Tag Archives: Yemen

August 28, 2019 · 11:41

Corrosion or corruption in media?

We see more and more evidence that the media is by their own hand corroded, the word which comes the Latin word ‘corrodere‘, means ‘gnaw through‘. I have given the limelight to several events where Houthi forces attack with drones into Saudi Arabian civilian targets. We can argue on the validity of the attack, yet the part that is not in dispute is that the Western media is not giving any light to the attacks at all. Despite the clear evidence that someone is supplying Houthi forces with military drones. One of the missiles was headed to Khamis Mushayt, whilst the destination of the third was not the same, but Saudi forces have been speculating that the target was al-Jawf, a city in northern Saudi Arabia and as far as I could tell at best a civilian target with no military or strategic economic targets. The issue here is not the target, it is that the Houthi forces are trying to show that it could hit a target 1400 Km away, which is already a challenge for high end drones with a well-trained pilot. It shows that the ante is up and it limits the optional source to only one, Iran. The western media was extremely able to not report on any of that.

Colonel Turki Al-Maliki was able to tell that one of them was fired from Sanaa. I reported earlier this week on “On Sunday, coalition forces also destroyed a drone and intercepted six ballistic missiles targeting Jazan in Saudi Arabia’s southern border with Yemen“, the Arab News gave another mention of that, yet the western press is clearly of the mind that this does not need to be reported. The problem in all this is that Houthi forces do not have any infrastructure to create this; neither do they have the technical expertise to make them. This is all via Iran who either delivers directly or uses Hezbollah to deliver. There is also additional shallow evidence that Houthi forces do not have the ability and expertise to fly these drones with such precision. To illustrate this consider your child (if you have one) a nine year old and let that kid fly a predator drone over Europe, no automatic pilot and let it fly into the Eifel tower. There is one guarantee, that drone will crash, it will fly into something, just not the Eifel tower that is the stage we are in. Even as we are given from other sources “A Houthi supporter wears a headband praising the Houthi movement for making drone aircraft as he attends a pro-Houthi rally in Sanaa“, showing us merely a push for fabricated marketing. There is no way that Houthi forces can make them. Even now, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Iraq have drones, but they mostly come from places like China. When we look at drone builders we see: Israel, Turkey, United States, United Kingdom and Iran. These are the makers of drones, Yemen and Houthi forces are not creating them and the media is not looking into it. The fact that the media ignores this is also an indication that the media is no longer corroded, it should be considered to have become a corrupt vessel for whatever facilitators need. Most likely to appease their own governments that need some Iranian deal, or needs to adhere to American policy so that they can push an Iranian deal. Even the Hill (not the most neutral player) is giving us: ‘EU still hasn’t stopped trying to appease Iran‘, all playing their game and they are willing to keep quiet on drones attacking Saudi Arabia to the largest degree. Is it not weird that the last two attacks within a week were not covered at all?

This is not about G7 coverage; this is about the option of meeting after the G7 with Iran, the most likely perpetrator in delivering drones to Yemen (Houthi forces).

the Washington Post gave us: ‘Saudi Arabia, UAE vow to back Yemen war effort amid cracks‘ three days ago, yet nothing on drones, the BBC gave us ‘Wingsuit scientist dies in Saudi Arabia base jump‘ a week ago and nothing on drones, the Guardian gave us ‘Walking through a war zone: Ethiopians heading for Saudi – in pictures‘ 13 hours ago and nothing on drones, the list goes on and on and it is time for us to recognise that the western news has degraded to nothing more than a media outlet facilitating to others, not informing the people of what is actually happening. Why is that?

Forbes gave us different news (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/ellenrwald/2019/08/26/saudi-arabias-100-billion-tourism-pipe-dream/#4dd68b561367), but they are Forbes, their focus is different. There we see: “Now the government is touting its plans for a new tourism industry with an announcement alongside the CEO of Six Flags and an exclusive for CNBC. The kingdom released a grand vision, but with no substance and a disappointing look at unrealistic goals“, I believe that the choice made was a partial mistake.

There is nothing wrong with 6 flags, yet when you consider the excellence and amazing rides that the Dutch Efteling offers, there is also Universal Studios Hollywood, both offer a range of rides that will take the breath of people away. The issue with 6 flags is that they are all about rides, yet a theme park needs to be about a lot more to keep interest high, the Efteling figured that out decades ago and they achieved just that, whilst also creating the Python (a really intense ride) in 1981, the interest in that ride never faded and was upgraded and renewed in 2005 (trains) and tracks in 2017. Yet I believe that his is only the start. The Efteling had from the very beginning stories from 1001 Arabian Nights in their fairy tale land, I personally believe that if Saudi Arabia wants to become international they cannot merely have another version of existing rides; they would need to get a creative team and create their own.

There is the story of the Jinn (Afreet), we all remember Aladdin. Yet how many remember or even know about ‘the Sage and his three sons‘? What if that story is presented not unlike the Efteling ride ‘Haunted Castle‘? Part of the story we walk through and the second part is a show, there are many options for Saudi Arabia to consider the way they grow their theme parks (plural), I merely hope it will be a lot more than merely another 6 flags. Yet it must be said that Forbes also raises valid points, with: “much of Saudi Arabia is prohibitively hot in the summer months, with average high temperatures of about 110 degrees Fahrenheit. Florida is part of the U.S. and thus an easy destination for over 300 million Americans. Florida allows alcohol. Florida has gambling through American Indian casinos. Florida allows men and women to dress and interact freely. Florida allows churches, synagogues and general freedom of religion“, as well as “in 2017, total tourism spending in Florida was only $88.6 billion“, what it does not mention (optionally a mere oversight, with no accusation towards Forbes) is the small fact that in 2015 an estimated 1.8 billion or about 24.1% of the world population is Muslim. That does not mean that they all want to go to Saudi Arabia, yet in combination with the Hajj, there is a larger interest in Saudi Arabia and that too needs to be accepted. If only 1% visits Saudi Arabia we see that this represents 18 million tourists, in light of all the anti-Muslim minded nations, these people might really like the consideration of a large theme park that is mostly visited by Muslims, all kinds of food worries would fall away, all kinds of direct Muslim needs would be attended to, and that is merely the tip of the iceberg.

