Category Archives: Military

October 1, 2020 · 04:30

Gaming on a serious level

Yup, one sees a game, the other sees an application and the third sees a solution, that is how it is, how it, for the most has always been. I got introduced to Palantir in 1998 or 1999, I got access and took a look at it. At the time I was working for other parties and I noticed that Palantir government had a setup the was nice, it was not what we now call IBM Miner, but it had potential. So when I got introduced to the news giving me ‘Secret and unprofitable Palantir goes public’ I took notice. You see, I started to wonder what was happening, the quote “Seventeen years after it was born with the help of the CIA seed money, data-mining outfit Palantir Technologies is finally going public in the biggest Wall Street tech offering since last year’s debut of Slack and Uber”, it gets to be a little worse when we consider “Never profitable and dogged by ethical objections for assisting in the Trump administration’s deportation crackdown, Palantir has forged ahead with a direct listing of its stock, which is set to begin trading on Wednesday”. You see the setting is not great for Palantir and as I see it, over 17 years they made their own bed, this is seen with “The company has just 125 customers in 150 countries”. Now, I can claim that I am not the brightest person (even though I passed the Mensa requirements), but the stage of 125 customers in 150 countries is not manageable. Even as they ‘hide’ behind “Our software is used to target terrorists and to keep soldiers safe”, you see, the software has a foundation and a base. Even as one foundation part is to hunt terrorists, the base is to analyse data. I can hunt terrorists with IBM Statistics, IBM Miner and Mapping software, it might not be fast, but it will get me there (well, mostly anyway), so in the setting we see with Palantir, we see a larger failing, especially over 17 years. They had well over a decade to extent the bae and create an additional foundation, optionally getting another 125 customers, yet that was not what they did, is it? So when we see “Palantir paints a dark picture of faltering government agencies and institutions in danger of collapse and ripe for rescue by a “central operating system” forged under Thiel’s auspices”, I merely see an excuse. You see Palantir has no need or reason to rely on a station with ‘faltering government agencies’, by extending the base and creating another foundation they would not need to rely on the side and add an optional third foundation called reporting. The need for washboarding and sliceable presentations have been a larger requirement for close to a decade, these options are required in the intelligence world as well, leaving it up to others means the the slippery slope of business intelligence becomes smaller and less pronounced, a place that relies on long term vision has been lacking that a lot, has it not?

Even as Scott Galloway from New York University gives us “They’re massively unprofitable and they’ve never been able to figure it out”, the obvious question becomes, were they unfocussed, uncaring or just lazy? The vendor the relies on government jobs can’t rely on them for more than 2 years, if the program is not showing forward movement, there is no long term justification and when we see “Palantir has accumulated $3.8bn in losses, raised about $3bn and listed $200m in outstanding debt as of July 31”, we see the faltering position that Palantir is in. It cannot rely on the customer base it has, because well over a third has extended its credit card too much, as such they need to adapt to a form of Business Intelligence gathering, data mining, slicing and washboarding and set a new stage in long term reporting. As I see it, Banks and financial institutions will have extended Business intelligence needs and additional needs as well. If you think that financial fraud is big now, wait until banks automate under 5G, it will be a tidal wave 5-10 times the one the banks face now and they will need to have additional ways to find the transgressors, relying on the police will be a monumental waste of time, which is not the flaw of the police, it is the consequence of the times and their needs. I state financial institutions, because it is not merely the banks, it is the credit crunch seekers that will need to find the people with outlandish debts and as the laws will adjust because the banks will no longer accept that the wife gets the house so that they can live in luxury of what they could not afford, the game ends soon enough, the credit drive will force change and there would be a market for Palantir if they adjust. They need to adjust faster the they are ready for, but the current agenda does not allow sleeping at the helm. As I personally see it (on small and debatable data), Peter Thiel took too long and even as we are being told “winning a modest contract early in the COVID-19 pandemic for helping the White House gather data on the coronavirus’s impact”, I wonder how the data collection part was achieved, in light of all the places where no data gathering correctly existed, the stage of the gathered data becomes debatable. 

The article (at https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2020/9/30/palantir-goes-public-in-biggest-wall-street-tech-offering-of-2020) as a lot more debatable parts, in all they are tracks that could have been highlighted by adding a few commercial data gatherers to the fold from day one. There is the other need for a setting of adjustment and weighing of origin data, all whilst all the data is scrutinised. I reckon that this would set a stage where the findings of Sarah Brayne would be considered in house and not after certain stages went live (or perhaps they were merely ignored). She found “the Los Angeles Police Department’s use of Gotham, found the software could lead to a proliferation of unregulated personal data collected by police from commercial and law enforcement database”, I will add to this, the setting that the software was designed to people employing trade craft, they would be outliers on the entire board, a setting that rates questions on people who seek cheap solutions because of budget, seek evasion because of divorce and outstanding bills, the acts are similar but not terrorist in nature.

OK, I admit, I do not know the exact setting in LA (other that Lucifer is their consultant), but the setting of outlier data came to mind in the first 10 seconds, and the finding of Sarah Brayne and ‘proliferation of unregulated personal data’ supports that, apart from the fact that unregulated data tends to be debatable and optionally in part or completely incorrect, data mining gives us the option to clean if the sources are known, unregulated personal data takes the out of the equation because the origin of the data (the person adding and manipulating data) is unknown and as such the data becomes unreliable. 

That is a lesson that banks would have told them quickly, if not them, then players like Equifax, because Palantir will end up in their fairway, the odds would not be even for Palantir. Yet Palantir needs to grow if they are to exist in a stage after tomorrow, to the there is no doubt, the US, UK and most EU nations cannot continue on the intelligence data foundations that they currently are. So as we see that, how many customers could Palantir lose? Growth is as I see it the only path that remains, banks are the most visible needling of more intelligence gathering, but they are not alone and Palantir needs to gird their loins.

