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bountyofbeads · 5 years ago

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Qassim Suleimani, Master of Iran’s Intrigue, Built a Shiite Axis of Power in Mideast

https://nyti.ms/36l1n3r

Qassim Suleimani, Master of Iran’s Intrigue, Built a Shiite Axis of Power in Mideast

The commander helped direct wars in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, and he became the face of Iran’s efforts to build a regional bloc of Shiite power.

By Tim Arango, Ronen Bergman and Ben Hubbard | Published Jan. 3, 2020 Updated 8:37 a.m. ET | New York Times | Posted January 3, 2020 |

He changed the shape of the Syrian civil war and tightened Iran’s grip on Iraq. He was behind hundreds of American deaths in Iraq and waves of militia attacks against Israel. And for two decades, his every move lit up the communications networks — and fed the obsessions — of intelligence operatives across the Middle East.

On Friday, Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the powerful and shadowy 62-year-old spymaster at the head of Iran’s security machinery, was killed by an American drone strike near the Baghdad airport.

Just as his accomplishments shaped the creation of a Shiite axis of influence across the Middle East, with Iran at the center, his death is now likely to prove central to a new chapter of geopolitical tension across the region.

General Suleimani was at the vanguard of Iran’s revolutionary generation, joining the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps in his early 20s after the 1979 uprising that enshrined the country’s Shiite theocracy.

He rose quickly during the brutal Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. And since 1998, he was the head of the Revolutionary Guards’ influential Quds Force, the foreign-facing arm of Iran’s security apparatus, melding intelligence work with a military strategy of nurturing proxy forces across the world.

In the West, he was seen as a clandestine force behind an Iranian campaign of international terrorism. He and other Iranian officials were designated as terrorists by the United States and Israel in 2011, accused of a plot to kill the ambassador of Saudi Arabia, one of Iran’s chief enemies in the region, in Washington. Last year, in April, the entire Quds Force was listed as a foreign terrorism group by the Trump administration.

But in Iran, many saw him as a larger-than-life hero, particularly within security circles. Anecdotes about his asceticism and quiet charisma joined to create an image of a warrior-philosopher who became the backbone of a nation’s defense against a host of enemies.

He was close to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who on Friday issued a statement calling for three days of public mourning and “forceful revenge,” in a declaration that amounted to a threat of retaliation against the United States.

“His departure to God does not end his path or his mission,” he said.

The first years of General Suleimani’s tenure in the late 1990s were devoted to directing the militant group Hezbollah’s effort against the Israeli military occupation of south Lebanon. General Suleimani, along with Hezbollah’s military commander, Imad Mugniyah, drove a sophisticated campaign of guerrilla warfare, combining ambushes, roadside bombs, suicide bombers, targeted killings of senior Israeli officers and attacks on Israeli defense posts.

At the end, the price for Israel was too high, and in May 2000 it withdrew from Lebanon, marking a major victory for General Suleimani, his Quds Force and Hezbollah.

The Arab Spring in the Middle East, and later the fight against the Islamic State, turned General Suleimani from a shadow figure into a major player in the geopolitics of the region, said Tamir Pardo, a former head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence service.

“Suleimani’s professional life can be divided into two periods,” he said. “Until the Arab Spring, he is commander of a force that has branches in various parts of the world, active mainly in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, but at the end of the day is a secret operational organization whose main purpose is terrorism.”

“From the shock that befell the Middle East following the rise of ISIS, he is changing course,” Mr. Pardo continued. “He becomes a kingpin regional player, knowing with great talent how to exploit the secret infrastructure he has established for so many years, to achieve noncovert objectives — to fight, to win, to establish presence.”

In recent years, the man whose face had rarely been seen became the face of Iran’s foreign operations.

In Syria, he oversaw a massive operation to shore up the government of President Bashar al-Assad, whose own troops had been depleted by widespread defections and fierce fighting with rebels seeking to topple the government since 2011. His command of Arabic helped put local commanders at ease as he welded them into a support network for Mr. al-Assad.

Over a number of years, Iranian operatives guided by General Suleimani recruited militia fighters from countries, including Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, who were airlifted to Syria to back up Mr. Assad’s forces in key battles.

Many of these militia fighters received training at military bases in Iran or on the ground in Syria by operatives from Lebanon’s Hezbollah, an organization General Suleimani had helped develop over the years.

When Iranian and Iranian-backed forces became major combatants against ISIS after the group took over roughly a third of Iraq in 2014, pictures of General Suleimani, often photographed on the battlefield in fatigues, began being widely shared on social media. The publicity spawned rumors that General Suleimani was trying to widen his fame for a possible run for Iran’s presidency; he denied them, saying he always saw himself as just a soldier.

That conflict, from 2014 through 2017, was a rare instance of Iran and the United States nominally fighting on the same side. On a number of occasions, Americans were hitting Islamic State targets on the ground while General Suleimani was directing ground forces against the militants.

It was unclear what direct role General Suleimani played in Yemen. But Iran’s patronage of the country’s Houthi rebels, which intensified when Saudi Arabia intervened against them in Yemen’s war in 2015, had all the hallmarks of the Suleimani playbook: above all, to support local militants as a way of expanding Iranian influence and foil Saudi Arabia, the region’s Sunni power.

Iran had long offered similar support to the Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, creating decades of new security headaches for Israel. And with the support of the Quds Force, Hamas was able to take over the Gaza Strip, capable of firing rockets that can reach into most of Israeli territory.

Previous American administrations had resisted striking General Suleimani directly, either because of operational concerns or out of fear that killing him could destabilize the region further and lead to all-out war between the United States and Iran.

At least once, though, Israeli officials ran the possibility of attacking him up their command structure. That was in February 2008, while Israeli and American intelligence operatives were tracking Mr. Mugniyah, the Hezbollah commander, in the hopes of killing him, according to senior American and Israeli intelligence officials. Operatives spotted the Hezbollah commander talking with another man, who they quickly determined was Mr. Suleimani.

Excited by the possibility of killing two archenemies at once, the Israelis phoned senior government officials. But Prime Minister Ehud Olmert denied the request, as he had promised the Americans that only Mr. Mugniyah would be targeted in the operation.

Perhaps more than any other individual, General Suleimani was the foil for American plans in Iraq, which like Iran is predominantly Shiite.

After the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, Iranian militiamen and their Iraqi allies fought a clandestine war against American troops, launching rockets at bases and attacking convoys. The militias also played a large part in inflaming sectarian tensions that led to Iraq’s sectarian civil war in 2006 and 2007 between Shiites and Sunnis, leading President George W. Bush to order a troop surge there.

General Suleimani and other leaders of his generation were shaped by the brutal war between Iran and Iraq in the 1980s, a conflict so cruel, with trench warfare and chemical weapons, that some compared it to the devastation of World War I. Nearly a million people died on both sides, and General Suleimani spent much of that war on the front lines.

For him and his fellow soldiers, the war was a “never again” moment. Ensuring that Iraq was weak and unable to again pose a threat to Iran became the primary goal of Iran’s policy toward Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, whom the United States supported during its war with Iran in the 1980s.

“For Qassim Suleimani, the Iran-Iraq war never really ended,” Ryan C. Crocker, a former American ambassador to Iraq, once said in an interview. “No human being could have come through such a World War I-style conflict and not have been forever affected. His strategic goal was an outright victory over Iraq, and if that was not possible, to create and influence a weak Iraq.”

Sometimes, American officials secretly communicated with General Suleimani in an effort to ease tensions in Iraq. In 2008, the American general, David Petraeus, was trying to find a truce in a fight that American forces and the Iraqi Army were waging against Shiite militias loyal to Iran. In Mr. Petraeus’s telling of the story, he was shown a text message directed to him: “General Petraeus, you should know that I, Qassim Suleimani, control the policy for Iran with respect to Iraq, Lebanon, Gaza and Afghanistan.”

Years later, General Suleimani personally, and mockingly, addressed another American leader: President Trump, who in July 2018 warned Iran’s president not to threaten the United States.

“It is beneath the dignity of our president to respond to you,” General Suleimani declared in a speech in western Iran. “I, as a soldier, respond to you.”

“We are near you, where you can’t even imagine,” he added. “We are ready. We are the man of this arena.”

For years after the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, Iran railed against what it saw as American aggression in the region, worried that the United States would turn its attention to regime change in Iran after Mr. Hussein was gone.

American officials have blamed Iran for killing hundreds of American soldiers during the war, many with sophisticated, shaped-charge bombs that could slice through American armored vehicles.

As the United States sought to negotiate a deal with Iraq that would allow American forces to stay in the country past a 2011 deadline, it was General Suleimani who relentlessly pushed Iraqi officials to refuse to sign, using a mixture of threats and the promise of more financial and military aid, American and Iraqi officials say.

On his orders, Iraqi construction crews in 2014 began building a roadway for Iranian supplies and militiamen, a small piece of what was perhaps the general’s most important project: establishing a land route from Tehran to the Mediterranean, across Iraq and Syria to Lebanon, where Iran has long supported Hezbollah, a primary threat to Israel.

One telling episode that illustrated the depth of Iranian control came in 2014, when the Islamic State was rampaging across Iraq. General Suleimani paid a visit to Bayan Jabr, then the country’s transportation minister.

According to a collection of Iranian intelligence cables published recently by The Intercept and The New York Times, General Suleimani came to Mr. Jabr with a demand: He needed to use Iraqi airspace to fly planeloads of military supplies to support the Syrian government of Mr. Assad. Despite lobbying by the Obama administration to close Iraq’s airspace to the flights, Mr. Jabr quickly said yes.

“I put my hands on my eyes and said, ‘On my eyes! As you wish!’” Mr. Jabr told an Iranian Intelligence Ministry officer, according to one of the cables. “Then he got up and approached me and kissed my forehead.”

The same trove of documents contains evidence that General Suleimani is not universally admired within Iran.

A bitter rivalry between his Quds Force and the other main Iranian intelligence agency, the Ministry of Intelligence, played out over the course of the cables. Many criticized General Suleimani’s proxy campaign in Iraq, and the way his militia allies abused the Sunni population there, as weakening Iran’s long-term interests in the region.

“This policy of Iran in Iraq has allowed the Americans to return to Iraq with greater legitimacy,” one cable read.

In others, ministry case officers portrayed General Suleimani as a relentless self-promoter who used the battle against the Islamic State to bolster his potential political aspirations in the future.

Iran watchers sounded alarm that General Suleimani’s death would unleash unpredictable regional mayhem from Syria to Iraq that would be difficult for the United States to contain. Several Iranian diplomats said that the prospect of diplomacy with the United States, being quietly negotiated through Japan and France, was effectively dead. The talk was now of revenge, not negotiations, they said.

“This one life lost will likely cost many more Iranian, Iraqi, American and others,” said Ali Vaez, director of Iran program for International Crisis Group. “It is not just Suleimani’s death, but likely the death knell of the Iran nuclear deal and any prospect of diplomacy between Iran and the U.S.”

Qassim Suleimani was born in 1957 in Rabor, in eastern Iran, and later moved to the city of Kerman. He was the son of a farmer, and began laboring as a construction worker at age 12. His highest level of education was high school, and he later worked in the municipal water department in Kerman, according to a profile published by the Iranian state media.

According to a 2012 profile in The New Yorker, General Suleimani’s father became burdened with debt under the Shah. When the revolution came he was sympathetic to the cause, and joined the Revolutionary Guards soon after. He was married and had children, although there were conflicting stories in the Iranian news media about how many.

Within Iran, he was widely seen as exerting more influence over the country’s foreign policy than even the country’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif.

General Suleimani, in death if not in life, appeared to have united Iran’s rival political parties to rally behind the flag. Iran’s expansionist policies in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon have been contentious at home among ordinary Iranians and some reformist politicians who saw money and resources diverted from Iran to fund General Suleimani’s missions.

But on Friday, there was only praise and grief. Iranian officials across the political spectrum issued statements of condolences and condemned the United States.

The powerful Revolutionary Guards, of which the Quds Force is a component, said plans were underway for a huge public funeral.

“He was so big that he achieved his dream of being martyred by America,” wrote a reformist politician and former vice president, Mohammad Ali Abtahi.

General Suleimani had received the country’s highest military honor, the Order of Zolfaghar, established in 1856 under the Qajar dynasty. He became the only military commander to receive the honor in the Islamic Republic.

Ayatollah Khamenei pinned the medal on General Suleimani’s chest last February, and in remarks that now seem prophetic, said: “The Islamic Republic needs him for many more years. But I hope that in the end, he dies as a martyr.”

______

Tim Arango reported from Los Angeles; Ronen Bergman from Tel Aviv, Israel; and Ben Hubbard from Beirut. Nazila Fathi contributed reporting from Washington, and Farnaz Fassihi from New York.

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militant-holy-knight · 5 years ago

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Islamophobia: A “Zionist Plot”?

In response to Hating Muslims, Loving Zionists: Israel a Far-Right Model, where Al Jazeera gets everything wrong

Al Jazeera penned an opinion piece trying to lump anti-Muslim terrorism, rational critics of Islamism with Zionism of all things. The “logic” goes that “x Israeli politician is a far-righter”, many leading political figures in far-right politics that criticize Islam have expressed affection and approval for Israel; Palestine is oppressed by Israel and as such all of these things are related to each other. They even used the censored picture of Brenton Tarrant to drive the point home that “See? if you hate Islam, you are also just like this guy and oh, you support Israel too”.

I can’t even begin pointing out what is wrong with this “some x are y, some y are z, therefore x are y” fallacy, I am even more surprised that right-winged critics of Israel didn’t even try to debunk it. In one hand, it’s pretty observable that support for Israel is strong among mainstream conservatism than other movements across the political spectrum. On the other hand, there is one figure who is never discussed when the topic of alt-right and Zionism overlap, being very little-known outside of Israel.

This is Meir Kahane, a ultra-Orthodox Jewish rabbi from the USA who migrated from to Israel and was a co-founder of the Jewish Defense League and the Kach political party. Also known as “Israel’s Ayatollah”, he urged the establishment of a Jewish theocracy codified by Maimonides (a Reconquista-era Spanish Jew), the immigration of all American Jews to Israel before a “second Holocaust” could take place and was very vocal about advocating the annexation of the West Bank and Gaza, violence against Palestinians and those he deemed as “anti-semites”. He was extremely divisive: there were people who found his Jewish supremacist rhetoric intolerable and equated him to the Nazis, while in other camp you had those who supported him largely because of Arab aggression as The Los Angeles Times reported that “[he] is a reaction to the wanton murders of innocent men, women and children in Israel” (which you can find many parallels with modern day politicians supported by the alt-right). Kahane was arrested at least 62 times by Israeli authorities for inciting hatred.

While in prison, Kahane wrote a manifesto titled “They Must Go” where he advocates the complete exile of Palestinians and the necessary process how to do it arguing that if they didn’t they’d begin outbreeding the Jewish population and take over Israel in 20 years (he wrote it in the 80s). His manifesto reads a lot like the anxiety Europeans feel about Muslim migrants which isn’t alleviated in the slightest by them speaking out in the open how they will establish a European caliphate.

