NOT TO BE TRUSTED

Australia 2016 Kings Cross Nightclub raid

Old Alex left the large stone house on the edge of a Blue Mountain ravine, left the sight of parrots and pigeons squabbling at the bird feeder, and as previously arranged went once again to visit the surveillance expert.

In the early hours of the day he had heard Glen say: "I have no regrets." A piece of bravado ahead of conscience.

You people can go about destroying people's lives, because that's the only thing you're good at.

The arrangements had changed. Without explanation. Common decency had nothing to do with this game.

They sat on the back veranda, briefly, and once again the light glinted off the fresh spring leaves of the Japanese elms and things beyond ken swirled. Once again he had an instant, peculiar headache. This time the glints of light off the trees were sharp as knives, each knife fringed with a narrow, out-of-phase frieze of decaying gargoyle faces, the emblematic consolidation of corruption and ill-intent, bureaucratic decay and the relentless, brutally unfeeling machinery of government, where no one was accountable, no one apologised, and they ground away at free thought as surely as they ground away at commonsense.

"I feel like a thresher's been through my head," he said in a random piece of conversation later in the day, on the other side of the mountains, as his headache grew progressively worse.

As if the knives were still cutting. He felt some terrible swamp of sadness he hadn't felt in years, as if his children had just been stolen from him. Not because he expected the story to end any other way, he already knew the Fairy Godmother would turn into another fat f**k who wanted everything for nothing and thought they could get away with it. But because, at the end of one story and the beginning of another, he had hoped he would be surprised by kindness; not betrayal.

He had a very unhelpful trait for a journalist, he was always surprised when people lied to him. But the lies never stopped.

This time the sign in his head read: "NOT TO BE TRUSTED".

As in, not to be trusted under any circumstances.

He drove north-west, the rolling plains which had so delighted the early explorers drenched green from recent rains; and dropped by a household on the edge of the Liverpool plains. He had a habit of rolling by once a year or so, saying hello, crashing the night and moving on. But they were not there. A few days before, the mother had a brain aneurysm and had been helicoptered to a hospital in the south. The family were by her side. He kept on driving.

"Not good," was the diagnosis.

The sun was setting across the flat rich plains; in the midst of life we are in death.

In the long dark night he heard the voices of his pursuers rejoice: "You've been totally, completely screwed."

Their victory cry was short lived.

When a bee stings you, it dies.

THE BIGGER STORY:



http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/11/advance-heart-mosul-slows-isil-fights-161106103351018.html

Iraq's special forces worked to fully push a fiercely resisting ISIL from neighborhoods on Mosul's eastern edge while bombings killed at least 11 people elsewhere in the country.

The current phase and slower pace highlight the challenges ahead for Iraqi forces as they press into more populated areas deeper inside Mosul, where the civilian presence means they may not be able to rely as much on air raids.

"There are a lot of civilians and we are trying to protect them," said Lt Col Muhanad al-Timimi. "This is one of the hardest battles that we've faced till now."



At least 27 people were killed on Sunday in a series of suicide bombings carried out by ISIL across northern Iraq.

The deadliest attack took place in Tikrit, a city halfway between Baghdad and Mosul, where an ambulance packed with explosives went off at a security checkpoint killing 15 people and injuring 35, a security official said.

FEATURED BOOK: 

100%:

https://www.darkmoon.me/2016/explosive-assangepilger-interview-on-us-election-expect-riots-if-hillary-wins/#more-52915
 

NOT TO BE TRUSTED

Australia 2016 Kings Cross Nightclub raid

Old Alex left the large stone house on the edge of a Blue Mountain ravine, left the sight of parrots and pigeons squabbling at the bird feeder, and as previously arranged went once again to visit the surveillance expert.

In the early hours of the day he had heard Glen say: "I have no regrets." A piece of bravado ahead of conscience.

You people can go about destroying people's lives, because that's the only thing you're good at.

The arrangements had changed. Without explanation. Common decency had nothing to do with this game.

They sat on the back veranda, briefly, and once again the light glinted off the fresh spring leaves of the Japanese elms and things beyond ken swirled. Once again he had an instant, peculiar headache. This time the glints of light off the trees were sharp as knives, each knife fringed with a narrow, out-of-phase frieze of decaying gargoyle faces, the emblematic consolidation of corruption and ill-intent, bureaucratic decay and the relentless, brutally unfeeling machinery of government, where no one was accountable, no one apologised, and they ground away at free thought as surely as they ground away at commonsense.