 

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September 30, 2020 · 20:45

Israel is to the right

Yup, we can see Israel from where some are standing, that is if you are standing in Egypt. You see, we look at the middle east and we seemingly forget that Egypt is a player here (even as it is in Africa), so when I see Israel Hayom giving us ‘Egypt-Jordan-Iraq: Another Middle East axis in the making?’ I am not overly surprised. I am a little surprised on the use of the word ‘axis’, but that is not the greatest breach of settings. For the most, we tend to look at that word negative, but the clean meaning is “an agreement or alliance between two or more countries that forms a centre for an eventual larger grouping of nations”, it does make sense in a few ways, especially Jordan, for them the issue is not Israel, it is the setting of any escalation coming from Syria. Even as we are given “all three countries are poor and dependent in for economic largesse on more wealthy partners, so their regional aspirations and strategies will necessarily be limited”, we see a setting that is correct, but not essentially right. Let me explain, there is a mess from both Palestine and Syria flowing over, these three nations will get the first brunt, for a player like Saudi Arabia or the UAE aligning with their needs in some form of support would go a long way and whatever countering is required could happen that way. In all Jordan is due to location the weakest, but they all need to set the security of their nation and as such there others might consider chipping in towards that security, let’s not forget that Saudi Arabia is linked to the north to both Jordan and Iraq. In this whatever comes for Saudi Arabia (Hezbollah and Iran) would most likely be spilled through Jordan and Iraq. 

There are several reasons for the choices the the three nations seem to advocate, but for the most it he’s towards the ‘needs’ of Hezbollah, who ignored options for the longest time, as such I am not in favour of them, in this Hezbollah made its own best and for them becoming the tool of Iran sends a much larger problem equation than any solution thrown the way. Yet, in all Jordan requires support and protection, yes we can go towards another pipeline, but the setting here is not merely what can be, but the future of what is and for that the (by official count) a solution needs to be found for the 750,000 refugees there, I reckon that the actual size is well over twice that. So to find support on those settings to deviate pressures in Jordan is essential and that is before you realise that 750,000 people tend to get thirsty and water is not something that Jordan has an abundance of, so the pressures are only increasing. Even as sources give us “Jordan is struggling to deliver enough fresh water to its population and farmers. Water access is particularly erratic during drought events, which have been increasing in frequency and severity. Groundwater levels drop by roughly a meter annually, the result of prolonged drought and of the proliferation of thousands of illegal wells that are pumping the country’s aquifers to extinction”, we see a text that does not mention those refugees, they too will dig out of thirst and there we get a much larger issue on all of it. As the situation in Jordan is not improved, this so called axis will depend on Iraq and Egypt, a small change that ISIL, Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood would like very much, because the pressures over there work to their advantage. You forgot about those players, didn’t you?

Even as some sources give us ‘Islamic State steps up attacks in Syria and Iraq: UN experts’, here the text “The experts monitoring sanctions against the Islamic State and al-Qaeda said it is unclear whether the Islamic States’ new leader, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi Al-Qurayshi, can effectively lead the extremist group’s diverse and far-flung supporters and affiliates” would relax the wrong people for too much, especially when we consider “Parts of Iraq, especially areas in Anbar province near the Syrian border, “also represent a permissive security environment for the movement of ISIL fighters,”” I believe (a personal speculation) that the setting is actually worse, thee is every setting where people seem to shoot allegiances in Egypt and Iraq, it is not merely there, there is a much larger ‘permissive security environment’ in both Egypt and Jordan, in some cases not intentionally, but the refugee setting seems to fuel adherence to extremism and it is there the Jordan has a much larger problem, for the simple reason the it creates a funnel between Iraq and Egypt via the Sinai and when we consider ‘Egypt says 18 suspected armed fighters killed in Sinai firefight’, Egypt needs to consider that the setting might be much worse, I have actually been there, if you see 18, there is every chance you missed 60 more and where would they go to? The Sinai is a strategic point that allows for incursions in Egypt, Israel AND Jordan, so who would get hit and more important, who would get hit next? I do not know but the field is open from the point onwards, especially when ISIS, ISIL and the Muslim Brotherhood thrive on chaos.

So whilst you wonder whether I am exaggerating (always an option), consider my setting the next flame up in that region and the stage that is behind it.

 

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September 29, 2020 · 20:42

Using the limelight

It all started a few days ago and for the most I kept you all informed. The latest news was in my possession for well over an hour. I waited because I wanted to see how the others were reacting. And I was not disappointed, they did exactly what I expected, basically, they did nothing.

It all started with ‘Saudi Arabia says it took down ‘terrorist cell’ trained by Iran’ (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/9/29/saudi-arabia-says-it-took-down-terrorist-cell-trained-by-iran), so should we say it is real or not? It is a fair question to have, yet the quote “Saudi Arabia says it has taken down a “terrorist cell” that had received training from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, arresting 10 people and seizing weapons and explosives”, leaves me with the setting that this is factual. We are also given “Among the items seized were improvised explosive devices (IEDs), dozens of stun guns, kilos of gunpowder and a variety of rifles and pistols, according to the statement. It did not say where last week’s raid or arrests were carried out”, yet the western media has nothing. Not the BBC, not Reuters, not European news offices, and not FoxNews. It seems to me that Iran is given an option to get away with any action that is not set in America or Europe. And this is where we get the larger issue, the news is filtering what they think we need to know, as such we see a totally destabilised view of what is going on. 

