Saturday 28 February 2015

Farewell To Minsk?

On February 12th (12/2/15) the leaders of France, Germany and Russia along with the Ukrainian government in Kiev agreed a deal in Minsk, Belarus intended to bring an end to what has now been a year of fighting in Ukraine.

Rather then being a simple ceasefire the Minsk agreement - which was originally signed in September 2014 but not acted on - is much more of a comprehensive peace process that begins by freezing the fighting before establishing a political framework to end the internal conflict.

Generally the ceasefire portion of the Minsk agreement has be very successful. There have though been  a few small problems. The main one of these has concerned the city of Debaltseve in the eastern province of Donetsk. 

Despite being surrounded by rebel forces and sitting some 70km (42 miles) beyond the ceasefire line the Kiev forces in the city refused to withdraw in the hope of using it as an excuse to carve out a 700km^2 (420 m^2) chunk of rebel territory. This was very much against the spirit of the agreement and eventually the rebels had to force the Kiev troops to withdraw. There has been a similar problem around the Donetsk City where Kiev forces have been failing to accept that the city is part of rebel territory.

Although I think these problems need to stop I would consider the Minsk agreement to be holding given the circumstances. Despite the way it has been portrayed in the west the conflict in Ukraine is not a symmetrical war with Ukrainian troops on one side and Russian troops on the other. 

Instead it is an internal, civil conflict being fought between disparate militias of the sort seen in nations such as Libya and Syria that have slowly tearing themselves apart over the past 4 years.

On the rebels side the three main groups are the Donetsk People's Republic, the Lugansk People's Republic and the Donbass People's Militia who rarely communicate with each and sometimes end up in direct conflict with each other.  

The Kiev side of things is similarly complicated because although there is a Ukrainian National Army the majority of the fighting is done by groups such as the Azov Battalion which run by Ukraine's Nazi Party Svoboda and the Aidar Battalion and the Dnipro Battalion which are essentially private armies run by Ihor Kolomoyskyi who is the type of Israeli Jewish oligarch that Svoboda despise. 

Although these militia battalions were nominally absorbed into the Ukrainian National Guard as part of an attempt to comply with the disbanding of illegal armed groups clause of the earlier Geneva agreement Kiev's control over them is strictly limited at best.

With the Minsk agreement requiring that the legal status of these militia battalions is eventually resolved there are a lot of people within Ukraine who are very opposed to it. Sadly there are also powerful forces outside of Ukraine who also would love to see Minsk fail. 

For example the day after Minsk came into force the European Union (EU) likely driven by its newer members such as Poland imposed fresh sanctions on Russia presumably to punish them for their role in drawing up a peace plan.

The US has been particularly hawkish on the issue because they engineered the coup that started Ukraine's civil war in order to provide a pre-text for imposing sanctions on Russia for its opposition to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). After all not even the US can formally support a group of maniacs that genocidal. 

As a result the US has made it very clear that no matter what happens in Ukraine they will continue to demand that Russia is punished while screaming about the ceasefire violations in places like Debaltseve without pointing out that it is the people the US are backing who have been violating the ceasefire.

The US' long-term plan seems to be that if the economic and political pressure applied on Russia over Ukraine doesn't succeed in forcing Russia to drop its opposition to ISIL then it will trigger the overthrow of the Russian government. To further this end they've had support from people within Russia itself such as the Human Rights House network and Boris Nemstov who may well have been a CIA asset since he began campaigning to bring down the Soviet Union.

On Sunday (1/3/15) Nemstov had been planning to hold a mass rally in Russia's capital Moscow to protest against economic hardships brought about by the sanctions and in support of Kiev's attempts to purge ethnic Russians from eastern Ukraine. Therefore it seems obvious that Nemstov supports the conflict in Ukraine as if his career depended on it because if the Minsk agreement brings it to an end he'd be a rebel without a cause.

Despite the sanctions and the hardships they bring Russian President Vladamir Putin is actually enjoying record levels of support amongst the Russian population with approval ratings of around 85%. As a result far from being the start of a mass movement that threatens to bring down the Russian government Nemstov's march was likely to be little more then a small group of people wandering aimlessly through the city while everyday Russians threw stones at them.

As such I find it incredibly hard to believe that Putin would have had Nemstov killed on steps of the Kremlin in the very early hours of this morning. Although you may not like Putin and I certainly do not doubt that he is capable of assassination it is clear that he is not stupid. Therefore he would have known that such as public killing of a prominent protest leader at a location that is synonymous with the Russia government would be likely to turn him into a martyr and make his protest movement stronger.

As such I think the finger of suspicion falls much more firmly on Kiev and their associates who very much subscribe to the martyr mentality that we've seen in Libya, Syria and last summer in Gaza. Essentially people have got to thinking that all they need to do is carry out an atrocity such as killing a civilian or carrying out a poison gas attack, blame it on their opponent and the international community will rush to their aid. 

This has worked for Kiev before particularly in February 2014 when the killing of protesters by snipers caused so much outrage it triggered the overthrow of the Ukrainian government 3 days later. Even the UK's BBC now admit that it was the protesters who fired on themselves although I notice they refuse to run the report during primetime.

There have also been warning signs that Kiev would try something like this. Although for the life of me I cannot find a link to it the leader of one of the militia battalions recently warned that they were prepared to take the war into Russia itself by carrying out terrorist bombings. Even as far back as April 2014 Dimitry Yarosh - a member of the Parliament in Kiev - called on Islamists in Russia's Caucus region to carry out terror attacks and has an international arrest warrant in his name because of it although Kiev continues to refuse to allow Interpol to execute that warrant.

The threat from Islamist groups seems to have become the leading avenue in the investigation into who killed Nemstov. Apparently he had been receiving a lot of death threats over his condemnation of the Paris Attacks that began with the attack on the Charlie Hebdo magazine. Also the car used in the killing has been recovered and is registered in Ingushetia which along with Chechnya and Dagestan has become a hotbed of Islamist terror providing ISIL with many fighters and the terrorists who attack Volgograd in the run up the the 2014 Winter Olympics in near-by Sochi. 

17:00 on 28/2/15 (UK date).





Thursday 26 February 2015

Operation Featherweight: Month 7, Week 5, Day 1.