Kahane was popular enough with the Israelis that he was elected with one seat to the Knesset. However, he was never really popular with his fellow parliamentarians, whom he regarded as “Hellenists” (Jews who assimilated into Greek culture after being conquered by Alexander the Great), since Kahane thought they weren’t Jewish enough. Most of his proposed laws included: imposing compulsory religious education, stripping citizenship status of all non-Jewish citizens (including Christians) and demanding that relations with Germany and Austria being cut but monetary compensation for the Holocaust being kept.

In 1990, Kahane was assassinated by an al-Qaeda member (it’s believed he was one of the first victims of the terrorist group), who was initially cleared of the murder, but was arrested later for being implicated in the 1993 WWC bombing attempt, where he confessed his first crime and was jailed to life imprisonment. His death made him a martyr leading to Kach member Baruch Goldstein to swear revenge and in 1994, he walked into the Cave of the Patriarchs on the West Bank and shot up the place, killing 30 Muslims before being lynched by the survivors. Given the Cave of the Patriarch status as a important religious site to Islam, this atrocity would have provoked probably worse reactions than Christchurch.

While researching about these things, I couldn’t help but see so many parallels between that and the Christchurch mosque incident. Kahane’s manifesto reads a lot like Tarrant’s own. Even if they were not familiar with Kahane’s own views, it was probably not lost to those that really read into Tarrant’s manifesto that not once he denounces the State of Israel for the current state of Europe - instead he blames Angela Merkel, Reccep Erdogan and Sadiq Khan, straight up calling for their deaths. This seemed enough for many people to conclude Tarrant was an Mossad agent.

To those reading this you may be asking: you listed so many things in common with the alt-right, Islamophobia and Zionism, so what did Al Jazeera get wrong?

Ah, if you actually paid attention to the fringe discourse, you realize that nothing discredits you faster than declaring yourself far-right and voicing support for Israel. I sincerely doubt that white supremacists would have liked a Jewish supremacist like Kahane, specially his demands that Germany to continue paying reparations forever. The fringe right actually finds lots of solidarity with Palestinians and common ground with the liberal left than either side cares to admit. Sure many right-wing politicians happen to be Zionists, but those are the mainstream old guard.

I also observed that they also are overwhelmingly in support of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad in large part because he is an authoritarian model that stands up against Israel. Does it mean that all people who support Assad are also the same? No. Many support Assad because he is considered a bulwark against Islamism (even though he is a Muslim himself, albeit not considered one by terrorist extremists because he is Alawite). Despite his many flaws, normal people are willing to stand up for him because he represents stability in Syria.

I also take huge issue with Palestinians being referred to as exclusively Muslim because it erases their small and long-suffering Christian minority, which is never on anyone’s minds every time someone discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, despite the fact that Palestinian Christians played a huge role in resistance against Israel before the rise of Islamism ended up alienating them and Christians across the Middle-East aren’t necessarily thrilled about Israel either, not even Israeli Christians themselves.

It’s probably no coincidence that Al Jazeera, who denounces both Israel and the Assad regime who are antagonistic to each other, also happen to be big Islamist apologists which explains why they insist in portraying the Palestinian cause as a religious struggle rather than a nationalist one. It’s in their interest to denigrate critics of Islamism who run across the board in the political spectrum from atheists like Bill Maher and Sam Harris, Christians like David Wood, Brother Rachid and Zacharias Botros and Muslims like Majid Nawaz, Ed Hussein and Mohammed Tawid and many, many, many people worried about the dangers of Islamism, which they use so vociferously the term “Islamophobia” coined by the Muslim Brotherhood, a terrorist organization disguised as political party. This way they can lump all the opposition into one camp and paint them as Zionist Islamophobes.

With all that said, the rise of conservatism and nationalism across the world is co-related with the modern liberal left’s weakness to confront the Islamist Question. One of the key reasons that led to Donald Trump’s election were fears of Hillary Clinton increasing immigration as observed by the skyrocketing of sexual abuse cases in Western Europe. Even though he is a more despotic and authoritarian figure than Trump, Erdogan from Turkey is subjected to much less scrutiny from the Western media when he locks up more journalists anywhere in the world.

And this isn’t contained to the West either, the Bharatiya Janata Party characterized as Hindu nationalist and anti-Islamic continues being elected into power because of India’s spats with Pakistan and being formed in the first place because of Indian secularists appeasing to Muslims. And if the future is any indication, you can expect more persecutions of Muslims in Sri Lanka by Buddhists and Christians after the Easter bombings from this year. Those has less to do with Zionism and more with the fear of Islamism.

There is a good reason why I brought up Kahane into this editorial: much like modern day politicians, he was considered too radical by the status quo of the time yet gained the support of a silent majority like modern day because the current status quo proved intolerable. The same thing happened in my country with Jair Bolsonaro, who was already saying absurd things as early as the 90s and would never be considered as President of Brazil yet here we are, though Kahane was assassinated before he got the chance of being Prime Minister.

How many times are we going to deflect the problem like Al Jazeera before we confront it straight in the eye?

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theliberaltony · 6 years ago

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via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard has had an unconventional political career. When first elected in 2012, she became the first Hindu and first American Samoan voting member of Congress. Before that, she was the youngest person ever elected to the Hawaii Legislature but left it behind to deploy to Iraq with the Army National Guard. She is a progressive favorite with a conservative record. She grew up in a mixed-race, mixed-religion1 household that preached both vegetarianism and homophobia.

Now, Gabbard is launching a long-shot campaign for president of the United States, although she still hasn’t made her promised formal announcement. She has little name recognition outside Hawaii, and at age 37, she is only just constitutionally eligible to sit behind the Resolute desk. Fittingly, if she wants to win the Democratic nomination, she’s going to have to follow an unconventional path to get there.

First, it’s very hard to become president — or even get nominated for the job — if the top line on your résumé is U.S. representative. I count 10 such candidates who have run for president in either the Republican or Democratic primary since 2000.2 None finished higher than third place. John W. Davis, in 1924, was the last major-party presidential nominee whose highest previous elected office was the U.S. House.3 The last — and only — sitting U.S. representative to be elected president was James A. Garfield in 1880. It’s hard to stand out when you’re just one of hundreds of legislators, and Gabbard is no exception. Pollsters didn’t ask about Gabbard in a single poll between Election Day 2018 and her announcement earlier this month, a sign that she hadn’t yet made a splash in the invisible primary. And in three national polls released on Tuesday, she registered no higher than 2 percent (3 percent if you limit the field to only the candidates who have announced thus far).

That doesn’t mean Gabbard can’t build a core of support from scratch. She is undeniably a very talented politician, as observers of Hawaii politics can attest. When she first ran for Congress in 2012, she trailed the primary front-runner, the well-known former mayor of Honolulu, by 45 points in early polling, but she wound up defeating him by 21 points. According to the most recent Honolulu Civil Beat poll, she is now Hawaii’s most popular elected official, with a 61 percent positive and 24 percent negative rating. She won her 2018 general election with a whopping 77 percent of the vote, albeit in a very blue district.

Gabbard’s brand in Hawaii is strong thanks in part to her unique combination of identities. As her website puts it, “As a mixed-race woman, combat veteran, martial artist, lifelong vegetarian, and practicing Hindu, she also is the embodiment of the type of diversity which is at the very heart of what America was founded upon.” However, it’s not clear that what helps her in Hawaii will help her in a nationwide primary. The U.S. has a smaller share of Pacific Islander and military voters than Hawaii does, for instance. Her youth and gender look like they could be electoral strengths, at least on the surface: We estimate that around 30 percent of the 2020 Democratic primary electorate will be millennials — a group that Gabbard, having been born in 1981, can uniquely appeal to. And there is evidence from 2018 that Democratic primary voters are going out of their way to vote for women in the Trump era. But on the flip side, it’s naive to assume Gabbard won’t face at least some ageism and sexism in how she’s perceived and covered.

Most likely, though, none of these factors will be as important as Gabbard’s ability to appeal to the left wing of the party. According to Chad Blair, a reporter and editor at Civil Beat, Hawaii’s many progressives are the single biggest source of Gabbard’s political strength. Nationally, she made headlines in the 2016 primary when she quit her position as vice chair of the Democratic National Committee to endorse Bernie Sanders, frustrated with the DNC’s reported favoritism toward Hillary Clinton. In the popular imagination, the episode established her firmly on the progressive side of the “progressive vs. establishment” divide.

There’s just one problem: Although she has voiced support for progressive positions like Medicare for all and free college tuition, her actual record skews moderate. She has broken from her party on votes to increase restrictions on refugees and weaken gun control. She has introduced legislation supported by GOP donor Sheldon Adelson and interviewed for a possible position in Trump’s Cabinet. She has a -0.280 DW-Nominate score, which measures politicians on a scale from -1 (most liberal) to 1 (most conservative) based on their congressional voting records. That made her more conservative than 83 percent of House Democrats in the 115th Congress.

True-believer progressives also balk at Gabbard’s lengthy opposition-research file, which is bulging with ties to controversial figures and lingering questions about her conservative upbringing. While some say her opposition to military intervention in Syria makes her an advocate for peace, others say it makes her a “mouthpiece” for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. In 2017, she was widely rebuked for taking a meeting with Assad, an act that legitimized the accused war criminal, and saying she was “skeptical” of the U.S. conclusion that Assad had used chemical weapons. The previous year, she was one of only three members of Congress to vote against a resolution condemning the Syrian government’s use of force against its own people.

Closer to home, Gabbard grew up a spiritual follower of a Hare Krishna sect that has been accused by former members of being an authoritarian cult. Its teachings ran the gamut from environmentalism to anti-gay activism, something that has already created headaches for Gabbard’s presidential campaign. As a teenager, Gabbard worked with her father, a fervent crusader against gay rights, at the Alliance for Traditional Marriage, which supported conversion therapy and helped pass an anti-same-sex marriage law. At least twice as a state representative, Gabbard referred to LGBT-rights advocates as “homosexual extremists.” She has since apologized and released a lengthy statement affirming her support for same-sex marriage and “LGBTQ+” rights, but as late as 2016, she told Ozy magazine that her personal views remained unchanged. In 2017, she told the New Yorker, “Just because that’s not my lifestyle, I don’t think that government should make sure that everybody else’s lifestyles match my own.”

Overall, Gabbard is a good example of why the “progressive vs. establishment” narrative is a flawed one. Really, party divisions unfold along two dimensions: ideology (progressive vs. moderate) and tone (establishment vs. anti-establishment). Gabbard is an anti-establishment moderate, and it’s not clear if there’s an appetite for that in a primary. Then again, that’s what Trump was — and GOP primary voters didn’t seem bothered by his controversies and frequent departures from conservative gospel. The big question for Gabbard is whether Democratic voters are also willing to look past similar imperfections for the right messenger. And like Trump, she is a compelling messenger.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #Nathaniel Rakich

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jerseydeanne · 6 years ago

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DM comments Best of Part 2

Best part 2 New698 gammagirl80, london, United Kingdom, 8 hours ago Before she went public with Harry MM had been shown in interviews multiple times talking about her father in a positive light (antidotes, stories, memories, etc). If she’s harbored such resentment since childhood or even early adulthood she wouldn’t have talked about him at all. The isolation from her father (and other friends) appears to have started in 2016. (Replies) New1842798 LittleMsJones, Villefranche, France, 7 hours ago Exactly, it’s because she didn’t want those around her to let it slip who she was and her salacious past. She can’t hide forever, it’s only a matter of time before the real truth comes out and the RF kick her to the kerb. New46649

Rowan, Imladris, 7 hours ago In 2017 she was still pushing this daddy’s girl narrative. The fallout only started after he realised he was about to be cut off after not receiving a wedding invitation. New26589 Sfm001, Wolves, United Kingdom, 7 hours ago She mad her father is risking her meal ticket nothing more. She has no reason not to call her father and not talk about anything other than how they both are. New22415 JS, Somerset, United Kingdom, 7 hours ago She does not want daddy telling the truth about her age or past to Harry. New30468 Heresathought, Southwest, United States, 7 hours ago She was just trying to fool everyone…making it look like she cared so Harry would not think less of her. Now that she is married he is history. New18397 Babe, In Belgium, 7 hours ago My parents did awful things when I was young. However it’s not something I usually mention to people whose business it is not. In fact I find that most people just can’t comprehend what narcissus are capable of so it s better not to mention it. Narcissus are best ignored. Any attention you give them encourages them. Tom and Sam being a case in point. Nothing will shut them up ever. MM is not at fault here. I am sure Hurry was well aware of the situation. New299125 LoveThisLife, Southeast Seashore U.S., United States, 7 hours ago Yes. Started in 2016. So she would not lose Harry. Very convenient timing! New18370 chanceska , No Where Near , United States, 6 hours ago Babe. I totally understand that. But I’ve never fawned over my narcissist family members in public or on social media, like Megan did, either. So she was either lying before about how great her dad was, or she’s lying now. New16386 Curlylocks, Northern Virginia, United States, 6 hours ago It sounds like he was the custodial parent who paid for most of her schooling. That alone should have earned him some measure of gratitude. Surely she can talk to him without telling him anything important. New11303 Korova Milk Bar, Somewhere, United Kingdom, 6 hours ago Babe, I’m sorry that you had a rough upbringing. THat makes you empathetic to others that you think are in the same situation as you, feeling the same way as you. I think you are projecting a lot of your own experiences onto Meghan and this debacle. Bottom line, we dont’ know what Meghan’s situation really is, we can only go off how she professed great love and admiration for her father for years until she married Harry. Combine this with her history of dumping people and dogs that can’t get her ahead, and I can assure you, the sole problem is not Thomas Markle. I think Meghan brings her fair share to this mess as well. New18267 sam my, Westworld, Togo, 6 hours ago But, she was a Daddies girl all those years, and now all of a sudden she can’t be bothered…. any father would be hurt by this treatment. He is only going to the outlet available to him, the media. Was Doria ever mentioned on Tig? New16383 Myrtile, london, 6 hours ago chanceska, either way, she’s a liar. New16238 sweetsexything, vancouver, Canada, 5 hours ago We totally understand the whole story! Meghan presents herself as loving daughter to the media. And now, she’s bagged the gold, Meghans manipulative, liar, fake face comes out - “he is better dead” It would have been easier if Meghan is truth to herself… but she lies. She alyways lies! Everything about her are all lies. New17234 sweetsexything, vancouver, Canada, 5 hours ago My favourite lies are “I didn’t know much about the Royal Family” lol. Is she kidding us? She was always in and out of London thus it says she knows Britain cultures. What about the “I’ don’t want to be a lady that lunches” Lol. Meghan who presents herself as hardworking is not working anymore.“ He isvery sexist, always talking about women as if they are pieces of meat.” And yet Meghan shows up at Craig’s interview and acts like she is a piece of meat “touch me! I’m really hairless” New17271 Iseult, North Coast NI, United Kingdom, 4 hours ago Most people aren’t stupid enough to be fooled by this latest version of the Meghan/father relationship. The truth is she was praising him for all sorts of things until she met Harry, then he was cut out of her life, no more mention of being a Daddy’s girl, something she’d said she was in an interview that’s still on YouTube. Some people want to help her rewrite the narrative, but anyone with a grain of sense can see the timing of when she decided to dump him and her other relatives, including those who’d helped her in the past. Harry is a complete fool not to be able to see this for himself, or maybe he’s such a snob he really wants to persuade people she has no family of her own so he doesn’t have to meet them. How the two of them ever thought they’d get away with a twisted untrue version of events that’s flatly contradicted by every word she uttered about her father in the past I don’t know. Harry really has sunk lower than I could ever have imagined possible. New9153 Lauren, Australia, 3 hours ago Agree, just shows how much cr-p she is full of. New10147 PATRICIA, memphis, United States, 3 hours ago @gammagirl… “antidotes”?, don’t you mean “anecdotes”?