This news matters because it gives strength to something else I stated, which was speculative at the time. I speculated that someone was painting the Aramco targets so that the drones would be more effective. These 10 men could have done just that. The arrest off the 10 men does not make my setting any less speculative. It does however open a larger stage, the news was avoiding a lot of what happened, eager to use ‘speculative’ and ‘alleged’, which is not unacceptable, yet it sets the stage that the western media is optionally complicit is setting a stage that is not part of what happened (like the Khashoggi disappearance). We see even the UN side with Turkey (where the most incarcerated journalists in history are), blatant statements even as there is no evidence is supporting any of it. 

So in this we have a much larger guilt, we are part of the problem, the media is filtering what is happening and no excuse makes up for that. It goes beyond the media, there is some indication that Google and the social media are part of this. Google calls them omitted results, social media merely hides the events on the timeline altering most results and chronological results, the last part is speculative, but the seems to be happening.

Why does this matter?

The UK, US and EU have been throwing the ‘terrorist’ word at us for the longest time, and we merely had to swallow it, now that there are additional indications that Iran is part of the problem we are left in the dark. The Saudi government gives us ““The competent authorities will conduct investigations with all those arrested to find out more information about their activities and the persons connected to them in the kingdom and abroad,” the statement read”, yet I wonder if the is enough, I wonder how much shielding Iran is receiving, Yemen and the Houthi actions made it clear that this was happening, now we are set in a stage where shielding is a lot larger making the media less reliable, I wonder who they are working for, because as I personally see it, it is not the advertisers. This all does not make the 10 men guilty, but it sets a stage of questions that most do not want to entertain, what is Iran actually up to?

 

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September 26, 2020 · 21:34

About that news

Yup, we always have news, news we agree with and news we disagree with, this is not new, this is a mainstream setting. Yet this is not about news that is fake or false. Even if news is completely true, we might disagree because we do not like the subject, or because we differ on the facts that we know and accept. News becomes subjective and optionally not wrong, incorrect or false. It is a setting we all to some degree battle with. Pretty much all sport fans are in the setting when they read the news on Monday morning. So I had to consider a few things when I saw ‘Canada charges man for lying about joining ISIL’ (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/9/26/canada-mounties-charge-man-with-falsely-claiming-extremism). Now I have no real setting towards it, I do not understand why you would only join ISIL in the mind, but there you have it. On one side we can argue the only the truly unbalanced minds will join a terrorist organisation, implying that any person making it as a false claim is an optional mental health patient. One source, Isabella Frances Teti in 2016 via the presidential leadership academy at Penn State, gives us “ISIL’s ideology represents radical Salafi Islam, a strict, puritanical form of Sunni Islam” 

I do not judge, because I am not islamic, yet I feel that any person who truly believes in Sunni Islam would join the armies of either Saudi Arabia, Egypt, or Syria and from there protect Sunni Islam, I left Turkey out of the equation in light of the fact that they seem to side with Iran (a Shia nation) all the time. In addition, the I personally do not understand the stage of ‘radical Salafi Islam’, as such I feel a little lost, but I do know that going the path of terrorism is not a solution, so there is my view on the stage, yet was a news article and there are other considerations, the more important one comes next

In light of the data

Consider the we see “Police said the criminal charge against Chaudhry stems from ‘numerous’ media interviews in which he described travelling to Syria in 2016 to join ISIL”, so not only did it a little while for the police and intelligence players a while to catch on, this farce had been going on since 2016, so for 4 years we see that the players were not in the know, their intelligence is that flawed the they could not see through the lies? When we see “The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said in a statement on Friday the criminal charge against Shehroze Chaudhry stems from “numerous” media interviews in which he described travelling to Syria in 2016 to join the armed group and committing acts of “terrorism”” OK, I agree the there is another way to read this and it had not taken 4 years, yet the setting of ‘“numerous” media interviews’ makes me wonder how many interviews there were and how the information was vetted. From my point of view there is the stage on where Shehroze Chaundry joined, if it included travel from Canada, how was this investigated? So how should we read “charged with a criminal code offence of perpetrating a hoax related to terrorist activity”, as such can I be charged by virtually knocking up a desirable woman? (sorry Natascha McElhone) 

Now, I am not making light of the situation (my desire for Natasha McElhone is real), yet when we see how much is spend on terrorist intelligence and data gathering from 2001 onward, how come it took so long to get a complete picture? 

I understand why there is a charge, especially when I see “the RCMP takes these allegations very seriously, particularly when individuals, by their actions, cause the police to enter into investigations in which human and financial resources are invested and diverted from other ongoing priorities,″ said deGale, commander of an RCMP security enforcement team”, that makes sense, but the stage I see is the timeline between the claim and the discovery. As the article ‘hides’ behind ‘numerous’ as the stage of amount of interviews, which is merely a part in al this. A larger part is the fact that the boy is 25, if this started in 2016, it implies he was 21 at the point, so what travel papers, what modes of transportation and what settings of smuggle were used? How can any person be so in the know that 2-3 interviews would not have brought serious doubt into the mix? And even as I agree with the setting of “The RCMP said it collaborated with several other agencies during its investigation”, which is a proper setting for any investigation, I wonder at what point did Commander deGale become aware that this was not a blood soaking terrorist, but someone with a vivid imagination (which got me to Natasha McElhone), I admit there is nothing wrong with my imagination, other that in some spectral views (the intimate kind), it is massively disconnected from reality, and who does not have that at times?

I myself, would have started by looking into Shehroze Chaudhry’s religious past, talk to his imam on the views that Shehroze Chaudhry might have and if the imam could explain the stage of Chaundry moving towards a strict, puritanical form of Sunni Islam. Let’s be honest, this might hold water in the US, but Canada? The is the place where boys are born wearing hockey skates and where we hear “Darn, I forgot to close the kitchen door, everyone, there is a bear in the kitchen, lets get a pizza, dinner and the bear will be gone in 5 minutes”, I am not stating that strict Sunni Islam is out of the question, but there seemingly would not be any reason to join ISIL (as I personally see it). There was Islamic places of worship all over Canada, it does not mean that there is a strict Sunny Islam all over the place, but as I see it there are a few options before someone go’s towards ISIL, I got all this in 30 minutes, it is not that some results and data would not be shared, yet the timeline seems off (by a lot). 

