The Eritrea “Massacre” That Never Happened
By Mela Ghebremedhin | Black Agenda Report | November 8, 2017
Mass protest. Mass rally. Indiscriminate gunshots. Mass casualties and death. These are some of the sensationalist words and phrases used to create buzz and portray events as simply black and white. They are often also used without nuance or context. Recently, Eritrea made the headlines after a group of teenagers walked down the streets of Asmara to voice their discontent at their school being closed. Shouting “Allahu Akbar”, the boys, mostly aged around 14-15, were walking from their neighborhood, Akria, towards the Ministry of Education.
Many Eritreans on the sidewalks, in shops and restaurants, and otherwise within the city center looked on in confusion, particularly with the chants of “God is Great” in Arabic. Generally, such loud, public proclamations are rare in a society long known for its sense of collective tolerance and respect. After some members of the group threw stones at several policemen, authorities dispersed the crowd and fired some shots into the sky. In total, the entire incident lasted several minutes, with no casualties or injuries.
However, almost instantly, reports of the incident were twisted, mashed, mixed and remade to provide an account that was quite far from the reality. One of the most culpable was Aljazeera. Lately, it seems that anything negative is a treasure for Aljazeera. Associated Press, reporting from Ethiopia, the BBC, and others followed not too long after. The statement by the US Embassy in Eritrea, warning its citizens from going to the city center, was also somewhat ironic considering that people in the streets of Asmara are far safer than those in the US, who must regularly confront police brutality and killings, stop and frisk campaigns, regular mass shootings, and general violence.
Ironically, as more time passed by, the more twisted the reports became. By Wednesday, the story was completely distorted. The Washington Post and its Ethiopian writer – with an extensive history of reports on Eritrea that later ended up being debunked – stated that 100 were injured and 28 killed, despite the fact that there were no casualties and no one was injured. Notably, it was overlooked that the source for the claim was the Red Sea Afar Democratic Organisation (RSADO), which is based in Ethiopia and is an internationally recognized terrorist group.
The Washington Post and its Ethiopian writer – with an extensive history of reports on Eritrea that later ended up being debunked – stated that 100 were injured and 28 killed, despite the fact that there were no casualties and no one was injured.
Expectedly, news outlets jumped on the new “fact” of multiple deaths and the story quickly began trending on Twitter. Repeated efforts at clarifying and providing an accurate account of the event were made by Eritreans, located both in the Diaspora and on the ground in Asmara, but they were largely ignored. Instead, self-titled experts on Eritrea and acknowledged regime change activists fueled the fire, and spread inaccurate, false accounts. Others would continue the lies by shifting the source of the youths’ discontent, and also claiming that the Internet, telephone lines, and power in the capital were cut – despite things proceeding as normal in the city. Soon afterwards, almost as expected, the AJStream started sending private messages to many on Twitter, inviting them on their show. Obvious, right?
It is hard to understand how, instead of pursuing the truth or trying to provide an objective, balanced account, mainstream media rejected information or views of people tweeting from on the ground in Asmara, dismissing them as “supporters of the dictatorship” or “regime sympathizers.” What mainstream media failed to understand, however, is that the great majority of Eritreans – regardless of gender, class, or faith – were disappointed and angry towards the youngsters. Eritrea is not a country divided along religious or ethnic lines.
Shortly after the brief, small incident things returned back to normal. Some men – ordinary civilians – did stay out during the night, but only to ensure that there would be no more incidents. Notably, no militia or army personnel were called in to stand guard; in Eritrea, the people themselves have a sense of ownership and civil responsibility, and the prevalent attitude was that no such incidents should happen again. Women even brought them food and drinks, and it was quite telling that both Muslims and Christians were standing together in solidarity and community, side by side. However, on the other side of the world, the media and the Internet were abuzz with fake news and false accounts.
It should be noted that, by law, Eritrea follows a secular system where religious schools and national curriculum of education are separate. The issue with the school being shut down was that some of the speeches by the staff were found to be radical and could have posed a threat to the tolerance and peace prevailing within the country. Similarly, in the past, other schools, such as Cathedrale (Catholic) and St. Mary’s (Orthodox), were also closed down illustrating that this latest closure had nothing to do with discrimination.
According to Eritrea’s National Charter of 1994, “the diverse cultures of Eritrea should be a source of power and unity. The national system should be secular, separate from religion, yet respectful of the equality of religions” (PFDJ 1994:9). This vision was enshrined during the long, bitter armed struggle where people from all layers of Eritrean society – regardless of religious background – came together to win the country’s independence.
In today’s Eritrea, implementing a secular system has helped ensure peace and tolerance in a region known more for its ethno-religious volatility, violence, and tensions. What mainstream media and individuals looking for storm and chaos in a general sea of calm totally fail to understand is that Eritreans have a long history of struggle. Eritreans paid a heavy price for independence and sovereignty, and the people condemn any signs of conflicts, violence, discrimination, or division. Thus, despite the continuous efforts to disturb this harmony, the country remains united and will continue to work toward a society based on peace, love, tolerance, and mutual respect.
Mela Ghebremedhin is a freelance journalist based in Asmara, Eritrea.
Who Filled the Graves Of Hué?
By Wilfred Burchett | CounterPunch | November 8, 2017
Both Ken Burns and Anthony Bourdain have recently recycled the myth of National Liberation Front massacres in Hué during the Vietnam War. The real story, however, was quite different, as revealed at the time by one of the great correspondents of the era Wilfred Burchett. In order to set the record straight, we are reprinting his piece on Hué for The Guardian in 1970.
The recent attempt to equate the Son My (My Lai) massacre and scores of other similar atrocities with the so-called “Vietcong massacre at Hué” is a vain attempt to cover up what have been genocidal methods by the United States in South Vietnam since the war started.
