You may remember that a couple of weeks ago I was complaining from suffering from a sort of writers block. What I was planning to do to shift this was to go and write some long post offline about generally easy topics such as why the "Agents of Shield" TV show is far superior to sci-fi nonsense like "Star Wars." Then Libya kicked off and it shook me out of it anyway.
However in light of the Baltimore riots and Hillary Clinton banging on reforming the justice system and ending mass incarceration the stuff about the show "Oz" suddenly seems really relevant. After all shot on tape in 4:3 ratio it's definitely of her era.
Here in the UK the CBS Action channel has started re-showing Oz five nights a week. As a result I'm not so much binge watching Oz as being force fed it like a duck being prepared for foie gras. Showing what a huge impact the show has had on US TV barely an episode goes by where you don't find yourself going; "Oh look, there's where that actor got their start." Even Dr Taub from "House" turns up at one point, with hair.
One of the most interesting actors is a guy called J.D Williams who played "Bodie" in "The Wire" and plays "Kenny" who is essentially a younger version of Bodie in Oz. In one of his main storylines its discovered the character can't read so one of the prison officers makes a big effort to teach him how to read including by giving him a book by Booker T Washington. However one of the other inmates "Adebisi" who is very much a forerunner of the "Omar" character in The Wire won't let him because he wants to keep Kenny dumb so he'll keep taking and selling heroin. Even though Kenny's on a short sentence because they're both black no-one can be bothered to stop Adebisi.
One of the other actors who turns up is Jon Seda who now stars in a show called "Chicago PD" which really benefits from a lack of competition. What's impressive about Jon Seda is that much like Oscar winner J.K Simmons (and he's now listed in the program guide) he somehow manages to look younger now then he did 15 years ago.
19:00 on 30/4/15 (UK date).
Edited at around 2-:50 on 3/5/15 (UK date) to add;
Although I can't deny it now I gather Chicago PD also stars Sophia Bush. So when I clicked on some random hashtag on Twitter I thought; "I recognise that name." While I was working that out I realised that she was being followed by the US Ambassador the UN Samantha Power. This piqued my interest. Obviously it didn't pique it enough to Google her but I did then click on at least two further links containing her name. I understand "Still Alice" remains an absolutely amazing film.
Anyway rather proving my point about Oz being as relevant today as the day it was shot whilst I was trying to explain the role of Jesus Christ within Islam in relation to those Ethiopian Zephyrs I found myself thinking; "Basically what the Kareem Said character said in that episode I was watching just the night before."
However I think the greatest tribute to Oz comes from the recent Netflicks series "Orange Is The New Black" which I absolutely love btw. In one particular scene the female lead raised her head and screamed; "I'm cumming!" At which point the other female lead looked up from cunnilingus and said simply;
"Show, Don't Tell."
Thursday, 30 April 2015
Wednesday, 29 April 2015
The Nepal Relief Effort.
On Saturday (25/4/15) a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck at the shallow depth of just 15km (9 miles) in the centre of the country. In a country where most of the buildings were constructed before building codes or safety standards were introduced the effect of this 'quake was devastating. The death toll currently stands at 5,200 and is widely expected to exceed 10,000. There have been at least 11,000 injuries and some 8 million people are estimated to be in need of emergency assistance.
Responding to a disaster of this size is an absolutely mammoth task and even writing about it is hugely time consuming. For example in responding to Typhoon Haiyan that struck the Philippines in 2013 I had to read through 100 pages of daily reports listing the number of people killed and how they'd died. How many people had been injured, what - if any hospital - they were being treated in and if that hospital had adequate supplies. They also covered how much of the communication infrastructure such as roads and telephones had been destroyed and what rate they were being repaired. The daily reports also considered how much relief aid was arriving in the country, how it was being distributed and how many people were still in need.
Already committed to the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) which itself is an entirely man-made humanitarian disaster I simply do not have the time to respond to the Nepalese earthquake in the same way.
However I cannot ignore what I see on the news and it is becoming increasingly apparent that there is a logistics bottleneck at Kathmandu airport. This is the only airport in Nepal capable of handling the large transport aircraft needed to fly relief supplies in. Unfortunately it only has the one runway which is used for both take-offs and landings. The airport apron where aircraft are loaded/unloading and refuelled is only big enough to handle 9 aircraft at a time compared with say London Heathrow that can handle 180. Given the sheer numbers of foreign nationals that need to be evacuated from Nepal in order to take the pressure off the country and the sheer tonnage of supplies that need to be flown in this simply not enough.
The obvious solution I can think of is for Kathmandu to be closed to private air traffic and control of it to be handed to the Nepalese military. All relief flights can then instead be diverted to land at Delhi international airport which is far larger boasting three runways and a dedicated cargo hub. At Delhi the private flights can be unloaded, their contents prioritised and reloading onto military transport aircraft which hopefully the World will lend to the effort. With all military transport aircraft essentially being the same type they can be quickly unloaded at Kathmandu and reloaded with evacuees who are flown to Delhi from where they can travel on as normal.
Once the supplies have arrived in Kathmandu there is another bottleneck in terms of getting them from the airport to the areas they are needed. Even at the best of times Nepal's roads are notoriously difficult. In fact I think both the UK show "Top Gear" and the US show "Ice Road Truckers" did specials in the country because it's got some of the toughest roads they could find. The aftermath of an earthquake is most certainly not the best of times with many roads being blocked by falling debris or damaged to the point of being impassable. Therefore it might be worth prioritising what heavy plants - cranes, frontloaders etc - that are available towards clearing the major roads rather then recovering the dead from collapsed buildings in urban areas. Medium to heavy lift helicopters such as Blackhawks, Pumas and Chinooks are always incredibly useful in situations like these although the weather in Nepal is also terrible.
Obviously once the paths have been cleared for relief supplies to be delivered those supplies still need to be sourced and paid for. Yesterday the UK's Disaster's Emergency Committee (DEC) was launched and immediately raised USD28million. Those in the UK can continue to donate here; http://www.dec.org.uk/?gclid=CJaE6KSlnMUCFWgOwwodVJcAVA
Clearly I don't want to discourage people from contributing to the DEC appeal but as an umbrella organisation it does fund charities such as Save the Children who have a questionable record of political independence particularly in Syria. Political interference and ego driven turf wars are the things that plague international aid efforts with all the charities wanting to be able to show their donors how they've been helping the photogenic injured child while the more boring but essential tasks like logistics planning get ignored.
The problem that political interference within disaster relief effort can cause was rather neatly highlighted by the Bali 9 who were executed on Monday (28/4/15) afternoon (GMT). In his efforts to get these Australian drug smugglers freed Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said that Indonesia should reciprocate for all the aid Australia sent to the country following the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami. He appeared to be saying that because Australia had donated money to Indonesia it should get a say in how the Indonesian legal system operates. This prompted a campaign in Indonesia to give Australia it's money back and the political storm is unlikely to have aided the recent response to Cyclone Pam.
Fortunately the Nepalese government has taken steps to prevent this type of undermining of national sovereignty by making sure all relief efforts go through them to prevent overlap and waste.
Therefore I think it's better for people to donate directly to UNICEF because they accept donations internationally and being a United Nations body their entire existence is one long battle against egos and political interference;
http://www.unicef.org./
20:10 on 29/4/15 (UK date).
Edited at around 14:00 on 30/4/15 (UK date) to add the stuff about the Bali 9 which I somehow managed to forget despite it being one of my main points.
Responding to a disaster of this size is an absolutely mammoth task and even writing about it is hugely time consuming. For example in responding to Typhoon Haiyan that struck the Philippines in 2013 I had to read through 100 pages of daily reports listing the number of people killed and how they'd died. How many people had been injured, what - if any hospital - they were being treated in and if that hospital had adequate supplies. They also covered how much of the communication infrastructure such as roads and telephones had been destroyed and what rate they were being repaired. The daily reports also considered how much relief aid was arriving in the country, how it was being distributed and how many people were still in need.
Already committed to the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) which itself is an entirely man-made humanitarian disaster I simply do not have the time to respond to the Nepalese earthquake in the same way.
However I cannot ignore what I see on the news and it is becoming increasingly apparent that there is a logistics bottleneck at Kathmandu airport. This is the only airport in Nepal capable of handling the large transport aircraft needed to fly relief supplies in. Unfortunately it only has the one runway which is used for both take-offs and landings. The airport apron where aircraft are loaded/unloading and refuelled is only big enough to handle 9 aircraft at a time compared with say London Heathrow that can handle 180. Given the sheer numbers of foreign nationals that need to be evacuated from Nepal in order to take the pressure off the country and the sheer tonnage of supplies that need to be flown in this simply not enough.
The obvious solution I can think of is for Kathmandu to be closed to private air traffic and control of it to be handed to the Nepalese military. All relief flights can then instead be diverted to land at Delhi international airport which is far larger boasting three runways and a dedicated cargo hub. At Delhi the private flights can be unloaded, their contents prioritised and reloading onto military transport aircraft which hopefully the World will lend to the effort. With all military transport aircraft essentially being the same type they can be quickly unloaded at Kathmandu and reloaded with evacuees who are flown to Delhi from where they can travel on as normal.
Once the supplies have arrived in Kathmandu there is another bottleneck in terms of getting them from the airport to the areas they are needed. Even at the best of times Nepal's roads are notoriously difficult. In fact I think both the UK show "Top Gear" and the US show "Ice Road Truckers" did specials in the country because it's got some of the toughest roads they could find. The aftermath of an earthquake is most certainly not the best of times with many roads being blocked by falling debris or damaged to the point of being impassable. Therefore it might be worth prioritising what heavy plants - cranes, frontloaders etc - that are available towards clearing the major roads rather then recovering the dead from collapsed buildings in urban areas. Medium to heavy lift helicopters such as Blackhawks, Pumas and Chinooks are always incredibly useful in situations like these although the weather in Nepal is also terrible.
Obviously once the paths have been cleared for relief supplies to be delivered those supplies still need to be sourced and paid for. Yesterday the UK's Disaster's Emergency Committee (DEC) was launched and immediately raised USD28million. Those in the UK can continue to donate here; http://www.dec.org.uk/?gclid=CJaE6KSlnMUCFWgOwwodVJcAVA
Clearly I don't want to discourage people from contributing to the DEC appeal but as an umbrella organisation it does fund charities such as Save the Children who have a questionable record of political independence particularly in Syria. Political interference and ego driven turf wars are the things that plague international aid efforts with all the charities wanting to be able to show their donors how they've been helping the photogenic injured child while the more boring but essential tasks like logistics planning get ignored.
The problem that political interference within disaster relief effort can cause was rather neatly highlighted by the Bali 9 who were executed on Monday (28/4/15) afternoon (GMT). In his efforts to get these Australian drug smugglers freed Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said that Indonesia should reciprocate for all the aid Australia sent to the country following the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami. He appeared to be saying that because Australia had donated money to Indonesia it should get a say in how the Indonesian legal system operates. This prompted a campaign in Indonesia to give Australia it's money back and the political storm is unlikely to have aided the recent response to Cyclone Pam.
Fortunately the Nepalese government has taken steps to prevent this type of undermining of national sovereignty by making sure all relief efforts go through them to prevent overlap and waste.
Therefore I think it's better for people to donate directly to UNICEF because they accept donations internationally and being a United Nations body their entire existence is one long battle against egos and political interference;
http://www.unicef.org./
20:10 on 29/4/15 (UK date).
Edited at around 14:00 on 30/4/15 (UK date) to add the stuff about the Bali 9 which I somehow managed to forget despite it being one of my main points.
Operation Gold Beard: Month 2, Week 1, Day 5.
Last Tuesday (21/4/15) Saudi Arabia announced that it was ending its bombing campaign against its neighbour Yemen that began on March 26th (26/3/15).
Last Wednesday (22/4/15) Saudi Arabia carried out further air-strikes against the Yemeni city of Taiz. On Thursday (23/4/15) the Saudis carried out 20 air-strikes against the Yemeni cities of Aden, Hodaida and Ibb. I think you can see where I'm going with this.
On Sunday (26/4/15) the Saudis resumed bombing of Yemen's capital Sana'a. This seems to have been in response to an article published on Friday (24/4/15) in "The Economist" magazine which claimed that Iran had negotatiated a deal with the Saudis that would allow them to continue bombing positions in the south of the country provided they left the capital alone. The Saudis seem to be making quite clear that no such agreement ever existed.
The bombing of Sana'a continued on Monday (27/4/15) and yesterday (28/4/15) the Saudis bombed the runway at Sana'a airport in order to prevent an International Red Crescent/Cross (ICRC) aid flight from landing. The damage to the runway continues to prevent evactuation flights from taking off and aid flights from landing. The ICRC now describe the humanitarian situation inside Yemen to be a catastrophe beyond words. The US is still refusing to attempt to evacuate its nationals from the country.
Later on Tuesday the MV-Maersk Tigris that had been charted by a Saudi company to sail to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) entered Iranian waters in the Strait of Hormuz. This was done in the full knowledge that the ship and it's cargo were subject to a seizure order due to the non-payment of a debt. So as the ship entered Iranian waters it was duly seized by the Iranian Navy. Initially the ship failed to comply with the entirely lawful Iranian order to stop which forced the Iranian Navy to fire warning shots. At this point the ship sent out a distress call which prompted the US Navy destroyer USS Faragut to rush to the seen to moniter the situation amid inital reports that the Danish owned, Marshall Islands registered MV-Maersk Tirgis was an American ship.
This strikes me as a Saudi engineered situation intended to trigger a military confrontation between the US and Iran. The hope being that the USS Faragut would be tricked into opening fire on the Iranian Navy ships or that it would stray into Iranian territorial waters prompting the Iranians to fire on it. The US actually tried to play a similar trick on the UK back in 2007 when they messed about with GPS data causing UK Naval personnel to stray into Iranian waters and be detained for 13 days before the matter was resolved peacefully.
Just prior to the MV-Maersk Tigris entering Iranian waters Saudi Arabia announced that it had captured 93 members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) including 65 Saudi nationals over the first 4 months of this year. The group included 2 Syrians and a Saudi who had been planning to attack the US Embassy in Riyadh - Saudi capital. This struck me as a desperate attempt by the Saudis to convince the US that is was siding with them against ISIL rather then the other way around. The intention being to make sure the US/Saudi relationship was as strong as possible during the seizure of the Maersk Tigris.
It also served to distance Saudi Arabia from claims on Sunday that ISIL are now operating freely in Yemen fighting against the Yemeni government that Saudi Arabia is trying to overthow.
16:15 on 29/4/15 (UK date).
Last Wednesday (22/4/15) Saudi Arabia carried out further air-strikes against the Yemeni city of Taiz. On Thursday (23/4/15) the Saudis carried out 20 air-strikes against the Yemeni cities of Aden, Hodaida and Ibb. I think you can see where I'm going with this.
On Sunday (26/4/15) the Saudis resumed bombing of Yemen's capital Sana'a. This seems to have been in response to an article published on Friday (24/4/15) in "The Economist" magazine which claimed that Iran had negotatiated a deal with the Saudis that would allow them to continue bombing positions in the south of the country provided they left the capital alone. The Saudis seem to be making quite clear that no such agreement ever existed.
The bombing of Sana'a continued on Monday (27/4/15) and yesterday (28/4/15) the Saudis bombed the runway at Sana'a airport in order to prevent an International Red Crescent/Cross (ICRC) aid flight from landing. The damage to the runway continues to prevent evactuation flights from taking off and aid flights from landing. The ICRC now describe the humanitarian situation inside Yemen to be a catastrophe beyond words. The US is still refusing to attempt to evacuate its nationals from the country.
Later on Tuesday the MV-Maersk Tigris that had been charted by a Saudi company to sail to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) entered Iranian waters in the Strait of Hormuz. This was done in the full knowledge that the ship and it's cargo were subject to a seizure order due to the non-payment of a debt. So as the ship entered Iranian waters it was duly seized by the Iranian Navy. Initially the ship failed to comply with the entirely lawful Iranian order to stop which forced the Iranian Navy to fire warning shots. At this point the ship sent out a distress call which prompted the US Navy destroyer USS Faragut to rush to the seen to moniter the situation amid inital reports that the Danish owned, Marshall Islands registered MV-Maersk Tirgis was an American ship.
This strikes me as a Saudi engineered situation intended to trigger a military confrontation between the US and Iran. The hope being that the USS Faragut would be tricked into opening fire on the Iranian Navy ships or that it would stray into Iranian territorial waters prompting the Iranians to fire on it. The US actually tried to play a similar trick on the UK back in 2007 when they messed about with GPS data causing UK Naval personnel to stray into Iranian waters and be detained for 13 days before the matter was resolved peacefully.
