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East-Aleppo Has Three Months Stockpiles – Two Days Later It’s Running Out?
One of the stories below does not fit the others. How can that be?
Reuters, July 11:
Aleppo rebels brace for long Syrian government siege
Rebel areas of Aleppo have stockpiled enough basic supplies to survive months of siege by Syrian pro-government forces that cut off their half of the city last week, even though some goods are running out, an opposition official said.
LA Times, July 11:
Doctors travel a dangerous road to help ease the horrors of war-torn Aleppo, Syria
Anticipating a siege, local authorities stocked food for three months and medical supplies for three to six months, [Dr. Zaher] Sahloul said.
Wall Street Journal, July 13:
Syria’s Aleppo Running Out of Food, Medicine After Regime Forces Advance
Food and medicine have begun to dwindle in the city of Aleppo after an advance by Syrian regime forces effectively cut off the only road into the rebel-held side of the divided city, residents and opposition leaders said Wednesday.
How U.S. And UK “Liberals” Disfranchise Their Party Members
The "liberal" party establishments in the U.S. and UK, within the Democrats and Labour, are united in their distaste for party member opinions. They alone want to decide which positions the party has to take. They want to make sure that there is no alternative to their rule. It is elitism at its worst which no longer bothers with the pretense of democracy. Does it count as "shared values"?
Bernie Sanders folded. This without gaining any significant concession from Hillary Clinton on programmatic or personal grounds. (At least as far as we know.) He endorsed Clinton as presidential candidate even as she gave no ground for his voters' opinions. This disenfranchises the people who supported him.
Trump's attack lines on this are spot on:
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump – 7:01pm · 12 Jul 2016
Bernie Sanders endorsing Crooked Hillary Clinton is like Occupy Wall Street endorsing Goldman Sachs.
and
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump – 7:03pm · 12 Jul 2016
Bernie sanders has abandoned his supporters by endorsing pro-war pro-TPP pro-Wall Street Crooked Hillary Clinton.
Those are valid statements. I find it hard to to argue with these.
Abstaining from any endorsement or running as independent or Green party candidate would have been more honorable ways for Sanders to admit defeat. It would have pressed the Democratic party to stop its movement to the right of the Republican party.
I expect the "Not Hillary" protest vote to be very strong in the November election. There is still more significant dirt to be dug up about her and her family foundation. Trumps current lows in the polls will recover when the media return to the "close race" mantra that makes them money. He still has a decent chance to win.
Then again – its the first time now that I have to concede that Clinton may well win. But that would be with a record low turnout, and record low legitimacy. There would be no wins for the Democrats in the Senate and House. She would be another Republican President who would represent only a record small slice of the electorate.
The election shambles on the other side of the Atlantic are no less depressing. "Corbyn can not win votes," is the claim of the anti-Corbyn Blairites. That is why they have to resort to dirty tricks to disenfranchise Corbyn voters. His supporters are not allowed to count in a Labour leadership election because they support him. How can such "logic" and this step be legal?
Cont. reading: How U.S. And UK “Liberals” Disfranchise Their Party Members
Atmospheric Changes Over Syria
With Cameron leaving as UK Prime Minister another top politician who demanded that "Assad must go" has left the political scene. The Syrian President Assad is still in place and there is no sign that he will leave in the foreseeable future. It seems that real life facts still have more weight than "regime change" propaganda platitudes.
The facts continue to be persistent that there is therefore again some wind of change detectable in the political atmosphere.
The Syrian army and its allies are closing the only road to the eastern parts of Aleppo. This effort requires intense urban warfare (vid) against Jihadi terrorists. According a Pentagon spokesperson that part is held by al-Qaeda:
[I]t's primarily al-Nusra who holds Aleppo, and of course, al-Nusra is not part of the cessation of hostilities.
All attacks on east-Aleppo are thereby completely legitimate and do not break a ceasefire.
Despite that another media "outrage" campaign will be created to condemn the "siege on Aleppo" that this blockage allegedly creates. Such "outrage" propaganda pieces, like this one today in the LA Times, do not even acknowledge that west Aleppo, with nearly two million people living there, is on the side of the government. They speak of "Aleppo" but only mean the eastern parts. They also exaggerate the number of civilians left in east-Aleppo as several hundred thousands. The Guardian journalist Martin Chulov has traveled to east-Aleppo several times over the last years. He reported a year ago that there are far less:
Those who remain in eastern Aleppo, roughly 40,000 from a prewar population estimated at about a million, …
It is doubtful that the number of people in east-Aleppo has since increased. There was also enough time for the fighters and their families in east-Aleppo to prepare for a siege. As even the LA Times piece admits:
Anticipating a siege, local authorities stocked food for three months and medical supplies for three to six months, Sahloul said.
