The Tonnerre May Destroy Gaddafi

Long War: Last weekend six Al-Qaeda fighters invaded a Pak military base and destroyed two high tech airplanes, part of its campaign to avenge the death of OBL. It appears these fighters were Chechens, trained to the same level as US Navy Seals. It took 100 elite Pak soldiers to defeat the six Chechen fighters. The fact that they were from Russia demonstrates how this part of the Long War forms a huge cohesive and unified arc from Afghanistan up into the Caucus mountains. Also, the Pak military base was only 12 miles from a Pak nuclear weapons station. Al-Qaeda was giving a message with this raid: someday it intends to control Pak nuclear weapons.

The Pak government had been saying that it was going to let China build a naval base on the Pak coastline, an attempt to hurt America and India. The Pak PM said that China and Pakistan were "One nation." As information and implications filter out about the Al-Qaeda raid, China is backing away from its nascent alliance with Pakistan. China now says it doesn't want to build this naval base. In the aftermath of OBL's death we are all learning that Al-Qaeda is much stronger than previously thought, China included. The Great Dragon is beginning to fear Islamic radicalism in Asia.

The French warship Tonnerre is steaming toward the Libyan coast. It contains 12 attack helicopters, 4 troop transport helicopters, 13 main battle tanks, numerous landing craft, and 450 soldiers. It has the firepower to destroy Gaddafi's regime all by itself. A British warship similarly equipped is now leaving port.

As these warships get closer to Libya, the entire situation in the Mideast and North Africa is settling down. The brewing civil wars in Yemen and Sudan are cooling off, for now. Just as America's weak-kneed response to the Libya war inflamed the entire region, so the robust actions of Britain and France are maybe, just maybe, starting to bring calm. France and Britain will of course have to follow through for this to be true. We will know shortly as these warships and their crews go into action.

It is impossible to overstate how important it is for France and Britain to prevail. North Sudan is aligned with China because the Great Dragon has investments in Sudan's oil industry. As we've seen with Pakistan reaching out to China, if the Long War deteriorates badly enough, it starts to meld into Cold War II. Obviously this is a recipe for one gigantic global war, something the stock market will not like.