Trudeau Uninvited From NBC Talk Show Amid Backlash To ‘Blackface’ Scandal
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau delivered his second apology in two days late Thursday following the emergence of more photos of him wearing blackface. And in a sign that the backlash to Trudeau’s ‘brownface’ scandal is only beginning, the prime minister has been dis-invited from an American late-night show, the Independent reports.
Trudeau was scheduled to appear on YouTube star Lilly Singh’s new show, but NBC confirmed that his scheduled appearance had been cancelled in the wake of the controversy. NBC added that it has no plans to invite him back to the show, “A Little Late with Lilly Singh,” which is the first on the network to be presented by a woman of color.
Trudeau had filmed a pre-recorded “comedy clip” and wished Singh, a Canadian-Indian star, “good luck” on Twitter ahead of the show’s first episode, which was filmed on Monday.
But on Wednesday, Time Magazine published a photo of a 29-year-old Trudeau in ‘brownface’ during an ‘Arabian Nights’-themed party. Trudeau swiftly apologized, but more embarrassing photos of the prime minister emerged on Thursday. Trudeau has declined to say how many times he has worn blackface.
All of this is happening at the worst possible time for Trudeau, who launched his re-election campaign last week. Before the incident, his Liberal Party was polling neck-and-neck with their rival Conservatives.
Corbyn proposes a referendum in which voters decide to remain or let him negotiate a customs union.
Calculated Moves
This all seems like political madness, but it is a calculated move by both Corbyn and Swinson.
Swinson wants an election before there is a result. If she can achieve that, Labour will get crushed by its wishy washy policy. But if there is a result before the election the platform of Remain is totally useless.
On the other hand, Corbyn wants a result, any result, before there is an election.
The problem for both Corbyn and Swinson is they do not want an election to be to the advantage of Boris Johnson.
Bad Deal Increasingly Likely
Corbyn may very well support a deal, any deal, just to prevent an election blowout.
I suspect he would even opt for Theresa May’s inept deal, flat out as is.
Magic Increasingly Likely
A magic solution, despite all the protestations from the EU regarding the backstop seems increasingly likely.
It would solve a problem for Johnson (who by the way would be right about getting a deal), and it would give Labour a one-on-one go at Johnson.
Why?
Because any solution, no matter what, takes out both the Brexit Party and the Liberal Democrats.
Flies in the Ointment
One problem with what I just proposed is the EU is increasingly belligerent. And it’s obvious to the UK.
Corbyn will of course grant a “free vote”. He can hardly be for a people’s choice and then not grant MPs the right to vote as they please. Labour might not go along.
Theresa May’s deal has been defeated three times already.
But if MPs are hell bent on stopping “No Deal” to the point of getting any deal, no matter bad, then a bad deal will be the result.
Synopsis
Labour wants to sidetrack the Liberal Democrats and vice versa.
Corbyn does not really want a referendum. He would get killed by one.
Swinson’s claim that her number one priority is to stop No Deal is a lie. Her number one priority is to sink Labour.
The cross section of the above points keeps no deal in play despite all sides claiming they want a deal.
Brexit Guaranteed
Brexit, by some definition, is pretty much guaranteed.
But as I have stated before, Remain is far better than a bad deal.
Later today, the UK supreme court will rule on prorogation. The resolution of the above points will have a far greater impact on a deal (or no deal) than the court decision.
Tesla just lost another key executive to a competitor: this time in Germany. Longtime German boss Jochen Rudat has left the company, according to German newsmagazine Manager Magazin.
There had been a “backlog of tensions” between Tesla CEO Elon Musk and the Rudat’s European organization. Musk was reportedly interfering with the introduction of the Model 3 “increasingly” in Europe, according to a translated version of the article.
And, as we all well know by now, when an employee butts heads with Elon Musk for any reason, they usually don’t wind up sticking around much longer.
We can only imagine how frustrated Rudat, whose relatively prestigious resume includes BMW Group and Porsche, was probably getting as “genius” Musk micromanaged him and likely peppered him with every Ambien and red wine induced brain-fart he conjured up.
Rudat has reportedly been on leave since July 2019 and his contract with Tesla is set to expire at the end of September. In October, he will be working for Tesla competitor Automobili Pininfarina and will be reporting to former Audi CEO Michael Perschke, who we are guessing likely has a better grasp not only on the industry, but also on reality in general, than Musk.
Additionally, Twitter sleuths posted yesterday that Phillipp Hempel, formerly Tesla’s head of Enterprise Sales DACH in Dusseldorf, Germany, had also updated his LinkedIn to reflect that he had left the company.
