Tag Archives: Saudi Arabia

Media glasses with blinkers

Normally I am all for ABC, they are really good at reporting, they have a credibility that is exponentially higher than anything Channel 7 or Channel 9 ever had, so for the most they are up there with BBC News and a few others. Yesterday however, we see (at https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07-25/australian-company-sending-weapons-systems-directly-to-uae/11322974) news that requires reconsideration.

Now we cannot fault the headline, which gives us ‘Fighting Yemen’s dirty war, an Arab military is buying a weapons system made in Canberra‘, yet what is linked to all this is a very different matter. Even as we are given “The weapons systems have been flying across the world, from Australia to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), for months. But neither the company selling them, nor the Australian Government, has said exactly who is buying them“, we see the first inkling of consideration. Now, we should be clear that systems like that should only be available to established governments. So when I see: “More importantly, they reveal Australian company Electro Optic Systems (EOS) is selling its next generation remote weapons system directly to the UAE’s Armed Forces, which stands accused of war crimes as part of its role in the controversial Yemen war“, the news is redundant a the UAE had already pulled out (for now), the second part is that the UAE is a legitimate sovereign state and the Australian government has every right to sell these systems to a sovereign state. It seems to me that Dylan Welch, ABC Investigations has a very different agenda.

We see an initial consideration with: “The Australian Government has come under fire for granting EOS defence export licenses, given the growing criticism of the behaviour of the UAE military in Yemen“, and then we get the photos, we get more information and more directly, we see: “Now, new photos of RWS units at a Sydney warehouse have revealed the role of the UAE military and raise questions about the nature of EOS’s relationship with the Saudi Ministry of Interior. In total, the photos record four consignments for export in June and July — two each to the UAE and Saudi Arabia. One of the photos shows a pallet of RWS gimbals — a pivoting support structure — awaiting export earlier this month“, apart from the photo’s (which I am not disputing) there is a larger concern that this is an attempt by either Palestinian connections to Hezbollah, so a direct facilitator of terrorism, or a facilitator to Iran that is supplying these photos. Merely for the reason that they want their enemies (Saudi Arabia and the UAE to be as weak as possible) Whomever Dylan Welch is ingratiating himself to, it involves either Iran or a terrorist party. So when have you ever considered how certain media people get some scoops whilst not being in a warzone?

The article then relies on a photo by Khaled Abdullah; it is a side step to avoid any mention of Houthi forces and Hezbollah terrorists that have been operating in Sanaa. Now, this is not an attack on Khaled Abdullah, who is a Reuters photographer and is an original Yemeni, it is HIS country. Yet some of his photos (showing an amazing quality of photography and an eye for detail) is walking around in the heat of events with what is likely to be a killer camera. Yet, he seemingly gets around Sanaa without fear of reprisal, so he is either accepted by both Houthi and government forces (which would be fair enough), or there is another side here (I am not speculating here), what is clear this is a photographer with World Press Photo quality results. This part is important because the writer ignores the Houthi element as the quote “to support the internationally recognised Government against Houthi rebels” has the only one mention of Houthi forces. The article has zero mention of ‘Hezbollah‘ or ‘Iran‘, two words that cannot be no non mentions when we reiterate the headline part ‘Fighting Yemen’s dirty war‘, the two players are part of that dirty war and not mentioning them is an issue.

So when we come to the chapter called ‘UN lawyer: ‘Desist from supplying weapons’‘, I wonder how long we can stand this implied hypocrisy by Melissa Parke, whilst the elements, the proven actions by both Iran and Hezbollah are not mentioned anywhere. with my Liberal mind my speculative view would be: ‘Leave it to the stupidity of Labor not to speak out on the short-sightedness of Former Labor MP Melissa Parke‘, two elements that ignore the two damning entities, two players responsible for prolonging the war for well over an additional 2 years. And even as we see the act of arms banning, close to zero actions have been made against Iran and Palestine. Is that not weird too?

The issue will evolve further as we see “A group of Australian aid agencies including HRW, Save The Children, Amnesty International and Oxfam have formed the Australian Arms Control Coalition following the ABC’s stories and are lobbying the Government to suspend the sale of defence materiel to Saudi Arabia until the Arab nation can prove such weapons won’t be used to commit war crimes“, or a I personally see it, children trying to play a grown up game whilst 50% of the problem is ignored. If it was merely a Houthi issue, a lot of the weapons would never have been bought. Do you think that these governments are about buying weapons, whilst they could be buying super yachts made by Lürssen shipbuilders? If there is no direct threat to me, or merely a few confused peasants, do you I would go out and buy an Accuracy International L115 AWM when I could buy a Jaguar XF (2018 model) at almost the same price? You have to be kidding me, and that is not even close to the tip of stupidity, that is given by Melissa Parke when she gives us: “Let’s not forget that it is millions of innocent Yemeni civilians, women and children, who are bearing the brunt of this war. Their suffering is immense,” which is also a direct result of Houthi forces, directed through Hezbollah to keep all humanitarian aid, of food and medicine away from the Yemeni civilians, claiming it all for Hezbollah and Houthi forces. The fact that we were given earlier this month “The Yemeni government and the United Nations have expressed concern over a possible halt of the new relief programs in Houthi-dominated areas because of the group’s continued obstruction of humanitarian aid“, an important fact, especially in light of the senseless quote by Melissa Parke. The article by Dylan Welch should have added all that, as he gives opposition to what might be factual to issues silenced. It is that and the delusional labor strategy that gives light that ABC needs to dig a little deeper before they make certain claims. The fact that someone at the shipper has been supplying details is not for some humanitarian reason; this is propelled exposure to serve Iran and/or Hezbollah.

So when Dylan ends his one-sided stage through: “Australia as a good global citizen and a member of the UN Human Rights Council can play an important role in protecting Yemeni civilians. Providing weapons to a party to the conflict would not be consistent with that role” invokes the required (and utterly lacking diplomatic language): “then you fuck knuckles need to start giving us all the news, not merely make one claim and ignore what Iran and Hezbollah (the other side) are doing in the region“, OK, not my most eloquent moment, but I have had enough of one sided BS, WE get enough of that from too many stations and the fact that ABC is joining those ranks is a much larger cause for concern at present.

That part is reinforced when we consider that the same photo by Khaled Abdullah is use (at https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-20/australian-firm-eos-weapons-systems-bound-for-saudi-arabia/10825660) five months earlier, in addition, all the Dylan articles seem to lack any mention of Iran and Hezbollah, whilst the mention of Houthis is limited to a minimum, often only mentioned once, which is in light of the connected issues a larger concern, so not merely in the current article, but several articles, including the one with the headline ‘Australian Army veterans advising foreign army accused of war crimes‘, it seems to me that the quote: “I don’t carry a gun, don’t work in a uniform, don’t go to conflict zones. I would describe myself as a specialist consultant who deals in military training facilities — the best in the world” would result into actual questions giving us an in depth view, but Dylan was able to avoid that, he did highlight “Last month Buzzfeed America published explosive allegations about a mercenary hit squad targeting figures in the conflict in Yemen in late 2015 to early 2016“, yet absent from evidence and referring to more enlightened journalistic sources, for ABC ‘Buzzfeed America‘ was all that was needed to give delusional weight to it all.

It seems that there are larger issues in the media and that issue keeps on growing. I wonder what I would find on all the parts missed by those visiting the UAE and ultimately what the actual truth of the matter is, because at present it seems to me that the UN and the media are about keeping Iran out of view on certain matters and that is perhaps the most dangerous and equally disgusting path to find the media on.

 

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This stupid Neanderthal

Yes, you read it right, as the worst possible grammar allows for we see the needed expression: ‘Me is havening to be the stupid man today‘ statement. It all started in the middle of the night when the Guardian brought us: ‘Saudi state part-owns Evening Standard and Independent, court told‘ (at https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/jul/23/evening-standard-and-independent-unable-to-rebut-concerns-over-saudi-ownership). It gets to be worse (and the actual trigger) with: “Government lawyer tells court part-sale of news outlets has ‘national security implications’“, the naive Neanderthal in me is wondering what kind of drugs David Scannell is on and if I could get some of those (it never hurts to ask). The media (specifically the newspapers) are about the truth and about giving us actual information. The fact that the government has never ever been able to get a handle on whatever Rupert Murdoch does, in that same air the issues with Paul Dacre (specifically on a missing airplane), makes me wonder how the implied gossip that several newspapers spread are national security.

We could go with the premise that with a part owned Saudi Newspapers, the readers will actually get exposed to the acts or Iran, and the facts that many newspapers decided not to give visibility on that (like the proxy war Iran is waging via Yemen). That is beside the point that David Scannell is claiming national security issues against a Russian citizen, is that not laughable too (a Paul Hogan comedy kind of humour)?

