The Bloodshed in Syria Continues

The Civil War in Syria has been raging for almost three years and doesn’t look like it is ending anytime soon. So far an estimated 165,000 people have been killed in the bloodshed that has created 3,000,000 refugees.

Fighting continues across the country between the rebels and the government for control of land. As the horrors of the war become more and more vivid, and especially after President Bashar Al-Assad used chemical weapons, the West began to prepare for war. Going to war because of suspected chemical weapons? For many in the West this brought back horrible memories of the Iraq War, an invasion that was built on the lie that Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). In September a poll showed 72% of Europeans and 62% of Americans opposed military intervention. Nonetheless, the march to war has begun and surely nothing could stop it!

Wrong! It turned out that war was not inevitable! In Britain war was surprisingly stopped by Parliament of all places. What was meant to be a largely symbolic vote in favour of intervention if Syria turned out did use chemical weapons, turned into one of the biggest news stories of the year. The vote failed 285-272, the first time Parliament had voted against any sort of Act of War in centuries. This did major damage to Britain’s prestige and to the war movement. Despite this setback, America and France continued to gear up for war. What really rocked the military, and averted Western intervention, was thanks to American Secretary of State John Kerry. It was also a complete accident on Kerry’s behalf.

In a news conference, Kerry was asked by Margaret Brennan of CBS News if there was anything the Syrian government could do to prevent an American bombing. Kerry said that the only way for Syria to prevent intervention would be for it to give up its chemical weapons immediately. Kerry immediately derided it as impossible and moved on to the next question. Well that off-hand comment ended up being the most important in all of 2013 (well at least the most important one that’s publically known). Almost as soon as that clip was aired around the world, the Syrians and Russians pounced on it.

Seeing it as the only opportunity to prevent a Western intervention, Syria promised that it would allow United Nations weapons inspectors into the country. Syria would then hand over all chemical weapons to be safely destroyed! By September an agreement was reached that would result in the elimination of all Syria’s chemical weapons by mid-2014. In October the UN declared that all of Syria’s facilities that could create chemical weapons had been destroyed.

Despite the success with chemical weapons, Syria is far from resolved. Removing chemical weapons does nothing to reduce the death and destruction occurring in the Middle Eastern country. Unfortunately there seems to be very little chance of the Civil War easing up at all this year. I am making the rather horribly prediction that the Syrian war will continue as bloody as ever. By the end of the year at least 200,000 people will be dead.

Egyptian Revolution: Round II

In the Arab Spring of 2011, Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak was forced to resign following mass protests and the desertion of his army. Following democratic elections in 2011/2012 Islamist Mohamed Morsi became the first democratically elected President of Egypt. Naturally the election of an Islamist angered and scared secularists and Christians in Egypt, who feared that society might end up looking like Iran.

After Morsi was elected, he began to take more and more powers for himself. He arrested more people for the ‘crime’ of insulting the President than Mubarak had done in his entire run as President! He also gave immunity to those working on drafting the new constitution, who were only Islamists by this stage.

Protests against the leadership and actions of President Morsi began in late 2012 after Morsi’s government effectively gave the President unlimited power. This may have seemed like a good idea to the Islamists, but considering that Egyptians had proven themselves adept at revolutions, it was actually a monumentally stupid one! The protesters simply would not go away. Protests intensified in late June 2013 as the one year anniversary of Morsi’s inauguration approached. Eventually the army intervened and deposed President Morsi on the 3^rd of July 2013. The Army’s leader, General al-Sisi announced that Adly Mansour, Chief Justice of the Supreme Constitutional Court would become interim President.

Despite Morsi’s unpopularity with many Egyptians, particularly secularists, liberals and Christians, he still had many supporters. As well as being President, Morsi was leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist organisation that has been banned in Egypt for most of its existence. After Morsi was deposed several other leaders were arrested and the Muslim Brotherhood was made illegal once again in September. Naturally the Muslim Brotherhood protested against their treatment, but they experienced a bloody crackdown. Despite the bloodshed, they are still protesting.

Egypt has had a tumultuous few years since the 2011 Revolution, and it certainly won’t become a stable democracy overnight. The future is unclear, it will be difficult, but if good Egyptians work hard, they can prevent Egypt from stumbling back into dictatorship.

Protesters in Tahrir Square, Cairo in 2013
source: freethoughtblogs.com

The Year of the Spy

When the National Security Agency (NSA) hired Edward Snowden, little did they know that they had made the worst decision of their lives. After discovering just how much the US government spies on its own people, last year Edward Snowden decided to leak that information.

Snowden handed over a colossal amount of information to Glenn Greenwald, a journalist who worked at the Guardian Newspaper. Despite the huge amount of data already leaked, according to the Guardian, by November last year they had published only 1% of the Snowden files!

