There is some evidence that ISIL are beginning to position themselves for an allegiance with both ANF and the IF and FSA groupings with the release yesterday of some 200 Yazidi hostage. After all it is their extreme brutality that has led to ISIL being isolated from the other Sunni-Arab groups including ANF.
Yesterday Israel carried out an air-strike against Hezbollah fighters and Iranian military trainers who are seconded to the Syrian government in the Syrian Golan Heights. What appears to have happened is that US intelligence informed Israel that these troops were planning an attack against Israel so Israel dispatched a helicopter gunship to carry out reconnaissance. For reasons that Israel will have to examine in detail that helicopter gunship decided to engage the target.
It seems that the US' motivation for giving Israel this tip-off was to provoke a confrontation between Israel and the Syrian government which would help manufacture support for the US Congress' insane plan to increase sanctions on Syria's ally Iran. It would of course also distract the Syrian government allowing it to be defeated by the Sunni-Arab insurgents. Then once the insurgents had overthrown the Syrian government they would be forced to attack Israel in order to prove their anti-Semitic credentials forcing Israel into a big war. As it is unlikely that Israel would pussyfoot around the insurgents in the same way that Obama has there may be some Zionists looking forward to this war as an opportunity to grab even more land. However as I've said on numerous occasions I seriously doubt whether many members of US intelligence could point to the middle-east on a map.
On Christmas Eve (24/12/14) the US-led coalition lost its first aircraft of the campaign when a Jordanian F-16 crashed near Raqqa. The pilot Moaz al-Kassasbeh survived the crash but has since been taken hostage by ISIL who have asking its supporters to think up the most creative way to murder him. ISIL have claimed that they shot down the aircraft but this has been denied and strikes me as extremely unlikely. The type of Man Portable Air Defence Systems (MANPADS) that ISIL have access to are only really effective against slow moving targets flying below 3.6km (12,000ft). The tactic behind the laser-guided weapons used on F16's is that in order to avoid the threat of anti-aircraft fire they can be deployed at very high speeds from a very high altitude before being guided onto their targets. Therefore unless al-Kassasbeh was doing something incredibly stupid it is far more likely that his aircraft suffered a mechanical failure. After all much like your car the more time you spend operating an aircraft the more likely it is that something will break or fall off.
It must be said though that this type of situation is exactly why I and even the US military highlighted the importance of forcing ISIL from Iraq where downed pilots can be recovered before launching operations over Syria from where downed pilots cannot be recovered.
17:15 on 19/1/15 (UK date).
Edited at around 15:30 on 20/1/15 (UK date) to add;
Overnight ISIL released another short video entitled; "A Message to the Government and People of Japan." The video which is a little under two minutes long begins with media coverage of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announcing a multi-billion dollar aid package to the middle-east to combat extremism. This includes USD200m in non-military aid specifically to combat ISIL. The video then cuts to the so-called "Jihadi John" standing between Japanese hostages Haruna Yukawa and Kenji Goto. Jihadi John declares that it will cost Japan USD100m to save the life of each hostage and the Japanese people have 72 hours to pressure their government into doing as ISIL demands.
I should start by pointing out that ISIL clearly have no intention of any ransom being paid and will kill the hostages regardless. So rather then being a legitimate ransom demand this video is simply a desperate plea for attention from ISIL.
Prior to Christmas ISIL lost control of much of Iraqi Kurdistan. All that has happened since then is that ISIL have lost control of more of Kobane and even more of Iraqi Kurdistan around Gwer. In the meantime the world's attention has been focused on the Paris attacks which have been blamed on Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Although AQAP are more a part of ISIL then of Al Qaeda they don't use the company brand name. As a result ISIL have released this video to get the attention back on them. The reason that Japan has been targeted seems simply to a be result of ISIL running out of hostages of other nationalities. For example I expect they intend to use Moaz al-Kassasbeh for a long and nasty game to try and break Jordan away from the coalition while their sole remaining US hostage is a woman. Due to ISIL's own odd rules they cannot show the image of a woman's face in a video making female hostages unsuitable for this type of snuff film.
What I find interesting about this video which was likely filmed on Thursday (15/1/15) or Friday (16/1/15) of last week is that it reaffirms ISIL's commitment to killing hostages. This directly contradicts the decision on Sunday (18/1/15) to release some 200+ Yazidi hostages. Although this is not the sort of thing that I'm happy to go into a lot of detail about it seems likely that the Yazidi hostages were released because ISIL in Gwer were no-longer capable of keeping them hostage. However on previous occasions ISIL have simply killed hostages they no longer have a use for. As such this rare example of humanity seems like an attempt by ISIL commanders in Gwer to move away from the central ISIL leadership in the hope of forming an alliance with the more moderate Sunni-Arab insurgent groups the US intends to train and arm.
This creates a very real risk that the coalition will not end the war by destroying ISIL but instead the war will continue only with 'Islamic State (IS)' re-branded as 'Islamic Front (IF).' Sadly though I've long suspected that's been Obama's plan all along because somewhere along the line he seems to have forgotten that the Al-Sauds are there to do the west's bidding, not the other way around.
In Saudi Arabia one of the nation's top Islamic clerics introduced a ban on building snowmen, snow-women, snow-dogs, snow-cats etc. That is because not only does their interpretation of Islam ban any offensive cartoons of the Prophet Mohamed it also bans any artistic representation of anything deemed to have a soul. Needless to say there is something of a shortage of Saudi doctors and nurses.
In Syria and Iraq though this extreme weather has almost had a positive effect with the conflict being almost literally frozen in most areas. So for example on Tuesday January 7th (7/1/15) only 7 people were killed in all of Syria with all of those deaths occurring in Kobane/Ayn al-Arab. This is the lowest death toll seen in the country since the Sunni-Arab insurgency began back in the spring of 2011. Since the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) took over much of neighbouring Iraq in August 2014 the death toll in Syria alone has averaged at least 150 per day.
Despite this drop off in the intensity fighting has continued and it has been almost a month since my last update. Therefore you'll excuse me if I skimp on some of the detail while I try to mention the main developments.
In Kobane the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG) have continued the necessarily slow process of mounting patrols and liberating the city from ISIL control house-by-house, street-by-street. Since my last post they have succeeded in liberating around half of the 48 neighbourhood as well as the cities water supply which sits on the eastern outskirts. From there they have been able to move to the foot of Mishtenur Hill cutting off ISIL fighters in the south-east of Kobane off from ISIL fighters on the hill. Prior to those gains I would have estimated that ISIL were in control of 25-30% of Kobane but that has now fallen to around 15-20%. However unlike ISIL the YPG are happy to cautiously downplay the extent of their gains.
Knowing that they are now clinging onto Kobane by their fingertips on Thursday (15/1/15) and Friday (16/1/15) ISIL launched a series of Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Device (VBIED) attacks on YPG positions around the main street running through the 48 neighbourhood which has become the de facto front-line. These were intended to blunt the YPG advances and although they failed in capturing any territory 15 YPG fighters were killed in what was a significant loss to the YPG.
Today it has emerged that the YPG have succeeded in liberating Mishtenur Hill. This is a substantial gain for them because it not only denies ISIL a position from which is can fire artillery into Kobane it also provides the YPG with a position from which it can fire artillery onto either ISIL positions in Kobane or ISIL positions between the hill and the YPG controlled villages of Helinj and Jalabiyah to the south-east along the main road to Raqqa.
At the time of my last update Kurdish Peshmerga forces across the border in Iraq had just carried out a successful operation liberating some 700km^2 (420m^2) of territory between the Shingal/Sinjar Mountains and the Iraqi Kurdish capital or Arbil that had been occupied by ISIL since August 2014. They have since been able to hold onto that territory and liberate more territory around Gwer which sits to the south-west of Arbil. ISIL did not take the loss of territory around Gwer in good grace so January 10th (10/1/15) they launched sort of commando-style amphibious raid along the Zab River. Primarily being a harassment attack this raid never seriously threatened the Kurds control of the area but it did succeed in killing 26 Peshmerga fighters. These are obviously fighters that now cannot be deployed elsewhere in the fight against ISIL.
Across the rest of Iraq the situation has remained largely unchanged with the US continuing to use the training of the Iraqi army as an excuse to avoid forcing ISIL from the territory it has occupied. However the US has finally been forced to admit what everybody has known for months - the 5,000 US troops that have been sent to Iraq as part of the training mission have been forced into a combat role. In a low key announcement on January 5th (5/1/15) the Pentagon announced that troops stationed at the al-Asad airbase and Besmaya just outside Baghdad and at a base near Arbil were coming under frequent, almost daily attack from ISIL. Obviously with the US troops in question being elite Reconnaissance Marines and Green Berets this hasn't been much of a fight but if US President Obama continues to increase the number of US troops in Iraq you can't help but feel that over time US combat deaths are going to become inevitable.
As the US-led coalition has been keen to highlight through its largely symbolic bombing of the Free Men of the Levant (FML) who are part of the Islamic Front (IF) grouping there has been a growing concern that Syrian government forces would soon liberate the City of Aleppo from the Sunni-Arab insurgents including the Free Syrian Army (FSA) grouping, the IF grouping along with ISIL and the Al-Qaeda affiliated Al Nusra Front (ANF). Therefore the United Nations (UN) Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura has been pressing for the Syrian government to call a truce in Aleppo to save the insurgents from defeat. That truce came into force on Friday (16/1/15).
Unfortunately since then the Syrian government has used the truce to focus its attention on attacking YPG positions close to Heske/Al-Haskah close to Syria's border with Iraq. So far 7 YPG fighters have been killed and numerous civilians have been injured. This has clearly been done because the Syrian government view the YPG as the most viable opposition fighting force in Syria and despite all the rumours from the Sunni-Arabs about the Kurds being allied with the Syrian government the Syrian government intends to reclaim all of its territory including the Kurdish cantons.
To me the truce in Aleppo let alone the attacks on the Kurds seems like a mistake by the Syrian government. That is because despite the recent attacks in Paris, France by Sunni-Arab insurgents linked to the Syria conflict the US announced on Friday (16/1/15) that it intends to begin training and arming up to 5,000 Sunni-Arab insurgents in Turkey in March 2015. The Aleppo truce will obviously aid with that training by giving the insurgents time to re-group and strengthen themselves.
The Syrian government's calculation seems to been that as has happened in the past the supposedly moderate opposition will then ally themselves with ISIL which will force the anti-ISIL coalition to destroy them on the Syrian government's behalf. There is some evidence that ISIL are beginning to position themselves for an allegiance with both ANF and the IF and FSA groupings with the release yesterday of some 200 Yazidi hostage. After all it is their extreme brutality that has led to ISIL being isolated from the other Sunni-Arab groups including ANF.
Yesterday Israel carried out an air-strike against Hezbollah fighters and Iranian military trainers who are seconded to the Syrian government in the Syrian Golan Heights. What appears to have happened is that US intelligence informed Israel that these troops were planning an attack against Israel so Israel dispatched a helicopter gunship to carry out reconnaissance. For reasons that Israel will have to examine in detail that helicopter gunship decided to engage the target.