Hempel had been with the company since 2013, according to his LinkedIn, when he started as a Sales Advisor.
During the 17 years he has ruled NATO-member Turkey, the country’s Islamist strongman, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has rarely missed an opportunity stealthily to convert Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s secular, pro-Western establishment into a rogue state hostile to Western interests. Erdoğan now wants to make it a rogue state with nuclear weapons.
“They say we can’t have nuclear-tipped missiles, though some have them. This, I can’t accept,” Erdoğan said in a September 4 speech, while conveniently forgetting that Turkey has signed the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1980. In other words, Turkey’s elected leader publicly declares that he intends to breach an international treaty signed by his country. Turkey is also a signatory to the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, which bans all nuclear detonations, for any purpose.
For several decades, Turkey, being a staunch NATO ally, was viewed as the trusted custodian of some of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. In the early 1960s, the U.S. started stockpiling nuclear warheads at the Turkish military’s four main airbases (Ankara Mürted, Malatya Erhaç, Eskişehir and Balıkesir). If ordered, Turkish air force pilots were tasked with hitting designated Warsaw Pact targets.
Squadrons of jets designated for carrying nuclear bombs were kept at each airbase (first F-100s, followed by F-104s and finally by F-4s) on a round-the-clock basis. Each base housed a small U.S. military unit in charge of the nuclear stockpile. In addition, a Turkish-U.S. military base in Incirlik in southern Turkey kept nuclear warheads to be operated by U.S. military. “With that role Turkey significantly added to NATO’s deterrence in Cold War years,” said Yusuf Kanlı, a prominent columnist and president of the Ankara-based think tank, Sigma Turkey, in a private interview on September 9.
After the end of the Cold War, the nuclear weapons in Turkish possession (at the four airbases, except Incirlik) were gradually removed, while nuclear guardianship came to a halt. Presently, the nuclear warheads at Incirlik still remain at the disposal of the U.S. military under a special U.S.-Turkish treaty. That treaty makes Turkey the host of U.S. nuclear weapons. According to the usage protocol, however, both Washington and Ankara need to give consent to any use of the nuclear weapons deployed at Incirlik.
This is not, in fact, the first time Erdoğan has voiced an eagerness to make Turkey a nuclear-armed state. As early as 2008 — when he was the poster child of naïve Western statesmen and intellectuals who believed he was a reformist democrat — Erdoğan said:
“Countries that oppose Iran’s nuclear weapons should not have nuclear weapons themselves.”
Despite his use of the plural “countries,” Erdoğan was apparently pointing his finger at the country he hates the most: Israel, not the United States.
In a 2010 speech, Erdoğan described Israel as “the principal threat to peace” in the Middle East. In that speech, he repeated his skepticism about whether Iran intended to use its nuclear-fuel program to build nuclear weapons, and said there was no such uncertainty concerning Israel’s undeclared arsenal.
If Turkey overtly or covertly launched a nuclear weapons program — as Erdoğan apparently wishes — the move could well have a domino effect on the region. Turkey’s regional adversaries would be alarmed, and Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria and Greece might be tempted to launch their own nuclear weapons programs. Erdoğan should not be allowed to possess nuclear weapons.
OECD Slashes Global Growth Outlook, Warns Germany Already In Recession
In one of the most downbeat forecasts on the global economy that we’ve seen so far this year, the Paris-based organization of wealthy nations known as the OECD – the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development – warned that the global economy is heading toward a recession, and that governments aren’t doing enough in terms of fiscal stimulus to try and boost the economy.
“Escalating trade policy tensions are taking an increasing toll on confidence and investment, adding to policy uncertainty, weighing on risk sentiment in financial markets, and endangering future growth prospects,” the OECD said.
“Our fear is that we are entering an era where growth is stuck at a very low level,” said OECD Chief Economist Laurence Boone said. “Governments should absolutely take advantage of low rates to invest in the future now so that this sluggish growth doesn’t become the new normal.”
After cutting all of its forecasts from four months ago, the OECD now sees global growth slipping below 3% to 2.9%.
Of course, this pattern of cutting GDP forecasts is nothing new.
The OECD became the latest to warn about the global economy, after the Fed, the ECB and the PBOC have all eased policy to try and bolster growth in recent weeks. But the OECD is convinced that without government stimulus, the global economy is headed for a protracted downturn.
Manufacturing has born the brunt of the economic slowdown thanks to the tit-for-tat trade war between the US and China, while the services sector has proved unusually resilient so far. But the OECD warned that “persistent weakness” in industry will ultimately weigh on the labor market, dragging down household incomes and spending.
