Bill Humphrey, Author at Arsenal For Democracy

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About Bill Humphrey

Bill Humphrey is the primary host of WVUD's Arsenal For Democracy talk radio show and a local elected official.

Brazil 2016: The Swimming in Feces Olympics

By Bill Humphrey July 30, 2015 - 8:59 pm July 30, 2015 Arsenal Pulse

olympics

Devastating Associated Press investigation into next year’s Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro:

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Athletes in next year’s Summer Olympics here will be swimming and boating in waters so contaminated with human feces that they risk becoming violently ill and unable to compete in the games, an Associated Press investigation has found.

An AP analysis of water quality revealed dangerously high levels of viruses and bacteria from human sewage in Olympic and Paralympic venues — results that alarmed international experts and dismayed competitors training in Rio, some of whom have already fallen ill with fevers, vomiting and diarrhea.

It is the first independent comprehensive testing for both viruses and bacteria at the Olympic sites.

Brazilian officials have assured that the water will be safe for the Olympic athletes and the medical director of the International Olympic Committee said all was on track for providing safe competing venues. But neither the government nor the IOC tests for viruses, relying on bacteria testing only.
[…]
Olympic athletes are almost certain to come into contact with disease-causing viruses that in some tests measured up to 1.7 million times the level of what would be considered hazardous on a Southern California beach.
[…]
More than 10,000 athletes from 205 nations are expected to compete in next year’s Olympics. Nearly 1,400 of them will be sailing in the waters near Marina da Gloria in Guanabara Bay, swimming off Copacabana beach, and canoeing and rowing on the brackish waters of the Rodrigo de Freitas Lake.

Read the rest.

John Griffith, a marine biologist at the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project, examined the protocols, methodology and results of the four rounds of AP tests in the three outdoor water sports sites. All three sites were found to be unsafe.

Kristina Mena, a U.S. expert in risk assessment for waterborne viruses, examined the AP data and estimated that international athletes at all water venues would have a 99 percent chance of infection if they ingested just three teaspoons of water — though whether a person will fall ill depends on immunity and other factors.

The IOC should have pulled the plug on the Rio Olympics after the infrastructural trainwreck that was the 2014 Brazil World Cup, which was by comparison a much easier task to begin with.

Instead, the IOC responded to the AP report by saying Brazil should just stick to bacteria testing and that it would all be ok. In reality, many athletes already training on site reported becoming extremely sick repeatedly.

Even local Brazilians aren’t benefiting from this hosting opportunity:

As part of its Olympic project, Brazil promised to build eight treatment facilities to filter out much of the sewage and prevent tons of household trash from flowing into the Guanabara Bay. Only one has been built.
[…]
Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes has said it’s a “shame” the Olympic promises wouldn’t be met, adding the games are proving “a wasted opportunity” as far as the waterways are concerned.

Op-Ed | Selling Out the Kurds

By Bill Humphrey July 30, 2015 - 9:00 am September 22, 2016 Arsenal Essay

The essay below was co-authored with Stephan Richter, Editor-in-Chief of The Globalist, where it originally appeared.

A U.S. Air Force Boeing KC-135R Stratotanker from the Ohio Air National Guard at Incirlik, Turkey, August 2003. (U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Vince Parker.)

To recruit Turkey against ISIS, the United States lost sight of its true friends.

U.S. policy on Iraq, Syria and the surrounding countries seems to have been left solely in the hands of amateurs in the White House. That is not a partisan statement, for it applies to both the current and previous occupants. The next occupant, regardless of party, seems likely to muck it up as well.

The latest foolhardy decision seems to have been a deal long sought by the United States to move the “strategy” against ISIS forward. It is worth recalling that the terrorist organization is de facto an American creation resulting from the completely ill advised Iraq policy under George W. Bush.

In the blinding desire to destroy ISIS, Mr. Obama and his team were so keen on getting rights to use Turkish air bases that they completely forgot about the dark side of Mr. Erdogan.

Erdogan’s other agendas

No sooner had the agreement on bases been reached than Turkey’s own aircraft began pounding Kurdish militant targets in northern Syria and Iraq.

The government, which still lacks a governing mandate after no party won a majority in the recent elections, has officially put the anti-ISIS PKK fighters on the same threat level as ISIS. In reality, Kurdish fighters appear to be a much bigger target of the Turkish Air Force than the ISIS fighters.

The point of all this maneuvering is that Erdogan hopes to leverage wartime fervor into a favorable nationalist coalition or a new election with a better outcome for himself.