"I feel like a thresher's been through my head," he said in a random piece of conversation later in the day, on the other side of the mountains, as his headache grew progressively worse.

As if the knives were still cutting. He felt some terrible swamp of sadness he hadn't felt in years, as if his children had just been stolen from him. Not because he expected the story to end any other way, he already knew the Fairy Godmother would turn into another fat f**k who wanted everything for nothing and thought they could get away with it. But because, at the end of one story and the beginning of another, he had hoped he would be surprised by kindness; not betrayal.

He had a very unhelpful trait for a journalist, he was always surprised when people lied to him. But the lies never stopped.

This time the sign in his head read: "NOT TO BE TRUSTED".

As in, not to be trusted under any circumstances.

He drove north-west, the rolling plains which had so delighted the early explorers drenched green from recent rains; and dropped by a household on the edge of the Liverpool plains. He had a habit of rolling by once a year or so, saying hello, crashing the night and moving on. But they were not there. A few days before, the mother had a brain aneurysm and had been helicoptered to a hospital in the south. The family were by her side. He kept on driving.

"Not good," was the diagnosis.

The sun was setting across the flat rich plains; in the midst of life we are in death.

In the long dark night he heard the voices of his pursuers rejoice: "You've been totally, completely screwed."

Their victory cry was short lived.

When a bee stings you, it dies.

THE BIGGER STORY:



http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/11/advance-heart-mosul-slows-isil-fights-161106103351018.html

Iraq's special forces worked to fully push a fiercely resisting ISIL from neighborhoods on Mosul's eastern edge while bombings killed at least 11 people elsewhere in the country.

The current phase and slower pace highlight the challenges ahead for Iraqi forces as they press into more populated areas deeper inside Mosul, where the civilian presence means they may not be able to rely as much on air raids.

"There are a lot of civilians and we are trying to protect them," said Lt Col Muhanad al-Timimi. "This is one of the hardest battles that we've faced till now."



At least 27 people were killed on Sunday in a series of suicide bombings carried out by ISIL across northern Iraq.

The deadliest attack took place in Tikrit, a city halfway between Baghdad and Mosul, where an ambulance packed with explosives went off at a security checkpoint killing 15 people and injuring 35, a security official said.

FEATURED BOOK: 

100%:

https://www.darkmoon.me/2016/explosive-assangepilger-interview-on-us-election-expect-riots-if-hillary-wins/#more-52915
 

BATTERED, BRUISED, SURVEILLANCE SURVIVOR

Aleppo, courtesy The Guardian

The country had sold its soul, and its greatest assets.

He was battered and bruised, having survived years of harassment and surveillance, intimidation; a nightmare.

A false nightmare which had wasted the time and resources of everybody involved.

A nightmare engineered or created by government and conducted with their full knowledge.

Yet there was no apology, no compensation. Not to him. Not to the taxpayers. Not to the well intentioned or the easily manipulated who had joined in the hunt.

Surveillance = harassment.

Tinpot bullies strutted in their air-conditioned offices, comfortable in their military mindsets, pouring scorn on anybody and everybody  they did not understand. They would destroy you as assuredly as they could. They would puff out their little man chests and laugh at the idea of the curse already creeping through their veins and distorting their lives. Little things were already starting to go wrong. Bigger things were about to follow. As assuredly as night followed day.

He put out extra food for the birds, and the Rosellas and the King Parrots came.

He laughed at the way things had so magically resolved in the household, and they were happy now, as he had wished upon them in those strange blessings which invariably came true; although they would never know.

He had forgotten, sometimes, in that long life, the power that he had sometimes had. A whimsical power perhaps; but power nonetheless. And they couldn't hurt him now. It had all coiled back upon them.

"You would think," he said, in one of those strange pieces of conversation that didn't really join the flow, "that they would have worked out that everything they do backfires, and escalates the price to be paid."

But they never did work it out. They didn't think that way.

So now, those who had tried to kill him, who told their lies and spread their poison, now they twisted uncomfortably in their chairs.

