WHATS UP WITH TURKEY

The US military pact with autonomous Kurdistan violates Iraq’s integrity and moves the Iraqi Kurds closer to permanent separation from the rest of the country

In a surprise move, the United States last week signed a military agreement with the Kurdistan Region Government (KRG) in northern Iraq which would allow Washington to establish close military and security ties with the region which is seeking independence from Iraq.

The pact, signed by Elissa Slotkin, US acting assistant secretary of defence for international security affairs and the KRG’s interior minister, is unprecedented and breaks new ground in US relations with the Iraqi Kurds.

By and large, the little-publicised but critical partnership deal will have far-reaching implications for Iraq’s fragile ties with its self-ruled Kurdish community.

It is the first time the government of Iraq’s northern autonomous enclave has signed a political, military and financial cooperation pact with a foreign country bypassing the central government in Baghdad.

The pact is a clear violation of Iraq’s 2005 Constitution, ironically drafted under the supervision of the US Occupying Authority. The constitution gives the central government the exclusive power to sign agreements with foreign countries. 

The deal is also in breach of the 2008 US-Iraq Agreement which paved the way for the United States to pull its troops out from Iraq and set the terms for future bilateral relations.

Announcing the deal on 12 July, a spokesman for the KRG said the agreement would allow the United States to provide the Iraqi Kurds with further military and financial support in the fight against the Islamic State (IS) group.

Omid Sabah said the main purpose of the agreement was to shore up Kurdish Peshmerga capabilities in preparation for the long-awaited offensive to retake Iraq’s second-largest city of Mosul from IS militants.

Iraqi security forces have launched an operation against IS in Mosul and succeeded in retaking some villages south of the city. The US expects Kurdish Peshmergas to take part in the assault by opening another front east and north of Mosul.

Neither the KRG nor the Pentagon released details about the military agreement, but Kurdish officials hailed it as a historic breakthrough for the Iraqi Kurds.

It is “a recognition and appreciation of the value of the Peshmergas’ sacrifices and a contribution to stability and the defense of liberty, democracy and humanity,” KRG spokesman Safeen Dizayee was quoted as saying by ARA News. 

Fishar News, an outlet close to Masoud Barzani, the de facto leader of the KRG, reported that under the agreement the US army would establish five military bases in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Fishar News reported that one US air base would be built in Harir some 70 km north of Erbil, the KRG provincial capital. The base would be used to host American jet fighters and helicopters as well as military advisers.

Another military base will be established in Alton Kopri south of Erbil and will be used to store light weapons, while two other bases will be built in KRG-controlled areas in Mosul, the media outlet said.

A stunning surprise is that the US will be allowed to build the fifth military base in Halabja on the border with neighbouring Iran, according to the Fishar News report.

The outlet said the deal had a term of 20 years and could be renewed upon agreement by the two parties.

Kurditan24.net, a Kurdish-language television network owned by the KRG, said Kurdistan would receive some $450 million in financial assistance in addition to unspecified military assistance from the US. 

The Iraqi government has remained tight-lipped on the controversial deal which came on the heels of a previously unannounced visit by US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter to Baghdad.

Baghdad’s silence has prompted speculation about pressure being put on it by Washington, which is helping the Iraqi security forces and the Kurdish Peshmergas to retake Mosul from IS.

The United States says its assistance to Iraq and the Peshmergas is essential in gaining ground in the war against IS terrorists and retaking Mosul before Obama’s presidential term expires in November.

Obama clearly hopes the recapture of Mosul will allow him to hand on a more stable Iraq to his successor, even though the US is expected to maintain substantial military forces in Iraq.

While this could provide a summary of the thinking behind the US mission in Iraq, the question remains of how the US-KRG deal could affect the larger picture, including Kurdish aspirations to leave Iraq.

The greatest irony is that Washington has infringed on the same document it signed to ensure its respect of Iraq’s integrity and unity following its exit from the country.

Under the 2008 “Strategic Framework Agreement for a Relationship of Friendship and Cooperation between the United States of America and the Republic of Iraq,” Washington pledged “full respect for the sovereignty of Iraq”.

