Operation Featherweight: Month 14, Week 2, Day 5.

Today the British Prime Minister David Cameron gave a statement to Parliament outlining his plan to help Syrian refugees. This was really procedural to allow the plan he announced on Friday (4/9/15) to become official British government policy.

The headline of the announcement is that Britain will accept 20,000 refugees directly from camps neighbouring Syria by 2020. However with no more specific timetable provided a cynic might suspect that this means 1 Syrian refugee this year and 19,999 refugees in May 2020 if Cameron can't find a way to wriggle out of it.

What struck me as the most important part of the plan is that the UK doesn't intend to treat these people as refugees. Instead it intends to grant them 5 year humanitarian visas as part of what is being termed a "resettlement." The key difference between a refugee and someone with a humanitarian visa is that those holding the visa are free to work and access public funds such as social housing, schooling, welfare payments and Britain's cherished National Health Service (NHS) just the same as any British citizen.

Politically this strikes me as an extremely poor decision because I think the main opposition to Britain accepting more refugees is that the public don't understand the difference between economic migrants and those seeking asylum as refugees. Once these complex differences are explained I think a lot of the political pressure on the government to block refugees will disappear.

By blurring the distinction between economic migrants and refugees by using humanitarian visas the government has decided not to make it's case to the public and in the process made it's life much more difficult.

This failure to understand the difference between refugees and economic migrants - particularly by governments in some of the newer, eastern European Union (EU) states - is really what is crippling the EU's ability to respond to the crisis. For example just today the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban came out and declared that these Syrians weren't refugees but economic migrants. By using humanitarian visas Cameron has missed a prime opportunity - as an EU member -to help speed up an EU-wide solution to the problem.

Although most of Cameron's Conservative Party seem to think that they live on an entirely different planet to the rest of us an EU-wide solution is needed to solve the problems that have blighted Calais in France and by extension Kent in the UK over the summer.

Beyond sating the venom of bigots there is also a very strong humanitarian reason for not making this type of refugee too comfortable.

Through their mass executions, forcible displacement/deportation of groups like Shia Muslims, the Yezidi, the Druze and Christians and their destruction of cultural relics such as the temples at Palmyra the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) are engaged in the crime against humanity of ethnic cleansing. Their objective to erase any member or symbol of any other ethnic/religious group from what they term the "Levant."

By welcoming vast numbers of these purged minorities in countries thousands of miles away for their homeland and giving them everything they need to start new lives the international community is essentially looking at ISIL and going; "Love what you're doing with the crime against humanity. How can we help?!"

Therefore while there is a clear humanitarian obligation to keep these people safe there is an equally important humanitarian obligation to keep them safe as close to their homes as possible in order to allow them to return as quickly as possible once the danger has passed. This is why you get things like the Yarmouk camp for Palestinian refugees close to Damascus in Syria.

Although Yarmouk was established in 1957 and to a casual observer doesn't look any different from any other Damascus suburb even the people born there are not granted Syrian citizenship. That's because to do so would legitimise Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory.

One person I would consider expert in the hard-headed realities of providing humanitarian support in the face of these types of crime against humanity is British former Colonel Bob Stewart who commanded the United Nations (UN) peacekeeping force in the former Yugoslavia. He is currently an MP for Cameron's Conservative Party although I suspect he was not asked for his advice on this policy.

One thing that is perfectly clear from today's announcement is that Cameron has spent most of the past 6 years sacking most of the policy experts in the civil service while desperately trying to pretend that there is no refugee problem. In the past week the public mood has shifted dramatically away from him so he's been forced to draw up this entire policy in just 4 days. Needless to say none of the aspects of the policy have been considered in anything like the level of detail they need to be.

This amateurish and woolly minded thinking also seems to be threatening to invade and disrupt the military operation against ISIL which is of course essential to ultimately solving the refugee crisis.

After making his refugee announcement Cameron went on to inform Parliament that a British citizen - Reyaad Khan, 21 - who had joined ISIL had been killed by a British drone strike in Raqqa, Syria on August 21st (21/8/15).

I should start by making clear that in terms of international law this was all entirely legal. Due to their crimes against humanity on August 15th 2014 (15/8/15) the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) passed Chapter 7 resolution 2170 (2014) authorising the use of military force against ISIL and the Al Qaeda affiliated Al Nusra Front (ANF) in order to protect the territorial integrity of both Syria and Iraq and to protect civilians in those countries or any other country that the two groups may threaten in the future.

As a result regardless of who you are or where you are in the World if you are a member of or provide any support to either ISIL or ANF we can just shoot you in the face.

Unfortunately neither Prime Minister Cameron nor the UK Attorney General Jeremy Wright who was apparently consulted prior to the strike seem at all aware of this legal reality. Instead they attempted to argue that the strike was lawful under the UK's right to self-defence. This is much more of a legal grey area.

