On Wednesday (30/9/15) former US Navy fighter pilot John McCain took to the floor of the US Senate and made it abundantly clear that under President Barack Obama the US had committed a war crime by supporting Al Qaeda affiliated terrorists in Syria.
As Al Qaeda are a declared enemy of the US Obama had also committed treason. Russia is currently tidying up the mess.
Obviously if the US were to discuss this openly then Obama wouldn't make it to the end of the week. So yesterday (1/10/15) along came a mass shooting at a community college in Umpqua in the US state of Oregon.
In order to understand this shooting you first have to understand several other shootings that have occurred in the US this year;
The first of these occurred in Chapel Hill, North Carolina on February 10th (10/2/15). The three victims - Deah Shaddy Barakat, Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, and Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha - were young Muslim Americans who were shot and killed in their apartment. It is alleged (trial pending) that they were shot by their neighbour - Craig Stephen Hicks - in an argument over car parking.
However as with the Ghouta Sarin gas attack in Syria and the Rabaa Mosque clearance in Egypt very well organised protesters suddenly appeared and proclaimed the killings to be an example of Islamaphobic oppression. They called on President Obama and the US authorities to label the shootings as an example Christian terrorism against Muslims.
These protesters included Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan who two days later (12/2/15) came out and said of Obama; "If you stay silent when faced with an incident like this, and don't make a statement, the world will stay silent towards you," Effectively accusing Obama and the entire US of supporting Christian terrorism against Muslims.
The following day (13/2/15) Obama meekly obliged Erdogan addressing the nation and saying, amongst other things; "No one in the United States of America should ever be targeted because
of who they are, what they look like, or how they worship." In doing so Obama effectively declared the killings to be an example of Christian terrorism against Muslims entirely prejudicing any investigation or future trial.
Although I don't mean an slight to Turkey or even to Erdogan it is extremely unbecoming of any US President to allow themselves to be pushed around like that. This is particularly true when it involves them compromising core American values such as the presumption of innocence and the right to a fair trial.
While the trial is still to take place all of the evidence collected as part of the investigations indicate that this was not an example of Christian terrorism against Muslims. Instead it was just one man who was extremely angry about the issue of car parking.
For example the accused has a long history of calling out tow trucks to have cars removed and kept extensive records of how all his neighbours - not just the Muslim ones - parked their cars. In contrast there seems to be little evidence that that the accused was a Christian or could even spell "Islam."
It has also since emerged that the Chapel Hill Mosque where the three worshipped and which organised the protests has a bit of a reputation for Islamic extremism. In November 2013 it invited Ahmed Jibril to preach there despite Jibril having frequently spoken in support of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and being in frequent contact with ISIL fighters in Iraq.
In 2012 the father of two of the victims - Mohammed Abu Salha - was investigated over a terrorist plot to attack a US Marine base in Quantico, Virgina.
Although I think it's unlikely they will issue a press statement it's possible the Chapel Hill Mosque is still under investigation for links to terrorism and the protests were calculated to force the authorities to back off. After all it wouldn't be the first time that trick's been played - particularly by Protestant and Catholic Christians in Northern Ireland.
Next there is the Charleston shooting on June 17th (17/6/15). Here it is alleged that a white gunman walked into the Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Protestant, Christian Church and shot and killed 9 black people in Charleston, South Carolina.
On this occasion Obama didn't need any prompting and immediately addressed the nation to proclaim this as an example of the structural racism that he and the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protest movement had been battling since the death of Micheal Brown in August 2014. Obama also claimed that it supported his long running campaign for tighter gun control. Not only did Obama address the nation but he also attended the funeral of one of the deceased giving a eulogy that was broadcast internationally.
Unlike with the Chapel Hill shootings Obama's actions here seemed to be a deliberate attempt to pervert the course of justice by denying the accused - Dylann Roof - the right to a fair trial.
That's because the deceased were active members of the BLM movement which has used violence and the threat of violence to over-ride the US justice system to imprison white police officers who have lawfully killed black suspects. This is the definition of terrorism.
Although I wasn't aware of it at the time 412th episode of the US TV show "Law & Order" entitled "Rumble" dealt with almost exactly this issue. For a TV show their legal aspects are actually very well researched.
As such there is a very strong legal, if not moral, argument that Roof's actions were lawful in order to protect wider society from the terrorism of BLM. Such a verdict would obviously raise serious questions over Obama's presidency and whether he is fit and able to continue in the role.
The third incident was the Chattanooga shooting which occurred on July 16th (16/7/15). Here a Kuwaiti born Muslim - Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez - launched twin gun attacks on a military recruiting centre and a US Navy base killing five US military personnel in Chattanooga, Tennessee. This may have been an ISIL inspired terrorist attack or a terror attack co-ordinated by the intelligence services of a foreign power.
Either way as far as I can tell Obama has yet to acknowledge that this event occurred. At one point the White House was even trying to block medals and death benefits being awarded to the victims because to do so would require Obama acknowledging - even in private - that this had been a terrorist attack. I seriously hope that issue has now been resolved.
I gather then Obama did eventually acknowledge the August 21st (12/8/15) Thalys train attack. However this was only after the hit TV Show "Dancing With the Stars (DWTS)" booked one of the heroes to appear on the TV screens of millions of Americans every week for the next three months or so.
Going back to yesterday's shooting although it is a word of the Native American Coquille tribe with it's collection of "U's," "Q's" and "P's" in odd places the word "Umpqua" could sound vaguely Arabic or Islamic if you're not paying too close attention.
Featuring lots of green which is traditionally a colour associated with Islam the logo of the Umpqua Community College does have a vaguely Islamic feel to it. If you squint your eyes and tilt your head it could even be mistaken for the logo of the Islamic Movement of the Freemen of the Levant/Harakat Ahrar ash-Sham al-Islamiyya (FML/Ahrar ash-Sham) - the Saudi backed Syrian insurgent group that Obama swears blind are "moderates."
These links with Islam and the concept of "community" obviously bring up the issue with the Chapel Hill Islamic Community about which I think most intelligence agencies have agreed there something just a bit off.
Umpqua is of course located in Oregon on America's Pacific North-west. One thing that counts very strongly in Dylann Roof's favour is that although he posted a rambling article on the Internet listing many of the views and values of America's neo-Nazis is that he actually openly rejected most of them. One of these in particular was the concept of the "North-Western Front."
This notion that Caucasian (white) Americans should all move to the North-West to protect themselves from Negroid (black) Americans has it's roots in the end of the American Civil War. After the Republic North (east) defeated the Democrat South (east) and announced they were to free the Negroid slaves.
This prompted a lot of Caucasians to go; "Well they're going to destroy the place. I'm moving to the opposite side of the country!" Sadly looking at the ethnic and geographic distribution of violent crime in America they seem to have had a point.
Shortly after the Charleston shooting a local baseball team in Utah (part of the north-western front) was forced to cancel a "Caucasian Heritage Night" after BLM threatened the event claiming it was racist to Black, Hispanic and Native Americans. In their fury they failed to realise that Native Americans such as the Coquille are, along with all Hispanics, Caucasians.
At roughly the same time as Obama was addressing the nation yesterday reports began emerging that a US military plane had crashed in Afghanistan where Obama's war is not going well. It seems that 12 US citizens were killed in this plane crash while only 10 US citizens were killed in Umpqua. We're still waiting for Obama's statement sending his condolences to the families of the US service personnel.
In the immediate aftermath of yesterday's shooting there were lots of statistics being thrown about such as the fact that this was the 15th time Obama had addressed the nation in response to a mass shooting. However using the odd definition of a mass shooting being any shooting incident in which three or more people have been shot there have been 294 mass shootings in the US in 2015 alone.
This suggests that Obama is being highly selective about the type of mass shootings he chooses to comment on. For example although I haven't had time to examine them in detail I suspect the 290 mass shootings that Obama has chosen to ignore this year have been carried out by young black men.
Acknowledging this would destroy Obama's campaign slogan that young black men are much more likely to be stopped, arrested, jailed or shot by police because of racism. Instead it would show that young black men are far more likely to be involved in violent meaning they're not being stopped, arrested and jailed enough.
The fact that Obama's outrage at emotive issues seems entirely linked to whether they support his political agenda or not has obvious relevance to the war against ISIL. For example Obama was outraged by the 2012 al-Houla massacre when he thought he could blame it on the Syrian government. When the investigation suggested it had in fact been carried out by the insurgents Obama supports Obama suddenly decided that he was in fact quite keen on genocide.
Need I say more about the Umpqua gunman singling out Christians for execution just like ISIL do. Particularly their ally Boko Haram in Nigeria.
With the opening of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) there has actually been an increase in the reporting of black on black mass shooting incidents including in Obama's adopted home state of Illinois although Obama is yet to comment on any of them.
This is because the BLM protests have become an open sore in American society. Many of America's developed nation peers have looked and them and suddenly realised that Obama has absolutely no clue what he is doing.
For example on August 4th (4/8/15) there was a shooting at a concert by US-style, Rihanna associated rapper Drake in his native Toronto, Canada. Although I can't speak to the details of the shooting the response by the Canadian police and media was massively, sarcastically over the top with them all speaking of their shock that a shooting could occur at the concert of a US-style, black rapper.
The point they were trying to make is that while Canada has similar levels of gun ownership to the US it has far less violence because rather then celebrating scumbag thugs like Mike Brown and Chris Brown Canadians celebrate politeness and good manners.
Recently there was something similar on the UK TV show "The Last Leg" which is just a vast echo chamber for left-wing prejudice. On the final episode they dedicated around a third of the show to a segment calling on America to introduce more gun control. They then invited on their guest Katherine Ryan who is Canadian and asked for her thoughts.
After explaining she really only does celebrity news Ryan sort of went; "Erm, we don't really get mass shootings in Canada although everyone owns a gun." At which point there was an awkward silence on live TV in which the entire liberal, politically correct audience and crew thought, but did not say; "Yeah but Canada's got far fewer niggers."
16:00 on 2/10/15 (UK date).
Friday, 2 October 2015
Thursday, 1 October 2015
Operation Featherweight: Month 15, Week 1, Day 5.
Almost as has become a reflex since the Sochi Winter Olympics the propaganda war has churned into action following Russia's air-strikes against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and associated groups yesterday.
The main allegation being thrown out there is that Russia is not targeting ISIL but moderate rebel groups. An example cited are the strikes against Jisr al-Shughour.
This is a Syrian town that sits around 30km (18 miles) south-east of Idlib City on the border between Idlib and Latakia provinces. It also sits on the crossroads of the M4 motorway that runs into Latakia City and the H6 highway that runs to the City of Homs around 130km (75 miles) to the south.
The claim that Jisr al-Shughour is not under ISIL control is entirely true. It was captured from Syrian government on June 14th (14/6/15) by the Army of Conquest/Jaish al-Fatah (JAF) coalition who remain in control. Far from being a some little known fact this battle of Jisr al-Shughour has it's own Wikipedia page.
The largest group within JAF are the Al Qaeda affiliate the Al Nusra Front (ANF). This group are specifically listed under United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution 2170 (2014) authorising the use of military force against them or any group allied with them.
The second largest force within JAF are the Islamic Movement of the Freemen of the Levant/Harakat Ahrar ash-Sham al-Islamiyya (FML/Ahrar ash-Sham). As their name suggests the FML share ISIL ideological goal of establishing a Sunni Islamic state in the Levant region cleansed of those the view as "infidels" including Shia Muslims, Christians, Druze and the Yezidi.
Amongst the smaller groups making up the JAF coalition are the Jaish al-Islam/Army of Islam (JAI) and what remains of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) outside of the Kurdish control north of Syria.
Shortly after Jisr al-Shughour was seized - roughly June 19th (19/6/15) - other units of the FSA and JAI acting as part of the JAF coalition captured the Druze town of Khader on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights. They then proceeded to massacre dozens of civilians. This prompted the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) to give them a cold, hard stare which seems to have deterred any further advances into Druze areas.
On July 1st (1/7/15) the JAI part of the JAF coalition released a 20 minute video in which they executed 18 prisoners. It was claimed that the prisoners were ISIL fighters and the killings had been carried out because as far as JAF are concerned ISIL are not extreme enough in their hatred of or violence towards the Levant's religious minorities.
So to my mind the question isn't "Why was Russia bombing Jisr al-Shughour?" but "Why haven't Combined Joint Task Force: Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTFOIR) - the US-led coalition - been bombing Jisr al-Shughour?"
Russia have also been accused of striking a CIA backed group in Homs. The group in question is the Falcons of the Mountains/Suqour al-Jabal.
