COP21 Terrorism Update #2

I had really hoped that I would be able to get through today without having to write this. That's because generally things have been pretty quiet throughout most of the day.

Pakistan did today execute four of the men who carried out the December 16th (16/12/14) attack on a school on a military base in Peshawar in which 132 children murdered. Coming days after the COP20 Summit which was held on a similar military base in Peru this was a direct threat to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) process.

I was though happy to let the executions pass without comment because Pakistan is trying to schedule them around the first anniversary of the attacks. As with World AIDS day unless we're going to re-schedule all future COP Summits will occur around the anniversary of those attacks

Also while I'm not trying to overplay it for dramatic effect the threat of terrorism is a real factor at COP21. Refusing to acknowledge or talk about it does not do anybody any favours.

Although not directly related there is of course the continuing tensions between Turkey and Russia over Turkey's continued support for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

On Monday (30/11/15) Russia formally accused Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his family of directly profiting from the sale of ISIL produced oil.

On Tuesday (1/12/15) Erdogan responded by announcing he would resign if Russia could prove its allegations.

This struck me as a particularly unwise challenge for Erdogan to issue because since the November 13th (13/11/15) Paris Massacres Russia and the US have been having a bit of a competition to see who could bomb the most ISIL tankers as they make their way into Turkey. Russia has established a substantial lead.

So today Russia released intelligence footage of oil tankers being loaded in ISIL controlled oil fields and then being driven along two well established routes from Syria into Turkey. They are then unloaded at oil refinery's controlled by Erdogan's son Bilal Erdogan. The oil industry in Turkey is regulated by the Energy Ministry which is headed by Berat Albayrak - Erdogan's son-in-law.

There is yet no word as to when Erdogan will be addressing the nation to confirm his resignation.

The US of course couldn't resist the opportunity to play up the terrorism issue in an effort to disrupt COP21. So this morning there were reports of a Black gunman on the rampage at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

This of course invoked memories of Monday's (30/11/13) similar incident at Illinois University. It feeds into what is likely to be the background music of COP21 - Essentially US President Barack Obama is a terrorist.

Chapel Hill was chosen because it links Obama directly to Erdogan. You may remember that on February 10th (10/2/15) - during a UNFCCC meeting - three Muslim students of the University of North Carolina were shot and killed in their home.

Erdogan responded to this by labelling it an Islamaphobic hate crime and demanded that Obama took action. Obama promptly did what Erdogan told him and addressed the nation condemning the Islamaphobic hate crime.

It then emerged that the killings had nothing to do with the victims being Muslim. It simply was an argument over car parking. It also emerged that the father of one of the victims and the Mosque they all attended had previously been investigated for plotting Islamist terror attacks and hosting pro-ISIL preachers.

The big problem within COP21 at the moment is in what is known as "Workstream 2 of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform (ADP/ADP2).

Since it's inception at COP17 in Durban, South Africa in 2011 the ADP has be working to formulate the global agreement that is set to be signed at COP21. By June 2015 it was very close to achieving that goal.

Then at the October meeting all the ADP's work was torn up and replaced with an entirely new text. To develop this new text to the point where it can be used as a global agreement will likely take another 4 years. The ADP currently has a little over 24hrs.

Therefore I think the ADP should abandon the October text and revert to the June draft. This is different from saying that they should adopt the text I circulated on November 29th (29/11/15). Although I believe in my work my purpose in circulating that text was to show parties how the agreement could function as a complete document rather than to impose a text upon them.

Whether or not the ADP follows my advice depends largely on its Co-Chair Daniel Reifsnyder - an American.

So what it seems the US is doing is using the threat of terrorism to undermine Reifsnyder to kill off the agreement at the ADP stage. It will then demand that something is done "to defeat the terrorists" to force through an agreement I wouldn't wipe my a*se with.

It is in this context that a mass casualty shooting has occurred in San Bernardino, California, US. Details are still emerging but it appears that between one and three men - one with an Arab name - opened fire at an office building wounding 20 and killing 12 before fleeing the scene.

This is obviously reminiscent of the Paris Massacres. However it seems more reminiscent of an anti-terror training drill that UK police carried out at an office building in London. This was scheduled before the Paris Massacres and the UK holds three or four of them every year. As a child I used to get dragged to loads of them. I even died of anthrax once.

What was interesting about this drill is that the police officers playing the role of the attackers were armed with Libyan made AK-47 assault rifles with the distinctive wooden foregrip. I took this as an intentional reference to the way Islamist fighters were flown from Libya to Syria to play the role of the "peaceful protesters"  during the early stages of the war.

That would suggest that the UK is casting doubt on the official story of the Syria war. I'm sure it's completely deniable though.

The building targeted in San Bernardino holds a charity which works with adults with what are termed "Developmental Disabilities" although the less politically correct may term them "Learning Difficulties."

For a long time the big challenge within climate change negotiations has been balancing the need to develop economically with the need to reduce green house gas (GHG) emissions. However without getting into too much technical detail that has rather been solved by technology leaving the argument rather outdated.