The bodies in the mass graves of Hué — said to have been killed by the National Liberation Front — are victims of the same military machine and the same genocidal policies in operation at Son My. They are not the victims of the NLF but of American bombs, bullets and napalm.
Any discriminating reading of press reports published at the time will show what really happened in Hué. What follows is a true account of the Hue massacre.
The NLF attack on Hué was co-ordinated with an internal uprising on January 31, 1968. The main part of the city was in the hands of liberation forces within hours, practically without a shot fired.
Among the vanguard forces re-entering the city was Nguyen Chi Chanh, Hué’s former police chief who had sided with the people in the Buddhist uprising of 1966. He was a member of the Revolutionary Committee established as soon as Hué was liberated. If ever there was an example of what the South Vietnamese people really wanted, it was the manner in which the NLF took over the city of Hué.
Saigon Army Dissolved Overnight
Saigon’s power dissolved overnight. The Saigon army was incapable of even attempting its recapture. The population of Hué voted with its fists, feet and weapons — when it had them — for the NLF. No power in South Vietnam, except the American invaders, was capable of physically overthrowing the new people’s power.
The South Vietnamese army simply refused to fight. All its positions in Hue, except the headquarters of its 3rd Division, were overrun or surrendered in the first minutes. US Marines were called in to do the job the South Vietnamese refused to do — recapture Hué even at the price of its destruction. And destroyed it was.
Here is an account from the British ultraconservative Keesing’s Contemporary Archives, which prides itself on digging up the facts from the most responsible press for the historical record:
A large part of Hue was reduced to ruins by fighting and bombing. Le Monde reported ‘no large town in the Far East has been so devastated since the fighting in Seoul during the Korean war… Vast areas of the beautiful city were demolished.’
Of 145,000 inhabitants, 113,000 were homeless refugees. Bodies lay rotting in the streets for days and sanitary facilities broke down.
Artillery
This implied the city was 80 per cent destroyed. Reuters reported that more than 90 per cent was destroyed. By the NLF? No — by US planes and artillery, including the guns of the Seventh Fleet.
The Keesing’s account continued:
After the assault on the southern ramparts was hurled back on February 14, the United States fighter bombers dropped bombs, rockets, napalm and nausea gas on the Citadel and the following day warships of the Seventh Fleet shelled its walls, in addition to fresh United States air strikes.
In the old part of the city, South Vietnamese air craft had carried out heavy air attacks on February 3, wherein many houses were destroyed.
The city which the NLF and the Hue population liberated in a few hours took US Marines 26 days to recapture, at the price of Hue’s almost total destruction.
At a certain stage, helicopter gunships, hovering over the roofs, joined dive 
bombers and naval guns in shooting everything that moved in a total war against the entire population while Marine artillery tanks systematically destroyed the city block by block.
All public facilities broke down including sewage, water supply and garbage disposal. In many areas the streets were choked with bodies — limbless, headless, napalm-charred and cut into pieces by bombshell fragments. NLF sanitary services were forced to bury victims in mass graves nightly under constant air and artillery bombardment.
On April 23, two months after the destruction and reoccupation of Hue, the Saigon army — after their psychological warfare teams had done certain rearranging of the bodies — invented the “Vietcong massacre” myth, presenting the evidence of mass graves.
The US embassy in Saigon solemnly weighed the evidence and added “confirmation” later in the week. The US’s own atrocious massacre in Hue thus was attributed to the “Vietcong” and has been revived to offset the massacre at Song My.
A Western news agency estimates the civilian casualties in Hue as between 2000 and 3000, about the figure attributed to the NLF.
This fakery is totally consistent with the US “body count” fabrications, where every baby and grandfather killed by the US is listed as another “Vietcong casualty.”
Every time US propaganda services need a new diversion from increasing revelations of American atrocities, a new “Vietcong atrocity” is discovered. If the graves in Hue did not exist, US propaganda would have been forced to invent them. But they do exist — courtesy of the Pentagon.
Perhaps the Song My massacre and other instances of US atrocities will help to open the eyes of the American people as to exactly who it is which is resorting to terror in Vietnam.
An Entire People Fighting Invaders
If the American people could only understand why their soldiers are losing in Vietnam they might also understand why all the stories about “Vietcong atrocities” are not true.
This is people’s war. An entire people is fighting against American, invaders.
For the NLF and the liberation army to commit acts of terror against the people would be the same as committing an act of terror against itself.
Of course it is true that the liberation army executes some political officials of the Saigon regime and village chiefs controlled by the Saigon regime.
They consider these people traitors to Vietnam. And of course some civilians have died as an accidental result of liberation army firepower.
But anyone who understands in the slightest the meaning of people’s war also understands that the liberation armies take every conceivable precaution against harming the civilian population.
Criminal War Propaganda
Excerpt from Preface, Mark Taliano’s book “Voices from Syria“, Global Research Montreal, 2017
The Pentagon budget alone for illegal war propaganda is about $626,000,000(1) per year. Generous taxpayers relinquish these funds so that the Pentagon can contaminate the public mindset to the detriment of humanity, foreign and domestic.
The contamination of the public mindset is a necessary precondition to aggressive, criminal warfare in furtherance of a self-devouring political economy. Once the public is convinced that there is a War On Terror (which is a Big Lie), further astronomical transfers of money from the people to the oligarchs and narrow vested interests – all to the detriment of the vast majority of the population – are easy to justify.
