Long War: General Petraeus, the greatest combat general in our lifetime, is soon to become the chief of CIA, an organization which currently has only a limited number of paramilitary troops. Petraeus could snap his fingers and become Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the highest ranking military officer in America, and indeed the world. Petraeus is ambitious, eager to lead the Long War, at first glance Chairman of the Joint Chiefs would be better suited to that end than top spook at Langley. Has Petraeus lost his mind?
The current Director of CIA, Leon Panetta, is slated to become Sec. of Defense. Panetta's genius is corralling politicians into making budget cuts. He is one of the reasons America ran a budget surplus in the Clinton years. Together he and Petraeus could potentially remake the entire American military-industrial complex and restructure the architecture of the Long War, if Obama will let them. But before we get to that, let's look at the nitty gritty of this leadership change.
Panetta did a good job running the CIA but the Agency now has problems bigger than he can handle. Pakistan says it will no longer permit drone strikes in the tribal lands. If there are drone strikes, Pakistan will close down vital NATO supply routes by blockading them with thousands of innocent civilians, none of whom America is willing to harm. When the Pak military leaders in charge of this anti-American policy learned that Petraeus was taking over the CIA, they went bananas, turning livid with rage. The drone strikes will continue now and the Pak generals will somehow be outmaneuvered by a genius with greater cunning than they. This better happen, according to research done by The Long War Journal Al-Qaeda is expanding in Afghanistan, due in part to fewer drone strikes. Let's not get all gloom and doom, the Taliban is shrinking in Afghanistan due to the Surge.
Panetta's stint at CIA prepared him for the giant task he now faces as the civilian boss over the Pentagon. After doing his time in Langley, Panetta now understands that only the Agency can win the Long War. Soon he will try to start cutting weapon programs, reduce troops and equipment, close military bases, and then funnel the vast savings this will produce to expand the CIA. We might be seeing the first step in the reordering of America's Long War strategy.
But is this wise? Consider Somalia, Libya, and Iran. The only Long War active combat theaters that are going well right now are Somalia and Libya (Af/Pak is going poorly and the spring fighting season starts in May, yikes). In Somalia, the alliance of the Somali government, Sufi Islamic militias, and the AU army are at last beginning to tear Somali villages from the clutches of Al-Shabab, an Al-Qaeda franchisee. This alliance is directed by the CIA. In Libya, alliance missiles just killed Gaddafi's youngest son, Saif, and narrowly missed the old man. We don't know for sure if they were Hellfire missiles from a CIA drone, but this is likely. And that's exactly the point, the American public doesn't know where the missiles came from and doesn't care: no peace protests, no pressue on Congress to cut and run.
Both Somalia and Libya have tons of CIA operatives but no USMC or US Army troops. Now take Iran. The bad guys there just mournfully announced to the world that yet another @#$% CIA virus is chewing up their nuclear weapons program. Whether a hawk or a dove, any rational person would be in favor of detsroying Iranian nukes with computer viruses, a no-brainer. What's more, the Pentagon can't touch Iran. Sure, the US Air Force could destroy Iran's nuke building program. But then America would need to put several hundred thousands troops in Iran for a decades long nation-building exercise similar to Iraq. Of course the American public won't stand for this. So there is only one way to neuter Iran: CIA.
To turn the not-going-so-well Long War hot spots into the ones run by the CIA that are going well, there must be an expansion of the Agency. It needs to be about ten times bigger. Just putting Petraeus in charge is not enough. Hopefully Obama knows this. If so, then we truly are retracing the path America took in 1948-1950, when Truman put in place the containment strategy and structure that eventually produced a victory in the Cold War and a 20-year secular bull market.
Putting Petraeus in Charge of CIA today is just like putting Eisenhower in charge of NATO six decades ago. Just like Ike, Petraeus is a Republican who wants to be President. Truman selflessly hurt his own party but helped the world. Can Obama become a great leader and follow in Truman's footsteps? Your portfolio depends upon the answer to this question.
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
AMX Warplanes: Gaddafi's Worst Nightmare
Long War: In the last two days the Libyan rebels have killed 300 of Gaddafi's soldiers and suffered only light casualties.
President Obama called Italian PM Berlusconi and talked the PM into unleashing the Italian Air Force in Italy. The Italian Air Force had been under orders not to hit ground targets, but now it is going after Gaddafi hammer and tongs. Forget all the jokes about the Italian military from WW II, that is yesterday's news. The Italian Air Force of today has 130 AMX dedicated ground attack fighters. After the A-10 warthog, the AMX is the world's best ground attack fighter jet. Many Italian pilots are trained on both the AMX and the warthog and see very little difference between the two. Italy also has scores of Harrier jump jets, which is probably the third best ground attack fighter in existence.
Gaddafi's army has mostly pulled back from direct fighting in the key battles of Misurata, Brega, and the western hill towns of the anti-Gaddafi Berber tribes. Gaddafi is doing this to pound civilians from a distance, a pure terror tactic. This means his army is vulnerable to ground attack aircraft like the AMX as well as Predator drones. On Tuesday, NATO air strikes hit 3 ammo dumps around Misurata, an undisclosed number of tanks, armored vehicles and trucks, plus a training base was vaporised - which means a large number of Gaddafi's soldiers were killed.
Momentum badly needs to be established in the Libya War because other Long War hot spots continue to deteriorate. In Afghanistan, the Taliban is ramping up its infiltration of Afghan security forces, staging huge prison breaks and placing suicide bombers inside good guy military facilities. The Afghan Army and police have no system for keeping uniforms, badges, and equipment out of bad guy hands. This makes it easy for the Taliban to impersonate good guys and carry out infiltration operations. A western army would have rigorous systems in place to prevent this from happening. America has not set up these systems within the ranks of our Afghan allies because it is too busy rushing to wind up operations and leave Afghanistan by Obama's July deadline. The more America rushes recklessly to leave, the longer it will have to stay.
Racking up victories in Libya will help improve the attitudes of American voters. If the general public feels better, then the Pentagon can talk Obama into slowing down his withdrawal timetable in Afghanistan. Also, forward progress in Libya will take the wind out of the bad guys' sails in all the other LW hot spots and stiffen the spine of wavering allies like the Pak government. Finally, in the long run establishing a pro-American democracy in Libya will prove vital in the decades of fighting against AQIM that are sure to follow a possible total victory by the Free Libyan Army.
President Obama called Italian PM Berlusconi and talked the PM into unleashing the Italian Air Force in Italy. The Italian Air Force had been under orders not to hit ground targets, but now it is going after Gaddafi hammer and tongs. Forget all the jokes about the Italian military from WW II, that is yesterday's news. The Italian Air Force of today has 130 AMX dedicated ground attack fighters. After the A-10 warthog, the AMX is the world's best ground attack fighter jet. Many Italian pilots are trained on both the AMX and the warthog and see very little difference between the two. Italy also has scores of Harrier jump jets, which is probably the third best ground attack fighter in existence.
Gaddafi's army has mostly pulled back from direct fighting in the key battles of Misurata, Brega, and the western hill towns of the anti-Gaddafi Berber tribes. Gaddafi is doing this to pound civilians from a distance, a pure terror tactic. This means his army is vulnerable to ground attack aircraft like the AMX as well as Predator drones. On Tuesday, NATO air strikes hit 3 ammo dumps around Misurata, an undisclosed number of tanks, armored vehicles and trucks, plus a training base was vaporised - which means a large number of Gaddafi's soldiers were killed.
Momentum badly needs to be established in the Libya War because other Long War hot spots continue to deteriorate. In Afghanistan, the Taliban is ramping up its infiltration of Afghan security forces, staging huge prison breaks and placing suicide bombers inside good guy military facilities. The Afghan Army and police have no system for keeping uniforms, badges, and equipment out of bad guy hands. This makes it easy for the Taliban to impersonate good guys and carry out infiltration operations. A western army would have rigorous systems in place to prevent this from happening. America has not set up these systems within the ranks of our Afghan allies because it is too busy rushing to wind up operations and leave Afghanistan by Obama's July deadline. The more America rushes recklessly to leave, the longer it will have to stay.
Racking up victories in Libya will help improve the attitudes of American voters. If the general public feels better, then the Pentagon can talk Obama into slowing down his withdrawal timetable in Afghanistan. Also, forward progress in Libya will take the wind out of the bad guys' sails in all the other LW hot spots and stiffen the spine of wavering allies like the Pak government. Finally, in the long run establishing a pro-American democracy in Libya will prove vital in the decades of fighting against AQIM that are sure to follow a possible total victory by the Free Libyan Army.
Monday, April 25, 2011
NATO Takes a Tiny Baby Step
Charts: The S&P 500 final Fibonacci number, 1333, is overwhelmingly important because this retracement level is a mathematical expression of the cyclical nature of history, tapping into the very fabric of human civilization. And yet most chartists don't give it much attention. Elliot Wave Theory is the most advanced form of Fibonacci chart analysis. Today most investment pros scoff at Elliot Wave Theory (foolish). These two forms of chart analysis tell us a major turning point is at hand. Another technical indicator says the same thing and we don't need advanced math to understand it: Since 2008 the yield on the US government 10-year note has formed a very clear, almost perfect, wedge pattern. A tight wedge pattern says we are in the calm before the storm.
Long War: Maybe you don't believe that America's weak policy in the Libya War is causing other Long War hot spots to deteriorate. Analyzing the situation in Sudan should change your mind. The evil dictator of North Sudan, Bashir, had been playing ball with the CIA for the last few years: a bad guy became a "good bad guy." Bashir allowed an election. North Sudan stopped funding jihadist militias. The country was ready to peacefully split in two. Nearly a century of civil war (2 million people killed) was ending. All this happened because a figurative American gun was being held against Bashir's head and the entire Long War was destined to cool off.
With Bashir's fellow evil African dictator, Gaddafi, being treated with kid gloves, the Sudanese Civil War is on the verge of restarting. Bashir is arming jihadist militias again and ordering them to attack the South Sudanese Army. Over the past few days 150 fighters and soldiers have been killed in Sudan.
Perhaps because of this, yesterday NATO launched laser guided bombs into one of Gaddafi's compounds. Apparently nobody important was injured. If this tiny baby step toward a more assertive policy in Libya were to continue, it would be a wake-up call for Bashir to back off. "If" is one of the the smallest word in the English language and the one with the largest meaning.