Yet all this was limited to Forbes, many others have taken documents towards Neom City (like the Wall Street Journal) where from one source we get: “While construction has started on Neom, there are concerns that not all of its technology (which Neom chief executive Nadhmi al Nasr told WSJ “is cutting edge and beyond — and in some cases still in development and maybe theoretical”) can ever make it out of science fiction” is a view that comes across as trivialisation. Interesting that the Wall Street Journal as one source was willing to go into that direction whilst well over $500 billion has been made available for the creation of Neom city, as I personally see it, there is a clear larger need to know and illustrate on Wall Street. The end will be more and there had always been a clear path towards high tech future. so whilst the Wall Street Journal gives us: ‘Flying Cars, Robot Dinosaurs and a Giant Artificial Moon‘, we see an utter lack of the planned intertwining of 5G, from the very beginning it will be 5G and faster, so why is the Wall Street Journal trivialising a planned path that will surpass most construction feats over the last century alone?

Is this corrosion or corruption? I cannot tell and it is likely to be a combination. The fact that Neom is to be well over 20 times the size of New York and will include a bridge connecting Saudi Arabia to Africa is another matter not covered to the degree it should.

There is a lot wrong and it merely shows us that the media can no longer be trusted; whatever they claim comes with a side story a business connection and more often political policy in the making. And this matter stretches far beyond the topic of Saudi Arabia. If we look at the word news and accept in part ‘newly received or noteworthy information, especially about recent events‘, yet when we start looking for ‘age discrimination in Australia‘ we get very little, there is an abundance of evidence especially as close to 20% of Australian workers is over 55, we see very little of them in Apple, Google and a whole host of other players. In a test the same application from the same person got immediately hired in Greece and Portugal, yet bounced for the same position well over 75 times in Australia. Yet the media is shunning it to a much larger degree, I speculate that these publications rely on Apple and google advertisement to some degree and it is not merely them, the problem is a lot larger, but the media can no longer be trusted to give light to this. So if the media is super corrosive on national issues, what chance does a place like Saudi Arabia have to get a fair shake from the media?

It is funny, but Women’s Agenda had the same idea I had 22 hours ago, there we see ‘This government wants to blame ‘choices’ over discrimination‘ and “In “Towards 2025”, the word discrimination appears just four times, one time in reference to age discrimination and three times in the footnotes in reference to other documents where discrimination appears in the title“, from my point of view it implies that a non-youthful lady doesn’t have a chance in hell to get a job, how is that NOT discrimination? When we demand that all the large corporations give a top line report for all non-board members and non-senior management staff to present a staff review of age and gender hires with age brackets ‘up to 25′, ’26-49′ and ’50+’. When this is part of their tax audit we might end up getting an actual clear view. The results will be more likely than not scary be slightly too read and governments (not just the current local Australian one) will have a lot more to explain that they are willing to do at present; their anti-discrimination acts all failing and visibly no action taken for a much longer time. In all this the failing is a much larger one and the media is, as I personally see it, a direct player in not showing the people what is going on.

Corrosion is already a dangerous path, but when there is a much larger implied level of corruption in place (they won’t call it that), we see that the news has become a much larger problem that before, they will trivialise it towards time, space to publish and they will steer clear from directives that include shareholders, stake holders and advertisers. Yet that is the larger truth as I personally see it. more and more of the media can no longer be trusted to give us what is actually going on, we merely get what they consider is the news that 70% of us wants to learn about, there was a lack of resources. We accept that in the printed word, yet in the digital age where space is never a shortage of, we see publications willing to filter diligently what they are willing to show us. And there is still the worry of all the matters that we are not being informed on, it should worry you too.

Yet there is a larger play for Australia as well. That is seen when we consider the news that “On Wednesday, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced we would join the US-led mission to protect shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow sea strip that serves as one of the region’s most important choke points”, now consider that Houthi forces have attacked Saudi tankers in the Persian Gulf (May 2019), Iran Backed Houthi forces made the attack, so already the Australians are left in the dark on these attacks and we are sending a frigate, surveillance aircraft and troops. All optionally relatives of ours and the news decided not to inform us on the drone attacks. Do you still think that I am exaggerating on the danger that the media now represents by keeping us all in the dark?

This game is a lot larger than we realise, and it is larger than we know it is because the media has seemingly decided that informing on plenty of issues us was not essential.

 

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August 25, 2019 · 13:36

Famine issue solved

Yes, isn’t that a good way to start Sunday? The world solved the famine issue. It took no trouble at all, the media merely needed to stop writing about it. There is so much other stuff to write about. All the things that Saudi Arabia are accused of, some sources state that an Iranian oil tanker is now ‘under terrorist command‘ (no real evidence has been presented though), and the UK is sending another ship (the third) to reinforce the anti-Iran armada. All news, there is no more famine, famine has been resolved.

How come?

Well that is the question; it is only the Independent (according to some now partially owned by Saudi players) that gives us (at https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/yemen-war-civil-independence-south-mahra-aden-saudi-arabia-iran-a9076546.html) the headline ‘The war to start all wars: Inside Yemen’s troubled south‘, an article by Bel Trew, a true Belle gives us the harsh reality of what we are trying not to see. Yet there is disagreement of what I read. As I am introduced to “They talk of a war within a war within another war in a nation already in the grips of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, where 13 million people are currently on the brink of famine“, I see the same words again and again for many months. I believe that the situation is worse, the quote ‘where 13 million people are currently on the brink of famine‘ should actually be ‘hundreds of thousands of Yemeni, mostly children are in and beyond a stage of famine‘, my point of view is supported by data intelligence, signal intelligence and trade craft intelligence. The amount of food getting into Yemen is nowhere near the amount that should be going into Yemen and there are still Houthi clusters taking possession of food and water supplies (or destroying them). It is a lot worse and the media is looking elsewhere for optional debatable facts to publish.

