In my last post on the topic I mentioned how the mood music had started to change since Hillary Clinton failed to secure the US Presidency on November 8th (8/11/16). Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan has already begun to respond to that change.
On December 6th (6/12/16) the Turkish Stock Exchange (Borse) announced that it was converting all its foreign currency holdings into Turkish Lira. This is part of an Erdogan-led nationwide program to help prop up Turkey's collapsing currency. This collapse has come before anyone has started to discuss imposing economic sanctions on Turkey let alone seeking reparations for all the damage that Turkey has done in Syria, Iraq and Europe.
Prior to that on November 29th (29/11/16) a fire tore through a school dormitory in the town of Aladag in Turkey's Adana province. This fire killed 11 schoolgirls between the ages of 11 and 18 and injured 22 more.
The fact that this was a fire was a reference to the severe wildfires that recently swept through parts of Israel starting on November 22nd (22/11/16).
This was one of the stories that rather passed me by as I was trying to catch up on what I missed during my recent Internet outage. However it has certainly been alleged that these fires were started deliberately as an act of terrorism. That would certainly fit with the point raised during the US election campaign that Iran doesn't need nuclear weapons to destroy Israel.
The US attempted to match the Israeli fires with an unseasonable wildfire of its own in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Those fires have since been confirmed to have been a deliberate act of arson.
On July 16th 2015 (16/7/15) Chattanooga, Tennessee was scene of a shooting spree in which Kuwaiti born Muslim Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez shot and killed 5 members of the US military at a recruiting centre and a base. At the time there was a lot of discussion about whether this should be considered an Islamist terror attack.
On Tuesday (6/12/16) outgoing US President Obama gave his final speech on national security. In it he claimed that Islamist terrorists had not been able to carry out a single terror attack on US soil during his two terms. I think that makes Obama's attitude towards the Chattanooga attacks quite clear.
Turkey's Adana province is home to United States Air Force (USAF) base Incirilk. This has long been a bone of contention between the US and Turkey with Erdogan initially denying the US permission to use its airbase in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
On June 7th 2015 (7/6/15) Erdogan's Islamist Justice & Development Party (AKP) were defeated in the country's Parliamentary election. This thwarted Erdogan's plan to turn the office of President into a executive position so he could continue his rule in defiance of the nation's constitutional term limits.
In response Obama decided to side with Erdogan against the Turkish people in return for being allowed permission to use USAF Incirilk. However as a curious further condition Obama agreed that Incirilk could not be used to conduct airstrikes against ISIL.
On July 15th (15/7/16) Turkey saw a rising against Erdogan's growing dictatorship. Despite Obama once again siding with Erdogan against the Turkish people by giving him airtime on CNN to crush the rising Erdogan blamed this popular intifada on the US.
In response Erdogan's forces laid siege to USAF Incirlik for several weeks claiming that it was where the rising had been planned. This forced the US to relocate the around 50 nuclear warheads it had stationed at Incirlik to Romania amid fears that Erdogan would seize them and hand them to ISIL.
Shortly after the siege of Incirlik was lifted the airbase was again threatened. This time by wildfires which admittedly occurred during the natural wildfire season.
Sitting on the Mediterranean coast Adana province has long been one of the main staging points from which Turkey has flooded Europe with wave-after-wave of irregular migrants/refugees. The famous picture of Aylan Kurdi was taken in Bodrum which is just some 300km (180 miles) along the coast.
The nature of a fire taking place in a school dormitory was reminiscent of numerous mass casualty Islamist terror attacks.
Particularly the April 15th 2014 (15/4/14) kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls from their dormitories in Chibok, Borno state, Nigeria by the ISIL affiliate Boko Haram. The December 16th 2014 (16/14/14) Islamist terror attack on a school in Peshawar, Pakistan in which 141 people were murdered. The April 2nd 2015 (2/4/15) Islamist terror attack on a university in Garissa, Kenya in which the ISIL affiliated Al-Shabaab murdered 148.
As such the Aladag fire was intended as a threat to the EU. Either give Erdogan exactly what he wants or he will once again flood the EU with irregular migrants some of whom will be instructed to carry out mass casualty terror attacks similar to the November 13th 2015 (13/11/15) Paris Massacres.
The specific school involved in the Aladag fire is a private one run by an religious foundation formed in honour of the Sufi Islamic scholar Suleyman Hilmi Tunahan.
Sufism is a much more moderate form of - often Shia - Islam. Particularly because they encourage things like educating women and girls in things like science they are utterly despised by Sunni extremists like Erdogan and ISIL who consider them to be the worst form of infidel. Lower even than the Jews.
Therefore domestically the fire was intended to whip Erdogan's core support into a further frenzy by showing he is prepared to cleanse the earth of infidels.
Comparisons are also being drawn with the similarly moderate religious foundation schools of Fettulah Gulen. Erdogan claims Gulen is a US spy responsibly for plotting the rising against him and frequently cites the fact the US has not extradited him to Turkey as evidence of Obama's part in the vast conspiracy against Erdogan.
As such the fire also seems intended to scare the wider Turkish population into thinking that the global Zionist, infidel conspiracy is preparing to to murder 'good' Turkish Muslims in their beds just the same as Erdogan claims they are doing in the Aleppo City.
Primarily though as with the November 25th (25/11/16) sonic boom and the November 27th (27/11/16) UFO's the Aladag fire was an attempt by Erdogan to find out where he stands in this post-Hillary Clinton, pre-Donald Trump vacuum.
The problem is that everybody else is currently trying to do that.
For example China has been particularly exercised on the issue of Climate Change. That seems to be because although it would almost been foolish for them not to take advantage of the massive gift Obama has dropped into their lap deep down they know that for the sake of the climate the Paris Agreement needs to be scrapped.
If you are familiar with the December 16th 2014 (16/14/14) Peshawar attack, the April 2nd 2015 (2/4/15) attack in Garissa, Kenya and the November 13th 2015 (13/11/15) Paris Massacres you would know that they are all inextricably linked to the Paris Agreement. Which is why it is sometimes referred to as; "The 12/12 Atrocity."
So recently we've had a number of what can only be collectively termed; "Fiery disasters." Bulgaria seem to the latest ones trying to get in on the action. Particularly the November 9th (9/11/16) Croydon tram crash action.
However last Saturday (3/12/16) there were a number of notable fires in the US. Particularly in Cambridge, Massachusetts and at what is being described as; "The Ghost Ship Warehouse" in Oakland, California where 36 people lost their lives.
The reason for the high death toll at the Ghost Ship Warehouses is simply that the owners completely ignored all relevant safety regulations. That is a very common problem in China. However rumours that the fire may have been caused by an electrical fault are very similar to the Aladag fire. In fact if they blame it on an out of date fusebox it will be exactly the same.
However I should point out that due to the building owner's complete disregard for safety regulations it wouldn't have taken much to cause a tragedy in the building. To the point where I'm not totally convinced that the Cambridge fire wasn't the planned response and the Oakland fire was just a random accident.
This has all created a very strange circular situation where everybody is trying to find out what everybody is saying. However the only thing that anybody is saying is trying to find out what everybody else is saying.
At around 18:45 on 10/12/16 (UK date) I'll add to this after dinner.
Edited at around 19:45 on 10/12/16 (UK date) to add;
Fortunately all this uncertainty has meant that Erdogan has been relatively well behaved in Syria recently.
Erdogan's main interest in Syria is the roughly 100km (60 mile) stretch of territory between Azaz/Kilis and the Euphrates River. This is sometimes referred to as either; "Erdogan's Pocket" or "Garvaghy Road."
Certainly since November 6th (6/11/16) Turkish operations within Garvaghy Road have been focused on preventing the US backed, anti-ISIL Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF/QSD) advancing along the M4 Motorway from Manbij to ISIL occupied al-Bab. If the SDF were able to liberate al-Bab it would cut ISIL's supply lines between Turkey and their de facto Syrian capital of Raqqa.
In the course of the battle over the M4 road on November 24th (24/11/16) Turkish airstrikes killed two members of the SDF's "Quinta Brigada" international brigade; Michael Israel aged 27 from Sacramento, California, US and Anton Leschek a German national of undisclosed age.
On that same day Syrian forces conducted an airstrike on Turkish forces in the area killing four. This served as a reminder that Turkish forces are an illegal force of invasion and occupation who are most certainly not welcome in Syria. A nation whose air defences are still most certainly active.
Since then Erdogan largely paused Turkey's operations within Syria.
Unfortunately Obama has decided to once again swoop in and be the wind beneath Erdogan's wings.
Today it has been announced that the US is to deploy a further 200 Special Forces Operators to Syria. This is in addition to the 300 already deployed. Although this has only been publicly confirmed today I get the impression the deployment was actually completed back on Thursday (8/12/16) at the latest.
Along with the threat of removing US air support for the SDF and even using that American air power directly against the SDF this latest deployment is part of a US plan to intimidate the SDF into launching an operation against Raqqa.
An operation to liberate ISIL's de facto capital in Syria is going to be at least as difficult as the operation currently underway to liberate ISIL's de facto capital in Iraq - Mosul. For that operation the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) and the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga have deployed a combined force of around 40,000 troops.
In total the SDF is made up of around 70,000 troops. Even before they think about mounting an operation to liberate Mosul that SDF force has to provide security for the roughly 12,000kmsq (7,200 milesq) buffer-zone/safe-haven they have established across northern Syria west of the Euphrates to the Syria/Iraq border.
The SDF also has to provide security for the roughly 900kmsq (540 milesq) buffer-zone/safe-haven they have established between Azaz and the Syria/Turkey border to the west.
The SDF also have to provide security within the three districts of Aleppo City which they now control.
In all of these areas the main threat to civilians is Turkey. Particularly the United Turkmen Army (UTA) who fight as part of the ISIL allied Army of Conquest/Jaish al-Fatah (JAF) coalition.
In their efforts to liberate Mosul those 40,000 ISF/Peshmerga troops travel around in armoured Humvees and the latest Mine Resistant, Ambush Protected (MRAP) troop carriers. They are backed by French and American Special Operations Forces (SOF) artillery units and are provided with air cover by the US-led Combined Joint Task Force: Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTFOIR) aircraft including top of the line AH-64 Apache helicopter gunships.
By contrast the SDF have some rusty Soviet-era heavy machine guns welded to the back of 30 year old Toyota pick-up trucks.
Therefore the only strategic explanation for Obama to pressure the SDF into an operation to liberate Raqqa is that it is intended as a suicide mission.
The idea being that the SDF will be completely wiped out. That will leave the Army of Conquest free to claim the mantle of; "moderate opposition" and Erdogan will move his forces into the two buffer-zones/safe-havens under SDF control and annex northern Syria.
With Obama once again trying to throw the full weight of US support behind the idea of creating an Erdogan controlled Islamist terror state within Syria's border it almost goes without saying that Erdogan has once again leapt back into action.