As if the U.S. collusion in that domestic, entirely partisan strategy would not be shameful enough, the United States is also pledging to help Erdogan on another matter. He has long sought to clear an ISIS-held area of Syria that is coveted by both Kurdish nationalists and (pro-Erdogan) Ottoman irredentists in Turkey. The latter, it seems, still have yet to accept the country’s 1920s borders.

Hard though it may be to believe, the facts on the ground are as follows: The U.S. military is now helping Turkey’s hardliners achieve their goals against the very Kurdish fighters whose close coordination with U.S. bombers have pushed ISIS back from Kobani and disrupted its supply lines. All the while, Turkey sat on its hands and refused to halt lucrative ISIS smuggling.

Marginalizing the Kurds

In effect, the Americans managed to sell out the Kurds, perhaps Syria’s only remaining true “freedom fighters,” as they proved to be in the defense of Kobani. Read more

July 29, 2015 – Arsenal For Democracy 136

By Bill Humphrey July 29, 2015 - 10:00 am July 30, 2015 Radio Show

Posted by Bill on behalf of the team.

Topics: Nicki Minaj, Sandra Bland, Misogynoir; No Child Left Behind, Illegal Immigration, Prison Reform. People: Bill, Kelley, De Ana, and Guest Maria. Produced: July 26th, 2015.

Discussion Points:

– Why it’s ok to talk about both Nicki Minaj and Sandra Bland in the same week (and how the two stories relate to each other).
– What Pres. Obama is doing on prison reform. Can Congress find a compromise on No Child Left Behind? Texas isn’t handling illegal immigration very well.

Episode 136 (52 min):
AFD 136

FT: “Syria rebels sceptical about Turkey’s plan to tackle IS”

By Bill Humphrey July 28, 2015 - 10:00 am September 22, 2016 Arsenal Bolt

Arsenal Bolt: Quick updates on the news stories we’re following.

“Syria rebels sceptical about Turkey’s plan to tackle IS” – Financial Times wire via the Irish Times:

“The talk of a buffer zone surprised us – we have heard nothing like that,” said Munthir Sallal, a rebel official co-ordinating with the coalition who said rebel commanders met Turkish officials in Ankara yesterday.
[…]
An opposition activist close to the US confirmed plans for increased Turkish participation with the coalition, which began dispatching the first rebel units it trained and armed earlier this month.

The coalition has also been training activists from opposition councils in areas seized by IS to ensure a smooth transition to civilian rule.

But opposition members say they have been repeatedly promised by Turkey and the US that operations were imminent, and are sceptical.

Previously from AFD on this topic:

– “Mapping the projected Turkish occupation zone in Syria”
– “U.S. agrees to clear a ‘safe zone’ in northern Syria”

Kurdish House Mafia

By Bill Humphrey July 28, 2015 - 9:00 am August 2, 2015 Arsenal Bolt

Arsenal Bolt: Quick updates on the news stories we’re following.

Another consequence of the unregulated and politically destabilizing flood of weapons to Kurdish militants is that allegedly low-grade (i.e. infrastructural) ethnic cleansing is being conducted by some Iraqi Kurdish forces in evacuated areas (areas previously Arabized by Saddam Hussein, of course, but still a war crime).

The evidence, aid workers and residents say, is in the destroyed, empty villages scattered along the front line between Erbil and Mosul and the dusty flats south of Kirkuk.

“These houses are all being destroyed after the conflict,” said another aid worker who works across Iraqi Kurdistan, speaking anonymously so as not to anger the Kurdistan Regional Government and lose access.

The destruction in some villages appears to go beyond simple collateral damage. On a trip to the front line in the area of al-Gweir, 35 miles southwest of Erbil, it looked as though an impossible wind had blown through, yanking house after house down on one side. The fields and gardens that had fed these mostly Arab villages were charred and black.

Heavy fighting has devastated much of northern Iraq, but humanitarian workers, who have seen dozens of these villages, describe consistent and curious patterns of destruction: scorched fields and empty, burnt-out houses stripped down to the wiring. No livestock, no machinery, no curtains, crockery, or any other detritus of daily life that fleeing people typically leave.

“They want to change these villages demographically,” said a Kirkuk-based aid worker. “If they burn and destroy these villages, people won’t come back. And they want the Arabs to go elsewhere.”

Read the rest of the in-depth and in-person investigation.

