Operation Featherweight: Month 44, Week 3, Day 2.

This should be read as a direct continuation of yesterday's post; https://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2018/02/operation-featherweight-month-44-week-3.html

I'm not sure if this is an Olympic story, a Syria story or an America story.

However the big story of the past week has been the epic meltdown by US Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller and his Russia investigation team.

On Friday (16/2/18) Mueller announced that he was indicting 13 Russians based on electronic evidence of interference in the US 2016 Election.

Mueller seemed to believe that this fresh attack on Russia would result in him being mobbed by a cheering crowd. The FBI's role in the Parkland shooting would all be forgiven and forgotten.

As it happens Mueller did find himself mobbed by a crowd. However they were not cheering his name in celebration.

There are many examples of the criticism Mueller received. The main one though was the release on Monday (19/2/18) of the details of the investigation into the so-called; "Dark Web Paedophile" Matthew Falder.

This is significant because the investigation began with the FBI declaring that they had electronic evidence proving that Falder was a Russian based in Russia.

However believing he had international victims the FBI launched a joint investigation with equivalent law enforcement/espionage agencies in the UK, the EU, Israel, Australia and New Zealand.

That joint investigation revealed that the FBI's electronic evidence that Falder was Russian was false. Eventually America's allies proved that Falder was British working at the University of Birmingham.

The US tech company Apple even piled in on Mueller.

Aside from Erdogan's "Sledgehammer" case one of the most famous examples of electronic evidence being falsified in a political trial is the 2017 corruption trial of former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. This has been dubbed; "Fontgate."

In short the daughter Maryam Sharif presented documents in her defence which she said proved she was not involved in corruption. The documents which were supposedly produced in 2006 used a Calibri font which Microsoft did not introduce until 2007.

Immediately following Mueller's announcement people starting noticing that Apple iPhones would crash if they received a single character from the Telugu language. A reasonably obscure language used in Pakistan's neighbour India.

Obviously if a character from Pakistan's main language of Urdu had caused iPhones to crash a lot of people would have noticed a lot sooner.

The Telugu textbomb as its become known reminded people of Fontgate. It also seemed to remind Mueller and everyone around him that a single rogue character can bring everything crashing down.

On Tuesday (20/2/18) Mueller took steps to clarify the tenability of his position.

He announced charges of falsifying evidence against Alex van der Zwaan. These relate to Mueller's case against Paul Manafort and Richard Gates. That case relates to tax evasion in Ukraine dating back to 2012.

On July 17th 2014 (17/7/14) Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was shot-down over Ukraine.

The US immediately said that it had electronic evidence proving that Russia had fired the missile that brought down the aircraft. They strongly implied that this was Russian revenge for the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 during the 2014 Winter Olympics held in Russia.

The US used this as an excuse to impose further sanctions on Russia. Sanctions which by an amazing coincidence hampered Russia's fight against ISIL and Al Qaeda in Syria.

Flight MH17 originated in the Netherlands. As a result it fell to the Dutch to conduct the investigation. Probably a job that absolutely nobody wanted.

The Dutch took the position that they are a nation that values the truth above all else. So they commendably played the investigation straight simply laying out the facts. Nothing more, nothing less.

A feat made all the more impressive by the fact this was the first aircrash investigation in history which had to formally rule out an attack by extraterrestrial aliens.

The Dutch investigation did not explicitly accuse the US of falsifying electronic evidence against Russia. 

However it did conclude that it was impossible to show who had fired the missile. Strongly implying that they were not treating the electronic evidence produced by the US with any degree of credibility.

It went on to conclude that the main cause of the crash was the decision by Ukrainian Air Traffic Controllers (ATC's) to fly a civilian plane into a warzone. A warzone where planes were being shot down on a regular basis.

At the time Ukraine's ATC's - like the rest of the country - were under the command of the US' CIA spy agency. With then CIA Director John Brennan proudly visiting Ukraine in April 2014 the US was making no attempt to disguise this fact.

Efforts to bring criminal prosecutions in the MH17 case have stalled. As the Dutch wait for the US to hand over the CIA officers who were directing Ukraine's ATC's at the time.