In order to invoke self-defence a nation must show both that the threat is imminent and that the action they take has a realistic chance of eliminating that threat. At the time he was killed Khan was in Raqqa which is about 5000km (3000 miles) and around 10 countries away from the UK. Therefore it is hard to argue that the threat he posed was so imminent that other action such as arresting him on the border couldn't have been taken instead.

From the information provided it appears that Khan was plotting with people already inside the UK to carry out these attacks. Unless these people have also been arrested/killed then it's hard to argue that the killing of Khan had a realistic chance of eliminating the threat to the UK.

Politically this argument of pre-emptive self-defence is extremely sensitive - particularly in the middle-east. After all it was the argument the US and the UK used to invade Iraq in 2003 without a UNSC resolution. Do I really need to remind you how well that went?

The argument is also used extensively by Israel for a host of attacks on the Palestinians and it's neighbours. The examples that spring to my mind are the 1981 Operation Opera against Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor and the 2008/9 Operation Cast Lead which was the Gaza war that everybody was still protesting against during the 2014 summer war in Gaza.

So in announcing the death of Khan Cameron could either have said; "We have killed this man to protect Muslims for the infidels of ISIL" or "We have killed this Muslim because we are Zionist Crusaders at war with Islam."

With Cameron choosing the latter I don't understand why ISIL bother having a propaganda department because Cameron's clearly desperate to do their job for them.

These mistake are so elementary that they really highlight that Cameron's overwhelming desire to start air-strikes in Syria are not the result of any level of understanding of the problem or how to win the war. Instead they are the result of a soft-handed marketing man whose never been in a fight in his life desperately trying to prove - likely to his own wife - how tough and macho he is. That's the sort of attitude that loses wars and gets a lot of people killed in the process.

Although the killing of Khan was entirely legal under international law it may well cause Cameron a lot of problems under domestic, UK law.

When the British Parliament authorised air-strikes against ISIL in Iraq the wording of the motion made explicitly clear that any military action in Syria would require a separate Parliamentary vote. By conducting the killing of Khan without that vote Cameron has acted in contempt of Parliament.

Although the Speaker may immediately suspend Cameron from Parliament such an action normally leads to a vote of no confidence and the Prime Minister's resignation.

At around 20:15 on 7/9/15 (UK date) I'm clearly going to be at this for a while but this should be enough to get on with in the meantime.

Edited around 20:30 on 7/9/15 (UK date) to continue;

Further indication that the refugee crisis could provoke a reckless and knee-jerk change to the military operation against ISIL came today from France. After announcing that France will also accept 20,000 Syrian refugees - I've not checked on the specifics of their legal status - French President Francois Hollande announced that France will resume surveillance flights over Syria, This moves the country a step towards conducting air-strikes in Syria.

Over the past 13 months the problem with the fight against ISIL has never been a lack of aircraft. At last count Combined Joint Task Force: Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTFOIR) - as the US-led coalition is formally known - had around 70 strike aircraft at it's disposal. Each one of these aircraft is capable of carrying out at least two air-strikes at a time. Yesterday (6/9/15) CJTFOIR managed to out 11 air-strikes in Iraq and just 4 air-strikes in Syria.

As such far from being over-stretched CJTFOIR is currently operating at only 10% of capacity.

The fact that I've still got access to these figures further underlines just how childish CJTFOIR's continued blocking of me on Twitter really is.

As of September 1st (1/9/15) CJTFOIR have flown 51,991 operations over Iraq and Syria conducting 6,550 air-strikes. However by the US' own admission although these strikes have killed ISIL fighters because the flow of recruits from overseas has not been halted it has made little to no difference in reducing the size of ISIL's force and there has been little to no progress in dislodging them from the territory they hold.

Within Iraq the core of the problem is the US' refusal to allow the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) to actually fight ISIL let alone take territory off them. In March 2015 the Shia militia's that make up the Popular Mobilisation Force (PMF) got frustrated with this and led an operation to liberate the city of Tikrit. CJTFOIR provided no close air-support to this operation and the US made it perfectly clear that it had not given permission for the operation at one point telling journalists to "Ask Tehran" how it was going.

Although they were successful in liberating Tikrit as a militia the PMF are more then a bit chaotic so failed to complete the operation by liberating Baiji. Fighting in that town and the surrounding oil refinery continues.

After the ISF including the PMF began an operation to liberate all of the south-western Anbar province CJTFOIR did belatedly provide air-support. However such is the size of the task of liberating two cities and an entire province it will be a very long time until this operation produces concrete results. You suspect rather then advising them to concentrate on the Baiji-Kirkuk triangle CJTFOIR is secretly hoping that the Anbar operation fails to provide yet another excuse why the ISF couldn't possibly attempt to fight ISIL.