New654 Sam, Denver CO, 8 hours ago The only person I feel sorry for in all this drama is the Queen. She does not deserve this. (Replies) New2192355 D63, Greenville, United States, 8 hours ago True, but she could have put a stop to it, or at least insisted Harry and MeAgain live a private life. New23587 purplevalues, South East, United Kingdom, 7 hours ago I think it would be up to Charles to insist that Harry and Meghan take a back seat role. I don’t think he will do that, as it would be tantamount to admitting that we don’t actually NEED minor royals to cut ribbons at all. New10261 Babe, In Belgium, 7 hours ago Words can’t express how pathetic this comment is… You feel sorry for the Queen. Presumptuous Much?! Lady Di, Fergie, Charles & Camilla…. The RF is a shambles and you think the Queen has naught to do with It? She rules that household like Maggi Thatcher. Every royal house of Europe has passed the torch to the next heir…. Except England. New66159 JS, Somerset, United Kingdom, 7 hours ago Did our queen really take tea with an ex convict? was Doria not vetted by security services beforehand? New24263 zip it44, Markham, Canada, 7 hours ago Then the Queen should do something about this. Quick. New10219 neolang, London, United Kingdom, 6 hours ago The Queen is praised for not being too open with her views and forceful against people she may find unpleasant.t She tries not to interfere too often in drama or political issues. When she does make a comment, it’s usually very concise but passionate such as when she described the Manchester attack as “wicked” but left it as that. New4104 Tiny CO2, Warrington, United Kingdom, 6 hours ago The Queen might be cross but she doesn’t need sympathy. And no, it’s none of her business so she shouldn’t interfere. After all, few can know more about how the press operates. Most people have no idea that this is going on and even more don’t care. New1160 Monalisa Oak, London, United Kingdom, 6 hours ago She had suffered for almost sixteen years from 1981 to 1997 by certain unpredictable new comer to Ryal Family blaming them - the members of RF - and pretending to be a victim before she disappeared overnight. Now another episode has just begun, I do feel for 92 years old lady, though I am a royalist. New1974 sam my, Westworld, Togo, 6 hours ago The queen is the ultimate power in that family, sure she is old, but still has them in line. Look how they act around her to see that. She should have insisted that Harry and Meg live quiet lives, but they wanted to rebrand themselves as the new Humanitarians, and now this fiasco is going on, and will for years it seems. New12293 Myrtile, london, 6 hours ago The Queen might have left the throne to her heir like other regents but Charles is not really someone you want as King. New45177 Tuneful, Silver Spring MD, United States, 4 hours ago I hope he (PC) is growing a pair, because this is out of control. It appears he has asked that she leave one party early so far. He better reign in her out-of-control spending and those expensive jaunts abroad every week or two. No matter how much they try to sell her, people aren’t buying. New8139 WeAreAmused, Venice, United States, 4 hours ago Markles taking potshots at one another across the Atlantic is as pointless as the original “Guns of August” leading up to WWI. If KP/BP doesn’t defuse this soon, it’s going to be just as unpredictably destructive for all the parties involved. Where are the adults in the room? New677 cindymae, blairsville US, United States, 3 hours ago The Queen approved it" New523 LightDweller, Bournemouth, United Kingdom, 3 hours ago The Queen agreed to this mess. She has poor judgement. New990 The View From Here, Gold Coast, Australia, 3 hours ago JS….The Queen has taken tea with more ex convicts and dubious characters than you’ve had hot dinners. Mugabe, Assad and Tony Blair for a start. New762 ToTheMoon79, New York, United States, 1 hour ago She allowed this! New222 Janet Mayhem, LA, United States, 11 minutes ago The Queen can end all of this whenever she pleases.

New00 melissa612, Minneapolis, United States, 8 hours ago She doesn’t want him talking to the press but it’s ok if she does? Pot? Meet kettle. (Replies) New3372231 ThatChickYouDontLike, NY, United States, 8 hours ago She didn’t say anything , DM made up a source as usual and you fall for the lie as usual. New236228 LittleMsJones, Villefranche, France, 8 hours ago No, she just got her friends to. New69271 ThatChickYouDontLike, NY, United States, 8 hours ago I’m honestly not going to debate the stupidity of believing anything published by the DM. They have consistently proven themselves to be reporting fabrication, let’s not forget the wedding dress etc, yet people still think that THIS paper is the bastion of truth and ethical reporting. New74154 Betterworld22, Somewhere, United States, 7 hours ago Who believes this BS from a “source” I thought the dm said Meghan does not have any friends. Give it a rest. I bet with Meghan and Harry on holiday the dm will have a lot of information from their imaginary sources. Got to keep the haters satisfied. New8698 Nomdeplume, melbourne, 7 hours ago Honestly, I am no fan but why do people believe a story that has ‘source’ or a 'close friend’ in the story and then blah blah blah for the rest of the story. New47129 silverlight, Bristol, United Kingdom, 7 hours ago She said it because it’s the only thing she can say if she wants to salvage even a shred of her tawdry reputation. New36195 teadream, taipei, Taiwan, 7 hours ago DM said so. She doesn’t say anything. New5852 Tiny CO2, Warrington, United Kingdom, 6 hours ago 'blathering’ is an odd word for an anonymous friend of American Meghan to attribute to her. It can’t be… it can’t be made up could it? Or just repeating gossip from a friend of a friend of someone who spoke to her once? New2050 Monalisa Oak, London, United Kingdom, 6 hours ago Low life family joining British Royal Family to bring down the monarchy soon. New1283 pianochick86, LA, United States, 6 hours ago Her “friends” can also blab to the media all they want as long as they flatter her and kiss her behind. New12154 sam my, Westworld, Togo, 6 hours ago Does anyone know how the so called media in the UK works? You are not allowed to malign the RF, they can shut you down! So this article is with KP and BP approval. COUNT ON IT. Is how they guage their popularity from month to month. It is about perception, not reality, I have been saying this for months about this so called royal family. New20120 Augusta T Bigfoot, Louisiana, United States, 5 hours ago Meghan used her father’s Hollywood connections to get in to the business and then dumped after she nabbed Harry. By the way her father was a gaffer not a gafter. Little research DM New20166 Blue, Here, 5 hours ago Sammy, there have been countless articles and books over the years maligning the RF. They weren’t shut down or bumped off. People seem to have strange ideas about the supposed power of the royals. New1941 MOR, Jackson, United States, 4 hours ago The “friends” here are obviously Palace PR. New339 It matters, Dublin, Ireland, 3 hours ago This is a deliberate press 'leak’ from the palace aimed at damage limitation. New6116 T Time, London, United Kingdom, 3 hours ago People will believe anything when they don’t like the person in question. I’ve noticed that a lot with DM commenters

#Meghan Markle #DM #comments #thank you heaven #submission

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fapangel · 7 years ago

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Syrian Chemical Retaliation 2 - More Than Cruise Missiles Boogaloo

By now everyone's heard that Syria has once again used chemical weapons against their own civilians, and this time the scale of attack is pretty big. Twitter has been absolutely ablaze today with RUMINT relating to White House meetings and Syrian/Russian forces scrambling about, but one need look no further than Trump's own tweets that name Putin explicitly and promise a “big price to pay” to know that the fecal matter is indeed growing more authentic by the hour. There's been decent evidence that the Syrian regime has engaged in repeated use of CW even after last year's warning from the US, but this attack wasn't only far larger, but also came on the one-year anniversary of the US's retaliatory strike on Shayrat air base; punishment for just such an attack. And if that wasn't enough, this comes only days after Trump announced his desire (and a 6-month timetable) for leaving Syria, now that ISIS is (mostly) licked. It's quite possible this timing was mere coincidence, as the attack achieved a real military goal, scoring a victory for Assad in a months-long struggle with a major enemy force. But all that matters now is appearances, and all things considered it's almost certain that Trump's about to crank Assad's mouth open and force-feed him a heaping helping of FREEDOM. Here comes the airplane!

And it will be airplanes this time - not just cruise missiles.

What's the Goal?

The punitive strike on Shayrat air base was effectively a slap on the wrist; even if it did destroy 20% of the SAAF's operational aircraft. Compared to what we could have done, 60 Tomahawks was a restrained measure, and by targeting the airbase the chemical attack had been launched from, we were sending a message. The message was “this is what we can do with exactly two DDGs and nothing more. Imagine what happens when we get serious. Do not do this again.” Since they've done it again, now we're going to get serious.

This entails punishment. The goal is to make Assad bitterly regret crossing this line by blowing up things he really, really doesn't want blown up - things vital to his regime and its ongoing fight for survival. The target list is extensive and endless - anything from actual Syrian military assets of any sort to important government buildings to vital resources and infrastructure (oil wells, port facilities, etc.) are viable targets.

The target list is expanded by the Syrian war's current ground situation. Last year, the regime's survival wasn't seriously threatened, but it wasn't a sure thing, either. Nowadays the Americans seem set on splitting Syria down the Euphrates, with their Kurdish allies controlling all the major oil fields (i.e. revenue sources) in that area, and after repeated clashes with coalition forces - including the shoot-down of a Syrian Arab Air Force Su-24 and the Wagner group massacre - they've made it clear they intend to keep them, even in the face of concerted Russian-supported efforts to the contrary. This likely prompted the refocusing on long-standing western Syrian rebel strongholds like eastern Ghouta - the land grab is over, now it's about consolidation. In short, the US can inflict a higher level of pain on Assad's regime without seriously endangering its very existence, something that's fairly evidently not in US interests at this time. (It'd be a gift to Iran, who's already set up shop in Syria, and Iran's continuing efforts to control Iraq's new political order is a sharp lesson in what post-Assad Syria would likely look like.) The era of pivotal pitched battles is over, but the slow grinding attrition that remains was painful enough to induce Assad to use CW; ergo, weakening the regime (and lengthening the grind) will sting badly without risk of deciding the whole conflict.

A final consideration is visibility. The reason Assad used chemical weapons is because they're hideously effective and cost-efficient. This is indeed the point of any Weapon of Mass Destruction. This is also why they're terrifying - there's a very strong incentive for any military force to use them frequently; the poorer and more desperate the force, the stronger the incentive. So powerful are they that they're effectively the only counter to themselves; the only good military reason to hold them back is the risk of receiving like attacks in turn. (This kept gas off most battlefields for all of WWII.) Likewise, against those that cannot retaliate in kind, they have been used frequently - see Imperial Japan against China, Italy's invasion of Ethiopia, or even Saddam's gas attacks on Kurds. The only thing keeping the WMD genie in the bottle is, and always has been, the threat of punishment. Letting Assad get away without punishment would indicate to all that no punishment from the US or other major players of the international order will be forthcoming, and then things will get ugly. Thus Assad's punishment has to be something dramatic and memorable. This is worsened by the US's obvious need to avoid deposing Assad - many might conclude (as Assad likely has himself) that since the US cannot afford to remove him, he can use chemical weapons without fear of the ultimate penalty. The punishment must belie that reasoning; must inflict negatives so strong that they blatantly outweigh whatever gain Assad reaped from using WMD. (It's worth noting that Assad's regime and Assad aren't the same thing - if the regime's stable enough to survive without Assad, then he's got a bullseye on his back as we speak.)

Therefore:

What Are The Targets?

* The targets will not necessarily be strictly military: government buildings, dual-use resources, sources of revenue for the regime, are all valid targets. Russia's vested interest in keeping Assad in power works against them here; even if the US miscalculates and deals the regime's support network lethal blows, the Russians (and Iranians) will have to pony up to avoid losing their significant sunk cost.

* The targets will include infrastructure: Assad's regime has to feel the impact of this punishment for it to be effective; it has to impose consequences in daily life for months after the fact. Power plants, national infrastructure (ports, roads, rails,) are all fair game. This is similar to the strategy shift that produced results against Serbia. This requires fine planning and target selection, as one's splitting the line between imposing privations on Assad's civilian support base and imposing starvation, but the US's intel coalition (“Five Eyes”) is easily up to this task.

* The targets will include key personnel: The best way to pose an existential threat to a regime you can't afford to actually destroy is to kill key decision makers and commanders - though their regime will live on, even the most idealistic and patriotic of commanders tend to take the prospect of a JDAM landing in their lap rather personally. If key military and government officials pay for their complicity in CW usage with their lives, it'll send a strong message to anyone else contemplating their use in the future. This targeting needn't be explicit; it could be spun as collateral damage consequent to striking known military sites, for instance.

Taken all together, this means the US will be heading into downtown Damascus.

What's the Defenses?

I've taken a keen interest in the Syrian air defense network and especially how the ravages of civil war has affected it; but even with constant monitoring, it's hard to say with high certainty what its current state and disposition is. The pre-war Syrian IADS was one of the most impressive in the Middle East; while the usual mixed bag of SA-2s and SA-3s with a few SA-5s was present, the system really stood out for its extensive use of SA-6 Gainful's in fixed, hardened positions. (It might seem silly to use a system with fairly good mobility as fixed emplacements, but the rugged terrain of western Syria constrains effective deployment locations, and the SA-6 outperforms the SA-2/SA-3 even when tethered.) Even then the defenses around Damascus, Syria's capital and most important city, were notably dense. And while the subsequent civil war played merry hell with this extensive network's readiness, the importance (and relative security) of Damascus has ensured that its defenses remain especially robust. This only applies to Damascus proper; the defense-in-depth their network used to enjoy is gone (for instance, the known SAM/EW locations near/south of Daraa, which used to guard Damascas's southern approaches, have been in rebel-held or bitterly contested territory for years now.)

Syria's legacy systems aren't the only threat anymore, however. Scattered reports of Iranian assistance have given way to confirmed aid and equipment transfers from Russia; that Syria now operates some Russian-supplied SA-17s and SA-22 Greyhounds (Pantsir-S1) is well documented at this point. The SA-17 is a vastly upgraded SA-6 (Buk) system firing more accurate missiles at longer ranges, and the SA-22 is one of the best point-defense SHORAD systems around, well-suited to defending high-value point targets against cruise missiles and PGMs.

Long-range options are decidedly lacking - the Syrian's legacy SA-5s still pack impressive range and performance despite their age, but even if they've received significant upgrades from their Russian benefactors, they're unlikely to triumph against American ECM assets. The Russians are highly unlikely to commit suicide by firing on US aircraft, but firing on incoming weapons in defense of their allies is fine. They have two S-400 systems (one at their airbase at Latakia and another recently deployed to their port facility in Tartus,) and an S-300VM battery (purpose-built for cruise-missile intercept) somewhere further east (pinpointing this has been difficult, but RUMINT places it near something important further east in the country, which makes sense.) Unfortunately for Syria, the rugged terrain in western Syria (and around Damascus) limit LOS horizons against cruise missiles even more than normal. The Syrians will benefit from these systems superb radars, since Russia's officially claimed to have integrated their air defense networks together, but they suffer the same LOS issues.