Still, the stage of perpetrating a hoax towards being a terrorist could only happen in Canada, in the US that person would most likely be in a Black site until December 2037. I reckon Canada saved itself a few bills.

 

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September 19, 2020 · 23:31

Blaming the wrong party

Yup, we’ve all done that. The blame game is notorious in two aspects. The first is the party blamed, the second is the reason for blaming. So it is not just on how blame is designed, it is the intended and actual party of blaming the comes to mind. We tend to get both wrong when it is an emotional setting. There is one elements that we tend to forget, detachment is the drive that tends to set the matters of the mind straight. So I went through all the stages of the blame game when I saw ‘World’s richest urged to do more to keep millions from starving’ in Al Jazeera (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/09/world-richest-millions-starving-wfp-200918090724645.html). In this:

  1. Why is that up to the world’s richest?
  2. When millions are starving, why are individuals called upon, why are governments flaccid?
  3. Who created this situation in the first place?

These three elements are important. Because the article gives us “He cited the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) where violence has increased and instability has already forced 15.5 million people near starvation. He also said a lack of funding has forced cutbacks in assistance to feed people in war-ravaged Yemen”, with the additional quote ““Worldwide, there are over 2,000 billionaires with a net worth of $8 trillion,” the former South Carolina governor said, noting reports that some of the wealthiest Americans have made “billions upon billions” during the pandemic”

So here is where the blame game comes into effect. As I personally see it, David Beasley has his heart in the right place, but not his brain. In the first, governments have been playing credit card jockey for well over a decade, this is the result. In the second, places like Yemen are in a stage of committed non-action by both NATO and commonwealth forces. They simply didn’t care and for close to 5 years nothing happened and this is the result. In the third, it was essential for tax laws to be overhauled for well over a decade in the US, Japan and EU nations, none of that happened. I offered an optional solution in 1998, yet is was thrown out, remarks like ‘too complex’ and ‘hindrance of free trading’, well these things come at a price. In the setting of “some of the wealthiest Americans have made “billions upon billions” during the pandemic” we see a cheap shot at Jeff Bezos and a few others. Now, I have no real interest in Jeff, but he (his company) made that revenue fair and square. If the blame game parties had acted over the last 10 years, the situation might not be as dire as it is now. We seem to forget that part.

In case of Jeff, there might be plenty to blame him for, but this is not one of these things, this is not the station to make a reference to Jeff Bezos and his Amazon, but to the governments and their greed driven short sightedness.

This is the price of capitalism, this is the consequence of free trading. Everything has a price and now that you are seeing the consequences, you do not get to be the blamer, you all went along with the setting for far too long and most governments set the station of revenue and the lack of options for well over the next decade is the consequence of choices made between 1998 and 2020. And in all this, it might blow over, you see, the media gives us again and again “a potential “hunger pandemic”” the media has been giving us ‘potential’ in Yemen, so when will it actually happen? 

Fair question is it not?

We need to set the record straight, we need to demand that our governments ACT, that they adjust tax laws the way they should have been from the start, but every time dome politicians will oppose, as such set these opposes in the limelight, let them explain it. Let’s not blame the people who merely used the system handed to them.  The system that we all voted into the place it is and we need to ac sept that we are all to blame by letting the elected people continue the way they did.

That is all before we get to Mark Lowcock some UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, who gives us “who have a particular responsibility, which they have discharged in recent years – have so far given nothing”, on one side he is not completely wrong, yet n the other side, the acts and hindrances by Houthi forces as well as the support given to the Houthi forces by Iran are left out of the equation, are they not? So while we are given “Continuing to hold back money from the humanitarian response now will be a death sentence for many families”, all whilst he remains silent on the acts of the Houthi forces intervening is just a big no-no. The blame game is taking a serous turn towards the people who might be partially blamed, whilst the parties who need to be fully blamed are left out of the equation. So is this how we are given the truth? Partial truths baked in larger non-truths and all whilst we see the pictures of those in need, but not the pictures of those who were actually responsible for the mess we are given nowadays. It is so nice to blame a person like Jeff Bezos, all whilst his company was able to provide to a little over 800 million in lockdown for months. Yup, it got him a few thousand million extra, but is that his fault? He merely supplied towards an outstanding demand, that is how capitalism works and he got to keep a lot of it because the laws of taxation allowed him to do that. 

There is of course the station where some very rich people are not as innocent, but are they guilty? Guilty of what? They became rich as they had the clever accountants who used the laws of taxation to the maximum, is that the fault of the wealthy, the accountant, or is this mess the fault of governments not overhauling the laws of taxation? An overhaul that had creamy be needed in 2 decades. And the lack of humanitarian acts, is that because that there is no-one to hand out humanitarian aid, or is that because the governments who did that are so deep in debt that they no longer have the ability to do that, which gets us to the laws of taxation again.

Well over a dozen governments have painted themselves into corners and we end up blaming the paint for not being dry, how does that make any kind of sense? We can blame all we like, but in the end we merely did this ourselves by elating the people who set the stage by doing almost nothing, that is the stage we need to look at and in this we need to realise that this is not a nanny state verdict, this is the stage of non-accountability and that is the part we forgot about. 