The United States also undertook that it “shall not use Iraqi land, sea and air as a launching or transit point for attacks against other countries; nor seek or request permanent bases or a permanent military presence in Iraq.”

Washington may argue that the military deal does not translate into backing for Kurdish independence from Iraq, yet it could certainly spell trouble for efforts to keep the country together.

Barzani has been seeking to secede from Iraq, and he has declared his intention to hold a referendum on separation “before the US elections” in November.

The vote on self-determination could be an attempt to put more pressure on his opponents and sceptics and build up a de facto situation making a case for Iraqi Kurdistan’s independence.

While the United States has supported Kurdish autonomy within a unified Iraq, it has refrained from expressing public support for Kurdistan’s statehood.

Last month, the US reiterated its support for “a whole [and] unified Iraq”. “We believe that a strong, pluralistic, unified Iraq is good for the region,” State Department Spokesman John Kirby said in response to Barzani’s independence plans.

But Washington’s military agreement with the KRG has cast doubt, if not eliminated, that commitment altogether. With this deal, the political influence of Baghdad in Kurdistan is now expected to wane in favour of increasing Kurdish separatist tendencies

Oil is the name of game in Iraq _January 31 2016

In a surprise move, the United States has announced that it will deploy a new force of special operations troops to Iraq to combat the Islamic State (IS) terror group which has seized swathes of the country and neighbouring Syria.

US Secretary of Defense Ash Carter wrote in the US publication Politico last week that soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division would soon deploy to Iraq to join the fight against IS “with a clear campaign plan to deliver the barbaric organisation a lasting defeat.”

Though Carter did not give details about the deployment, he said the troop mission was to destroy the IS “parent tumour in Iraq and Syria by collapsing its two power centres in Mosul, Iraq and Raqqa, Syria.”

“Our campaign is to deliver IS a lasting defeat,” Carter wrote.

US Secretary of State John Kerry said “the government of Iraq was of course briefed in advance of secretary Carter’s announcement” and the two sides would work out details about the new deployment.

Joseph F Dunford Jr, the US top military officer, also said discussions between Washington and Baghdad had begun on how American forces would “integrate” with Iraqi military units to take back Mosul.

The move is a sharp departure from US President Barack Obama’s previous strategy that the US would not deploy “boots on the ground” in Iraq and Syria and would continue instead its current air campaign and military assistance to the Iraqi government.

Baghdad has not yet made it clear if it had agreed to let the US troops into Iraq. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi has repeatedly said foreign ground combat troops are not needed in Iraq. Leaders of the country’s Shia groups have warned that they will consider such a presence a violation of Iraq’s sovereignty.

If the statements by top American officials are any indication, the United States is now gearing up for war with IS, including in the battle for Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city which was captured by the terror group in spring 2014.

Analysts believe that the US-led coalition against IS needs to take back Mosul where Saddam's Hussein sons Uday and Qusay were captured and killed back in 2003, a sprawling city of more than two million people, and the US military shift signals Washington’s readiness to engage IS strongholds with ground combat operations.

Iran's Fast Attack Small Boats

Iran Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Navy said the speedboats manufactured in Iran can sail at a much higher speed than the US vessels.

"Our fast attack craft fleet is often twice as fast as their American rivals. The plan is to make them go even faster,” Navy Spokesperson told the state-run TV

Referring to the US official remarks that Washington is aware of the scope of IRGC's missile tunnels and vessels along the Iranian coasts, he said, "The Americans don’t know everything about us and the things they know is what we, ourselves, have shown and wanted them to know it."

"Their unknown is twice the realm of their known," he added.

In recent years, Iran has made great achievements in its defense sector and attained self-sufficiency in producing essential military equipment and systems.

Iranian officials have always stressed that the country's military and arms programs serve defensive purposes and should not be perceived as a threat to any other country.

Iran Navy announced back in May that plans to mass-produce missile launching speedboats with the speed of 80 knots per hour are on the menu.

"Based on the fifth five-year (development) plan, we should materialize our objective of mass-producing military speedboats with the speed of 80 knots per hour. This is a formidable speed in the world's navies," Iran Navy said.

"Therefore, we should try to mass-produce speedboats that can traverse at the speed of 80 knots (per hour) and are equipped with missiles with a range of 100km; the vessels no one can catch," the IRGC commander added.