Generally, against cruise missiles SAMs can only defend what they're parked next to - especially in the mountains of Syria. Since Russia's S-400s are parked near bases filled with Russians (which the US won't shoot at anyways,) they're mostly a non-factor. Much more significant is Russia's two A-50 AWACS aircraft, and to a lesser extent their 12 SU-30SM and 4 SU-34s and their superb air-to-air, look-down/shoot-down radars. These assets will provide the Syrians with much better early-warning of incoming cruise missiles; the Syrian EW network had low-level coverage gaps even before the war and now they're terribly pronounced. They may even have time to scramble the SAAF.

The final factor is simple standoff range - simply put, between US standoff weaponry, ECM support, stealth options and the ranges involved in-theater, the Syrians will only be shooting at incoming PGMs, not American warplanes. (Note how last night's attack on T4 airbase in the center of Syria was carried out by Israeli F-15's firing Delilah cruise missiles from over Lebanon.) It's only 150 nautical miles from RAF Akrotiri to Damascus - an F-18 could fire a JASSM or SLAM-ER about thirty seconds after going wheels-up.

In short, this will be mostly a battle between American standoff weaponry and ECM against a mix of legacy Syrian SAM systems and modern Russian SHORAD.

What's the Problem?

Normally, an air campaign like this has to crack the hard nut of a well-woven Integrated Air Defense System, focusing on vital nodes like hostile runways, major radars and long-range SAM systems, and increasingly, vital communication nodes (radio, fiber-optic, etc.) to start unraveling the overlapping defense and degrade it to something the attacking force can then pick apart piecemeal. In this case, there's no real overlapping defense for a multitude of reasons; with each important target guarded by its own contingent of point-defense systems - and what wide-area coverage there is, is Russian, and thus verboten to attack. Worse, the majority of likely targets are in or around Damascus; the SA-17s have the range to provide fairly good area coverage of the city and environs, freeing up any SA-22s (and whatever SA-8s they have left,) for point defense of the most likely high-value targets (or SA-17s themselves.)

Defended cities are a unique challenge to assail from the air, as Berlin, Hanoi and Baghdad have demonstrated. It's primarily a matter of area; cities tend to be big enough to disperse targets (and their AA defenses) enough to increase their survivability, but are compact enough that medium-range systems (SA-6, 11 and 17 included) can cover much if not all the area no matter where they're positioned. Thus defensive firepower is concentrated and overlapping, but attackers can't simply knock a “hole” in the defenses or pick it apart by eliminating key radars or communication nodes (even if they can't coordinate target assignment for best effect, they can all turn on their own radar and shoot at something.) Worse, this relative proximity means that single long-range systems aren't responsible for area coverage; so point-defense systems near high-value targets will almost surely benefit from enemy salvo attrition before their “Hail Mary” defense begins.

“Salvo attrition” is the big problem here. Cruise missiles are very accurate, smart, and have a fantastic ability to deliver a nasty punch in places you'd never risk a manned aircraft, but they're expensive and heavy; fighters can carry far more bombs than cruise missiles. Last night's Israeli attack on T4 airbase is a perfect example of the math - two F-15Is fired four Delilah cruise missiles apiece, and the Russians claimed that 5 were intercepted, and 3 struck their targets. Assuming the base was defended by an SA-22 Greyhound, that's exactly what one would expect (given the 57E6's twelve mile range and the flight times involved, it'd only be able to shoot once at each incoming. Even great point-defense is still a Hail-Mary pass.) This attrition imposes a minimum round count expended per important target - either to get through and destroy the target, or to destroy the SAM itself. Which is more efficient depends on how many targets the SAM is defending - and how many missiles it can actually engage. This is where the SA-17s prove problematic - their greater range (26nm; about twice the SA-6) is somewhat mitigated by terrain around Damascus, but still affords a longer window to shoot at incoming PGMs and reasonable magazine depth (considering a battery,) and since the radar vehicle is a TELAR (Transporter, Erector, Launcher, Radar,) it can pair with a Greyhound to form a fully self-contained, highly-mobile, layered range point-defense unit.

This mobility further complicates the weapons assignment problem; as target saturation is a key part of breaking through these defenses, and that's obviously time-sensitive. If you don't know where defending SAMs are, you can't know how many will fire on the cruise missiles assigned to any one target - so you've got to fire extra at all targets to guarantee enough make it through. You could simply do Bomb Damage Assessment and re-strike as necessary, but that might be even costlier. Consider the Greyhound again - 5 out of 8 intercepts is a 62.5% intercept rate, so with four remaining missiles, you can expect two or three more intercepts. That means you're firing three more weapons just to soak up the defenses - if they'd been launched with the first salvo, they would've done damage directly to target.

All the above demonstrates why the USN's ability to disgorge 50+ Tomahawks from a single DDG at a moment's notice is so powerful - it can take a lot of cruise missiles to do real work. A lot will ride on drafting an optimal attack plan to maximize damage from the ordinance expended; ensuring that everything the Administration wants destroyed, is destroyed. That's going to ride heavily on three factors:

* Unparalleled ISTAR capabilities,

* Sheer saturation capacity with Tomahawk missiles,

* New purpose-built penetration weapons like MALD-J and especially JASSM.

JASSM Is Kind Of A Big Deal

Usually a tough nut like Damascus is best attacked with overwhelming force; a lot of Wild Weasels firing a lot of HARMs, which can handily engage previously-unknown “pop-up” targets without a problem. Sadly, the HARM/AARGM's 70nm range would require US aircraft to get too close for comfort. The USAF has a new option, however - the JASSM.

The JASSM is an air-launched, fully-stealth-shaped cruise missile. Not low-observable, but stealthed. “Low-observable” aircraft (or weapons) have had their RCS reduced significantly, but not to the point of allowing reliable deep penetration of hostile radar coverage. It mainly describes engineering priorities - stealth platforms place a priority (and a price tag) on achieving minimal RCS. Low-Observable platforms aren't primarily engineered for it, but have still achieved significant reductions without compromising performance, sometimes impressively so (the Rafale is a good example, or the Super Hornet compared to the Hornet.) Even if it makes no impact on actual detection range (say, against a peer adversary with good radars,) LO is still desirable, as a reduced signature makes it harder for radar-guided missiles to lock on.

Naturally, this goes double for the far smaller RCS of a “full stealth” platform like the JASSM. Stealth shaping on cruise missiles is primarily for infiltration; so it can get close to its target without being detected by AWACS aircraft and pounced upon by CAP fighters. But it also benefits the weapon during the actual attack run. Firstly, the weapon can get well inside the theoretical maximum 25nm range (approx. the horizon distance on flat terrain) before being detected. The inverse-square law is a particularly harsh mistress here; it guarantees even a weak radar will pick up even a stealthy missile in the last few miles before impact; but also means that RCS reductions enjoy (almost) exponential effectiveness in decreasing maximum detection range. Exactly how an SA-17/SA-22 vs. JASSM matchup goes weighs heavily on best-guesstimates of comparative capabilities (radar versus supposed JASSM RCS) and the models you use. The best civilian-accessible tool for this that I know of is Command: Modern Air/Naval Operations, both from a mathematical modeling and performance-guesstimate standpoint, and it suggests a maximum detection range of 5-8 miles, which seems pretty reasonable. Once OODA loops (the time required to shout “oh shit” and punch the auto-engage button,) are factored in, this means the JASSM presents defending SAMs far less time to shoot back than a Tomahawk would.

Secondly, once the missile's actually detected and engaged, its vanishingly small RCS will make life difficult for radar-guided interceptor missiles; lowering their pK%, depleting enemy magazines - or, if they don't have time to fire twice, increasing chances of penetration. Projects like CHAMP exist to destroy radars at a few miles range, to eliminate that last-mile gauntlet completely - and there's evidence that simpler single-use explosive pumped EMP bombs are already in use - but one need not speculate on classified warheads, as the JASSM's stealth makes it more survivable, even in the last mile, than a Tomahawk, JSOW or JDAM is.

Then there's the MALD-J. Originally designed as a simple decoy (Miniature Air-Launched Decoy,) the -J mod introduced a powerful offensive jammer. A small, disposable missile can only pack so much jamming output power, but the inverse-square law works in its favor here; being disposable, it can get as close as it pleases; even escorting missile salvos into the combat area. If that's not enough, it's recently gained a secondary kinetic kamikaze attack and more importantly, a two-way network link; allowing operators to exploit it as an offboard sensor platform, redirect its path in flight, and generally make it work “with” similarly networked Tactical Tomahawk missiles to respond to changing situations. The TLAM-D's two-way link allows it to loiter for a time till controllers give it a target, or to switch targets mid-attack if needed - now the MALD-J can provide responsive OECM support as well.

Combined, the JASSM and the MALD-J offer US forces two very, very potent weapons for overcoming the salvo attrition problem; between offensive jamming and passive stealth, their ability to efficiently penetrate and destroy SAM defenses is unparalleled.

What's the Plan?

Now that we understand the problems and the tools, we can see how the planned solution will likely look. Simply put, it entails kicking in the door with JASSMs and MALD-J to open the way for a hellacious torrent of Tomahawk missiles.

The USNI's Fleet and Marine Tracker, (which conveniently updated earlier this afternoon) shows that 5th fleet doesn't have a carrier in the Med right now, and the one in the Gulf (the Roosevelt) was recently withdrawn after several months of anti-ISIS airstrikes. Even without a carrier nearby, there's no shortage of assets and bases nearby for the US to use. RAF Akrotiri is barely 150 miles distant from Damascus, and of course Incirlik in southern Turkey is perfectly positioned as well. With tanker support, a strike from Al Udeid using Strike Eagles isn't hard to contemplate either. The US Bomber force is especially flexible - I believe some B-52s are still forward-stationed at Al Udeid, but a long-range sortie from Diego Garcia or even CONUS isn't impossible, though the required tankers would make it more challenging on such short notice. B-52s can carry 12 cruise missiles (or MALDs) on external pylons (if they're one of the handful with the new Conventional Rotary Launcher, they can carry up to 20.) A B-1B (which can also sortie from CONUS) can carry a whopping 24 JASSMs. Strike Eagles typically carry two.

Then there's recon assets. The usual twitter jewels spotted RC-135 Rivet Joint ELINT aircraft sortieing from Souda Bay to sniff the radio waves near the Lebanese border, but there's also more close-up capabilities to consider. The RQ-170s public reveal - and the more advanced and all-but-officially acknowledged successor, the RQ-180 - provide stealth options for actually infiltrating hostile airspace to scan for SAM units with FLIR and/or GMTI radar. Combined with other options like tiny sub-launched drones, one may presume US target intel will be pretty robust.

The initial wave will probably involve B-52s and F-15Es from Al Udeid, flying up the Gulf, tanking over Iraqi airspace and launching a mix of MALD-J and JASSM over eastern Syria at safe standoff ranges. The F-15Es might have relocated to RAF Akrotiri; or UK forces from there may participate in a joint strike with low-observable standoff weapons of their own (MBDA Storm Shadow.) USAF Compass Call jamming aircraft will probably support the attack, and Marine F-18s from Incirlik will likely contribute strike mass (missiles) and certainly Growler jamming support (that is, I certainly hope they have some Growlers there, and not Prowlers...) This opening attack will have four main objectives:

* Destroy a significant number of Syrian SAM systems in and around Damascus, focusing on the newest, most capable systems, and ones with the most optimal positioning,

* Destroy crucial C4 nodes to degrade the data cohesion and thus quality of Syrian defensive responses,

* Disable runways at select Syrian bases to prevent them from sortieing CAP fighters to engage follow-on TLAM strikes,

* Stimulate enemy defenses to enable more thorough air defense network degradation during follow-on strikes,

* Outright destroy select priority and/or high-value targets (including key personnel.)

The follow-up attack will come very soon from US Navy assets in the Med; the Donald Cook is rumored to be in attack position as we speak and I expect at least one converted Ohio-class SSGN and its 154 Tomahawks are in the area. The Tomahawks will do most of the real damage; directly striking desired targets as well as performing secondary strikes on newly-identified air defense sites, plus a few suppression strikes on Syrian regime airbases to convince all parties involved that the cool embrace of a sturdy air raid shelter is the best place to be, and not servicing priority targets in an attempt to sortie them. At this point the French and UK forces might add their contributions, if any; their Storm Shadows are better suited to tackling SAM sites than Tomahawks, and they'd be well-used if kept in reserve for follow-on attacks after the first wave stimulates air defenses.

F-22s will likely see use; both as BARCAP (protecting tankers, ELINT aircraft, AWACS, jamming aircraft and other high-value assets that the Syrians might unwisely try to challenge with fighters) and as direct attackers. With the Small Diameter Bomb, the F-22 becomes a deep-penetration fighter-bomber platform armed with low-observable standoff glide-bombs that can penetrate moderately hard targets. The SDB isn't ideal for attacking point-defense SAMs (it's slow and not stealthy, though it is fairly low RCS by simple fact of being small and pointy,) but an F-22 can pack a surprising number of them, making them excellent for saturating SAM defenses. They're also excellent against Hardened Aircraft Shelters, for that matter. Their stealth characteristics also allow them to operate far forward in what'd be denied airspace to any other aircraft; enabling a very aggressive sort of BARCAP, to the point of shadowing hostile fighters and engaging them from close range if they make aggressive motions towards friendlies. I personally believe we'll see more F-22s in strike roles than BARCAP roles, but that all depends on just how many Strike Eagles and B-52s we have forward-deployed in theater right now; information that's not easy to hunt down on the web (for obvious reasons.)

The most difficult part of the strike will be playing cat-and-mouse with Russia's AWACS/EW assets; they've the most capable sensors, we can't simply shoot them down, and the Russians know that and will exploit it. The early warning their aircraft can provide will be of tremendous use to their Syrian allies, so inhibiting it will likewise be critical. I predict a delicate dance of US/NATO jamming aircraft versus Russian AWACs/CAP, with a side helping of targeting spikes from their S-400 batteries to try and rattle morale. (Not that they'll be spooked, because the S-400s' maximum theoretical range is based on the radar-equipped 40N6 missile, which probably isn't operational yet, much less deployed to Syria.)

In Summary

I think we're about to see a demonstration of the balance between higher-end and lower-end capabilities - a relatively small number of advanced weapons opening the door for an onslaught of cost-effective Tomahawks. We're also going to see why ISTAR capabilities are so important, and given the nature of the mission, it's highly likely targets won't be strictly limited to just chemical weapon depots or related infrastructure. It might be, but I predict a Message Will Be Sent.

It's 9PM, and the RUMINT on twitter says I'd better post this before the strikes actually happen and all eight pages of random musing are wasted.

Let's see what happens.

