See you next year.
Pundita
Thursday, December 21
Merry Christmas to all
See you next year.
Pundita
Sunday, December 17
In China, a draconian police state emerges from hi- and low-tech strategies
From an Associated Press report, AP Exclusive: Digital police state shackles Chinese minority by Gerry Shih; December 17. As you can see from the quotes, surveillance of a minority within the country's borders can be extended to China's entire population:
One question not addressed in the report would be whether China's government is selling high-tech surveillance equipment and teaching surveillance techniques to other authoritarian governments.
Another question is whether any supposed liberal democratic governments are also abusing technology to institute a police state that would have been the envy of the East German secret police.
********
[...]
The facial scanner is made by China Electronics Technology Group (CETC), a state-owned defense contractor that has spearheaded China’s fast-growing field of predictive policing with Xinjiang as its test bed. The [Associated Press] AP found 27 CETC bids for Xinjiang government contracts, including one soliciting a facial recognition system for facilities and centers in Hotan Prefecture.
Hours after visiting the Hotan bazaar, AP reporters were stopped outside a hotel by a police officer who said the public security bureau had been remotely tracking the reporters’ movements.
“There are tens of thousands of cameras here,” said the officer, who gave his name as Tushan. “The moment you took your first step in this city, we knew.”
The government’s tracking efforts have extended to vehicles, genes, and even voices.
In February, authorities in Xinjiang’s Bayingol prefecture, which includes Korla, required every car to install GPS trackers for real-time monitoring. And since late last year, Xinjiang authorities have required health checks to collect the population’s DNA samples. In May, a regional police official told the AP that Xinjiang had purchased $8.7 million in DNA scanners — enough to analyze several million samples a year.
In one year, Kashgar Prefecture, which has a population of 4 million, has carried out mandatory checks for practically its entire population, said Yang Yanfeng, deputy director of Kashgar’s propaganda department. She characterized the checkups as a public health success story, not a security measure.
“We take comprehensive blood tests for the good of the people, not just record somebody’s height and weight,” Yang said. “We find out health issues in citizens even they didn’t know about.”
A biometric data collection program appears to have been formalized last year under “Document No. 44,” a regional public security directive to “comprehensively collect three-dimensional portraits, voiceprints, DNA and fingerprints.”
The document’s full text remains secret, but the AP found at least three contracts referring to the 2016 directive in recent purchase orders for equipment such as microphones and voice analyzers.
Meiya Pico, a security and surveillance company, has won 11 bids in the last six months alone from local Xinjiang jurisdictions. It won a joint bid with a DNA analysis company for 4 million yuan ($600,000) in Kargilik and has sold software that automatically scans smartphones for “terror-related pictures and videos” to Yarkent.
Meiya and CETC declined comment.
PRYING EYES
To monitor Xinjiang’s population, China has also turned to a familiar low-tech tactic: recruiting the masses.
When a Uighur businessman from Kashgar completed a six-month journey to flee China and landed in the United States with his family in January, he was initially ecstatic. He tried calling home, something he hadn’t done in months to spare his family unwanted police questioning.
His mother told him his four brothers and his father were in prison because he fled China. She was spared only because she was frail.
Since 2016, local authorities had assigned ten families including theirs to spy on one another in a new system of collective monitoring, and those families had also been punished because he escaped. Members from each were sent to re-education centers for three months, he told the AP.
[...]Lots more of importance in the AP exclusive report, and kudos to AP for getting the story.
One question not addressed in the report would be whether China's government is selling high-tech surveillance equipment and teaching surveillance techniques to other authoritarian governments.
Another question is whether any supposed liberal democratic governments are also abusing technology to institute a police state that would have been the envy of the East German secret police.
********
Wednesday, December 13
At least Trump now knows how Bashar al-Assad feels
On Friday America's CNN further cemented its reputation as a purveyor of fake news by reporting that sources revealed to them that President Donald Trump had advance knowledge of a Wikileaks leak, thereby finally proving once and for all that he was in collusion with the Russian government (on the unproven claim that Wikipedia is connected with the Russians).
The problem for CNN is that they and/or their sources got the date wrong; by the time Trump was allegedly informed of the Wikileaks leak it had already been in the public domain for about 24 hours.
As to where the CNN fact-checkers were -- the unanswered question has led cynics to speculate that CNN, in their zeal to nail Trump for collusion with the Kremlin, simply lied to the public or refrained from even basic checking on what the sources told them.
To cut a time-wasting story, CNN's report was just the latest in a long list of fake news promoted by American media and their buddies in Washington, who live to see Russia balkanized and Trump kicked out of the Oval Office for suggesting he wanted to cooperate with Vladimir Putin on certain national security issues.
As The Intercept's Glenn Greenwald noted on December 9: "So numerous are the false [media] stories about Russia and Trump over the last year that I literally cannot list them all." (Although Glenn does make a stab at listing some of the wilder fabrications.)
The seemingly endless list of fake news reports about Trump colluding with Russia's government is what constitutes 'Russiagate.' Yet there's so much false and wildly misleading reportage on the issues that there's actually no Russia in Russiagate, as Russia expert Stephen F. Cohen put it last night on the John Batchelor Show. (Podcasts, part 1 and part 2; see below for my notes on the discussion.)
Yet it was left to Rush Limbaugh, of all people, to pound home the amazing fact that despite all the Russiagate news reports and published opinion, there is still not a shred of evidence linking the Russian government to hacking operations in the U.S. presidential election campaign of 2016 -- and therefore no evidence that Trump colluded with the Russians about such. (From the podcast of the December 11 Rush Limbaugh Show, posted at YouTube, starting at the 7:51 minute mark.)
By the time Rush moved to another topic, even obtuse listeners could have surmised that Trump has been the target of a disinformation campaign so massive it's hard to comprehend how his enemies got away with telling so many whoppers -- hard, unless one has watched the machinations of the Get Russia crowd for years.
But instead of sympathizing with him I couldn't help but think, 'So how does it feel, Mr Trump?'
At the least he should consider Russiagate before he again orders missiles lobbed at a Syrian military airbase to punish the Syrian government for a chemical attack they had nothing to do with, or while he's uncritically accepting horror stories about Syria's President Bashar al-Assad that have no basis in fact.
