Long War

Turkey has moved missile batteries, anti-aircraft guns, and other military assets to its border with Syria. The Turkish Prime Minister said yesterday that his country will "support the liberation of Syria" from Assad's dictatorship. At that point Turkey was a heartbeat away from declaring war on Syria. I remind you that Turkey is roughly ten times more powerful than Syria and would win easily in a few months. Turkey would then have to occupy Syria for several years just as America had to occupy Iraq after a short conventional war. Long War occupations involve messy guerilla wars.

Syria has massed 170 tanks around a non-descript rebel held town that is right next to the buffer zone inside Syria that Turkey is drawing red lines under. Turkey is saying that Syria cannot engage in military activity within a buffer zone near the Syrian/Turkish border, or else. Syria does not need 170 tanks to retake the non-descript rebel town. It looks as though Syria is responding to the Turkish military build-up along the border with its own build-up.

With these two militaries building forces along their mutual border, and the Turkish PM all but declaring war, it did indeed look like a war was in the offing. At the height of all this tension, Russia said (in obtuse diplomatic language) that Assad should go. This would have been a huge breakthrough since Russia and Iran are Syria's only real allies. But then the Turkish PM backed off in his bellicosity and tensions ebbed. Russia then changed its mind and threw support back to Assad.

In Yemen, Al-Qaeda has been blasted out of the towns, cities, and villages that it once held. A gigantic whack-a-mole is taking place, where bad guys are leaving Yemen for other locales. At first it looked like the bad guys were mostly going to Somalia to join Al-Shabab. But the Somali Army stepped on Al-Shabab hard and conquered (liberated) a bad guy village three days ago. Yemeni officials are now saying most of the Yemeni bad guys are going to Oman, an Arab country sharing a border with Yemen. Oman has had almost no jihadist activity up till now so its security forces are weak, a good place to set up shop.

In Mali, Al-Qaeda has blasted the Tuareg rebels (good guys) out of all major towns in northern Mali. AQIM and its affilates have been massively reinforced by jihadist fighters from all over the globe including Pakistan and Afghanistan. Mali is very important for the bad guys and they are putting a lot of effort into this fire zone.

There are six major LW wars taking place right now: Afghanistan, Pakistan Tribal Lands, Yemen, Syria, Somalia, and Mali. The good guys are stretched thin and there doesn't seem to be much help for the Tuareg rebels in Mali.

Black Opps

Long War: The White House says it abhors the violence on both sides of the Syrian Civil War. Both sides should just stop fighting is official US policy.

The CIA is telling the press corp a different story than the White House. It admits to taking sides and to the fact that it is training the Free Syria Army. The CIA goes on to say the training is only in communication technology. Almost sorrowfully the CIA further admits that it is also building supply lines for the FSA and training the rebels in logistics. When the CIA admits to that kind of backing for a rebel army, then it is safe to assume that what it is actually doing is ten times greater than what it admits in public. This is why the FSA is knocking on the doors of the Presidential palace in Damascus.

Al Qaeda in Mali attacked a Toureg village and conquered it, turning a Toureg town into an Al-Qaeda town. A war has started between the Toureg rebels and Al-Qaeda, which is a good thing, before AQIM had no enemies shooting at them. It is not good that Al-Qaeda struck the first blow but this war is young and we will have to see what the Toureg do as far as a counter-offensive. If they could take their town back that would be positive.

It is obvious that the CIA is once again stretched thin. It should however be able to tap into resources with the African Union as far as Mali is concerned. As you will recall the AU is getting ready to train 3,000 soldiers for the express purpose of attacking Al-Qaeda in Mali. The AU claims that it cannot attack the bad guys in Mali without UN approval and funding. I think if the funding were to materialize the issue of UN approval would go away since there is a shooting war going on within rebel held Mali and Petraeus would find a way to use the AU soldiers under these circumstances, i.e. Al-Qaeda could win the war if he did nothing.

In the 1950s the CIA ran hundreds of secret private sector companies that were highly profitable. It would us those profits to run covert opps without Congressional approval. Also in the 50s it could raise huge sums by shaking down governments, gangsters, and business. I wonder how it is raising money for black opps today?

