On November 8th (8/11/16) Donald Trump was elected as the next President of the United States. Before he takes up office on January 20th 2017 (20/1/17) he has the task of assembling his political cabinet.
In what believe it or not is a sign of support I'm trying to avoid giving a running commentary of this process.
However the person who becomes the new Secretary of State responsible for foreign affairs is someone I will inevitably come into a lot of conduct with. Particularly in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and associated groups. Therefore I think it would be a missed opportunity if I didn't share my opinions.
Whether they realise it or not if people voted for Trump in opposition to the Islamist terrorism they were voting against the Neo-Conservative foreign policy of people like John Bolton and Rudy Giuliani. Therefore I think we can immediately rule them out as candidates.
Two other candidates who've been mentioned are Mitt Romney and David Petraeus.
In endorsing Donald Trump I said that normally I would say that a career in business counts as a disadvantage when it comes to politics and diplomacy. In fact I said exactly that in endorsing Barack Obama over Mitt Romney back in the 2012 election.
Although he only has domestic rather than international political experience I would have found it very easy to support Mitt Romney in 2008 against Barack Obama or this year against Hillary Clinton. The only reason that I backed Obama over Romney in 2012 was that I was hoping that in his second term Obama would learn from the mistakes of his first term leaving him best placed to correct them.
With Obama using his second term to double down on the mistakes of his first term I think I may have got that decision wrong. Being very sensible, moderate and level-headed Mitt Romney may well have made a better President between 2012 and now. My only real concern about him is that he might actually be too sensible and too nice for the rough world of international diplomacy.
Conversely the fact that Trump has a sightly questionable business record of breaking deals and ripping off contractors actually works to his advantage when it comes to politics and diplomacy.
With Romney being something of the anti-Trump the difference in their attitude and style could actually lead to a constructive working relationship as they come at problems from different perspectives. However for that to work the two men need to decide if they can work constructively with each other. Sort of agreeing to disagree.
David Petraeus is of course a former 4-star Army General who was the head of the US Central Command and Commander of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. At that level military command has very little to do with war fighting and everything to do with politics and diplomacy.
One Petraeus' key achievements was the "Awakening" program in Iraq which saw the Sunni-tribes side with the Iraqi government over the Sunni Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). That experience is something that should stand him in good stead in international diplomacy.
Petraeus was also the head of the CIA between 2011 and 2012. That role is effectively one of a referee between one group of accomplished liars - politicians - and another group of extremely accomplished liars - spies. That is also extremely good training to be America's number one diplomat.
My only concern is that in March 2015 Petraeus was convicted - by way of a guilty plea - of mishandling secret government documents.
Having declared Hillary Clinton unfit to be President because of her mishandling of secret government documents while Secretary of State it is difficult for me to then recommend that someone who has committed a similar offence becomes Secretary of State.
I think the important thing to remember though is that it wasn't really her mis-handling of secret documents that makes Hillary Clinton a threat to national security.
It is the fact that Hillary Clinton wilfully provided not only secret information but also weapons and diplomatic cover to groups like Al Qaeda and ISIL that makes her a threat to national security. However to investigate her on those grounds would itself be a threat to national security. For reasons you probably need national security clearance to even discuss.
The fact that Hillary Clinton had stored 10 Top Secret emails on her private server contrary to the 1917 Espionage Act provided a neat way to discuss the threat she posed to national security without having to discuss all the other ways she threatened national security.
By contrast Petraeus gave his private diaries containing classified information to a woman who'd been given security clearance to act as his biographer. Those diaries never entered the public domain nor were ever at risk of entering the public domain. In fact the whole thing struck me as a political move to oust Petraeus from the CIA over disagreements on issues such as ISIL. I suspect that if Petraeus hadn't plead guilty it may well have fallen apart in Court.
Crucially Hillary Clinton stands accused of a Felony under the Espionage Act which would automatically rule her out of receiving security clearance.
Petraeus was convicted of a much less serious Misdemeanour which doesn't automatically rule him out from receiving security clearance.
17:30 on 30/11/16 (UK date).
Wednesday, 30 November 2016
Monday, 28 November 2016
Operation Featherweight: Month 29, Week 2, Day 1.
On November 3rd (3/11/16) my Internet connection was shut down cutting off my communications for more than a week. This was one of the most critical weeks so far in the current war against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
In my previous post I caught up on events in the operation to liberate from ISIL the city of Mosul in northern Iraq. In this post I will attempt to take an overview of events in northern Syria. Here there are really three key areas.
The first of these is the roughly 12,000kmsq (7.200 milesq) buffer-zone that has been established by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF/QSD) in north-eastern Syria.
I hesitate to describe this area as a "Safe-Haven" because although something of a linguistic redundancy the term; "Safe-Haven" is a specified one under international law which places a number of legal obligations on the people who declare it. For example the case of the Dutch military's failure to protect civilians in a Safe-Haven in Srebrenica, Bosnia in 1995 is still going through the Courts.
As essentially a lightly armed guerrilla force I know that the SDF lack the resources to accept the legal liabilities that come from designating a Safe-Haven.
However if the US-led coalition - Combined Joint Task Force: Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTFOIR) - were to fully recognise the SDF and properly support them then this buffer-zone could quite easily become the Safe-Haven that many CJTFOIR members - particularly Turkey - have long demanded be established in Syria.
The western boundary of the SDF's buffer-zone is the Euphrates River while the eastern boundary is Syria's border with Iraq 480km (290 miles) away. The southern boundary of this buffer-zone is more jagged and therefore harder to define. However two key locations that generally mark the southern boundary are the city of Hasakah and the town of Ayn Issa.
Hasakah sits around 80km (50 miles) west of Syria's border with Iraq and around 90km (55 miles) south of Syria's border with Turkey. Ayn Issa sits around 60km (35miles) east of the Euphrates and around 50km (30 miles) south of Syria's border with Turkey. Crucially Ayn Issa also sits around 70km (40 miles) north of Raqqa - ISIL's de facto capital.
Sitting directly to the west of the SDF's buffer-zone you have the second key area which is known either as; "Erdogan's Pocket" or "Garvaghy Road." This stretches roughly 100km (60 miles) from the Euphrates in the east to the Syrian town of Azaz in the west. Azaz sits almost directly south of the Turkish border town of Kilis.
The Garvaghy Road is ISIL's main supply route with the outside world. ISIL oil flows up the road into Turkish refineries. In return fighters, weapons and other equipment flow down the road from Turkey either to Raqqa or Aleppo City which sits roughly 60km (35 miles) south of Azaz.
To the west of Azaz you have a second area under SDF control. With the city of Afrin at its heart this is known as; "The Afrin Canton." It is bordered by Turkey to the north and west and it's rough southern boundary is the line between the western border with Turkey and the town of Anadan roughly 15km (9 miles) north-west of Aleppo City.
On December 30th 2015 (30/12/15) the SDF were able to liberate the Tishrin Dam across the Euphrates from ISIL. On May 31st 2016 (31/5/16) the SDF were able to liberate the town of Manbij from ISIL. Manbij sits roughly 30km (18 miles) south-west of the Tishrin Dam and 45km (27 miles) south of Syria's border with Turkey on the western bank of the Euphrates.
As such the liberation of Manbij should have been the first step in the SDF sealing Garvaghy Road cutting ISIL's supply-lines with Turkey and extending the buffer-zone/Safe-Haven across all of the north of Syria.
Depending on progress in Iraq the SDF would then be in a position to start planning an operation to force ISIL from Raqqa and the Euphrates basin thus totally defeating the group. The SDF would then be in a position to negotiate a political settlement with the Syrian government finally ending this war which is currently well into its sixth year.
However on August 25th (25/8/16) Turkey formally invaded Garvaghy Road using a mixture of both regular and irregular troops. Their first objective was the border town of Jarablus which sits on the western bank of the Euphrates around 45km (27 miles) north of Manbij.
With ISIL simply being absorbed into the Turkish irregular forces Turkey was able to take control of Jarablus in less than 24 hours. The combined Turkish/ISIL forces then proceeded to advance south to attack SDF forces - including French and American Special Operations Forces (SOF) - in Manbij.
Quite why CJTFOIR gave Turkey permission to carry out this wholly illegal invasion of Syria in support of ISIL in the first place remains a complete mystery to me. However that permission was given on the understanding that Turkey would fully withdraw it's occupation force by September 6th (6/9/16).
Unfortunately when September 6th came US President Obama - as the Commander-in-Chief of CJTFOIR - either lost his nerve or his mind.
Rather than holding Turkey to withdrawing it's invasion force by the agreed date CJTFOIR instead settled for trying to nudge the Turkish forces westward away from Manbij. First towards the border town of al-Rai some 65km (40 miles) west of Jarablus and then the town of Dabiq which sits around 20km (12 miles) south-west of al-Rai.
On October 16th (16/10/16) ISIL cycled control of Dabiq to Turkish forces in the same way the two forces had cycled control of Jarablus and al-Rai between themselves. Although of limited strategic value the town of Dabiq is of great symbolic importance.
It was in the August 1516 Battle of Dabiq Meadow that the Ottoman Empire - the last Islamist Caliphate - defeated the Mamluk Empire. With the Mamluk Empire being based in Egypt this allowed the Ottoman Empire to establish itself across the entire Middle East, North Africa (MENA) where it remained until its fall in the 1920's. For this reason ISIL have long celebrated Dabiq as the scene of the apocalyptic final battle between them as the true believers and absolutely everybody else.
The following day on October 17th (17/10/16) the long trailed Mosul operation formally began. With the world's attention distracted by that Turkish forces wasted no time in launching attacks against SDF positions within the Afrin Canton. These began with strikes against villages just outside of Azaz.
However by October 20th (20/10/16) Turkish operations had expanded to include strikes on Rajo and Jindres which are deep inside the Afrin Canton and the city of Qamishli. The city of Qamishli is so deep within the buffer-zone it is closer to the border with Iraq some 70km (40 miles) to the east than the Euphrates some 175km (105 miles) to the west.
On October 20th (20/10/16) Turkey also launched one-off airstrikes against the Sheikh Maqsood neighbourhood within Aleppo City which is also under SDF control.
On October 22nd (22/10/16) Turkey deployed further tanks and SOF's south of Dabiq. This was done specifically to prevent the SDF from liberating the town of Marea from ISIL.
Matters came to a head on October 25th (25/10/16) when Turkish forces launched a Chemical Weapons attack on SDF forces just outside Marea.
At roughly the same time the Syrian government who are not only fighting the SDF, ISIL but also the Turkish backed Army of Conquest coalition conducted airstrikes against the Turkish invasion forces around Dabiq. Four Turkish regular army fighters were killed in these strikes. In an effort to portray the SDF as allied with the Syrian government Turkey responded by intensifying its airstrikes against the SDF.
On October 29th (29/10/16) Syria turned on its air defence systems which now include the advanced Russian S-400 system. This meant that Turkish pilots operating over Syria would receive a cockpit warning that Surface-to-Air Missiles (SAM) had locked on to them and were preparing to shoot them down.
If such as shooting-down were to take place it would completely shatter the illusion of there being a popular uprising against the Syrian government. It would also become impossible to continue to pretend that this was a proxy-war. Instead it would quite clearly become an all out war between Turkey as a nation state acting as an unlawful aggressor and Syria as a nation state backed by nuclear armed Russia.
Needless to say on October 29th (29/10/16) Turkish aircraft stopped operating over Syria.
At around 16:55 on 28/11/16 (UK date) I'm going to have a cup of coffee and order my thoughts.
Edited at around 17:50 on 28/11/16 (UK date) to add;
By November 6th (6/11/16) Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan had clearly decided that the world would be distracted by the Mosul operation and the US Presidential election/transition. So the Turkish invasion and occupation force launched an operation to absorb ISIL forces in al-Bab.
Al-Bab is one the key strategic nodes within Garvaghy Road. It sits roughly 45km (27 miles) north-east of Aleppo City and roughly 50km (30 miles) south-west of Manbij. Crucially it sits on the junction between the H4 road running between Raqqa and Turkey and the H212 Road/M4 Motorway running between Aleppo City and the Euphrates. In short control of al-Bab renders control of Manbij strategically redundant.
The first stage of Turkey's al-Bab operation involved attacking SDF positions absolutely nowhere near al-Bab.
On November 7th (7/11/16) Turkish irregular forces launched twin attacks against the SDF controlled buffer-zone.
Occurring simultaneously one attack was directed against the village of Doda between the city of Qamishli and the town of Amude some 140km (85 miles) west of the Syria/Iraq border. The other attack was directed on villages between Kobane and Tel Abyad some 70km (42 miles) east of the Euphrates. Both attacks employed suicide bombers and lightly armed ground forces and were launched from within Turkey.
Both attacks were quickly repelled. They were though accompanied by Turkish shelling of SDF positions close to Qamishli, in the Sheikh Maqsood district of Aleppo City and the Afrin Canton. That shelling has been continuous.
On November 13th (13/11/16) the Turkish air force resumed its operations over Syria. Specifically they conducted airstrikes targeting civilian Internally Displaced People (IDP's) - essentially refugees - who were fleeing from Aleppo City to the safety of the Afrin Canton.
The Turkish air force then again suspended operations over Syria. They resumed them on November 20th (20/11/16) with strikes in the vicinity of Manbij. Specifically these strikes were against the Manbij Military Council (MMC) - the division of the SDF tasked with protecting Manbij.
