Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Obama is Cowardly But Intelligent

Long War: There are only two countries that have genuine overseas military empires: America and Iran. America has about 10,000 overseas military bases and if we count Iran's proxies (such as Hezbollah) then it has about 200. It is fair to say that America's empire is fifty times stronger and larger than Iran's. And yet America can still lose to its much weaker opponent because America is subject to cowardliness in its top leadership.

Iran is now admitting that it is sending special forces soldiers to fight for its imperial puppet, Assad, in the Syrian Civil War. America also has special forces soldiers fighting in this war, although it does not admit to this fact. The two empires are at war with each other.

America cannot let Iran get away with such direct support of Assad or the global capitalist structure will suffer. The answer is a no-fly-zone. Recently Turkey has said forcefully that a buffer zone must be created within Syria for refugees escaping Assad. Hillary Clinton and her State Department are backing Turkey's efforts to create a buffer zone. This is step one toward creating a no-fly-zone. If the buffer zone materializes, then the no-fly-zone will be right behind (a good thing).

Hillary is dragging Obama forward on the no-fly-zone even though the President is kicking, screaming, and pulling out his hair like a spoiled brat. Probably Petraeus is pressuring the President as well.

The CIA can hammer Obama by pointing to its recent monster victories in Afpak with the killing of the top Haqqani leader and top Pak Taliban leader. This will help pressure Obama. It looks like the two top bad guys did indeed choke on hellfire missiles as reported in my last blog because the Taliban is going berserk. Both the Pak Taliban and the Afghan Taliban are on a psychotic beheading campaign, lopping off the heads of anybody and everybody that they can get their hands on. This crazed behavior tells us that the bad guys are deeply frightened. At least some of the bad guy's protectors within the ISI (Pak intelligence) have turned and now support the CIA. Petraeus must have really turned the screws on them.

So the global war rages on. It is being fought in the distant battlefields of the Islamic world and inside the mind of the cowardly but highly intelligent President of the United States. We need to win in both arenas.

Sunday, August 26, 2012

Hell On Earth, Courtesy of Raytheon

Long War: Several weeks ago CIA Director Petraeus held a meeting in Langley with the heads of ISI (Pak Intelligence). Shortly after that meeting a massive drone blitz began in the Pak tribal lands. It was the biggest drone blitz ever, with multiple drone strikes occurring on the same day, day after day. Not only was it large in scope, it was also different than previous drone strikes in that it was targeted. The strikes followed a pattern, like a dragnet narrowing down on a single target. Today we learned what that target was. We are told that drone fired hellfire missiles killed the Haqqai Network's operational commander, Badruddin. The Haqqani Network is the most powerful of all the Taliban's and its operational commander the most wanted man on the planet. If this is verfied, then the CIA has scored a huge victory.

While all this was going on there has also been a targeted NATO air strike blitz following a similar pattern in Afghanistan resulting at the same time in the death of Pak Taliban logistics commander Dadullah, also one of the most dangerous men on the planet. The Pak Taliban (along with Al-Qaeda, the Haqqani Network, and the Afghan Taliban) is one of the big four jihadist organizations, the baddest of the bad. Killing Dadullah is another big victory.

What did the CIA Director say to the ISI leaders? Can we guess? How about... "I will kill all your children and grandchildren if you don't give up Badruddin and Dadullah." Do you think he might have said something along those lines and then go on to prove that he means business? Probably.

Now consider another item... So called Green on Blue killing in Afghanistan are at an all time high. The Pentagon is now calling Green on Blue killings "Insider Killing" either way this is when a Taliban infiltrator within the Afghan Army kills a single NATO soldier or several soldiers. This is how most NATO soldiers meet their death, not in actual combat. Infiltrating an organization like an army is an intelligence agency activity. Preventing such an infiltration is an intelligence agency activity.

The entire Long War is an intelligence agency activity. That's why we should get the US Army and USMC out of all LW hot spots and turn the global war over to Special Forces and CIA. That's why the CIA should have complete operational command over all Special Forces. That's why, for the first time, we have the right person in the position of CIA Director.

And this transition is occuring. More jihadist are dying from the thermal shock wave of drone fired hellfire missiles than any other cause in Afpak. Whether you adhere to one of the three Abrahamic faiths or not, the Jihadist do, and the hellfire missile therefore has religious significance for them at least. The hellfire's thermal shock wave is calibrated to exactly replicate the ambient temperature of hell itself, which is 6500 degrees. So the engineers at Raytheon have designed this missile to give the jihadists a taste here on Earth of the place that they are destined to spend eternity. That's why they call it "hellfire."

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

The Truth Shall Set You Free. Not!

Charts: Round number support is key right now for the major indexes. The S&P 500 is finding significant support at 1400. The Nasdaq is finding support at 3000. However the small cap Russell 2000 just lost support at 800. Overall action is flat with a slight upward bias. Volume was very low today, which is good for a flat market.