Yesterday (9/12/16) Turkey resumed airstrikes against SDF positions on the Manbij to al-Bab road. Today Turkey has been excitedly announcing that it is in the advanced stages of absorbing ISIL fighters in al-Bab into the Army of Conquest command structure.
Buoyed by this development ISIL have have launched a fresh offensive to capture the city of Palmyra in the hope of reversing recent Army of Conquest losses in Aleppo City by stretching Syrian government forces. Essentially a re-run of the combined JAF/ISIL 2015 Northwestern offensive in which ISIL initially captured Palmyra.
So. Immediately following the US election many American commentators wanted to know what would happen if Donald Trump gave the US military an unlawful order.
Obama has once again given the US military an order that is not only in complete violation of international law but also constitutes an act of treason against the US.
It would be embarrassing if someone actually has to shoot him just 41 days before his term expires.
21:15 on 10/12/16 (UK date).
Saturday, 10 December 2016
Thursday, 8 December 2016
Operation Featherweight: Month 29, Week 3, Day 4.
As I've mentioned on November 3rd (3/11/16) my Internet connection was cut. This effectively put me out of action for one of the most intense two week periods in the entire war against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and associated groups.
This two week period saw a number of dramatic developments in the effort to liberate the city of Mosul in northern Iraq from ISIL.
There were also dramatic developments in the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF/QSD) attempts both to fight ISIL in northern Syria and Turkey's invasion of northern Syria in order to protect ISIL from the SDF.
The Syrian government with the support of Russia also made significant progress in liberating Aleppo City from the Army of Conquest/Jaish al-Fatah (JAF) Islamist coalition that is allied to ISIL.
As is often the case this period of intense activity has been followed by a period of relative calm and consolidation. Added to that we have most definitely moved from autumn into winter. This means the region has experienced its first heavy rainfall of the season leading to flooding and sandstorms. Some of the mountainous areas - particularly further north in Turkey - have even experienced their first snowfall of the season.
As a result between my November 24th (24/11/16) post and Sunday December 4th (4/12/16) the frontlines within Mosul did not move at all. The Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) most advanced positions remained in an arc from the al-Zuhur neighbourhood to the north-east to al-Karamah neighbourhood on the M2 Highway/Hawler Road and in a south-east arc from al-Karamah to the Salam neighbourhood.
However in that time the ISF have been at work consolidating their control of the neighbourhoods to the east of that frontline. On November 24th (24/11/16) the ISF had nominal control over or were fighting within 21 neighbourhoods in the east of Mosul. They now have full control over 18 of those neighbourhoods with only the three most forward such as al-Karamah continued to be disputed.
The ISF and the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga have also been working to consolidate their control over the areas surrounding Mosul. The Peshmerga have finally succeeded in fully securing the Bahzani part of the town of Bashiqa & Bahzani while the ISF have succeeded in fully securing a number of small villages that sit to the north-east of Mosul between the city and the Peshmerga's agreed forward line.
To the west of Mosul the ISF affiliated Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) militias have been undertaking a similar operation around the key town of Tal Afar.
Having secured Tal Afar airport of November 16th (16/11/16) the PMF have been working to fully secure areas both to the south of Tal Afar and to the west towards the town of Sinjar/Shingal along the H47 Highway that runs towards Iraq border with Syria. Today they have announced that they have fully secured the town of Tal Abta which sits around 50km (30 miles) south of Tal Afar. Containing a citadel this is seen as the last barrier to an operation to liberate Tal Afar itself.
Tal Afar has long been one of the most contentious locations in the operation to liberate Mosul. Although not exclusively it is predominately an ethnic Turkmen town. Those Turkmen are a mixture of both Sunni and Shia Muslims.
Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan has long said that he will not allow the Shia-Arab PMF to enter Tal Afar. Erdogan claims that this is because the PMF will ethnically cleanse Tal Afar of the Turkmen population. However the real reason is actually twofold;
Firstly Erdogan wanted to block the creation of any western front in the Mosul operation. That is because on behalf of the US he had negotiated a deal with ISIL which would see them mount only a symbolic defence of Mosul while the majority of their forces fled back to Syria via that western route.
Secondly Erdogan is very worried about a loss of Turkish influence within northern Syria. Although they are ethnically Turkish it is likely that - particularly the Shia Turkmen - would switch their allegiance to the PMF if they rescued them from the horrors of the Erdogan backed ISIL. Ideally what I think Erdogan is looking for is just any excuse to invade and then annex northern Iraq the same as he is currently doing in northern Syria.
Erdogan's desire to establish a new Ottoman Empire is having a very serious and very negative effect on civilians in northern Iraq.
This is particularly true for the civilians living in Tal Afar and the villages between Tal Afar and Mosul. With both Mosul and Tal Afar being under siege conditions as part of the liberation operation these people are being forced to live with the risk of simply being murdered by ISIL while vital supplies of things like water, food and medicine are starting to run low. As the Mosul operation is looking as though it is going to last for months rather than weeks this creates a very real risk of creating a humanitarian disaster.
In my post of November 24th (24/11/16) I discussed the need for some plan to be developed to effectively rescue the civilians between Tal Afar and Mosul.
Although I simply do not believe Erdogan's claims that the PMF will engage in inhumane treatment of Turkmen civilians I suggested that it would be best for the Iraqi police to conduct any such operation. My main reasoning for this was that at the time the ISIL presence in and around Tal Afar was light. Therefore there would be no need for the type of intense combat that the PMF are particularly suited for. Instead it would be peacekeeping/policing mission to provide security and basic services.
Since then ISIL have massively increased their forces in and around Tal Afar. This seems to have been done with the specific intention of removing the main reason why the PMF cannot conduct a Tal Afar operation. ISIL's thinking being that as soon as the PMF were launch a Tal Afar operation it would provide Erdogan with all the excuse he needed to send the Turkish military swooping in to protect ISIL.
Erdogan himself seems very supportive of this latest ISIL strategy. On November 26th (26/11/16) the Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi travelled to Tal Afar airport to meet with PMF commanders to discuss the next move regarding Tal Afar.
As al-Abadi's convoy was leaving the meeting a Turkish drone struck the meeting venue with a Hellfire-type missile. Although I don't think this was a legitimate Turkish attempt to assassinate the Iraqi Prime Minister it was certainly a strong statement of intent on Erdogan's part.
However since Hillary Clinton failed to secure the US Presidency on November 8th (8/11/16) Erdogan has slowly started to see his international support begin to evaporate.
On November 24th (24/11/16) the European Parliament voted to suspend negotiations with Turkey over its attempts to join the European Union (EU). This was not a binding vote and EU leaders may decide at their December 15th (15/12/16) to continue negotiations with Turkey. However any agreement they may reach will then have to be ratified by the European Parliament before coming into effect.
Then of course there is the issue of the Dakota Access Pipeline in the US.
Officially this deals only with attempts to build an oil pipeline through the US states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa and Illinois. However if you look at the route of this pipeline on a map it does seem similar to ISIL's supply lines in northern Syria running from Turkey down the Euphrates River basin to Syria's border with Iraq.
Also the protests against the pipeline are being led by the Sioux and Meskwaki tribes of indigenous Indians who want to stop it cutting through their Standing Rock Reservation. They have been joined by all the major tribes of Native American indigenous Indian tribes.
As with Tal Afar in northern Iraq Erdogan has long claimed that the SDF cannot be permitted to cut ISIL's supply lines with Turkey because they will conduct ethnic cleansing of the local Arab and Turkmen populations that Erdogan claims are indigenous to the region.
The problem with that is the SDF is predominately made up of Kurds and Assyrians who are indigenous to the region.
The Turkmen only invaded and colonised the region during the days of the Ottoman Empire starting in the 16th Century - roughly the same time that Europeans started colonising North America. Arabs were only moved into areas of norther Syria such as Kobane in the 1960's as part of a government run attempt to change the ethnic make up of the area.
Key to attempts to clear the Standing Rock protest camp has been a bridge running across a river on the site. This could be interpreted as a reference to the Tishrin Dam that crosses the Euphrates River at the boundary of the SDF's area of control. Alternatively it could be interpreted as reference to any one of the five bridges spanning the Tigris River between east and west Mosul.
On Saturday (3/12/16) a group of US military veterans arrived at the Standing Rock protest camp to stand with the indigenous tribes against a planned eviction. This could be interpreted to any one of a number of US military veterans who despite the cowardice of the former Commander-in-Chief who have decided to fight alongside the SDF against ISIL.
On Sunday (4/12/16) the US Army Corp of Engineers announced that they would not be granting a legal easement to the company hoping to build the pipeline. Without this permission to occupy land under the control of the Army Corp of Engineers this brings plan for the pipeline to an end.
Obviously the developments regarding the Dakota Access pipeline refer to the Dakota Access pipeline and they may well be reversed by the incoming President Trump.
However if I was Erdogan I would hardly find that sort of mood music reassuring.
At around 18:20 on 8/12/16 (UK date) I will pick this up tomorrow.
This two week period saw a number of dramatic developments in the effort to liberate the city of Mosul in northern Iraq from ISIL.
There were also dramatic developments in the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF/QSD) attempts both to fight ISIL in northern Syria and Turkey's invasion of northern Syria in order to protect ISIL from the SDF.
The Syrian government with the support of Russia also made significant progress in liberating Aleppo City from the Army of Conquest/Jaish al-Fatah (JAF) Islamist coalition that is allied to ISIL.
As is often the case this period of intense activity has been followed by a period of relative calm and consolidation. Added to that we have most definitely moved from autumn into winter. This means the region has experienced its first heavy rainfall of the season leading to flooding and sandstorms. Some of the mountainous areas - particularly further north in Turkey - have even experienced their first snowfall of the season.
As a result between my November 24th (24/11/16) post and Sunday December 4th (4/12/16) the frontlines within Mosul did not move at all. The Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) most advanced positions remained in an arc from the al-Zuhur neighbourhood to the north-east to al-Karamah neighbourhood on the M2 Highway/Hawler Road and in a south-east arc from al-Karamah to the Salam neighbourhood.
However in that time the ISF have been at work consolidating their control of the neighbourhoods to the east of that frontline. On November 24th (24/11/16) the ISF had nominal control over or were fighting within 21 neighbourhoods in the east of Mosul. They now have full control over 18 of those neighbourhoods with only the three most forward such as al-Karamah continued to be disputed.
The ISF and the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga have also been working to consolidate their control over the areas surrounding Mosul. The Peshmerga have finally succeeded in fully securing the Bahzani part of the town of Bashiqa & Bahzani while the ISF have succeeded in fully securing a number of small villages that sit to the north-east of Mosul between the city and the Peshmerga's agreed forward line.
To the west of Mosul the ISF affiliated Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) militias have been undertaking a similar operation around the key town of Tal Afar.
Having secured Tal Afar airport of November 16th (16/11/16) the PMF have been working to fully secure areas both to the south of Tal Afar and to the west towards the town of Sinjar/Shingal along the H47 Highway that runs towards Iraq border with Syria. Today they have announced that they have fully secured the town of Tal Abta which sits around 50km (30 miles) south of Tal Afar. Containing a citadel this is seen as the last barrier to an operation to liberate Tal Afar itself.