On November 22nd (22/11/16) the MMC and the Turkish forces began engaging each other on the ground. Those clashes are continuing amid Turkish airstrikes.
With Turkish forces seeming to disregard Syria's sovereignty and territorial integrity on November 24th (24/11/16) the Syrian government decided to remind Turkey that it's air defences are still active. This took the form of conducting a series of air strikes against Turkish regular forces close to Manbij killing four. As with the similar strikes close to Dabiq on October 22nd (22/10/16) Turkey responded by intensifying its attacks on the SDF.
With Turkish and Syrian regular forces once again engaged in direct combat the situation has once again become extremely tense. My current understanding is that in response to Thursday's (24/11/16) airstrikes the Turkish air force is flying continuous missions over Syria in order to protect its troops from further airstrikes. They have also deployed Rapier-type mobile air defence systems to al-Rai.
Therefore we could well be on the verge of discovering if Turkey shoots down a Syrian aircraft Russia will back Syria by nuking Turkey or if Syria shoots down a Turkish aircraft NATO will respond by formally invading Syria.
On Friday (25/11/16) night there was a degree of panic amongst the Turkish population when Turkish jets broke the sound-barrier unleashing a sonic boom over the border city of Gaziantep. Last night (27/11/16) there was a degree of amusement amongst the Turkish population when strange Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO's) that were likely ballistic missiles being tested suddenly appeared in the skies over the Turkish city of Istanbul.
One of the main things giving Erdogan confidence that NATO will give him its full support in any potential war with Syria and Russia is the operation the US has forced the SDF to undertake against Raqqa. It should come as little surprise that this operation also began on November 6th (6/11/16).
This is simply a suicide mission for the SDF. An operation to liberate Raqqa from ISIL be at least as complex as the operation to liberate Mosul. In talking about the Mosul operation I recently spoke about how an Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) convoy containing an embedded CNN journalist saw 28 of it's 35 Humvee and MRAP armoured vehicles rapidly destroyed in a series of ISIL ambushes. As a lightly armed guerrilla force the SDF don't even have Humvees and MRAP's to begin with.
Fortunately as with the Mosul operation the first stage of the SDF's Raqqa operation has not been to attack the city itself. Instead it has been to advance across the roughly 70km (40 miles) south from Ayn Issa to Raqqa.
With the first phase the operation now said to be complete as of Friday (25/11/16) the SDF is currently located around 26km (15 miles) north of Raqqa. It is here that the US sustained its first battle fatality inside of Syria with the death of US Navy Special Operator Chief Petty Officer Scott Dayton.
I have always had a suspicion that in forcing the SDF to undertake the Raqqa operation the US has actively been trying to get them killed in order to please Erdogan.
However it is also possible that the US forced the SDF to undertake the Raqqa operation as a panicked, back of a cigarette packet response to the Mosul operation. Central to the Mosul operation has been the deal negotiated by Erdogan between the US and ISIL that the area to the west of Mosul - the Falls Road - will be left open to allow ISIL fighters to escape back to Raqqa.
At what I gather was an extremely heated NATO meeting on October 26th (26/10/16) the European nations pointed out to America that if ISIL fighters can flee from Mosul to Raqqa then they can also flee from Raqqa to Europe. Therefore it's possible the Raqqa operation was made up on the hoof to assuage those concerns.
Fortunately the Popular Mobilisation Force (PMF) element of the ISF secured the western side of Mosul on November 16th (16/11/16) sealing the Falls Road. Thus removing the need for the Raqqa operation.
So we now get to discover whether the US was merely panicking or whether it is actively trying to destroy the SDF.
19:15 on 28/11/16 (UK date).
In my previous post I caught up on events in the operation to liberate from ISIL the city of Mosul in northern Iraq. In this post I will attempt to take an overview of events in northern Syria. Here there are really three key areas.
The first of these is the roughly 12,000kmsq (7.200 milesq) buffer-zone that has been established by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF/QSD) in north-eastern Syria.
I hesitate to describe this area as a "Safe-Haven" because although something of a linguistic redundancy the term; "Safe-Haven" is a specified one under international law which places a number of legal obligations on the people who declare it. For example the case of the Dutch military's failure to protect civilians in a Safe-Haven in Srebrenica, Bosnia in 1995 is still going through the Courts.
As essentially a lightly armed guerrilla force I know that the SDF lack the resources to accept the legal liabilities that come from designating a Safe-Haven.
However if the US-led coalition - Combined Joint Task Force: Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTFOIR) - were to fully recognise the SDF and properly support them then this buffer-zone could quite easily become the Safe-Haven that many CJTFOIR members - particularly Turkey - have long demanded be established in Syria.
The western boundary of the SDF's buffer-zone is the Euphrates River while the eastern boundary is Syria's border with Iraq 480km (290 miles) away. The southern boundary of this buffer-zone is more jagged and therefore harder to define. However two key locations that generally mark the southern boundary are the city of Hasakah and the town of Ayn Issa.
Hasakah sits around 80km (50 miles) west of Syria's border with Iraq and around 90km (55 miles) south of Syria's border with Turkey. Ayn Issa sits around 60km (35miles) east of the Euphrates and around 50km (30 miles) south of Syria's border with Turkey. Crucially Ayn Issa also sits around 70km (40 miles) north of Raqqa - ISIL's de facto capital.
Sitting directly to the west of the SDF's buffer-zone you have the second key area which is known either as; "Erdogan's Pocket" or "Garvaghy Road." This stretches roughly 100km (60 miles) from the Euphrates in the east to the Syrian town of Azaz in the west. Azaz sits almost directly south of the Turkish border town of Kilis.
The Garvaghy Road is ISIL's main supply route with the outside world. ISIL oil flows up the road into Turkish refineries. In return fighters, weapons and other equipment flow down the road from Turkey either to Raqqa or Aleppo City which sits roughly 60km (35 miles) south of Azaz.
To the west of Azaz you have a second area under SDF control. With the city of Afrin at its heart this is known as; "The Afrin Canton." It is bordered by Turkey to the north and west and it's rough southern boundary is the line between the western border with Turkey and the town of Anadan roughly 15km (9 miles) north-west of Aleppo City.
On December 30th 2015 (30/12/15) the SDF were able to liberate the Tishrin Dam across the Euphrates from ISIL. On May 31st 2016 (31/5/16) the SDF were able to liberate the town of Manbij from ISIL. Manbij sits roughly 30km (18 miles) south-west of the Tishrin Dam and 45km (27 miles) south of Syria's border with Turkey on the western bank of the Euphrates.
As such the liberation of Manbij should have been the first step in the SDF sealing Garvaghy Road cutting ISIL's supply-lines with Turkey and extending the buffer-zone/Safe-Haven across all of the north of Syria.
Depending on progress in Iraq the SDF would then be in a position to start planning an operation to force ISIL from Raqqa and the Euphrates basin thus totally defeating the group. The SDF would then be in a position to negotiate a political settlement with the Syrian government finally ending this war which is currently well into its sixth year.
However on August 25th (25/8/16) Turkey formally invaded Garvaghy Road using a mixture of both regular and irregular troops. Their first objective was the border town of Jarablus which sits on the western bank of the Euphrates around 45km (27 miles) north of Manbij.
With ISIL simply being absorbed into the Turkish irregular forces Turkey was able to take control of Jarablus in less than 24 hours. The combined Turkish/ISIL forces then proceeded to advance south to attack SDF forces - including French and American Special Operations Forces (SOF) - in Manbij.
Quite why CJTFOIR gave Turkey permission to carry out this wholly illegal invasion of Syria in support of ISIL in the first place remains a complete mystery to me. However that permission was given on the understanding that Turkey would fully withdraw it's occupation force by September 6th (6/9/16).
Unfortunately when September 6th came US President Obama - as the Commander-in-Chief of CJTFOIR - either lost his nerve or his mind.
Rather than holding Turkey to withdrawing it's invasion force by the agreed date CJTFOIR instead settled for trying to nudge the Turkish forces westward away from Manbij. First towards the border town of al-Rai some 65km (40 miles) west of Jarablus and then the town of Dabiq which sits around 20km (12 miles) south-west of al-Rai.
On October 16th (16/10/16) ISIL cycled control of Dabiq to Turkish forces in the same way the two forces had cycled control of Jarablus and al-Rai between themselves. Although of limited strategic value the town of Dabiq is of great symbolic importance.
It was in the August 1516 Battle of Dabiq Meadow that the Ottoman Empire - the last Islamist Caliphate - defeated the Mamluk Empire. With the Mamluk Empire being based in Egypt this allowed the Ottoman Empire to establish itself across the entire Middle East, North Africa (MENA) where it remained until its fall in the 1920's. For this reason ISIL have long celebrated Dabiq as the scene of the apocalyptic final battle between them as the true believers and absolutely everybody else.
The following day on October 17th (17/10/16) the long trailed Mosul operation formally began. With the world's attention distracted by that Turkish forces wasted no time in launching attacks against SDF positions within the Afrin Canton. These began with strikes against villages just outside of Azaz.
However by October 20th (20/10/16) Turkish operations had expanded to include strikes on Rajo and Jindres which are deep inside the Afrin Canton and the city of Qamishli. The city of Qamishli is so deep within the buffer-zone it is closer to the border with Iraq some 70km (40 miles) to the east than the Euphrates some 175km (105 miles) to the west.
On October 20th (20/10/16) Turkey also launched one-off airstrikes against the Sheikh Maqsood neighbourhood within Aleppo City which is also under SDF control.
On October 22nd (22/10/16) Turkey deployed further tanks and SOF's south of Dabiq. This was done specifically to prevent the SDF from liberating the town of Marea from ISIL.
Matters came to a head on October 25th (25/10/16) when Turkish forces launched a Chemical Weapons attack on SDF forces just outside Marea.
At roughly the same time the Syrian government who are not only fighting the SDF, ISIL but also the Turkish backed Army of Conquest coalition conducted airstrikes against the Turkish invasion forces around Dabiq. Four Turkish regular army fighters were killed in these strikes. In an effort to portray the SDF as allied with the Syrian government Turkey responded by intensifying its airstrikes against the SDF.
On October 29th (29/10/16) Syria turned on its air defence systems which now include the advanced Russian S-400 system. This meant that Turkish pilots operating over Syria would receive a cockpit warning that Surface-to-Air Missiles (SAM) had locked on to them and were preparing to shoot them down.
If such as shooting-down were to take place it would completely shatter the illusion of there being a popular uprising against the Syrian government. It would also become impossible to continue to pretend that this was a proxy-war. Instead it would quite clearly become an all out war between Turkey as a nation state acting as an unlawful aggressor and Syria as a nation state backed by nuclear armed Russia.
Needless to say on October 29th (29/10/16) Turkish aircraft stopped operating over Syria.
At around 16:55 on 28/11/16 (UK date) I'm going to have a cup of coffee and order my thoughts.
Edited at around 17:50 on 28/11/16 (UK date) to add;
By November 6th (6/11/16) Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan had clearly decided that the world would be distracted by the Mosul operation and the US Presidential election/transition. So the Turkish invasion and occupation force launched an operation to absorb ISIL forces in al-Bab.
Al-Bab is one the key strategic nodes within Garvaghy Road. It sits roughly 45km (27 miles) north-east of Aleppo City and roughly 50km (30 miles) south-west of Manbij. Crucially it sits on the junction between the H4 road running between Raqqa and Turkey and the H212 Road/M4 Motorway running between Aleppo City and the Euphrates. In short control of al-Bab renders control of Manbij strategically redundant.
The first stage of Turkey's al-Bab operation involved attacking SDF positions absolutely nowhere near al-Bab.
On November 7th (7/11/16) Turkish irregular forces launched twin attacks against the SDF controlled buffer-zone.
Occurring simultaneously one attack was directed against the village of Doda between the city of Qamishli and the town of Amude some 140km (85 miles) west of the Syria/Iraq border. The other attack was directed on villages between Kobane and Tel Abyad some 70km (42 miles) east of the Euphrates. Both attacks employed suicide bombers and lightly armed ground forces and were launched from within Turkey.
Both attacks were quickly repelled. They were though accompanied by Turkish shelling of SDF positions close to Qamishli, in the Sheikh Maqsood district of Aleppo City and the Afrin Canton. That shelling has been continuous.
On November 13th (13/11/16) the Turkish air force resumed its operations over Syria. Specifically they conducted airstrikes targeting civilian Internally Displaced People (IDP's) - essentially refugees - who were fleeing from Aleppo City to the safety of the Afrin Canton.
The Turkish air force then again suspended operations over Syria. They resumed them on November 20th (20/11/16) with strikes in the vicinity of Manbij. Specifically these strikes were against the Manbij Military Council (MMC) - the division of the SDF tasked with protecting Manbij.
On November 22nd (22/11/16) the MMC and the Turkish forces began engaging each other on the ground. Those clashes are continuing amid Turkish airstrikes.
With Turkish forces seeming to disregard Syria's sovereignty and territorial integrity on November 24th (24/11/16) the Syrian government decided to remind Turkey that it's air defences are still active. This took the form of conducting a series of air strikes against Turkish regular forces close to Manbij killing four. As with the similar strikes close to Dabiq on October 22nd (22/10/16) Turkey responded by intensifying its attacks on the SDF.