Fundamentals: The strong rally that started with the ECB promising another round of QE (printing money out of thin air to buy bonds) is fading because the ECB hasn't started QE yet. The market loves QE even though it doesn't work. The Bank of England is getting ready for QE4, yet the British economy sucks. Japan is on something like QE20, its economy really sucks. QE does two things, it jacks up the price of commodities and it jacks up stocks. Higher stock prices creates a wealth effect which is good. Higher commodities obviously hurts economic growth. The two cancel out, so QE ends up doing nothing. It is being used as a substitute for free market reform. There is no substitute.

Long War: The civilian government of Egypt is busy sacking army officials. Normally you'd think that is bad, but the Egyptian Army has gone to war against Al-Qaeda in the Sinai Peninsula, which should have been done a long time ago. Something therefore is going right in Egypt. As the good guys dig into the Sinai they are discovering that Al-Qaeda is much stronger than they thought, so strong that the bad guys could probably start a war with Israel and drag Egypt into it. This is why Egypt is attacking.

In Syria, the rebels are grimly holding on in Aleppo but they are opening a new front in the oil producing region of the country. Assad cannot afford to lose any oil fields, so if this new offensive makes headway, then bad guy troops will have to be funneled out of Aleppo. Good chess playing on somebody's part.

More and more experienced fighters from Libya are turning up in the ranks of the FSA, training, leading, inspiring. Here we have another example of CIA fingerprints, and they are well disguised prints, hard for anybody to fathom.

It pays to ponder the very nature of the CIA. Imagine you are walking through the marble clad headquarters in Langley. Overhead you will see an inscription, the CIA motto, which is from the Bible: The Truth Shall Set You Free. Not far from this inscription are a few rows of stars, representing all the CIA operatives that have died in the line of duty. There are only about 50 or so stars. A number that is laughably low, absurdly low, an obvious lie. A lie right next to the motto about truth. Here we have an existential message concerning the world's premier intelligence agency: We are lying to you, but its for your own good. So shut your pie-hole, look the other way, leave us alone, and let us do our thing.

Monday, August 13, 2012

Moral Superiority Part II

Syrian Civil War: The FSA rebels (good guys) have downed a Syrian fighter jet with a manpad missile. So the CIA is almost certainly giving the rebels surface to air missiles. If this is true, then the media will eventually sleuth out that the missiles are being paid for by Qatar, Turkey, or Saudi Arabia. This doesn't mean that the missiles aren't being green lighted by Langley, just that tracks are being laid to disguise the ultimate source.

The rebels say that Al-Qaeda is indeed fighting on their side but Jihadist brigades are isolated from other brigades and are in effect quarantined from the bulk of the FSA to avoid infection, in an almost medical fashion. The idea is that once Assad is overthrown there will be a second war against Al-Qaeda and this quarantine structure will make it possible to win that war. The FSA needs Al-Qaeda fighters because they are the best of the best and bring crucial skills to the battlefield. Of course this is dancing with the devil and of course it is a dangerous game to play. The Long War is a dangerous game to play and without good bad guys we would be in worse shape than we already are.

Hillary Clinton and Turkey's top leaders are talking about opening a no-fly-zone over Syria. If this were to happen, then Assad would be defeated within a few months. It is 100% the right thing to do. The Jordanian Army has already clashed with Assad's Syrian Army once, the longer this war drags on the wider it will become until it starts consuming oil fields and pushes the global economy into a recession. It is impossible to overstate how positive an American-Turkish no-fly-zone would be. Hillary then has to somehow infuse Obama with a set. This is a big challenge because Obama runs scared before elections.

Assad's army has backed off on trying to take the key Salaheddine district with a massive infantry assault. He is once again standing back and pounding it with heavy weapons. Assad has taken about 90% of Salaheddine and about 50% of Aleppo as a whole. I remind you that the Battle of Aleppo is the most important Long War battle by a huge margin right now. It is everything.

Assad seemingly cannot put soldiers up one for one against the rebels for any length of time because the rebels are willing to die for their cause and Assad's soldiers are not. The rebels have gigantic moral superiority. Assad advantage is the possession of fighter jets, helicopters, artillery, armored personal carriers, and tanks; none of which the rebels have. But setting up a no-fly-zone or giving the rebels advanced manpad missiles will help eliminate Assad's advantage. Small portable missiles are problematic because Al-Qaeda is fighting on the rebels side. A no-fly-zone is the best answer then, but it is the most unlikely politically because only Hillary has a set in the Obama Administration. So you need the CIA and Special Forces in there with missiles.

Friday, August 10, 2012

Painfully We Move Forward

Charts: The broad index has broken out of its 1 1/2 year consolidation channel by trading convincingly above 1370. By that I mean technical indicators like the advance/decline are supportive. In the last few days the market has been flat, volume has been low, which is good. If volume were high in a flat market we would have stalling, which is bearish. Next resistance is 1422. As screwed up as fundies are we still need consolidation and a new channel of 1400-1422 before a true break-out can be considered strong.

The Eurostoxx 600 (European equivalent to the S&P 500) has executed a Golden Cross, where the 50-day line punches up through the 200-day line. This is bullish. However, the S&P 500's 200 day line has gotten pretty high and any sharp downdraft could pierce it, this is a caution flag.