This is the group that the US inserted into Syria on September 19th (19/9/15). Last Friday (25/9/15) it was confirmed by the US that the group had immediately handed half its weapons over to ANF. If the group are now operating in Homs it would suggest that they have completely abandoned their mission of fighting ISIL and headed in completely the opposite direction to fight the Syrian government.
So if this allegation is true then it is a huge scandal. It shows that the US has supported unlawful combatants in contravention of the Geneva Conventions. Not only is this considered a war crime it is considered one of the most serious war crimes because it makes it impossible to distinguish between combatants and civilians.
It also shows that the US has committed this war crime not as part of an UN sanctioned effort to defeat ISIL but in a wholly unlawful act of regime change against Syria.
Either of these two things raise serious questions as whether the US can continue as a member of the United Nations. The fact the group now appears to be fighting alongside Al Qaeda - a declared enemy of the US - also raises serious questions as to whether Barack Obama can continue as President of the United States having committed an act of treason against the United States.
The bulk of ISIL's forces continue to remain to the north-east of the Euphrates River around the city of Raqqa. Beneath the protective dome that CJTFOIR are providing for them.
It is also alleged that the Russia strikes killed 36 civilians. However Turkish media have already inflated this figure to a more vague sounding "More then 40 civilians."
This issue of civilian deaths is one where you have to be extremely careful. That's because even when Nazi Germany were doing it in Czechoslovakia the purpose of this type of warfare is to create what is termed "Atrocity Propaganda." These very emotive claims of atrocities are then used to justify invasion and regime change on humanitarian grounds.
The easiest trick of course is to simply inflate the number of civilians killed and there has been plenty of evidence of this in the Syria conflict. For example back in April 2012 the UK based Syrian Observatory of Human Rights (SOHR) which has made today's allegations claimed that 80,000 civilians had been killed by the Syrian government. This was nearly more then 10 times the UN estimate of all deaths - including government troops.
It also gave a death rate of 1,500 civilian deaths every month. If the conflict had continued at this level rather then escalating this death rate would mean that all of Syria's roughly 23 million population would have been killed by late 2014/early 2015. As we are now getting towards the end of 2015 that has clearly not happened.
Another common trick is to deny that those killed were combatants and count them instead as civilians. The main purpose behind the insurgent groups in Syria acting as unlawful combatants by refusing to wear uniforms or display insignia is to make it easier to claim that all those killed were civilians.
We were actually given an example of both of these tactics at work recently. Back in mid-August SOHR claimed that 110 civilians had been killed by Syrian government in Douma just outside Damascus. This claim was repeated as fact the US government.
However other intelligence agencies investigated the incident and concluded that the death toll was actually closer to 55. Not only that but all those killed were members of a several insurgent groups who'd gathered together to plan how to intensify artillery strikes on genuinely civilian neighbourhoods in Damascus.
If inflated civilian death tolls is not sufficient to trigger an invasion it seems the next step is to carry out atrocities yourself in the hope they will be blamed on your opponent. Those of you with long memories will remember that in May 2012 the world was rocked by allegations that the Syrian government had stormed the village al-Houla and massacred 116 civilians.
As at the time Syria was much more stable both the UN and the human rights charity Amnesty International (AI) were able to travel to al-Houla and conduct an investigation. This found that the death toll was significantly lower then the 116 claimed. It also found that 20 of those killed were Syrian army soldiers who had been killed when their checkpoint had been over-run by an attacking force.
It also found that the 30 or so civilians who had been killed were all members of the Mashlab, Al-Sayed and Abdul Razak families all of whom were Sunni Muslims. The head of the Mashlab family - Abdul-Moa'ti - had been a member of the Syrian Parliament who had recently refused to defect from the predominately Shia Assad government to join his fellow Sunnis in rebellion.
In short the families massacred in al-Houla were exactly the type of people that the Syrian government needed to keep onside in face of the growing insurgency. Once this detail had been discovered the international outrage suddenly disappeared.
Then of course there was the Sarin gas attack on the Damascus suburb of Ghouta on August 21st 2013 (21/8/13). This came almost a year to the day after US President Barack Obama declared that the use of chemical weapons would be a "red-line" that would trigger a US invasion of Syria.
The very next day highly organised protesters began appearing on the streets of western capitals demanding that the US followed through on it's promise to invade Syria. All of these protesters wore yellow baseball caps, t-shirts, windbreakers and carried placards carrying the same logo of the symbol for chemical weapons.
To this day the US continues to blame the Syrian government for the attack while resisting all attempts to investigate it. The recently passed UNSC resolution setting up a panel of inquiry has ground to a halt after the US objected to it being able to examine widespread chemical weapon use by insurgent groups in both Syria and Iraq.
With this sort of behaviour going unchecked in Syria is has now begun to become common place across the region. One particular example that sticks in my memory comes from the 2014 Gaza war. On August 3rd (3/8/14) Israel were accused of bombing a United Nation Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) school in Rafah.
However footage of the air-strike and it's aftermath quickly revealed that Israel had struck motorcycles transporting named members of Islamic Jihad on the road outside of the school. No civilians were killed in the strike and the school was not damaged.
This contagion from Syria has had a particularly destructive effect on the peace process between Israel and Palestine. As recently as 2010 one of the big challenges was a rivalry between the secular but corrupt Fatah and the Islamist Hamas as the representatives of the Palestinians. It is now a three way rivalry between Fatah, Hamas and ISIL. It is clear that ISIL do not want peace.
As a result apart from yesterday's raising of the Palestinian flag no-one at the UNGA is talking about the peace process because they know the presence of ISIL makes it impossible. The negative effect of ISIL's nihilism was on clear display in Abbas' speech in which he announced Fatah was withdrawing from the Oslo peace accords. You only need to take a look around Gaza at the moment to see how that's going to go for them.
You can even see the chilling effects of the tactics used in Syria as far away as Ukraine. As part of that conflict the US has been desperate of making a poster girl of Nadezhda Savchenko - a Ukrainian military helicopter pilot who is currently awaiting trial in Russia
What Ms Savchenko is accused of is being a member of black operations mortar team. This team operated behind the frontline in eastern Ukraine and was tasked with carrying out attacks on civilians. The hope was that these civilian deaths would then be blamed on the rebels and by extension Russia. This would provide an excuse for more sanctions against Russia.
It almost goes without saying that the US are absolutely desperate for Ms Savchenko to be freed before any of the evidence against her is heard in court.
21:00 on 1/10/15 (UK date).
The main allegation being thrown out there is that Russia is not targeting ISIL but moderate rebel groups. An example cited are the strikes against Jisr al-Shughour.
This is a Syrian town that sits around 30km (18 miles) south-east of Idlib City on the border between Idlib and Latakia provinces. It also sits on the crossroads of the M4 motorway that runs into Latakia City and the H6 highway that runs to the City of Homs around 130km (75 miles) to the south.
The claim that Jisr al-Shughour is not under ISIL control is entirely true. It was captured from Syrian government on June 14th (14/6/15) by the Army of Conquest/Jaish al-Fatah (JAF) coalition who remain in control. Far from being a some little known fact this battle of Jisr al-Shughour has it's own Wikipedia page.
The largest group within JAF are the Al Qaeda affiliate the Al Nusra Front (ANF). This group are specifically listed under United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution 2170 (2014) authorising the use of military force against them or any group allied with them.
The second largest force within JAF are the Islamic Movement of the Freemen of the Levant/Harakat Ahrar ash-Sham al-Islamiyya (FML/Ahrar ash-Sham). As their name suggests the FML share ISIL ideological goal of establishing a Sunni Islamic state in the Levant region cleansed of those the view as "infidels" including Shia Muslims, Christians, Druze and the Yezidi.
Amongst the smaller groups making up the JAF coalition are the Jaish al-Islam/Army of Islam (JAI) and what remains of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) outside of the Kurdish control north of Syria.
Shortly after Jisr al-Shughour was seized - roughly June 19th (19/6/15) - other units of the FSA and JAI acting as part of the JAF coalition captured the Druze town of Khader on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights. They then proceeded to massacre dozens of civilians. This prompted the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) to give them a cold, hard stare which seems to have deterred any further advances into Druze areas.
On July 1st (1/7/15) the JAI part of the JAF coalition released a 20 minute video in which they executed 18 prisoners. It was claimed that the prisoners were ISIL fighters and the killings had been carried out because as far as JAF are concerned ISIL are not extreme enough in their hatred of or violence towards the Levant's religious minorities.
So to my mind the question isn't "Why was Russia bombing Jisr al-Shughour?" but "Why haven't Combined Joint Task Force: Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTFOIR) - the US-led coalition - been bombing Jisr al-Shughour?"
Russia have also been accused of striking a CIA backed group in Homs. The group in question is the Falcons of the Mountains/Suqour al-Jabal.
This is the group that the US inserted into Syria on September 19th (19/9/15). Last Friday (25/9/15) it was confirmed by the US that the group had immediately handed half its weapons over to ANF. If the group are now operating in Homs it would suggest that they have completely abandoned their mission of fighting ISIL and headed in completely the opposite direction to fight the Syrian government.
So if this allegation is true then it is a huge scandal. It shows that the US has supported unlawful combatants in contravention of the Geneva Conventions. Not only is this considered a war crime it is considered one of the most serious war crimes because it makes it impossible to distinguish between combatants and civilians.
It also shows that the US has committed this war crime not as part of an UN sanctioned effort to defeat ISIL but in a wholly unlawful act of regime change against Syria.
Either of these two things raise serious questions as whether the US can continue as a member of the United Nations. The fact the group now appears to be fighting alongside Al Qaeda - a declared enemy of the US - also raises serious questions as to whether Barack Obama can continue as President of the United States having committed an act of treason against the United States.
The bulk of ISIL's forces continue to remain to the north-east of the Euphrates River around the city of Raqqa. Beneath the protective dome that CJTFOIR are providing for them.
It is also alleged that the Russia strikes killed 36 civilians. However Turkish media have already inflated this figure to a more vague sounding "More then 40 civilians."
This issue of civilian deaths is one where you have to be extremely careful. That's because even when Nazi Germany were doing it in Czechoslovakia the purpose of this type of warfare is to create what is termed "Atrocity Propaganda." These very emotive claims of atrocities are then used to justify invasion and regime change on humanitarian grounds.
The easiest trick of course is to simply inflate the number of civilians killed and there has been plenty of evidence of this in the Syria conflict. For example back in April 2012 the UK based Syrian Observatory of Human Rights (SOHR) which has made today's allegations claimed that 80,000 civilians had been killed by the Syrian government. This was nearly more then 10 times the UN estimate of all deaths - including government troops.
It also gave a death rate of 1,500 civilian deaths every month. If the conflict had continued at this level rather then escalating this death rate would mean that all of Syria's roughly 23 million population would have been killed by late 2014/early 2015. As we are now getting towards the end of 2015 that has clearly not happened.
Another common trick is to deny that those killed were combatants and count them instead as civilians. The main purpose behind the insurgent groups in Syria acting as unlawful combatants by refusing to wear uniforms or display insignia is to make it easier to claim that all those killed were civilians.
We were actually given an example of both of these tactics at work recently. Back in mid-August SOHR claimed that 110 civilians had been killed by Syrian government in Douma just outside Damascus. This claim was repeated as fact the US government.
However other intelligence agencies investigated the incident and concluded that the death toll was actually closer to 55. Not only that but all those killed were members of a several insurgent groups who'd gathered together to plan how to intensify artillery strikes on genuinely civilian neighbourhoods in Damascus.
If inflated civilian death tolls is not sufficient to trigger an invasion it seems the next step is to carry out atrocities yourself in the hope they will be blamed on your opponent. Those of you with long memories will remember that in May 2012 the world was rocked by allegations that the Syrian government had stormed the village al-Houla and massacred 116 civilians.
As at the time Syria was much more stable both the UN and the human rights charity Amnesty International (AI) were able to travel to al-Houla and conduct an investigation. This found that the death toll was significantly lower then the 116 claimed. It also found that 20 of those killed were Syrian army soldiers who had been killed when their checkpoint had been over-run by an attacking force.
It also found that the 30 or so civilians who had been killed were all members of the Mashlab, Al-Sayed and Abdul Razak families all of whom were Sunni Muslims. The head of the Mashlab family - Abdul-Moa'ti - had been a member of the Syrian Parliament who had recently refused to defect from the predominately Shia Assad government to join his fellow Sunnis in rebellion.
In short the families massacred in al-Houla were exactly the type of people that the Syrian government needed to keep onside in face of the growing insurgency. Once this detail had been discovered the international outrage suddenly disappeared.
Then of course there was the Sarin gas attack on the Damascus suburb of Ghouta on August 21st 2013 (21/8/13). This came almost a year to the day after US President Barack Obama declared that the use of chemical weapons would be a "red-line" that would trigger a US invasion of Syria.