With Turkish and Syrian regular forces once again engaged in direct combat the situation has once again become extremely tense. My current understanding is that in response to Thursday's (24/11/16) airstrikes the Turkish air force is flying continuous missions over Syria in order to protect its troops from further airstrikes. They have also deployed Rapier-type mobile air defence systems to al-Rai.
Therefore we could well be on the verge of discovering if Turkey shoots down a Syrian aircraft Russia will back Syria by nuking Turkey or if Syria shoots down a Turkish aircraft NATO will respond by formally invading Syria.
On Friday (25/11/16) night there was a degree of panic amongst the Turkish population when Turkish jets broke the sound-barrier unleashing a sonic boom over the border city of Gaziantep. Last night (27/11/16) there was a degree of amusement amongst the Turkish population when strange Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO's) that were likely ballistic missiles being tested suddenly appeared in the skies over the Turkish city of Istanbul.
One of the main things giving Erdogan confidence that NATO will give him its full support in any potential war with Syria and Russia is the operation the US has forced the SDF to undertake against Raqqa. It should come as little surprise that this operation also began on November 6th (6/11/16).
This is simply a suicide mission for the SDF. An operation to liberate Raqqa from ISIL be at least as complex as the operation to liberate Mosul. In talking about the Mosul operation I recently spoke about how an Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) convoy containing an embedded CNN journalist saw 28 of it's 35 Humvee and MRAP armoured vehicles rapidly destroyed in a series of ISIL ambushes. As a lightly armed guerrilla force the SDF don't even have Humvees and MRAP's to begin with.
Fortunately as with the Mosul operation the first stage of the SDF's Raqqa operation has not been to attack the city itself. Instead it has been to advance across the roughly 70km (40 miles) south from Ayn Issa to Raqqa.
With the first phase the operation now said to be complete as of Friday (25/11/16) the SDF is currently located around 26km (15 miles) north of Raqqa. It is here that the US sustained its first battle fatality inside of Syria with the death of US Navy Special Operator Chief Petty Officer Scott Dayton.
I have always had a suspicion that in forcing the SDF to undertake the Raqqa operation the US has actively been trying to get them killed in order to please Erdogan.
However it is also possible that the US forced the SDF to undertake the Raqqa operation as a panicked, back of a cigarette packet response to the Mosul operation. Central to the Mosul operation has been the deal negotiated by Erdogan between the US and ISIL that the area to the west of Mosul - the Falls Road - will be left open to allow ISIL fighters to escape back to Raqqa.
At what I gather was an extremely heated NATO meeting on October 26th (26/10/16) the European nations pointed out to America that if ISIL fighters can flee from Mosul to Raqqa then they can also flee from Raqqa to Europe. Therefore it's possible the Raqqa operation was made up on the hoof to assuage those concerns.
Fortunately the Popular Mobilisation Force (PMF) element of the ISF secured the western side of Mosul on November 16th (16/11/16) sealing the Falls Road. Thus removing the need for the Raqqa operation.
So we now get to discover whether the US was merely panicking or whether it is actively trying to destroy the SDF.
19:15 on 28/11/16 (UK date).
Thursday, 24 November 2016
Operation Featherweight: Month 29, Week 1, Day 4.
On October 17th (17/10/16) combined Iraqi Peshmerga and Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) began an operation around the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.
The purpose of this operation was to move forces into positions from where they could plan and then launch an operation to liberate the city which has been under the occupation of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) since the summer of 2014.
Unfortunately on November 3rd (3/11/16) my Internet router was put out of action. For a remote worker this is the equivalent of having your office blown up. Whilst you were out. So you'll excuse me if it takes me a little bit of time to get back into the swing of things.
The original plan involved combined ISF and Peshmerga forces taking up positions around Mosul on three fronts. The North, the East and the South.
The eastern or Kalak Front has always been the most advanced of the three.
On October 24th (24/10/16) the Peshmerga had reached the town of Top Zawa which is around 10km (6 miles) from Mosul. Under the plan this is as far as the Peshmerga will advance towards Mosul so it fell to the ISF alone to continue the advance. By October 31st (31/10/16) the ISF had succeeded in liberating an area known as Gogjali. Located less then 150metres/yards from Mosul by non-locals this is often mistaken for being Mosul's most eastern district.
The northern or Tel Skuf Front saw almost as rapid progress.
By October 24th (24/10/16) the Peshmerga had surrounded around 10 villages around the town of Bashiqa & Bahzani which sits around 14km (8 miles) north-east of Mosul. The problem is though that rather than fully securing those villages the Peshmerga had simply Strong-Pointed them. That is to say that they had established a loose cordon around them but stopped short of actually entering them.
On November 7th (7/11/16) the Peshmerga did finally move to enter Bashiqa & Bahzani. By November 16th (16/11/16) they had succeeded in fully liberating Bashiqa. As a former resident of Brighton & Hove I obviously think that it remains important for the Peshmerga to continue to liberate Bahzani as well along with the five villages they continue to strong-point. However it's worth noting that those villages are so small they're closer to sheep farms than villages in the traditional sense.
The southern front is where progress has been the most slow. This is divided into the Gwer Front to the south-east and the Qarrayah Front to the south-west.
On the Gwer Front on November 1st (1/11/16) the ISF had advanced to strong-point the town of Hamdaniya which sits 13km (8 miles) south-east of Mosul. They have since fully secured Hamdaniya and have advanced to secure all positions between Hamdaniya and Mosul including the areas of Shahrazad and Khuwaytilah. Like Gogjali these sit only a few hundred metres/yards from Mosul proper.
On the Qarrayah Front on November 1st (1/11/16) the most advanced position was the town of Ayn Nasr. This sits 22km (13 miles) south-west of Mosul and was actually liberated by the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) militia element of the ISF.
On November 5th (5/11/16) the ISF advanced on and entered the town of Haman al-Alil. The last significant town to the south this sits some 13km (8 miles) from Mosul. On November 7th (7/11/16) the ISF had succeeded in fully securing Haman al-Alil. Sadly in the process they uncovered three mass graves containing the bodies of 350 people who'd been murdered by ISIL.
This fear that ISIL would massacre large numbers of civilians in retaliation for the operation is exactly why I considered it vital that towns like Bashiqa & Bahzani were fully secured rather than simply strong-pointed.
Since then the ISF have advanced to fully secure the towns of Bakhira to the west and Tawajinat al-Jadidadh to the west along with all areas in between. This establishes as roughly 23km (14 mile) line of control some 7km (4 miles) to the south of Mosul.
The Americans sole motivation behind launching this Mosul operation now was to produce a big chest-beating, flag waving victory that would propel Hillary Clinton to the Presidency in the November 8th (8/11/16) election.
In order to achieve this the US had done a deal with ISIL that would see them mount only a symbolic defence of Mosul while they fled west back into Syria. For this purpose a vast 20,000kmsq (12,000 milesq) area to the west of Mosul which I dubbed; "The Falls Road" had been left entirely undefended.
This all changed on October 29th (29/10/16) when the PMF - almost entirely independently of the ISF - launched an operation to reach the town of Tal Afar from the town of Ayn Nasr on the Qarrayah Front.
Tal Afar sits around 65km (40 miles) north-west of Ayn Nasr on the main H47 Highway between Mosul and Iraq's border with Syria. Therefore liberating it along with all the positions between Tal Afar and Ayn Nasr would completely close the Falls Road cutting off ISIL's escape route into Syria.
This opening of a western front actually met with significant opposition from the US. For example the US-led coalition - Combined Joint Task Force: Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTFOIR) - refused to provide the ISF forces on the front with any air support.
Forces on the front also claim that the Turkish allied Nujaifi tribal militia were providing ISIL with their positions and that CJTFOIR was electronically jamming their communications. However with my own communications cut at the time I am unable to verify those claims. I can simply acknowledge that they were made.
Despite these problems on November 16th (16/11/16) the PMF were able to complete their advance by liberating Tal Afar airport. This sits just 4km (2.5 miles) outside of Tal Afar itself. With control of the airport the PMF now control the H47 Highway west of Tal Afar meaning that they have succeeded in closing the Falls Road even if they do not liberate Tal Afar itself.
So while ideally I would like to see Bahzani along with Bashiqa fully liberated I am happy to say that as of November 16th (16/11/16) forces are now finally in position to prepare for an operation to liberate Mosul.
The problem is that with the entire operation being centred around the November 8th (8/11/16) US Presidential election the US certainly wasn't going to wait for forces to be in their proper positions between entering Mosul itself.
The first assault on Mosul proper began on November 1st (1/11/16).
Having liberated Gogjali the previous day the ISF then pressed into al-Quds neighbourhood which is directly west of Gogjali. At the same time they also entered the Judaydat al-Mufti neighbourhood. This sits around 3km (2 miles) and several neighbourhoods south of al-Quds.
Since then the ISF have advanced a full 1km (0.6miles) into the al-Karamah neighbourhood which sits directly to the west of al-Quds. To the south-east of the city they have also advanced into the Younis Sabawwi neighbourhood which sits between the al-Quds and the Judaydat al-Mufti neighbourhood and the Intisar neighbourhood which is directly west of both the al-Quds and Judaydat al-Mufti neighbourhoods.
The ISF have also entered the Falastin and Salam neighbourhoods which make up the south-eastern tip of the city along the Kirkuk-Mosul road.
On November 4th (4/11/16) the ISF also entered the Sadam/Zahra neighbourhood. This sits roughly 5km (3 miles) north of the al-Quds neighbourhood. Since then they have entered the 9 neighbourhoods between Sadam/Zahra and al-Karamah. They have also entered 4 neighbourhoods west of Sadam/Zahra as far as al-Zuhur which sits around 2km (1.2 miles) from Sadam/Zahra.
As a result the ISF now have a presence in 16 neighbourhoods arcing from al-Zuhur to the north-east to al-Karamah. The ISF also have a presence in 5 neighbourhoods arcing from al-Karamah to Salam to the south-east.
At around 18:10 on 24/11/16 (UK date) I'm going to have to pick this up after dinner.
Edited at around 19:45 on 24/11/16 (UK date) to add;
Progress inside of Mosul itself has been agonisingly slow.
Some 23 days after the ISF first entered the Judaydat al-Mufti neighbourhood they are still battling ISIL for control of the area. Of the 16 neighbourhoods in which they have established a presence the ISF are only considered to be in full control of 9 of them.
In no small part this lack of a significant breakthrough is due to the nature of urban warfare. It is always slow and it is always grinding.
Although they may not realise people in western nations actually have some experience of this. When the police are faced with a hostage situation. The operation at the Bataclan theatre on that black Friday in Paris, France sticks in my memory.
If you've ever watched a situation like that on the news you would know that the police turn up at the building and then spend a short period of time drawing up a tactical plan. They then storm the building which takes as long as it takes to win a gun battle in a narrow corridor.
If you want to liberate a city like Mosul you need to do that on every floor of every building on every street of the entire city. That takes time.
One thing that it make the situation worse inside of Mosul is that in many of these neighbourhoods the streets are extremely narrow. Single lane traffic in some places. The armoured HUMVEE's and Mine Resistant, Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles that the ISF are using to move around inside Mosul are extremely large.
That means that if the vehicle at the head of the column takes a wrong turn or gets damaged there is no way for the other vehicles in the column to drive around it or turn around. This makes it extremely easy for a small number of ISIL fighters to successfully ambush much larger ISF columns.
The CNN reporter Arwa Damon who was embedded with the ISF as they entered Mosul got a sharp lesson in exactly this sort of problem over the weekend of November 4th (4/11/16) to November 6th (6/11/16).
Within a few hours all but 8 of the vehicles in their 35 vehicle convoy had been put out of action in a series of ambushes. That forced them to hole up in a building and engage in essentially a 28 hour long firefight until another column of vehicles could arrive to evacuate them, the wounded and the dead. If you've ever seen the movie "Blackhawk Down" that, basically.
Obviously it is extremely easy for me to sit here and be critical of the way that the operation has been planned and is being conducted. It is though a lot more difficult for me to suggest improvements that I think can be made.
Up until now I've been relatively happy to talk about what forces are being used and where they are located. That is because although accurate the information I'm publishing is not so accurate to be of any real military value. Also at distances of around 10km (6 miles) over open desert/brush land the different forces can not only see each other they can listen in to each other's communications.
It is talking about how you would move forward from those positions that I'm much more sensitive about. Although I think it's safe to assume that the Mosul operation is now well underway this will not be the last city that people will have to fight ISIL in. Therefore I'm not overjoyed about speculating on the tactics that may be used in those future battles.
However I can't help but notice that a number of the neighbourhoods that the ISF are battling for control of such as al-Quds, al-Karamah and Ikhaa sit alongside a main road - the M2 Highway, Hawler Road. This is a multi-lane carriageway more than capable of accommodating columns of HUMVEE's and MRAP's.
Therefore surely it would be better to secure the length of that road - by which I mean the city block either side needed for fire control - before trying to clear each neighbourhood. You can then divide the neighbourhoods into sections and work through them one-by-one. Meanwhile the road can serve as both a supply route and a humanitarian corridor allowing civilians to escape the fighting.
Sadly progress is going to get even slower when the ISF finally cross the Tigris River from east to west Mosul. This is known as the old city and is a warren of narrow streets and alleyways that are barely suited to people on horseback let alone columns of big, modern armoured vehicles.
The length of time that it will take to fully liberate Mosul means that the situation in Tal Afar becomes more critical by the day. By controlling the airport the PMF control H47 cutting off ISIL's escape route. Therefore it is not strictly speaking militarily necessary for them to enter the town itself.