So when we get David Scannell stating: “What is of concern to Her Majesty’s government is that a foreign state could be acquiring a substantial stake in Lebedev Holdings [owner of the Evening Standard] and the Independent simultaneously“, whilst her majesties government is seemingly forgetting that the current owner is Russian (born 8 May 1980, In Moscow Russia). Perhaps David Scannell would prefer to consider journalistic integrity and hold the UK newspapers to a much higher standard? He (his bosses more precisely) could have done that a decade ago by removing 0% VAT rights from these glossy ‘news’ bringers, a solution that would fit the UK citizen and resident to the largest degree, but just like the facilitation to the FAANG group (and their less than 2% tax), big corporations are facilitated to the largest degree and a clever Saudi investor thought that this was a good return for their investment. Then there is the other part.

When we see: “The heavily lossmaking free London newspaper is edited by the former Conservative chancellor, George Osborne“, we could consider that this is about changing the hearts of readers, yet if the government legal team is so worried about ‘poor record on press freedom‘, has that legal team not considered that in the end, when the papers becomes even more loss making that the current owners back out and the government could take over at £0.01 per share? In addition, if there is enough evidence in the statement of: “Both the Independent and Evening Standard insist concerns about editorial independence are unfounded and they are not influenced by financial backers” then what is this actually about? It seems that there is a reduced to zero chance that there are actual national security implications, the fact that national security events were always embargoed and as such these two papers must adhere to this, foreign owned or not and in the end, in addition, the fact that we saw last May the quote “There is nothing new about concern over the impact the company, which controls 70% of the country’s newspaper circulation, might have on democratic debate” (source: the Guardian), that keeping more papers out of the fingers of Murdoch might be a Humanitarian good, is that not important too? In addition, there is a second consideration, if the digital worlds that these two newspapers have, setting a stage that this evolution is passed on to places like the Dallah al Baraka Group, Al Arabiya, Al Saudiya and Al Ekhbariya could set a long term prosperity to both Saudi Arabia as well as their European affiliation. This is a long term slow plan and when we consider that Neom City is still happening, having a city well over 20 times the size of New York, also implies that overall the media will grow as well; digital marketing as well as 5G information streams will evolve, and evolve faster. Part of my IP was designed to do just that, whilst promoting commerce on several levels. We see that the evolution cannot begin in Saudi Arabia, but over time evolving those and new stations will be in the interest of Saudi Arabia who is eager not to lose it all to the UAE (Dubai Media Incorporated) or Qatar (Al Jazeera) changing the game and the way they do business is an essential must in the long term and in the short term evolution is more and more pressing.

Homo sapiens

Evolution has stepped in and as the Homo sapiens we are now, life is not that simple, the interaction of the media is larger and more complex. Yet I still find the approach through David Scannell laughable. We want to muster muzzles and bits to state who is allowed to go where, yet the unbridled freedoms pushes through by places like Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google remain unhindered. Even in a stage where these groups pay less than 2% taxation in the end, the monster we know is still less acceptable than any optional new monster we do not know. The policymakers have been unable and unwilling to adjust laws ad legislation for almost two decades, the premise of iteration and Status Quo are found everywhere but were given on how the new owner (partial new owner) is setting the stage of national security. When we look at the fines we see in the direction of Facebook and Equifax are partial evidence that this ship has sailed years ago, the latest data breaches show that there is no stopping the flow of data and whilst we look towards North Korea who does not have the storage abilities, skills and bandwidth to do 10% of the issues that they are accused of, we see that the foundation of the current batch of National Security monitoring teams are seemingly in a stage that they have no clue where to look and what data to sift through (a common shortcoming).

So in all this we have larger issues and whilst we forgot about July 2015 ““source close to the family” (MH370 disaster)” with the additional “what is also important is that we saw an issue in 2014 the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) decided to investigate a case whilst using only 1 of 83 plaintiffs” (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2015/07/31/that-joke-called-the-first-amendment/), it would be my personal recommendation that the government (as well as David Scannell have bigger fish to fry. We could start a new Leveson investigation and force harsher settings, but all kinds of chief editors will burst into tears in the House of Lords and as we know that those gentlemen are really unwilling to slap crying girls around, so we get nowhere ever and the option to remove the 0% VAT from some of these newspapers is not regarded as an option, so we are at a stalemate with no solution. But the call via National Security seemingly remains.

In the complete evolved view we see that there is political power into the ability to reach an entire nation through the newspapers and the media, yet in that light when we accept Gay Alcorn (the Guardian) who gave us: “There is nothing new about attacks on News Corp’s influence on policy and politics in Australia. There is nothing new about claims that Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers are not just right wing, but distort and manufacture news“, does it actually matter whether news is manufactured by NewsCorp (Australia) or the Independent (partial Saudi)? Is pushing this path not a race towards discrimination lacking all diplomacy and subtlety?

I am merely asking, because even as i really do not care who the owners are becoming, and the fact that the previous owner is Russian, is it not just all water under the bridge. To be slightly more precise a bridge called Facebook transporting terabytes of data per minute?

In the end, the legal battle is seemingly set to “The legal challenge was only against the decision to refer the Saudi investment to the Competition Commission on merger grounds“, whether valid or not (that is a legislation issue), the fact that the entire article has only one mention of the word ‘merger‘ in that entire article. Informing the public on the exact nature of the issue on the merger, would that not have been an essential first? If that is the case, how does National Security actually fit would be my question, but we really don’t see a clear answer on that either, do we?

 

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In plain view

We have seen several issues in the last week regarding the Strait of Hormoz; most interesting is the M/T Riah, which is getting half-baked exposure. You see, a ship gets registered, a ship is usually insured and it has an owner. I know this because I attended the Merchant Naval Academy in the 70’s. For all kinds of reasons, a lot of these ships tend to have a Panama registration, yet it is registered. So when I see: ‘It is not clear which country or company owns and operates the Riah‘, i know that there is a hidden stream going on. From conception to death time (last week) there were owners, a ship was bought, a ship was sold and there will be a new owner, the fact that the media is not able to tell us anything implies that this ship has a very different duty and owner. It is like watching stolen cars, for the most we can see the Vehicle identification number (VIN) when it is a stolen car, if that is not available we can start with the engine number. Now there is a lot we can do with cars, but the knowledge to erase its identity only goes so far. With ships there are a lot less options to hide. There is the engine number, the serial number of the Gyroscope, radar serial numbers (larger vessels often have more than one), the list goes on and as such we can paint a picture how the gear moves and likely in several cases the owner has been the same and it is all linked to the boat itself. It seems that the media did not that much digging. For a ship to fall of registries takes a lot of muscle and a lot more knowhow, so I am at a loss why we see: ‘It is not clear which country or company owns and operates the Riah‘, and not: ‘Shipping Line X, who owned the M/T Riah confirmed that there was a new owner as per [insert date], yet was unwilling to comment on who that was‘. This would give us a lot more, but for some reason the Media seemingly lost interest and this is weird, because there is a larger stake in this game and it is ignored.

Who, What, When, Where, How, Why?

The fact that we saw: “A UAE official said on Tuesday that the oil tanker MT Riah is not owned by the UAE” implies that at one time it was, if not them, who was it sold to? If they never owned it, why was there a UAE reference? Then we look into history and when we have proper access, we could check every bill of lading that this ship had, as well as any insurance underwritten to this boat, was that investigated? What details does the Lloyds registry have on this boat?

There is a whole league of question that can lead to answers, yet the media is not looking, which is odd to say the least. When we consider that a bill of lading is a contract between you, the owner of the goods, and the carrier stating what goods you’re shipping, where the shipment is coming from, and where it’s headed. It also serves as a receipt issued by the carrier once your shipment is picked up. So if none of this exists, there is an implication that the M/T Riah was a spy ship of some sorts. It is less likely to be a smuggler vessel as they rely on some level of paperwork and bills of ladings are contracts that tend to be registered, even if the actual owner is not always a given (there are a few ways to circumvent certain papers).

The fact that the media has avoided all this to a larger degree implies that there is more, but it is hustled away from prying eyes. The question becomes if the boat is an Iranian asset that came in from the cold? Let’s not forget that we have not found the travel mechanics of Iranian drones and missiles, so investigating this ship as far as possible seems to be an essential first, even if it is out of our hands, someone sold that ship registry radar, radio and all other kinds of hardware.

That is even before you realise that radio systems and satellite navigational systems on boats are often rented (like Radio Holland) and as such those serial numbers could hand out more details, or in the other directions, which facilitators and service providers have done business with the M/T Riah? There is absolutely 0% that this was the case unless it was a governmental spy/smuggling operation and that implies that the M/T Riah has returned ‘home’, you see if it was someone else, the Iranian government would be shouting that fact from every roof in Tehran, something that obviously has not happened.