As I've already mentioned at roughly this time two weeks ago the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) launched a successful operation to capture the town of al-Baghdadi in Anbar province which sits around 195km (117 miles) to the west of Iraq's capital Baghdad.

ISIL then used the capture of al-Baghdadi to launch an unsuccessfully attack against the Ain al-Asad airbase which sits just 5km (3miles) to the south and is home to some 300 US Marines.

ISIL followed up the capture of al-Baghdadi by burning alive 47 Sunni tribesmen who had attempted to defend the town and kidnapping and killing Sheikh Qassem Sweidan al-Janabi - a senior Sunni tribal leader. Sheikh Janabi's nephew Zeid al-Janabi (an Iraqi MP) was also kidnapped in the attack was dumped, alive in the overwhelmingly Shia "Sadr City" district of Baghdad.

This is a tactic that is common amongst Mexican drug cartels and is known as "heating up the ground." Essentially a cartel will carry out an atrocity (they're also quite big into beheading) and then dump the bodies in their territory of their rivals in the hope the authorities will blame the rivals for the attack.

There have also been fresh waves of suicide bombings across Baghdad.

This has all been done as part of an ISIL strategy to intimidate the Sunni tribes that dominate Anbar province into thinking that the Iraqi government cannot defend them against ISIL. Therefore the Sunni tribes had better switch allegiance to ISIL giving the group a clear run at Iraq's capital and the oil-rich Basra province in the south-east. Unfortunately the murder of Sheikh Janabi did succeed in getting Sunni MP's to withdraw from Iraq's Parliament.

Sadly US President Barack Obama is still adamant that an "inclusive" Iraqi government is a pre-condition to fighting ISIL which obviously encourages ISIL to employ these tactics.

As a result it has become a priority that ISIL are forced back in Anbar province in order to re-assure the Sunni tribes that they're on the winning side in order to prevent the Iraqi government and therefore the entire nation collapsing.

Over the course of the past week the Iraq Security Forces (ISF) have been conducting an operation to liberate al-Baghdadi from ISIL. For the most part this has been hugely successful with the ISF marching into large sections of the town almost completely unopposed.

However today ISIL have succeeded in capturing a key bridge across the Euphrates river between al-Baghdadi and the larger town of Haditha which indicates they may be prepared to give up al-Baghdadi in favour of a larger prize in the form of the strategically important Haditha Dam.

It almost goes without saying that throughout this operation the ISF have received next to no support from the US-led coalition.

While everybody was becoming increasingly concerned about the situation in Anbar the US last Thursday (19/2/15) took the highly unusual step of announcing their plan to liberate Iraq's second city Mosul. Not only did the US reveal that they are planning this operation for April/May they also detailed which units of the ISF and the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga would take part and exactly what role each unit would play.

In preparation for the D-Day invasion during World War Two the allies conducted a year long operation codenamed "Operation Bodyguard" which involved placing famous US General George S. Patton in charge of an entirely false army in Kent, UK. This was done to convince the Nazis that they would be attacked at Calais, France when in fact they were attacked in Normandy.

As a result the only possible explanation I could think of why the US would release such a detailed plan for Mosul is that it was a mis-direct and they were really going to attack in a completely different way in the coming days.

A week on from the Mosul announcement with no surprise operation being launched it has become clear that the US' real reason for releasing so much information was far more petulant.

Amid negotiations between the US and the Iraqis and most of the rest of the coalition Mosul has very much become a symbol of the US' reluctance to do anything that may result in ISIL actually losing this war.

For example at a summit in London on January 22nd (22/1/15) Iraq leaked the fact that around 20% of ISIL fighters had already been killed. They then went on to claim that an operation to liberate Mosul could begin in weeks rather then the year that the US was predicting. This obviously prompted a furious response from the US but did allow the European members of the coalition to step up their air-support leading to the liberation of Tal Afar two days later.

As such the US' release of the Mosul plan seems to have been an attempt to deflect pressure on them to fight ISIL in any way, shape or form. In the first instance the release of the plan has automatically made any operation immensely more difficult by telling ISIL what to expect. Revealing the plan also places a very public time-frame on the Iraqis to be ready for the operation. At the same time behind the scenes the US is continuing to refuse to deliver weapons and equipment that has already been paid for to the Iraqis.

Therefore the US seems to be trying to engineer a situation where they can turn around to the Iraqis and say; "Well we had an operation planned but you couldn't meet the deadline. Now shut up about trying to liberate your country!"

It must be said though that I've always thought that although its symbolism is powerful what will be an extremely brutal operation to liberate Mosul doesn't make a huge amount of strategic sense when ISIL are almost at the gates of Baghdad. Sadly though I suspect that Obama will also try and find away to screw up any attempt to solve that problem because he's become obsessed with his legacy.

First Obama thought he was going to solve the Israel/Palestine conflict but that didn't happen. Then Obama thought he was going to end the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and that clearly hasn't happened. So Obama has now become obsessed with Iran's nuclear program and displaying the sort of judgement that led to his failure in the other two objectives sees ISIL as an important ally to place pressure on Iran during those negotiations.

At 18:30 on 26/2/15 (UK date).

Edited at around 20:10 on 26/2/15 (UK date) to tidy the above and add;

While Obama's been dreaming of all the Oscars that the Selma-style film of his life is going to win the US Department of Homeland Security that Obama would rather see shut down then revoke what he himself admits are unlawful executive actions on immigration have been dealing with a rash of ISIL inspired terrorist threats against the US.

The first of these came on Sunday (22/2/15) when what I consider the new al-Shabaab  released an Internet video encouraging their supporters to attack soft targets such as Oxford Street shopping district in London, UK and the Mall of America in Minnesota, US.

Rather then being evidence of co-ordinated al-Shabaab networks poised to attack the west this was more of a desperate plea for self-radicalised lone-wolves to try something. In fact my first reaction was to wonder if there was yet another stabbing on Oxford Street would we in the UK realise that it had been a terror attack. However with its gun culture this is obviously a much more substantial threat in the US.

On Wednesday (25/2/15) the FBI confirmed that they had arrested three men in Brooklyn, New York City who had been planning to travel to fight alongside ISIL. Failing that they were prepared to carry out terror attacks within the US including possibly assassinating Obama himself.