Specific Stocks: The Japanese word for beauty and tidiness are one and the same. Japan is a country of neat freaks. After the tsunami there is about 200 million tons of debris clogging parts of coastal Japan. This is the largest mess concentrated in one area in all of human history. This giant mess will be cleaned up with new equipment manufactured by Komatsu. Also, Caterpillar is buying Bucyrus and before that Bucyrus bought most of Terex. These are all mining equipment makers and Caterpillar is trying to create a monopoly. There are now only three big mining equipment makers left: Caterpillar, Joy Global, and Komatsu. The miners hate monopolies for obvious reasons and are likely to give orders to the second biggest equipment maker, Komatsu, over Caterpillar if everything else is equal for a given purchase.
Long War: Maybe you don't believe that America's weak policy in the Libya War is causing other Long War hot spots to deteriorate. Analyzing the situation in Sudan should change your mind. The evil dictator of North Sudan, Bashir, had been playing ball with the CIA for the last few years: a bad guy became a "good bad guy." Bashir allowed an election. North Sudan stopped funding jihadist militias. The country was ready to peacefully split in two. Nearly a century of civil war (2 million people killed) was ending. All this happened because a figurative American gun was being held against Bashir's head and the entire Long War was destined to cool off.
With Bashir's fellow evil African dictator, Gaddafi, being treated with kid gloves, the Sudanese Civil War is on the verge of restarting. Bashir is arming jihadist militias again and ordering them to attack the South Sudanese Army. Over the past few days 150 fighters and soldiers have been killed in Sudan.
Perhaps because of this, yesterday NATO launched laser guided bombs into one of Gaddafi's compounds. Apparently nobody important was injured. If this tiny baby step toward a more assertive policy in Libya were to continue, it would be a wake-up call for Bashir to back off. "If" is one of the the smallest word in the English language and the one with the largest meaning.
Specific Stocks: The Japanese word for beauty and tidiness are one and the same. Japan is a country of neat freaks. After the tsunami there is about 200 million tons of debris clogging parts of coastal Japan. This is the largest mess concentrated in one area in all of human history. This giant mess will be cleaned up with new equipment manufactured by Komatsu. Also, Caterpillar is buying Bucyrus and before that Bucyrus bought most of Terex. These are all mining equipment makers and Caterpillar is trying to create a monopoly. There are now only three big mining equipment makers left: Caterpillar, Joy Global, and Komatsu. The miners hate monopolies for obvious reasons and are likely to give orders to the second biggest equipment maker, Komatsu, over Caterpillar if everything else is equal for a given purchase.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Sometimes I Just Scream
Long War: The Libyan rebels through heroic small arms tactics have knocked Gaddafi's superior army almost entirely out of Misurata, with only two pockets of bad guy resistance holding out. The bulk of Gaddafi's army is sitting just outside the hugely strategic port city and firing tremendous barrages directly into civilian population centers, a grotesque terror tactic. With his army knocked back, Gaddafi says he is arming various tribes, step one in unleashing tribal warfare across the desert country. Fighting rages unrelentingly in the western hills, and in the central coast around Brega.
America is running two Predator attack drones against Gaddafi, a small step in the right direction but not enough to break the stalemate. The clearest voice on the Libya War is Sen. John McCain. He says a very dangerous stalemate is setting in and if it continues, NATO is essentially handing Libya over to AQIM (Al-Qaeda North Africa). The Algerian government has been telling us that AQIM is rapidly gathering strength and Sen. McCain, who has access to classified information, is now confirming this to be the case. McCain says that America needs to unleash every A-10 warthog and AC-130 gunship available and take out Gaddafi's army yesterday.
The danger in Libya is not "mission creep." The true danger is a growing menace from Al-Qaeda which could create a future war that will make the current North Africa conflict look like a Boyscout jamboree. As long as it remains hidden, the stock market will probably ignore the danger of AQIM's gathering might.
In the Pak tribal lands, CIA drones killed 21 bad guys and 5 women and children. The Pak government quickly held a press conference and hammered the point home that women and children had been slaughtered by America's flying robots. It then sanctioned a number of anti-NATO protests. Islamic Pak political parties are now blockading a key NATO supply route with thousands of civilians. The Taliban routinely attacks NATO supply routes that run through Pakistan, but never before have Pak political parties joined in. And never before has the Pak government openly turned against the drone campaign like this.
America would stop all drone flights immediately if the Pak Army would attack North Waziristan, where Al-Qaeda and the Haqqani network have for all practical purposes created their own nation-state. Instead Pakistan is preparing to negotiate a peace treaty with the Afghan Taliban. It already has a peace treaty with the Haqqani network. It bears repeating that the Pak Taliban has in the past briefly taken control of Pakistani nuclear weapon assembly stations.
The stock market doesn't react to deterioration in the Long War as quickly as it did to Cold War setbacks. I remind you that Black Monday 1987 was caused by the US shelling Iranian offshore oil platforms, a Long War event. It was the single worst day in stock market history, an entire bear market encapsulated into a single trading day. It took years to recover the losses from that one day. In early 1987 the stock market ignored the growing tension between the US and Iran until one day it didn't.
At the beginning of the Libya War I hammered into my keyboard: Warthog! Warthog! Warthog! A-10s and AC-130s were flown in combat against Gaddafi for two days and his army had to retreat 200 miles during and after that onslaught. Just a few more days of warthog and gunship sorties and the Libya War would have been over, dammit. Since then warthogs and gunships have been sidelined and Obama's approval rating has plummeted downward, the price of oil has rocketed upward and every theater in the Long War has gone to hell as America's Islamic allies are treated to the sight of a giant stumbling about on feet of clay. Obama's foreign policy approval ratings are exceptionally low. The general public is in no position to hold coherent opinions concerning military strategy. If pushed by bad news it will say bring all the troops home from every corner of the globe. Thus a feedback loop is created where American weakness creates more weakness.
And yet rays of sunlight pierce the gloom. The tiny kingdom of Qatar has shovelled weapons into the eager hands of the Libyan rebels, including anti-tank and anti-armor TOW missiles. Kuwait is loaning the rebels hundreds of millions of dollars. The CIA is leaking to the media that it is still in Libya and helping the rebels, almost certainly training them alongside Qatari commandos. It's no way to run a railroad, but the train is still chugging fitfully forward. Gaddafi's army is in fact losing ground. I go to the Warthog News website and see the main stories are about unique decals on the warplanes' fuselages, fold my head into my hands, and scream.
America is running two Predator attack drones against Gaddafi, a small step in the right direction but not enough to break the stalemate. The clearest voice on the Libya War is Sen. John McCain. He says a very dangerous stalemate is setting in and if it continues, NATO is essentially handing Libya over to AQIM (Al-Qaeda North Africa). The Algerian government has been telling us that AQIM is rapidly gathering strength and Sen. McCain, who has access to classified information, is now confirming this to be the case. McCain says that America needs to unleash every A-10 warthog and AC-130 gunship available and take out Gaddafi's army yesterday.
The danger in Libya is not "mission creep." The true danger is a growing menace from Al-Qaeda which could create a future war that will make the current North Africa conflict look like a Boyscout jamboree. As long as it remains hidden, the stock market will probably ignore the danger of AQIM's gathering might.
In the Pak tribal lands, CIA drones killed 21 bad guys and 5 women and children. The Pak government quickly held a press conference and hammered the point home that women and children had been slaughtered by America's flying robots. It then sanctioned a number of anti-NATO protests. Islamic Pak political parties are now blockading a key NATO supply route with thousands of civilians. The Taliban routinely attacks NATO supply routes that run through Pakistan, but never before have Pak political parties joined in. And never before has the Pak government openly turned against the drone campaign like this.
America would stop all drone flights immediately if the Pak Army would attack North Waziristan, where Al-Qaeda and the Haqqani network have for all practical purposes created their own nation-state. Instead Pakistan is preparing to negotiate a peace treaty with the Afghan Taliban. It already has a peace treaty with the Haqqani network. It bears repeating that the Pak Taliban has in the past briefly taken control of Pakistani nuclear weapon assembly stations.
The stock market doesn't react to deterioration in the Long War as quickly as it did to Cold War setbacks. I remind you that Black Monday 1987 was caused by the US shelling Iranian offshore oil platforms, a Long War event. It was the single worst day in stock market history, an entire bear market encapsulated into a single trading day. It took years to recover the losses from that one day. In early 1987 the stock market ignored the growing tension between the US and Iran until one day it didn't.
At the beginning of the Libya War I hammered into my keyboard: Warthog! Warthog! Warthog! A-10s and AC-130s were flown in combat against Gaddafi for two days and his army had to retreat 200 miles during and after that onslaught. Just a few more days of warthog and gunship sorties and the Libya War would have been over, dammit. Since then warthogs and gunships have been sidelined and Obama's approval rating has plummeted downward, the price of oil has rocketed upward and every theater in the Long War has gone to hell as America's Islamic allies are treated to the sight of a giant stumbling about on feet of clay. Obama's foreign policy approval ratings are exceptionally low. The general public is in no position to hold coherent opinions concerning military strategy. If pushed by bad news it will say bring all the troops home from every corner of the globe. Thus a feedback loop is created where American weakness creates more weakness.
And yet rays of sunlight pierce the gloom. The tiny kingdom of Qatar has shovelled weapons into the eager hands of the Libyan rebels, including anti-tank and anti-armor TOW missiles. Kuwait is loaning the rebels hundreds of millions of dollars. The CIA is leaking to the media that it is still in Libya and helping the rebels, almost certainly training them alongside Qatari commandos. It's no way to run a railroad, but the train is still chugging fitfully forward. Gaddafi's army is in fact losing ground. I go to the Warthog News website and see the main stories are about unique decals on the warplanes' fuselages, fold my head into my hands, and scream.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Britain and France Lead NATO, Not US
Long War: France and Italy have joined Britain in sending teams of military advisers to help the Libyan rebels. Italy is the first country to mention sending soldiers to Libya to serve in a humanitarian role, not actual combat; nevertheless, even broaching the topic of boots on the ground is positive.
After fierce and bloody fighting, the rebels utterly defeated Gaddafi's troops in the battle for the Wazin outpost on the Libya/Tunisia border. About 100 Gaddafi soldiers fled into Tunisia after being routed by the rebels. The rebels now hold the Wazin outpost and this opens up a supply line to the anti-Gaddafi Berber tribes, who are battling the bad guys in the western mountains, as well as the regular Free Libya troops now dug-in around the outpost. All this action is taking place in the western half of the country, territory that Gaddafi is supposedly controlling.