Tal Afar has long been one of the most contentious locations in the operation to liberate Mosul. Although not exclusively it is predominately an ethnic Turkmen town. Those Turkmen are a mixture of both Sunni and Shia Muslims.
Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan has long said that he will not allow the Shia-Arab PMF to enter Tal Afar. Erdogan claims that this is because the PMF will ethnically cleanse Tal Afar of the Turkmen population. However the real reason is actually twofold;
Firstly Erdogan wanted to block the creation of any western front in the Mosul operation. That is because on behalf of the US he had negotiated a deal with ISIL which would see them mount only a symbolic defence of Mosul while the majority of their forces fled back to Syria via that western route.
Secondly Erdogan is very worried about a loss of Turkish influence within northern Syria. Although they are ethnically Turkish it is likely that - particularly the Shia Turkmen - would switch their allegiance to the PMF if they rescued them from the horrors of the Erdogan backed ISIL. Ideally what I think Erdogan is looking for is just any excuse to invade and then annex northern Iraq the same as he is currently doing in northern Syria.
Erdogan's desire to establish a new Ottoman Empire is having a very serious and very negative effect on civilians in northern Iraq.
This is particularly true for the civilians living in Tal Afar and the villages between Tal Afar and Mosul. With both Mosul and Tal Afar being under siege conditions as part of the liberation operation these people are being forced to live with the risk of simply being murdered by ISIL while vital supplies of things like water, food and medicine are starting to run low. As the Mosul operation is looking as though it is going to last for months rather than weeks this creates a very real risk of creating a humanitarian disaster.
In my post of November 24th (24/11/16) I discussed the need for some plan to be developed to effectively rescue the civilians between Tal Afar and Mosul.
Although I simply do not believe Erdogan's claims that the PMF will engage in inhumane treatment of Turkmen civilians I suggested that it would be best for the Iraqi police to conduct any such operation. My main reasoning for this was that at the time the ISIL presence in and around Tal Afar was light. Therefore there would be no need for the type of intense combat that the PMF are particularly suited for. Instead it would be peacekeeping/policing mission to provide security and basic services.
Since then ISIL have massively increased their forces in and around Tal Afar. This seems to have been done with the specific intention of removing the main reason why the PMF cannot conduct a Tal Afar operation. ISIL's thinking being that as soon as the PMF were launch a Tal Afar operation it would provide Erdogan with all the excuse he needed to send the Turkish military swooping in to protect ISIL.
Erdogan himself seems very supportive of this latest ISIL strategy. On November 26th (26/11/16) the Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi travelled to Tal Afar airport to meet with PMF commanders to discuss the next move regarding Tal Afar.
As al-Abadi's convoy was leaving the meeting a Turkish drone struck the meeting venue with a Hellfire-type missile. Although I don't think this was a legitimate Turkish attempt to assassinate the Iraqi Prime Minister it was certainly a strong statement of intent on Erdogan's part.
However since Hillary Clinton failed to secure the US Presidency on November 8th (8/11/16) Erdogan has slowly started to see his international support begin to evaporate.
On November 24th (24/11/16) the European Parliament voted to suspend negotiations with Turkey over its attempts to join the European Union (EU). This was not a binding vote and EU leaders may decide at their December 15th (15/12/16) to continue negotiations with Turkey. However any agreement they may reach will then have to be ratified by the European Parliament before coming into effect.
Then of course there is the issue of the Dakota Access Pipeline in the US.
Officially this deals only with attempts to build an oil pipeline through the US states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa and Illinois. However if you look at the route of this pipeline on a map it does seem similar to ISIL's supply lines in northern Syria running from Turkey down the Euphrates River basin to Syria's border with Iraq.
Also the protests against the pipeline are being led by the Sioux and Meskwaki tribes of indigenous Indians who want to stop it cutting through their Standing Rock Reservation. They have been joined by all the major tribes of Native American indigenous Indian tribes.
As with Tal Afar in northern Iraq Erdogan has long claimed that the SDF cannot be permitted to cut ISIL's supply lines with Turkey because they will conduct ethnic cleansing of the local Arab and Turkmen populations that Erdogan claims are indigenous to the region.
The problem with that is the SDF is predominately made up of Kurds and Assyrians who are indigenous to the region.
The Turkmen only invaded and colonised the region during the days of the Ottoman Empire starting in the 16th Century - roughly the same time that Europeans started colonising North America. Arabs were only moved into areas of norther Syria such as Kobane in the 1960's as part of a government run attempt to change the ethnic make up of the area.
Key to attempts to clear the Standing Rock protest camp has been a bridge running across a river on the site. This could be interpreted as a reference to the Tishrin Dam that crosses the Euphrates River at the boundary of the SDF's area of control. Alternatively it could be interpreted as reference to any one of the five bridges spanning the Tigris River between east and west Mosul.
On Saturday (3/12/16) a group of US military veterans arrived at the Standing Rock protest camp to stand with the indigenous tribes against a planned eviction. This could be interpreted to any one of a number of US military veterans who despite the cowardice of the former Commander-in-Chief who have decided to fight alongside the SDF against ISIL.
On Sunday (4/12/16) the US Army Corp of Engineers announced that they would not be granting a legal easement to the company hoping to build the pipeline. Without this permission to occupy land under the control of the Army Corp of Engineers this brings plan for the pipeline to an end.
Obviously the developments regarding the Dakota Access pipeline refer to the Dakota Access pipeline and they may well be reversed by the incoming President Trump.
However if I was Erdogan I would hardly find that sort of mood music reassuring.
At around 18:20 on 8/12/16 (UK date) I will pick this up tomorrow.
Tuesday, 6 December 2016
Well That Scared The Horses.
You may remember that last Christmas I was given an Amazon Fire tablet as a gift. This was celebrated by massive fire in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Since then my father has been rather keen on getting a computer tablet for himself too. This was rather amplified by the recent Black Friday sales.
Since then I've been trying to explain that although I'm more than happy with my gift if I was spending my own money I would choose differently.
The main problem with any Amazon tablet is that they're sold cheaply to allow Amazon to then try and sell you further goods and services.
So rather than using the Internet you're only allowed to use the bits of the Internet Amazon have a contract with. Also in order to use those bits of the Internet you have to be signed into your Amazon account. With your Amazon account being linked to your bank account this presents a significant security issue.
Given my father's rather cavalier attitude towards Internet security coupled with the fact he doesn't have an Amazon account an Amazon Fire isn't really the product for him. Instead it would be better for him to pay the extra £20 for any other generic Android device.
Finally we settled that he would get a Lenovo Tab 3. However my father has got so fixed on the idea that he wants an Amazon Fire he's given me the Lenovo and is now using my Fire.
Obviously that's a good deal for me. However having spent two weeks trying to argue myself out of that good deal I've given myself a bit of a headache.
That hasn't been helped by the fact we've had to go to the store twice. Once to discover they didn't have one in stock. Then having ordered it over the Internet once again to pick it up in store.
Plus I've been trying to get to grips with the new device while helping my father get to grips with the existing device.
20:55 on 5/12/16 (UK date).
Since then my father has been rather keen on getting a computer tablet for himself too. This was rather amplified by the recent Black Friday sales.
Since then I've been trying to explain that although I'm more than happy with my gift if I was spending my own money I would choose differently.
The main problem with any Amazon tablet is that they're sold cheaply to allow Amazon to then try and sell you further goods and services.
So rather than using the Internet you're only allowed to use the bits of the Internet Amazon have a contract with. Also in order to use those bits of the Internet you have to be signed into your Amazon account. With your Amazon account being linked to your bank account this presents a significant security issue.
Given my father's rather cavalier attitude towards Internet security coupled with the fact he doesn't have an Amazon account an Amazon Fire isn't really the product for him. Instead it would be better for him to pay the extra £20 for any other generic Android device.
Finally we settled that he would get a Lenovo Tab 3. However my father has got so fixed on the idea that he wants an Amazon Fire he's given me the Lenovo and is now using my Fire.
Obviously that's a good deal for me. However having spent two weeks trying to argue myself out of that good deal I've given myself a bit of a headache.
That hasn't been helped by the fact we've had to go to the store twice. Once to discover they didn't have one in stock. Then having ordered it over the Internet once again to pick it up in store.
Plus I've been trying to get to grips with the new device while helping my father get to grips with the existing device.
20:55 on 5/12/16 (UK date).
Monday, 5 December 2016
So How Do You Like Your Brexit?
On June 23rd 2016 (23/6/16) the UK voted to leave the European Union (EU) - the so-called "Brexit."
Since then precisely two things have happened.
On November 3rd (3/11/16) the UK High Court ruled that the British government could not use what is known as "Royal Prerogative" to trigger the Article 50 of the 2007 Lisbon Treaty which is used for nations to exit the EU. That ruling is today being argued in front of the UK Supreme Court/Law Lords who are expected to hand down their ruling in early January 2017.
The other - and I think much more important - development is that Euronews has been removed from the Freesat television network in what seems like an opening salvo.
Of course if Britain's political and media classes were to admit that very little has actually happened with Brexit so far they would be forced to find something else to talk about. That may have to involve them having to do some work.
In fact I suspect the recent scandal about sexual abuse in youth football has come to light simply to change the subject. After all some people are clearly going to need to learn to pace themselves.
Despite there actually being very little to talk about Britain has spent the last nearly 6 months in the grips of an almost constant public discussion about Brexit. One of the main topics of debate is whether Britain wants to go with what is being termed a; "Soft Brexit" or a so-called; "Hard Brexit."
The terms Hard or Soft Brexit are themselves not particularly well defined. In fact they strike me as one of those open ended conversation starters intended to get people to talk about what Brexit means to them. For some people this is hugely emotional topic with the type of relationship they want with the EU almost defining their identity or sense of self.
As someone who voted to Leave and very gently encouraged other people to follow suit I should probably explain what I envisaged by Brexit.
I see Britain's relationship with the EU as very much like a failing marriage.
Britain was never sure that it wanted to get married in the first place and has long felt trapped by the relationship. However up until now Britain has not had the courage to leave. So instead it's dedicated its time to making everything as difficult and unpleasant as possible. Almost in the hope that the EU will decide to be the first to leave.
With the UK trying to make everything as difficult as possible all the nations who do believe in the marriage have been forced to fight a constant battle to make things work. This forces them into a sort of bunker mentality in which it's impossible for them to entertain the idea that maybe some of the things they're trying to do are wrong or even if they're maybe just moving too fast.
Therefore I voted to leave thinking it would be better for both the UK and for the EU to simply dissolve the marriage but maintain civil relations for the sake of the children.
So by Brexit I see the UK leaving the political aspects of the EU.
That means the UK no longer has a role in drawing up EU law in the EU Parliament and is no longer bound by them. The UK would also have no further role in the EU Council of leaders and wouldn't be bound by its decisions. The sanctions on Russia and the refugee deal with Turkey being just two topical examples. Crucially the UK would also stop paying into the EU budget.
