CIA Will Do The Voo-doo That They do So Well

Long War: In Syria, several days ago the FSA planted a bomb somewhere in or around Assad's military headquarters. The bomb went off but we only got Assad's version of how effective it was. Of course the bad guys said no Syrian Army leaders were hurt. In fact they said the bomb was planted in a building under construction and did no more damage than twist a few pieces of rebar, implying that the rebels are stupid beyond belief (they aren't). The FSA did not comment on how effective or ineffective the bomb attack was. This was the second of two sophisticated remote detonated bomb attacks targeting Syrian Army top brass. The first attack was a huge success. Probably the second one was also a big success. The first successful bomb attack was followed by bragging. The second was not.

When CIA Director Petraeus was an Army general he would always downplay victories when talking to the media. Victories were called minor setbacks or they were described as achieving "fragile gains, easily reversible." This is his hallmark. In the past Petraeus has usually told us the good guys are barely holding their own or even losing. This is because he doesn't care about stroking his own ego. Instead he uses the media as a weapon to help win wars. The American and European public will be more willing to allow NATO to create a no-fly-zone in Syria if they think the rebels are losing. This is why we didn't hear about top Syrian brass being killed in the latest CIA sophisticated bomb assassination strike.

Meanwhile, the war rages on. Right now, on the ground, in the battlefield city of Aleppo, the war has never been hotter: 150-200 soldiers are being killed everyday in Aleppo. It has been a long time since the Long War has produced a battle of this size. It is evolving quickly. The rebels are shooting down more Syrian aircraft with surface to air manpad missiles. The rebels are mounting heavy caliber machine guns near Syrian airbases and shooting down fighter jets as they take off. Assad's Syrian Army is cutting off water supplies to Aleppo with air strikes.

The Syrian Army has resisted using infantrymen to push into Aleppo until very recently. One of the reasons is that Assad's officers are Alawites (Shiites) and the Syrian Army infantrymen have always been Sunnis. These Sunni infantrymen often leave the ranks of Assad's army to join the Sunni rebels when pushed into combat. But Assad has rebuilt his army with Alawite infantrymen in the past couple months and he can now mount some kind of infantry invasion. He is trying at least and his army is gaining ground in Aleppo over the past couple days with foot sloggers moving into this red hot fire zone.

But the rebels have the capability to push back in Damascus and elsewhere and that is just what they are doing.

The war seems to be spinning out of control with Kurdish rebels launching attacks on Turkey from Syrian bases and sectarian conflict spreading into Lebanon. But hold on a minute and let's go back to that remote controlled sophisticated bomb strike with big CIA fingerprints on it. The rebels didn't brag about the bomb strike. They were good boys and kept their pie-holes shut. What does that mean? The CIA is exerting control over them. CIA control is good. It leads to good things. We don't know what those good things might be but we have faith that those clever bastards in Langley will do the voo-do that they do so well.