However you still have the problem of all the civilians trapped in Tal Afar and in the numerous towns and villages between Tal Afar and Mosul. Not only are they at risk of being murdered and dumped into yet another mass graves they are also living under siege conditions meaning that vital supplies of things like food and medicine are dwindling.
Therefore if - as seems likely - the liberation of Mosul is going to take months rather than weeks someone is going to have to go into those towns to rescue those civilians. The question is who?
Sitting at the airport just 4km (2.5 miles) away the PMF are certainly the most local. However throughout the preparations for the operation Turkey has been putting about scare stories that if they enter the city the PMF will massacre the Turkmen that make up the majority of the population. This is obviously false information being put about in the hope of keeping ISIL's western escape route into Syria open.
Also there is a clear Turkish concern that with the black propaganda being proved false the Shia Turkmen will then side with the Shia elements of the PMF that rescued them. That will significantly reduce Turkish influence in an area that their President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan one day hopes to annex as part of his new Ottoman Empire.
However it is clear that ISIL's presence in Tal Afar and the surrounding areas is negligible at best. Therefore rather than being an out-and-out combat operation I think that Tal Afar will require something closer to a peacekeeping or policing operation. That is to say rather than going and battling lots of ISIL fighters the main objective will be to provide security to the local residents and re-establish vital services such as food supplies.
While I certainly do not believe Erdogan's horror stories about the PMF I am aware that they are a series of militias made up of, shall we say, enthusiastic amateurs rather than professional soldiers. So while they are extremely well suited to aggressive combat operations they wouldn't be my first choice for the type of operation required in Tal Afar.
As of yesterday (23/11/16) the Peshmerga have arrived from Sinjar/Shingal some 60km (35 miles) west along H47 to link up with the PMF at Tal Afar airport. The Peshmerga have a well earned reputation both for fairness and professionalism. So of the forces currently located at the airport I would prefer to see the Peshmerga to conduct any possible operation in Tal Afar.
The problem is that Erdogan is possibly even more opposed to the Peshmerga entering Tal Afar.
Employing his current position that any Kurd anywhere in the World is a member of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) Erdogan has repeatedly threatened to invade Iraq to protect Turkmen from "PKK Terror!" should the Peshmerga go anywhere near Tal Afar. The fact that this would allow Erdogan to annex northern Iraq as part of his new Ottoman Empire is apparently completely unrelated to his fear of "PKK Terror!"
The obvious solution would be for the Iraqi police to take the lead in Tal Afar. They however are located at the complete otherside of Mosul trying to fight their way through. I'm still trying to work out why we're attacking east to west rather than west to east.
I am not yet saying that there needs to be a Tal Afar operation. However if the need arises I think the Peshmerga are the best placed to conduct it. If Erdogan has a problem with that I've got a few suggestions of what he can do with his opposition. Even if they're not fit to print here.
I am though mindful of the fact that Erdogan has continued to position forces right on Turkey's border with Iraq and has continued to conduct airstrikes against northern Iraq.
As we wait for the US Presidential transition I think the best we can hope for from outgoing President Obama is that he stays out of it. The biggest worry is that he will give Erdogan the go ahead to annex northern Iraq simply to spite Donald Trump for defeating Hillary Clinton.
So the Tal Afar situation is one that I think requires careful monitoring.
Today (24/11/16) ISIL have carried out a truck bombing in the town of Hillah. This sits around 100km (60 miles) south of the capital Baghdad and around 500km (300 miles) south of Mosul. The current death toll stands at 100 - mostly Shia pilgrims.
ISIL are a nhilistic group with a particular hatred of Shia Muslims. Therefore it is easy to over analyse why they have decided to kill a large number of Shias. Particularly when they are being handed defeat after defeat by Shia's in and around Mosul.
Sadly though this latest bombing just further demonstrates that the liberation of Mosul will not mean the end of ISIL's presence in Iraq. There are other battles still to come.
However even I think that the Mosul operation has now passed the point of no return.
21:35 on 24/11/16 (UK date).
The purpose of this operation was to move forces into positions from where they could plan and then launch an operation to liberate the city which has been under the occupation of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) since the summer of 2014.
Unfortunately on November 3rd (3/11/16) my Internet router was put out of action. For a remote worker this is the equivalent of having your office blown up. Whilst you were out. So you'll excuse me if it takes me a little bit of time to get back into the swing of things.
The original plan involved combined ISF and Peshmerga forces taking up positions around Mosul on three fronts. The North, the East and the South.
The eastern or Kalak Front has always been the most advanced of the three.
On October 24th (24/10/16) the Peshmerga had reached the town of Top Zawa which is around 10km (6 miles) from Mosul. Under the plan this is as far as the Peshmerga will advance towards Mosul so it fell to the ISF alone to continue the advance. By October 31st (31/10/16) the ISF had succeeded in liberating an area known as Gogjali. Located less then 150metres/yards from Mosul by non-locals this is often mistaken for being Mosul's most eastern district.
The northern or Tel Skuf Front saw almost as rapid progress.
By October 24th (24/10/16) the Peshmerga had surrounded around 10 villages around the town of Bashiqa & Bahzani which sits around 14km (8 miles) north-east of Mosul. The problem is though that rather than fully securing those villages the Peshmerga had simply Strong-Pointed them. That is to say that they had established a loose cordon around them but stopped short of actually entering them.
On November 7th (7/11/16) the Peshmerga did finally move to enter Bashiqa & Bahzani. By November 16th (16/11/16) they had succeeded in fully liberating Bashiqa. As a former resident of Brighton & Hove I obviously think that it remains important for the Peshmerga to continue to liberate Bahzani as well along with the five villages they continue to strong-point. However it's worth noting that those villages are so small they're closer to sheep farms than villages in the traditional sense.
The southern front is where progress has been the most slow. This is divided into the Gwer Front to the south-east and the Qarrayah Front to the south-west.
On the Gwer Front on November 1st (1/11/16) the ISF had advanced to strong-point the town of Hamdaniya which sits 13km (8 miles) south-east of Mosul. They have since fully secured Hamdaniya and have advanced to secure all positions between Hamdaniya and Mosul including the areas of Shahrazad and Khuwaytilah. Like Gogjali these sit only a few hundred metres/yards from Mosul proper.
On the Qarrayah Front on November 1st (1/11/16) the most advanced position was the town of Ayn Nasr. This sits 22km (13 miles) south-west of Mosul and was actually liberated by the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) militia element of the ISF.
On November 5th (5/11/16) the ISF advanced on and entered the town of Haman al-Alil. The last significant town to the south this sits some 13km (8 miles) from Mosul. On November 7th (7/11/16) the ISF had succeeded in fully securing Haman al-Alil. Sadly in the process they uncovered three mass graves containing the bodies of 350 people who'd been murdered by ISIL.
This fear that ISIL would massacre large numbers of civilians in retaliation for the operation is exactly why I considered it vital that towns like Bashiqa & Bahzani were fully secured rather than simply strong-pointed.
Since then the ISF have advanced to fully secure the towns of Bakhira to the west and Tawajinat al-Jadidadh to the west along with all areas in between. This establishes as roughly 23km (14 mile) line of control some 7km (4 miles) to the south of Mosul.
The Americans sole motivation behind launching this Mosul operation now was to produce a big chest-beating, flag waving victory that would propel Hillary Clinton to the Presidency in the November 8th (8/11/16) election.
In order to achieve this the US had done a deal with ISIL that would see them mount only a symbolic defence of Mosul while they fled west back into Syria. For this purpose a vast 20,000kmsq (12,000 milesq) area to the west of Mosul which I dubbed; "The Falls Road" had been left entirely undefended.
This all changed on October 29th (29/10/16) when the PMF - almost entirely independently of the ISF - launched an operation to reach the town of Tal Afar from the town of Ayn Nasr on the Qarrayah Front.
Tal Afar sits around 65km (40 miles) north-west of Ayn Nasr on the main H47 Highway between Mosul and Iraq's border with Syria. Therefore liberating it along with all the positions between Tal Afar and Ayn Nasr would completely close the Falls Road cutting off ISIL's escape route into Syria.
This opening of a western front actually met with significant opposition from the US. For example the US-led coalition - Combined Joint Task Force: Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTFOIR) - refused to provide the ISF forces on the front with any air support.
Forces on the front also claim that the Turkish allied Nujaifi tribal militia were providing ISIL with their positions and that CJTFOIR was electronically jamming their communications. However with my own communications cut at the time I am unable to verify those claims. I can simply acknowledge that they were made.
Despite these problems on November 16th (16/11/16) the PMF were able to complete their advance by liberating Tal Afar airport. This sits just 4km (2.5 miles) outside of Tal Afar itself. With control of the airport the PMF now control the H47 Highway west of Tal Afar meaning that they have succeeded in closing the Falls Road even if they do not liberate Tal Afar itself.
So while ideally I would like to see Bahzani along with Bashiqa fully liberated I am happy to say that as of November 16th (16/11/16) forces are now finally in position to prepare for an operation to liberate Mosul.
The problem is that with the entire operation being centred around the November 8th (8/11/16) US Presidential election the US certainly wasn't going to wait for forces to be in their proper positions between entering Mosul itself.
The first assault on Mosul proper began on November 1st (1/11/16).
Having liberated Gogjali the previous day the ISF then pressed into al-Quds neighbourhood which is directly west of Gogjali. At the same time they also entered the Judaydat al-Mufti neighbourhood. This sits around 3km (2 miles) and several neighbourhoods south of al-Quds.
Since then the ISF have advanced a full 1km (0.6miles) into the al-Karamah neighbourhood which sits directly to the west of al-Quds. To the south-east of the city they have also advanced into the Younis Sabawwi neighbourhood which sits between the al-Quds and the Judaydat al-Mufti neighbourhood and the Intisar neighbourhood which is directly west of both the al-Quds and Judaydat al-Mufti neighbourhoods.
The ISF have also entered the Falastin and Salam neighbourhoods which make up the south-eastern tip of the city along the Kirkuk-Mosul road.
On November 4th (4/11/16) the ISF also entered the Sadam/Zahra neighbourhood. This sits roughly 5km (3 miles) north of the al-Quds neighbourhood. Since then they have entered the 9 neighbourhoods between Sadam/Zahra and al-Karamah. They have also entered 4 neighbourhoods west of Sadam/Zahra as far as al-Zuhur which sits around 2km (1.2 miles) from Sadam/Zahra.
As a result the ISF now have a presence in 16 neighbourhoods arcing from al-Zuhur to the north-east to al-Karamah. The ISF also have a presence in 5 neighbourhoods arcing from al-Karamah to Salam to the south-east.
At around 18:10 on 24/11/16 (UK date) I'm going to have to pick this up after dinner.
Edited at around 19:45 on 24/11/16 (UK date) to add;
Progress inside of Mosul itself has been agonisingly slow.
Some 23 days after the ISF first entered the Judaydat al-Mufti neighbourhood they are still battling ISIL for control of the area. Of the 16 neighbourhoods in which they have established a presence the ISF are only considered to be in full control of 9 of them.
In no small part this lack of a significant breakthrough is due to the nature of urban warfare. It is always slow and it is always grinding.
Although they may not realise people in western nations actually have some experience of this. When the police are faced with a hostage situation. The operation at the Bataclan theatre on that black Friday in Paris, France sticks in my memory.
If you've ever watched a situation like that on the news you would know that the police turn up at the building and then spend a short period of time drawing up a tactical plan. They then storm the building which takes as long as it takes to win a gun battle in a narrow corridor.
If you want to liberate a city like Mosul you need to do that on every floor of every building on every street of the entire city. That takes time.
One thing that it make the situation worse inside of Mosul is that in many of these neighbourhoods the streets are extremely narrow. Single lane traffic in some places. The armoured HUMVEE's and Mine Resistant, Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles that the ISF are using to move around inside Mosul are extremely large.
That means that if the vehicle at the head of the column takes a wrong turn or gets damaged there is no way for the other vehicles in the column to drive around it or turn around. This makes it extremely easy for a small number of ISIL fighters to successfully ambush much larger ISF columns.
The CNN reporter Arwa Damon who was embedded with the ISF as they entered Mosul got a sharp lesson in exactly this sort of problem over the weekend of November 4th (4/11/16) to November 6th (6/11/16).
Within a few hours all but 8 of the vehicles in their 35 vehicle convoy had been put out of action in a series of ambushes. That forced them to hole up in a building and engage in essentially a 28 hour long firefight until another column of vehicles could arrive to evacuate them, the wounded and the dead. If you've ever seen the movie "Blackhawk Down" that, basically.
Obviously it is extremely easy for me to sit here and be critical of the way that the operation has been planned and is being conducted. It is though a lot more difficult for me to suggest improvements that I think can be made.
Up until now I've been relatively happy to talk about what forces are being used and where they are located. That is because although accurate the information I'm publishing is not so accurate to be of any real military value. Also at distances of around 10km (6 miles) over open desert/brush land the different forces can not only see each other they can listen in to each other's communications.
It is talking about how you would move forward from those positions that I'm much more sensitive about. Although I think it's safe to assume that the Mosul operation is now well underway this will not be the last city that people will have to fight ISIL in. Therefore I'm not overjoyed about speculating on the tactics that may be used in those future battles.