A Reuters piece confirms this:
Rebel areas of Aleppo have stockpiled enough basic supplies to survive months of siege …
The soon coming claims of imminent famine in east-Aleppo are thereby already debunked.
The change in the political atmosphere is a convergence of the "western" and Russian view on which groups are terrorists in Syria and must therefore be fought. This follows a change in the public perspective.
Amnesty Internationally recently claimed, six years too late, that several U.S. supported "moderate rebel" groups torture and abduct civilians and regularly commit war crimes. The "moderate rebels" who recently attempted another offensive in Latakia openly advertise themselves as foreign Jihadis. Ahrar al Sham, which not long ago wrote op-eds for "western" papers claiming to be "moderate", is now threatening U.S. supported "moderates" in south Syria because they are tired of fighting and keep with the ceasefire.
The French president Holland has finally recognized al-Qaeda as an important enemy in Syria that should be fought:
Cont. reading: Atmospheric Changes Over Syria
NRA To Promote Gun Rights For Blacks And Muslims – Right?
Leshia Evans uses her meditative forces to repel assaulting borgbots of the Baton Rouge police department.
Jonathan Bachman/Reuters
The gun lobbyists of the National Rifle Association get criticized for not forcefully asserting 2nd amendment rights over the murder of a legitimately gun carrying member of the public:
After a Minnesota police officer fatally shot a black man on Wednesday, gun control advocates weren’t the only ones criticizing the National Rifle Association. Some of the blowback was coming from within the organization.
The NRA is facing internal division as its members argue that the group did not do enough to defend gun owners’ rights by speaking out on behalf of Philando Castile of Falcon Heights, Minn., who was shot to death during a traffic stop.
Castile had a valid permit to carry a gun. He also reportedly informed the officer who shot him that he was armed in an attempt to head off a misunderstanding.
Comments to that report suggest that the NRA is racist, promoting gun rights for white people only:
Castille was black. That's the difference. Why does this article even try to tap dance around this glaringly obvious double standard?
The NRA must reject such slander.
It should launch a campaign to give every black and every Muslim person a carry permit for a semi-automatic gun. It should also demand special purchase discounts. Crimes within black neighborhoods and inner cities will lessen, according to the NRA's central claims, when more people there carry concealed guns, readily able to defend themselves.
Meditative forces simply ain't enough to keep the streets free of borgs.
Current NRA members would surely support such a move.
Right?
Reuters Colludes With Terrorists By Disguising Them As “Rebels”
The British news agency Reuters seems to have difficulties distinguishing between various forms of militancy.
Thus it categorizes designated terrorists as "rebels".
July 1 2016 : Syria rebels retake key town in western coastal province: monitor, rebels
Insurgents seized a strategic town from Syrian government forces and their allies in the western coastal province of Latakia on Friday, a monitoring group and the rebels said, in a rare advance for them in the area.
…
Nusra Front said in an online statement that an alliance of Islamist rebel groups including itself had captured Kansaba and a number of other villages, seizing several tanks and artillery guns.
The Nusra Front is Al Qaeda's organization in Syria. Two UN Security Council resolutions call on all UN members to "eradicate" the terrorist organization's safe havens.
July 10 2016: Iran says Saudis back terrorism after senior prince attends rebel rally
(Reuters) – Iran on Sunday accused Saudi Arabia of backing terrorism after a senior Saudi prince, a former intelligence chief, addressed a Paris rally held by exiled Iranian rebels and told them he wanted the Iranian government to fall.
…
The rally addressed by Prince Turki al-Faisal on Saturday was held by the political wing of the exiled People's Mujahideen Organisation of Iran (PMOI), which seeks the overthrow of Iran's clerical leadership established by the 1979 Islamic revolution.
With backing from Saudi money and extensive bribing in Washington DC the MEK managed to be taken down from the U.S. list of designated terrorists. But it has neither changed its aims nor its terrorist methods and clearly continues to deserve that label.
By disguising designated and well established terrorist groups as "rebels", not once but twice within a short time frame, Reuters colludes with these groups. This demonstrates that Reuters has serious problems with providing objective news.