So we are left with the question in plain sight. Why is the media ignoring the M/T Riah and why are they giving us the smallest collection of basic facts, in several cases the article they gave us was less than 100 words, for a business unit seeking attention and clicks that is really too shallow.

Even the Washington examiner (6 days ago, gave us the bare minimum (at https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/missing-oil-tanker-likely-seized-by-iran-us-intelligence), they took a whole page to tell us nothing and basically rehashing the same facts three times over, to me this does not add up. It optionally is a case where the smuggling of missiles fired into Saudi Arabia have ended and Iran got their little toy back, in light of the headline: ‘Missing oil tanker likely seized by Iran: US intelligence‘, we merely see more questions and optionally we see more facilitation towards Iran at present. I would be happy to be 100% wrong in this instance, but the facts do not add up and the fact that the media stays asleep at the wheel is a mess of partial confirmation and larger lack of interest, especially in light of all the other over exposed points.

In a place where the pressure is coming to a boil, is this lacking exposure really the best way to go?

 

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Simple Complexity

Less than 24 hours after we looked at Iran getting ts fingers on a ship with too many unknown variables (like Owner, origin and so on), we see them fall into their old habits by grabbing two tankers with British links. The article (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/19/british-tanker-iran-capture-fears-stena-impero-uk-ship-latest) gives us plenty to consider. And when we are exposed to the quote: “Iran’s Revolutionary Guard claimed to have taken the British-flagged Stena Impero into port with its 23-strong crew, and Iranian officials claimed it had infringed maritime regulations” er see the first play in a larger game. The first question we get is likely to be ‘how did it infringe maritime regulations?‘ Yet that is not what this is about. And whilst we look at both ships, all whilst for the second one we get: “The Mesdar’s Glasgow-based operator, Norbulk Shipping UK, confirmed that the vessel had been boarded by armed guards but had then been allowed to continue its voyage. “All crew are safe and well,”” we now get a new scene, one you might not have considered.

The idea hit me in the early morning 8 minutes after the first tanker (who is still missing on Iranian grounds) message came to me. The thought:

If you cannot fathom the simplicity of complexity where will you remain?

You see, most people want you to believe that they are opposites; we see studies that are about understanding the relationship between simplicity and complexity. It is not that, no matter how complex an equation, it must adhere to the simplest of rules. When we go back to the foundation of programming, some might recall one of the oldest lessons. Any program consists at the most of sequences, selections and loops. Once you get that, the simplicity of complexion becomes a point of focus. The entire Iranian matter is not about the Gibraltar tanker (although it will be voiced as such), it is only partially about pushing the opponents. In its current state it is to prove that the US and Europe are basically pussies, they will try to do whatever they can except start the war, that what this is about. All the big words that we got from the man and his administration are starting to become null and void. Even now we see: ‘Trump Says He’ll Work with U.K. on Response to Tanker Seizure‘, we also get: ‘Trump confirms he authorized Rand Paul to negotiate with Iran‘, it is all about ‘reducing’ tensions.

So at present Game, Set and Match for Iran.

This is about sending a message to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the State of Israel that they stand alone, it was a simple play and the media remains clueless, merely reporting the voices and not seeing the orchestra play. It is like watching Wagner (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZP-yXsNV2E) with the sound muted, we see the dance, we see the subtitles, yet without the music the play makes little sense. That is what the media enabled in all this. Iran is playing the game a lot better than I expected them to play. There is at present a 20% chance that Europe will find some excuse to let the tanker go to Syria, yet the tanker will not be empty, it might be reduce, or what the media will quote as ‘nearly empty’, yet an oil tanker optionally holds more than oil.

And even as the Guardian gives its readers the quote: “Jeremy Hunt, the UK foreign secretary, told Sky News: “We are absolutely clear that, if this situation is not resolved quickly, there will be serious consequences.”” there will be a debate and we will find the ‘serious consequences’ laughable in the end. A second message that the support to Saudi Arabia will be scaled back. I have no idea how King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud could ever see these two players as actual allies. So far they have folded at close to the first time of pressure. Consider the evolution of the events and place them next to a phone call made 20 hours ago: “Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani urged Europe on Thursday to speed up efforts to salvage the 2015 nuclear deal, during a phone call with French President Emmanual Macron“, consider that the tanker was already clearly on route to be intercepted, consider the timeline of events and the complexity becomes a simple equation, Iran is playing a multifaceted game to show its enemy the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that it has no western friends, it has no western allies and so far the US the UK and the EU states have been playing their part in musical chairs exactly as Iran hoped. We can see Senator Rand Paul the Republican from Kentucky as evidence in that game. Even the Washington Post is giving part of my view a few hours ago with: “Resetting the U.S.-Saudi relationship on a more honest basis is urgent now, as the danger of regional conflict grows. The latest sharp escalation came Friday as Iran seized a British tanker in the Gulf, according to a U.S. official. This provocation makes British and probably American retaliation likely — compounding the crisis further, which seems to be Iran’s goal.” (at https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/saudi-arabias-leader-must-reset-his-relationship-with-the-us-as-iran-tensions-soar/2019/07/19/10cd6c0c-aa46-11e9-86dd-d7f0e60391e9_story.html), they call it resetting, I think they are creating a distance between themselves and the KSA, a bad escalation, Iran seems to have its tactic in place and even as we see the stage given as “demonstrate accountability by prosecuting Saud al-Qahtani” on the death of a journalist no one cares about, that part is proven with the inaction on Journalists kept in Turkish prisons, its flim flam theatrics that are collapsing on itself. It is a media circus propelled through UN essay writer Agnes Callamard, a stage of issues lacking actual evidence, only assumptions, circumstantial evidence at best and all trying to influx circumstance by adding the CIA report of ‘high confidence’ again not evidence.

Iran saw it for what it was, an option to push and not get any pushes back, pushing until Europe (holding a nuclear deal carrot) and America (sending Senator Paul) fold in their contributions towards the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. I expect that at that point the Iranian attacks will intensify via both Yemen and through Hezbollah. If I am 100% correct these attacks will start again no later than August 4th, or more likely within 1-2 days after some form of agreement with Europe and America has been reached. At that point Israel will have to get very careful on their actions because all bets will be off and Europe is unlikely to do anything operational they will merely leave Israel to their own devices, there is less certainty with the US, but Iran will not care about that part in the short term.

To be honest I fear that August will be a stressed month to be certain, to what degree is not known, because it will depend on what actual orders Senator Paul has at present. I have not forgotten about the US troops, but overall, their mission statement was not given to the media, was it? We get ‘hosting U.S. troops to enhance regional security‘, yet that does not mean that they have any operational value at present . The quote I found was: “USMTM’s mission is to advise and assist the Saudi Arabian armed forces through security cooperation efforts in developing, training and sustaining capable deterrent and self-defence forces for Saudi Arabia in order to facilitate regional security“, so basically these people are consultants and trainers, which is fine, yet when the regional security is threatened, will they act in defence, or only act in self-defence? When you remember the issues that the MFO could have faced in 1982/1983, that setting is rather important. And if Iran changes the premise with their actions, how useful will these US troops be?

These are valid and important questions and the media pushed away from these parts to the largest degree. As far as I can tell, this is an evolving game of chicken with Iran walking around wearing a white table sheet saying ‘Boo!

The fact that both US and Europe Jumped is cause for worry (the European ministers are actually scrambling) which is a worry to the degree that we are watching a paper tiger with its teeth and claws yanked, it looks nice but in the end its a rather pointless and powerless presentation.

 

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Analyzing Intelligence

What is given to us is behind a veil, we accept that and at times we accept that the media does not give us everything. It is however weird when the change is slightly larger than we expected and in a direction we did not see coming.

This all started almost three days ago when Iran ended up with a tanker, the news (several sources) gave us: “Tracking data shows an oil tanker based in the United Arab Emirates traveling through the Strait of Hormuz drifted off into Iranian waters and stopped transmitting its location over two days ago, raising concerns Tuesday about its status amid heightened tensions between Iran and the U.S.” we all have issues and we all thought about the big bad Iranian doing things that are unacceptable. In light of everything that happened, this is a fair point of view to have (you know that Iranian tanker in Gibraltar).