Not knowing whether the next Presidential tweet will ease or exacerbate tensions makes for an environment of extreme uncertainty, pushing businesses to turn cautious on investment and hiring, and households to switch from spending to saving.
“Trump’s brinkmanship on trade with China has left consumers, businesses and financial markets on edge.”
The OECD said “collective effort is urgent,” and the effectiveness of monetary policy could be enhanced by “stronger fiscal and structural policy support.”
According to CNBC, the OECD’s lower forecast for the EU was largely due to the slowdown in the bloc’s biggest economy, Germany, which was forecast to already be in a technical recession.
Of course, a report about global growth wouldn’t be complete without some Brexit fearmongering, and the OECD is no exception. If the UK leaves without a deal, as is widely expected across Europe, its economy will be 2% lower than otherwise in 2020-2021, even if the exit is relatively smooth.
It’s a point central bankers have made for months. Following the ECB’s latest monetary stimulus push, outgoing President Mario Draghi said it’s “high time” for fiscal policy to take charge, signaling there’s not much more the ECB can do. “The takeaway for the euro zone today is do not rely on monetary policy to do the job alone,” Boone said. “Start investing to do the structural reforms that need to be done for more sustainable growth, and do it now.”
Norwegians may be taking the lead in “green” car sales, but they’re keeping their gas hogs, too…
When cornered by curious free-thinking types, political climate zealots often point to the beautiful, progressive country of Norway as the standard to achieve. And what a tremendous record they have in combating the fossil fuel spouting carbon emissions. In the past year, 49.8 % of all cars purchased in the country are electric vehicles (EVs) – not hybrid.
Norway, with a population of only five million people, is now the world’s third-largest electric car market.
And Norway smokes the countries one would expect to lead the charge. For instance, only 2.1% of new cars registered in the US last year were EVs and, scraping the bottom of the barrel, our climate justice warriors across the pond – the European Union – are showing a depressing sales number of 0.9 %.
The Greenbacks In Green Politics
The real scoop is not all as favorable for eliminating fossil fuels as it is nuanced for public viewing. It seems that the government in Oslo is re-appropriating billions of oil export dollars to offset weight, Co2 taxes, and fees of Tesla cars entering the country for purchase. By comparison, the typical Audi entering Norway after government add-ons costs the consumer about $35,000. The Tesla – a $75,000 vehicle – is selling for less.
A major part of this gig is that purchasers are elevated to near super special road warriors – buy an electric car and receive the benefits of lower road tax, zip through toll roads without tossing a kroner into the change basket, and land free parking spots on ferries – well, pretty much free parking everywhere.
Yet this $2 billion yearly “incentive” isn’t taking regular combustion engines off the roads. Instead, folks with gas guzzlers are taking advantage of the government program to add a vehicle to their collection. Two-thirds of purchasers haven’t unloaded their carbon belching climate destroyers – they are still on the roads. As for Norwegians opting for the one-car garage, well, they stick to the good old-fashioned fossil fuel models.
Perhaps it’s due to the ironic fact that Norway is one of the world’s top oil exporters and the second-largest peddler of natural gas.
Awkward.
Denmark gave this economic boondoggle a whirl in 2015, and they sold remarkably well the first year. Subsequent years, post freebies, sales withered rather dramatically. In one year, EV purchases dropped more than 80% — but perhaps Norway has a better deal for their folks.
Proud Tesla owners in Norway are the talk of the green people everywhere. Appearing so progressive, so environmentally conscience, so superior as they speed along in the bus lanes – yep, that’s part of the deal too – passing the commoner plugging along in his or her so 2018 model SUV. Ah, saving the world is simply sublime, and we should all bow down to the nation setting the gold standard on saving the world. Just don’t look too closely at that other rig still sitting in the garage of your everyday average climate hero.
“Since when have we Americans been expected to bow submissively to authority and speak with awe and reverence to those who represent us? The constitutional theory is that we the people are the sovereigns, the state and federal officials only our agents. We who have the final word can speak softly or angrily. We can seek to challenge and annoy, as we need not stay docile and quiet.”
– Justice William O. Douglas, dissenting, Colten v. Kentucky, 407 U.S. 104 (1972)
Forget everything you’ve ever been taught about free speech in America.
It’s all a lie.
There can be no free speech for the citizenry when the government speaks in a language of force.
Unfortunately, this is how the government at all levels—federal, state and local—now responds to those who choose to exercise their First Amendment right to peacefully assemble in public and challenge the status quo.