Warships operating NATO's embargo against Gaddafi have seized a regime oil tanker and confiscated it. Up until now the naval blockade has not really been doing its job as southern European nations greedily continue to buy oil from Gaddafi. Keeping the oil flowing is probably the reason why Italian jets have not been striking Gaddafi's forces. Perhaps we are witnessing a literal sea change with the sudden effectiveness of the NATO naval blockade and maybe a hardening of the Italian military.
France says the tempo of NATO bombing of Gaddafi's forces is set to dramatically increase. The NATO mission in Libya is called Operation Unified Protector. OUP is the first ever NATO mission not led by the US. It has floundered without the US in charge until (apparently) now.
VP Joe Biden defended Team Obama's Libya policy by saying resources are being funneled to other Long War hot spots. Of course he doesn't use the term "Long War", but instead rattles off a list of Islamic countries that are key to the LW. On the top of his list is Egypt. The only US resources that could be deployed in both Libya and Egypt are CIA. Biden has a big mouth and says stuff in public that he shouldn't. So here we have a set of CIA fingerprints in Egypt. The weekend blog will examine all possible CIA Egyptian fingerprints that can be sleuthed from the public domain.
After fierce and bloody fighting, the rebels utterly defeated Gaddafi's troops in the battle for the Wazin outpost on the Libya/Tunisia border. About 100 Gaddafi soldiers fled into Tunisia after being routed by the rebels. The rebels now hold the Wazin outpost and this opens up a supply line to the anti-Gaddafi Berber tribes, who are battling the bad guys in the western mountains, as well as the regular Free Libya troops now dug-in around the outpost. All this action is taking place in the western half of the country, territory that Gaddafi is supposedly controlling.
Warships operating NATO's embargo against Gaddafi have seized a regime oil tanker and confiscated it. Up until now the naval blockade has not really been doing its job as southern European nations greedily continue to buy oil from Gaddafi. Keeping the oil flowing is probably the reason why Italian jets have not been striking Gaddafi's forces. Perhaps we are witnessing a literal sea change with the sudden effectiveness of the NATO naval blockade and maybe a hardening of the Italian military.
France says the tempo of NATO bombing of Gaddafi's forces is set to dramatically increase. The NATO mission in Libya is called Operation Unified Protector. OUP is the first ever NATO mission not led by the US. It has floundered without the US in charge until (apparently) now.
VP Joe Biden defended Team Obama's Libya policy by saying resources are being funneled to other Long War hot spots. Of course he doesn't use the term "Long War", but instead rattles off a list of Islamic countries that are key to the LW. On the top of his list is Egypt. The only US resources that could be deployed in both Libya and Egypt are CIA. Biden has a big mouth and says stuff in public that he shouldn't. So here we have a set of CIA fingerprints in Egypt. The weekend blog will examine all possible CIA Egyptian fingerprints that can be sleuthed from the public domain.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Britain Saves America's Bacon
Long War: Britain is sending military advisers to Libya. The stated purpose of these advisers is a mass of contradictions. Essentially the British Army is saying these advisers are going to Libya to work on their tans. This obfuscation is good, it means that the real reason for sending the advisers is to clobber Gaddafi.
The assistance that Qatar has been providing the rebels is beginning to bear fruit. In the besieged rebel city of Misurata, the good guys are saying they killed 50 bad guys today, while suffering no combat deaths themselves. This might be an exaggeration, but the rebels are indisputably tearing chunks of the city away from the bad guys.
In the western mountains of Libya the anti-Gaddafi Berber tribes are also gaining ground against the bad guys. Probably the Berbers are receiving weapons and training from the Qataris and the CIA.
The US is still taking a backseat and allowing its allies to do the heavy lifting. American wobbliness is taking a toll in the rest of the Islamic world and other Long War hot spots. But the parallel to the late 1940s and the Cold War are still very stark, which is good.
The instant WW II was over, Harry Truman disbanded the CIA (then called OSS) because the spy agency was filled with hardcore anti-New Deal Republicans. Truman was slow to get NATO up and running for the same reason: only Dwight Eisenhower could get NATO off the ground because only he could convince voters and allied military men that it was okay to rearm Germany. No Eisenhower = No NATO. Eisenhower was a Republican and wanted to run for President. Making him Supreme Commander of NATO practically handed the White House to him on a silver platter. In the end Truman relented and reformed the CIA and let Ike create NATO. Because Truman was blindly political, the US did not fight the first two (almost three) years of the Cold War. But Britain and its advanced Commonwealth allies were fighting the CW this entire time.
Back to the present: Qatar is a former British colony that loved its time serving the Queen. The two nations are working well together in Libya. Just like in the Cold War, America can't sit on the sidelines for long. But for now the war effort is muddling along. The Libyan rebels are winning so that's what counts.
The assistance that Qatar has been providing the rebels is beginning to bear fruit. In the besieged rebel city of Misurata, the good guys are saying they killed 50 bad guys today, while suffering no combat deaths themselves. This might be an exaggeration, but the rebels are indisputably tearing chunks of the city away from the bad guys.
In the western mountains of Libya the anti-Gaddafi Berber tribes are also gaining ground against the bad guys. Probably the Berbers are receiving weapons and training from the Qataris and the CIA.
The US is still taking a backseat and allowing its allies to do the heavy lifting. American wobbliness is taking a toll in the rest of the Islamic world and other Long War hot spots. But the parallel to the late 1940s and the Cold War are still very stark, which is good.
The instant WW II was over, Harry Truman disbanded the CIA (then called OSS) because the spy agency was filled with hardcore anti-New Deal Republicans. Truman was slow to get NATO up and running for the same reason: only Dwight Eisenhower could get NATO off the ground because only he could convince voters and allied military men that it was okay to rearm Germany. No Eisenhower = No NATO. Eisenhower was a Republican and wanted to run for President. Making him Supreme Commander of NATO practically handed the White House to him on a silver platter. In the end Truman relented and reformed the CIA and let Ike create NATO. Because Truman was blindly political, the US did not fight the first two (almost three) years of the Cold War. But Britain and its advanced Commonwealth allies were fighting the CW this entire time.
Back to the present: Qatar is a former British colony that loved its time serving the Queen. The two nations are working well together in Libya. Just like in the Cold War, America can't sit on the sidelines for long. But for now the war effort is muddling along. The Libyan rebels are winning so that's what counts.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
America Wobbles
Long War: NATO has two major problems with its No-Fly Zone over Libya: 1) Some of the countries participating in the NFZ refuse to attack Gaddafi's ground forces. Italian jets buzz about the 700-mile wide battlefield but refuse to open fire on the bad guys. The way NATO is structured it is impossible to exclude the Italian Air Force from sorties. They are much worse than nothing because if the Italian jets are over a certain target that needs to get hit, jets from more reliable countries (like France) cannot engage. 2) America's A-10 warthogs and AC-130 gunships remain grounded. NATO's Sec. General says there is a crying need for "ground attack aircraft," probably a subtle plea to loose the warthogs and gunships. But America continues to keep them sidelined, unconcerned about winning this war.
Examples keep piling up of America's global alliance structure unwinding because of the recent wobbles in foreign policy. Egypt is reaching out to Iran, the first move in joining Iran's alliance structure, which include the following: Syria is a puppet state of Iran. Hezbollah is controlled by Iran which gives it partial control over Lebanon. Hamas is an Iranian surrogate, which gives Iran control over the Gaza Strip. The Houthi rebels in Yemen have Iranian ties as do the rage rebels in Bahrain. If we include Egypt to Iran's alliance structure it is at least as powerful in the region as the American alliance built around Saudi Arabia.
There are reports that Egypt has already loosened its blockade of the Gaza Strip and it looks like that blockade is about to be 100% lifted. This will allow weapons to flow freely into Gaza and beef up Hamas. Israel is not going to sit still for long if this trend continues.
There is an upside to all these American wobbles and it hit yesterday with the S&P downgrade on the outlook for American debt. America's ability to endlessly float debt on the world markets is based on its global military dominance. But the US federal government under both the Bush and Obama Administrations has become increasingly frivolous and reckless in its spending, just like ancient Rome with its absurd penchant for endless bread and circuses. The Federal Reserve's ultra-loose monetary policy is virtually identical to the Roman's debasing of their currency (replacing silver with lead in coins) to pay for more coliseums and gladiatorial games. This is how Rome taxed its outer provinces or emerging markets. And America has done the same thing. In both cases war within the periphery of the world empire always erupted.
If America had clobbered Gaddafi from the start, then its electronic printing presses would have really moved into high gear and spending would have gone from reckless to insane. A painful readjustment is starting now. This is long term good, but short term bad.
Examples keep piling up of America's global alliance structure unwinding because of the recent wobbles in foreign policy. Egypt is reaching out to Iran, the first move in joining Iran's alliance structure, which include the following: Syria is a puppet state of Iran. Hezbollah is controlled by Iran which gives it partial control over Lebanon. Hamas is an Iranian surrogate, which gives Iran control over the Gaza Strip. The Houthi rebels in Yemen have Iranian ties as do the rage rebels in Bahrain. If we include Egypt to Iran's alliance structure it is at least as powerful in the region as the American alliance built around Saudi Arabia.
There are reports that Egypt has already loosened its blockade of the Gaza Strip and it looks like that blockade is about to be 100% lifted. This will allow weapons to flow freely into Gaza and beef up Hamas. Israel is not going to sit still for long if this trend continues.
There is an upside to all these American wobbles and it hit yesterday with the S&P downgrade on the outlook for American debt. America's ability to endlessly float debt on the world markets is based on its global military dominance. But the US federal government under both the Bush and Obama Administrations has become increasingly frivolous and reckless in its spending, just like ancient Rome with its absurd penchant for endless bread and circuses. The Federal Reserve's ultra-loose monetary policy is virtually identical to the Roman's debasing of their currency (replacing silver with lead in coins) to pay for more coliseums and gladiatorial games. This is how Rome taxed its outer provinces or emerging markets. And America has done the same thing. In both cases war within the periphery of the world empire always erupted.
If America had clobbered Gaddafi from the start, then its electronic printing presses would have really moved into high gear and spending would have gone from reckless to insane. A painful readjustment is starting now. This is long term good, but short term bad.
Monday, April 18, 2011
Long War: An Unending Process
Long War: In Libya, the rebels are making tentative progress among savage fighting. Gaddafi is resorting to the use of cluster bombs and the outright shelling of civilians in a desperate bid to deliver a knock-out blow. More and more evidence is surfacing that Qatar is helping the rebels, probably in conjunction with the CIA.