Yet now, CNN gives us (at https://edition.cnn.com/2019/07/18/middleeast/iran-tanker-intl/index.html) “Iran has seized an oil tanker it claimed was carrying 1 million litres of “smuggled fuel,” state news agency Press TV said on Thursday, before later releasing a video purporting to show the tanker.” we all want to think the worst of Iran (still a valid point of thought), yet that premise changes when we also get the following quotes: “US intelligence have been investigating what happened to the Panamanian-flagged tanker M/T RIAH. The ship-tracking website Marine Vessel Traffic has not had a current location for the tanker since July 7“, as well as “It remains unclear who owns the ship. While the initial US intelligence suggested that the tanker was UAE-owned, the United Arab Emirates has said that the tanker in question was “neither owned nor operated by the UAE. It does not carry Emirati personnel, and did not emit a distress call,” according to state-run WAM

And now we have an actual problem

To begin with, with all the digital options, and registries we get: ‘It remains unclear who owns the ship‘ are you flipping kidding me? In a time when both the Sea of Dammam, as well as the Strait of Hormuz are an absolute tinderbox, you have no idea what is going in and out of that place, you cannot tell who owns a million litre tanker? This is not some $27,000 Glastron poaching lobsters, too small to be seen by radar, this is a piece of metal the size of 500 40 feet containers this puppy is really visible! So not only does it imply the incompetence of the CIA, it shows that there is a larger facilitation at play.

When we consider the political and intelligence pressures in the Middle East as they are presently presented; the quote: ‘The ship-tracking website Marine Vessel Traffic has not had a current location for the tanker since July 7‘ reads like an absolute joke. When we consider intelligence pressure, the CIA, DGSE, MI-6 and optionally Mossad should have had an alert within 24 hours that any tanker vanishes. More important depending on where that happened red flags should have been raised all over the place and now that we see: “US intelligence suggested that the tanker was UAE-owned, the United Arab Emirates has said that the tanker in question was “neither owned nor operated by the UAE. It does not carry Emirati personnel, and did not emit a distress call” we see a much larger failing. There are programs in place to check ships registries, there are systems that can check the moment any blip is added or removed on the website Marine Vessel Traffic (and several places alike), in addition the fact that the UAE now gives us that an apparent UAE ship is not and neither does it have UAE staff is a failing on several fronts. I personally wonder what excuse Lloyds registry gives us soon enough. We cannot fault them for not being aware of facts, but the fact that a ship of this size cannot be identified as being owned is a failing, it is a tactical one to a much larger degree.

Overreacting much?

Is it? when we see the attacks in Yemen and other places, we see a tanker that could do massive damage to any harbour and for 9 days we had no clue that something was wrong, perhaps we did not care, but consider that a tanker like this could destroy in several ways a harbour and the environment in either Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar or the UAE, yes that is a large issue. A floating fuel bomb (a slight exaggeration) with one million litres of oil is a large issue. At the top of my head, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Doha, Riffa, Manama, Dammam, Kuwait city, as well as several Iranian villages, any of them could have been a target leaving any of these places in ruins for at least a decade. So yes, the intelligence community failed, moreover, at present with the presented awareness the IRGC did nothing wrong. The fact that in opposition the stage where US intelligence has nothing credible to offer is a larger failing still (yes more to come).

You are who?

When we consider that awareness of Panamanian-flagged oil tanker MT Riah could have been found in minutes is one part, the fact that the implied owner UAE is not gives us a larger doubt on intelligence data. Now data is dependent on vetting and checks and we cannot check it all, yet when we consider the registry, the owner was someone, who is not implies it was sold, so basically 40 hours ago, that part could have been verified and none of that seems to be the case (or it is classified beyond my eyes, which is weird, right?)

So for no less than 35 hours certain escalations seem to have been the case and CNN ignored that part, which might be a valid embargo, these things happen, yet the global news is propagating facts that are not and facts that are nowhere and none of it has any validation. This now sets a larger stage, in the eyes of the world Iran did nothing wrong (which does actually happen), but this floating tinderbox should have received a lot more visibility with credible and verified data, which is not the case and a lot of missing data in the last 24 hours ago implies that there is a path and that path is about something we are not informed on (which is still valid and credible) but in light of the fact that only 5 hours ago Reuters merely mulls data that has been known for well over 36 hours implies that there is a larger play and for whatever reason we see the absence of awareness by the news and those claiming to inform us leave us with the stage of “Iranian state TV aired footage of a vessel called “RIAH” that it said was seized by Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards for smuggling fuel” and was all they gave us 5 hours ago, whilst I gave a dedicated list of actions that could have been followed up on by actual journalists in the three minutes it took me to digest the data available. Is that not weird?

It gets to be worse

That is seen when we look at UK Reuters. We search of all news gives us: ‘US demands Iran free seized ship, vows to protect Gulf oil lifeline, In-Depth-Reuters UK‘ a mere three hours ago, yet the article it links to is all about ‘U.S. says Navy ship ‘destroyed’ Iranian drone in Gulf‘, something here does not belong, this is not a simple error and Reuters does not usually make these kinds of blunders, this is about something more and even as we all want to point fingers at Iran, we now have a larger stage and the US loss of credibility (that famous silver suitcase) gives us more to worry about, this is a set stage of pushing awareness and whilst the Europeans are all about saving a nuclear deal and the fact that (what I predicted) the surpassed transgressions of Iran on nuclear terms are now trivialised imply that there is a theatre going on, I merely wonder who the players are an which government ends up playing the court jester.

We might think about trivialising the entire matter, but consider that the ship optionally was smuggling merely $250K in crude oil, someone is not really getting rich, not in the larger scheme of things, so what was this actually about? Is it not interesting on how the media is not all over this, especially as it could escalate gulf pressures to a much larger degree?

 

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Game of labels

Yes, we all have games on the mind, mind games, video games, war games, and not to forget political games and economic games. These are not games that we see on the console or computer. Games do not usually rename waters from Persian Gulf to the Saudi Straight, or perhaps we will name it the Sea of Dammam. When we see that the US is changing the stage at which they can operate, mind games is all that they are left with. They failed to political game, they bungled the economic game, they are blocking their ability to play War Games so what is left? Yup, you got it mind games is all they have left.

So see this stage we need to visit USA Today (at https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2019/07/12/house-passes-bill-bar-trump-from-launching-iran-strike-and-end-us-support-saudi-arabia-war-in-yemen/1708612001/) where we are told ‘House approves measure to block Trump from launching military strike against Iran‘, so not only are politicians weak weasels they have now blocked their own commander in chief to do the responsible thing against Iran, it has dwindled to this. OK, let’s face it war is not a good thing, there needs to be a really good reason to start one, as wars are expensive and the house does seemingly need approval to spend large amounts of cash that is not directed at Wall Street.

And in fairness the text: “bar the Trump administration from using any federal funds for military force “in or against” the Islamic Republic, unless the president receives explicit congressional approval for a strike. It would not bar the president from responding to an attack on the U.S.“, yet it is also interesting that this is the cowardly act (as I personally see it) to cross swords with expectation and a lack of determination. Is it not funny that I quoted in ‘Be the bitch‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/07/07/be-the-bitch/) on July 7th: “when we see: “that nuclear agreement prevented war“, it never stopped it, it merely delayed it so that Iran could get ready and that part has been shown in several ways over the last three years alone, now that the pressure is growing we need to consider that no one wants a war, but Iran made it impossible to avoid and as they make tally of all who are willing to become the bitch by not acting, that is how we might lose this upcoming war, not merely by inaction of them, but the mere fact that these politicians are willing to grab their ankles and let happen what would happen next. They will call it: “We have reached an immediate cease fire so that a diplomatic agreement can be drawn” that will be the second sign that the war was won by Iran“, we now see this very scenario unfold. It is seen with the additional text: “It would not bar the president from responding to an attack on the U.S.” We all know that a direct attack on America is most unlikely, but this also means that America will only come to the aid of the State of Israel and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia AFTER Congress approves it and there is absolutely no guarantee that Wall Street will give approval at that point.

It is no longer a mere expectation, less than 12 hours ago Newsweek got us: ‘Iran launches strikes in Iraq and responds to Israel;s threat as it vows to defend itself against any attack‘, and here we see: “The Revolutionary Guards announced Friday that they conducted strikes against anti-Iranian government insurgents operating along the Iraqi border in the Kurdistan region“, Iran is lashing out, in this particular case to appease their Turkish ally (they always enjoy Kurdish slaughter). When we add the pressure of the Iranian tanker, as well as the threats between Iran and Israel, we see a much larger stage evolving, and the US, just like the stage of the Syrian war was unable to accomplish anything; they merely pulled support from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a nation that they call an ally. The question is that we do not know who states it, who means it and who ignores it. That is the stage that the US Senate, the House of Representatives, the presidential administration and Wall Street are in, like it is an episode of Musical Chairs, and we cannot tell which party takes on which pose, they merely refer to it as: ‘an extremely complex situation‘.