 

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September 11, 2020 · 20:21

The shores I see from here

OK, I am not beating around the bush, I have given my point of view on several matters and I have always stated that I have always been driven by evidence. As such I have opposed the views of Agnes Calamard, not for Saudi Arabia, but because of the debatability of the evidence, so as we now see ‘Trump boasted he protected MBS after Khashoggi hit: Report’ (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/09/trump-boasted-protected-mbs-khashoggi-hit-report-200910195007682.html), all whilst there is no actual evidence of the hit. Now, I get it, I understand that you would doubt me, I would doubt me as well, but perhaps the following will convince you. When we see the quote “Trump bragged that he protected the Saudi crown prince from consequences in the United States after the assassination of Khashoggi in October 2018, the news outlet Business Insider reported on Thursday. “I saved his a**,” President Trump said about the US outcry about Khashoggi’s killing, according to Business Insider, quoting from a copy  of Woodward’s book. “I was able to get Congress to leave him alone. I was able to get them to  stop,” Trump said.” What do we see? Basically, the only action we see is ‘I was able to get Congress to leave him alone’, my question becomes, what evidence is there for congress to rattle Saudi Arabia with? When we re-open the report I spoke about yesterday we see at [6] “the Special Rapporteur was not provided with any information regarding the evidence they may have collected during this period.” Which is funny when we see at [8] “The Special Rapporteur found credible evidence pointing to the crime scenes having been thoroughly, even forensically, cleaned”, here we get the issue, they claim guilt on the setting that the room was clean, it is like you getting found guilty of killing your mom and dad because the house does not contain evidence of their death. OK, a small exaggeration, I get that, but the finding of guilt due to no evidence is the setting and she was kind enough to create doubt by ‘found credible evidence pointing to’, so the stage of ‘beyond all reasonable doubt’ is avoided, added to the facts that there was no credible evidence that any order was ever given to kill Khashoggi and the Crown prince was roughly 12,756,587 meters away from the crime scene. Yup, that evidence is so overwhelming isn’t it? So how come this US president is that stupid to alienate his allies? And that is merely the beginning. As we are given “US and other foreign intelligence services have reportedly concluded that MBS directed the killing” we are drawn to the report that gives us at [39] “At some point, there comes a time when an intelligence service or operative simply has to make a stab at assimilating what all this means. There is rarely space for scrutiny from anyone outside the intelligence system”, which is interesting against the ‘concluded’ part earlier when it is about “make a stab at assimilating what all this means”, which is not evidence and is nowhere near ‘beyond all reasonable doubt’, did anyone consider this? The report has plenty of issues that could be speculative gems of fingering any party as guilty, but is that what a murder investigation is supposed to be about? And in this mess we see ‘Trump boasted he protected’? What is this, an episode of Comedy Capers? And the article goes on giving us “Khashoggi was killed and dismembered by a team of Saudi agents while his fiancee waited for him outside the consulate building”, all whilst there was no evidence retrieved in any way that there was a killing and there was no evidence on dismembering, it is all speculation.

You see the claim of dismemberment implies that there is a body, there is forensic evidence and that is disputed in the report starting at [8], it is not about what might have happened, it is about what can be proven and there is no evidence, there is merely speculation through the expensive words like ‘credible evidence’ and ‘may have been collected’, the lack of ‘evidence that can be proven beyond the shadow of a doubt’ and ‘collected evidence’ is missing making the issue moot and it makes the statement by President Trump one of the least intelligent boasts that any US president has ever made. But there is an upside, I needed EU 324,000,000 for a project, so I am willing and willing to offer myself as an in-between to other arms dealers to set up office with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, as such I would be willing to find another party to offer the “$8bn in precision-guided missiles and other high-tech weapons”, let’s face it, fair is fair, right? Boasts on one side (especially those linked to a lack of evidence) should be countered by economic deals to other parties on the other side. That is what Wall Street taught us all and we are all willing to learn (especially when we earn a few coins), so that is that state of matters and I will be taking calls from the BAE as per direct. Raytheon eat your heart out!

Suddenly the shores I see from here don’t look so bad, what should I do, play hard to get? I think not!

 

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September 10, 2020 · 23:22

Squid rings of theatrics

I was about to enter the relaxing side of Thursday pushing towards Friday. It was to be an uneventful setting towards the weekend, yet there Al Jazeera comes with the setting of “UN special rapporteur tells Al Jazeera the Saudi trial over the killing of Jamal Khashoggi made a ‘mockery of justice’”, in my personal setting, the UN Essay writer has an issue, so lets recap the issue.

A lot of it was given in ‘Demanding Dismissal’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/07/04/demanding-dismissal/), I even added the report there. Yet one thing I left alone (until now), in the article I referred to “The Saudi officials we are sanctioning were involved in the abhorrent killing of Jamal Khashoggi. These individuals who targeted and brutally killed a journalist who resided and worked in the United States must face consequences for their actions”, as such I ask ‘What abhorrent killing?’ Let me explain this. Abhorrent is repulsive, disgusting or horrifying. So is there a grade in killing? It also implies that someone witnessed it, if not how can it be abhorrent? So let’s get back to the report.

[92] Turkish Intelligence assessed that he may have been dead within ten minutes after entering the Consulate. Here we are treated to ‘he may have been dead’, ‘may’ refers to speculation, not fact, the footnote gives us “The ten minutes reference is based on the fact that after ten minutes, Mr. Khashoggi voice was not heard”, this implies that Turkish Intelligence has 100% of the embassy bugged and wired, that is extremely doubtful on several levels. 

[97] Around 15:00, CCTV cameras captured a consular van and another vehicle leaving the Consulate’s garage and arrive at the Consular General’s Residence at 15:02. The cameras recorded three men enter the Residence with what seem like plastic trash bags, and at least one rolling suitcase. Turkish Investigators have not been able to identify the size, the shape or the type of bags that the three Saudis carried into the Residence or where they may have purchased them. OK, we accept the footnote on contradictory parts, yet there is no evidence that Khashoggi, or him in parts was anywhere there, there is no evidence. 