It seems that the US' motivation for giving Israel this tip-off was to provoke a confrontation between Israel and the Syrian government which would help manufacture support for the US Congress' insane plan to increase sanctions on Syria's ally Iran. It would of course also distract the Syrian government allowing it to be defeated by the Sunni-Arab insurgents. Then once the insurgents had overthrown the Syrian government they would be forced to attack Israel in order to prove their anti-Semitic credentials forcing Israel into a big war. As it is unlikely that Israel would pussyfoot around the insurgents in the same way that Obama has there may be some Zionists looking forward to this war as an opportunity to grab even more land. However as I've said on numerous occasions I seriously doubt whether many members of US intelligence could point to the middle-east on a map.
On Christmas Eve (24/12/14) the US-led coalition lost its first aircraft of the campaign when a Jordanian F-16 crashed near Raqqa. The pilot Moaz al-Kassasbeh survived the crash but has since been taken hostage by ISIL who have asking its supporters to think up the most creative way to murder him. ISIL have claimed that they shot down the aircraft but this has been denied and strikes me as extremely unlikely. The type of Man Portable Air Defence Systems (MANPADS) that ISIL have access to are only really effective against slow moving targets flying below 3.6km (12,000ft). The tactic behind the laser-guided weapons used on F16's is that in order to avoid the threat of anti-aircraft fire they can be deployed at very high speeds from a very high altitude before being guided onto their targets. Therefore unless al-Kassasbeh was doing something incredibly stupid it is far more likely that his aircraft suffered a mechanical failure. After all much like your car the more time you spend operating an aircraft the more likely it is that something will break or fall off.
It must be said though that this type of situation is exactly why I and even the US military highlighted the importance of forcing ISIL from Iraq where downed pilots can be recovered before launching operations over Syria from where downed pilots cannot be recovered.
17:15 on 19/1/15 (UK date).
Edited at around 15:30 on 20/1/15 (UK date) to add;
Overnight ISIL released another short video entitled; "A Message to the Government and People of Japan." The video which is a little under two minutes long begins with media coverage of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announcing a multi-billion dollar aid package to the middle-east to combat extremism. This includes USD200m in non-military aid specifically to combat ISIL. The video then cuts to the so-called "Jihadi John" standing between Japanese hostages Haruna Yukawa and Kenji Goto. Jihadi John declares that it will cost Japan USD100m to save the life of each hostage and the Japanese people have 72 hours to pressure their government into doing as ISIL demands.
I should start by pointing out that ISIL clearly have no intention of any ransom being paid and will kill the hostages regardless. So rather then being a legitimate ransom demand this video is simply a desperate plea for attention from ISIL.
Prior to Christmas ISIL lost control of much of Iraqi Kurdistan. All that has happened since then is that ISIL have lost control of more of Kobane and even more of Iraqi Kurdistan around Gwer. In the meantime the world's attention has been focused on the Paris attacks which have been blamed on Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Although AQAP are more a part of ISIL then of Al Qaeda they don't use the company brand name. As a result ISIL have released this video to get the attention back on them. The reason that Japan has been targeted seems simply to a be result of ISIL running out of hostages of other nationalities. For example I expect they intend to use Moaz al-Kassasbeh for a long and nasty game to try and break Jordan away from the coalition while their sole remaining US hostage is a woman. Due to ISIL's own odd rules they cannot show the image of a woman's face in a video making female hostages unsuitable for this type of snuff film.
What I find interesting about this video which was likely filmed on Thursday (15/1/15) or Friday (16/1/15) of last week is that it reaffirms ISIL's commitment to killing hostages. This directly contradicts the decision on Sunday (18/1/15) to release some 200+ Yazidi hostages. Although this is not the sort of thing that I'm happy to go into a lot of detail about it seems likely that the Yazidi hostages were released because ISIL in Gwer were no-longer capable of keeping them hostage. However on previous occasions ISIL have simply killed hostages they no longer have a use for. As such this rare example of humanity seems like an attempt by ISIL commanders in Gwer to move away from the central ISIL leadership in the hope of forming an alliance with the more moderate Sunni-Arab insurgent groups the US intends to train and arm.
This creates a very real risk that the coalition will not end the war by destroying ISIL but instead the war will continue only with 'Islamic State (IS)' re-branded as 'Islamic Front (IF).' Sadly though I've long suspected that's been Obama's plan all along because somewhere along the line he seems to have forgotten that the Al-Sauds are there to do the west's bidding, not the other way around.
Saturday, 17 January 2015
The Hebdo Matrix.
On January 8th (8/1/15) Jihadist gunmen stormed into the offices or French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and killed 10 members of staff because they had published images of the Prophet Mohamed. They then went on to kill 3 police officers and 4 Jews in a Paris supermarket because there is nothing more offensive to lunatics then being presented with people who aren't lunatics. A week later Charlie Hebdo was back in print with an edition showing the Prophet apologising for the actions of the attackers.
I should start then by pointing out that the attack on Charlie Hebdo was a clear attempt to use violence to intimidate the magazine into not doing something the Jihadists disliked. Therefore the only way that Charlie Hebdo could respond in their survivors issue was by doing exactly the thing the Jihadists disliked to show that they are not afraid and that they will not be intimidated
However the events of that week has caused the chattering, liberal classes in the UK in particular a massive intellectual crisis. On the one hand they've felt compelled to oppose the attacks because they are supposed to be opponents of violence and supporters of freedom of expression. However since the 9/11 attacks in the US they have become conditioned to think of all of the World's 1.6bn Muslims as innocent victims who must not be questioned in any way. Unfortunately they've also been conditioned not to think at all so are painfully unaware that there are currently at least 1.6bn different interpretations of Islam.
Therefore to assist them I've decided to draw up a simple matrix based on a co-ordinate plane graph to help explain the 4 main splits within modern Islam. Hopefully I should be able to post an image of this shortly.
The main split within Islam is between Sunnis and Shias (sometimes called Shi'ites although in English that's very close to an offensive term meaning "Shit."). Upon the death of the Prophet Mohamed in 632AD there was a dispute between his followers over who should lead them. Some chose Abu Bakhr while others chose Ali ibn Abi Talib who is said to have been chosen by Mohamed himself. The supporters Abu Bakhr went on to become known as Sunnis while supporters of Ali ibn Abi Talib became known as the Shias - "Shia" simply being the shortform of the Arabic word for "supporter" or "follower of."
As the two groups moved apart from each other through conflicts such as Battles of Yarmouk in 636AD and the Battle of Karbala in 680AD they developed slightly different ideologies in order to distinguish themselves from the other. Probably the main one of these is that Sunnis believe that Mohamed is the last prophet that God will send to earth while the Shias believe that God will send at least one more.
However cutting across the Sunni/Shia divide there is another split between Salafis and Sufis. The Salafis believe that Islam should only be practised as it was back when the Prophet Mohamed died in 632AD and their name comes from "Salaf" which in this context means the contemporaries of Mohamed. As a result Salafi Islam contains all the unpleasant tribal practises of the time such as women being nothing more then the property of men. Salafis are also deeply opposed to education often forbidding their followers from learning to read. Instead Salafis are expected to memorise the Qu'ran as it is recited to them and follow it to the letter without considering context or complex uses of language such as metaphors.
Sufis by contrast consider Islam to be an ongoing spiritual quest for perfection. As such they are encouraged to educate themselves and study the Qu'ran in its full context. In this practise of improving their understanding through questioning they are also encouraged study what other religious scholars have written and said. At the more extreme end some Sufis almost worship some of these other Islamic scholars in the way that Christians revere saints.
In recent times the big problem has been the First World War (WWI). To this day I still do not understand how WWI began but it rapidly turned into the German Empire trying to fight everyone else in Europe including the Russian Empire. The Germans only real ally was the Turkish-Ottoman Empire which was the last Sunni-Islamic Caliphate under Caliph Mehmed V. The German/Ottoman alliance ultimately lost WWI leading to the German Empire being dismantled which arguable led to the rise of Hitler and the Second World War (WWII). The Ottoman Empire fared even worse so although the role of Caliph nominally continued with Mehmed VI and Abdulmecid II by the time Abdulmecid II was deposed in 1924 the Caliphate which had stretched across the Middle-East, North Africa (MENA) region had been reduced to what we now know as modern Turkey.
The void left by the Ottoman Empire was filled by the European nations that won WWI along with the US. In an act of almost Victorian colonialism the Arabian Peninsula was handed to the Al-Saud family on the understanding that they would ensure the free flow of oil to the victors of WWI and the nation of Saudi Arabia was founded in 1932.
The problem was that apart a lot of oil the Arabian Peninsula is also home to Mecca which is both the birthplace of the Prophet Mohamed and the site of his first revelation as Prophet. As such it is considered the holiest site within all branches of Muslims. Obviously the Al-Sauds know that they have no religious or theological right to rule over Mecca so in order to maintain their power they have been forced to promote a very aggressive form of Sunni-Salafi Islam known as Wahhabism (which even many Salafis such as Osama bin Laden consider backwards and offensive) in order to prevent their subjects educating themselves and questioning the Al-Saud's rule. Unfortunately because it is being pumped out from Islam's holiest sites many Muslims - particularly Sunnis - have made the mistake of thinking that Wahhabism is a legitimate interpretation of Islam rather then a political invention of the 18th Century.
Knowing full well that a strong gust on wind could bring their fiefdom crashing down around their ears the Al-Sauds reacted to the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and Bahrain by cranking the rhetoric up to an even more extreme level. Now it is not only considered the duty of a 'good Muslim' to never think or question their rulers they must now also destroy anyone who is prepared of question starting with Alawites like Syrian President Bashar al-Assad who represent a very specific Shia sect with a strong Sufi tradition. I though will continue to refuse to acknowledge the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) as any type of Muslim.
Despite the howls of protest from western liberals I hope that at least some Muslims react to the attacks in France by thinking about how and why their religion has become twisted to the point that they may not question their rulers. After all its been a very long time since Islamic society has contributed something like Algebra to the World.
16:40 on 17/1/15 (UK date).
I should start then by pointing out that the attack on Charlie Hebdo was a clear attempt to use violence to intimidate the magazine into not doing something the Jihadists disliked. Therefore the only way that Charlie Hebdo could respond in their survivors issue was by doing exactly the thing the Jihadists disliked to show that they are not afraid and that they will not be intimidated
However the events of that week has caused the chattering, liberal classes in the UK in particular a massive intellectual crisis. On the one hand they've felt compelled to oppose the attacks because they are supposed to be opponents of violence and supporters of freedom of expression. However since the 9/11 attacks in the US they have become conditioned to think of all of the World's 1.6bn Muslims as innocent victims who must not be questioned in any way. Unfortunately they've also been conditioned not to think at all so are painfully unaware that there are currently at least 1.6bn different interpretations of Islam.
Therefore to assist them I've decided to draw up a simple matrix based on a co-ordinate plane graph to help explain the 4 main splits within modern Islam. Hopefully I should be able to post an image of this shortly.
The main split within Islam is between Sunnis and Shias (sometimes called Shi'ites although in English that's very close to an offensive term meaning "Shit."). Upon the death of the Prophet Mohamed in 632AD there was a dispute between his followers over who should lead them. Some chose Abu Bakhr while others chose Ali ibn Abi Talib who is said to have been chosen by Mohamed himself. The supporters Abu Bakhr went on to become known as Sunnis while supporters of Ali ibn Abi Talib became known as the Shias - "Shia" simply being the shortform of the Arabic word for "supporter" or "follower of."