Then we get to the Washington Post, who gives us: ‘Iran’s nuclear program seems to be accelerating. Will Saudi Arabia take a similar path?‘ (at https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/07/12/irans-nuclear-weapons-program-seems-be-accelerating-will-saudi-arabia-take-similar-path), here we see the escalation in another way. With the direct headline ‘In a multipolar world, curbing nuclear transfers becomes more difficult‘, we merely see one side. So even as we see: “Riyadh has vowed to match Iran’s nuclear capabilities, including the ability to enrich uranium and acquire nuclear weapons if Tehran gets the bomb. My research, recently published in International Security, explains how Riyadh’s ability to play nuclear suppliers off against one another can increase its chances of securing nuclear technology.” There is no denying this, and that is only when we look at that side. You merely have to look back towards 2004 and remember “Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer (A.Q.) Khan, then famous for his role in developing Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, confessed on live television to having illegally proliferated nuclear weapons technology to Iran, Libya, and North Korea over the course of decades. Today Khan is enjoying a resurrection at home, where he is again touted as the “Mohsin e-Pakistan,” or the savior of Pakistan” to consider that this might already have happened. Pakistan has ties to Saudi Arabia. The fact that this is largely in a stage where we see: “Wouldn’t the United States and other countries interested in stopping proliferation block Riyadh’s access to sensitive nuclear transfers, such as enrichment technology?” We see the wrong question, the stage is that America is no longer a significant super power, it is too broke, it is too much bankrupt. That gave Russia an edge and more important, other players are no longer heeding America’s word, it becomes simple for them when the infighting in America is doing most of the work for them, so seemingly America has become really good at trivialising itself as a world power. In all this (from recent events) America failed twice, it did not act when the Syrian issues were playing, so as the world saw the Ghouta chemical attack unfold on 21st August 2013, the world saw the Obama Administration sit by and do nothing, even as there had been decades of messages that a chemical attack is a red line that was not to be passed, Someone in Syria passed it and nothing was done. Again we see failure now under the Trump administration that when the calls for Yemen were needed, the US pulled away and the media set the stage for this war to continue for at least 3 years more costing the lives of hundreds of thousands. Two direct failures in the last 7 years and when someone is asking others on why the USA is not taken seriously, did you actually expect a serious response?

So when the Washington Post gives us: “As Matthew Fuhrmann explained here in the Monkey Cage, there remains debate over whether peaceful nuclear technology transfers lead to proliferation — but the risk of proliferation is high in the Saudi case“, again the stage is miscommunicated. It is not about the Saudi case, it is about the not stopping Iran case. For over 2 years we have seen and heard spokespeople from the KSA state that they have no interest in nuclear technology as long as Iran does not move forward on where they are. So now that the nuclear pact has collapsed and as Europe and America do not do anything after 2+ violations by Iran, Saudi Arabia does not really have any options left.

In all these events Iran was clearly the powder keg and the two larger players are unwilling to act. As I personally see it, the US has benefit to a lack of stability in the Middle East (outside of Iran) and is now courting Qatar to keep in the game, we see all the threats by Iran and the media is always good to make sure that we all hear the threats made (but little else) and that is now pushing for a very different stage. With the UK sending a second warship into the Sea of Dammam, escalation risks go up, not down.

The third problem is not merely the players that are out and about, when this goes south the UAE, Qatar and Bahrain will have little options left, they will be caught in the middle, all because certain players are unwilling (or disallowed) to make the hard calls. Finally there is the last piece, there is Hezbollah. We see all kinds of statement in the last few hours and they are merely that, mere statements. Yet, when Iran does make a move how will Hezbollah act? The statement that they gave 6 hours ago with ‘Hezbollah can target all of Israel with it’s missiles‘, might be true, but is it Hezbollah or Iran doing the work? The missiles are all Iranian, the knowledge to strike more precise came from IRGC instructors, the (upgraded) hardware is also covered in Iranian fingerprints. So when Hezbollah does make a move, there will be consequences and at that point the US and Europe will have no cause, no call and no right to make some lame humanitarian statement. They left this mess unattended for too long, so whatever Israel decides should be regarded as acceptable.

I still believe that the strikes that come will be 79.5% against Israel, 19.5% against Saudi Arabia and 1% against both. The Houthis are losing more and more options, Hezbollah is nowhere near ready to face two armies and Iran needs to play the game very carefully, because even as the US and Europe are not acting, there is every chance that Israel and Saudi Arabia can make short work of Iran, the Iranian threats that we have seen over the last few hours (the usual) as well as mention of a special weapon give rise that they took a little too much on their for and striking now might be the only way to defuse a nasty situation.

It is time to push back to Iran and if the politicians can’t make it work then we must make it work, so my first action to diffuse the situation is not to strike with weapons (I only have a steak slicer and a cricket bat at home at present), is to make war through mind games. I call for a change on the map; we rename the Persian Gulf to the Sea of Dammam.

It trivialises Persia and therefor Iran, when we take away the old naming mistakes, we get to trivialise Iran to a lager degree, when they cannot counter they will need to push harder or fold the hand. I saw that they were only holding a two and a seven in this poker match and there is not a lot you can do with that, to win you need to get really lucky or bluff like a god and they are unable to do the second.

So I scored an easy victory over Iran with the greatest of ease and without firing a bullet in real life, but we can keep that option for later. So take a look at the city of Dammam, with the Sea of Dammam to the right, or consider my second option below, I did made a mention of video games in the beginning and we can all bluff, we can optionally argue that bluffing is all that Iran has left, but that is a story for another day. In my case of bluff I went up against my cold war adversary the Russians (always a decent opponent to cross, and we can’t have Alexander Bortnikov feeling too relaxed in all this, can we?)

 

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Desertion

Desertion is an ugly word, it is often contributed to cowardice and cowards, the truth is actually less straight forward. We can consider that the choice is left to someone who can no longer tolerate the actions of their government. Then there is another form, when it is not linked to a military decision, when in its purest form the application is the action of deserting a person, cause, organization or even a government, and even then people try to hide it behind words like forsaking, abandonment, shunning, stranding or jilting.

They consider desertion too harsh a word, but that is exactly what the US government is doing as the New York Times (at https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/11/us/politics/house-democrats-saudi-arabia.html) gives us: ‘House Moves Again to Cut Off Support to Saudi War in Yemen‘, so when we see: “to prevent the Trump administration from using its emergency authority to transfer munitions to the kingdom, delivering twin rebukes as Democrats sought to leave their stamp on military policy“, when we see this, we should consider betrayal of an ally, abandoning a nation that the US claims to have good ties with. And it goes further than that, there is actually an issue that has been left unpublished for a much longer time (to the degree it should have been published).

Qatar has been accused of being a facilitator for state sponsored terrorism. This is not a light subject, it is quite heavy an accusation. Let’s be clear, I am not accusing them of this, they have been accused and it is an important accusation, because the US is in much deeper waters than you think. Even as Saudi Arabia is getting cut off from defence options to defend itself against Hezbollah and Iranian supported Houthi units, attacked by (mostly) Houthi forces using missiles, we learn that mere hours ago “a Houthi rocket was fired indiscriminately and targeted a non-military area“, the target was Dhalea in SW Yemen, so the fighting goes on and America is pulling out, or are they? With the news from ABC that less than 24 hours ago (at https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07-10/qatar-donald-trump-military-and-commercial-deals/11294500) we are given: ‘US and Qatar ink deals for ‘tremendous amounts’ of military weapons and Boeing planes‘, the quote: “Qatar has agreed to buy “tremendous amounts of military equipment” and Boeing planes from the United States following a visit by Gulf Nation’s Emir to the White House, according to President Donald Trump” implies that the United States wants to be part of the Middle East, more importantly it is seemingly on track to keep stability to a nominal minimum, which is only serving America at present. It was given (by ABC as well ) that Qatar has an issue, in 2017 we saw the accusation “According to James Piscatori, deputy director at ANU’s Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies, “It is probable that the regime, as well as some wealthy Qataris, have been supporting various groups, such as the Nusra Front.”” and unlike the implied murder of a journalist no one cares about, the accusation against Qatar is not one that requires ‘beyond all reasonable doubt‘, it requires ‘is it more likely than not‘ and that bar was seemingly passed. Over two years there has never been clear evidence produced that this was not the case and now we see that in the backwash of implied state sponsored terrorism we see the US making happy deals. The fact that these questions are not out in the open with the media is a lot more pressing than one might imagine. Media inaction allows for the accusation to fester and that is happening.

