I've not sure if I've mentioned this before.
Key to the defeat of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Syria and beyond is a roughly 100km (60 mile) stretch of Syria's northern border with Turkey. Known as; "Garvaghy Road" this spans between the Euphrates River to the east and the towns of Azaz/Kilis to the west.
On December 30th 2015 (30/12/15) the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF/QSD) liberated the Tishrin Dam from ISIL. This allowed them to cross the Euphrates into the Garvaghy Road area. On August 27th 2016 (27/8/16) the SDF were finally able to liberate the town of Manbij from ISIL. This sits roughly 30km (18 miles) west of the Euphrates within the Garvaghy Road area.
On the night of August 23rd (23/8/16) into August 24th (24/8/16) Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan dispatched the Turkish military to formally invade and occupy Syria within the Garvaghy Road area. The objective of this wholly illegal invasion was to prevent the SDF advancing further across the Garvaghy Road cutting ISIL's supply lines with Turkey.
On the first day of this invasion Erdogan's forces focused their attentions on the town of Jarablus. This sits right on the western bank of the Euphrates some 35km (21 miles) north of Manbij and directly on the border with Syria.
Once Jarablus had been seized Erdogan initially then planned for his forces to attack the SDF at Manbij. However under international pressure he was forced to divert his attentions westwards first to the town of al-Rai followed by Azaz on the western border of Garvaghy Road and then finally onto Marea which is around 20km (12 miles) south-east of Azaz.
Following the capture of of Marea in mid-to-late October Erdogan turned his forces attentions to the town of al-Bab in mid-to-late November. Located roughly 30km (18 miles) north-east of Aleppo City and 55km (33 miles) south-east of Manbij and sitting at the intersection of the M4 Motorway and the H212 Highway al-Bab is the key supply node within Garvaghy Road.
Al-Bab is a town of just 20kmsq (12 milesq). However some nearly three months after starting their operation Erdogan's forces have still not managed to capture al-Bab. The reason for this is that they haven't really been trying.
As within the rest of Garvaghy Road Erdogan's objective in al-Bab has not been defeat ISIL. Instead it has been to re-brand ISIL by absorbing ISIL members into the United Turkmen Army (UTA) who fight as an irregular and therefore illegal division of the Turkish military within Syria.
When Erdogan tried this trick in Jarablus he was widely mocked for the fact that this absorption of ISIL fighters into the UTA took less then 12 hours. Therefore within subsequent operations including particularly al-Bab Erdogan has gone to great lengths to make it seem more convincing. You would think that nothing would be more convincing than a long and arduous battle.
However if you look closely at the supposed battle for al-Bab while it has been long it has been far from arduous.
For example on January 31st (31/1/17) Erdogan's forces carried out 207 strikes against ISIL positions. However they only succeeded on hitting 30 targets. On February 1st (1/2/17) Turkey carried out 143 strikes but hit 14 targets. This gives them a success rate of 14% and 9% respectively. That is significantly lower then the near 100% success rate Erdogan's forces achieve when striking anti-ISIL forces both in Syria and Iraq.
During the 12 hour 'battle' for Jarablus Erdogan was also mocked for the spectacularly low casualty rate suffered by his forces. It was so low in fact it was precisely zero. Therefore in subsequent operations - particularly al-Bab - Erdogan's forces have suffered higher casualties.
However to put that in context you must remember that on July 15th 2016 (15/7/16) members of the Turkish military rose up to protect Turkish democracy from Erdogan's creeping dictatorship. During that night around 170 people were killed. 105 of them were members of the Turkish military who were killed by Erdogan supporters who either beat them to death with their barehands, beheaded them in the street or lynched them from the Bosporus Bridge.
Therefore I think it is fair to assume that Erdogan does not value the lives of Turkish soldiers in the same way that other nations value their soldiers.
Apart from the need to make it seem convincing Erdogan also hasn't been in a rush to capture al-Bab because victory there presents something of a poisoned chalice for him.
Erdogan has repeatedly told the Turkish people that his invasion is needed to eliminate what he describes as the terror threat the SDF presents to Turkey. In launching the operation Erdogan told the Turkish people that after Jarablus he would capture Manbij. Erdogan then told the Turkish people that after capturing al-Rai, Azaz, Marea and al-Bab he would then capture Manbij for the SDF.
The problem with this is that the SDF are backed by the US-led coalition - Combined Joint Task Force: Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTFOIR). Particularly now that former US President Obama has been replaced by current President Trump it seems extremely unlikely that CJTFOIR will tolerate Erdogan launching an assault against the SDF.
Therefore the moment that al-Bab is declared captured Erdogan faces a tough choice. He can either drag Turkey into a military confrontation with CJTFOIR or admit that he's lied to the Turkish people by acknowledging that his forces won't be attacking the SDF.
An ongoing battle for al-Bab has also allowed Erdogan to place himself in a strong position diplomatically. He has used to this in an attempt to play CJTFOIR and Russia off against each other.
Initially CJTFOIR refused to support Erdogan's operations in al-Bab. However then in late December Erdogan got Russia to support his operations in al-Bab. Fearing that Erdogan would take NATO member Turkey into a military alliance with Russia this prompted CJTFOIR to start supporting Erdogan's operations in al-Bab.
It is through this type of gamesmanship that Erdogan was able to force Russia into inviting the US to the Astana process talks held in Astana, Kazakhstan on January 23rd (23/1/17) and 24th (24/1/17).
However while the al-Bab operation has been dragging on Erdogan's wider plan has hit a bit of a snag.
Initially Erdogan intended to occupy Garvaghy Road - and particularly al-Bab - in order to supply ISIL to the south-east in Raqqa and the Army of Conquest/Jaish al-Fatah (JAF) coalition the south-west in Aleppo City. The UTA fight as part of the wider Army of Conquest coalition.
However on December 12th 2016 (12/12/16) the Syrians succeeded in liberating all of Aleppo City from the Army of Conquest. Since then the Syrians have been slowly advancing out of Aleppo City up the H212 road to al-Bab.
By January 28th (28/1/17) Syrian forces had advanced to within 7km (4 miles) of al-Bab. By February 7th (7/2/17) Syrian forces had encircled the south of al-Bab including liberating the M4 Motorway as it runs south to Raqqa - ISIL de facto capital in Syria.
On Thursday (9/2/17) the close proximity between Erdogan's forces and Syrian forces led to Erdogan's forces opening fire on the Syrian troops. This triggered a stand-off which it fell to Russia to defuse. Also on Thursday (9/2/17) Russia conducted an airstrike close to al-Bab which killed three regular members of Erdogan's forces.
Amid this growing pressure of the Syrian advance from Aleppo City Erdogan was forced to relent. On approximately January 31st (31/1/17) Erdogan announced that as soon as al-Bab had been secured he would withdraw his forces from the Garvaghy Road area ending the illegal occupation.
Erdogan also massively sped up efforts to end the battle of al-Bab. On February 2nd (2/2/17) Erdogan's forces carried out 244 strikes hitting 51 targets. That saw their success rate jump from 9% the previous day to 21% and it has been increasing daily. On February 8th (8/2/17) Erdogan declared that his forces had finally entered al-Bab from the south west.
However Erdogan's position changed dramatically on Friday (10/2/17). He has now reversed his pledge to withdraw his forces from Syria and is instead now pledging to advance a further 500km (300 miles) deep into Syrian territory in order to capture not only Manbij but also the cities of Raqqa and Palmyra.
What appears to have driven Erdogan's dramatic change of heart is the actions of three Judges sitting on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in the US city of San Francisco, California.
On Thursday (9/2/17) they dismissed an application by the US government to overturn a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) that had been imposed on President Trump's executive actions on immigration. I covered this extensively in posts entitled; "Washington v Justice" and "Washington v Justice: The Do Over."
As I explained in both of those posts the TRO hearing did not address the substance of the initial application. However the three San Francisco Judges did invoke a rarely used part of the US Constitution to apply a series of lower legal tests to the application. The implication being that the application would not pass the standard higher test.
In deciding whether to leave the TRO in place the San Francisco three had to weigh the possibility of financial or emotional harm caused by the executive orders against the actuality of physical harm caused by imposing the TRO. Under what is known as Tort law US Judges are obligated by around 300 years of precedent to give more weight to physical harm than financial or emotional harm.
In short by allowing the TRO to stand the San Francisco 3 have acted wholly unlawfully. They have done this in an effort to block the appointment of Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS).
Under the US Constitution one of the main jobs of SCOTUS is to oversee the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Although I don't have the exact figures in front of me I gather SCOTUS find that the 9th Circuit have failed to implement the law properly roughly 80% of the time.
As a result it is the job of the President with the backing of Congress to make appointments to SCOTUS. The 9th Circuit most certainly don't get to choose who oversees their work.
Therefore the San Francisco 3's actions are not only unlawful they border on a coup attempt. Not against President Trump but against SCOTUS and the US Constitution itself.
Erdogan has clearly looked at this attempted insurrection and the hole in the wall it has created and seen an opportunity.
Erdogan has calculated that if Trump were to exert pressure on him to end his meddling in Syria he can retaliate by sending terrorists disguised as Syrian refugees from camps in Turkey to carry out attacks against US civilians whilst this TRO is in place.
Just the same as he did on November 13th 2015 (13/1/15) in Paris France. Just the same as he did on March 22nd (22/3/16) in Brussels, Belgium. Just the same as he did on December 19th 2016 (19/12/16) in Berlin, Germany and as he attempted to do August 21st 2015 (21/8/15) aboard a train between Amsterdam, the Netherlands and Paris, France.
The US' vetting of refugees from camps inside Turkey relies heavily an organisation called the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) in conjunction with the Turkish Red Crescent. Both of these organisations affiliation with the International Committee of the Red Cross/Crescent (ICRC) is currently highly controversial at the moment to say the least.
On February 2nd (2/2/17) the headquarters of the SARC in Idlib City was partially destroyed in an airstrikes. The head of the Turkish Red Crescent immediately condemned this as another example of the Syrian government's crimes against its people claiming that 10 members of SARC's staff had been killed.
However that airstrike has since been claimed by the US. Far from being an accident this strike was a carefully planned, intelligence led strike against an meeting of Al Qaeda leaders. It killed 10. It was followed up by another strike on the same location on February 4th (4/2/17) which succeeded in killing Abu Hani al-Masri.
Abu Hani Al-Masri has been on the US' wanted list since 1998 when he masterminded an attack against the US Embassy in Tirana., Albania. He is reported to a close confident of Osama bin Laden and and a key envoy of current Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.
So a senior Al Qaeda figure infiltrating - at the highest level - an organisation responsible for vetting Syrian refugees directly before they travel to the US. That's certainly something that's changed since Obama's 2015 vetting review and the San Francisco 3's February 9th (9/2/17) ruling.
It almost goes without saying then that the San Francisco 3's - what can't legally be described as a - ruling has been vigorously mocked by the US' allies within CJTFOIR.
Almost immediately as the ruling was made public British police arrested a 44 year old man under the Terrorism Act as he stepped off a flight from Iraq and London's Gatwick airport. Immediately destroying the San Francisco 3's claim that people don't travel from Iraq for the purposes of terrorism.
The early hours of Friday (10/2/17) separate arrests were made in France and Denmark over plans to use the explosive TATP in separate suicide bomb attacks. Since the Paris Massacres TATP has become known as; "The Flower of Turkey." Clearly there's three people in San Francisco who want to see it boom in the hearts of all Americans.
On Sunday (12/2/17) Germany's Hamburg airport had to be evacuated after a toxic substance was released into the air conditioning system. Erdogan barely ever stops boasting about how effective his Sarin gas was at killing close to around a thousand people in the Damascus suburb of East Ghouta in August 2013.
The Hamburg incident actually seemed to be inspired by an episode of the US TV show; "NCIS: Los Angeles" entitled; "Greed." This centres around a Sudanese government sponsored Al Qaeda cell's attempts to release highly toxic Uranium into the air conditioning system of the Los Angles, California convention centre. As practice which is apparently known as; "Real Estating."
Even Poland who have a deep hatred of Russia started rounding on the San Francisco 3. On Friday (10/2/17) afternoon their Prime Minister Beata Szydlo suffered physical harm in a car accident.
When it comes to stage political coups against constitutions and Supreme Courts Ms Szydlo's Justice & Law Party (PiS) are something of the experts.
Since winning power in 2015 PiS having been trying to oust five Supreme Court Judges who were appointed by their rival Civic Platform (PO) Party. In their place PiS want to appoint Judges who will interpret Poland's constitution in the way the PiS want them to. As a consequence Poland has been sanctioned by the European Union (EU's) rule of law committee.
In making their - I'm going to go with - rant the San Francisco 3 are trying to block the appointment of Gorsuch because he is a textualist which is a traditional Republican approach to constitutional law. Instead the San Francisco 3 are trying to have an adjucant appointed. That is a traditionally Democrat approach to constitutional law.
So when even Poland are telling the San Francisco 3 that they've gone too far in trying to provoke a constitutional crisis it's a fair bet that the San Francisco 3 have gone far too far.