#syria #syriacrisis

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opedguy · 4 years ago

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Buttigieg Yucks-it-Up with Fox News Chris Wallace

LOS ANAGELES (OnlineColumnist.com), Oct. 18, 2020.--Launching a national campaign to end the Electoral College that’s gone nowhere, 38-year-old former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg came out of semi-retirement as a Biden surrogate on Fox New Sunday with Chris Wallace. Buttigieg talked about 74-year-old President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, potentially ruining his marriage to his “wife.” Buttigieg has no clue how Barrett would rule on Obergefell v. Hodges, that legalized same-sex marriage, if the issue ever cam up to the Supreme Court. Like all Democrats’ chatter about Barrett ending the Affordable Care Act AKA Obamacare, they also have no idea how Barrett rule. Whipping up their LGBQT base, Buttigieg knows how to play politics, when in fact he has no idea how Barrett would rule on any case. One thing Buttigieg knows is that Barrett is eminently qualified for the Supreme Court

. Talking about his own marriage in such a self-serving way, does Buttigieg really thinks he’s helping the Biden-Harris ticket putting so much emphasis in battleground states on same-sex marriage. “My marriage might depend on what is about to happen in the Senate with regard to his justice,” Buttigieg said, knowing, that the Senate will confirm Amy Coney Barrett in the next week. Calling Trump a “president incapable of handling the novel coronavirus pandemic,” Buttigieg argued that somehow Biden-Harris would do a better job with the virus. Democrats have politicized the Covid-19 crisis because polls show it’s a winning issue for Democrats. But neither Biden nor Harris have said anything of substance what they’d do differently in managing the deadly coronavirus outbreak. Both parties know that they can’t lockdown the country without plunging the economy into another Great Depression.

Buttiegieg bombed out the Democrat primaries March 1 after winning only Iowa, then hitting rock bottom in the other primaries. Buttigieg was tolerated in the Democrat primaries as the first openly gay candidate. While Pete’s a good talker, his age and inexperience took its toll on his campaign, after pretending after winning Iowa Feb. 2 that he was a competitive candidate. Whether Pete knows it or not, his gay lifestyle doesn’t play especially well in the battleground states of the Midwest, where traditional American values prevail on the campaign trail. “We don’t want to allow this president to change the subject, which is what they are always doing,” Mayor Pete told Wallace today. Buttigieg blows a lot of spoke telling Wallace that preexisting conditions are now on the ballot with Trump’s Supreme Court nominee. Mayor Pete has no clue how Barrett would vote on Obamacare or anything else.

Buttigieg showed he’s a cosmetic political hack, criticizing Trump for his foreign policy, especially in the Middle East. “We are not going to take lesions on Iraq policy from this current president who ca barely keep straight what’s going on in the Middle East and is a destabilizing force everywhere he goes. Buttigieg know that unlike Biden, Trump has not started more Mideast wars and has brokered three major peace deals in the last few months, two with Israel and Bahrain and United Arab Emirates [UAE] and one with Serbia and Kosovo. Buttigieg knows that Biden spent eight years backing the Saudi proxy war against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, killing 500,000 Syrians driving 15 million more in refugee status in the worst crisis since WW II. Obama and Biden toppled Col. Muammar Gaddafi Oct. 20, 2011, flooding Libya with terrorist that eventually bombed the U.S. consulate in Benghazi Sept. 11, 2012.

Buttigieg pretends he’s knowledgeable about the economy and foreign policy, when he knows almost nothing about either. He’s a good advocate for LGBQT rights but little else, with his initiative to end the Electoral College a total failure. Preaching to the choir with Trump-hater Chris Wallace, Buttigieg got a free pass much like Biden has with the anti-Trump media. “We need to turn the page” from a “president who is incapable of handling a public health crisis that has now cost almost a quarter of a million American lives, thrown our economy into wreckage, and clearly has no plan to anything about it,” Buttigieg told Wallace with him just nodding. With anti-Trump journalists like Wallace, they feel right at home with partisan hacks making outrageous statements. Buttigieg knows that Biden and Harris have no magic want when it comes to dealing with the Covid-19 global pandemic or the economy.

No one in the media, including Fox News, wants to expose Biden for the egregious corruption while serving eight years as former President Barack Obama’s Vice President. When you consider the way he enriched his 50-year-old son Hunter, Biden violated every ethical principle of his office. Biden refuses to answer anything about Hunter’s lucrative job on a corrupt Ukrainian energy company board. While Biden denies everything, Hunter admitted on ABC’s Good Morning American Oct. 15, 2019 that it was probably a bad idea for him to take the Burisma Holdings job. He also admitted that without his father her probably wouldn’t have gotten the job. Yet when Joe’s asked anything about Hunter’s work on Burisma’s board, he calls it a Russian smear. Watching Wallace yuk-it-up with Buttigieg shows the way the fake news advances its Democrat agenda on the public airwaves.

About the Author

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma. Reply Reply All Forward

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woohooligancomics · 7 years ago

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Six Tips to Kickstarter Success!

How do you build a career as a creative person? I mean a real career, one that pays your bills, not a side-gig that's obviously important to you but that you have to supplement by sacking people's fidget spinners at your local Walmart. Learning how to do that is a difficult thing and I certainly don't have it all figured out, but I've learned a lot over the years and I'd like to share some of what I've learned with you, to help you reach your creative career goals.

A couple weeks ago I found this Kickstarter campaign for a comic series called the Millennials. It was a few days before the end of the campaign and with only one backer it was obvious this campaign wouldn't fund. But I also saw something else; I saw myself in the creator, Jay Wallace. I saw many of the mistakes I personally made when I was much younger. That's why I'm writing this. I know some of these lessons are hard to hear, and often hard to learn, heck I forgot a couple of the most basic rules of marketing when I overhauled my Patreon page recently. So I think a post-mortem analysis of a failed campaign like this can be very helpful to us as we move forward wether it's with this project or a new one.

First, if you're like a lot of us and you've internalized this idea that marketing is bad, like the sleazy car salesman who just wants to sell you a lemon and take his bonus home, you need to get that picture out of your head. Sales and marketing aren't bad, in fact you're already marketing and selling, you just don't know it. Do you have a job? Then you've sold something: yourself. When you write a resume or take a job interview, you're selling to the interviewer an idea of you as a good person for that job. You have to convince them not only that you can perform the task, but that you won't create any extra headaches for them either. The interviewer can only hire so many people, so they're going to choose the candidates who will make their job the easiest. Except in those cases when they hire their drunk cousin or friend from grade-school, despite all the vomit in the backseat of their car, because history and nepotism. Besides, they want to stay on uncle Don's good side if they don't want their tires slashed. ;P

The point I'm making here is that you have to sell things all the time, and there are lots of better ways. That sleazy car dearler is a sales person, but he's just one guy, and he's a very bad sales person. I'll bet you didn't use any of those sleazy car-sales tactics to get the job you have now. You didn't lie and tell the interviewer at Walmart that you managed distribution for the midwest division of Oscar Mayer and drove their weinermobile. No, you told them the truth, that you're willing to work any hours, on any day including holidays, for minimum wage, that you have your own transortation, and that you like their "I hate mondays" neck-tie. Okay, that last one was a lie, but how else are you going to make an impression on the interviewer and stand out in that crowd of Walmart applicants?

Seriously though, the best car salesman and the one who's better off in the long-run is the one who helps you find the car you want even if it's at someone else's dealership where he won't get the bonus for selling it. That guy who helps you find what you're looking for at a competitor's dealership builds a reputation for himself as an honest, helpful guy, and that's worth a lot more than the bonus on a single sale.

So now that we have that out of the way, how would the helpful salesperson approach this Kickstarter that failed? What would he recommend to Jay to help the Millennials Kickstarter fund?

Before I do that, I want to recommend this podcast I found recently called ComixLaunch. If you're planning even one KickStarter project, you should probably check out this podcast first, there's a lot of really useful info in here. Several of the mistakes Jay made, (mistakes I used to make when I was younger), could have been avoided with information from just the first couple episodes of ComixLaunch.

EDIT (Dec 22, 2017): I also just came across this great article with very specific Kickstarter advice from Russell Nohelty.

Now let's see what Jay did well. He did several of the basic things that we all know you need to do with a KickStarter. He's got a video and it's brief at only a minute and seventeen seconds. He introduced himself, he seems like a nice kid, and he explains the emotional connection he has to this project, why it's important to him (having a lot to do with high-school, bullying, biraciality, the immigrant experience and racial profiling). So if you identify with those feelings and experiences, there's a good chance you'll want to help him. When you get down below the video, you see he included the first six pages of the comic's first(?) issue, and the art is high quality, so that's a plus.

So how do we evaluate these positives? What do we compare them to? Where's our yardstick? In the marketing world, when you're telling people about something they might want to buy, there are six points to hit. There are actually a lot more than six, but there are six main points that professional marketers focus on. Those six points are:

Authority: people are more likely to support those who show authority on a given subject. You get a rash checked by a doctor, not by boxcar willie who's playing banjo on the street for tips. This works in any industry, though, it's not just for doctors and lawyers. Even your weed dealer is going to sell more weed if he has a reputation for knowing good product and selling the better stuff.

Commitment & Consistency: This works both ways. The more someone has committed to supporting you in the past (your comics, your music albums, whatever), the more likely they are to continue to support you. You also need to be consistent. You can evolve gradually, however, your personality and your products need to be fairly consistent in their tone. The world is full of examples of bands, movie and video game franchises, that lost a huge chunk of their fanbase by introducing dramatic changes between two releases. The Highlander, Tracy Chapman, etc, etc.

I know, some of you are thinking, "no, you don't have to be consistent, look at Lady Gaga or Monty Python!" In reality though, their work is consistent for what their fans expect. Would you buy The Best of Show-Tunes from Lady Gaga? Would you buy a gut-wrenching docudrama about the Syrian civil war from Monty Python? Even if you show the giant foot stomping on Bashar al-Assad, that's probably not winning over a lot of Monty Python fans.

The point is that by being consistent, you're building trust with your fans.

Likability: How likeable are you as an individual? We would all like to think of ourselves as being likeable, and I think that's fairly true for most of us. There's probably nobody who can't do something to make themselves a little more likeable. As an autistic person, studying this is kind of my life -- I could rant and rave about how it shouldn't matter (I've seen lots of autistic people do this), but that wouldn't make me very likeable would it? ;) It doesn't actually take a lot to be more likeable. Remember to smile more (but don't tell women to, seriously, that's pretty douchey), tell a joke once in a while (my personal favorite), have a sense of humor about yourself and let people know that you know you're not perfect.

Reciprocity: Even with strangers, if you've done something nice for someone, they tend to want to return that gesture. You see this any time you go out -- even as a guy, when I hold the door for another guy (and obviously we're both perfectly capable of opening a door), the other guy will usually open the next door for me on the other side of the mandatory airlock that all stores have now. It's a good thing though, if it weren't for that airlock, we'd all be blown back out of the store and we'd never be able to buy our milk. (We don't have any local milk people anymore!) ;P

Social Proof: This is one of the tougher points to hit when you're a fresh new face like Jay. People want to do things together. People want to know that their friends, neighbors and/or family are involved in a particular thing. You'll get the occasional extreme hipster, "oh, you've never heard of the band Cross-Stich Circumcision... oh you have? Well they suck then." But that notwithstanding, people don't want to do things alone, they want to know they're part of a team or a tribe or a book-club. They want to know that they're part of something their peers are interested in, like Game of Thrones.

Even in microcosm you can see this all the time. Look at any auction and you'll notice that there's a notable pause at the beginning of each item, before anyone's bid on it. Everyone at the auction is waiting to see if anyone else will bid and if so, where that person will set the bar for bidding. They want someone else to prove to them that this item is worth bidding on, and to give them an idea how much it's worth. So if you're genuinely interested in an item at auction, definitely bid first, and bid at or near the minimum. If you bid high, you might overestimate the interest and miss out on getting the item for less. Also, once that first bid is out there, generally, the bidding flows much more rapidly. It's possible you could bid high enough to shock everyone in the room away from bidding and be the only bidder, but unless you're more interested in the shock than the item, you're better off setting people's expectations with the initial bid.

To be fair though, bidding on a dead ostritch might be shocking enough. What does one do with a dead ostritch? They spend most of their life half-buried to begin with. They met you half-way, the least you could do is give them a proper burial.

Scarcity: To be honest, I'm a little conflicted about this point. I understand that scarcity can really help drive sales, but there's still a small part of my soul that dies every time I use it. I just can't seem to dissociate it in my mind from that sleazy car-salesman I talked about before.

In my first Kickstarter campaign, I only set the goal at $300 because I was producing ebooks and I just wanted to purchase a batch of ISBNs (which I later learned I shouldn't have even used on eBooks, d'oh!) That being the case I actually set a limit on every pledge level, even the $1 level, because at that level I was offering a credit in the back of one of the books. I was pretty sure there wouldn't be hundreds or thousands of backers I would have to credit (making the books unfeasibly large), but I decided to limit even the $1 pledges just to be on the safe side. I just can't help but think of that car salesman saying "hey, and you know what, they don't make 'em like this anymore!" (And you don't want to buy a car like that anyway, because there's usually a reason they don't make 'em like that anymore, and it's murder to get parts or repairs!)

I realize also that my discomfort with scarcity isn't always warranted. When your Kickstarter project is approaching its deadline, even if you don't have any limited pledge levels, there's still a sense of scarcity for the people who pledge in the last few days. Many of those people have been holding out to pledge on your campaign, to see if they need your support. They want to support you, if you need it, but they have a lot of their own expenses, so they're hoping your project will fund without them and they can use that money on bills, or groceries, or a dead ostrich. It's in those last couple days, if it looks like your project is close and it might not fund, they'll make that sacrifice to help you out, because they're afraid of the scarcity, the idea that your project may not exist at all if it doesn't fund. And in that sense, I understand scarcity can also be a positive, because it shows how we band together. :D Although even then, it's not strictly necessary to use scarcity, since crowdfunding on IndieGogo with no deadline eliminates that, but that's also part of the reason why fewer IndieGogo projects meet their goals.

The more of these points you hit, the more people will support your project. So how many of these did Jay hit?

Authority? Certainly some people must know Jay, but this is the first I've heard of him. He's only created this one Kickstarter campaign, so I can't look at previous campaigns for information. And I don't see any social media presence or other internet presence -- he didn't enter Twitter or Facebook on his Kickstarter profile, and a google search for "Jay Wallace Millennials" produces only this Kickstarter, a subsequent IndieGogo campaign, and a Twitter account for a Fox News executive with the same name. Also, "the Millennials" as a title is generic enough to produce a lot of false-positives on a Google search. That's not a make-or-break issue, but it will make it harder for people to find your project. There's no website for the Millennials that I can tell, there's no evidence on the internet that he or this project exist at all outside of this crowdfunding campaign.