Super Warriors

Long War: I blew it yesterday with my instant analysis of the Syrian military leadership defection to Turkey. I said the defectors helped shoot down the Turkish F4 jet. In reality the defectors were probably selling or giving weapons to the rebels. The general who defected was in charge of munition storage. He would have access to military supplies and probably was funneling ammo to the good guys. He probably figured that the heat would be on for any turncoat Syrian officer who was taking money from the CIA and helping the rebels. He and 199 other people (biggest defection yet) all skipped town and landed up in Turkey. So a valuable asset in country has been lost.

The US general in charge of Africa Command says that AQIM, Al-Shabab, and Bokom Haram have melded into a single entity, the co-operation is that close. They are shuttling fighters from one battlefield to another, sharing hardware, making bombs together, and sharing money. The three Islamic militias mentioned above constitute 90% of the jihadist firepower in Africa. And this new jihadist super-organization evolving in Africa has the country of Mali right smack dab in the middle of their stomping grounds. AQIM owns about half of Mali. So AQIM is the new power in Africa.

On that note, AQIM's partner in Mali, the Toureg rebels, have turned on the jihadists at least to some degree because Toureg rebels have been firing on AQIM positions in Mali. A low level war seems to be emerging between the non-jihadist Toureg rebels and AQIM in Mali. The Touregs and AQIM were partners when they took over 2/3 of Mali but now they are enemies. I count this as the CIA fingerprint of the day.

In Syria, Turkey has changed its rules of engagement vis a vis Syria. Now any Syrian war vehicle approaching the Turkish border in an aggressive manner can be fired upon by the Turkish Army. The old rules of engagement said a Syrian war vehicle would have had to penetrate Turkey's border before being fired upon. So under current rules Turkey can shoot Syrian tanks and planes even if the vehicles are still in Syria. This means that if the CIA has another rogue cell of treasonous officers in the Syrian Army, then it will have a much easier time goading Turkey into declaring war on Syria because of this rule change.

Also in Syria, the FSA is tearing into the Syrian Army like an enraged grizzly. We are seeing evidence of super warriors on the battlefield. Syrian tanks are being devoured by itty-bitty little hand held rocket launchers because somebody can wield weapons like this in a super warrior fashion, i.e. popping up from a concealed position that had been established a week ago and stuffing anti-tank missiles up the exhaust pipes of an entire armored platoon, you know super warrior stuff. What is another word for super-warrior? SEALS.

Screaming Fingerprints

Long War: For nearly five decades there was close to a 100% corelation between the fortunes of America in the Cold War and the global stock market. If the US was winning the Cold War stocks went up. When the US was losing stocks went down. Not so with the Long War. It only has a tight corelation with the stock market when Long War conflict is obvioulsy affecting the price of oil. Long War combat that is far away from oil fields and doesn't directly involve Iran isn't (for now) having a very big impact on stock prices.

That will change. Stocks markets will not ignore major Long War developments forever, so we need to keep the eye on the ball and understand what's happening in the global war zone.

Turkey has called a meeting of the NATO war council. Turkey is saying Syria shot down a Turkish F4 fighter over international waters. The downed jet is under thousands of feet of water so Syria can't touch it and probably Turkey can't either. Probably only the US can locate and recover the downed jet. So the US could prove one way or the other if the jet was shot down in international waters.

If the F4 didn't penetrate Syrian air space, then Turkey can press NATO into taking military action against Syria. Turkey itself is more likely to take military action depending on how the US handles the recovery of the downed jet.

Yesterday several top Syrian military officers defected to Turkey. It is likely that these officers had something to do with ordering the F4 shot down and they are getting out of Dodge.

The defecting officers are strong evidence that the CIA had something (or everything) to do with Syria's insane desicion to try and goad Turkey into declaring war on Syria.

Whack-a-Mole and Donut Crumbs

Long War: The African Union has not eliminated Al-Shabab in Somalia. The bad guys still control a few villages even though the position they once held of dominating the entire country has been shattered. Eliminating those few remaining Al-Shabab villages seemed as though it would be a mere mopping up operation.

The mopping up has gotten tougher as fighters from Yemen are being chased out of country by a ferocious good guy offensive and landing in Somalia, well-armed, pissed off and ready to fight. Al-Shabab is offering a home to the rats fleeing the last battles of the Yemen War. Clearly resources will have to be channeled to the AU offensive in Somalia because the whack-a-mole effect is bolstering the bad guys there.

