Interference

It was reported today that hackers, allegedly operating on behalf of the Russian government, managed to influence the outcome of the American presidential election. Their findings were handed over to Wikileaks, who published the relevant material. This made a couple of things clear to me.

Hilary Clinton had too much baggage from the past, waiting to be unearthed, to be a safe candidate that would stand up to scrutiny. She failed in that regard. The Democratic Party made a definite mistake in putting her forward. Oh, don't get me wrong - I like Donald Trump even less.

The Russian government, in its dealings with rival countries (like America and the European states), has decided that direct, military confrontation, is not going to work. NATO has been flexing its muscles directly on Russia's borders, with the Baltic states, in the aftermath of the Ukrainian crisis of 2014.

So, weakening is in order, and it is beginning to look that it is in the Kremlin's interest to have a weak president, Donald Trump, in the White House. Further interference is becoming apparent in the German elections in autumn 2017, with ferreting being detected against Angela Merkel.

The Brexit phenomenon will weaken, if not cause the demise of, the European Union in the next decade or so. The Brexit poll, heavily slanted on the nationalist angle, will see its reflection in the Dutch parliamentary election in March, with anti-Islam and anti-immigrant candidate Geert Wilders, likely to end up with the largest number of seats. I'm not suggesting any Russian interference in the Netherlands, they are unwittingly doing the Kremlin's job themselves.

Power

So we're all getting aerigated over a Russian warship passing through the English Channel on its way to the world's current hotspot, the Middle East. Its request for refuelling in Ceuta was cancelled, in order not to upset people too much, because the planes on the deck of the aircraft carrier Kuznetsov are going to do some bombing in Aleppo. Dreadful.

Could somebody please explain this sarcastical cynic what the difference is with an American naval battle group going into the Persian Gulf in 2002 / 2003 to do some bombing in Iraq, prior to an invasion into that country? I mean, the British parliament voted down an invite to do some bombing in Syria 3 years ago, and now we're crying wolf because the legitimate government of Syria is being bolstered by its powerful ally? After all, Saddam Hussein was the (sort of) legitimate leader of Iraq, until the British and American governments decided to take a dislike to him.

In 2011, there was an uprising in Syria against that country's dictator, Bashir al-Assad, which led to a brutal civil war which will keep going for a bit. The city of Aleppo has become the epitomy of all that is wrong about foreign interference in an internal squabble - whether it be by the Americans against Assad, or by the Russians for Assad. Why is this godforsaken dustbowl so important? Because Syria is Russia's only foothold in the Middle East - and will never, ever, give it up. The Americans are jumpy about that, on account of good old oscar india lima - OIL - from surrounding nations.

Da'esh? Gradually being bombed into submission, but used as an excuse for more bombing.

Wish everybody would just butt out.

Aleppo

As is well reported in the various news media, the Syrian city of Aleppo, or at least parts that are not controlled by the Assad regime, are being heavily bombarded from the air, by the airforces of Syria and Russia. It would appear that particularly hospitals and other humanitarian facilities are being targeted under the pretext of attacking Islamic State. Whilst that organisation is particularly nefarious, its outrages are nothing in comparison to what Syria and its ally Russia is currently perpetrating in Aleppo. I am grimly relieved that extensive media coverage is now being given to the war crimes and crimes against humanity that are taking place there.

It begs the question why. There are, to my mind, several answers. Firstly, the Syrian president Bashir al-Assad will stay in power at any cost. He will do, as he has the backing of Russia's leader Vladimir Putin. Putin has geopolitical considerations in mind, as Syria is his only full ally in the Middle East.

More to the point, it also shows to the world what the Russian military apparatus is capable of nowadays. The munitions used by the Russian airforce are more powerful than those used by their Syrian counterparts, and are referred to as block busters. They can penetrate a building to the basements, where they explode. Nice one.

The attitude shown in Russian foreign policy is increasingly confrontational, seeking to attribute all that goes wrong in the world to the actions of the West. Whilst a lot of the problems of the Middle East are attributable to Western foreign policies of the past, the propaganda makes all the current problems the West's fault, whether justified or not. The interview by Russia's foreign minister Sergey Lavrov last weekend said it all. In spite of being confronted by incontrovertible evidence, he flatly denied any accusations of wrong-doing in Syria.