It's hard to create a sense of "authority" when nobody knows who you are. A degree of some kind might help, like graduating from SCAD or the Kubert School. Ironically, just wearing a white lab-coat and carrying a clipboard does wonders to generate a sense of authority, but that's back into car salesman territory, so we won't go there. One thing you can do to generate more authority even as an unknown noob, is to show your homework. I use the word "homework" here deliberately -- none of us enjoy doing homework, but it has to get done if we want to graduate. The same is true for crowdfunding campaigns, there are a lot of logistical details that are boring, but necessary. The Kickstarter campaign should show exactly where all the money is going -- tell us how many books you're printing, which printer you chose and how much they quoted for your job, what you need for shipping, for the Kickstarter fees, and for any other rewards offered. (Personally, I would even tell us how much you need to pay your artist.) This is all basic information that you need to know to complete your project, and I don't see any of it mentioned in the Millennials Kickstarter. This is like coming in to class and saying, "I had this really great report written, and then my dog ate it. But I pinky-swear, it was A+ work!"

Commitment and Consistency? Like I said about authority, it's hard to create a sense of consistency if nobody knows who you are. Without a website, without any social media presence, strangers online don't have any way to evaluate just how consistent you are in your attitudes, your communication or your work.

Jay does mention in the video and the text of the Kickstarter that he's worked on this project for three years and that he's written over 600 issues (which is about ten "trade paperbacks" or "graphic novels" as we used to call them). That does indicate commitment, however, with no online presence, we're all stuck taking him at his word about the time he's put into this project. And if I'm going to take someone at their word, it would be a lot easier for me actually if the project were a lot smaller. You have to remember that trust is built incrementally, and that's what commitment and consistency are all about, building trust. To put this in perspective, imagine if a stranger came to you on the bus, and they're dressed in a nice suit and they seem nice and they say, "hey, I have this plan to cure cancer, I just need a few thousand people to donate $20 each". Most people are going to respond to that with "fuck cancer," before they suck down an entire pack of cigarettes... laced with asbestos. If that same person had just said, "I'm kind of hard up and wondered if I could get some change or a dollar to buy some weed," they'd probably have better luck, wouldn't they?

So for Jay, I don't think he should give up on his passion-project, however, I think he'd be better off not even mentioning the 600 issues and simply focusing on the first issue. Telling people you're trying to get six-hundred of them made (and it's not clear in his text if this Kickstarter is meant for one issue or for all six-hundred), is pretty off-putting. But there are lots of people who are quite successful on Kickstarter just promoting a first issue. Some of them may have a huge number of issues written and waiting, but you don't want to hit a stranger with that the first time they meet you. Start small, let people see what you can do with one, and that will build your credibility.

For the record, when I was young, I used to make this mistake all the time.

Likeability? Okay, I know this one is always hard to hear. We all want to think we're super-likeable, and I'm not saying Jay's not likeable, all I'm saying is I think we all underrate our ability to improve ourselves in this area. Jay is clean and presentable on the video and he ends it with a polite "thank you" and that's kind of the bare minimum on making yourself likeable. I don't notice him smile at any point in the video, and he reads off the script in a bit of a monotone, and those things are kind of a shot in the foot. When you make your video, you should open and close with a smile and you should talk about your project with a little energy. I know that's going to require a bit of practice, it may take several takes to get it the way you want it, but if you've already put three years into this project, the day or week or however long you take to get the video just right should be nothing. You don't get all your gear ready to climb Mount Everest and then cancel the trip because your airline flight is delayed.

This may not sound like "likeability", but the cinematography of this video is a bit off as well. The camera angle is from below Jay, so what you see behind him is the ceiling and in particular, his head is directly in front of a light. The camera's light adjustement and the viewers brain compensate a little for that light source, but with all the compensation in the world, it still casts his face in a shadow and that's never good. Maybe he was trying for a "dramtic" look, like the scene in an action movie where the hero bursts into the darkened warehouse through a shaft of bright light. That works great when it's followed by a climactic battle, not so much when it's followed by a project pitch.

Reciprocity? Nope. I've had a Kickstarter account for at least four years now and over that time I've pledged to 29 other Kickstarter campaigns. I'm not sure how many I had pledged to before my first Kickstarter, but I know there were a bunch of them. People on Kickstarter don't want you to be there just to get your cash and run -- they want to know that you're a part of the community and that you'll give back to other creators as well. Jay's not pledged to any other Kickstarter campaigns, so that's a strike against him. Given that you've paid $70 per page to have the first six pages illustrated and colored, that's $420 you've already sunk into this project. Sink a few more dollars into helping some other creators build their social proof so they can get their projects funded. Not only will you generate some goodwill for your projects, if you talk to those creators (I haven't done a good job of this), there's a good chance you'll even make a few friends. :)

Social Proof? Nope. I take that back, there's a little -- the first pledge. And yes, that's important, if you're going to run a Kickstarter campaign, you should at least make sure you know where your first pledge is coming from, so you can get it on the first day. Usually it's your mom. Thanks mom! :D Beyond that, again, it's hard to build social proof when nobody knows you. The idea that people like your work really has to come from other people, not from you. If someone else says they enjoy your work, their friends will believe it. But you can't say it yourself, because then you just sound like Trump, "I make the best comics, everybody says so." Thankfully, Jay didn't go there, but he did something else that shot himself in the foot for social proof.

If you read the text of Jay's Kickstarter, at the top he says:

I'm raising money to pay my penciller and colorist to finish the following issue pages. I recently submitted The Millennials to Image Comcis. But I also will use the money to get a table at the Cincinnati Comic Expo in September that will host over 20,000 people. The money will fund the trip and merchandise.

The fourth sentence in that passage is redundant, but the second sentence is the real problem. The fact that he recently pitched this series to Image isn't relevant to the Kickstarter. Including that sentence here is at best confusing without any explanation of why he's bringing it up. Then further down, below the six pages he's already produced, he makes it a little worse when he brings it up again in the "Risks and Challenges" section.

The risk to my project is Image not wanting to pick up my story. I would over come this by self-publishing and handling distribution personally.

Blam! Your toe's gone. Either you're saying that Image has already rejected your project, or you're saying that you're still waiting for a response from Image. If you haven't heard back from Image yet, then you have no business being on Kickstarter. You can pitch your project to publishing companies, or you can pitch it to us for crowdfunding, but you can't do both of those things at the same time. If you're saying Image already rejected you, then telling us you've been rejected already runs against your social proof. We all know rejection, we've all experienced it, but don't tell us that if you're looking for project funding. If you're looking for sympathy it's a different story. Here it's like, "Hey, Becky, would you like to go to the prom? Amy turned me down... I'm asking all the girls alphabetically." (True story, I once made that mistake when asking a girl out in my teens. Awkward!)

Scarcity? This is the one point that bothers me for personal reasons, but my own hangups aside, how did Jay do? Mostly scarcity in a Kickstarter project is created with higher pledge levels where backers can get limited edition items that they might not be able to get if they don't pledge. Jay defined five pledge levels, ranging from $20 to $300. First, there should have been some lower pledge levels -- give people credit in the back of the book or something, it's not hard to do, and it makes the higher pledge levels more valuable. Or give them a copy of the first volume as an ebook or send them a postcard.

At the lowest pledge level of $20 he offered some fankly peculiar rewards. The first book is normal, but a pair of branded sunglasses? With a standard 22-page comic issue? And there's no homework showing where he's getting these sunglasses made or how much they cost, and at $3,500 I wonder if he's done the math to cover that expense. For another $5 I can get a backpack? Are people really wanting sunglasses and backpacks? Even branded with the project name, I just don't think people are looking to get these things with a comic. They're common items, most people have them already, etc.

The t-shirt or the hoodie at $40 is maybe okay, if you know how to get those made and you've done the math and know you can afford them, but do the homework and let us know you can cover the cost. All these things sound really expensive on the budget you're describing. And show us the image you're planning to put on the shirt -- is it just the logo or will there be character art? Honestly, the t-shirt market is pretty darn saturated, which makes them already hard to sell. So a t-shirt with this project logo, even with character art, would probably require a great deal of social proof before it becomes a reason for someone to pledge. (I say this as someone who has satirical t-shirts I printed still sitting in my closet.)

The highest pledge level, the $300, I think I would have offered people their likeness in the comics in some way, as a bystander or someone who dies. I did that in my first Kickstarter and people seemed to enjoy the comics they were injected into. In Jay's project it's just all the lower pledge levels. So if at the $40 level, I already got a shirt or a hoodie, and I'm just getting an extra two shirts and/or hoodies, the math doesn't add up. That first hoodie was a jump of $15 (and I'm surprised it's three times as much as the backpack). The jump from one t-shirt or hoodie to three of them is an increase of $260. That means those two extra shirts, instead of being $15 each are now $130 each. That's an expensive shirt! I think I'm only paying $130 for a shirt if it comes with Amy Schumer still wearing it! Or better yet, Samantha Bee! I'd pay $130 for that shirt, she gives good satire.

Okay, so how many of those six points did Jay's Kickstarter hit?

Authority: 0 points

Commitment & Consistency: 1/2 point for sticking with this project for three years, but it's hampered by appearing to bite off way more than you should on your first appearance, without building any reputation.

Likability: 1/2 point for the bare minimum of coming across as a nice kid - Jay doesn't seem like a car salesman or an egomaniac, but that's like advertising your car on craigslist as "it still runs". (And before you think I'm being real hard on Jay here, remember that this is something I personally work at and struggle with every day because of my autism.)

Reciprocity: 0 points

Social Proof: 0 points - it would have been a half-point for having the first pledge, but it's taken away by the mention of an either prior or simultaneous pitch to Image.

Scarcity: 1/2 point - I can see that an attempt was made, but the offerings don't really add up

So, I've given him 1.5 out of a possible 6. If we think of that like a class assignment, he'd need 70% to get a C. This places Jay's Kickstarter at 25%, so it wouldn't be a passing grade. To have even a passing grade on this scale, you need at least 4.5 points. Ideally obviously you want to hit all six of them. The good news is this doesn't have to be the end for the Millennials or for Jay.

The reason why we do post-mortems like this after a project fails is to learn from our mistakes. As long as we can keep learning, we can get a little further down that path toward our goals. It may be a little harder for Jay to get his next Kickstarter funded now that this one failed, but he shouldn't let that discourage him, he just needs to study more. A Kickstarter needs a lot of people to believe in it, and you can't make that work by cramming at the final, no matter how much Monster Energy you drink. I hope this article helps a lot of you fresh young comic artists, looking forward to your first few Kickstarters or other crowdfunding campaigns. If you can learn from a few of these mistakes before your first campaign, you'll be in much better shape. And I really hope that Jay also sticks with it and eventually gets the whole Millennials story published. :D

Stay awesome, Hooligans!

Sam

P.s. If you found this article helpful, you can help me create more of this and other comedy in several ways, by sharing this article, sharing my comics at www.woohooligan.com or by pledging as little as a dollar on our Patreon!

#crowdfunding #kickstarter #learning

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katchwreck · 6 years ago

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CONFIRMED: Chemical Weapons Assessment Contradicting Official Syria Narrative Is Authentic

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has begun responding to queries by the press about a leaked document which contradicts official OPCW findings on an alleged chemical weapons attack last year in Douma, Syria. The prepared statement they’ve been using in response to these queries confirms the authenticity of the document.

To recap, a few days ago the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media (WGSPM) published a document signed by a man named Ian Henderson, whose name is seen listed in expert leadership positions on OPCW documents from as far back as 1998 and as recently as 2018. It’s unknown who leaked the document and what other media organizations they may have tried to send it to.

The report picks apart the extremely shaky physics and narratives of the official OPCW analysis on the gas cylinders allegedly dropped from Syrian government aircraft in the Douma attack, and concludes that “The dimensions, characteristics and appearance of the cylinders, and the surrounding scene of the incidents, were inconsistent with what would have been expected in the case of either cylinder being delivered from an aircraft,” saying instead that manual placement of the cylinders in the locations investigators found them in is “the only plausible explanation for observations at the scene.”

To be clear, this means that according to the assessment signed by an OPCW-trained expert, the cylinders alleged to have dispensed poison gas which killed dozens of people in Douma did not arrive in the locations that they were alleged to have arrived at via aircraft dropped by the Syrian government, but via manual placement by people on the ground, where photographs were then taken and circulated around the world as evidence against the Syrian government which was used to justify air strikes by the US, UK and France. There were swift military consequences meted out on what appears now to be a lie. At the time, the people on the ground were the Al Qaeda-linked Jaysh Al-Islam, who had at that point nothing to lose and everything to gain by staging a false flag attack in a last-ditch attempt to get NATO powers to function as their air force, since they’d already effectively lost the battle against the Syrian government.

We now have confirmation that, for whatever the reason may be, this assessment was hidden from the public by the OPCW.

British journalists Peter Hitchens and Brian Whitaker have both published matching statements from the OPCW on this report. Hitchens has been an outspoken critic of the establishment Syria narrative; Whittaker has been a virulent promulgator of it. The statement begins as a very mundane and obvious assertion that it takes information from numerous sources and then publishes its conclusions, but concludes with an admission that it is “conducting an internal investigation about the unauthorised release of the document in question.” This constitutes an admission that the document is authentic.

Here is the text of the statement in full; the portion I’m drawing attention to is in the second-to-last paragraph:

The OPCW establishes facts surrounding allegations of the use of toxic chemicals for hostile purposes in the Syrian Arab Republic through the Fact-Finding Mission (FFM), which was set up in 2014.

The OPCW Technical Secretariat reaffirms that the FFM complies with established methodologies and practices to ensure the integrity of its findings. The FFM takes into account all available, relevant, and reliable information and analysis within the scope of its mandate to determine its findings.

Per standard practice, the FFM draws expertise from different divisions across the Technical Secretariat as needed. All information was taken into account, deliberated, and weighed when formulating the final report regarding the incident in Douma, Syrian Arab Republic, on 7 April 2018. On 1 March 2019, the OPCW issued its final report on this incident, signed by the Director-General.

Per OPCW rules and regulations, and in order to ensure the privacy, safety, and security of personnel, the OPCW does not provide information about individual staff members of the Technical Secretariat

Pursuant to its established policies and practices, the OPCW Technical Secretariat is conducting an internal investigation about the unauthorised release of the document in question.

At this time, there is no further public information on this matter and the OPCW is unable to accommodate requests for interviews.

This should be a major news headline all around the world, but of course it is not. As of this writing the mass media have remained deathly silent about the document despite its enormous relevance to an international headline story last year which occupied many days of air time. It not only debunks a major news story that had military consequences, it casts doubt on a most esteemed international independent investigative body and undermines the fundamental assumptions behind many years of western reporting in the area. People get lazy about letting the media tell them what’s important and they assume if it’s not in the news, it’s not a big deal. This is a big deal, this is a major story and it is going unreported, which makes the media’s silence a part of the story as well.

Also conspicuously absent from discussion has been the war propaganda firm Bellingcat, which is usually the first to put the most establishment-friendly spin possible on any development in this area. If Eliot Higgins can’t even work out how to polish this turd, you know it’s a steamer.

https://youtu.be/zWrDRSkgP9U

As near as I can tell the kindest possible interpretation of these revelations is that an expert who has worked with the OPCW for decades gave an engineering assessment which directly contradicted the official findings of the OPCW on Douma, but OPCW officials didn’t find his assessment convincing for whatever reason and hid every trace of it from public view. That’s the least sinister possibility: that a sharp dissent from a distinguished expert within the OPCW’s own investigation was completely hidden from the public because the people calling the shots at the OPCW didn’t want to confuse us with a perspective they didn’t find credible. This most charitable interpretation possible is damningly unacceptable by itself, because the public should obviously be kept informed of any possible evidence which may contradict the reasons they were fed to justify an act of war by powerful governments.