___
My notes on Steve Cohen's discussion with John:
My notes on Steve Cohen's discussion with John:
- I worked for CBS for 18 years so I knew how they fact-checked reports; they were fastidious. They didn't want to get facts wrong. The carefulness is gone now in the US news media. Replaced by 'confirmation bias.' [i.e., one interprets information to fit one's preconceived beliefs.] This has rendered the mainstream media an unreliable source for news but has spread across the entire US media. Now a national crisis of the media generally, not just the MSM.
- Now seeing the criminalization of contacts (including diplomatic) with Russia [ostensibly because of US national security policy].
- I've realized the large role that the MSM (NYT, Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC) played in creating Russiagate. Stories that Trump was a Manchurian Candidate or Putin puppet were developed in first half of 2016.
- In December (2016) Obama put sanctions on Russia for Russiagate, not Syria or Ukraine.
- US State Department has been the laughing stock of the world for years.
- Joe Lauria's report for Consortium News on censorship spreading in U.S. news media. ["How Russia-gate Rationalizes Censorship."]
********
Saturday, December 9
More Pakistanis learning they have a history before Muslim conquests
"Progressive [Pakistani] historians — admittedly in the minority still — are trying to educate Pakistani students about their country’s ancient history and religions, after years of being told that Pakistan’s history begins only with the invasion of Sindh by the Arab conqueror Muhammed bin Qasim in A.D. 711."
The quote is from a New York Times report on the popularity of Yoga in Pakistan (see below). Some readers might wonder how any Pakistanis could believe their history only started in 711.
Easily, if a majority of the population is illiterate/functionally illiterate; lives in isolated areas in a country where the media, including internet, is heavily censored; and is conditioned to accept the version of history impressed on them by their government-sponsored religious preceptors.
But it's getting harder in this era for governments to get the public to believe big lies -- something that's true worldwide, not only in 'developing' countries such as Pakistan.
Does this mean Pakistan could be heading for its most dangerous era, as the 'old guard' tries to quash 'progressives?' Pakistan has already reached that point, and because of this things will get worse in the country before they get better.
By BINA SHAH
DEC. 8, 2017
The New York Times
Today, yoga is immensely popular in all cities of Pakistan
A yoga session in the historic Shalimar Gardens in Lahore, Pakistan
Slowly at first, one teacher after another emerged to offer classes. Still, they had to be careful: The 1980s was a time of rigorous Islamization in Pakistan and cold hostility to India, and anything remotely associated with India or Hinduism was discouraged if not outlawed.
This particularly affected the arts, namely classical Indian dance; government officials banned public performances as both “vulgar” and “Indian”; Pakistani students of the art could not obtain visas to study under gurus in India, and local teachers had to immigrate to other countries because classical dance became so unpopular they could not attract students.
This particularly affected the arts, namely classical Indian dance; government officials banned public performances as both “vulgar” and “Indian”; Pakistani students of the art could not obtain visas to study under gurus in India, and local teachers had to immigrate to other countries because classical dance became so unpopular they could not attract students.
(Only Kathak, with its Mughal origins in northwestern India before partition, was looked upon with a less jaundiced eye than the unabashedly Hindu-flavored Odissi or Bharatanatyam schools of dance.)
The way around this was to introduce yoga as a practice less spiritual than physical, but yoga classes in Karachi remained small, private and for a select few. Then, in the 1990s, when state-run television gave way to a profusion of private television channels, yoga found another outlet: breakfast and morning shows in which a physical activity segment aimed at housewives often included a 20-minute or half-hour yoga session.
The way around this was to introduce yoga as a practice less spiritual than physical, but yoga classes in Karachi remained small, private and for a select few. Then, in the 1990s, when state-run television gave way to a profusion of private television channels, yoga found another outlet: breakfast and morning shows in which a physical activity segment aimed at housewives often included a 20-minute or half-hour yoga session.
Sandwiched in between advice on the best foods for a baby and how to cook enticing meals for the household, a nonthreatening form of yoga — no extreme physical poses, just one that could be performed in modest clothing — was available to women in Pakistan with access to cable channels.
Viewers were encouraged to stretch and breathe to cultivate healthy bodies and minds, a goal not incompatible with the moderately conservative form of Islam practiced by 90 percent of Pakistanis.
Viewers were encouraged to stretch and breathe to cultivate healthy bodies and minds, a goal not incompatible with the moderately conservative form of Islam practiced by 90 percent of Pakistanis.
Yoga even began to come out into the open, with sessions held in public parks, where some teachers made mild comparisons between yogic meditation and Islamic reflection, or the poses in the simple sun salutation and the positions taken in salat, a ritual Islamic prayer. This opened up yoga to middle-class, conservative Pakistanis who might have remained hostile to the practice had it been presented as a purely Hindu or Indian ascetic discipline.
Today, yoga is immensely popular in all cities of Pakistan; a yoga teacher named Shamshad Haider claims to run 50 yoga clubs in Punjab, and International Yoga Day has been celebrated in Pakistan for three years in a row. Yoga is practiced all the way from Chitral in the north to Karachi in the south.
Today, yoga is immensely popular in all cities of Pakistan; a yoga teacher named Shamshad Haider claims to run 50 yoga clubs in Punjab, and International Yoga Day has been celebrated in Pakistan for three years in a row. Yoga is practiced all the way from Chitral in the north to Karachi in the south.
There’s a whole crop of younger teachers now equipped with training from India, Thailand and Bali, as well as from yoga schools in North America and Britain. Teachers at swank studios in Karachi attract students through Facebook pages and affiliations with the International Yoga Alliance.
Their classes incorporate styles from hatha, vinyasa flow, ashtanga, even power yoga and Bikram yoga. They use the Sanskrit names for the poses interchangeably with the English ones, and both women-only and mixed classes are popular.
Their classes incorporate styles from hatha, vinyasa flow, ashtanga, even power yoga and Bikram yoga. They use the Sanskrit names for the poses interchangeably with the English ones, and both women-only and mixed classes are popular.
Meanwhile, yoga still appears on television, in schools and in park sessions, with women meditating while wearing shalwar kameezes, or full abayas and hijabs, and men with long beards and shalwar kameezes performing sun salutations next to men in track pants and T-shirts.