Just prior to the MV-Maersk Tigris entering Iranian waters Saudi Arabia announced that it had captured 93 members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) including 65 Saudi nationals over the first 4 months of this year. The group included 2 Syrians and a Saudi who had been planning to attack the US Embassy in Riyadh - Saudi capital. This struck me as a desperate attempt by the Saudis to convince the US that is was siding with them against ISIL rather then the other way around. The intention being to make sure the US/Saudi relationship was as strong as possible during the seizure of the Maersk Tigris.
It also served to distance Saudi Arabia from claims on Sunday that ISIL are now operating freely in Yemen fighting against the Yemeni government that Saudi Arabia is trying to overthow.
16:15 on 29/4/15 (UK date).
Tuesday, 28 April 2015
Well Loretta Was Worth the Wait.
On August 9th 2014 (9/8/14) Micheal Brown attacked a police officer in the city of Ferguson, Missouri during the commission of a robbery. This prompted the police officer to shoot and kill Brown. Within hours all the forensic evidence from the scene indicated that this had been nothing except an entirely lawful and justified shooting.
However US President Barack Obama spied an opportunity to create a cause he could champion in order to sweep his Democrat Party to victory in that November's mid-term election. So US Attorney General Eric Holder abused his position to open federal investigations into both the shooting itself and the wider policing of Ferguson. In short he accused the entire city of racism.
Following the November mid-terms the case was finally presented to a Grand Jury for consideration. With absolutely no evidence that the police officer had acted in any way other then lawfully and properly the case was dismissed. Micheal Brown's family reacted to this news by inciting the city of Ferguson to riot both through the use of the phrase; "Let's not just make noise, let's make a difference" in the statement issued to the press and more explicitly with the call to "Burn this b*tch down!" made to the assembled crowd. A riot duly occurred. However no action was taken.
On March 4th of this year (4/3/15) after many months of delays Holder's report into Ferguson was finally released. It found that there was no evidence that the police officer who shot Brown had acted improperly nor any evidence of institutionalised racism within Ferguson. In short it simply showed that Holder had abused his position to violate the fourth and fifth amendments to the US Constitution. However no action was taken.
A week after the Holder report on March 11th (11/3/15) a gunman opened fire on police officers guarding Ferguson police HQ from the protests that had been taking place since August 2014. Micheal Brown's mother responded to this by saying; "F*CK THEM 2 COPS ION GOT NO SYMPATHY FOR THEM OR THEIR FAMILIES. Ant no FUN when the Rabbit got the GUN. #GoodMorning." However no action was taken and the Brown family felt secure enough in their position to sue the city of Ferguson over the lawful death of their son who was committing a robbery at the time.
While this was taken place in New York City a persistent offender by the name of Eric Garner was once again observed by the police selling illegal cigarettes in violation of both the law and the bail conditions imposed on him following his arrest for the same offence just a week earlier. Whilst violently resisting arrest Garner suffered a heart attack and died on July 17th (17/7/14). However the Democrats were really feinding for control of Congress so NYC Mayor Bill De Blasio, District Attorney Loretta Lynch and general waste of skin Al Sharpton colluded to falsify a Medical Examiners report claiming that Garner had been suffocated by the police.
Again the case was put before a Grand Jury and once again no evidence of police wrongdoing was found and the case was dismissed. Since then NYC has been in a lengthy legal fight to keep the Garner files - including the Medical Examiners report - secret from the public.
On December 13th (13/12/14) Al Sharpton addressed twin rallies in NYC and Washington D.C in which he smirked about the movement "embracing different methods" while the crowd chanted "What Do We Want? Dead Cops! When Do We Want It? Now!" On December 20th (20/12/14) two police officers in NYC were shot and killed in a pre-planned ambush. However no action was taken.
On April 12th (12/4/15) in Baltimore, Maryland a known drug dealer by the name of Freddie Gray was recognised by the police from his 22 previous arrests including 19 for drug possession/dealing and stopped for the purposes of a search. Being in possession of at least an offensive weapon (a flick knife) at the time Gray chose to flee and during the course of the chase fell and broke his neck. During his detention something - a sneeze would do it - caused Gray's fractured vertebrae to shift severing 80% of his spinal cord. Despite being immediately rushed to hospital and placed on life support he died eight days later on April 19th (19/4/15).
Obviously in Obama's America suggesting that a black man is responsible for his own actions is considered racist so nobody came forward to say this. Instead we got the usual round of conspiracy theories and wild accusations of racism in a city where the Mayor is black, the police Chief is black and both the city council and the police force are majority black.
Due to the Iran talks over the weekend the US decided to raise the tension even further on Saturday (25/4/15) by staging a mini-riot outside Baltimore's Camden Yards stadium. This was carried out in much the same way that the Tottenham riot that started the UK's August 2011 riots was carried out. Essentially a gang that funds itself through drug dealing was told to repay the protection it enjoys at City, State and Federal level by putting on a bit of a show. Baltimore's Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake decided to help things along by ordering the police not to intervene in order to - and I quote - "give those who wished to destroy space to do that as well."
As with the August 2011 riots the mini-riot at Camden Yards only added momentum and the violence continued at this low level on Sunday (26/4/15). My highlight was when a Russia Today who've really been enjoying all this due to the Ukraine sanctions crew were robbed by a group of 'peaceful protesters.' They immediately ran to the police for help.
On Monday (27/4/15) Freddie Gray's funeral was held in Baltimore during the middle of the day. During the Northern Irish Troubles this would have been referred to as a "colour funeral" because it's the type of event that protest groups use to display their colours and rally people behind their cause. It would also have been banned because they always lead to trouble especially when there's been trouble over the previous two days. In fact with all those accused entitled to have an independent autopsy carried out in their defence it is hard to explain why Gray's body had been released for burial this early in the investigation.
Despite the numerous clear and credible warnings that the funeral would lead to serious and widespread violence Mayor Rawlings-Blake took no action whatsoever and deployed the police at their normal patrol levels. So when the rioting inevitably broke out the police were overwhelmed and unable to control riots that saw 15 buildings and 114 vehicles set on fire alongside widespread looting and 15 police officers injured.
Eventually the Governor of Maryland - Larry Hogan - stepped in to relieve Rawlings-Blake of command by declaring a state of emergency, sending in the National Guard an implementing a week long 10pm to 5am curfew although dusk 'till dawn would be more effective.
Baltimore can go even further then that because they have the specific criminal offences of being a member of criminal gang (S9-804) or being the leader of a criminal gang (S9-805). This would allow them to immediately arrest any known or suspect gang members and I suggest they do just that.
The irony of course is that Rawlings-Blake sits on the Holder appointed panel intended to help Ferguson heal from its waves of rioting.
15:35 on 28/4/15 (UK date).
However US President Barack Obama spied an opportunity to create a cause he could champion in order to sweep his Democrat Party to victory in that November's mid-term election. So US Attorney General Eric Holder abused his position to open federal investigations into both the shooting itself and the wider policing of Ferguson. In short he accused the entire city of racism.
Following the November mid-terms the case was finally presented to a Grand Jury for consideration. With absolutely no evidence that the police officer had acted in any way other then lawfully and properly the case was dismissed. Micheal Brown's family reacted to this news by inciting the city of Ferguson to riot both through the use of the phrase; "Let's not just make noise, let's make a difference" in the statement issued to the press and more explicitly with the call to "Burn this b*tch down!" made to the assembled crowd. A riot duly occurred. However no action was taken.
On March 4th of this year (4/3/15) after many months of delays Holder's report into Ferguson was finally released. It found that there was no evidence that the police officer who shot Brown had acted improperly nor any evidence of institutionalised racism within Ferguson. In short it simply showed that Holder had abused his position to violate the fourth and fifth amendments to the US Constitution. However no action was taken.
A week after the Holder report on March 11th (11/3/15) a gunman opened fire on police officers guarding Ferguson police HQ from the protests that had been taking place since August 2014. Micheal Brown's mother responded to this by saying; "F*CK THEM 2 COPS ION GOT NO SYMPATHY FOR THEM OR THEIR FAMILIES. Ant no FUN when the Rabbit got the GUN. #GoodMorning." However no action was taken and the Brown family felt secure enough in their position to sue the city of Ferguson over the lawful death of their son who was committing a robbery at the time.
While this was taken place in New York City a persistent offender by the name of Eric Garner was once again observed by the police selling illegal cigarettes in violation of both the law and the bail conditions imposed on him following his arrest for the same offence just a week earlier. Whilst violently resisting arrest Garner suffered a heart attack and died on July 17th (17/7/14). However the Democrats were really feinding for control of Congress so NYC Mayor Bill De Blasio, District Attorney Loretta Lynch and general waste of skin Al Sharpton colluded to falsify a Medical Examiners report claiming that Garner had been suffocated by the police.
Again the case was put before a Grand Jury and once again no evidence of police wrongdoing was found and the case was dismissed. Since then NYC has been in a lengthy legal fight to keep the Garner files - including the Medical Examiners report - secret from the public.
On December 13th (13/12/14) Al Sharpton addressed twin rallies in NYC and Washington D.C in which he smirked about the movement "embracing different methods" while the crowd chanted "What Do We Want? Dead Cops! When Do We Want It? Now!" On December 20th (20/12/14) two police officers in NYC were shot and killed in a pre-planned ambush. However no action was taken.
On April 12th (12/4/15) in Baltimore, Maryland a known drug dealer by the name of Freddie Gray was recognised by the police from his 22 previous arrests including 19 for drug possession/dealing and stopped for the purposes of a search. Being in possession of at least an offensive weapon (a flick knife) at the time Gray chose to flee and during the course of the chase fell and broke his neck. During his detention something - a sneeze would do it - caused Gray's fractured vertebrae to shift severing 80% of his spinal cord. Despite being immediately rushed to hospital and placed on life support he died eight days later on April 19th (19/4/15).
Obviously in Obama's America suggesting that a black man is responsible for his own actions is considered racist so nobody came forward to say this. Instead we got the usual round of conspiracy theories and wild accusations of racism in a city where the Mayor is black, the police Chief is black and both the city council and the police force are majority black.
Due to the Iran talks over the weekend the US decided to raise the tension even further on Saturday (25/4/15) by staging a mini-riot outside Baltimore's Camden Yards stadium. This was carried out in much the same way that the Tottenham riot that started the UK's August 2011 riots was carried out. Essentially a gang that funds itself through drug dealing was told to repay the protection it enjoys at City, State and Federal level by putting on a bit of a show. Baltimore's Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake decided to help things along by ordering the police not to intervene in order to - and I quote - "give those who wished to destroy space to do that as well."
As with the August 2011 riots the mini-riot at Camden Yards only added momentum and the violence continued at this low level on Sunday (26/4/15). My highlight was when a Russia Today who've really been enjoying all this due to the Ukraine sanctions crew were robbed by a group of 'peaceful protesters.' They immediately ran to the police for help.
On Monday (27/4/15) Freddie Gray's funeral was held in Baltimore during the middle of the day. During the Northern Irish Troubles this would have been referred to as a "colour funeral" because it's the type of event that protest groups use to display their colours and rally people behind their cause. It would also have been banned because they always lead to trouble especially when there's been trouble over the previous two days. In fact with all those accused entitled to have an independent autopsy carried out in their defence it is hard to explain why Gray's body had been released for burial this early in the investigation.
Despite the numerous clear and credible warnings that the funeral would lead to serious and widespread violence Mayor Rawlings-Blake took no action whatsoever and deployed the police at their normal patrol levels. So when the rioting inevitably broke out the police were overwhelmed and unable to control riots that saw 15 buildings and 114 vehicles set on fire alongside widespread looting and 15 police officers injured.
Eventually the Governor of Maryland - Larry Hogan - stepped in to relieve Rawlings-Blake of command by declaring a state of emergency, sending in the National Guard an implementing a week long 10pm to 5am curfew although dusk 'till dawn would be more effective.
Baltimore can go even further then that because they have the specific criminal offences of being a member of criminal gang (S9-804) or being the leader of a criminal gang (S9-805). This would allow them to immediately arrest any known or suspect gang members and I suggest they do just that.
The irony of course is that Rawlings-Blake sits on the Holder appointed panel intended to help Ferguson heal from its waves of rioting.
15:35 on 28/4/15 (UK date).
Monday, 27 April 2015
And Breathe.
Over the weekend my father has been down to Wales for a family christening. Due to my track record with things like weddings we've been trying to keep this low key. However my father couldn't avoid parading through town on Friday (24/4/15) dragging a suspicious looking suitcase.
Perhaps by coincidence or perhaps by design this overlapped with a precursor meeting intended to negotiate the next phase of negotiations over Iran's nuclear program. In the jargon this type of meeting are often referred to as "Sherpa meetings" because they're attended by the civil servants and negotiators that do the heavy lifting to carry the tourists - sorry, heads of government - to the peak of summits.
Following the Lausanne round of talks the US was very keen for issues relating to my personal safety and security to be high on the agenda. So on Thursday (23/4/15) night injuries were sustained at the Westfield High School in Indiana when a stage collapsed. Following some financial issues the property developers who've been causing me so many problems have been trying to sell up to the Westfield shopping mall chain. Therefore hearing that "The Westfield stage has collapsed" was likely to annoying them and raise the tension.
Although I've not been following it Indiana also recently passed laws allowing for discrimination against gay people. The fact they tried to drum up support for the measure by declaring a local HIV/AIDS epidemic though makes them appear more then a little bigoted. It provides plenty to talk about though.
On Friday itself the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island on which it stands in New York City had to be evacuated following the discovery of a suspicious suitcase. Ellis Island is actually designated as a national park and the Obama administration has long used national parks as a coded way to encourage people to attack me. Ellis Island is of course also synonymous with immigration into the US so a terrorism scare at an immigration centre was intended to get people talking about irregular migration across the Mediterranean being used by Islamist terrorists to attack the EU.
Finally the Statue of Liberty is famously a woman holding a torch. On Friday evening millions of Armenians - both men and women - held torchlit processions to mark the centenary of the Armenian Genocide. Prior to his election Obama promised to formally recognise the genocide but now appears to have changed his mind.
On Saturday (25/4/15) the US staged a confrontation/mini-riot between Black Lives Matter protesters and the police outside the Camden Yards stadium in Baltimore. I must say that I didn't see the point of this because in this era of smartphones everywhere along with the large contingent of traditional media there to cover both the protest and the baseball game rather then sparking a worrying rumour the first most people heard about this was by watching footage of the confrontation which very clearly wasn't taking place at my house.
For their part on Friday evening the UK discovered the dismembered body of a woman in a flat in an entirely different part of South Wales. Although discussions about dismembered corpses are always a little unsettling I think this was mainly a device to allow the UK to announce that "A large police presence has the situation under control." However that could also be interpreted as the far more sensible Welsh police giving a hint to the London police. Containment after all is still proving hard work.
Anyway my father returned this afternoon, the christening went well and I actually kind of enjoyed not having to speak to another human being for the best part of four days.
19:00 on 27/4/15 (UK date).
Perhaps by coincidence or perhaps by design this overlapped with a precursor meeting intended to negotiate the next phase of negotiations over Iran's nuclear program. In the jargon this type of meeting are often referred to as "Sherpa meetings" because they're attended by the civil servants and negotiators that do the heavy lifting to carry the tourists - sorry, heads of government - to the peak of summits.
Following the Lausanne round of talks the US was very keen for issues relating to my personal safety and security to be high on the agenda. So on Thursday (23/4/15) night injuries were sustained at the Westfield High School in Indiana when a stage collapsed. Following some financial issues the property developers who've been causing me so many problems have been trying to sell up to the Westfield shopping mall chain. Therefore hearing that "The Westfield stage has collapsed" was likely to annoying them and raise the tension.
Although I've not been following it Indiana also recently passed laws allowing for discrimination against gay people. The fact they tried to drum up support for the measure by declaring a local HIV/AIDS epidemic though makes them appear more then a little bigoted. It provides plenty to talk about though.
On Friday itself the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island on which it stands in New York City had to be evacuated following the discovery of a suspicious suitcase. Ellis Island is actually designated as a national park and the Obama administration has long used national parks as a coded way to encourage people to attack me. Ellis Island is of course also synonymous with immigration into the US so a terrorism scare at an immigration centre was intended to get people talking about irregular migration across the Mediterranean being used by Islamist terrorists to attack the EU.