The people of Aleppo are shown what Russia in war-mode will be like. Adversaries will be pommelled into the ground, and no quarter will be given. We know Vladimir Putin is a bully, and we also know how to deal with bullies. But, let's face it. The muddle that is Syria is a crashing failure of Western foreign policy. Not just of this year. But going back over a century.

A barrel of tears

The Syrian civil war took another turn for the worse this morning, when an aid convoy was allegedly barrel bombed near Aleppo. More than half the trucks in the 31-vehicle convoy were destroyed.

This conflict has been dragging on for the last 5 years, and has been demonstrably exacerbated by outside influences (most notably the USA and Russia, in no particular order). Both powers are using the civil war as a means to promulgate their geopolitical aims. Russia's aims, with increasing clarity and with cynical disregard to human life, are to maintain their sole ally in the region, as spearheaded by Bashar al-Assad. Using the presence of the steadily degrading Islamic State group as a pretext, any attempt to break anti-Assad opposition will be used by Russian forces.

Do not forget that the emergence of Da'esh (so called Islamic State) is a direct consequence of American interference in Iraq in 2003. Do not forget that the network of factions in Syria is too complex for this situation to be resolved quickly. Experts name a term of at least a decade. And as long as the likes of Putin and Obama (to be succeeded by Trump or Clinton) continue to meddle, we'll see the people of Syria taking the blows.

Be warned.

This conflict has all the potential for this conflict by proxy to turn into a direct confrontation between the US and Russia. I am deeply alarmed at the anti-Western sentiments that reach even me from Russia.

Russia and Syria

Russia and Syria fomenting Europe's troubles. Russia threatening WW3 if Turkey invades Syria on the ground - i.e., Syria is VERY important to Putin's gameplan for making Europe his backyard. For he will then claim, in a couple of years from now, that only Russia can take proper care of Europe. Awful truth is, a lot of the Middle East rubbish goes back to the Spheres of Influence policies of the Cold War era, in which both America and the USSR indulged. Latterly, it has been America's badly judged involvement with Iraq which let the cat out of the bag, creating a power vacuum in a region that can only be ruled by odious strongmen, democracy being an alien concept in the Middle East. This power vacuum was taken advantage of by Al Qa'eda, later by Daesh. The latter is being bombed into submission, but their presence has been seized with both hands and both feet by the Moscow regime of Vladimir Putin to really back the uprising against Assad of Syria. David Cameron was all for bombing Assad, but was reigned in 3 years ago. I am not in favour of getting militarily involved in the Middle East at all, but for strategic reasons (oil) we seem to have to. Four hundred people have drowned in the Mediterranean Sea. Eleven million have been driven to flight. Just to keep Bashir al-Assad in power? Putin tried it on in Ukraine, but found that militarily he didn't really get anywhere. But subversion is much more subtle, and in the long run, likely to have a greater likelihood of success. Again, the only language that Putin understands is that of power. We'll have to be strong against his odious little plans.

Sunday 6 December

A scattering of terrorist incidents, small in scale but troubling. The one in California, where two lone wolves went on a killing spree, is bewildering. There is some suggestion that they 'self-radicalised', without being connected to a known terrorist group. In history, religion has often been the focal point for radicalisation, and in this day and age it is Islam. It is my opinion that interference by foreign powers in the Middle East has fomented the current state of affairs. The reason for such interference is strategic, going by the name of crude oil. Oil is the lifeblood of a modern economy, and no nation can do without it, or (more to the point) its derived products. What would have happened if the Middle East had been nothing but the sand pit it is on the surface? Well, we shall never know. But I'm afraid when you sow wind, as we Europeans and Americans have done for more than a century, you will one day reap the storm. I am horrified at the current state of affairs. It will only get worse, not better, through a bombing campaign that the United Kingdom joined last week. It appears to have become a rallying point for people with an axe to grind against 'The West', or even their own countries. Should we bomb ISIS? Only if it is backed up with a ground offensive to remove them. Who will do the ground-offensiving? Only local forces. Are there any? Well, the Iraqi army is a paper tiger, and we have decided that we don't like Syria's leader Assad. Of course we don't, he has driven half his population from their homes and a large percentage of them out of his own country. Although I cannot understand the Middle East, I know one thing. You NEVER gain anything there through violence.