But in Yemen its doesn't look so good for the bad guys. The Yemeni Army is now opening up access to oil producing regions that Al-Qaeda had blocked off. Soon oil revenue will start flowing back into the Yemeni government and the Yemeni Army. This will allow the Yemeni offensive to continue. The next target will be the pro-Iranian Houthi rebels in northern Yemen. But Al-Qaeda is not dead yet in Yemen, even though it has lost all the towns and cities it once controlled. From hilltop hideaways the bad guys have mounted a desperate campaign to kill top Yemeni generals. In fact last week they assassinated the number one general. There is a lot of fighting ahead for this war torn nation.

But Al-Qaeda is crumbling in Yemen and this is triggering a big whack-a-mole effect, where bad guys flee one battlefield to pop up in another. Bad guys will eventually be flowing into Mali from Somalia and Yemen as the good guys keep winning their respective wars. This means the Mali War (which is still a couple years away from starting) will be bigger than most people think. Naturally Petareus will not be caught by surprise.

The Syrian Air Force shot down a Turkish jet. It is likely that the Turkish jet was not even in Syrian air space. Turkey is ten times stronger than Syria. Turkey is already the host country for the rebel Free Syria Army, giving the FSA bases and a safe haven to fight from. In other words, Turkey is already halfway declaring war on Syria as it is. If the upper levels of Syria's leadership deliberately provoked Turkey by shooting down that fighter jet, then the Syrian leadership is 100% insane. But this is not the case, they are not insane. This means a Syrian Air Force officer or several officers are insane. But this probably isn't true either. So what are we left with to explain the downed jet?

How about a couple of Syrian Air Force officers are undergoing plastic surgery and are getting ready to open donut shops in San Diego? How about this jet getting shot down is another example of CIA fingerprints, very sticky and crusted with donut crumbs?

War In Mali

Long War: As you will recall I blogged a few days ago about the African Union being willing to wage war against Al-Qaeda (AQIM) in Mali. At the time I said the AU wanted $200 million to crush the bad guys in Mali and we would likely see CIA fingerprints in funding efforts for this proposed war.

Over the weekend the AU announced that the task force destined to launch an invasion into the AQIM stronghold in Mali has a name. It is called the Mali Intervention Force (MIF). Three AU member countries countries are raising forces for the MIF: Nigeria, Niger, and Senegal. Apparently about 3,000 troops have been hived off from these national armies and will soon be given to the nascent MIF, at that point mission planning will get underway. All this makes me think that the CIA has scrounged up enough money to get the project started, maybe $10-20 million if I had to guess.

The AU says that the MIF will not attack AQIM in Mali without UN Security Council approval. Russia and China probably won't allow MIF to go to war in Mali until the Syrian War has come to more of a tipping point and on its way to being resolved one way or the other. It will take a while to get Syria resolved so UN approval will be slow in coming for the proposed Mali War.

But we've seen Petraeus jump over hurdles like this before. If he has an army on the border of Mali and a clear funding source, then he will use that army with UN permission or without.

Boko Haram is an Al-Qaeda franchisee in Nigeria. It is separate from AQIM but obviously a close ally. Boko Haram launched big terror strikes in Nigeria when the existence of MIF was announced. If these terror strikes continue Nigeria is going to want to get MIF fighting in Mali sooner rather than later plus do something more about Boko Haram.

We can see that the Mali War will spread right away into Nigeria and probably other countries as well. I get the feeling that this war will be bigger than most geopolitical analysts are currently projecting.

Fingerprints

Long War: The CIA is not perfect. It told Hillary Clinton that Russia was sending a shipload of attack helicopters to Syria. In reality the shipload of attack helicopters are old choppers that Syria has owned for a long time and Russia rebuilt to be just like new. This sounds like a trivial distinction but it is actually a big blunder. Besides rebuilt helicopters and a bunch of other weapons, Russia is sending troops to the war torn nation (scary). The CIA blunder on the choppers makes it harder for the US State Department to scream bloody murder over the fact that Russia is sending troops in country. The number of Russian troops being sent is very small and there is almost no chance they will see combat supporting Assad, nevertheless this is a pretty ballsy move on the part of the Russians. They are crossing swords with the CIA, so they better watch their ass or it will get handed back to them on a platter.