I gather even the California state capital Sacramento has started warning San Francisco and other cities in the state that 200,000 Americans are at great risk of physical injury and death so need to be evacuated.
At around 18:20 on 13/2/17 (UK date) I will pick this up after dinner.
Edited at around 19:50 on 13/2/17 (UK date) to add above.
21:15 on 13/2/17 (Uk date).
Monday, 13 February 2017
Friday, 10 February 2017
Washington V Justice: The Do Over.
This post is a follow on from; http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/washington-v-justice.html
Last night (9/2/17) the 9th Circuit Court of Appeal handed down its ruling on the Temporary Restraining Order (TRO). A pdf of that ruling can be downloaded here; http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2017/02/09/17-35105.pdf
In short what the Court has done is look at the submission of Washington and Minnesota (the States) and laughed it off as ridiculous.
However the Court has then made a new submission on the States behalf. They've done this by invoking an obscure element of the Constitution. Article 2, Section 3.
This allows Federal Courts to consider legal cases but also political controversies that are not included in any current case. For example the judgement goes on to discuss the question of whether a Muslim ban would be permissible under the 1st amendment freedom of religion clause.
The President's executive orders are demonstratively not a Muslim ban. For example it does not include Egypt. Egypt is the most populous Muslim Arab nation and has a significant terrorism problem.
As such if the executive order was intended to use the threat of terrorism to bring in a Muslim ban by the backdoor it would be very easy to include Egypt. The fact Egypt has not been included demonstrates that the executive orders place Muslim's rights above the threat of terrorism. Except in cases where the threat of terrorism is at the most extreme.
Therefore the Court has decided not to examine the executive orders themselves but a wider, almost philosophical, question that the President's political opponents has falsely assigned to the executive orders.
Deciding to hear the matter as a political controversy rather than a issue of law has allowed the Court to circumvent the questions of harm and standing.
Hearing the matter as a political controversy rather than a legal challenge allows the Court to apply a lower test of; "Harm." Previously the States needed to demonstrate that not issuing a TRO would cause; "Irreparable Harm." Now they merely need to demonstrate that it would cause; "Harm."
The example the ruling cites is that students at Washington or Minnesota University could be harmed if a guest lecturer from one of the seven nations was prevented from travelling to deliver a lecture. In itself this argument lacks credibility.
Tuesday's (7/1/17) hearing was not a physical hearing. Instead it was conducted as a teleconference with the Judges and lawyers spread across the US. It was also broadcast live globally both on traditional television and on the Internet.
Within efforts to protect the US from terrorism a significant figure is Anwar al-Awalaki. This US born member of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) al-Awalaki has long used the Internet to deliver sermons or lectures urging English speakers to take up arms and carry out lone-wolf terror attacks.
Anwar al-Awalaki was killed in Yemen on September 30th 2011 (30/9/11). However his lectures continue to live on and continue to inspire Americans to conduct terror attacks against the US. The April 15th 2013 (15/4/13) Boston Marathon bombings being a particularly famous example.
If in this modern age even death does not prevent someone delivering lectures to those who wish to hear them a travel ban certainly won't.
The ruling also uses the example of a foreign student who would be forced to take a sabbatical from their studies due to the ban. Obviously the university could not charge that student for tuition during that enforced sabbatical. Therefore the university would be harmed financially. However being denied payment for a service that has not been provided is not normally considered an example of; "Harm" under law.
The definition of; "Harm" rather than; "Irreparable Harm" is so broad though that it could include alarm, distress or otherwise hurt feelings caused by the matter being discussed in the public sphere.
Therefore in order to demonstrate standing the States merely have to demonstrate that there is a US citizen within their jurisdiction who is aware that the executive orders exist.
Even with this lower test the Court still needs to balance any potential for hurt feelings against the risk granting the TRO could lead to serious harm in the form of people being killed or seriously injured in terror attacks.
On this point the Court has declared that what is known as the threat profile to the US has not changed since the last time immigration vetting procedures were reviewed. This is simply not true.
The last review of vetting procedures was carried out in late 2015 following the San Bernardino terror attack. In October 2016 an operation was begun to liberate the Iraqi city of Mosul from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
This represents a significant set-back for the group. ISIL have responded to this by significantly increasing their use of terrorism in an effort to get revenge.
In January 2017 alone ISIL carried out 71 suicide bomb attacks within Iraq. These attacks were separate from the areas of direct combat such as Mosul and Anbar province. It may not have been reported on CNN but I certainly remember the first two weeks of 2017 in Baghdad. It was absolutely brutal.
At the same time that ISIL have intensified their efforts to use refugee/irregular migrant routes to dispatch fighters to nations such as the US in order to carry out attacks. Just last week the Quilliam foundation published an open source report detailing ISIL's use of sleeper cells within refugee camps to pay the smuggler fees of people who wish to carry out terror attacks.
These are the same camps that the US is importing refugees from.
I have also heard whispered rumours that ISIL itself has recently moved into the people smuggling business. Both to recoup lost revenue and to facilitate terror attacks. Obviously though that type of investigation requires the sort of covert intelligence gathering that prevents it from being discussed openly.
It is on this issue of intelligence gathering that the Court crossed the line from doing everything in its power to assist the States with their submission into openly abusing their position.
In Tuesday's hearing there was a discussion between the Judges and the Department of Justice lawyer over whether this type of secret intelligence could be reviewed in open Court. Obviously it can't be but it can be reviewed in closed Court by Judges with appropriate security clearance.
The ruling simply tears up what was said in Court and replaces it with what the Judges would have liked to have heard said in Court. It cites precedent that national security decisions can be reviewed in Court. However at no point has anyone claimed they can't be.
I suppose this could have been a genuine mistake on the part of the Judges. After all these type of fast exchanges can be hard to follow and perhaps an element of senility has begun to creep in with the 85 year old Judge Canby.
If that is the case then the Judges simply need to rescind their ruling, apologise for wasting everybodies time with their mistake and consider if they are any longer fit to continue as Judges.
However if they have wilfully tampered with evidence we need to take a serious look at the possibility of criminal proceedings against them.
After changing the submission and misinterpreting the evidence the Court has decided that the TRO will stay in place.
The reason for this is pretty obvious. The bulk of the executive orders expire after 90 days. This is not enough time for the matter to be brought before the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS). SCOTUS could decided to hear that matter as an almost redundant philosophical point but that is unlikely.
SCOTUS is currently short of one Judge with Trump's appointee Neil Gorsuch still needing to be confirmed by Congress. The confirmation of Gorsuch would present a significant problem for both the Democrat Party and the city of San Francisco - where the TRO case was heard.
Gorsuch is what is known as a; "Textualist." This means that he interprets the Constitution as it is written.
Democrats and even San Francisco Republicans much prefer what are known as; "Adjudicants" such as Ruth Bader Ginsburg. These are people who believe that they can interpret the Constitution not as it is written but as how they wish it were written.
I personally think that no adjudicant should ever be allowed to serve on SCOTUS. The purpose of a written Constitution is to act as a check on the power of politicians. If it can be reinterpreted to suit the political whims of the day then those protections are seriously undermined.
The ruling actual provides an example of the issue. It talks about the fifth amendment protecting life, liberty and property. A textualist would interpret this to mean what it says - people cannot be killed without due process. However an adjudicant would imagine the word; "family" appears in the sentence meaning the right to family life not just the right to life is protected.
This issue of a right to family life comes up frequently in discussion of illegal Hispanic immigration to the US. Particularly the issue of so-called; "Anchor Babies." It will certainly come up as San Francisco and other California cities fight the Federal government over their description of themselves as; "Sanctuary Cities."
So what the San Francisco Court has done last night is wildly abuse its authority in an attempt to block Neil Gorsuch's appointment to SCOTUS so the Sanctuary City case goes their way.
This is unacceptable behaviour by any Court but the San Francisco Court has decided to do it at the expense of US national security.
What makes it even worse is that yesterday they were presented with an alternative which would still allow them to try and rig SCOTUS in their favour but do so with threatening US national security. Beyond the threat that this type of Judicial abuse of power presents to the US that is.
Earlier yesterday a woman named Garcia de Rayos was deported from the US prompting violent protests and arrests in Arizona. Despite living in the US illegally and committing further crimes whilst in the US Ms de Rayos is married to a US citizen and has children who are US citizens.
Therefore Ms de Rayos' case would have provided Sanctuary Cities like San Francisco with ample opportunity to test the issue of a right to family life in front of SCOTUS without allowing people from camps were ISIL are known to be operating and planning attacks into the US.
So you could almost say of the activist Judges;
They were warned.
They were provided with an explanation.
They were even provided with an alternative.
Yet still they persisted.
12:20 on 10/2/17 (UK date).
Last night (9/2/17) the 9th Circuit Court of Appeal handed down its ruling on the Temporary Restraining Order (TRO). A pdf of that ruling can be downloaded here; http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2017/02/09/17-35105.pdf
In short what the Court has done is look at the submission of Washington and Minnesota (the States) and laughed it off as ridiculous.
However the Court has then made a new submission on the States behalf. They've done this by invoking an obscure element of the Constitution. Article 2, Section 3.
This allows Federal Courts to consider legal cases but also political controversies that are not included in any current case. For example the judgement goes on to discuss the question of whether a Muslim ban would be permissible under the 1st amendment freedom of religion clause.
The President's executive orders are demonstratively not a Muslim ban. For example it does not include Egypt. Egypt is the most populous Muslim Arab nation and has a significant terrorism problem.
As such if the executive order was intended to use the threat of terrorism to bring in a Muslim ban by the backdoor it would be very easy to include Egypt. The fact Egypt has not been included demonstrates that the executive orders place Muslim's rights above the threat of terrorism. Except in cases where the threat of terrorism is at the most extreme.
Therefore the Court has decided not to examine the executive orders themselves but a wider, almost philosophical, question that the President's political opponents has falsely assigned to the executive orders.
Deciding to hear the matter as a political controversy rather than a issue of law has allowed the Court to circumvent the questions of harm and standing.
Hearing the matter as a political controversy rather than a legal challenge allows the Court to apply a lower test of; "Harm." Previously the States needed to demonstrate that not issuing a TRO would cause; "Irreparable Harm." Now they merely need to demonstrate that it would cause; "Harm."
The example the ruling cites is that students at Washington or Minnesota University could be harmed if a guest lecturer from one of the seven nations was prevented from travelling to deliver a lecture. In itself this argument lacks credibility.
Tuesday's (7/1/17) hearing was not a physical hearing. Instead it was conducted as a teleconference with the Judges and lawyers spread across the US. It was also broadcast live globally both on traditional television and on the Internet.
Within efforts to protect the US from terrorism a significant figure is Anwar al-Awalaki. This US born member of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) al-Awalaki has long used the Internet to deliver sermons or lectures urging English speakers to take up arms and carry out lone-wolf terror attacks.
Anwar al-Awalaki was killed in Yemen on September 30th 2011 (30/9/11). However his lectures continue to live on and continue to inspire Americans to conduct terror attacks against the US. The April 15th 2013 (15/4/13) Boston Marathon bombings being a particularly famous example.
If in this modern age even death does not prevent someone delivering lectures to those who wish to hear them a travel ban certainly won't.
The ruling also uses the example of a foreign student who would be forced to take a sabbatical from their studies due to the ban. Obviously the university could not charge that student for tuition during that enforced sabbatical. Therefore the university would be harmed financially. However being denied payment for a service that has not been provided is not normally considered an example of; "Harm" under law.
The definition of; "Harm" rather than; "Irreparable Harm" is so broad though that it could include alarm, distress or otherwise hurt feelings caused by the matter being discussed in the public sphere.
Therefore in order to demonstrate standing the States merely have to demonstrate that there is a US citizen within their jurisdiction who is aware that the executive orders exist.
Even with this lower test the Court still needs to balance any potential for hurt feelings against the risk granting the TRO could lead to serious harm in the form of people being killed or seriously injured in terror attacks.
On this point the Court has declared that what is known as the threat profile to the US has not changed since the last time immigration vetting procedures were reviewed. This is simply not true.
The last review of vetting procedures was carried out in late 2015 following the San Bernardino terror attack. In October 2016 an operation was begun to liberate the Iraqi city of Mosul from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
This represents a significant set-back for the group. ISIL have responded to this by significantly increasing their use of terrorism in an effort to get revenge.
In January 2017 alone ISIL carried out 71 suicide bomb attacks within Iraq. These attacks were separate from the areas of direct combat such as Mosul and Anbar province. It may not have been reported on CNN but I certainly remember the first two weeks of 2017 in Baghdad. It was absolutely brutal.
At the same time that ISIL have intensified their efforts to use refugee/irregular migrant routes to dispatch fighters to nations such as the US in order to carry out attacks. Just last week the Quilliam foundation published an open source report detailing ISIL's use of sleeper cells within refugee camps to pay the smuggler fees of people who wish to carry out terror attacks.
These are the same camps that the US is importing refugees from.
I have also heard whispered rumours that ISIL itself has recently moved into the people smuggling business. Both to recoup lost revenue and to facilitate terror attacks. Obviously though that type of investigation requires the sort of covert intelligence gathering that prevents it from being discussed openly.
