Hot, Hot Summer in the Middle East

Hot, Hot Summer in the Middle East
By: Colin S. Cavell, Ph.D. – 6 August , 2012

August temperatures in the Middle East get very hot. From the mid-90s Fahrenheit (i.e. 35+ C) at night to the high 120s F (i.e. 50+ C) during the day, one is constantly aware that their daily actions will be dictated by the environment. Exacerbating this extremely oppressive temperature is the nearly total lack of rainfall during the summer months, thus rendering all and sundry dry and devoid of moisture. Only the spiny tailed lizards or dhubs which inhabit the region are content with the scorching sun and subsequent heat, hence their tendency to perch on a rock and bask in the sun during these glory days of summer.

In fact, many attribute the death of the famous British officer, writer, archaeologist, linguist, and spy Gertrude Bell, who lived a good while in Iraq until her death in 1926, to the overwhelming heat. On July 13, 1917, she described the heat in Baghdad thusly:

We have had a week of fierce heat which still continues, temperature 122 odd and therewith a burning wind which has to be felt to be believed. It usually blows all night as well as all day and makes sleep very difficult. I have invented a scheme which I practise on the worst nights. I drop a sheet in water and without wringing it out lay it in a pile along my bed between me and the wind. I put one end over my feet and draw the other under and over my head and leave the rest a few inches from my body. The sharp evaporation makes it icy cold and interposes a little wall of cold air between me and the fierce wind. When it dries I wake up and repeat the process (The Letters of Gertrude Bell, Vol. II, 1927).

And, again, on August 3rd, 1917, Bell wrote of a visit by a Colonel Willcox:

Well, he told me some interesting things about the heat wave and its consequences. It began on July 10 quite suddenly with a temperature of 112 and ended on July 20 with a temperature of 122.8. In between it was frequently over 120. He notes that 115 is the limit of human endurance. The moment the temp. rises above that point, heat strokes begin, and when it drops below, they end. We could have saved many lives if after the crisis was over there had been any cool place to put the men in. But there wasn’t and after fighting through the heatstroke they died of heat exhaustion. I suppose if we had had masses of ice we could have made cool places, but ice was lacking. It happened once or twice that we well people went without it because the hospitals needed all there was. I don’t think I shall stay through the whole of next hot weather unless there is any very strong reason for it. I shall come to England for a month and return in September. But who knows what we shall be all doing by then. I don’t believe we shall still be fighting. Some way or other peace will have to come about (The Letters of Gertrude Bell, Vol. II, 1927).

Historically, military campaigns in the region have occurred either in the spring months (February through June) or in the fall (September through December).

For example, the most recent rebellions occurring under the nomenclature of the ‘Arab Spring’ or ‘Islamic Awakening’ began in Tunisia in December 2010 and spread throughout the Arab world from January to March 2011. Current fighting in Syria is reported to be reaching a crescendo for a major assault by early September of 2012.

In January of 2012, the Yemeni government declared open warfare against al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and sporadic fighting continues to this day for control of many rural areas in the country. The October 2000 al Qaeda bombing of the USS Cole in the Yemeni port of Aden, the 2008 September attack on the US Embassy in Sana’a, and the June 2011 bombing of the presidential palace in Sana’a, have proven that the opposition remains strong and that the successor regime to former dictator Saleh has a ways to go before civil peace is recognized in the southern Arabian Peninsula.

Fighting broke out at the beginning of May 2008 when the Lebanese government attempted to shut down Hezbollah’s telecommunication network, a move which was reversed by the Lebanese Army by the end of the month after Hezbollah fighters defeated opposition militiamen around West Beirut.

The US war on Iraq began in March 2003 with American troops remaining in country until December 2011.

The anti-government uprisings against the government of Saddam Hussein following the 1990 Gulf War occurred from March to April 1991 and were crushed by Hussein’s government.

The Iraq-Iran War, or the First Persian Gulf War, commenced in September of 1980 and lasted until August of 1988.

The historic Iranian Revolution overthrew the regime of Shah Mohamed Reza Pahlavi in February of 1979, and the US has been outraged ever since.

The Lebanese Civil War began in April of 1975 and lasted until October of 1990.

The Six-Day War lasted from June 5-10, 1967.

And while there have been many other violent conflicts in the Middle East, they usually break out in either the spring or the fall months. Yes, if fighting is to occur in the Middle East, war strategists usually plan for either the winter or fall months, because the summer months of July and August are just too much for humans to endure.

And while modern means of refrigeration and air conditioning have transformed life in much of the Middle East into the 21st century, these accoutrements can seldom be brought to bear on the front lines of battle. Nature has thus set up a barrier between June and September which precludes much outdoor human activity in the Middle East, save for swimming. To ignore this natural bulwark and run offensive operations during this time—as the Gulf monarchies are doing in Syria currently—is an act of folly, as the heat will discombobulate and confuse their Salafist fighters who are already operating on three eggs short of a dozen, as they are being manipulated by some of the most unholy miscreants on the Earth. As well, in this summer of 2012, it appears that our Gulf monarchs have forgotten that the month of Ramadan should be reserved for reflection and renewal and not conflict and murder.

Such befuddlement was recently witnessed with the video-taped executions of captured prisoners by the so-called Free Syrian Army (FSA) who are mostly al Qaeda insurrectionists flown into Turkey or Jordan by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the other Gulf monarchies in an attempt to divert the Arab Spring from seeping into the cracks of their decrepit kingdoms.

The video was posted online and graphically depicted the summary executions of more than a dozen Syrian army prisoners after a kangaroo trial conducted on the back of a pick-up truck in Syria’s second largest city of Aleppo. Labeled a “war crime” by human rights advocacy group Human Rights Watch, the incident was confirmed by a reporter with the Turkish newspaper Milliyet.

Reporters Hannah Allam and Austin Tice, with the McClatchey Newspapers, write of other incidents of summary executions by these Gulf monarchy-backed insurgents including the capture of 45 Assad loyalists in Al Tal, north of Damascus with eight being executed, 25 said to be released, and the rest held for prisoner exchange. As reporters Allam and Tice conclude regarding the growing list of executions and incidents of torture being carried out by these FSA mercenaries, they are “muddying the Western narrative of a heroic resistance force struggling against a vicious regime.”

Whether one attributes such FSA idiocy to the failed and bizarre premise of autocratic monarchs backing an external aggression to allegedly advance “democracy” in Syria or not, the fact remains that the intense summer heat is creating a fog of war which will continue to perplex and mystify the FSA puppeteers as they continue to issue bombastic statements and shrill ultimatums. —30—

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