As the two groups moved apart from each other through conflicts such as Battles of Yarmouk in 636AD and the Battle of Karbala in 680AD they developed slightly different ideologies in order to distinguish themselves from the other. Probably the main one of these is that Sunnis believe that Mohamed is the last prophet that God will send to earth while the Shias believe that God will send at least one more.
However cutting across the Sunni/Shia divide there is another split between Salafis and Sufis. The Salafis believe that Islam should only be practised as it was back when the Prophet Mohamed died in 632AD and their name comes from "Salaf" which in this context means the contemporaries of Mohamed. As a result Salafi Islam contains all the unpleasant tribal practises of the time such as women being nothing more then the property of men. Salafis are also deeply opposed to education often forbidding their followers from learning to read. Instead Salafis are expected to memorise the Qu'ran as it is recited to them and follow it to the letter without considering context or complex uses of language such as metaphors.
Sufis by contrast consider Islam to be an ongoing spiritual quest for perfection. As such they are encouraged to educate themselves and study the Qu'ran in its full context. In this practise of improving their understanding through questioning they are also encouraged study what other religious scholars have written and said. At the more extreme end some Sufis almost worship some of these other Islamic scholars in the way that Christians revere saints.
In recent times the big problem has been the First World War (WWI). To this day I still do not understand how WWI began but it rapidly turned into the German Empire trying to fight everyone else in Europe including the Russian Empire. The Germans only real ally was the Turkish-Ottoman Empire which was the last Sunni-Islamic Caliphate under Caliph Mehmed V. The German/Ottoman alliance ultimately lost WWI leading to the German Empire being dismantled which arguable led to the rise of Hitler and the Second World War (WWII). The Ottoman Empire fared even worse so although the role of Caliph nominally continued with Mehmed VI and Abdulmecid II by the time Abdulmecid II was deposed in 1924 the Caliphate which had stretched across the Middle-East, North Africa (MENA) region had been reduced to what we now know as modern Turkey.
The void left by the Ottoman Empire was filled by the European nations that won WWI along with the US. In an act of almost Victorian colonialism the Arabian Peninsula was handed to the Al-Saud family on the understanding that they would ensure the free flow of oil to the victors of WWI and the nation of Saudi Arabia was founded in 1932.
The problem was that apart a lot of oil the Arabian Peninsula is also home to Mecca which is both the birthplace of the Prophet Mohamed and the site of his first revelation as Prophet. As such it is considered the holiest site within all branches of Muslims. Obviously the Al-Sauds know that they have no religious or theological right to rule over Mecca so in order to maintain their power they have been forced to promote a very aggressive form of Sunni-Salafi Islam known as Wahhabism (which even many Salafis such as Osama bin Laden consider backwards and offensive) in order to prevent their subjects educating themselves and questioning the Al-Saud's rule. Unfortunately because it is being pumped out from Islam's holiest sites many Muslims - particularly Sunnis - have made the mistake of thinking that Wahhabism is a legitimate interpretation of Islam rather then a political invention of the 18th Century.
Knowing full well that a strong gust on wind could bring their fiefdom crashing down around their ears the Al-Sauds reacted to the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and Bahrain by cranking the rhetoric up to an even more extreme level. Now it is not only considered the duty of a 'good Muslim' to never think or question their rulers they must now also destroy anyone who is prepared of question starting with Alawites like Syrian President Bashar al-Assad who represent a very specific Shia sect with a strong Sufi tradition. I though will continue to refuse to acknowledge the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) as any type of Muslim.
Despite the howls of protest from western liberals I hope that at least some Muslims react to the attacks in France by thinking about how and why their religion has become twisted to the point that they may not question their rulers. After all its been a very long time since Islamic society has contributed something like Algebra to the World.
16:40 on 17/1/15 (UK date).
Friday, 16 January 2015
It's Time to Turn the Page.
A new day and all that.
During the 2008/9 Israeli war in Gaza known as "Operation Cast Lead" I came to a conclusion. I could either sit there all day watching the news and becoming increasingly angry or I could go off and centre myself by doing something I enjoyed. That way when the time came for me to make my post I could give it my all and do my best. So one day I decided to spend the afternoon watching this film called "Juno."
If you've not seen it Juno is a feelgood comedy about a US High School girl (Ellen Page) who gets pregnant and rather then having an abortion embarks on a quest to find the perfect parents to adopt the child. However about halfway through the film takes on a slightly more serious tone although it's always an upbeat comedy rather then a serious drama. It was as the mood started to change that I decided to stop the film and go off to have a cigarette break. While doing this I foolishly decided to turn on the news and discovered that Israel had attacked a UN food store with white phosphorous weapons. This not only killed and maimed a lot of people but also destroyed a significant proportion of Gaza's food supplies and is the sort of extreme brutality that Israel only really produces when it suffers the misfortune of having Livni and Labor in government.
So when I finally went back to watch the slightly more serious second half of Juno I found it to be a far more depressing and soul destroying experience then the film makers ever intended it to be. I may have told highly exaggerated versions of what an utterly miserable film I found Juno to be on numerous occasions. Loudly and in pubs.
One of the next films Ellen Page went on to work in was "Inception." In this film Leonardo Di Caprio's character keeps using a cast lead dreidel to centre himself. This is really just a little in joke because while it takes you two hours to watch the film it probably took more then two years to make. Unfortunately Operation Cast Lead ended very neatly in time for Barack Obama to take up the office of President of the United States in January 2009 and rather then having a traditional plot Inception is more of an exercise in existentialism. As a result the current US administration seems to have become utterly fixated on the cast lead dreidel.
So during the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia we had the shocking announcement that Ellen Page had come out as gay. I was going to tell this story then but I've never thought that it was particularly important and at that point it was being more then drowned out by events in Ukraine and the US committing itself to setting back the cause of gay rights in Russia by about a generation.
In the last couple of days rumours have started to circulate that Rihanna is now dating Leonardo Di Caprio. Although he's someone I'm aware of on a professional level rather then knowing much about his personal life Di Caprio is an accomplished man. Not only has he made numerous successful films and is very rich but he is also highly intelligent playing a very engaged role in international efforts to combat climate along with other important social issues. By comparison Chris Brown and Drake who Rihanna has previously been linked too are simply just toddlers in a playpen.
It is somewhat depressing then that these rumours are highly unlikely to be true. Instead they're just being circulated to allow the US to show the world - particularly Israel and UNFCCC - that it is now prepared to treat Rihanna better. Unfortunately the message most people are likely to take away from it is that the US still thinks of Rihanna as its property and is therefore entitled to pass her around for sex as it wishes.
As something of an aside last night Chris Brown again had his probation revoked after violating it by leaving Los Angeles County without permission. A further hearing has been set for March. Hopefully Judge Brandlin Gluber will take that opportunity to finally punish Brown for his assault on Rihanna. After all Brown's now been replaced several times over and still no-one's particularly interested.
On the subject of the little people that live in my TV last the UK's Channel 4 broadcast a one off documentary/drama called "Cyberbully." This featured "Arya" from "Game of Thrones" as a teenage girl whose computer is hijacked by a hacker. She is then coerced into doing a series of unpleasant things under threat of having all her private emails and photographs leaked online. If I was being charitable I would say that the theme of bullying touched on issues of how people come to cause offence to others and how people react to that offence. Primarily though it was yet another sensationalist attempt to get Channel 4 trending globally on Twitter so they don't feel so bad about letting Celebrity Big Brother (CBB) to go Channel 5. At the same time it was intended to manufacture support for the government's proposed increased restrictions on Internet freedoms - after all Won't someone think of the children!!!!
My main takeaway though was that it was simply a well acted rip-off of a slightly wobbly US independent film called "Compliance." So much so that the way the set was dressed and the props used in Cyberbully contained a lot of little references to Compliance. Therefore at the risk of getting people into trouble I like to think the behind the scenes staff on Cyberbully were placing bets to see who could get away with most blatantly mocking Channel 4 "Bold, Artistic Vision."
11:35 on 16/1/15 (UK date).
During the 2008/9 Israeli war in Gaza known as "Operation Cast Lead" I came to a conclusion. I could either sit there all day watching the news and becoming increasingly angry or I could go off and centre myself by doing something I enjoyed. That way when the time came for me to make my post I could give it my all and do my best. So one day I decided to spend the afternoon watching this film called "Juno."
If you've not seen it Juno is a feelgood comedy about a US High School girl (Ellen Page) who gets pregnant and rather then having an abortion embarks on a quest to find the perfect parents to adopt the child. However about halfway through the film takes on a slightly more serious tone although it's always an upbeat comedy rather then a serious drama. It was as the mood started to change that I decided to stop the film and go off to have a cigarette break. While doing this I foolishly decided to turn on the news and discovered that Israel had attacked a UN food store with white phosphorous weapons. This not only killed and maimed a lot of people but also destroyed a significant proportion of Gaza's food supplies and is the sort of extreme brutality that Israel only really produces when it suffers the misfortune of having Livni and Labor in government.
So when I finally went back to watch the slightly more serious second half of Juno I found it to be a far more depressing and soul destroying experience then the film makers ever intended it to be. I may have told highly exaggerated versions of what an utterly miserable film I found Juno to be on numerous occasions. Loudly and in pubs.
One of the next films Ellen Page went on to work in was "Inception." In this film Leonardo Di Caprio's character keeps using a cast lead dreidel to centre himself. This is really just a little in joke because while it takes you two hours to watch the film it probably took more then two years to make. Unfortunately Operation Cast Lead ended very neatly in time for Barack Obama to take up the office of President of the United States in January 2009 and rather then having a traditional plot Inception is more of an exercise in existentialism. As a result the current US administration seems to have become utterly fixated on the cast lead dreidel.
So during the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia we had the shocking announcement that Ellen Page had come out as gay. I was going to tell this story then but I've never thought that it was particularly important and at that point it was being more then drowned out by events in Ukraine and the US committing itself to setting back the cause of gay rights in Russia by about a generation.
In the last couple of days rumours have started to circulate that Rihanna is now dating Leonardo Di Caprio. Although he's someone I'm aware of on a professional level rather then knowing much about his personal life Di Caprio is an accomplished man. Not only has he made numerous successful films and is very rich but he is also highly intelligent playing a very engaged role in international efforts to combat climate along with other important social issues. By comparison Chris Brown and Drake who Rihanna has previously been linked too are simply just toddlers in a playpen.
It is somewhat depressing then that these rumours are highly unlikely to be true. Instead they're just being circulated to allow the US to show the world - particularly Israel and UNFCCC - that it is now prepared to treat Rihanna better. Unfortunately the message most people are likely to take away from it is that the US still thinks of Rihanna as its property and is therefore entitled to pass her around for sex as it wishes.
As something of an aside last night Chris Brown again had his probation revoked after violating it by leaving Los Angeles County without permission. A further hearing has been set for March. Hopefully Judge Brandlin Gluber will take that opportunity to finally punish Brown for his assault on Rihanna. After all Brown's now been replaced several times over and still no-one's particularly interested.