The European Human Rights (EHRA) has always been a separate issue from the EU. However membership of the EHRA has always been a condition of EU membership. Therefore once the UK has left the EU it would be free to decide whether it wanted to remain a member of the EHRA as a separate issue.
However the November 3rd (3/11/16) case did heavily reference the British Bill of Rights of 1689. I would think that would be quite a large rap across the knuckles of the people who want to scrap the EHRA to introduce a British Bill of Rights. Scrapping the 1689 Bill of Rights would of course be the first step towards achieving that.
Despite removing itself from the political aspects of the EU I did envision the UK remaining part of the economic aspects of the EU - essentially the EU Single/Free market.
I think this political rather than economic split is generally what is meant by a; "Soft Brexit." A "Hard Brexit" is generally considered to be the nuclear option of breaking off all political and economic ties with the EU.
The main barrier to achieving the sort of Soft Brexit I envisioned is the issue of migration/free movement of people. This was a significant factor that drove many people to vote Leave in the referendum.
The problem is that migrants are people. However economists refer to them as; "Human Capital." That is because it is people's labour that is one of the main means of production on which an economy is based.
I know that sort of statement just sound a bit like Karl Marx and his idea of Communism. However Marx actually turned up rather late to the party. The notion of human capital has been discussed from all the way back in the time of the Ancient Greek philosophers. The renowned free market capitalist Adam Smith - the guy on £20 notes - also worked extensively in this area.
A good example of how the notion of human capital works is the building of a wall. In order to do that you need some raw materials like bricks, sand, cement, water and gravel along with a few tools. However the real value being added comes from the skills in the head and hands of the person turning those raw materials into a finished wall.
Obviously if you place restrictions on when and where a person can sell their labour such as border controls you no longer have a free market. Instead you have a distorted market with the distortion always handing an advantage to someone at the expense of someone else.
Therefore by definition the UK cannot restrict migration and remain part of the EU's Single/Free market because it would no longer be a free market. It's similar to saying that you want to go live on the Moon but at the same time stay on Earth.
Normally when you get a distortion in a market taxes or tariffs are then imposed to correct the distortion. With the EU starting out life as the European Coal & Steel Community back in 1945 this provides rather a good example. If you distort the free market by placing tariffs on coal imports that distortion is corrected by other nations imposing a similar tariff on exports of the steel you have produced with that coal.
Imposing and maintaining a fair system of tariffs is never easy. However it is relatively simple when you are dealing with tangible raw materials such as coal and steel. For example you know how much coal it takes to produce a certain amount of steel and how much steel is in a particular car.
Things get a lot more complicated when you are dealing with intangibles like labour or human capital.
For example I think it's reasonable to argue that it takes much more time, knowledge and skill to make a car than it does to sell a car. However it is the car salesman who gets the customer to exchange money for the car builder's labours paying the car builder's wages. Therefore arguably the salesman's labour is more valuable than the builders.
In the late 1990's the economist Robert Putnam took this idea one step further. He argued that not only do people have value within an economic system but the relationships between people have a value all of their own. He termed this "Social Capital."
In January 2014 lead Brexiteer Nigel Farage touched on this very idea. He gave a speech in which he pointed out that in the financial services industry women who take a career break say to have children are worth less to their employer because they've been unable to maintain the long-term relationships with clients on which the industry depends. I'm guessing the feminists who then shouted Farage down were unfamiliar with Putnam's work.
The complexity of trying to negotiate tariffs to correct market distortions created by Human or Social capital is absolutely mind boggling.
It is exactly the sort of thing that will discourage business - particularly the highly valuable financial services industry - from operating within the UK. It will just be far simpler for them to locate within the EU Single/Free market than try to negotiate access to it from within the UK.
Fortunately I think there may be an alternative;
Rather than getting individual companies to work out the specific tariffs they need to pay on the array of goods and services that they want to the export the UK simply pays a block tariff into the EU budget on their behalf. It would then fall on the British government to decide how it would recoup that money from the private companies. An export band for Corporation tax being one example.
As a member the UK pays £1.8bn into the EU budget each year. Therefore in an effort to start the discussion I would suggest a £900m block tariff. Simply because it's a big number right in the middle.
The big challenge of course will be getting the 27 other nations that make up the rest of the EU to agree to the idea.
At around 17:50 on 5/12/16 (UK date) I will attempt to address that after dinner.
Edited at around 19:40 on 5/12/16 (UK date) to add;
To many of the people committed to the idea of a united Europe the issue of the free movement of people goes far beyond mere economics. For them it goes almost to the core of their social identity. Essentially allowing people to live, work and love in a continent without borders shows that you are not racist, you're not a misogynist and you are not a homophobe.
This attitude has been clearly on display in response to the current refugee crisis. For many people it's become much more important to say whether you are pro-refugee or anti-refugee then it has been to have any discussion about what is causing these people to become refugees and what help they need.
The problem is that these political elites are often very far removed from the day-to-day realities of their high-minded philosophical ideas.
For many of the EU's political leaders migration means only that they can get a really cheap cleaner or builder who will tell them all about this lovely beach resort in Hungary where they can holiday for a bargain price. Or they will hear from business leaders about how much the driving down of their labour costs have boosted their profits meaning that they now have so much more to donate to re-election campaigns.
What very few of these leaders will ever see with their own eyes are the conditions in those workplaces.
In many British workplaces due to the EU's free movement policy you won't get one or two people from another EU country. Instead almost the entire workforce will be made up of people from a completely different EU nation - often Poland. So much so that often all the signs, notices and contracts have to be written in that other EU language.
What those migrant workers do is work absolutely flat out for a few years to make a relative fortune they can return home with. So not only do they sleep dozens to a room they will often share beds with person working the day shift and another working the night shift. As they don't have to worry about things like finding somewhere decent to live, getting married or starting a family in the country their working in they can afford to work for much lower wages.
If you are born in and want to continue living in a country where this is happening you can't simply get on with a life like that.
This large-scale migration isn't just causing problems in the wealthy western EU nations that people are migrating to. It is also causing problems for the poorer eastern EU nations they are migrating from.
When I was working as a traffic warden I was working alongside a guy from Poland. I can't remember if he had a Bachelors degree or a Masters degree in economics but back Poland he worked as a bank manager. However he'd moved to the UK because he could earn more money as a traffic warden there then he could as a bank manager in Poland.
Although he was a nice guy you always got the impression that he'd much rather be working in a field he'd spent years studying to become expert in and then go home at night to his wife and children rather than getting sworn at by British motorists. By the same token Poland clearly has more need for skilled economists and bank managers than Britain has need for traffic wardens who can quote John Locke at you.
A new EU member state that has suffered particularly hard from the mass of emigration is Romania.
Since becoming an EU member state some 2.5% of Romania's adult population have left to find work in other EU member states. This has resulted in some 350,000 Romanian children effectively becoming orphans as they're raised by grandparents and relatives or left to fend for themselves as both of their parents leave to find work.
The fate of what have become known as; "The Left Behind Children" is such a concern that it has become an issue for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) amid fears these unattended children could be subjected to exploitation - particularly sexual exploitation.
The Romanian government has also been forced to mount a campaign urging parents to stay Romania to look after their children. That actually led to some trouble at the 2015 Eurovision Song Contest when Romania featured that overt political message as part of their entry.
However I notice in a worrying sign since then the Romanian government are no longer urging parents to stay in Romania. Instead they'll now settle for the parents simply telling the school who'll be looking after their children while they emigrate to find work.
The EU's migration problems largely stem from the fact that it has simply expanded far too fast. As a result you get this huge disparity in wealth between the older western EU nations and the newer eastern EU nations.
Part of the thinking behind the free movement of people is that as some people travel from the east to the west to find work the remittances they send back home will help close this wealth gap. It is just that this is happening on a far larger scale then anybody imagined and it now seems to be causing more problems than it is solving.
So for a good number of years people have been bouncing around the idea that rather than giving new EU members immediate access to the free movement zone the EU first sends them a lot more assistance money. This allows them to close the wealth gap reducing the mad rush of people flocking to other EU member states once they are granted access to the free movement zone.
So this idea of the UK paying a block tariff in return for some controls on migration might not just be a solution for the UK's future relationship with the EU.
It may even be a future direction for the EU itself with other member states paying a block tariff on top of their usual budget contribution is return for being able to limit certain groups of workers from specific new member states.
This will help reduce the wealth gap between new and established member states and the social problems it causes. I certainly consider the likes of Marine to be a social problem.
20:55 on 5/12/16 (UK date).
Since then precisely two things have happened.
On November 3rd (3/11/16) the UK High Court ruled that the British government could not use what is known as "Royal Prerogative" to trigger the Article 50 of the 2007 Lisbon Treaty which is used for nations to exit the EU. That ruling is today being argued in front of the UK Supreme Court/Law Lords who are expected to hand down their ruling in early January 2017.
The other - and I think much more important - development is that Euronews has been removed from the Freesat television network in what seems like an opening salvo.
Of course if Britain's political and media classes were to admit that very little has actually happened with Brexit so far they would be forced to find something else to talk about. That may have to involve them having to do some work.
In fact I suspect the recent scandal about sexual abuse in youth football has come to light simply to change the subject. After all some people are clearly going to need to learn to pace themselves.
Despite there actually being very little to talk about Britain has spent the last nearly 6 months in the grips of an almost constant public discussion about Brexit. One of the main topics of debate is whether Britain wants to go with what is being termed a; "Soft Brexit" or a so-called; "Hard Brexit."
The terms Hard or Soft Brexit are themselves not particularly well defined. In fact they strike me as one of those open ended conversation starters intended to get people to talk about what Brexit means to them. For some people this is hugely emotional topic with the type of relationship they want with the EU almost defining their identity or sense of self.
As someone who voted to Leave and very gently encouraged other people to follow suit I should probably explain what I envisaged by Brexit.
I see Britain's relationship with the EU as very much like a failing marriage.
Britain was never sure that it wanted to get married in the first place and has long felt trapped by the relationship. However up until now Britain has not had the courage to leave. So instead it's dedicated its time to making everything as difficult and unpleasant as possible. Almost in the hope that the EU will decide to be the first to leave.
With the UK trying to make everything as difficult as possible all the nations who do believe in the marriage have been forced to fight a constant battle to make things work. This forces them into a sort of bunker mentality in which it's impossible for them to entertain the idea that maybe some of the things they're trying to do are wrong or even if they're maybe just moving too fast.
Therefore I voted to leave thinking it would be better for both the UK and for the EU to simply dissolve the marriage but maintain civil relations for the sake of the children.
So by Brexit I see the UK leaving the political aspects of the EU.
That means the UK no longer has a role in drawing up EU law in the EU Parliament and is no longer bound by them. The UK would also have no further role in the EU Council of leaders and wouldn't be bound by its decisions. The sanctions on Russia and the refugee deal with Turkey being just two topical examples. Crucially the UK would also stop paying into the EU budget.