Yes, we can point to a blunder, but overall the CIA is kicking nine yards of ass. Overnight the Yemeni Army flattened another Al-Qaeda fortress city. The internet is filled with images of liberated villagers dancing in the streets after being freed from the tyranny of the human monsters called Al-Qaeda. It looks like the aftermath of the US Army liberating Paris from the Nazis, powerful good propaganda.

The Yemeni Army is massing around the town of Azzan. This will be the last big battle of the conventional phase of this war. It might be the biggest battle yet. Over the last few weeks the Yemeni Army has killed about 50 Al-Qaeda soldiers and fighters a day. It is a relentless Al-Qaeda killing machine, spitting out dead bad guys like an assembly line.

In the rest of the Long War that is controlled by the CIA we continue to see fingerprints, coming at us in a fast and furious pace. There seems to be a sort of CIA blitz going on. It does indeed look like somebody took the muzzle off the attack dog. In fact it seems as though somebody took the muzzle off the attack dog and then whispered in its ear: "I'm sorry for muzzling you. Please make up for lost time by attacking every global jihadist problem with everything you've got." It seems like somebody wants to get reelected.

Here is the fingerprint of the day: Right before the big vote this weekend, the Egyptian military dissolved the Egyptian Parliament, which is filled with Islamic radicals and semi-radicals. The military then said it will be the legislative body running the country until the results of the election come in. The military is implying that if it doesn't like the results of the election, it might toss out the results. It would do this if the elections resulted in too many Salafist or hard line radical Islamic politicians being voted in.

The Muslim Brotherhood just got kicked in the teeth. The Brotherhood is hardly complaining. It is telling voters to go out and vote and to not worry that the military has placed itself back into a dominate political role. If this structure stays intact it means that Egypt's democracy will be like the one Turkey had for so many decades, i.e. a democracy where the military can void any election if jihadist politicians win too big a piece of the pie, a democracy where Al-Qaeda cannot take over by way of the ballot box.

Always remember, Hitler came to power in Germany through a series of elections, the early elections were fair and square, even the later ones held the possibility of Hitler losing despite his efforts to rig them.

No Muslim country has become a functioning democracy without the Turkish structure, that is without the military reserving the right to boot radical Islamic politicians out of office. It is like saying 1930s Germany will allow free elections except Nazis cannot win. Sounds like a pretty @#$%& good idea.

Egypt is the cultural center of the Arab world. As Egypt goes so goes the entire Arab world. This election is very important. We need CIA fingerprints. We want CIA fingerprints. We pray for CIA fingerprints.

A Profitable Donut Shop For You. How Nice

Long War: The Yemeni Army has become an Al-Qaeda killing machine. Over the past few days it has blasted AQAP's army out of the key cities of Zinjibar and Jaar. As I write Navy SEALs are directing the good guys in a huge battle against the Al-Qaeda fortress city of Shaqra. The Yemeni Defense minister says this city will fall within hours. AQAP is reverting to apocalyptic language in the aftermath of its military defeats, warning the good guys of savage retribution if they don't stop beating the crap out of them. Stop! Stop beating the shit out of me or the wrath of Allah will fall upon you and all of Yemen will go up in flames!

For the first time the western media is saying that the vast destruction being meted out by the Yemeni Air Force is really coming from CIA drones. OMG! I only wrote that in this blog three weeks ago. Yo, western media, get a clue.

Yesterday the Free Syria Army captured a key military base that is within rocket range of Assad's Presidential palace. The good guys held this base for a couple hours and used that time productively by firing rockets into Assad's palace; no doubt scaring the living daylights out of the anti-American dictator. With his very life in danger, Assad has no choice but to pull out all the stops and wage a war of genocide against the Sunni majority that comprises the revolution. In that vein, the dictator has ordered shipments of helicopter gunships from Russia. These gunships are in transit and will soon be massacring civilians.

The rebel capture of the Syrian military base yesterday was possible because Syrian soldiers inside the base were bribed, turned traitor, and then allowed the rebels to have control of the base for a short time. It is possible the Syrian soldiers who were bribed will soon undergo plastic surgery and eventually will own a profitable donut shop in Palm Beach Florida. This is a very obvious example of CIA fingerprints. Actually more than just fingerprints but a blazing Langley searchlight.