The very next day highly organised protesters began appearing on the streets of western capitals demanding that the US followed through on it's promise to invade Syria. All of these protesters wore yellow baseball caps, t-shirts, windbreakers and carried placards carrying the same logo of the symbol for chemical weapons.
To this day the US continues to blame the Syrian government for the attack while resisting all attempts to investigate it. The recently passed UNSC resolution setting up a panel of inquiry has ground to a halt after the US objected to it being able to examine widespread chemical weapon use by insurgent groups in both Syria and Iraq.
With this sort of behaviour going unchecked in Syria is has now begun to become common place across the region. One particular example that sticks in my memory comes from the 2014 Gaza war. On August 3rd (3/8/14) Israel were accused of bombing a United Nation Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) school in Rafah.
However footage of the air-strike and it's aftermath quickly revealed that Israel had struck motorcycles transporting named members of Islamic Jihad on the road outside of the school. No civilians were killed in the strike and the school was not damaged.
This contagion from Syria has had a particularly destructive effect on the peace process between Israel and Palestine. As recently as 2010 one of the big challenges was a rivalry between the secular but corrupt Fatah and the Islamist Hamas as the representatives of the Palestinians. It is now a three way rivalry between Fatah, Hamas and ISIL. It is clear that ISIL do not want peace.
As a result apart from yesterday's raising of the Palestinian flag no-one at the UNGA is talking about the peace process because they know the presence of ISIL makes it impossible. The negative effect of ISIL's nihilism was on clear display in Abbas' speech in which he announced Fatah was withdrawing from the Oslo peace accords. You only need to take a look around Gaza at the moment to see how that's going to go for them.
You can even see the chilling effects of the tactics used in Syria as far away as Ukraine. As part of that conflict the US has been desperate of making a poster girl of Nadezhda Savchenko - a Ukrainian military helicopter pilot who is currently awaiting trial in Russia
What Ms Savchenko is accused of is being a member of black operations mortar team. This team operated behind the frontline in eastern Ukraine and was tasked with carrying out attacks on civilians. The hope was that these civilian deaths would then be blamed on the rebels and by extension Russia. This would provide an excuse for more sanctions against Russia.
It almost goes without saying that the US are absolutely desperate for Ms Savchenko to be freed before any of the evidence against her is heard in court.
21:00 on 1/10/15 (UK date).
Wednesday, 30 September 2015
Operation Featherweight: Month 15, Week 1, Day 4.
As I mentioned yesterday the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) or perhaps more specifically the war in Syria has been a main feature of the annual opening of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).
The main event on this topic was a day long, high level Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) conference hosted by the United States. Rather then being a UNGA specific event this was the latest in a series of summits that the US has been hosting with the last one taking place in Washington D.C, US back in February.
Unfortunately yesterday's CVE Summit was just as bizarre and utterly unrelated to the fight against ISIL as the one back in February.
The core premise of the US' CVE strategy is that ISIL aren't a group of apocalyptic nihilists who want to re-establish a Sunni Islamic State in the Levant region in order to trigger the return of God to earth bringing about the end of the World.
Instead the US views them as honest and true Sunni Muslims who have been horrifically oppressed by the Syrian government that they have been left with no option other then to take up arms against the governments of Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Nigeria.
At the time of the February summit in terms of it's relevance and effectiveness I likened the US CVE strategy to an old and slightly terrible joke;
"Q. How many surrealists does it take to change a lightbulb?
A. Bicycle!"
The US' main contribution to yesterday's summit was to get US Attorney General Loretta Lynch to unveil what they call the "Stronger Cities Network."
Simply inviting Ms Lynch is inflammatory because along with her predecessor Eric Holder she has been a major driving force behind the "Black Lives Matter (BLM)" campaign which seems to view rioting and looting as the solution. As such she has absolutely nothing to offer the Central African Republic (CAR) where rioting and looting are the problem.
Although it has developed and evolved over the past two years I've always thought the solution to the CAR situation is for UN Peacekeepers deployed to country to act not as an army but as a police force. They would then record and investigate incidents of theft and hopefully catch the perpetrators removing the need for neighbourhood defence groups to take matters into their own hands.
The fact the Obama administration has celebrated thieves like Micheal Brown and even suggested that the police don't arrest people if they threaten to get a bit fighty shows that it is wholly un-equipped to deal with the challenges of the CAR.
The Stronger Cities Network proposes fighting violent extremism by decentralising the task from the national government and putting it in the hands of the local states and even local cities. Officially this plan is only for the US but it is intended to show that the US is still fully committed to the plan of setting up National Guard units in Iraq and increasing the autonomy of Iraq's regions - particularly the Sunni area of Anbar.
This plan is probably the worst thing the US can do because within Iraq it has fuelled a belief that the US is supporting ISIL in order to split the country apart into a Sunni region, a Shia region and a Kurdish region. This has increased inter-factional rivalry at a time when Iraq needs unity to defeat ISIL.
For example following the liberation of Tikrit - which the US opposed - the logical thing to happen next would be for the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) and the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga to work together in an operation to clear out the area between Kirkuk and Tikrit.
The city of Kirkuk has long been a fault line in Iraq's divisions because although it has a majority Kurdish population it is not considered part of the Kurdish region. As such there is concern amongst the Iraqi government in Baghdad that a co-ordinated operation with the Peshmerga would see Kirkuk break away and join the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG).
Rather then working together to solve this problem - it must be said that Kirkuk is already under Peshmerga control - fears of Sunni Anbar province breaking away have prompted the ISF to instead launch a premature operation to liberate all of Anbar. Although this is containing ISIL's advance on Baghdad it's not making a lot of forward progress and ISIL are still active in the Tikrit/Kirkuk area.
Building on the work of the Rugby World Cup and the other Mike Brown the UK has really been pushing the failures of the Obama administration and it's BLM campaign. Rather then being anything specific to the fight against ISIL this seems to be a general point of friction between the US and the UK.
Although she seems happy to ignore it when I've involved the UK Queen who has been in power since 1952 truly does understand the core principles of justice and why they are important for a stable society. Despite all his lectures on the subject Barack Obama (born: 1961) clearly does not.
Last night soon to be shut down "youth" channel BBC Three broadcast a documentary called "Race Riots USA" in which a former children's TV presenter went and spoke to residents of Ferguson, Missouri about the death of Micheal Brown and the riots that followed. Having noticed it trending on Twitter I came to the sad conclusion that I would have to stay up and watch it.
In terms of journalistic integrity it felt almost like a satire on the way people in the US - particularly the mainstream media - completely lost touch with reality in terms of the BLM campaign. It actually began to remind me of those "Mockumentaries" such as "The Office" or "Parks & Recreation" in which it's presented as a documentary but all the people featured are actors and the situations they're describing are entirely fictional.
For example Race Riots USA opened with that famous CCTV footage of Micheal Brown robbing a convenience store while the voiceover said; "It is claimed that Micheal Brown robbed this convenience store." With the footage of the robbery taking place I think we've gone a bit beyond "claimed." I could make a similar criticism of every sequence in the full hour long show but I really don't have the time.
The UK's main contribution to the CVE Summit was the announcement that it is placing four British citizens who have joined ISIL on the list of those sanctioned by the UN for their support for ISIL. In practical terms this is largely meaningless because the four listed have no significant assets to seize and they are already in Syria with no intention of leaving. If they change their mind and do leave they'll be arrested under an Interpol warrant rather then the UN sanctions.
However the move does raise a talking point about using sanctions to combat ISIL. Rather then being used against people who are actively fighting for a group like ISIL sanctions are intended to be used to target those who are indirectly supporting them. For example it might be used to freeze the bank accounts of a millionaire business man who is sending a lot of money to ISIL or stop that business man travelling from say Qatar to Egypt.
There are actually two main sanctions lists to deal with those who support Islamist terrorism. The first was set up around the time of the September 11th 2001 terrorist attacks to deal specifically with members of Al Qaeda. There is also another list that was set up when resolution 2170 (2014) was passed specifically to deal with people supporting ISIL. Despite having numerous citizens on this second list nations like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and Turkey don't seem to be doing a damn thing to enforce those sanctions.
The UK is deliberately being unclear as to whether it is the Al Qaeda list or the ISIL list that these four have been added to. However I suspect it's the Al Qaeda list in order to allow the UK to raise the issue of the ISIL list without making enough of an issue out of it to offended Saudi Arabia, Qatar etc. In short the UK is still trying to be the perfect middle-man.
Then there is the issue of the Russian military build up in Syria. Although I've been actively trying to avoid saying this out loud for much of the past month the purpose of the Russia build up is not to prop up a Syrian government that is suddenly about to collapse.
Nor is it to force the US out of the region to allow Russia to defeat ISIL. This is something that Russia could very easily achieve in probably less then six months but such a move would almost entirely end US influence in the entire Middle-East region.
Instead in the first instance the purpose is to provide the Syrian government with access to advanced, guided weapons in order to reduce their use of unguided artillery and barrel bombs and therefore reduce the number of civilian casualties.
The reason why the international community rushed to slap economic sanctions and arms embargoes on the Syrian government was to deny them access to these weapons knowing full well that it would force them to use less sophisticated weapons putting civilian lives in danger.
Then whenever there were civilian casualties the international community would feign surprise and use their 'outrage' at civilian deaths to increase calls for the entirely unlawful overthrow of the Syrian government.
In the second instance the Russian build up was to make clear to US President Obama that if he continued with his current strategy it would lead to conflict. The hope being that this would cause Obama to re-consider his strategy and replace it with one that actually involved defeating ISIL.
Unfortunately under this pressure Obama seems to have crumpled like a paper bag. Apart from re-affirming his commitment to ISIL through his UNGA address and the CVE Summit yesterday (29/9/15) a US Court announced that it will be denying victims of September 11th attacks the right to sue Saudi Arabia for compensation over its provision of material support to the attackers. The victims are expected to appeal.
So today Russia has carried out its first air-strikes in Syria. I should start by pointing out that this is all entirely lawful. Putting aside resolution 2170 that allows for military action against ISIL and the Al Qaeda affiliate Al Nusra Front (ANF) Russia has been invited to operate within Syria by the legitimate government of Syria.
The US may scream as loudly as it likes that it doesn't view the Syrian government as legitimate but I can equally claim that Obama isn't the legitimate President of the US. It doesn't make either of those things true.
Although it is still being assessed it appears that today's Russia strikes have targeted the Homs, Hama and Latakia provinces. As such it is likely that they have not struck ISIL positions but positions of the Army of Conquest/Jaish al-Fatah (JAF).
The two main blocs within JAF are ANF who are covered by 2170 and the Islamic Movement of the Freemen of the Levant/Harakat Ahrar ash-Sham al-Islamiyya (FML/Ahrar ash-Sham) who share both an ideology and a methodology with ISIL.
By striking these targets Russia is obviously posing the question of why despite them being covered by 2170 the US refers to JAF as the "moderate opposition" and is allowing nations such as Turkey to supply them with weapons, equipment and fighters in defiance of a UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution and therefore international law.
As they began these air-strike Russia immediately informed the US and demanded that all aircraft of Combined Joint Task Force: Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTFOIR) - the US-led coalition - immediately leave Syrian air-space. Rather then being a serious demand this was intended to highlight the way in which CJTFOIR's role has changed since Turkey joined.
The Turkish condition for joining CJTFOIR that for some reason US President Obama accepted is that CJTFOIR is no longer allowed to conduct air-strikes that may support the Kurdish People's Protection Force (YPG).
Having established a 33,000km^2 (20,000mile^2) buffer-zone across northern Syria and Iraq the YPG's most forward position at the moment is the village of Ain Issa which sits just 50km (30 miles) north of ISIL's de facto capital of Raqqa.
As such Turkey's demand that CJTFOIR cannot conduct air-strikes close to YPG positions has thrown this massive protective dome over ISIL's main area of operations. As a result the only CJTFOIR strikes being carried out in Syria at the moment are being carried out far away from anywhere they could do ISIL any real damage.
For example France's first and so far only strike on Sunday (27/9/15) was carried out in Deir-er-Zour which is around 160km (95 miles) south-east of Raqqa. On the same day CJTFOIR other strike hit Marea which is around 210km (126 miles) west of Raqqa. You may remember that ISIL gained Marea after Turkey instructed JAF to withdraw from the area.
Then there is the issue of Palmyra which you've probably heard a lot about through the destruction of the ancient monuments there. Palmyra has long been an active front-line between ISIL and the Syrian government. As such prior to Turkey's involvement CJTFOIR has resisted carrying out air-strikes there in case it is seen as support for the Syrian government or lead to direct confrontation between CJTFOIR and the Syrian government.
Recently the Syrian government has been conducting its own air-strikes against ISIL positions around Palmyra. This seems to have prompted CJTFOIR to launch air-strikes in and around Palmyra starting on Monday (28/9/15).