Over the course of the dirty war on Syria, for example, the annual CIA budget in support of the terrorists invading Syria — all of the terrorists – has been about $1,000,000,000 per year(2), and that is only a small fraction of monies spent to support terrorism in Syria. Bill Van Auken notes in “General lets slip US escalation in Syria” that Washington’s “key regional allies, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, poured in billions more to ignite a war that has killed hundreds of thousands and turned millions into refugees.”(3)
An important component of the Pentagon’s “public deception apparatus” (a.k.a illegal war propaganda) consists of “think tanks”. The RAND corporation is one such example.
The strategy of “branding” has been particularly effective throughout the fake War on Terror. For example, governing agencies of deception would have us believe that there are “moderate terrorists.” The name itself is an oxymoron, but the strategy has been highly effective. Credulous people still believe that lie.(4)
The “Public Relations” liars, however, are paid to be aware of perception shifts, and the “Moderates” lie as well as the strategy of constantly re-naming terror groups(5) is wearing thin, so the branding is also shifting. A new trend now is to re-brand al Qaeda – and all of the terrorists invading Syria are al Qaeda or al Qaeda affiliates, including ISIS – as the “good guys”.
Syrian Ambassador to the UN, Bashar Ja’afari is well aware of the importance of word choices and how words are used to contaminate public perceptions. He stresses the importance, for example, of recognizing that the Syrian government is a government, and not a “regime”.
Similarly, the terrorists are not “Islamic” not only because of their deviant ideology, but especially because their actions defy any sane notions of Islam. Nor are the terrorists “jihadis”, especially since some of their most ardent supporters are Zionists. And of course the war isn’t a civil war. The terrorists are there because of the West and its allies, not despite the West and its allies. When incorrect nomenclature is used and repeated, however, public perceptions invariably shift.
https://vid.me/e/Tfagn?stats=1
All of this leads to an often over-looked observation by Christopher C. Black, a former lawyer at the UN:
Journalists who prostitute themselves by telling their fellow citizens lies are not only betraying the trust put in them by the people, and treating them with contempt, they are also war criminals and should be judged as such. Their responsibility in preparing the way for war is as great as those who plan the war and carry out the military operations of the war.(6)
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All of the post-9/11 wars were sold to Western audiences through a sophisticated network of interlocking governing agencies that disseminate propaganda to both domestic and foreign audiences. But the dirty war on Syria is different. The degree of war propaganda levelled at Syria and contaminating humanity at this moment is likely unprecedented. I had studied and written about Syria for years, so I was not entirely surprised by what I saw.
Order directly from Global Research (also available in PDF)
Mark Taliano
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Notes:
1 RT, “Scandal management: Pentagon spends most of US gov’t PR budget” 10, October, 2016. (https://www.rt.com/usa/362303-pentagon-biggest-propaganda-budget/) Accessed 6, November, 2017
2 Adam Johnson, “Down the Memory Hole: NYT Erases CIA’s Efforts to Overthrow Syria’s Government.” FAIR, 20 September, 2015.( http://fair.org/home/down-the-memory-hole-nyt-erases-cias-efforts-to-overthrow-syrias-government/) Accessed 6 November, 2017.
3 Bill Van Auken, “General lets slip US escalation in Syria.” World Socialist Website, 2 November, 2017. (http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/11/02/pers-n02.html) Accessed 2 November, 2017.
4 Tim Hayward, “Syria’s Moderate Opposition: beyond the doublethink.” 30 October, 2017. (https://timhayward.wordpress.com/2017/10/30/syrias-moderate-opposition-beyond-the-doublethink/) Accessed 6 November, 2017.
5 Mark Taliano, “U.S–Led NATO’s Tree Of Lies.” Global Research. 17 May, 2017. (https://www.globalresearch.ca/u-s-led-natos-tree-of-lies/5590456) Accessed 6 November, 2017.
6 Christopher C. Black, “NATO War Propaganda: A Danger to Russia and World Peace.” “ICH” – “NEO”. 14 March, 2015. (http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article41226.htm#.Wf81B3bogtk.facebook) Accessed 6 November, 2017.
Copyright © Mark Taliano, Global Research, 2017
NSA whistleblower told CIA director DNC leak was inside job, not Russian hack
RT | November 8, 2017
CIA Director Mike Pompeo reportedly met with NSA whistleblower William Binney for an hour at CIA headquarters on October 24 at the request of US President Donald Trump. Binney disputes US intelligence claims over Russian hacking of DNC emails in 2016.
Binney is of the belief that someone “with physical access” inside the Democratic National Committee (DNC) leaked sensitive information during the 2016 presidential campaign, as opposed to a sophisticated hack perpetrated by Russian Intelligence.
Trump allegedly told Pompeo that if he “want[ed] to know the facts, he should talk to me,” Binney said, as cited by The Intercept. The Intercept interviewed Binney and at least two additional intelligence sources close to the matter for its report.
“I was willing to meet Pompeo simply because it was clear to me the intelligence community wasn’t being honest here,” Binney said. “I am quite willing to help people who need the truth to find the truth and not simply have deceptive statements from the intelligence community.”
The meeting to discuss the narrative that directly contravenes the findings of the US intelligence community was so productive that Pompeo is already arranging further meetings between NSA and FBI officials and Binney to discuss his analysis of the alleged DNC ‘inside job.’ Binney also raised the death of former DNC staffer Seth Rich to Pompeo during their meeting.
The CIA has declined to comment on such reports, however. “As a general matter, we do not comment on the Director’s schedule,” said Dean Boyd, director of the CIA’s Office of Public Affairs, as cited by The Intercept.
“I think he probably saw me on those programs,” Binney told NBC News of his multiple appearances on Fox News and how he might have appeared on Trump’s radar. Binney has put his reputation on the line to challenge the prevailing consensus among the US intelligence community and mainstream media as to how Donald Trump won the US presidency, namely through alleged Russian interference, despite a dearth of evidence to support such claims.