Finally the Statue of Liberty is famously a woman holding a torch. On Friday evening millions of Armenians - both men and women - held torchlit processions to mark the centenary of the Armenian Genocide. Prior to his election Obama promised to formally recognise the genocide but now appears to have changed his mind.
On Saturday (25/4/15) the US staged a confrontation/mini-riot between Black Lives Matter protesters and the police outside the Camden Yards stadium in Baltimore. I must say that I didn't see the point of this because in this era of smartphones everywhere along with the large contingent of traditional media there to cover both the protest and the baseball game rather then sparking a worrying rumour the first most people heard about this was by watching footage of the confrontation which very clearly wasn't taking place at my house.
For their part on Friday evening the UK discovered the dismembered body of a woman in a flat in an entirely different part of South Wales. Although discussions about dismembered corpses are always a little unsettling I think this was mainly a device to allow the UK to announce that "A large police presence has the situation under control." However that could also be interpreted as the far more sensible Welsh police giving a hint to the London police. Containment after all is still proving hard work.
Anyway my father returned this afternoon, the christening went well and I actually kind of enjoyed not having to speak to another human being for the best part of four days.
19:00 on 27/4/15 (UK date).
Sunday, 26 April 2015
Nepal Earthquake.
At around 11:10 local time (06:11 GMT) on Saturday (25/4/15) magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck in the centre of Nepal around 77km (47 miles) north-west of the capital Kathmandu. Although 7.8 is a medium to large rather then a massive 'quake Saturday's is very close the being the largest 'quake to strike Nepal (8.1 in 1934) and struck at a shallowish depth of around 15km (9 miles). To put it in perspective an aftershock today measured 6.7 which would be considered a significant earthquake in its own right.
Nepal is a small and impoverished country and in fact just last month a team of international earthquake experts were in the country to highlight that most Nepalese buildings would not be capable of surviving and 'quake even smaller then this one.
Sadly my first thought on all this was to realise that between the war against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the Ad-Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform (ADP) to produce a new climate change agreement and the UK election I am failing to do the work I have already got to do. Therefore I am in no position to take on even more work so will have to largely sit this one out.
Fortunately Nepal is located between two emerging superpowers in the form of India and China and India in particular have been very quick to respond manging to get the first relief flights on the ground in Kathmandu in just six hours.
The main thing that is needed at this stage of the relief effort is highly trained specialists in urban search and rescue who are no doubt preparing to fly in from around the globe as I write. The Nepalese government has also put out and international call for equipment to supply fresh water, tents for shelter, sleeping bags for warmth and most ominously bodybags. These of course all cost money;
So in the UK you can donate via; http://www.redcross.org.uk/NepalEarthquake?gclid=CJ3Mr7CElcUCFQsCwwodfnoAsw
Or internationally via; https://www.oxfam.org/
Or; www.unicef.org
22:40 on 26/4/15 (UK date).
Nepal is a small and impoverished country and in fact just last month a team of international earthquake experts were in the country to highlight that most Nepalese buildings would not be capable of surviving and 'quake even smaller then this one.
Sadly my first thought on all this was to realise that between the war against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the Ad-Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform (ADP) to produce a new climate change agreement and the UK election I am failing to do the work I have already got to do. Therefore I am in no position to take on even more work so will have to largely sit this one out.
Fortunately Nepal is located between two emerging superpowers in the form of India and China and India in particular have been very quick to respond manging to get the first relief flights on the ground in Kathmandu in just six hours.
The main thing that is needed at this stage of the relief effort is highly trained specialists in urban search and rescue who are no doubt preparing to fly in from around the globe as I write. The Nepalese government has also put out and international call for equipment to supply fresh water, tents for shelter, sleeping bags for warmth and most ominously bodybags. These of course all cost money;
So in the UK you can donate via; http://www.redcross.org.uk/NepalEarthquake?gclid=CJ3Mr7CElcUCFQsCwwodfnoAsw
Or internationally via; https://www.oxfam.org/
Or; www.unicef.org
22:40 on 26/4/15 (UK date).
Saturday, 25 April 2015
1915 - 2015.
In 1914 both the Russian Empire and the German Empire were looking to expand so largely invented a reason to go to war with each other. The German's plan was to quickly over-power France in order to defend their western flank so attacked through Belgium. Due to a mutual defence pact this brought the British Empire into the war on the side of the Russians. This was more then a little embarrassing because the British Royal Family are German and were forced to change their name to the much more English sounding "Windsor."
The Ottoman Empire - the last Islamic Caliphate - which at the time stretched across the middle-east to Egypt joined the war on the side of the German Empire. This did not go well for them. After just 3 months of war up to 90% of the Ottoman 3rd Army had been destroyed by the Russians at the Battle of Sarikamish which was fought in the Caucus region around what is now considered modern Armenia.
The Ottoman defeat at Sarikamish prompted Britain's young First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill - you may have heard of him - to devise an ambitious amphibious landing at Gallipoli on the Dardanelles strait. Once they landed the combined force made up of British, French, Canadian and Indian (including Nepalese) troops alongside the Australia and New Zealand Army Corp (ANZAC) intended to take control of the strait to allow allied British and Russian ships to pass between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea while at the same time marching on the Ottoman capital Constantinople (modern Istanbul) forcing the Empire to surrender.
Soon after it began on April 25th 1915 the Gallipoli became one of the greatest military failures in history. Although the invading force were quickly able to take control of the beaches and the cliffs overlooking them they then stopped and decided to play cricket. This gave the Ottoman troops time to re-group and launch a counter-offensive prompting both sides to dig in for the stalemate of trench warfare. After nearly 9 months and some 114,000 deaths the invasion force finally withdrew. Such was the arrogance of the British generals that this huge loss off life got people in India but mainly Australia and New Zealand starting to question whether they wanted to be part of an Empire where the English upper classes would blithely send so many of their young men to be slaughtered in such vast numbers.
Despite their victory at Gallipoli many ethnically Turk Ottoman generals including a one Mustafa Kemal Ataturk realised that they could not survive let alone win the war so set about abandoning the Empire and instead tried consolidate a much smaller nation state just for ethnic Turks. This nation became modern Turkey. To achieve this the Turks rapidly set about re-drawing the borders cutting cities like Kobane and Serekanyie in half and expelling all the other groups such as the Kurds and the Assyrians from the new country.
The group that suffered the most were the Armenians who starting from April 24th 1915 with the rounding up of Armenians in Constantinople saw around 1.5 million people killed until the ultimate fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1923. Millions more had their homes destroyed, possessions stolen and were forcibly deported to what is now northern Syria and Iraq in the death marches.
By any modern definition what happened to the Armenians during the fall of the Ottoman Empire is considered genocide and ethnic cleansing. However by the time we started defining things like genocide at the end of the second world war the alliance between Russia and the west had broken down so everyone was suddenly concerned with keeping Russian ships out of the Mediterranean. So in return for Turkey keeping the Dardanelles strait closed the Armenian genocide was all politely brushed under the carpet.
So no, it;s not a coincidence that Armenian Genocide day and ANZAC day occur that the same time. In fact on the 100th anniversary of both Turkey seemed to move the Gallipoli anniversary forward a day to distract from the Armenian memorial.
18:15 on 25/4/15 (UK date).
The Ottoman Empire - the last Islamic Caliphate - which at the time stretched across the middle-east to Egypt joined the war on the side of the German Empire. This did not go well for them. After just 3 months of war up to 90% of the Ottoman 3rd Army had been destroyed by the Russians at the Battle of Sarikamish which was fought in the Caucus region around what is now considered modern Armenia.
The Ottoman defeat at Sarikamish prompted Britain's young First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill - you may have heard of him - to devise an ambitious amphibious landing at Gallipoli on the Dardanelles strait. Once they landed the combined force made up of British, French, Canadian and Indian (including Nepalese) troops alongside the Australia and New Zealand Army Corp (ANZAC) intended to take control of the strait to allow allied British and Russian ships to pass between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea while at the same time marching on the Ottoman capital Constantinople (modern Istanbul) forcing the Empire to surrender.
Soon after it began on April 25th 1915 the Gallipoli became one of the greatest military failures in history. Although the invading force were quickly able to take control of the beaches and the cliffs overlooking them they then stopped and decided to play cricket. This gave the Ottoman troops time to re-group and launch a counter-offensive prompting both sides to dig in for the stalemate of trench warfare. After nearly 9 months and some 114,000 deaths the invasion force finally withdrew. Such was the arrogance of the British generals that this huge loss off life got people in India but mainly Australia and New Zealand starting to question whether they wanted to be part of an Empire where the English upper classes would blithely send so many of their young men to be slaughtered in such vast numbers.
Despite their victory at Gallipoli many ethnically Turk Ottoman generals including a one Mustafa Kemal Ataturk realised that they could not survive let alone win the war so set about abandoning the Empire and instead tried consolidate a much smaller nation state just for ethnic Turks. This nation became modern Turkey. To achieve this the Turks rapidly set about re-drawing the borders cutting cities like Kobane and Serekanyie in half and expelling all the other groups such as the Kurds and the Assyrians from the new country.
The group that suffered the most were the Armenians who starting from April 24th 1915 with the rounding up of Armenians in Constantinople saw around 1.5 million people killed until the ultimate fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1923. Millions more had their homes destroyed, possessions stolen and were forcibly deported to what is now northern Syria and Iraq in the death marches.
By any modern definition what happened to the Armenians during the fall of the Ottoman Empire is considered genocide and ethnic cleansing. However by the time we started defining things like genocide at the end of the second world war the alliance between Russia and the west had broken down so everyone was suddenly concerned with keeping Russian ships out of the Mediterranean. So in return for Turkey keeping the Dardanelles strait closed the Armenian genocide was all politely brushed under the carpet.
So no, it;s not a coincidence that Armenian Genocide day and ANZAC day occur that the same time. In fact on the 100th anniversary of both Turkey seemed to move the Gallipoli anniversary forward a day to distract from the Armenian memorial.
18:15 on 25/4/15 (UK date).
Thursday, 23 April 2015
Operation Featherweight: Month 9, Week 4, Day 4.
Amid the Tikrit offensive and my general level of cr*pness I've noticed that I've somewhat neglected the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in the Kurdish cantons in northern Syria.
Although it's still quite difficult to get accurate information out of what is a poorly mapped area it seems that the situation in the Cizire Canton which is right on the border with Iraq in Syria's Al-Haskah province has remained largely unchanged.
The city of Haskah which sits at the southern border of the canton remains disputed between ISIL and the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG). On March 7th (7/4/15) ISIL launched an operation to capture the city of Tel Tamr which functions as the YPG's main logistics hub supplying the fight in Haskah. This operation has continued with daily attacks being repelled by the YPG although the intensity of the ISIL operation has reduced in recent weeks. On the western border of the Cizire Canton ISIL have continued to launch attacks on the city of Serekanyie/Ras al-Ayn which is directly adjacent to the city of Ceylanpinar which sits on the Turkish side of the border. These attacks are largely being launched from the ISIL controlled town of Tel Abayd which sits around 70km (42 miles) to the west.
In both areas the US-led coalition continues to carry out roughly a dozen air-strikes per day across both areas. However these air-strikes seem intent on maintaining the status quo rather then assisting the YPG in forcing ISIL from positions they hold.
The situation in the central Kobane Canton has been more positive. On March 5th (5/3/15) the YPG succeeded in liberating the villages of Shiukh and Nasiri which sit on the Euphrates River right on the western border of the canton. From there the YPG have continued to push south liberating village after village. Although there are still ISIL held pockets such as the town of Sarrin the YPG are now within 2km (1.2 miles) of pushing ISIL entirely out of the south and west of the canton. Despite having to repel daily attacks from Tel Abayd it has been a similar story on the eastern front of the Kobane Canton. There the YPG have pushed south from the town of Bredirxane again liberating small village after small village. Although there are still ISIL held pockets around the towns Qertel and Shash the YPG are now within 5km (3 miles) of pushing ISIL entirely out of the south and east of the canton. Once the town of Jile is fully liberated ISIL will have been expelled entirely from the canton's central southern border.
While this has been going on the UK has been experiencing the Easter school holidays in the last week of March and the first week of April although it varies slightly from district to district. During this time all those under 18 years of age are given two weeks off school while their parents continue to work. As a result British teenagers get a lot of freedom during this time and many families use the two public holidays that bookend the Easter weekend to take short family breaks often on the European continent. The increased volume in people travelling from the UK and the increased freedom given to teenagers led to concerns that more Britons would try and make the journey via Turkey to join ISIL and there was a small spike in the number of people being stopped by the British authorities.
At the start of this period (April 1st) it was announced that Turkish/British dual national Erol Incedal had been jailed for 42 months for possessing a bomb making manual despite being cleared of a more serious but unspecified terrorism charge. That seems to have got the attention of the Turkish authorities because later that same day the arrested a group of 9 British Muslims (5 adults, 4 children) at a border crossing in Ogulpinar, Hatay province where they were suspected of being about to cross into Syria. Although I don't think the Turkish authorities were aware of it at the time one of the men arrested - Waheed Ahmed - is the son of Shakil Ahmed, a low-level local councillor for the Labour Party in Rochdale and the other members of the group were members of his extended family.
Since then the Turkish authorities seem to have been much more compliant with requests from the British authorities to help stop specific individuals suspected of trying to join ISIL. For example just on Monday (19/4/15) they managed to stop a British couple and their four children after the UK publicly appealed for their help. This change in Turkey's position I think helps to highlight Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's style of leadership. Although I don't want to racially stereotype the Turks have a reputation for having quite aggressive and confrontational personalities. Erdogan takes great pride in living up to this national stereotype so will just push and push at people until they give him what he wants. I'd stop short of describing this as bullying because the expectation is that if he starts to go too far the person he's pushing against will simply push back in a similar fashion. The nearest comparison I can think of from US politics is New Jersey Governor Chris Christie who I think we can all agree is incompatible with US President Barack Obama's style of leadership.
Although everyone else who was arrested during the Easter period has been charged with terrorism offences I noticed on Monday (19/4/15) the Ahmed group were not charged. Contrary to what ISIL recruiters may say in the UK we don't put people in prison simply for being Muslim. Instead we first have to prove that they have committed a specific criminal offence - travelling to join a listed terrorist group seems to be the most applicable here. On its own simply travelling to Turkey's border with Syria would not be enough to prove that offence. However here in the UK we are in the middle of a General Election campaign with election laws demanding political impartiality from all public bodies.
Once the party of the working class the Labour Party have recently re-invented themselves as the party of the tithed immigrant. Where I live in south London this means that they appeal mainly to recent immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean. However in places such as Rochdale the north of England this means that they appeal mainly to Muslim immigrants from Pakistan. George Galloway's Bradford West is probably the most extreme case study. This policy of agreeing with the immigrants no matter what has led to the Labour Party supporting some very extreme Islamist causes. For examples they were big friends with CAGE UK - the group that helped "Jihadi John" join ISIL.
Rochdale was recently hit very hard by the Labour Party's 'tolerance' when it emerged that a gang of Muslim men of Pakistani descent had been abducting children from the streets, raping them and trafficking them around the country for the purposes of child prostitution. This was done with the assistance of the local police and the local council. As a result I can see why the police and Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in Rochdale would be extremely hesitant to charge the family of a local Labour councillor with terrorism offences during an election campaign.
However today the High Court overturned the result of the 2014 Mayoral Election in the London borough of Tower Hamlets after finding the Mayor - Lutfur Rahman - guilty of fraud and corruption during the campaign. Although Rahman is a Bangladeshi Muslim who led a splinter group away from the Labour Party Tower Hamlets has long been considered the most extreme example of Labour's dodgy election practises. Therefore the timing of the conviction seems to be the national authorities indicating that the Ahmed case may well be looked at again following the election.
17:45 on 23/4/15 (UK date).
Although it's still quite difficult to get accurate information out of what is a poorly mapped area it seems that the situation in the Cizire Canton which is right on the border with Iraq in Syria's Al-Haskah province has remained largely unchanged.
The city of Haskah which sits at the southern border of the canton remains disputed between ISIL and the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG). On March 7th (7/4/15) ISIL launched an operation to capture the city of Tel Tamr which functions as the YPG's main logistics hub supplying the fight in Haskah. This operation has continued with daily attacks being repelled by the YPG although the intensity of the ISIL operation has reduced in recent weeks. On the western border of the Cizire Canton ISIL have continued to launch attacks on the city of Serekanyie/Ras al-Ayn which is directly adjacent to the city of Ceylanpinar which sits on the Turkish side of the border. These attacks are largely being launched from the ISIL controlled town of Tel Abayd which sits around 70km (42 miles) to the west.