AQIM (Al-Qaeda North Africa) attacked an Algerian Army outpost and killed about a dozen good guys. There can be no doubt that the Libyan War has vastly strengthened AQIM. When and if the rebels win the Libya War, the US will have to stitch (or restitch) together its alliance structure in North Africa and restart the campaign against AQIM.
The governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan are meeting to create a unified front in the upcoming peace talks with the Afghan Taliban that will apparently take place in Turkey. So three of America's most important allies in the Long War are determined to reach out to the superpower's greatest enemy. If these peace talks occur it would be like Charles De Gaulle and Winston Churchill entering into peace talks with Hitler in 1943.
The spring fighting season is now starting in Afghanistan and NATO troops are taking casualties. The Taliban is usually quite open and honest when it announces new tactics. For this fighting season it will infiltrate Afghan Army units with suicide bombers and avoid stand-up fire fights with NATO and the Afghan Army. The Taliban is positioning itself for the withdrawal of American troops. The solution to both this tactic and the upcoming Taliban peace talks is to not withdraw American troops from Afghanistan and defeat the bad guys on the ground over the next several years. Either that or go forward with Obama's proposed restructuring and expansion of the CIA and have it continue fighting in Afghanistan.
In Iraq: On paper Kurdistan is part of Iraq. In reality Kurdistan is a separate country and the Kurdish Army and the Iraqi Army routinely square off in and around the oil city of Kirkuk. The US Army routinely prevents a new war from starting along the Iraq/Kurdistan border by jamming itself between the two antagonists. Iraq has one other serious problem, its army might be able to fight the Kurds into a stalemate but would get annihilated by the Iranian Army. With American foreign policy so wobbly of late, Iran is on the march. Aware of all this, Hillary Clinton and other hawks in the Administration are setting the stage for the US Army to stay in Iraq. She will have to battle the President on this issue. The same is true as far as Libya and Afghanistan are concerned. In other words, the US needs to stay engaged in all the Long War hot spots.
Here is a good analogy, staying engaged in all these hot spots is like painting the Golden Gate bridge, an unending process that needs to be done if the structure is to avoid rusting and eventually collapsing. Wars lasting hundreds of years are not uncommon in the pages of history and the answer to a long war is the same as to a short war: win.
AQIM (Al-Qaeda North Africa) attacked an Algerian Army outpost and killed about a dozen good guys. There can be no doubt that the Libyan War has vastly strengthened AQIM. When and if the rebels win the Libya War, the US will have to stitch (or restitch) together its alliance structure in North Africa and restart the campaign against AQIM.
The governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan are meeting to create a unified front in the upcoming peace talks with the Afghan Taliban that will apparently take place in Turkey. So three of America's most important allies in the Long War are determined to reach out to the superpower's greatest enemy. If these peace talks occur it would be like Charles De Gaulle and Winston Churchill entering into peace talks with Hitler in 1943.
The spring fighting season is now starting in Afghanistan and NATO troops are taking casualties. The Taliban is usually quite open and honest when it announces new tactics. For this fighting season it will infiltrate Afghan Army units with suicide bombers and avoid stand-up fire fights with NATO and the Afghan Army. The Taliban is positioning itself for the withdrawal of American troops. The solution to both this tactic and the upcoming Taliban peace talks is to not withdraw American troops from Afghanistan and defeat the bad guys on the ground over the next several years. Either that or go forward with Obama's proposed restructuring and expansion of the CIA and have it continue fighting in Afghanistan.
In Iraq: On paper Kurdistan is part of Iraq. In reality Kurdistan is a separate country and the Kurdish Army and the Iraqi Army routinely square off in and around the oil city of Kirkuk. The US Army routinely prevents a new war from starting along the Iraq/Kurdistan border by jamming itself between the two antagonists. Iraq has one other serious problem, its army might be able to fight the Kurds into a stalemate but would get annihilated by the Iranian Army. With American foreign policy so wobbly of late, Iran is on the march. Aware of all this, Hillary Clinton and other hawks in the Administration are setting the stage for the US Army to stay in Iraq. She will have to battle the President on this issue. The same is true as far as Libya and Afghanistan are concerned. In other words, the US needs to stay engaged in all the Long War hot spots.
Here is a good analogy, staying engaged in all these hot spots is like painting the Golden Gate bridge, an unending process that needs to be done if the structure is to avoid rusting and eventually collapsing. Wars lasting hundreds of years are not uncommon in the pages of history and the answer to a long war is the same as to a short war: win.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Good News in Long War: Qatar Steps Up
Long War: Yesterday Gaddafi angrily said Qatari Special Forces soldiers are training the Free Libya Army. Gaddafi sometimes says crazy things, but this statement had a different feel to it than his usual crazy talk. Al Jazeera reported a couple weeks ago that Egyptian and American Special Forces are training the rebels. Al Jazeera is owned by the government of Qatar, so it is likely that the so-called Egyptian Special Forces are really Qatari Special Forces and the Americans are CIA. There is more evidence of Qatar stepping up...
The rebels are suddenly sending boatloads of weapons across the Med from Benghazi to Misrata. Western reporters are looking at the packing crates and noticing they bear the label of the Qatari Defense Ministry. Finally, President Obama is meeting today with the Emir of Qatar.
And there is more good news. The leaders of France, Britain, and America made a joint statement that the Libyan No-Fly Zone will stay in place until Gaddafi is gone, implying that these three powers have finally agreed that regime change is the ultimate goal of the NATO mission in Libya. This is a big step up for Obama and (for now at least) reflects a move away from his effort to save ObamaCare by giving up on the Long War. We are probably seeing Hillary Clinton exerting influence over the President.
The Pentagon has just executed the most demanding test yet of its Aegis anti-missile defense system. The test was a monster success. This system is designed specifically to deter Iranian missiles. So even though Iran has made big gains because of America's recent foreign policy wobbles, these gains can be countered by super-advanced US technology, which Iran can't do anything about. This might strengthen America's allies, who will only step up if they have superpower backing. Raytheon (RTN) is the primary contractor for this technology.
There is plenty of bad news too. North Sudan and South Sudan are mobilizing their armies into position across the rough border between the two in a move that looks a lot like the resumption of the Sudanese Civil War. This is another example of American authority over its allies ebbing away. The power vacuum that results from US authority continuing to slip will be filled by warfare. Or think of it this way: the default position of the planet if the mono-polar world order evaporates is not peace, it is war. If America were to continue to wobble in the Libya War, then N. Sudan and S. Sudan would surely restart their nearly century old war. As I've said many times, this war is what started the Long War, and its resumption would be very bad. Maybe that won't happen if Obama continues to listen to Hillary. Let's hope he does.
The rebels are suddenly sending boatloads of weapons across the Med from Benghazi to Misrata. Western reporters are looking at the packing crates and noticing they bear the label of the Qatari Defense Ministry. Finally, President Obama is meeting today with the Emir of Qatar.
And there is more good news. The leaders of France, Britain, and America made a joint statement that the Libyan No-Fly Zone will stay in place until Gaddafi is gone, implying that these three powers have finally agreed that regime change is the ultimate goal of the NATO mission in Libya. This is a big step up for Obama and (for now at least) reflects a move away from his effort to save ObamaCare by giving up on the Long War. We are probably seeing Hillary Clinton exerting influence over the President.
The Pentagon has just executed the most demanding test yet of its Aegis anti-missile defense system. The test was a monster success. This system is designed specifically to deter Iranian missiles. So even though Iran has made big gains because of America's recent foreign policy wobbles, these gains can be countered by super-advanced US technology, which Iran can't do anything about. This might strengthen America's allies, who will only step up if they have superpower backing. Raytheon (RTN) is the primary contractor for this technology.
There is plenty of bad news too. North Sudan and South Sudan are mobilizing their armies into position across the rough border between the two in a move that looks a lot like the resumption of the Sudanese Civil War. This is another example of American authority over its allies ebbing away. The power vacuum that results from US authority continuing to slip will be filled by warfare. Or think of it this way: the default position of the planet if the mono-polar world order evaporates is not peace, it is war. If America were to continue to wobble in the Libya War, then N. Sudan and S. Sudan would surely restart their nearly century old war. As I've said many times, this war is what started the Long War, and its resumption would be very bad. Maybe that won't happen if Obama continues to listen to Hillary. Let's hope he does.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Iran Gets Stronger
Long War: As American influence in the Mideast slowly ebbs, Iran is cautiously moving to fill the resulting vacuum. The CIA is leaking information to the media detailing how Iran is beginning to arm the rage rebels in Bahrain, sending riot control equipment and expertise to Syria, and reaching out to the Houthi rebels in Yemen. Iran is also sending advanced missiles to Hamas and Hezbollah. The CIA media leak is a cry for help, an attempt to mold American public opinion.
During a big conference in Berlin, the Sec. General of NATO today said the Atlantic alliance's goal in Libya is for Gaddafi to stop shelling civilians, not regime change. Hillary Clinton is at that conference and she contradicted NATO by saying the goal is to remove Gaddafi. Leon Panetta (CIA Director) and Mrs. Clinton are trying to push the US back into the Long War, but Obama is not listening, at least for now.
The President is alarmed at the media reaction to Congressman Paul Ryan's budget plan that slashes $6 trillion dollars of spending over the next 10 years. In general the media doesn't like the plan but it calls Ryan courageous and agrees that the era of cuts has begun. In response, Obama gave a speech outlining his ideas for budget cuts. The speech was intellectually dishonest; example: Obama himself has said that the tax code needs to be flattened, the overall rate lowered while loopholes are closed, which makes it revenue neutral. Rich people enjoy a lower rate but they lose all their tax deductions, making it a wash. Ryan's budget calls for this exact same formula. Obama now attacks tax code flattening in shrill terms as tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires. Obama is panicking over the domestic spending cuts coming down the pike.
Several months ago, when the President was in a calm state of mind, he called for a restructuring of the CIA. The Agency's drone fleet was to be massively expanded and half the Pentagon's Special Forces soldiers were to be transferred to Langley. This way a CIA rapid reaction force would be in place when a Long War hot spot flared, like Libya. The CIA could react to a flare up without the Army or USMC putting boots on the ground. CIA combat deaths would be classified and public opinion controlled.
The problem with this plan is the Pentagon needs all its Special Forces soldiers and then some. So actually executing the plan would mean a big expansion of Special Forces, every soldier transferred to Langley would need to replaced. This cost money and expanding the drone fleet would also cost money. Obama backed away from his own plan for this reason.