The powerpoint slide used to explain PRISM
source: Guardian

So what was actually released? A program called MAINWAY in which the US government recorded and stored metadata on people’s phone calls. Metadata (in this case) means that the actual content of the phone calls was not recorded but rather who called who, for how long and where they were located. Yet the biggest headlines were made in relation to the internet. PRISM is the program whereby all data held by nine popular tech companies (most of which are primarily websites) is recorded. Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, Skype, AOL and Apple all participate in this program. When I say ‘all data’ I literally mean ALL data; drafted emails that are never sent, the audio and video of your Skype conversations, even what you type but never send. All of those are recorded! Tempora is the other major internet based program revealed by Snowden. This one is carried out by Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the British equivalent of the NSA. Tempora gives GCHQ the ability to easily hack into the internet. It is whereby GCHQ has access to the fibre optic cables that make the internet possible.

If this was not bad enough, Snowden has revealed that America not only spies on ordinary citizens but on allied leaders. It was revealed that the USA had spied on over 35 world leaders. The most prominent was German Chancellor Angela Merkel who later compared NSA spying to the Stasi (the Nazi secret police).

These revelations have truly shocked and horrified the world. The fact that the Guardian, Greenwald and Snowden all say that the worst has yet to come is scary to say the least. I can only assume that the revelations have nothing to do with spying as I honestly cannot think of anything that would be worse than has already been revealed. So what has the US and its allies done that could possibly be worse? My mind is running through all the conspiracies I have dismissed as crazy in the past and wondering which of them (if any) are actually true. If you had told me a year ago that the US government records basically all the information on the internet, I likely would have told you to stop watching Alex Jones and take off the tinfoil hat.

So does the US government assassinate non-terrorists? Did they cause Chavez’s cancer? Was 9/11 an inside job? Is there really a New World Order? Are all world leaders actually green lizards? OK so the last three, and especially the last two, are undoubtedly not true. If they turn out to be true I will literally eat my hat. The former two are not so ridiculous though. After all, when the CIA started out it couldn’t stop assassinating people! It was only when John F. Kennedy became President that it was stopped (cue another conspiracy).

Whatever 2014 holds, spying and Snowden will be on the menu. 

Edward Snowden in an interview with the Guardian

Review of 2013

What a year! I really cannot believe that it is already 2014, it feels like yesterday that I was counting down to midnight and singing Auld Lang Syne! With the end of 2013 it comes time for me to review the most important news stories of the year. Although not as monumental as 2011, when revolution and protest spread throughout the whole planet, 2013 will still have a lasting impact.

The biggest news story of the year undoubtedly was thanks to a previously unknown young American, Edward Snowden. The release of classified information shocked the world. He was simultaneously called a traitor and the greatest American since Martin Luther King. Other massive 2013 news stories came out of the Middle East with a coup/revolution in Egypt, chemical weapons in Syria and progress with Iran. Gay rights made headlines across the globe with progress being made in the likes of Britain, France and America. Whilst bad news came from India, Russia and Uganda.

The weather seemed to never be far from TV sets. Tornadoes tore through Oklahoma, wildfires devastated Colorado and Australia, and floods ferociously destroyed… well everywhere! The worst weather story was Typhoon Haiyan that bore down on the Philippines and killed over 6,000 people.

I will be posting my 2013 reviews every 12 hours for the next several days. As I post them I’ll edit this post to include links to my various articles. Enjoy!

1. The Year of the Spy
2. Egyptian Revolution: Round II
3. The Bloodshed in Syria Continues
4. The Passing of a Hero
5. A Troubled Northern Ireland
6. The Rainbow Wave
7. Gay Rights - The Bad News
8. The Destructive Force of Mother Nature

Hysteria in the Tory Party

Immigration has been at the centre of British politics for years now. On one side you have cries to close the border totally and on the other to actively increasing immigration. In 2012 517,000 people immigrated to the UK whilst 349,000 emigrated from it, resulting in a net migration of +168,000. Preliminary estimates for 2013 show this rising slightly to 183,000 with 320,000 people leaving and 503,000 arriving. Considering that David Cameron and the Tories promised to curb immigration, this reflects poorly on them with their base.

Part of the problem for the Conservative Party is that they legally cannot do anything to stop people coming from the EU. The only countries that can face restrictions are Bulgaria and Romania who joined the EU in 2007. Unfortunately for the Tories, these restrictions must be lifted following the end of 2013. This is predicted to cause a mild spike in immigration next year. Rising immigration could prove disastrous for the Tories leading into the 2015 election. They are extremely fearful of UKIP whose twin issues are immigration and the EU. The Tories fear that if they do not appear conservative enough on the EU and immigration then UKIP will pull enough votes from them to guarantee a 2015 electoral defeat.