The Netherlands have been engaged in their own Russian Aggression scandal of late.

On February 13th (13/2/18) Dutch Foreign Minister Halbe Zijlstra was forced to resign. He'd claimed he had evidence of Russian President Vladimir Putin declaring that he wanted to create a Greater Russia in Eastern Europe.

Halbe Zijlstra was found to have faked that evidence.

Today (23/2/18) the Netherlands have struck back again against Mueller. They've formally recognised the 1915 Armenian Genocide as genocide and Turkey as a perpetrator of genocide.

On Wednesday (21/2/18) Mueller again attempted to assess the tenability of his position. He announced further charges.

However he did not initially announce what those charges were. Instead he left people to speculate.

Every time Mueller has announced charges people have speculated whether they include the 1799 Logan Act. This forbids US citizens from conducting a shadow foreign policy.

The time of Muller's February 16th (16/2/18) announcement along with the February 14th (14/2/18) Parkland shooting seemed intended to sabotage US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's visit to Turkey. 

Therefore people are now asking whether Mueller himself should be prosecuted under the Logan Act for attempting to conduct a shadow US foreign policy.

Yesterday (22/2/18) Mueller confirmed the charges were some boring tax stuff against Manafort and Gates. These charges are only interesting because they relate to Ukraine.

In late 2013 early 2014 the US didn't so much meddle in Ukraine's democratic process. The US completely overthrew Ukraine's democratic process and placed the country under CIA control for more than a year.

During this period the CIA appointed Georgian President Mikhail Saahashvili s Governor of Ukraine's Odessa region. In March 2010 Saakashvili faked an entire Russian ground invasion of Georgia in order to rig an election.

So Mueller's investigation into foreign interference into the 2016 election has clear evidence of links between Obama and the US Democrat Party and Mikhail Saakashvili. A foreign man who has a proven track record of faking evidence of Russian aggression in an effort to rig elections.

The obvious question for Mueller then is whether the US Democrats under the advice of Saakashvili simply faked claims of Russian aggression to rig the US 2016 Election.

Yesterday (22/2/18) Ukraine produced further indications that Mueller's shadow foreign policy is not only in conflict with US foreign policy. It is even in conflict with the policies of the nations it supposedly relates to.

Ukraine banned Saakashvili from their country for the next three years.

At 15:25 on 23/2/18 (UK date) I'm going to have to start dinner and pick this up in about an hour.

Edited at around 16:20 on 23/2/18 (UK date) to tidy up above and add;

Mueller's apparent shadow foreign policy sabotaged Secretary Tillerson's visit to Turkey.

This certainly gave the impression that the US is unable to support the SDF in Afrin Canton or elsewhere. Needless to say that caused a degree of concern amongst the SDF.

This failure of formal US foreign policy came just a week after the US-led coalition CJTFOIR bombed Syrian troops in the Shangri-La area. This destroyed the fragile trust between the Syrians and the SDF.

So in revenge the Syrians decided to capitalise on the SDF's concerns by pressuring them to accept Syrian forces in Afrin Canton. This process began on February 20th (20/2/18) and remains subject to debate.

The arrival of Syrian troops risks a direct confrontation between regular Syrian forces and regular Turkish forces.

This will end any charade of a popular uprising in Syria and make it clear that this is a war between nation states. Not only that it risks being a war between Russia and the NATO alliance of which Turkey is nominally a member.

Even falling short of that doomsday scenario the deployment of Syrian forces is likely to result in one of two possible scenarios;

Firstly the Syrians and the SDF are not able to hold off the Turkish forces. This results in Afrin Canton falling under the control of Turkey and its proxy forces of ISIL and Al Qaeda. Not something the US and its allies can support.

Secondly Turkish forces withdraw from Afrin Canton leaving the area under the control of the Syrians rather than the SDF. Again not something the US and its allies can support.

Within the Sudetenland the Syria's of course liberated Abu al-Duhur on January 22nd (22/1/18).

From there the Syrians initially attempted to liberated the town of Saraqib. This sits around 25km (15 miles) north-west of Abu al-Duhur and around 20km (10 miles) south-east of Idlib City.