And still, they did not understand.


THE BIGGER STORY:



https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/03/aleppo-braces-russian-assault-rebels-vow-defy-putin-ultimatum?CMP=share_btn_fb

Syrian rebel groups in east Aleppo are planning to defy an ultimatum from Vladimir Putin to abandon the city by Friday night, insisting that promised safe passages out of besieged areas do not exist and that an imminent Russian blitz will not change the course of the war.

As the Russian carrier group expected to take part in the attack moved into their final positions in the eastern Mediterranean, opposition fighters made fresh forays into west Aleppo, the latest in a series of attempts to break a four-year siege of the rebel -held east, which is surrounded by Iranian-backed militias that support the Syrian leader.

Moscow has said that corridors for fighters and civilians will remain open until sunset on Friday, ahead of what it has warned will be a bombardment that will level what remains of east Aleppo. As the deadline drew near, however, opposition groups said they had little to fear, and could not escape even if they wanted to.

http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2016/11/australian-democracy-serious-jeopardy/

Australian democracy is in very serious jeopardy. China is making great strides towards it and its intentions are not benevolent. It’s obvious in local, regional and global trends and if we do not do something soon to protect our freedoms they are going to be sold into the burgeoning Chinese empire, as well as political hegemony, by a corrupt oligarchy.

Some of you will tell me to take off my tin foil hat for writing this. To you I say ‘listen up’.

For the next few decades the global political economy will be a contest between post-cultural free moving capital and deeply cultural labour. This will mean ebbs and flows between investment and regulation in an overall trend towards de-globalisation.

After decades of stupidly pro-cyclical policy-making Australia is now little more than a southern province of Chinese economic policy. With the flick of a pen in an obscure public service department, China delivers tens of billions to our shores in coal revenues and our monumental trade deficit evaporates overnight.

There is no other economy on earth that I know of that works with this dependence. We call it lucky. And it is. But it also comes with strings attached and they have been on display for a decade or more. Australian policy attitudes towards China have morphed steadily from a middle power engagement that included dialogues on human rights and democratic process to today’s pragmatic “do what you like boss” attitude.

FEATURED BOOK:

100%:

THE INTERNET'S OWN BOY: THE STORY OF AARON SWARZ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCwjDuoJK0E

BATTERED, BRUISED, SURVEILLANCE SURVIVOR

Aleppo, courtesy The Guardian

The country had sold its soul, and its greatest assets.

He was battered and bruised, having survived years of harassment and surveillance, intimidation; a nightmare.

A false nightmare which had wasted the time and resources of everybody involved.

A nightmare engineered or created by government and conducted with their full knowledge.

Yet there was no apology, no compensation. Not to him. Not to the taxpayers. Not to the well intentioned or the easily manipulated who had joined in the hunt.

Surveillance = harassment.

Tinpot bullies strutted in their air-conditioned offices, comfortable in their military mindsets, pouring scorn on anybody and everybody  they did not understand. They would destroy you as assuredly as they could. They would puff out their little man chests and laugh at the idea of the curse already creeping through their veins and distorting their lives. Little things were already starting to go wrong. Bigger things were about to follow. As assuredly as night followed day.

He put out extra food for the birds, and the Rosellas and the King Parrots came.

He laughed at the way things had so magically resolved in the household, and they were happy now, as he had wished upon them in those strange blessings which invariably came true; although they would never know.

He had forgotten, sometimes, in that long life, the power that he had sometimes had. A whimsical power perhaps; but power nonetheless. And they couldn't hurt him now. It had all coiled back upon them.

"You would think," he said, in one of those strange pieces of conversation that didn't really join the flow, "that they would have worked out that everything they do backfires, and escalates the price to be paid."

But they never did work it out. They didn't think that way.

So now, those who had tried to kill him, who told their lies and spread their poison, now they twisted uncomfortably in their chairs.

And still, they did not understand.


THE BIGGER STORY:



https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/03/aleppo-braces-russian-assault-rebels-vow-defy-putin-ultimatum?CMP=share_btn_fb

Syrian rebel groups in east Aleppo are planning to defy an ultimatum from Vladimir Putin to abandon the city by Friday night, insisting that promised safe passages out of besieged areas do not exist and that an imminent Russian blitz will not change the course of the war.