And there are many far less charitable interpretations. It is not in the slightest bit unreasonable to speculate that the ostensibly independent OPCW in fact serves the interests of the US-centralized power alliance, and that it suppressed the Henderson report because it pokes holes in the narratives that are used to demonize a longtime target for imperialist regime change. That is a perfectly reasonable possibility for us to wonder about, and the onus is now on the OPCW to prove to us that it is not the case.

Either way, the fact that the OPCW kept Henderson’s findings from receiving not a whisper of attention severely undermines the organization’s credibility, not just with regard to Douma but with regard to everything, including the establishment Syria narrative as a whole and the Skripal case in the UK. Everything the OPCW has ever concluded about alleged chemical usage around the world is now subject to very legitimate skepticism.

“The leaked OPCW engineers’ assessment is confirmed as genuine, which means the final report actively concealed evidence that the Douma chemical attack was staged by jihadists and the White Helmets,” tweeted British journalist Jonathan Cook. “The OPCW’s other Syria reports must now be treated as worthless too.”

When I first reported on the Henderson document the other day, I received a fair criticism from a Medium user that I was actually far too charitable in my reporting on just how thoroughly the official Douma narrative was rejected.

“This article doesn’t really express just how damning the report actually is,” the user said. “It’s much more than just on balance their observations are inconsistent with the cylinders being dropped from aircraft. Just about everything about the official narrative is shown to be plain impossible, from the angles of the broken rebar in the roof, through the damage to the gas cylinders, to the pile of fins on the balcony that couldn’t have been attached to the cylinder, and more. There’s simply no way they were dropped from helicopters.”

I strongly encourage readers to check out the 15-page document for themselves to understand its claims and make up their own minds, and then sit a bit to really digest the possible implications. We may have just discovered a major piece of the puzzle explaining how seemingly independent international organizations help deceive us into consenting to wars and regime change interventionism around the world.

The narrative that Syrian president Bashar al-Assad is a monster who gasses his own people has been used to justify western interventionism in that nation which has included arming actual terrorist groups, enabling them to leave a trail of blood and chaos across Syria, as well as an illegal occupation of Syrian land and sanctions against the Syrian economy. This narrative is being used currently to maintain support for continuing to uphold the crippling sanctions that are making life hell for the average Syrian, today. This is not in the past, this is happening now, and there is no telling when these siege efforts towards regime change will be ramped up further into more overt forms of military action. The violence, displacement and economic hardship that is being inflicted upon the Syrian people by this interventionism is causing incalculably immense suffering, and it is all made possible by false narratives sold to the public.

Remember, they wouldn’t work so hard to manufacture your consent if they didn’t require that consent. So don’t give it to them. The first step to ending the suffering caused by western interventionism is to help free public consciousness from the incredibly complex and well-oiled propaganda machine which manufactures the consent of the governed for unconscionable acts of violence and devastation. Wake people up to what’s going on so we can all cease consenting.

Source

#opcw #douma #Syria #syrian arab army #syrian war #conflict in syria #syria news #syrian armed force #imperialism #france🇫🇷#usa #donald trump

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paoulkaye-blog · 8 years ago

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Seeking Normalcy (or at least a space to speak my mind)

Upon the advice of my loving wife Amber, mother of our two adorable boys Isaac and Dean, I’ve gone out of my way to set up a tiny corner of the internet to call my own. As a shameless copycat of things that I like, I took a page out of Bryan Maxwell’s Tumblr page (The Light That Never Warms) and started my own. Here’s where I’ll be putting my thoughts, my frustrations, and my totally random trains of nonsense for the time being. Like a little closet full of me. Come inside, won’t you?

Having spent the last week with absolutely the worst sinus infection I have had in my entire adult life, it’s safe to say I was out of the loop for a bit. The news of the days recently have not been good for anyone with an upset stomach, and I resolved to return to my crusade for normalcy and respect of country and each other once I could reliably stand up without feeling like I was about to fall over again. So I was ignoring everyone for a while, but alas you cannot ignore EVERYTHING.

I make no secret of the fact that I do not agree with the current administration. I don’t necessarily agree that Trump is a Russian puppet putting on a show for us all as he hands Putin our country under the table to rule over with a shadowy fist, but I understand how someone could connect the dots to get there. I also want to believe, because I have this optimistic streak nature has yet to breed out of me, that much of the Trump administration has some sort of good intentions. Jared and Ivanka at least seem intent on keeping a certain amount of the national image on the international stage preserved with regards to human rights issues and so on, and Steve Bannon seems to be on the outs with the president he claims to have ‘created’. These are hopeful signs.

They pale in the face of everything else, however. An ineffective, almost laughably so, bombardment of an airport in Syria where we were apparently more concerned over the cost of each individual missile as opposed to the forcefulness or effectiveness of the message being sent to a dictator who would use chemical weapons on his own people is in no way good for our country. Assad can patch up a runway in two hours and fly planes to gas his people again, and what do we do? North Korea is beating the war drum again, and the whole world seems to be bristling and waiting for a sign, any sort of sign, of leadership or decisiveness from the White House, and we do… what? I’ve never been invested in the idea of a world led exclusively by American might and American values, but this is a terrifyingly awful example to set.

People test their boundaries when they are unsure how authority is going to react. Kids do it, teenagers do it, adults do it, and countries do it. This crap happens every four years, because every nation in the world wants to test the new guy. And for years, every new guy has had a deep bench of experienced military and international diplomats to draw on for help and advice. Except not this time, either because they aren’t there or he’s not listening. And it’s showing. And while the shadow of Russia looms large over his campaign, Trump deployed the missiles, arguably, as a distraction tactic, like he’s done before with wiretapping claims, Devin Nunez, and the many clown-like antics of Conway and Spicer.

Trump’s a businessman. One might even say he’s a good one. In business, good PR is everything, and when you can’t get good PR, make sure your competition gets bad PR. Trump’s problem is that no matter who he paints as the opposition now, it’s only going to weaken his position because the Presidency of the United States is not a business position: It’s a leadership position. And anyone with experience in the real world will tell you that business and leadership not only do not mix well, but are oftentimes polar opposites.

Good business sense will tell you to charge a markup for a drug that cures a disease because people with that disease need your product and will pay whatever they have to in order to get it. It tells you that because it understands that the drug cost x millions of dollars to develop, and that money must not only be made back, but a profit must be secured in the process, because a profit is how you show good business. If the profit happens to fall just this side of obscene, well, you’re just doing really good business.

Good leadership identifies a problem and aligns resources and pulls strings to get that problem solved. Discovering, for example, that people are dying of a disease that someone has a cure for, and facilitating the passage of that cure from the producer to the people in desperate need through whatever means necessary is good leadership. It may involve negotiation, or a favor, or threats, but the end result saves lives without ruining them, at least ideally. Good leadership shows in progress, in improvement, and in the betterment of life for the team, company, or country that leadership is in charge of. This is all, of course, to say nothing of the idea of good leadership actually leading somewhere, but that’s another rant for a different day.

There can be overlap, of course. In fact, when good business and good leadership find common ground, the results are often spectacular and wonderful and truly inspiring. The problem is that for a very long time now, business has (ahem) trumped leadership in importance. The rich want to stay rich, the elected want to keep getting elected, and those of us doing the voting and getting the business have felt for a long time like we don’t have any say in the matter. Trump is the ur-example of good business sense being mistaken for good leadership, because the reality of it is that he’s a bad businessman and inarguably lacking in leadership qualities.

It’s telling that before the first 100 days are done, people are already talking about the Mid-Term elections. In my memory the mid-terms barely get mentioned when they’re next month on the news, but here we are, two years before. It’s shaping up to be a showdown. There’s a number of seats up for grabs, mostly Democratic, some Republican, and one Independent that I’m aware of, and that’s just in the Senate. The entire House is going to be campaigning again, and you can bet it’s going to be a great big pile of headache-inducing back and forth. Will this upcoming election cycle be the one where the American people say ‘enough is enough’ and shakeup the career politicians by sending them home, or will it be the Mid-Term that kills America? I’m not saying those are the only options, those are just the one’s you’ll hear about most, I’m betting. Aside from all of the other things the news will inevitably hype up, of course.

Yeah, the news is so hysterical about every little thing, but some things are worth it. Russia is a frightening entity in the American mind again, and the implications of what it has and can do on a global scale with a government-backed corps of internet trolls is frightening. The idea that the FBI and NSA agree that there is more than a laughable chance that a presidential campaign colluded with a foreign power to influence or outright corrupt our democratic process is almost too much for most people to really process. There’s a guy out there who is in charge of a country, and in that country are people he does not like, so he got his own military to unleash chemical weapons on them. Is that not just totally fucked up?

Yes. Yes it is. And I don’t accept that as normal, and I need to speak my mind. Welcome to the place I’m choosing to do that. I hope you come back for more.

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whatelsecanwedonow · 8 years ago

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you really don't like sanders? where do you stand on the 'big' issues? if you don't mind talking about it.

Fell asleep last night, whoops. I don’t mind the Senator, really. If he had won the nomination I would have been riding the Bern-train, it’s not like anyone on the right could have been better. He’s a good Senator, but I don’t think he’d make for an effective President in the current climate. This ended up getting long so it’s under a cut.

I guess where I stand, differently than him… well. Bernie is a good agent to nudge the Democratic Party to continue progressing as… progressives, he is a good voice for the worker, and human rights, I like his work on promoting the importance of labor unions, for example - forgotten by too many blue-collar workers. However some of his proposals as a candidate were 150% DOA in a general election. 1500%. 15000%. His single payer health-care system for example, and the tax increases to pay for it. Do I think we want to end up with a system like that? Absolutely, I think moving in that direction as a step beyond the ACA as it exists now would help Americans immensely. But you can’t climb Everest in a day - the reason Obamacare could be considered a type of halfway step in the process towards true universal healthcare is because in America change is typically strange and slow. If you see the opportunity you can take it, but we’re very entrenched in our positions and conservatives don’t just want to stand pat, they want to regress. You have to bring them along, you have to appeal to broader visions and then prove your policies out and take the next step. Hopefully - at this point facts mean so little who knows. But years ago now, ACA is what got through a Democratic House, Senate and White House, lol. And it BARELY made it, go read up on that. If anyone near the center-right/center heard how much he wanted to increase taxes, to “try and make us like Canada” or take care of “all those freeloaders who won’t even pay in” to MANDATE PEOPLE AT BIRTH to be a part of this thing (whatever they’ll say) he would have been done. Literally cooked and served. On taxes Americans couldn’t even allow the temporary Bush tax cuts to expire and Obama and the Democrats had to finagle portions of that into permanence. And that’s on one issue. Obama couldn’t have sold that to the people and he’s undoubtedly the best communicator of this political generation. Hillary had a plan for tweaking and improving Obamacare, a public option and expanding Medicaid, and I thought that was a great idea. Fix what we have now, improve it, try to compromise and get results there that can help people.

Anyway…big issues, idk…with Bernie, he pulled Clinton over on the TPP, but I was with President Obama in supporting the measure. The globalization of the economy helps the American people and the world, and I think as a country we have a responsibility to both. It would have helped wage growth and the GDP more in the other partner nations like Vietnam than here, but I don’t think that’s awful when it does still help us grow our GDP and create some jobs at the same time. Plus forging partnerships with countries in the Pacific Rim helps to stem the influence of China, that’s important. We have to transform (Obama talked about this in at least two SOTU addresses) the American worker, the education system, prepare people for new jobs and a changing economy. Technical jobs, high skills, computer science, whatever. That makes this a duel-pronged issue but still, I like that.

Now of course, a bunch of people here in Appalachia and other depressed rural areas think Trump is going to bring back all their factory and coal mining jobs with great wages and benefits. And those countries in the Pacific Rim will now have incentive to grow closer economically and otherwise with China. Which in his Inaugural Speech, Trump essentially said was fine. Great.

Ehhh… I’m not a fan of the inconsistency President Obama showed in foreign policy, specifically in Libya and then Syria, but overall I’m there with him too. Pretty traditional on it. I believe the United States is vital to maintaining the known order of the world and having a military capable of backing that goal is key. Not that we can do it recklessly; Syria, for example, I agree with Obama that we should not have interfered with regular ground forces because the only way we could have made a difference was to occupy the country as we had Iraq, and that really went well, national building, AWESOME IDEA. But I don’t like that he kind of committed us with that “red line” statement and when Assad crossed it we didn’t stop him. No-win at that point, despite the fact that we lead the effort to remove all chemical weapons from the battlefield (smaller, if still very significant win). Anyway point is - strong American foreign policy, leadership, support diplomatically and militarily, to allies and alliances like NATO, it’s vital. I’m not sure we did enough to project strength against Russia when they took Crimea either, and started (and continue to fight) a barely secret war in eastern Ukraine. We have begun doing much more to project strength and protect NATO countries but now with Trump!! Everyone in Europe is shitting their pants except those in the old Eastern Bloc who want to return to it.

Anyway…those feel like some points of division, but I’m as liberal as anyone on social issues. Human rights, women’s rights abortion, racial equality and criminal justice reform, police reforms, environmental issues. Labor rights, on gun rights I was pretty much right in line with what was on Hillary’s platform, I also liked Hillary’s plan for paying for college more than Bernie’s. Campaign finance reform, I think every one wants to get so much money out of the process.

It might seem like I’m suction cupped to Obama’s ass on a lot of issues but I just really believe in the ~Obama Doctrine~ both at home and abroad. That’s my guy.

#this got so long i feel like i need to tag it as #personal*#lmao thanks sorry for vomiting #Anonymous

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plounce · 8 years ago

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god im reading the articles about the trump-russia dossier and i read some of the actual document that buzzfeed made public and i can barely breathe, if this is real, my god, they’ve really infiltrated us

and i should have made this connection months ago idk why i didn’t but trump’s calls for nato members to pay us or we’ll withdraw aren’t just nationalistic rhetoric, putin wants us to recall our support, because he’s planning to invade certain parts eastern europe and probably syria like he did crimea, and doesn’t want any interference... i’m not a fan of us military operations but im even less a fan of russia literally invading and taking a chunk of a sovereign nation and helping assad kill his own citizens

in one of the articles, maybe the document, i can’t remember but i think so, it said putin wants a return to 19/20th century “great powers” international relations, as in it’s just a bunch of strong individual countries rather than international groups like nato and maybe even the un? holy fuck. my god

maybe im overblowing it but. this is... goddamn. these goals probably won’t happen, hopefully, but either way... there’s not much i can do. hopefully the senate (that red, red senate - red as in republican, red as in russian) forces through SOME kind of investigation, some amount of accountability to the american people and doesn’t rig it so they can stay in power without any problems... i can’t believe this. how did this happen

#im full of dread. this is very scary and im only just comprehending it #chirps

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bountyofbeads · 5 years ago

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Kurdish forces backed by US strike deal with Syria's Assad, in major shift in 8-year war

https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/14/middleeast/syria-turkey-kurds-civilians-isis-intl-hnk/index.html

Kurdish forces backed by US strike deal with Syria's Assad, in major shift in 8-year war

By Helen Regan and Eliza Mackintosh |

Published Oct 14, 2019 | CNN | Posted October 14, 2019

(CNN) - Abandoned by the United States and facing a deepening Turkish military offensive, Kurdish forces near the northern Syrian border have struck a deal with the Syrian government, marking a major shift in the country's eight-year war.