The report mentions ‘interrogation’ 4 times, yet these so called tapes on the torture/interrogation of Jamal Khashoggi. Who heard them? How were they forensically tested and who tested and seconded any report of these findings and optional facts? 

I even added “It is these two events alone that requires the United Nations to consider your dismissal, it gets to be even worse when you called “Donald Trump’s administration has to share its findings into the murder with the international community“, please explain to me how the United States has any actual evidence regarding the events in a foreign nation on a consulate that is another nations grounds? How was this evidence collected? Creating a mountain of non-substantial evidence is not really evidence, even as circumstantial evidence that is founded on probability will not hold water, even if the statement “officials have said they have high confidence“, they lost the credibility they had with a silver briefcase holding evidence on WMD in Iraq, you do remember that part, don’t you? (It was roughly 16 years ago)”, the larger issues I have here are ‘has to share its findings into the murder’, so ‘findings’ and still unproven ‘murder’ is a setting that we need to accept and realise, there is negligent homicide, homicide, manslaughter, murder and capital murder. They have different settings towards intent that must be proven beyond the shadow of a doubt, there are the actions of the reasonable person and they all require a body to show the evidence, the body was never recovered. Now, I am not stating that Jamal Khashoggi is alive, it is more likely than not that he is no longer alive, but I cannot prove it, as far as I can tell no one can. 

I ended the article with “The consulate is Saudi territory, Turkish territory (the grounds around the Consulate) was implied to be monitored and there too a lot of errors were made, judgment calls that were basically colossal blunders. The realisation of any journalist getting so much attention with the dozens and dozens of incarcerated journalist in Turkish prisons calls for another venue and all these so called venues give rise that there are plenty of others with an optional issue with Jamal Khashoggi and you calling out HRH Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud should be regarded as stupid, the lack of evidence and the amount of circumstantial evidence alone calls you out.”

I still believe in the law and a person is innocent until proven guilty. Now, I understand that there is a lack of evidence, it makes a person not guilty. In this I accept that ‘not guilty’ and ‘innocent’ are different dimensions, yet the lack of evidence still counts, there is nothing to go on and the puppet theatre that Turkey engaged with is part to blame, the fact that they have the most incarcerated journalists on the planet counts, the report never makes mention of it. The report gives us “In killing a journalist, the State of Saudi Arabia also committed an act inconsistent with a core tenet of the United Nations”, yet the lack of evidence shows that it cannot be proven that any act was done by the State of Saudi Arabia, even if evidence shows that Jamal Khashoggi that he was killed with intent, there would still need to be evidence that the State of Saudi Arabia did this or ordered this, and that is where the problem lies. Even as the report states on page 4 “From the perspective of international human rights law, State responsibility is not a question of, for example, which of the State officials ordered Mr. Khashoggi’s death; whether one or more ordered a kidnapping that was botched and then became an accidental killing; or whether the officers acted on their own initiative or ultra vires.” Actually it does, there needs to be evidence (it is a pesky thing that evidence)  that there were actions and orders by the State of Saudi Arabia they do not exist, they are at best implied. I am actually bewildered that there is no report that goes over every media on the fact that Turkey has its own history with journalists “The killings of journalists in Turkey since 1995 are more or less individual cases. Most prominent among the victims is Hrant Dink, killed in 2007, but the death of Metin Göktepe also raised great concern, since police officers beat him to death. Since 2014, several Syrian journalists who were working from Turkey and reporting on the rise of Daesh have been assassinated. The death of Metin Alataş in 2010 is also a source of disagreement – while the autopsy claimed it was suicide, his family and colleagues demanded an investigation. He had formerly received death threats and had been violently assaulted”, so where are these reports? I hope that the UN Special Rapporteur is something more than a mere UN Essay writer. I am certain that the world is eager to see what happened to these people. The media tainting setting has been extraordinary, in 2019 Google search gave well over 32,000,000 links to ‘Jamal Khashoggi’, especially as ‘Hrant Dink’ only has 1.4 million links, and ‘Metin Alataş’ has less than 850,000, so where is the visibility there? It matters because this all has been happening in Turkey, the puppet of Iran and its consort in the proxy war against Saudi Arabia, an established fact that the reports did not make mention of, the setting of Turkey is left out of consideration, which is odd as it is the nation that surrounds that setting and there is no consideration that this was not a Saudi operation, but a Turkish one. It is far fetched, I completely agree, but it was never investigated, especially when the weeks of the issue had all these contradictive issues and the media gobbled it up, but they were not investigated. Why not?

My view is supported in the report at [108], here we see “the Turkish authorities opened an investigation into the disappearance of Mr. Khashoggi on the evening of 2 October, after Ms. Cengiz called the local police about Mr. Khashoggi’s disappearance. The police then contacted the prosecutor on call who in turn wrote instructions on how to proceed with the case. That same evening, Turkish Intelligence began reviewing what they say were seven hours of raw recordings from the Consulate that they had in their possession. In their own words, the assessment of the raw footage was complex and it took them several days to reach a firm conclusion regarding the fate of Mr. Khashoggi. Their initial assessment of the recordings led them to believe that Mr. Khashoggi had been injected with something, passed out, and taken alive from the Consulate in some box or container.” I have issues with “Turkish Intelligence began reviewing” and “seven hours of raw recordings from the Consulate that they had in their possession”, now the fact that governments keep tabs on embassies and consulates is not that much of a surprise, yet when we see “Mr. Khashoggi had been injected with something, passed out, and taken alive from the Consulate in some box or container” is weird, especially as there is no evidence on any of it. 