Rather then being a sign of support to the Syrian government this seems to be an attempt to expand CJTFOIR's dome over the area to protect ISIL from Syrian government air-strikes.
As such we seem to be at a very important crossroads at which CJTFOIR must decide whether its purpose is to defeat ISIL or to provide the group with air-cover while it goes about it's murderous rampage.
Unfortunately US President Obama is fundamentally a coward. As such whenever he's been put under pressure in the past he's reacted by doing something stupid and aggressive in a desperate effort to prove what a tough guy he is.
16:20 on 30/9/15 (UK date).
The main event on this topic was a day long, high level Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) conference hosted by the United States. Rather then being a UNGA specific event this was the latest in a series of summits that the US has been hosting with the last one taking place in Washington D.C, US back in February.
Unfortunately yesterday's CVE Summit was just as bizarre and utterly unrelated to the fight against ISIL as the one back in February.
The core premise of the US' CVE strategy is that ISIL aren't a group of apocalyptic nihilists who want to re-establish a Sunni Islamic State in the Levant region in order to trigger the return of God to earth bringing about the end of the World.
Instead the US views them as honest and true Sunni Muslims who have been horrifically oppressed by the Syrian government that they have been left with no option other then to take up arms against the governments of Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Nigeria.
At the time of the February summit in terms of it's relevance and effectiveness I likened the US CVE strategy to an old and slightly terrible joke;
"Q. How many surrealists does it take to change a lightbulb?
A. Bicycle!"
The US' main contribution to yesterday's summit was to get US Attorney General Loretta Lynch to unveil what they call the "Stronger Cities Network."
Simply inviting Ms Lynch is inflammatory because along with her predecessor Eric Holder she has been a major driving force behind the "Black Lives Matter (BLM)" campaign which seems to view rioting and looting as the solution. As such she has absolutely nothing to offer the Central African Republic (CAR) where rioting and looting are the problem.
Although it has developed and evolved over the past two years I've always thought the solution to the CAR situation is for UN Peacekeepers deployed to country to act not as an army but as a police force. They would then record and investigate incidents of theft and hopefully catch the perpetrators removing the need for neighbourhood defence groups to take matters into their own hands.
The fact the Obama administration has celebrated thieves like Micheal Brown and even suggested that the police don't arrest people if they threaten to get a bit fighty shows that it is wholly un-equipped to deal with the challenges of the CAR.
The Stronger Cities Network proposes fighting violent extremism by decentralising the task from the national government and putting it in the hands of the local states and even local cities. Officially this plan is only for the US but it is intended to show that the US is still fully committed to the plan of setting up National Guard units in Iraq and increasing the autonomy of Iraq's regions - particularly the Sunni area of Anbar.
This plan is probably the worst thing the US can do because within Iraq it has fuelled a belief that the US is supporting ISIL in order to split the country apart into a Sunni region, a Shia region and a Kurdish region. This has increased inter-factional rivalry at a time when Iraq needs unity to defeat ISIL.
For example following the liberation of Tikrit - which the US opposed - the logical thing to happen next would be for the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) and the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga to work together in an operation to clear out the area between Kirkuk and Tikrit.
The city of Kirkuk has long been a fault line in Iraq's divisions because although it has a majority Kurdish population it is not considered part of the Kurdish region. As such there is concern amongst the Iraqi government in Baghdad that a co-ordinated operation with the Peshmerga would see Kirkuk break away and join the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG).
Rather then working together to solve this problem - it must be said that Kirkuk is already under Peshmerga control - fears of Sunni Anbar province breaking away have prompted the ISF to instead launch a premature operation to liberate all of Anbar. Although this is containing ISIL's advance on Baghdad it's not making a lot of forward progress and ISIL are still active in the Tikrit/Kirkuk area.
Building on the work of the Rugby World Cup and the other Mike Brown the UK has really been pushing the failures of the Obama administration and it's BLM campaign. Rather then being anything specific to the fight against ISIL this seems to be a general point of friction between the US and the UK.
Although she seems happy to ignore it when I've involved the UK Queen who has been in power since 1952 truly does understand the core principles of justice and why they are important for a stable society. Despite all his lectures on the subject Barack Obama (born: 1961) clearly does not.
Last night soon to be shut down "youth" channel BBC Three broadcast a documentary called "Race Riots USA" in which a former children's TV presenter went and spoke to residents of Ferguson, Missouri about the death of Micheal Brown and the riots that followed. Having noticed it trending on Twitter I came to the sad conclusion that I would have to stay up and watch it.
In terms of journalistic integrity it felt almost like a satire on the way people in the US - particularly the mainstream media - completely lost touch with reality in terms of the BLM campaign. It actually began to remind me of those "Mockumentaries" such as "The Office" or "Parks & Recreation" in which it's presented as a documentary but all the people featured are actors and the situations they're describing are entirely fictional.
For example Race Riots USA opened with that famous CCTV footage of Micheal Brown robbing a convenience store while the voiceover said; "It is claimed that Micheal Brown robbed this convenience store." With the footage of the robbery taking place I think we've gone a bit beyond "claimed." I could make a similar criticism of every sequence in the full hour long show but I really don't have the time.
The UK's main contribution to the CVE Summit was the announcement that it is placing four British citizens who have joined ISIL on the list of those sanctioned by the UN for their support for ISIL. In practical terms this is largely meaningless because the four listed have no significant assets to seize and they are already in Syria with no intention of leaving. If they change their mind and do leave they'll be arrested under an Interpol warrant rather then the UN sanctions.
However the move does raise a talking point about using sanctions to combat ISIL. Rather then being used against people who are actively fighting for a group like ISIL sanctions are intended to be used to target those who are indirectly supporting them. For example it might be used to freeze the bank accounts of a millionaire business man who is sending a lot of money to ISIL or stop that business man travelling from say Qatar to Egypt.
There are actually two main sanctions lists to deal with those who support Islamist terrorism. The first was set up around the time of the September 11th 2001 terrorist attacks to deal specifically with members of Al Qaeda. There is also another list that was set up when resolution 2170 (2014) was passed specifically to deal with people supporting ISIL. Despite having numerous citizens on this second list nations like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and Turkey don't seem to be doing a damn thing to enforce those sanctions.
The UK is deliberately being unclear as to whether it is the Al Qaeda list or the ISIL list that these four have been added to. However I suspect it's the Al Qaeda list in order to allow the UK to raise the issue of the ISIL list without making enough of an issue out of it to offended Saudi Arabia, Qatar etc. In short the UK is still trying to be the perfect middle-man.
Then there is the issue of the Russian military build up in Syria. Although I've been actively trying to avoid saying this out loud for much of the past month the purpose of the Russia build up is not to prop up a Syrian government that is suddenly about to collapse.
Nor is it to force the US out of the region to allow Russia to defeat ISIL. This is something that Russia could very easily achieve in probably less then six months but such a move would almost entirely end US influence in the entire Middle-East region.
Instead in the first instance the purpose is to provide the Syrian government with access to advanced, guided weapons in order to reduce their use of unguided artillery and barrel bombs and therefore reduce the number of civilian casualties.
The reason why the international community rushed to slap economic sanctions and arms embargoes on the Syrian government was to deny them access to these weapons knowing full well that it would force them to use less sophisticated weapons putting civilian lives in danger.
Then whenever there were civilian casualties the international community would feign surprise and use their 'outrage' at civilian deaths to increase calls for the entirely unlawful overthrow of the Syrian government.
In the second instance the Russian build up was to make clear to US President Obama that if he continued with his current strategy it would lead to conflict. The hope being that this would cause Obama to re-consider his strategy and replace it with one that actually involved defeating ISIL.
Unfortunately under this pressure Obama seems to have crumpled like a paper bag. Apart from re-affirming his commitment to ISIL through his UNGA address and the CVE Summit yesterday (29/9/15) a US Court announced that it will be denying victims of September 11th attacks the right to sue Saudi Arabia for compensation over its provision of material support to the attackers. The victims are expected to appeal.
So today Russia has carried out its first air-strikes in Syria. I should start by pointing out that this is all entirely lawful. Putting aside resolution 2170 that allows for military action against ISIL and the Al Qaeda affiliate Al Nusra Front (ANF) Russia has been invited to operate within Syria by the legitimate government of Syria.
The US may scream as loudly as it likes that it doesn't view the Syrian government as legitimate but I can equally claim that Obama isn't the legitimate President of the US. It doesn't make either of those things true.
Although it is still being assessed it appears that today's Russia strikes have targeted the Homs, Hama and Latakia provinces. As such it is likely that they have not struck ISIL positions but positions of the Army of Conquest/Jaish al-Fatah (JAF).
The two main blocs within JAF are ANF who are covered by 2170 and the Islamic Movement of the Freemen of the Levant/Harakat Ahrar ash-Sham al-Islamiyya (FML/Ahrar ash-Sham) who share both an ideology and a methodology with ISIL.
By striking these targets Russia is obviously posing the question of why despite them being covered by 2170 the US refers to JAF as the "moderate opposition" and is allowing nations such as Turkey to supply them with weapons, equipment and fighters in defiance of a UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution and therefore international law.
As they began these air-strike Russia immediately informed the US and demanded that all aircraft of Combined Joint Task Force: Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTFOIR) - the US-led coalition - immediately leave Syrian air-space. Rather then being a serious demand this was intended to highlight the way in which CJTFOIR's role has changed since Turkey joined.
The Turkish condition for joining CJTFOIR that for some reason US President Obama accepted is that CJTFOIR is no longer allowed to conduct air-strikes that may support the Kurdish People's Protection Force (YPG).
Having established a 33,000km^2 (20,000mile^2) buffer-zone across northern Syria and Iraq the YPG's most forward position at the moment is the village of Ain Issa which sits just 50km (30 miles) north of ISIL's de facto capital of Raqqa.
As such Turkey's demand that CJTFOIR cannot conduct air-strikes close to YPG positions has thrown this massive protective dome over ISIL's main area of operations. As a result the only CJTFOIR strikes being carried out in Syria at the moment are being carried out far away from anywhere they could do ISIL any real damage.
For example France's first and so far only strike on Sunday (27/9/15) was carried out in Deir-er-Zour which is around 160km (95 miles) south-east of Raqqa. On the same day CJTFOIR other strike hit Marea which is around 210km (126 miles) west of Raqqa. You may remember that ISIL gained Marea after Turkey instructed JAF to withdraw from the area.
Then there is the issue of Palmyra which you've probably heard a lot about through the destruction of the ancient monuments there. Palmyra has long been an active front-line between ISIL and the Syrian government. As such prior to Turkey's involvement CJTFOIR has resisted carrying out air-strikes there in case it is seen as support for the Syrian government or lead to direct confrontation between CJTFOIR and the Syrian government.
Recently the Syrian government has been conducting its own air-strikes against ISIL positions around Palmyra. This seems to have prompted CJTFOIR to launch air-strikes in and around Palmyra starting on Monday (28/9/15).
Rather then being a sign of support to the Syrian government this seems to be an attempt to expand CJTFOIR's dome over the area to protect ISIL from Syrian government air-strikes.
As such we seem to be at a very important crossroads at which CJTFOIR must decide whether its purpose is to defeat ISIL or to provide the group with air-cover while it goes about it's murderous rampage.
Unfortunately US President Obama is fundamentally a coward. As such whenever he's been put under pressure in the past he's reacted by doing something stupid and aggressive in a desperate effort to prove what a tough guy he is.
16:20 on 30/9/15 (UK date).
Tuesday, 29 September 2015
Operation Featherweight: Month 15, Week, 1, Day 3.
Yesterday (28/9/15) saw the annual opening of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). One of the big topics of this year's meeting looks likely to be the ongoing war in Syria.
After all most people seem to have conveniently forgotten that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) still control large sections of Iraq despite the US-led operation to oust them beginning more then a year ago - just before the opening of the previous UNGA.
Unfortunately the opening of the UNGA is a two week event packed with political posing and posturing. This is not the sort of thing to which the booming voice of god is really suited to.
Also the other big topic seems to be preparations for this December's COP21 Climate Change Summit at which a new climate change agreement is set to be signed. As such the opening of the UNGA has sparked a flurry of Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC's). If I'm going to help devise a system to peer review these INDC's I am probably going to have to read them first.
Obviously though I won't be able to read the INDC's of nations such a Senegal because they have decided to make their submissions in French despite the designated UN language for the process being English. If they were hoping to argue that translating their submissions into English would place an impossible burden upon them I should point out that the Central African Republic (CAR) managed it. This is despite the President of the CAR - Catherine Samba-Panza - being forced to leave the UNGA opening to deal with worsening religious violence in the country.