It is on this issue of intelligence gathering that the Court crossed the line from doing everything in its power to assist the States with their submission into openly abusing their position.
In Tuesday's hearing there was a discussion between the Judges and the Department of Justice lawyer over whether this type of secret intelligence could be reviewed in open Court. Obviously it can't be but it can be reviewed in closed Court by Judges with appropriate security clearance.
The ruling simply tears up what was said in Court and replaces it with what the Judges would have liked to have heard said in Court. It cites precedent that national security decisions can be reviewed in Court. However at no point has anyone claimed they can't be.
I suppose this could have been a genuine mistake on the part of the Judges. After all these type of fast exchanges can be hard to follow and perhaps an element of senility has begun to creep in with the 85 year old Judge Canby.
If that is the case then the Judges simply need to rescind their ruling, apologise for wasting everybodies time with their mistake and consider if they are any longer fit to continue as Judges.
However if they have wilfully tampered with evidence we need to take a serious look at the possibility of criminal proceedings against them.
After changing the submission and misinterpreting the evidence the Court has decided that the TRO will stay in place.
The reason for this is pretty obvious. The bulk of the executive orders expire after 90 days. This is not enough time for the matter to be brought before the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS). SCOTUS could decided to hear that matter as an almost redundant philosophical point but that is unlikely.
SCOTUS is currently short of one Judge with Trump's appointee Neil Gorsuch still needing to be confirmed by Congress. The confirmation of Gorsuch would present a significant problem for both the Democrat Party and the city of San Francisco - where the TRO case was heard.
Gorsuch is what is known as a; "Textualist." This means that he interprets the Constitution as it is written.
Democrats and even San Francisco Republicans much prefer what are known as; "Adjudicants" such as Ruth Bader Ginsburg. These are people who believe that they can interpret the Constitution not as it is written but as how they wish it were written.
I personally think that no adjudicant should ever be allowed to serve on SCOTUS. The purpose of a written Constitution is to act as a check on the power of politicians. If it can be reinterpreted to suit the political whims of the day then those protections are seriously undermined.
The ruling actual provides an example of the issue. It talks about the fifth amendment protecting life, liberty and property. A textualist would interpret this to mean what it says - people cannot be killed without due process. However an adjudicant would imagine the word; "family" appears in the sentence meaning the right to family life not just the right to life is protected.
This issue of a right to family life comes up frequently in discussion of illegal Hispanic immigration to the US. Particularly the issue of so-called; "Anchor Babies." It will certainly come up as San Francisco and other California cities fight the Federal government over their description of themselves as; "Sanctuary Cities."
So what the San Francisco Court has done last night is wildly abuse its authority in an attempt to block Neil Gorsuch's appointment to SCOTUS so the Sanctuary City case goes their way.
This is unacceptable behaviour by any Court but the San Francisco Court has decided to do it at the expense of US national security.
What makes it even worse is that yesterday they were presented with an alternative which would still allow them to try and rig SCOTUS in their favour but do so with threatening US national security. Beyond the threat that this type of Judicial abuse of power presents to the US that is.
Earlier yesterday a woman named Garcia de Rayos was deported from the US prompting violent protests and arrests in Arizona. Despite living in the US illegally and committing further crimes whilst in the US Ms de Rayos is married to a US citizen and has children who are US citizens.
Therefore Ms de Rayos' case would have provided Sanctuary Cities like San Francisco with ample opportunity to test the issue of a right to family life in front of SCOTUS without allowing people from camps were ISIL are known to be operating and planning attacks into the US.
So you could almost say of the activist Judges;
They were warned.
They were provided with an explanation.
They were even provided with an alternative.
Yet still they persisted.
12:20 on 10/2/17 (UK date).
Wednesday, 8 February 2017
Washington V Justice.
On January 27th 2017 (27/1/17) US President Donald Trump issued a series of executive orders. These paused travel from 7 countries to the US for a period of 90 days.
These executive actions triggered a slew of legal challenges.
On February 3rd 2017 (3/2/17) one such challenge by the US states of Washington and Minnesota resulted in a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) being granted by Judge James L. Robart in a Washington state Courtroom. This TRO applies nationally and prevents any of the executive actions being enforced.
Yesterday (8/2/17) evening the 9th Circuit Federal Court of Appeals heard an appeal by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) against the TRO. This hearing addressed only the lawfulness of the TRO rather than the lawfulness of the executive orders themselves.
However in order to do that the Appeals Court has to give prima facia (at first sight) consideration as to whether a legal challenge to the executive orders stands a reasonable chance of success. They must also consider whether the TRO is proportionate. In short if the legal challenge were to be successful would anyone - this could be a theoretical person - suffer irreversible harm under the order while the legal challenge is taking place.
Washington state who are bringing the challenge on behalf of both themselves and Minnesota case is focused on two issues.
The first of this is whether the President has the legal authority to issue such an executive order.
This is a relatively simple question to answer. The 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act gives the President what is known as a plenary power to take executive action to limit or stop entirely travel to the US on national security grounds.
However the Immigration and Nationality Act was amended in 1965. The main change was that the amended act prevented the US from issuing quotas for immigrants from certain nations. Washington hopes that this amendments makes the executive orders unlawful.
The problem with that argument is that the executive orders deal merely with travel to the US rather than immigration as path towards citizenship. There is nothing in them that prevents citizens from the 7 listed nations either within or outside of the US applying for US citizenship. They merely prevent all people including predominately tourists from visiting the US within the 90 day period.
What Washington seem to be resting their hopes on is that the path to US citizenship often features a residency requirement. In short you must be legally resident within the US for a set period of time to qualify for citizenship.
If a person who is already in the process of applying for citizenship is prevented from returning to the US due to the executive orders that would bar them from citizenship. Thus the executive orders would act as an immigration quota against the 7 listed nations for the purposes of the 1965 amendment.
However the US Citizenship & Immigration Service (USCIS) could chose to waive the residency requirement for applicants affected by the executive orders. If they decline the Courts could actually order them to.
Therefore any potential harm is not irreversible. It must also be balanced against the risk of harm to any US citizens who could potentially be killed or seriously injured in a terror attack.
The second plank of Washington's case is focused on whether the protections of the US Constitution limit the President's authority under the 1952 Act.
The problem with this is that Constitutional protections apply only to US citizens. During this discussion much has been made of the 14th Amendment - the equal protection clause. However this explicitly states that it only applies to natural born and naturalised US citizens. It doesn't apply to tourists or other visitors to the US.
Therefore in order to bring a Constitutional challenge Washington needs to demonstrate that a US citizen within Washington state is harmed by the order. Again this could be a theoretical rather than an actual person.
Probably the strongest example of this would be a US citizen who is prevented by the executive orders from spending time with a spouse or other close family member who is not a US citizen.
However USCIS has long required that spouses or other close family members must provide an Affidavit of Support before a foreign national is granted a visa to visit the US. If they are not able to provide this proof that they are able to support their spouse financially then no visa is granted.
As such it is well established within US immigration law that the Constitution grants no right to family life. Therefore restrictions can be placed by USCIS on the close family members and even spouses of US citizens.
Therefore it is my opinion that Washington has failed to demonstrate that the TRO is proportionate.
Also Washington have not only failed to demonstrate that the wider legal challenge has a reasonable chance of success they have even failed to demonstrate that they are able (have standing) to proceed with the legal challenge.
As such the Appeal Court have no option other than to dismiss the TRO and possibly the entire case.
17:20 on 8/2/17 (UK date).
These executive actions triggered a slew of legal challenges.
On February 3rd 2017 (3/2/17) one such challenge by the US states of Washington and Minnesota resulted in a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) being granted by Judge James L. Robart in a Washington state Courtroom. This TRO applies nationally and prevents any of the executive actions being enforced.
Yesterday (8/2/17) evening the 9th Circuit Federal Court of Appeals heard an appeal by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) against the TRO. This hearing addressed only the lawfulness of the TRO rather than the lawfulness of the executive orders themselves.
However in order to do that the Appeals Court has to give prima facia (at first sight) consideration as to whether a legal challenge to the executive orders stands a reasonable chance of success. They must also consider whether the TRO is proportionate. In short if the legal challenge were to be successful would anyone - this could be a theoretical person - suffer irreversible harm under the order while the legal challenge is taking place.
Washington state who are bringing the challenge on behalf of both themselves and Minnesota case is focused on two issues.
The first of this is whether the President has the legal authority to issue such an executive order.
This is a relatively simple question to answer. The 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act gives the President what is known as a plenary power to take executive action to limit or stop entirely travel to the US on national security grounds.
However the Immigration and Nationality Act was amended in 1965. The main change was that the amended act prevented the US from issuing quotas for immigrants from certain nations. Washington hopes that this amendments makes the executive orders unlawful.
The problem with that argument is that the executive orders deal merely with travel to the US rather than immigration as path towards citizenship. There is nothing in them that prevents citizens from the 7 listed nations either within or outside of the US applying for US citizenship. They merely prevent all people including predominately tourists from visiting the US within the 90 day period.
What Washington seem to be resting their hopes on is that the path to US citizenship often features a residency requirement. In short you must be legally resident within the US for a set period of time to qualify for citizenship.
If a person who is already in the process of applying for citizenship is prevented from returning to the US due to the executive orders that would bar them from citizenship. Thus the executive orders would act as an immigration quota against the 7 listed nations for the purposes of the 1965 amendment.
However the US Citizenship & Immigration Service (USCIS) could chose to waive the residency requirement for applicants affected by the executive orders. If they decline the Courts could actually order them to.
Therefore any potential harm is not irreversible. It must also be balanced against the risk of harm to any US citizens who could potentially be killed or seriously injured in a terror attack.
The second plank of Washington's case is focused on whether the protections of the US Constitution limit the President's authority under the 1952 Act.
The problem with this is that Constitutional protections apply only to US citizens. During this discussion much has been made of the 14th Amendment - the equal protection clause. However this explicitly states that it only applies to natural born and naturalised US citizens. It doesn't apply to tourists or other visitors to the US.
Therefore in order to bring a Constitutional challenge Washington needs to demonstrate that a US citizen within Washington state is harmed by the order. Again this could be a theoretical rather than an actual person.
Probably the strongest example of this would be a US citizen who is prevented by the executive orders from spending time with a spouse or other close family member who is not a US citizen.
However USCIS has long required that spouses or other close family members must provide an Affidavit of Support before a foreign national is granted a visa to visit the US. If they are not able to provide this proof that they are able to support their spouse financially then no visa is granted.
As such it is well established within US immigration law that the Constitution grants no right to family life. Therefore restrictions can be placed by USCIS on the close family members and even spouses of US citizens.
Therefore it is my opinion that Washington has failed to demonstrate that the TRO is proportionate.
Also Washington have not only failed to demonstrate that the wider legal challenge has a reasonable chance of success they have even failed to demonstrate that they are able (have standing) to proceed with the legal challenge.
As such the Appeal Court have no option other than to dismiss the TRO and possibly the entire case.
17:20 on 8/2/17 (UK date).
Monday, 6 February 2017
So I Super Bowled.
Yesterday (5/2/17) I wrote that due to the current war against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and associated groups I couldn't really justify staying up all night to watch the 51st Super Bowl - Super Bowl Xi.
In writing that I came to terms with the fact that I would have to stay up to watch it for exactly that reason. So I planned my evening accordingly. For example I didn't have lunch until 5pm and dinner until 9pm.
Part of that plan was that I didn't actually watch the first two quarters of the game. That was a good plan because it was bound to annoy me. When I did come back to watching close to half-time the Atlanta Falcons were beating the New England Patriots by 23-0. In short the Patriots were getting destroyed and it seemed certain that they would lose.
What was doing the damage was the Falcons' running back Davonta Freeman. He kept tearing through the Patriots defence. This seems to have all been done for the benefit of Judge James L. Robart who on Friday (3/2/17) had decided to get into the Super Bowl spirit by temporarily suspending US President Donald Trump's executive orders on immigration.
As I've said the Atlanta Falcons could be interpreted as a reference to a number of armed groups currently fighting in Syria. Particularly the Falcons of the Levant/Suqour al-Sham group. They fight as part of the Army of Conquest/Jaish al-Fatah coalition. Another large group within that coalition are the Islamic Movement of the Freemen of the Levant/Harakat Ahrar ash-Sham al-Islamiyya (Ahrar al-Sham).
Throughout the conflict Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor has blackmailed the US and particularly Europe into supporting ISIL and the Army of Conquest by threatening to dispatch terrorists to attack them if they don't give him what he wants. Judge Robart's legally unsupportable ruling allows Erdogan to follow through on that threat. In short he's thrown America's defences wide open.
It also sends out completely the wrong message. Erdogan has got to be looking at the protests and particularly Judges who are prepared to disregard the law to make a political statement and thinking that he has got a chance of bringing down President Trump. That makes it less likely that Erdogan will respond to diplomatic pressure. That in turn makes it more likely that conflict between the US and Turkey will become inevitable.
It turns out that the Falcons don't have a Sultan Mehmed playing for them.