In both areas the US-led coalition continues to carry out roughly a dozen air-strikes per day across both areas. However these air-strikes seem intent on maintaining the status quo rather then assisting the YPG in forcing ISIL from positions they hold.
The situation in the central Kobane Canton has been more positive. On March 5th (5/3/15) the YPG succeeded in liberating the villages of Shiukh and Nasiri which sit on the Euphrates River right on the western border of the canton. From there the YPG have continued to push south liberating village after village. Although there are still ISIL held pockets such as the town of Sarrin the YPG are now within 2km (1.2 miles) of pushing ISIL entirely out of the south and west of the canton. Despite having to repel daily attacks from Tel Abayd it has been a similar story on the eastern front of the Kobane Canton. There the YPG have pushed south from the town of Bredirxane again liberating small village after small village. Although there are still ISIL held pockets around the towns Qertel and Shash the YPG are now within 5km (3 miles) of pushing ISIL entirely out of the south and east of the canton. Once the town of Jile is fully liberated ISIL will have been expelled entirely from the canton's central southern border.
While this has been going on the UK has been experiencing the Easter school holidays in the last week of March and the first week of April although it varies slightly from district to district. During this time all those under 18 years of age are given two weeks off school while their parents continue to work. As a result British teenagers get a lot of freedom during this time and many families use the two public holidays that bookend the Easter weekend to take short family breaks often on the European continent. The increased volume in people travelling from the UK and the increased freedom given to teenagers led to concerns that more Britons would try and make the journey via Turkey to join ISIL and there was a small spike in the number of people being stopped by the British authorities.
At the start of this period (April 1st) it was announced that Turkish/British dual national Erol Incedal had been jailed for 42 months for possessing a bomb making manual despite being cleared of a more serious but unspecified terrorism charge. That seems to have got the attention of the Turkish authorities because later that same day the arrested a group of 9 British Muslims (5 adults, 4 children) at a border crossing in Ogulpinar, Hatay province where they were suspected of being about to cross into Syria. Although I don't think the Turkish authorities were aware of it at the time one of the men arrested - Waheed Ahmed - is the son of Shakil Ahmed, a low-level local councillor for the Labour Party in Rochdale and the other members of the group were members of his extended family.
Since then the Turkish authorities seem to have been much more compliant with requests from the British authorities to help stop specific individuals suspected of trying to join ISIL. For example just on Monday (19/4/15) they managed to stop a British couple and their four children after the UK publicly appealed for their help. This change in Turkey's position I think helps to highlight Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's style of leadership. Although I don't want to racially stereotype the Turks have a reputation for having quite aggressive and confrontational personalities. Erdogan takes great pride in living up to this national stereotype so will just push and push at people until they give him what he wants. I'd stop short of describing this as bullying because the expectation is that if he starts to go too far the person he's pushing against will simply push back in a similar fashion. The nearest comparison I can think of from US politics is New Jersey Governor Chris Christie who I think we can all agree is incompatible with US President Barack Obama's style of leadership.
Although everyone else who was arrested during the Easter period has been charged with terrorism offences I noticed on Monday (19/4/15) the Ahmed group were not charged. Contrary to what ISIL recruiters may say in the UK we don't put people in prison simply for being Muslim. Instead we first have to prove that they have committed a specific criminal offence - travelling to join a listed terrorist group seems to be the most applicable here. On its own simply travelling to Turkey's border with Syria would not be enough to prove that offence. However here in the UK we are in the middle of a General Election campaign with election laws demanding political impartiality from all public bodies.
Once the party of the working class the Labour Party have recently re-invented themselves as the party of the tithed immigrant. Where I live in south London this means that they appeal mainly to recent immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean. However in places such as Rochdale the north of England this means that they appeal mainly to Muslim immigrants from Pakistan. George Galloway's Bradford West is probably the most extreme case study. This policy of agreeing with the immigrants no matter what has led to the Labour Party supporting some very extreme Islamist causes. For examples they were big friends with CAGE UK - the group that helped "Jihadi John" join ISIL.
Rochdale was recently hit very hard by the Labour Party's 'tolerance' when it emerged that a gang of Muslim men of Pakistani descent had been abducting children from the streets, raping them and trafficking them around the country for the purposes of child prostitution. This was done with the assistance of the local police and the local council. As a result I can see why the police and Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in Rochdale would be extremely hesitant to charge the family of a local Labour councillor with terrorism offences during an election campaign.
However today the High Court overturned the result of the 2014 Mayoral Election in the London borough of Tower Hamlets after finding the Mayor - Lutfur Rahman - guilty of fraud and corruption during the campaign. Although Rahman is a Bangladeshi Muslim who led a splinter group away from the Labour Party Tower Hamlets has long been considered the most extreme example of Labour's dodgy election practises. Therefore the timing of the conviction seems to be the national authorities indicating that the Ahmed case may well be looked at again following the election.
17:45 on 23/4/15 (UK date).
UK Election: Still Rubbish.
On May 7th (7/5/15) the UK will go to the polls in a General Election. For the first time we have known the date of this election long in advance following the introduction of the 2011 Fixed Term Parliament Act. So the election campaign really began the day after the act was passed and Sky News in particular have been covering it relentlessly, at the expense of all other news, since the start of 2015.
The problem is that with campaigning replacing actual politics the level of political discussion in the UK at the moment is practically nil so people have really had to struggle to find things to fill their endless hours of election coverage. One of the most widely used element of this padding recently has been rumours of a secret election deal between the Labour Party and the Scottish National Party (SNP). This is simply a scare story dreamt up by the Conservative Party.
Primarily it is intended to target English voters who may be wavering between voting Conservative or Labour to vote Conservative in order to keep the SNP out. However it is also intended to target Scottish voters who may be wavering between voting Labour or the SNP. By making it appear as though the SNP are the Conservatives worst nightmare the intention is to trick Scottish voters into voting for the SNP over Labour. In the first instance this will reduce the number of people voting Labour damaging their chances of forming a majority government.
However in the second instance a strong showing by the SNP will help increase support for the Conservatives call for an English Parliament. The Conservatives simply don't win in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland but do stand a chance in England. So by introducing an English Parliament the Conservatives will be able to exclude all the voters in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in order to maintain a permanent majority in England while the SNP secure a permenant majority in the Scottish Parliament. It is of course England that generates the money that subsidises Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and it is with money that real power lies.
So the only secret election pact is actually between the Conservatives and the SNP.
11:45 on 23/4/15 (UK date).
The problem is that with campaigning replacing actual politics the level of political discussion in the UK at the moment is practically nil so people have really had to struggle to find things to fill their endless hours of election coverage. One of the most widely used element of this padding recently has been rumours of a secret election deal between the Labour Party and the Scottish National Party (SNP). This is simply a scare story dreamt up by the Conservative Party.
Primarily it is intended to target English voters who may be wavering between voting Conservative or Labour to vote Conservative in order to keep the SNP out. However it is also intended to target Scottish voters who may be wavering between voting Labour or the SNP. By making it appear as though the SNP are the Conservatives worst nightmare the intention is to trick Scottish voters into voting for the SNP over Labour. In the first instance this will reduce the number of people voting Labour damaging their chances of forming a majority government.
However in the second instance a strong showing by the SNP will help increase support for the Conservatives call for an English Parliament. The Conservatives simply don't win in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland but do stand a chance in England. So by introducing an English Parliament the Conservatives will be able to exclude all the voters in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in order to maintain a permanent majority in England while the SNP secure a permenant majority in the Scottish Parliament. It is of course England that generates the money that subsidises Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and it is with money that real power lies.
So the only secret election pact is actually between the Conservatives and the SNP.
11:45 on 23/4/15 (UK date).
Wednesday, 22 April 2015
Operation Gold Beard: Week 4, Day 7.
On March 26th (26/3/15) Saudi Arabia embarked on an aerial bombing campaign against it's neighbour Yemen. The hope seemed to be that this onslaught would cause the Yemeni government to collapse allowing Saudi Arabia to re-install the government of Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi which had been forced to flee the country earlier day after being overthrown by a popular rebellion. This seems to have been a complete failure with the areas controlled by the Hadi loyalists continuing to shrink despite the Saudi air-strikes.
After 27 days of bombing which have seen around 120 air-strikes a day alongside a naval bombardment of the port city of Aden the Saudis have simply run out of targets to destroy. Their recent efforts to expand their range of targets in order to sustain the operation have led to them coming under increased international pressure. For example on Monday (20/4/15) the Saudis struck a Scud missile storage facility close to the government district of Yemen's capital Sana'a. Alongside killing 25 people and injuring almost 400 this strike caused a massive explosion that blew out windows and damaged buildings across a wide area. One of the buildings heavily damaged was the Indonesian Embassy where two diplomats were wounded and an Indonesian citizens was killed. This prompted Indonesia to lodge a formal diplomatic complaint with Saudi Arabia.
Yesterday (21/4/15) Saudi Arabia announced that it would be ending the bombing campaign and starting a new phase of operations which they have dubbed "Operation Restore Hope." No-one is quite sure what this new phase will entail but the Saudis seem to have three options;
Firstly they could simply stop and allow the Yemeni people to decide how their country is run and by whom. This seems extremely unlikely.
The second option would be for Saudi Arabia to try and contain the situation by maintaining a blockade of Yemen. Saudi Arabia is of course free to open and close its long land border with Yemen as it wishes and last Tuesday (14/4/15) the Saudis secured a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution that allows it to impose a naval blockade on Yemen under the guise of enforcing an arms embargo.
From a humanitarian perspective this would be very alarming because Yemen imports around 90-95% of its food. If Saudi Arabia refuses to allow those supply ships through the blockade they will effectively be starving the nation to death. From a global security perspective this would be extremely dangerous because by allowing Saudi Arabia to formally control the Gulf of Aden long term it makes it much easier for them to supply Islamist terrorists in Somalia with weapons and equipment. From there they will attack neighbouring states such as Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda destabilising the entire region. Also on Monday (20/4/14) the US were forced to more an aircraft carrier group into the Gulf of Aden to prevent the Saudis attacking Iranian shipping in the area triggering a regional war.
Finally the Saudis could maintain the blockade while conducting the sort of hybrid warfare they've waged in Libya, Syria and Ukraine. This involves using special forces to train and equip different factions in order to destabilise the country by keeping it in a constant sate of low-level conflict. The Saudis may also choose to support these groups with the occasional air-strike. As you can see from Libya and Syria this will completely destroy Yemen as a country.
It is also extremely risky for global security because one of the largest armed groups in Yemen is Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Amid the Saudi air-strikes AQAP have grown in strength freeing many of their members from prison and seizing large areas including the Mukalla airport and oil terminal. With the help of the US' drone program Saudi Arabia seem to be positioning themselves to make AQAP their main ally in Yemen.
Despite yesterday's announcement Saudi air-strikes have continued today in Yemen. So at this point I don't think even the Saudis know what their next move will be.
15:55 on 22/4/15 (UK date).
After 27 days of bombing which have seen around 120 air-strikes a day alongside a naval bombardment of the port city of Aden the Saudis have simply run out of targets to destroy. Their recent efforts to expand their range of targets in order to sustain the operation have led to them coming under increased international pressure. For example on Monday (20/4/15) the Saudis struck a Scud missile storage facility close to the government district of Yemen's capital Sana'a. Alongside killing 25 people and injuring almost 400 this strike caused a massive explosion that blew out windows and damaged buildings across a wide area. One of the buildings heavily damaged was the Indonesian Embassy where two diplomats were wounded and an Indonesian citizens was killed. This prompted Indonesia to lodge a formal diplomatic complaint with Saudi Arabia.
Yesterday (21/4/15) Saudi Arabia announced that it would be ending the bombing campaign and starting a new phase of operations which they have dubbed "Operation Restore Hope." No-one is quite sure what this new phase will entail but the Saudis seem to have three options;
Firstly they could simply stop and allow the Yemeni people to decide how their country is run and by whom. This seems extremely unlikely.
The second option would be for Saudi Arabia to try and contain the situation by maintaining a blockade of Yemen. Saudi Arabia is of course free to open and close its long land border with Yemen as it wishes and last Tuesday (14/4/15) the Saudis secured a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution that allows it to impose a naval blockade on Yemen under the guise of enforcing an arms embargo.
From a humanitarian perspective this would be very alarming because Yemen imports around 90-95% of its food. If Saudi Arabia refuses to allow those supply ships through the blockade they will effectively be starving the nation to death. From a global security perspective this would be extremely dangerous because by allowing Saudi Arabia to formally control the Gulf of Aden long term it makes it much easier for them to supply Islamist terrorists in Somalia with weapons and equipment. From there they will attack neighbouring states such as Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda destabilising the entire region. Also on Monday (20/4/14) the US were forced to more an aircraft carrier group into the Gulf of Aden to prevent the Saudis attacking Iranian shipping in the area triggering a regional war.
Finally the Saudis could maintain the blockade while conducting the sort of hybrid warfare they've waged in Libya, Syria and Ukraine. This involves using special forces to train and equip different factions in order to destabilise the country by keeping it in a constant sate of low-level conflict. The Saudis may also choose to support these groups with the occasional air-strike. As you can see from Libya and Syria this will completely destroy Yemen as a country.
It is also extremely risky for global security because one of the largest armed groups in Yemen is Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Amid the Saudi air-strikes AQAP have grown in strength freeing many of their members from prison and seizing large areas including the Mukalla airport and oil terminal. With the help of the US' drone program Saudi Arabia seem to be positioning themselves to make AQAP their main ally in Yemen.
Despite yesterday's announcement Saudi air-strikes have continued today in Yemen. So at this point I don't think even the Saudis know what their next move will be.
15:55 on 22/4/15 (UK date).
Don't Drink and YouTube.
Throughout 2013 the US tried to use the popstar Rihanna as political pawn in an effort to dominate pretty much every global political issue. This was doomed to failure from the start but I stayed with the tour in an effort to protect Rihanna. My hope was that once the tour was over Rihanna could take a year off to put all the politics behind her an return to simply being a popstar. Sadly Rihanna's people seem to have had other ideas and if anything are trying to get her more entangled in politics.
Rihanna's latest single "American Oxygen" has already been brought to a wide audience in the US have been used in the TV coverage of the recent college basketball competition known as "March Madness." The song attempts to contrast the idealised American dream that bring migrants flocking to the US with the disenchantment felt by may poor - often black - Americans. In short it is a campaign effort intended to champion US President Obama's twin causes of immigration reform and the anti-police "Black Lives Matter" protests.
Last night my curiosity finally got the better of me and I watched the video for American Oxygen on YouTube. It very much tries to drive home the message of the song by contrasting file footage of irregular migrants trying to smuggle themselves into the US from Central and South America with footage of the civil rights protests of the 1960's including the famous 1965 Selma march and the more recent Black Lives Matter protests. The sequence early on showing presumably European refugees in silhouette seems to be a deliberate nod to Israel of the Nazi holocaust. During the recent anniversary of the Selma march which has recently been labelled "Bloody Sunday" I went on something of a three day rant about how the police repression of the Selma protesters was far less then the repression of protesters at the 1999 anti-WTO protests in Seattle, Washington state that have become know as "The Battle in Seattle." As a result the video also included file footage of the Seattle protests.
This reminded me to the 2001 Rage Against the Machine (RATM) video "Sleep Now in the Fire" which is an overtly political song and very much of the anti-WTO protest era. Rather then relying on file footage in order to make the video RATM staged an illegal concert/protest which succeeded in shutting down Wall Street and the US Stock Exchange and very nearly landed the band in jail. Following the 9/11/(01) terror attacks RATM were blacklisted by every major US TV and radio network which proves politics can be a very risky business for popstars.
Although the guy who wrote it claims that American Oxygen was inspired by the Bruce Springsteen song "Born in the USA" it actually seems heavily influenced by the Guns and Roses (GnR) song "Coma." GnR are a band that became world famous almost overnight and suddenly discovered that they hated being that famous. As a result the spent the next four years trying to get their record company to release them from their contract. Coma was written during this period and is very much about the bands desire to end their career. It uses as a metaphor being on life support in hospital where you just want to slip away and die but people are constantly prodding, probing and monitoring you in an effort to force you to stay alive. If you were going though a similar experience in the US you would probably be given American oxygen as part of your treatment.