Have you noticed that suicide attacks on the part of good guy Free Syria Army have stopped? This indicates that Al-Qaeda's effort to take over the rebel movement has faltered. Somehow the good guys seem to have purged bad guys from the FSA. Again, CIA fingerprints.

Assad seems to know that he is up against a very powerful adversary. Alawite (bad guy) villages are attacking Sunni villages in such a way that a new country (a pro-Iranian Alawite country) is slowly emerging along the Syrian coast. The creation of a so-called rump state along the coast means that Assad is willing to surrender most of his country in the hope if retaining a hardcore cadre of devoted followers in order to wage a very long term campaign. Assad would only do this if he were very afraid and very desperate. Assad is afraid because he is facing a mind that is cunning and totally without mercy, a mind willing to break all the rules of warfare, a mind willing to exert all the power of the CIA in a single laser-like focus, the mind of CIA Director Petraeus, the baddest mamba jamba on the planet. Do not piss him off or you will lose your tin pot dictatorship, not to mention your life.

Obama is Petraeus Puppet

Long War: The African Union just asked the UN Security Council for permission to go to war against the recently created Al-Qaeda nation-state in northern Mali. Bear in mind the African Union Army defeated the conventional forces of Al-Shbab in Somalia, and is in the process of turning that Al-Qaeda franchisee from owner of a jihadist nation-state to a band of homeless terrorists. So the AU Army can defeat Al-Qaeda in Mali if it is given permission and funding.

The AU Army doesn't fight for free. It gets paid to kill bad guys. It wants $200 million to take out the bad guys in Mali. There is no ready source for these funds although France is making timid noise about stepping up to the plate. It is up to the CIA to find the $200 million. If it has to blackmail a French politician, for example, then it must do so. By carefully combing media sources, hints of CIA funding activity directed at the AU Army can be surmised in the days ahead.

Obvious CIA fingerprints are blazing like searchlights in the sudden upsurge in the Free Syria Army's lethal capacity. The good guys, the Syrian rebels that make up the FSA have gone from 90 lbs. weaklings to 300 lbs. karate black belts in a few short weeks, ever since the Iranian anti-nuclear peace talks broke down.

In one day alone last week the FSA killed 80 bad guys (Asssad Syrian soldiers). Last week the FSA destroyed at least 20 bad guy battle tanks. Assad has refused to use helicopter gunships until now because using Syrian air assets in this war invites a Libya style NATO no-fly zone and/or a CIA drone campaign, either one of which could mean Assad loses the war just as Gaddafi lost. So he really doesn't want to mow civilians and rebels down with helicopters. But the FSA has grown so powerful Assad has no choice but to use choppers. Either that or his ground army will have to start retreating under the potential onslaught.

In addition to all of the above we are seeing overall global CIA drone activity increasing dramatically in recent days and we have Administration officials telling Pakistan to pound sand over drone restrictions in the Pak tribal lands. Somebody has taken the muzzle off the attack dog. Somebody has just told CIA Director Petraeus to do whatever he wants.

A couple weeks ago Team Obama held a press conference where the President claimed he personally okayed every target for every drone fired missile everywhere on the planet, like he was running the CIA drone program on an operational basis.

We will hear more of the same from Obama as the election campaign gets under way. There will be top Al-Qaeda leaders killed with drones. Maybe Assad will get killed by a drone. And Obama will make it sound like he personally killed Assad or the Al-Qaeda leader. And the CIA will go along with that. Whether Obama or Romney wins the election will make no difference, Petraeus will manipulate and twist whoever sits in the White House to satisfy his (and the CIA's) objectives.

The creator of the CIA was named Wild Bill Sullivan. When the CIA was reassembled in 1948, Truman made sure that it was exactly like the organization that Wild Bill built, with only one difference, there would be no Wild Bill leading the CIA. Wild Bill was retired because he would instantly have turned Truman into a puppet by digging up dirt on Administration officials.

J. Edgar Hoover successfully employed this method when he ran the FBI, but J. Edgar was a piker compared to Wild Bill. Petraeus may prove over time to be better than either J. Edgar or Wild Bill. That is, if we are lucky.

Broad Overview of Long War

The Long War can be divided into two parts: A) the battle zones controlled by the CIA and B) the battle zones controlled by the Pentagon. So we should look at them separately in our broad overview.