Commander also said that the IRGC Navy is equipped with laboratories and pools in which the country's experts can design and test speedboats with the speed of 120 knots per hour.

Three Men You Miss in Mid East Peace Process

Philip Charles Habib (February 25, 1920 – May 25, 1992) was a Lebanese-American career diplomat, known for work in Vietnam, South Korea, and the Middle East. After his death, The New York Times described him as "the outstanding professional diplomat of his generation in the United States

Richard Charles Albert Holbrooke (April 24, 1941 – December 13, 2010) was an American diplomat, magazine editor, author, professor, Peace Corps official, and investment banker.


George John Mitchell, Jr. GBE (born August 20, 1933) is an American lawyer, businessman and politician. A Democrat, Mitchell served as a United States Senator from Maine from 1980 to 1995 and as Senate Majority Leader from 1989 to 1995.

I hope someday to live near ocean. What should I look for in buying property there?

Q. I hope someday to live near ocean. What should I look for in buying property there?

A. Firm ground. Coastal Maine would be ideal bet. The dense metamorphic rock of much of the Maine shore is stable (within the human time frame) and hard ideal footings for a house. Make sure the site is far enough inland to avoid high surf, storm surge and tides. If the winters in Maine do not appeal to you, coastal Florida might make a choice. If you insist on building on a barrier island, make sure your home is on the mainland side of the southern end. Parts of the Pacific coast are all right, but local variability on the active margin makes some knowledge of the geological history of the area would be very valuable. For example, some parts of the San Diego shoreline is eroding about (3) meters (10 feet) per year - hardly a solid investment.  

ACTIVE  MARGIN

 In plate tectonics, a convergent boundary also known as a destructive plate boundary (because of subduction), is an actively deforming region where two (or more) tectonic plates or fragments of lithosphere move toward one another and collide. ...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_margin

BARRIER ISLAND

a long narrow sandy island (wider than a reef) running parallel to the shore

wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

METAMORPHIC ROCK

Sedimentary rock (formed by debris) that has been compressed and heated

www.museumnetworkuk.org/materials/glossary.html

Gullah People

Bees

Bees : The world's oldest bee fossil was found in a piece of Burmese amber believed to be 100 million years old by Khin Tun on Friday, February 4, 2011 at 10:56am

Albert Einstein is reputed to have said; " If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would only have four years of life left. No more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.

Bees are brilliant. Bees have a sophisticated navigation system that uses the sun and landmarks as points of reference. it allows them travel up to three miles (5 km) from the hive in search of food without losing their way back home.They are able to direct other bees to food supplies through a remarkable form of communication called the "waggle dance".

The world's oldest bee fossil was found in a piece of Burmese amber believed to be 100 million years old

This world's oldest (first) bee is much smaller than the western honeybee but it was covered with same pluffy hairs to help pick up pollen.However, unlike the modern honeybee, it is thought that this ancient relative was a solitary creature.

The western honeybee migrated north and west from Africa, reaching Europe by the end of Pleistocene era some 10,000 years ago, as the glaciers retreated and the last ice age draw to a close.

Containers of 3,000 years old honey have been found alongside the mummified remains of a pharoah designed to sweeten after life.

China with its venerable history of beekeeping. Honey leads the list of medicines described in the books of chinese medicine written 2,200 years ago.

Chinese classified honey by the terrain from it was gathered as ground honey, bamboo honey, wood honey and even stone honey.

Worldwide honey bee pollination worth more than an estimated 60 billion a year of which soem 15 billion is in US alone according to the study by Cornell University.

Pollination is big business 40 billion bees in total, making it the largest pollination in history.

Argentina is the world number one honey exporter.

There are more than 20,000 species, 17,000 identified. These include sweat bees, squash bees, capenter bees, andrenid bees, mason bees, leafcutter bees, cactus-loving bees, bumblebees (fluffy bees).















Note:

Amber= Fossilzed resin of ancient trees. Most of the world's amber is in the range of 30-90 million years old

Solitary= Existing, living alone or in pairs only

Pleistocene era= At the time glaciers retreated and the extinction of numerous land mammals, such as mammoths, mastodans and sabered-tooth tigers