Cue hysteria in the Conservative Party!

David Cameron has announced support for a cap on EU migrants at 75,000 per year! The proposed cap is blatantly illegal and would destroy Britain’s relationship with Europe. Cameron has also proposed changes to benefits which are much more sensible (not to mention legal). New immigrants will not be able to claim benefits for the first three months and benefits will stop after six months if they cannot find a job and have no hope of finding one. 

MPs' Shocking Pay Rise!

When the British people get asked, which profession is the least trustworthy, the answer is nearly always politicians. Politicians’ have had a continual decline in popularity since the scandals of the 1960’s and the 1970’s. Their popularity took a huge hit in 2009 when the expenses scandal broke, it turned out many politicians had cheated the system. MPs turned out to be claiming for all sorts of ridiculous things such as duck houses (no seriously, one MP did claim money for a duck house). After this scandal MPs decided to take the decision of their pay and expenses out of the hands of parliament and into a totally independent body.

This action certainly seemed like a good idea at the time, but now it has turned around to bite them. At the moment MPs get paid £66,396 per annum, which is more than double what the average Brit ears at £26,500. The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority has decided that MPs need to get paid more! IPSA has revealed that it will increase the salary of MPs to £74,000, a rise of 11%! This is more than five times inflation and much higher than the 1% rise cap being experienced by everyone else in the public sector. All three leaders of the main political parties are opposed to the rise as they find it politically embarrassing. At a time when most ordinary people are struggling, a pay rise seems offensive. Yet due to IPSA’s independence, they are powerless to do anything about it.

What I believe is that the pay of MPs should be capped at double the median wage of the country. This would give them more of an incentive to raise the wages of ordinary people, plus still give them a healthy salary. If that were to be implemented right now it would mean MPs would get an annual salary of £53,000.  

Ukraine Should Remind us that the EU is Still Important

The EU has not had a great few years, the Euro currency has been in constant pain since the economic crisis of 2007-2009. The wealthier Euro nations such as Germany, Netherlands and Finland have had to support the appropriately named ‘PIIGS’ countries. All across the EU euro-scepticism is rising with the likes of the National Front in France and UKIP in the UK. You might think that with all that pain on the inside, non-EU nations would be hesitant about creating closer ties with the organisation. Especially when there is a viable alternative.

It will then come as a surprise to you to learn that there is a country in which pro-EU sentiment is strong enough to spark a revolution! That country is Ukraine.

The EU has eyed Ukraine as a country that it wishes to create closer bonds with. As part of the European Neighbourhood Policy it was trying to get Ukraine to sign an Association Agreement, so long as it implements certain reforms. The major problem was that the agreement is opposed by Ukraine’s ally, Russia. The President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, really hates the deal as he wants Ukraine to join the Eurasian Economic Community of five former Soviet States and eventually the customs union that includes only Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. The strong opposition from Putin caused Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych to refuse to sign the Agreement on the 29^th of November as he was supposed to. This sparked fury in Ukraine.

For the past ten days people have protested in cities all across Ukraine, but particularly in the capital, Kiev. The Ukrainian people have grown fed up with the historic influence of Russia and the Kremlin. They wish to leave its bitter embrace and join with Western Europe, in the hopes of some fresh air. The statue of Lenin in Kiev was torn down yesterday, as it was seen as a symbol of Russian oppression. It was replaced with the European Union’s flag – now a symbol of hope and democracy in the poor Eastern European country.

This is not the first time Ukrainians have taken to the streets to protest against Yanukovych. In 2004 he won a highly disputed election that resulted in mass demonstrations and the election being annulled. In the second election Yanukovych was easily beaten by his opponent, Viktor Yushchenko. The Orange Revolution, as it was later called, should have served as a warning to Yanukovych that if he messed with the Ukrainian people, then he would pay a high price.

It is difficult to say whether these demonstrations will actually cause a change in government, but they nonetheless show that the European Union is still important. To many people living in well-established democracies like the United Kingdom and France, the EU has outlived its usefulness. Founding it was meant to make war impossible amongst the ‘Great Powers’ of Europe, and in that it has succeeded. Yet to those who live in fledgling democracies, which could fail at any given moment, the EU is a beacon of light. It is something that they can work towards and will help stabilise their countries. It is something that has proven to bring economic well-being to the less advantaged nations. Ireland, Greece and Portugal may seem to be in a bad economic situation now, but it is still better than what it was in their pre-EU days. If the countries that did not ‘need’ the EU were to leave, you would find a significantly weaker EU, one that could not help the nations that need it.