Also it feels like an attack on me personally because for a long time, amongst numerous other insults, people have argued that I must be mentally disabled to think that climate change is caused by GHG emissions. 

Yesterday's (1/12/15) announcement on Peter Sutcliffe - "The Yorkshire Ripper" - suggests the UK may finally be altering that position in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

I also worked - for a brief time - at a charity shop which helped people with mental health problems and developmental disabilities. For a moment I thought yesterday's fire in a shop on Westgate/Cross streets in Newcastle could have been a reference to that. I almost immediately dismissed the idea but perhaps I wasn't the only one thinking along those lines.

 The office building attacked sits on a street named "Waterman Avenue" and the names of many of the surrounding streets and buildings have a similarly hydrological theme.

Water is a very big issue within climate change negotiations. 

The arguments that have been had over the Nile River between East African nations such as Egypt, Sudan and Kenya over the years could probably fill the Nile River. In desert countries - particularly Gulf Arab states such as Yemen - people are now very seriously talking about wars over water supplies and drought making the entire region unhabitable in the next 35 years. 

In fact while news of the San Bernardino attacks was breaking dignitaries at COP21 were signing the "Paris Pact on Water and Climate Change Adaption;" http://newsroom.unfccc.int/lpaa/resilience/press-release-lpaa-resilience-1-paris-pact-on-water-and-climate-change-adaptation-announced/

Therefore my first instinct was that the San Bernadino attack had been staged. The intention being to cause panic at COP21 by sending the message that due to his love affair with people like Erdogan President Obama isn't even prepared to protect the nation he is sworn to protect from ISIL. 

As such there's abolutely no chance of Obama being prepared to protect nations such as France, Kenya, Pakistan etc from ISIL.

However as the story has developed I'm now begining to think that perhaps this might be a genuine ISIL terror attack. Attacking the US is of cource the ultimate show of force by ISIL that will send chills down the spines of everybody at COP21.

  
Also while I've been writing this the UK Parliament has passed the motion to conduct air-strikes in Syria by 397 votes to 223. The UK can now join the massive queue of aircraft that are flying over Syria but aren't allowed to bomb ISIL. 

23:10 on 2/12/15 (UK date). 

Edited at around 12:40 on 3/12/15 (UK date) to add;

Overnight it's been confirmed that events in San Bernardino was indeed an Islamic inspired domestic terror attack. 

Not only is it similar to the April 15th 2013 (15/4/13) attack on the Boston Marathon on a tactical level at least it seems directly inspired by it.

The attackers have been identified as Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and Tashfeen Malik, 27 - a devout Muslim husband and wife. They were both killed in the course of the attack. 

It's also emerged that the primary target of the attack was not the charity working with adults developmental disabilities. Instead it was a meeting of low-level, local government employees that was taking place in the same office building.

Syed Farook was aware that this meeting was taking place because he had been invited in his role as an "Environmenal Health Specialist" working for local government. 

This is a role that is colloquially known as a "Health Inspector." The UK equivilents role is essentially to enforce the 1990 Environmental Protection Act (EPA); http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1990/43/contents

I know all this because where I live in Croydon Environmental Health Specialists simply can't be bothered to do their jobs. So in the summer/autumn of 2010 I was forced to prosecute eveybody's favourite Housing Association under the act. 

During this time frequent reference was made to Indonesia's annual festival of slash and burn farming and its consequences in terms of Short Lived Climate Pollutants (SLCP's) such as smog.

The case was incorrectly dismissed by the Court after the defence cited a Supreme Court precedent regarding the defence in tort of a housing association which after due dilligence employed a third party contractor that negilently caused a natural gas explosion.

This had absolutely nothing to do with the case being argued in front of the Court. However I think we all know what we've got to look out for on "Building Day" at COP21.

In light of this new information the answer to whether this was a genuine ISIL-inspired terror attack or something the US had staged is simply; "Yes."

At any given point the US security services - FBI, Homeland Security etc - are working to disrupt up to 50 ISIL-inspired domestic terror attacks. Despite their best efforts they know that eventually one attack will slip through the net.

However if they were to put that information in an intelligence report to President Obama he would simply order that report re-written so it reflects his political agenda rather then the actual threat.

Therefore it appears that in San Bernardino someone - through the fatigue caused by overwork - has forgotten to send the email or make the phone call that would have prevented the attack.

We are now waiting to see how Obama will respond. Specifically whether he will acknowledge this as a terror attack or simply write it off as "Workplace Violence" as he did with the 2009 Fort Hood Shooting or tried to do with the July 16th (16/7/15) Chattanooga attack.

Obama seems to have set his stall out early by responding to the San Bernardino attack with a call for increased gun-control which obviously furthers his own political agenda. Fighting terrorism clearly isn't on Obama's agenda.

The smart money though is on Obama doing the exact same thing he did in response to January's Paris Attacks - simply pretend it didn't happen.

After all it's not an accident that Obama's got the nickname; "The Man Who Wasn't There."