However I can't help but notice that a number of the neighbourhoods that the ISF are battling for control of such as al-Quds, al-Karamah and Ikhaa sit alongside a main road - the M2 Highway, Hawler Road. This is a multi-lane carriageway more than capable of accommodating columns of HUMVEE's and MRAP's.
Therefore surely it would be better to secure the length of that road - by which I mean the city block either side needed for fire control - before trying to clear each neighbourhood. You can then divide the neighbourhoods into sections and work through them one-by-one. Meanwhile the road can serve as both a supply route and a humanitarian corridor allowing civilians to escape the fighting.
Sadly progress is going to get even slower when the ISF finally cross the Tigris River from east to west Mosul. This is known as the old city and is a warren of narrow streets and alleyways that are barely suited to people on horseback let alone columns of big, modern armoured vehicles.
The length of time that it will take to fully liberate Mosul means that the situation in Tal Afar becomes more critical by the day. By controlling the airport the PMF control H47 cutting off ISIL's escape route. Therefore it is not strictly speaking militarily necessary for them to enter the town itself.
However you still have the problem of all the civilians trapped in Tal Afar and in the numerous towns and villages between Tal Afar and Mosul. Not only are they at risk of being murdered and dumped into yet another mass graves they are also living under siege conditions meaning that vital supplies of things like food and medicine are dwindling.
Therefore if - as seems likely - the liberation of Mosul is going to take months rather than weeks someone is going to have to go into those towns to rescue those civilians. The question is who?
Sitting at the airport just 4km (2.5 miles) away the PMF are certainly the most local. However throughout the preparations for the operation Turkey has been putting about scare stories that if they enter the city the PMF will massacre the Turkmen that make up the majority of the population. This is obviously false information being put about in the hope of keeping ISIL's western escape route into Syria open.
Also there is a clear Turkish concern that with the black propaganda being proved false the Shia Turkmen will then side with the Shia elements of the PMF that rescued them. That will significantly reduce Turkish influence in an area that their President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan one day hopes to annex as part of his new Ottoman Empire.
However it is clear that ISIL's presence in Tal Afar and the surrounding areas is negligible at best. Therefore rather than being an out-and-out combat operation I think that Tal Afar will require something closer to a peacekeeping or policing operation. That is to say rather than going and battling lots of ISIL fighters the main objective will be to provide security to the local residents and re-establish vital services such as food supplies.
While I certainly do not believe Erdogan's horror stories about the PMF I am aware that they are a series of militias made up of, shall we say, enthusiastic amateurs rather than professional soldiers. So while they are extremely well suited to aggressive combat operations they wouldn't be my first choice for the type of operation required in Tal Afar.
As of yesterday (23/11/16) the Peshmerga have arrived from Sinjar/Shingal some 60km (35 miles) west along H47 to link up with the PMF at Tal Afar airport. The Peshmerga have a well earned reputation both for fairness and professionalism. So of the forces currently located at the airport I would prefer to see the Peshmerga to conduct any possible operation in Tal Afar.
The problem is that Erdogan is possibly even more opposed to the Peshmerga entering Tal Afar.
Employing his current position that any Kurd anywhere in the World is a member of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) Erdogan has repeatedly threatened to invade Iraq to protect Turkmen from "PKK Terror!" should the Peshmerga go anywhere near Tal Afar. The fact that this would allow Erdogan to annex northern Iraq as part of his new Ottoman Empire is apparently completely unrelated to his fear of "PKK Terror!"
The obvious solution would be for the Iraqi police to take the lead in Tal Afar. They however are located at the complete otherside of Mosul trying to fight their way through. I'm still trying to work out why we're attacking east to west rather than west to east.
I am not yet saying that there needs to be a Tal Afar operation. However if the need arises I think the Peshmerga are the best placed to conduct it. If Erdogan has a problem with that I've got a few suggestions of what he can do with his opposition. Even if they're not fit to print here.
I am though mindful of the fact that Erdogan has continued to position forces right on Turkey's border with Iraq and has continued to conduct airstrikes against northern Iraq.
As we wait for the US Presidential transition I think the best we can hope for from outgoing President Obama is that he stays out of it. The biggest worry is that he will give Erdogan the go ahead to annex northern Iraq simply to spite Donald Trump for defeating Hillary Clinton.
So the Tal Afar situation is one that I think requires careful monitoring.
Today (24/11/16) ISIL have carried out a truck bombing in the town of Hillah. This sits around 100km (60 miles) south of the capital Baghdad and around 500km (300 miles) south of Mosul. The current death toll stands at 100 - mostly Shia pilgrims.
ISIL are a nhilistic group with a particular hatred of Shia Muslims. Therefore it is easy to over analyse why they have decided to kill a large number of Shias. Particularly when they are being handed defeat after defeat by Shia's in and around Mosul.
Sadly though this latest bombing just further demonstrates that the liberation of Mosul will not mean the end of ISIL's presence in Iraq. There are other battles still to come.
However even I think that the Mosul operation has now passed the point of no return.
21:35 on 24/11/16 (UK date).
Monday, 21 November 2016
Brexit Update.
On June 23rd (23/6/16) British voters decided to exit the European Union (EU). The so-called "Brexit."
This was possibly the most significant event to affect the continent since the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989. Or possibly the construction of the Berlin wall in 1961. Or possibly even the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community in 1945.
However since then almost absolutely nothing has happened.
The only significant development was a ruling on November 3rd (3/11/16) by the British High Court that the British Government cannot use what is known as "Royal Prerogative" to start Brexit negotiations by invoking what is known as "Article 50."
Royal Prerogative is one of those things that really highlights just how far away Britain actually is from being the type of modern democracy that it likes to pretend that it is.
Britain's core constitutional principle is that the Monarch - currently Queen Elizabeth II - is some sort of supernatural being anointed by God to rule over us all. As such we couldn't possibly place any restriction on the Monarch's power - their prerogative. After all it is God's will.
The problem is that over the centuries numerous people have claimed to be this supernatural being anointed by God - often at the same time. With God's support normally being demonstrated through victory in battle these disputes over who God loves the most have frequently turned bloody.
Sadly I am not joking when I say that the TV show "Game of Thrones" is loosely based on British political history. Specifically a period between 1135 and 1154 known as; "The Anarchy." If you believe the legend of St George of Lydda there were even dragons.
As a result over the years numerous restrictions have been placed on the Monarch's power as a compromise to avoid yet another war. Probably the most famous example of this is the Magna Carta of 1215.
The Magna Carta was actually a ruse introduced by King John to prevent the Catholic Pope from publicly denouncing King John's claim to be anointed by God and therefore his legitimacy to call himself King. For some reason at the time the Catholic Pope was considered another supernatural being anointed by God but one that outranked the English/British Monarch.
Pretty much as soon as the Pope had visited England to reaffirm his anointment by God King John simply tore up the Magna Carta.
The current situation is that the Monarch defers the day-to-day running of the country to the democratically elected government which sits in the House of Commons - the lower House of Parliament. This allows the Prime Minister - or Queen's First Minister - to exert Royal Prerogative on the Monarch's behalf.
As such Royal Prerogative currently functions as something similar to an Executive Order in the US. However there are a number of crucial differences. For example an Executive Order cannot be used to sign the US up to or withdraw from an international treaty. These days Royal Prerogative is pretty much only used to sign the UK up to or withdraw from international treaties.
However this primacy of the government over the Monarch is actually relatively new only coming into being following the First World War in the 1920's as a way to avoid a Russian-style revolution.
Also it is an accepted norm of behaviour rather than a written rule. Therefore the Queen could simply wake up one morning and decide that she is going to take over the day-to-day running of the country. Some would argue that is exactly what she did both in 1974 and again in 2010.
Britain's big constitutional shift of course came in the 1530's when King Henry VIII decided he wanted to divorce his wife Catherine of Aragon. The Catholic Pope denied King Henry VIII this divorce.
So King Henry VIII responded by declaring that the Pope was not a supernatural being anointed by God and certainly not one that outranked King Henry VIII. Instead King Henry VIII declared himself to be the head of the Protestant Church of England and that Church to be the only true Christian Church. He then promptly granted himself a divorce.
This split between the Catholic Church and the newly invented Protestant Church of England plunged Britain into a period of political turmoil that arguably lasted until the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland in 1998.
For example just two days after the High Court ruling the UK on November 5th (5/11/16) celebrated the 411th anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot. This was a failed attempt by Catholics - most notably Guy Fawkes - to blow up both houses of Parliament in order to kill the Protestant King James VI of Scotland and I of England.
More specifically Bonfire Night as it's known celebrates the burning alive of Catholics as punishment for the failed assassination attempt. I may though be going off on a bit of a tangent there.
Most notably though the Catholic, Protestant split triggered not one but three Civil Wars.
The first of these - 1642 to 1646 - saw the Protestant King Charles I overthrown by a Protestant almost Emperor when he planned to marry a Catholic. The second - 1648 to 1649 - was an unsuccessful attempt by supporters of King Charles I to overthrow the Emperor - Oliver Cromwell - and restore him as King. The third - 1649 to 1651 - saw King Charles I son King Charles II successfully overthrow Cromwell eventually restoring Britain as a Catholic nation.
However the Protestants religious fervour was not spent so in 1688 they staged what went on to become known as "The Glorious Revolution." This really began with the reading of the "Declaration of Rights." With the Protestants eventually winning what I would term a fourth Civil War along with the Act of Settlement of 1701 the Declaration of Rights became the Bill of Rights of 1689.
Apart from granting Protestants the right to bear arms the Bill of Rights amongst other things declares that;
"That the pretended Power of Suspending of Laws or the Execution of Laws by Regall Authority without Consent of Parlyament is illegall."
Putting aside the old English spelling from the context of a document that bills itself as a declaration of Rights & Liberties this can be taken to mean that Royal Prerogative cannot - without the consent of Parliament - be used to take away the rights of citizens that have been granted by Parliament.
One of the main things that has driven British voters to call for a Brexit is the role that the EU plays in writing laws that apply to British citizens.
As a result of this the British Parliament hasn't actually passed any laws of its own on a vast array of tedious but important subjects such as the definition of a foodstuff for the purpose of international trade in the best part of 45 years. Instead they've simply adopted the EU law as UK law.
This is the reason why the so-called "Progressive" parties such as Labour, the Liberal Democrats and in particular the Scottish National Party (SNP) are so opposed to Brexit. It means that they'll have to start earning their money by representing their constituents rather than relying on, say, the Germans, the French or the Dutch to do their work for them.
Under British law the what is termed "Statutory Instrument" that makes EU law into UK law is the European Communities Act of 1972. This is where things really start getting complicated.
The Article 50 that everybody keeps referring to is Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty of 2007. This is the most recent in a series of roughly a dozen treaties dating back to 1945 through which the EU exists. However demonstrating that it has always had something of a troubled relationship with the EU the UK does not formally recognise a single one of these treaties. Instead it only recognises the 1972 European Communities Act.
Therefore I - like I think most reasonable people - would argue that the triggering of Article 50 in no way impacts the 1972 Act. However due to the apparent need to believe in dragons and fairies the British Establishment has a long history of refusing to employ reasonable people. So no matter how wrong it is an established point of law that triggering Article 50 would also repeal the 1972 Act.
That would remove a number of rights granted to citizens by Parliament and therefore would require the consent of Parliament under the 1689 Bill of Rights. Hence the November 3rd (3/11/16) ruling.
However it is worth pointing out that the 1972 Act does allow for Royal Prerogative to be used to make any law or right to be converted into a UK law that would function independently of the EU. Therefore at the same time that it triggers Article 50 the government could also transfer all the EU legislation into UK independent legislation. The UK Parliament could then work through each law one-by-one on its own time.
The November 3rd (3/11/16) ruling in no way blocks Brexit. It merely states - wrongly in my opinion - that the government must seek the consent of Parliament before triggering Article 50. The government can go about this in two ways;
The first is to introduce a simple resolution stating that Parliaments consents to the triggering of Article 50. This resolution will be subject to a simple up or down vote.
Under the Parliamentary system the reason the government gets to call itself the government is because it has enough supporters within the House of Commons - the lower house - to win any vote. This is known as a working majority. Therefore all the other political parties could vote against the resolution and it would still pass.
Things get a little more complicated in the House of Lords - the upper house - where the current government does not have a working majority.
However the unelected Lords have long since lost their right to veto the will of the Commons. Instead they can only refer matters back to the Commons for further consideration. However if the Lords reject a Commons proposal for - I think - a third time following the fourth Commons vote it bypasses the Lords and goes straight to the Monarch for signing into law.
The second thing the government could do is introduce a traditional Bill/Act.
However this would be a much more time consuming process because it would have to go through committees and numerous readings and votes. Those MP's who are ideologically opposed to Brexit could delay it almost indefinitely by demanding that completely irrelevant amendments are considered sending the whole thing back to the start of the process.
I think this type of Parliamentary vandalism would be very destructive and significantly increase the chances of the UK being unable to negotiate a successful Brexit deal.
Even before questions over its authority to do so were raised the British government had planned to defer the triggering of Article 50 until the spring of 2017.
That's because regardless of when the negotiation period ends it won't be until January 1st of the following year that any changes come into effect. So based on a two year negotiation period starting in March 2017 it will be January 1st 2020 (1/1/20) before Brexit actually happens.