Having not see the video for Coma in the best part of 15 years it came as a big surprise to me that there's a sequence in it in which a man is drowning at sea and has to be rescued by a US Coastguard helicopter. In itself this was probably a reference to a wave of migrants who were trying to enter the US by sea during the same time. However with the migrant drownings in the Mediterranean being big news at the moment and the US refusing to help with a problem it largely created this struck me as life turning full circle rather like Boetheius' ever spinning big wheel.
Of course when you watch videos on YouTube it automatically suggests other videos that you might also want to watch. As a result I kind of got a bit stuck and that "I'll just finish this beer" turned into four or five more.
14:55 on 22/4/15 (UK date).
Rihanna's latest single "American Oxygen" has already been brought to a wide audience in the US have been used in the TV coverage of the recent college basketball competition known as "March Madness." The song attempts to contrast the idealised American dream that bring migrants flocking to the US with the disenchantment felt by may poor - often black - Americans. In short it is a campaign effort intended to champion US President Obama's twin causes of immigration reform and the anti-police "Black Lives Matter" protests.
Last night my curiosity finally got the better of me and I watched the video for American Oxygen on YouTube. It very much tries to drive home the message of the song by contrasting file footage of irregular migrants trying to smuggle themselves into the US from Central and South America with footage of the civil rights protests of the 1960's including the famous 1965 Selma march and the more recent Black Lives Matter protests. The sequence early on showing presumably European refugees in silhouette seems to be a deliberate nod to Israel of the Nazi holocaust. During the recent anniversary of the Selma march which has recently been labelled "Bloody Sunday" I went on something of a three day rant about how the police repression of the Selma protesters was far less then the repression of protesters at the 1999 anti-WTO protests in Seattle, Washington state that have become know as "The Battle in Seattle." As a result the video also included file footage of the Seattle protests.
This reminded me to the 2001 Rage Against the Machine (RATM) video "Sleep Now in the Fire" which is an overtly political song and very much of the anti-WTO protest era. Rather then relying on file footage in order to make the video RATM staged an illegal concert/protest which succeeded in shutting down Wall Street and the US Stock Exchange and very nearly landed the band in jail. Following the 9/11/(01) terror attacks RATM were blacklisted by every major US TV and radio network which proves politics can be a very risky business for popstars.
Although the guy who wrote it claims that American Oxygen was inspired by the Bruce Springsteen song "Born in the USA" it actually seems heavily influenced by the Guns and Roses (GnR) song "Coma." GnR are a band that became world famous almost overnight and suddenly discovered that they hated being that famous. As a result the spent the next four years trying to get their record company to release them from their contract. Coma was written during this period and is very much about the bands desire to end their career. It uses as a metaphor being on life support in hospital where you just want to slip away and die but people are constantly prodding, probing and monitoring you in an effort to force you to stay alive. If you were going though a similar experience in the US you would probably be given American oxygen as part of your treatment.
Having not see the video for Coma in the best part of 15 years it came as a big surprise to me that there's a sequence in it in which a man is drowning at sea and has to be rescued by a US Coastguard helicopter. In itself this was probably a reference to a wave of migrants who were trying to enter the US by sea during the same time. However with the migrant drownings in the Mediterranean being big news at the moment and the US refusing to help with a problem it largely created this struck me as life turning full circle rather like Boetheius' ever spinning big wheel.
Of course when you watch videos on YouTube it automatically suggests other videos that you might also want to watch. As a result I kind of got a bit stuck and that "I'll just finish this beer" turned into four or five more.
14:55 on 22/4/15 (UK date).
Tuesday, 21 April 2015
People Trafficking versus People Smuggling.
On Sunday (19/4/15) a boat carrying irregular migrants from Libya capsized off the coast of Italy drowning at least 800. That afternoon Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi gave an impassioned speech in which he railed against the scourge of people trafficking which he likened to modern day slavery and described as a plague on the European continent.
Obviously no leader wants to receive the 4AM phonecall telling them that hundreds of people have died and it is their job to recover the bodies and bring them to shore. So I'm inclined to give Prime Minister Renzi a lot of leeway at this point. However I don't think he is quite correct on this issue.
Human trafficking is most certainly just the slave trade. It didn't end with Abraham Lincoln and it hasn't changed much since the days of William Wilberforce. In a worrying number of cases people are just kidnapped off the streets as shown in the film "Taken"* before being sold for profit. What is more common though is that people traffickers will set up fake employment agencies in poorer countries promising to arrange well paid jobs in richer countries close by. All the victim needs to do is pay an administration fee and for their travel which the agent will organise.
However when they arrive in the new country the victim discovers that there is no job, their passport has been taken from them and they can't call the police for help because they're in the country illegally. They are then sold on to people who force them to work often in the sex industry but also in traditional slave industries such as picking crops on farms. Victims can be sold multiple times and are often moved around the same country to go where they're needed for work. Therefore people trafficking can occur without international borders being crossed. In fact recently in the Rochdale and Rotherham grooming scandals it emerged that underage British girls were being tricked into prostitution in these northern towns and then trafficked across the UK to be forced to have sex with much older men.
This model of human trafficking is a particular problem within the European Union (EU) but tends to be focused towards the east in the former Soviet bloc nations such as Albania, Ukraine etc that are just outside of the EU. It is in those states that the victims are recruited and smuggled into the EU but it is from within the EU that the slavery and trafficking begins.
The situation is slightly different in South America and South East Asia. Here traffickers don't bother with the deceit of providing legal jobs. Instead they present an open proposition that for a huge fee they will smuggle a migrant across multiple international borders to a final destination of a rich country or either the US or Australia. However every time they cross an international border the migrant will discover that the price has suddenly increased and they are effectively held to ransom until their relatives back home pay another huge fee to allow them to continue their journey. If the migrant can't pay the extra fee in time they are often then sold off into the same types of slavery that you see in the EU.
It is this difference in the model which is why I fully support Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbot's controversial policy of not allowing irregular migrants to set foot in Australia. By taking such as hard line he is removing the main selling point that traffickers use to lure migrants into their clutches. Unfortunately it is not possible to apply this solution to the EU because there is simply a lack of neutral countries between the EU and where the migrants are coming from.
It is also why I find US President Barack Obama's proposed immigration actions extremely distasteful from a humanitarian perspective. In his rush to grub votes Obama appears to be fully prepared to reinforce the main selling point - a new life in the US - that the traffickers use to trap their victims into this cycle of human misery.
The migration from Libya across the Mediterranean to the EU is different though. What tends to happen there is that migrants from across sub-Saharan Africa will pay nomadic tribes - such as the Tuaregs - to guide them across the vast expanse of the Sahara into Libya. Once they arrive in Libya the migrants are free to do as they please with many taking up jobs locally.
However others are willing to pay another set of people to help them cross into the EU. This essentially involves someone chartering a boat and then selling tickets for that boat. Once enough tickets have been sold the boat is cast off into the sea almost with the assumption that the EU's Frontex border force will pick them up and after that the migrants will be left to their own devices.
Therefore I don't think the groups operating in Libya are people traffickers so much as irregular travel agents. As such I don't think that targeting them as the EU has suggested will do much good because the process is so simple and so profitable that as soon as one person has been put out of business two more will step forward to take their place. In fact I'm a bit surprised that the migrants haven't decided to cut out the middlemen and started clubbing together to buy their own boats.
16:30 on 21/4/15 (UK date).
*Did you never wonder how such a small but enlightening film became such a worldwide smash hit?
Obviously no leader wants to receive the 4AM phonecall telling them that hundreds of people have died and it is their job to recover the bodies and bring them to shore. So I'm inclined to give Prime Minister Renzi a lot of leeway at this point. However I don't think he is quite correct on this issue.
Human trafficking is most certainly just the slave trade. It didn't end with Abraham Lincoln and it hasn't changed much since the days of William Wilberforce. In a worrying number of cases people are just kidnapped off the streets as shown in the film "Taken"* before being sold for profit. What is more common though is that people traffickers will set up fake employment agencies in poorer countries promising to arrange well paid jobs in richer countries close by. All the victim needs to do is pay an administration fee and for their travel which the agent will organise.
However when they arrive in the new country the victim discovers that there is no job, their passport has been taken from them and they can't call the police for help because they're in the country illegally. They are then sold on to people who force them to work often in the sex industry but also in traditional slave industries such as picking crops on farms. Victims can be sold multiple times and are often moved around the same country to go where they're needed for work. Therefore people trafficking can occur without international borders being crossed. In fact recently in the Rochdale and Rotherham grooming scandals it emerged that underage British girls were being tricked into prostitution in these northern towns and then trafficked across the UK to be forced to have sex with much older men.
This model of human trafficking is a particular problem within the European Union (EU) but tends to be focused towards the east in the former Soviet bloc nations such as Albania, Ukraine etc that are just outside of the EU. It is in those states that the victims are recruited and smuggled into the EU but it is from within the EU that the slavery and trafficking begins.
The situation is slightly different in South America and South East Asia. Here traffickers don't bother with the deceit of providing legal jobs. Instead they present an open proposition that for a huge fee they will smuggle a migrant across multiple international borders to a final destination of a rich country or either the US or Australia. However every time they cross an international border the migrant will discover that the price has suddenly increased and they are effectively held to ransom until their relatives back home pay another huge fee to allow them to continue their journey. If the migrant can't pay the extra fee in time they are often then sold off into the same types of slavery that you see in the EU.
It is this difference in the model which is why I fully support Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbot's controversial policy of not allowing irregular migrants to set foot in Australia. By taking such as hard line he is removing the main selling point that traffickers use to lure migrants into their clutches. Unfortunately it is not possible to apply this solution to the EU because there is simply a lack of neutral countries between the EU and where the migrants are coming from.
It is also why I find US President Barack Obama's proposed immigration actions extremely distasteful from a humanitarian perspective. In his rush to grub votes Obama appears to be fully prepared to reinforce the main selling point - a new life in the US - that the traffickers use to trap their victims into this cycle of human misery.
The migration from Libya across the Mediterranean to the EU is different though. What tends to happen there is that migrants from across sub-Saharan Africa will pay nomadic tribes - such as the Tuaregs - to guide them across the vast expanse of the Sahara into Libya. Once they arrive in Libya the migrants are free to do as they please with many taking up jobs locally.
However others are willing to pay another set of people to help them cross into the EU. This essentially involves someone chartering a boat and then selling tickets for that boat. Once enough tickets have been sold the boat is cast off into the sea almost with the assumption that the EU's Frontex border force will pick them up and after that the migrants will be left to their own devices.
Therefore I don't think the groups operating in Libya are people traffickers so much as irregular travel agents. As such I don't think that targeting them as the EU has suggested will do much good because the process is so simple and so profitable that as soon as one person has been put out of business two more will step forward to take their place. In fact I'm a bit surprised that the migrants haven't decided to cut out the middlemen and started clubbing together to buy their own boats.
16:30 on 21/4/15 (UK date).
*Did you never wonder how such a small but enlightening film became such a worldwide smash hit?
Monday, 20 April 2015
Operation Featherweight: Month 9, Week 4, Day 1.
Rather then provide an update on how the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is going I thought I'd take the opportunity to complain about how difficult writing these updates are.
One of the main problems is that rather then happening in isolation events in Iraq and Syria are largely inter-connected. Therefore if I talk in detail about an event I also have to talk in detail about all the other events and try and predict how they may be affected. Friday (17/4/15) actually provided a rather good example of the problem.
In my post that day I mentioned that on the previous Monday (13/4/15) ISIL had released a video entitled "We Will Burn America." Although I didn't get to see the video before it was taken down it seemed to be aimed at ISIL's existing supporters and was intended to portray the group as leading the fight against the crusader Christians - as ISIL views the US-led coalition - rather then a nasty, nihilistic organisation that spends most of it's time attacking other Muslims.
By using footage of their murders of James Foley and Moaz al-Kasasbeh alongside file footage of the 9/11 attacks ISIL were keen to show their supporters that they can do harm to the US-led coalition in the hope of inspiring those supporters to carry out lone-wolf style attacks in coalition countries - particularly the US.
As I was writing that post ISIL attempted to reinforce the message of the video by carrying out an attack against the US Consulate in Erbil - the capital of Iraq's Kurdish region. The plan seems to have been to detonate a car bomb on the street outside the Consulate and then the Consulate's security team responded to the first explosion use the chaos to drive a second car bomb - possibly carrying gunmen - into the Consulate compound.
Unfortunately for ISIL the Kurdish Peshmerga who are responsible for security in Erbil were alert to the threat and intervened to stop the moving vehicle before the parked vehicle was detonated. As a result the vehicle never made it into the Consulate compound at it's two occupants were killed outright at the scene. Sadly did succeed in detonating the parked car bomb which destroyed a cafe killing two Turkish Kurds and injuring 18 other people. However I'm hearing today that the person who detonated that bomb has been captured.
Although dramatic I have to say that within the context of a war I'm not that concerned about Friday's attack in Erbil. After all it is one thing to be able to sneak a small group of terrorists across the front lines in order to carry out a one-off attack that ultimately failed but it is quite another to sustain a covert cell capable of carrying out multiple attacks.
I'm actually much more concerned by the situation in the Iraqi capital Baghdad. Coinciding with ISIL advance into Anbar province in July of 2014 a covert ISIL cell started to operate carrying out dozens of bombings a week that killed hundreds. Fortunately that cell was captured and broken up in January 2015 leading to a few months of quiet. Unfortunately a new cell has begun to emerge and although initially it's attackers were amateurish and ineffective as they've gained more experience they've begun to become more deadly. For example on Friday in Baghdad 5 separate bomb attacks took place killing at least 31 people primarily in Shia neighbourhoods but members of the Sunni Sahwa fighters. Breaking up this latest cell is just another thing to add to the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) long list of priorities.
Despite Friday's bombings it has been a successful couple of days for the ISF with the main success coming at the Baiji oil refinery. You may remember that last Saturday (11/4/15) ISIL launched a fresh attempt to capture the Baiji refinery from the ISF. Initially this was repelled but on Monday (13/4/15) ISIL second attempt to seize the refinery. This was slightly more successful with ISIL managing to enter the refinery site and take control of some key areas including the distribution point and the garrison. The bigger problem though was that ISIL succeeded in surrounding the large refinery site cutting the ISF troops there off from reinforcements. This Saturday (18/4/15) the ISF managed to break ISIL's siege of the Baiji refinery and by Sunday (19/4/15) the reinforcements the ISF brought in succeeded in completely expelling ISIL from the refinery site.
As I mentioned when ISIL launched their first assault on the Baiji refinery it and the town of Baiji itself were one of the main starting points for the operation that liberated Tikrit some 50km (30 miles) to the south. Therefore I won't consider the Tikrit operation to be at an end until the area around it - including Baiji - has been secured. Key to this task is the roughly triangular area to the east between Tikrit, Baiji and Kirkuk known as the Hawija district with the town of Al-Hawija at its core.
Over the weekend the Peshmerga supported by coalition air-strikes took a huge step in completing this task by launching an offensive into the area. By Sunday (19/4/15) they'd succeeded in advancing some 84km^2 (32 miles^2) south-west around the main Kirkuk to Tikrit road liberating some 11 villages as they went. This puts the Peshmerga around 130km (80 miles) from Tikrit and around 25km (15 miles) from Hawija. If the ISF are capable of moving north-west from Tikrit it won't be long before the area is completely cleared of ISIL. Today ISIL launched a counter-attack on the Peshmerga from Hawija but that was repelled.
Unfortunately before the Tikrit operation had been fully completed the Shia Popular Mobilisation Force (PMF) and some of the Anbar Sunni tribes who are loyal to the Iraq government wanted to rush in and launch a separate operation to liberate the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi that sit to the west of the capital Baghdad. In their haste this provoked ISIL into launching it's own Anbar offensive which saw the group making significant gains in and around Ramadi and by last Wednesday (15/4/15) the city looked poised to fall entirely into ISIL's hands.
Since then ISF reinforcements backed by coalition air-strikes have stabilised the situation by halting ISIL's advance. ISIL however are still able to shell positions within the city and local tribal leaders have warned that with ammunition and other supplies running low they would struggle to repel another ISIL advance. It is obviously important that Ramadi is reinforced to prevent any further ISIL advances but I think it must be said that completing the Tikrit operation needs to be the priority over starting a fresh operation elsewhere.
16:45 on 20/4/15 (UK date).
One of the main problems is that rather then happening in isolation events in Iraq and Syria are largely inter-connected. Therefore if I talk in detail about an event I also have to talk in detail about all the other events and try and predict how they may be affected. Friday (17/4/15) actually provided a rather good example of the problem.