On the subject of the little people that live in my TV last the UK's Channel 4 broadcast a one off documentary/drama called "Cyberbully." This featured "Arya" from "Game of Thrones" as a teenage girl whose computer is hijacked by a hacker. She is then coerced into doing a series of unpleasant things under threat of having all her private emails and photographs leaked online. If I was being charitable I would say that the theme of bullying touched on issues of how people come to cause offence to others and how people react to that offence. Primarily though it was yet another sensationalist attempt to get Channel 4 trending globally on Twitter so they don't feel so bad about letting Celebrity Big Brother (CBB) to go Channel 5. At the same time it was intended to manufacture support for the government's proposed increased restrictions on Internet freedoms - after all Won't someone think of the children!!!!
My main takeaway though was that it was simply a well acted rip-off of a slightly wobbly US independent film called "Compliance." So much so that the way the set was dressed and the props used in Cyberbully contained a lot of little references to Compliance. Therefore at the risk of getting people into trouble I like to think the behind the scenes staff on Cyberbully were placing bets to see who could get away with most blatantly mocking Channel 4 "Bold, Artistic Vision."
11:35 on 16/1/15 (UK date).
Thursday, 15 January 2015
COP 20: Section E - Adaptation and Loss & Damage.
This is the section I've left until last because it's the one I've found the most problematic with often none of the options being sufficient to be adopted into a final agreement.
Paragraph 24: Here Options 3&4 are clearly too vague with 4 requiring no action and 3 only acknowledging the need for action without providing any mechanism. Option 5 is needed to establish the concept of universal commitments/actions but does not go into enough detail. Option 1 does go into more detail but is binary therefore something I cannot support for the host of reasons I have already mentioned on numerous occasions. Also Option 1 talks about linking the need for adaptation to global temperature increases. While I appreciate that in diplomatic terms there is still some need to get nations to accept the link between increased temperatures and the need for adaptation in order to get the agreement to work on a practical level adaptation will need to be linked to actual, quantified risk rather then the more vague notion of temperature increases. Therefore here I would support Option 1 provided that the sub-paragraphs are struck through and it is re-written to make reference to Option 5.
Paragraph 25: Here I think that Option 2 is sufficient because it establishes the need for all nations to draw up National Adaptation Plans (NAP's) but I'm worried that it doesn't go into enough detail. Option 1 on the other hand goes into so much, often contradictory detail it is simply unreadable not to mention unworkable. Therefore here I would support strengthening Option 2 by including large elements of a dramatically streamlined Option 1.
To start with throughout Option 1 there is a choice of language between "All Parties" and "Developed/Developing Parties." This is a throwback to the binary approach which I cannot support. Here I very specifically cannot support it because by stating that only Annex I Parties can help Annex II Parties you are preventing Annex II Parties from helping each other - the so-called "South/South" approach. As such the term "All Parties" needs to be used throughout because the document already acknowledges Common But Different Responsibilities (CBDR).
Sub-paragraph 25.3 again sets the figure of USD100bn per year which I've already addressed in the Section G - Finance. Again for the same reasons it cannot appear in this section either because it's hugely impractical and nations will simply refuse to sign up to it.
Although its inclusion will provide reassurance to less capable nations sub-paragraph 25.4 massively undermines national sovereignty by making specific less capable nations dependent on specific more capable nations. This risks turning those less capable nations into client states and experience tells me that if they end up being partnered with the UK the advice they'll receive will be worse then useless. Therefore this concept needs to be abandoned in its entirety.
As I've mentioned before the concerns over the predictability of finance are better addressed by allowing the GCF to build up a capital reserve rather then relying on constant nation-to-nation donations. Therefore I see sub-paragraph 25.5(d) as totally unnecessary because the GCF can distribute grant based funding and this binary approach is going to prevent an agreement being signed.
More capable nations are also going to be strongly discouraged from signing an agreement that includes sub-paragraph 25.5(e) which demands that no extra burdens are placed on less capable nations while those nations continue to demand that huge extra burdens are placed on the more capable nations. This is a particular problem here because requiring that less capable nations improve their reporting methodologies provides them with an opportunity to build their capacity. So rather then trying to avoid these requirements I think less capable nations would be better off dropping this sub-paragraph and spending their time getting assurances that they will be given help to meet the requirements.
In sub-paragraph 25.6 Option (a) provides a very strong framework for NAP's to be integrated into all nations wider development plans which provides all nations with an great opportunity for capacity building. Being substantially watered down Option (b) simply robs them of that opportunity and seems to be the product of an irrational fear amongst less capable nations. For example once NAP's have been integrated into wider planning policy it becomes impossible for them to duplicate work that is already been done and in fact could possibly provide extra support for the work that is also being done. Also nations might be able to negotiate an opt out of NAP's in this agreement but if they're going to seek alternative sources of finances - billionaires like Mike Bloomberg and Bill Gates are just giving money away - they're going to discover that properly draw up NAP's are going to be mandatory for funding. Therefore here I support Option (a) all the way.
And with 2 paragraphs covered at around 17:50 on 15/1/15 (UK date) I'll be back later to cover the other 5 paragraphs.
Edited at around 19:50 on 15/1/15 (UK date) to add;
Paragraph 27: Here Option 1 provides a framework to allow nations to build their capacity in the field of monitoring and evaluation. This is vitally important of increasing our understanding of the natural environment to allow us to better quantify risk and resolve issues of compensation. Option 3 simply robs nations of that framework. Therefore here I support Option 1 although I would like to see the language of Option 2 regarding experience, lessons learned and good process included to further strengthen the framework.
Paragraph 29: Here Option 1 is simply not strong enough to provide assurance that suitable arrangements will be implemented. Option 2 however is more then sufficient although I'm not happy of the inclusion of a fixed date of 2017 in 29.1(a) which seems unnecessarily limiting especially as the agreement won't come into force until 2020. Therefore here I support Option 2 although for the sake of simplicity I would prefer for 29.1(a) not to be included in the final text because it will immediately become redundant.
Paragraph 29.3: Here Option 1 provides a framework for capacity building that as with Paragraph 27 is vital to increase our understanding. Again Option 2 simply robs nations of that opportunity for capacity building. Therefore here I support Option 1 but I still think it needs some streamlining. For example 29.3(b) establishes an adaptation registry while 29.3(c) establishes a clearing house and a registry. If the Secretariat can provide both a registry and a clearing house we should definitely do that but then the registry doesn't need to be mentioned twice in the final text.
Paragraph 30: Here there needs to be a reference to loss & damage so Option 3 is automatically out. Option 1 provides ample opportunity for capacity building which as I've mentioned throughout this section is vital. However sub-paragraph 30.2 requires the establishment of a mechanism to award compensation for loss & damage. This is going to be extremely complicated. After all through the International Court of Justice (ICJ) we already have a mechanism where one nation can claim compensation from another over wrongdoing.
The reason why the ICJ mechanism has not yet been used for climate change related loss & damage is because our understanding of the natural environment is not yet at a point where we can establish that a specific incidence of loss & damage is the result of climate change. For example we can prove that climate change is causing desertification across the Sahel belt in Africa. However even within the same nation the range of damage is not consistent due to some reasons we do understand such as better land management in some areas and some reasons we do not yet understand. Even if we were able to establish that a specific incidence of loss & damage is the result of climate change we then still face the incredibly complex problem of trying to work out which specific nations ghg emissions were responsible for the change in temperature. Therefore I think that our time would be better spent on capacity building so cases can be brought before ICJ while at the same time dealing with loss & damage collectively through the GCF.
Therefore here I support Option 1 on the provision that 30.2 is removed and the text is altered to included the reference to the Warsaw mechanism mentioned in Option 2.
Paragraph 31: Essentially here the choice here is between simply making the Warsaw mechanism part of this agreement (Option 2) and making the Warsaw mechanism part of the agreement whilst including specific provisions to strengthen the Warsaw mechanism. I have to say that generally I am happy with the Warsaw mechanism so would be prepared to support Option 2. However I am also aware that it is not fully developed and operational so would prefer the final text to include some guidance of how to improve it. That said I cannot support some of the suggestions in Option 1. For example sub- paragraph 31.1 is rooted in the binary approach and all problems that creates. I am also deeply concerned about sub-paragraph31.3(a) which places a burden on the UNFCCC to provide emergency relief for natural disasters.
As with loss & damage our knowledge of the natural environment is not yet at the point where we can say for certain that a specific natural disaster is the result of climate change and we certainly can't do so in an emergency scenario. Take typhoon Haiyan as an example. It is widely believed that being the strongest typhoon ever to make landfall by quite some margin Haiyan was caused in part by an increase in heat energy in the climate system. However the Philippines has been hit by much smaller typhoons both before and after Haiyan which are less likely to be the result of climate change. My concern is that if the UNFCCC takes on a emergency relief role then natural disasters will become ghettoised with the other UN bodies and NGO's that normally help refusing to do so and the UNFCCC having to do all the work regardless of whether climate change was a factor or not. This will quickly overwhelm the UNFCCC's limited resources meaning that none of the work on adaptation and mitigation will get done.
Therefore here I don't know which option to recommend although I do know what area I will have to do more research on and think more about in the run-up to the next meeting. If I had to choose now though I would go for Option 2 because although it's not ideal it allows us to develop the Warsaw mechanism separately once this agreement is in place.
20:55 on 15/1/15 (UK date).
Paragraph 24: Here Options 3&4 are clearly too vague with 4 requiring no action and 3 only acknowledging the need for action without providing any mechanism. Option 5 is needed to establish the concept of universal commitments/actions but does not go into enough detail. Option 1 does go into more detail but is binary therefore something I cannot support for the host of reasons I have already mentioned on numerous occasions. Also Option 1 talks about linking the need for adaptation to global temperature increases. While I appreciate that in diplomatic terms there is still some need to get nations to accept the link between increased temperatures and the need for adaptation in order to get the agreement to work on a practical level adaptation will need to be linked to actual, quantified risk rather then the more vague notion of temperature increases. Therefore here I would support Option 1 provided that the sub-paragraphs are struck through and it is re-written to make reference to Option 5.
Paragraph 25: Here I think that Option 2 is sufficient because it establishes the need for all nations to draw up National Adaptation Plans (NAP's) but I'm worried that it doesn't go into enough detail. Option 1 on the other hand goes into so much, often contradictory detail it is simply unreadable not to mention unworkable. Therefore here I would support strengthening Option 2 by including large elements of a dramatically streamlined Option 1.
To start with throughout Option 1 there is a choice of language between "All Parties" and "Developed/Developing Parties." This is a throwback to the binary approach which I cannot support. Here I very specifically cannot support it because by stating that only Annex I Parties can help Annex II Parties you are preventing Annex II Parties from helping each other - the so-called "South/South" approach. As such the term "All Parties" needs to be used throughout because the document already acknowledges Common But Different Responsibilities (CBDR).
Sub-paragraph 25.3 again sets the figure of USD100bn per year which I've already addressed in the Section G - Finance. Again for the same reasons it cannot appear in this section either because it's hugely impractical and nations will simply refuse to sign up to it.
Although its inclusion will provide reassurance to less capable nations sub-paragraph 25.4 massively undermines national sovereignty by making specific less capable nations dependent on specific more capable nations. This risks turning those less capable nations into client states and experience tells me that if they end up being partnered with the UK the advice they'll receive will be worse then useless. Therefore this concept needs to be abandoned in its entirety.