The most effective anti-ISIL force in either Iraq or Syria has been the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG). Although CJTFOIR initially seemed happy to see the YPG wiped out during the Battle of Kobane they not only won that battle but went on to clear all the territory around Kobane City which is known as the Kobane Canton. By June 16th (16/6/15) the YPG had pushed out from Kobane Canton and liberated the town of Tel Abyad.

Quite apart from denying ISIL a vital supply route into Turkey the liberation of Tel Abyad allowed the YPG to link up the Kobane and eastern Cizire Canton establishing a 33,000km^2 (20,000mile^2) buffer-zone stretching from the Euphrates River in the west all the way across northern Syria and Iraq to Iraq's border with Iran. It also put the YPG within striking distance of Raqqa - ISIL's de facto capital in Syria.

Despite this CJTFOIR is still flatly refusing to supply the YPG with weapons or equipment or allow the buffer-zone they've established to be used as either a base for ground operations against ISIL or a safe-haven for refugees.

The main reason for this failure to fight ISIL is US President Barack Obama, as the Commander-in-Chief of CJTFOIR insistence on continuing to take advice from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Despite there being extremely strong suspicions that Erdogan directly supports ISIL the official reason for the delay is to provide time for a Sunni-Arab ground force to be created to fight ISIL.

That Sunni-Arab force is currently the Army of Conquest/Jaish al-Fatah (JAF). This is a coalition of around a dozen different Islamist insurgent groups. However the two main groups within the coalition are the Al Qaeda affiliated ANF and the Islamic Movement of the Freemen of the Levant (FML) which is a non-Syrian insurgent group that is ideologically extremely similar to ISIL.

Apart from the fact that ANF are subject to UNSC resolution 2170 making any support for them a crime under international law the main problem with JAF is that they have absolutely no interest in fighting ISIL with whom they are closely allied. 

Instead JAF are using the support provided by CJTFOIR to fight the Syrian government who are not subject to any UNSC Chapter 7 resolution. Although the Syrian government continue to hold JAF in Idlib and Homs Provinces it's clear that JAF's objective is to push down through Latakia Province to occupy positions along the Lebanese border.

With the Syrian government having to fight JAF it is much harder for them to fight ISIL. As a result ISIL are continuing to gain ground. On August 27th (27/8/15) ISIL gained villages around Marea on the border with Turkey also this seems to have been the result of Turkey instructing JAF to hand the positions to ISIL. Today ISIL captured parts of the Jazal oil field in Homs Province which seems to run entirely contrary to CJTFOIR's oft-stated strategy of cutting ISIL off from it's profitable oil supplies.

If JAF do succeed in capturing Latakia Province then the several million Syrian Shia Muslims, Christians and Druze who are currently being protected by the Syrian government will have to become refugees in Lebanon where roughly 1 in every 4 people is already a refugee from Syria. With the Lebanese militia Hezbollah fighting alongside the Syrian government it is unlikely that JAF will stop at Latakia instead moving to invade Lebanon. 

If that happens then the roughly 1.2 million refugees that are currently in Lebanon along with the roughly 3 million more refugees that the fall of Latakia will create along with Lebanon's own population of around 6 million will have to flee - likely across the Mediterranean creating 10 million extra refugees for the EU to deal with.

If the Syrian government is overthrown not only will it be an unlawful act of regime change it will also make the situation in Syria much worse. Not only will ISIL continue to operate JAF will likely fragment into different warring factions just the same as is currently happening in Libya. Alongside Syria Libya is currently the main contributor to the refugee crisis.

You may remember that Russia has opposed this wholly illegal attempt to overthrow the Syrian government from the start. This is why in the summer of 2013 Saudi Arabia's Prince Bandar threatened to launch terror attacks against the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia unless Russia dropped it's support for international law. 

The Saudis appear to have made good on this threat with several Islamist terror attacks striking around Sochi in the weeks running up to the games. Fortunately the international espionage community did seem to pull together to stop Saudi Arabia's plans at the last minute.

By way of an apology for stopping Saudi Arabia's terror attacks the US backed neo-Nazis to overthrow the government in Sochi's near neighbour Ukraine during the games. This provoked a civil war that has  created more then 1 million refugees that have been taking in by Russia and providing the US with an excuse to place sanctions on Russia for it's opposition to ISIL.

In recent days rumours have begun to emerge that Russia has begun to increase it's long-standing military presence in Syria's Latakia Province. This seems intended to give the US a stark choice between actually trying to defeat ISIL or continue to support it through JAF and risk a military confrontation with Russia that could well go a bit nuclear. 

If David Cameron wants to plunge the UK into the middle of this just because his wife doesn't find him attractive anymore I think it's time for him to resign.

21:50 on 7/9/15 (UK date).