In my post that day I mentioned that on the previous Monday (13/4/15) ISIL had released a video entitled "We Will Burn America." Although I didn't get to see the video before it was taken down it seemed to be aimed at ISIL's existing supporters and was intended to portray the group as leading the fight against the crusader Christians - as ISIL views the US-led coalition - rather then a nasty, nihilistic organisation that spends most of it's time attacking other Muslims.
By using footage of their murders of James Foley and Moaz al-Kasasbeh alongside file footage of the 9/11 attacks ISIL were keen to show their supporters that they can do harm to the US-led coalition in the hope of inspiring those supporters to carry out lone-wolf style attacks in coalition countries - particularly the US.
As I was writing that post ISIL attempted to reinforce the message of the video by carrying out an attack against the US Consulate in Erbil - the capital of Iraq's Kurdish region. The plan seems to have been to detonate a car bomb on the street outside the Consulate and then the Consulate's security team responded to the first explosion use the chaos to drive a second car bomb - possibly carrying gunmen - into the Consulate compound.
Unfortunately for ISIL the Kurdish Peshmerga who are responsible for security in Erbil were alert to the threat and intervened to stop the moving vehicle before the parked vehicle was detonated. As a result the vehicle never made it into the Consulate compound at it's two occupants were killed outright at the scene. Sadly did succeed in detonating the parked car bomb which destroyed a cafe killing two Turkish Kurds and injuring 18 other people. However I'm hearing today that the person who detonated that bomb has been captured.
Although dramatic I have to say that within the context of a war I'm not that concerned about Friday's attack in Erbil. After all it is one thing to be able to sneak a small group of terrorists across the front lines in order to carry out a one-off attack that ultimately failed but it is quite another to sustain a covert cell capable of carrying out multiple attacks.
I'm actually much more concerned by the situation in the Iraqi capital Baghdad. Coinciding with ISIL advance into Anbar province in July of 2014 a covert ISIL cell started to operate carrying out dozens of bombings a week that killed hundreds. Fortunately that cell was captured and broken up in January 2015 leading to a few months of quiet. Unfortunately a new cell has begun to emerge and although initially it's attackers were amateurish and ineffective as they've gained more experience they've begun to become more deadly. For example on Friday in Baghdad 5 separate bomb attacks took place killing at least 31 people primarily in Shia neighbourhoods but members of the Sunni Sahwa fighters. Breaking up this latest cell is just another thing to add to the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) long list of priorities.
Despite Friday's bombings it has been a successful couple of days for the ISF with the main success coming at the Baiji oil refinery. You may remember that last Saturday (11/4/15) ISIL launched a fresh attempt to capture the Baiji refinery from the ISF. Initially this was repelled but on Monday (13/4/15) ISIL second attempt to seize the refinery. This was slightly more successful with ISIL managing to enter the refinery site and take control of some key areas including the distribution point and the garrison. The bigger problem though was that ISIL succeeded in surrounding the large refinery site cutting the ISF troops there off from reinforcements. This Saturday (18/4/15) the ISF managed to break ISIL's siege of the Baiji refinery and by Sunday (19/4/15) the reinforcements the ISF brought in succeeded in completely expelling ISIL from the refinery site.
As I mentioned when ISIL launched their first assault on the Baiji refinery it and the town of Baiji itself were one of the main starting points for the operation that liberated Tikrit some 50km (30 miles) to the south. Therefore I won't consider the Tikrit operation to be at an end until the area around it - including Baiji - has been secured. Key to this task is the roughly triangular area to the east between Tikrit, Baiji and Kirkuk known as the Hawija district with the town of Al-Hawija at its core.
Over the weekend the Peshmerga supported by coalition air-strikes took a huge step in completing this task by launching an offensive into the area. By Sunday (19/4/15) they'd succeeded in advancing some 84km^2 (32 miles^2) south-west around the main Kirkuk to Tikrit road liberating some 11 villages as they went. This puts the Peshmerga around 130km (80 miles) from Tikrit and around 25km (15 miles) from Hawija. If the ISF are capable of moving north-west from Tikrit it won't be long before the area is completely cleared of ISIL. Today ISIL launched a counter-attack on the Peshmerga from Hawija but that was repelled.
Unfortunately before the Tikrit operation had been fully completed the Shia Popular Mobilisation Force (PMF) and some of the Anbar Sunni tribes who are loyal to the Iraq government wanted to rush in and launch a separate operation to liberate the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi that sit to the west of the capital Baghdad. In their haste this provoked ISIL into launching it's own Anbar offensive which saw the group making significant gains in and around Ramadi and by last Wednesday (15/4/15) the city looked poised to fall entirely into ISIL's hands.
Since then ISF reinforcements backed by coalition air-strikes have stabilised the situation by halting ISIL's advance. ISIL however are still able to shell positions within the city and local tribal leaders have warned that with ammunition and other supplies running low they would struggle to repel another ISIL advance. It is obviously important that Ramadi is reinforced to prevent any further ISIL advances but I think it must be said that completing the Tikrit operation needs to be the priority over starting a fresh operation elsewhere.
16:45 on 20/4/15 (UK date).
Sunday, 19 April 2015
Operation Hillary: Month 3, Week 1, Day 3
On Sunday February 15th (15/2/15) the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) announced their presence in Libya with the release of a video showing 21 Egyptian Christians being beheaded. The following day Egypt launched a week of air-strikes against ISIL positions in Libya and "Operation Hillary" was born. Since then things have more or less ground to a halt.
The main barrier to combating the ISIL threat in Libya has been Libya's lack of a functioning government. At the 2012 Libyan elections which followed the 2011 overthrow of the Qaddafi government the Gulf States led by Qatar went to great lengths to ensure that an Islamist government was elected in Libya. This went so far as building up the "Homeland" (Al-Watan) Party led by Abdelhakim Belhadj as an elaborate bluff. Adopting the Qatari national colours of purple and white the purpose of the Homeland party was to trick Libyan voters into thinking they were keeping foreign interference out by voting for the other Islamist parties such as the "Justice and Construction" (Hizb Al-Adala Wal-Bina) Party who are closely linked to the Muslim Brotherhood and by extension Qatar and Turkey.
This plan was largely successful with Homeland failing to win any seats and Justice and Construction emerging as the second largest party with 17 seats. They were backed by a number of smaller Islamist parties and independents who each won a single seat. However the secularist or moderate religious parties also did well with the "National Forces Alliance" (Taḥaalof al-qiwaa al-wataniyya) Party winning the most (39) seats and the "National Front" (Hizb Al-Jabha Al-Wataniyya) coming third with 3 seats and the "Union For the Homeland" (Al-Ittihad min Ajl Al-Watan) and the "National Centrist" Party added a further 4 seats between them. As a result the Islamist parties were not able to get their own way in the legislature (General National Congress/GNC) and started throwing repeated tantrums.
Initially the Islamist parties refused to turn up to GNC meetings preventing a quorum being reached stopping any laws being passed. Then the Islamist parties started turning up to GNC meetings en masse abut refused to leave at the end of the day staging a series of sit-ins that also stopped laws being passed. Eventually the Islamist parties teamed up with an alliance of Islamist militias known as the "Libyan Dawn Militia" to overthrow the GNC by force.
This prompted the GNC to flee from the capital Tripoli in the county's west and set up in Tobruk which is in Libya's east. The Islamists that remained in Tripoli then declared themselves to be the government creating the strange situation where the international community continues to recognise the GNC as Libya's legitimate government despite its move to Tobruk but the Islamists in Tripoli have started issuing government contracts in sectors such as the oil industry which have been recognised by Turkey.
Since the GNC were ousted from Tripoli in September 2014 the United Nations (UN) has been holding seemingly endless rounds of talks to reunify Libya's government. The fundamental flaw in the UN process is that it legitimises the Islamists use of violence as part of the political process by seeking to form a government of national unity rather then simply telling the Islamists that they must abandon violence in order to rejoin the GNC. If anything the UN process is making the situation worse because accepting that political power in Libya can come from the barrel of a gun rather then from the ballot box each round of UN talks provokes a fresh wave of tit-for-tat air-strikes and ground offensives with both the GNC and the Islamists trying to show that they have the military force needed to claim power.
Following the round of UN talks that immediately followed the Egyptian air-strikes the situation did improve slightly with the GNC appointing Khalifa Haftar as the new head of the Libya army.
A senior army officer under Qaddafi who defected after being abandoned in Chad during the Libya/Chad war of the 1970's and 1980's Haftar has been a strong presence in Libya since February 2014 when he united a number of Libyan militias to fight Libyan Dawn in what he dubbed "Operation Dignity." Having lived in the US for a number of years Haftar is so committed to the secular values of democracy that his main selling point amid Libya's chaos is an entirely false claim that he is CIA agent operating with the backing of the US. In reality though the international community and people within Libya have been hesitant to back Haftar because he is viewed as a strongman general rather then a good candidate for political office.
Making Haftar the head of an army that is answerable to an elected government seems to me to be the perfect role for him.
The Islamists also seem to have got the message from that round of talks that the international community view a desire to fight ISIL as an essential component of any Libya government. Therefore they have recently started to use their military power to attack ISIL and other rival Islamist militias rather then the GNC. However these seems to be an attempt to curry favour with the international community rather then a legitimate attempt to defeat ISIL.
Whatever progress had been made in Libya was set back dramatically on March 27th (27/3/15) when the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) passed a Jordanian drafted resolution that renewed the arms embargo on the GNC. This rejected a call by Egypt and the GNC for the embargo to be lifted so they could be supplied with weapons to defeat ISIL. The existing arms embargo is of course widely flouted by the Libyan Dawn militia. Instead the UNSC resolution renewed a call for a national unity government to be formed which is in effect an endorsement of the continuing chaos in Libya.
The day before the UNSC vote (26/3/15) Saudi Arabia of course used it's around USD40bn of financial support to convince Egypt that attacking Yemen was a far more important priority then defeating ISIL in Libya.
In the meantime the seasons have shifted from winter to spring. Along with the end of summer/start of autumn the start of spring brings calm waters and strong currents to the Mediterranean Sea that make it the perfect time for migrants to try and cross illegally from Libya into southern Europe. The 2015 crossing season is expected to particularly bad due to the deteriorating situation in Libya.
Prior to the overthrow of Qaddafi many of the migrants making the crossing who come from sub-Saharan Africa would simply have stayed in Libya taking lucrative jobs in the oil and construction industry. Following the removal of Qaddafi and his pan-Africanist policies there has been a significant rise in anti-black racism in Libya which has made the country less hospitable to the migrants. The confrontation between the GNC and the western Islamists has formally shut down the nation's oil industry with the GNC declaring Force Majeure in the sector due to the frequency that oil facilities were being hit by air-strikes and takeovers by rival militia groups. The construction industry has also been thrown into chaos with the western Islamists cancelling many of the GNC issued contracts and issue ones of their own.
The chaos of course makes it impossible for the Libyan government to take any real action to control the nations coastline and the people smugglers who are putting the migrants onto boats.
On Tuesday (14/4/15) a boat carrying 400 migrants was lost off the coast of Libya. Today another boat was lost with 700 people on board. This brings the migrant death toll from the past 6 days to over 1,100 or around 183 people killed per day.
Today ISIL released another video highlighting the plight of migrants in Libya. I will be back to cover that shortly.
16:35 on 19/4/15 (UK date).
Edited at around 17:00 on 19/4/15 (UK date) to add;
In order to properly discuss today's video from ISIL I must first talk about the output from a slightly more reliable media outlet - the BBC. As part of their "This World" series which is broadcast globally the BBC has produced a series of documentaries focusing on ISIL.
The first of these entitled "Jihadi Brides" which was broadcast in the UK last Wednesday (8/4/15) looked at the trend of young Muslim girls who travel from developed nations such as the UK to Iraq and Syria in the hope of marrying ISIL fighters. Telling the stories of Halane twins from Manchester and Grace Dare from London amongst others the documentary focused on Aqsa Mahmood a young woman from Glasgow, Scotland who acts as a main online recruiter for ISIL under the name Umm Layth (Mother of Lions). Although I don't follow her online I suspect that Ms Mahmood would not have appreciated the way she was portrayed in the documentaries dramatic reconstructions.
The UK broadcast prompted "Jihadi Brides" to trend globally on Twitter for several hours although that was mainly people making jokes about how it seemed so much less fun then UK Channel 4's long-running"Big Fat Gypsy Weddings" series.
The second program in the series broadcast last Wednesday (15/4/15) was a much more serious production entitled "Killing the Christians." My main complaint about this documentary is that it didn't answer the fundamental question of why ISIL keeps killing Christians. However having lived and breathed this issue for the last 9 months I'm still at a bit of a loss of how to answer that one myself.
What the program did do was go out and speak to all the Christian groups that have been under threat from ISIL such as the Assyrians in northern Iraq and Syria. Here I think the program was particularly brave because in speaking to a Christian community outside Damascus in Syria it almost went so far as to suggest that the Syrian government are the least brutal of all the groups fighting in the Syrian civil war. It also mentioned the Armenian genocide before going to look at Christian communities in Lebanon and Israel. As such I was tempted to recommend it to the Obama administration who seem a little confused as to the geography of the Middle-East.
Today's ISIL video seems largely to have been a response to the BBC documentary putting forward ISIL's explanation of why they kill Christians. This obviously presents ISIL with a bit of a challenge because although they dispute the Son of God status and the Resurrection Islam actually considers Jesus Christ to be the second most important of God's Prophets behind Mohamed and belief in him is a central tenet of Islam.
However in a roughly 25 minute documentary style portion of the video which I didn't watch in it's entirety ISIL focused on how Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire and used this to portray Christians as imperial crusaders who wish to dominate Islam. In itself this isn't actually true because the Roman Empire was well established long before the birth of Christianity and it was actually Muslims who began the crusades to impose Islam on the Middle-East. Ignoring that fact though ISIL argued that because of Christianity's desire to dominate Islam no true Muslim - as ISIL see themselves - could tolerate polytheism so must kill the followers of all other religions including Christians. Polytheism is of course the worship of multiple gods whereas Muslims, Christians and Jews all worship the same God but this wouldn't be the first time that ISIL logic has given me a headache and the desire to bang their leader over the head with a book.
To show their commitment to killing Christians the video then cut to a roughly five minute sequence in which they killed a lot of Christians. The first thing of note about this sequence is that while the documentary portion of the video had been shot in Iraq/Syria the killings were taking place in Libya. In an effort to show how powerful they are in Libya ISIL made a point of executing two groups of Ethiopian Christians in two separate locations.
The location of the first group dressed in black jumpsuits was given as being deep in the desert of Libya's south. This group featured a lead 'executioner' was dressed in a "Jihadi John" inspired costume who spoke with a north American (possibly Canadian) accent. He said the group of around 15-20 had been given the choice to convert to Islam, pay a Jizya tax for being Christian or be killed. Because they'd refused the first two options they were all then shot in the back/back of the head with assault rifles.
The location of the second group dressed in orange jumpsuits was given as being an eastern coastal town - possibly Al Bayda. Here there was no lead executioner and the group were simply knelt down and beheaded. As has become the style of ISIL videos it took great pleasure in showing not only the victims throats being cut but the severed wound of their necks as their heads were placed on their bodies.
The video did not give the exact number of people being killed nor did it show all of those involved. However I would guess that around 30 people were killed in total but the actual figure could be as high as 40 or as low as 20. At this time Ethiopia cannot confirm where those killed were it's nationals let alone how or where they were kidnapped.
18:05 on 19/4/15 (UK date).
The main barrier to combating the ISIL threat in Libya has been Libya's lack of a functioning government. At the 2012 Libyan elections which followed the 2011 overthrow of the Qaddafi government the Gulf States led by Qatar went to great lengths to ensure that an Islamist government was elected in Libya. This went so far as building up the "Homeland" (Al-Watan) Party led by Abdelhakim Belhadj as an elaborate bluff. Adopting the Qatari national colours of purple and white the purpose of the Homeland party was to trick Libyan voters into thinking they were keeping foreign interference out by voting for the other Islamist parties such as the "Justice and Construction" (Hizb Al-Adala Wal-Bina) Party who are closely linked to the Muslim Brotherhood and by extension Qatar and Turkey.