Yoga purists would probably bristle at the attempt to dissociate yoga from Hinduism or India, but it’s not that different from what’s happening to yoga in the West, with its hot yoga studios and aerial yoga and Yoga Asana championships. It also reminds me of what has been happening to Sufism, the mystical branch of Islam. In the West, Sufism has been disconnected from its Muslim roots and presented as a universal movement of peace and tolerance, the 13th-century Persian mystic Rumi portrayed as a lovelorn poet singing of love rather than a conservative Islamic cleric bent on forging a fierce connection with his creator. A necessary sacrifice, perhaps, to spread the universal message of peace, tolerance and love.
Pakistan, which was amputated from India in 1947, then lured by the promise of power and richness coming from the Middle East, has never been able to decide whether its identity is Arab or South Asian.
Yoga purists would probably bristle at the attempt to dissociate yoga from Hinduism or India, but it’s not that different from what’s happening to yoga in the West, with its hot yoga studios and aerial yoga and Yoga Asana championships. It also reminds me of what has been happening to Sufism, the mystical branch of Islam. In the West, Sufism has been disconnected from its Muslim roots and presented as a universal movement of peace and tolerance, the 13th-century Persian mystic Rumi portrayed as a lovelorn poet singing of love rather than a conservative Islamic cleric bent on forging a fierce connection with his creator. A necessary sacrifice, perhaps, to spread the universal message of peace, tolerance and love.
Pakistan, which was amputated from India in 1947, then lured by the promise of power and richness coming from the Middle East, has never been able to decide whether its identity is Arab or South Asian.
After decades of trying to identify with a purely Islamic heritage and history, some Pakistanis are finally recognizing that their heritage is unique, informed by strains of tradition and heritage from many geographical areas: Central Asia and Persia, as well as India and the Middle East.
Our current challenge is to reconnect with the many sources of our roots and heritage, while forging a new identity that will serve us well into the future. Pakistan recently unveiled a 1,700-year-old sleeping Buddha statue from an ancient Buddhist site in Bhamala, one of many that dot Pakistan’s north and northwest — a strong testament to its pre-Islamic heritage. Progressive historians — admittedly in the minority still — are trying to educate Pakistani students about their country’s ancient history and religions, after years of being told that Pakistan’s history begins only with the invasion of Sindh by the Arab conqueror Muhammed bin Qasim in A.D. 711.
As I practice yoga in the crisp air of a mild Karachi winter, gazing out to the Arabian Sea, I can’t help wondering whether some of this reconnection might come from yoga. We move in unison as our teacher calls out the Sanskrit names of the poses called asanas. Then the call to prayer begins to ring out from a nearby mosque and we fall silent, listening to the sound of our own breaths and the time-old Arabic words of the azaan. As soon as the practice is over, I’ll roll up my yoga mat and go find my prayer mat. I’ve never felt so integrated, so connected to my Islamic heritage and my South Asian roots.
____
Bina Shah is the author of several books of fiction, including, most recently, “A Season for Martyrs.”
Our current challenge is to reconnect with the many sources of our roots and heritage, while forging a new identity that will serve us well into the future. Pakistan recently unveiled a 1,700-year-old sleeping Buddha statue from an ancient Buddhist site in Bhamala, one of many that dot Pakistan’s north and northwest — a strong testament to its pre-Islamic heritage. Progressive historians — admittedly in the minority still — are trying to educate Pakistani students about their country’s ancient history and religions, after years of being told that Pakistan’s history begins only with the invasion of Sindh by the Arab conqueror Muhammed bin Qasim in A.D. 711.
As I practice yoga in the crisp air of a mild Karachi winter, gazing out to the Arabian Sea, I can’t help wondering whether some of this reconnection might come from yoga. We move in unison as our teacher calls out the Sanskrit names of the poses called asanas. Then the call to prayer begins to ring out from a nearby mosque and we fall silent, listening to the sound of our own breaths and the time-old Arabic words of the azaan. As soon as the practice is over, I’ll roll up my yoga mat and go find my prayer mat. I’ve never felt so integrated, so connected to my Islamic heritage and my South Asian roots.
____
Bina Shah is the author of several books of fiction, including, most recently, “A Season for Martyrs.”
[END REPORT]
Thursday, December 7
What an enchanting way to live one's life
One day an American named Paul Salopek left his work as a war correspondent and began walking. What came from that was an amazing journey on foot. Dubbed the "Out of Eden Walk," it's a seven-year walk along one of the routes taken by early humans to migrate out of Africa, a transcontinental foot journey that will cover more than 20,000 miles.
Along the way, Salopek reports on what he sees for a variety of publications and shares video of places and peoples few even know about. His walk is funded by National Geographic Magazine, the Knight Foundation and the Abundance Foundation.
The foot trek hardly circumscribes his life, full of adventures bound to fascinate the young and young at heart. There's just no way to describe Paul Salopek's life in a few words -- for example he's worked as a commercial fisherman; in 1998 he won a Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting on the human genome project; in 2001 he won another Pulitzer for reporting on Africa; in 2006 found himself ambushed and imprisoned in Darfur -- but a start is Wikipedia's article about him.
And there's a recent six minute interview for PBS NewsHour about the present part of his journey, which has taken him through regions in Afghanistan where the people are completely untouched by terrorism and war, and into Pakistan.
There is a transcript for the interview at the PBS site, but the video discussion is against the backdrop of stunningly beautiful terrains and people he's met in those remote parts, and features a map of his route.
I see from comparing a photograph at Google taken when he was younger -- he's now 55 -- and the video interview at PBS that his adventurous walk across the world has turned his hair grey. I'd say the grey hairs were worth it, and I think he would agree.