In an age of these transgressions, in a stage where I see that there are no true innocent players, not on the Saudi side, not on their opposing sides, the effort that the UN needed to make is a joke (and a bad one at that). I am not placing blame on Saudi Arabia, I am merely noticing that they cannot be innocent, it is not the same. The initial option for Saudi Arabia would be to set up a refugee camp near Thabhloten. There is a tactical reason. It is 225 Km away from Yemen, there is not strategic goal there and any attack by Houthi forces would be seen as a direct reason for UN forces to open fire on attacking forces. I myself would be willing to brand an Accuracy International .338 and cull the attacking herd myself at that point. It should be a refugee camp, for children and women only; a camp to give medicine and sustenance trying to oppose the famine numbers and get the immediate help going.

It seems like a little, but let us accept no mistake here; that camp would be temporary and would settle close to 700,000 people in the shortest time, a camp offering real help and real relief to a larger part of those in the famine group. Something needs to be done, yet the media is to some extent hiding behind ‘on the brink of famine‘, as I personally see it that point was passed will over three months ago, it is worse and the media looks away for whatever reason. We cannot settle the Yemeni and Syrian issue, but the worst of the two, the Yemeni one can get relief to some extent. I have some degree of certainty that Saudi Arabia would want to be seen as the actual caretaker here, the question becomes do the Yemeni feel the same. I look at this from a Christian point of view, whilst I accept that there is an Islamic view, and it takes precedence here. In that respect the UNHCR gives us:

And if anyone of the disbelievers seeks your protection, then grant him protection so that he may hear the word of Allah, and then escort him to where he will be secure. (Surah 9:6)

I believe that if this applies to disbelievers, that it equally applies to believers and the goodwill that Saudi Arabia offers in this way is not to be underestimated. When the famine lessens these people would most likely want to get back to Yemen and rebuild their lives, there too Saudi Arabia could steer these people to a better tomorrow, these people have to determine for one’s self what the better stage is, yet I believe that any stage is better than the one they face now, especially as the media is no longer interested in keeping a non-stop view of just how bad the situation is there.

That same paper (at https://www.unhcr.org/en-au/protection/hcdialogue%20/50ab90399/islam-refugees.html) refers to the hijrah, which was a new word for me. It means migration and this is where I am given: “Muhammad’s popularity was seen as threatening by the people in power in Mecca, and Muhammad took his followers on a journey from Mecca to Medina in 622. This journey is called the Hijrah and the event was seen as so important for Islam that 622 is the year in which the Islamic calendar begins“, if this is true than Yemen might start a new Hijrah, a journey for the children and women to travel (transport) from Yemen to Thabhloten, a stop, or perhaps better stated an oasis on the journey to where they end up going. We need to find an actual solution to save as many Yemeni as we can and we need to start with the women and children. We would love it to be in Yemen, yet the Houthi forces as well as the escalations make that no longer an option. The delays and obstructions are too large, the benefit is that other parties can then participate and open fire on anyone firing at these refugees. Houthi forces (the most likely transgressors) would find themselves in a stage of open war against troops that are ready and willing to protect the refugees. Thabhloten cannot be the end destination for that journey, but could allow for actual action against the famine that is now getting more and more ignored. In all this the civil war that is now sprouting in Yemen makes any other option impossible. With UN reports on Cholera outbreaks we need to do more and we need to set the stage where players like doctors without borders have a better stage to do something without getting into direct danger, or ending up in the firing line.

And matters are getting worse. The quote: “But for Elisabeth Kendall, a Yemen expert at Pembroke College Oxford University who travels frequently to the south, the training of separatist groups had “unleashed a force” the UAE may not be able to control” gives us more. You see it is not about the separatists, it is about who is training the separatists. Even as the UAE was preparing the separatists fighting the Houthi forces, we see a stage where old grievances are now a much larger issue, the old issue of north and south Yemen is returning, not a good thing. If these forces are truly in a path to a better Yemen (or better north and south Yemen) than getting the famine out of the equation would be an accepted first for both sides.

Is that actually true?

Well, it is something that I cannot prove, yet the UNHCR gives me: “In Islamic law, all individuals, including non-Muslims, have the right to flee persecution and seek protection in an Islamic community. The provision of refugee assistance is obligatory to people who flee from “injustice, intolerance, physical persecution, disease, or financial insecurity”“, if that is true than all parties would be willing to participate in the dissolution of famine, to set a stage where these people could be treated and protected.

I am merely trying to find an actual solution that would do something for the people in famine, which makes me already a much better person than any media who has been turning away from these events. I am not trying to set blame to any party, merely trying to find a solution where disease and famine might be defeated, it is not a Samaritan choice, it is not a Christian choice, it is a human choice and we are all human, no matter which faith drives us. I learned this lesson in my lifetime, and that makes me (for now) a better person than many others, no matter how much or how little life is left in me.

I always tried to steer a decent course, I stayed true to my nature, I remained creative, humane and a force for the good of others. So whether it is our heavenly father or Allah facing me where I end up being next, I will stand proudly accepting whatever judgment comes for me, I was a decent person. I wonder how many others can truly and honestly make that claim.

 

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August 18, 2019 · 13:47

Government? Censorship?

We see it, we ignore it and others remain in denial. We are censored almost every day and we remain unaware. You see, the issue is not advocated as censorship. It is presented as filtered news, and it is not the same. As we looked Yesterday into the events surrounding Evgeny Lebedev, we see people like Jeremy Wright hiding behind “may have an effect on the Evening Standard and the Independent’s news agendas“, yet to what degree and in what direction, that part was not given, was it? In addition we were introduced to Nicky Morgan and the fact that this is now on her plate. Yet the issue of censorship is still here.