The meeting indicates that the already-strained relationship between the US commander-in-chief and his intelligence apparatus may be taking an even more bizarre twist. For example, the CIA’s Counterintelligence Mission Center, which would be directly tasked with any investigation into alleged Russian meddling, reports directly to President Trump in a somewhat unorthodox move.
Binney is a member of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), a group of former intelligence officials who are skeptical of the intelligence community’s conclusions. “[T]he entire intelligence community needs to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth to the American public,” Binney reportedly told Pompeo as cited by CNN.
The VIPS analysis has been disputed among the intelligence community, most notably by one of its co-authors, Thomas Drake, himself a former NSA official charged under the Espionage Act.
“A number of VIPS members did not sign this problematic memo because of troubling questions about its conclusions, and others who did sign it have raised key concerns since its publication,” the counter memo published online reads.
The majority of the fourth estate in the US has bought into the narrative of alleged Russian hacking wholeheartedly.
Several outlets have described Binney’s analysis as a “disputed,” “fringe,” or “conspiracy,” theory (Washington Post, NBC, and CNN respectively) while failing to apply the same level of skepticism to the US intelligence community narrative, which has time and again been undermined, including in testimony by social media giants before Congress.
Pompeo has come under fire for cozying up to Trump in the past. In October, he said that “the intelligence community’s assessment is that the Russian meddling that took place did not affect the outcome of the election.”
The CIA quickly engaged in damage-control operations, however. “The intelligence assessment with regard to Russian election meddling has not changed, and the director did not intend to suggest that it had,” CIA spokesperson Dean Boyd said clarifying the official stance.
“[M]any people are emotionally tied to this agenda, to tie the Russians to President Trump,” Binney told Fox News’ Tucker Carlson in August.
SEE ALSO:
‘Insider leaks, not Russian hacking’: CIA & MI5 veterans discuss ODNI report on RT
Saudi Arabia accuses Lebanon of being ‘kidnapped’ by Hezbollah & ‘declaring war’ on Riyadh
RT | November 7, 2017
Riyadh has accused Lebanon of “declaring war” on Saudi Arabia by allowing Hezbollah “aggression” against the Gulf Kingdom. Earlier, the Lebanese militant group accused the Saudis of forcing Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri out of office.
Hariri unexpectedly announced his resignation on Saturday in a televised statement recorded in Saudi Arabia. In his resignation speech, Hariri accused Iran and Hezbollah of a “desire to destroy the Arab world.” The next day, the leader of the Lebanese Hezbollah, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, accused Saudi Arabia of forcing the premier out of office and writing his resignation statement for him. Tehran meanwhile firmly rejected Hariri’s accusations, saying that Iran only seeks “peace and stability” and pointing out its “excellent” relationship with Beirut.
Amid the political uncertainty, on Monday the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya news network reported that King Salman had met with Hariri in Riyadh, where the monarch shared the details of Hezbollah’s alleged aggression against Saudi Arabia.
According to the Saudi Minister of State for Gulf Affairs, Thamer al-Sabhan, Hezbollah is accused of smuggling drugs and providing terrorist training to Saudi youngsters. During the meeting, King Salman allegedly accused the Lebanese militant group of being involved in “every terrorist act that threatens Saudi Arabia,” Al-Arabiya reported. The ruler of the kingdom also allegedly vowed to use “all political and other means” to confront Hezbollah, which he called the “Party of Satan.”
“We will treat the government of Lebanon as a government declaring war because of Hezbollah militias,” Al-Sabhan told al-Arabiya. “Lebanon is kidnapped by the militias of Hezbollah and behind it is Iran.”
“We expect the Lebanese government to act to deter Hezbollah,” the minister said. “The Lebanese must all know these risks and work to fix matters before they reach the point of no return.”
Al-Sabhan did not clarify what actions Saudi Arabia might take against Lebanon. There was also no immediate reaction from Beirut, where Lebanese President Michel Aoun is yet to accept the prime minister’s resignation. Aoun plans to decide on the issue after Hariri returns to Lebanon from Saudi Arabia, presidential spokesman Nabih Berri told reporters Monday.
READ MORE: Saudi Arabia blames Iran for missile launched from Yemen, warns it could be considered ‘act of war’
Deconstructing the Climate Demagoguery of the Wine Country Wildfire Tragedies
By Jim Steele | Landscapes and Cycles | October 25, 2017
As sure as the winds will blow, climate demagogues hijack every human tragedy to amplify fears of rising CO2 concentrations. Despite that fact other critical factors were keys to understanding the devastation of the Wine Country fires, politicians like Hillary Clinton, Al Gore and Governor Jerry Brown were quick to proclaim climate change had made the fires worse than they would have been.
Climate researcher Kevin Trenberth has long tried to undermine the foundations of science by discarding the null hypothesis. Without formal testing whether a tornado, hurricane or wildfire event is within the expectations of natural variability, Trenberth simply asserts every tragedy is made worse by rising CO2. Accordingly, he is interviewed by climate change propagandists after every weather tragedy. In an interview with InsideClimateNews a few months before the Wine Country wildfires Trenberth continued to proselytize his views, “Whatever conditions exists, they’re always exacerbated by climate change. There’s always that heat variable, the increased risk.”
Indeed heat is always a variable, but usually it has nothing to do with CO2. Sadly, due to his extreme beliefs Trenberth often confuses climate with weather.
Similarly, Daniel Swain who authors a good California Weather Blog, unfortunately strays when he tries to interject CO2-climate change into an otherwise good weather analysis. Writing the fires should also be looked at from “the long-term climate context,” he argued the “record-hottest summer” dried out the vegetation exacerbating the fire conditions. But he too failed to separate natural climate and weather events from his hypothesized contributions from CO2. As will become clear from a more detailed analysis, climate change played no part in the wildfire devastation.