********
Wednesday, December 6
More a firing squad than terrorism in attack at Al Rawdah mosque in N. Sinai
"Most of the worshippers in the Mosque at the time of the attack were men."(Ahram Online)
"So composed were the militants that they methodically checked their victims for any sign of life after the initial round of blazing gunfire. Those still moving or breathing received a bullet to the head or the chest, the witnesses said. When the ambulances arrived they shot at them, repelling them as [paramedics] got back into their vehicles and fled."(The Associated Press)
The Egyptian government and its military have been tight-lipped about details of the attack at Al Rawdah mosque in Northern Sinai on November 24, so reporters have had to rely greatly on eyewitnesses among the survivors. Inevitably, as in any 'fog of war' situation, this has meant conflicting accounts about certain aspects of the attack; e.g., the number of attackers and number and type of vehicles they arrived in, whether a suicide bomber was used, and the number and type of explosions in/around the mosque. (One survivor thought at first he was hearing explosions then realized it was barrages of machine gun fire).
However, eyewitnesses who were in the position to observe movements of the attackers were in agreement about the attackers' thoroughness:
In short, at least two credible news sources spoke with eyewitnesses whose description of the attackers' thoroughness dovetailed.
Given that the initial 'scattershot' phase of the attack had struck at least 400 in the mosque area and that there were only between 25-40 attackers (with most accounts putting the number between 25-30), the effort to examine and kill everyone among the victims would have taken considerable time -- 25 minutes by Jarirat's reckoning.
This meant the attackers took a big risk that security forces would arrive before they decamped, especially because they knew a military base was not far from the village.
And if a suicide bomber wasn't used in the attack (most accounts make no mention of such), then the attackers definitely didn't want to lose any operatives during the assault -- and they would have known their best bet in this would have been to finish the attack as quickly as possible.
I don't know whether fighter jets and helicopters were at the nearby military base but even with one helicopter there, the attackers would have known their escape route could be quickly tracked from the air. Yet they took the time to ensure those wounded/felled in the gunfire were actually dead. This is extraordinary; indeed it's unprecedented in all accounts of terrorist attacks, worldwide, I can recall. And certainly it's unprecedented for all 'jihadi' style terrorist attacks, of the kind made famous by al Qaeda and its offshoots including Islamic State.
So there you have it: a sophisticated, flawlessly executed attack on a mosque that was guaranteed to be packed to capacity on that particular day (the Friday closest to the start of 2017 birthday celebrations for the Prophet Muhammad), with most of the women out the way at the time of the attack, which launched at the start of the sermon.
One account has it that the mosque can hold 500 people, another that its capacity is 400. So when we consider that 311 attendees were killed, with about 216 wounded, the attackers shot just about everyone present in the mosque and its close environs (a plaza just outside the mosque). And while 27 (male) children were among the dead I will assume they, along with any adult females who were killed, were collateral damage.
The attackers weren't interested in a random selection of victims; they were intent on shooting every adult male in the mosque and, within the time allotted for the attack, making sure wounded adult males were dead. In this, the attackers even went so far as to attempt to ward off an ambulance(s) that arrived at the mosque.
So I'd say that "composed," as the AP writer put it, hardly describes the attackers' mein. Yes they were composed; surely they were chosen because they were very experienced. But if their entire mission was to execute all adult males in the mosque, they took the time to do this methodically because that's what they were ordered to do.
Given all the above, and despite opinions that Sufism was the attackers' target, I think that religious beliefs were the least of the target.
If the attackers had simply wanted to terrorize attendees at that particular Sufi mosque (which was open to all Muslim sects), they needn't have taken so much time and effort to do it, especially because they clearly didn't want a shoot-out with security forces.
In addition Islamic State would have had less incentive to target that particular mosque for Sufi practices because the mosque, which is maintained by the Jarirya Order, one of the largest Sufi orders in North Sinai, had already complied with key IS demands:
From a report filed November 26 by Hamza Hendawi for The Associated Press, and from several other credible news reports, the local chapter of Islamic State had repeatedly warned persons associated with the Al Rawdah mosque to stop collaborating with Egyptian security forces (and of course to stop practicing Sufism).
And Debkafile's first report on the Al-Rawdah massacre, posted within a few hours of the attack, stated that Al Rawdah mosque "... is frequented by Egyptian security officers posted in the region and their families."
I place in the fog of war category the report's mention that the attack included a suicide bombing, but I consider the detail about the Egyptian security forces to be credible background information that Debkafile could have readily obtained. The site is a conduit for views of the hawkish faction in the Israeli government and its military, and so their reporters have good sources in the Israeli Defense Force. My understanding, from reports I've come across over the years, is that the IDF and Egyptian military share intelligence on the activities of jihadi groups in the Sinai Peninsula.(1)
When I place the reports from The Associated Press et al. and Debkafile together, I come up with collaborators as the prime target, with Egyptian military personnel as the bonus -- or the other way around.
And so all things considered, I wouldn't describe the massacre at Al Rawdah mosque as a terrorist incident; it was a mass execution by firing squad.
Now as to exactly which group carried out the execution, and whether it was done at the behest of some other group or faction -- the list of suspects would be long in both cases. The answer as to whether it was a contract killing might depend on just how many Egyptian military personnel were gunned down, a number which I doubt the Egyptian government is willing to share with the public.
But no matter how you look at it, the attackers killed just about every collaborator in the village of Al-Rawda.
1) Given that everyone who observes terrorist activity in the Middle East knows about Debkafile, I find it odd that no one else reporting to the public about the attack has mentioned the significant detail found in the Debkafile report. And I've not come across mention anywhere else that Al Rawdah was frequented by Egyptian security personnel -- although I could understand the Egyptian government not wanting this discussed in press reports.
*******
"So composed were the militants that they methodically checked their victims for any sign of life after the initial round of blazing gunfire. Those still moving or breathing received a bullet to the head or the chest, the witnesses said. When the ambulances arrived they shot at them, repelling them as [paramedics] got back into their vehicles and fled."(The Associated Press)
The Egyptian government and its military have been tight-lipped about details of the attack at Al Rawdah mosque in Northern Sinai on November 24, so reporters have had to rely greatly on eyewitnesses among the survivors. Inevitably, as in any 'fog of war' situation, this has meant conflicting accounts about certain aspects of the attack; e.g., the number of attackers and number and type of vehicles they arrived in, whether a suicide bomber was used, and the number and type of explosions in/around the mosque. (One survivor thought at first he was hearing explosions then realized it was barrages of machine gun fire).