Bloomberg gave us: ‘Saudi Oil Plant Attacked by Drones‘ (at https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-17/saudi-oil-plant-attacked-by-drones-but-production-unaffected) 11 hours ago. We also get: “Yemen’s Houthi rebel leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi claimed responsibility for the attack in a televised speech which was aired via the rebel-held Saba news agency. The Houthi leader said the group launched the assault on the oil and gas facilities with 10 drones. This was done to deliver an “important message” to the members of the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, he said” yet no one is giving any explanation how Yemeni Houthi fighters got access to high end drones. 10 drones represent a significant investment, the Houthi forces have neither the funds nor infrastructure to acquire or built them, yet they are delivered, where from?

An attack that might be seen as a terrorist attack and the exposure is close to nil. We get the news from Arab News, from Al Jazeera. Yet the event that happened 11 hours ago, is still not covered by the BBC. They limited the Middle Eat page to the US Warrant to an Iranian oil tanker, then the news on ‘Rashida Tlaib rejects Israel’s offer of ‘humanitarian’ visit‘, which is a day old, the rest is 2 days old, or even older. That is the BBC now! We do see some news from Reuters and Haaretz, yet nothing from the other UK papers. Is that not weird? Is it so weird that Saudi Arabia wants to see more on the attacks on them? The UK is facing massive censorship and has been under censor’s scrutiny, yet the UK remains silent.

We see a little more when we face Al Jazeera who gives us “A Houthi military spokesman said earlier on Saturday that the group targeted the Shaybah oil field with 10 drones in what he said was the “biggest attack in the depths” of the kingdom, the world’s top oil exporter” in the article (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2019/08/drone-attack-yemen-rebels-sparks-fire-saudi-oil-field-190817132916661.html). The other non-given issue is that the Shaybah facility is really close to the UAE borders. A lot of issues remain, but the media to a much larger extent has decided to silence the news, they have decided to be Anti-Saudi Arabia. The fact that Houthi terrorist forces are sending drones into Saudi Arabia, drones that they cannot build and drones that require hardware that they do not have, cannot create and optionally cannot operate is a much larger issue, but the UK media remains silent on it. How weird is that? So here we see a direct first part where it makes perfect sense to be in a stage where they have an invested interest in newspapers that might now give voice to what is going on. If the UK really wanted an independent press, the people in the UK would have been given the complete story on Houthi forces and the exposure of Iranian funding would be out in the open, that is not the case and we should all wonder why that is happening. Oh, and I understand that there is more news in the world, I understand that there is only so much on what an journalist can achieve, yet a middle eastern section on the BBC with two articles from the last TWO days and the rest is older is a little too weird for words. The fact that this was an attack on Aramco with the linked fact that we see loads on Aramco, but the entire mess of the attack (and lack of results from the attack) is not shown in the Financial Times, or the Guardian, who was willing to report only a little under 6 days ago ‘Saudi Aramco ready for record $2tn IPO after first-half results‘ gives rise to censorship and one sided reporting. So when exactly did we find that acceptable from any independent news force? The numbers and the events do not add up.

Even the Deutsche Welle gives us (at https://www.dw.com/en/yemen-houthi-rebels-target-saudi-oil-field/a-50066244) “This is the second such attack on the Saudi energy industry in recent days and comes amid high Middle East tensions” Really? the second attack? When was the first and why do I see almost nothing on that, and basically nothing from the Western European Newsgroups? There is even more, the quote “The Saudi acknowledgement of the attack came hours after Yahia Sarie, a military spokesman for the Houthis, issued a video statement claiming the rebels launched 10 bomb-laden drones targeting the field in their “biggest-ever” operation” gives rise to all kinds of intelligence issues, the fact that certain players are leaving this in the shadow of their desk is a larger issue. It gives rise to the accusation that the CIA is still on goal to keep stability in the Middle East to a minimum. The fact that we see the (optionally boasted) claim ‘their “biggest-ever” operation‘, whilst Yemen has no infrastructure to do this, I personally doubt that they have the knowledge to fly these drones to their target, all issues involving Iranian support, optionally via Hezbollah, all ignored and all non-reported.

That is not merely censorship that is the stage of filtering events on the world stage and keeping them out of sight all together. Is this the EU play to keep news away so that they can have some empty nuclear deal afloat? All hiding behind some INSTEX tool (Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges), whilst none of it brings any revenue or actual trade, there is no positive side and when we investigate the Iranian events towards the Houthi forces in support of attacking Saudi Arabia, we see a diminished setting, yet the EU is still hiding behind the nuclear deal that was never a deal in the first place. And now we can optionally add the news filtering that Saudi Arabia is facing. All is not well and a lot of it is about to get worse, all for the simple reason that some people are asking questions now and a lot more will be doing so soon enough, at that point any election falls into the water in a stage where the UK government has only the spin tour of the next election to rely on and in addition the media will feel the pain too. When the people realise that there is no longer an independent press. It went out of the window when politicians decided to ignore the Leveson report to the largest degree. They made their own bed, enjoy the nightmare it brings.

 

 

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August 17, 2019 · 11:54

When it is the typeface

There is an expression that we all use; I used it as well, twice most recently. The expression ‘the writing is on the wall‘, which implies that “there are clear signs that a situation is going to become very difficult or unpleasant“, the stage to a specific warning. Yet I believe that the expression is further than that, I also see it was an approach of something inevitable, yet always in a negative connotation. So when I saw the article (at https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/aug/16/independent-evening-standard-links-to-saudi-arabia-inquiry-blocked), where we are treated to ‘Court blocks inquiry into Independent and Standard’s links to Saudi Arabia‘, I saw something that has been given exposure before, yet I looked in another direction. And that direction is shown at the very end. The quote: “Since the investment was made the Independent has launched a range of foreign-language websites run by a Saudi publisher that uses its name, raising concerns about editorial oversight given the Middle Eastern kingdom’s poor record on press freedom“, it is here where I see that Jeremy Wright has another agenda. As former Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport of the United Kingdom he knows what is in play, but he is not telling us that, is he? I believe that the expression ‘the writing is on the wall‘ is one that is set in two places and they impact one another. Even when we get back to the origin of the expression, we see a shortening of ‘mene mene tekel upharsin‘, which is of Aramaic origin. Yet how was that staged? We see that some give us: “The point of the moral tale was that Belshazzar couldn’t see the warning that was apparent to others because he was engrossed with his sinning ways“. The subtlety of the biblical wordplay is now somewhat lost on those of us who don’t speak ancient Aramaic, yet a Daniel in a stage set to war could have translated it into its actual meaning: “Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy, a kid’ll eat ivy too, wouldn’t you?”