So when we get the additional quote: “The terrorist group, which has since changed its name to Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, began as an offshoot of Al Qaeda. It’s been fighting President Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian war and wants to establish an Islamic caliphate“, the fact that this was given to AC out in the open in a stage where we see the American non treasury see a shift from one player to another is more pressing, there is a larger concern and as the US is keeping stability in the region to a minimum, the dangers will mount to larger degrees soon enough. the problem remains a large one, not because of the lack of evidence pointing one way or another, it is the statement from Gen. Charles Wald, former commander of U.S. Central Command Air Forces, who gave us only a few days ago: “Qatar is helping Iran“, now this is a loaded issue, first of all, there might be a large issue with Iran, but that does not mean that some nations do not have an economic need to play mean to dump Iran as a business partner. Can we (or should we) prevent medications and food to be shipped to any nation? If we have a humanitarian side, it wold be that a population need not be hungry, famished or denied medical provisions. And we also acknowledge that less than 48 hours after the attack on the World Trade Centre, Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar opened business to America so that it could have a strategic advantage. Even as we acknowledge it all, we also see the view that this general has with: “Qatar must choose: It can keep its U.S. air base or its ties to Tehran“, I am willing to think that issues are this simple, but they are not. Yet the state funded terrorism accusation lingers.

Then the second tier comes into play, consider that the accusation is true, how high does it go? Consider that Qatar is a monarchy with Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani at the head of that table. No matter the accusations have never been linked, or were there any serious accusations (with some level of evidence) that a member of the monarchy was involved. Is Qatar therefor still guilty, or are there elements in Qatar (high ranking ones) part to the stage where state funded terrorism is a valid accusation? The fact that the media is not looking there, does not mean we must shun the question.

When we look at family, we see the father Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, under his rule as previous ruler, we see that two US military bases were hosted, large investments in western corporations for well over $100 billion, there was the support of Arab spring and founded Al Jazeera, these are all actions that imply futuristic thinking, not funding terrorism and we need to acknowledge that. Then there is the brother (of the current monarch) Jassim bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, educated at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst as well as at Sherbourne School (Dorset), none of this screams terrorist support, this does not mean that it is not happening, it merely implies that the ‘more likely than not‘ might be a wrong standard and there has been very little investigation towards the guilt or innocence of Qatar.

Still these sides do not imply that the US is wrongfully selling arms, it does still support the tactic of minimalizing stability in the region and that is wrong, the abandonment of Saudi Arabia seems clear too and as such the dangers in the Middle East are escalating, not lowering, which is a large failure.

What happened?

For this we can turn to yesterday’s Washington Post (at https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/the-saudi-qatari-breach-explained/2019/07/09/96ec69de-a260-11e9-a767-d7ab84aef3e9_story.html) Here we see: “The crisis was sparked in 2017 when hackers published a story on Qatar’s news agency quoting Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani as criticizing mounting anti-Iran sentiment after a trip to the region by U.S. President Donald Trump. Qatari officials quickly deleted the comments, and appealed for calm as Saudi and U.A.E. newspapers, clerics and celebrities accused Qatar of trying to undermine efforts to isolate Iran“. Here my issue becomes ‘when hackers published a story‘, and they have journalistic integrity how exactly? Hackers tend to lack credibility, not to mention in an age with over 10,000,000 hackers there is a group (well over 90%) that have only greed driven needs, so how is that reliable?

How money flows

Then the Washington Post gives a gem that is worth its weight in gold. With: “Some Qataris have provided support to al-Qaeda and its spinoffs, U.S. officials say. According to the State Department’s report on international terrorism, despite government controls, “terrorist financiers within the country are still able to exploit Qatar’s informal financial system.” The U.S. report uses similar language in its section on Saudi Arabia. The report details efforts by both the Qatari and Saudi governments to counter terrorism financing. It offers greater praise of the Saudi efforts“, it does something strong, the premise of ‘more likely than not‘ now fails to a much larger degree. when we see: ‘Some Qataris‘ we recognise that there is a small issue, but when we place ‘some Qataris‘ next to the thousands of terrorists that America has (the members of the Ku Klux Klan to name merely a first group), we see that the accusations against Qatar are suddenly less powerful. Now we accept that the issue existed in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, yet we see that Saudi Arabia has been more eager to fight this than Qatar it does not make Qatar more guilty, it merely means that optionally more is required from Qatar, yet in all this there remains the issue on why America abandoned Saudi Arabia. I believe that these steps have seemingly nothing to do with commerce, merely with reduced stability and in this day and age in the way that Iran is jumping around not a good thing, when the kettle boils a short decisive war would be essential and America just made that a non-option.

so when we get back to the New York times, we see how the US government is making themselves liable (as I personally see it) “But the most consequential amendments on Thursday continued Congress’s months long effort to intervene in the Yemen conflict and punish Saudi Arabia for the murder of the dissident Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi” you see, no evidence was ever presented, no evidence can be presented at present making a government privy to intentional murder, there is no body, there is no forensic evidence, there is merely circumstantial evidence at best and even then, some of that evidence in tainted. So the US taking the work of an essay writer (seemingly named Eggy Calamari) as gospel to the degree it is doing is not staging any level of progress, it was a document at best and presented in three stages, every time merely meant to attack Saudi Arabia, progressing destabilisation in the Middle East (better stating inhibiting stability).

It gets to be worse (for America) when we consider “Lawmakers voted 236 to 193 to prohibit the administration from using funds to support the Saudi-led military operations — either with munitions or with intelligence — against the Houthis in Yemen“, especially when we see mounting evidence that Houthis have directly been targeting civilians, have engaged on a larger scale firing Iranian missiles into Saudi Arabia and using drones to attack ships and airfields in the region, that is a group you want to protect? I think that there are optionally 236 voters guilty of supporting terrorism to a much larger degree, I wonder which excuse they will use for letting the battle rage on, stopping humanitarian aid to go forward towards the Yemeni civilians and now with the added accusation that Houthi forces have recruited 30,000 child soldiers up to this point (source: Middle East monitor). As I see it, when the dust settles, I will have fun! I will try to publish the photos of the cadavers from all over Yemen with (or is that ‘in’) all their exposed guts and glory. I will on the principle of the matter make sure that these 236 names are published with these images so that the American people know who they voted for and how humanitarian their actions were in the end, that’s only fair, right?

When you desert your ally, you should be proud of that fact and get named in full, should you not?

 

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Be the bitch

We are confronted with all kinds of changes, some are trivial, some are important, but when do we get to decide what is what? Consider that Iran is now stating ‘Iran says it is ready to enrich uranium beyond nuclear deal levels‘, the news (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/06/iran-says-it-is-ready-to-enrich-uranium-beyond-nuclear-deal-levels), it is all under the guise of the reality. When the main players (the US and Europe) are showing to be the bitches of politics, what are we supposed to do? Trump talks a lot, he yells loudly (adapting poor grammar) but in the end, the US is not acting, neither is Europe, they are trying to remain delusional into the air of ‘saving’ something that had been lost some time ago. In the meantime, as no one acts Iran continues not merely by enriching Uranium, it is the other part, the ‘Saudi Arabia intercepts drones launched by Houthi militia from Sanaa‘ (at http://www.arabnews.com/node/1521686/saudi-arabia) that shows a much larger danger. Even as we heard: “the drones actually destroyed in the air by systems belonging to the Arab coalition“, the fact that is being ignored by the media to the largest degree is that these drones come from Iran, there is also still the issue that there is no real evidence that Houthi forces are up to controlling them, yet that part cannot be proven at present, a proxy war that is getting more and more out of control and in this when we add the Uranium pressure, there is every chance that both Saudi Arabia and Israel will have no option but to take this to the next level and whilst the bitches of politics (USA and the EU) are sitting on the sidelines complaining, reeling and dealing for delusionary deals, Iran plays its game and even as we see that the game is badly played, we need to acknowledge that they are getting shit done because they properly anticipated that neither the US, nor Europe would actually act, indecision and incapability to act are at the centre of these non-moves.

For the US it becomes even worse as we see that there is every chance that the denial is likely to grow when we see the CBS news quote: “Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard believes that war with Iran would be “far more devastating” to the U.S. than the war in Iraq was, saying in an interview with CBS News that President Trump was “pushing us closer and closer to war with Iran”“, she is on the European side of inaction, when we see: “that nuclear agreement prevented war“, it never stopped it, it merely delayed it so that Iran could get ready and that part has been shown in several ways over the last three years alone, now that the pressure is growing we need to consider that no one wants a war, but Iran made it impossible to avoid and as they make tally of all who are willing to become the bitch by not acting, that is how we might lose this upcoming war, not merely by inaction of them, but the mere fact that these politicians are willing to grab their ankles and let happen what would happen next. They will call it: “We have reached an immediate cease fire so that a diplomatic agreement can be drawn” that will be the second sign that the war was won by Iran, if that is what you want to happen, then go ahead, but also realise that you lose whatever rights you have. I for one will align with Israel and Saudi Arabia and go to war, because that is how evil is defeated. No matter how decorated Tulsi Gabbard got to be by the Hawaiian National Guard. The world is adhering to terrorist factions too quick and too much, in all this delusional acts by humanitarian laws are becoming a joke and that needs to stop.