As the Russian carrier group expected to take part in the attack moved into their final positions in the eastern Mediterranean, opposition fighters made fresh forays into west Aleppo, the latest in a series of attempts to break a four-year siege of the rebel -held east, which is surrounded by Iranian-backed militias that support the Syrian leader.

Moscow has said that corridors for fighters and civilians will remain open until sunset on Friday, ahead of what it has warned will be a bombardment that will level what remains of east Aleppo. As the deadline drew near, however, opposition groups said they had little to fear, and could not escape even if they wanted to.

http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2016/11/australian-democracy-serious-jeopardy/

Australian democracy is in very serious jeopardy. China is making great strides towards it and its intentions are not benevolent. It’s obvious in local, regional and global trends and if we do not do something soon to protect our freedoms they are going to be sold into the burgeoning Chinese empire, as well as political hegemony, by a corrupt oligarchy.

Some of you will tell me to take off my tin foil hat for writing this. To you I say ‘listen up’.

For the next few decades the global political economy will be a contest between post-cultural free moving capital and deeply cultural labour. This will mean ebbs and flows between investment and regulation in an overall trend towards de-globalisation.

After decades of stupidly pro-cyclical policy-making Australia is now little more than a southern province of Chinese economic policy. With the flick of a pen in an obscure public service department, China delivers tens of billions to our shores in coal revenues and our monumental trade deficit evaporates overnight.

There is no other economy on earth that I know of that works with this dependence. We call it lucky. And it is. But it also comes with strings attached and they have been on display for a decade or more. Australian policy attitudes towards China have morphed steadily from a middle power engagement that included dialogues on human rights and democratic process to today’s pragmatic “do what you like boss” attitude.

FEATURED BOOK:

100%:

THE INTERNET'S OWN BOY: THE STORY OF AARON SWARZ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCwjDuoJK0E

TREACHERY

And then, just when it seemed like there would be a solution, or absolution, he was stranded in a backyard full of glinting leaves, kissed by the divine.

Visiting a surveillance expert in the Blue Mountains, he wanted to pour out his guts about the nightmare winter that had just unfolded, the curse of his pursuers, the terrible abuses of authority he had witnessed and experienced, the tormented tunnel difficulties and strange inspirations which had gone into the making of the last book.

Instead the warmth of spring surrounded them, and he felt, despite a peculiar headache, if not absolved, relieved. The world was beautiful after all.

"I didn't realise how frazzled I was," he said.

But there was no resolution, because they were being watched, even here, and their conversation remained on a level keel.

"TREACHERY", a sign swung through his head after he had left, pulling up on one of the narrow mountain streets which crisscrossed the area.

But whether the treachery was directed at him, or at others, he did not know. There were grander plots afoot. The deliberate government targeting of a journalist of 30-years standing such as himself and the many breaches of public service protocol and legislation thus involved had handed the perfect ammunition to a new breed of operative, smarter, by far, less bound by military procedures, far, far faster on their feet. And it could only be for the good, that the old dinosaurs who infested the security agencies be swept aside, and a cleverer, better educated, better connected and more empathic generation took over. And cast the dinosaurs into the pit where they belonged, their bones to be discovered, if at all, many thousands of years into the future. When this strange stage in the evolution of the species was nothing but a curiosity in an arcane academic discipline.

And so he swung down the highway to a different place, a large stone house anchored on the edge of a deep mountain ravine, where at dusk he watched the descendants of thousands of generations of birds, Bronze Pigeons with their striking colouring, Black, white and grey Wonga pigeons, like fat little hens, pecking at the edge of the forest, Rosellas, Cockatoos, and he thought for an instant the world was safe; or at least safe for one more day.

The authorities had tried to kill him, and he was still alive.

"Why haven't these people charged with attempted murder?" he demanded to know of the microphone in the car.

There was no answer. There never would be.

But the invisible beasts, the voices cast abroad, were noticeably more kind than the last time he had been there, in the midst of that horrific winter. And he knew, all too well, some things were better left unsaid.