At the risk of going off on a bit of a tangent the three men are natives of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Along with Dagestan and Chechnya these nations that sit on Russia's southern border have recently seen a massive increase in Islamist terrorism and have provided many fighters in the Battle of Kobane and the bombers who attacked Volgograd, Russia in the run-up to the Sochi Olympics.

However Wednesday's arrests do seem to be legitimate and indicate nothing other then the fact that since the war against ISIL began seven months ago the US authorities have been forced to identify and disrupt an increasing number of these terror plots. On 9/11 America learnt what happens if they screw up just once.

As such it should hardly come as a surprise that overnight the embargo was lifted and the US' flagship Washington Post newspaper was finally able to report the identity of ISIL's self-styled executioner-in-chief who up until now has been known as "Jihadi John."

This has been something of an open secret pretty much since he first emerged. Therefore while I wasn't aware of the specific name I was aware that he was part of a London, UK based network that is linked to the new al-Shabaab in Somalia and therefore by extension to ISIL in Yemen and Saudi Arabia. Another member of this network famously escaped from the authorities while I was having my own legal problems back in 2013. That should tell you all you need to know about the network's relationship with the UK intelligence services.

The revelation that Jihadi John is in fact Mohammed Emwazi, a 27 year old UK/Kuwaiti dual national comprehensively destroys Obama's position that ISIL fighters are poor individuals lacking in economic and social opportunity who have become radicalised by the US' wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Israel's 'genocide' in Palestine or Syrian President Assad's 'genocide.' Emwazi in fact graduated with a degree in computer science from Westminster University. Along with Oxford and Cambridge this is considered one of the UK's best universities and in a trivial point one which actually rejected me.

Emwazi is also very closely linked with an *ahem* Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) called CAGE UK. Officially CAGE is a campaign group set up to protest the US' Guantanamo Bay prison. As Obama has made the closure of Guantanamo Bay a cornerstone of his legacy it has obviously proved all too easy for him to believe that line.

However if you look more closely Emwazi first became associated with CAGE in 2009 when he was prevented from travelling to Tanzania to meet with Bilal Berjawi who was later killed in a Drone strike on a al-Shabaab training camp in Somalia. Since then CAGE have been assisting Emwazi in challenging restrictions on his travel by both the UK authorities and Kuwait who made it quite clear in 2013 that they did not want him in their country under any circumstance. It is then understood that CAGE instructed Emwazi to change his name allowing him to slip into Syria via Turkey.

As such it's well recognised within the relevant circles that CAGE don't give a damn about Guantanamo Bay and instead are part of the pipeline that European intelligence agencies have set up to transport jihadists to fight for ISIL against the Syrian government. In fact you could say that CAGE are the UK ticket office for what has become known as the "Garbage Truck Express" after its founder - Glasgow bin Lorry.

This is of course the pipeline that Obama wants to keep open in order to funnel more US trained and equipped jihadists into Syria.

I must say that the UK doesn't seem best pleased about the public un-masking of Jihadi John because while Obama may still be on planet Zog European nations have been discreetly trying to wind down groups like CAGE.

In his press conference this afternoon CAGE director Asim Qureshi had a look about him with which I've become very familiar. It's the look of someone linked to the intelligence services who has realised that they've been caught doing something very illegal but aren't worried because they are confident that the Crown will protect them at all costs.

In an interview on the evening news Qureshi was developing the look of a man who is beginning to realise that he is in very serious trouble but is confident he has enough dirt to blackmail the intelligence services with should they ever put him on trial. Due to his new found notoriety lots of journalists now know to look out for that trial should it ever happen.

21:25 on 26/2/15 (UK date).


Wednesday 25 February 2015

Operation Featherweight: Month 7, Week 4, Day 7.

While I've been rather unprofessionally distracted by the Oscars it has been a somewhat busy period in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

In my last post on the subject I mentioned that ISIL had begun to regain the initiative with fresh offensives against Kurdish positions in northern Iraq and these attacks continued over the weekend. For example on Thursday (19/2/15) into Friday (20/2/15) ISIL attacked the village of Qoban and made three attacks against the Kurdish Peshmerga front-line at Badooshi and a single attack on the front-line at Khazir.

Although I think these were serious attempts to break through the Peshmerga's lines and seize territory these attacks were not on the scale of last Tuesday's (17/2/15) attacks on the towns of Gwer and Makhmour and were easily repelled. For example the threat of coalition air-strikes forced ISIL to make one of their attacks on foot without any vehicles which made it very easy to cut down with machine gun fire. These attacks do though force the Peshmerga to concentrate on defending their territory rather then liberating territory from ISIL and it does use up their resources.

There are also lingering concerns that the US-led coalition is still not providing the required level of air-support because these 6 attacks on resulted in 4 coalition air-strikes and I am confused as to why ISIL are still permitted to have heavy weaponry such as artillery in range of Peshmerga or Iraqi army positions.

As part of this fresh push against the Peshmerga on Monday (23/2/15) released a video showing what it claimed to be 21 Peshmergas who were captured during the recent fighting being paraded through Mosul in cages. Although I doubt it is the sort of thing that they would comment on unless forced to I'm not aware of any large scale capture of Peshmergas recently. As such I think it is likely that to produce this video ISIL instead rounded up pretty much every Kurdish male prisoner of military age they have to give the impression they've secured some significant military victory.

In the first instance the idea is to intimidate or terrorise the Peshmerga into thinking that they to could be the the next to captured in order to make them paranoid and afraid weakening their ability and possibly will to fight. In the second instance I think that ISIL is likely to attempt to use the fate of these prisoners to blackmail the coalition into changing their tactics. This is something the coalition simply cannot do and which is why I find it easier to think of ISIL prisoners as dead from the moment they are captured.

The ISIL attacks on the Peshmerga slowly petered out over the weekend. In part this is because once again bad weather has brought snow to the region. However a much larger reason is that on Sunday (22/2/15) the Iraqi Peshmerga and the Syrian Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG) launched a co-ordinated offensive against ISIL positions close to the border with Iraq and the southern boundary of the Cizire Canton.

This operation is ongoing but it has already succeeded in pushing ISIL fighters away from the border where they were threatening the Sinjar/Shingal mountains, cutting a major supply route between Mosul and ISIL positions in Syria and pushing ISIL back from the canton border beyond the city of Al-Hasakah.