So as I take notice in Al Jazeera of “There were Islamic scholars who debated whether this was a crime under Shariah (Islamic) law that could be pardoned. Because it was a premeditated crime, because it was so gruesome”, so how is it ‘gruesome’? A body was never found, murder is not proven, even if it ends up being manslaughter (me speculating that the killer, if there is one, did not intent the killing), the setting even lacks the foundation of a ‘premeditated crime’, this is a real stage and I wonder why Al Jazeera is keeping this alive. How many articles did they spend on all the journalists killed in Turkey? How much attention did the international media give all these incarcerated journalists in Turkey? When we consider that 231 journalists have been arrested after 15 July 2016, how much attention did Al Jazeera give them? It seems that the UN is part of a bigger play that requires Agnes Calamard to keep the Khashoggi issue alive, yet how much time did she spend on other issues? Incarcerated journalists in Turkey is only one, the actions of Houthi and Hezbollah combatants in Yemen is another one, and how much time has Agnes Calamard spend on Syrian issues? #JustAsking

The math in all this does not add up!

 

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September 3, 2020 · 12:21

Overkill anyone?

There is no going around the news that Alexey Navalny did not slip on a bar of soap in the bathroom. Yet the news ‘Nerve agent Novichok found in Russia’s Alexey Navalny: Germany’ given to us (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/09/germany-nerve-agent-novichok-russia-navalny-200902135330447.html) and other sources needs to be evaluated on a few levels. The media is of course eager to give us “Novichok – a military grade nerve agent – was used to poison former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the United Kingdom”, that event had a few issues and this one has even more. First of all, I do not really know the man, so my information on him has a few dubious sides. Consider his life in Moscow, on his walks in Moscow there are well over a dozen vantage points where his life could be snuffed out with a cyanide tipped bullet (or Ricin), two much more stable compounds than Novichok ever was. From each of these vantage points, I would be able to get to 1-2 streets over and after that simply vanish, the M24, or DVP Druganov equivalent I would leave behind, as a present for the eager beaver. As such Navalny would be dead. There are alternatives with Lithium, and several more opportunities that end life permanently, so we do have options. In this we now get another stage. This is the third known Novichok attack where the person does not immediately die, or does not die at all ‘Comatose Russian dissident Alexey Navalny arrives at Berlin hospital’ (source: CNN). And even as the media hides behind ““Only the state [FSB, GRU] can use Novichok. This is beyond any reasonable doubt,” Ivan Zhdanov, director of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, said on Twitter, referring to the FSB internal security and GRU military intelligence services”, I had shown in ‘Something for the Silver Screen?’ In March 2018 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2018/03/17/something-for-the-silver-screen/) we see that the statement ‘Only the state [FSB, GRU] can use Novichok’ is not true, there are at least two instances where reach of Novichoks are outside of state actors, that is separate from the issues shown in the OPCW papers and in this, there are more questionable acts by Vil Mirzayanov in this. And let’s be clear, if the FSB or the GRU wanted Alexey Navalny dead there are over a dozen of ways to do that. If you need to get rid of the neighbour, you don’t resort to nuclear weapons, it is a level of overkill that is apparently accepted by all the media whilst no one is looking at the larger picture. Novichok is massively unstable and way too dangerous. These are known properties and no one is looking into the matter or asking questions. 

Is that not really really weird?

And it does not end there, Al Jazeera also gives us “Sergei Nechayev, who was summoned to the foreign ministry on Wednesday, asked for evidence and received “no answer, no facts, no data, no formulae”” as such, we see the accusation, we see no facts and no real evidence, and even as I am willing to accept that there was something real here, there is still a larger car where this is not a state operation, but another setting where Russian organised crime is involved. This does not absolve the Russian government but it does show a much larger setting and optionally a case where the Russian government is not guilty. The act of one corrupt official does not make a government guilty, and is that not a nice surprise “In December 2010, Navalny announced the launch of the RosPil project, which seeks to bring to light corrupt practices in the government procurement process”, it seems that Navalny has been dipping his feet in the pool of corruption hoping to see what is swimming there and who the sharks are (a West Side Story reference). Yet the media is not looking too deep there, because someone mentioned the word Novichok. In this the very first setting in this situation is that the use of Novichok is a massive overkill, and no one is catching on, why is that?

And if the west is so about freedom and about being nations of laws, why are they all negated in several cases? 

 

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September 1, 2020 · 17:56

Just the facts?

Isn’t that what it needs to be in media? Just the facts? The issue is that media in general and in this case the BBC specifically is setting a different stage and I am not sure why. Now, I will give up front that it is my opinion and perception against that of the BBC and the stage is up in the air. For the most, or basically nearly always, the BBC is on point and is highly reliable. In this case, some facts are debatable and one factor is that I do not have all the inn’s and out’s (pun intended). That is also a factor and I am trying to keep that in mind. So the article ‘Saudi king sacks defence officials’ would initially be something I would have glanced over. Merely because even if I would be applying for the position of Defence official for the Saudi Arabian government, I do not speak the language and I reckon that there are plenty of Saudi nationals eager to get that position. In the second, the role was until recently in the hands of Prince Fahad bin Turki, and I am no prince (no matter what the ladies say). In addition we are given “The men, along with four other officials, face an investigation into “suspicious financial dealings” at the Ministry of Defence, the decree said”, implying that this is all about the politics, and I never cared for politics. It all starts with “critics say the high-profile arrests have been aimed at removing obstacles to the prince’s hold on power”, my first question becomes, who are those critics? In the second, in light of how things are in Yemen, I see no real setting that Prince Fahad bin Turki is any kind of obstacle in the current power setting in Saudi Arabia, now I will admit immediately that I have no real idea on who is in that power cycle, yet I wonder if those ‘critics’ are aware of what is and who are, or are they merely setting the stage for others to set a presentation stage? You see the accusation is given speculated strength via ‘critics say’ yet we do not get any mention of who those critics are, do we? Yet the BBC article (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-53980115) goes off the deep end when we see “However he has been embroiled in a series of scandals, including the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi embassy in Istanbul in 2018 and an alleged murder plot against a former Saudi intelligence agent in Canada”, this is achieved in a few ways. In the first, the entire Khashoggi debacle is set to flawed intelligence, especially the ‘added’ intelligence by UN essay writer Agnes Calamard, I dealt with that in several articles, especially in ‘Demanding Dismissal’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/07/04/demanding-dismissal/), so not only can we prove that Jamal Khashoggi is murdered, we can merely speculate on that, and that is before we need to realise that there is absolutely no evidence that there was any directive from Saudi Arabia to allegedly kill Jamal Khashoggi, if there was it would have ‘leaked’ to every newspaper in the world, all we got was a level of emotional outbursts devoid of evidence. And there is the alleged plot against Dr. Saad Aljabri, the allegations went so far that they try to convict Saudi Officials in another country, how is that for failing evidence? Yet that same court has no real intentions to seriously look into “Saudi officials accuse Aljabri of leading a group that misspent $11 billion of government funds and skimmed $1 billion for themselves, the Wall Street Journal reported, an allegation he denies” interesting is it not? 