A) CIA's War: Somalia, Yemen, Libya, and Tribal Pakistan are battle zones that are seeing good guys winning. Mali is a battle zone where the bad guys are winning. Nigeria is a stalemate between good and bad.

It is impossible to know what the CIA is doing inside Iran until the shit hits the fan and Iran is somehow clobbered, such as the Stuxnet computer virus which disabled parts of Iranian nuclear weapons program. Since then CIA viruses have attacked oil pumping equipment. Probably there are new viruses attacking Iranian infrastructure that we don't know about.

We are seeing Israel jerk around like its being pulled by a string as far as settler policy in Palestinian territory. First Israel is cutting back settlement. Then it says it is expanding settlement. This has the feel of the CIA somehow attacking and pressuring Israel but there is no visible sign of what these attacks might be.

B) Pentagon's War: The summer fighting season in Afghanistan is turning out to be more ferocious than expected. Yesterday 40 civilians were killed in Taliban attacks and NATO counter strikes. This is the nastiest start to the summer fighting season for several years. However, last year the Taliban opened with a showy start featuring conventional pitched battles, and it then fizzled out to an only average fighting season. So we might be seeing a bit of a Roman candle effect with the big showy start this year.

The Taliban needs to take ground away from NATO for there to be a major reversal to the situation in Afghanistan. Which hasn't happened yet. The big picture is what happens when NATO leaves in less than two years.

Obviously Afghanistan will then move from B to A, from Pentagon responsibility to CIA responsibility. On that score the CIA last week announced that it is pulling almost all of its assets out of Iraq. It didn't say that these assets are going straight into Afghanistan but you don't need to be a rocket scientist to see it was hinting this would be the case.

Al-Qaeda Cannot Speak

Long War: Over the last few days the CIA has completed a drone blitz in the northern tribal regions of Pakistan. Langley had gone a long time with very little drone activity, then suddenly the skies over North and South Waziristan are filled with flying robotic wolf packs and the air screams of Hellfire missiles. And then the blitz is gone as quickly as it materialized. Dozens of Al-Qaeda chieftains were killed but the media is telling us that of special importance is the death of Al-Qaeda's second highest ranking leader, Al-Libi. More to the point, Al-Libi was the most media savvy leader within Al-Qaeda. Ever since Petraeus took over the CIA there has been an intense focus on using drones to kill media savvy bad guy leaders. Petraeus is reaching into Al-Qaeda and removing its voice box, its ability to communicate with the outside world. The CIA is rendering Al-Qaeda mute.

The CIA is somehow doing the same thing to the western media. In Yemen we don't know how well the Yemeni Army is doing except for this clue: the Houthi rebels in the far north of the country are trying to negotiate a peace deal with the Yemeni government. The Houthis are allies of Iran and have always batted the Yemeni government around like a cat playing with a mouse. But now they are scared of the mouse and want to sue for peace. This indicates that the Yemeni Army is chock-a-block full of Navy SEALs and Green Berets and has become a jihadist killing machine that the Houthis want to have no part of.

The CIA successes we are seeing in recent days involve manipulating the media and internet to allow the good guys to win the war of headlines in both the West and in the Islamic world. I am struck by the similarities between the mind of CIA Director Petraeus and the late North Vietnamese Dictator Ho Chi Minh. I've always considered Ho Chi Minh to be the greatest military mind in all of history. After North Vietnam had finished executing the Tet Offensive the entire Viet Cong Army was destroyed and the conventional North Vietnamese Army could have been knocked over with a feather. All America had to do was fight hard for just a few more months and the war would have been won. According to traditional military doctrine the Tet Offensive was a huge disaster.

But it was launched while Walter Cronkite was in country. In fact it was launched because Walter Cronkite was in country. Ho Chi Minh's goal was to get Walter Cronkite to tell the American people that Nixon was a liar and there was no light at the end of the tunnel. Cronkite did just that and the entire USA believed him. Ho Chi Minh essentially wrote Cronkite's news script. Ho Chi Minh reached into the mind of the American voter and got him/her to surrender. Ho Chi Minh understood the western media and western voters much better than anybody else on the planet at that time. He was a kind of super-genius.

CIA Director Petraeus is also a genius of that caliber.