Although it's always been resource rich but dirt poor the CAR's most recent round of problems began in March of 2013 when Michel Djotodia of the Seleka (literally "Rebel") alliance marched on the capital Bangui and declared himself President. In the run-up to Rihanna's Diamonds World Tour this massively increased pressure on South Africa which saw 14 of its troops killed as Seleka fighters stormed Bangui airport.
After seizing power Djotodia discovered that he didn't have any money to pay Seleka fighters so ordered them to pay themselves by looting the city. This prompted Bangui's residents to form neighbourhood defence groups that fought with potential looters and eventually started carrying out revenge attacks on other neighbourhood groups who they accused of looting. Although this was entirely a dispute about material possessions Muslims tended to form one set of neighbourhood groups while Christians formed others.
Then Qatar's propaganda arm Al Jazeera decided to pour gasoline on the situation by declaring the unrest in CAR as anti-Muslim violence and used the international community's failure to take action as evidence of some global conspiracy against Islam.
This latest wave of violence has been sparked by a young Muslim man being found dead outside a Mosque. Despite there being no evidence of who was responsible for the death and it certainly not been ruled out that he was killed by other Muslims this has provoked Bangui's Muslim residents to embark on another wave of rioting and looting.
On the south-eastern border of the CAR you have the extremely resource rich Sud-Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Alongside minerals such a gold, diamonds, nickel and cadmium this region of the DRC is home to the largest rainforests outside of South America which are vital to efforts to combat climate change. East of Sud-Kivu you have Uganda, Kenya and Somalia. Just across the Gulf of Aden from Somalia you have Yemen and then Saudi Arabia.
As such this latest round of violence seems to be yet another example of Muslim - I use the term loosely in CAR - extremists being used to punish a poor African nation for daring to sign up to efforts to combat climate change. It is obviously intended to act as a warning to the others.
On the day of the opening of the UNGA the Islamic extremists of the Taliban captured the resource rich and previously stable province of Kunduz in northern Afghanistan. This obviously makes a mockery of US President Barack Obama's claim that he had responsibly ended the US' war in Afghanistan when he withdrew US troops from the country. It also sends the message that the US is either unwilling or unable to protect anyone from Islamist violence.
Also on Monday (28/9/15) Saudi Arabia bombed a wedding party in the Yemeni port city of Mocha killing at least 130 civilians. This is intended as a show of force allowing Saudi Arabia to declare that it can do whatever it likes and no-one in the UN will dare to challenge them.
This is of course the 70th UNGA with the organisation being formed in 1945 in response to the horrors of the Second World War. One of the key events leading up to that war was Nazi Germany's 1938 invasion of Czechoslovakia. At the time this was presented to the World as a humanitarian intervention to protect civilians.
Under the codename "Project Green" Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party began laying the groundwork for this by whipping Czechoslovakia's German speaking minority up into an almost religious frenzy.
Although Nazism is strictly speaking a political ideology it is heavily inspired by religion and the occult. For example the Swastika symbol is stolen from Hinduism where it is used as a symbol of good fortune. The "Reich" that Hitler was trying to build has its roots in the Latin term "Regnum" meaning rule of god. As such it can be seen as a type of Islamic Caliphate with the "Fuhrer" (Spiritual Guide) being god's appointed leader of the Reich.
Having whipped Czechoslovakia's German speaking minority into up into this cult of Nazism Hitler's Germany then began telling them that they were been prevented from living as god intended by the persecution of the Czech government. The German speaking minority then started protesting against this 'oppression' and Hitler began supplying them with weapons which they used to attack the Czech security forces and themselves in false flag attacks which were blamed on the Czech government.
The most important of these incidents occurred in the Czech city of Ostrava in September 1938 when the Nazi protesters opened fire on the security forces prompting the security forces to fire back. Hitler declared this to be a massacre of civilians and demanded the international community - the League of Nations as it was - allow him to invade Czechoslovakia to "protect civilians."
The League of Nations failure to stop Nazi Germany's 'humanitarian' invasion of Czechoslovakia led to it's collapse and the Second World War.
So when the United Nations was formed to replace the League of Nations after the war one of it's core principles was that nations were not allowed to invade other nations on the principle of humanitarian intervention. However it did put in place a mechanism where by the UN can authorise such action under Chapter 7 of it's charter as guided by "Responsibility to Protect (R2P)."
So when Barack Obama said in his address;
"When a dictator slaughters tens of thousands of his own people that’s not just a matter of one nation’s internal affairs."
He was actually invoking Adolf Hitler and railing against one of the core founding principles of the United Nations.
Obama of course began his address by speaking of those core UN values and the 70 years of comparative peace and stability they have brought to the World. For a moment there I did seriously think that Obama was going to end his address by announcing that he was withdrawing the US from the United Nations because it was proving too much of a restriction on the type of world he wants to build.
So it seems the UNGA got the comedy slot out of the way early this year even if it failed to raise many laughs.
I gather Russian President Vladimir Putin then spoke of the need to form an international alliance just like the one that defeated Nazi Germany to defeat ISIL.
17:30 on 29/9/15 (UK date).
After all most people seem to have conveniently forgotten that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) still control large sections of Iraq despite the US-led operation to oust them beginning more then a year ago - just before the opening of the previous UNGA.
Unfortunately the opening of the UNGA is a two week event packed with political posing and posturing. This is not the sort of thing to which the booming voice of god is really suited to.
Also the other big topic seems to be preparations for this December's COP21 Climate Change Summit at which a new climate change agreement is set to be signed. As such the opening of the UNGA has sparked a flurry of Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC's). If I'm going to help devise a system to peer review these INDC's I am probably going to have to read them first.
Obviously though I won't be able to read the INDC's of nations such a Senegal because they have decided to make their submissions in French despite the designated UN language for the process being English. If they were hoping to argue that translating their submissions into English would place an impossible burden upon them I should point out that the Central African Republic (CAR) managed it. This is despite the President of the CAR - Catherine Samba-Panza - being forced to leave the UNGA opening to deal with worsening religious violence in the country.
Although it's always been resource rich but dirt poor the CAR's most recent round of problems began in March of 2013 when Michel Djotodia of the Seleka (literally "Rebel") alliance marched on the capital Bangui and declared himself President. In the run-up to Rihanna's Diamonds World Tour this massively increased pressure on South Africa which saw 14 of its troops killed as Seleka fighters stormed Bangui airport.
After seizing power Djotodia discovered that he didn't have any money to pay Seleka fighters so ordered them to pay themselves by looting the city. This prompted Bangui's residents to form neighbourhood defence groups that fought with potential looters and eventually started carrying out revenge attacks on other neighbourhood groups who they accused of looting. Although this was entirely a dispute about material possessions Muslims tended to form one set of neighbourhood groups while Christians formed others.
Then Qatar's propaganda arm Al Jazeera decided to pour gasoline on the situation by declaring the unrest in CAR as anti-Muslim violence and used the international community's failure to take action as evidence of some global conspiracy against Islam.
This latest wave of violence has been sparked by a young Muslim man being found dead outside a Mosque. Despite there being no evidence of who was responsible for the death and it certainly not been ruled out that he was killed by other Muslims this has provoked Bangui's Muslim residents to embark on another wave of rioting and looting.
On the south-eastern border of the CAR you have the extremely resource rich Sud-Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Alongside minerals such a gold, diamonds, nickel and cadmium this region of the DRC is home to the largest rainforests outside of South America which are vital to efforts to combat climate change. East of Sud-Kivu you have Uganda, Kenya and Somalia. Just across the Gulf of Aden from Somalia you have Yemen and then Saudi Arabia.
As such this latest round of violence seems to be yet another example of Muslim - I use the term loosely in CAR - extremists being used to punish a poor African nation for daring to sign up to efforts to combat climate change. It is obviously intended to act as a warning to the others.
On the day of the opening of the UNGA the Islamic extremists of the Taliban captured the resource rich and previously stable province of Kunduz in northern Afghanistan. This obviously makes a mockery of US President Barack Obama's claim that he had responsibly ended the US' war in Afghanistan when he withdrew US troops from the country. It also sends the message that the US is either unwilling or unable to protect anyone from Islamist violence.
Also on Monday (28/9/15) Saudi Arabia bombed a wedding party in the Yemeni port city of Mocha killing at least 130 civilians. This is intended as a show of force allowing Saudi Arabia to declare that it can do whatever it likes and no-one in the UN will dare to challenge them.
This is of course the 70th UNGA with the organisation being formed in 1945 in response to the horrors of the Second World War. One of the key events leading up to that war was Nazi Germany's 1938 invasion of Czechoslovakia. At the time this was presented to the World as a humanitarian intervention to protect civilians.
Under the codename "Project Green" Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party began laying the groundwork for this by whipping Czechoslovakia's German speaking minority up into an almost religious frenzy.
Although Nazism is strictly speaking a political ideology it is heavily inspired by religion and the occult. For example the Swastika symbol is stolen from Hinduism where it is used as a symbol of good fortune. The "Reich" that Hitler was trying to build has its roots in the Latin term "Regnum" meaning rule of god. As such it can be seen as a type of Islamic Caliphate with the "Fuhrer" (Spiritual Guide) being god's appointed leader of the Reich.
Having whipped Czechoslovakia's German speaking minority into up into this cult of Nazism Hitler's Germany then began telling them that they were been prevented from living as god intended by the persecution of the Czech government. The German speaking minority then started protesting against this 'oppression' and Hitler began supplying them with weapons which they used to attack the Czech security forces and themselves in false flag attacks which were blamed on the Czech government.
The most important of these incidents occurred in the Czech city of Ostrava in September 1938 when the Nazi protesters opened fire on the security forces prompting the security forces to fire back. Hitler declared this to be a massacre of civilians and demanded the international community - the League of Nations as it was - allow him to invade Czechoslovakia to "protect civilians."
The League of Nations failure to stop Nazi Germany's 'humanitarian' invasion of Czechoslovakia led to it's collapse and the Second World War.
So when the United Nations was formed to replace the League of Nations after the war one of it's core principles was that nations were not allowed to invade other nations on the principle of humanitarian intervention. However it did put in place a mechanism where by the UN can authorise such action under Chapter 7 of it's charter as guided by "Responsibility to Protect (R2P)."
So when Barack Obama said in his address;
"When a dictator slaughters tens of thousands of his own people that’s not just a matter of one nation’s internal affairs."
He was actually invoking Adolf Hitler and railing against one of the core founding principles of the United Nations.
Obama of course began his address by speaking of those core UN values and the 70 years of comparative peace and stability they have brought to the World. For a moment there I did seriously think that Obama was going to end his address by announcing that he was withdrawing the US from the United Nations because it was proving too much of a restriction on the type of world he wants to build.
So it seems the UNGA got the comedy slot out of the way early this year even if it failed to raise many laughs.
I gather Russian President Vladimir Putin then spoke of the need to form an international alliance just like the one that defeated Nazi Germany to defeat ISIL.
17:30 on 29/9/15 (UK date).
Sunday, 27 September 2015
The 2015 Rugby Union World Cup.
With several thousand signatures on the petition I'm sure there's a Paloma Faith/"I Vow to Thee my Country" pun in here someone. Unfortunately at this point on a Sunday evening I'm not prepared to go looking for it; http://www.nme.com/news/paloma-faith/88573
Anyway. As previously mentioned until the end of October the 2015 Rugby Union World Cup is being hosted in England, with a small nod to Cardiff's Millennium stadium. I am not adverse to a bit of rugby. However I don't really have the understanding of nor passion for the game to provide the same level of coverage of last years football world cup AKA; "The World Cup."
For example as we're currently in the group stages most of things I've written since last Friday (18/9/15) have probably clashed with at least one rugby match. However because they weren't being played at a time when I happened to be drunk on the sofa anyway I didn't really bother with them.
That said Saturday (26/9/15) night's Group A tie between England and Wales suddenly got very personal for me for reasons that have already been covered. Therefore I thought it would be better all around if I actually watched the game rather then talking over it.
To my mind the critical moment of the match occurred in the 22nd minute with score tied a 6-6. Wales' Lydiate tackles England's Wood sending him flying.
Although it might be hard for an outsider to notice in rugby when you tackle you are supposed to at least make an attempt to grab your opponent rather then simply smash into them. Also you are not supposed to tip your opponent over the horizontal line. This is to prevent what are known as "Spear Tackles" that snap necks and sometimes literally kill opponents.
As Lydiate tackled Wood sort of dived out of the way giving the impression that Lydiate had made no attempt to grab him and tipped him over the horizontal. Therefore the referee blew his whistle suspecting a dangerous tackle and referred the incident to the "Television Match Official (TMO)" who reviewed the video playback.