The Ignition Component
Fire danger rating systems analyze 1) an ignition component, 2) a fuel component and 3) a spread component to determine how to allocate fire-fighting resources and when to issue public alerts. Natural fires are caused by lightning, and so good weather models can forecast the short-term probability of lightning fires. Lightning fires are also more likely during warm and moist seasons enhancing their window of predictability. Unfortunately, Cal Fire reports 95% of California fires are unpredictably ignited by humans.
Climate alarmists like Dr. Trenberth have blithely suggested global warming is increasing the fire season stating, “In the West, they used to talk about a fire season, the fire season used to be 60 days, then 90 days, and now they think it’s year-round. There’s no pause.” Tragically that uncritical belief in a climate-related extended fire season has been parroted by lay person and scientists alike. But the facts show the observed extended fire season is due to human ignitions. Blaming climate change is fake news!
In a 2017 paper researchers reported that across the USA from 1992 to 2012, “human-caused fire season was three times longer than the lightning-caused fire season and added an average of 40,000 wildfires per year across the United States. Human-started wildfires disproportionally occurred where fuel moisture was higher.” Furthermore “Human-started wildfires were dominant (>80% of ignitions) in over 5.1 million km2, the vast majority of the United States, whereas lightning-started fires were dominant in only 0.7 million km2.”
We can reduce some human caused ignitions. The Wine Country fires were not ignited by lightning but all observations suggest they were started by downed power lines in high winds. A year ago, California legislators introduced a bipartisan bill aimed at reducing wildfire ignitions from powerlines. Although governor Brown hypes the unsubstantiated dangers of climate change, he vetoed the bill which would have promoted real action to prevent well-known human causes of wildfires. Preventing powerline ignition could have prevented the Wine Country tragedy.
The Fuel Component
Fire ecologists will estimate a fire’s potential intensity by calculating the Energy Release Component (ERC), a measure of the potential heat energy per square foot. ERC is a function of the biomass both dead and alive, and the biomass moisture content. As fuels increase and as fuels dry the ERC increases. Live fuels are modeled such that maximum moisture content coincides with the peak growing season, and declines thereafter as the plants go dormant. Moisture content of dead fuels are modeled according to their diameters.
Depending on their diameters, dead fuels will lose moisture as they equilibrate with their dry surroundings at rates that vary from 1 hour to 1000 hours or more. To aid in firefighting management decisions, fuels are categorized into 4 groups as described in Gaining an Understanding of the National Fire Danger Rating System published by the National Wildfire Coordinating Group
1-Hour Time-lag Fuels “consist of herbaceous plants or round wood less than one-quarter inch in diameter. Also included is the uppermost layer of litter on the forest floor.” The ERC of these fuels and thus the fire danger, can change throughout the day. Dead grass as well as twigs and small stems of chaparral shrubs are 1-hour fuels, and those fine fuels sustained the rapid spread of the Wine Country fires. Assertions that recent and past summer droughts or decades of climate change had dried the fuels and exacerbated the Wine Country fire danger have absolutely no scientific basis. The approach of the hot, bone-dry Diablo Winds would have extracted all the possible moisture from the dead grasses and chaparral twigs within hours, regardless of past temperatures. Trenberth and Swain simply confused rapid weather changes with climate change.
The critical “long-term context” they never discussed is that a century of fire suppression allowed destructive levels of fuel loads to develop, increasing the biomass component of the ERC estimate. As populations grew, so did the demand to suppress every small fire that could threaten a building. Natural small fires reduce the fuel load, whereas fire suppression allows fast drying fuels to accumulate. Unfortunately, fire suppression only delays the inevitable while stocking more fuel for a much more intense blaze. Local officials and preservationists have long been aware of this problem, and controlled burns to reduce those fuels were being increasingly prescribed. Tragically, it was too little too late.
Figure 1: A prescribed control burn in Wine Country
10-Hour Time-lag Fuels are “dead fuels consisting of round wood in the size range of one quarter to one inch in diameter and, very roughly, the layer of litter extending from just below the surface to three-quarters of an inch below the surface.” The fuel moisture of these fuels vary from day to day and modeled moisture content is based on length of day, cloud cover or solar radiation, temperature and relative humidity.
100-Hour Time-lag Fuels are “dead fuels consisting of round wood in the size range of 1 to 3 inches in diameter and, very roughly, the forest floor from three quarters of an inch to four inches below the surface.” Moisture content of these fuels are also a function of length of day (as influenced by latitude and calendar date), maximum and minimum temperature and relative humidity, and precipitation duration in the previous 24 hours.
Much of the chaparral shrubs produce twigs and stems in size ranges of the 1-hr, 10-hr and 100-hr fuels. These fuels were most likely the source of burning embers that high winds propelled into the devastated residential areas. Again, these dried out fuels are the result of a natural California summer drought and short term weather conditions such as the bone-dry Diablo Winds that arrive every year.
Figure 2 Moisture content of 3-8 inch diameter fuels from March to December
1000-Hour Time-lag Fuels are “dead fuels consisting of round wood 3 to 8 inches in diameter or the layer of the forest floor more than about four inches below the surface or both”. These larger fuels are more sensitive to drought conditions that existed months earlier, so it could be rightfully argued that a hotter drier July and August made these fuels more flammable in October and exacerbated the fires.