So it seems that the critics are all about spinning yarn, if not they would have been out there supported by actual and factual evidence, they are not. And the implied situation in Istanbul, which comes up in every Saudi story is this time linked to the sacking of defence officials, all whilst the evidence attached is drowning additional events is disbelief and more credibility is removed from the situation. That was not hard, was it?

 

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August 13, 2020 · 01:03

One sided coin

When is a one-sided coin like a watchdog? That is the underlying question, and the answer is seen in this article ‘When they are shallow’. We all have needs, we all have centred targets, but what happens when that setting makes you miss the larger picture? Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against watchdogs, I have nothing against the media, or politicians, but when they give a one sided brief just to please themselves, how shallow will they be? It is not the first time, but in this case it starts with ‘US watchdog report cites civilian casualties in Saudi arms deal’, now this might be correct, might being the operative word and not towards optionally pointing fingers and not towards the setting. We see “The Saudi-UAE air raids hit farms, schools, water supplies, and energy sources, triggering what the United Nations has described as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis” now, I am not making a statement that they did not do that, but in all that, was it truly some civilian hit target or were there Houthi and/or Hezbollah fighters there? So whilst some focus on ‘precision-guided-munition components’, no one is looking what they were clearly firing on, because that too is an unknown. So whilst some focus on one side of “Tens of thousands of Yemenis, many of them civilians, have been killed by the Saudi-UAE air strikes – often with American-made weapons, targeting information and aerial refuelling support”, in a stage where should consider on ‘how many were civilians (and how many were not)’ in the sentence “Tens of thousands of Yemenis, many of them civilians”, yes we can hide behind ‘many of them’, but precision is essential, even if the weapons are not. In addition Representative Eliot Engel, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee gives us ““This obvious pre-spin of the findings reeks of an attempt to distract and mislead,” Engel said, adding that he feared the classified annex to the report would be “used to bury important or possibly incriminating information””, and I am not debating that, yet in all this, the stage where Eliot Engel is optionally helping our the Iranians, that is still up for debate, is it not? So when we check NPR and we see the question “Congress had concerns about $8 billion in arms sales to Saudi Arabia, and those concerns included how the arms might be used in the war in Yemen” and the only thing that Eliot Engel gives us is “Yeah”? By the way the interview (at https://www.npr.org/2020/08/11/901431799/engel-discusses-ig-report-on-u-s-selling-8-billion-worth-of-arms-in-middle-east) gives us nothing on ‘Iran’, ‘Houthi’ and ‘Hezbollah’, three tags that are essential in the Yemeni war, as well as the current Saudi Arabian state of affairs, so why are they missing? So whilst Engel gives us “Meaning that all the excuses that they give us, all the reasons they give us for doing what they have to do are phony and are made up. It’s just that they don’t – they want to have freedom to operate, not have the public know anything, certainly not have Congress know anything. And this is the way they’ve operated from day one. And it’s not really, you know – on the Foreign Affairs Committee, this is our jurisdiction. We’re supposed to be investigating these things, and they look at us as somehow intruding on their private purview”, a view that is his and might be valid, but the Yemeni war is larger and the three elements (Houthi, Hezbollah and Iran) are left out of it giving us an unbalanced and one sided story. Now, there is a side that accept, the US can decide on how it does business and who it does business with, and consider the hilarity we see when that $8,000,000,000 dollars goes to the Chinese or Russian treasury coffers? The US has been alienating its middle eastern partners to such an extent (all whilst ignoring to a larger degree the activities by Iran), we need to see the way that ball rolls down the hill and away from the congressional weapons sales teams. So whilst some might applaud the activity of watchdogs, the absence of the whole picture is actually rather disturbing. Not merely to the stage, but the fallout is other large. This does not reflect on Eliot Engel, but his congressional party is seemingly ignoring a much larger stage and this stage includes both Hezbollah and Iran, so why is Eliot Engel and his band of naughty congressionals ignoring that? Consider that the people for a week have been aware of ‘Saudi Arabia’s project clears 177,637 Houthi mines in Yemen’, now, we accept that some would have originated in Yemen, but not all and when we see these elements in the equation (and that is merely the beginning of that mess), we need to wonder why the US watchdog is so one sided. An investigation into the forces active in Yemen, as well as the weapons used and one side is left off the table completely. So how does your humanitarian side react to that? Oh and for desert I offer ’84.000 children in Yemen are dead, who is holding the Houthi and their methods to account?’

 

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