Ideally you want to leave the longest period possible between any changes being agreed and those changes coming into effect to allow people to adjust to the changes. For example the Lisbon Treaty itself was signed in 2007 but didn't come into effect until 2010. Likewise the so-called Paris Agreement on Climate Change was agreed in 2015 but won't come into effect until 2020.
Even a delay until the summer of 2017 would significantly reduce the period available for adjustment to the point Britain may have to consider deferring the trigger of Article 50 until the spring of 2018 and by extension Brexit until at least 2021.
This is going to create a long period of uncertainty and if there is one that business and financial markets hate it is uncertainty.
In the months since the Brexit vote the value of the UK Pound has plunged to almost parity with the US Dollar. This is not a result of Brexit because Brexit has not happened. Instead it is the result of the uncertainty about when Brexit is going to happen.
If Parliament forces the government to wait until the spring of 2018 to trigger Article 50 the value of the UK Pound is going to take an absolute battering.
Also if Parliament forces the government into a full Commons debate over the Brexit strategy that is going to put Britain's entire negotiation strategy in full public view. Particularly in the view of the very people Britain will be trying to negotiate with. That is basically page 1 of how to lose a negotiation.
In fact with the November 3rd (3/11/16) case being brought by Gina Miller - founder of the investment firm SCM Private - I suspect that along with the Pound's plunge the markets are trying to pressure the government to blow open the Brexit negotiations. So Ms Miller's investors can ensure the outcome that is best for them rather than for the UK or even the EU.
The UK government has of course announced its intention to appeal the High Court's ruling at the Law Lords. As part of an attempt to convince outsiders that the UK is a modern democracy rather than a bit of a nut house the Law Lords re-branded themselves "The Supreme Court" in 2009. However unlike an actual Supreme Court it remains part of the legislative & executive branches of government rather than separate from them.
However if I was framing the government's appeal I would focus heavily on the fact that Parliament has already given its consent for Article 50 to be triggered. Specifically they consented for the issue to be decided by the British electorate by passing the European Union Referendum Act of 2015. There is certainly nothing in the wording of that act to support the claim that the referendum is merely advisory.
In fact the High Court's November 3rd (3/11/16) ruling seems so detached from reality I would even go so far as to suggest that it owed more to the theatrics of the US Presidential election and the November 7th to November 18th (7-18/11/16) COP22 Summit then anything to do with Brexit.
The High Court ruling of course set in motion a chorus of disapproval amongst the British press. With the help of Prince Henry/Harry's starpower this allowed US voters to discuss what a clear and present danger to democracy and the rule of law Hillary Clinton represented. After all if someone who believes themselves to be a supernatural being anointed by God to rule thinks you're being a bit arrogant chances are you're being a bit arrogant.
With Donald Trump defeating Hillary Clinton in the November 8th (8/11/16) election talk at COP22 turned to whether the US would withdraw from the so-called Paris Agreement.
Some are of the opinion that in order to do this the US would have to trigger Article 28 which rather like the triggering of Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty would start of a multi-year withdrawal process.
However the more literate would point out that like all the other articles Article 28 has no legal force. Specifically because President Obama demanded they have no legal force so he could use an Executive Order to sign the US up to the agreement.
In order to achieve that Obama turned up to negotiations in October 2015 like some sort of drunk toddler smashing everything to bits. However in the five to six years prior to that everybody else was working towards a Statutory Instrument similar to a Treaty or a Protocol to replace the outgoing Kyoto Protocol.
By "Everybody Else" I of course mean 192 nations representing some 7 billion people. So not only did they each have their own objectives from the negotiations they also have slightly different understandings of what a Statutory Instrument actually is. Therefore discussions about legal systems and constitutional precedents are constant at Climate Change negotiations.
Also the 1688 Bill of Rights and the 1701 Act of Settlement are the only two pieces of legislation that are common throughout all members of the UK Commonwealth.
As such the whole thing does seem to have provided a convenient codebase for discussions between big hitters such as Canada, India and Australia that other nations such as the US and China would struggle to understand.
17:25 on 21/11/16 (UK date).
This was possibly the most significant event to affect the continent since the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989. Or possibly the construction of the Berlin wall in 1961. Or possibly even the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community in 1945.
However since then almost absolutely nothing has happened.
The only significant development was a ruling on November 3rd (3/11/16) by the British High Court that the British Government cannot use what is known as "Royal Prerogative" to start Brexit negotiations by invoking what is known as "Article 50."
Royal Prerogative is one of those things that really highlights just how far away Britain actually is from being the type of modern democracy that it likes to pretend that it is.
Britain's core constitutional principle is that the Monarch - currently Queen Elizabeth II - is some sort of supernatural being anointed by God to rule over us all. As such we couldn't possibly place any restriction on the Monarch's power - their prerogative. After all it is God's will.
The problem is that over the centuries numerous people have claimed to be this supernatural being anointed by God - often at the same time. With God's support normally being demonstrated through victory in battle these disputes over who God loves the most have frequently turned bloody.
Sadly I am not joking when I say that the TV show "Game of Thrones" is loosely based on British political history. Specifically a period between 1135 and 1154 known as; "The Anarchy." If you believe the legend of St George of Lydda there were even dragons.
As a result over the years numerous restrictions have been placed on the Monarch's power as a compromise to avoid yet another war. Probably the most famous example of this is the Magna Carta of 1215.
The Magna Carta was actually a ruse introduced by King John to prevent the Catholic Pope from publicly denouncing King John's claim to be anointed by God and therefore his legitimacy to call himself King. For some reason at the time the Catholic Pope was considered another supernatural being anointed by God but one that outranked the English/British Monarch.
Pretty much as soon as the Pope had visited England to reaffirm his anointment by God King John simply tore up the Magna Carta.
The current situation is that the Monarch defers the day-to-day running of the country to the democratically elected government which sits in the House of Commons - the lower House of Parliament. This allows the Prime Minister - or Queen's First Minister - to exert Royal Prerogative on the Monarch's behalf.
As such Royal Prerogative currently functions as something similar to an Executive Order in the US. However there are a number of crucial differences. For example an Executive Order cannot be used to sign the US up to or withdraw from an international treaty. These days Royal Prerogative is pretty much only used to sign the UK up to or withdraw from international treaties.
However this primacy of the government over the Monarch is actually relatively new only coming into being following the First World War in the 1920's as a way to avoid a Russian-style revolution.
Also it is an accepted norm of behaviour rather than a written rule. Therefore the Queen could simply wake up one morning and decide that she is going to take over the day-to-day running of the country. Some would argue that is exactly what she did both in 1974 and again in 2010.
Britain's big constitutional shift of course came in the 1530's when King Henry VIII decided he wanted to divorce his wife Catherine of Aragon. The Catholic Pope denied King Henry VIII this divorce.
So King Henry VIII responded by declaring that the Pope was not a supernatural being anointed by God and certainly not one that outranked King Henry VIII. Instead King Henry VIII declared himself to be the head of the Protestant Church of England and that Church to be the only true Christian Church. He then promptly granted himself a divorce.
This split between the Catholic Church and the newly invented Protestant Church of England plunged Britain into a period of political turmoil that arguably lasted until the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland in 1998.
For example just two days after the High Court ruling the UK on November 5th (5/11/16) celebrated the 411th anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot. This was a failed attempt by Catholics - most notably Guy Fawkes - to blow up both houses of Parliament in order to kill the Protestant King James VI of Scotland and I of England.
More specifically Bonfire Night as it's known celebrates the burning alive of Catholics as punishment for the failed assassination attempt. I may though be going off on a bit of a tangent there.
Most notably though the Catholic, Protestant split triggered not one but three Civil Wars.
The first of these - 1642 to 1646 - saw the Protestant King Charles I overthrown by a Protestant almost Emperor when he planned to marry a Catholic. The second - 1648 to 1649 - was an unsuccessful attempt by supporters of King Charles I to overthrow the Emperor - Oliver Cromwell - and restore him as King. The third - 1649 to 1651 - saw King Charles I son King Charles II successfully overthrow Cromwell eventually restoring Britain as a Catholic nation.
However the Protestants religious fervour was not spent so in 1688 they staged what went on to become known as "The Glorious Revolution." This really began with the reading of the "Declaration of Rights." With the Protestants eventually winning what I would term a fourth Civil War along with the Act of Settlement of 1701 the Declaration of Rights became the Bill of Rights of 1689.
Apart from granting Protestants the right to bear arms the Bill of Rights amongst other things declares that;
"That the pretended Power of Suspending of Laws or the Execution of Laws by Regall Authority without Consent of Parlyament is illegall."
Putting aside the old English spelling from the context of a document that bills itself as a declaration of Rights & Liberties this can be taken to mean that Royal Prerogative cannot - without the consent of Parliament - be used to take away the rights of citizens that have been granted by Parliament.
One of the main things that has driven British voters to call for a Brexit is the role that the EU plays in writing laws that apply to British citizens.
As a result of this the British Parliament hasn't actually passed any laws of its own on a vast array of tedious but important subjects such as the definition of a foodstuff for the purpose of international trade in the best part of 45 years. Instead they've simply adopted the EU law as UK law.
This is the reason why the so-called "Progressive" parties such as Labour, the Liberal Democrats and in particular the Scottish National Party (SNP) are so opposed to Brexit. It means that they'll have to start earning their money by representing their constituents rather than relying on, say, the Germans, the French or the Dutch to do their work for them.
Under British law the what is termed "Statutory Instrument" that makes EU law into UK law is the European Communities Act of 1972. This is where things really start getting complicated.
The Article 50 that everybody keeps referring to is Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty of 2007. This is the most recent in a series of roughly a dozen treaties dating back to 1945 through which the EU exists. However demonstrating that it has always had something of a troubled relationship with the EU the UK does not formally recognise a single one of these treaties. Instead it only recognises the 1972 European Communities Act.
Therefore I - like I think most reasonable people - would argue that the triggering of Article 50 in no way impacts the 1972 Act. However due to the apparent need to believe in dragons and fairies the British Establishment has a long history of refusing to employ reasonable people. So no matter how wrong it is an established point of law that triggering Article 50 would also repeal the 1972 Act.
That would remove a number of rights granted to citizens by Parliament and therefore would require the consent of Parliament under the 1689 Bill of Rights. Hence the November 3rd (3/11/16) ruling.
However it is worth pointing out that the 1972 Act does allow for Royal Prerogative to be used to make any law or right to be converted into a UK law that would function independently of the EU. Therefore at the same time that it triggers Article 50 the government could also transfer all the EU legislation into UK independent legislation. The UK Parliament could then work through each law one-by-one on its own time.
The November 3rd (3/11/16) ruling in no way blocks Brexit. It merely states - wrongly in my opinion - that the government must seek the consent of Parliament before triggering Article 50. The government can go about this in two ways;
The first is to introduce a simple resolution stating that Parliaments consents to the triggering of Article 50. This resolution will be subject to a simple up or down vote.
Under the Parliamentary system the reason the government gets to call itself the government is because it has enough supporters within the House of Commons - the lower house - to win any vote. This is known as a working majority. Therefore all the other political parties could vote against the resolution and it would still pass.
Things get a little more complicated in the House of Lords - the upper house - where the current government does not have a working majority.
However the unelected Lords have long since lost their right to veto the will of the Commons. Instead they can only refer matters back to the Commons for further consideration. However if the Lords reject a Commons proposal for - I think - a third time following the fourth Commons vote it bypasses the Lords and goes straight to the Monarch for signing into law.
The second thing the government could do is introduce a traditional Bill/Act.
However this would be a much more time consuming process because it would have to go through committees and numerous readings and votes. Those MP's who are ideologically opposed to Brexit could delay it almost indefinitely by demanding that completely irrelevant amendments are considered sending the whole thing back to the start of the process.
I think this type of Parliamentary vandalism would be very destructive and significantly increase the chances of the UK being unable to negotiate a successful Brexit deal.
Even before questions over its authority to do so were raised the British government had planned to defer the triggering of Article 50 until the spring of 2017.
That's because regardless of when the negotiation period ends it won't be until January 1st of the following year that any changes come into effect. So based on a two year negotiation period starting in March 2017 it will be January 1st 2020 (1/1/20) before Brexit actually happens.
Ideally you want to leave the longest period possible between any changes being agreed and those changes coming into effect to allow people to adjust to the changes. For example the Lisbon Treaty itself was signed in 2007 but didn't come into effect until 2010. Likewise the so-called Paris Agreement on Climate Change was agreed in 2015 but won't come into effect until 2020.
Even a delay until the summer of 2017 would significantly reduce the period available for adjustment to the point Britain may have to consider deferring the trigger of Article 50 until the spring of 2018 and by extension Brexit until at least 2021.
This is going to create a long period of uncertainty and if there is one that business and financial markets hate it is uncertainty.
In the months since the Brexit vote the value of the UK Pound has plunged to almost parity with the US Dollar. This is not a result of Brexit because Brexit has not happened. Instead it is the result of the uncertainty about when Brexit is going to happen.
If Parliament forces the government to wait until the spring of 2018 to trigger Article 50 the value of the UK Pound is going to take an absolute battering.
Also if Parliament forces the government into a full Commons debate over the Brexit strategy that is going to put Britain's entire negotiation strategy in full public view. Particularly in the view of the very people Britain will be trying to negotiate with. That is basically page 1 of how to lose a negotiation.