The Hong Kong market is trying to punch up out of a 5-year consolidation pattern and it shows both long term and short term coiling behavior. So it could ratchet up or hurt you bad depending on how it uncoils. You can buy the index with ticker symbol EWH.

Fundamentals: Data out of China is horrible. Bad news is good. The market thinks Beijing will hit the juice and stimulate the crap out of its economy. Maybe. China levered stocks are up today.

Long War: In Syria, Assad's army has pushed the rebels out of the key Salaheddine district in the globally crucially Battle of Aleppo. The media is acting like troop movements and territory are key to this battle. But its really all about supply lines. Assad's army has severed rebel supply lines a couple times only to have them reform. The CIA has built a warren of rebel checkpoints on roads through rebel controlled land stretching from Aleppo to rebel supply bases in Turkey. It seems that Langley has done a bang-up job with all this careful spadework.

Assad's army still has not launched its huge ground invasion of Aleppo. It continues to use heavy weapons, small infantry squads, and snipers to push forward. There is fighting throughout the country, not just Aleppo. One gets the feeling that Assad is afraid to flood Aleppo with a massive numbers of infantrymen because he then would have no reserves to counter rebel attacks throughout the rest of the country. A rock and a hard place. It's a bitch being a tin-pot dictator on the wrong side of the CIA. And yet there is a lot of war to be fought. If push comes to shove, Assad will use chemical weapons.

The rest of the Long War grinds along. In Yemen, Al-Qaeda has mounted a huge terror campaign that is knocking the good guys back. Al-Qaeda affiliate Boko Haram is raising hell in Nigeria. The fighting season in Afghanistan is going poorly.

But the big picture is that the CIA is taking over bit by bit in Afghanistan. There was a high level meeting between Director Petraeus and the leaders of Pakistan's ISI. The ISI is now acting like a whipped puppy after this meeting. Painfully we move forward.

Friday, August 3, 2012

Syrian Civil War

The Battle of Aleppo: Assad's army has almost secured the staging grounds for the infantry assault on the rebel held Salaheddine district. Assad is trying to clear the last rebel toehold out of Damascus to cover his back. As he does this he is pouring everything he's got into the staging grounds. Once he has total control of Damascus, then a huge assault will sweep into Aleppo.

None of this violates the parallel I've been drawing between Aleppo and Stalingrad. I remind you that the Germans conquered 90% of Stalingrad before they were ultimately defeated.

The CIA had been holding back heavy weapons from the rebels because their ranks are infiltrated by Al-Qaeda. Now the heavy weapons are coming through. About 20 soldiers from both sides are dying every day, making this war far and away the biggest among all the global Long War campaigns. This will soon spike up when the big assault is launched.

Russia thinks the rebels might win. It is landing 360 Marines into its Syrian naval base. They will be used to evacuate Russian citizens from Syria if the rebels start winning. Syrians hate Russians and will try to kill them in the aftermath of the war.

Iran thinks the rebels might win. It is saying that it might provide the Afghan Taliban with surface to air missiles at some point in the future. Of course Iran doesn't say it will do this if the rebels win, but that's essentially the point.

Israel sees Iran going into a frenzied chest beating routine at the prospect of its ally Assad getting clobbered and freaks out. Israel is now making the most bellicose noise against Iran in quite some time. Somebody bombed a Palestinian camp in Syria. All the enemies of Israel such as Hezbollah are stirring.

The ripples from the Battle of Aleppo are already surging across the global Long War landscape in a messy and unpredictable fashion. Let us hope President Obama is truly committed to a hands off policy with the CIA because traditional civilian interference right now is a really bad idea.

Thursday, August 2, 2012

CIA Wears Awesome Maternity Clothes

Long War: In Syria, Assad's army has been trying to capture the Salaheddine district in the Battle for Aleppo by standing back and reducing the district to rubble with heavy weapons fire. They tried once to send in foot soldiers, but were beaten back. After that they went back to heavy weapons fire, which isn't working. They need to secure a staging ground near the district, strengthen all their supply lines, build up an invasion force inside the staging grounds, and then move in with infantry (foot soldiers)and painfully clear the district one square yard at a time. The bad guys are trying to do all of this as I write.

The rebels have not captured tanks from the bad guys until now. One or more tanks have suddenly been captured by the good guys and were used to attack Assad's staging grounds, disrupting his invasion force. Because the rebels have not used armor until now the bad guys were caught by surprise.

President Obama is admitting that he signed an order earlier in the year instructing the CIA to get involved in the Syrian Civil War. This makes three different statements describing how pregnant the CIA is in the SCW. Each statement admits to a greater degree of pregnancy than the one before like this: "The CIA is only a little bit pregnant. Okay, we are a bit more pregnant than previously thought. Okay, we are even more pregnant, but still you can barely notice with these awesome maternity clothes that we are wearing."

In Afghanistan, Afghan special forces launched a huge raid that resulted in the capture of key intelligence from the Taliban. This too is CIA activity. It may be one of the first signs of Langley's take over of the Afghan War. In this case the liberal cry, "bring our boys home!" is a good one. Of course the liberals don't follow up with a second cry, "Then unleash the clever bastards from Langley without any oversight so they can break all the rules and build up a war lord economy, etc.. etc..."
 
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