The European Human Rights (EHRA) has always been a separate issue from the EU. However membership of the EHRA has always been a condition of EU membership. Therefore once the UK has left the EU it would be free to decide whether it wanted to remain a member of the EHRA as a separate issue.
However the November 3rd (3/11/16) case did heavily reference the British Bill of Rights of 1689. I would think that would be quite a large rap across the knuckles of the people who want to scrap the EHRA to introduce a British Bill of Rights. Scrapping the 1689 Bill of Rights would of course be the first step towards achieving that.
Despite removing itself from the political aspects of the EU I did envision the UK remaining part of the economic aspects of the EU - essentially the EU Single/Free market.
I think this political rather than economic split is generally what is meant by a; "Soft Brexit." A "Hard Brexit" is generally considered to be the nuclear option of breaking off all political and economic ties with the EU.
The main barrier to achieving the sort of Soft Brexit I envisioned is the issue of migration/free movement of people. This was a significant factor that drove many people to vote Leave in the referendum.
The problem is that migrants are people. However economists refer to them as; "Human Capital." That is because it is people's labour that is one of the main means of production on which an economy is based.
I know that sort of statement just sound a bit like Karl Marx and his idea of Communism. However Marx actually turned up rather late to the party. The notion of human capital has been discussed from all the way back in the time of the Ancient Greek philosophers. The renowned free market capitalist Adam Smith - the guy on £20 notes - also worked extensively in this area.
A good example of how the notion of human capital works is the building of a wall. In order to do that you need some raw materials like bricks, sand, cement, water and gravel along with a few tools. However the real value being added comes from the skills in the head and hands of the person turning those raw materials into a finished wall.
Obviously if you place restrictions on when and where a person can sell their labour such as border controls you no longer have a free market. Instead you have a distorted market with the distortion always handing an advantage to someone at the expense of someone else.
Therefore by definition the UK cannot restrict migration and remain part of the EU's Single/Free market because it would no longer be a free market. It's similar to saying that you want to go live on the Moon but at the same time stay on Earth.
Normally when you get a distortion in a market taxes or tariffs are then imposed to correct the distortion. With the EU starting out life as the European Coal & Steel Community back in 1945 this provides rather a good example. If you distort the free market by placing tariffs on coal imports that distortion is corrected by other nations imposing a similar tariff on exports of the steel you have produced with that coal.
Imposing and maintaining a fair system of tariffs is never easy. However it is relatively simple when you are dealing with tangible raw materials such as coal and steel. For example you know how much coal it takes to produce a certain amount of steel and how much steel is in a particular car.
Things get a lot more complicated when you are dealing with intangibles like labour or human capital.
For example I think it's reasonable to argue that it takes much more time, knowledge and skill to make a car than it does to sell a car. However it is the car salesman who gets the customer to exchange money for the car builder's labours paying the car builder's wages. Therefore arguably the salesman's labour is more valuable than the builders.
In the late 1990's the economist Robert Putnam took this idea one step further. He argued that not only do people have value within an economic system but the relationships between people have a value all of their own. He termed this "Social Capital."
In January 2014 lead Brexiteer Nigel Farage touched on this very idea. He gave a speech in which he pointed out that in the financial services industry women who take a career break say to have children are worth less to their employer because they've been unable to maintain the long-term relationships with clients on which the industry depends. I'm guessing the feminists who then shouted Farage down were unfamiliar with Putnam's work.
The complexity of trying to negotiate tariffs to correct market distortions created by Human or Social capital is absolutely mind boggling.
It is exactly the sort of thing that will discourage business - particularly the highly valuable financial services industry - from operating within the UK. It will just be far simpler for them to locate within the EU Single/Free market than try to negotiate access to it from within the UK.
Fortunately I think there may be an alternative;
Rather than getting individual companies to work out the specific tariffs they need to pay on the array of goods and services that they want to the export the UK simply pays a block tariff into the EU budget on their behalf. It would then fall on the British government to decide how it would recoup that money from the private companies. An export band for Corporation tax being one example.
As a member the UK pays £1.8bn into the EU budget each year. Therefore in an effort to start the discussion I would suggest a £900m block tariff. Simply because it's a big number right in the middle.
The big challenge of course will be getting the 27 other nations that make up the rest of the EU to agree to the idea.
At around 17:50 on 5/12/16 (UK date) I will attempt to address that after dinner.
Edited at around 19:40 on 5/12/16 (UK date) to add;
To many of the people committed to the idea of a united Europe the issue of the free movement of people goes far beyond mere economics. For them it goes almost to the core of their social identity. Essentially allowing people to live, work and love in a continent without borders shows that you are not racist, you're not a misogynist and you are not a homophobe.
This attitude has been clearly on display in response to the current refugee crisis. For many people it's become much more important to say whether you are pro-refugee or anti-refugee then it has been to have any discussion about what is causing these people to become refugees and what help they need.
The problem is that these political elites are often very far removed from the day-to-day realities of their high-minded philosophical ideas.
For many of the EU's political leaders migration means only that they can get a really cheap cleaner or builder who will tell them all about this lovely beach resort in Hungary where they can holiday for a bargain price. Or they will hear from business leaders about how much the driving down of their labour costs have boosted their profits meaning that they now have so much more to donate to re-election campaigns.
What very few of these leaders will ever see with their own eyes are the conditions in those workplaces.
In many British workplaces due to the EU's free movement policy you won't get one or two people from another EU country. Instead almost the entire workforce will be made up of people from a completely different EU nation - often Poland. So much so that often all the signs, notices and contracts have to be written in that other EU language.
What those migrant workers do is work absolutely flat out for a few years to make a relative fortune they can return home with. So not only do they sleep dozens to a room they will often share beds with person working the day shift and another working the night shift. As they don't have to worry about things like finding somewhere decent to live, getting married or starting a family in the country their working in they can afford to work for much lower wages.
If you are born in and want to continue living in a country where this is happening you can't simply get on with a life like that.
This large-scale migration isn't just causing problems in the wealthy western EU nations that people are migrating to. It is also causing problems for the poorer eastern EU nations they are migrating from.
When I was working as a traffic warden I was working alongside a guy from Poland. I can't remember if he had a Bachelors degree or a Masters degree in economics but back Poland he worked as a bank manager. However he'd moved to the UK because he could earn more money as a traffic warden there then he could as a bank manager in Poland.
Although he was a nice guy you always got the impression that he'd much rather be working in a field he'd spent years studying to become expert in and then go home at night to his wife and children rather than getting sworn at by British motorists. By the same token Poland clearly has more need for skilled economists and bank managers than Britain has need for traffic wardens who can quote John Locke at you.
A new EU member state that has suffered particularly hard from the mass of emigration is Romania.
Since becoming an EU member state some 2.5% of Romania's adult population have left to find work in other EU member states. This has resulted in some 350,000 Romanian children effectively becoming orphans as they're raised by grandparents and relatives or left to fend for themselves as both of their parents leave to find work.
The fate of what have become known as; "The Left Behind Children" is such a concern that it has become an issue for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) amid fears these unattended children could be subjected to exploitation - particularly sexual exploitation.
The Romanian government has also been forced to mount a campaign urging parents to stay Romania to look after their children. That actually led to some trouble at the 2015 Eurovision Song Contest when Romania featured that overt political message as part of their entry.
However I notice in a worrying sign since then the Romanian government are no longer urging parents to stay in Romania. Instead they'll now settle for the parents simply telling the school who'll be looking after their children while they emigrate to find work.
The EU's migration problems largely stem from the fact that it has simply expanded far too fast. As a result you get this huge disparity in wealth between the older western EU nations and the newer eastern EU nations.
Part of the thinking behind the free movement of people is that as some people travel from the east to the west to find work the remittances they send back home will help close this wealth gap. It is just that this is happening on a far larger scale then anybody imagined and it now seems to be causing more problems than it is solving.
So for a good number of years people have been bouncing around the idea that rather than giving new EU members immediate access to the free movement zone the EU first sends them a lot more assistance money. This allows them to close the wealth gap reducing the mad rush of people flocking to other EU member states once they are granted access to the free movement zone.
So this idea of the UK paying a block tariff in return for some controls on migration might not just be a solution for the UK's future relationship with the EU.
It may even be a future direction for the EU itself with other member states paying a block tariff on top of their usual budget contribution is return for being able to limit certain groups of workers from specific new member states.
This will help reduce the wealth gap between new and established member states and the social problems it causes. I certainly consider the likes of Marine to be a social problem.
20:55 on 5/12/16 (UK date).
Saturday, 3 December 2016
Fidel Castro: 1926 - 2016.
On April 8th 2013 (8/4/13) former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher died. At the time I advised certain celebrities who were being pressured into commenting into making absolutely no comment at all.
That's because people who are old enough to remember her time in power either loved Margaret Thatcher or hated Margaret Thatcher. There was absolutely no middle ground. So whatever you said you were guaranteed to deeply offend someone.
Last Saturday (25/11/16) former President and Prime Minister of Cuba Fidel Castro died at the age of 90. For once I decided to follow my own advice.
In March 1952 General Fulgencio Batista seized power in Cuba in a military coup.
Almost devoid of any political ideology Batista was essentially just a criminal. We sometimes talk of nations being run as; "Mafia States." Batista's main backers were in fact the Italian-American Mafia. However seeing it as restriction on his crime spree Batista was nominally opposed to the Cuban Communist Party that had initially backed him. As a result he enjoyed some support from the US.
Shortly after Batista has seized power a young lawyer by the name of Fidel Castro challenged the result of the coup in Cuba's Courts. Having been defeated in his legal means Castro decided the only way to rid Cuba of Batista was armed struggle and revolution.
To this end he and his brother Raul Castro formed what was known as "The Movement." On July 26th 1953 (26/7/53) this small group of revolutionaries launched an attack on Batista's forces at the Moncada barracks in the Cuban city of Santiago and the Movement became known as; "The July 26th Movement."
The attack on Moncada barracks was an absolute disaster with 65 of Castro's 123 troops being killed. Having being captured both Fidel and Raul Castro were exiled to Mexico. There they met like-minded Argentinian revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara and along with others were trained in guerrilla warfare by Alberto Bayo who led the anti-Fascist Republican forces in the Spanish Civil War of 1936 to 1939.
While the Castro's were in exile Batista's rule had become so corrupt and so violent that another anti-Communist group - the Student Revolutionary Directorate (DRE) - staged an uprising against his rule in March 1957. Batista's crushing of that rebellion prompted the US to withdraw its support for him and impose an embargo on Cuba.
This American weakening of the Batista regime allowed Castro's July 26th Movement to fight their way down from the mountains to the city of Santa Clara on December 31st 1958 (31/12/58). With the Battle of Santa Clara lost Batista fled Cuba on January 1st 1959 (1/1/59) and Castro's choice of President - Manuel Urrutia - took up office on January 3rd (3/1/59). On February 16th (16/2/59) Fidel Castro became Cuba's Prime Minister.