However, eyewitnesses who were in the position to observe movements of the attackers were in agreement about the attackers' thoroughness:
Ahmed Ghanem al-Jarirat, a resident of the village, said that the attack went on for 25 minutes during which the perpetrators pursued people trying to flee while making sure the victims were in fact dead.
“The gunmen followed most of those who fled the mosque in the empty area surrounding it and shot each and every one of those who fell to the ground with a bullet in the head who they doubted was dead. This took 25 minutes,” he said.
“After the terrorists had killed the worshipers, they went to the cars belonging to them in front of the mosque and set them on fire, after pouring gasoline on them. We called the ambulance which arrived within minutes after the gunmen had left the mosque,” he went on to say.
He pointed out that the attackers opened fire on the arriving ambulance while fleeing when the army approached.
“The gunmen were hiding and fired at it directly. We saw blood coming from the paramedics. As soon as the gunmen felt the army approaching, they fled to the south,” Jarirat said.That account was from a November 26 report filed by top-drawer Arabic newspaper Al-Masri Al-Youm (translated into English by 'sister' publication Egypt Independent; staff reporters circumvented government-erected barricades to get into the village where the attack occurred and interviewed people there who'd survived the attack.)
In short, at least two credible news sources spoke with eyewitnesses whose description of the attackers' thoroughness dovetailed.
Given that the initial 'scattershot' phase of the attack had struck at least 400 in the mosque area and that there were only between 25-40 attackers (with most accounts putting the number between 25-30), the effort to examine and kill everyone among the victims would have taken considerable time -- 25 minutes by Jarirat's reckoning.
This meant the attackers took a big risk that security forces would arrive before they decamped, especially because they knew a military base was not far from the village.
And if a suicide bomber wasn't used in the attack (most accounts make no mention of such), then the attackers definitely didn't want to lose any operatives during the assault -- and they would have known their best bet in this would have been to finish the attack as quickly as possible.
I don't know whether fighter jets and helicopters were at the nearby military base but even with one helicopter there, the attackers would have known their escape route could be quickly tracked from the air. Yet they took the time to ensure those wounded/felled in the gunfire were actually dead. This is extraordinary; indeed it's unprecedented in all accounts of terrorist attacks, worldwide, I can recall. And certainly it's unprecedented for all 'jihadi' style terrorist attacks, of the kind made famous by al Qaeda and its offshoots including Islamic State.
So there you have it: a sophisticated, flawlessly executed attack on a mosque that was guaranteed to be packed to capacity on that particular day (the Friday closest to the start of 2017 birthday celebrations for the Prophet Muhammad), with most of the women out the way at the time of the attack, which launched at the start of the sermon.
One account has it that the mosque can hold 500 people, another that its capacity is 400. So when we consider that 311 attendees were killed, with about 216 wounded, the attackers shot just about everyone present in the mosque and its close environs (a plaza just outside the mosque). And while 27 (male) children were among the dead I will assume they, along with any adult females who were killed, were collateral damage.
The attackers weren't interested in a random selection of victims; they were intent on shooting every adult male in the mosque and, within the time allotted for the attack, making sure wounded adult males were dead. In this, the attackers even went so far as to attempt to ward off an ambulance(s) that arrived at the mosque.
So I'd say that "composed," as the AP writer put it, hardly describes the attackers' mein. Yes they were composed; surely they were chosen because they were very experienced. But if their entire mission was to execute all adult males in the mosque, they took the time to do this methodically because that's what they were ordered to do.
Given all the above, and despite opinions that Sufism was the attackers' target, I think that religious beliefs were the least of the target.
If the attackers had simply wanted to terrorize attendees at that particular Sufi mosque (which was open to all Muslim sects), they needn't have taken so much time and effort to do it, especially because they clearly didn't want a shoot-out with security forces.
In addition Islamic State would have had less incentive to target that particular mosque for Sufi practices because the mosque, which is maintained by the Jarirya Order, one of the largest Sufi orders in North Sinai, had already complied with key IS demands:
Jarirya has a zawiyah (a small mosque) next to Rawdah mosque, but neither the mosque nor the zawiyah have any shrines, for Jarirya followers decided to abandon their most significant ritual in order to avoid attacks from the ABM [a local branch of Islamic State]. They demolished all their shrines and rebuilt them without domes.[Egypt Today]So what was the motive for such targeted killings, aside from killing Sufi males?
From a report filed November 26 by Hamza Hendawi for The Associated Press, and from several other credible news reports, the local chapter of Islamic State had repeatedly warned persons associated with the Al Rawdah mosque to stop collaborating with Egyptian security forces (and of course to stop practicing Sufism).
And Debkafile's first report on the Al-Rawdah massacre, posted within a few hours of the attack, stated that Al Rawdah mosque "... is frequented by Egyptian security officers posted in the region and their families."
I place in the fog of war category the report's mention that the attack included a suicide bombing, but I consider the detail about the Egyptian security forces to be credible background information that Debkafile could have readily obtained. The site is a conduit for views of the hawkish faction in the Israeli government and its military, and so their reporters have good sources in the Israeli Defense Force. My understanding, from reports I've come across over the years, is that the IDF and Egyptian military share intelligence on the activities of jihadi groups in the Sinai Peninsula.(1)
When I place the reports from The Associated Press et al. and Debkafile together, I come up with collaborators as the prime target, with Egyptian military personnel as the bonus -- or the other way around.
And so all things considered, I wouldn't describe the massacre at Al Rawdah mosque as a terrorist incident; it was a mass execution by firing squad.
Now as to exactly which group carried out the execution, and whether it was done at the behest of some other group or faction -- the list of suspects would be long in both cases. The answer as to whether it was a contract killing might depend on just how many Egyptian military personnel were gunned down, a number which I doubt the Egyptian government is willing to share with the public.
But no matter how you look at it, the attackers killed just about every collaborator in the village of Al-Rawda.
1) Given that everyone who observes terrorist activity in the Middle East knows about Debkafile, I find it odd that no one else reporting to the public about the attack has mentioned the significant detail found in the Debkafile report. And I've not come across mention anywhere else that Al Rawdah was frequented by Egyptian security personnel -- although I could understand the Egyptian government not wanting this discussed in press reports.