Unfortunately ISIL have responded to this offensive by launching almost commando-style raids in order to kidnap people from within the Cizire Canton. The most serious of these incidents occurred yesterday (24/2/15) when between 90 and 150 Christians belonging to the Assyrian ethnic group were kidnapped. As with the Peshmergas who were shown in Monday's (23/2/15) ISIL video the purpose of these kidnappings is to weaken the YPG line by spreading fear and possibly try and blackmail them into ending the offensive.

The only suggestion I can offer is that civilians are evacuated from their front-lines for their protection. The situation does though serve to further highlight why the coalition must co-ordinate more closely with the YPG to protect the cantons so they can be used as a safe haven for civilians while the fighting continues to drag on.

On Friday (20/2/15) it emerged that three British schoolgirls aged 14 and 15 had runaway from home to join ISIL in Syria via Turkey. This is a story that the western media in particular has been obsessed with over the past couple of days but if you are familiar with the conflict it is almost a routine event.

For the last two to three years European nations have been operating a pipeline to funnel Islamist fighters into Syria using just this route. Although the European nations have recently started making efforts to shutdown this pipeline (sometimes referred to as "The Garbage Truck Express") at their end Turkey has not been playing its part and seems intent to keep the pipeline open.

The reason why these teenage girls have decided to join ISIL is very much the same mix of teenage angst and raging hormones that drives other teenage girls to obsess over boy bands such as "One Direction" and sometimes run away to see them on tour. It is for these reasons why that in western societies girls of that age are considered children and therefore not allowed to vote, marry or have sex. However many Arab societies do not view young girls in the same way and ISIL in particular like their 'wives' to be very young.

As a result while we can discuss at length the complex reasons for why and how these girls were exploited into joining ISIL it strikes me that it is going to cause a lot of tension without achieving much success. After all it eventually comes down to one individuals ability to press another individuals buttons.

Therefore I think that it is much more important that efforts are concentrated physically stopping naive girls like this from travelling to join ISIL. Turkey are being absolutely no help whatsoever in this effort and are in fact exerting pressure on the US in particular for this pipeline to be kept open so it can challenge US trained and equipped Islamist fighters into Syria.

Due to these doubts over Turkey's commitment to fighting ISIL its demands that western intelligence agencies share more information with them seem like a trick to allow Turkey to combat and circumvent the methods used to fight ISIL.

As a result I think European nations in particular do need to seriously consider imposing an exit visa system for travel to Turkey. If such a system had been in place these girls would have had to provide parental consent and a credible reason for travelling to Turkey in order to be allowed to board their flight. In the unlikely event that they would be able to meet those criteria the two to three week delay in getting the application processed would have given them time to cool off or for an adult to notice what they were up to and intervene.

Speaking of Turkey on Sunday (22/2/15) they launched a bizarre military incursion deep into Syria. This involved them sending a convoy of around 100 tanks and armoured vehicles through the Kobane Canton to the tomb of Suleiman Shah which is an 8km^2 pocket of Turkish territory in Syria's Aleppo Province. The Turkish convoy then linked up with the 40 Turkish troops who had been guarding the site, took down the Turkish flag and destroyed the site itself before returning to Turkey with Suleiman Shah's remains.

On the face of it this was a hugely provocative and completely illegal move by Turkey. After all they have absolutely no authority to enter Syria without permission and the last time Turkey sent fighters into Kobane Canton they were ISIL fighters and it wasn't a sign of friendship.

However the operation also seems to have been a sign that Turkey is beginning to understand that it doesn't get a say in how the coalition are fighting ISIL. After all by removing their flag and destroying the site Turkey has now given up its claim to this part of Syrian territory and by removing the troops who had been guarding the site it is no longer able to argue that it has a duty to protect them.

At around 18:00 on 25/2/15 (UK date) I have a bit more about the situation in Libya but that will have to wait until after dinner.
 
Edited at around 19:45 on 25/2/15 (UK date) to add;

I should point out that I am aware that the Iraqi army has launched an operation to liberate al-Baghdadi and then there is the issue of the US' unprecedented decision to inform ISIL of its plans to liberate Mosul. My main objection to that is that it gave away far too much information and as such is a difficult subject for me to discuss here. I will though try and deal with it more fully tomorrow when I've had time to consider what I want to say.

However I think it is pretty common knowledge that protecting the seat of power is the first priority of any military strategy. As such I've always thought that removing ISIL from Anbar province is more important then liberating Mosul.

Away from Iraq and Syria there is now also the fight against ISIL in Libya. So far because there is not much happening I've been able to talk about this at the same time as talking about Iraq and Syria. However as efforts increase I may have to start treating that as a separate operation.

The main reason why things are so quiet in Libya at the moment is because there is an impasse between Egypt who want to work with the internationally recognised Libyan government in Tobruk and members of the UN who want to see the Libyan government become more inclusive before they lift the arms embargo. Annoyingly this is one of those chicken and egg scenarios where really both things need to happen at the same time in co-ordination with each other.

In the immediate aftermath of the overthrow of Qaddafi an inclusive government was elected in Tripoli.  Although after 40 years of Qaddafi I wouldn't say that anyone in Libya is particularly expert at democratic-style politics the Islamist factions in particular have had great trouble understanding that rather then getting everything you want there has to be a bit of give and take between different factions. I

nstead what they did was get the Islamist militias that eventually formed the Libyan Dawn militia to literally stick a gun to the head of the other members of the government until they gave in and did what the Islamists wanted. Eventually the Libya Dawn militia forced the government to leave Tripoli entirely.

As a result rather then being two entirely separate governments although they have both since added new members the self-declared government in Tripoli is actually just the Islamist factions of the Libyan government that is now located in Tobruk. Therefore at the risk of famous last words it shouldn't be impossible for the Islamist factions to simply rejoin the Tobruk government which will presumably then return to Tripoli. The big challenge is going to be getting the Islamists to understand that they cannot use force as part of the Parliamentary process.

In practical terms that means disarming and disbanding the Libyan Dawn militia. If they cannot be encouraged to do that voluntarily then military force will have to be used to destroy the weapons they do possess and the arms embargo will have to be properly enforced to make sure they don't get more weapons.

At the same time the arms embargo on the Libyan government in Tobruk will have to be at least loosened to allow them to fight ISIL and further deter the Islamists from using violence as part of the political process.

20:15 on 25/2/15 (UK date).