Someday this restructuring will take place, but apparently not for a while. The Long War is at the same place now as the Cold War was in the late 1940s, the basic architecture for fighting the lengthy global conflict is evolving, although at a much slower pace than the CW.
Specific Stocks: Since Obama's speech most defense stocks have been getting shredded. Irobot, however, is way up and Harris Corp is holding its own. These are really Long War type defense companies so the market is saying there is some hope. Only time will tell.
During a big conference in Berlin, the Sec. General of NATO today said the Atlantic alliance's goal in Libya is for Gaddafi to stop shelling civilians, not regime change. Hillary Clinton is at that conference and she contradicted NATO by saying the goal is to remove Gaddafi. Leon Panetta (CIA Director) and Mrs. Clinton are trying to push the US back into the Long War, but Obama is not listening, at least for now.
The President is alarmed at the media reaction to Congressman Paul Ryan's budget plan that slashes $6 trillion dollars of spending over the next 10 years. In general the media doesn't like the plan but it calls Ryan courageous and agrees that the era of cuts has begun. In response, Obama gave a speech outlining his ideas for budget cuts. The speech was intellectually dishonest; example: Obama himself has said that the tax code needs to be flattened, the overall rate lowered while loopholes are closed, which makes it revenue neutral. Rich people enjoy a lower rate but they lose all their tax deductions, making it a wash. Ryan's budget calls for this exact same formula. Obama now attacks tax code flattening in shrill terms as tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires. Obama is panicking over the domestic spending cuts coming down the pike.
Several months ago, when the President was in a calm state of mind, he called for a restructuring of the CIA. The Agency's drone fleet was to be massively expanded and half the Pentagon's Special Forces soldiers were to be transferred to Langley. This way a CIA rapid reaction force would be in place when a Long War hot spot flared, like Libya. The CIA could react to a flare up without the Army or USMC putting boots on the ground. CIA combat deaths would be classified and public opinion controlled.
The problem with this plan is the Pentagon needs all its Special Forces soldiers and then some. So actually executing the plan would mean a big expansion of Special Forces, every soldier transferred to Langley would need to replaced. This cost money and expanding the drone fleet would also cost money. Obama backed away from his own plan for this reason.
Someday this restructuring will take place, but apparently not for a while. The Long War is at the same place now as the Cold War was in the late 1940s, the basic architecture for fighting the lengthy global conflict is evolving, although at a much slower pace than the CW.
Specific Stocks: Since Obama's speech most defense stocks have been getting shredded. Irobot, however, is way up and Harris Corp is holding its own. These are really Long War type defense companies so the market is saying there is some hope. Only time will tell.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Erosion of World Order
Charts: The S&P 500's 50-day moving average is 1314. If it trades below that level for several days, then the market will be in a technical correction. Over the past 2 months the chart looks like one half of a bearish head and shoulders pattern. If a correction ensues it will further this nascent pattern. The bull market has displayed this pattern before and recovered, this is unusual and I wouldn't count on it happening again. However, the pattern has not formed yet.
Long War: CIA drones vaporized 6 Taliban fighters in S. Waziristan, part of the tribal lands of Pakistan. The Pak government is forbidding CIA drone flights and demanding the Agency remove huge numbers of operatives from Pakistan. The CIA by its actions is refusing these demands. The next move is Pakistan's.
Turkey says it is seriously considering opening a diplomatic office for the Afghan Taliban in Ankara. This office will be used by the Taliban and Karzai's government to negotiate a peace accord. As you will recall, similar negotiations by Karzai's government and the Taliban that occured in Pakistan were met by CIA drone strikes, torpedoing the talks. Of course the CIA cannot launch drone strikes in Turkey.
The US has been telling Germany to step on a certain Iranian bank that does business with the European giant. Germany is refusing this request.
Clearly we see an erosion in US authority over its allies in the wake of the Libya War fiasco. Western intellectuals for decades have been gleefully looking forward to the end of the mono-polar world order. The above developments are a far cry from the end the current world order, rather they represent a weakening of it. Nevertheless, the intellectuals will get a taste of what they have long been wishing for. My guess is they won't like that taste one bit.
Long War: CIA drones vaporized 6 Taliban fighters in S. Waziristan, part of the tribal lands of Pakistan. The Pak government is forbidding CIA drone flights and demanding the Agency remove huge numbers of operatives from Pakistan. The CIA by its actions is refusing these demands. The next move is Pakistan's.
Turkey says it is seriously considering opening a diplomatic office for the Afghan Taliban in Ankara. This office will be used by the Taliban and Karzai's government to negotiate a peace accord. As you will recall, similar negotiations by Karzai's government and the Taliban that occured in Pakistan were met by CIA drone strikes, torpedoing the talks. Of course the CIA cannot launch drone strikes in Turkey.
The US has been telling Germany to step on a certain Iranian bank that does business with the European giant. Germany is refusing this request.
Clearly we see an erosion in US authority over its allies in the wake of the Libya War fiasco. Western intellectuals for decades have been gleefully looking forward to the end of the mono-polar world order. The above developments are a far cry from the end the current world order, rather they represent a weakening of it. Nevertheless, the intellectuals will get a taste of what they have long been wishing for. My guess is they won't like that taste one bit.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
1000 US Bases Straddle Planet Earth
Long War: NATO is admitting that it does not have western Special Forces soldiers on the ground in Libya directing air strikes. This violates standard military doctrine. NATO justifies this deviation from normal procedures by saying that it is not taking sides in the Libyan Civil War and is not acting as the rebel's air force. Most military experts think this is an unwitting policy to engineer a stalemate between Gaddafi and the rebels. There is a good chance that such a stalemate will hand over huge swaths of the embattled country to Al-Qaeda.
The Long War is a conflict between the global American alliance structure and Al-Qaeda. It is not a war between Gaddafi and America. A stalemate in Libya is bad for Gaddafi, but that isn't important. The major issue is whether or not a stalemate is good or bad for Al Qaeda.
Pakistan is saying the CIA no longer has permission to fly drones over the Pak tribal belt. This is obviously very good for Al Qaeda. In yesterday's blog I pointed out that America's ally, Iraq, recently attacked a CIA asset, the Agency sponsored MEK guerilla fighter base along the Iraq/Iran border. This is very good for Iran.
The Big Picture: The US military has over 1000 bases straddling the entire planet, reaching into every corner of the globe. Many of these bases carry only skeleton crews but are linked to the militaries of the various host countries and exert influence that belies their small size. The average American is unaware that his country has a global empire and is in reality running the planet. The fish cannot see the ocean they are swimming in. One example: A few years ago, the largest Muslim-majority country, Indonesia, moved from dictatorship to democracy. Islamic/jihadist parties were stepped on and partially disabled during this transition period. This would not have happened without America's military presence in the country. But fireworks and headlines were not generated by the gradual ebbing of jihadist influence in Indonesia. In fact Indonesia still has an Islamic insurgency that the American military and the Indonesia Army battle every day, this well-controlled but ongoing insurgency is what generates occasional headlines.
America losing influence in Indonesia will not lead to peace. Losing influence in Iraq and Pakistan will not lead to peace. Erosion of the geopolitical order that governs the planet will not lead to peace.
Can the tiny nation of Qatar break the stalemate in Libya and restore American global hegemony? Probably not, but I could be wrong. Also, my theory that America suffering a setback in the Long War is as catastrophic as a similar setback in the Cold War could be wrong. The USSR had the ability to kill every man, woman and child in America. Al Qaeda does not have this ability. I think this is balanced out by the fact America is not fighting against the bad guys today as hard as it fought against the Cold War bad guys. Maybe this doesn't make as much differences as I think. I'm not trying to create an academic theory, but a guide to investing, as such I am quickly prepared to change my mind.
The Long War is a conflict between the global American alliance structure and Al-Qaeda. It is not a war between Gaddafi and America. A stalemate in Libya is bad for Gaddafi, but that isn't important. The major issue is whether or not a stalemate is good or bad for Al Qaeda.
Pakistan is saying the CIA no longer has permission to fly drones over the Pak tribal belt. This is obviously very good for Al Qaeda. In yesterday's blog I pointed out that America's ally, Iraq, recently attacked a CIA asset, the Agency sponsored MEK guerilla fighter base along the Iraq/Iran border. This is very good for Iran.
The Big Picture: The US military has over 1000 bases straddling the entire planet, reaching into every corner of the globe. Many of these bases carry only skeleton crews but are linked to the militaries of the various host countries and exert influence that belies their small size. The average American is unaware that his country has a global empire and is in reality running the planet. The fish cannot see the ocean they are swimming in. One example: A few years ago, the largest Muslim-majority country, Indonesia, moved from dictatorship to democracy. Islamic/jihadist parties were stepped on and partially disabled during this transition period. This would not have happened without America's military presence in the country. But fireworks and headlines were not generated by the gradual ebbing of jihadist influence in Indonesia. In fact Indonesia still has an Islamic insurgency that the American military and the Indonesia Army battle every day, this well-controlled but ongoing insurgency is what generates occasional headlines.
America losing influence in Indonesia will not lead to peace. Losing influence in Iraq and Pakistan will not lead to peace. Erosion of the geopolitical order that governs the planet will not lead to peace.
Can the tiny nation of Qatar break the stalemate in Libya and restore American global hegemony? Probably not, but I could be wrong. Also, my theory that America suffering a setback in the Long War is as catastrophic as a similar setback in the Cold War could be wrong. The USSR had the ability to kill every man, woman and child in America. Al Qaeda does not have this ability. I think this is balanced out by the fact America is not fighting against the bad guys today as hard as it fought against the Cold War bad guys. Maybe this doesn't make as much differences as I think. I'm not trying to create an academic theory, but a guide to investing, as such I am quickly prepared to change my mind.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Will Obama Pull in His Horns?
Libya War: Last week NATO jets vaporized a rebel armored column just as it was about to punch a hole through Gaddafi's line outside the key oil city of Brega. Capitalizing on this gift, Gaddafi's army smashed the rebels back across 50 miles of open desert and pushed them into the city of Ajdabiyah, the last line of defense before the rebel capitol city Benghazi. While this was going on a British military spokesman said Britain did not know the rebels had tanks, hence the friendly fire incident. If we are to take this statement at face value it means that NATO does not have spotters on the ground or any intelligence assets at all; the CIA operatives that were on the ground in Libya have either left or they are not communicating with NATO.