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Saturday, December 2
Islamic State faction's rising power; it's even more extremist than IS 'mainstream'
In Egypt suspicion has fallen on an Islamic State faction for the massacre on November 24 at the Al-Rawdah Sufi mosque in Sinai. I'll have more to post on the massacre, but here I want to focus on just one part of an Associated Press report, filed today by Hamza Hendawi with Maggie Michael, which discusses the faction. This faction is looking to me more like an emerging splinter group. Fuel for this suspicion is that Islamic State uncharacteristically didn't take credit for the massacre, even though there are strong indications it was an IS-type attack at least in its kinetic details -- except for two deviations, which I'll mention in the next post. But both deviations could easily point to an IS faction.
[...]
Even before the attack, Egyptian newspapers reported the emergence of the Hazimiyoun faction in Egypt. One quoted a prosecution official saying detained Egyptian IS suspects told their interrogators that they are followers of the Hazimiyoun and consider some IS leaders as infidels.
The faction is named after a radical cleric, Ahmad bin Omar al-Hazimi, who has been imprisoned in his home country of Saudi Arabia since 2015. It considers as infidels — and therefore as legitimate to kill — all Muslims who do not accept the Islamic State group's interpretation of Islam.
Even further, it says those who don't consider such people as infidels are also infidels deserving of death. Al-Hazimi himself is not known as an IS member but his ideology has gained support within IS ranks.
The Islamic State group is notorious for atrocities in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere, including against fellow Muslims; the group argues that killings of Muslims are justified when they were fighting IS or cooperating with its enemies or belong to branches of Islam it rejects, like Shiism. In Yemen, four IS suicide bombers struck two mosques filled with worshippers, killing over 130 people in one day in March 2015.
But IS largely argued that Muslims in general, even if they haven't sworn allegiance to IS, are not necessarily legitimate targets, on grounds of "ignorance" — namely, that they may not have the religious knowledge to accept IS. The Hazimiyoun faction rejects the "ignorance" excuse.
The feud within IS has been stoked by the group's military defeats in Iraq and Syria. Hazimiyoun clerics have blamed IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and his "lenient" ideology for the setbacks.
But the tensions date back to 2015, when IS in Syria executed a number of pro-Hazimiyoun clerics because of their excesses in declaring others infidels.
The more radical free hand has been criticized by al-Qaida-linked groups and other extremists in Egypt. Another militant group fighting the government in Sinai, called Jund al-Islam, said in a recent audio message that it had ambushed an IS patrol to avenge attacks on other Muslims.
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Sunday, November 26
Rex Tillerson for President
I haven't actually read the reports; for now I just want to relish the headlines, courtesy of Google News, in case the situation at State isn't as dire as the headlines suggest:
Search Results
Tillerson Gutting State Department of Senior Staff: “A Disaster ...
Slate Magazine (blog)-Nov 25, 2017
The State Department is losing many of its senior leaders, either through firings or because they're being unceremoniously pushed out, raising ...
Friday, November 24
Targeted Sinai mosque frequented by Egyptian security officers and their families
Up to 235 dead, scores wounded in terrorist massacre at Sinai mosque
Nov 24, 2017 @ 14:45
Nov 24, 2017 @ 14:45
Debkafile
More than 285 were killed and scores injured when a suicide bomber detonated explosives Friday from inside the congregation of the Al Rawdah mosque at Bir Abed in northern Sinai, 40km west of El Arish.
More than 285 were killed and scores injured when a suicide bomber detonated explosives Friday from inside the congregation of the Al Rawdah mosque at Bir Abed in northern Sinai, 40km west of El Arish.
This mosque is frequented by Egyptian security officers posted in the region and their families. When worshippers, some of them injured, poured out of the mosque, they came under fire from ISIS gunmen riding off-road vehicles, who were waiting outside to shoot people trying to escape.
The terrorists then turned their guns on the 50 or more ambulances evacuating the many injured and disappeared in the desert as Egyptian security vehicles arrived on the scene.
Egyptian president Abdel-Fatteh El-Sisi called an urgent conference of security officials and announced three days of national mourning.
The terrorists then turned their guns on the 50 or more ambulances evacuating the many injured and disappeared in the desert as Egyptian security vehicles arrived on the scene.
Egyptian president Abdel-Fatteh El-Sisi called an urgent conference of security officials and announced three days of national mourning.
In three years of battling relentless terrorist attacks by the Islamic State’s Sinai branch, the Al Rawdah mosque outrage is the most deadly Egypt has ever known.
The site is esteemed as the birthplace of the cleric Sheikh Eid al-Jariri, who is considered the founder of the mystical Islamic branch of Sufism in the Sinai Peninsula. This form of Islam is considered heretical by some conservatives and extremists like the Islamic State group.
The Tel Arish road to Rafah, the crossing point from Sinai into the Gaza Strip, was closed.
The Tel Arish road to Rafah, the crossing point from Sinai into the Gaza Strip, was closed.
[END REPORT]
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Sunday, November 19
At least 15 killed many injured in stampede for flour handouts in drought-stricken Morocco
Overcrowded food distribution site today; photo from Al Arabiya English, posted 1:29 PM at Twitter via Wapo report below
I hate to say this but it might be too late to save that region of the world, which right now is dying because of the convergence of water and rain scarcity, increased temperatures, overpopulation, too many poorly-thought out dams, bad or virtually no water management practices in entire societies, bad farming practices, etc. etc. Not to overlook the increasing ferocity of the sandstorms -- now called 'dust' storms -- which are also contributing to the 'killer smog' effect in Pakistan and India.
15 trampled to death in stampede for flour in drought-stricken Morocco
By Cleve R. Wootson Jr.
I hate to say this but it might be too late to save that region of the world, which right now is dying because of the convergence of water and rain scarcity, increased temperatures, overpopulation, too many poorly-thought out dams, bad or virtually no water management practices in entire societies, bad farming practices, etc. etc. Not to overlook the increasing ferocity of the sandstorms -- now called 'dust' storms -- which are also contributing to the 'killer smog' effect in Pakistan and India.
15 trampled to death in stampede for flour in drought-stricken Morocco
By Cleve R. Wootson Jr.
