COP21 Terrorism Update #3

Yesterday (3/12/15) was rather quiet in terms of terrorism. The hope was clearly that the continuing fall out from the San Benardino attack would negate the need for a fresh attack.

US President Barack Obama did briefly address the attack. However he refused to acknowledge it as an attack and spoke instead of the need for more time to gather evidence.

His intention was clearly that in the week or so it would take to gather that evidence the news cycle would have moved on and he could avoid acknowledging it as a terror attack.

I think I covered the attack pretty comprehensively in my last update. However there is one further detailed I picked up on as the day wore on.

Within roughly an hour of the attack I had the name of the one of the attackers - Syed Farook. A few hours after that I had current, high-resolution photographs of what he looked like. However throughout yesterday the US media continued to use an outdated, low-resolution photograph that had been provided by the police.

The reason for this is that in that photograph Farook looked as though he may have come from the Russian Caucus region such as Chechnya or Dagestan. The intention was to invoke memories of the Tsarnaev brothers who carried out the 2013 attack on the Boston Marathon.

Although the US certainly doesn't see any incentive to avoid references to Rihanna during COP Summits or "Black Lives Matter" who think "Caucasian" means "White" and that Slavs have never experienced Slavery this was primarily a reference to the US threat to Russia that was implicit within the Boston attacks.

Essentially the US was warning Russia that if it continued to opposed the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) then the US would arrange for Islamists in the Caucus region such as the Tsarnaev brothers to launch terrorist attacks against Russia.

In the run up to the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia this threat was followed through on with terror attacks on Volgograd which is a major transport hub for Sochi. 

During the Olympics the US took things a step further by violently overthrowing the government of Ukraine. This plunged Russia's neighbour into what is now coming up to a two year civil war. The US has used that civil war as an excuse to impose sanctions on Russia.

Yesterday the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) was holding a ministerial level meeting in Belgrade, Serbia. High on the agenda was the continuing civil war in Ukraine.

Therefore by playing up the link to the Boston Bombings and all that followed the US making clear that the biggest threat to Europe's security and stability is in fact US President Barack Obama.

Despite this admission the European Union (EU) still renewed the sanctions imposed on Russia over the crash of Malaysia Airlines MH17. This is despite the Dutch - and EU member - investigation concluding that it was the US backed Ukrainian junta that was responsible for the crash not Russia.

So yes, in the EU I don't think I've seen an organisation so utterly committed to its own destruction.

In case the fallout from San Benardino terror attack wasn't disruptive enough the US also decided to kidnap further FIFA officials yesterday on false allegations of corruption.

The thing that is immediately obvious to anyone who knows anything about football is that at no point during its anti-corruption drive has the US arrested or even investigated a man called Muhammad bin Hamman. 

In football circles bin Hamman is widely acknowledged to have paid out close to USD1bn in bribes to bring the 2022 World Cup to Qatar despite Qatar itself admitting that it cannot host the 2022 World Cup. bin Hamman has even been expelled from FIFA for corruption.

So despite whatever Loretta Lynch says what everyone sees is Qatar bribing the US to protect its hosting of the 2022 World Cup by eliminating anyone who would order a re-vote. In turn the US is using a banking investigation to bribe Swiss authorities to stage all these arrests.

So the story is really about just how corrupt the Obama administration actually is.

While the US is busy shouting from the roof-tops about how corrupt it is it makes it extremely difficult for COP21 delegates to raise legitimate concerns about corruption and transparency.

Although not technically terrorism the other big set-piece from yesterday was the news that South African sprinter Oscar Pistorious has now been convicted of murder without the formality of a trial.

This long running saga stems from a fundamental problem with South African President Jacob Zuma. Because Nelson Mandela and to a lesser extent Thabo Mbeki were able to run with the big boys Zuma has assumed that he can too.

So when the US announced their intention to disrupt COP19 with Rihanna's Diamonds World Tour Zuma was first in line for tickets.

As if bringing Rihanna to South Africa wasn't bad enough Zuma then decided to get really involved by ordering Oscar Pistorious to kill Reeva Steenkamp. This was no different from a President ordering a soldier to kill during a war.

The intention being that Pistorious would serve as a metaphor for Chris Brown while Steenkamp would serve as a metaphor for Rihanna. We would then all discuss how the US was trying to kill Rihanna by forcing her into a relationship with Brown.

However when in March 2013 thirteen South African soldiers were killed in the Central African Republic (CAR) it started looking like Zuma had made a huge mistake. 

The African National Congress (ANC) - particularly the women's wing - the immediately rallied round their leader, Pistorious became a metaphor for me and demands grew for us both to be burned at the stake.

In September 2014 Pistorious was convicted of the lesser offence of culpable homicide a received the maximum sentence of 5 years in prison. 

Although I thought the sentence was overly harsh this generally struck me as a fair settlement. After all Pistorious should have been able to argue that his actions were lawful because they were ordered by the President.

Unfortunately while all this was going on South Africa was also embroiled in the case of Shrien Dewani and British national who murdered his wife in South Africa during the run-up to the COP16 Summit. 

As a matter of national pride the South Africans were obviously very keen to convict Dewani. However Dewani was being backed by the UK state so eventually South Africa had to give in and Dewani was completely unjustly acquitted.

Since then the Pistorious case has also become a metaphor for the Dewani case. The South African government has been desperate to show Pistorious no mercy in the hope that it will cover up the fact they allowed Dewani to bribe his way out of justice.

The timing of yesterday's verdict was intended to make the name-sake of the "Durban Platform (ADP)" the centre of attention during COP21.

However it looks to me that they've only succeeded in sending out the message that South Africa's legal system can't be trusted and its politicians can't keep their promises.




The much immediate and serious problem facing COP21 is that the ADP has refused to submit a draft of a new agreement for consideration by the ministerial segment of the summit.





Instead the ADP has opted to submit the US authored non-paper of October 2015.

Abandoning the issues that everybody has been working on for 4 years this non-paper is in the format of the Kyoto Protocol. However unlike the Kyoto Protocol it doesn't mandate emission reductions for any party and certainly doesn't make those reductions enforceable.

While I don't want to insult the giants who went before me upon whose shoulders I am currently precariously balanced the Kyoto Protocol simply did not work. A watered down version of the Kyoto Protocol is going to be even less effective.

This presents a serious problem for the governing body of the COP because if they accept the non-paper then it means the ADP's work is formally over and it is largely shut down. We will then spend the remaining week of COP21 with no work to do and no agreement will be signed.

Worse then that would be the non-paper being ratified as an agreement. Unlike the Kyoto Protocol the non-paper does not include a sunset clause at which point it ceases to be in effect.

So if ratified this non-action on climate change will permanently become the global action on climate change. 

It will become near impossible to re-open the process to bring about the type of agreement that is needed.

Even the UK has identified serious structural flaws with what is supposed to be a "bridge" between the Kyoto Protocol and the action needed. 

You know things must be bad when they're agreeing with me.

13:45 on 4/12/15 (UK date).