Early Saturday the rebels flew a MIG-23 at Gaddafi's juggernaut and NATO intercepted the good guy warplane, forcing it back behind rebel lines (!). NATO then primly said the No-Fly Zone applies to both the rebels and Gaddafi. At that point any rational observer is tearing his hair out and screaming curses at NATO. But then the Atlantic alliance launched a blitz against Gaddafi and quickly destroyed 25 bad guy tanks and scores of ammo bunkers. This stopped the imminent collapse of rebel positions in Ajdabiyah and Misrata, which would have spelled the end to the war with Gaddafi triumphant.
The African Union has a delegation in Tripoli right now and these good guys are negotiating with Gaddafi. This coming Wednesday the Libya Contact Group is meeting with the government of Qatar to discuss the Libya War. It is possible that Qattar and/or the AU will provide troops to help the rebels. The Qattari Army/AU could push Gaddafi back with relative ease but this happening is not a forgone conclusion. We need to understand what motivates Qatar.
Qatar sits on top the largest natural gas field in the world. Qatar has roughly 13% of the planet's natural gas reserves. Iran also sits on top the same gigantic gas field and periodically rumbles about wanting the whole field to itself. For this reason Qatar fears Iran the way Singapore fears China. Both of these tiny countries try to infuse America with backbone to counter the regional monsters they fear so badly. If America were to totally pull in its horns and curl into an isolationist ball, then both Singapore and Qatar would have no choice but to strike alliances with China and Iran respectively. So Qatar will not come to the rescue in Libya if it thinks America is rolling over 100%.
The Rest of The Long War: When America or NATO assert themselves in the Libya War, the rest of the Long War calms down. And when the great powers get weak-kneed, the whole Long War boils over. We are in a weak-kneed phase and briefly this is what we are seeing... Moderate Islamic clerics are being assassinated in the Caucasus region of Russia. The Taliban is attacking the Pak Army along the tribal belt in much greater numbers than usual. Rage rebels across the Mideast are in a fury, with plenty of bloodshed. Hamas is launching a full-fledged war against Israel, although fighting died down Sunday. To save space let's go into detail in just one hot spot: Iraq.
North of Baghdad, on the Iran/Iraq border, the CIA maintains a big camp of anti-Iranian rebels called MEK. These guerrilla fighters act as a sword of Damocles dangling over the Iranians, a permanent threat that helps keep the bad guys in line. Last week the Iraqi Army attacked the MEK camp and killed scores of good guy fighters. The Iraqi Army is now blockading the MEK camp and America is protesting this action. This is a direct attack on a CIA asset and a move toward Iraq allying with Iran. At the same time the pro-Iranian Iraqi Shiite cleric, Sadr, is threatening to reform his Mahdi army and restart the insurgency against the American occupation. Sadr's threat is probably the reason why Iraqi PM Maliki attacked the MEK camp. Maliki was throwing a bone to Sadr, hoping to avoid another round of sectarian civil war.
If America were to withdraw tomorrow from Iraq, then the Kurds and Arabs in northern Iraq would probably go to war against each other overnight. In that case huge oil fields would probably be set ablaze, oil would screech up to $200 a barrel and the world would plunge into another recession. Not to mention all the other Long War hot spots that are currently boiling over would explode.
The Big Picture: Obama suffered a terrible blow over the weekend when Congress agreed to $38 billion in spending cuts. Now there is momentum for more cuts and Obama-Care is in danger. The hard left is already furious at Obama for what he has done so far in fighting the Long War. If Obama were to take the wood to Gaddafi, then America's left wing would grow apathetic and wouldn't fight hard to protect Obama-Care. Without the left fighting hard to preserve it, Obama-Care will get repealed. Obama does not want to be remembered as a great Democrat warrior who clobbered the bad guys but failed to expand social programs, like Harry Truman.
The Good News: Nigeria just had its cleanest election ever. There was a time when the stock market wanted to see American right wing puppet dictatorships flourish. That boat has sailed. Now we are in an era where either democracy makes inroads or everything falls to hell in a hand basket. On that note, the French Army is fighting hard against anti-democratic forces in the Ivory Coast. If France prevails there it will be good news.
Early Saturday the rebels flew a MIG-23 at Gaddafi's juggernaut and NATO intercepted the good guy warplane, forcing it back behind rebel lines (!). NATO then primly said the No-Fly Zone applies to both the rebels and Gaddafi. At that point any rational observer is tearing his hair out and screaming curses at NATO. But then the Atlantic alliance launched a blitz against Gaddafi and quickly destroyed 25 bad guy tanks and scores of ammo bunkers. This stopped the imminent collapse of rebel positions in Ajdabiyah and Misrata, which would have spelled the end to the war with Gaddafi triumphant.
The African Union has a delegation in Tripoli right now and these good guys are negotiating with Gaddafi. This coming Wednesday the Libya Contact Group is meeting with the government of Qatar to discuss the Libya War. It is possible that Qattar and/or the AU will provide troops to help the rebels. The Qattari Army/AU could push Gaddafi back with relative ease but this happening is not a forgone conclusion. We need to understand what motivates Qatar.
Qatar sits on top the largest natural gas field in the world. Qatar has roughly 13% of the planet's natural gas reserves. Iran also sits on top the same gigantic gas field and periodically rumbles about wanting the whole field to itself. For this reason Qatar fears Iran the way Singapore fears China. Both of these tiny countries try to infuse America with backbone to counter the regional monsters they fear so badly. If America were to totally pull in its horns and curl into an isolationist ball, then both Singapore and Qatar would have no choice but to strike alliances with China and Iran respectively. So Qatar will not come to the rescue in Libya if it thinks America is rolling over 100%.
The Rest of The Long War: When America or NATO assert themselves in the Libya War, the rest of the Long War calms down. And when the great powers get weak-kneed, the whole Long War boils over. We are in a weak-kneed phase and briefly this is what we are seeing... Moderate Islamic clerics are being assassinated in the Caucasus region of Russia. The Taliban is attacking the Pak Army along the tribal belt in much greater numbers than usual. Rage rebels across the Mideast are in a fury, with plenty of bloodshed. Hamas is launching a full-fledged war against Israel, although fighting died down Sunday. To save space let's go into detail in just one hot spot: Iraq.
North of Baghdad, on the Iran/Iraq border, the CIA maintains a big camp of anti-Iranian rebels called MEK. These guerrilla fighters act as a sword of Damocles dangling over the Iranians, a permanent threat that helps keep the bad guys in line. Last week the Iraqi Army attacked the MEK camp and killed scores of good guy fighters. The Iraqi Army is now blockading the MEK camp and America is protesting this action. This is a direct attack on a CIA asset and a move toward Iraq allying with Iran. At the same time the pro-Iranian Iraqi Shiite cleric, Sadr, is threatening to reform his Mahdi army and restart the insurgency against the American occupation. Sadr's threat is probably the reason why Iraqi PM Maliki attacked the MEK camp. Maliki was throwing a bone to Sadr, hoping to avoid another round of sectarian civil war.
If America were to withdraw tomorrow from Iraq, then the Kurds and Arabs in northern Iraq would probably go to war against each other overnight. In that case huge oil fields would probably be set ablaze, oil would screech up to $200 a barrel and the world would plunge into another recession. Not to mention all the other Long War hot spots that are currently boiling over would explode.
The Big Picture: Obama suffered a terrible blow over the weekend when Congress agreed to $38 billion in spending cuts. Now there is momentum for more cuts and Obama-Care is in danger. The hard left is already furious at Obama for what he has done so far in fighting the Long War. If Obama were to take the wood to Gaddafi, then America's left wing would grow apathetic and wouldn't fight hard to protect Obama-Care. Without the left fighting hard to preserve it, Obama-Care will get repealed. Obama does not want to be remembered as a great Democrat warrior who clobbered the bad guys but failed to expand social programs, like Harry Truman.
The Good News: Nigeria just had its cleanest election ever. There was a time when the stock market wanted to see American right wing puppet dictatorships flourish. That boat has sailed. Now we are in an era where either democracy makes inroads or everything falls to hell in a hand basket. On that note, the French Army is fighting hard against anti-democratic forces in the Ivory Coast. If France prevails there it will be good news.
Friday, April 8, 2011
Qatar to the Recsue
Long War: Yesterday the Libyan rebels had advanced an armored column to the front lines and were ready to smash through Gaddafi's army and retake Brega. And then NATO jets destroyed the good guy's armor, handing Gaddafi a huge victory. I wrote about this in yesterday's blog and then deleted it because my language was so fiery. I felt physically sick at the incompetence of the Atlantic alliance. Today I am calmer.
NATO is so terrified of public opinion among western voters that it won't put enough Special Forces soldiers on the ground to coordinate air strikes and act as spotters. Oil prices are scorching upward as a result and the recovery is at risk. I won't even dwell on how stupid NATO is. Let's just say very stupid and leave it at that.
In fact NATO is so conflicted it can't actually fight this war. Next week a conference is being held in Qatar where an expanded role for the tiny Gulf kingdom and a new role for the African Union (AU) will be discussed. What we need to see happen is for Qatar to take over the war, giving orders to the bumbling giant that is NATO. We also need to see AU mercenaries enter the war under Qatari command.
Qatar is the Singapore of the Mideast. It is tied with Singapore as the best run country on the planet. Qatar has the highest GDP per capita of any country. Qatar has the highest GDP growth rate (19%) of any country. Qatar has the highest military spending as a percent of GDP of any country. Qatar has more freedom than any Mideast country and zero calls for change or revolution. Qatar has less corruption than America.
During the first Gulf War most Arab countries performed symbolic roles, like raising a flag after America won a battle. The Qatari Army fought hard and effectively during this war and in other wars. During the Gulf War the Qatari Army achieved a 6-1 kill ratio. The Qatari Army is among the best in the world.
The king of Qatar essentially owns Al Jezeera, the largest news source in the Muslim world, an organization that molds public opinion in the Arab street. Even though he is rabidly pro-American, the king allows Al Jezeera to spout an anti-American viewpoint. That is until he needs it to do otherwise. Right now Al Jezeera is telling the Arab street that the rage rebels in Bahrain are bad, Gaddafi needs to be taken out, America's involvement in the Libya War is good, and many other things that are putting a lid on the violence rocking the region. In a nutshell, it is doing the job that America needs to do but isn't.
The Global American Military Empire (GAME) has a mind of its own. It can operate without President Obama being in charge. When China started attacking American allied commercial ships on the high seas a few months ago, Singapore forced the GAME to knock China back. If not for this America would have rolled over like a beached whale. Both Singapore an Qatar are ruled by constitutional monarchies where the ultimate ruler has both a genius level IQ and a far reaching wisdom beyond that of any other national leader. These leaders view America as an immensely powerful but dimwitted giant who is vital to establishing world stability.