November 19 at 5:41 PM ET
The Washington Post
They had traveled for miles to get to a remote village in drought-devastated Morocco for one reason: A local aid group was handing out flour.
The North African nation is in the grip of a severe drought, which is having a devastating effect on agriculture. And Sunday’s giveaway at the souk, or marketplace, was a chance for people to take food home to hungry families — if they could nab supplies before they ran out.
Videos and photos from the scene in Sidi Boulalam showed a press of people crowding the marketplace with no place to move.
It’s unclear what sparked the sudden stampede, but by the end, 15 people had been killed and many injured — a disaster in a small town sparked by a larger, ongoing disaster in the African nation.
A witness told Sky News that there were several hundred people at the annual charitable distribution.
“People shoved, they broke down the barriers,” the witness said. “The local authorities on the spot were overwhelmed. Even when there were people on the ground, people kept fighting for food.”
Just four officers were on site to control the chaos, according another witness, a teacher named Manar Khouda.
As news of the tragedy spread, King Mohammed VI gave instructions that “all measures be taken to help the victims and their families,” according to the Associated Press. Mohammed will also pay the cost of hospitalizing the wounded and burying the dead.
The Moroccan government has long been searching for answers to the country’s drought, which has decimated two straight harvests.
Last year, wheat and barley production in Morocco was at its lowest level in a decade, according to World Grain, an industry magazine. The shortage was due to “inadequate rainfall during the planting season and the shortage of rain during the critical months of February and March.”
Wheat is a staple in North Africa, and in Morocco, according to the magazine. The average Moroccan consumes more than 440 pounds of wheat every year, one of the highest per capita rates in the world. The country irrigates only about 10 percent of its land, leaving it susceptible to Mother Nature’s whims.
Last year, during earlier stages of the drought, the king tried an age-old practice in a bid to save Morocco’s crops: prayer.
On two Fridays in January, he led national rain prayers after normal worship ended.
But experts say the government needs agricultural solutions, not divine intervention: increased irrigation, better management of a growing population and improved purification of the water already in the country’s water pipes.
David Goeury, a geographer at Paris IV-La Sorbonne University, told the AP that a ban on water-intensive watermelon farming, for example, would help. Morocco is one of the region’s top exporters of the melon.
“The problem is that watermelon demands a lot of water and requires drilling. If the water table is overexploited, its water level will drop or the quality of the water will be altered because it will come into contact with saltwater,” Goeury said.
For now, the lack of water is having a ripple effect on the country’s gross domestic product and security. Water, the Associated Press wrote, “is becoming a threat to national stability in the kingdom, seen as a steady force in a restive region and key ally with the West in the fight against terrorism.”
Charafat Afailal, the secretary of state in charge of water, said change is needed — soon.
“The issue of water has always been a priority for Morocco, but today, after two years of drought, we have to move on to higher gear.”
[END REPORT]
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For President Trump's information: Your friend the general misled you.
"As of now [March 2016], Syrian Su-24 and MiG-23’s are able to execute precision bombing missions by day or by night, at altitudes which are out of range of portable ground-air missiles. ... and therefore, for more than a year, the Syrian Arab Army has no further need of barrels of explosives dropped from helicopters, which in any case would have been destroyed by MANPADs."
President Donald Trump, from his interview with TIME magazine published May 11, 2017:
So if the general was hearing accounts of scattered limbs since the Syrian Air Force had stopped using barrel bombs, perhaps his informants had confused the cannon fire with bombs dropped from helicopters.
Or perhaps his informants didn't know what they were talking about, or were lying.
No matter whether they're calling pipe bombs or barrel bombs, they are accurate when dropped from a low altitude, but the introduction of MANPADs forced the Syrian Air Force on many occasions to drop them from a higher altitude, thus sacrificing accuracy.
Now just how and when did the 'Syrian rebels' get hold of MANPADs?
As early as July 2012 there were mainstream news reports that the 'Free Syrian Army' had acquired MANPADs, which might have precipitated or accelerated Russian contributions to the Syrian Air Force. From a Reuters report dated 31 July 2012, it was unclear at the time which government supplied the MANPADs; to my knowledge it remains unclear.
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President Donald Trump, from his interview with TIME magazine published May 11, 2017:
And the interesting thing is, a friend of mine who’s very much a warrior and a person over there, a general, said you know when they hit a barrel bomb right in the middle of a town, the kids are more brutally damaged, and people. [sic]
You have arms and legs and everything else laying all over the town where it is. A real problem too. But you know, it just seemed, when they start using gases, it’s something that is just terrible. But honestly barrel bombs are incredible when you see the damage done by these. …
My friend said to me that, he said you know it’s interesting, he said you hit them [referring to Trump's order of U.S. airstrikes on a Syrian airbase] because of the gases but the barrel bombs are worse. He said what they do to people is unbelievable. You have arms and legs laying two hundred yards away."
From The rebirth of the Syrian Arab Army by Valentin Vasilescu, published March 14, 2016 at Voltaire Network:
[...]
AVIATION
Until the arrival of the Russian contingent, the Syrian planes were not equipped with high-precision guided weapons which could assure support for ground troops. They used mainly 57 mm calibre rockets and FAB-50 and FAB-100 bombs, launched in a dive at 1,500 to 3,000 metres. At that height, Syrian planes were vulnerable to fire from Islamist artillery, either 23 mm and 30 mm calibre, and also to portable ground-air missiles (MANPADs), which explains the numerous losses suffered by the Syrian aviation.
During this time, 21 Su-24MK bombers from the Syrian Arab Army were updated in Russian aeronautical factory N° 514 ARZ in Rzhev, and re-configured to Su-24M2 standards, equipped with systems integrating navigation and precision weapons-guidance (PNS-M), the same as the Russian aviation from the air base at Hmeymim. In 2015, Russia had supplied the Syrian aviation with state-of-the-art motors and avionics in order to raise 64 MiG-23BN/MLD’s to the standard of their MiG-23-98’s.
These MiG-23’s have OLS-M LANTIRN-class equipment for night navigation, infra-red detection of terrestrial targets and the guidance systems for several types of smart weapons, such as those used by Russian bombers deployed in Syria.