The problem is that the writer is assumed to be on a stage, and in that stage we see writing, we see the text, but we forget that text is more. It is a font, it is a size and collected we see a typeface. We are so used to take the newspapers and merely gobble up the text like it is an ASCII phrase, we forget that the stories are presented, the typeface presents this and newspapers have done so for well over a century. They have been in a stage where they represent themselves as neutral and authoritative, and this style of type has come to represent those attributes. Yet they have not been that for the longest of times, they have had an agenda for decades, WW2 started it and progressed through wars as they maintained facts under the air of neutrality, an air and stage they forsake long ago. In the end, the entire stage of ‘concerns about editorial oversight given the Middle Eastern kingdom’s poor record on press freedom‘ was never an issue. You see, the simplicity here is that people can always change papers. It is when that freedom is not trodden on; it is there that the old owners see the dangers. It is not about what is not presented, it is what is presented and how it is presented. The Russian Evgeny Lebedev, figured that out long ago and now he has arranged that Saudi Arabia and optionally more Middle Eastern players get a seat at that specific table.

The media silenced the truth of a lot of issues in Saudi Arabia and Yemen, now we get the stage where the people will get informed on a lot more of it that is the fear. When we hold a large candle to the media, we see the greed driven faulty and now we optionally see a new player informing all others and that rattled people like Jeremy Wright. We see the events in Yemen, we see a civil war within a civil war and the media is blaming Saudi Arabia to the larger extent, yet we are told half a story at best. Now we will face the stage where Saudi Arabia has a larger voice and it will be heard. The Independent and Evening Standard are too large to ignore and that voice will carry on an international level. And the court case gives us: “The judges ruled that while it was legitimate for the government to have issued an intention to intervene, the final referral should have been made by 1 July“, if there was a true danger the government would have acted sooner, they did not. Now they must face the events that two papers will get a lot more information and the previous times where the media initially disregarded missile strikes in Saudi Arabia will be ignored no mare. We can also question whether the media has failed its readers to a much larger degree, but that would be on the papers that are not the Evening Standard and not the Independent. The accusation is almost ludicrous, the UK has well over 14 larger daily newspapers, if there is real diminished freedom of the press, the other 12 take over and the value of these two papers fall to zero, after which a new owner will come and take over. As I personally see it, the entire oversight is a bogus issue, the fact that Saudi Arabia would now have a typeface that allows them to be heard is another matter, is it not?

So if the writing is actually on the wall, we need to look at the typeface used and who would place the text on the wall in the first place. And that is before we look at: “It was claimed in court that the companies were ultimately part-owned by a Saudi bank with close ties to the government” we can argue that the bulk of the newspapers are owned by banks with close ties to governments on a global scale, to me it all reads and reeks of a stage where the larger players are just too uncomfortable with Saudi Arabia getting a seat at the table, which is a whole new issue on discriminating elements. It is also the slow question that comes to the surface here. As we see: “A spokesperson for the news outlets said they were delighted by the outcome and that the intervention had been “disproportionate to the facts, unfair and a waste of public money“, as such, if we openly demand to see the costs involved for this case, will we be given the actual costs involved? If the UK had only 3 newspapers the stage would have made sense and more important, the chance that Evgeny Lebedev owned any part of it would be out of the question, but that is not the case. There are dozens of papers all over the UK, losing two would not be a huge impact and if Saudi Arabia intervenes with press freedom, a dozen of others take over on the spot diminishing the value of two newspapers, a temporary small market shift at best. A simple fact not given at all, so when we look at the typeface of it, what was this really about? Is it really about Freedom of the press, or is it about stopping Saudi Arabia from getting a larger international voice that is clearly heard all over the UK?

It seems to me that several players are not happy about that last option; we can now hold those players to account for news that was never given to us before.

 

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August 2, 2019 · 17:28

The biggest issue

The Guardian has given us several articles, by themselves there is nothing strange there (well there is), yet it is when we look at them together that an image starts to form. It is united that the larger problem becomes visible and the fact that a larger group is not catching up to this is a worry.

The first one is ‘Greta Thunberg hits back at Andrew Bolt for ‘deeply disturbing’ column‘, which happened less than 12 hours ago (at https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/02/greta-thunberg-hits-back-at-andrew-bolt-for-deeply-disturbing-column), then we get ‘Revealed: Johnson ally’s firm secretly ran Facebook propaganda network‘ (at https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/aug/01/revealed-johnson-allys-firm-secretly-ran-facebook-propaganda-network), as well as ‘Brexit, cycle lanes and Saudi Arabia: CTF’s Facebook campaigns‘ (at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/aug/01/brexit-cycle-lanes-and-saudi-arabia-ctfs-facebook-campaigns). Now let’s start up that on the whole nothing wrong was done by the Guardian. They reported and we can agree that reporting is what the Guardian does. Yet the larger issue is not what they do, it is what we are not getting that becomes the issue.