This police overkill isn’t just happening in troubled hot spots such as Ferguson, Mo., and Baltimore, Md., where police brutality gave rise to civil unrest, which was met with a militarized show of force that caused the whole stew of discontent to bubble over into violence.
A decade earlier, the NYPD engaged in mass arrests of peaceful protesters, bystanders, legal observers and journalists who had gathered for the 2004 Republican National Convention. The protesters were subjected to blanket fingerprinting and detained for more than 24 hours at a “filthy, toxic pier that had been a bus depot.” That particular exercise in police intimidation tactics cost New York City taxpayers nearly $18 million for what would become the largest protest settlement in history.
In the college town of Charlottesville, Va., protesters who took to the streets to peacefully express their disapproval of a planned KKK rally were held at bay by implacable lines of gun-wielding riot police. Only after a motley crew of Klansmen had been safely escorted to and from the rally by black-garbed police did the assembled army of city, county and state police declare the public gathering unlawful and proceed to unleash canisters of tear gas on the few remaining protesters to force them to disperse.
To be clear, this is the treatment being meted out to protesters across the political spectrum.
The police state does not discriminate.
As a USA Today article notes, “Federally arming police with weapons of war silences protesters across all justice movements… People demanding justice, demanding accountability or demanding basic human rights without resorting to violence, should not be greeted with machine guns and tanks. Peaceful protest is democracy in action. It is a forum for those who feel disempowered or disenfranchised. Protesters should not have to face intimidation by weapons of war.”
Even the color of a police officer’s uniform adds to the tension. As the Department of Justice reports, “Some research has suggested that the uniform color can influence the wearer—with black producing aggressive tendencies, tendencies that may produce unnecessary conflict between police and the very people they serve.”
You want to turn a peaceful protest into a riot?
Bring in the militarized police with their guns and black uniforms and warzone tactics and “comply or die” mindset. Ratchet up the tension across the board. Take what should be a healthy exercise in constitutional principles (free speech, assembly and protest) and turn it into a lesson in authoritarianism.
Mind you, those who respond with violence are playing into the government’s hands perfectly.
The government wants a reason to crack down and lock down and bring in its biggest guns.
They want us divided. They want us to turn on one another.
They want us powerless in the face of their artillery and armed forces.
They want us silent, servile and compliant.
They certainly do not want us to remember that we have rights, let alone attempting to exercise those rights peaceably and lawfully.
And they definitely do not want us to engage in First Amendment activities that challenge the government’s power, reveal the government’s corruption, expose the government’s lies, and encourage the citizenry to push back against the government’s many injustices.
You know how one mayor characterized the tear gassing of protesters by riot police? He called it an “unfortunate event.”
Unfortunate, indeed.
You know what else is unfortunate?
It’s unfortunate that these overreaching, heavy-handed lessons in how to rule by force have become standard operating procedure for a government that communicates with its citizenry primarily through the language of brutality, intimidation and fear.
It’s unfortunate that “we the people” have become the proverbial nails to be hammered into submission by the government and its vast armies.
And it’s particularly unfortunate that government officials—especially police—seem to believe that anyone who wears a government uniform (soldier, police officer, prison guard) must be obeyed without question.
In other words, “we the people” are the servants in the government’s eyes rather than the masters.
The government’s rationale goes like this:
Do exactly what I say, and we’ll get along fine. Do not question me or talk back in any way. You do not have the right to object to anything I may say or ask you to do, or ask for clarification if my demands are unclear or contradictory. You must obey me under all circumstances without hesitation, no matter how arbitrary, unreasonable, discriminatory, or blatantly racist my commands may be. Anything other than immediate perfect servile compliance will be labeled as resisting arrest, and expose you to the possibility of a violent reaction from me. That reaction could cause you severe injury or even death. And I will suffer no consequences. It’s your choice: Comply, or die.
Indeed, as Officer Sunil Dutta of the Los Angeles Police Department advises:
This is not the rhetoric of a government that is of the people, by the people, and for the people.
This is not the attitude of someone who understands, let alone respects, free speech.
And this is certainly not what I would call “community policing,” which is supposed to emphasize the importance of the relationship between the police and the community they serve.
Indeed, this is martial law masquerading as law and order.
Any police officer who tells you that he needs tanks, SWAT teams, and pepper spray to do his job shouldn’t be a police officer in a constitutional republic.
All that stuff in the First Amendment (about freedom of speech, religion, press, peaceful assembly and the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances) sounds great in theory. However, it amounts to little more than a hill of beans if you have to exercise those freedoms while facing down an army of police equipped with deadly weapons, surveillance devices, and a slew of laws that empower them to arrest and charge citizens with bogus “contempt of cop” charges (otherwise known as asserting your constitutional rights).