Hazelnut Cookies
The summer here is lousy. It is cold and raining every day. Instead of ice cream and tropical cocktails I prepared tea and my favorite biscuits.
These cookies are a bit crunchy and with whole hazelnuts. My family used to have them only for Christmas, but I now make them every once a while throughout the year.
Here is the recipe.
Cont. reading: Hazelnut Cookies
Dallas – Civil Law Enforcement Use Of Vehicle Based IED Raises Questions
Last nights shooting and killing of several policemen in Dallas, Texas is still somewhat mysterious. At one point the Dallas police chief asserted that four attackers were working together with rifles and triangulating themselves in positions for the attack. Two of them were reported as snipers on roof. This led me to estimate that this was probably some team-trained (supremacist) militia trying to instigate a civil war.
Current status is that one man alone was responsible. An army veteran who was, according to this video, trained in infantry combat. Three other persons are in custody but possibly not related to the incident.
What explain the far diverging situation reports by the Dallas Chief?
The single identified shooter was eventually trapped and the police negotiated with him. Negotiations broke off, according to the police, and the police used a remote controlled "robot" to deliver a bomb next to the trapped shooter where it was then exploded. The suspect was killed by the explosion.
This is the very first known use of a remote controlled vehicle based improvised explosive device, or RC-VBIED in military speak, by a civil police force. The vehicle was a remote controlled device on rubber tracks as they are often used to examine and explode suspicious packages.
The suspected shooter had been surrounded and trapped for some time.
- Was the suspect still an imminent danger?
- Was it justified to use such kind of "drone strike" against him?
- What if criminals resort to similar devices (relatively easy to build from RC toys)?
- Was the remote connection to the "robot" secure or was it open to manipulations?
- What are potential consequences when such remote killing machines will be used (as has now become likely) in everyday standoffs between police and this or that suspected criminal?
- The use of drones in warfare has led to an increase in targeted strikes -in and outside of warzones- as the risk to own forces was reduced. Will police use of VBIEDs have similar effects?
- Should the use of such means require a warrant?
The use of such a "robot" is a qualitative step into a future no one was eager to see in the streets of our cities. We should think hard and ask difficult questions before accepting it.
Libya – Part III – The Return Of The King Saif Gaddafi
by Richard Galustian
In an article in early May, I wrote "Keep in the back off your mind the potential future importance of Saif Gaddafi."
The news of the release from a Libyan prison in Zintan of Saif Al Islam Gaddafi, heir apparent to his late father, is surprising to many outsiders but it nothing to what may come next – a return in some form to power.
In Libya’s 2011 Arab Spring uprising, Saif joined his father and sons on the barricades, castigating NATO-backed rebels in a bitter revolutionary war. While those rebels later cornered and killed his father Muammar and brother Moatasim in Sirte, Saif was captured alive trying to flee through the Sahara desert to Niger.
It may be his good fortune that the units capturing him were from Zintan, a mountain town south of Tripoli, who later went to war with Islamist led Libya Dawn which captured the capital in 2014. When a mass trial was held of former regime figures there, Zintan refused to hand Saif over, sparing him the brutalities inflicted on other prisoners including former intelligence chief Abdullah al Senussi and his younger brother Saadi, who was filmed being beaten in a Tripoli prison cell.
Zintanis were no friends of the former regime, fighting against Gaddafi’s forces as one of the most effective rebel outfits during the uprising that was won by NATO bombing.
But from the few accounts of those allowed to visit him in a closely guarded compound somewhere in the town, he has been treated well, living under what amounts to house arrest, until now.
A year ago a Tripoli court operating under Libya Dawn auspices sentenced him, and either others including Al Senussi, to death. Up in Zintan, not much changed for Saif, with Zintan still digging in its heels and refusing to hand him over to Tripoli’s grim Al Hadba prison.
The shambolic UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) under a puppet PM who operates out of Tripoli naval base, the only part of the city they control, however appears to be responsible for the amnesty order given in April to Saif and other prisoners removing their death sentences and ordering them to be freed.
Since then, Saif’s location is a mystery, but Zintan’s attitude to him is tempered by their alliance with former Gaddafi-supporting tribes, including those from Beni Walid and Warshefani, in their brutal battle with Libya Dawn’s Islamists. The Gaddafi tribe itself has a base south of Zintan around Sebha, making common cause with the Zintanis against Libya Dawn militias who control the capital and lord it over the GNA.