It starts with the Houthi attack on Dammam with missiles, a missile attack on a civilian target, Al Jazeera informs its audience, but the Guardian is not there. Bloomberg, the Guardian, basically the Western Media are all shunning it, yet they go to lengths to waste paper on the issues that “Women in Saudi Arabia will no longer need the permission of a male guardian to travel“, however the BBC did report on ‘Houthi missile attack on military parade kills 32‘, where we are told that “The parade in the southern port city of Aden was targeted by missiles and an armed drone, a Houthi-run TV channel says“, yet it seems that it was limited to the BBC, the near complete Western Media ignored that one too.

Now, I can accept that plenty of people are no fan of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, yet to shun attacks that cost lives is new, they all group together to give accusations without evidence (that journalist no one cares about), yet actual events are shunned. It is a new level of discrimination, it is political discrimination, where unwelcome groups are given exposure when it can be tilted to the negative side of the seesaw and the more negative it gets, the larger the exposure.

Now, let’s get back to the first article, because that is seemingly not linked. With the Quote “The widely read Herald Sun columnist and Sky News commentator used his significant platform to take aim at the 16-year-old campaigner, dismissing her followers as members of a cult and disparaging her decision to sail across the Atlantic in a high-speed racing yacht to attend UN climate summits in the US and Chile“, as well as: “The highly personal character assassination published in Rupert Murdoch’s tabloids repeatedly referred to Greta’s mental health, saying she was “deeply disturbed”, “freakishly influential” and “strange”“, yet in all this, we see no exposure on how that information was acquired.

As I personally see it The editor of the Herald Sun, Damon Johnston, as well as his fucked up sidekick Andrew Bolt did something in addition, is it the small part “the evidence does not suggest that humanity faces doom“, all that to hide the smallest snippet to oppose the environment. It actually gets more interesting, that is when we consider the case that Justice Bromberg presided over. When we consider “Herald Sun columnist Andrew Bolt and his employer Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp clearly violated the Racial Discrimination Act“, we could argue that he could face court again in this case. When the case was judged and we get: ‘The lack of care and diligence is demonstrated by the inclusion in the newspaper articles of the untruthful facts and the distortion of the truth which I have identified, together with the derisive tone, the provocative and inflammatory language and the inclusion of gratuitous asides‘, we see the chance that history might repeat itself. The article (at https://independentaustralia.net/business/business-display/andrew-bolt-continues-on-about-adam-goodes,12947) gives a lot more, what is key here that the Guardian exposes it and that is good, I have no issues with it. Yet it also shows the lengths that Murdoch media goes through to set the stage in one place, whilst other parts are seemingly intentionally ignored. Perhaps some of you remember the mental health escalation at Martin Place in 2014. Rupert Murdoch acted personally and the responses like ‘Rupert Murdoch’s Response To The Martin Place Siege Is As Tasteless As You’d Expect‘, as we were given: “AUST gets wake-call with Sydney terror. Only Daily Telegraph caught the bloody outcome at 2.00 am. Congrats“, it seems to me that bloodshed are his bread and butter, it also is seemingly implied that as long as it is not Saudi Blood, Rupert Murdoch has no issues. Some gave us: “the hostage situation as the work of an IS “Death Cult CBD Attack”, something we labelled at the time – and will continue to do so – as one of “the most vile, deliberately inflammatory, fundamentally wrong and wholly speculative front covers in the sordid history of Australian print media“, all whilst from the beginning, within a few hours it should have been clear that not only were the journalists not doing their job, the issues that in the beginning, hostages were seen holding an Islamic black flag against the window of the café, featuring the shahadah creed. It was wrongly identified by the media and the part where Monis later demanded that an ISIL flag be brought to him should have been clear that this was not a terrorist, at the most a wannabe, and more viable a person with mental health issues, but as I personally see it, Murdoch and Channel 7 were all about milking the event as much as possible.

At what point is journalism about milking?

The fact that this was buried as fast as possible is another part where we see a mingling of political discrimination, racial discrimination and religious discrimination and no one is telling Murdoch in clear language that it needs to stop.

The other two

Ok, it becomes essential to get to the deeper side of the pool here. First of all, there is a larger setting that has not settled. The accusation is twofold. The first is actually the one that does not work for the campaign players. It is also reported by CNN through ‘Facebook announces first takedown of influence campaign with ties to Saudi government‘, even as we accept “covert campaigns on Facebook and Instagram in a bid to prop up support for the kingdom and attack its enemies“, CNN et al are not reporting on the media blackout that is pushed out towards Saudi Arabia either. So anything that makes Saudi Arabia look like an attacked victim is suppressed, whilst actions by Saudi Arabia are spun to its most negative path and spattered over all media and all social media. Yet as the article gives us: “Facebook has hired staff with backgrounds in areas including intelligence, law enforcement and journalism to be part of a team finding and closing down coordinated campaigns on the platform, including some spreading disinformation and linked to nation-states“, it is equally absent in the case of “bogus mainly far-right disinformation networks were not identified by Facebook — but had been reported to it by campaign group Avaaz — which says the fake pages had more Facebook followers and interactions than all the main EU far right and anti-EU parties combined“, so we get one group with a following of 13 million in the past three months, with a following larger than all the European main party pages of the far right combined. Yet in all that, Saudi Arabia was specifically mentioned (they also illuminated the false pages of Iran). It is shown in a larger degree with: “Avaaz reported more than 500 suspicious pages and groups to Facebook related to the three-month investigation of Facebook disinformation networks in Europe. Though Facebook only took down a subset of the far right muck-spreaders — around 15% of the suspicious pages reported to it“. The fact that Facebook only took down subsets that represents 15% of the reported pages shows that there is a larger degree of political discrimination in play and even as some are overly clear, that larger extent shows that Social Media is optionally promoting to some degree the survival of Racial Discrimination, Political Discrimination, Religious Discrimination and Age Discrimination.