THE BIGGER STORY:

Displaced families Mosul

https://www.rt.com/news/365299-assange-pilger-saudi-clinton/

In the second excerpt from the John Pilger Special, to be exclusively broadcast by RT on Saturday, courtesy of Dartmouth Films, Julian Assange accuses Hillary Clinton of misleading Americans about the true scope of Islamic State’s support from Washington’s Middle East allies.

In a 2014 email made public by Assange’s WikiLeaks last month, Hillary Clinton, who had served as secretary of state until the year before, urges John Podesta, then an advisor to Barack Obama, to “bring pressure” on Qatar and Saudi Arabia, “which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL [Islamic State, IS, ISIS] and other radical Sunni groups.”
“I think this is the most significant email in the whole collection,” Assange, whose whistleblowing site released three tranches of Clinton-related emails over the past year, told Pilger in an exclusive interview, courtesy of Dartmouth Films.

“All serious analysts know, and even the US government has agreed, that some Saudi figures have been supporting ISIS and funding ISIS, but the dodge has always been that it is some “rogue” princes using their oil money to do whatever they like, but actually the government disapproves. But that email says that it is the government of Saudi Arabia, and the government of Qatar that have been funding ISIS.”

Assange and Pilger, who sat down for their 25-minute interview at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where the whistleblower has been a refugee since 2012, then talk about the conflict of interest between Clinton’s official post, which held throughout Obama’s first term, her husband’s nonprofit, and the Middle East officials, whose stated desire to fight terrorism may not have been sincere.

John Pilger: The Saudis, the Qataris, the Moroccans, the Bahrainis, particularly the first two, are giving all this money to the Clinton Foundation, while Hillary Clinton is secretary of state, and the State Department is approving massive arms sales, particularly Saudi Arabia.

Julian Assange: Under Hillary Clinton – and the Clinton emails reveal a significant discussion of it – the biggest-ever arms deal in the world was made with Saudi Arabia: more than $80 billion. During her tenure, the total arms exports from the US doubled in dollar value.

JP: Of course, the consequence of that is that this notorious jihadist group, called ISIL or ISIS, is created largely with money from people who are giving money to the Clinton Foundation?

JA: Yes.

FEATURED BOOK:

TREACHERY

And then, just when it seemed like there would be a solution, or absolution, he was stranded in a backyard full of glinting leaves, kissed by the divine.

Visiting a surveillance expert in the Blue Mountains, he wanted to pour out his guts about the nightmare winter that had just unfolded, the curse of his pursuers, the terrible abuses of authority he had witnessed and experienced, the tormented tunnel difficulties and strange inspirations which had gone into the making of the last book.

Instead the warmth of spring surrounded them, and he felt, despite a peculiar headache, if not absolved, relieved. The world was beautiful after all.

"I didn't realise how frazzled I was," he said.

But there was no resolution, because they were being watched, even here, and their conversation remained on a level keel.

"TREACHERY", a sign swung through his head after he had left, pulling up on one of the narrow mountain streets which crisscrossed the area.

But whether the treachery was directed at him, or at others, he did not know. There were grander plots afoot. The deliberate government targeting of a journalist of 30-years standing such as himself and the many breaches of public service protocol and legislation thus involved had handed the perfect ammunition to a new breed of operative, smarter, by far, less bound by military procedures, far, far faster on their feet. And it could only be for the good, that the old dinosaurs who infested the security agencies be swept aside, and a cleverer, better educated, better connected and more empathic generation took over. And cast the dinosaurs into the pit where they belonged, their bones to be discovered, if at all, many thousands of years into the future. When this strange stage in the evolution of the species was nothing but a curiosity in an arcane academic discipline.

And so he swung down the highway to a different place, a large stone house anchored on the edge of a deep mountain ravine, where at dusk he watched the descendants of thousands of generations of birds, Bronze Pigeons with their striking colouring, Black, white and grey Wonga pigeons, like fat little hens, pecking at the edge of the forest, Rosellas, Cockatoos, and he thought for an instant the world was safe; or at least safe for one more day.

The authorities had tried to kill him, and he was still alive.

"Why haven't these people charged with attempted murder?" he demanded to know of the microphone in the car.

There was no answer. There never would be.

But the invisible beasts, the voices cast abroad, were noticeably more kind than the last time he had been there, in the midst of that horrific winter. And he knew, all too well, some things were better left unsaid.