Although never officially stated the Syrians objective seemed to be to bypass Saraqib on route to the towns of al-Fuah and Kafraya. These sit around 15km (10 miles) and 20km (12 miles) north-west of Saraqib. They also sit around 10km (6miles) north-east of Idlib City.

Within the conflict in Syria the towns of al-Fuah and Kafraya are very famous.

Over the course of the war there have been numerous agreements for civilian evacuations and aid deliveries to various towns and cities. Most notably Aleppo City in December 2016.

Every time the Syrians have formed one of these agreements it has been on the condition that the towns of al-Fuah and Kafraya receive the same treatment.

Every single time the Al Qaeda forces keeping al-Fuah and Kafraya have failed to hold up their end of the agreement.

As a result there is great pressure on the Syrians to break through Al Qaeda's lines and rescue the civilians being held hostage in these towns.

The Syrians liberation of Abu Duhur of course triggered a mass collapse in Al Qaeda's lines. In wars there are worse problems to have.

However this Al Qaeda collapse did cause the Syrians one problem. Al Qaeda fled at such speed the Syrians didn't have the troops to move into all the territory they'd vacated. So ISIL were able to move in to replace Al Qaeda.

On January 28th (28/1/18) Al Qaeda and ISIL launched a joint offensive against the Syrians from Saraqib. They promised this counter-offensive would be; "Epic."

By January 30th (30/1/18) this combined Al Qaeda and ISIL offensive had collapsed. Both groups were back in full retreat with the Syrians gaining territory at the rate of around 20 villages a day.

This prompted Al Qaeda and ISIL to do what they always do in that situation. Make false allegations of chemical weapons use by the Syrians in the hope it would trigger calls for a ceasefire to protect them. Or even the US joining the war on their side as it did in April 2017.

At the time the Syrians main problem was that they were gaining territory at a faster rate than they could properly secure and control it. The notion they would resort to chemical weapons to speed up the rate they could gain territory is utterly ridiculous.

On February 5th (5/2/18) Al Qaeda used a Turkish supplied MAN Portable Air Defence (MANPAD) missile to shoot down a Russian Su-25 close to Saraqib killing the pilot. Erdogan's calculation was that this use of MANPAD's would cause Russia to suspend air operations in the area further protecting Al Qaeda and ISIL.

The opposite happened. Russia massively intensified its air operations. They also instructed Turkey to recover the Su-25 pilots body making clear that Erdogan had command and control over Al Qaeda forces in the area.

However the Syrians did shift their focus away from Saraqib. Instead they focused on clearing ISIL from the territory they had gained after Al Qaeda had fled.

The Syrians completed this task on February 9th (9/2/18) with the liberation of the villages around Abu Awjah. This forced the remaining ISIL fighters to seek shelter from Al Qaeda at Abu Dali. Al Qaeda formally granted ISIL their protection on February 13th (13/2/18).

Since then Syria's elite Tiger Forces have been redeployed from the Sudetenland to the East Ghouta suburb of Damascus - the Syrian capital. They took up positions at Dumayr Air Base on February 19th (19/2/18).

East Ghouta is currently under the occupation of Al Qaeda and the Army of Islam/Jaish al-Islam (JAI). The Army of Islam are a very extreme terrorist group which views ISIL as too moderate and has executed ISIL members for that reason.

Together Al Qaeda and the Army of Islam have formed the Army of Mohammad/Jaish al-Mohammad force.

Wherever Al Qaeda have faced Syria's Tiger Force such as in the Sudetenland they have been comprehensively defeated.

In October 2017 the combined Army of Mohammad launched an operation against Syrian forces in the Golan Heights area in the south of the country. Even without the involvement of the elite Tiger Forces the Army of Mohammad were totally defeated there offering their surrender on December 27th 2017 (27/12/17).

So it should come as no surprise then that the deployment of the Tiger Forces to East Ghouta has seen Al Qaeda and the Army of Islam massively ratchet up the Atrocity Propaganda to levels not seen since the liberation of Aleppo City in December 2016.

There hope is that a ceasefire will be called so they don't have to face the Tiger Forces.

17:35 on 23/2/18 (UK date).