NATO is so terrified of public opinion among western voters that it won't put enough Special Forces soldiers on the ground to coordinate air strikes and act as spotters. Oil prices are scorching upward as a result and the recovery is at risk. I won't even dwell on how stupid NATO is. Let's just say very stupid and leave it at that.
In fact NATO is so conflicted it can't actually fight this war. Next week a conference is being held in Qatar where an expanded role for the tiny Gulf kingdom and a new role for the African Union (AU) will be discussed. What we need to see happen is for Qatar to take over the war, giving orders to the bumbling giant that is NATO. We also need to see AU mercenaries enter the war under Qatari command.
Qatar is the Singapore of the Mideast. It is tied with Singapore as the best run country on the planet. Qatar has the highest GDP per capita of any country. Qatar has the highest GDP growth rate (19%) of any country. Qatar has the highest military spending as a percent of GDP of any country. Qatar has more freedom than any Mideast country and zero calls for change or revolution. Qatar has less corruption than America.
During the first Gulf War most Arab countries performed symbolic roles, like raising a flag after America won a battle. The Qatari Army fought hard and effectively during this war and in other wars. During the Gulf War the Qatari Army achieved a 6-1 kill ratio. The Qatari Army is among the best in the world.
The king of Qatar essentially owns Al Jezeera, the largest news source in the Muslim world, an organization that molds public opinion in the Arab street. Even though he is rabidly pro-American, the king allows Al Jezeera to spout an anti-American viewpoint. That is until he needs it to do otherwise. Right now Al Jezeera is telling the Arab street that the rage rebels in Bahrain are bad, Gaddafi needs to be taken out, America's involvement in the Libya War is good, and many other things that are putting a lid on the violence rocking the region. In a nutshell, it is doing the job that America needs to do but isn't.
The Global American Military Empire (GAME) has a mind of its own. It can operate without President Obama being in charge. When China started attacking American allied commercial ships on the high seas a few months ago, Singapore forced the GAME to knock China back. If not for this America would have rolled over like a beached whale. Both Singapore an Qatar are ruled by constitutional monarchies where the ultimate ruler has both a genius level IQ and a far reaching wisdom beyond that of any other national leader. These leaders view America as an immensely powerful but dimwitted giant who is vital to establishing world stability.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Mercenaries Rock
Long War: Today's Wall Street Journal features an article highlighting the fact Al Qaeda has moved back into northeastern Afghanistan after a long absence. Camps have been set up along the Pakistan border dedicated to shipping bad guys to Long War hot spots around the globe, such as Somalia, Yemen, N. Africa, etc... Simply put, the Afghan surge did not include enough troops. At the time the surge debate was going on, the Pentagon told Obama it needed twice as many troops as he finally agreed to.
Much the same can be said of the Libya War. America does have boots on the ground in Libya, but not enough, and as a consequence Gaddafi is (for the moment) winning. When analyzing military spending it is important to stifle our natural libertarian instincts, which tell us to cut all government spending no matter what. The language left wing politicians apply to social spending, i.e. it is an investment that eventually turns a profit for all of society, actually applies to military spending if done wisely. Consider, the Libya War has added about $20 a barrel to the price of oil in risk premium, that is above and beyond actual supply constraints. If overwhelming force had been used against Gaddafi in the beginning, then hundreds of billion of dollars worth of petroleum risk premium would have been saved. This savings would have been vastly greater than the cost of applying overwhelming force.
Let's step back and look at the big picture by reviewing recent Long War history. The Pak Taliban was formed in 2007 when a dozen smaller Talibans were loosely yoked together into one big Taliban. At the time it issued a kind of mission statement including attacking the government of Pakistan, conquering it and imposing sharia law; plus it would fight NATO in Afghanistan. Last year it expanded the mission statement to include terror strikes on the American homeland. One clumsy terror strike was launched, when Faisal Shahzad tried and failed to blow up Time Square, New York. My point isn't that subtle: the bad guys are a real threat.
In the absence of greater miltary spending, existing resources have to be used more effectively. For instance, the African Union is doing most of the fighting in Somolia. America pays the salary of AU soldiers. These salaries are very small but the AU soldiers are very good. AU soldiers could fight in Libya. Gaddafi isn't using mercenaries because he's stupid. Mercenaries rock. In any case, we need to watch for signs of more effective American policies to remain bullish. To do this we must hone our skills at sleuthing out CIA fingerprints.
Much the same can be said of the Libya War. America does have boots on the ground in Libya, but not enough, and as a consequence Gaddafi is (for the moment) winning. When analyzing military spending it is important to stifle our natural libertarian instincts, which tell us to cut all government spending no matter what. The language left wing politicians apply to social spending, i.e. it is an investment that eventually turns a profit for all of society, actually applies to military spending if done wisely. Consider, the Libya War has added about $20 a barrel to the price of oil in risk premium, that is above and beyond actual supply constraints. If overwhelming force had been used against Gaddafi in the beginning, then hundreds of billion of dollars worth of petroleum risk premium would have been saved. This savings would have been vastly greater than the cost of applying overwhelming force.
Let's step back and look at the big picture by reviewing recent Long War history. The Pak Taliban was formed in 2007 when a dozen smaller Talibans were loosely yoked together into one big Taliban. At the time it issued a kind of mission statement including attacking the government of Pakistan, conquering it and imposing sharia law; plus it would fight NATO in Afghanistan. Last year it expanded the mission statement to include terror strikes on the American homeland. One clumsy terror strike was launched, when Faisal Shahzad tried and failed to blow up Time Square, New York. My point isn't that subtle: the bad guys are a real threat.
In the absence of greater miltary spending, existing resources have to be used more effectively. For instance, the African Union is doing most of the fighting in Somolia. America pays the salary of AU soldiers. These salaries are very small but the AU soldiers are very good. AU soldiers could fight in Libya. Gaddafi isn't using mercenaries because he's stupid. Mercenaries rock. In any case, we need to watch for signs of more effective American policies to remain bullish. To do this we must hone our skills at sleuthing out CIA fingerprints.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Mixed News For Long War
Long War: The FLA (good guys) was knocked back out of the oil city of Brega by Gaddafi's army because the bad guys are hiding their tanks and heavy weapons under trees and inside shattered buildings, which makes NATO air strikes more difficult. NATO needs more Special Forces soldiers acting as spotters. Presumably NATO and America will put more boots on the ground, although we are once again up against the possibility of Obama losing his nerve because of erosion within his liberal supporters back home. Left wing blogs are now saying things like: Obama lied, people died. This is scary for the President.
American diplomats are in Benghazi and are paving the rode for formal recognition of the rebel government by the US. This speaks to Obama not losing his nerve but of course anything is possible. The rebels are now shipping oil to Europe and are raking in millions of dollars.
The rest of the Long War rages on. The fighting season in Afghanistan is just now starting and a new problem has arisen. President Kharzai has been making speeches denouncing the whack-job American preacher in Florida who likes to burn Korans. This is tantamount to Kharzai openly siding with the Taliban. In the Cold War it was always a bad idea to get rid of an American puppet leader but there was never a puppet as bad as Kharzai. He is an evil puppet and needs to be taken out or neutralized somehow.
Specific Stocks: China raised interest rates again. This means China is serious about slowing growth and inflation. China has overcapacity in aluminum production and it makes no sense to produce aluminum there in the first place because it is energy intensive and highly polluting. In a free market China would import aluminum and movement is occurring along these lines. This helps Alcoa (AA). Also, Alcoa is technologically more advanced than other aluminum producers, able to create new alloys and products.
Microsoft and Nokia (NOK) are teaming up to put Microsoft's mobile phone software in Nokia smart phones. The market is beginning to understand that it doesn't make any difference if a certain smart phone operating system has 10,000 basic apps or 300,000 basic apps. For instance, Apple has ten times more fart apps than anybody else. What if it had a hundred times more fart apps? Who cares? Going forward, the apps that count are really good online games, not the raw quantity of new fart apps. Microsoft is a powerhouse in video games and it will spend billions converting Xbox games to Nokia games. In other words, it will subsidize the heck out of Nokia. This will help Nokia a bunch and Microsoft only a tiny bit, if at all.
American diplomats are in Benghazi and are paving the rode for formal recognition of the rebel government by the US. This speaks to Obama not losing his nerve but of course anything is possible. The rebels are now shipping oil to Europe and are raking in millions of dollars.
The rest of the Long War rages on. The fighting season in Afghanistan is just now starting and a new problem has arisen. President Kharzai has been making speeches denouncing the whack-job American preacher in Florida who likes to burn Korans. This is tantamount to Kharzai openly siding with the Taliban. In the Cold War it was always a bad idea to get rid of an American puppet leader but there was never a puppet as bad as Kharzai. He is an evil puppet and needs to be taken out or neutralized somehow.
Specific Stocks: China raised interest rates again. This means China is serious about slowing growth and inflation. China has overcapacity in aluminum production and it makes no sense to produce aluminum there in the first place because it is energy intensive and highly polluting. In a free market China would import aluminum and movement is occurring along these lines. This helps Alcoa (AA). Also, Alcoa is technologically more advanced than other aluminum producers, able to create new alloys and products.
Microsoft and Nokia (NOK) are teaming up to put Microsoft's mobile phone software in Nokia smart phones. The market is beginning to understand that it doesn't make any difference if a certain smart phone operating system has 10,000 basic apps or 300,000 basic apps. For instance, Apple has ten times more fart apps than anybody else. What if it had a hundred times more fart apps? Who cares? Going forward, the apps that count are really good online games, not the raw quantity of new fart apps. Microsoft is a powerhouse in video games and it will spend billions converting Xbox games to Nokia games. In other words, it will subsidize the heck out of Nokia. This will help Nokia a bunch and Microsoft only a tiny bit, if at all.
Monday, April 4, 2011
Decades of War in N. Africa
Charts: The S&P 500 is exactly at the final Fibonacci retracement level, 1333. Hugging this resistance level in low volume is bullish chart action. At the beginning of the year and up to the recent correction leadership has been bad, with emerging markets and US small caps falling apart. Since the start of the current rally leadership has improved. Nevertheless, it is a geopolitically driven market, not technically driven.