It is the revelation of: “vote manipulators are able to pass off manipulative propaganda and hate speech as bona fide news and views as a consequence of Facebook publishing the fake stuff alongside genuine opinions and professional journalism. It does not have algorithms that can perfectly distinguish one from the other, and has suggested it never will“, it is at this point where the realisation grows, when we add the two elements and we add the fact that the media is filtering what we are ‘allowed’ to know, it is there where the larger failing becomes clear, it is the axial and the seesaw of illumination of the view that opposes clear news, the media is now part of the problem. And it is there where we see the wisdom of TechCrunch with: “loud Facebook publicity effort around “election security” looks like a cynical attempt to distract the rest of us from how broken its rules are. Or, in other words, a platform that accelerates propaganda is also seeking to manipulate and skew our views“, it is merely part of the issue, it is not merely Facebook, it is the Media to a larger degree, their alliance is towards the Shareholders, the Stake holders and the advertisers, in that the larger issue is seen, those who advertise are optionally the controllers of what we see is possible, and that is where the truth is pushed out of view. It is seen in one final swoop when we consider the key word “Neom City“, a project like that, a project initially designed to be well over 30 times the size of New York, a project that has well over half a trillion dollars, set to construction, engineering and IT, should be on the front page of EVERY Newspapers, yet when you seek, you get Bloomberg last January (at https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-16/saudi-arabia-to-begin-building-homes-in-futuristic-city-neom) and Business Insider in October 2018 (at https://www.businessinsider.com.au/jamal-khashoggi-saudi-arabia-neom-megacity-2018-10?r=US&IR=T). The view that is part of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Vision 2030 plan is silenced to death and that started before the journalist no one cares about vanished. In addition a new bridge that will connect Saudi Arabia to Africa is kept silent. In this day and age how does that make sense? I am looking at billions in 5G revenue in Neom City alone, as well as the underlying infrastructure required, opening a much larger need for the entire Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, all ready to be set to a much larger stage (when the first phase region is a fact), yet the media is more about the rumours of the PS5 which is well over a year away with 6,940,000 mentions, and that makes partly sense, it is about awareness and creating hype, so when we see in the Guardian “the latest revelations reveal that the company has pursued that approach more broadly, in the service of previously unreported corporate interests and foreign governments. And they expose a major flaw in Facebook’s political transparency tools, which make it possible for Crosby’s company – which boasts on its website that it deploys “the latest tools in digital engagement” – to use the social network to run professional-looking “news” pages reaching tens of millions of people on highly contentious topics“, so if it is about ‘provoking argument‘, we should see nothing wrong as Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft rely on that part 24:7. If it is about ‘involving heated argument‘, we still see no issue as this is Sony versus Nintendo versus Microsoft, as this has been the media bread and butter for close to 7 years and more. When we look at the ‘likely to cause an argument‘, almost nothing changes. It is the part I did not mention “without apparently disclosing that they are being overseen by CTF Partners on behalf of paying clients“, where we need to question the use of ‘apparently‘, is it or is it not mentioned? The Guardian did or did not do their job becomes the issue and yes, we can see ‘on behalf of paying clients‘, and how does that differ from Apple, Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, Nespresso and a whole league of others? They are all in it for the money, the awareness and the creation of viral messages, over-hyped and often way too short on facts. That part is not given to us either and it is there where we see the interactions of layers of discrimination and ‘misinformation’ that is usually brought as ‘missed information’, I would personally see it as an exercise in ‘miscommunication’ and it has been happening for a much longer time. So when we get from the Guardian: “employees always operate within the law”, and if they take to the bank the task of giving positive visibility to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, is there an actual issue here?

The biggest issue is that we see the information that “It does not have algorithms that can perfectly distinguish fake news from the other, and has suggested it never will“, whilst the underlying issue is that what is not fake news is not that trustworthy either, it is limited to the filtering of shareholders, stakeholders and advertisers and Facebook has no clue what to do, they to relay on those three groups. The news for the longest time never gave us that part. As I see it people like Greta Thunberg will never get a fair deal here, not as long as people like Andrew Bolt keep on being regarded as Journalists. That part is seen when we see: “the evidence does not suggest that humanity faces doom” all whilst that statement is not scrutinised to the largest degree. The opposition to that claim can be seen in the simplest sentence by World Vision, their quote: “Globally, 844 million people lack access to clean drinking water” gives the goods, close to 10% of the population of this planet lacks access to clean drinking water. When we consider that a person can only survive a few days without water. How much danger is the population exposed to, does that qualify as doom facing? How many must die before the ‘humanity faces doom‘ is satisfied? It seems trivial, but it is not, that same media that ignores attacks on Saudi Arabia, that does not report on Houthi transgressions, acts of terror and other events also ignores Yemeni plight for water, food and medication to a much larger degree. So the question becomes a simple one, give us the list of parameters that must be placed on staging or dismounting the accusation that ‘humanity faces doom‘, when we realise that there is a larger collection of evidence, we merely have to set that stage to those elements. I am not stating that Greta Thunberg is right or wrong, yet we can look and accept that Andrew Bolt and his so called opinion piece on Greta Thunberg should be seen as triviality towards journalism and that does matter, because if that is allowed to continue, Facebook will never solve anything, as such the only way to solve it is to push media deliverers like Andrew Bolt into the ‘Fake News’ category so that we might find a solution. The fact that SBS called it an opinion piece and the Guardian did not is the larger failing, any opinion piece, especially those in newspapers, digital or not should be clearly labelled as such like [opinion piece] before the text begins, identifying those pieces will also change the way that they are perceived and we might get a better quality of journalism. When writers get $100 for an opinion piece and $200 for an actual journalistic piece (researched and all), the matter might resolve itself soon enough.