Monday 23 February 2015

Oscars 2015: The Sequel.

This should be read as a direct continuation of this; http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/the-oscars-2015.html

Having looked at the most talked about films of the year it's probably time to talk about the awards themselves and who won what.

Best Foreign Language Feature: From a political perspective this is the most important award of the night and is so competitive that there are actually qualifying rounds. Although the UK frequently uses its shared language to sneak into the other categories it is this award that provides most other nations their only opportunity to join the Oscars party and all its coded discussions. The price they have to pay for that access is that they have to produce films that make bold statements about their country of origin.

The early favourite was the Russian film "Leviathan." This tells the story of a man who has to battle the corruption that is sadly endemic within modern Russia in order to save his home. Obviously the film touches on a very sensitive issue within Russian politics and the films liberal use of bad language has given the Russian board of film classification an absolute nightmare in terms of editing it so it is fit for release.

As a result Leviathan was widely expected to win in order to give Russia a big slap in the face over its opposition to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the Nazi coup that has been carried out in Ukraine in support of ISIL.

However the Oscars went in a different direction and gave the award to the Polish film "Ida." This tells the story of a Polish Catholic novice nun Ida who suddenly discovers that she is in fact Jewish and her parents were murdered during the Nazi genocide. As part of her efforts to understand her new found national identity Ida is befriended by Wanda who fought as part of the Soviet resistance against the Nazis.

This is hugely relevant to the current situation in Ukraine because during the Nazi genocide Ukraine's western states were considered part of Poland. The reason why the current Ukrainian regime meet every year in Lviv to celebrate their role in the Nazi genocide is that it is close to the scene of the Pidkamin Massacre. This saw some 600 people massacred by the Grey Wolves of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UIA) and what has become the Ukrainian National Army (UNA) as they sought shelter in a Catholic monastery.

Best Documentary Short: Dealing with real-life issues the documentary categories always deal with political issues. This year's winner "Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1" deals with the Veterans Affairs crisis hotline which helps US veterans deal with what are often emotional crisis' brought about by Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). So while the lynch mob may have robbed "American Sniper" of its best picture award it is clear that the Oscars were not going to allow the wider issues to go unnoticed.

Best Documentary Feature: This went to "CitzenFour" which documents journalist Laura Poitras' meeting with Edward Snowden in a hotel in Hong Kong in the aftermath of his release of the NSA's "Prism" spy program.

This struck me as an odd choice because as with Julian Assange to people in the business what Snowden leaked is actually pretty pedestrian. So rather then being a hero who fought bravely against US intelligence Snowden was actually working for US intelligence - although he may not have realised it - in an effort to harass Russia over its opposition to ISIL during the Rihanna Diamonds World Tour (DWT) operation. As CitizenFour doesn't examine this aspect of the story at all it is a pretty terrible documentary. In a year when the fictional "Selma" was snubbed for laking factual accuracy it seems strange that the Oscars would give US intelligence a platform to perpetuate this nonsense.

However I suppose that with the Sony Pictures cyber-attack the US' role in computer hacking has been big news in Hollywood recently and very literally putting people like Glen "CIA" Greenwald in the spotlight does provide people like me with an opportunity to talk about the real Snowden story.

Best Picture: This went to "Birdman" which is very much a film about acting and the nature of fame. Filmed using some very inventive techniques it centres around Micheal Keaton's "Riggan Thomson" as he makes final preparations for a serious Broadway play that he hopes will help him escape from the role of "Birdman" a superhero in tacky blockbuster movies. In the opening scene Thomson is seen levitating so you're not quite sure if he actually has Birdman's ability to fly or whether this is how he sees himself or how he is seen by his fans. This issue of typecasting is obviously one close to the hearts of all actors and having watched both seasons of the BBC's "The Fall" one that star of "50 Shades of Grey" Jamie Dornan has really got to be worrying about.

Best Director: This went to Alejandro González Iñárritu for Birdman. Last year Iñárritu was the director of cinematography on "Gravity" which won multiple awards for its revolutionary approach to film-making. Birdman very much continues in that tradition with the film giving the appearance of being one long, continuous scene. This forced Iñárritu to almost completely re-conceive of the way films are made with two years of script preparation and extensive rehearsals with only around 6 weeks of actual filming and editing. As with Gravity a lot of the techniques Iñárritu developed for Birdman are likely to be used in future films and he has really helped to advance the art form. Reflecting this Birdman also picked up awards for Achievement in Cinematography and Original Screenplay.

Best Actor in a Leading Role: This went to Eddie Redmayne in "The Theory of Everything." As a young British actor Redmayne is fast getting a reputation as being very good at his craft. The role of Stephen Hawking was particularly challenging because it forced Redmayne to not only portray a man moving from youth to late middle age but also show the progression of a crippling physical disability. As a result Redmayne was clearly a worthy winner.

I though would have been tempted to snub him in response to the UK's neediness and instead give the award to Micheal Keaton for Birdman. That way Keaton would have won his first Oscar, Birdman would have won the same number of Oscars while American Sniper would have been free to take best picture.

Best Actress in a Leading Role: This went to Julianne Moore for her role in "Still Alice." In this Moore plays a woman who is suffering form early onset Alzheimer's. This is a disease that destroys the parts of the brain that encode and recover memories. As a result sufferers are left not only unable to recognise faces and recall people's names but also unable to comprehend what every day objects like a table are. This is actually quite difficult to get your head around let alone portray accurately on screen. As a result Moore was quite clearly the best actress in a leading role this year.

I also quite liked Still Alice because it seems a cheeky riposte to the UK's terrible twins. The UK of course will tell anyone who will listen that its horrific mis-treatment of my grandmother was part of a research project into Dementia. The UK's seeming inability to grasp that Alzheimer's and Dementia are two completely different things should act as a clue to how effective that research project has been.

Also I used to date a girl called Alice until she one day disappeared witness protection style likely with the help of the intelligence services. However rumours persisted that with her new identity she was trying to break into acting which left casting directors across the land wondering; "Is this Alice?!" Eventually the BBC did a production of "Parades End" in 2012 starring Benedict Cumberbatch that absolutely hammered my Alice who was being portrayed through the Valentine Wannop character.

So although I don't think there was any depth to the in-joke I got the impression that Still Alice was really trying to wind up the UK. The recent British Academy of Film and Television (BAFTA) awards certainly took the bait heaping attention on Still Alice.