In the final two quarters of the game the Patriots did slowly start to mount a comeback. With just two minutes left the Patriots tied the score at 28-28. This sent the game into sudden death overtime. A first in Super Bowl history. Four minutes into overtime James White scored a touchdown giving the Patriots a 34-28 victory.
Due to the pile of bodies on top of White as he crossed into the endzone this touchdown was sent to video review to confirm. However no-one told the stadium manager who immediately flashed messages on the video screens declaring the Patriots the winners and set off fireworks and confetti cannons in celebration. This forced the Falcons to concede the game before the video review confirmed that it had been a touchdown.
This greatest comeback in Super Bowl history serves as something of a metaphor for the 2016 US Presidential Election.
Represented by the Falcons here Hillary Clinton and her supporters were certain that they were going to win and nothing could stop them. Then following a surprising late rally they actually went on to lose. Although it took an agonisingly long time for Clinton to concede it's when they cancelled the fireworks and packed up the confetti cannons at what should have been the victory party you knew that they knew they'd lost.
The fact that the Patriots won their fifth Super Bowl meant that their star quarter back Tom Brady accepted the trophy from NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. You may remember that following their victory in the 2015 Super Bowl the Patriots were caught up in the so-called; "Deflategate" scandal. This all got very bad tempered and led to Goodell suspending Brady for the first part of this season.
I think Tom Brady just had the last word.
The big winner though was Lady Gaga who absolutely destroyed the halftime show in quite some style.
At around 12:45 on 6/2/17 (UK date) I'll be back to cover that shortly.
Edited at around 15:30 on 6/2/17 (UK date) to add;
Lady Gaga began her halftime show atop of the stadium roof. While surrounded by hundreds of retail type flying drones she sang; "God Bless America." This obviously a very patriotic song about America being one nation under (a Christian) God.
This entire sequence was a direct and overt rip-off of the 2016 Israeli Eurovision Song Contest entry; "Made of Stars" by Hovi Star. That too features hundreds of retail type drones in the video. Although it was done in the context of a wider discussion about religious and racial tolerance it expressed Israel's desire to be a solely Jewish state. One nation under the Star of David.
As such this sequence was a prime example of that bete noire of American liberals - Cultural Appropriation. It's almost like taking that phrase from the Jewish Torah; "To save one life is to save all of humanity" and falsely claim that it in fact comes from the Islamic Qu'ran.
Lady Gaga then merged God Bless America into; "This Land is Your Land" by Woodie Guthrie. That song actually has a Super Bowl history all of its own having featured in the inexplicably controversial 2015 "Beautiful Lands" commercial for the Jeep Renegade.
For the last nearly 400 years capitalist economic thought has been dominated by the work of John Locke. Often referred to as the Father of Liberalism John Locke was one of the leading thinkers in the Enlightenment movement. It was this movement that prompted English Pilgrims to board the Mayflower to establish the New England colonies in 1620.
Aside from writing the Constitution of what is now the US state of Carolina one of Locke's most important works is his Labour Theory of Property.
This asserts that because the natural environment is a gift from God it is only by applying labour - work - that people can take ownership of the natural environment turning it into their property. This theory drives the Homestead Principle on which America was built. In short if you farm a patch of land through your hardwork that land becomes your property.
Woodie Guthrie was a hardcore Communist. The song This Land is Your Land is a protest against Locke's Labour Theory of Property. It argues that the natural environment is shared by all and can be owned by none.
In the run-up to the December 2015 Paris Climate change conference the conflict between Locke and Guthrie's theories of property was an extremely hot topic. In short before former US President Obama ruined everything people were trying to develop a mechanism to allow Greenhouse Gas (ghg) absorbing Rainforests to generate money without labour being applied to cut them down. Essentially reversing Locke's Labour Theory of Property.
The model of Jeep Renegade being sold by the Beautiful Lands commercial was the lightest, most fuel effcient, least ghg emitting model Jeep had ever made.
Therefore the use of This Land is Your Land was intended to signal to US environmental protesters that Jeep had got the message and could they please stop burning down their dealerships. It even ends with the; "Water is Life" slogan that has been recently popularised by the Dakota Access Pipeline protests.
The 2015 commercial features brief glimpses of stereotypically Gulf Arab imagery such as Bedouins on Camels and a woman wearing a Hijab in the desert. This was intended in part to show that America is a responsible and inclusive country and that Jeep is a responsible and inclusive company.
However is was also a suggestion that perhaps the environmental protesters could focus their attention on the Gulf Arab states such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia who are very opposed to action on Climate Change. After all they've got extremely rich expending a tiny amount of labour extracting oil and gas from the natural environment.
This brief glimpse of a woman in a Hijab prompted a bit of a backlash against the commercial. Or more accurately it prompted the Qatari owned, Muslim Brotherhood operated 'news' outlet Al Jazeera to claim that there'd been a backlash in order to whip up anti-American sentiment in Muslim nations by claiming the US was Islamaphobic.
During the furore the US under Obama crashed a train in to a Jeep at a crossing in Valhalla, New York state. This was done in support of ISIL and in mockery of Jordan over their pilot Muath al-Kasasbeh whom ISIL had burnt alive just a few weeks previously.
Since then This Land is Your Land has become something of a battle cry for the Muslim Brotherhood even though they've completely misunderstood its meaning.
I'm surprised it didn't put in an appearance at the January 21st 2017 (21/1/17) Muslim Brotherhood organised "Sister Marches" against Donald Trump. Along with earnest beat poetry someone playing a terrible cover version of This Land is Your Land on a battered acoustic guitar is the ultimate cheesy stereotype of leftwing protest marches.
Prior to the Super Bowl three female cast members of the massively hyped "Hamilton" musical performed the song; "American the Beautiful."
However in an act of protest they changed the lyric; "And crown thy good with brotherhood" to; "And crown thy good with Sisterhood." Thus demonstrating that they'd spectacularly misread the conversation.
Following that light opening Lady Gaga then descended into a post-industrial hellscape on a stage in the centre of the arena. This was heavily inspired by the "Mad Max" movies.
"Mad Max: Fury Road" was one of the huge movies at the 2016 Oscars. It's about a group of sex slaves who escape captivity to form a militia to defeat the war lords who'd held them prisoner. In short it served as a metaphor for the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) - or more accurately the feminine YPJ - fight against ISIL. The was the most successful film at the Oscars winning 6 awards.
Next Lady Gaga performed part of her 2009 hit "Telephone" which she released with Beyonce who stole the show during Coldplay's Super Bowl performance last year. Lady Gaga's own Super Bowl appearance was rather overshadowed by Beyonce's announcement last week that she is pregnant.
The fact that Beyonce is expecting twins could possibly suggest that her pregnancy was the result of IVF treatment in a lab rather than a natural conception. As a result this was a good moment to start the silly showbiz rumour that Beyonce planned her pregnancy specifically to steal the spotlight from whomever was doing the Super Bowl show this year. After all it would lighten the mood.
Lady Gaga then went on to perform her 2011 hit "Born This Way." This is a gay rights protest song making clear that being gay is not a choice. This sequence was unapologetically a gay rights protest. Lady Gaga was accompanied by dancers wearing purple. Although the Rainbow flag is more well known within Anarchist circles purple is used to signal specific support for gay rights.
It also seemed to be a tribute to Prince who died over the course of the past year. His 1984 "Purple Rain" album really helped traditionally black music break through into the mainstream. At the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest this issue of; "The Black Music" was used as a coded way for nations to express support or opposition to Obama. The Song Contest is normally very strict about it's no overt political messages rule.
Lady Gaga then led the specially assembled crowd of her super fans in a sort of Torch Lit rally.
Every year the people of Shamali Province (nee; Ukraine) hold a Torch Lit rally on January 1st to celebrate their hero Stepan Bandera. During the Second World War Bandera fought for Nazi Germany's Waffen SS division and was an enthusiastic participant in the Holocaust.
It's very hard to watch a rally celebrating Bandera and be left thinking that the Russians are the bad guys in this situation.
Lady Gaga herself attended a big campaign rally for Hillary Clinton on the eve of the November 8th 2016 (8/11/16) US Presidential election. After being whipped up into a frenzy the crowd were then marched to the polling booths to vote for Hillary Clinton.
The whole spectacle rather resembled one of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler's Nuremburg rallies. Lady Gaga turned up in a black tunic with a red arm band. Basically a Waffen SS uniform.
I think it is fair to assume that Lady Gaga's support for Hillary Clinton has ended.
Finally Lady Gaga was joined on stage by male dancers wearing American Football helmets and not much else. Specifically they were wearing White Helmets.
Within Syria the White Helmets are the propaganda arm of the Army of Conquest terror coalition which much of the western media seems to have fallen head-over-heels in love with. Demonstrating the extent to which they are made of lies the White Helmets have chosen as their motto the quote from the Torah; "To save one life is to save all of humanity" which they falsely claim is taken from the Qu'ran. We wish them luck at the Oscars.
The song playing while Lady Gaga was joined by these White Helmets was her 2009 hit; "Bad Romance."
So Lady Gaga's halftime show was intensely political. Not only that it managed to make extremely detailed references to what are quite complex political issues. The best bit is that it was all done so subtly that most people seem to have completely failed to notice.
Even Hillary Clinton took to Twitter to congratulate her on the message they both share. That is despite it being a 15 minute mockery of Hillary Clinton. However that is not to be confused with support for President Trump.
If Lady Gaga could manage to compress it all into just three minutes that was serious Eurovision Song Contest level work.
At around 17:15 on 6/2/17 (UK date) I need to take moment to consider the commercials.
Edited at around 19:40 on 6/2/17 (UK date) to add;
From a cultural perspective alongside the half-time show the commercials are the most important part of any Super Bowl. However for me they are also the most time consuming.
In part this is because there are just so many of them. Mainly though it's because here in the UK we don't the commercials as part of the coverage. As a result unless a commercial was so widely talked about that it trended on Twitter I have to spend a couple of days trying to track them down to watch on the Internet.
Due to time constraints I won't be doing that this year. I will though look at some of the most talked about commercials this year. They all focused on the political theme of immigration.
First up there was the Budweiser commercial; "Born the Hard Way" which was actually released prior to the game; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtBZvl7dIu4
It tells the story of Budweiser co-founder Eberhard Anheuser's journey to America as an immigrant and his eventual meeting with Andulphous Busch with whom he founded the company. Some people have interpreted this as a protest against President Trump and his calls for better immigration controls.
However those people probably don't realise that Anheuser was an immigrant from Germany. President Trump is the son of German immigrants. Budweiser obviously think that their beer is the best thing ever to happen to America.
In one scene Anheuser is show sitting on a raft alongside a black man who could be a reference to former President Obama. In the next scene a boat is seen ablaze in a scene of fiery destruction. This could be viewed as a sharp criticism of the way Obama tried to burn America to the ground in order to make the place ungovernable for President Trump.
Then there is the Airbnb commercial; "We Accept;" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yetFk7QoSck
This commercial was so political that I heard about it because former US Secretary of State John Kerry re-Tweeted former UK Foreign Minister David Miliband Tweeting about it. The very unsubtle message of the commercial is that regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation etc Airbnb will accept you.
This commercial comes hot on the heels of Airbnb announcing that it will house anyone affected by President Trump's executive orders on immigration. In short Airbnb have looked at the millions of people joining the Muslim Brotherhood's anti-Trump protests and gone;
"Wow! There's a lot of morons we can con out of their money and their rights."
If you suffer from Obama levels of anti-Semitism you might even talk about Airbnb viewing the protesters as; "Goy" which is generally used a Hebrew insult for people who are worth less than cattle.
It is an example of capitalism at its most cynical and its most exploitative. It is exactly what you would expect from a company with a record as appalling as Airbnb's. Wherever the company operates it stands accused of wilfully breaking local laws in order remove the supply of longterm rental accommodation in order to drive up rents.
In New York City alone 55% of Airbnb's listings are illegal and they are blamed for causing rates of homeless not seen since the Great Depression; http://www.sharebetter.org/story/new-report-shows-how-airbnb-short-term-rentals-have-hijacked-nyc-housing-market/
In short Airbnb perfectly represent exactly the sort of exploitive authoritarian capitalism that former politicians like David Miliband and Hillary Clinton worship.
Finally there is the untitled commercial for US construction supply company 84 Lumber; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPo2B-vjZ28
This begins with a young girl waking her mother in some unspecified Hispanic south American nation. Don't assume that everything south of Texas is Mexico. Together the two look at photographs of the absent father is away working - presumably illegally - in construction in the US.
The two then embark on a long perilous journey to be reunited with the father in America. Throughout the journey the girl picks up scraps of coloured plastic which she shapes into a US flag.
At one point in the journey the pair are shown coming face-to-face with literally a Coyote. This is slang term for the often drug cartel linked people traffickers who control this trade in human suffering. The pair are also shown walking along train tracks and struggling to jump on and off moving trains. The number of what I would consider refugees killed and maimed in train accidents as they try to make it to Mexico let alone the US is truly shocking.
When the pair arrive at the US border they discover a wall blocking their illegal crossing. But then suddenly the father appears and he's built a door within the border wall made with timber supplied by 84 Lumber.