It doesn’t have to be this way.
There are other, far better models to follow.
For instance, back in 2011, the St. Louis police opted to employ a passive response to Occupy St. Louis activists. First, police gave the protesters nearly 36 hours’ notice to clear the area, as opposed to the 20 to 60 minutes’ notice other cities gave. Then, as journalist Brad Hicks reports, when the police finally showed up:
They didn’t show up in riot gear and helmets, they showed up in shirt sleeves with their faces showing. They not only didn’t show up with SWAT gear, they showed up with no unusual weapons at all, and what weapons they had all securely holstered. They politely woke everybody up. They politely helped everybody who was willing to remove their property from the park to do so. They then asked, out of the 75 to 100 people down there, how many people were volunteering for being-arrested duty? Given 33 hours to think about it, and 10 hours to sweat it over, only 27 volunteered. As the police already knew, those people’s legal advisers had advised them not to even passively resist, so those 27 people lined up to be peacefully arrested, and were escorted away by a handful of cops. The rest were advised to please continue to protest, over there on the sidewalk … and what happened next was the most absolutely brilliant piece of crowd control policing I have heard of in my entire lifetime. All of the cops who weren’t busy transporting and processing the voluntary arrestees lined up, blocking the stairs down into the plaza. They stood shoulder to shoulder. They kept calm and silent. They positioned the weapons on their belts out of sight. They crossed their hands low in front of them, in exactly the least provocative posture known to man. And they peacefully, silently, respectfully occupied the plaza, using exactly the same non-violent resistance techniques that the protesters themselves had been trained in.
As Forbes concluded, “This is a more humane, less costly, and ultimately more productive way to handle a protest. This is great proof that police can do it the old fashioned way – using their brains and common sense instead of tanks, SWAT teams, and pepper spray – and have better results.”
It can be done.
Police will not voluntarily give up their gadgets and war toys and combat tactics, however. Their training and inclination towards authoritarianism has become too ingrained.
If we are to have any hope of dismantling the police state, change must start locally, community by community. Citizens will have to demand that police de-escalate and de-militarize. And if the police don’t listen, contact your city councils and put the pressure on them.
Remember, they are supposed to work for us. They might not like hearing it—they certainly won’t like being reminded of it—but we pay their salaries with our hard-earned tax dollars.
“We the people” have got to stop accepting the lame excuses trotted out by police as justifications for their inexcusable behavior.
Either “we the people” believe in free speech or we don’t.
Either we live in a constitutional republic or a police state.
We have rights.
As Justice William O. Douglas advised in his dissent in Colten v. Kentucky, “we need not stay docile and quiet” in the face of authority.
The Constitution does not require Americans to be servile or even civil to government officials.
Neither does the Constitution require obedience (although it does insist on nonviolence).
This emphasis on nonviolence goes both ways. Somehow, the government keeps overlooking this important element in the equation.
There is nothing safe or secure or free about exercising your rights with a rifle pointed at you.
The police officer who has been trained to shoot first and ask questions later, oftentimes based only on their highly subjective “feeling” of being threatened, is just as much of a danger—if not more—as any violence that might erupt from a protest rally.
Compliance is no guarantee of safety.
Then again, as I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, if we just cower before government agents and meekly obey, we may find ourselves following in the footsteps of those nations that eventually fell to tyranny.
The alternative involves standing up and speaking truth to power. Jesus Christ walked that road. So did Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and countless other freedom fighters whose actions changed the course of history.
Indeed, had Christ merely complied with the Roman police state, there would have been no crucifixion and no Christian religion. Had Gandhi meekly fallen in line with the British Empire’s dictates, the Indian people would never have won their independence.
Had Martin Luther King Jr. obeyed the laws of his day, there would have been no civil rights movement. And if the founding fathers had marched in lockstep with royal decrees, there would have been no American Revolution.
We must adopt a different mindset and follow a different path if we are to alter the outcome of these interactions with police.
The American dream was built on the idea that no one is above the law, that our rights are inalienable and cannot be taken away, and that our government and its appointed agents exist to serve us.
It may be that things are too far gone to save, but still we must try.
Plastic Apocalypse: Alarming Levels Of Plastic Found In Children
In the last several months we have been one of the first to cover the plastic apocalypse.
New studies are being published that detail high levels of dangerous microplastics had been detected in some of the most remote regions of the world. Another study warned microplastics are turning up in human stool. Now there are new reports that show high levels of microplastics have been found in blood and urine samples of children.