In fact with the November 3rd (3/11/16) case being brought by Gina Miller - founder of the investment firm SCM Private - I suspect that along with the Pound's plunge the markets are trying to pressure the government to blow open the Brexit negotiations. So Ms Miller's investors can ensure the outcome that is best for them rather than for the UK or even the EU.
The UK government has of course announced its intention to appeal the High Court's ruling at the Law Lords. As part of an attempt to convince outsiders that the UK is a modern democracy rather than a bit of a nut house the Law Lords re-branded themselves "The Supreme Court" in 2009. However unlike an actual Supreme Court it remains part of the legislative & executive branches of government rather than separate from them.
However if I was framing the government's appeal I would focus heavily on the fact that Parliament has already given its consent for Article 50 to be triggered. Specifically they consented for the issue to be decided by the British electorate by passing the European Union Referendum Act of 2015. There is certainly nothing in the wording of that act to support the claim that the referendum is merely advisory.
In fact the High Court's November 3rd (3/11/16) ruling seems so detached from reality I would even go so far as to suggest that it owed more to the theatrics of the US Presidential election and the November 7th to November 18th (7-18/11/16) COP22 Summit then anything to do with Brexit.
The High Court ruling of course set in motion a chorus of disapproval amongst the British press. With the help of Prince Henry/Harry's starpower this allowed US voters to discuss what a clear and present danger to democracy and the rule of law Hillary Clinton represented. After all if someone who believes themselves to be a supernatural being anointed by God to rule thinks you're being a bit arrogant chances are you're being a bit arrogant.
With Donald Trump defeating Hillary Clinton in the November 8th (8/11/16) election talk at COP22 turned to whether the US would withdraw from the so-called Paris Agreement.
Some are of the opinion that in order to do this the US would have to trigger Article 28 which rather like the triggering of Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty would start of a multi-year withdrawal process.
However the more literate would point out that like all the other articles Article 28 has no legal force. Specifically because President Obama demanded they have no legal force so he could use an Executive Order to sign the US up to the agreement.
In order to achieve that Obama turned up to negotiations in October 2015 like some sort of drunk toddler smashing everything to bits. However in the five to six years prior to that everybody else was working towards a Statutory Instrument similar to a Treaty or a Protocol to replace the outgoing Kyoto Protocol.
By "Everybody Else" I of course mean 192 nations representing some 7 billion people. So not only did they each have their own objectives from the negotiations they also have slightly different understandings of what a Statutory Instrument actually is. Therefore discussions about legal systems and constitutional precedents are constant at Climate Change negotiations.
Also the 1688 Bill of Rights and the 1701 Act of Settlement are the only two pieces of legislation that are common throughout all members of the UK Commonwealth.
As such the whole thing does seem to have provided a convenient codebase for discussions between big hitters such as Canada, India and Australia that other nations such as the US and China would struggle to understand.
17:25 on 21/11/16 (UK date).
Saturday, 12 November 2016
The Anti-Trump Protests.
Since Donald Trump won the US Presidential election on Tuesday (8/11/16) there have been a number of protests in several US states and cities decrying the result.
These may have reminded some people of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) riots that have plagued America since the summer of 2014.
The actions of Black Lives Matter were coordinated and organised attempts to subvert the democratic process as expressed through the legal and judicial process. In short they were trying to use violence and the threat of violence force through prosecutions and convictions that had no basis in law.
The original case was that of Micheal Brown in Ferguson, Missouri back in August 2014. Within at most a couple of days investigators knew that Brown's fingerprints and DNA were on the police officer's weapon - particularly on the slide. They also knew that his - I think - blood was on the inside of the door of the police vehicle.
As a result it was clear that Brown had first being shot as he was reaching into the police vehicle to attack the officer in an attempt to steal his firearm. In short it was obvious that it was a perfectly legal shooting.
So when this evidence was prevented to the Grand Jury it dismissed the charges because they were utterly baseless.
However the violence of Black Lives Matter continued. So in fear many state prosecutors and Governors simply decided to do away with Grand Juries in such case. That is despite them being laid down in the fifth amendment to the US Constitution.
A prime example of this is the case of Walter Scott who was shot and killed by police officer Michael Slager in North Charleston, South Carolina back in April 2015. The trial of this case is currently underway.
Between Internet outages and furniture deliveries I feel like I've not had a moment's peace in the past 10 days. As a result I won't be re-arguing the entire case here.
However Walter Scott was undeniably a felon. He was also undeniably fleeing when he was killed. As such the "Fleeing Felon" rule most certainly does apply. This holds that a police officer can shoot and kill a felon who is fleeing in order to eliminate the threat to either themselves or the wider public.
A prime example of why this rule exists is the ambush of Officer Jesse Hartnett by Edward Archer in Philadelphia in January 2016. Despite being shot multiple times as he sat in his patrol car Hartnett was able to give chase and shoot and kill Archer as he fled. Thus preventing another attack.
The key test in the fleeing felon one is the reasonable person test. In short would you - as a reasonable person - reach the same conclusion as the defendant under the same circumstances. However if it is found that a defendant has acted unreasonably they can only be convicted of manslaughter rather than murder.
The only reason that the local Mayor Keith Summey announced a completely unsupportable murder charge before the matter had gone a Grand Jury was fear that Black Lives Matter would respond violently.
That is terrorism plain and simple and it presents a very serious threat to American society.
However at the moment these anti-Trump protests seem to be different.
Over the past two years the Hillary Clinton campaign has been whipping up young and often vulnerable Americans into an almost religious frenzy that only she can protect America from the evil Donald Trump and she is definitely going to be elected President.
Now that has been shown to be a lie many of her supporters are now almost grieving with lots of anger and nervous energy to get out of their systems.
Although there have been some windows broken and missiles thrown amid the usual tear gas these protests so far haven't been particularly violent.
Last night a protester was shot in the leg in Portland, Oregon. However this seems to have been the result of a motorists getting frustrated that the protesters were blocking traffic rather than being political violence by either the protesters or by counter-protesters.
Crucially at this point there doesn't seem to be any serious attempt to use violence or intimidation to subvert the democratic process.
So for the time being rather than getting over excited by these protests I'm happy to let them tire themselves out.
However it is worth pointing out that Donald Trump is still only the President-elect. Until January 20th 2017 (20/1/17) Barack Obama remains as President.
Therefore if the situation does escalate or deteriorate it falls to Obama to respond.
17:05 on 12/11/16 (UK date)
These may have reminded some people of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) riots that have plagued America since the summer of 2014.
The actions of Black Lives Matter were coordinated and organised attempts to subvert the democratic process as expressed through the legal and judicial process. In short they were trying to use violence and the threat of violence force through prosecutions and convictions that had no basis in law.
The original case was that of Micheal Brown in Ferguson, Missouri back in August 2014. Within at most a couple of days investigators knew that Brown's fingerprints and DNA were on the police officer's weapon - particularly on the slide. They also knew that his - I think - blood was on the inside of the door of the police vehicle.
As a result it was clear that Brown had first being shot as he was reaching into the police vehicle to attack the officer in an attempt to steal his firearm. In short it was obvious that it was a perfectly legal shooting.
So when this evidence was prevented to the Grand Jury it dismissed the charges because they were utterly baseless.
However the violence of Black Lives Matter continued. So in fear many state prosecutors and Governors simply decided to do away with Grand Juries in such case. That is despite them being laid down in the fifth amendment to the US Constitution.
A prime example of this is the case of Walter Scott who was shot and killed by police officer Michael Slager in North Charleston, South Carolina back in April 2015. The trial of this case is currently underway.
Between Internet outages and furniture deliveries I feel like I've not had a moment's peace in the past 10 days. As a result I won't be re-arguing the entire case here.
However Walter Scott was undeniably a felon. He was also undeniably fleeing when he was killed. As such the "Fleeing Felon" rule most certainly does apply. This holds that a police officer can shoot and kill a felon who is fleeing in order to eliminate the threat to either themselves or the wider public.
A prime example of why this rule exists is the ambush of Officer Jesse Hartnett by Edward Archer in Philadelphia in January 2016. Despite being shot multiple times as he sat in his patrol car Hartnett was able to give chase and shoot and kill Archer as he fled. Thus preventing another attack.
The key test in the fleeing felon one is the reasonable person test. In short would you - as a reasonable person - reach the same conclusion as the defendant under the same circumstances. However if it is found that a defendant has acted unreasonably they can only be convicted of manslaughter rather than murder.
The only reason that the local Mayor Keith Summey announced a completely unsupportable murder charge before the matter had gone a Grand Jury was fear that Black Lives Matter would respond violently.
That is terrorism plain and simple and it presents a very serious threat to American society.
However at the moment these anti-Trump protests seem to be different.
Over the past two years the Hillary Clinton campaign has been whipping up young and often vulnerable Americans into an almost religious frenzy that only she can protect America from the evil Donald Trump and she is definitely going to be elected President.
Now that has been shown to be a lie many of her supporters are now almost grieving with lots of anger and nervous energy to get out of their systems.
Although there have been some windows broken and missiles thrown amid the usual tear gas these protests so far haven't been particularly violent.
Last night a protester was shot in the leg in Portland, Oregon. However this seems to have been the result of a motorists getting frustrated that the protesters were blocking traffic rather than being political violence by either the protesters or by counter-protesters.
Crucially at this point there doesn't seem to be any serious attempt to use violence or intimidation to subvert the democratic process.
So for the time being rather than getting over excited by these protests I'm happy to let them tire themselves out.
However it is worth pointing out that Donald Trump is still only the President-elect. Until January 20th 2017 (20/1/17) Barack Obama remains as President.
Therefore if the situation does escalate or deteriorate it falls to Obama to respond.
17:05 on 12/11/16 (UK date)
Friday, 11 November 2016
The Second US Presidential Debate.
I am well aware that the US Presidential election is now over. However this is something that I've been meaning to tidy up for a while.
I think the second US Presidential debate held on October 9th (9/10/16) really summed up not only how utterly detached from reality that the Hillary Clinton campaign was but also the extent to which the entire system - including the supposedly independent debate commission - was in favour of Hillary Clinton.
The Clinton campaign's big play for ahead of that second debate was the release of the Billy Bush tapes on October 7th (7/10/16). The intention being to portray Donald Trump as some sort of sexual predator. Despite the fact Trump pretty much blew that out of the water by inviting just a handful of women Bill Clinton has sexually assaulted over the years to the debate everyone just snapped straight back to the Clinton narrative.
Well everyone except the leader of Britain's purple themed UK Independence Party (UKIP) Nigel Farage who likened Donald Trump's performance to that of a glorious Silverbacked Gorilla.
The following day there were numerous social media memes - which the traditional media were more than happy to report on - claiming that Trump had been stalking Hillary Clinton around the stage invading her personal space like some sort of sexual predator. The fact is that like so much else of Clinton's campaign this simply wasn't true.
The debate was in the Town Hall format. This meant that on stage right you had a podium and chair that had been assigned as Donald Trump's area. On stage left you had another podium and chair which had been assigned as Hillary Clinton's area. You then had members of the public who'd been chosen to ask questions sitting to both the left and right of the stage. In front of them all you had the moderators who were asking questions that had supposedly been sent in by members of the public via social media.
Whenever a question was asked by someone on stage right or by the moderators Hillary Clinton would immediately walk over to the right of the stage. She would then stand right in front of Donald Trump's assigned - let's go with; "Enclosure."
So it wasn't a case of Donald Trump invading Hillary Clinton's personal space throughout the debate. It was actually Hillary Clinton who was invading Trump's personal space.
However the hope was clearly that because Donald Trump is of slightly above average height while Hillary Clinton is of slightly below average height viewers wouldn't pick up on this and he would be percieved as the aggressor.
The questions seem to have been arranged in order to aid the Clinton campaign in this aim. There were four in total from audience members on both stage left and stage right.
The first question came from stage left while the next four questions came from stage right. The remaining three questions from stage left came in quick succession in a ten minute period right at the end. As a result a huge majority of the debate was spent dealing with questions from stage right and the moderators.
I actually have a degree of experience with exactly this type of snidey behaviour.
Back in 2007 I was volunteering for a charity that was partnered with the local council to help rehabilitate people with mental health problems.
During my time there a new member of staff joined who seemed to take an instant dislike to me. This lesbian wasted no time in telling anyone who would listen that I was homophobic and that I was bullying her. If she'd made an official complaint it would have triggered a formal disciplinary process to which I would have been allowed to bring an advocate.
The advocate I would have chosen would have been my lesbian mother who at the time also happened to be a government lawyer who helped draft the relevant piece of legislation.
Despite not realising that she was setting herself up for possibly the shortest disciplinary hearing in history this co-worker never did make a formal complaint. That was largely because the only piece of my supposedly intimidating and bullying behaviour she could point to as evidence was the fact that I'm quite tall. That is obviously no more my fault than her sexuality is hers.
So in the end I quit. After all that's not how you behave towards people who are trying to do you a favour.
This all happened about six months before the 2008 financial crash which was rather like Britain's 9/11. Not only did I know that was coming it actually factored into my decision making.
Nearly ten years later there are still some people utterly convinced that they are brilliant at this sort of thing while I am completely useless. Therefore I must allow them to 'help' me be rehabilitated by working at a minimum wage job in a supermarket where one day I may be promoted to work on the check-out.
One area that really helps to highlight the folly of that point of view is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
Of the six Conferences of Parties (COP's) that occurred between 2010 and 2016 I found myself in Court for four of them. These were primarily to argue civil cases over said council's treatment of my grandmother. She actually died during the 2012 COP16 which was somewhat stressful.