When one player is accused of intentionally trying to seriously injure or kill another player obviously tensions rise and there's a lot of pushing and shoving. Generally in rugby unless you're blatantly and repeatedly punching an opponent in the face directly in front of the referee this is an accepted part of the game provided you have your blow up and then walk away.
However in this incident there was England's wing-back Mike Brown. At a mere 6ft (1.8m) and 168lbs (89kg) Brown is considered - in rugby terms - a midget. However this didn't stop him running more or less half the length of the pitch to grab hold of several, much larger, Welsh players in an effort to start a fight. None of the Welsh players rose to the provocation and I believe that at one point one of the England forwards actually picked Brown up, put him in his pocket and carried him away.
Individually none of Brown's altercations warranted action by the referee but collectively I think they should have seen him shown a yellow card and sent to the sin bin for 10 minutes to calm down. However the referee did not even speak to Brown and curiously re-started the game by awarding England a scrum despite Lydiate having done nothing wrong and the stop in play being entirely the referee's fault.
On 27 minutes Brown passes to May giving England their only try of the evening and putting England 16-6 in the lead. Towards the end of the first half Brown knocks-on the ball close to the England endzone which should have given Wales the chance to scrum and then score a try bringing the gap down to 16-13. However the referee ignores it.
In the second half - amid a lot of injuries - Wales narrowed the score with a series of penalties. In the 71st minute Wales scored their only try levelling the score at 25-25. On 75 minutes Biggar scores a penalty kick from inside his own half to give Wales a 25-28 lead. The next five minutes of the game were all about whether Wales could absorb England's attacks to maintain their lead.
They did and it was amazing.
Wales are now second in Group A behind Australia while England are third meaning they're likely going home early from their own world cup. Mind you Wales are picking up that many injuries I'm a bit worried I might be starting against Fiji.
Obviously Mike Brown the English rugby player shares his name with Mike Brown the American petty thug whose attempts to rob a convinence store and then attack a police officer sparked the Ferguson, Missouri riots and, now more then a year, of this "Hands Up, Don't Shoot!" nonsense. As one Twitter user put it yesterday; "The Mike Brown hashtag is full of angry Welsh and angry Americans. But for very different reasons."
However if you were trying to start a race war last night's the rugby world cup would certainly provide you with lots of ammunition.
For example the sport was invented on the playing fields of England's "Rugby" private school. As a result England rugby fans are the type of extremely white, extremely rich and extremely entitled individuals that only Britain's famous class system can really produce. However they have chosen as their anthem "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" which was written by black Americans who were fleeing slavery as part of the underground railroad in the late 19th century.
America's national sport is of course American Football whose blue ribbon tournament "The Super Bowl" dealt heavily with the issue of race this year.
Although it might cause offence to say so American Football is a much slower, dumbed down and less violent version of Rugby Union. For example if I told American Football fans that Dan Cole is England's tight head most of them would know exactly what I mean.
However there are differences between the sports. For example American Football allows forward passing whereas in Rugby Union if you want to move forward to score you have to physically break through or go around the opposition defensive line.
In American Football if a player is hit then despite all the padding play will stop. The team taking the hit will remove all their offensive players and replace them with defensive specialists. The team making the hit will also make a line change to replace their defensive specialist with offensive specialists.
In Rugby Union if a player is hit he will continue getting hit until the ball is freed from the maul and knocked into touch. In Rugby Union it is expected that the 15 players who start the game will play throughout the 80 minute game.
I think the main difference though is that while American Football is a big money game up until the late 1990's Rugby Union was - by law - an amateur sport. So while American Footballers - who tend to be black - spend their time off the field fighting dogs, beating children and raping strippers Rugby Union players - who tend to be white - have to hold down jobs. In the past the England team has included doctors, trial lawyers (Barristers) and not one but two fighter pilots.
This race issue is particularly important to the South African national team - the Springboks. Along with cricket Rugby Union is very much the sport of South Africa's white minority. In fact during the apartheid years South Africa were banned from all international sport. Nelson Mandela's handing the world cup trophy to South Africa's first racially integrated team in 1995 was supposed to be such a symbol of the new, Rainbow Nation South Africa that Hollywood made a film about it called "Invictus."
However despite the end of apartheid the South African rugby team is still short on black players. You could argue that this is a symptom of how despite the end of apartheid black South Africans lack the economic opportunity to participate. However you could also argue that blacks are genetically incapable of the self-discipline needed to become a successful rugby player.
Alternatively we could talk about Simon Zebo's downright saucy pass that set up Ireland's first try in their 44-10 defeat of Romania.
19:00 on 27/9/15 (UK date).
Anyway. As previously mentioned until the end of October the 2015 Rugby Union World Cup is being hosted in England, with a small nod to Cardiff's Millennium stadium. I am not adverse to a bit of rugby. However I don't really have the understanding of nor passion for the game to provide the same level of coverage of last years football world cup AKA; "The World Cup."
For example as we're currently in the group stages most of things I've written since last Friday (18/9/15) have probably clashed with at least one rugby match. However because they weren't being played at a time when I happened to be drunk on the sofa anyway I didn't really bother with them.
That said Saturday (26/9/15) night's Group A tie between England and Wales suddenly got very personal for me for reasons that have already been covered. Therefore I thought it would be better all around if I actually watched the game rather then talking over it.
To my mind the critical moment of the match occurred in the 22nd minute with score tied a 6-6. Wales' Lydiate tackles England's Wood sending him flying.
Although it might be hard for an outsider to notice in rugby when you tackle you are supposed to at least make an attempt to grab your opponent rather then simply smash into them. Also you are not supposed to tip your opponent over the horizontal line. This is to prevent what are known as "Spear Tackles" that snap necks and sometimes literally kill opponents.
As Lydiate tackled Wood sort of dived out of the way giving the impression that Lydiate had made no attempt to grab him and tipped him over the horizontal. Therefore the referee blew his whistle suspecting a dangerous tackle and referred the incident to the "Television Match Official (TMO)" who reviewed the video playback.
When one player is accused of intentionally trying to seriously injure or kill another player obviously tensions rise and there's a lot of pushing and shoving. Generally in rugby unless you're blatantly and repeatedly punching an opponent in the face directly in front of the referee this is an accepted part of the game provided you have your blow up and then walk away.
However in this incident there was England's wing-back Mike Brown. At a mere 6ft (1.8m) and 168lbs (89kg) Brown is considered - in rugby terms - a midget. However this didn't stop him running more or less half the length of the pitch to grab hold of several, much larger, Welsh players in an effort to start a fight. None of the Welsh players rose to the provocation and I believe that at one point one of the England forwards actually picked Brown up, put him in his pocket and carried him away.
Individually none of Brown's altercations warranted action by the referee but collectively I think they should have seen him shown a yellow card and sent to the sin bin for 10 minutes to calm down. However the referee did not even speak to Brown and curiously re-started the game by awarding England a scrum despite Lydiate having done nothing wrong and the stop in play being entirely the referee's fault.
On 27 minutes Brown passes to May giving England their only try of the evening and putting England 16-6 in the lead. Towards the end of the first half Brown knocks-on the ball close to the England endzone which should have given Wales the chance to scrum and then score a try bringing the gap down to 16-13. However the referee ignores it.
In the second half - amid a lot of injuries - Wales narrowed the score with a series of penalties. In the 71st minute Wales scored their only try levelling the score at 25-25. On 75 minutes Biggar scores a penalty kick from inside his own half to give Wales a 25-28 lead. The next five minutes of the game were all about whether Wales could absorb England's attacks to maintain their lead.
They did and it was amazing.
Wales are now second in Group A behind Australia while England are third meaning they're likely going home early from their own world cup. Mind you Wales are picking up that many injuries I'm a bit worried I might be starting against Fiji.
Obviously Mike Brown the English rugby player shares his name with Mike Brown the American petty thug whose attempts to rob a convinence store and then attack a police officer sparked the Ferguson, Missouri riots and, now more then a year, of this "Hands Up, Don't Shoot!" nonsense. As one Twitter user put it yesterday; "The Mike Brown hashtag is full of angry Welsh and angry Americans. But for very different reasons."
However if you were trying to start a race war last night's the rugby world cup would certainly provide you with lots of ammunition.
For example the sport was invented on the playing fields of England's "Rugby" private school. As a result England rugby fans are the type of extremely white, extremely rich and extremely entitled individuals that only Britain's famous class system can really produce. However they have chosen as their anthem "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" which was written by black Americans who were fleeing slavery as part of the underground railroad in the late 19th century.
America's national sport is of course American Football whose blue ribbon tournament "The Super Bowl" dealt heavily with the issue of race this year.
Although it might cause offence to say so American Football is a much slower, dumbed down and less violent version of Rugby Union. For example if I told American Football fans that Dan Cole is England's tight head most of them would know exactly what I mean.
However there are differences between the sports. For example American Football allows forward passing whereas in Rugby Union if you want to move forward to score you have to physically break through or go around the opposition defensive line.
In American Football if a player is hit then despite all the padding play will stop. The team taking the hit will remove all their offensive players and replace them with defensive specialists. The team making the hit will also make a line change to replace their defensive specialist with offensive specialists.
In Rugby Union if a player is hit he will continue getting hit until the ball is freed from the maul and knocked into touch. In Rugby Union it is expected that the 15 players who start the game will play throughout the 80 minute game.
I think the main difference though is that while American Football is a big money game up until the late 1990's Rugby Union was - by law - an amateur sport. So while American Footballers - who tend to be black - spend their time off the field fighting dogs, beating children and raping strippers Rugby Union players - who tend to be white - have to hold down jobs. In the past the England team has included doctors, trial lawyers (Barristers) and not one but two fighter pilots.
This race issue is particularly important to the South African national team - the Springboks. Along with cricket Rugby Union is very much the sport of South Africa's white minority. In fact during the apartheid years South Africa were banned from all international sport. Nelson Mandela's handing the world cup trophy to South Africa's first racially integrated team in 1995 was supposed to be such a symbol of the new, Rainbow Nation South Africa that Hollywood made a film about it called "Invictus."
However despite the end of apartheid the South African rugby team is still short on black players. You could argue that this is a symptom of how despite the end of apartheid black South Africans lack the economic opportunity to participate. However you could also argue that blacks are genetically incapable of the self-discipline needed to become a successful rugby player.
Alternatively we could talk about Simon Zebo's downright saucy pass that set up Ireland's first try in their 44-10 defeat of Romania.
19:00 on 27/9/15 (UK date).
Operation Featherweight: Month 15, Week 1, Day 1.
Last night France conducted its first air-strike within Syria as part of Combined Joint Task Force: Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTFOIR) - the US-led coalition against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
No details have been provided of the type of target that was struck but you suspect that doesn't really matter in a bizarre French move that seems to make little strategic sense.
As I've said repeatedly when France, Australia and the UK first suggested expanding their air operations into Syria the problem is not that there is a lack of air power. In fact the number of aircraft available to CJTFOIR to carry out strikes has always far exceeded the number of targets to strike in Syria.
For example on September 16th (16/9/15) CJTFOIR carried out just three air-strikes in Syria. The day before (15/9/15) they also carried out just three air-strikes. September 14th (14/9/15) was a comparatively busy day with CJTFOIR carrying out a full four air-strikes in Syria.
With CJTFOIR continuing to block me on Twitter and them being slow to update their website I am struggling to find out the daily total of air-strikes. However I gather that on Friday (25/9/15) CJTFOIR carried out just a single air-strike in Syria.
The reason for this massive collapse in the intensity of in anti-ISIL operations is really twofold. Firstly CJTFOIR has been conducting strategic bombing of ISIL for more then a year now. This has not caused ISIL to collapse and as a result unless it is going to move to providing close air-support to a ground force CJTFOIR has more or less run out of targets to bomb.
The second much more serious problem is the deal between US President Barack Obama and Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan which saw Turkey conduct operations as part of CJTFOIR and allowed US aircraft to use United States Air Force (USAF) base Incirlik in Turkey. The condition of this agreement is that CJTFOIR is no longer allowed to conduct operations in support of the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG).
As the US' disastrous attempts to put Sunni-Arab insurgents into Syria over the past week have shown the YPG are not only the only effective anti-ISIL force in Syria they are really the only anti-ISIL force in Syria. As such this agreement with Turkey is only serving to protect ISIL by preventing CJTFOIR from taking any action to defeat them.
With this ludicrous situation where CJTFOIR aircraft are allowed to fly over ISIL positions in Syria but not attack them you would think that any CJTFOIR that was committed to defeating ISIL would be exerting pressure on the US to re-negotiate this agreement with Turkey. This would be done by making it quite clear that no-one is getting any further involved in the operation until the US devises a viable plan to make the operation a success.
By launching air-strikes in Syria France has completely abandoned that position and voted firmly for preserving the status quo.