A map of greater Iraqi Kurdistan including Kurdish Regional Government territory, some militia-held territories captured in the war against ISIS (only as of August 2014), and territories historically Kurdish before “Arabization” policies.

New feature and new author

By Bill Humphrey July 27, 2015 - 5:50 pm July 27, 2015 Arsenal Site

I’m pleased to announce that Ben Tolkin (yes, that Ben Tolkin) has joined Arsenal For Democracy as a contributor to our new feature: the staccato Arsenal Micron.

Ben Tolkin studied Philosophy, Neuroscience, Psychology, and Korean at Washington University in St. Louis. He’s currently trying to study everything else.

He will be writing four very pithy posts each week on politics, current events, history, and whatever topics connect to that. For those familiar with his Facebook postings, you can expect more of the same, but over here now too, where the whole world can access it. At the moment, he doesn’t have a Twitter account, so our site is the best you Tolkinheads on the internet can do if you’re not privy to his Facebook profile. (Or, I guess you can watch his YouTube channel.)

We hope you enjoy this new feature. Please consider subscribing to the site’s various feeds so you don’t miss any posts from Ben (or our other authors). We also have a radio show.

U.S. agrees to clear a “safe zone” in northern Syria

By Bill Humphrey July 27, 2015 - 2:16 pm September 22, 2016 Arsenal Analysis

The deal being reported so far does not involve a no-fly zone against Assad, just more targeted U.S. bombing against ISIS from the air, as well as Turkish shelling (and maybe bombing) from across the border — but no ground occupation. Instead, the U.S. will provide airstrikes on behalf of Arab rebel fighters who aren’t affiliated with ISIS. That revives an old plan I’ve criticized previously, except now those fighters we would be helping are even more likely to be aligned with al Qaeda. Kurdish fighters would also be definitively excluded from assistance west of the Euphrates, it seems, to assuage Turkish antipathies.

“Turkey and U.S. Plan to Create Syria ‘Safe Zone’ Free of ISIS” – New York Times:

“Details remain to be worked out, but what we are talking about with Turkey is cooperating to support partners on the ground in northern Syria who are countering ISIL,” a senior Obama administration official said, using another term for the Islamic State. “The goal is to establish an ISIL-free zone and ensure greater security and stability along Turkey’s border with Syria.”
[…]
American officials say […] that while a de facto safe zone could indeed be a byproduct of the plan, a formal no-fly zone is not part of the deal.
[…]
Instead, United States officials said Turks and Americans were working toward an agreement on the details of an operation to clear Islamic State militants from a heavily contested area roughly between the eastern outskirts of the city of Aleppo and the Euphrates River.

That is an ambitious military goal, because it appears to include areas of great strategic and symbolic importance to the Islamic State, and it could encompass areas that Syrian helicopters regularly bomb. If the zone goes 25 miles deep into Syria, as Turkish news outlets have reported, it could encompass the town of Dabiq, a significant place in the group’s apocalyptic theology, and Manbij, another stronghold. It could also include the Islamic State-held town of Al Bab, where barrel bombs dropped by Syrian aircraft have killed scores, including civilians, in recent weeks.

American officials emphasized that the depth of the buffer zone to be established was one of the important operational details that had yet to be decided. But one senior official said, “You can be assured many of the principal population centers will be covered.”

The plan does not envision Turkish ground troops entering Syria, although long-range artillery could be used across the border. Turkish ground forces would work on their side of the border to stem the Islamic State’s ability to infiltrate foreign fighters and supplies into Syria.

While it is unclear yet exactly how big the area will be, and supposedly there won’t be Turkish ground presence, I previously made a projected estimate in the following two maps (see details and analysis at “Mapping the projected Turkish occupation zone in Syria”):

Regional View: July 24, 2015 projection of the perimeter of a potential Turkish occupation zone and U.S. no-fly zone in northern Syria. Click to enlarge.

July 24, 2015 projection of the perimeter of a potential Turkish occupation zone and no-fly zone in northern Syria. Click to enlarge.

I seem to have guessed the zone’s width correctly (outskirts of Aleppo to the Euphrates) and the depth may supposedly still be under discussion, but if it includes Manbij and Al-Bab, then I also pretty much will have nailed the depth estimate, because it is likely the whole M4 highway from corner to corner would be the southern perimeter of the zone. However, the Times is merely quoting the same Turkish media reports I was working off of, so we don’t actually know yet. A much narrower “strip” encompassing many fewer “principal population centers” (and outlying villages) could terminate at the highway shown above in the middle of the zone, nearer Marea than Aleppo.

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