As I've mentioned before the concerns over the predictability of finance are better addressed by allowing the GCF to build up a capital reserve rather then relying on constant nation-to-nation donations. Therefore I see sub-paragraph 25.5(d) as totally unnecessary because the GCF can distribute grant based funding and this binary approach is going to prevent an agreement being signed.
More capable nations are also going to be strongly discouraged from signing an agreement that includes sub-paragraph 25.5(e) which demands that no extra burdens are placed on less capable nations while those nations continue to demand that huge extra burdens are placed on the more capable nations. This is a particular problem here because requiring that less capable nations improve their reporting methodologies provides them with an opportunity to build their capacity. So rather then trying to avoid these requirements I think less capable nations would be better off dropping this sub-paragraph and spending their time getting assurances that they will be given help to meet the requirements.
In sub-paragraph 25.6 Option (a) provides a very strong framework for NAP's to be integrated into all nations wider development plans which provides all nations with an great opportunity for capacity building. Being substantially watered down Option (b) simply robs them of that opportunity and seems to be the product of an irrational fear amongst less capable nations. For example once NAP's have been integrated into wider planning policy it becomes impossible for them to duplicate work that is already been done and in fact could possibly provide extra support for the work that is also being done. Also nations might be able to negotiate an opt out of NAP's in this agreement but if they're going to seek alternative sources of finances - billionaires like Mike Bloomberg and Bill Gates are just giving money away - they're going to discover that properly draw up NAP's are going to be mandatory for funding. Therefore here I support Option (a) all the way.
And with 2 paragraphs covered at around 17:50 on 15/1/15 (UK date) I'll be back later to cover the other 5 paragraphs.
Edited at around 19:50 on 15/1/15 (UK date) to add;
Paragraph 27: Here Option 1 provides a framework to allow nations to build their capacity in the field of monitoring and evaluation. This is vitally important of increasing our understanding of the natural environment to allow us to better quantify risk and resolve issues of compensation. Option 3 simply robs nations of that framework. Therefore here I support Option 1 although I would like to see the language of Option 2 regarding experience, lessons learned and good process included to further strengthen the framework.
Paragraph 29: Here Option 1 is simply not strong enough to provide assurance that suitable arrangements will be implemented. Option 2 however is more then sufficient although I'm not happy of the inclusion of a fixed date of 2017 in 29.1(a) which seems unnecessarily limiting especially as the agreement won't come into force until 2020. Therefore here I support Option 2 although for the sake of simplicity I would prefer for 29.1(a) not to be included in the final text because it will immediately become redundant.
Paragraph 29.3: Here Option 1 provides a framework for capacity building that as with Paragraph 27 is vital to increase our understanding. Again Option 2 simply robs nations of that opportunity for capacity building. Therefore here I support Option 1 but I still think it needs some streamlining. For example 29.3(b) establishes an adaptation registry while 29.3(c) establishes a clearing house and a registry. If the Secretariat can provide both a registry and a clearing house we should definitely do that but then the registry doesn't need to be mentioned twice in the final text.
Paragraph 30: Here there needs to be a reference to loss & damage so Option 3 is automatically out. Option 1 provides ample opportunity for capacity building which as I've mentioned throughout this section is vital. However sub-paragraph 30.2 requires the establishment of a mechanism to award compensation for loss & damage. This is going to be extremely complicated. After all through the International Court of Justice (ICJ) we already have a mechanism where one nation can claim compensation from another over wrongdoing.
The reason why the ICJ mechanism has not yet been used for climate change related loss & damage is because our understanding of the natural environment is not yet at a point where we can establish that a specific incidence of loss & damage is the result of climate change. For example we can prove that climate change is causing desertification across the Sahel belt in Africa. However even within the same nation the range of damage is not consistent due to some reasons we do understand such as better land management in some areas and some reasons we do not yet understand. Even if we were able to establish that a specific incidence of loss & damage is the result of climate change we then still face the incredibly complex problem of trying to work out which specific nations ghg emissions were responsible for the change in temperature. Therefore I think that our time would be better spent on capacity building so cases can be brought before ICJ while at the same time dealing with loss & damage collectively through the GCF.
Therefore here I support Option 1 on the provision that 30.2 is removed and the text is altered to included the reference to the Warsaw mechanism mentioned in Option 2.
Paragraph 31: Essentially here the choice here is between simply making the Warsaw mechanism part of this agreement (Option 2) and making the Warsaw mechanism part of the agreement whilst including specific provisions to strengthen the Warsaw mechanism. I have to say that generally I am happy with the Warsaw mechanism so would be prepared to support Option 2. However I am also aware that it is not fully developed and operational so would prefer the final text to include some guidance of how to improve it. That said I cannot support some of the suggestions in Option 1. For example sub- paragraph 31.1 is rooted in the binary approach and all problems that creates. I am also deeply concerned about sub-paragraph31.3(a) which places a burden on the UNFCCC to provide emergency relief for natural disasters.
As with loss & damage our knowledge of the natural environment is not yet at the point where we can say for certain that a specific natural disaster is the result of climate change and we certainly can't do so in an emergency scenario. Take typhoon Haiyan as an example. It is widely believed that being the strongest typhoon ever to make landfall by quite some margin Haiyan was caused in part by an increase in heat energy in the climate system. However the Philippines has been hit by much smaller typhoons both before and after Haiyan which are less likely to be the result of climate change. My concern is that if the UNFCCC takes on a emergency relief role then natural disasters will become ghettoised with the other UN bodies and NGO's that normally help refusing to do so and the UNFCCC having to do all the work regardless of whether climate change was a factor or not. This will quickly overwhelm the UNFCCC's limited resources meaning that none of the work on adaptation and mitigation will get done.
Therefore here I don't know which option to recommend although I do know what area I will have to do more research on and think more about in the run-up to the next meeting. If I had to choose now though I would go for Option 2 because although it's not ideal it allows us to develop the Warsaw mechanism separately once this agreement is in place.
20:55 on 15/1/15 (UK date).
Sellafield and the Oxfordshire Arson Attacks.
Here in the UK Channel 5 is currently broadcasting yet another awesome if slightly heavy season of Celebrity Big Brother (CBB). As I mentioned on Tuesday (13/1/15) the main theme of this season is the limits of freedom of speech and the right to offend.
One area where this will be particularly relevant to viewers is in the area of office politics and employment law. Recently the increased protections for minorities be they gender based, racial or based on sexual orientation has led to ethnic minorities, women and homosexuals taking advantage in the work place to use their minority status to secure unfair advantage over their co-workers.
Although I wasn't able to work it into the original post I actually have an example from my own life of how this can work. Back in 2007 I was volunteering at Croydon Council funded mental health rehabilitation project. Rather then being prepared to accept the benefit of my skill and experience in good grace Croydon Council decided to make this experience as difficult as possible for me. Firstly they threatened to withdraw all funding for the project forcing me to lead a bit of a campaign to keep it open. Then they sacked a supervisor that I worked quite well with in favour of a lesbian who really had it in for me.
As part of this grudge this women would tell anyone who would listen that I was constantly intimidating her because I was homophobic and hated lesbians. Obviously if she'd ever made a formal complaint on those grounds I would have been able to bring in my lesbian mother who is also a government lawyer who helped draft the relevant legislation in to act as my advocate during any disciplinary process. However as the only example of "intimidating behaviour" this woman could come up with was the fact that I'm quite tall a formal complaint was never made and this was all kept quite snidey.
In the end I pointed out that I couldn't put up with this foolishness while still trying to prepare for the COP 13 Summit in Indonesia and walked away. Obviously me writing a resignation letter and then not turning up for work again was too complicated for Croydon Council to understand so officially I was sacked after suffering a severe psychotic episode. That ruling obviously makes it hard to understand why I have been classified a psychologically fit for work and therefore cannot claim what used to be known as incapacity benefit.
Looking at my previous post and what I hope will be my next post it certainly looks as though someone was acting crazy during that time.
So on Tuesday the UK government announced that it will be cancelling the GBP9bn private contract to clean up the site of the Sellafield nuclear power plant. Although we've been assured that this wasn't performance related a new public body will now be tasked with rehabilitating the Sellafield site. Nuclear power has long been a controversial issue within climate change negotiations. However as the UK has a USD165bn, 120 year contract to clean up after a single nuclear power plant I'm still inclined to think that I'm in the right and the nuclear lobby are in the wrong.
Overnight there has been a series of serious arson attacks in the county of Oxfordshire targeting a cottage, a funeral home and the HQ of the local council. Obviously the cottage is a reference to the home of my grandmother who died during COP18 meaning that the funeral home is the funeral home that buried her. In this metaphor I think that council offices are simply council offices.
As a bit of an aside you may have heard that yesterday book publishers Oxford University Press - who I don't think are even based in Oxfordshire - have instructed prospective authors not to make reference to bacon, sausages or other pork products in order to avoid offending potential Muslim customers. Therefore these arson attacks that could be ruled as acts of terrorism could be a reference to Islamic terrorists who seem very easy to offend or anti-Muslim terrorists who are likely to be strengthened if as a society we continue to compromise in the face of ridiculous Islamist demands.
11:55 on 15/1/15 (UK date).
Edited at around 12:55 on 15/1/15 (UK date) to add: For the sake of clarity I should point out that the 120 year Sellafield contract was cancelled after 8 years which is half-way between 5 years and 10 years.
One area where this will be particularly relevant to viewers is in the area of office politics and employment law. Recently the increased protections for minorities be they gender based, racial or based on sexual orientation has led to ethnic minorities, women and homosexuals taking advantage in the work place to use their minority status to secure unfair advantage over their co-workers.
Although I wasn't able to work it into the original post I actually have an example from my own life of how this can work. Back in 2007 I was volunteering at Croydon Council funded mental health rehabilitation project. Rather then being prepared to accept the benefit of my skill and experience in good grace Croydon Council decided to make this experience as difficult as possible for me. Firstly they threatened to withdraw all funding for the project forcing me to lead a bit of a campaign to keep it open. Then they sacked a supervisor that I worked quite well with in favour of a lesbian who really had it in for me.
As part of this grudge this women would tell anyone who would listen that I was constantly intimidating her because I was homophobic and hated lesbians. Obviously if she'd ever made a formal complaint on those grounds I would have been able to bring in my lesbian mother who is also a government lawyer who helped draft the relevant legislation in to act as my advocate during any disciplinary process. However as the only example of "intimidating behaviour" this woman could come up with was the fact that I'm quite tall a formal complaint was never made and this was all kept quite snidey.
In the end I pointed out that I couldn't put up with this foolishness while still trying to prepare for the COP 13 Summit in Indonesia and walked away. Obviously me writing a resignation letter and then not turning up for work again was too complicated for Croydon Council to understand so officially I was sacked after suffering a severe psychotic episode. That ruling obviously makes it hard to understand why I have been classified a psychologically fit for work and therefore cannot claim what used to be known as incapacity benefit.
Looking at my previous post and what I hope will be my next post it certainly looks as though someone was acting crazy during that time.
So on Tuesday the UK government announced that it will be cancelling the GBP9bn private contract to clean up the site of the Sellafield nuclear power plant. Although we've been assured that this wasn't performance related a new public body will now be tasked with rehabilitating the Sellafield site. Nuclear power has long been a controversial issue within climate change negotiations. However as the UK has a USD165bn, 120 year contract to clean up after a single nuclear power plant I'm still inclined to think that I'm in the right and the nuclear lobby are in the wrong.