Before the Libya uprising, Saif criss-crossed the globe pushing an agenda for democratization he hoped would reform the country. Whether the drive was not serious, or whether it was frustrated by his hardline siblings Moatsem and Khamis, is impossible to know, but he emerges from captivity to find Libya a changed place something he predicted.
Saif al-Islam in February 2011 gave a speech foretelling of what was to come. And he was right “There will be civil war in Libya … we will kill one another in the streets and all of Libya will be destroyed. We will need 40 years to reach an agreement on how to run the country, because today, everyone will want to be president, or emir, and everybody will want to run the country.”
Saif knew his country would be torn apart if his father regime was forced out by the West.
The brutalities of his father’s regime have since been matched by those of some of the militias that overthrew him, most visibly the grim beating of his brother Saadi in a Tripoli jail which his captors filmed in gruesome detail.
Many of the tribes that once supported Gaddafi are now battling Islamists and their opportunistic Misratan allies of Libya Dawn, and will see in Saif a figure who can unify their demands not to be squeezed out of Libyan political life.
Opposition to him taking a political role it can be argued is softening because he was never part of the “muscle” of the Gaddafi regime, spending much of his time in London moving around the gilded circle of rich tycoons, academics and Tony Blair’s political elite.
There is, in other words, an opening for a man who was castigated by rebels for dismissing their rebellion on Gaddafi’s green TV during the uprising, but who never fired a shot in anger. With his release, he might get a shot at the plan he always said he wanted; to reform his country and unite key tribes who feel marginalized by Libya’s power brokers.
Pieces are falling into place for him to possibly take part in some kind of grand council. With the GNA unable to persuade either of Libya’s other two governments to join it, there are calls for a wider mediation effort, with Saudi Arabia and importantly Oman, offering mediation, to be discussed in Brussels on 18th July with US Secretary of State John Kerry.
In this battered, chaotic country, with governments fighting each other and IS, Saif Gadaffi may find a new role as part of the solution rather than the problem.
In the past 24 hours since the news broke he had been freed, Libyans across the country from different towns and cities have held pictures of Saif shouting his name. To my knowledge it's the first time any pro-Gaddafi demonstrations have been evident in so many parts of the country since 2011.
It's time Saif played a role with other libertarians in and outside Libya promoting the old constitution and particularly banishing members of the former AQ affiliate, LIFG.
Rumors are abound that Saif will give a press conference very soon. That's going to be very interesting indeed if it happens.
Clinton Offers New Contract To Attorney General – Escapes Indictment
Hillary Clinton is under federal investigation for using her private, insecure email server for classified State business. Anybody else handling classified official material on a private server would have at least lost their job and would likely be indicted. But Clinton is not anybody else. She has strings to pull. She has offers to make. And she is successfully doing such. Let's follow the trail.
Loretta Lynch held private talks with Bill Clinton aboard a plane in Phoenix while her department investigates Hillary
Attorney General Loretta Lynch, whose agency is investigating Hillary Clinton's email practices, spent about 30 minutes meeting with President Clinton while both of them were separately passing through Phoenix.
Clinton had landed ahead of the nation's top law enforcement officer, and waited for her arrival, a local affiliate ABC15 reported.
Lynch was in town for an event on community policing.
Clinton learned of her arrival, and decided to wait so they could meet, sources told the station.
'I did see President Clinton at the Phoenix airport as he was leaving and spoke to myself and my husband on the plane,' Lynch said at a press conference when asked about the prolonged chat, which took place aboard a jet on the tarmac.
Clinton claimed he was in Phoenix for playing golf. It was some 106 degree Fahrenheit in Phoenix that day. Having been in and around Phoenix in such weather I am sure no one went for any longer walk during that day, or played golf.
After some media outrage Lynch tried to wiggle herself out of the calamity:
Attorney General Loretta Lynch said Friday that she will accept the decision of career prosecutors, investigators and FBI Director James Comey on whether to bring criminal charges in the ongoing investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of State.
The unusual public announcement during an event in Aspen, Colo., comes as the attorney general faces a storm of criticism related to an awkward encounter with former president Bill Clinton after the two crossed paths earlier this week at Phoenix's Sky Harbor International Airport.
Then, two days ago, the NYT had a piece on Clinton that mentions in passing a renewed job offer for Loretta Lynch should Clinton become president:
Democrats close to Mrs. Clinton say she may decide to retain Ms. Lynch, the nation’s first black woman to be attorney general, who took office in April 2015.