On Monday, Syrian troops were reportedly advancing north towards the border to confront Turkish forces, returning for the first time in years to a region where the Kurds had established relative autonomy, and further solidifying Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's grip on the country.

The agreement between Damascus and the Kurds comes as US President Donald Trump ordered the withdrawal of all remaining American forces out of northern Syria. The move signals a departure from long-standing US counter-terrorism strategy in Syria, which hinged on a close partnership with Kurdish-led forces to combat ISIS.

In discontinuing that approach, the Trump administration has effectively ceded influence in northern Syria to Assad and his allies and raised the specter of a resurgent ISIS. Over recent days, Kurdish authorities have reported the escape of hundreds of ISIS family members from a camp in northern Syria, and warned that ISIS militants held in prisons could be next to go if fighting with Turkish forces continues to escalate.

The situation began to deteriorate last week when the Trump administration ordered US troops to step aside from the border in northern Syria, effectively paving the way for Turkey to launch its offensive against the Kurds, who they regard as enemies.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) who operate in the area are led by the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), which Turkey considers a terrorist organization affiliated with the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says the incursion into Syria is aimed at clearing a "safe zone" along the border to resettle some two million Syrian refugees currently hosted in Turkey.

But there are growing concerns over the safety of hundreds of thousands of civilians in Turkey's path, as Kurdish-controlled towns come under heavy fire, key border towns are seized and main roads are cut off.

Amid the chaos over the weekend, a grisly video began circulating on social media that appeared to show the execution-style killing of a prominent Kurdish politician, as well as her driver, members of Kurdish security forces and several civilians by Turkish-backed militants.

The Free Syrian Army or FSA (also called the Syrian National Army), have denied those claims. CNN could not independently verify the video.

Assad's soldiers helping Kurdish forces

Units from the Syrian army reportedly arrived in northern towns Monday, after reaching an agreement with the Kurds to deploy troops along the entirety of Syria-Turkey border.

Syrian state media shared footage that it described as showing local residents welcoming the regime forces.

The new agreement between the Kurds and Damascus represents a new alliance in an area already saturated with infighting.

An autonomous administration set up by the Kurds, which covers a wide swathe of north and east Syria, said Sunday that it was the Syrian government's duty to protect its borders and sovereignty.

"This agreement offers an opportunity to liberate the rest of the Syrian territories and cities occupied by the Turkish army as Afrin and other Syrian cities and towns," the statement said.

The group added on Monday that is was in the process of agreeing a "memorandum of understanding" on the protection of the border with the Russian side.

The deal means that Kurdish forces, who were considered vital US allies in the fight against ISIS, would be fighting alongside allies of President Bashar al-Assad's regime.

The Syrian government has not commented on such an agreement.

And, despite reports of the new partnership, Ankara said Monday it would move forward with its plans for the northeastern Syrian town of Manbij.

"The plan is not for Turkey to go into Manbij, the plan is for the rightful owners of the area -- the Arabs, the tribes from that area who we are in touch with, to go in," Erdogan told reporters at Istanbul Airport.

"Our approach is for them to go in and for us to provide security for them."

ISIS families escape from camp

But Turkey's incursion has been condemned for undermining the stability and security of the whole region, raising fears that the chaos it has created could give rise to an ISIS 2.0.

Turkey and the Kurds have said they would work to ensure the safety of ISIS prisons during the offensive, but as the state of play on the ground continues to shift, so too do conflicting reports over how that threat is being handled.

On Monday, Turkey claimed that a jail holding ISIS fighters was emptied by the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), which controls the area now under attack. The allegation came a day after Kurdish authorities said that 785 people affiliated with foreign ISIS fighters escaped from Ain Issa, an encampment for displaced people, as a result of the fighting. Erdogan suggested the reports were "disinformation," designed to "provoke the US and Europe."

CNN was unable to verify either of the claims.

Trump, who has warned he would "obliterate" Turkey's economy if it does not contain the ISIS threat, alleged that the SDF was intentionally releasing ISIS fighters.

"Kurds may be releasing some to get us involved. Easily recaptured by Turkey or European Nations from where many came, but they should move quickly. Big sanctions on Turkey coming! Do people really think we should go to war with NATO Member Turkey? Never ending wars will end!" Trump tweeted on Monday.

But, US officials have told CNN there are no indications the SDF have intentionally released any of the 10,000-plus ISIS prisoners in their custody as part of a bid to draw international support.

An American official, expressing anger over the recent developments, told CNN that in his opinion US policy had "failed," and that the nation and its allies "are now facing new threats at home and abroad."

"ISIS has a second life and our geo-political allies are the ones who have the advantage," said the official, speaking candidly in a personal capacity about the withdrawal of US troops from Syria. "Russia and (the Syrian) regime will take back all of the territory and Iran has freedom of movement across the region."

Syria and Russia have both voiced their readiness to step in and take foreign ISIS fighters into their custody -- a willingness that one European intelligence official speaking to CNN says raises obvious questions.

"There is a high chance fighters or their families could attempt to come back to Europe. They could also try and retake the land of the caliphate, disappear back in to ungoverned territory to regroup or a combination of all of that. Dealing with the last two would be a major challenge without a committed ground force as you can't just use air power," the official said.

'BLOOD ON TRUMP'S HANDS'

More than 150,000 people have been displaced from border areas around Tal Abyad and Ras al-Ain, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

As roads flood with families trying to escape the offensive, criticism has been leveled at Trump for pulling troops out of the area thereby helping to provide a de facto go ahead for the Turkish attack.

Retired US four-star Marine Gen. John Allen on Sunday said, "There is blood on Trump's hands for abandoning our Kurdish allies."

The former commander of American forces in Afghanistan and former special presidential envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIS under the Obama administration, told CNN the unfolding crisis in Syria was "completely foreseeable" and "the US green lighted it."

"There was no chance Erdogan would keep his promise, and full blown ethnic cleansing is underway by Turkish supported militias," he said. "This is what happens when Trump follows his instincts and because of his alignment with autocrats."

The Trump administration has insisted Turkey would have proceeded with their offensive regardless of whether US troops had remained and that the US has not deserted the Syrian Kurds.

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didsbumeare-blog · 6 years ago

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Youtube dating site cat lady

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artworkandstuff · 6 years ago

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Politics in rap (Protest songs)

Politics within rap isn’t new, however the most recent wave of mainstream rap has a heavy sense of political undertones. The term “Youthquake” was the number 1 word of 2017 as seen by the oxford dictionary. The term simply means that amongst young people they have opened their ears and eyes to listen and gain a sense understanding of the British political climate. Myself included I am one of many who realised that in order for myself to be respected by adults, I first need to gain the knowledge and full understanding of politics. Politics is everywhere. If you work, pay tax, drive a car, or simply watch tv, you are involved in politics. It’s important to know current affairs as everything affects everything else and can help you with understanding the world. Not only this, but a few close friends and myself included, we didn’t want to stay ignorant, we didn’t want to stay uneducated and lost, we wanted to gain knowledge as knowledge is power. If you are powerful and can hold a mature conversation about the current political climate, not only are you one up on others who are too ignorant to care, you are able to feel empowered by your knowledge and wider understanding of the world.

I would argue that rap is very much now the new “punk”. Punk was inspired by the anarchism and anti government movement of the 80’s. Pieces such as “stand down Margaret” by The English Beat and “1 in 10” by UB40 show this. However every other band since them, calling themselves punk or anti government/anti right wing have only really taken inspirations from other bands, not actual problems the original bands sung about. What I’m trying to explain is that there is a new type of artist, almost at the right time. Artists always appear at the right time as its people speaking out about problems. There are multiple artists who share this same attribute and its simply them being human and speaking out. Childish Gambino with “This is america” is a clear example. Many world renowned artists have money, have themselves sorted. But I feel that it says a lot when these artists are willing to risk their audience appeal and ignore typical trends and instead make the effort to help others lower than them. One very well known artist and well respected is no other then Grime Rapper, Stormzy. During the Brits award night, Stormzy had the chance to put his stamp on the stage and show the country where his heart lies. After winning two awards that evening Stormzy was clearly feeling good about himself and out of nowhere when it came to his performance, just before he performed “blinded by your grace”, water started to pour on him like rain as he ripped his top off and freestyled saying; “Yo Theresa May, where’s the money for Grenfell?”. He continued with; “What, you thought we just forgot about Grenfell? You criminals, and you’ve got the cheek to call us savages, you should do some jail time, you should pay some damages, you should burn your house down and see if you can manage this.” .This simple freestyle bought the country to a standstill and if anything it gained him popularity buy having the confidence to speak out about what he cares about. Although his work doesn’t directly point a finger at particular subjects like other artists such as DAVE, however it’s clear that he cares about politics and is using his voice for something powerful and good on him. Grenfell was and still is such an overlooked tragedy that he bought it back to the forefront to show the government that people are still suffering. That’s activism right there.

Talking about activism, not only here is it that stars are taking their privilege and using it, but over in America EMINEM certainly is. He risked losing fans when he done a freestyle rap out of disgust and frustration of donald trump. The reason I make a point about him losing fans is because, and I quote “ …and any fan of mine, who’s a supporter of his, I’m drawing in the sand a line, you’re either for or against. And if you can’t decide who you like more in your split, on who you should stand beside, I’ll do it for you with this… *middle finger to the camera* …Fuck you! “. Amazingly if anything his support grew and as someone who never really listened to 90’s rap or early 2000’s I never paid attention to his work but since that I’ve definitely taken a liking to his work. Clearly EMINEM was frustrated with Trump as throughout the freestyle he just kept going. As a performer I can sense how other performers feel and can easily read faces, and my word was he infuriated. The freestyle rap went on for 4:34 which even for a song is rather long. During the beginning he starts and gets so caught up in his pain he pauses and then starts again. Subjects such as the hell of a storm that hit Puerto Rico and the lack of support from Trump as well as the gun crisis. You could tell that he wanted to speak out and wanted to make his voice heard and Trump being the discriminative, right wing, selfish, misogynistic man he is, EMINEM needing to say something and it’s clear that Trump is what inspired him.

Now although Stormzy and EMINEM don’t create tracks and produce eps exposing and questioning politics, a favourite artist of mine does. At the age of 19 DAVE is one of Britain’s breakthrough artists of 2017. Not only that, but for his age he speaks with wisdom and is very wise when rapping about a subject which he addresses from an unbiased view. Majority of his work reflects his youth and his family and friends however a few of his pieces show his interest in politics. One of his most powerful pieces of work is “Question Time” which depicts the general election and Theresa May’s leadership as the PM. For someone who loves both politics and music this is bar one of my favourite songs to date just down to its facts and pure emotion as you can see doing the music video how emotionally attacked DAVE is to getting his message across. His message is that politics is something we all need to understand to avoid staying ignorant and if you don’t want to understand it, you can’t ever complain about a political situation. I for one feel that that is an appropriate way to interpret that particular pieces message. Even from the first line of the song it says “I got a question for the new prime minister, how do you have a heart so sinister, how are we so wasteful when people are dying in Somalia, Afghanistan, Egypt, Libya. “. The beginning of this piece really allows me to not only connect with DAVE on an artistic level in the sense of poetry, but also in means of his actual question. Because as much as “Question Time” is a rap, it’s also one big question, hence the name. The country wants answers and DAVE is happy to ask them. He continues on to say “The irony is we have no business in syria, but kids are getting killed for all the business in syria”. Now although this was released back in October of 2017, it couldn’t be more relevant. With the recent airstakes of 2018 in Syria by the US, UK and France in retaliation to Bashar Al-Assad using illegal chemical weapons on his own people down to the civil war at play, DAVE’s song really does make you ask why. Why are we getting involved in other countries business. It’s ironic really as we condemn Bashar Al-Assad for basically bombing his own people, creating refugees which our government refuses to take in. So we bomb his country to tell him not to bomb his own, creating more refugees, which our government won’t take in, yet the reason we bombed his country is to warn him to look after his own people but we’re adding to the cycle. The logic is ridiculous and although our airstrikes were used to blow up “military bases” and “science research labs”, majority of airstrikes aren’t even that accurate anyway. Another one of DAVE’s lines from “Question Time” is; “What’s the difference between us and them, when you’ve got drones killing kids just touching ten”. The bars are so simple and there aren’t any metaphors used, its just straight up words that makes sense and want you wanting answers. DAVE continues on to talk about Brexit in frustration and says “What about the people that voted for us to leave for the money that it would see. £350 Million pound that we give to the EU every week that our health service needs.”. Brexit is a really interesting subject and one that divides a room much like marmite divides people’s taste buds. Brexit, regardless of its good or bad has brought about racial tension and a rise in hate crime. As a modern, progressive country this is embarrassing and the whole political climate is a complete joke. Now although I didn’t live through the 80’s it feels as if we are back there. Not only are we on the brink of a dirty nuclear war, but because of Brexit and Donald Trump race relationships aren’t the best. Though to top it all off we have an incompetent, selfish right wing conservative party in government.

Bibliography:

Newspaper article, ‘Youthquake’ named 2017 word of the year by Oxford Dictionaries, The Guardian, 2017

Sian Cain, Site editor, Written on 15/12/17

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/dec/15/youthquake-named-2017-word-of-the-year-by-oxford-dictionaries

Webpage, Definition of Youthquake in English, Oxford Dictionaries, 1965

Oxford Dictionaries, English Dictionary, 2017

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/youthquake

Online video, The English Beat - Stand Down Margaret (O.T.T. - Broadcast March 27, 1982), Youtube, 1982

Youtube, Online video website, Uploaded on 23/07/12

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-K6YWX4OL0o

Online video, UB40 - One in Ten, 1981

Youtube, Online video website, Uploaded on 06/05/13

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usYgf8cVfvU

Online video, Childish Gambino - This Is America (Official Video), 2018

Youtube, Online video website, Uploaded on 05/05/18

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYOjWnS4cMY

Online video, STORMZY - BLINDED BY YOUR GRACE PT.2 & BIG FOR YOUR BOOTS [LIVE AT THE BRITs ‘18], 2018

Youtube, Online video website, Uploaded on 22/02/18

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReY4yVkoDc4

Newspaper article, Stormzy asks Theresa May: “Where’s the money for Grenfell?” in Brit Awards performance, Mirror, 2018

Lucy Clarke-Billings, Assistant news editor, Written on 21/02/18

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/stormzy-asks-theresa-may-wheres-12067811

Newspaper article, Eminem attacks Donald Trump in scathing freestyle rap 'The Storm’ - and gives his fans an ultimatum, Mirror, 2017

Zoe Forsey, Audience writer, Written on 11/10/17

https://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/eminem-attacks-donald-trump-scathing-11323842

Online video, Dave - Question Time, 2017

Youtube, Online video website, Uploaded on 09/10/17

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ff6CjYBhoI

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