Overnight there has been a series of serious arson attacks in the county of Oxfordshire targeting a cottage, a funeral home and the HQ of the local council. Obviously the cottage is a reference to the home of my grandmother who died during COP18 meaning that the funeral home is the funeral home that buried her. In this metaphor I think that council offices are simply council offices.
As a bit of an aside you may have heard that yesterday book publishers Oxford University Press - who I don't think are even based in Oxfordshire - have instructed prospective authors not to make reference to bacon, sausages or other pork products in order to avoid offending potential Muslim customers. Therefore these arson attacks that could be ruled as acts of terrorism could be a reference to Islamic terrorists who seem very easy to offend or anti-Muslim terrorists who are likely to be strengthened if as a society we continue to compromise in the face of ridiculous Islamist demands.
11:55 on 15/1/15 (UK date).
Edited at around 12:55 on 15/1/15 (UK date) to add: For the sake of clarity I should point out that the 120 year Sellafield contract was cancelled after 8 years which is half-way between 5 years and 10 years.
Wednesday, 14 January 2015
COP 20: Section G - Finance.
I know - better late then never.
Paragraph 32: Here Option 1 is to rooted in the binary approach where the former Annex I parties are expected to do everything and there is little obligation on the Annex II parties to do anything. Therefore I cannot support it for the reasons I have gone into on numerous occasions along with the fact that Annex I nations simply wont sign up to it. Option 2 on the other hand places an equal responsibility on all nations while acknowledging that the more capable nations have an obligation to provide leadership. For the less capable nations their obligations will be fulfilled simply by the money they spend on projects at home. Therefore here I support Option 2.
Paragraph 33.2(a): Here Option 3 almost entirely disregards mitigation efforts in favour of adaptation. This is foolish because it therefore also excludes dual mitigation/adaptation projects such as mangroves. Also mitigation should be the priority because enhanced mitigation is intended to reduce the need for adaptation. Although I understand that there needs to be a balance to ensure that adaptation projects that are already needed aren't forgotten about in the quest for mitigation I think that the 50:50 split featured in Option 1 is too restrictive. For example on a year by year basis a big project may come up that will tip the balance 60:40 either way. Are we then supposed to not fund that project in favour of two less cost effective projects that will maintain the 50:50 balance? By not putting a specific figure on it Option 3 recognises the need for balance but still allows for the little bit of flexibility that real life often requires. Therefore here I support Option 3.
Paragraph 33.2(c): Here Option 2 allows for finance to be drawn from a variety of sources while Option 1 seems focused entirely on government-to-government public funding. By widening the pool from which finance can be drawn it can help increase the amount of available finance which in turn should solve the problems over predictability. Option 2 of course recognises the need for increased predictability but also recognises that many governments draw up their budgets on a yearly basis and governments tend to change every 5-10 years. Therefore here I support Option 2 because it allows for more finance, is more realistic and is something more nations will be prepared to sign up to.
Paragraph 36: Here Option 1(a) is too rigid by setting a 1% of GDP commitment over the 80 year life of the agreement which it will simply not be possible for many nations to sign up to. Option 1(b) provides reassurance that less capable nations will receive some help while providing a framework for all the different finance mechanisms to be streamlined into the GCF. This is important because the myriad of funding mechanisms are producing a lot of duplication and waste which diluting the existing funding that would be more effective if it was concentrated into a single fund. However Option 2 which more nations will be able to sign up to also includes that streamlining framework only in a lot more detail. Therefore here I support Option 2.
Paragraph 39: Again here Option 1 is far too rigid setting the commitment of USD100bn per year, every year for the 80 year lifespan of the agreement. While I appreciate this provides a much needed assurance of predictability it completely disregards the fact that no government which sets its budget every year and is changed every 5-10 years can make an 80 spending commitment. Therefore if this is included in the final text then many nations will simply refuse to sign it meaning that there will be no agreement and therefore no money. It also seems to completely disregard the issue of inflation which overtime reduces the purchasing power of money. Therefore 20 years down the line we may find that USD100bn isn't enough money and we'll have to renegotiate anyway.
Therefore I think that it's better for spending commitments to be renegotiated at the same time as the mitigation commitments every 5 or 10 years. After all if we adopt a hybrid agreement at the end of every mitigation period certain nations may find that they have to increase their finance commitments to off-set failures to meet mitigation targets. However I am concerned that Option 2 would prevent future finance commitments being negotiated alongside mitigation commitments. Therefore here I would support choosing neither option and instead striking through Paragraph 39 because Paragraph 40 is sufficient.
Paragraph 44: Here Option 1 provides parties with an opportunity to put in place mechanisms to improve their policy/legislative frameworks, attract private investment and set up carbon trading markets. However by respecting their prerogative to set their own domestic policies it doesn't place any obligation upon them to do so. Therefore rather then placing an extra burden on less capable nations I see this as an opportunity for capacity building by giving them the advice needed to set up these mechanisms. Option 2 robs them off that opportunity. Therefore I can see no reason why a less capable nation would sign up to Option 2 and here I support Option 1.
Paragraph 45(5): Here Option (a) allows for nations to obtain finance above and beyond government-to-government public funding. Option (b) doesn't allow for those extra sources of funding. I can think of no reason why any nation would want to deny itself the option of more money. Therefore here I support Option (a).
Paragraph 51: Here Option 2 allows for finance to come from a range or sources while Option 1 attempts to limit the range of sources. Paragraph 51.1 already covers the concerns raised in Option 1 about more capable nations assisting less capable nations in seeking alternative sources of finance in a lot more detail. Therefore here I support Option 2.
20:15 on 14/1/15 (UK date).
Paragraph 32: Here Option 1 is to rooted in the binary approach where the former Annex I parties are expected to do everything and there is little obligation on the Annex II parties to do anything. Therefore I cannot support it for the reasons I have gone into on numerous occasions along with the fact that Annex I nations simply wont sign up to it. Option 2 on the other hand places an equal responsibility on all nations while acknowledging that the more capable nations have an obligation to provide leadership. For the less capable nations their obligations will be fulfilled simply by the money they spend on projects at home. Therefore here I support Option 2.
Paragraph 33.2(a): Here Option 3 almost entirely disregards mitigation efforts in favour of adaptation. This is foolish because it therefore also excludes dual mitigation/adaptation projects such as mangroves. Also mitigation should be the priority because enhanced mitigation is intended to reduce the need for adaptation. Although I understand that there needs to be a balance to ensure that adaptation projects that are already needed aren't forgotten about in the quest for mitigation I think that the 50:50 split featured in Option 1 is too restrictive. For example on a year by year basis a big project may come up that will tip the balance 60:40 either way. Are we then supposed to not fund that project in favour of two less cost effective projects that will maintain the 50:50 balance? By not putting a specific figure on it Option 3 recognises the need for balance but still allows for the little bit of flexibility that real life often requires. Therefore here I support Option 3.
Paragraph 33.2(c): Here Option 2 allows for finance to be drawn from a variety of sources while Option 1 seems focused entirely on government-to-government public funding. By widening the pool from which finance can be drawn it can help increase the amount of available finance which in turn should solve the problems over predictability. Option 2 of course recognises the need for increased predictability but also recognises that many governments draw up their budgets on a yearly basis and governments tend to change every 5-10 years. Therefore here I support Option 2 because it allows for more finance, is more realistic and is something more nations will be prepared to sign up to.
Paragraph 36: Here Option 1(a) is too rigid by setting a 1% of GDP commitment over the 80 year life of the agreement which it will simply not be possible for many nations to sign up to. Option 1(b) provides reassurance that less capable nations will receive some help while providing a framework for all the different finance mechanisms to be streamlined into the GCF. This is important because the myriad of funding mechanisms are producing a lot of duplication and waste which diluting the existing funding that would be more effective if it was concentrated into a single fund. However Option 2 which more nations will be able to sign up to also includes that streamlining framework only in a lot more detail. Therefore here I support Option 2.
Paragraph 39: Again here Option 1 is far too rigid setting the commitment of USD100bn per year, every year for the 80 year lifespan of the agreement. While I appreciate this provides a much needed assurance of predictability it completely disregards the fact that no government which sets its budget every year and is changed every 5-10 years can make an 80 spending commitment. Therefore if this is included in the final text then many nations will simply refuse to sign it meaning that there will be no agreement and therefore no money. It also seems to completely disregard the issue of inflation which overtime reduces the purchasing power of money. Therefore 20 years down the line we may find that USD100bn isn't enough money and we'll have to renegotiate anyway.
Therefore I think that it's better for spending commitments to be renegotiated at the same time as the mitigation commitments every 5 or 10 years. After all if we adopt a hybrid agreement at the end of every mitigation period certain nations may find that they have to increase their finance commitments to off-set failures to meet mitigation targets. However I am concerned that Option 2 would prevent future finance commitments being negotiated alongside mitigation commitments. Therefore here I would support choosing neither option and instead striking through Paragraph 39 because Paragraph 40 is sufficient.
Paragraph 44: Here Option 1 provides parties with an opportunity to put in place mechanisms to improve their policy/legislative frameworks, attract private investment and set up carbon trading markets. However by respecting their prerogative to set their own domestic policies it doesn't place any obligation upon them to do so. Therefore rather then placing an extra burden on less capable nations I see this as an opportunity for capacity building by giving them the advice needed to set up these mechanisms. Option 2 robs them off that opportunity. Therefore I can see no reason why a less capable nation would sign up to Option 2 and here I support Option 1.
Paragraph 45(5): Here Option (a) allows for nations to obtain finance above and beyond government-to-government public funding. Option (b) doesn't allow for those extra sources of funding. I can think of no reason why any nation would want to deny itself the option of more money. Therefore here I support Option (a).
Paragraph 51: Here Option 2 allows for finance to come from a range or sources while Option 1 attempts to limit the range of sources. Paragraph 51.1 already covers the concerns raised in Option 1 about more capable nations assisting less capable nations in seeking alternative sources of finance in a lot more detail. Therefore here I support Option 2.
20:15 on 14/1/15 (UK date).
Tuesday, 13 January 2015
CBB: Always on Point.
This time last year I was revelling in an awesome season of the UK's Celebrity Big Brother (CBB) broadcast on the Channel 5 network. In the run-up to the Winter Olympics in Sochi that season focused very heavily on human sexuality and disability within a house inspired by Tsarist-era Russian opulence. Sadly this year a relentless six months of war both in Gaza and against the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) has taken more out of me then Rihanna's Diamonds World Tour ever could. As a result I was doubting whether I'd have the energy to fully commit to another month of mind games and inter-personal politics.
To make matters worse this season was launched on Wednesday January 7th (7/1/14) - the day of the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris, France. Obviously this meant that no-one was really in the mood for such frivolity. It also meant that many of the issues around the limits of freedom of speech and the right to offend that this season of CBB had hoped to examine at a gentle pace were called into sharp and aggressive focus.