The study, conducted by the German Environment Ministry and the Robert Koch Institute, found an alarming 97% of blood and urine samples from 2,500 children tested between 2014 and 2017 had traces of microplastics.
Der Spiegel, the German weekly magazine, published the findings over the weekend, which were part of a national study focused on “human biomonitoring” of 3 to 17-year-olds, found traces of 11 out of 15 plastic ingredients in the collected samples.
“Our study clearly shows that plastic ingredients, which are rising in production, are also showing up more and more in the body. It is really worrying that the youngest children are most affected as the most sensitive group,” Marike Kolossa-Gehring, one of the study’s authors, told the magazine.
Researchers found perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), also used in cleaning products, waterproof clothing, food packaging, and cooking utensils, was present in the blood and urine samples.
Half the plastics ever produced have been made in the last 15 years, & the substance is taking over Earth: Researchers just discovered microplastic in the remote Arctic: https://t.co/PNSVoeLuTA
PFOA has been described as a dangerous chemical that is toxic to the liver. The EU will outlaw the substance next year.
In at least 20% of the 2,500 children tested, microplastics were above safe government limits. Children from low-income regions were more susceptible to ingesting plastics than ones from the middle class and wealthy areas.
“It can not be that every fourth child between the ages of three and five is so heavily burdened with chemicals that long-term damage cannot be reliably ruled out,” said Hoffmann, adding that “the Federal Government must make every effort to protect people from harmful chemicals.”
Der Spiegel said the study hadn’t been published, and the results were only made available by the government upon request by the Green Party.
Hoffmann said there’s not enough research on how microplastics affect the body, and how exactly they’re ingested.
As far as environmental and health impacts of microplastics, these three studies could suggest a silent plastic apocalypse has infected Earth.
The Yemeni Shiite group’s spectacular attack on Abqaiq raises the distinct possibility of a push to drive the House of Saud from power
A Yemeni Shiite man holds his weapon and a flag with an Arabic inscription reading ‘Disgrace is far from us,’ as he takes part in a religious procession held by Houthi rebels to mark the first day of Ashura. Photo: Hani Al-Ansi/dpa
We are the Houthis and we’re coming to town. With the spectacular attack on Abqaiq, Yemen’s Houthis have overturned the geopolitical chessboard in Southwest Asia – going as far as introducing a whole new dimension: the distinct possibility of investing in a push to drive the House of Saud out of power.
Blowback is a bitch. Houthis – Zaidi Shiites from northern Yemen – and Wahhabis have been at each other’s throats for ages. This book is absolutely essential to understand the mind-boggling complexity of Houthi tribes; as a bonus, it places the turmoil in southern Arabian lands way beyond a mere Iran-Saudi proxy war.
Still, it’s always important to consider that Arab Shiites in the Eastern province – working in Saudi oil installations – have got to be natural allies of the Houthis fighting against Riyadh.
Houthi striking capability – from drone swarms to ballistic missile attacks – has been improving remarkably for the past year or so. It’s not by accident that the UAE saw which way the geopolitical and geoeconomic winds were blowing: Abu Dhabi withdrew from Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman’s vicious war against Yemen and now is engaged in what it describes as a “peace-first” strategy.
Even before Abqaiq, the Houthis had already engineered quite a few attacks against Saudi oil installations as well as Dubai and Abu Dhabi airports. In early July, Yemen’s Operations Command Center staged an exhibition in full regalia in Sana’a featuring their whole range of ballistic and winged missiles and drones.
The Saudi Ministry of Defense displays drones and parts from missiles used in the refinery attack.
The situation has now reached a point where there’s plenty of chatter across the Persian Gulf about a spectacular scenario: the Houthis investing in a mad dash across the Arabian desert to capture Mecca and Medina in conjunction with a mass Shiite uprising in the Eastern oil belt. That’s not far-fetched anymore. Stranger things have happened in the Middle East. After all, the Saudis can’t even win a bar brawl – that’s why they rely on mercenaries.
Orientalism strikes again
The US intel refrain that the Houthis are incapable of such a sophisticated attack betrays the worst strands of orientalism and white man’s burden/superiority complex.
The only missile parts shown by the Saudis so far come from a Yemeni Quds 1 cruise missile. According to Brigadier General Yahya Saree, spokesman for the Sana’a-based Yemeni Armed Forces, “the Quds system proved its great ability to hit its targets and to bypass enemy interceptor systems.”
This satellite overview handout image from the US government shows damage to oil/gas infrastructure from weekend drone attacks at Abqaiq.