THE BIGGER STORY:

Displaced families Mosul

https://www.rt.com/news/365299-assange-pilger-saudi-clinton/

In the second excerpt from the John Pilger Special, to be exclusively broadcast by RT on Saturday, courtesy of Dartmouth Films, Julian Assange accuses Hillary Clinton of misleading Americans about the true scope of Islamic State’s support from Washington’s Middle East allies.

In a 2014 email made public by Assange’s WikiLeaks last month, Hillary Clinton, who had served as secretary of state until the year before, urges John Podesta, then an advisor to Barack Obama, to “bring pressure” on Qatar and Saudi Arabia, “which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL [Islamic State, IS, ISIS] and other radical Sunni groups.”
“I think this is the most significant email in the whole collection,” Assange, whose whistleblowing site released three tranches of Clinton-related emails over the past year, told Pilger in an exclusive interview, courtesy of Dartmouth Films.

“All serious analysts know, and even the US government has agreed, that some Saudi figures have been supporting ISIS and funding ISIS, but the dodge has always been that it is some “rogue” princes using their oil money to do whatever they like, but actually the government disapproves. But that email says that it is the government of Saudi Arabia, and the government of Qatar that have been funding ISIS.”

Assange and Pilger, who sat down for their 25-minute interview at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where the whistleblower has been a refugee since 2012, then talk about the conflict of interest between Clinton’s official post, which held throughout Obama’s first term, her husband’s nonprofit, and the Middle East officials, whose stated desire to fight terrorism may not have been sincere.

John Pilger: The Saudis, the Qataris, the Moroccans, the Bahrainis, particularly the first two, are giving all this money to the Clinton Foundation, while Hillary Clinton is secretary of state, and the State Department is approving massive arms sales, particularly Saudi Arabia.

Julian Assange: Under Hillary Clinton – and the Clinton emails reveal a significant discussion of it – the biggest-ever arms deal in the world was made with Saudi Arabia: more than $80 billion. During her tenure, the total arms exports from the US doubled in dollar value.

JP: Of course, the consequence of that is that this notorious jihadist group, called ISIL or ISIS, is created largely with money from people who are giving money to the Clinton Foundation?

JA: Yes.

FEATURED BOOK:

THE WORST POSSIBLE OUTCOME

Mosul courtesy LA Times

It was the worst of all possible outcomes.

They had created a journalist who knew how spectacularly incompetent they were, and how unethical.

He had been harassed, threatened, bullied and intimidated for years on end.

"I've had a great deal of difficulty dealing with the surveillance," he told one of the locals at his morning cafe. "It's been extremely intrusive."

He had hated bullies all his life, ever since being bullied at school and at home.

He had been to a high school reunion, and sat briefly looking at the beach where he had walked along as an adolescent after taking what he thought would be an overdose of aspirin, waiting to die. He was bashed when he got home for being late from school.

His life was rewinding backwards, and everything that had happened, every torment through that interminable winter, had compounded the feeling of destiny, of dark forces trying to extinguish him, of a kind of group madness which could not stand those who were different to themselves.

Who authorised the targeting of a journalist of more than 30 years standing?

Which head honcho, or head boofhead as he thought of them, had authorised the operation, the endless signs that he was being ridiculed, intimidated, yes threatened. They had tried to bring on an early heart attack. They had tried to encourage him to commit suicide. They had done everything they could to destroy him.

And in their insane pursuit they had destroyed themselves. For it would take only the most basic of public service inquiries to pinpoint the people responsible, and to use the information thus gained to topple them. Because if they couldn't handle a simple domestic operation aimed against a domestic journalist, how could they be handed the responsibility for the nation's national security? How could they be trusted to behave with dignity, to be beyond reproach, to justify their million dollar salaries.

The truth is even worse than you know, the Watchers on the Watch told him.

And he believed them.


THE BIGGER STORY:



https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/03/isis-leader-abu-bakr-al-baghdadi-no-longer-in-mosul

Western intelligence sources believe the Islamic State leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, is no longer in Mosul, Boris Johnson has said.

In an unusual reference to intelligence, the British foreign secretary said Baghdadi’s audio recording issued on Thursday calling for the defeat of the Iraqi forces fighting to liberate Mosul was “cruelly ironic since some of the intelligence we have suggests he had himself vacated the scene himself and is yet using internet media to encourage others to take part in violence”.

Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi urges fight to death in Iraq, audio claims

Read more

In his first address for a year, Baghdadi called on his supporters to “wreak havoc”, saying the struggle was a prelude to victory. Isis fighters patrolled the Mosul streets broadcasting Baghdadi’s call.

Johnson said the battle to recapture Mosul, in the face of Isis’s “scorched earth campaign”, would take time and represented “the coalition’s greatest challenge”. He also insisted lessons had been learned from the aftermath of the 2003 Iraqwar, making post-victory stabilisation in Mosul as important as the military capture of the city.

There is widespread concern that, despite a year of planning, there is little agreement among the many ethnic groups in the region on the future political structure of Mosul or the surrounding Nineveh province.

 FEATURED BOOK

THE WORST POSSIBLE OUTCOME

Mosul courtesy LA Times

It was the worst of all possible outcomes.

They had created a journalist who knew how spectacularly incompetent they were, and how unethical.

He had been harassed, threatened, bullied and intimidated for years on end.

"I've had a great deal of difficulty dealing with the surveillance," he told one of the locals at his morning cafe. "It's been extremely intrusive."

He had hated bullies all his life, ever since being bullied at school and at home.

He had been to a high school reunion, and sat briefly looking at the beach where he had walked along as an adolescent after taking what he thought would be an overdose of aspirin, waiting to die. He was bashed when he got home for being late from school.

His life was rewinding backwards, and everything that had happened, every torment through that interminable winter, had compounded the feeling of destiny, of dark forces trying to extinguish him, of a kind of group madness which could not stand those who were different to themselves.

Who authorised the targeting of a journalist of more than 30 years standing?

Which head honcho, or head boofhead as he thought of them, had authorised the operation, the endless signs that he was being ridiculed, intimidated, yes threatened. They had tried to bring on an early heart attack. They had tried to encourage him to commit suicide. They had done everything they could to destroy him.

And in their insane pursuit they had destroyed themselves. For it would take only the most basic of public service inquiries to pinpoint the people responsible, and to use the information thus gained to topple them. Because if they couldn't handle a simple domestic operation aimed against a domestic journalist, how could they be handed the responsibility for the nation's national security? How could they be trusted to behave with dignity, to be beyond reproach, to justify their million dollar salaries.

The truth is even worse than you know, the Watchers on the Watch told him.

And he believed them.


THE BIGGER STORY:



https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/03/isis-leader-abu-bakr-al-baghdadi-no-longer-in-mosul

Western intelligence sources believe the Islamic State leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, is no longer in Mosul, Boris Johnson has said.

In an unusual reference to intelligence, the British foreign secretary said Baghdadi’s audio recording issued on Thursday calling for the defeat of the Iraqi forces fighting to liberate Mosul was “cruelly ironic since some of the intelligence we have suggests he had himself vacated the scene himself and is yet using internet media to encourage others to take part in violence”.

Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi urges fight to death in Iraq, audio claims

Read more

In his first address for a year, Baghdadi called on his supporters to “wreak havoc”, saying the struggle was a prelude to victory. Isis fighters patrolled the Mosul streets broadcasting Baghdadi’s call.

Johnson said the battle to recapture Mosul, in the face of Isis’s “scorched earth campaign”, would take time and represented “the coalition’s greatest challenge”. He also insisted lessons had been learned from the aftermath of the 2003 Iraqwar, making post-victory stabilisation in Mosul as important as the military capture of the city.

There is widespread concern that, despite a year of planning, there is little agreement among the many ethnic groups in the region on the future political structure of Mosul or the surrounding Nineveh province.

 FEATURED BOOK

THEY WANT TO KILL YOU

Postcards of Rome Courtesy Michael Fitzjames

Something odd had settled into the house, the burnt smell of witch's brew, and it was no longer safe.

Someone, or something, was trying to communicate with him, or warn him, and he slept as if extinguished, to avoid all revelation.

"What do you want?" he demanded to know in the middle of the night.

And answered his own question: "They want to kill him."

Somewhere along the line he had adopted the Thai habit of talking about himself in the third person.

They want to kill him. They want to kill you.\

The surveillance had driven him beyond distraction.