The main theme of this season is fairytales such as Snow White, Cinderella and Jack and the Beanstalk which often form the basis for pantomime shows. A long standing Christmas tradition in the UK pantomimes are comedic stage plays. However they are intended to be very raucous affairs with everything exaggerated for comic effect and the audience being actively encouraged to heckle and generally join in. Although they are primarily aimed at children it is also common for them to include some often very rude, satirical jokes about current affairs to amuse the parents. For example I think any US production of Sleeping Beauty this year would include lots of jokes about Bill Cosby.
At the heart of this CBB there is Katie Hopkins who with her big nose and facial warts could have been born to play the wicked queen in Snow White. However in real-life Ms Hopkins is simply a professional troll. That is to say that she is a newspaper columnist, TV talking head and Twitter personality who specialises in expressing controversial and often offensive opinions. So for example if a daytime TV talk show is doing a piece on obesity they will get Hopkins on to say that all fat people are lazy and greedy and only have themselves to blame.
Obviously this type of expression leads to a lot of controversy with frequent calls for Hopkins to be sacked from her newspaper column and banned from TV etc. Recently when Scottish nurse Pauline Cafferky was diagnosed with Ebola Hopkins Tweeted a comment about sweaty Scots suddenly not being so keen on independence now they had to transport Ms Cafferky to England for treatment. This led to a number of people actually calling the police demanding Hopkins to be prosecuted for inciting racial hatred. Given the almost constant threats of physical violence these Scottish Nationalists (known as "Cybernats") employed during the referendum campaign this was highly ironic.
One area where the freedom of expression and the right to offend have been severely tested within the UK media recently has been on the issue of gender equality and I suppose sexuality. At the one extreme the Operation Yew Tree prosecutions of people like Rolf Harris, Dave Lee Travis and Stuart Hall have revealed that within the UK media industry during the 1970's and 1980's it was not only acceptable to objectify women in the workplace but also harass, grope and even rape them.
However 40 years on we seem to have swung towards to opposite extreme where it seems to have become impossible to say or do anything without being accused of being a sexist/racist/homophobic* (*delete as appropriate) bigot.
So for example you have the UK Independence Party (UKIP) member Godfrey Bloom who at a UKIP conference gave a speech calling all the assembled women "sluts who don't clean behind the fridge." Originally the English slang term "slut" meant a woman who did no housework and therefore kept an unclean house. Over time that association with dirtiness has led to the term meaning a woman who is sexually promiscuous. Therefore while it didn't make me laugh it was quite clear that Bloom was making a reasonably intelligent joke that his invited audience found amusing. However this sparked a national media campaign calling a Bloom a sexist and a misogynist and demanding that he was immediately dismissed from the party.
On a more serious level there was the recent case of Eleanor De Freitas who made an entirely false allegation of rape. However before she could stand trial to determine whether this false allegation was malicious and therefore criminal Ms De Freitas committed suicide. This prompted a wave of outrage and allegations of "victim blaming" by feminists who just could not accept that it had been well established that Ms De Freitas had not at any point been raped and was therefore not the victim.
In the background to all this there's been the Dapper Laughs fiasco. Daniel O'Reilly who created the Dapper Laughs character is essentially just a loud mouth with a YouTube account but for some reason the ITV network decided that he was a comedian and gave him his own TV show. After about the 700th 'joke' about women enjoying being raped an Internet campaign forced the network to cancel the show. For a show like CBB that is heavily dependent on audience participation this is obviously a huge issue.
This season of CBB set out to explore the issue of freedom of expression and the right to offend and how it relates to gender equality/sexual politics through two contestants in particular - Ken Morley and Nadia Sawalha. Ken is a well known soap opera actor from the operation Yew Tree period while Nadia is most often seen as a panelist on the ITV show "Loose Women." Rather like "The View" in the US Loose Women is essentially a group of menopausal women banging on about how strong and empowered they are. It is obviously broadcast at lunchtime so the strong and empowered women who watch it can do so right after they've finished the housework and before they have to pick the kids up from school.
The idea being that Ken had been instructed to go into the house and act like a pantomime villain version of a Yew Tree era TV personality full of racist and sexist comments. As a women who clearly enjoys her indignation this would prompt Nadia to be outraged and the other contestants would gravitate between those two poles while giving their own thoughts on the issue. For example on last night's show being a somewhat older man Alexander O'Neal suggested to Chloe Goodman who's essentially a nude model that maybe it wasn't the best idea for her to get drunk and strip off all her clothes in a bedroom full of men she'd only just met.
The problem arose in the form of Jeremy Jackson. Although I haven't researched it I gather that Jeremy was a child star on the US show "Baywatch" who went very badly off the rails in terms of drink and drug addiction and has since made a career out of his efforts to overcome his demons. The first thing that both Perez Hilton and Michelle Visage who are Americans familiar with Jeremy's history said when they saw him is that they didn't think he was mentally stable enough to be on the show.
Although I didn't see it due to the usual confusion about when something happens and when it will be broadcast Jeremy rapidly proved both Perez and Michelle correct. Apparently whilst very drunk Jeremy ushered Chloe into a quiet area off camera, ripped open the bathrobe she was wearing and proceeded to grope her exposed breasts. That is an example of a criminal sexual assault so the police had to be called in and Jeremy had to be immediately kicked off the show. I understand that Jeremy has now accepted a police caution for assault contrary to common law as opposed to sexual assault. While I'm not familiar with the details this sounds about right to me because although it's a criminal offence it's too minor to warrant a prison sentence so I think it's one of those situations that's better resolved by a father's fists then a Magistrates Court.
Obviously suddenly going from "contestant on a TV game show" to "witness at a crime scene" was a huge shock for all the other housemates. Unfortunately either because he mis-read the situation or because his agent hadn't been in touch to give him new instructions Ken didn't pick up on the change in mood and continued in pantomime mode. As she lacks the self-awareness to understand her role Nadia obviously also continued with her indignant outrage. This led to an extremely poisonous atmosphere in the house with Nadia at one point demanding the police were called to arrest Ken and Perez making possibly the worst attempt to threaten Ken with physical violence I have ever seen. For that Perez received a formal warning.
By Monday (12/1/115) it was clear that either Ken or Nadia had to go. So when Ken told a joke about how he used to wind up a black colleague who liked to play loud music by phoning him up, putting on a posh voice and telling him to "Turn down his pounding Negro rhythms" the producers decided that in that context "Negro" was a racially offensive term and Ken was also kicked off the show.
So in just 5 days two of the contestants have been kicked out and tomorrow's eviction has been cancelled. I'm now going to sit back and watch my Twitter timeline fill up with accusations of victim blaming.
16:55 on 13/1/15 (UK date).
To make matters worse this season was launched on Wednesday January 7th (7/1/14) - the day of the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris, France. Obviously this meant that no-one was really in the mood for such frivolity. It also meant that many of the issues around the limits of freedom of speech and the right to offend that this season of CBB had hoped to examine at a gentle pace were called into sharp and aggressive focus.
The main theme of this season is fairytales such as Snow White, Cinderella and Jack and the Beanstalk which often form the basis for pantomime shows. A long standing Christmas tradition in the UK pantomimes are comedic stage plays. However they are intended to be very raucous affairs with everything exaggerated for comic effect and the audience being actively encouraged to heckle and generally join in. Although they are primarily aimed at children it is also common for them to include some often very rude, satirical jokes about current affairs to amuse the parents. For example I think any US production of Sleeping Beauty this year would include lots of jokes about Bill Cosby.
At the heart of this CBB there is Katie Hopkins who with her big nose and facial warts could have been born to play the wicked queen in Snow White. However in real-life Ms Hopkins is simply a professional troll. That is to say that she is a newspaper columnist, TV talking head and Twitter personality who specialises in expressing controversial and often offensive opinions. So for example if a daytime TV talk show is doing a piece on obesity they will get Hopkins on to say that all fat people are lazy and greedy and only have themselves to blame.
Obviously this type of expression leads to a lot of controversy with frequent calls for Hopkins to be sacked from her newspaper column and banned from TV etc. Recently when Scottish nurse Pauline Cafferky was diagnosed with Ebola Hopkins Tweeted a comment about sweaty Scots suddenly not being so keen on independence now they had to transport Ms Cafferky to England for treatment. This led to a number of people actually calling the police demanding Hopkins to be prosecuted for inciting racial hatred. Given the almost constant threats of physical violence these Scottish Nationalists (known as "Cybernats") employed during the referendum campaign this was highly ironic.
One area where the freedom of expression and the right to offend have been severely tested within the UK media recently has been on the issue of gender equality and I suppose sexuality. At the one extreme the Operation Yew Tree prosecutions of people like Rolf Harris, Dave Lee Travis and Stuart Hall have revealed that within the UK media industry during the 1970's and 1980's it was not only acceptable to objectify women in the workplace but also harass, grope and even rape them.
However 40 years on we seem to have swung towards to opposite extreme where it seems to have become impossible to say or do anything without being accused of being a sexist/racist/homophobic* (*delete as appropriate) bigot.
So for example you have the UK Independence Party (UKIP) member Godfrey Bloom who at a UKIP conference gave a speech calling all the assembled women "sluts who don't clean behind the fridge." Originally the English slang term "slut" meant a woman who did no housework and therefore kept an unclean house. Over time that association with dirtiness has led to the term meaning a woman who is sexually promiscuous. Therefore while it didn't make me laugh it was quite clear that Bloom was making a reasonably intelligent joke that his invited audience found amusing. However this sparked a national media campaign calling a Bloom a sexist and a misogynist and demanding that he was immediately dismissed from the party.
On a more serious level there was the recent case of Eleanor De Freitas who made an entirely false allegation of rape. However before she could stand trial to determine whether this false allegation was malicious and therefore criminal Ms De Freitas committed suicide. This prompted a wave of outrage and allegations of "victim blaming" by feminists who just could not accept that it had been well established that Ms De Freitas had not at any point been raped and was therefore not the victim.
In the background to all this there's been the Dapper Laughs fiasco. Daniel O'Reilly who created the Dapper Laughs character is essentially just a loud mouth with a YouTube account but for some reason the ITV network decided that he was a comedian and gave him his own TV show. After about the 700th 'joke' about women enjoying being raped an Internet campaign forced the network to cancel the show. For a show like CBB that is heavily dependent on audience participation this is obviously a huge issue.
This season of CBB set out to explore the issue of freedom of expression and the right to offend and how it relates to gender equality/sexual politics through two contestants in particular - Ken Morley and Nadia Sawalha. Ken is a well known soap opera actor from the operation Yew Tree period while Nadia is most often seen as a panelist on the ITV show "Loose Women." Rather like "The View" in the US Loose Women is essentially a group of menopausal women banging on about how strong and empowered they are. It is obviously broadcast at lunchtime so the strong and empowered women who watch it can do so right after they've finished the housework and before they have to pick the kids up from school.
The idea being that Ken had been instructed to go into the house and act like a pantomime villain version of a Yew Tree era TV personality full of racist and sexist comments. As a women who clearly enjoys her indignation this would prompt Nadia to be outraged and the other contestants would gravitate between those two poles while giving their own thoughts on the issue. For example on last night's show being a somewhat older man Alexander O'Neal suggested to Chloe Goodman who's essentially a nude model that maybe it wasn't the best idea for her to get drunk and strip off all her clothes in a bedroom full of men she'd only just met.