One of the things that was achieved during those years was the formation of the Green Climate Fund (GCF). This is essentially a bank to fund efforts to combat climate change. The GCF's headquarters in South Korea was actually opened on my grandmother's birthday the following year.
The current COP22 opened in Morocco on Monday (7/11/16). The week before the so-called Paris Agreement which was reached at last year's COP21 came into force. However it will not actually take effect until 2020.
As a result COP22 seems to be being largely used to talk about other things. Particularly by people who are trying to hide their hope that President-elect Donald Trump will follow through on his promise to sign an executive order to scrap what has become known as; "The 12/12 Atrocity." It is only then that we can re-start work on something that will actually combat climate change.
The Closing Ceremony of the 2016 Olympic Games held in Rio de Janerio, Brazil featured a segment set in a vegetable garden. This was intended to mock current US First Lady Michelle Obama and her efforts to get children to eat more vegetables. Specifically the sarcastic #ThanksMichelle hashtag used by students to protest their new 'healthy' school meals.
However with the games being held in Rio - the birthplace of the UNFCCC - the issue of climate change also featured heavily.
This is particularly true of the very dry Opening Ceremony. This made frequent reference to the Brutalist school or urban design which grew from the Modernist school that was in part founded by very famous Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer.
Essentially the Brutalist school pioneered the idea of dormitory cities. These are small cities designed just to house workers who travel to near-by economic cities.
From a climate change perspective these are a horrible idea because even if you are using public transport the further people have to travel to and from work the more greenhouse gas emissions you get and by extension more climate change.
Brutalist urban design is also extremely problematic for that hard to define concept of "Social Cohesion." Essentially with the dormitory cities being deserted during the day and the economic city being deserted at night there is no sense of community or togetherness in either.
Brazil obviously has many examples of Brutalist design. However a particularly good example within the UK is the London borough of Croydon. Essentially it was designed in the 1960's to act as a dormitory city for central London. It is also where I spent a year studying urban design and geography.
To combat the social cohesion problem Croydon has built a Tram system running from residential areas in the east and west into the town centre. The idea being to give the town centre a bit of life during the day while most residents are working in central London to the north.
The year I spent studying in Croydon was also the year between construction on the Tram system being completed and it finally getting a safety certificate to carry passengers.
If you look on a map you will see that the main offices for the Tram system - "Tramlink" as it's officially known - are literally right between Croydon College and the offices of Croydon planning department. As a result the amount of information I have forgotten about Croydon's Tram system is mind boggling.
However I seem to remember that the original safety problem was that drivers unfamiliar with Trams kept driving their cars into the side of them not realising that things on rails can't swerve out of the way.
On Wednesday (9/11/16) Croydon's Tram system suffered its first major accident when one derailed killing 7 and injuring a further 50 passengers. Although the cause of the crash is still under investigation speed is believed to be a major factor. So the discussion is essentially;
"Was the driver going to fast? Or; Is the track just too damn slow?"
Then of course there is the issue of the Notting Hill Housing Trust (NHHT) Housing Association who I consider to be responsible for the murder of my grandmother.
The Conservative MP for Croydon Central - Gavin Barwell - who has appeared on TV screens across the globe as a result of the crash is also the Minister of State for Housing and Planning. He like the rest of the Conservative government was elected in 2015 on a manifesto promise to abolish housing associations exactly like the NHHT.
As a result it also seems to serve as a warning from upon high that certain people shouldn't be at all confident in their current point of view.
Of course in the sending of that message four - and I think is likely to be confirmed - seven wholly innocent people have been killed.
Surely it would have been easier just to kill the people who - in my opinion at least - completely deserve it.
15:25 on 11/11/16 (UK date).
I think the second US Presidential debate held on October 9th (9/10/16) really summed up not only how utterly detached from reality that the Hillary Clinton campaign was but also the extent to which the entire system - including the supposedly independent debate commission - was in favour of Hillary Clinton.
The Clinton campaign's big play for ahead of that second debate was the release of the Billy Bush tapes on October 7th (7/10/16). The intention being to portray Donald Trump as some sort of sexual predator. Despite the fact Trump pretty much blew that out of the water by inviting just a handful of women Bill Clinton has sexually assaulted over the years to the debate everyone just snapped straight back to the Clinton narrative.
Well everyone except the leader of Britain's purple themed UK Independence Party (UKIP) Nigel Farage who likened Donald Trump's performance to that of a glorious Silverbacked Gorilla.
The following day there were numerous social media memes - which the traditional media were more than happy to report on - claiming that Trump had been stalking Hillary Clinton around the stage invading her personal space like some sort of sexual predator. The fact is that like so much else of Clinton's campaign this simply wasn't true.
The debate was in the Town Hall format. This meant that on stage right you had a podium and chair that had been assigned as Donald Trump's area. On stage left you had another podium and chair which had been assigned as Hillary Clinton's area. You then had members of the public who'd been chosen to ask questions sitting to both the left and right of the stage. In front of them all you had the moderators who were asking questions that had supposedly been sent in by members of the public via social media.
Whenever a question was asked by someone on stage right or by the moderators Hillary Clinton would immediately walk over to the right of the stage. She would then stand right in front of Donald Trump's assigned - let's go with; "Enclosure."
So it wasn't a case of Donald Trump invading Hillary Clinton's personal space throughout the debate. It was actually Hillary Clinton who was invading Trump's personal space.
However the hope was clearly that because Donald Trump is of slightly above average height while Hillary Clinton is of slightly below average height viewers wouldn't pick up on this and he would be percieved as the aggressor.
The questions seem to have been arranged in order to aid the Clinton campaign in this aim. There were four in total from audience members on both stage left and stage right.
The first question came from stage left while the next four questions came from stage right. The remaining three questions from stage left came in quick succession in a ten minute period right at the end. As a result a huge majority of the debate was spent dealing with questions from stage right and the moderators.
I actually have a degree of experience with exactly this type of snidey behaviour.
Back in 2007 I was volunteering for a charity that was partnered with the local council to help rehabilitate people with mental health problems.
During my time there a new member of staff joined who seemed to take an instant dislike to me. This lesbian wasted no time in telling anyone who would listen that I was homophobic and that I was bullying her. If she'd made an official complaint it would have triggered a formal disciplinary process to which I would have been allowed to bring an advocate.
The advocate I would have chosen would have been my lesbian mother who at the time also happened to be a government lawyer who helped draft the relevant piece of legislation.
Despite not realising that she was setting herself up for possibly the shortest disciplinary hearing in history this co-worker never did make a formal complaint. That was largely because the only piece of my supposedly intimidating and bullying behaviour she could point to as evidence was the fact that I'm quite tall. That is obviously no more my fault than her sexuality is hers.
So in the end I quit. After all that's not how you behave towards people who are trying to do you a favour.
This all happened about six months before the 2008 financial crash which was rather like Britain's 9/11. Not only did I know that was coming it actually factored into my decision making.
Nearly ten years later there are still some people utterly convinced that they are brilliant at this sort of thing while I am completely useless. Therefore I must allow them to 'help' me be rehabilitated by working at a minimum wage job in a supermarket where one day I may be promoted to work on the check-out.
One area that really helps to highlight the folly of that point of view is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
Of the six Conferences of Parties (COP's) that occurred between 2010 and 2016 I found myself in Court for four of them. These were primarily to argue civil cases over said council's treatment of my grandmother. She actually died during the 2012 COP16 which was somewhat stressful.
One of the things that was achieved during those years was the formation of the Green Climate Fund (GCF). This is essentially a bank to fund efforts to combat climate change. The GCF's headquarters in South Korea was actually opened on my grandmother's birthday the following year.
The current COP22 opened in Morocco on Monday (7/11/16). The week before the so-called Paris Agreement which was reached at last year's COP21 came into force. However it will not actually take effect until 2020.
As a result COP22 seems to be being largely used to talk about other things. Particularly by people who are trying to hide their hope that President-elect Donald Trump will follow through on his promise to sign an executive order to scrap what has become known as; "The 12/12 Atrocity." It is only then that we can re-start work on something that will actually combat climate change.
The Closing Ceremony of the 2016 Olympic Games held in Rio de Janerio, Brazil featured a segment set in a vegetable garden. This was intended to mock current US First Lady Michelle Obama and her efforts to get children to eat more vegetables. Specifically the sarcastic #ThanksMichelle hashtag used by students to protest their new 'healthy' school meals.
However with the games being held in Rio - the birthplace of the UNFCCC - the issue of climate change also featured heavily.
This is particularly true of the very dry Opening Ceremony. This made frequent reference to the Brutalist school or urban design which grew from the Modernist school that was in part founded by very famous Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer.
Essentially the Brutalist school pioneered the idea of dormitory cities. These are small cities designed just to house workers who travel to near-by economic cities.
From a climate change perspective these are a horrible idea because even if you are using public transport the further people have to travel to and from work the more greenhouse gas emissions you get and by extension more climate change.
Brutalist urban design is also extremely problematic for that hard to define concept of "Social Cohesion." Essentially with the dormitory cities being deserted during the day and the economic city being deserted at night there is no sense of community or togetherness in either.
Brazil obviously has many examples of Brutalist design. However a particularly good example within the UK is the London borough of Croydon. Essentially it was designed in the 1960's to act as a dormitory city for central London. It is also where I spent a year studying urban design and geography.
To combat the social cohesion problem Croydon has built a Tram system running from residential areas in the east and west into the town centre. The idea being to give the town centre a bit of life during the day while most residents are working in central London to the north.
The year I spent studying in Croydon was also the year between construction on the Tram system being completed and it finally getting a safety certificate to carry passengers.
If you look on a map you will see that the main offices for the Tram system - "Tramlink" as it's officially known - are literally right between Croydon College and the offices of Croydon planning department. As a result the amount of information I have forgotten about Croydon's Tram system is mind boggling.
However I seem to remember that the original safety problem was that drivers unfamiliar with Trams kept driving their cars into the side of them not realising that things on rails can't swerve out of the way.
On Wednesday (9/11/16) Croydon's Tram system suffered its first major accident when one derailed killing 7 and injuring a further 50 passengers. Although the cause of the crash is still under investigation speed is believed to be a major factor. So the discussion is essentially;
"Was the driver going to fast? Or; Is the track just too damn slow?"
Then of course there is the issue of the Notting Hill Housing Trust (NHHT) Housing Association who I consider to be responsible for the murder of my grandmother.
The Conservative MP for Croydon Central - Gavin Barwell - who has appeared on TV screens across the globe as a result of the crash is also the Minister of State for Housing and Planning. He like the rest of the Conservative government was elected in 2015 on a manifesto promise to abolish housing associations exactly like the NHHT.
As a result it also seems to serve as a warning from upon high that certain people shouldn't be at all confident in their current point of view.
Of course in the sending of that message four - and I think is likely to be confirmed - seven wholly innocent people have been killed.
Surely it would have been easier just to kill the people who - in my opinion at least - completely deserve it.
15:25 on 11/11/16 (UK date).
Yay! Capitalism.
You may remember that after the Olympics I said I needed a week or two to recover.
Well it turns out my father is not the World's most sensitive person. It was that week he decided to get a carpenter in to fix the stairs forcing me to take refuge in the outside world.
The following day he then decided that he wanted to buy a new sofa. Now I think buying a sofa is rather like buying a car. It's something you're going to have to live with for a good few years so needs some careful consideration.
I can't say that I appreciated being forced to learn everything there is to know about furniture design in the space of a few hours.
My father though had got fixated on the idea that he really wanted a reclining sofa.
The first problem with this is that having always having to prop himself up with cushions I'm not at all sure my father actually wants a recliner.
The second problem is that recliner open up to roughly double their size. That would make it roughly half the size of the room it is supposed to fit in. As a compromise we ended up getting a motorised recliner because the mechanism takes up less space.
I still think I need to go to Climate Change jail for that.
Anyway it was delivered this morning. So I basically had to roll out of bed straight into steel toed boots and do my Superman impression by lifting the old, Oak framed more or less on my own.
I also think I may now have fixed my PC. For some reason the LAN was routing to a proxy server that no longer exists. So I'm now routing it to one that does.
12:40 on 11/11/16 (UK date).
Well it turns out my father is not the World's most sensitive person. It was that week he decided to get a carpenter in to fix the stairs forcing me to take refuge in the outside world.
The following day he then decided that he wanted to buy a new sofa. Now I think buying a sofa is rather like buying a car. It's something you're going to have to live with for a good few years so needs some careful consideration.
I can't say that I appreciated being forced to learn everything there is to know about furniture design in the space of a few hours.
My father though had got fixated on the idea that he really wanted a reclining sofa.
The first problem with this is that having always having to prop himself up with cushions I'm not at all sure my father actually wants a recliner.
The second problem is that recliner open up to roughly double their size. That would make it roughly half the size of the room it is supposed to fit in. As a compromise we ended up getting a motorised recliner because the mechanism takes up less space.
I still think I need to go to Climate Change jail for that.
Anyway it was delivered this morning. So I basically had to roll out of bed straight into steel toed boots and do my Superman impression by lifting the old, Oak framed more or less on my own.
I also think I may now have fixed my PC. For some reason the LAN was routing to a proxy server that no longer exists. So I'm now routing it to one that does.
12:40 on 11/11/16 (UK date).
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