17:50 on 23/2/15 (UK date).

Edited at around 20:10 on 23/2/15 (UK date) for a bit of a tidy up and to add;

Best Actor in a Supporting Role: This went to J.K Simmons for his role in "Whiplash." If you were to now go back and re-watch some of your favourite movies and TV Shows from the last 20 years there's a good chance you'll suddenly realise that J.K Simmons is in most of them. However you probably would have missed him the first time around because he's capable of inhabiting a character to such an extent that you just accept it rather then questioning whether it is an actor pretending to be someone. This is obviously something that all serious actors aspire to.

Apart from having a huge body of work Simmons also tends to favour small, less well paid independent projects that are both challenging and risky. The one I'm going to choose to focus on is the HBO series "Oz" that ran from 1997 to 2003 in which Simmons played seriously unpleasant neo-Nazi Vern Schillinger. Taking its name from "The Oswald Maximum Security Correctional Facility" where it is set Oz makes lots of little references to gay-icon film "The Wizard of Oz" and features a lot of realistic violence, full frontal male nudity, gay storylines and male rape. As a result even today it would be a challenge getting a show like Oz on TV but when it started back in 1997 it didn't so much open the door for realistic gay characters on TV as blew a fricking hole in the wall.

However I think the reason why Simmons won the Oscar this year is that although supporting his role in Whiplash is much larger then he is used to allowing him to really show off the talents he brings to pretty much every role.

Best Actress in a Supporting Role: This went to Patricia Arquette for her role in "Boyhood." Whereas Eddie Redmayne had the challenge of playing a man as he grows Boyhood addressed the issue of time passing by simply making the film over the course of 12 years by filming for a couple of weeks every year. As apparently no-one in the US has heard of the British "Up Series" of documentaries alongside Birdman this was considered a revolutionary approach to film-making rather then an idea that is almost 50 years old. Therefore I think Arquette won the Oscar to help acknowledge a film that didn't quite make it in other categories and to recognise her 12 year commitment to the part.

Providing one of the big talking points of the night Arquette used her acceptance speech to campaign for equal pay for women in America. Pay inequality and age-bias are particularly pressing issues in Hollywood because although great strides have been made to close the gender gap in recent years the film industry is still probably more sexist then wider society and the women working in the industry right now certainly wish that a lot more progress had been made.

However I have a small issue with Arquette's speech because back when production for Boyhood started Arquette was hot Hollywood property. Shortly afterwards though her career took a bit of a nosedive with her being forced into TV with shows like "Medium" before that was fashionable leaving her role in Boyhood as Arquette's only real claim to being a movie star. Therefore it would be incredibly easy to take the cheap shot of suggesting that rather then complaining how much she's been paid Arquette should be grateful she's working at all at her age.

However that may well have been part of the performance by producing an example of the type of prejudice women face in Hollywood. The Obama administrations decision to immediately leap on the issue that was a bit above its pay-grade seemed decidedly amateurish though.

One thing that reassured me that Arquette knew exactly what she was doing was the fact she had decided to wear a dress that was roughly 50% black and 50% white. This seemed to call attention to the big fashion trend of the year which saw women wearing all white dresses which seemed to be a protest against the Oscars perceived racist snubbing of Selma - Too much white at the Oscar's etc.

One of the worst offenders was Reese Witherspoon who also started a little campaign for women to be asked about more substantive issues then their dresses during red carpet interviews. Although I have a great deal of respect for Witherspoon as an actress and think she was unlucky not to win best leading actress it must be said that in my experience when you mis-read the more substantive issues that badly silence is definitely your friend.

At 21:15 on 23/2/15 (UK date) I am finally finished.

Edited at around 12:15 on 25/2/15 (UK date) to add;

I would have liked to have dropped subtle little hints about this throughout the awards season. Unfortunately I discovered that I lacked the talent. Therefore I had a choice between staying silent and seeming smug or ruining it for everyone.

The Oscars 2015.


Last night the 2015 Oscars were awarded in Los Angeles, California, US. I should probably start by pointing out that I'm still trying to find time to watch the 1966 film "The Battle of Algiers." As a result I haven't seen any of this years entries and am unlikely to do so before 2018 at the earliest.



With that disclaimer of out the way though I should point out that this year's Oscars really highlight just how spoiled we were by last year's Oscars. In films like "Gravity, Dallas Buyers Club, 12 Years a Slave, the Wolf of Wall Street" and "American Hustle" in 2014 we were treated to half a dozen excellent films. This year we only really have a handful of very good films and a couple like "Birdman" and "Boyhood" which are considered excellent due to some highly technical aspects of film-making rather then their wider mass appeal.



In part the reason for this is that in the creative industries as with every other human endeavour there is always an element of natural variation. However I think that the main reason is that even before the 2014 Oscars ceremony US President Barack Obama had used his State of the Union speech to fire the starting gun on what was a bruising, year long campaign for the mid-term elections. As a result many studios were discouraged from making any bold artistic statements in case they got dragged into the election campaign. After all as the attack on Sony Pictures demonstrated Obama is not above lashing out against those who criticise him.



As such I should probably start with the big scandal of the year - the alleged racist snubbing of "Selma" a historical biopic that supposedly told the story of Martin Luther King's (MLK) civil rights march from Selma, Alabama to Montgomery, Alabama in 1965. The important thing that you need to know about Selma is that it is - at best - a slightly above average film rather then a great one.



Although you make certain allowances for artistic license in historical biopics like Selma you expect at least a hint of historical accuracy. This is something that Selma completely fails to deliver. The most irritating inaccuracy because it appears throughout the film is that the MLK character is written entirely in the style of the soaring rhetoric of his famous "I Have A Dream" speech. As a person from living memory it is well established that MLK - nor any other person - spoke like that in private. However from the way he is portrayed in Selma you keep expecting there to be a scene where a waiter asks MLK what he wants for dinner and for him to reply; "I Have a Dream! that tonight a steak and some potatoes will play together on my plate. And they will be judged not by their fat content but how they taste upon my tongue!"



Not only is the MLK character in Selma extremely poorly written the version of the civil rights movement it tells is simply wrong. In the film MLK is portrayed as a black hero triumphing over a white devil in the form of President Lyndon B Johnson (LBJ) who will stop at nothing to deny civil rights to black people and keep them under the jackboot of white oppression. In reality at the time of the Selma march LBJ's government had already passed the 1964 Civil Rights Act and had a version of what became the 1965 Voting Rights Act ready to be introduced before Congress.