The problem arose in the form of Jeremy Jackson. Although I haven't researched it I gather that Jeremy was a child star on the US show "Baywatch" who went very badly off the rails in terms of drink and drug addiction and has since made a career out of his efforts to overcome his demons. The first thing that both Perez Hilton and Michelle Visage who are Americans familiar with Jeremy's history said when they saw him is that they didn't think he was mentally stable enough to be on the show.
Although I didn't see it due to the usual confusion about when something happens and when it will be broadcast Jeremy rapidly proved both Perez and Michelle correct. Apparently whilst very drunk Jeremy ushered Chloe into a quiet area off camera, ripped open the bathrobe she was wearing and proceeded to grope her exposed breasts. That is an example of a criminal sexual assault so the police had to be called in and Jeremy had to be immediately kicked off the show. I understand that Jeremy has now accepted a police caution for assault contrary to common law as opposed to sexual assault. While I'm not familiar with the details this sounds about right to me because although it's a criminal offence it's too minor to warrant a prison sentence so I think it's one of those situations that's better resolved by a father's fists then a Magistrates Court.
Obviously suddenly going from "contestant on a TV game show" to "witness at a crime scene" was a huge shock for all the other housemates. Unfortunately either because he mis-read the situation or because his agent hadn't been in touch to give him new instructions Ken didn't pick up on the change in mood and continued in pantomime mode. As she lacks the self-awareness to understand her role Nadia obviously also continued with her indignant outrage. This led to an extremely poisonous atmosphere in the house with Nadia at one point demanding the police were called to arrest Ken and Perez making possibly the worst attempt to threaten Ken with physical violence I have ever seen. For that Perez received a formal warning.
By Monday (12/1/115) it was clear that either Ken or Nadia had to go. So when Ken told a joke about how he used to wind up a black colleague who liked to play loud music by phoning him up, putting on a posh voice and telling him to "Turn down his pounding Negro rhythms" the producers decided that in that context "Negro" was a racially offensive term and Ken was also kicked off the show.
So in just 5 days two of the contestants have been kicked out and tomorrow's eviction has been cancelled. I'm now going to sit back and watch my Twitter timeline fill up with accusations of victim blaming.
16:55 on 13/1/15 (UK date).
Friday, 9 January 2015
Paris: A Shambolic End to a Testing Time.
As I was going to bed last night I was debating whether to point out that clearly lacking in an extraction plan or a wider support network Said Kouachi and Cherif Kouachi - the suspects in Wednesday's (7/1/15) terror attack on the Charlie Hebdo newspaper - were very much in escape and evasion mode. So while the search for them could have taken anything up to a couple of months I no longer considered them a substantial risk to the public.
The need for me to make a decision was removed when this morning the police did catch the Kouachi brothers and cornered them in a small print works in Dammartin-en-Goele on the outskirts of Paris. I actually found this rather amusing because with only one hostage, no food, no water, no heat and no power it was only a matter of time before the brother's would have been forced to surrender or commit suicide.
However a few hours after the Dammartin-en-Goele siege began Amedy Coulibaly - who grew up in the same area of Paris as the Kouachi brothers and along with his presumed girlfriend Hayat Boumeddiene is a suspect in Thursday's (8/1/15) shooting of a police officer in Paris - walked into a Jewish supermarket in Paris and took 8 people hostage. With multiple hostages and plenty of supplies this obviously put Coulibaly in a much stronger position then the Kouachi brothers.
If they weren't in communication prior to the attacks then the Kouachis and Coulibaly started talking to each other by phone once the twin sieges had begun. This led to Coulibaly to threaten to start killing hostages if the Kouachi brother's were not allowed to leave Dammartin-en-Goele. This obviously put the police in a very difficult situation but from the comfort of my sofa it seemed one that could easily be dealt with.
I would have begun by moving everyone into assault positions at both locations so they could have instantly responded to any increased threat. I would then have cut the telephone communication between Coulibaly and the Kouachis. I would have then fired a lot of tear gas into the Dammartin-en-Goele print works to make it look as though an assault was taking place. This would obviously have been broadcast on TV for Coulibaly to see. If he'd then started killing hostages there would have been no option other then for an assault. However if - as I think was more likely - Coulibaly hesitated and failed to kill hostages at that moment of maximum provocation it would have made it much easier to force him to surrender. Meanwhile the Kouachis without being able to talk to Coulibaly for moral support would have to learn to put up with fresh volleys of tear gas hour or so until they surrendered.
Sadly though the police decided to do none of this. At this early stage it appears that they made no attempt to break the communication between the Kouachis and Coulibaly and instead mounted an assault in Dammartin-en-Goele. In this assault it appears that the Kouachis were both killed, two police officers were wounded and the hostage was freed unharmed. Then after an inexplicable delay of around 10-15 minutes the police in Paris launched an assault on the supermarket. This seems to have gone very badly with at least 4 hostages being killed, Coulibaly being killed and Boumeddiene managing to escape the scene.
Obviously it is very easy for me to criticise while sitting at home - for example there is some suggestion that the Kouachis may have forced the police's hand by attempt to escape, guns blazing. However with dead hostages, dead suspects and Boumeddiene managing to escape meaning that the situation still isn't over it is impossible to declare this operation a success.
17:50 on 9/1/15 (UK date).
Edited at around 19:40 on 10/1/15 (UK date) to add;
Although it was denied at the time it has now been confirmed that the 4 hostages who were killed at the Jewish supermarket were killed in the first few minutes of the incident rather then in the police raid that brought the siege to an end.
It has also been confirmed that Hayat Boumeddiene (aka "The Bride of Erdogan") left France and arrived in Turkey on January 2nd (2/1/15) and therefore was not present at the supermarket siege nor Thursday's killing of a police officer and wasn't even in France at the time of the Charlie Hebdo attack. While I believe he is still being questioned it has also been established that Hamyd Mourad did not directly participate in Wednesday's attack meaning that the third suspect was actually Amedy Coulibaly. Therefore with all the suspects either dead or no longer in France I now consider this situation to be at an end.
Finally after numerous attempts to deny it yesterday evening Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) claimed that they had directed the attacks and in an effort to make themselves sound much scarier then they actually claimed that more attacks against France were imminent. This threat is nonsense because their involvement in the French attacks was so minimal I consider it to be inspirational rather then direction. Essentially after Charlie Hebdo published the October edition - which is currently my Twitter avatar - that showed a fighter from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) beheading the Prophet AQAP published on the Internet the details of Charlie Hebdo staff along with when and where they have their editorial meetings and a general call for them to be killed in revenge.
Also I should point out though that while AQAP are formally allied with ISIL Al Nusra Front (ANF) who are Al-Qaeda's branch in Syria and Iraq are actually at war with ISIL. So confusingly while they have "Al-Qaeda" in their name AQAP are considered part of ISIL rather then Al-Qaeda. Just to confuse matters further many western news agencies - CNN in particular - have taken to referring to AQAP as "Al-Qaeda in Yemen" this term hasn't been valid since January 2009 when Al-Qaeda in Yemen merged with Al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia to form AQAP.
The need for me to make a decision was removed when this morning the police did catch the Kouachi brothers and cornered them in a small print works in Dammartin-en-Goele on the outskirts of Paris. I actually found this rather amusing because with only one hostage, no food, no water, no heat and no power it was only a matter of time before the brother's would have been forced to surrender or commit suicide.
However a few hours after the Dammartin-en-Goele siege began Amedy Coulibaly - who grew up in the same area of Paris as the Kouachi brothers and along with his presumed girlfriend Hayat Boumeddiene is a suspect in Thursday's (8/1/15) shooting of a police officer in Paris - walked into a Jewish supermarket in Paris and took 8 people hostage. With multiple hostages and plenty of supplies this obviously put Coulibaly in a much stronger position then the Kouachi brothers.
If they weren't in communication prior to the attacks then the Kouachis and Coulibaly started talking to each other by phone once the twin sieges had begun. This led to Coulibaly to threaten to start killing hostages if the Kouachi brother's were not allowed to leave Dammartin-en-Goele. This obviously put the police in a very difficult situation but from the comfort of my sofa it seemed one that could easily be dealt with.
I would have begun by moving everyone into assault positions at both locations so they could have instantly responded to any increased threat. I would then have cut the telephone communication between Coulibaly and the Kouachis. I would have then fired a lot of tear gas into the Dammartin-en-Goele print works to make it look as though an assault was taking place. This would obviously have been broadcast on TV for Coulibaly to see. If he'd then started killing hostages there would have been no option other then for an assault. However if - as I think was more likely - Coulibaly hesitated and failed to kill hostages at that moment of maximum provocation it would have made it much easier to force him to surrender. Meanwhile the Kouachis without being able to talk to Coulibaly for moral support would have to learn to put up with fresh volleys of tear gas hour or so until they surrendered.
Sadly though the police decided to do none of this. At this early stage it appears that they made no attempt to break the communication between the Kouachis and Coulibaly and instead mounted an assault in Dammartin-en-Goele. In this assault it appears that the Kouachis were both killed, two police officers were wounded and the hostage was freed unharmed. Then after an inexplicable delay of around 10-15 minutes the police in Paris launched an assault on the supermarket. This seems to have gone very badly with at least 4 hostages being killed, Coulibaly being killed and Boumeddiene managing to escape the scene.
Obviously it is very easy for me to criticise while sitting at home - for example there is some suggestion that the Kouachis may have forced the police's hand by attempt to escape, guns blazing. However with dead hostages, dead suspects and Boumeddiene managing to escape meaning that the situation still isn't over it is impossible to declare this operation a success.
17:50 on 9/1/15 (UK date).
Edited at around 19:40 on 10/1/15 (UK date) to add;
Although it was denied at the time it has now been confirmed that the 4 hostages who were killed at the Jewish supermarket were killed in the first few minutes of the incident rather then in the police raid that brought the siege to an end.
It has also been confirmed that Hayat Boumeddiene (aka "The Bride of Erdogan") left France and arrived in Turkey on January 2nd (2/1/15) and therefore was not present at the supermarket siege nor Thursday's killing of a police officer and wasn't even in France at the time of the Charlie Hebdo attack. While I believe he is still being questioned it has also been established that Hamyd Mourad did not directly participate in Wednesday's attack meaning that the third suspect was actually Amedy Coulibaly. Therefore with all the suspects either dead or no longer in France I now consider this situation to be at an end.
Finally after numerous attempts to deny it yesterday evening Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) claimed that they had directed the attacks and in an effort to make themselves sound much scarier then they actually claimed that more attacks against France were imminent. This threat is nonsense because their involvement in the French attacks was so minimal I consider it to be inspirational rather then direction. Essentially after Charlie Hebdo published the October edition - which is currently my Twitter avatar - that showed a fighter from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) beheading the Prophet AQAP published on the Internet the details of Charlie Hebdo staff along with when and where they have their editorial meetings and a general call for them to be killed in revenge.
Also I should point out though that while AQAP are formally allied with ISIL Al Nusra Front (ANF) who are Al-Qaeda's branch in Syria and Iraq are actually at war with ISIL. So confusingly while they have "Al-Qaeda" in their name AQAP are considered part of ISIL rather then Al-Qaeda. Just to confuse matters further many western news agencies - CNN in particular - have taken to referring to AQAP as "Al-Qaeda in Yemen" this term hasn't been valid since January 2009 when Al-Qaeda in Yemen merged with Al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia to form AQAP.
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