One of Castro's first acts as Prime Minister was to appoint Che Guevara as Cuba's Supreme Prosecutor and put him in charge of the La Cabana Fortress prison camp. There Guevara summarily executed hundreds of soldiers, police officers, civilian servants and other civilians who were deemed to be; "Enemies of the Revolution." Sadly this type of revolutionary justice became a hallmark of Castro's 49 year rule over Cuba.
Almost immediately Fidel Castro resurrected Adolf Hitler's "Committees of Territorial Vigilance." Known in Cuba as the; "Committees for the Defence of the Revolution (CDR)" these were essentially an extreme form of neighbourhood watch with a designated person tasked with keeping detailed notes on every aspect of the lives of everybody in their street/apartment block.
Those the CDR's deemed to be involved in anti-Revolutionary activities were disappeared to re-education camps and firing squads.
Gay men were particularly targeted for their anti-Revolutionary activity often being kidnapped to psychiatric hospitals were they were subjected to electroshock therapy in an effort to convert them to heterosexuality. When HIV/AIDS emerged in the 1980's Castro declared that infection with the virus was a crime and jailed its carriers.
In April 1961 the US backed a group of Cubans who'd been exiled by Castro to launched a counter-revolution to oust him. They landed at Cuba's Bay of Pigs. In retaliation for this failed attempt to topple him in 1962 Castro invited the the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) to base nuclear missiles in Cuba. This prompted the Cuban Missile Crisis - 13 days that took the World to the brink of all out nuclear war and likely destruction.
Fortunately Castro eventually backed down. Rather than risking direct war with the US-led NATO nations he instead dispatched Che Guevara to prepared armed revolutions across Latin America. Guevara himself was killed by the CIA in Bolivia in October 1967.
Although the NATO nations quickly secured the big Latin American states of Brazil, Argentina and Chile under Fascist military dictatorships this proxy war quickly spread across all other nations in the sub-continent. Prior to joining the July 26th Movement Che Guevara was particularly inspired by the suffering he'd seen in Central American nations such as Guatemala which were under the control of the American United Fruit Company. It is from those nations that we get the term; "Banana Republic."
Two of the most notable Latin American groups that Castro's Cuba supported were the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in Colombia and the Sandanista National Liberation Front (FSLN) in Nicaragua. In order to counter particularly the FSLN the US established the "Contras." When Congress cut off funding for the Contras in the early 1980's the CIA turned to the Medellin cocaine cartel run by Pablo Escobar. That started the Narco-wars that continue to ravage Latin America to this day.
To give you an idea about the strength of feeling regarding Fidel Castro that continues across Latin America to this day on October 3rd (3/10/16) Colombian voters rejected a peace deal with the FARC. Many of those who voted "No" did so because they said they simply could not trust a deal negotiated by Castro's Cuba.
The Arc of Resistance that Castro helped establish was not limited to Latin America. Instead it stretched across the globe as far as the Japanese Red Army (JRA) in Japan and of course the Viet Cong in Vietnam.
In the UK/Ireland there was the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA). The much more famous Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) were formed as a rejection of the Marxist anti-Imperialist, Internationalist movement in favour of a purely Nationalist Movement. Across continental Europe you had groups like Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) in Spain, the Red Army Faction (RAF) in West Germany, the Red Brigades in Italy and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in Turkey.
In response the NATO nations established the "Gladio Movement" starting in Italy made up of paramilitary groups such as the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) in Turkey, Plan Bleu in France and Absalon in Denmark to counter these Cuban backed groups.
At the heart of the Marxist anti-Imperialist, Internationalist movement there was always Palestine and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO). To this day at big global diplomatic events such as the United Nations you still hear echoes of the old Castro war cry of; "For the Palestinian Cause and the Third World!"
Of that third world Castro's Cuba was always very interested in Africa which Guevara saw as the weak link of western Imperialism. It is from this notion of pan-Africanism that you get US figures such as Malcolm X and groups like the Black Panther Party (BPP) and the Nation of Islam (NoI) along with the idiot holiday of Kwanzaa.
Castro's Cuba always viewed the third world's main weapon against Imperialism to be education. In 1960 he established Cuban Literacy Campaign which in the space of a year raised the percentage of Cubans who could read and write from 60% to 96%. Versions of this literacy campaign were always Cuba's main export to what is now termed the; "Developing World."
As a medical doctor Che Guevara also placed a huge priority on universal healthcare. Following his 1960 essay; "On Revolutionary Medicine" Cuba established a national system of healthcare with 58 doctors per 100,000 people, an infant mortality rate of 4.82 per 1000 births and a nation vaccination program that eradicated diseases such as Polio. Cuba's other great export to the developing world was medical professionals both to treat people and to train them.
However it must be said that prior to the Castro revolution healthcare in Cuba was ranked better than that in the UK, France and the Netherlands with the third lowest infant mortality rate in the world. The economic chaos caused by Castro's reforms also increased rates of diseases like Tuberculous and Hepatitis.
Apart from exporting teachers and doctors to Africa Castro's Cuba also supported a number of revolutionary wars there. Most notably Angola's brutal series of wars between 1961 and 1975. Here Castro's Cuba sent over 10,000 troops free of charge to support the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA).
As they'd done in Latin America and Europe the NATO nations also supported armed groups in Angola to counter the Communist MPLA - most notably the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). With UNITA being backed by Apartheid South Africa their eventual defeat by the MPLA has always been celebrated as a great victory for the anti-Apartheid movement making Castro something of a hero.
However I can't escape the feeling that if people like Castro weren't fighting to install Communist government's in places like Angola the NATO nations wouldn't have had to put up with Apartheid South Africa for so long.
After all the Cold War ended in 1990. Apartheid ended in 1991 which in geo-political terms is the blink of an eye.
So, yeah;
Fidel Castro: 1926 to 2016.
It was certainly a life.
18:25 on 3/12/16 (UK date).
That's because people who are old enough to remember her time in power either loved Margaret Thatcher or hated Margaret Thatcher. There was absolutely no middle ground. So whatever you said you were guaranteed to deeply offend someone.
Last Saturday (25/11/16) former President and Prime Minister of Cuba Fidel Castro died at the age of 90. For once I decided to follow my own advice.
In March 1952 General Fulgencio Batista seized power in Cuba in a military coup.
Almost devoid of any political ideology Batista was essentially just a criminal. We sometimes talk of nations being run as; "Mafia States." Batista's main backers were in fact the Italian-American Mafia. However seeing it as restriction on his crime spree Batista was nominally opposed to the Cuban Communist Party that had initially backed him. As a result he enjoyed some support from the US.
Shortly after Batista has seized power a young lawyer by the name of Fidel Castro challenged the result of the coup in Cuba's Courts. Having been defeated in his legal means Castro decided the only way to rid Cuba of Batista was armed struggle and revolution.
To this end he and his brother Raul Castro formed what was known as "The Movement." On July 26th 1953 (26/7/53) this small group of revolutionaries launched an attack on Batista's forces at the Moncada barracks in the Cuban city of Santiago and the Movement became known as; "The July 26th Movement."
The attack on Moncada barracks was an absolute disaster with 65 of Castro's 123 troops being killed. Having being captured both Fidel and Raul Castro were exiled to Mexico. There they met like-minded Argentinian revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara and along with others were trained in guerrilla warfare by Alberto Bayo who led the anti-Fascist Republican forces in the Spanish Civil War of 1936 to 1939.
While the Castro's were in exile Batista's rule had become so corrupt and so violent that another anti-Communist group - the Student Revolutionary Directorate (DRE) - staged an uprising against his rule in March 1957. Batista's crushing of that rebellion prompted the US to withdraw its support for him and impose an embargo on Cuba.
This American weakening of the Batista regime allowed Castro's July 26th Movement to fight their way down from the mountains to the city of Santa Clara on December 31st 1958 (31/12/58). With the Battle of Santa Clara lost Batista fled Cuba on January 1st 1959 (1/1/59) and Castro's choice of President - Manuel Urrutia - took up office on January 3rd (3/1/59). On February 16th (16/2/59) Fidel Castro became Cuba's Prime Minister.
One of Castro's first acts as Prime Minister was to appoint Che Guevara as Cuba's Supreme Prosecutor and put him in charge of the La Cabana Fortress prison camp. There Guevara summarily executed hundreds of soldiers, police officers, civilian servants and other civilians who were deemed to be; "Enemies of the Revolution." Sadly this type of revolutionary justice became a hallmark of Castro's 49 year rule over Cuba.
Almost immediately Fidel Castro resurrected Adolf Hitler's "Committees of Territorial Vigilance." Known in Cuba as the; "Committees for the Defence of the Revolution (CDR)" these were essentially an extreme form of neighbourhood watch with a designated person tasked with keeping detailed notes on every aspect of the lives of everybody in their street/apartment block.
Those the CDR's deemed to be involved in anti-Revolutionary activities were disappeared to re-education camps and firing squads.
Gay men were particularly targeted for their anti-Revolutionary activity often being kidnapped to psychiatric hospitals were they were subjected to electroshock therapy in an effort to convert them to heterosexuality. When HIV/AIDS emerged in the 1980's Castro declared that infection with the virus was a crime and jailed its carriers.
In April 1961 the US backed a group of Cubans who'd been exiled by Castro to launched a counter-revolution to oust him. They landed at Cuba's Bay of Pigs. In retaliation for this failed attempt to topple him in 1962 Castro invited the the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) to base nuclear missiles in Cuba. This prompted the Cuban Missile Crisis - 13 days that took the World to the brink of all out nuclear war and likely destruction.
Fortunately Castro eventually backed down. Rather than risking direct war with the US-led NATO nations he instead dispatched Che Guevara to prepared armed revolutions across Latin America. Guevara himself was killed by the CIA in Bolivia in October 1967.
Although the NATO nations quickly secured the big Latin American states of Brazil, Argentina and Chile under Fascist military dictatorships this proxy war quickly spread across all other nations in the sub-continent. Prior to joining the July 26th Movement Che Guevara was particularly inspired by the suffering he'd seen in Central American nations such as Guatemala which were under the control of the American United Fruit Company. It is from those nations that we get the term; "Banana Republic."
Two of the most notable Latin American groups that Castro's Cuba supported were the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in Colombia and the Sandanista National Liberation Front (FSLN) in Nicaragua. In order to counter particularly the FSLN the US established the "Contras." When Congress cut off funding for the Contras in the early 1980's the CIA turned to the Medellin cocaine cartel run by Pablo Escobar. That started the Narco-wars that continue to ravage Latin America to this day.
To give you an idea about the strength of feeling regarding Fidel Castro that continues across Latin America to this day on October 3rd (3/10/16) Colombian voters rejected a peace deal with the FARC. Many of those who voted "No" did so because they said they simply could not trust a deal negotiated by Castro's Cuba.
The Arc of Resistance that Castro helped establish was not limited to Latin America. Instead it stretched across the globe as far as the Japanese Red Army (JRA) in Japan and of course the Viet Cong in Vietnam.