In fevered, sweatless nights he woke up being interviewed on television: "What do you think of the Australian authorities?"

The national security authorities.

 I think, I know, from my own experience, they are remarkably dishonest, astonishingly incompetent.

He intoned. He intoned. They wept and swept the remnants of failed operations.

They tried to cover their own diseased tracks.

They tried to hide their own systematic abuses.

For surveillance in and of itself was an act of intimidation and abuse, and he had experienced the full weather of it, from one day to the next, one month to the next, one book  to the next.

There will come a time, he felt like saying to the microphone in the car, when you will wish I was just abusing you; because at least then you knew what I was thinking.

Extra-judicial, without conscience, fired not by justice or truth or emergency necessity, not by protection of the homeland, certainly not by common old fashioned decency, the harassment aka surveillance was targeted at individuals who did not tow the government line.

And those who did not tow the line they wished to kill, without warrant, without judicial oversight, without conscience.

Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. And the power these secretive agencies had been granted by successive waves of gormless politicians had made them utterly, totally corrupt.

"Why are they so bad?" he had once asked.

"You've got to realise, there are some good people."

If only the good people were in ascendance, but they were not.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/11/02/middleeast/mosul-iraq-advance/

Karama, Iraq (CNN)The eastern suburbs of ISIS-held Mosul are in sight, but the Iraqi forces trying to liberate the city are still struggling to get there.
ISIS snipers, relentless gunfire and mortar shelling are still keeping troops from penetrating the city's border.
CNN Senior International Correspondent Arwa Damon, traveling with US-trained Iraqi counterterrorism forces, was just 200 meters from Mosul's eastern perimeter on Wednesday, with just a barren berm between her and more than 1 million civilians trapped in the city.

"There is no escape route. There have been no routes that anyone has established in fact for the civilian population to leave," she said.



FEATURED BOOK:

THEY WANT TO KILL YOU

Postcards of Rome Courtesy Michael Fitzjames

Something odd had settled into the house, the burnt smell of witch's brew, and it was no longer safe.

Someone, or something, was trying to communicate with him, or warn him, and he slept as if extinguished, to avoid all revelation.

"What do you want?" he demanded to know in the middle of the night.

And answered his own question: "They want to kill him."

Somewhere along the line he had adopted the Thai habit of talking about himself in the third person.

They want to kill him. They want to kill you.\

The surveillance had driven him beyond distraction.

In fevered, sweatless nights he woke up being interviewed on television: "What do you think of the Australian authorities?"

The national security authorities.

 I think, I know, from my own experience, they are remarkably dishonest, astonishingly incompetent.

He intoned. He intoned. They wept and swept the remnants of failed operations.

They tried to cover their own diseased tracks.

They tried to hide their own systematic abuses.

For surveillance in and of itself was an act of intimidation and abuse, and he had experienced the full weather of it, from one day to the next, one month to the next, one book  to the next.

There will come a time, he felt like saying to the microphone in the car, when you will wish I was just abusing you; because at least then you knew what I was thinking.

Extra-judicial, without conscience, fired not by justice or truth or emergency necessity, not by protection of the homeland, certainly not by common old fashioned decency, the harassment aka surveillance was targeted at individuals who did not tow the government line.

And those who did not tow the line they wished to kill, without warrant, without judicial oversight, without conscience.

Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. And the power these secretive agencies had been granted by successive waves of gormless politicians had made them utterly, totally corrupt.

"Why are they so bad?" he had once asked.

"You've got to realise, there are some good people."

If only the good people were in ascendance, but they were not.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/11/02/middleeast/mosul-iraq-advance/

Karama, Iraq (CNN)The eastern suburbs of ISIS-held Mosul are in sight, but the Iraqi forces trying to liberate the city are still struggling to get there.
ISIS snipers, relentless gunfire and mortar shelling are still keeping troops from penetrating the city's border.
CNN Senior International Correspondent Arwa Damon, traveling with US-trained Iraqi counterterrorism forces, was just 200 meters from Mosul's eastern perimeter on Wednesday, with just a barren berm between her and more than 1 million civilians trapped in the city.

"There is no escape route. There have been no routes that anyone has established in fact for the civilian population to leave," she said.



FEATURED BOOK: