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).
Wednesday, 30 September 2015
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).
Thursday, 24 September 2015
ADP: Ex Ante Review - General Concepts.
For what feels like forever I have been working through the 11/6/15 revision of the negotiating text of the Ad-Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform (ADP). However despite all my efforts I have only succeeded in getting as far as Section E.
In selecting the options from the text that I did I am trying to create a system whereby nations submit Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC's) that cover both their mitigation and the adaptation actions. These submission will then be subjected to a non-binding peer review process.
The purpose of this ex ante review is to establish whether a nation's intended actions are achievable and whether they are fair and ambitious in the context of the long term goals of the agreement. However the ex ante review is also intended to build capacity by allowing nations to see what each other are doing and hopefully learn from other's examples.
So while I fully understand that Section F dealing with finance and technology transfer is vitally important with so much of the success of the agreement resting on the review process it is only logical that I deal with that first.
The problem is that the current negotiating text has not been written with a view to creating the type of system I envisage. So instead of having a section dedicated to the review process it has sections dealing with transparency, timeframes, processes and other matters that manage to be both excessively long and excessively vague while trying to address each nation's specific negotiating position within the context of a workable legal instrument.
Therefore if I am going to recommend language that addresses many of these matters - particularly transparency - in a workable peer review process I am going to have to write it myself. It turns out though that I am woefully under-qualified for this task. Therefore it is my hope that actual parties to the agreement will also address the problem - ideally in time for the October meeting.
Before anyone addresses the language of the agreement though they first need to think about how the review process will work;
The only way I can think of it working is for the secretariat to divide the nations into working groups. This creates the obvious question of how many groups there will be and how many parties will be in each group? Based on 160 signatories to the convention the obvious answer would be 13 groups of 13. However depending on the workload of each group and how long they have to complete the task it may be better to have a higher number of smaller groups each reviewing a smaller number of submissions.
Once it's been decided how many groups there will be there is then the question of how each nation will be assigned to each group. Will it been an entirely random process or do we want to weight the groups so they evenly represent geographic regions, economic development or the designated blocs within the convention such as Small Island Developing States (SIDS). This distributed approach will obviously aid with capacity building with more capable nations being forced to work with less capable ones.
Then there is the question of whether we take wider political rivalries into account when assigning the working groups. For example at the moment I think that a group containing both the US and Russia or a group containing both Saudi Arabia and Iran might struggle to complete its task.
Once the groups has been established there is a question of which submissions they review. Does each group review the submissions of its members in a sort of round-table or are they assigned submissions by the secretariat? If they're assigned them is this process random or again weighted to distribute submissions based on criteria to be determined? If submissions are assigned by the secretariat should there be a rule that prevents a group reviewing a submission of one of it's members?
How the submissions are divided also poses the question of whether all submissions should be reviewed by the groups or should some be reviewed by the working groups while the secretariat reviews the others? If all submissions are to be reviewed by the working groups should the secretariat also be able to conduct it's own review of submissions either through random selection or at the submitters request? A review by the secretariat could of course produce a very different outcome to review by the working group.
Then there is the question of how long the review process should take. I think 12 months is broadly sufficient but that will obviously depend on the workload placed on each group.
In terms of the scope of the review process I think the fundamental principle that will keep it as a scientific rather then a political process is that the findings of the review are strictly non-binding. That grants the process the freedom to grow and develop as it is carried out over the 80-100 years of the agreement. However I do think there needs to be language in the agreement confirming that the primary process of the exercise is to establish whether a submission is viable and how it relates to the ambition of the agreement.
In order to assist with the next round of submissions I think there also needs to be an ex post review process at around the 5 year mark to assess the progress each submission is making. I think the ex post review can use the same format as the ex ante review but that's a question that still needs to considered. For example if the same format is used does that mean the same group that performed the ex ante review performs the ex post review.
In recent days we've provided with a prime example of the advantages of a rigorous ex ante review process in the form of the Volkswagen emissions testing scandal.
To people familiar with climate change negotiations this is hardly a surprise because there is a wide acceptance that if you create a system whereby people can gain an advantage by cheating that system then that is exactly what they will do.
For example creating a similar splash at the recent September meeting there was a report by the Stockholm Environment Institute that nations such of Russia were able to generate some 400 tonnes of carbon credits by fraudulently over-estimating the reductions from processes such as mining coal waste piles. It almost goes without saying that Russia is not keen on any form of peer review process.
Although it has been exposed prior to the new agreement coming into force the Volkswagen scandal would be covered by the US' INDC which intends to reduce emissions by 28% from the 2005 baseline by 2030 by in part by introducing tougher restrictions on vehicle emissions.
Depending on how much detail their peers wish to go into as part of the review process the US would not only be asked how this proposed new law would be introduced but how it would be enforced. This would require them to provide details of their testing regime which is already available to any manufacturer who wants to sell vehicles in the US. Although it is more difficult with things like power stations or forests the group reviewing the US' submission could then conduct their own version of the US test on a range of vehicles to see if there are any anomalies.
This is actually how the Volkswagen scandal was uncovered with a private testing company carrying out its own emission tests on Volkswagens and discovering that time and time again their results did not match the US government's results.
The Volkswagen scandal also raises questions about compliance. If this new agreement does impose financial penalties for missing reduction targets as I think it should and the US misses it's target then the US would be forced to pay a fine. However because the failure was caused by Volkswagen defrauding the US government then the US could recover the cost of any fine from Volkswagen.
20:40 on 24/9/15 (UK date).
In selecting the options from the text that I did I am trying to create a system whereby nations submit Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC's) that cover both their mitigation and the adaptation actions. These submission will then be subjected to a non-binding peer review process.
The purpose of this ex ante review is to establish whether a nation's intended actions are achievable and whether they are fair and ambitious in the context of the long term goals of the agreement. However the ex ante review is also intended to build capacity by allowing nations to see what each other are doing and hopefully learn from other's examples.
So while I fully understand that Section F dealing with finance and technology transfer is vitally important with so much of the success of the agreement resting on the review process it is only logical that I deal with that first.
The problem is that the current negotiating text has not been written with a view to creating the type of system I envisage. So instead of having a section dedicated to the review process it has sections dealing with transparency, timeframes, processes and other matters that manage to be both excessively long and excessively vague while trying to address each nation's specific negotiating position within the context of a workable legal instrument.
Therefore if I am going to recommend language that addresses many of these matters - particularly transparency - in a workable peer review process I am going to have to write it myself. It turns out though that I am woefully under-qualified for this task. Therefore it is my hope that actual parties to the agreement will also address the problem - ideally in time for the October meeting.
Before anyone addresses the language of the agreement though they first need to think about how the review process will work;
The only way I can think of it working is for the secretariat to divide the nations into working groups. This creates the obvious question of how many groups there will be and how many parties will be in each group? Based on 160 signatories to the convention the obvious answer would be 13 groups of 13. However depending on the workload of each group and how long they have to complete the task it may be better to have a higher number of smaller groups each reviewing a smaller number of submissions.
Once it's been decided how many groups there will be there is then the question of how each nation will be assigned to each group. Will it been an entirely random process or do we want to weight the groups so they evenly represent geographic regions, economic development or the designated blocs within the convention such as Small Island Developing States (SIDS). This distributed approach will obviously aid with capacity building with more capable nations being forced to work with less capable ones.
Then there is the question of whether we take wider political rivalries into account when assigning the working groups. For example at the moment I think that a group containing both the US and Russia or a group containing both Saudi Arabia and Iran might struggle to complete its task.
Once the groups has been established there is a question of which submissions they review. Does each group review the submissions of its members in a sort of round-table or are they assigned submissions by the secretariat? If they're assigned them is this process random or again weighted to distribute submissions based on criteria to be determined? If submissions are assigned by the secretariat should there be a rule that prevents a group reviewing a submission of one of it's members?
How the submissions are divided also poses the question of whether all submissions should be reviewed by the groups or should some be reviewed by the working groups while the secretariat reviews the others? If all submissions are to be reviewed by the working groups should the secretariat also be able to conduct it's own review of submissions either through random selection or at the submitters request? A review by the secretariat could of course produce a very different outcome to review by the working group.
Then there is the question of how long the review process should take. I think 12 months is broadly sufficient but that will obviously depend on the workload placed on each group.
In terms of the scope of the review process I think the fundamental principle that will keep it as a scientific rather then a political process is that the findings of the review are strictly non-binding. That grants the process the freedom to grow and develop as it is carried out over the 80-100 years of the agreement. However I do think there needs to be language in the agreement confirming that the primary process of the exercise is to establish whether a submission is viable and how it relates to the ambition of the agreement.
In order to assist with the next round of submissions I think there also needs to be an ex post review process at around the 5 year mark to assess the progress each submission is making. I think the ex post review can use the same format as the ex ante review but that's a question that still needs to considered. For example if the same format is used does that mean the same group that performed the ex ante review performs the ex post review.
In recent days we've provided with a prime example of the advantages of a rigorous ex ante review process in the form of the Volkswagen emissions testing scandal.
To people familiar with climate change negotiations this is hardly a surprise because there is a wide acceptance that if you create a system whereby people can gain an advantage by cheating that system then that is exactly what they will do.
For example creating a similar splash at the recent September meeting there was a report by the Stockholm Environment Institute that nations such of Russia were able to generate some 400 tonnes of carbon credits by fraudulently over-estimating the reductions from processes such as mining coal waste piles. It almost goes without saying that Russia is not keen on any form of peer review process.
Although it has been exposed prior to the new agreement coming into force the Volkswagen scandal would be covered by the US' INDC which intends to reduce emissions by 28% from the 2005 baseline by 2030 by in part by introducing tougher restrictions on vehicle emissions.
Depending on how much detail their peers wish to go into as part of the review process the US would not only be asked how this proposed new law would be introduced but how it would be enforced. This would require them to provide details of their testing regime which is already available to any manufacturer who wants to sell vehicles in the US. Although it is more difficult with things like power stations or forests the group reviewing the US' submission could then conduct their own version of the US test on a range of vehicles to see if there are any anomalies.
This is actually how the Volkswagen scandal was uncovered with a private testing company carrying out its own emission tests on Volkswagens and discovering that time and time again their results did not match the US government's results.
The Volkswagen scandal also raises questions about compliance. If this new agreement does impose financial penalties for missing reduction targets as I think it should and the US misses it's target then the US would be forced to pay a fine. However because the failure was caused by Volkswagen defrauding the US government then the US could recover the cost of any fine from Volkswagen.
20:40 on 24/9/15 (UK date).
Worst. Hajj. Ever.
Today at least 717 Muslim pilgrims have been killed and around 860 have been injured during a stampede at the Mina valley just outside Mecca, Saudi Arabia where they were gathering as part of the annual Hajj pilgrimage. This is the worst loss of life during Hajj since a similar stampede claimed the lives of 1,426 pilgrims in 1994 and the death toll may yet rise to exceed that total.
This comes on Eid al-Adha which is the second most important festival in Islam. Although only Muslims celebrate it on such a large scale Eid al-Adha (Feast of Sacrifice) marks an event that should be familiar to all Jews, Christians and Muslims - what is sometimes referred to as "The Binding of Isaac" as told in the book of Genesis.
In the story God instructs Abraham to to take his son Isaac to a mountain and kill him in sacrifice to show his devotion to God. This obviously prompts Abraham to have something of a crisis of faith and he spends a lot of time on the mountain trying to decide whether his devotion to God is greater then his devotion to his son. Eventually Abraham decides to go ahead with the sacrifice but just as he is about to do the deed God appears to him - in the form of a bush trapping a ram - and tells him to sacrifice the ram instead because he has already proved his devotion to God by showing that he is prepared to kill his son.
Jews believe that this all occurred on what is now known as the Temple Mount/Al Asqa site in Jerusalem. To honour Abraham's commitment to God the first Jewish Temple was built there - hence the term "Temple Mount." Some Christian's agree with this while other claim that it actually occurred on Mount Calvary where Jesus was crucified - an act they believe was God reciprocating Abraham's devotion by sacrificing his own son - Jesus - to say humans from their sins.
However Muslims believe that this all occurred in the Mina valley which conveniently stands between Mecca where the Prophet Muhammad was born and Mount Arafat where Muhammad delivered his last sermon at the end of the first Hajj.
Muslims also believe that while Abraham was wrestling with his faith the Devil appeared and urged him to defy God by not killing his son. Some 2,500 years before his birth the Prophet Muhammad is said to have also appeared and cast the devil away by pelting him with stones. I though think that is artistic license helping to personify Abraham's internal struggle for the audience.
As part of the Hajj pilgrimage Muslims mark this casting out of the Devil by throwing rocks at three pillars in the Mina valley. It is at this point that today's stampede occurred.
This latest tragedy comes just two weeks after 118 Muslim pilgrims were killed and 394 injured when a crane operated by the Bin Laden construction company collapsed onto Mecca's Grand Mosque during a freak thunder storm of September 11th (11/9/15). This prompted something of a metaphysical crisis because certainly since 2010 Saudi Arabia has been using the terrorist tactics of Osama bin Laden to rebuild the Muslim world in its own image in order to consolidate the power of Saudi Arabia's ruling al-Saud family.
The crane collapse could have been an entirely random act. It could also have been the natural environment through the quantum field protesting the al-Saud's objection to action to prevent climate change. However it could also have been a sign from God and if it could be a sign from God it could also be a sign from the Devil impersonating God.
Therefore it is my suspicion that the al-Saud's intentionally caused today's stampede in order to trick Muslims into thinking that it was a sign from God that the crane collapse was a sign from the Devil and they should continue to be prepared to sacrifice their children for 'gods' cause. After all while we talk a lot about the fate of the Yezidi and the Druze at the hands of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) the overwhelming majority of people ISIL are slaughtering are Muslims and in Saudi Arabia's war against Yemen it is only Muslim who are being slaughtered.
If you think that sounds a bit wacky then if you've been following the recent developments in the "Baby Doe" case out of Boston, Massachusetts, US or the Nickcole Dykema case out of Brooksville, Florida, US you may have got the impression that certain bets were being taken on how long it would take the al-Sauds to blame the Bin Laden crane collapse on witchcraft. After all they do believe the Sun revolves around the Earth.
In terms of the mechanics of causing a stampede when you have that many people all whipped up into a sort of religious delirium being crammed into a space that is far too small for them the challenge is normally to avoid a stampede. This type of event is actually very common amongst Indian Hindus because all it takes is one person to push, one person to slip or one person to panic.
However Saudi Arabia has indicated that it was poorly disciplined Shia pilgrims from Iran that caused the disaster. Iran has countered by accusing Sunni Saudi Arabia of closing three of five routes causing a bottle-neck at the cross-roads where the stampede began.
16:45 on 24/9/15 (UK date).
This comes on Eid al-Adha which is the second most important festival in Islam. Although only Muslims celebrate it on such a large scale Eid al-Adha (Feast of Sacrifice) marks an event that should be familiar to all Jews, Christians and Muslims - what is sometimes referred to as "The Binding of Isaac" as told in the book of Genesis.
In the story God instructs Abraham to to take his son Isaac to a mountain and kill him in sacrifice to show his devotion to God. This obviously prompts Abraham to have something of a crisis of faith and he spends a lot of time on the mountain trying to decide whether his devotion to God is greater then his devotion to his son. Eventually Abraham decides to go ahead with the sacrifice but just as he is about to do the deed God appears to him - in the form of a bush trapping a ram - and tells him to sacrifice the ram instead because he has already proved his devotion to God by showing that he is prepared to kill his son.
Jews believe that this all occurred on what is now known as the Temple Mount/Al Asqa site in Jerusalem. To honour Abraham's commitment to God the first Jewish Temple was built there - hence the term "Temple Mount." Some Christian's agree with this while other claim that it actually occurred on Mount Calvary where Jesus was crucified - an act they believe was God reciprocating Abraham's devotion by sacrificing his own son - Jesus - to say humans from their sins.
However Muslims believe that this all occurred in the Mina valley which conveniently stands between Mecca where the Prophet Muhammad was born and Mount Arafat where Muhammad delivered his last sermon at the end of the first Hajj.
Muslims also believe that while Abraham was wrestling with his faith the Devil appeared and urged him to defy God by not killing his son. Some 2,500 years before his birth the Prophet Muhammad is said to have also appeared and cast the devil away by pelting him with stones. I though think that is artistic license helping to personify Abraham's internal struggle for the audience.
As part of the Hajj pilgrimage Muslims mark this casting out of the Devil by throwing rocks at three pillars in the Mina valley. It is at this point that today's stampede occurred.
This latest tragedy comes just two weeks after 118 Muslim pilgrims were killed and 394 injured when a crane operated by the Bin Laden construction company collapsed onto Mecca's Grand Mosque during a freak thunder storm of September 11th (11/9/15). This prompted something of a metaphysical crisis because certainly since 2010 Saudi Arabia has been using the terrorist tactics of Osama bin Laden to rebuild the Muslim world in its own image in order to consolidate the power of Saudi Arabia's ruling al-Saud family.
The crane collapse could have been an entirely random act. It could also have been the natural environment through the quantum field protesting the al-Saud's objection to action to prevent climate change. However it could also have been a sign from God and if it could be a sign from God it could also be a sign from the Devil impersonating God.
Therefore it is my suspicion that the al-Saud's intentionally caused today's stampede in order to trick Muslims into thinking that it was a sign from God that the crane collapse was a sign from the Devil and they should continue to be prepared to sacrifice their children for 'gods' cause. After all while we talk a lot about the fate of the Yezidi and the Druze at the hands of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) the overwhelming majority of people ISIL are slaughtering are Muslims and in Saudi Arabia's war against Yemen it is only Muslim who are being slaughtered.
If you think that sounds a bit wacky then if you've been following the recent developments in the "Baby Doe" case out of Boston, Massachusetts, US or the Nickcole Dykema case out of Brooksville, Florida, US you may have got the impression that certain bets were being taken on how long it would take the al-Sauds to blame the Bin Laden crane collapse on witchcraft. After all they do believe the Sun revolves around the Earth.
In terms of the mechanics of causing a stampede when you have that many people all whipped up into a sort of religious delirium being crammed into a space that is far too small for them the challenge is normally to avoid a stampede. This type of event is actually very common amongst Indian Hindus because all it takes is one person to push, one person to slip or one person to panic.
However Saudi Arabia has indicated that it was poorly disciplined Shia pilgrims from Iran that caused the disaster. Iran has countered by accusing Sunni Saudi Arabia of closing three of five routes causing a bottle-neck at the cross-roads where the stampede began.
16:45 on 24/9/15 (UK date).
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