This plan was largely successful with Homeland failing to win any seats and Justice and Construction emerging as the second largest party with 17 seats. They were backed by a number of smaller Islamist parties and independents who each won a single seat. However the secularist or moderate religious parties also did well with the "National Forces Alliance" (Taḥaalof al-qiwaa al-wataniyya) Party winning the most (39) seats and the "National Front" (Hizb Al-Jabha Al-Wataniyya) coming third with 3 seats and the "Union For the Homeland" (Al-Ittihad min Ajl Al-Watan) and the "National Centrist" Party added a further 4 seats between them. As a result the Islamist parties were not able to get their own way in the legislature (General National Congress/GNC) and started throwing repeated tantrums.
Initially the Islamist parties refused to turn up to GNC meetings preventing a quorum being reached stopping any laws being passed. Then the Islamist parties started turning up to GNC meetings en masse abut refused to leave at the end of the day staging a series of sit-ins that also stopped laws being passed. Eventually the Islamist parties teamed up with an alliance of Islamist militias known as the "Libyan Dawn Militia" to overthrow the GNC by force.
This prompted the GNC to flee from the capital Tripoli in the county's west and set up in Tobruk which is in Libya's east. The Islamists that remained in Tripoli then declared themselves to be the government creating the strange situation where the international community continues to recognise the GNC as Libya's legitimate government despite its move to Tobruk but the Islamists in Tripoli have started issuing government contracts in sectors such as the oil industry which have been recognised by Turkey.
Since the GNC were ousted from Tripoli in September 2014 the United Nations (UN) has been holding seemingly endless rounds of talks to reunify Libya's government. The fundamental flaw in the UN process is that it legitimises the Islamists use of violence as part of the political process by seeking to form a government of national unity rather then simply telling the Islamists that they must abandon violence in order to rejoin the GNC. If anything the UN process is making the situation worse because accepting that political power in Libya can come from the barrel of a gun rather then from the ballot box each round of UN talks provokes a fresh wave of tit-for-tat air-strikes and ground offensives with both the GNC and the Islamists trying to show that they have the military force needed to claim power.
Following the round of UN talks that immediately followed the Egyptian air-strikes the situation did improve slightly with the GNC appointing Khalifa Haftar as the new head of the Libya army.
A senior army officer under Qaddafi who defected after being abandoned in Chad during the Libya/Chad war of the 1970's and 1980's Haftar has been a strong presence in Libya since February 2014 when he united a number of Libyan militias to fight Libyan Dawn in what he dubbed "Operation Dignity." Having lived in the US for a number of years Haftar is so committed to the secular values of democracy that his main selling point amid Libya's chaos is an entirely false claim that he is CIA agent operating with the backing of the US. In reality though the international community and people within Libya have been hesitant to back Haftar because he is viewed as a strongman general rather then a good candidate for political office.
Making Haftar the head of an army that is answerable to an elected government seems to me to be the perfect role for him.
The Islamists also seem to have got the message from that round of talks that the international community view a desire to fight ISIL as an essential component of any Libya government. Therefore they have recently started to use their military power to attack ISIL and other rival Islamist militias rather then the GNC. However these seems to be an attempt to curry favour with the international community rather then a legitimate attempt to defeat ISIL.
Whatever progress had been made in Libya was set back dramatically on March 27th (27/3/15) when the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) passed a Jordanian drafted resolution that renewed the arms embargo on the GNC. This rejected a call by Egypt and the GNC for the embargo to be lifted so they could be supplied with weapons to defeat ISIL. The existing arms embargo is of course widely flouted by the Libyan Dawn militia. Instead the UNSC resolution renewed a call for a national unity government to be formed which is in effect an endorsement of the continuing chaos in Libya.
The day before the UNSC vote (26/3/15) Saudi Arabia of course used it's around USD40bn of financial support to convince Egypt that attacking Yemen was a far more important priority then defeating ISIL in Libya.
In the meantime the seasons have shifted from winter to spring. Along with the end of summer/start of autumn the start of spring brings calm waters and strong currents to the Mediterranean Sea that make it the perfect time for migrants to try and cross illegally from Libya into southern Europe. The 2015 crossing season is expected to particularly bad due to the deteriorating situation in Libya.
Prior to the overthrow of Qaddafi many of the migrants making the crossing who come from sub-Saharan Africa would simply have stayed in Libya taking lucrative jobs in the oil and construction industry. Following the removal of Qaddafi and his pan-Africanist policies there has been a significant rise in anti-black racism in Libya which has made the country less hospitable to the migrants. The confrontation between the GNC and the western Islamists has formally shut down the nation's oil industry with the GNC declaring Force Majeure in the sector due to the frequency that oil facilities were being hit by air-strikes and takeovers by rival militia groups. The construction industry has also been thrown into chaos with the western Islamists cancelling many of the GNC issued contracts and issue ones of their own.
The chaos of course makes it impossible for the Libyan government to take any real action to control the nations coastline and the people smugglers who are putting the migrants onto boats.
On Tuesday (14/4/15) a boat carrying 400 migrants was lost off the coast of Libya. Today another boat was lost with 700 people on board. This brings the migrant death toll from the past 6 days to over 1,100 or around 183 people killed per day.
Today ISIL released another video highlighting the plight of migrants in Libya. I will be back to cover that shortly.
16:35 on 19/4/15 (UK date).
Edited at around 17:00 on 19/4/15 (UK date) to add;
In order to properly discuss today's video from ISIL I must first talk about the output from a slightly more reliable media outlet - the BBC. As part of their "This World" series which is broadcast globally the BBC has produced a series of documentaries focusing on ISIL.
The first of these entitled "Jihadi Brides" which was broadcast in the UK last Wednesday (8/4/15) looked at the trend of young Muslim girls who travel from developed nations such as the UK to Iraq and Syria in the hope of marrying ISIL fighters. Telling the stories of Halane twins from Manchester and Grace Dare from London amongst others the documentary focused on Aqsa Mahmood a young woman from Glasgow, Scotland who acts as a main online recruiter for ISIL under the name Umm Layth (Mother of Lions). Although I don't follow her online I suspect that Ms Mahmood would not have appreciated the way she was portrayed in the documentaries dramatic reconstructions.
The UK broadcast prompted "Jihadi Brides" to trend globally on Twitter for several hours although that was mainly people making jokes about how it seemed so much less fun then UK Channel 4's long-running"Big Fat Gypsy Weddings" series.
The second program in the series broadcast last Wednesday (15/4/15) was a much more serious production entitled "Killing the Christians." My main complaint about this documentary is that it didn't answer the fundamental question of why ISIL keeps killing Christians. However having lived and breathed this issue for the last 9 months I'm still at a bit of a loss of how to answer that one myself.
What the program did do was go out and speak to all the Christian groups that have been under threat from ISIL such as the Assyrians in northern Iraq and Syria. Here I think the program was particularly brave because in speaking to a Christian community outside Damascus in Syria it almost went so far as to suggest that the Syrian government are the least brutal of all the groups fighting in the Syrian civil war. It also mentioned the Armenian genocide before going to look at Christian communities in Lebanon and Israel. As such I was tempted to recommend it to the Obama administration who seem a little confused as to the geography of the Middle-East.
Today's ISIL video seems largely to have been a response to the BBC documentary putting forward ISIL's explanation of why they kill Christians. This obviously presents ISIL with a bit of a challenge because although they dispute the Son of God status and the Resurrection Islam actually considers Jesus Christ to be the second most important of God's Prophets behind Mohamed and belief in him is a central tenet of Islam.
However in a roughly 25 minute documentary style portion of the video which I didn't watch in it's entirety ISIL focused on how Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire and used this to portray Christians as imperial crusaders who wish to dominate Islam. In itself this isn't actually true because the Roman Empire was well established long before the birth of Christianity and it was actually Muslims who began the crusades to impose Islam on the Middle-East. Ignoring that fact though ISIL argued that because of Christianity's desire to dominate Islam no true Muslim - as ISIL see themselves - could tolerate polytheism so must kill the followers of all other religions including Christians. Polytheism is of course the worship of multiple gods whereas Muslims, Christians and Jews all worship the same God but this wouldn't be the first time that ISIL logic has given me a headache and the desire to bang their leader over the head with a book.
To show their commitment to killing Christians the video then cut to a roughly five minute sequence in which they killed a lot of Christians. The first thing of note about this sequence is that while the documentary portion of the video had been shot in Iraq/Syria the killings were taking place in Libya. In an effort to show how powerful they are in Libya ISIL made a point of executing two groups of Ethiopian Christians in two separate locations.
The location of the first group dressed in black jumpsuits was given as being deep in the desert of Libya's south. This group featured a lead 'executioner' was dressed in a "Jihadi John" inspired costume who spoke with a north American (possibly Canadian) accent. He said the group of around 15-20 had been given the choice to convert to Islam, pay a Jizya tax for being Christian or be killed. Because they'd refused the first two options they were all then shot in the back/back of the head with assault rifles.
The location of the second group dressed in orange jumpsuits was given as being an eastern coastal town - possibly Al Bayda. Here there was no lead executioner and the group were simply knelt down and beheaded. As has become the style of ISIL videos it took great pleasure in showing not only the victims throats being cut but the severed wound of their necks as their heads were placed on their bodies.
The video did not give the exact number of people being killed nor did it show all of those involved. However I would guess that around 30 people were killed in total but the actual figure could be as high as 40 or as low as 20. At this time Ethiopia cannot confirm where those killed were it's nationals let alone how or where they were kidnapped.
18:05 on 19/4/15 (UK date).
Friday, 17 April 2015
Operation Featherweight: Month 9, Week 3, Day 5.
You may have noticed that recently my posts on the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) have petered out somewhat. When they do turn up the quality is appalling. As usual there are plenty of excuses for this but the main one is that the Lausanne round of Iran talks have left me with a sort of writers block. So I'm not being lazy and I've not forgotten about it. I'm just having a great deal of trouble getting the words out at the moment and I'm working on that.
In the meantime I should point out that on Tuesday (14/4/15) the Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi travelled to the US to meet with President Barack Obama. You would have thought that this would have been a warm meeting between close allies committed to defeating ISIL. Instead the US seemed to see the visit as an opportunity to further rough the Iraqis up.
The main part of this was the decision for the visit to coincide with Congressional Foreign Affairs Committees meeting on the Iran issue. The US-led sanctions on Iran have been one of the main driving forces behind the turmoil the Middle-East has experienced over the last 4-5 years. Essentially they have handed dominance of the region to Saudi Arabia who seem intent on burning everything to the ground. Foolishly the US seems to be viewing ISIL as an essential ally in this process by delaying expelling them from Iraq as a way to put pressure on Iraq's neighbour Iran.
The Iran issue is also an incredibly complex one. Even before you get into highly technical aspects of nuclear power and nuclear weapons programs you have the sanctions themselves that fall into multiple categories. The most widespread category is the sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). However beyond that you have the sanctions imposed by the US some of which were imposed by Presidential executive order and others that were imposed with Congressional approval. Some of these sanctions are extra-territorial meaning that they extend beyond the US and US companies. So for example if a Spanish company decided that it wanted to do business with an Iranian company in defiance to the US sanctions that Spanish company could still be prosecuted in the US. Finally there are a host of sanctions imposed by individual US states and some sanctions that have nothing whatsoever to do with Iran's nuclear program.
Obviously it is quite difficult to keep track of all these variables especially if - like Iraq - you are not party to the negotiations themselves. However by agreeing not to veto a bill granting Congressional approval to any Iran deal it seems that the Obama has not heeded the criticism piled upon it by the international community during the Lausanne round of talks. Instead the Obama administration seems to have come out swinging in an attempt to punish the international community for pointing out his mistake.
Initially the hope was that the Obama administration would lift the extra-territorial sanctions while vetoing the Congressional bill. So while Congress was working to overturn the Presidential veto the majority of sanctions could be lifted and the World could get back to trading with Iran. By declining that solution the Obama administration appears to be threatening the entire process positioning itself to demand a tougher inspection regime linked to the phased lifting of sanctions. That highly inappropriate to the situation but to admit to that the Obama administration would be forced to admit that it made a grievous mistake in the first place.
Next the Obama administration took the opportunity of Prime Minister Abadi's visit to announce that it was removing Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism reversing a position stated just two days previously. With the sheer volume of terrorism being exported by nations that are not on this list the list itself is considered a bit of a joke. It is also an extremely complicated issue because Obama's main motivation behind lifting sanctions against Cuba is to take advantage of the 1995 "Wet foot, Dry foot" amendment to the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act to gerrymander the vital Florida district in favour of Hillary Clinton. Obviously to understand that you have to understand quite a bit about US electoral politics. To confuse matters further Hillary Clinton took the opportunity of Prime Minister Abadi's visit to hold her first campaign event in Iowa.
The Cuba issue was also the centrepiece of last weekends Summit of the Americas in Panama. South America is obviously not part of Iraq's neighbourhood so the are unlikely to be experts in the weekends events. Despite the focus of Cuba the US main business at the Panama Summit was the negotiations for a global Climate Change agreement. Due to the fight against ISIL this is an issue that I'm struggling to find time to deal with and it's not my country that ISIL are occupying.
Finally the US blockade of Cuba functions rather neatly as an example of how the sanctions on Iran should be handled. Basically the US and Israel can do it if they like but the rest of the World should be free to ignore it.
The element I found most interesting though was the announcement that the US intendeds to exhume and identify the bodies of some 400 US servicemen who were killed in the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbour. Now that we are moving back into spring the season is upon us when large numbers of African migrants try to cross into Europe illegally over the Mediterranean Sea. Due to the increasing volumes of migrants attempting this journey the number of people being killed in the process has also increased. That very Tuesday a boat carrying some 400 migrants was lost with all on board presumed killed.
Key to the Mediterranean issue is Libya which is also another front in the fight against ISIL. Prior to the overthrow of the Qaddafi government a large number of those migrants simply wouldn't have bothered trying to cross into Europe instead opting to take jobs in Libya's oil and construction industries. So not only has the chaos in Libya increased the number of migrants trying to reach Europe it has also stripped Libya of its ability to make any real effort to stop them. Therefore in order to solve the migrant problem the international community needs to build a functioning Libyan government around the internationally recognised government in Tobruk. Unfortunately the US in particular seems intent on maintaining the status quo granting de facto legitimacy to the Islamist factions in the west through these seemingly never ending peace talks.
The migrant situation in the Mediterranean actually reminds me of this old phrase about how you can either fish the corpses from the river as they float by or you can travel upstream to stop the person who keeps dumping the bodies in the river. Sadly the US doesn't seem to have any interest in fishing the bodies out of the river. It has promised to help identify them though.
The US' continuing delays became a lot harder to explain when on Monday (13/4/15) ISIL released another video entitled; "We Will Burn America." Although I wasn't quick enough to catch it I gather it was mainly stock footage of the 9/11 attacks interspersed with the beheading of James Foley and the burning of Moaz al-Kasasbeh alongside calls for lone-wolf supporters to carry out attacks within the US. The US is currently stopping attacks of this type at a rate of about one a week making it increasingly likely that as time goes on one will slip through the net.
14:45 on 17/4/15 (UK date).
In the meantime I should point out that on Tuesday (14/4/15) the Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi travelled to the US to meet with President Barack Obama. You would have thought that this would have been a warm meeting between close allies committed to defeating ISIL. Instead the US seemed to see the visit as an opportunity to further rough the Iraqis up.
The main part of this was the decision for the visit to coincide with Congressional Foreign Affairs Committees meeting on the Iran issue. The US-led sanctions on Iran have been one of the main driving forces behind the turmoil the Middle-East has experienced over the last 4-5 years. Essentially they have handed dominance of the region to Saudi Arabia who seem intent on burning everything to the ground. Foolishly the US seems to be viewing ISIL as an essential ally in this process by delaying expelling them from Iraq as a way to put pressure on Iraq's neighbour Iran.
The Iran issue is also an incredibly complex one. Even before you get into highly technical aspects of nuclear power and nuclear weapons programs you have the sanctions themselves that fall into multiple categories. The most widespread category is the sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). However beyond that you have the sanctions imposed by the US some of which were imposed by Presidential executive order and others that were imposed with Congressional approval. Some of these sanctions are extra-territorial meaning that they extend beyond the US and US companies. So for example if a Spanish company decided that it wanted to do business with an Iranian company in defiance to the US sanctions that Spanish company could still be prosecuted in the US. Finally there are a host of sanctions imposed by individual US states and some sanctions that have nothing whatsoever to do with Iran's nuclear program.
