Maverick's World

The Daily Donald 04/18/2017

As some of you may have heard, Bellingcat and Human Rights Watch came out with an OSINT study of US claims regarding the Al-Jinah Mosque complex. A study of available evidence points to the US deliberately bombing a mosque filled with 300 worshipers. The exact fatality count hovers in the 30-40 at this time. It is unclear if the US bombed the mosque to target a Tablighi group that stayed in the mosque with their families, or if was after someone else, but so far no link has been found to violent extremism in any of the victims' social media. The only logical conclusion sustainable at this time is that the US acted based upon some intelligence it received and it was processed incorrectly.

A lot of people suspect that this processing error is due to President Trump's directive to give the military "a free hand". Most people see the "free hand" directive as being a corollary to his electoral promises to "bomb the shit out of them" and "kill the families". I don't buy that completely. I think Trump is too much of a career criminal to actually put anything that illegal on paper. I suspect what we are seeing in this case and others like it (the Yemen fuckup, the Mosul mass murder and the MOAB drop at Tangi Asadkhel) is Trump disabling the part of the NSC that has review on this  kind of thing.

Many liberals were quick to criticize (and rightly so) the Obama era disposition matrix. You may recall that I never did so. This is because thought the disposition matrix (Kill List) was immoral and unjust (the people on the list were denied an appeal) it was extremely thorough and accountability for the process steps was traceable inside the government. This internal accountability made list admins very careful as they felt they would be hauled up before the President to answer for their fuckups. The result of this pressure was an extraordinary amount of due diligence and professionalism. I am not saying mistakes weren't made but because President Obama personally signed  off on each killing, there was a great deal of pressure to get it right.

Today that pressure is gone. With Trump deliberately obscuring and violating the presidential records act, and the GOP legitimizing his illegal acts - the entire accountability is broken. The result is that a terrorist state is slowly coming into being. The GOPers won't realize this until it is too late. By the time this all comes to fore - the drones and the MOABs will be hitting people on the streets of DC. This is the only outcome of deliberately disabling the accountability process for targeted killings. The intentions in that kind of thing are always criminal - to get away with murder - that is what is sought. Once you get away with murder in a distant land - then you can "shoot someone on Times Square" and get away with it too.

Georgia's 6th congressional district heads to the polls today for its special election. It is anyone's guess what will happen here. We are seeing significant signs of election tampering by GOP folks. Add that to the gerrymandering and voter discrimination that is common in Red States and the bizarre electoral behavior of so-called religious folks down there - and you have an election that is too close to call.

On the North Korean front, after much saber rattling and fussing the tensions of last week have given way to a sense of ennui. Most watchers are tired of tuning every time the clock strikes 8 AM in Pyongyang. I am guessing that this is what KJU wants - so he can finally test his thermonukes in peace. The Chinese seem worried about a venting event at the test site. They have instructed cities bordering DPRK to prepare for a nuclear accident in North Korea. I think this means KJU has asked his boys to test a MT yield device underground. I think the last one that was tested in that magnitude was Cannikin. God help us all when that happens.

In other entertaining news Prime Minister May finds that she does not have support within the Houses of Parliament for pushing through her ideas on Brexit (and whatever the else) so she intends to call for a general election in June. I am sure Nigel Farage will do whatever he can to help President Putin win this election - though I am not sure if President Putin has been given enough notice for this.

posted by maverick @ 6:02 AM