UPDATED: Where is St James the Moorslayer when we need him?

We -- Walt, Poor Len Canayen [and Ed.! Ed.] - were preoccupied, this holiday weekend, with the Stanley Cup playoffs. I am happy to report that our beloved Habs won last night's game vs Tampa Bay (3-2 in OT) and are alive to fight another day (Wednesday, 2000 EDT). Now we can turn our attention to the rest of the news.

Turns out Walt was not wrong to be concerned about the future of the very Disunited States of Ameria. (See "'One nation, under God, indivisible...' HAH!", WWW 4/7/21. Americans -- or some of them -- celebreated the Glorious Fourth by shooting at each other. 150 citizens were fatally shot in more than 400 shootings nationwide. Epicentres of gun violence included New York City (Bill de Blasio, Democrat, Mayor) and Chicago (Lori Lightfoot, Democrat, Mayor). I leave it to you to figure out the race of the majority of the shooters and shootees. 

That's pretty run-of-the-mill stuff in today's America. But there was a truly bizarre "incident" in Massachusetts. A stretch of the I-95 around Wakefield was shut down for several hours owing to a standoff between MA state police and a group of "militiamen" calling themselves "Rise of the Moors", which authorities say adheres to "Moorish Sovereign Ideology".

During the standoff one member of the group broadcast on a social media account for the group "Rise of the Moors" that they were not anti-government or anti-police. The website for the group says they are "Moorish Americans [sic] dedicated to educating new Moors* and influencing our Elders." The group’s Facebook, YouTube and Instagram accounts had been taken offline by early Sunday

Reports from the Boston Herald and other sources say that the standoff began around 0130 on July 3rd when a state trooper stopped to offer assistance to two vehicles he found parked, with hazard lights flashing, on the shoulder of the I-95 near Wakefield. The trooper called for backup and most of the group went into the nearby woods until they surrendered to a police tactical team just after 1000.

The group told police they were traveling from Rhode Island to Maine to conduct "training". Troopers recovered three AR-15 rifles, two pistols, a bolt-action rifle, a shotgun and a short-barrel rifle. None of the men, who were dressed in military fatigues and body armor, was licensed to carry firearms in Massachusetts.

Ten of the 11 men arrested are to be arraigned today on charges of unlawful possession of a firearm, unlawful possession of ammunition, use of body armor in commission of a crime, possession of a high capacity magazine, improper storage of a firearm in a vehicle, and conspiracy to commit a crime. According to police Capt. Peter Griffin, "additional charges are possible if the ongoing investigation, including the expected search of the defendants’ two vehicles, determines they are warranted."

Those identifiede by state police include:

Jamhal Tavon Sanders Latimer, aka Jamhal Talib Abdullah Bey, 29, of Providence RI, the self-proclaimed leader of "Rise of the Moors", pictured.

Robert Rodriguez, 21, of the Bronx

Wilfredo Hernandez, aka Will Musa, 23, of the Bronx

Alban [doesn't that mean "white"? Ed.] El Curraugh, 27, also from the Bronx

Aaron Lamont Johnson, aka Tarrif Sharif Bey, 29, of Detroit

Quinn Cumberlander, 40, of Pawtucket RI

Lamar Dow, 34, another one from the Bronx, and

Conrad Pierre, 29, of Baldwin NY

Authorities have not named the 17-year-old male also arrested, and two additional males have so far refused to identify themselves. The 17-year-old was released into parental custody, while the remaining adult defendants were held at the Billerica House of Correction on $100,000 cash bail. 

*Footnote: Our dictionary of archaisms defines "Blackamoor" as a black African or a very dark-skinned person. Not a word you see in use any more. Even "Moor", meaning a person from Morocco [geddit? Moor-oco? Ed.] has been thrown down the same memory hole as the N-word... until these guys showed up.

Another footnote: 1000s of Moors were allegedly killed by Christians, with the help of Saint James the Moor-slayer, aka Santiago Matamoros, the name given to the representation of the apostle James, son of Zebedee, at the Battle of Clavijo (which may or may not have actually happened). Surely no appeal to Saint James would ever be necessary in 21st-century America!

UPDATE ADDED 7/7/21: Further reading: "Members of 'Rise of the Moors' sovereign citizen militia REFUSE to cooperate at arraignment and claim they are not subject to U.S. laws after 11 were arrested during armed standoff near Boston", Daily Mail, 7/7/21. Check it out, if only to see the photos of the "Moors" and their baby mama supporters.

Gulf Wars drag on: Walt's guide to who's fighting who

Even though it's the longest-running continuous military engagement in US history, some time has passed since the Gulf Wars (aka Oil Wars) was front page news in the Paranoid States of America. That may be about to change as the fighting enters a new phase.

Now that the ISIS (the Sunni Muslim terrorist "state") has been more or less defeated, at least in Iraq, the "victors" -- Shiite Muslims in the south and Kurds in the north -- are starting to fight each other. Western armed forces, mostly American, are caught in the middle, "training and advising" both sides.

The last noteworthy battle in Iraq, which dragged on through most of this summer, was in Mosul, the heart of the Kurdish part of Iraq, also in the middle of large oil fields. The area is also home to millions of Arabs, Turkmen, Yazidis and a few thousand persecuted Christians. Mainly Kurdish forces, led into battle by American and Canadian "trainers" succeeded in driving out the ISIS jihadis.

Last month, flush with success and swimming in oil money, the Kurdish government of the semi-autonomous region held a referendum on independence, in defiance of Iraq's central government in Baghdad. To no-one's surprise, the Kurds voted overwhelmingly in favour of declaring the own republic. They already had a flag, so figured a state would make the set complete. The Iraqi government immediately called on foreign countries to stop importing oil from the Kurdish region and to deal with them instead.

This weekend the Iraqi government dropped the other shoe. The so-called Iraqi National Army and state-backed Shia militias launched a major, multi-pronged attack aimed at retaking Kirkuk. Kurdish forces appeared to be pulling back, abandoning fortified positions around the airport as large numbers of civilians fled the northern city ahead of a feared assault.

This latest phase in what is essentially a Muslim civil war pits two close US allies against each other, potentially undermining the unfinished war against ISIS. There is a very real possibility, right now, of American "trainers" and "special forces" being killed by Canadians, or (more likely) vice versa. Walt says it's folly to take sides in this conflict -- a waste of money and of the precious lives of our troops. Let the Muslims duke it out! We can buy oil from any of them... hell, all of them!

Further reading: Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, by Thomas E. Ricks (Penguin Press 2006).