When the news becomes about lashing out to a rapper named Nicki Minaj, have we not lost the plot? Oh and before I forget, the fact that we saw only 18 hours ago that ‘Houthis Commit 18000 Human Rights Violations in 6 Months‘ and the fact (as far as I could tell) that only the Asharq Al-Awsat Newspaper is giving the world that part, is that not a first indication on how the world has lost the plot on Human rights? And it links because Iran and Hezbollah are directly involved in funding, training and assisting Houthi forces to do that part, but these Human rights bozo’s are really not up to the part to report on that, yet their adversary (Saudi Arabia) is getting the front seat for getting a rapper perform in Saudi Arabia. It is in the realisation of these issues that we see that America and Europe have both become the bitches of others to a much larger degree than most can even fathom.

So when we see (at https://aawsat.com/english/home/article/1800416/yemen-houthis-commit-18000-human-rights-violations-6-months) the stage of “the number of kidnappings and imprisonment of women and children escalated this year, accusing Houthis of systematically and physically torturing women, defaming many of them, and accusing them of unethical charges contrary to Yemeni custom and traditions” we see a much larger stage that requires intervention, but where are the Americans? Where is Europe? They cannot act because they have their own clever plan involving Iran and it is backfiring fast and much harder than they realised (failure usually does that).

How long until they comprehend that you cannot reason with a rabid dog, you put it out of its misery plain and simple. And most people are part of the problem, they elected the politicians in Europe not doing anything and in America they are optionally selecting a Democratic president who wants to talk a little more, I wonder what happens when the others are no willing to talk, when these politicians are placed on the sidelines not allowed to speak at all, how fast will the media suddenly acts as some delusional conscience? we know that they are merely the bitch of big business, but for now they are all in denial of that reality and I wonder how many people will accept that delusional stage, because when Iran gets in a first strike the caused war will be much larger and there will be no negotiating with the ones they stuck against, as well as the neighboring countries, that is the impact of a dirty bomb, it freaks out everyone, especially those living next to the place that got hit. so it will not only affect Israel and Saudi Arabia, it will then suddenly impact Egypt, Jordan, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and the UAE, and that by all definitions implies the start of World War 3 when one of these nations get involved.

In the end it started not by started a war, but by refusing to act when action was essential, I wonder how the politicians will validate their own existence at that point. Yet there is a bright spot at that point, when it happen, the human rights organisations will not have any reason to be around, because the impact that we get to live through will be a clear indication that talking solves nothing and Human Rights organisations will end up being in the same stage that they were in the 17th century when the VOC was a global power, the HRA organisations will become non-existent.

Could I be wrong?

Well, that is up to you people, check your local news, your local newspapers and what they give you, who else had the Yemen story on Houthi Human Rights violations? As far as I was able to tell, not one of them had it, but several of them all had something on Nicki Minaj, some merely gave view to that UN speaker Eggy Calamari and her accusations (that so called essay) regarding Jamal Khashoggi, the media has become that polarised on the political needs for Turkey and Iran to be cut as much slack as possible and most of us are enabling this to continue.

So when that enabling attitudes starts open hostilities against Iran by Israel and Saudi Arabia, how will the news be reported, or will it at all? Will we merely see some top line report trying to make Israel and Saudi Arabia look as bad as possible as long as Iran signs some fake nuclear deal?

The pressure is rising and there is not much time before things go out of control, all because of inactions, and you better realise that really really fast.

 

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The Yellowback politician

There is a phrase I initially heard on an episode of Star Trek (decades ago), the phrase goes “Do I detect a streak of yellow across the good fellows back?“, it was Dwight Schultz (aka Howling Mad Murdoch) as Reginald Barclay in an episode where he pretends to be Cyrano de Bergerac in the episode Hollow Pursuits, and weirdly enough, it all seems to fit, I know that it is just crazy coincidence, but that is just what it is, coincidence (and crazy to boot).

So when we see (in the Guardian at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/01/eu-powers-resist-calls-for-iran-sanctions-after-breach-of-nuclear-deal) the quote: ““Today I call on all of the European countries: stick to your commitment,” he said. “You committed to act as soon as Iran violates the nuclear deal; you committed to activate the mechanism of automatic sanctions that were determined by the Security Council. So I’m telling you: do it. Just do it.”” yet it seems that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is talking to a room full of deaf people, it is exactly as the headline states: ‘EU powers resist calls for Iran sanctions after breach of nuclear deal‘, you see, no matter how it falls, the initial target is not Europe, it will be Israel or Saudi Arabia, I reckon that it is 4 to 1, 80% chance Israel cops it first and only a 20% chance that Saudi Arabia does. In those odds, Europe does not have any risk and playing the waiting game and merely act out to some degree if one of the two is hit will be fine by them, it is the usual response from those graced with the constitution of a weasel. Even as we see the hollow ‘Focus is on averting further breaches and UK says it remains committed to 2015 deal‘, they merely prefer there not be any additional breaches. They ignore the fact that Iran could have temporarily halting production, they ignore that the reporting moment does not coincide with the moment Iran officially transgressed that line, they ignore that there is credible intelligence (OK, more wild rumours) that there is more than one additional unmarked enrichment site, that is all ignored, merely they prefer not to see additional breaches. When there is no skin in the game, when the economy has no real suffrage, the inaction game can be played, no matter who gets hurt.

What they fail to see is that no matter who gets hit, both Israel and Saudi Arabia have no options but to strike Iran, perhaps that is why all the arms deals were stopped? One could argue that the quote: “European leaders had urged Iran not to breach the deal, but the focus may now be on dissuading Iran from taking further, more serious steps away from the terms“, it could optionally be seen as a soft approach towards containing the fallout, quite literally so, and yet there is a first. It will be the first time when Saudi Arabia and the State of Israel as well as the true allies both have the stage where they all unite in a single need, the destruction of Iran, part of me hopes that this happens, it will be the first signal towards the EU to clean their house, it will be the first time that this union will bring fear to the heart of Turkey, they bet the wrong horse and now they become a target right next to Lebanon and Hezbollah.

Whatever proxy path was optionally in play will now fall away because no nation has ever faced the wrath of both Israel and Saudi Arabia at the same time. Those who played games in that fashion have no place to run to, they have no borders to hide behind, whatever small options these players have, Qatar, Oman, Yemen, Egypt and whatever sympathisers are out there in these nations, facing the wrath of both sides of borders is not a game they signed up for, as such the escalation will be swift and very violent. At that point it will be the first move of Iran to ‘suddenly’ give way to emergency meetings and sit down for some agreement, at that point the EU better sit on the side and not interfere, at that point the race will overtake manners and devour Iran. It is at that point that people like Ali Khamenei and Qasem Soleimani will make some hopeful statement on errors made within the rank and press for a diplomatic deal and some peace conference, but it will be too late, we should not hear of it and those so called European leaders who resisted calls better get out of the way at that point, they missed the option, they scathed their duty and the should remain silent, run and become a barber or an uber driver, it is basically all they have left.

I would prefer to avoid all these complications, but the inactions of those relying on gravy trains and non-commitment have burned their own boats and their own bridges, Iran will not learn one way, so they will have to learn another way. It took me a few hours to design an optional solution to cripple their navy, I feel certain that I could take a look at their air force and airfields and give some additional fun (solving puzzles is actually a lot of fun).

And it goes beyond that, even as we see: ‘Israel preparing for possible military clash between US and Iran‘, it is more likely than not that US will halt its stance before the military clash happens, it will run to the border with all might, but not commit to an armed exchange, it will however not stand in the way of Israel and Saudi Arabia when they do strike, this differs them from the EU, the EU will do whatever they can to force any negotiation, even after a first strike by Iran, optionally via Hezbollah or Houthi forces and that makes this game a lot more dangerous this time around. As no one was able to stop Iran arming the other two, we are in the dark on how much was delivered and how these two will strike. Houthi forces will strike Saudi Arabia, Hezbollah will strike both Israel and Saudi Arabia, yet Hezbollah will more likely than not hide behind Houthi outfits, the rest is still open. As CNN reported hours ago, “Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels claimed responsibility for a drone attack Tuesday on Abha International Airport, according to the Houthi-run Al-Masirah news agency. The Saudi-led coalition fighting the rebels confirmed the drone attack and said it believed Tehran was involved in the operation“, the problem is not merely the attack on the airports, it seems that Houthi (or its Hezbollah/Iranian operators) are getting more adapt at their actions implying that the targets might change soon enough, the fact that Iran is out of options also implies that they need Houthi forces to hit Saudi Arabia harder and that is more likely than not going to happen. Until the shipments stop Saudi Arabia is facing a battle on 2-3 fronts, a third front will happen if Hezbollah openly commits towards Iran and the Al Qurayyat region. There is no intelligence to prove that, but tactically Hezbollah could use that stage to also increase pressures on Jordan and Saudi Arabia at the same time; I cannot help but wonder on how far this could escalate and I cannot stop but wonder how the ignorant inactive politicians in Europe let it come to this. They all knew what was at stake; they all left it to some proclaimed expectation of ‘US actions’ who in their current state could not even afford to go to war with the 17th century VOC (and a 17th century technology navy), their state is pretty bad. Even if they score immediate hits on Iran, it will escalate and until they get direct fire support from both Saudi Arabia and Israel, this could escalate out of proportions giving rise to serious damage to Jordan, Bahrain, and the UAE to boot. Iran will avoid pushing Qatar, but there is no guarantee that they avoid damage. It is a mess that could soon become uncontrollable; the inactions of Europe push for that scenario more and more.