Fire ecologists planning prescribed burns to reduce fuel loads, wait until the 1000-Hr fuels’ moisture content is reduced to 12% or lower. If these larger fuels are dry, it is certain the smaller fuel categories are dry as well, so that all fuels will be highly flammable. As seen in the graph above (Figure 2) 1000-hr fuels reach that critical dryness threshold by July 1st and remain below that threshold until mid-October when the rains begin to return. Contrary to Trenberth’s blather, California’s fire season has always lasted 90+ days. Undoubtedly the unusually hot and dry 2017 summer would have lowered 1000-hr fuel moisture content even further. Nonetheless those fuels become naturally flammable every summer. Furthermore, these larger fuels were less often burned and thus insignificant factors in regard to the fires rapid spread. The rapid spread of the fires was due to consumption of the rapidly drying fuels.
Swain is fond of finding a “record setting” metric to bolster his climate change assertions. As such, he noted the “record-hot summer had dried out vegetation to record levels” and linked to a graph tweeted by John Badoglio showing October ERC values for the past 30 years were at a record high in 2017 (in part because of delayed rains). However, that “record” was also largely irrelevant. The ERC calculation is heavily biased by the greater biomass of the larger 1000-hr fuels that would indeed get drier as the autumn continued without rain. Still those larger fuels were insignificant contributors to the rapidly spreading fire. As seen below (Figure 3), the grasses have been entirely burnt while the larger shrubs and trees, as well as the woody debris near the base of the trees (in the upper left) have not been consumed. In fact many of the trees are still alive. The potential energy estimated by the “record ERC” was only partially realized. It was the fast-drying dead grass and chaparral shrubs that turned potential ERC into meaningful fiery heat.
Figure 3
The Spread Component
“The spread component is defined as “the theoretical ideal rate of spread expressed in feet-per-minute.” Wind speed, slope and fine fuel moisture are key inputs in the calculation of the spread component, thus accounting for a high variability from day-to-day.” Thus, a combination of dry fuels and high winds typically result in fire-watch and red-flag warnings one day and no warnings days later as the winds subside. Forest rangers are well aware that September and October bring the powerful Diablo Winds of Santa Rosa as well as the Santa Anas of southern California, and with those winds comes the highest fire danger.
Cliff Mass is an atmospheric scientist at the University of Washington and author of the superb Cliff Mass Weather and Climate blogs. An October 16th post provides an excellent summary of the metorological conditions that created the fierce winds driving the Wine Country fires. In essence, a strong approaching wind flow (the Diablo Winds) coupled with a thermal inversion near the top of the mountains that border the Santa Rosa valley, accelerated winds into a 60 to 90 mile per hour downslope wind event, a phenomenon known as a mountain wave. Those high winds snapped power line poles and ignited fires. The regional topography also funneled the winds and fire down the valley, taking dead aim at the heart of Santa Rosa. The topography had guided a similar fire in 1964, the Hanley fire, which was started by a carelessly discarded cigarette. Unfortunately without much concern, most of the burnt homes in the Tubbs fire had been built on top of the burnt grounds of that previous Hanley fire, despite public protests.
Were those high winds perhaps exacerbated by climate change? Highly unlikely!
The Diablo Winds affecting Santa Rosa or the Santa Annas of southern California are driven by cooling seasonal temperatures in the high deserts to the east. The inner continent cools faster than the oceans, setting up a pressure gradient driving the winds toward the coast. The winds then heat adiabatically rising 5 degrees Celsius for every 1000 feet of elevation descent. An adiabatic rise in temperature means no added heat from any source and basic physics tells us temperatures can rise adiabatically simply due to compression. Thus an air mass that originated near Flagstaff Arizona at a 6,900 foot elevation, could adiabatically warm by 30 degrees as it reaches sea level.
The flow direction of winds are largely driven by unequal seasonal changes in temperatures. During the summer the interior heats faster than the oceans, such that a cooling onshore wind reduces interior temperatures. This pattern reverses in the autumn as the interior lands cool faster than the ocean creating an inland high pressure that drives the Diablo and Santa Anna winds toward the coast. Despite declining solar insolation, this autumn wind flow causes coastal California to experience some of its hottest days of the year in September and October, commonly referred to as Indian summer. Similarly a pressure system that inhibited the cooling onshore winds around San Francisco, resulted in a record hot summer temperature. By simultaneously opposing cooling sea breezes while bringing warm winds that were adiabatically 5 to 10 degrees warmer, temperatures rise and relative humidity falls. The result is bone-dry hot Diablo winds that suck the moisture from land and vegetation wherever the winds pass.
To restate the forces driving the winds, the Diablo winds are the result of a pressure gradient resulting from an interior that cools cooler faster than the ocean. If CO2 is warming the earth to any significant extent, then we would expect that warming to prevent the inner continent from cooling as quickly as it did decades ago. Thus CO2-global warming would predict a decline in that pressure gradient and a weakening of these winds.
To summarize, none of the fire components- ignition, fuels, or spread – had been affected by climate changes.
Finally, keen observers will notice that entire blocks of houses, and entire neighborhoods were completely burnt to the ground, in contrast to neighborhood trees that often remained relatively unscathed. This suggests that the high winds rapidly carried burning embers from the grassland and chaparral into these developments. While the trees did not trap the embers, the buildings did. I would expect we will soon hear about investigations inquiring into why these residences were not required to erect more fire safe structures, especially when built in a known fire-prone habitat in a high wind corridor. The simple requirement of constructing eaves in such a manner that prevents the trapping of burning embers and fire-proof roofs may have saved many homes.