One and one is two. Lynch read that message and the director of the FBI, which is responsible to the Attorney General for its operations, received appropriate signals. The result:
F.B.I. Recommends No Charges Against Hillary Clinton for Use of Personal Email
The F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, on Tuesday said the F.B.I. is recommending no charges against Hillary Clinton for her use of a personal email server while secretary of state.
The statement by Mr. Comey concluded an investigation that began a year ago when the inspector general for the intelligence agencies told the Justice Department that he had found classified information among a small sampling of emails Mrs. Clinton had sent and received.
Comey also said this, which makes it clear that this is a very "special case" that would not pass the usually used criteria:
To be clear, this is not to suggest that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged in this activity would face no consequences. To the contrary, those individuals are often subject to security or administrative sanctions. But that is not what we are deciding now.
Clinton broke the law, but the FBI finds "no intent" of her doing so. Willfully setting up a private email server for state business is against laws and regulations. Clinton did so for purely egoistic reasons. But that is not "intent" says Comey. Knowingly sending and receiving Top Secret information through it is not "intent" as the FBI defines it in this case. Other knowledgeable people differ. Destroying her State Department schedules must also have been without Clinton's "intent". Sure. As some Clinton once said, "it depends on what the meaning of the word is is."
The Clinton campaign is currently trying to smear Donald Trump as antisemitic because of some graphic his intern handling his Twitter account sent around. It depicted Clinton as bribable with money in the background and it included a red star. Now a red star is the insignia of the 6th Infantry Division, or just a red star from a clip art library, but the Clinton campaign and its followers alleged that the red star was signaling that Jews are bribing Clinton, which they do, after the yellow star used to mark Jews in the Nazi area. It is a typical smear campaign against Trump or anyone who does not prostate enough at relevant altar. But is that graphic really antisemitic and its misinterpretation Trump's fault?
Make no mistake about it, the Trump campaign has a serious antisemitism problem. But the question is, how much of it is Trump and how much of it is his supporters, and how much is torched off courtesy of Clinton, Trump’s myriad other political enemies, and a hostile media.
Is Trump the active impresario of an anti-Semitic movement?
The evidence seems to indicate otherwise.
Clinton's arrogant email handling and the string-pulling that saved her from indictment can not be attributed to some Trumpian antisemitism issue. Bringing that up was a diversion.
If the Trump campaign has some serious marketing players they will hammer home from now to November that Clinton's lax handling of message security is a danger to the nation and that her and her husband's seemingly crocked manipulations to escape indictment is disqualifying her for any higher job. Additionally a judge ruled today that Clinton's "private" emails will be open to FOIA requests. Some dirt will be found in them.
I find it quite possible that such a campaign would turn away enough voters from her to let her lose the general election.
Baghdad, Brexit And The Chicken Coup
A few issues I meant to write about (but from which family issues keep me away):
Last night two bombs by Islamic State terrorists killed 172 and wounded some 200 people in Baghdad. At the same time the New York Times had a piece up, with zero evidence for its thesis, which was headlined Appealing to Its Base, ISIS Tempers Its Violence in Muslim Countries. (The headline was since changed.) The people in Turkey, Bangladesh, Yemen, Iraq and Syria – all place where IS committed mass murder last week, likely have a different view than the NYT expressed.
Will there be a Je Suis Baghdad campaign tonight? Will the colors of the Iraqi flag be projected onto the Eiffel Tower, the Berlin Gate or the White House? No? Why not? Are the mostly Shia kids, women and men killed in Baghdad the wrong kind of people?
I strongly agree with this paragraph: Brexit Is Just The First Earthquake Of Its Kind
People want a new order in which a sense of belonging and a sense of security, nationalism and economics, go together. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with this democratic desire. At base, this is what this vote is about. The British people are of course not alone in this search. In searching for a vision in which nations can be economically strong in a connected world, some opportunists will pair up with genuinely racist elements to make political capital. But to see this as merely the resurgence of some archaic, parochial, provincial populism is to miss the wood for the trees.
The Canary has an excellent series on the long planned but failed Chicken Coup in the British Labour party.Tony Blair’s crony elite want to snatch Labour back from the working class, How a PR company manufactured the Labour coup – Part I, Senior Labour Party insider reveals plan to oust Corbyn was in play 10 months ago (EXCLUSIVE). The coup was publicly announced in The Telegraph ten days before it happened: Labour rebels hope to topple Jeremy Corbyn in 24-hour blitz after EU referendum. This coup attempt was an embarrassment. The Blairite masters of spin have obviously lost their abilities.
Open Thread 2016-23
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