In the UK/Ireland there was the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA). The much more famous Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) were formed as a rejection of the Marxist anti-Imperialist, Internationalist movement in favour of a purely Nationalist Movement. Across continental Europe you had groups like Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) in Spain, the Red Army Faction (RAF) in West Germany, the Red Brigades in Italy and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in Turkey.
In response the NATO nations established the "Gladio Movement" starting in Italy made up of paramilitary groups such as the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) in Turkey, Plan Bleu in France and Absalon in Denmark to counter these Cuban backed groups.
At the heart of the Marxist anti-Imperialist, Internationalist movement there was always Palestine and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO). To this day at big global diplomatic events such as the United Nations you still hear echoes of the old Castro war cry of; "For the Palestinian Cause and the Third World!"
Of that third world Castro's Cuba was always very interested in Africa which Guevara saw as the weak link of western Imperialism. It is from this notion of pan-Africanism that you get US figures such as Malcolm X and groups like the Black Panther Party (BPP) and the Nation of Islam (NoI) along with the idiot holiday of Kwanzaa.
Castro's Cuba always viewed the third world's main weapon against Imperialism to be education. In 1960 he established Cuban Literacy Campaign which in the space of a year raised the percentage of Cubans who could read and write from 60% to 96%. Versions of this literacy campaign were always Cuba's main export to what is now termed the; "Developing World."
As a medical doctor Che Guevara also placed a huge priority on universal healthcare. Following his 1960 essay; "On Revolutionary Medicine" Cuba established a national system of healthcare with 58 doctors per 100,000 people, an infant mortality rate of 4.82 per 1000 births and a nation vaccination program that eradicated diseases such as Polio. Cuba's other great export to the developing world was medical professionals both to treat people and to train them.
However it must be said that prior to the Castro revolution healthcare in Cuba was ranked better than that in the UK, France and the Netherlands with the third lowest infant mortality rate in the world. The economic chaos caused by Castro's reforms also increased rates of diseases like Tuberculous and Hepatitis.
Apart from exporting teachers and doctors to Africa Castro's Cuba also supported a number of revolutionary wars there. Most notably Angola's brutal series of wars between 1961 and 1975. Here Castro's Cuba sent over 10,000 troops free of charge to support the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA).
As they'd done in Latin America and Europe the NATO nations also supported armed groups in Angola to counter the Communist MPLA - most notably the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). With UNITA being backed by Apartheid South Africa their eventual defeat by the MPLA has always been celebrated as a great victory for the anti-Apartheid movement making Castro something of a hero.
However I can't escape the feeling that if people like Castro weren't fighting to install Communist government's in places like Angola the NATO nations wouldn't have had to put up with Apartheid South Africa for so long.
After all the Cold War ended in 1990. Apartheid ended in 1991 which in geo-political terms is the blink of an eye.
So, yeah;
Fidel Castro: 1926 to 2016.
It was certainly a life.
18:25 on 3/12/16 (UK date).
Thursday, 1 December 2016
Operation Featherweight: Month 29, Week 2, Day 4.
In my previous post on the topic I gave an overview of recent events in northern Syria.
Directly below those areas you have the only part of this entire war that the western media seem interested in: Aleppo City.
Certainly since 2012 Aleppo City has been divided into three areas.
Like much of the rest of Syria the western half of the city has remained loyal to the government of Bashar al-Assad. Therefore western Aleppo City has remained under the control of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA).
The east of the city has fallen under occupation by the Army of Conquest/Jaish al-Fatah (JAF). This is a broad coalition of Islamist insurgent groups.
The Army of Conquest is headed by the Support Front/Jabhat al-Nusra (ANF). They are the affiliate of The Base/Al Qaeda (AQ) in Syria. In an effort to disguise their links to Al Qaeda though in July 2016 they changed their name to the Front for the Conquest of the Levant/Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (JFS). However no-one recognises the attempt to re-brand and the group continues to be referred to as ANF and acknowledge to be Al Qaeda's affiliate.
The second major player within the Army of Conquest coalition is the Islamic Movement of the Freemen of the Levant/Harakat Ahrar al-Sham Islamiyya (Ahrar al-Sham). As the name suggests they share the Salafist Sunni ideology and methodology of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant/ad-Dawlah al-Islamiyah fi l-Iraq wa-sh-Sham (ISIL/Daesh). They are supported by a smaller but nastier group known as the Army of Islam/Jaish al-Islam (JAI). The Army of Islam have been known to behead members of ISIL for being too moderate.
Although they are not particularly active within Aleppo City a third powerful faction within the Army of Conquest is the United Turkmen Army (UTA). Sometimes referred to as the Syrian Turkmen Brigades (STB) these are irregular and therefore illegal brigades of the Turkish military. Specifically the Grey Wolves who are the paramilitary wing of the Turkish Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).
The Army of Conquest also features hundreds of fragments of what was the Free Syrian Army (FSA). The most active of these groups inside of Aleppo City are the Nour al-Din al-Zenki Movement/Harakat Nour al-Din al-Zenki. They take their name from Nour al-Din al-Zenki who was essentially appointed by the Ottoman Empire to rule over the Aleppo region during the 12th century.
Between 2014 and the program's closure in 2015 the Nour al-Din al-Zenki Movement were supplied with weapons and training under the US Train & Equip program. However as with the rest of Syria it is has become increasingly clear that operations within Aleppo City are being run by ANF and the Nour al-Din al-Zenki Movement are simply a sub-division of Al Qaeda.
The Army of Conquest is what people in the west mean when they refer to; "The Moderate Opposition."
In the north of Aleppo City there is the Sheikh Maqsood neighbourhood which is under the control of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF/QSD). This sits directly on the fault-line between the government control west of the city and the Army of Conquest occupied east.
Aleppo City is encircled by the Highway H212 ring-road which is known locally as the; "Castello Road."
On June 25th (25/6/16) the SAA launched an operation to secure the parts of the Castello Road that run around the Army of Conquest occupied east. This spawned the social media hashtag; "#PrayForSyria" amid accusations that Syrian control over the Castello Road would cause a humanitarian catastrophe in Aleppo City.
On July 7th (7/7/16) the SAA succeeded in securing what is termed; "Fire Control" over the Castello Road. This means they could control traffic on the road by virtue of the fact they could shoot it. By July 27th (27/7/16) SAA had succeeded in securing full control over the Castello Road meaning that not only could they stop other vehicles using the road they could use it themselves without fear of being shot at.
With Russian support the SAA then immediately set to work establishing four humanitarian corridors to allow civilians to escape from Army of Conquest occupied east Aleppo. These were located to the north in Bustan al-Pasha neighbourhood, to the centre in the al-Masharika neighbourhood, to the south in the Sheikh Saeed neighbour and to the south-west along the M5 Motorway north of the Hamdaniya district.
On July 31st (31/7/16) the Army of Conquest launched an offensive to break through the SAA's lines in two key areas; the Ramouseh district to south of the Castello Road and the al-Assad Military Academy which sits north of the Hamdaniya district and south of the M5 Highway. On August 1st (1/8/16) the SAA counter-attacked and by September 4th (4/9/16) had succeeded in reversing all of the Army of Conquest's gains.
By that time the diplomatic world was in the tense gap between the Summer Olympic games and the Summer Para-Olympic games. Having failed to get Turkey to withdraw it's invasion and occupation force from the area to the north of Aleppo City known as "Garvaghy Road" US President Obama was desperate for any kind of Olympic truce. With their election looming Russia was more than happy to grant Obama that truce on September 9th (9/9/16).
On September 19th (19/9/16) the Army of Conquest attacked a Red Cross/Crescent aid convoy in the town of al-Kubra which sits just outside Aleppo City. Their thinking was that this attack would be blamed on the Syrian government and that would provide a pre-text for the US-led coalition - Combined Joint Task Force: Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTFOIR) - to start providing them with air support as happened in Libya in 2011.
CJTFOIR did not join the war on the side of the Army of Conquest but with the truce broken on September 20th (20/9/16) the SAA backed by Russia resumed air operations against east Aleppo in preparation of a ground operation.
That ground operation began on September 24th (24/9/16) with the SAA succeeding in liberating the Aleppo Citadel in the centre of the city and the Sheikh Saeed neighbour to the south.
On September 27th (27/9/16) the SAA liberated the Farafira and al-Suweiqa neighbours in the Old City close to the Citadel. On September 29th (29/9/16) the SAA liberated the Handarat camp for Palestinian refugees just outside the city where the Army of Conquest had been beheading children. The also liberated the Shaqayf and Sheikh Kinder neighbourhoods to the north of the city.
On October 1st (1/10/16) the SAA launched an operation to liberate the Bustan al-Pasha neighbourhood which sits next to the SDF controlled Sheikh Maqsood and contains the northern humanitarian corridor.
As we've come to expect any potential loss by the Army of Conquest is accompanied by the usual claims of a humanitarian catastrophe and a social media campaign. This time using the hashtag; "#AleppoUnderSiege" which first appeared on September 20th (20/9/16).
In response to this social media campaign France brought a resolution to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) calling for operations in Aleppo City to end. This was vetoed by Russia on October 8th (8/10/16).
However on that same day Russia brought its own resolution to the UNSC. This was based on a suggestion by the UN's Special Envoy on Syria Steffen de Mistura that the Army of Conquest leave the areas of Aleppo City under their occupation in order to protect civilians. This resolution was vetoed by France, the UK and the US.
Despite the UNSC refusing to endorse the advice of its Special Envoy the Syrian government and Russia went ahead anyway. On October 17th (17/10/16) they declared a unilateral ceasefire to allow the Army of Conquest to leave - with their weapons - the areas of Aleppo City under their occupation. It almost goes without saying that the Army of Conquest refused this opportunity to protect the civilians under their areas of occupation.
Unperturbed by this on October 20th (20/10/16) Russia and Syria extended their unilateral ceasefire in order to allow civilians to escape east Aleppo via the four humanitarian corridors.
The Army of Conquest responded by heavily shelling the humanitarian corridors in an effort to stop civilians escaping from their clutches. The Turkish air force joined them in this effort by conducting airstrikes against the SDF controlled Sheikh Maqsood district which sits directly adjacent to the northern humanitarian corridor.
On October 21st (21/10/16) Syria and Russia declared that their unilateral ceasefire would continue indefinitely. With the offer to leave remaining open on November 19th (19/11/16) protesters gathered in east Aleppo demanding that the Army of Conquest set them free. The Army of Conquest responded by machine gunning the crowd of around 500.
On October 28th (28/10/16) the Army of Conquest decided to exploit Syria and Russia's unilateral ceasefire to launch a fresh offensive to break through the SAA's lines. This was focused on the Ramouseh district to south of the Castello Road.
For the first two days the SAA declined to break their ceasefire to defend themselves. However on October 30th (30/10/16) they started to counter the Army of Conquest's offensive. By November 12th (12/11/16) the SAA had succeeded in reversing all of the Army of Conquest's gains.
On November 15th (15/11/16) Russia also resumed its airstrikes in preparation for a ground operation. That ground operation was launched on November 22nd (22/11/16) in the north-east of the city.