The Fox network actually refused to air this commercial in its entirety specifically because it featured a border wall.
It's clear that the message 84 Lumber were trying to send is that they are a deeply caring company that will stand with America as it battles racist President Trump.
However the message they were actually sending is that 84 Lumber would rather break up families and subject very young children to death, serious injury and sexual exploitation that obey labour laws and pay their workers properly.
Woody Guthrie's "Do Re Mi" set to footage of the Great Depression seemed the only appropriate response;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0H9_uy-qX8
20:55 on 6/2/17 (UK date).
In writing that I came to terms with the fact that I would have to stay up to watch it for exactly that reason. So I planned my evening accordingly. For example I didn't have lunch until 5pm and dinner until 9pm.
Part of that plan was that I didn't actually watch the first two quarters of the game. That was a good plan because it was bound to annoy me. When I did come back to watching close to half-time the Atlanta Falcons were beating the New England Patriots by 23-0. In short the Patriots were getting destroyed and it seemed certain that they would lose.
What was doing the damage was the Falcons' running back Davonta Freeman. He kept tearing through the Patriots defence. This seems to have all been done for the benefit of Judge James L. Robart who on Friday (3/2/17) had decided to get into the Super Bowl spirit by temporarily suspending US President Donald Trump's executive orders on immigration.
As I've said the Atlanta Falcons could be interpreted as a reference to a number of armed groups currently fighting in Syria. Particularly the Falcons of the Levant/Suqour al-Sham group. They fight as part of the Army of Conquest/Jaish al-Fatah coalition. Another large group within that coalition are the Islamic Movement of the Freemen of the Levant/Harakat Ahrar ash-Sham al-Islamiyya (Ahrar al-Sham).
Throughout the conflict Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor has blackmailed the US and particularly Europe into supporting ISIL and the Army of Conquest by threatening to dispatch terrorists to attack them if they don't give him what he wants. Judge Robart's legally unsupportable ruling allows Erdogan to follow through on that threat. In short he's thrown America's defences wide open.
It also sends out completely the wrong message. Erdogan has got to be looking at the protests and particularly Judges who are prepared to disregard the law to make a political statement and thinking that he has got a chance of bringing down President Trump. That makes it less likely that Erdogan will respond to diplomatic pressure. That in turn makes it more likely that conflict between the US and Turkey will become inevitable.
It turns out that the Falcons don't have a Sultan Mehmed playing for them.
In the final two quarters of the game the Patriots did slowly start to mount a comeback. With just two minutes left the Patriots tied the score at 28-28. This sent the game into sudden death overtime. A first in Super Bowl history. Four minutes into overtime James White scored a touchdown giving the Patriots a 34-28 victory.
Due to the pile of bodies on top of White as he crossed into the endzone this touchdown was sent to video review to confirm. However no-one told the stadium manager who immediately flashed messages on the video screens declaring the Patriots the winners and set off fireworks and confetti cannons in celebration. This forced the Falcons to concede the game before the video review confirmed that it had been a touchdown.
This greatest comeback in Super Bowl history serves as something of a metaphor for the 2016 US Presidential Election.
Represented by the Falcons here Hillary Clinton and her supporters were certain that they were going to win and nothing could stop them. Then following a surprising late rally they actually went on to lose. Although it took an agonisingly long time for Clinton to concede it's when they cancelled the fireworks and packed up the confetti cannons at what should have been the victory party you knew that they knew they'd lost.
The fact that the Patriots won their fifth Super Bowl meant that their star quarter back Tom Brady accepted the trophy from NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. You may remember that following their victory in the 2015 Super Bowl the Patriots were caught up in the so-called; "Deflategate" scandal. This all got very bad tempered and led to Goodell suspending Brady for the first part of this season.
I think Tom Brady just had the last word.
The big winner though was Lady Gaga who absolutely destroyed the halftime show in quite some style.
At around 12:45 on 6/2/17 (UK date) I'll be back to cover that shortly.
Edited at around 15:30 on 6/2/17 (UK date) to add;
Lady Gaga began her halftime show atop of the stadium roof. While surrounded by hundreds of retail type flying drones she sang; "God Bless America." This obviously a very patriotic song about America being one nation under (a Christian) God.
This entire sequence was a direct and overt rip-off of the 2016 Israeli Eurovision Song Contest entry; "Made of Stars" by Hovi Star. That too features hundreds of retail type drones in the video. Although it was done in the context of a wider discussion about religious and racial tolerance it expressed Israel's desire to be a solely Jewish state. One nation under the Star of David.
As such this sequence was a prime example of that bete noire of American liberals - Cultural Appropriation. It's almost like taking that phrase from the Jewish Torah; "To save one life is to save all of humanity" and falsely claim that it in fact comes from the Islamic Qu'ran.
Lady Gaga then merged God Bless America into; "This Land is Your Land" by Woodie Guthrie. That song actually has a Super Bowl history all of its own having featured in the inexplicably controversial 2015 "Beautiful Lands" commercial for the Jeep Renegade.
For the last nearly 400 years capitalist economic thought has been dominated by the work of John Locke. Often referred to as the Father of Liberalism John Locke was one of the leading thinkers in the Enlightenment movement. It was this movement that prompted English Pilgrims to board the Mayflower to establish the New England colonies in 1620.
Aside from writing the Constitution of what is now the US state of Carolina one of Locke's most important works is his Labour Theory of Property.
This asserts that because the natural environment is a gift from God it is only by applying labour - work - that people can take ownership of the natural environment turning it into their property. This theory drives the Homestead Principle on which America was built. In short if you farm a patch of land through your hardwork that land becomes your property.
Woodie Guthrie was a hardcore Communist. The song This Land is Your Land is a protest against Locke's Labour Theory of Property. It argues that the natural environment is shared by all and can be owned by none.
In the run-up to the December 2015 Paris Climate change conference the conflict between Locke and Guthrie's theories of property was an extremely hot topic. In short before former US President Obama ruined everything people were trying to develop a mechanism to allow Greenhouse Gas (ghg) absorbing Rainforests to generate money without labour being applied to cut them down. Essentially reversing Locke's Labour Theory of Property.
The model of Jeep Renegade being sold by the Beautiful Lands commercial was the lightest, most fuel effcient, least ghg emitting model Jeep had ever made.
Therefore the use of This Land is Your Land was intended to signal to US environmental protesters that Jeep had got the message and could they please stop burning down their dealerships. It even ends with the; "Water is Life" slogan that has been recently popularised by the Dakota Access Pipeline protests.
The 2015 commercial features brief glimpses of stereotypically Gulf Arab imagery such as Bedouins on Camels and a woman wearing a Hijab in the desert. This was intended in part to show that America is a responsible and inclusive country and that Jeep is a responsible and inclusive company.
However is was also a suggestion that perhaps the environmental protesters could focus their attention on the Gulf Arab states such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia who are very opposed to action on Climate Change. After all they've got extremely rich expending a tiny amount of labour extracting oil and gas from the natural environment.
This brief glimpse of a woman in a Hijab prompted a bit of a backlash against the commercial. Or more accurately it prompted the Qatari owned, Muslim Brotherhood operated 'news' outlet Al Jazeera to claim that there'd been a backlash in order to whip up anti-American sentiment in Muslim nations by claiming the US was Islamaphobic.
During the furore the US under Obama crashed a train in to a Jeep at a crossing in Valhalla, New York state. This was done in support of ISIL and in mockery of Jordan over their pilot Muath al-Kasasbeh whom ISIL had burnt alive just a few weeks previously.
Since then This Land is Your Land has become something of a battle cry for the Muslim Brotherhood even though they've completely misunderstood its meaning.
I'm surprised it didn't put in an appearance at the January 21st 2017 (21/1/17) Muslim Brotherhood organised "Sister Marches" against Donald Trump. Along with earnest beat poetry someone playing a terrible cover version of This Land is Your Land on a battered acoustic guitar is the ultimate cheesy stereotype of leftwing protest marches.
Prior to the Super Bowl three female cast members of the massively hyped "Hamilton" musical performed the song; "American the Beautiful."
However in an act of protest they changed the lyric; "And crown thy good with brotherhood" to; "And crown thy good with Sisterhood." Thus demonstrating that they'd spectacularly misread the conversation.
Following that light opening Lady Gaga then descended into a post-industrial hellscape on a stage in the centre of the arena. This was heavily inspired by the "Mad Max" movies.
"Mad Max: Fury Road" was one of the huge movies at the 2016 Oscars. It's about a group of sex slaves who escape captivity to form a militia to defeat the war lords who'd held them prisoner. In short it served as a metaphor for the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) - or more accurately the feminine YPJ - fight against ISIL. The was the most successful film at the Oscars winning 6 awards.
Next Lady Gaga performed part of her 2009 hit "Telephone" which she released with Beyonce who stole the show during Coldplay's Super Bowl performance last year. Lady Gaga's own Super Bowl appearance was rather overshadowed by Beyonce's announcement last week that she is pregnant.
The fact that Beyonce is expecting twins could possibly suggest that her pregnancy was the result of IVF treatment in a lab rather than a natural conception. As a result this was a good moment to start the silly showbiz rumour that Beyonce planned her pregnancy specifically to steal the spotlight from whomever was doing the Super Bowl show this year. After all it would lighten the mood.
Lady Gaga then went on to perform her 2011 hit "Born This Way." This is a gay rights protest song making clear that being gay is not a choice. This sequence was unapologetically a gay rights protest. Lady Gaga was accompanied by dancers wearing purple. Although the Rainbow flag is more well known within Anarchist circles purple is used to signal specific support for gay rights.
It also seemed to be a tribute to Prince who died over the course of the past year. His 1984 "Purple Rain" album really helped traditionally black music break through into the mainstream. At the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest this issue of; "The Black Music" was used as a coded way for nations to express support or opposition to Obama. The Song Contest is normally very strict about it's no overt political messages rule.
Lady Gaga then led the specially assembled crowd of her super fans in a sort of Torch Lit rally.
Every year the people of Shamali Province (nee; Ukraine) hold a Torch Lit rally on January 1st to celebrate their hero Stepan Bandera. During the Second World War Bandera fought for Nazi Germany's Waffen SS division and was an enthusiastic participant in the Holocaust.
It's very hard to watch a rally celebrating Bandera and be left thinking that the Russians are the bad guys in this situation.
Lady Gaga herself attended a big campaign rally for Hillary Clinton on the eve of the November 8th 2016 (8/11/16) US Presidential election. After being whipped up into a frenzy the crowd were then marched to the polling booths to vote for Hillary Clinton.
The whole spectacle rather resembled one of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler's Nuremburg rallies. Lady Gaga turned up in a black tunic with a red arm band. Basically a Waffen SS uniform.
I think it is fair to assume that Lady Gaga's support for Hillary Clinton has ended.
Finally Lady Gaga was joined on stage by male dancers wearing American Football helmets and not much else. Specifically they were wearing White Helmets.
Within Syria the White Helmets are the propaganda arm of the Army of Conquest terror coalition which much of the western media seems to have fallen head-over-heels in love with. Demonstrating the extent to which they are made of lies the White Helmets have chosen as their motto the quote from the Torah; "To save one life is to save all of humanity" which they falsely claim is taken from the Qu'ran. We wish them luck at the Oscars.
The song playing while Lady Gaga was joined by these White Helmets was her 2009 hit; "Bad Romance."
So Lady Gaga's halftime show was intensely political. Not only that it managed to make extremely detailed references to what are quite complex political issues. The best bit is that it was all done so subtly that most people seem to have completely failed to notice.
Even Hillary Clinton took to Twitter to congratulate her on the message they both share. That is despite it being a 15 minute mockery of Hillary Clinton. However that is not to be confused with support for President Trump.
If Lady Gaga could manage to compress it all into just three minutes that was serious Eurovision Song Contest level work.
At around 17:15 on 6/2/17 (UK date) I need to take moment to consider the commercials.
Edited at around 19:40 on 6/2/17 (UK date) to add;
From a cultural perspective alongside the half-time show the commercials are the most important part of any Super Bowl. However for me they are also the most time consuming.
In part this is because there are just so many of them. Mainly though it's because here in the UK we don't the commercials as part of the coverage. As a result unless a commercial was so widely talked about that it trended on Twitter I have to spend a couple of days trying to track them down to watch on the Internet.
Due to time constraints I won't be doing that this year. I will though look at some of the most talked about commercials this year. They all focused on the political theme of immigration.
First up there was the Budweiser commercial; "Born the Hard Way" which was actually released prior to the game; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtBZvl7dIu4
It tells the story of Budweiser co-founder Eberhard Anheuser's journey to America as an immigrant and his eventual meeting with Andulphous Busch with whom he founded the company. Some people have interpreted this as a protest against President Trump and his calls for better immigration controls.
However those people probably don't realise that Anheuser was an immigrant from Germany. President Trump is the son of German immigrants. Budweiser obviously think that their beer is the best thing ever to happen to America.