So although he may not have been able to say so publicly LBJ actually provided MLK with a lot of behind the curtain support knowing that his protests would help get LBJ's legislation through Congress. In fact there is a strong argument that LBJ's alliance with MLK and his confrontational style is what triggered the deep spilt between Republicans and Democrats that persists in US politics to this day. But don't expect that sort of analysis from Selma though.



The scene that really exposes Selma as a complete work of fiction though is the one where LBJ is seen signing an order allowing the FBI to spy on MLK in order to blackmail him into giving up his campaign. The FBI's monitoring and harassment of MLK and most everybody else did happen but it happened a long time before the Selma marches with the order actually being signed by Bobby Kennedy in 1962. Part of LBJ's support for MLK was that he brought the FBI blackmail campaign to an end almost 3 years before the Selma marches.



The way Selma handles the FBI's exposure of MLK as a serial adulterer is probably the film's biggest failure from an artistic perspective. Although he was a great man who achieved a great many things MLK was also a human with human flaws. The most serious of these was that MLK was a man with a huge ego and a serial adulterer who was seemingly incapable of remaining faithful to his wife despite being a Christian minister. However Selma downplays this aspect of MLK's life to the point where he is seen to be exposed for only one affair and this is portrayed almost as a fictional smear story that the FBI had simply made up.



It is often said that great art aspires to challenge you to question the way that you see the world and the people in it in order to change the way you think about life. For example the other much talked about of this years films "American Sniper" has at its heart the great moral contradiction that the hero has killed a lot of people, including children and doesn't seem particularly bothered by it. Unless you're a complete idiot this is quite a challenging idea to get your head around and the film has certainly provoked a lot of discussion particularly amongst lesser filmmakers. So for Selma to attempt to whitewash MLK's character flaws out of history is an artistic travesty that is not the hallmark of an Oscar winner.



Although I think that it should never have expected to win anything it seems that Selma was deliberately snubbed in the nominations in order to send the message that after the Black Lies Matter protests America has more then had enough of fairytales of racism and civil rights. I think the fly in the ointment was the lesser Golden Globes decision to award Best Song to "Glory" from Selma. This forced the Oscar's to also nominate Glory when I think they would have preferred to nominate David Oyelwoyo for Best Actor. That way we could have had lots of discussions along the lines of; "Great pretending. It's just a shame about the writing and the direction."

Glory did end up winning Best Song but I think that was more the Oscars jabbing the Golden Globes in the ribs to remind them of their mistake rather then a compliment.



I really hope that the protest hashtag #OscarsSoWhite was chosen because it is just two letters away from "Oscar's Snow White" - that very famous fairytale. As such it would have served as a warning for people not to be caught up in the racism accusations. After all while Jessica Chastain's meltdown at the Critics Choice awards may have won her friends amongst protesters it did great damage to her reputation as a filmmaker and artist.



I of course prefer to think of Selma in terms of the famous fantasy film "The Wizard of Oz" because whenever I see Eric Holder, Al Sharpton or Barack Obama on TV I find myself thinking; "Heart." "Brain." "Courage."  "Now off to Oz with the lot of you."

At around 12:10 on 23/2/15 (UK date) I'll be back with more when I find out who won what. 

Edited at around 14:30 on 23/2/15 (UK date) to tidy up and add;



With the US film industry backing off this year it opened the door to a large British presence among the nominees. The best of these is probably "The Grand Budapest Hotel." This is technically a very good film with it's set design, wardrobe design and general use of colour really helping to draw the viewer into its lush fantasy world and it did win 4 Oscars in technical aspects such as wardrobe and production design. However with the central story being false allegations of murder of an almost prince-like millionaire amid a world that is slowly being enveloped in fascism it could also be interpreted as a metaphor for either the Islamo-fascism of ISIL or the rise of good old fashioned Nazis in Ukraine although that is really just an operation in support of ISIL.

The UK's big Oscar push though has come in the form of "The Imitation Game" and "The Theory of Everything" which I have heard referred to as "The Terrible Twins." As with Selma both of these films are historical biopics of recent, inspiring (but British) men - one of whom is still very much alive.

The Imitation Game tells the story of Alan Turing a mathematician who played a lead role in the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War Two by breaking their famous Enigma code. This is a very obvious reference to the coded discussions that surround the Oscars where even some of the films themselves are coded references to something else. Although it is disputable Britain likes to claim that Turing invented the first computer so his story very much portrays Britain as world leaders in science, technology and innovation.

The title of the film is the name given to what is also referred to as "Turing Test" after the man who invented it. Essentially this is a set of rules that determine at which point an artificial intelligence machine can be considered capable of imitating a human. With huge advances on artificial intelligence in things like Siri, Twitter-bots and computer generated actors recently this topic is becoming something of a global issue particularly within the world of film-making.

The Imitation Game also tells the story of Turing's life after the war where he was exposed as a homosexual which was still considered a criminal offence in the UK in the 1950's and 1960's. Sentenced to chemical castration to control his "unnatural urges" Turing committed a very Snow White style suicide by biting into an apple laced with arsenic. To this day there is a persistent urban legend that Apple Computers logo of an apple with a single bite taken from it is a tribute to Turing. However that has been frequently denied by both of Apple's founders and their marketing department with the words; "We wish we'd thought of that."

Although I don't think it is particularly useful to talk about it in those terms nowadays homosexuality is considered more as a congenital disability then a choice. This was a big theme of the 2014 Winter Olympics which with a big focus on Jared Leto and songs from the Wizard of Oz the 2014 Oscars appeared to criticise as a missed opportunity to tackle homophobia within Russia. It also leads neatly into the second part of the UK's big Oscars push -The Theory of Everything.

This tells the story of Stephan Hawking a world renowned British astro-physicist. Hawking really coined the term "The Theory of Everything" to refer to a unified quantum field theory that would explain all life in the universe. This is a topic so complicated I think of the World's 7 billion people there's only really around 100,000 who properly understand it. I often refer to my great rambling posts like this one that bring together a range of diverse topics in an effort to explain their interaction with each other as; "Grand Theories of Everything."