Indeed there are many lessons that will allow us to prevent such wildfire disasters in the future if we have accurately determined the causes of these fires. Cliff Mass notes that our short-term weather models had accurately predicted the time and place of the fiercest winds. That information could be used to temporarily shut down the electrical grid where power lines are likely to ignite fires. We can bury power lines below ground. We can remove the high fuels loads that accumulated during a century of misguided fire suppression. Insurance companies can demand higher rates unless proven precautions are undertaken. It is those lessons that Gore, Clinton, Brown should be promoting to inform the public. Trenberth and Swain should be informing the people of the natural weather dangers that are inevitable. There is no evidence that climate change, whether natural or anthropogenic, exacerbated the ignition, fuels or spread components of these deadly fires. And worse, their obsessed belief that rising CO2 concentrations worsen every tragedy only distracts our focus from real life-saving solutions.
Jim Steele is Director emeritus Sierra Nevada Field Campus, San Francisco State University and author of Landscapes & Cycles: An Environmentalist’s Journey to Climate Skepticism
Scientists and media continue to spread misinformation about polar bears & walrus
BY Susan Crockford | Polar Bear Science | November 5, 2017
“Lies” might be a better word to characterize the misinformation that scientists and the media have been busy spreading to the public over the last few weeks. The information is either known to be false (by scientists whose job it is to relay facts honestly) or is easily shown to be false (by journalists whose job it is to fact-check their stories).
Polar bear misinformation
Earlier this month, biologist Nick Lunn was interviewed by the CBC and for the news program The National. He stated outright, without qualification, that Western Hudson Bay polar bear numbers have dropped from about 1200 (in 1987) to about 800 now (a 33% decline).
However, it is not scientifically appropriate to compare these figures because they were based on different types of surveys conducted over different portions of the region (they are also statistically insignificant). Lunn should know better because the published reports (Dyck et al. 2017; Stapleton et al. 2014; Lunn et al. 2016) make it clear these numbers are not comparable.
The official Western Hudson Bay estimate accepted by the PBSG in 2014, and by the IUCN in 2015, is 1030 bears (range 754-1406), based on the survey conducted by Stapleton and colleagues in 2011. Environment Canada considered the subpopulation ‘likely stable’ in 2014, an assessment upheld by the 2016 survey.
Because even the 2011 and 2016 Western Hudson Bay aerial surveys used somewhat different methods, the only population size numbers (subsets of each total) that can be compared are these:
2011 (949, range 618-1280)
2016 (842, range 562-1121)
The slight apparent decline over 5 years (11%) was not statistically significant (Dyck et al. 2017, pg. 3, 37) and is therefore equivalent to no change.
Similarly, when differences in methodology and statistical significance are taken into account, the estimate for 2016 cannot be said to be different from the 2011 estimate of 1030 bears (Stapleton et al. 2014), which was not statistically different from the estimate of 935 (range 794-1076) calculated in 2004 (Regehr et al. 2007).
‘Likely stable’ is probably the best way to characterize this result.
However, biologist Andrew Derocher has also been guilty of misrepresenting the facts on the Western Hudson Bay population status over the last few weeks:
Western Hudson Bay #polarbears decline >30% & Nunavut increases harvest quota. “almost impossible, to recommend” says Wildlife Director. pic.twitter.com/ogdqZ14HhW
— Andrew Derocher (@AEDerocher) November 3, 2017
And…
Aerial surveys ==> large confidence intervals & we'd need > 50% decline for statistical significance. Not precautionary management to wait https://t.co/cMw61Rwg71
— Andrew Derocher (@AEDerocher) September 14, 2017
— Andrew Derocher (@AEDerocher) September 14, 2017
And…
Western Hudson Bay #polarbear population dropped from 1030 bears to 842 over 2011-2016. 18% decline. Not “slight”. https://t.co/AoVSqWSQjw pic.twitter.com/tmlgYlZ3a1
— Andrew Derocher (@AEDerocher) September 14, 2017
Bottom line: The 2011 estimate of 1030 cannot be compared to the 2016 estimate of 842 (or to the 1987 estimate of 1200) because these numbers were generated using different methods. Lunn and Derocher know this: it’s their job to know. But it’s their job to honestly relay scientific facts to the public, not an interpretation of those facts they’d prefer to be true.
Ironically, all this hype is being promoted as Hudson Bay seems gearing up for the earliest freeze-up in decades (here, here, and here).
In the chart below, grey ice (dark purple) is thick enough for an adult male polar bear to walk on. The new ice could still get blown out into the bay if the wind is right (from the south) but that does not seem likely under conditions of freezing cold temperatures, snow, and west and northwest winds at Churchill (for 5-8 November).
Walrus misinformation
Here is Christopher Booker (The Telegraph, 4 November 2017) on the walrus nonsense being told by the BBC via its news body and its documentary series, “Blue Planet II”.
“… the BBC yet again [claimed] that Arctic ice is rapidly vanishing, supported on BBC News by a clip from David Attenborough’s Blue Planet II series, intoning that, among species most “seriously affected” by global warming, are walruses, showing hundreds of them desperately squeezing on to a melting ice floe.
But there are one or two little problems with this BBC version of the facts. First, far from Arctic ice vanishing, there has been no further downward trend in the extent of its summer melting since 2006. Its lowest point this September was higher than in seven of the past 11 years.
The US Fish and Wildlife Service has found that there are so many more of them than there were 30 years ago that last month that it decided not to list Pacific walruses on its endangered species list.
Secondly, far from walruses being “seriously affected”, an exhaustive survey by the US Fish and Wildlife Service has found that there are so many more of them than there were 30 years ago that last month that it decided not to list Pacific walruses on its endangered species list.
Thirdly, what produced that 2016 spike in CO2 and global temperatures was not “human activity” but the unusual warming of the Pacific Ocean by an abnormally strong El Niño. It is this warming that causes the oceans to “outgas” more CO2, not the CO2 that causes the warming: as even the BBC was told when, in July last year, its website quoted the Met Office under the heading “El Niño likely to boost CO2 in 2016”.