Houthi armed forces duly claimed responsibility for Abqaiq: “This operation is one of the largest operations carried out by our forces in the depth of Saudi Arabia, and came after an accurate intelligence operation and advance monitoring and cooperation of honorable and free men within the Kingdom.”
Notice the key concept: “cooperation” from inside Saudi Arabia – which could include the whole spectrum from Yemenis to that Eastern province Shiites.
Even more relevant is the fact that massive American hardware deployed in Saudi Arabia inside out and outside in – satellites, AWACS, Patriot missiles, drones, battleships, jet fighters – didn’t see a thing, or certainly not in time. The sighting of three “loitering” drones by a Kuwaiti bird hunter arguably heading towards Saudi Arabia is being invoked as “evidence”. Cue to the embarrassing picture of a drone swarm – wherever it came from – flying undisturbed for hours over Saudi territory.
UN officials openly admit that now everything that matters is within the 1,500 km range of the Houthis’ new UAV-X drone: oil fields in Saudi Arabia, a still-under-construction nuclear power plant in the Emirates and Dubai’s mega-airport.
My conversations with sources in Tehran over the past two years have ascertained that the Houthis’ new drones and missiles are essentially copies of Iranian designs assembled in Yemen itself with crucial help from Hezbollah engineers.
US intel insists that 17 drones and cruise missiles were launched in combination from southern Iran. In theory, Patriot radar would have picked that up and knocked the drones/missiles from the sky. So far, absolutely no record of this trajectory has been revealed. Military experts generally agree that the radar on the Patriot missile is good, but its success rate is “disputed” – to say the least. What’s important, once again, is that the Houthis do have advanced offensive missiles. And their pinpoint accuracy at Abqaiq was uncanny.
This satellite overview handout image shows damage to oil/gas infrastructure from weekend drone attacks at Abqaiq in Saudi Arabia. Courtesy of Planet Labs Inc
For now, it appears that the winner of the US/UK-supported House of One Saudi war on the civilian Yemeni population, which started in March 2015 and generated a humanitarian crisis the UN regards as having been of biblical proportions, is certainly not the crown prince, widely known as MBS.
Listen to the general
Crude oil stabilization towers – several of them – at Abqaiq were specifically targeted, along with natural gas storage tanks. Persian Gulf energy sources have been telling me repairs and/or rebuilding could last months. Even Riyadh admitted as much.
Blindly blaming Iran, with no evidence, does not cut it. Tehran can count on swarms of top strategic thinkers. They do not need or want to blow up Southwest Asia, which is something they could do, by the way: Revolutionary Guards generals have already said many times on the record that they are ready for war.
Professor Mohammad Marandi from the University of Tehran, who has very close relations with the Foreign Ministry, is adamant: “It didn’t come from Iran. If it did, it would be very embarrassing for the Americans, showing they are unable to detect a large number of Iranian drones and missiles. That doesn’t make sense.”
Marandi additionally stresses, “Saudi air defenses are not equipped to defend the country from Yemen but from Iran. The Yemenis have been striking against the Saudis, they are getting better and better, developing drone and missile technology for four and a half years, and this was a very soft target.”
A soft – and unprotected – target: the US PAC-2 and PAC-3 systems in place are all oriented towards the east, in the direction of Iran. Neither Washington nor Riyadh knows for sure where the drone swarm/missiles really came from.
Readers should pay close attention to this groundbreaking interview with General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Aerospace Force. The interview, in Farsi (with English subtitles), was conducted by US-sanctioned Iranian intellectual Nader Talebzadeh and includes questions forwarded by my US analyst friends Phil Giraldi and Michael Maloof and myself.
Explaining Iranian self-sufficiency in its defense capabilities, Hajizadeh sounds like a very rational actor. The bottom line:
“Our view is that neither American politicians nor our officials want a war. If an incident like the one with the drone [the RQ-4N shot down by Iran in June] happens or a misunderstanding happens, and that develops into a larger war, that’s a different matter. Therefore we are always ready for a big war.”
In response to one of my questions, on what message the Revolutionary Guards want to convey, especially to the US, Hajizadeh does not mince his words: “In addition to the US bases in various regions like Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait, Emirates and Qatar, we have targeted all naval vessels up to a distance of 2,000 kilometers and we are constantly monitoring them. They think that if they go to a distance of 400 km, they are out of our firing range. Wherever they are, it only takes one spark, we hit their vessels, their airbases, their troops.”