While famous in his own right Hawking has probably been brought to a wider audience by the frequent references to him and appearances in the physics themed US sitcom "The Big Bang Theory." Although it has since grown into something much grander the first couple of series of this were very sharp attacks on elements of my personality. For example to this day Rihanna seems unable to decide whether I'm a Sheldon Cooper or a Leonard Hofstadter. This TV show was referenced a lot during the 2012 Summer para-Olympic opening ceremony that was narrated by Stephen Hawking.

Hawking of course also famously suffers from Motor Neuron Disease (MND) - ALS to Americans. This was such a hot topic in the summer of 2014 that thousands of people were forced to dump buckets of ice water over themselves in an effort to cool down. 

For the achievement of playing a man as he moves from almost his school days to early old age while developing a literally crippling physical disability Eddie Redmayne was widely tipped to win the Best Actor award for his portrayal. However I thought voters may have been turned off by the fact that much like Amanda Seyfried's character in "Jennifer's Body" this big effort by the UK was more then a little needy.

While I think the producers of Selma could have learnt a lesson from last year's "The Long Walk to Freedom" the campaign for The Imitation Game saw a rare mistake from legendary Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein. Although officially banned the Oscars sees lobbying for votes on such an epic scale it would put even the most venal politicians to shame. Weinstein is considered the master of this by being able to take some fairly average films like "The Kings Speech" to big Oscar wins.

This year Weinstein's campaign for The Imitation Campaign involved formally lobbying the British government to grant official pardons to all the men of Turing's generation who had been convicted of being homosexual. This struck me as very clever but in a year where this type of deceptive civil rights campaign were being distinctly frowned upon it seems to have been a rare miscalculation. The film's star Benedict Cumberbatch did go some way to redeeming himself by mischievously making some racially insensitive comments while discussing Selma.

Away from the Selma debacle probably the most talked about film of this year has been Clint Eastwood's "American Sniper." Here I have to declare an interest because due to my ability to suddenly pop up with devastating effect in far away warzones I have been compared to a sniper on numerous occasions. Also having recently watched "Gran Torino" with my somewhat racist father I am in danger of developing an absolutely humongous ego.

My enigmatic vanity aside though American Sniper is a film that certainly has a lot to say for itself. The central moral contradiction of the hero being a mass killer acts as a device for a wider discussion about war as a concept. War is undoubtedly chaotic, dirty and extremely violent.

Therefore it would be so much better if we could all live in a world where were we respected each others differences and solved our disputes through negotiation and compromise. The problem is that if just one person decides that they don't want to live like that and instead wants to use violence to impose their will on everybody else. When that happens there becomes no choice other then to use overwhelming violence against them in order to protect the wider peace.

This issue is particularly relevant this year with the rise of ISIL. Coming from a background of Ivy League universities and polite middle-class dinner parties US President Obama has time and time again proved himself incapable of grasping this universal truth. As a result ISIL are continuing to grow while Obama tries to challenge them with talking shops on job creation when they really do just need shooting in the f*cking face. We try to sound enthusisatic when we say it because it's really not at all funny.

The issue of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) also features heavily within American Sniper. Again this is a timely issue with the growing number of US veterans returning damaged from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and in particular the recent Veterans Affairs (VA) scandal which saw many of them dumped on the scrap heap while Obama rushes to find jobs for jihadis.

One of the main complaints about American Sniper from people who seemed to see it as their duty to condemn it was that the central character Chris Kyle isn't shown to be particularly affected by PTSD. However for people that are familiar with PTSD and the issues surrounding it that actually triggers a much wider discussion;

The first issue is that PTSD can have a very delayed onset. A guy I used to work with was caught up in an IRA bombing of a barracks in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. Despite seeing many of his friends blown to pieces he was fine for about 10 years. Then long after he'd left the army the nightmares and panic attacks suddenly started.

The other big issue is that the military very much has a culture that you achieve no matter what the adversity. Although it is essential in a warzone this culture of "suck it up and get on" can discourage veterans from seeking help for PTSD because there is so much pressure on them to pretend that everything is fine and they can cope. Therefore perhaps there needs to be a cultural shift within the military so PTSD is considered as just another element of combat fitness so if you're away from the battle you need to get it sorted in much the same way you would a broken leg or a nasty axe wound.

Another possible explanation of why Kyle wasn't particularly affected by PTSD is his role as a sniper. Although they operate within warzones almost by definition if the enemy know where a sniper is then the sniper isn't really do his job properly. As a result they tend to experience fewer moments where someone is literally trying to kill them which I think is one of the main driving factors behind PTSD. However despite being somewhat removed from the pumping adrenaline and mind numbing terror of close up combat snipers are brought very close to their targets through optical sights and in order to hit those targets they actually have to be very calm when they shoot.

As a result it seems to me that extremely likely that for each one of his 160 kills Kyle has very carefully considered the situation before calmly deciding that there is no other option then to take that persons life. As a result it is probably much easier for him to be at peace with what he's done then if he'd been blasting away with a machine gun or an area weapon like a mortar.

It is also likely that the portrayal of PTSD within American Sniper was downplayed out of respect because during filming Kyle was shot and killed by another veteran who he was trying to help cope with PTSD. Obviously that case is now the subject to an ongoing trial within the US but from what I've read in the media it does sound as though the accused was suffering from paranoid psychosis in reaction to PTSD at time of the shooting. As a result I think that he is certainly able to argue a defence of insanity and even if he is unsuccessful in passing what is a very high legal bar I'm sure the Judge will be prepared to be sensitive in sentencing.

I therefore think that American Sniper should have won best film. However I appreciate that with very vocal Democrats attacking them for giving a reality check to Selma Oscar voters would be hesitant to also celebrate a film that has been embraced by Republicans for fear of diluting the message on Selma. Also the trend this year has been very much towards the arty niche rather then the mass appeal of American Sniper.

In itself that promotes a discussion of the merits of high art versus mass appeal. For example I think the issues in American Sniper were raised in a much more artistic manner in the 2008 film "Waltz With Bashir." However I also know that despite it having a 7 year headstart that film has only been seen by a fraction of the people who have already seen American Sniper. As a result this is the first time that many of the people who only saw American Sniper will be having these discussions.
  

At 14:50 on 23/2/15 (UK date) of course there's going to be a sequel.