As of now, Syrian Su-24 and MiG-23’s are able to execute precision bombing missions by day or by night, at altitudes which are out of range of portable ground-air missiles. In particular, they used penetration bombs to destroy the underground headquarters that the jihadists had built in many different areas, and also to hit ground troops, and therefore, for more than a year, the Syrian Arab Army has no further need of barrels of explosives dropped from helicopters, which in any case would have been destroyed by MANPADs.TIME did not nail down what President Trump meant by "over there," so it's not clear where, exactly, his friend the general was stationed -- in Syria, Iraq, Jordan, or somewhere else in the Middle East. Wherever he was, the general didn't seem to know that the use of 'barrel' bombs by the Syrian Air Force was in the past. He would not have been alone in his ignorance. From Vanessa Beeley's 17 January 2017 report for 21st Century Wire, SYRIA: Consign “Barrel Bombs” to the Propaganda Graveyard:
... The “watchdog” that has been cited by The Independent is none other than the Syrian Network for Human Rights, a long term purveyor of the barrel bomb myth and one of the multitude of NGOs affiliated with the anti-Syria-war-propaganda-impresario, George Soros, ... The report documents that Syrian regime helicopters dropped 12,958 barrel bombs in 2016. ...
As to the general's mention that barrel bombs cause limbs to be severed and scattered -- my understanding is that this occurs even with victims of suicide bombs that are packed with shrapnel, and with victims of the 'Hell' and 'Hellfire' improvised cannons used by opposition forces in Syria. Those are also packed with shrapnel, and are wildly inaccurate; they've killed many civilians.
So if the general was hearing accounts of scattered limbs since the Syrian Air Force had stopped using barrel bombs, perhaps his informants had confused the cannon fire with bombs dropped from helicopters.
Or perhaps his informants didn't know what they were talking about, or were lying.
No matter whether they're calling pipe bombs or barrel bombs, they are accurate when dropped from a low altitude, but the introduction of MANPADs forced the Syrian Air Force on many occasions to drop them from a higher altitude, thus sacrificing accuracy.
Now just how and when did the 'Syrian rebels' get hold of MANPADs?
As early as July 2012 there were mainstream news reports that the 'Free Syrian Army' had acquired MANPADs, which might have precipitated or accelerated Russian contributions to the Syrian Air Force. From a Reuters report dated 31 July 2012, it was unclear at the time which government supplied the MANPADs; to my knowledge it remains unclear.
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Property of the Crown
The “handover” (remise) of a dauphine was a ritual not unlike a real-estate closing, with a final inspection attended by representatives for each party to the sale. The initial report, however, had flagged some minor flaws that needed correction. So the Parisian dentist who invented braces was imported to straighten the archducal teeth; a dancing master taught Antoinette the distinctive, gliding shuffle of court ladies; and a French coiffeur, M. Larsenneur, artfully dissembled her unfashionably high forehead and the bald spots at her hairline.
The rather more glaring bald spots in her culture and education were confided for repair to the worldly Abbé de Vermond, who did what he could with a lazy pupil who had been both spoiled and neglected.
Once the makeover was complete, and the frugal Empress had stoically ponied up four hundred thousand livres (the yearly income of a great nobleman) for a trousseau worthy of her new in-laws, the Dauphine and her entourage set off for France. Envoys of Louis XV greeted her at the border, where she entered a pavilion built for the remise on a riverine island that straddled the frontier of the two kingdoms.
As a driving rainstorm rattled the flimsy roof, and the future Queen digested the import of a tapestry that depicted Medea slaughtering her children, her Austrian retinue solemnly stripped her before all assembled and bundled up the clothes and possessions, including her pug, named Mops, that were tainted with her foreignness.
Weeping and shivering, she became Crown property at the moment that her new ladies redressed her.From The New Yorker, Dressed for Excess: Marie Antoinette, out of the closet by Judith Thurman; September 25, 2006.
Thurman makes only a few remarks about Sofia Coppola's film Marie Antoinette (released October 20, 2006 in the USA) and instead deftly recounts anecdotes from the dauphine's life that effortlessly carry the reader through what is actually a very grim tale, one bound to end in a cruel way for Marie.
Just how cruel can be understood by viewing Marie Antoinette and the French Revolution, aired on PBS television in 2006. The documentary is almost unbearable to watch when it details the vilification campaign launched against Marie by the more libelous among the French pamphleteers, who made today's purveyors of fake news look like models of integrity.
But when all is said and done Marie's life was a parable about the risks of a person becoming the property of a Crown. When the Crown is no more, the property can be disposed of in any way the new masters see fit, as the end of Russia's Emperor Nicholas II also illustrates.
Thus, the survival rate for people who became property of the Crown was often measured in their ability to so terrify the Crown's subjects they'd never think of attempting insurrection.
Judith Thurman may have been pointing to the same unbudging reality about human nature when she noted:
Fargeon [Marie's parfumier] had been stirred, in 1789, by the Tennis Court Oath, and its promise of a new order. Though the vitriol aimed at the Queen distressed him, he was more of a republican than his wife, who fainted when she heard drunks in the Rue de Roule singing one of the more vile revolutionary songs.
Fargeon explained the paradox of his feelings. Marie Antoinette, he said, was kind and bountiful to individuals, and nothing like her caricatures. Yet, as de Feydeau puts it, “her subjects were creatures of fiction to her.” One had to distinguish between the woman and the Queen, he concluded, as “every monarchy was, by nature, tyrannical.” This was his paraphrase of Saint-Just’s famous dictum: “No one reigns innocently.”
But what was true of the Queen was also true of her alchemist. He recognized the humanity of Marie Antoinette but categorically despised a whole class.
I can’t help thinking of Marie Antoinette as a prototype for Emma Bovary, another naïve young beauty who marries a boorish glutton, equally naïve, and lets herself be seduced by a marchand de mode.
The Bovarys, too, were a couple with no qualities beyond the ordinary, who were doomed to an extraordinary disgrace, and both stories have a brutal ending in which no justice is served.
That absence of catharsis marks the point at which tragedy loses its exaltation and becomes modern —not a tale foretold about the death of kings but the story of a futile downfall that might have been averted. And it was left to Flaubert to democratize the wisdom of Saint-Just. His works insist that no one is human innocently. ♦*******