In one scene Anheuser is show sitting on a raft alongside a black man who could be a reference to former President Obama. In the next scene a boat is seen ablaze in a scene of fiery destruction. This could be viewed as a sharp criticism of the way Obama tried to burn America to the ground in order to make the place ungovernable for President Trump.
Then there is the Airbnb commercial; "We Accept;" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yetFk7QoSck
This commercial was so political that I heard about it because former US Secretary of State John Kerry re-Tweeted former UK Foreign Minister David Miliband Tweeting about it. The very unsubtle message of the commercial is that regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation etc Airbnb will accept you.
This commercial comes hot on the heels of Airbnb announcing that it will house anyone affected by President Trump's executive orders on immigration. In short Airbnb have looked at the millions of people joining the Muslim Brotherhood's anti-Trump protests and gone;
"Wow! There's a lot of morons we can con out of their money and their rights."
If you suffer from Obama levels of anti-Semitism you might even talk about Airbnb viewing the protesters as; "Goy" which is generally used a Hebrew insult for people who are worth less than cattle.
It is an example of capitalism at its most cynical and its most exploitative. It is exactly what you would expect from a company with a record as appalling as Airbnb's. Wherever the company operates it stands accused of wilfully breaking local laws in order remove the supply of longterm rental accommodation in order to drive up rents.
In New York City alone 55% of Airbnb's listings are illegal and they are blamed for causing rates of homeless not seen since the Great Depression; http://www.sharebetter.org/story/new-report-shows-how-airbnb-short-term-rentals-have-hijacked-nyc-housing-market/
In short Airbnb perfectly represent exactly the sort of exploitive authoritarian capitalism that former politicians like David Miliband and Hillary Clinton worship.
Finally there is the untitled commercial for US construction supply company 84 Lumber; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPo2B-vjZ28
This begins with a young girl waking her mother in some unspecified Hispanic south American nation. Don't assume that everything south of Texas is Mexico. Together the two look at photographs of the absent father is away working - presumably illegally - in construction in the US.
The two then embark on a long perilous journey to be reunited with the father in America. Throughout the journey the girl picks up scraps of coloured plastic which she shapes into a US flag.
At one point in the journey the pair are shown coming face-to-face with literally a Coyote. This is slang term for the often drug cartel linked people traffickers who control this trade in human suffering. The pair are also shown walking along train tracks and struggling to jump on and off moving trains. The number of what I would consider refugees killed and maimed in train accidents as they try to make it to Mexico let alone the US is truly shocking.
When the pair arrive at the US border they discover a wall blocking their illegal crossing. But then suddenly the father appears and he's built a door within the border wall made with timber supplied by 84 Lumber.
The Fox network actually refused to air this commercial in its entirety specifically because it featured a border wall.
It's clear that the message 84 Lumber were trying to send is that they are a deeply caring company that will stand with America as it battles racist President Trump.
However the message they were actually sending is that 84 Lumber would rather break up families and subject very young children to death, serious injury and sexual exploitation that obey labour laws and pay their workers properly.
Woody Guthrie's "Do Re Mi" set to footage of the Great Depression seemed the only appropriate response;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0H9_uy-qX8
20:55 on 6/2/17 (UK date).
Sunday, 5 February 2017
Lets All Take a Knee.
Today sees the 51st Super Bowl. Super Bowl Li.
The Super Bowl is widely seen as marking the start of the American cultural calender. Using broad brush strokes it along with the commercials that accompany it attempt to promote discussion about the big social and political issues of the moment.
However this year's Super Bowl takes place just 16 days after the inauguration of a new US President. With the US' new political future still largely unwritten it is obviously difficult to discuss what has not yet happened.
So this year's Super Bowl has simply decided to use as its main theme the same theme its been using for the past two years. The deep racial division within in the US that were stirred up by former President Barack Obama in a cynical attempt to have Hillary Clinton succeed him.
So in the supremely white corner we have the New England Patriots. They represent the landing of the Mayflower on Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts in 1620. They also represent the American Revolution of 1776 and the formation of the United States of America as a nation state.
The event that everybody remembers about the American Revolution is the Boston Tea Party which took place in Massachusetts' Boston Harbour. However what people seem less aware of is that it was the issue of immigration rather than taxation that really helped drive the American Revolution.
English King George III systematically attempted to subjugate to the natural born citizens of what at the time were the New England colonies by denying the control over their own borders and immigration policy. King George III would also flood the New England colonies with tens of thousands of immigrants so the number of immigrants loyal to the absolute ruler would outnumber the natural born citizens.
If you take the time to actually read the US Declaration of Independence it talks extensively about the ability control one borders and immigration policy as being the cornerstone to statehood.
It was only the death of Justice Scalia that prevented the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) ruling former Acting US Attorney General Sally Yates' in interpretation of US immigration law to be unconstitutional and declaring then President Obama to be a tyrant.
It is also a little know fact that America is actually Britain's largest penal colony. It was only after the American Revolution that George III was forced to start banishing convicts to Australia instead.
After a depleted SCOTUS deferred to lower Courts which had found against his immigration policy Obama announced a deal to banish some 1,300 Hispanic refugees in the US to Australia. Good luck finding mention of that in the US press.
Also current President Donald Trump is said to be friends with New England Patriots owner Roger Kraft and a number of their players including star Quarter Back Tom Brady..
In the always inferior black corner we have the Atlanta Falcons.
Much of the US media spent 2016 completely losing their minds over a TV show on Fox called; "Atlanta." I can't say that I've seen it or even read a decent review of it. It's clear that the rave reviews I have read simply wanted to touch its hair.
However according to Wikipedia it's about a young black man - "Paper Boi" who drops out of Princeton university. Having got his girlfriend pregnant and then abandoning her Paper Boi lives on the streets in Atlanta, Georgia while dreaming of making it big as a rap star.
In short the Atlanta Falcons represent black American trash culture that everybody mocked Obama for trying to bring into the mainstream.
Within the world of American Football this trash culture is represented by the San Francisco 49's Colin Kaepernick. He has taken to kneeling during the playing of the national anthem before each game in protest against what he claims is fascist America's oppression of black men.
If nothing else Kaepernick's antics highlight the difference between American Hand Egg crowds and football crowds. If Kaepernick tried that in front of a football crowd his silly Afro would soon collapse under a deluge of spit.
What makes me nervous though is that it is the Atlanta FALCONs.
Within the conflict in Syria "Falcons" is a really popular name for an armed group. Just off the top of my head you have the Jarablus Falcons/Suqour al-Jarablus who fight as part of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Falcons of the South/Suqour al-Janoub who fight as part of the Southern Front. Even those who don't use the name "Falcons" tend to feature a Falcon in their Coat of Arms/Flag.
The really controversial ones though are the Falcons of the Levant/Suqour al-Sham. They find as part of the United Turkmen Army (UTA) within the Army of Conquest/Jaish al-Fatah coalition. As the name suggests they share the same ideology as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). So when a terror attack within Turkey is blamed on the Kurdistan Freedom Hawks (TAK) absolutely nobody is talking about the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
As such I think the inclusion of the Atlanta Falcons is intended to explore the link between Islamist terrorism and Obama's Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. Super Bowl Li is being played in Houston, Texas. That is of course not far from Dallas, Texas where five police officers were killed in a BLM terror attack on July 7th 2016 (7/716).
Within Washington State Judge James L. Robart seems to have decided to really get in on this sub-plot.
On Friday (3/2/17) Federal Judge Robart decided to call attention to Washington Attorney General Robert Ferguson - as in Ferguson, Missouri, - sham challenge to President Trump's executive orders on immigration. The effect of this order has been to potentially allow Islamist terrorist from Syria and elsewhere into the US.
The reason why "Falcons" is such a popular name for armed groups within Syria is that Falcons are held in extremely high regard within Arab culture.
This stems from when nomadic tribesman would use Falcons to hunt. So a good Falcon would often meaning the difference between eating at night or not.
As a result Falconry remains a massive sport within Arab societies - particularly in the Gulf States. On Monday (30/1/17) a low ranking Prince from the vast Saudi Royal Family shared pictures of 80 of his hunting Falcons on an Etihad airliner. He'd brought each one an economy class seat.
Rather than being a political statement I think this was just him trying to join in with the fun. After all if you've built up a menagerie of 80 Falcons you're hardly likely to start betting on Postman Pat and his black and white cat, Jess.
Sadly it looks like I'm going to have to give the Super Bowl a miss this year. Due to particularly the fight against ISIL and associated groups it's hard for me to justify staying up until 5AM to watch sport.
I might make it as far as the halftime show though.
17:10 on 5/2/17 (UK date).
The Super Bowl is widely seen as marking the start of the American cultural calender. Using broad brush strokes it along with the commercials that accompany it attempt to promote discussion about the big social and political issues of the moment.
However this year's Super Bowl takes place just 16 days after the inauguration of a new US President. With the US' new political future still largely unwritten it is obviously difficult to discuss what has not yet happened.
So this year's Super Bowl has simply decided to use as its main theme the same theme its been using for the past two years. The deep racial division within in the US that were stirred up by former President Barack Obama in a cynical attempt to have Hillary Clinton succeed him.
So in the supremely white corner we have the New England Patriots. They represent the landing of the Mayflower on Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts in 1620. They also represent the American Revolution of 1776 and the formation of the United States of America as a nation state.
The event that everybody remembers about the American Revolution is the Boston Tea Party which took place in Massachusetts' Boston Harbour. However what people seem less aware of is that it was the issue of immigration rather than taxation that really helped drive the American Revolution.
English King George III systematically attempted to subjugate to the natural born citizens of what at the time were the New England colonies by denying the control over their own borders and immigration policy. King George III would also flood the New England colonies with tens of thousands of immigrants so the number of immigrants loyal to the absolute ruler would outnumber the natural born citizens.
If you take the time to actually read the US Declaration of Independence it talks extensively about the ability control one borders and immigration policy as being the cornerstone to statehood.
It was only the death of Justice Scalia that prevented the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) ruling former Acting US Attorney General Sally Yates' in interpretation of US immigration law to be unconstitutional and declaring then President Obama to be a tyrant.
It is also a little know fact that America is actually Britain's largest penal colony. It was only after the American Revolution that George III was forced to start banishing convicts to Australia instead.
After a depleted SCOTUS deferred to lower Courts which had found against his immigration policy Obama announced a deal to banish some 1,300 Hispanic refugees in the US to Australia. Good luck finding mention of that in the US press.
Also current President Donald Trump is said to be friends with New England Patriots owner Roger Kraft and a number of their players including star Quarter Back Tom Brady..
In the always inferior black corner we have the Atlanta Falcons.
Much of the US media spent 2016 completely losing their minds over a TV show on Fox called; "Atlanta." I can't say that I've seen it or even read a decent review of it. It's clear that the rave reviews I have read simply wanted to touch its hair.
However according to Wikipedia it's about a young black man - "Paper Boi" who drops out of Princeton university. Having got his girlfriend pregnant and then abandoning her Paper Boi lives on the streets in Atlanta, Georgia while dreaming of making it big as a rap star.
In short the Atlanta Falcons represent black American trash culture that everybody mocked Obama for trying to bring into the mainstream.
Within the world of American Football this trash culture is represented by the San Francisco 49's Colin Kaepernick. He has taken to kneeling during the playing of the national anthem before each game in protest against what he claims is fascist America's oppression of black men.
If nothing else Kaepernick's antics highlight the difference between American Hand Egg crowds and football crowds. If Kaepernick tried that in front of a football crowd his silly Afro would soon collapse under a deluge of spit.
What makes me nervous though is that it is the Atlanta FALCONs.
Within the conflict in Syria "Falcons" is a really popular name for an armed group. Just off the top of my head you have the Jarablus Falcons/Suqour al-Jarablus who fight as part of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Falcons of the South/Suqour al-Janoub who fight as part of the Southern Front. Even those who don't use the name "Falcons" tend to feature a Falcon in their Coat of Arms/Flag.
The really controversial ones though are the Falcons of the Levant/Suqour al-Sham. They find as part of the United Turkmen Army (UTA) within the Army of Conquest/Jaish al-Fatah coalition. As the name suggests they share the same ideology as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). So when a terror attack within Turkey is blamed on the Kurdistan Freedom Hawks (TAK) absolutely nobody is talking about the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
As such I think the inclusion of the Atlanta Falcons is intended to explore the link between Islamist terrorism and Obama's Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. Super Bowl Li is being played in Houston, Texas. That is of course not far from Dallas, Texas where five police officers were killed in a BLM terror attack on July 7th 2016 (7/716).
Within Washington State Judge James L. Robart seems to have decided to really get in on this sub-plot.
On Friday (3/2/17) Federal Judge Robart decided to call attention to Washington Attorney General Robert Ferguson - as in Ferguson, Missouri, - sham challenge to President Trump's executive orders on immigration. The effect of this order has been to potentially allow Islamist terrorist from Syria and elsewhere into the US.
The reason why "Falcons" is such a popular name for armed groups within Syria is that Falcons are held in extremely high regard within Arab culture.
This stems from when nomadic tribesman would use Falcons to hunt. So a good Falcon would often meaning the difference between eating at night or not.