Long War: The picture I painted in yesterday's blog concerning US involvement in the Libya War seems to be accurate. The Pentagon has been saying it won't engage in air strikes against Gaddafi's armor and artillery unless NATO makes a request and broadly hinting that there probably won't be any requests. Today rebel leaders say surgical allied air strikes are occurring inside Libyan cities, which speaks to sorties being conducted by US warthogs. The Pentagon is now shrugging its shoulders and saying NATO is indeed asking for these kind of air strikes. The song and dance about air strikes requests being channeled through the White house must be a smokescreen because if this were true the strikes would not be hitting the bad guys, which is not the case.
The rebels are grinding forward in the key oil city of Brega. Rather than summarize all the action let's just say they are acting like a professional army. And this is why the gains are slow and painful. The rebels are holding the ground that they gain, not rushing forward and back like a chicken with its head cut off. Some rushing about is happening because there are two rebels forces: The Free Libyan Army and ragtag rebels that are still haring off on their own.
The Algerian government says AQIM (Al Qaeda North Africa) is looting Gaddafi weapon bunkers and building up its capabilities throughout North Africa, taking advantage of the chaos caused by the Libya War. There are reports that the US State Department is talking to the Libyan rebels about AQIM. It is a certainty that when and if the good guys win in Libya, there will be a gigantic mess to clean up in North Africa. It will take years (maybe decades) of American involvement to clean up this titanic mess.
Long War: The picture I painted in yesterday's blog concerning US involvement in the Libya War seems to be accurate. The Pentagon has been saying it won't engage in air strikes against Gaddafi's armor and artillery unless NATO makes a request and broadly hinting that there probably won't be any requests. Today rebel leaders say surgical allied air strikes are occurring inside Libyan cities, which speaks to sorties being conducted by US warthogs. The Pentagon is now shrugging its shoulders and saying NATO is indeed asking for these kind of air strikes. The song and dance about air strikes requests being channeled through the White house must be a smokescreen because if this were true the strikes would not be hitting the bad guys, which is not the case.
The rebels are grinding forward in the key oil city of Brega. Rather than summarize all the action let's just say they are acting like a professional army. And this is why the gains are slow and painful. The rebels are holding the ground that they gain, not rushing forward and back like a chicken with its head cut off. Some rushing about is happening because there are two rebels forces: The Free Libyan Army and ragtag rebels that are still haring off on their own.
The Algerian government says AQIM (Al Qaeda North Africa) is looting Gaddafi weapon bunkers and building up its capabilities throughout North Africa, taking advantage of the chaos caused by the Libya War. There are reports that the US State Department is talking to the Libyan rebels about AQIM. It is a certainty that when and if the good guys win in Libya, there will be a gigantic mess to clean up in North Africa. It will take years (maybe decades) of American involvement to clean up this titanic mess.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Pray Obama is Lying
Long War: Team Obama is saying that the US is no longer engaged in airstrikes against Gaddafi’s army and will only participate in the NATO air war over Libya if a formal request is made by the Atlantic alliance. Even then the airstrike would have to be approved by the Whitehouse. This is beyond absurd because no bad guy target would stand still long enough for such a cumbersome approval process to unfold. Supposedly all A-10 warthogs and AC-130 gunships have been removed from the theater. Team Obama is shouting manically that there are no US boots on the ground and America is not at war with Gaddafi.
The possibility exists that all of the above is disinformation. Al Jazeera is reporting that US and Egyptian Special Forces are training Libyan rebels in a secret base in the far eastern part of the country and arming them with high quality weaponry. Al Jazeera is basing this story on information it got from interviewing a rebel soldier. The Qatar-based news agency contacted the State Department for a denial and instead got a no comment. This comes on top of numerous and highly credible reports that the rebel army is sporting tons of new gear as well as developing standard military discipline and tactics.
The British newspaper Telegraph says military advisors with English and Scottish accents are popping up in Benghazi (rebel capitol city) and on the frontline there are bearded Westerners who hide their faces from journalists. It also says over the weekend an A-10 warthog hit a rebel unit with friendly fire. The aftermath of this incident can be seen on line and it does look like the work of an A-10 warthog. A host of military blogs and publications are saying that Egyptian commandoes from the famed Unit 777 are all over eastern Libya. Unit 777 has always worked hand in glove with US Army Green Berets and probably wouldn’t be in Libya without its American partners. The same is probably true of British commandoes.
For the first time the Libyan rebels have fielded a unit composed entirely of professional soldiers. This is the first sign of the Free Libyan Army (FLA), the rumored force building behind the lines back in Benghazi that is presumably being trained and equipped by the US and its allies. The FLA is now engaged in a fierce see-saw battle in the oil city of Brega. If the rebels can retake Brega and the next few oil facilities westward along the coast, then they can start exporting oil. The global stock market rally and the global recovery are dependent upon this happening.
The rebel advance and all the good things associated with it (lower oil prices) are contingent upon the theory that Team Obama is lying (or providing disinformation if you prefer) to the American public about throwing in the towel in the Libya War. There seems to be evidence supporting this theory but it could be nothing more than wishful thinking. Even if there is a disinformation campaign it is still possible that the media exposes this fact, then Obama caves in and withdraws support.
Everything depends on President Obama having the courage to stand up to America’s far left. Michael Moore and Ralph Nader are launching campaigns to impeach the President over the Libya War. Congressman Dennis Kucinich joined the impeachment bandwagon but then jumped off. Of course Obama will never get impeached, that isn’t the point. The point is that Obama is terrified of losing the support of liberal America. At the same time he doesn’t want to lose the war against Gaddafi.
Rage Rebels Stocks: Imagine you’re a rage rebel trying to overthrow your government. What do you need? Sugary sodas for instant calories (Coco-Cola-KO). Tactical radios because the government has shut down cell phone reception (Harris Corporation-HRS). Cigarettes (Phillip Morris Intl.- PMI). Tomahawk cruise missiles to wipe out government airfields (Raytheon-RTN).
The possibility exists that all of the above is disinformation. Al Jazeera is reporting that US and Egyptian Special Forces are training Libyan rebels in a secret base in the far eastern part of the country and arming them with high quality weaponry. Al Jazeera is basing this story on information it got from interviewing a rebel soldier. The Qatar-based news agency contacted the State Department for a denial and instead got a no comment. This comes on top of numerous and highly credible reports that the rebel army is sporting tons of new gear as well as developing standard military discipline and tactics.
The British newspaper Telegraph says military advisors with English and Scottish accents are popping up in Benghazi (rebel capitol city) and on the frontline there are bearded Westerners who hide their faces from journalists. It also says over the weekend an A-10 warthog hit a rebel unit with friendly fire. The aftermath of this incident can be seen on line and it does look like the work of an A-10 warthog. A host of military blogs and publications are saying that Egyptian commandoes from the famed Unit 777 are all over eastern Libya. Unit 777 has always worked hand in glove with US Army Green Berets and probably wouldn’t be in Libya without its American partners. The same is probably true of British commandoes.
For the first time the Libyan rebels have fielded a unit composed entirely of professional soldiers. This is the first sign of the Free Libyan Army (FLA), the rumored force building behind the lines back in Benghazi that is presumably being trained and equipped by the US and its allies. The FLA is now engaged in a fierce see-saw battle in the oil city of Brega. If the rebels can retake Brega and the next few oil facilities westward along the coast, then they can start exporting oil. The global stock market rally and the global recovery are dependent upon this happening.
The rebel advance and all the good things associated with it (lower oil prices) are contingent upon the theory that Team Obama is lying (or providing disinformation if you prefer) to the American public about throwing in the towel in the Libya War. There seems to be evidence supporting this theory but it could be nothing more than wishful thinking. Even if there is a disinformation campaign it is still possible that the media exposes this fact, then Obama caves in and withdraws support.
Everything depends on President Obama having the courage to stand up to America’s far left. Michael Moore and Ralph Nader are launching campaigns to impeach the President over the Libya War. Congressman Dennis Kucinich joined the impeachment bandwagon but then jumped off. Of course Obama will never get impeached, that isn’t the point. The point is that Obama is terrified of losing the support of liberal America. At the same time he doesn’t want to lose the war against Gaddafi.
Rage Rebels Stocks: Imagine you’re a rage rebel trying to overthrow your government. What do you need? Sugary sodas for instant calories (Coco-Cola-KO). Tactical radios because the government has shut down cell phone reception (Harris Corporation-HRS). Cigarettes (Phillip Morris Intl.- PMI). Tomahawk cruise missiles to wipe out government airfields (Raytheon-RTN).
Friday, April 1, 2011
Peering Through Disinformation Very Difficult
Long War: Team Obama has recently leaked information or disinformation that CIA operatives in Libya were only acting as spotters for the allied air war. This made the US appear to be not only weak, but absurd. Yesterday Def. Sec. Gates put on what appeared to be a pathetic display in a Congressional hearing on the Libya War. Gates was all but whining that the US had to take a back seat to other allies and not engage in air strikes, taking gunships and warthogs out of theater after just introducing them. If this was disinformation, it fooled Sen. McCain, who scorched Gate over this sickening "giant with feet of clay" act.
But on Friday reports filtered out of the battlefield that the Libyan rebels have been beefed up with new rocket launchers, mortars, and tactical radios. Trained soldiers have appeared among the ranks of the rebels and chaotic rebel movements are slowly acquiring the semblance of conventional tactics. These are the first signs of the "real" rebel army that some people think is forming well behind the front lines.
Rebel leaders are at last playing Gaddafi's game of talking about a ceasefire as they maneuver against their foe. Finally, British intelligence is apparently working at Gaddafi's inner circle as top level Libyan government officials flee Tripoli for London.
The CIA and the US government are masters of disinformation and lying. The day-to-day format of this blog means that it can get sucked into a disinformation campaign just like the markets. Ironically, the motto of the CIA is: Truth shall set you free. And the truth as to what the US is doing in this part of the Long War will eventually emerge. We will give you the truth, but it will take time.
But on Friday reports filtered out of the battlefield that the Libyan rebels have been beefed up with new rocket launchers, mortars, and tactical radios. Trained soldiers have appeared among the ranks of the rebels and chaotic rebel movements are slowly acquiring the semblance of conventional tactics. These are the first signs of the "real" rebel army that some people think is forming well behind the front lines.
Rebel leaders are at last playing Gaddafi's game of talking about a ceasefire as they maneuver against their foe. Finally, British intelligence is apparently working at Gaddafi's inner circle as top level Libyan government officials flee Tripoli for London.
The CIA and the US government are masters of disinformation and lying. The day-to-day format of this blog means that it can get sucked into a disinformation campaign just like the markets. Ironically, the motto of the CIA is: Truth shall set you free. And the truth as to what the US is doing in this part of the Long War will eventually emerge. We will give you the truth, but it will take time.
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