I personally believe that it will come to blows within the next few weeks. I would be extremely happy if it could be avoided, yet as the present stage is, I am uncertain as to how it can be avoided, the best chance would be a first strike on Iran and see if Iran realises that they pissed off too many sides at the same time, but that is not a given. They might not have any chance to win, but they can still do loads of damage to several players and there is no denying that the IRGC is ready for battle, making a quick victory over Iran extremely unlikely, or perhaps it might be more correct to state that a quick victory is only possible through a severe impact on all fighting sides, a cornered party will do weird jumps and that has been a truth in life and nature like forever, so the entire situation is not out of reach and let’s not forget, Iran had the option to create a stage by temporary halt enrichment and they decided not to do that. As such the escalation has clearly be on their side and no matter how the stage with America was, by surpassing enrichment amounts they have clearly given the indication that they care not for the accords and they are calling the bluff of the EU and America to escalate issues further whilst ignoring the danger that either Israel or Saudi Arabia is, as such they only have themselves to blame when the damage in Iran takes on a much larger proportion than they anticipated, the question then becomes will the attacking nations stop, or will they to prevent Iranian attacks continue until Ali Khamenei and Qasem Soleimani and their inner circles are completely removed from power. We might think that this is the best outcome, but it is not. The devil you know beats the devil you do not and in Iran there will always be another Mahmoud Ahmadinejad waiting to take the highest seat of Iranian office.

One would have hoped that the yellowback politician was an extinct breed, but that is not the case and I fear that their damage will be visible for decades to come, no matter where that damage is.

 

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Drones to the wild

There was another attack in Saudi Arabia less than 24 hours ago, it went wrong (for the drones) and the Saudi military was able to intercept the drones. And when we look at the quote: “Saudi Arabia has intercepted two drones launched by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels, a Saudi-led coalition spokesman has said“, most people look in the wrong way. The western media to the largest degree ignores: ‘Iran-backed‘, the issue is seen in two parts. In the first part the stated Qasef-2K is not merely that it is more advanced than the Qasaf-1, it is that Houthi forces do not have the ability to make the Qasef-1, this was not determined by me, Drone experts looked at it and were able to conclude without any doubt that it is beyond their ability. There is a lot more wrong with the Houthi forces, but this is a first part. the second is that the denial to register this implies that the western media is willing to falsely accuse Iran, but is unable to recognise the hand of Iran and is unwilling to hold them to account, their fear of losing whatever nuclear agreement joke there is, they want to cling to the impossible and most delusional setting of an agreement that will not work.

The fact that Qasef-2K is made and still shipped to Yemen gives rise that there is a much larger logistical support to keep the Houthi fighters active and the Yemeni people will suffer, that is the simple equation and the western media to the largest degree will ignore it and merely point fingers at Saudi Arabia, but with this much overwhelming evidence, and it is not conjecture, it is actual evidence. the part towards the Yemeni Qasef-1 is: “this claim has been disputed and there is widespread suspicion that it is Iranian-built“, the report [Iranian-Technology-Transfers-to-Yemen] by Conflict Armament Research gives us too much to consider and Yemen does not have the ability, I personally would go as far as stating that the assembly and manufacturing of these drones is nowhere near possible by Houthi/Yemeni parties and this counts heavy towards the required ‘spanking’ of Iran, and that was just the previous model, so the ante is up, because Houthi forces would not be able to research and evolve any drone technology in this current condition, pushing more pressure towards Iran, but the Western Media refuses to do this, merely the unfounded accusations of the optional killing of a journalist that no one cares about through a published UN essay.

So whilst we ponder the findings: “the Qasef-1 appears to be a type within the Ababil-II family of UAVs, produced by Iran’s Aircraft Manufacturing Industrial Company (HESA)” and “The Qasef-1 not only shares near-identical design and construction characteristics with the Iranian UAV, but also features identical serial number prefixes“, and the fact that the western media steers largely clear, we find ourselves in a corner, how can any conflict be resolved when the principal player is not recognised to be involved to the degree it is?

And this is not news, these results have been known since 2017, the issue has been that pressing for that long. The 8 drones that were taken a hold of in the Ma’rib Governorate show the evidence clearly, but for the most, the media shuns it. And it is only now that we get initial reports stating: ‘Iran is Using Western Drone Technology against America‘, I wonder if the American drone had not been shot down would there have been any coverage of Iranian drones? Even Al Jazeera joins the confusion when we see: “In May, two oil pumping stations in Saudi Arabia were targeted by drones causing minor supply disruptions highlighting an apparent significant leap in the drone capabilities of the Houthis“, the article (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/06/saudi-arabia-intercepts-houthi-drones-launched-kingdom-190630060904968.html) gives us another part, with: “US officials told the Wall Street Journal that those attacks originated in Iraq, not Yemen, the paper reported on Friday” there is another part that comes into the frame. the article that was given by the Wall Street Journal (at https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-saudi-pipeline-attacks-originated-from-iraq-11561741133) give us: “U.S. officials have concluded that drone attacks on Saudi Arabia’s oil industry in May were launched from Iraq“, it does so with the very clear premise of: “Iran’s allies in the region“, a stage that could be accepted, yet is it still Iran directly, or is it Iran indirectly via Kata’ib Hezbollah? either could be the case, yet until there is a lot more clarity we will not know for sure, the reeling and dealing of Iran so far have shown that this proxy war is done indirectly so that Iran can keep its delusional stance that it has clean hands in all this, the idea that anyone will believe this to be any serious level of truth is beyond me in all this.

Whether one place or another was used in this stage is not part of the issue, the fact that Iran is not asked to explain itself by every nation is the issue, there is too much pointing to Iran, yet the best we can see is a shallow statement that ‘Iran says it will soon exceed enriched uranium limit under nuclear deal‘ even though here are several considerations in place that Iran did that well over a week ego, so when that reality hits the people, how much longer before the nations at large will act against Iran in all this?

Most nations seem to be talking in a low pitch, trying not to create waves, that too is droning, but then again, it might the intent of some European players to create confusion on what a drone actually was. Clear communication is usually not expected to come from the European Union, or Strasbourg. that part is given voice and strength only 11 hours ago when Forbes reported (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/francescoppola/2019/06/30/europe-circumvents-u-s-sanctions-on-iran/#7d5089da2c8d) ‘Europe Circumvents U.S. Sanctions On Iran‘, It is not merely on how they perceive themselves to be clever, the quote: “Europe has found a way of circumventing U.S. sanctions on Iran. The governments of France, Germany and the United Kingdom have developed a special purpose vehicle (SPV) to enable European businesses to maintain non-dollar trade with Iran without breaking U.S. sanctions“, one could argue that Europe has decided to cater to the warmongering needs of Iran, do maintain some state of delusion on a nuclear accord that is clearly not worth the value of paper required to print the accord on. This created delay, whilst not holding Iran to account in its proxy war actions is exactly why Saudi Arabia should be looking for actual allies, and actual options for growing its defence, it is also another indication that the European Union has stopped being a force of good, no matter how they slice it.

The drones might be wild and game for ignoring, but only because global media was as facilitating as it could possibly be to ignore the clear indicators of those behind the screens pushing for these attacks in the first place. The fact that we also saw just a few days ago: ‘US can’t attack Iran without European support’, is not about setting the stage of ‘keeping the peace’, in this Franco Frattini, former Foreign Minister of Italy (twice over) is setting the stage of enabling Iran in all settings and cases against whatever is coming their way. It is this short-sighted approach to dealing with Iran where we see a much more dangerous setting soon enough, and I will be around to give the quote ‘I told you so’ soon enough, a weary push by deflating its options and abilities whilst inflating Iranian pride to do whatever they want. There has been no case in history where this worked out the way others have planned it, and the excuses will come soon enough.

Iranian-Technology-Transfers-to-Yemen

 

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