As a result Falconry remains a massive sport within Arab societies - particularly in the Gulf States. On Monday (30/1/17) a low ranking Prince from the vast Saudi Royal Family shared pictures of 80 of his hunting Falcons on an Etihad airliner. He'd brought each one an economy class seat.
Rather than being a political statement I think this was just him trying to join in with the fun. After all if you've built up a menagerie of 80 Falcons you're hardly likely to start betting on Postman Pat and his black and white cat, Jess.
Sadly it looks like I'm going to have to give the Super Bowl a miss this year. Due to particularly the fight against ISIL and associated groups it's hard for me to justify staying up until 5AM to watch sport.
I might make it as far as the halftime show though.
17:10 on 5/2/17 (UK date).
Saturday, 4 February 2017
Operation Featherweight: Month 31, Week 3, Day 1.
This should be read as a direct continuation of; http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/operation-featherweight-month-31-week-2_4.html
Alongside the Syrian government, the SDF, ISIL and the Army of Conquest there is a fifth group acting within Syria. The Southern Front.
This is a coalition made up of around 60 fragments of the Free Syrian Army (FSA). As the name suggests the Southern Front is located in the south of the country between the capital Damascus and the Jordanian border - predominately around Daraa and As-Suwayda provinces.
They were formed in February 2014 by Britain and are trained by the British Special Operations Forces (SOF's) - the famous Special Air Service (SAS) - within camps in Jordan. As part of the discussions surrounding the 2016 Rio Olympics Britain took the rare step of releasing photographs of the SAS deployed within Syria alongside the Southern Front.
Originally the Southern Front were formed to act as allies alongside the Army of Conquest and ISIL.
The thinking being that as the Army of Conquest advanced from the north and ISIL advanced from the north-west the Southern Front would advance from the south to the capital. Once the three groups had converged on Damascus they would overthrow Syria's secular government and replace it with a radical Sunni-Islamist one.
However since Erdogan's invasion of Syria and the SDF's achievements have become clear to see the Southern Front have expressed a keen interest in forming an alliance with the SDF against ISIL.
I have a number of concerns about such an alliance between the Southern Front and the SDF.
Firstly the Southern Front were formed to impose a radical Sunni-Islamist agenda on Syria. So while some of the FSA fragments within the Southern Front are moderate and would fit in well with the SDF some of them are utterly crazy and have no place anywhere in Syria's future.
For example around a fifth of Southern Front describe themselves either as Jihadist fighters (Mujahideen) or refer to Syria as; "The Levant" - sharing ISIL's own nihilistic ideology. Roughly another fifth of the Southern Front are quite open about the fact that they are soldiers of Sunni-Islam fighting a sectarian war against other religions and branches of Islam.
In August 2016 at least 200 members of the Southern Front defected to the Army of Conquest taking their weapons and equipment with them. Most worryingly they defected to the Al Qaeada and Islamic Movement of the Freemen of the Levant/Harakat Ahrar ash-Sham al-Islamiyya (Ahrar al-Sham) elements of the Army of Conquest.
On November 4th 2016 (4/11/16) members of the Southern Front shot and killed three US servicemen at an al-Jafr airbase in an apparent insider attacker. However I can't help but that was in part at least a commentary on the US' ability to successfully vet moderate Sunni-Arab rebels under Obama.
My second concern with the Southern Front is that they are under British command.
Particularly post-Brexit Britain seems to view itself as a sort of global middle man. As such the Southern Front's loyalty and objectives are likely to switch and change as Britain's own objectives are blown by the winds of whatever trade deal is being discussed. That means that the Southern Front are hardly what anybody could describe as a reliable ally.
My main problem with the Southern Front though is that they were originally formed to support ISIL. As a result they are located at completely the opposite end of Syria to ISIL.
That means before the Southern Front will be able to engage in battle with ISIL they first have to travel across 700km (420miles) of tough, inhospitable desert. Once they join that battle the Southern Front will then have to sustain their supply lines across that vast expanse of inhospitable desert.
Fortunately that vast expanse of desert between Southern Front and ISIL positions is so inhospitable that it is almost completely unoccupied. Therefore a possible alliance between SDF and the Southern Front has no bearing on the discussion over the creation of SDF safe-zones.
Today the SDF have launched the third phase of its "Wrath of Euphrates" operation. The primary objective of this operation is to secure control of the main Raqqa to Deir-ez-Zour road that runs north of the Euphrates parallel to the M4 Motorway.
As with the first two phases of the Raqqa operation this will liberate vast swathes of rural areas from ISIL thus increase the area of Shangri-La under SDF control. Therefore I don't object to it being undertaken.
However the fact that it has been undertaken indicates to me that the SDF are still committed to Obama's lame-duck plan. As I discussed yesterday the endgame of Obama's lame-duck plan is the destruction of the SDF.
Therefore the SDF do need to be made aware of the fact that Obama's lame-duck plan has been scrapped before anyone even contemplates an attack on Raqqa City itself.
With no-one realistically contemplating an attack on Raqqa City for at least another six months I have to question the wisdom of putting pressure on the civilians within the city by cutting water and food supply lines at this time.
As I've said on numerous occasions I consider the immediate priority now to be exactly the same as it was on August 27th 2016 (21/8/16).
17:25 on 4/2/17 (UK date).
Alongside the Syrian government, the SDF, ISIL and the Army of Conquest there is a fifth group acting within Syria. The Southern Front.
This is a coalition made up of around 60 fragments of the Free Syrian Army (FSA). As the name suggests the Southern Front is located in the south of the country between the capital Damascus and the Jordanian border - predominately around Daraa and As-Suwayda provinces.
They were formed in February 2014 by Britain and are trained by the British Special Operations Forces (SOF's) - the famous Special Air Service (SAS) - within camps in Jordan. As part of the discussions surrounding the 2016 Rio Olympics Britain took the rare step of releasing photographs of the SAS deployed within Syria alongside the Southern Front.
Originally the Southern Front were formed to act as allies alongside the Army of Conquest and ISIL.
The thinking being that as the Army of Conquest advanced from the north and ISIL advanced from the north-west the Southern Front would advance from the south to the capital. Once the three groups had converged on Damascus they would overthrow Syria's secular government and replace it with a radical Sunni-Islamist one.
However since Erdogan's invasion of Syria and the SDF's achievements have become clear to see the Southern Front have expressed a keen interest in forming an alliance with the SDF against ISIL.
I have a number of concerns about such an alliance between the Southern Front and the SDF.
Firstly the Southern Front were formed to impose a radical Sunni-Islamist agenda on Syria. So while some of the FSA fragments within the Southern Front are moderate and would fit in well with the SDF some of them are utterly crazy and have no place anywhere in Syria's future.
For example around a fifth of Southern Front describe themselves either as Jihadist fighters (Mujahideen) or refer to Syria as; "The Levant" - sharing ISIL's own nihilistic ideology. Roughly another fifth of the Southern Front are quite open about the fact that they are soldiers of Sunni-Islam fighting a sectarian war against other religions and branches of Islam.
In August 2016 at least 200 members of the Southern Front defected to the Army of Conquest taking their weapons and equipment with them. Most worryingly they defected to the Al Qaeada and Islamic Movement of the Freemen of the Levant/Harakat Ahrar ash-Sham al-Islamiyya (Ahrar al-Sham) elements of the Army of Conquest.
On November 4th 2016 (4/11/16) members of the Southern Front shot and killed three US servicemen at an al-Jafr airbase in an apparent insider attacker. However I can't help but that was in part at least a commentary on the US' ability to successfully vet moderate Sunni-Arab rebels under Obama.
My second concern with the Southern Front is that they are under British command.
Particularly post-Brexit Britain seems to view itself as a sort of global middle man. As such the Southern Front's loyalty and objectives are likely to switch and change as Britain's own objectives are blown by the winds of whatever trade deal is being discussed. That means that the Southern Front are hardly what anybody could describe as a reliable ally.
My main problem with the Southern Front though is that they were originally formed to support ISIL. As a result they are located at completely the opposite end of Syria to ISIL.
That means before the Southern Front will be able to engage in battle with ISIL they first have to travel across 700km (420miles) of tough, inhospitable desert. Once they join that battle the Southern Front will then have to sustain their supply lines across that vast expanse of inhospitable desert.
Fortunately that vast expanse of desert between Southern Front and ISIL positions is so inhospitable that it is almost completely unoccupied. Therefore a possible alliance between SDF and the Southern Front has no bearing on the discussion over the creation of SDF safe-zones.
Today the SDF have launched the third phase of its "Wrath of Euphrates" operation. The primary objective of this operation is to secure control of the main Raqqa to Deir-ez-Zour road that runs north of the Euphrates parallel to the M4 Motorway.
As with the first two phases of the Raqqa operation this will liberate vast swathes of rural areas from ISIL thus increase the area of Shangri-La under SDF control. Therefore I don't object to it being undertaken.
However the fact that it has been undertaken indicates to me that the SDF are still committed to Obama's lame-duck plan. As I discussed yesterday the endgame of Obama's lame-duck plan is the destruction of the SDF.
Therefore the SDF do need to be made aware of the fact that Obama's lame-duck plan has been scrapped before anyone even contemplates an attack on Raqqa City itself.
With no-one realistically contemplating an attack on Raqqa City for at least another six months I have to question the wisdom of putting pressure on the civilians within the city by cutting water and food supply lines at this time.
As I've said on numerous occasions I consider the immediate priority now to be exactly the same as it was on August 27th 2016 (21/8/16).
17:25 on 4/2/17 (UK date).
Operation Featherweight: Month 31, Week 2, Day 7.
On November 8th 2016 (8/11/16) Donald Trump was elected President of the United States.
On January 20th 2017 (20/1/17) Donald Trump was inaugurated as President of the United States.
On the weekend of January 28th 2017 (28/1/17) Donald Trump really arrived as President of the United States.
Beyond his much talked about executive orders on immigration President Trump also met with UK Prime Minister Theresa May and held telephone calls with a host of foreign leaders. He also saw the first of his cabinet picks confirmed by Congress and start work. Most notably Nikki Hayley as the US' Ambassador to the United Nations (UN).
As a result things have been relatively quiet in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and associated groups as everybody tries to take it all in.
In terms of that fight President Trump's most significant act so far was the memorandum he signed on January 28th (28/1/17) instructing twelve branches of the US government to draw up a new plan to defeat ISIL.
Although that memorandum is merely an instruction for those departments to report back to the President within 30 days it is widely believed that President Trump favours the creation of safe-havens - as defined by international law - to protect civilians within Syria.
Obviously I can't speak for the President. Also it is likely to be some time before a new plan goes into effect. After all Rex Tillerson only took up his post as Secretary of State/Foreign Minister yesterday (2/1/17) - some 5 days after the memo had been sent to his office.
However it is my opinion that if you wish to defeat ISIL the only way to do so is to empower the Syrian Democrat Forces (SDF/QSD) to create these safe-havens. As such I think it is important to consider the history of the SDF.
On March 24th 2004 (24/3/04) a Syrian Sunni-Arab football team from Deir-ez-Zour played a Kurdish team in the city of Qamishlo/Qamishli.
During the match the Arab fans held up pictures of Iraqi Sunni-Arab dictator Saddam Hussein. This was done in reference to Saddam's Arabization campaigns in Iraqi Kurdistan. These were carried out to change the demographic make-up of the area by expelling and murdering Kurdish civilians in order to move in Sunni-Arab civilians in their place.
Probably the most well known incident of what was a near 30 year campaign was the March 16th 1988 (16/3/88) Chemical Weapons attack on the Kurdish city of Halabja which killed some 5,000 Kurdish civilians.
Obviously the Kurdish fans did not react well to this and responded by flying the flag of Kurdistan within the stadium. A riot ensued which saw the Qamishlo/Qamishli offices of the Ba'ath Party burned down and a statue of Syria's former President Hafez al-Assad toppled.
The Syrian government responded by sending troops to the city killing around 100 and forcing thousands to flee to Iraqi Kurdistan as refugees. In order to resist the crackdown a Kurdish militia called the People's Protection Units (YPG) was formed. However the unrest quickly ended and the YPG was disbanded.
In 2011 Syria was torn apart as fighting raged between the Syrian government and what became the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the Army of Conquest/Jaish al-Fatah (JAF). In response to the spiralling violence the YPG was re-formed on July 19th 2011 (19/7/11).
As their name suggests the newly formed YPG was tasked with protecting civilians in three areas known as; "Cantons" along Syria's border with Turkey. Together these Cantons known from west to east as; "Afrin," "Kobane" and "Cizre" covered approximately 2,330kmsq (1,400milesq).
For the next three years the YPG largely stayed out of the fighting in the rest of Syria. Instead sticking to their mission of protecting the people within the three Cantons.
In July 2012 the Syrian government did attempt to seize the city of Kobane - the capital of the Kobane Canton - from the YPG. However after a stand-off the YPG negotiated a Syrian withdrawal from the area. It was under Hafez al-Assad's own Arabization campaign that Kobane was renamed; "Ayn al-Arab" or literally; "Spring of Arabs."