Obviously it is quite difficult to keep track of all these variables especially if - like Iraq - you are not party to the negotiations themselves. However by agreeing not to veto a bill granting Congressional approval to any Iran deal it seems that the Obama has not heeded the criticism piled upon it by the international community during the Lausanne round of talks. Instead the Obama administration seems to have come out swinging in an attempt to punish the international community for pointing out his mistake.
Initially the hope was that the Obama administration would lift the extra-territorial sanctions while vetoing the Congressional bill. So while Congress was working to overturn the Presidential veto the majority of sanctions could be lifted and the World could get back to trading with Iran. By declining that solution the Obama administration appears to be threatening the entire process positioning itself to demand a tougher inspection regime linked to the phased lifting of sanctions. That highly inappropriate to the situation but to admit to that the Obama administration would be forced to admit that it made a grievous mistake in the first place.
Next the Obama administration took the opportunity of Prime Minister Abadi's visit to announce that it was removing Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism reversing a position stated just two days previously. With the sheer volume of terrorism being exported by nations that are not on this list the list itself is considered a bit of a joke. It is also an extremely complicated issue because Obama's main motivation behind lifting sanctions against Cuba is to take advantage of the 1995 "Wet foot, Dry foot" amendment to the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act to gerrymander the vital Florida district in favour of Hillary Clinton. Obviously to understand that you have to understand quite a bit about US electoral politics. To confuse matters further Hillary Clinton took the opportunity of Prime Minister Abadi's visit to hold her first campaign event in Iowa.
The Cuba issue was also the centrepiece of last weekends Summit of the Americas in Panama. South America is obviously not part of Iraq's neighbourhood so the are unlikely to be experts in the weekends events. Despite the focus of Cuba the US main business at the Panama Summit was the negotiations for a global Climate Change agreement. Due to the fight against ISIL this is an issue that I'm struggling to find time to deal with and it's not my country that ISIL are occupying.
Finally the US blockade of Cuba functions rather neatly as an example of how the sanctions on Iran should be handled. Basically the US and Israel can do it if they like but the rest of the World should be free to ignore it.
The element I found most interesting though was the announcement that the US intendeds to exhume and identify the bodies of some 400 US servicemen who were killed in the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbour. Now that we are moving back into spring the season is upon us when large numbers of African migrants try to cross into Europe illegally over the Mediterranean Sea. Due to the increasing volumes of migrants attempting this journey the number of people being killed in the process has also increased. That very Tuesday a boat carrying some 400 migrants was lost with all on board presumed killed.
Key to the Mediterranean issue is Libya which is also another front in the fight against ISIL. Prior to the overthrow of the Qaddafi government a large number of those migrants simply wouldn't have bothered trying to cross into Europe instead opting to take jobs in Libya's oil and construction industries. So not only has the chaos in Libya increased the number of migrants trying to reach Europe it has also stripped Libya of its ability to make any real effort to stop them. Therefore in order to solve the migrant problem the international community needs to build a functioning Libyan government around the internationally recognised government in Tobruk. Unfortunately the US in particular seems intent on maintaining the status quo granting de facto legitimacy to the Islamist factions in the west through these seemingly never ending peace talks.
The migrant situation in the Mediterranean actually reminds me of this old phrase about how you can either fish the corpses from the river as they float by or you can travel upstream to stop the person who keeps dumping the bodies in the river. Sadly the US doesn't seem to have any interest in fishing the bodies out of the river. It has promised to help identify them though.
The US' continuing delays became a lot harder to explain when on Monday (13/4/15) ISIL released another video entitled; "We Will Burn America." Although I wasn't quick enough to catch it I gather it was mainly stock footage of the 9/11 attacks interspersed with the beheading of James Foley and the burning of Moaz al-Kasasbeh alongside calls for lone-wolf supporters to carry out attacks within the US. The US is currently stopping attacks of this type at a rate of about one a week making it increasingly likely that as time goes on one will slip through the net.
14:45 on 17/4/15 (UK date).
Wednesday, 15 April 2015
Operation Featherweight: Month 9, Week 3, Day 3.
On Sunday (12/4/15) the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) repelled an attack by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) on the Baiji oil refinery located around 55km (33 miles) north of the city of Tikrit. On Monday (13/4/15) ISIL launched another attack on the oil refinery.
This attack was more successful with ISIL succeeding not only in breaching the perimeter but also in seizing a number of key areas inside the compound including the main garrison defending the site where Major Gen. Dhaif Khalaf - the garrison commander was killed. In an effort to repel Sunday's assault the US-led coalition eventually began carried out 6 air-strikes against ISIL destroying and mixture of ground units and fighting positions. This continued into Monday with 7 air-strikes against the same range of targets and a Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Device (VBIED). In total the coalition carried out 35 air-strikes across Syria and Iraq in those two days. By comparison in the same period Saudi Arabia carried out some 240 air-strikes in Yemen.
In response to the fighting which continues as I write the ISF have dispatched two regiments of the Iraqi police, a battalion of special forces and two regiments the Popular Mobilisation Force (PMF) militia from Camp Speicher near Tikrit to reinforce the refinery. The deployment of troops from Camp Speicher serves to underline that the oil refinery at Baiji has always been part of the Tikrit offensive. With the ISF initially liberating Baiji from ISIL back in December 2014 troops moved south from there to Camp Speicher on the northern outskirts of Tikrit while another force moved north from Samarra. As such I wouldn't consider the Tikrit offensive to be at an end until the area surrounding Baiji, Tikrit and Kirkuk including the Hawija district is fully secured.
The failure to complete the Tikrit offensive though hasn't stopped the PMF pressing for the immediate start of a new offensive to liberate Anbar province particularly the cities of Ramadi and Fallujah. I should probably start by explaining that the ISF first launched an operation to liberate Ramadi and Fallujah back in September 2014 but that ground to a halt due a failure to co-ordinate with the US-led coalition.
Since then ISF operations in the area have continued so it's more a case of the intensity of the operation periodically increasing and decreasing rather then stopping and then starting again. Although US President Obama is clearly still deeply committed to his "Dither Doctrine" this is no way to conduct a military operation that should have a clear start date, an achievable set of objectives and a clear end point. Unfortunately the PMF who as a militia are quite hot-headed and somewhat shambolic would rather rush in straight away. This is perhaps understandable because in the roughly a year since ISIL first swept into Iraq they have been subjected to some extreme provocation.
Not only have the Shia tribes that make up the PMF had to suffer the indignity of having large sections of their country over-run ISIL has made no secret of the fact that it wants to slaughter of Iraq's Shias. Since ISIL put themselves of the outskirts of the capital Baghdad in June 2014 they have been making good on that threat with wave after wave of suicide and car bomb attacks which have killed hundreds of Shia civilians. In January it seemed that the main ISIL cell within the capital had been broken up and arrested but in recent weeks a new cell has begun to emerge. For the most part this new cell has been largely ineffective injuring a few civilians rather then causing mass casualties. However with a wave of six bombings across Baghdad that killed 15 and wounded 90 it appears that the new cell is becoming more effective and more deadly.
However the PMF's very public calls for an Anbar offensive have prompted ISIL to launch a pre-emptive Anbar offensive of their own which so far has centred around Ramadi. As with the cities of Hasakah and Aleppo in Syria the situation in Ramadi has been something of a strange one. As part of the September operation the ISF did succeed in securing around 70% of Ramadi but were unable to fully dislodge ISIL from positions in the south of city. As part of their fresh offensive in the city ISIL have over the past week or so forced the ISF back in the north of the city and capturing villages on the northern outskirts. Today ISIL have succeeded in seizing control of several areas in the east of Ramadi leaving the ISF in only really in control of areas in west of the city.
This of course puts the ISF in a position where before they can put mount an operation to liberate Ramadi they first have to mount a defensive operation to stop ISIL gaining control of the city. Alternatively they might decide to abandon Ramadi entirely and then try to recapture it all at once as they did in Tikrit.
16:15 on 15/4/15 (UK date).
This attack was more successful with ISIL succeeding not only in breaching the perimeter but also in seizing a number of key areas inside the compound including the main garrison defending the site where Major Gen. Dhaif Khalaf - the garrison commander was killed. In an effort to repel Sunday's assault the US-led coalition eventually began carried out 6 air-strikes against ISIL destroying and mixture of ground units and fighting positions. This continued into Monday with 7 air-strikes against the same range of targets and a Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Device (VBIED). In total the coalition carried out 35 air-strikes across Syria and Iraq in those two days. By comparison in the same period Saudi Arabia carried out some 240 air-strikes in Yemen.
In response to the fighting which continues as I write the ISF have dispatched two regiments of the Iraqi police, a battalion of special forces and two regiments the Popular Mobilisation Force (PMF) militia from Camp Speicher near Tikrit to reinforce the refinery. The deployment of troops from Camp Speicher serves to underline that the oil refinery at Baiji has always been part of the Tikrit offensive. With the ISF initially liberating Baiji from ISIL back in December 2014 troops moved south from there to Camp Speicher on the northern outskirts of Tikrit while another force moved north from Samarra. As such I wouldn't consider the Tikrit offensive to be at an end until the area surrounding Baiji, Tikrit and Kirkuk including the Hawija district is fully secured.
The failure to complete the Tikrit offensive though hasn't stopped the PMF pressing for the immediate start of a new offensive to liberate Anbar province particularly the cities of Ramadi and Fallujah. I should probably start by explaining that the ISF first launched an operation to liberate Ramadi and Fallujah back in September 2014 but that ground to a halt due a failure to co-ordinate with the US-led coalition.
Since then ISF operations in the area have continued so it's more a case of the intensity of the operation periodically increasing and decreasing rather then stopping and then starting again. Although US President Obama is clearly still deeply committed to his "Dither Doctrine" this is no way to conduct a military operation that should have a clear start date, an achievable set of objectives and a clear end point. Unfortunately the PMF who as a militia are quite hot-headed and somewhat shambolic would rather rush in straight away. This is perhaps understandable because in the roughly a year since ISIL first swept into Iraq they have been subjected to some extreme provocation.
Not only have the Shia tribes that make up the PMF had to suffer the indignity of having large sections of their country over-run ISIL has made no secret of the fact that it wants to slaughter of Iraq's Shias. Since ISIL put themselves of the outskirts of the capital Baghdad in June 2014 they have been making good on that threat with wave after wave of suicide and car bomb attacks which have killed hundreds of Shia civilians. In January it seemed that the main ISIL cell within the capital had been broken up and arrested but in recent weeks a new cell has begun to emerge. For the most part this new cell has been largely ineffective injuring a few civilians rather then causing mass casualties. However with a wave of six bombings across Baghdad that killed 15 and wounded 90 it appears that the new cell is becoming more effective and more deadly.
However the PMF's very public calls for an Anbar offensive have prompted ISIL to launch a pre-emptive Anbar offensive of their own which so far has centred around Ramadi. As with the cities of Hasakah and Aleppo in Syria the situation in Ramadi has been something of a strange one. As part of the September operation the ISF did succeed in securing around 70% of Ramadi but were unable to fully dislodge ISIL from positions in the south of city. As part of their fresh offensive in the city ISIL have over the past week or so forced the ISF back in the north of the city and capturing villages on the northern outskirts. Today ISIL have succeeded in seizing control of several areas in the east of Ramadi leaving the ISF in only really in control of areas in west of the city.
This of course puts the ISF in a position where before they can put mount an operation to liberate Ramadi they first have to mount a defensive operation to stop ISIL gaining control of the city. Alternatively they might decide to abandon Ramadi entirely and then try to recapture it all at once as they did in Tikrit.
16:15 on 15/4/15 (UK date).
Still With the Rihanna Thing.
This past weekend US President Barack Obama attended the Summit of the Americas in Panama. The headlines from this Summit were all about Obama's historic meeting with Cuba's Raul Castro. However beyond Obama's desperate attempts to gerrymander Florida in favour of Hillary Clinton the main business of the meeting were the negotiations over a replacement to the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change that is scheduled to be signed in Paris, France at the end of this year.
Long term followers of those negotiations will be well aware that there is an informal bloc of mostly South American nations who due to their Marxist heritage are very opposed to capitalist market based solutions to climate change. This bloc has been particularly difficult of late pushing for a binary type agreement when a hybrid type agreement that would allow poor nations to develop is more favourable and probably the only type of agreement that would be signed. There is clearly a suspicion that China is running this South American bloc in order to control the pace of the negotiations essentially to buy time for the US to catch up with everybody else on the issue.
One of the main things that links this informal bloc is the Petrocaribe program which sees Venezuela supply oil to 17 Caribbean nations on extremely favourable terms and at a heavy discount. Recently Venezuela's economic problems along with the collapse in the price of oil has made Petrocaribe unsustainable and Venezuela has begun to significantly scale back the program. So although he did offer some funding for clean energy development Obama's main purpose of his trip to the Summit was to offer an alternative to Petrocaribe that would see the US take over as the main supplier of cheap oil to the Caribbean states. Many of those same states are of course asking the US to pass legislation to stop US oil companies from giving away free petrol generators to help them wean themselves of imported oil.
Within South America a lot of the commitment to Marxism stems from the Cold War and the US' School of the Americas operations across the continent. At this time not being a South American Marxist meant that you were subjected to Fascist dictatorships such as Pinochet in Chile and Videla and Galtieri in Argentina. The US' blockade of Cuba is probably the biggest and most public relic of this era. So by meeting with Castro Obama was also trying to sweeten the deal.
Whilst Obama was in Jamaica preparing to travel to Panama everyone's favourite weather controlling popstar Rihanna was in her native Barbados making the latest donation to a local hospital as part of her Clara Lionel charitable foundation. Barbados very pointedly refused to join Petrocaribe and Rihanna's foundation has long been a source of irritation within climate change negotiations. It was rumoured that Rihanna would then fly on from Barbados to the Summit of the Americas where she would be presented with some sort of award by Obama. In the end Rihanna instead returned to the US to attended the Coachella music festival.
The mere rumour however placed Rihanna on the agenda for the summit. The fact she didn't attend only confused matters further by raising questions about whether we'd been taken in by a false rumour or whether Rihanna had cancelled the event on my advice. The US' intention here was to use Rihanna as something of a smoke screen to disguise what was really going on from the Chinese. The hope being that would keep interest in Rihanna going throughout the rest of the year.
15:05 on 15/4/15 (UK date).
Long term followers of those negotiations will be well aware that there is an informal bloc of mostly South American nations who due to their Marxist heritage are very opposed to capitalist market based solutions to climate change. This bloc has been particularly difficult of late pushing for a binary type agreement when a hybrid type agreement that would allow poor nations to develop is more favourable and probably the only type of agreement that would be signed. There is clearly a suspicion that China is running this South American bloc in order to control the pace of the negotiations essentially to buy time for the US to catch up with everybody else on the issue.
One of the main things that links this informal bloc is the Petrocaribe program which sees Venezuela supply oil to 17 Caribbean nations on extremely favourable terms and at a heavy discount. Recently Venezuela's economic problems along with the collapse in the price of oil has made Petrocaribe unsustainable and Venezuela has begun to significantly scale back the program. So although he did offer some funding for clean energy development Obama's main purpose of his trip to the Summit was to offer an alternative to Petrocaribe that would see the US take over as the main supplier of cheap oil to the Caribbean states. Many of those same states are of course asking the US to pass legislation to stop US oil companies from giving away free petrol generators to help them wean themselves of imported oil.
Within South America a lot of the commitment to Marxism stems from the Cold War and the US' School of the Americas operations across the continent. At this time not being a South American Marxist meant that you were subjected to Fascist dictatorships such as Pinochet in Chile and Videla and Galtieri in Argentina. The US' blockade of Cuba is probably the biggest and most public relic of this era. So by meeting with Castro Obama was also trying to sweeten the deal.
Whilst Obama was in Jamaica preparing to travel to Panama everyone's favourite weather controlling popstar Rihanna was in her native Barbados making the latest donation to a local hospital as part of her Clara Lionel charitable foundation. Barbados very pointedly refused to join Petrocaribe and Rihanna's foundation has long been a source of irritation within climate change negotiations. It was rumoured that Rihanna would then fly on from Barbados to the Summit of the Americas where she would be presented with some sort of award by Obama. In the end Rihanna instead returned to the US to attended the Coachella music festival.
The mere rumour however placed Rihanna on the agenda for the summit. The fact she didn't attend only confused matters further by raising questions about whether we'd been taken in by a false rumour or whether Rihanna had cancelled the event on my advice. The US' intention here was to use Rihanna as something of a smoke screen to disguise what was really going on from the Chinese. The hope being that would keep interest in Rihanna going throughout the rest of the year.
15:05 on 15/4/15 (UK date).
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