On November 26th (26/11/16) the SAA succeeded in liberating the Masaken Hanano neighbourhood which sits to the east of the Sheikh Kinder neighbourhood that was liberated back in September. This prompted a full collapse of the Army of Conquest.
By November 28th (28/11/16) the Army of Conquest had lost control of 11 neighbourhoods in the north-east of Aleppo City. As they fled the Army of Conquest handed control of the Hellok and parts of the Bustan al-Pasha neighbourhoods which sit adjacent to the Sheikh Maqsood neighbourhood to the SDF.
As a result of that collapse the Army of Conquest are now limited to the Karm al-Myassar and Karm al-Jazmati neighbourhoods east of the Aleppo Citadel and the neighbourhoods such as al-Fardos which sit south of the Citadel but north of the Sheikh Saeed neighbourhood. They also continue to occupy the
Ramouseh district to south of the Castello Road and parts of the Sukkari neighbourhood to the west of al-Fardos.
As we've come to expect this latest series of defeats for the Army of Conquest has triggered the usual French calls at the UNSC for a ceasefire to protect them. Although no resolution was tabled that meeting took place yesterday (30/11/16).
You can't help but feel that if the UNSC actually gave a damn about the civilians of east Aleppo City they would call on the Army of Conquest to lay down their arms and surrender.
That would allow the remaining section of the city to be liberated without the need for further violence.
17:50 on 1/12/16 (UK date).
Directly below those areas you have the only part of this entire war that the western media seem interested in: Aleppo City.
Certainly since 2012 Aleppo City has been divided into three areas.
Like much of the rest of Syria the western half of the city has remained loyal to the government of Bashar al-Assad. Therefore western Aleppo City has remained under the control of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA).
The east of the city has fallen under occupation by the Army of Conquest/Jaish al-Fatah (JAF). This is a broad coalition of Islamist insurgent groups.
The Army of Conquest is headed by the Support Front/Jabhat al-Nusra (ANF). They are the affiliate of The Base/Al Qaeda (AQ) in Syria. In an effort to disguise their links to Al Qaeda though in July 2016 they changed their name to the Front for the Conquest of the Levant/Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (JFS). However no-one recognises the attempt to re-brand and the group continues to be referred to as ANF and acknowledge to be Al Qaeda's affiliate.
The second major player within the Army of Conquest coalition is the Islamic Movement of the Freemen of the Levant/Harakat Ahrar al-Sham Islamiyya (Ahrar al-Sham). As the name suggests they share the Salafist Sunni ideology and methodology of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant/ad-Dawlah al-Islamiyah fi l-Iraq wa-sh-Sham (ISIL/Daesh). They are supported by a smaller but nastier group known as the Army of Islam/Jaish al-Islam (JAI). The Army of Islam have been known to behead members of ISIL for being too moderate.
Although they are not particularly active within Aleppo City a third powerful faction within the Army of Conquest is the United Turkmen Army (UTA). Sometimes referred to as the Syrian Turkmen Brigades (STB) these are irregular and therefore illegal brigades of the Turkish military. Specifically the Grey Wolves who are the paramilitary wing of the Turkish Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).
The Army of Conquest also features hundreds of fragments of what was the Free Syrian Army (FSA). The most active of these groups inside of Aleppo City are the Nour al-Din al-Zenki Movement/Harakat Nour al-Din al-Zenki. They take their name from Nour al-Din al-Zenki who was essentially appointed by the Ottoman Empire to rule over the Aleppo region during the 12th century.
Between 2014 and the program's closure in 2015 the Nour al-Din al-Zenki Movement were supplied with weapons and training under the US Train & Equip program. However as with the rest of Syria it is has become increasingly clear that operations within Aleppo City are being run by ANF and the Nour al-Din al-Zenki Movement are simply a sub-division of Al Qaeda.
The Army of Conquest is what people in the west mean when they refer to; "The Moderate Opposition."
In the north of Aleppo City there is the Sheikh Maqsood neighbourhood which is under the control of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF/QSD). This sits directly on the fault-line between the government control west of the city and the Army of Conquest occupied east.
Aleppo City is encircled by the Highway H212 ring-road which is known locally as the; "Castello Road."
On June 25th (25/6/16) the SAA launched an operation to secure the parts of the Castello Road that run around the Army of Conquest occupied east. This spawned the social media hashtag; "#PrayForSyria" amid accusations that Syrian control over the Castello Road would cause a humanitarian catastrophe in Aleppo City.
On July 7th (7/7/16) the SAA succeeded in securing what is termed; "Fire Control" over the Castello Road. This means they could control traffic on the road by virtue of the fact they could shoot it. By July 27th (27/7/16) SAA had succeeded in securing full control over the Castello Road meaning that not only could they stop other vehicles using the road they could use it themselves without fear of being shot at.
With Russian support the SAA then immediately set to work establishing four humanitarian corridors to allow civilians to escape from Army of Conquest occupied east Aleppo. These were located to the north in Bustan al-Pasha neighbourhood, to the centre in the al-Masharika neighbourhood, to the south in the Sheikh Saeed neighbour and to the south-west along the M5 Motorway north of the Hamdaniya district.
On July 31st (31/7/16) the Army of Conquest launched an offensive to break through the SAA's lines in two key areas; the Ramouseh district to south of the Castello Road and the al-Assad Military Academy which sits north of the Hamdaniya district and south of the M5 Highway. On August 1st (1/8/16) the SAA counter-attacked and by September 4th (4/9/16) had succeeded in reversing all of the Army of Conquest's gains.
By that time the diplomatic world was in the tense gap between the Summer Olympic games and the Summer Para-Olympic games. Having failed to get Turkey to withdraw it's invasion and occupation force from the area to the north of Aleppo City known as "Garvaghy Road" US President Obama was desperate for any kind of Olympic truce. With their election looming Russia was more than happy to grant Obama that truce on September 9th (9/9/16).
On September 19th (19/9/16) the Army of Conquest attacked a Red Cross/Crescent aid convoy in the town of al-Kubra which sits just outside Aleppo City. Their thinking was that this attack would be blamed on the Syrian government and that would provide a pre-text for the US-led coalition - Combined Joint Task Force: Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTFOIR) - to start providing them with air support as happened in Libya in 2011.
CJTFOIR did not join the war on the side of the Army of Conquest but with the truce broken on September 20th (20/9/16) the SAA backed by Russia resumed air operations against east Aleppo in preparation of a ground operation.
That ground operation began on September 24th (24/9/16) with the SAA succeeding in liberating the Aleppo Citadel in the centre of the city and the Sheikh Saeed neighbour to the south.
On September 27th (27/9/16) the SAA liberated the Farafira and al-Suweiqa neighbours in the Old City close to the Citadel. On September 29th (29/9/16) the SAA liberated the Handarat camp for Palestinian refugees just outside the city where the Army of Conquest had been beheading children. The also liberated the Shaqayf and Sheikh Kinder neighbourhoods to the north of the city.
On October 1st (1/10/16) the SAA launched an operation to liberate the Bustan al-Pasha neighbourhood which sits next to the SDF controlled Sheikh Maqsood and contains the northern humanitarian corridor.
As we've come to expect any potential loss by the Army of Conquest is accompanied by the usual claims of a humanitarian catastrophe and a social media campaign. This time using the hashtag; "#AleppoUnderSiege" which first appeared on September 20th (20/9/16).
In response to this social media campaign France brought a resolution to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) calling for operations in Aleppo City to end. This was vetoed by Russia on October 8th (8/10/16).
However on that same day Russia brought its own resolution to the UNSC. This was based on a suggestion by the UN's Special Envoy on Syria Steffen de Mistura that the Army of Conquest leave the areas of Aleppo City under their occupation in order to protect civilians. This resolution was vetoed by France, the UK and the US.
Despite the UNSC refusing to endorse the advice of its Special Envoy the Syrian government and Russia went ahead anyway. On October 17th (17/10/16) they declared a unilateral ceasefire to allow the Army of Conquest to leave - with their weapons - the areas of Aleppo City under their occupation. It almost goes without saying that the Army of Conquest refused this opportunity to protect the civilians under their areas of occupation.
Unperturbed by this on October 20th (20/10/16) Russia and Syria extended their unilateral ceasefire in order to allow civilians to escape east Aleppo via the four humanitarian corridors.
The Army of Conquest responded by heavily shelling the humanitarian corridors in an effort to stop civilians escaping from their clutches. The Turkish air force joined them in this effort by conducting airstrikes against the SDF controlled Sheikh Maqsood district which sits directly adjacent to the northern humanitarian corridor.
On October 21st (21/10/16) Syria and Russia declared that their unilateral ceasefire would continue indefinitely. With the offer to leave remaining open on November 19th (19/11/16) protesters gathered in east Aleppo demanding that the Army of Conquest set them free. The Army of Conquest responded by machine gunning the crowd of around 500.
On October 28th (28/10/16) the Army of Conquest decided to exploit Syria and Russia's unilateral ceasefire to launch a fresh offensive to break through the SAA's lines. This was focused on the Ramouseh district to south of the Castello Road.
For the first two days the SAA declined to break their ceasefire to defend themselves. However on October 30th (30/10/16) they started to counter the Army of Conquest's offensive. By November 12th (12/11/16) the SAA had succeeded in reversing all of the Army of Conquest's gains.
On November 15th (15/11/16) Russia also resumed its airstrikes in preparation for a ground operation. That ground operation was launched on November 22nd (22/11/16) in the north-east of the city.
On November 26th (26/11/16) the SAA succeeded in liberating the Masaken Hanano neighbourhood which sits to the east of the Sheikh Kinder neighbourhood that was liberated back in September. This prompted a full collapse of the Army of Conquest.
By November 28th (28/11/16) the Army of Conquest had lost control of 11 neighbourhoods in the north-east of Aleppo City. As they fled the Army of Conquest handed control of the Hellok and parts of the Bustan al-Pasha neighbourhoods which sit adjacent to the Sheikh Maqsood neighbourhood to the SDF.
As a result of that collapse the Army of Conquest are now limited to the Karm al-Myassar and Karm al-Jazmati neighbourhoods east of the Aleppo Citadel and the neighbourhoods such as al-Fardos which sit south of the Citadel but north of the Sheikh Saeed neighbourhood. They also continue to occupy the
Ramouseh district to south of the Castello Road and parts of the Sukkari neighbourhood to the west of al-Fardos.
As we've come to expect this latest series of defeats for the Army of Conquest has triggered the usual French calls at the UNSC for a ceasefire to protect them. Although no resolution was tabled that meeting took place yesterday (30/11/16).
You can't help but feel that if the UNSC actually gave a damn about the civilians of east Aleppo City they would call on the Army of Conquest to lay down their arms and surrender.
That would allow the remaining section of the city to be liberated without the need for further violence.
17:50 on 1/12/16 (UK date).
Wednesday, 30 November 2016
The Next US Secretary of State?
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).
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).
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