In November 2012 Al Qaeda's Syrian affiliate The Support Front/Jabhat al-Nusra (ANF) who are now one of the largest factions in the Army of Conquest attacked the YPG at Serekaniye. This led to a nine month battle for the city on the western border of the Cizre Canton which was eventually won by the YPG in July 2013. It was under Hafez al-Assad's Arabization campaign that Serekaniye was renamed; "Ras al-Ayn."
In 2013 the Syrian government began focusing all its efforts on defeating ISIL. By December 2013 ISIL were very much on the backfoot. So in order to live up to their motto of; "Maintain and Expand" they decided to invade Iraq's predominately Sunni-Arab Anbar province which directly neighbours Syria.
By the summer of 2014 the Syrian government had all but defeated ISIL in Syria. So again in an effort to live up to their motto ISIL decided to invade Iraq's northern Nineveh Province which again neighbours Syria. They did this by fighting their way up through the eastern side of the YPG's Cizre Canton which borders Iraq.
One of ISIL's first acts in Iraq's Nineveh Province was to capture the town of Shingal. After kidnapping and murdering thousands of Yezidis they forced the remaining 60,000 residents of the town up Shingal Mountain where they were left to die. It was as part of Saddam Hussein's Arabization campaign that Shingal was renamed; "Sinjar."
It was the fate of the 60,000 atop of Mount Shingal/Sinjar that finally shamed then US President Barack Obama into action. However it was the YPG that crossed from Syria to climb Mount Shingal/Sinjar to rescue those civilians. They then helped organise Iraq's Yezidis into the Sinjar Resistance Units (YBS) self-defence militia.
At the same time that they invaded northern Iraq ISIL also focused their attentions of capturing the YPG controlled Cantons. Specifically the Kobane Canton and the Cizre Canton both along its eastern border with Iraq and from the west at Serekaniye. It was this ISIL attack on the Kobane Canton which led to the truly epic Battle of Kobane city in the winter of 2014/15.
The second anniversary of the end of that battle came up recently and I must confess that I'd forgotten all about it. I do though still have extremely vivid memories of going out to the supermarket one October day convinced that when I returned some two hours later I would be returning to confirmation that ISIL had overrun the city.
However the YPG did not allow the city to be overrun on that day or any other. On January 26th 2015 (26/1/15) they finally claimed victory after 134 days of intense urban warfare.
On February 21st 2015 (21/2/15) the YPG combined with the Iraqi Peshmerga to conduct an operation to force ISIL from the border between Iraq and the Cizre Canton. This was completed with the liberation of the town of Tel Brak on April 5th 2015 (5/4/15).
Having re-secured both Kobane and Cizre Cantons the YPG launched an operation in May 2015 to join the two Cantons eliminating the ISIL threat to both. This operation was completed on July 10th 2015 (10/7/15) with the liberation of the town of Tel Abyad which sits midway between the two Cantons. At the same time the YPG expanded the southern border of the Kobane Canton with the liberation of the town of Ayn Issa.
It is this new, expanded area of YPG control that has been designated; "Shangri-La."
In retaliation for the Tel Abyad operation on June 23rd (23/6/15) ISIL launched a sustained attack on the city of Hasakah which sits just south of what was the Cizre Canton. The objective was to fully capture a city control of which had long been divided between ISIL, the Syrian government and the YPG.
This badly back fired on ISIL. By August 1st 2015 (1/8/15) they'd been routed in the city. In the process of defeating ISIL the YPG had also able to reduce Syrian government control leaving the YPG in control of 75% of Hasakah. Thus expanding the southern boundary of Shangri-La even further.
On June 18th 2015 (18/6/15) the YPG launched an operation to expand the boundary of Shangri-La further westwards from what was the Kobane Canton to the Euphrates River. This was completed on July 27th (27/7/15) with the liberation of the town of Sarrin on the eastern bank of the Euphrates.
In all of these campaigns the YPG have fought so efficiently and heroically against ISIL that it almost brings a tear to my eye just thinking about it. However the true key to the YPG's success has been their skill for negotiation and diplomacy.
Everywhere they have advanced the YPG have done so by brokering alliances with fragments of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), Assyrian Christian and Yezidi militias and local Sunni-Arab tribal forces. This began with two FSA fragments - the Euphrates Volcano/Burkan al-Furat and the Front of Raqqa Revolutionaries/Jabhat Thuwar al-Raqqa - joining ISIL during the Battle of Kobane.
As the YPG cleared ISIL from the Cizre Canton in May/June 2015 they were joined by the forces of the al-Sanadid, al-Baggra and Sharabiyya tribes along with the Liberation Brigade/Liwa al-Tahrir FSA fragment.
During the Tel Abyad and Ayn Issa operations the YPG were joined by the Army of Revolutionaries/Jaish al-Thuwar and the Army of Peace/Jaish al-Salam FSA fragments. During the Sarrin operation the Dawn of Freedom/Liwa Fajr al-Hurriya, The Army of al-Qassas/Jaish al-Qassas, Jarablus Brigade/Saraya Jarablus and the Raqqa Front/Jabhat al-Raqqa also joined with the YPG.
At this point it was decided that there were now so many FSA fragments fighting under the YPG they joined together under Euphrates Volcano to form the Volcano Operations Room.
On October 10th 2015 (10/10/15) the YPG, the Volcano Operations Room and the tribal forces along with the Syriac Military Council (SMC) formed the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF/QSD).
Throughout the now nearly 6 years of conflict in Syria former US President Barack Obama's focus has always been on using extreme Islamist forces such as ISIL and the Army of Conquest to overthrow the Syrian government.
As a result the YPG's diplomacy leading to the formation of the SDF has gone almost unnoticed. In fact I think the YPG's biggest achievement has been keeping it all under the radar. I've certainly avoided calling attention to it in case on being made aware of it Obama would act to sabotage it.
In December 2015 the newly formed SDF launched an operation to liberate the Tishrin Dam from across the Euphrates from ISIL.
This was successfully completed on December 30th (30/12/15) giving the SDF access to the area between Azaz and the Euphrates know as; "Garvaghy Road." In the process the Northern Sun Brigade/Kata'eb Shams ash-Shamal fragment of the FSA joined the SDF.
13:05 on 3/2/17 (UK date) - More to follow.
Edited around 16:35 on 3/2/17 (UK date) to add;
On May 31st 2016 (31/5/16) the SDF finally crossed the Euphrates River into the Garvaghy Road area. Their objective was to liberate the town of Manbij on the western bank of the Euphrates from ISIL.
Throughout this operation the SDF were systematically starved of ammunition and support by Combined Joint Task Force: Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTFOIR) - the US-led coalition. However on August 13th 2016 (13/8/16) the SDF did finally succeed in liberating Manbij.
In the liberation of Manbij the SDF again absorbed a number of fragments of the FSA. These include the Union of Euphrates Jarablus Brigades/Tajamu Kata'ib Furat Jarablus, the Jarablus Hawks Brigade/Suquor al-Jarablus, the Manbij Revolutionary Brigades/Liwa al-Thuwar al-Manbij and the Euphrates Liberation Brigade, Liwa al-Tahrir al-Manbij.
Crucially the SDF were also joined by the Seljuk Brigade/Selçuklular Tugayı and the Manbij Turkmen Brigade/ Manbij Türkmen Tugayları. These are two Turkmen brigades who had previously fought as part of the Army of Conquest within the United Turkmen Army (UTA) coalition.
Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan did not like the SDF's liberation of Manbij from ISIL one little bit.
On August 25th 2016 (25/8/16) Erdogan launched a formal Turkish military invasion of the Garvaghy Road area. This was done specifically to prevent any further SDF advance cutting ISIL's supply lines with Turkey.
Initially this invasion focused on the Jarablus and from there Erdogan's forces did attempt to attack the SDF at Manbij. However he was diverted first to Azaz at the other side of Garvaghy Road and is currently focused on al-Bab. Erdogan has made it repeatedly clear that from al-Bab he again intends to instruct his forces to attack the SDF at Manbij.
Within Jarablus and other areas of Garvaghy Road Erdogan has embarked on a campaign of what I suppose you would term; "Turkicization."
As with Hafez al-Assad and Saddam Hussein's campaigns of Arabization this has focused heavily on language. Within Jarablus healthcare and educational services are now only available in the Turkish language. It seems almost inevitable that the name of the town will soon be changed from Jarablus to Cereblus.
Former US President Obama's decision to allow Erdogan's formal invasion and occupation of Garvaghy Road was purely the result of cowardice.
Erdogan had been lobbying for such an invasion throughout 2015 and preparations had reached such an advanced stage that a prospective D-Day - December 16th 2015 (16/12/15) - had been set. However under intense international pressure led by Russia Erdogan was forced to back down.
In allowing the August 25th 2016 (25/8/16) invasion Obama did so on the understanding that it would end and all Turkish forces would be withdrawn by September 7th 2016 (7/9/16). However in a second act of cowardice Obama backed down and gave Erdogan permission to keep his forces in Garvaghy Road running guns to ISIL for as long as he liked.
Following this second act of cowardice Obama then went into a sort of blind panic almost randomly showering weapons on any Sunni-Arab element of the SDF he could think of. This included a handful of advanced Mine Resistant, Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles that each cost around USD500,000.
After about a month US Special Operations Command (SOCOM) who are embedded with the SDF including at Manbij told Obama that they wouldn't be handing out any more weapons. SOCOM then advised Obama to go off and have a long hard think about the program.
Unfortunately the day after his designated successor Hillary Clinton was defeated by President Trump on November 8th 2016 (8/11/16) Obama decided that his panicked plan was a good one. So he announced his intention to press ahead with it by requesting an extra USD500million from Congress to fund it.
The central element of Obama's lame-duck plan is to gather the Sunni-Arab elements of the SDF into a new command structure known as the Syrian Arab Council (SAC). This creates a rival command structure within the SDF which like all military command structures starts with Sipan Herno and then rolls downhill. Obama then planned to arm only this rival structure.
We saw the first stage of this on last Thursday (27/1/17) with the delivery of around four armed pick-up trucks (Technicals) to the SAC. The SDF was not consulted about this arms shipment.
The other element of Obama's lame-duck plan has been to train a force of around 10,000 Syrian Kurds in Iraq.
Known as the; "Roj Peshmerga" these are essentially the Syrian Kurds that ran away from ISIL rather than fighting with the YPG. They are formed out of the Kurdish National Council (ENKS) which is the Syrian wing of the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) which currently runs Iraqi Kurdistan under President Masoud Barzani.
The Iraqi Peshmerga who are also under the command or Barzani's KDP are currently still engaged in the operation to liberate the northern Iraqi city of Mosul that has been underway since October 2016. The reason why this operation is taking so long is that the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) who are leading the operation are trying to make the best of a terrible plan that was put into action at completely the wrong time.
The Mosul operation of course began with Turkish troops stationed at the Bashiqa base opening fire on Mosul on the night of Saturday October 15th 2016 (15/10/16). Being more concerned with his gas pipeline into Turkey on Sunday October 16th (16/10/16) Barzani then sided with Erdogan and declared the Mosul operation underway.
This was while Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi was pleading with the US to delay the operation until the spring of 2017 when it would have been much easier.
So at the moment any member of any organisation under the command of Barzani is going to reasonably face a high degree of suspicion and struggle to prove their worth.
This increase in factionalism is obviously placing the SDF under a high degree of pressure.
The most obvious example of this to me is that the people I've built relationships with over the course of two and a half years are now no longer able to talk to me as freely as they once did. In part this is due to SOCOM's obsession with secrecy. However it's clear that the YPG in particular are struggling to find the words that won't set off some faction or another.
On the ground within Shangri-La there is also clear evidence of this increased tension. For example the SDF are currently - and I would say reasonably - refusing to allow the Roj Peshmerga to re-enter Shangri-La. The Asayish who are the policing arm of the SDF have also increased the detention of people and closure of offices of groups working with the ENKS.
Alongside this creation of a rival command structure within the SDF and the creation of a rival force within Iraq on November 6th 2016 (6/11/16) Obama also ordered the SDF to attack Raqqa - ISIL's de facto capital in Syria.
The first stage of the SDF's operation has been focused on liberating the villages and open farmland around Raqqa.
This has been hugely successful with the area of Shangri-La under SDF control increasing from 12,000kmsq (7,200 milesq) to 15,200kmsq (9,120 milesq). However the SDF wildly under-equipped to liberate the city of Raqqa itself. Any attempt to do so will likely result in them being massacred.
As such it seems that the true objective of Obama's lame-duck plan is to allow ISIL to destroy the SDF. Then the alternative command structures Obama has attempted to create within the SDF such as the SAC along with brigades such as Manbij Turkmen Brigade and the Seljuk Brigade will defect back to the Army of Conquest under the control of Erdogan.
Therefore Obama's lame-duck plan must be abandoned immediately and we must wait for the damage it has done to repair itself.
Although the January 21st (21/1/17) push towards the Tabqa Dam was a great statement of intent against an achievable target it is not a viable strategic plan in itself.
At around 18:30 on 3/2/17 (UK date) I have a little more to add along with solving some spelling formatting issues.
Spellchecked and formatted at 16:25 on 4/2/17 (UK date).
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