Get your S-400s or else
On the energy front, Tehran has been playing a very precise game under pressure – selling loads of oil by turning off the transponders of their tankers as they leave Iran and transferring the oil at sea, tanker to tanker, at night, and relabeling their cargo as originating at other producers for a price. I have been checking this for weeks with my trusted Persian Gulf traders – and they all confirm it. Iran could go on doing it forever.
Of course, the Trump administration knows it. But the fact is they are looking the other way. To state it as concisely as possible: they are caught in a trap by the absolute folly of ditching the JCPOA, and they are looking for a face-saving way out. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has warned the administration in so many words: the US should return to the agreement it reneged on before it’s too late.
And now for the really hair-raising part.
The strike at Abqaiq shows that the entire Middle East production of over 18 million barrels of oil a day – including Kuwait, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia – can be easily knocked out. There is zero adequate defense against these drones and missiles.
Well, there’s always Russia.
Here’s what happened at the press conference after the Ankara summit this week on Syria, uniting Presidents Putin, Rouhani and Erdogan.
Question: Will Russia provide Saudi Arabia with any help or support in restoring its infrastructure?
President Putin: As for assisting Saudi Arabia, it is also written in the Quran that violence of any kind is illegitimate except when protecting one’s people. In order to protect them and the country, we are ready to provide the necessary assistance to Saudi Arabia. All the political leaders of Saudi Arabia have to do is take a wise decision, as Iran did by buying the S-300 missile system, and as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan did when he bought Russia’s latest S-400 Triumph anti-aircraft system. They would offer reliable protection for any Saudi infrastructure facilities.
President Hassan Rouhani: So do they need to buy the S-300 or the S-400?
President Vladimir Putin: It is up to them to decide [laughs].
In The Transformation of War, Martin van Creveld actually predicted that the whole industrial-military-security complex would come crumbling down when it was exposed that most of its weapons are useless against fourth-generation asymmetrical opponents. There’s no question the whole Global South is watching – and will have gotten the message.
Hybrid war, reloaded
Now we are entering a whole new dimension in asymmetric hybrid war.
In the – horrendous – event that Washington would decide to attack Iran, egged on by the usual neocon suspects, the Pentagon could never hope to hit and disable all the Iranian and/or Yemeni drones. The US could expect, for sure, all-out war. And then no ships would sail through the Strait of Hormuz. We all know the consequences of that.
Which brings us to The Big Surprise. The real reason there would be no ships traversing the Strait of Hormuz is that there would be no oil in the Gulf left to pump. The oil fields, having been bombed, would be burning.
So we’re back to the realistic bottom line, which has been stressed by not only Moscow and Beijing but also Paris and Berlin: US President Donald Trump gambled big time, and he lost. Now he must find a face-saving way out. If the War Party allows it.
Guatemala: ‘We’re Not Just A Drug Trafficking Hub – We Produce Tons Of Cocaine Too!’
Guatemala Interior Minister Enrique Degenhart admitted this week that the country isn’t just a transit point for drug traffickers – they are now a cocaine producing nation too, according to Reuters, which notes that production has almost exclusively been limited to Colombia, Peru and Bolivia.
Degenhart’s comments were prompted by the discovery of around 1.3 million cocoa plants in the country’s tropical hillsides after the government gave emergency powers to the military in the eastern region of the country after the murder of three soldiers earlier this month. Authorities said the soldiers were ambushed by drug traffickers.
The coca plants were found in remote stretches of the municipalities of Livingston on the Caribbean coast and El Estor, which sits on a lake popular with tourists and is where the soldiers were killed.
“The plantations were located in a mountainous area, which took three hours to get to on foot,” police spokesman Jorge Aguilar told Reuters.
Aguilar said he did not know how much territory the plantations covered. Last year, Reuters reported that a one hectare “trial” plantation containing 75,000 coca plants had been found in Guatemala. –Reuters
Guatemalan authorities declined to state which criminal groups they believed were involved in the production.
Since declaring the state of emergency, authorities have arrested 342 people and seized 57 motorcycles, 38 other vehicles and 52 firearms. Two cocaine processing labs were also destroyed according to a police statement.
The country has long been a major transit route for cocaine and other drugs, as traffickers have bought significant influence over authorities at all levels of government. As such, Guatemala has had great difficulty controlling the traffickers despite the support of the United States.
“Following the discovery of these narco-laboratories and the different fields with the coca plants, Guatemala now becomes a cocaine producer and that puts Guatemala in a totally different situation with respect to regional security,” said Degenhart.
The crops were discovered after authorities found small cocoa fields in the country – which were “apparent trials by drug trafficking cartels to explore reducing transportation costs and the risks of moving the product from distant Andean nations to the United States.”