NaBloPoMo - day #7

Well, it's been a while since I wrote a blogpost every day. In recent years, it became a compilation of Facebook posts and pretty pictures. Since August, I've only written something if I felt like writing about it. Doesn't mean I'm scraping the barrel at the moment, there is plenty going on to serve as inspiration. The next two days will be a case in point, but I'll let those posts speak for themselves. It's a bright November Saturday, where the news is still dominated by holiday makers stranded in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, after a plane came down in the Sinai desert. Yes, I know it's an inconvenience, but there is an obvious political angle on it all as well. Whoever meddles in the hornet's nest that's the Middle East is bound to get stung. Is it really that easy to buy someone to let you plant a bomb on a plane, if that's what brought down that Russian airliner last week? Does it have any connection with the Russians (claiming to be) bombing the crap out of Islamic State in Syria? Who can tell. Putin was warned by leaders in the Middle East, particularly after the Soviets were booted out of Afghanistan following a disastrous intervention there in the 1980s. You can't resolve the problems in the Middle East by force - alone. Violence is the one way that is certain to lead to failure.

Migrants

In amongst the furore of the large numbers of migrants, refugees and what else, that are coming into southeastern Europe, one question remains unanswered. It is not why all those people are on the move. That is pretty well documented, hashed up on our television and computer screens day in day out. A brutal civil war in Syria, unrest in Afghanistan (tell me something I didn't already know), repression in various parts of the Middle East and griding poverty in large swathes of Africa. I am slightly non-plussed why all those people are united in their desire to go to Germany. But even that is not relevant.

The question is: how do they come to Europe's shores, and more to the point, who is organising it. Who stands to pocket a million pounds a boatload, and doesn't give a pin for the fate of those on board, whether they reach the other side or just Davy Jones's locker? Who has the logistics to organise hundreds of boats and thousands of lifejackets? Seen those pics of the mountains of lifejackets that are accumulating on the Greek island of Lesbos? A lot of the Middle Eastern migrants arrive through Turkey, which (on the surface at least) doesn't bat an eyelid at what goes on on its western shores. I do not point the finger at the Turkish government persé, by the way, although their role does not stand up to scrutiny. A similar people smuggling exercise was occurring between Libya and Italy, with countless numbers of boats and thousands of people ending up on the Mediterranean island of Lampedusa.

In the fierce debate over the numbers of people that have to be housed across Europe (do they?), the question of transportation and logistics is not being addressed.

Who are the people smugglers, who supports them, bankrolls them (if they need bankrolling by now), and what do they stand to gain by Europe's discomfiture; in plain English, what is the political angle.

Putin in Syria

Russia's president Vladimir Putin has put in his nine-pence worth by bombing Syria, to bolster his buddy Assad. The Americans are predicting reprisal bombings in Russia proper by IS militants; the Russians already have had their less than fair share of terrorism from the Caucasian republics like Chechnya and Dagestan. These bombers also claim Islamic allegiance. Syria is a long-standing ally of Russia (previously: the USSR) in the Middle East. Apart from providing a port for Russian warships on the open Mediterranean, it is also Russia's sole true ally in the region. Not something they'll readily give up. 

If you want a yardstick to measure Putin's policies by, he is a bully. If you show him weakness, or if he perceives a weakness, he will exploit it. Politically, I don't think he cares if he is described as on the left or the right. I have watched a frightening documentary on the rise of extreme nationalism in Russia, not unlike the rise of national-socialism in the Germany of the 1930s. Like in pre-war Germany, Russia's fall from grace in the 1990s is blamed on someone else, being the West of course.

I am not saying that I am that enamoured with "the West's" world policies. The current situation in the Middle East is entirely of the making of the Europeans and the USA, right up to the present day. If I start to write about that, I'll be here until next year.

Refugee crisis, Assad and Putin

I feel for those people from Syria, who see no way out of their situation but to flee their country. They flee president Assad, not ISIS. Who is bolstering Assad? Vladimir Putin. Next question. Tens, hundreds of thousands of people is an invasion. It is going to destabilise Europe, something by which Putin has to gain. By bolstering Assad, ostensibly against ISIS, Putin will gain brownie points. He may well help to obliterate ISIS, something we would all benefit from. It would also show him to be stronger than the USA, which cannot make a substantial impact against ISIS. Who, meanwhile, is facilitating the transport of those tens of thousands across the Mediterranean to Greece and Italy? People smugglers. It is time we addressed the root cause of the refugee crisis. Can we, if its root cause is being supported by a major player on the world stage?