Although France has yet to issue a statement providing clarity on the issue over recent weeks French President Francois Hollande has indicated that he would invoke "Self-Defence" as the justification for any such strikes.
Hollande was really elected as an alternative to the gung-ho interventionist policies of his predecessor Nicholas Sarkozy who led military action against Libya. As such to a domestic political audience it is likely to be seen as important to Hollande to make the entirely valid point that he is spending all this money and putting French lives in danger to protect French civilians from terrorist attack. As host of the COP21 Climate Change Summit France has been at particularly high risk of terrorist attack.
However if France is to use "Self-Defence" as its actual legal justification for military action this will mean invoking Article 51 of the United Nations (UN) Charter. As I've explained before this is not possible because Article 51 only allows for military action until the UN Security Council (UNSC) can meet to address the issue. On the issue of ISIL the UNSC has already met and passed resolution 2170 (2014) authorising military force against both ISIL and Al Qaeda's Syrian affiliate Al Nusra Front (ANF).
So as with UK Prime Minister David Cameron's recent drone strikes this is another case of the action being entirely legal but not for the reason the person in charge thinks it is.
If France does not consider 2170 sufficient authority for strikes in Syria it forces us to question whether Francein fact wishes to provide support to ANF which is prohibited by 2170 or conduct strikes against the Syrian government. As the Syrian government is fighting both ISIL and ANF this would be a violation by France of both 2170 and the UN charter.
Article 51 is also what Turkey has invoked to justify its attacks on Kurdish forces - particularly in Iraq. France also unilaterally invoking Article 51 would strengthen Turkey's position encouraging them to carry out more strikes when really they should be encouraged to stop.
The timing of this French move is particularly odd because with the Russian military build-up in Syria I was going to say that we seem to be approaching the point where Russia takes over the fight against ISIL in Syria while CJTFOIR is left to focus on the far simpler task of merely pushing ISIL out of Iraq and back into Syria.
However today it has been confirmed that Russia and Iraq have agreed a joint operations centre in Iraq dedicated to fighting ISIL. As such we actually seem to be at the point where Russia takes on the role of defeating ISIL while the CJTFOIR nations howl in protest and continue to impose sanctions on Russia for daring to oppose ISIL.
In the statement issued in support of last night strikes France spoke of them being a symbol of the nations "resolute commitment to fight." As such rather then being an attempt to defeat ISIL the French strikes seem to be a sign of support for ISIL by showing that France will resist Russian, Syrian and Iraqi efforts to defeat ISIL.
Yesterday I spoke of a UN brokered ceasefire that would see the Army of Conquest/Jaish al-Fatah (JAF) coalition - which is headed by ANF and the Islamic Movement of the Freemen of the Levant/Harakat Ahrar ash-Sham al-Islamiyya (FML/Ahrar ash-Sham) - free some 10,000 civilian hostages from the villages of Fuaa and Kafraya on the Idlib/Latakia front-line and allow them to take refugee in Syrian government controlled territory.
It appears that this ceasefire that was intended to last for six months has already collapsed.
The problems began yesterday when the International Committee of the Red Cross/Crescent (ICRC) arrived to evacuate the civilians from Fuaa and Kafraya. They were immediately mobbed by residents of the near-by town of Saraqeb who also wished to be evacuated. Then JAF moved in to stop any refugees being evacuated.
Today JAF have resumed their shelling of Syria government positions.
12:55 on 27/9/15 (UK date).
No details have been provided of the type of target that was struck but you suspect that doesn't really matter in a bizarre French move that seems to make little strategic sense.
As I've said repeatedly when France, Australia and the UK first suggested expanding their air operations into Syria the problem is not that there is a lack of air power. In fact the number of aircraft available to CJTFOIR to carry out strikes has always far exceeded the number of targets to strike in Syria.
For example on September 16th (16/9/15) CJTFOIR carried out just three air-strikes in Syria. The day before (15/9/15) they also carried out just three air-strikes. September 14th (14/9/15) was a comparatively busy day with CJTFOIR carrying out a full four air-strikes in Syria.
With CJTFOIR continuing to block me on Twitter and them being slow to update their website I am struggling to find out the daily total of air-strikes. However I gather that on Friday (25/9/15) CJTFOIR carried out just a single air-strike in Syria.
The reason for this massive collapse in the intensity of in anti-ISIL operations is really twofold. Firstly CJTFOIR has been conducting strategic bombing of ISIL for more then a year now. This has not caused ISIL to collapse and as a result unless it is going to move to providing close air-support to a ground force CJTFOIR has more or less run out of targets to bomb.
The second much more serious problem is the deal between US President Barack Obama and Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan which saw Turkey conduct operations as part of CJTFOIR and allowed US aircraft to use United States Air Force (USAF) base Incirlik in Turkey. The condition of this agreement is that CJTFOIR is no longer allowed to conduct operations in support of the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG).
As the US' disastrous attempts to put Sunni-Arab insurgents into Syria over the past week have shown the YPG are not only the only effective anti-ISIL force in Syria they are really the only anti-ISIL force in Syria. As such this agreement with Turkey is only serving to protect ISIL by preventing CJTFOIR from taking any action to defeat them.
With this ludicrous situation where CJTFOIR aircraft are allowed to fly over ISIL positions in Syria but not attack them you would think that any CJTFOIR that was committed to defeating ISIL would be exerting pressure on the US to re-negotiate this agreement with Turkey. This would be done by making it quite clear that no-one is getting any further involved in the operation until the US devises a viable plan to make the operation a success.
By launching air-strikes in Syria France has completely abandoned that position and voted firmly for preserving the status quo.
Although France has yet to issue a statement providing clarity on the issue over recent weeks French President Francois Hollande has indicated that he would invoke "Self-Defence" as the justification for any such strikes.
Hollande was really elected as an alternative to the gung-ho interventionist policies of his predecessor Nicholas Sarkozy who led military action against Libya. As such to a domestic political audience it is likely to be seen as important to Hollande to make the entirely valid point that he is spending all this money and putting French lives in danger to protect French civilians from terrorist attack. As host of the COP21 Climate Change Summit France has been at particularly high risk of terrorist attack.
However if France is to use "Self-Defence" as its actual legal justification for military action this will mean invoking Article 51 of the United Nations (UN) Charter. As I've explained before this is not possible because Article 51 only allows for military action until the UN Security Council (UNSC) can meet to address the issue. On the issue of ISIL the UNSC has already met and passed resolution 2170 (2014) authorising military force against both ISIL and Al Qaeda's Syrian affiliate Al Nusra Front (ANF).
So as with UK Prime Minister David Cameron's recent drone strikes this is another case of the action being entirely legal but not for the reason the person in charge thinks it is.
If France does not consider 2170 sufficient authority for strikes in Syria it forces us to question whether Francein fact wishes to provide support to ANF which is prohibited by 2170 or conduct strikes against the Syrian government. As the Syrian government is fighting both ISIL and ANF this would be a violation by France of both 2170 and the UN charter.
Article 51 is also what Turkey has invoked to justify its attacks on Kurdish forces - particularly in Iraq. France also unilaterally invoking Article 51 would strengthen Turkey's position encouraging them to carry out more strikes when really they should be encouraged to stop.
The timing of this French move is particularly odd because with the Russian military build-up in Syria I was going to say that we seem to be approaching the point where Russia takes over the fight against ISIL in Syria while CJTFOIR is left to focus on the far simpler task of merely pushing ISIL out of Iraq and back into Syria.
However today it has been confirmed that Russia and Iraq have agreed a joint operations centre in Iraq dedicated to fighting ISIL. As such we actually seem to be at the point where Russia takes on the role of defeating ISIL while the CJTFOIR nations howl in protest and continue to impose sanctions on Russia for daring to oppose ISIL.
In the statement issued in support of last night strikes France spoke of them being a symbol of the nations "resolute commitment to fight." As such rather then being an attempt to defeat ISIL the French strikes seem to be a sign of support for ISIL by showing that France will resist Russian, Syrian and Iraqi efforts to defeat ISIL.
Yesterday I spoke of a UN brokered ceasefire that would see the Army of Conquest/Jaish al-Fatah (JAF) coalition - which is headed by ANF and the Islamic Movement of the Freemen of the Levant/Harakat Ahrar ash-Sham al-Islamiyya (FML/Ahrar ash-Sham) - free some 10,000 civilian hostages from the villages of Fuaa and Kafraya on the Idlib/Latakia front-line and allow them to take refugee in Syrian government controlled territory.
It appears that this ceasefire that was intended to last for six months has already collapsed.
The problems began yesterday when the International Committee of the Red Cross/Crescent (ICRC) arrived to evacuate the civilians from Fuaa and Kafraya. They were immediately mobbed by residents of the near-by town of Saraqeb who also wished to be evacuated. Then JAF moved in to stop any refugees being evacuated.
Today JAF have resumed their shelling of Syria government positions.
12:55 on 27/9/15 (UK date).
Saturday, 26 September 2015
Operation Featherweight: Month 14, Week 5, Day 2.
Last Friday (18/9/15) night through to Saturday (19/9/15) 70 insurgents who had been trained by the US in Turkey entered Syria in 12 armed pick-up trucks (Technicals) laden with weapons, ammunition and other equipment. The plan was for them to meet up with the other 5 US trained insurgents that are already in Syria.
This was confirmed by the US on Tuesday (22/9/15) giving the group the new collective name of "New Syrian Forces (NSF)" presumably because their actual names - "Division 30 (D30)" and "Falcons of the Mountains/Suqur al-Jabal" - had already been tarnished by links to Islamist groups.
However even before the US had confirmed that the operation had taken place reports began to emerge that the US trained fighters had immediately defected to Al Qaeda's Syrian affiliate Al Nusra Front (ANF) who make up the largest section of the Army of Conquest/Jaish al-Fatah (JAF) coalition. These reports gained credibility on Monday (21/9/15) when ANF published pictures online showing them in possession of these US supplied vehicles, weapons, ammunition and other equipment.
The US immediately denied that any of the so called NSF insurgents had defected to ANF and all their weapons, equipment and personnel were accounted for. The US repeated this denial on Wednesday (23/9/15) and again on Thursday (24/9/15).
On Friday (25/9/15) afternoon Colonel Pat Ryder gave a rare US Central Command (CENTCOM) press conference in which he again denied the reports going so far as to claim that ANF had deliberately used old photographs in an attempt to fake reports of any defection.
During the press conference Colonel Ryder also confirmed that the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) attempts to liberate the city of Ramadi from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has not made any significant progress. As usual the US tried to blame this entirely on the Iraq's rather then the US' lack of support for the Iraqis.
On Friday (25/9/15) evening CENTCOM confirmed that within 24 hours of entering Syria the NSF had handed 6 of their technicals and all the weapons, ammunition and equipment they held over to ANF. CENTCOM went on to claim that this represented around 25% of the equipment they had been issued with. However in my understanding of maths 6 out of 12 is 50% not 25%. Given the frequent, inaccurate denials and the discrepancy over numbers I've got a nasty feeling that there is more of this story to come.
Regardless of the exact numbers this latest development makes it undeniable that the US is now in the business of supplying weapons to Al Qaeda - a declared enemy of the US. In short CENTCOM has just committed treason.
Rather then being used to fight (ISIL) we know that these weapons supplied to ANF will now go to support the JAF's efforts to dislodge the Syrian government from Aleppo and Idlib provinces with the ultimate goal of capturing Latakia province. Although logistics mean that those specific weapons won't be used in the battle JAF are also trying to capture the town of Zabadani in the Bekaa Valley on the border with Lebanon with a view to capturing the Syrian capital of Damascus itself.
On Thursday (24/9/15) a United Nations (UN) brokered ceasefire was agreed that will see fighters from the Islamic Movement of the Freemen of the Levant/Harakat Ahrar ash-Sham al-Islamiyya (FML/Ahrar ash-Sham) who are the second largest group within JAF alongside ANF withdraw from Zabadani.
In addition JAF will allow 10,000 civilian refugees to flee from the villages of Fuaa and Kafraya on the Idlib/Latakia front-line where they've effectively been held hostage to safety in Syrian government held territory.
This cease-fire is intended to last for six months but previous ceasefire agreements have struggled to make it to six days.
This brings me onto an issue that has been bugging me for quite some time - the normally reliable "Economist" magazine's coverage of the conflict. Falling far short of the expected editorial standard the Economist have long been cheerleaders for the overthrow of the Syrian government just as they were cheerleaders for the overthrow of the Libyan government.
This support has involved twisting facts to the point that they bear no resemblance to reality. For example the Economist have been one of the lead people trying to convince us that ISIL stands for "Islamic State of Iraq and Syria."