Since that El Niño ended, however, the latest Met Office data show that ocean temperatures have dropped sharply, with global surface temperatures back to where they were in 2002. Which is why the BBC’s reporting of all this last week could scarcely have been a better example of what it likes to scorn as “fake news”.
I couldn’t have said it better myself, except to add that Atlantic walrus, which the Blue Planet II folks filmed for their documentary, also show no evidence of being negatively impacted by climate change or sea ice loss so far.
Such disgraceful journalist practice is no better than the reaction of the CBC Radio here in Canada last month (4 October) to the news that the USFWS would not list walrus as ‘threatened.’
Instead of getting a scientist on to explain to listeners the science backing the decision, it had a spokesperson from the litigious Centre for Biological Diversity advocacy organization on the show to present a boring and quite predictable rant about why she disagreed with the decision. Of course she’s disappointed: she authored the document that forced the USFWS to consider the listing!
Bottom line: Have journalists forgotten how to do their jobs or do they really believe their opinions on certain subjects give them free license to ignore the ethics of their profession?
Actually, I could ask the same question about the polar bear specialists.
References
Dyck, M., Campbell, M., Lee, D., Boulanger, J. and Hedman, D. 2017. 2016 Aerial survey of the Western Hudson Bay polar bear subpopulation. Final report, Nunavut Department of Environment, Wildlife Research Section, Iglolik, NU. http://www.gov.nu.ca/environnement/information/wildlife-research-reports#polarbear
Lunn, N.J., Servanty, S., Regehr, E.V., Converse, S.J., Richardson, E. and Stirling, I. 2016. Demography of an apex predator at the edge of its range – impacts of changing sea ice on polar bears in Hudson Bay. Ecological Applications, in press. DOI: 10.1890/15-1256
Regehr, E.V., Lunn, N.J., Amstrup, S.C. and Stirling, I. 2007. Effects of earlier sea ice breakup on survival and population size of polar bears in Western Hudson Bay. Journal of Wildlife Management 71:2673-2683.
Stapleton S., Atkinson, S., Hedman, D., and Garshelis, D. 2014. Revisiting Western Hudson Bay: using aerial surveys to update polar bear abundance in a sentinel population. Biological Conservation 170:38-47. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006320713004618#
Iran slams Saudi lies over Yemen missile strike
By Adam Garrie Adam Garrie | The Duran | November 5, 2017
Saudi Arabia and Donald Trump have both accused Iran of providing Yemen’s Houthi rebels with the missile that was launched at the Saudi capital Riyadh yesterday evening.
Saudi Arabia in particular, has accused Iran of supplying the Houthis with new missiles capable of longer distances than those previously thought to be in their possession.
However, Saudi’s accusation is inconsistent with the fact that Yemen is totally besieged from both land and sea.
Yemen is bordered by Saudi Arabia and fellow Gulf Cooperation Council Oman, a state which would never allow shipments of Iranian weapons to Houthis and could not easily do in any case as Oman borders areas of Yemen controlled either by the pro-Saudi Hadi government or by anti-Iranian al-Qaeda and ISIS fighters.
Yemen’s north-west maritime borders have been cut off from the world, including from crucial medical and food supplies by a Saudi naval blockade that has caused a man-made famine and a cholera epidemic.
If the UN cannot even get foodstuffs past the Saudi blockade, it goes without saying that Iran could not get ballistic missiles to Houthi controlled areas.
The Houthis themselves claimed that they modified their missiles to achieve longer ranges, a claim which Iran acknowledges as the most likely scenario in respect of yesterday’s launch. Others have stated that the launch was a Saudi false flag, but as the Houthis themselves took credit for the launch and with video emerging which appears to back up Houthi claims, the only remaining credible scenario is that the Houthi fighters were indeed able to modify their missiles to reach Riyadh.
In any case, it would appear that Saudi’s US made defensive missile systems shot the Houthi rocket down, although some reports on social media from the Arab world contradict this.
At the end of the day, the facts hardly matter to the spokesmen and leaders of Saudi, Israel and United States who have all accused Iran of having a direct hand in the missile launch.
The fact of the matter is that while Iranian sympathies and limited support are certainly with the Houthis, the blockade means that this support amounts to very little in terms of material support, including and especially military support.
The facts on the ground and more important on the sea, dictate that accusations of Iran meddling in Yemen are de-facto baseless.
Unlike Syria, in which militants could be supplied on virtually all sides from ISIS controlled Iraq to the large Turkish border as well as the borders with Jordan and Israel, Yemen’s Houthis are not in any such position to be so easily supplied.
The fact that many in the media have conspired to hide this patently obvious reality means that one either is not engaging in honest journalism or one is simply repeating mythical Saudi claims.
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Book Review
The Greatest Threat to World Peace? A Review of Daniele Ganser’s ‘USA: The Ruthless Empire’
Review by Marilyn Langlois | November 10, 2023
If you regard the United States as perhaps flawed but overall a force for good in the world . . .
If you scoff at the notion that the US, a republic founded on principles of freedom and democracy, has morphed into a world empire, perpetrating assassinations, coups d’état, acts of terror and illegal warfare . . .
If you want to promote peace but haven’t yet explored deceptive events that precipitate US warmongering . . .
. . . here is a volume that will clear the air and paint an honest picture of the significant, not-so-rosy impact US foreign policy and actions have had in the world around us.
USA: The Ruthless Empire, by Swiss historian and peace researcher Daniele Ganser, is the newly published English language translation of his book Imperium USA, originally written in German and published in 2020. Here is a summary of key points — including some lesser-known ones — along with remedies for a more peaceful future, that are covered in the book. … continue
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