 

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July 29, 2019 · 10:55

The excuse not mentioned

Have you ever considered the times you used the expression ‘not to mention‘? It is an interesting phrase and it is overwhelmingly used to give rise to excuses or reasons of a listing. Yet the act of not mentioning issues has a much larger reach. This gets us to the usage of Embargo, now in the true spirit of embargo is needed to not give rise to dangers. I have seen my shares of embargoes all over the world, I have never been personally privy to one, but I understand and accept the reason. The most accepted form is a ‘requirement by a government agency that the information or news provided is not be published until a certain date or certain conditions have been met‘, it makes sense that the news of drug deals are not broken until the undercover agent is out of harm’s way, the famous raid on Entebbe (Operation Entebbe), had to make certain that in those days spotters would not voice what they saw whilst the plane was in flight; fortunately for the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) they have an above average security in place, so not much chance of that, yet with the 1977 Dutch train hijacking that issue was very much an issue, especially as on that very same day there was a touristic event (I believe it was by the AVRO), that took us to almost exactly where the train was, whilst that morning Dutch Marines were ordered to settle the matter. Good luck with an embargo at that point. If there was a smartphone in those days, the event might have gone very differently. In that same trend, the events that are on route involving the Credit Agricole would prefer some kind of embargo, but governments cannot play that card, so some players (like some banks) will have to rely on other means, and as we are only drip-fed issues on the Russia Money-Laundering Scandal, we will have to await the media friends of outlets, to see what is allowed to be released.

Yes, you heard it correctly, what some people allow to be revealed to you all. They would hide behind optionally claimed issues like: “We ran out of time“, “there were other pressing matters“, or my favourite “We did not think it was interesting“, it is in that light that media enforced embargoes take another turn.

Is it not interesting that the Boston globe gives us: ‘US can’t keep turning a blind eye to Saudi Arabia’s murderous prince‘, yet based on what evidence? That UN essay is not the evidence we should regard as actual evidence. We see in addition Al Jazeera give us: ‘UN again blacklists Saudi-led forces for Yemen child killings‘, yet in that light in opposition the news is not giving us: ‘Yemen’s Houthi rebels attack food factory in Hodeidah‘, which was reported 12 hours ago.

So in a place where famine is a direct threat to hundreds of thousands, the Houthi terrorists are aiming for civilian population and destroying places that produce milk and fruit products (juices, cheese, yogurt), essential food for the people of Yemen and the Houthi forces are shelling that place as well as residential areas of Hodeidah city last Saturday. Yet the western news to the largest extent did not give us any of that, did they?

The fact that we see news avoided to the largest degree is becoming an issue, the people are not being informed on what is going on, and when we do get informed, there is a veil that depicts the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (as well as the UAE) as: ‘the big nasty’, whilst the actions of Houthi terrorists as well as the facilitation by Iran is not mentioned at all, and this has been going on for months now. When we consider one source (Times of Israel, at https://www.timesofisrael.com/yemeni-houthi-rebels-long-range-arsenal-grows-lethal/) we see: “In June alone, the Iran-aligned Shiite Houthis launched at least 20 missile and drone attacks on the oil-rich kingdom, Iran’s regional foe, some resulting in casualties and damage“, in addition we see: “A Yemeni army retired brigadier, Jamil al-Mamari, believes the “Houthis are not capable of manufacturing missiles in Yemen… They are only capable of assembling and modification.”“, the growing evidence from several sources on the incapability of Yemen to produce Iranian hardware is ignored by the Western Media all over the place, including the bigger accusation: “Experts rule out the possibility that Houthis may have modified these arms on their own“, a simple deduction that could have been made by a 4th year engineering undergrad student, and yes, the media ignores this, we are sold a bag of goods through business driven embargo’s, just like the issues seen in Syria, the people are left for dead and illuminating merely part of the equation is making the western media guilty of a few facts, even subverting the old premise: ‘the people have a right to know‘ into: ‘We are guided by some to tell you what you optionally need to know‘.

I wonder what will happen when I decide to give out the messages, mails, events and connections that are in existence between people like Raphaël Appert and Daniel Epron, with all the media links they have, and they have a lot. So when we look at some of the Russia Money-Laundering Scandal that have been known to some extent and all the papers that decided not to give visibility to that part, what excuse will we be told? There was a revolutionary Apple message that bumped the revelation? Or perhaps the economic plan of President Macron took all the space available? I do not know, I am merely speculating, but the lack of visibility on some of these news events all over the place, are now a much larger concern. When we look at the papers that actually took space and time to look into the Iranian Qasef-1 missiles and their targets, how many papers took time to look into that? The list (the lack of papers there) will surprise you. Oh and the excuse that it was merely a copy of the Iranian Ababil-2 drone will not work, I checked for both. In that same air, when searching for the Russian Money Laundering Scandal, we see the mentions of the Deutsche Bank, but several others like for example Credit Agricole, they did not make it to the news, not in the Guardian and not in several other papers. Revelations that are filtered are not revelations; it is merely corporate forms of censoring and it is my speculation that we get more and more of that as the year progresses.

As I have state in the past, I believe that news is filtered for publication as long as it is filtered through the Shareholder filter, the stake holder filter and the advertiser filter. What is left is ranked according to emotional ability to flame and push people. When we look at Turkish Journalists (in light of the large amount of them in prison) in the google News section we get: ‘About 163,000 results‘ (for all those journalists mind you), yet when we see: ‘About 725,000 results‘, which is in the same section, it is about Jamal Khashoggi, so we see that not all journalists are equal, not by a long shot (even as dozens of Journalists have been murdered in Turkey). These are all elements that give a view to the filtering of information that we get, and when you consider the excuse that ‘there was no space’ consider that there is no space limit to online news. And for the most it is not about resources, it is about that they consider we should know.

When we search news for ‘Hodeidah‘ in the last 24 hours we get 4 hits, two on the Shelling of the Dairy factory (Xinhua and Al Ain) one Blog and one by Yemen Online on ‘The opening up of Hodeidah port to ensure a better flow of humanitarian aid‘, that’s it, nothing more according the Google Search, so any excuse that the West is giving us some level of balanced news is a joke, and at present a bad one at that.

 

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July 26, 2019 · 11:46

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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July 20, 2019 · 11:50

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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July 13, 2019 · 12:06

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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July 12, 2019 · 11:49

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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