As the refugee crisis caused by the Syria and Iraq conflicts has worsened the Economist has also attempted to hijack this issue in order to further it's cause of regime change in Syria. In all their coverage of the issue - including this week's leader - they claim that the majority of the refugees are fleeing "Mr Assad's barrel bombs."
However if you get into the articles supporting this conclusion they speak to a woman who has fled to Germany following JAF's advances in Aleppo and a man who has fled to Lebanon following JAF's advances in the Bekaa valley. They also concede that the vast majority - around 75% - of Syrians want to live in areas under government control and those who are outside of government control want to live in Turkey, Lebanon or Europe.
However the Economists editorial line remains adamantly that overthrowing the Syrian government is the solution to the refugee crisis. Presumably they're in the process of applying for a job proof-reading CENTCOM intelligence reports.
So great have concerns about US President Barack Obama's handling of the fight against ISIL - which at best can be described as dangerously shambolic - become that Russia has been forced to increase its military deployment in the Syrian province of Latakia. With this highlighting America's failure the US response to this Russian build-up has been distinctly childish with the US trying everything in it's power to make Russia's moves seem as sinister as possible.
The main part of this effort has been the selective release of information about what types of equipment Russia has deployed. Roughly two weeks ago the US announced that Russia had deployed S-300 anti-aircraft missiles. Last week the US announced that Russia had deployed 4 Su-30 "Flanker" aircraft which although multi-role are primarily used as an air-superiority fighter designed to shoot-down enemy aircraft.
The obvious sub-text to this trickle of information was that Russia was intending to attack and shoot-down aircraft from the US-led, anti-ISIL coalition - Combined Joint Task Force: Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTFOIR).
In the past week the US has been forced to come clean and admit that the bulk of the Russia force is made up of helicopter gunships such as the Mi-28 "Havoc" and the KA-52 "Alligator" alongside 12 Su-25 "Frogfoot" ground attack jets. All of these aircraft are designed to provide tactical close air support to ground troops. Although none of these aircraft appear to have been deployed yet it is likely that they will be used to replace barrel bombs in future Syrian government operations reducing the impact on the civilian population.
When a military deploys a force like this its biggest worry is that it will simply be destroyed on the ground. To prevent this they also deploy what is known as force protection which is made up of troops, tanks, anti-aircraft systems and air-superiority fighters.
Obviously with neither JAF nor ISIL having an air-force air attacks are not a major concern but militaries tend to plan the same support operations including force protection for every deployment in order to speed up their ability to deploy. Plus Russia has recently significantly upgraded its military and hasn't fought a war since the 1980's so are probably looking for an opportunity for a real world test.
On Tuesday (22/9/15) US Secretary of State John Kerry finally admitted that the Russian deployment was nothing more then a standard force protection deployment.
Amid all these glaring errors and forced admissions the US appears to have become extremely jittery. For example in the UK last Sunday (20/9/15) there was a natural gas explosion at a house in Ridings, Derbyshire in which a husband and wife were killed. Police are working on the theory that the husband stabbed the wife to death and then committed suicide by setting the explosion. With no other indicators I think this was nothing more then a tragic example of civilian crime.
However the US seem to have become utterly fixated on it. For example the following day (21/9/15) two homes were destroyed in a natural gas explosion on Arabian Road in Waxahachie, Texas, US. Then on Wednesday (23/9/15) six houses were destroyed in a large natural gas explosion in Columbia a suburb of the infamous city of Baltimore, Maryland, US.
It is in this context I'm looking at the fire at one of Europe's largest Mosques - the Baitul Futuh Mosque - which is currently underway very close to where I live in Croydon. Obviously it is still very early days and it could just be a coincidence but it could also be the UK underlining the need for the US to sort out its ISIL policy by twisting the knife in over the US' misplaced concern over the Ridings gas explosion.
I should also point out though that we are at the start of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) and the UK is currently hosting the 2015 Rugby World Cup. As such the UK is likely to be at its most obnoxious and attention seeking.
For example the French World Cup team are based in Croydon. This made national news recently when one of my traffic warden brethren issued the French team bus with a parking ticket. With Croydon being the main port of call for asylum seekers I suppose we're meant to view this a revenge for the summer's disruption at Calais.
Tonight will see what some are calling the most important rugby game to be played in the UK for 25 years take place between England and Wales at Twickenham. For reasons I don't understand the Notting Hill Housing Trust that played such a big role in my Welsh grandmother's unfortunate demise are known by the codeword "The Mosque."
I suspect this has something to do with the 2010 film "Four Lions" in which idiotic Islamist terrorists plot to start a holy war by carrying out a flase flag bombing of a Mosque in the hope of provoking Muslims into violence. However I think the point of a codeword is that it doesn't make much sense.
17:15 on 26/9/15 (UK date).
This was confirmed by the US on Tuesday (22/9/15) giving the group the new collective name of "New Syrian Forces (NSF)" presumably because their actual names - "Division 30 (D30)" and "Falcons of the Mountains/Suqur al-Jabal" - had already been tarnished by links to Islamist groups.
However even before the US had confirmed that the operation had taken place reports began to emerge that the US trained fighters had immediately defected to Al Qaeda's Syrian affiliate Al Nusra Front (ANF) who make up the largest section of the Army of Conquest/Jaish al-Fatah (JAF) coalition. These reports gained credibility on Monday (21/9/15) when ANF published pictures online showing them in possession of these US supplied vehicles, weapons, ammunition and other equipment.
The US immediately denied that any of the so called NSF insurgents had defected to ANF and all their weapons, equipment and personnel were accounted for. The US repeated this denial on Wednesday (23/9/15) and again on Thursday (24/9/15).
On Friday (25/9/15) afternoon Colonel Pat Ryder gave a rare US Central Command (CENTCOM) press conference in which he again denied the reports going so far as to claim that ANF had deliberately used old photographs in an attempt to fake reports of any defection.
During the press conference Colonel Ryder also confirmed that the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) attempts to liberate the city of Ramadi from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has not made any significant progress. As usual the US tried to blame this entirely on the Iraq's rather then the US' lack of support for the Iraqis.
On Friday (25/9/15) evening CENTCOM confirmed that within 24 hours of entering Syria the NSF had handed 6 of their technicals and all the weapons, ammunition and equipment they held over to ANF. CENTCOM went on to claim that this represented around 25% of the equipment they had been issued with. However in my understanding of maths 6 out of 12 is 50% not 25%. Given the frequent, inaccurate denials and the discrepancy over numbers I've got a nasty feeling that there is more of this story to come.
Regardless of the exact numbers this latest development makes it undeniable that the US is now in the business of supplying weapons to Al Qaeda - a declared enemy of the US. In short CENTCOM has just committed treason.
Rather then being used to fight (ISIL) we know that these weapons supplied to ANF will now go to support the JAF's efforts to dislodge the Syrian government from Aleppo and Idlib provinces with the ultimate goal of capturing Latakia province. Although logistics mean that those specific weapons won't be used in the battle JAF are also trying to capture the town of Zabadani in the Bekaa Valley on the border with Lebanon with a view to capturing the Syrian capital of Damascus itself.
On Thursday (24/9/15) a United Nations (UN) brokered ceasefire was agreed that will see fighters from the Islamic Movement of the Freemen of the Levant/Harakat Ahrar ash-Sham al-Islamiyya (FML/Ahrar ash-Sham) who are the second largest group within JAF alongside ANF withdraw from Zabadani.
In addition JAF will allow 10,000 civilian refugees to flee from the villages of Fuaa and Kafraya on the Idlib/Latakia front-line where they've effectively been held hostage to safety in Syrian government held territory.
This cease-fire is intended to last for six months but previous ceasefire agreements have struggled to make it to six days.
This brings me onto an issue that has been bugging me for quite some time - the normally reliable "Economist" magazine's coverage of the conflict. Falling far short of the expected editorial standard the Economist have long been cheerleaders for the overthrow of the Syrian government just as they were cheerleaders for the overthrow of the Libyan government.
This support has involved twisting facts to the point that they bear no resemblance to reality. For example the Economist have been one of the lead people trying to convince us that ISIL stands for "Islamic State of Iraq and Syria."
As the refugee crisis caused by the Syria and Iraq conflicts has worsened the Economist has also attempted to hijack this issue in order to further it's cause of regime change in Syria. In all their coverage of the issue - including this week's leader - they claim that the majority of the refugees are fleeing "Mr Assad's barrel bombs."
However if you get into the articles supporting this conclusion they speak to a woman who has fled to Germany following JAF's advances in Aleppo and a man who has fled to Lebanon following JAF's advances in the Bekaa valley. They also concede that the vast majority - around 75% - of Syrians want to live in areas under government control and those who are outside of government control want to live in Turkey, Lebanon or Europe.
However the Economists editorial line remains adamantly that overthrowing the Syrian government is the solution to the refugee crisis. Presumably they're in the process of applying for a job proof-reading CENTCOM intelligence reports.
So great have concerns about US President Barack Obama's handling of the fight against ISIL - which at best can be described as dangerously shambolic - become that Russia has been forced to increase its military deployment in the Syrian province of Latakia. With this highlighting America's failure the US response to this Russian build-up has been distinctly childish with the US trying everything in it's power to make Russia's moves seem as sinister as possible.
The main part of this effort has been the selective release of information about what types of equipment Russia has deployed. Roughly two weeks ago the US announced that Russia had deployed S-300 anti-aircraft missiles. Last week the US announced that Russia had deployed 4 Su-30 "Flanker" aircraft which although multi-role are primarily used as an air-superiority fighter designed to shoot-down enemy aircraft.
The obvious sub-text to this trickle of information was that Russia was intending to attack and shoot-down aircraft from the US-led, anti-ISIL coalition - Combined Joint Task Force: Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTFOIR).
In the past week the US has been forced to come clean and admit that the bulk of the Russia force is made up of helicopter gunships such as the Mi-28 "Havoc" and the KA-52 "Alligator" alongside 12 Su-25 "Frogfoot" ground attack jets. All of these aircraft are designed to provide tactical close air support to ground troops. Although none of these aircraft appear to have been deployed yet it is likely that they will be used to replace barrel bombs in future Syrian government operations reducing the impact on the civilian population.
When a military deploys a force like this its biggest worry is that it will simply be destroyed on the ground. To prevent this they also deploy what is known as force protection which is made up of troops, tanks, anti-aircraft systems and air-superiority fighters.
Obviously with neither JAF nor ISIL having an air-force air attacks are not a major concern but militaries tend to plan the same support operations including force protection for every deployment in order to speed up their ability to deploy. Plus Russia has recently significantly upgraded its military and hasn't fought a war since the 1980's so are probably looking for an opportunity for a real world test.
On Tuesday (22/9/15) US Secretary of State John Kerry finally admitted that the Russian deployment was nothing more then a standard force protection deployment.
Amid all these glaring errors and forced admissions the US appears to have become extremely jittery. For example in the UK last Sunday (20/9/15) there was a natural gas explosion at a house in Ridings, Derbyshire in which a husband and wife were killed. Police are working on the theory that the husband stabbed the wife to death and then committed suicide by setting the explosion. With no other indicators I think this was nothing more then a tragic example of civilian crime.
However the US seem to have become utterly fixated on it. For example the following day (21/9/15) two homes were destroyed in a natural gas explosion on Arabian Road in Waxahachie, Texas, US. Then on Wednesday (23/9/15) six houses were destroyed in a large natural gas explosion in Columbia a suburb of the infamous city of Baltimore, Maryland, US.
It is in this context I'm looking at the fire at one of Europe's largest Mosques - the Baitul Futuh Mosque - which is currently underway very close to where I live in Croydon. Obviously it is still very early days and it could just be a coincidence but it could also be the UK underlining the need for the US to sort out its ISIL policy by twisting the knife in over the US' misplaced concern over the Ridings gas explosion.
I should also point out though that we are at the start of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) and the UK is currently hosting the 2015 Rugby World Cup. As such the UK is likely to be at its most obnoxious and attention seeking.
For example the French World Cup team are based in Croydon. This made national news recently when one of my traffic warden brethren issued the French team bus with a parking ticket. With Croydon being the main port of call for asylum seekers I suppose we're meant to view this a revenge for the summer's disruption at Calais.
Tonight will see what some are calling the most important rugby game to be played in the UK for 25 years take place between England and Wales at Twickenham. For reasons I don't understand the Notting Hill Housing Trust that played such a big role in my Welsh grandmother's unfortunate demise are known by the codeword "The Mosque."
I suspect this has something to do with the 2010 film "Four Lions" in which idiotic Islamist terrorists plot to start a holy war by carrying out a flase flag bombing of a Mosque in the hope of provoking Muslims into violence. However I think the point of a codeword is that it doesn't make much sense.
17:15 on 26/9/15 (UK date).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)