Or to the tune of La Paloma if you are a sentimentalist. pl
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Posts from October 2018
31 October 2018
Wages are going up this year.
The numbers: Workers are reaping the benefits of the lowest unemployment rate since the late 1960s: Wages, salaries and benefits are rising at the fastest rate in a decade.
The employment cost index rose 0.8% in the third quarter running from the beginning of July to the end of September, the government said. Economists polled by MarketWatch had forecast a 0.7% increase.
The 12-month increase in the ECI was unchanged at 2.8%, but it’s still at a 10-year high." Marketwatch
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Trump insists that his economic policies including the Tax Law and Deregulation have benefited all. This statistical report tends to support that. Democrats will, of course, dispute that, claiming that Obama's herculean efforts to revive the economy are merely bearing fruit.
Will this set of statistics benefit the Republicans? I doubt that it will. Working people tend to distrust government statistics and also tend to accept added pay as their due and not something for which the government should be thanked. Additionally, a benefit enjoyed tends to be a benefit taken for granted. pl
30 October 2018
After the mid-term election, Idlib will be cleansed of jihadis.
Putin said that Russia reserves its right to help eradicate terrorists in Idlib, should they continue with provocations and block establishment of a demilitarized zone there. The President noted that he had informed his “colleagues” about the situation and that artillery strikes on some targets had already been carried out.
Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), Jaysh al-Izza and Horas al-Din are the core of the groups, who are constantly violating the demilitarization agreement by shelling government targets in Aleppo, Lattakia, Hama and Idlib. On October 27th, Zubair al-Turkmani, a military commander of HTS in the Aleppo countryside, confirmed that the militants had shelled Syrian Arab Army troops near the town of Khan Tuman." SF
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Whatever the outcome, a lot of present "facts" are going to change after the mid-term election. Trump will still be president and he will feel free to do things and accept things from which the pending election had restrained him.
There will be personnel changes at the top of many departments of the Executive Branch. There will be a second phase tax bill proposed. There will be an executive order ending birthright citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants. There will be quite a lot of changes.
Among those will be an acceptance by the USG of a Russian/Syrian (R+6) offensive to clear Idlib Province of jihadis. IMO there is a "side deal" between POTUS and the Russians on this.
The Turks continue to play their dark annexation game with regard to Northern Syria. The Russians can easily make the case that the demilitarized zone has failed and that the jihadis continue to attack by fire targets in SAG held territory including the western suburbs of Aleppo City.
Syria is not a large country. It will be easy to concentrate maneuver reserves along the lines of departure for the offensive. pl
29 October 2018
"LOOPS OF LIES RE ‘SIGINT’" by David Habakkuk
LOOPS OF LIES RE ‘SIGINT’:
GIANNANGELLI’S CLAIMS, IN THE LIGHT OF
HIS EARLIER REPORTS ON GHOUTA, SKRIPALS.
A number of observations prompted by the report by the report by Marco Giannangeli in the ‘Sunday Express’ on 28 October, headlined ‘Khashoggi BOMBSHELL: Britain ‘KNEW of kidnap plot and BEGGED Saudi Arabia to abort plans’.
The report opens:
‘MURDERED journalist Jamal Khashoggi was about to disclose details of Saudi Arabia’s use of chemical weapons in Yemen, sources close to him said last night. The revelations come as separate intelligence sources disclosed that Britain had first been made aware of a plot a full three weeks before he walked into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.’
Background is I think indispensable here. For convenience, I will list points in numerical order.
- The role of disinformation about ‘SIGINT’ in ‘information operations’ appears to have been relatively limited in the UK. Curiously a great deal of it appears to have been channelled through Giannangeli and the ‘Express.’
- At the time of Ghouta, claims about ‘SIGINT’ played a central role in attempts to cover up the rather obvious points that tests on ‘physiological’ samples were irrelevant to establishing responsibility, and there was no cogent reason not to wait for the results of tests on ‘environmental’ samples.
Interestingly, however, such claims featured prominently in the 30 August ‘Government Assessment’ released from the White House, but not in the JIC document released the previous day.
This discrepancy was picked up on 31 August by Craig Murray, who suggested that the explanation was that the supposed intercepts were disinformation originating with Mossad. Drawing on his own experience as a former head of the FCO Cyprus Section, Murray suggested that, more or less, anything that there was there to be ‘hoovered up’ from Eastern Libya and Egypt through to the Caucasus was likely to have been by the Troodos facility, and the U.S. did not have a comparable one. (This would make sense, given the ‘division of labour’ we know to happen within the ‘Five Eyes.’)
Continue reading ""LOOPS OF LIES RE ‘SIGINT’" by David Habakkuk" »
28 October 2018
Uriah P. Levy - Captain, US Navy
"Levy published articles explaining his opposition to flogging and gave lectures on the subject. He was joined in his campaign by author Herman Melville. In 1850, the Navy banned the practice.
No one gets rich from a military career. Levy became wealthy through real estate. In the 1820s, he purchased a set of rooming houses in a mud-strewn hamlet on the island of Manhattan. “Within one year it became a thriving part of the city called Greenwich Village,” Levy said.
With his wealth, Levy commissioned French artist Pierre-Jean David d’Angers to sculpt a statue of Thomas Jefferson, whom the naval officer admired for his stance on religious freedom.
Levy also purchased Monticello. Jefferson’s Virginia home was in abysmal condition. After buying it in 1834, Levy hired artisans to repair it. He also had enslaved people — yes, Levy was a slave owner — work on restoring the house. Levy moved his mother, Rachel, into Monticello and used it occasionally as a summer home." Washpost
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We have a long history of Jewish-American presence in our armed forces.
Some examples:
Captain Uriah Levy, USN
Brigadier General Myers, the Chief Quartermaster of the Confederate Army
Major General Maurice Rose CG 3rd Armored Division. KIA in the Siegfried Line in WW2
Admiral Jeremy Boorda, USN, Chief of Naval Operations
9,000 Confederate soldiers who described themselves as Jewish in their pay books.
pl
27 October 2018
Robert Bowers - anti-Semitic and anti-Trump
Eight people have been killed and a number of others injured after a shooting situation at The Tree of Life Synagogue in Squirrel Hill on Saturday.
KDKA’s Meghan Schiller reports that a suspect, a heavy-set white male with a beard, has surrendered. The SWAT team had been talking with the suspect, and he was crawling and injured. It is unclear the extent of his injuries.
KDKA sources confirm to Andy Sheehan that the suspect is 48-year-old Robert Bowers. It is believed that he acted alone.. CBS Pittsburgh
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This old synagogue in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood (Tree of Life) has several buildings and houses three congregations. The building above is the newest part of the complex.
The body count as of this moment is eight killed, six wounded among them three policemen.
Robert Bowers a 46 year old Pittsburgh resident was captured wounded at the scene. The police showed remarkable restraint in that Bowers was captured alive although wounded.
He is a notorious anti-Semite who is particularly aroused over foreign Jewish immigration to the US.
According to his social media accounts he is also anti-Trump. He says DJT is a "globalist" who favors Israel over American interests. pl
https://abcnews.go.com/US/police-responding-active-shooter-pittsburgh-synagogue/story?id=58790381
Bibi and Sultan Qaboos, the odd couple.
"The first visit of a senior Israeli official to Oman occurred in 1994, when Israeli’s Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin visited the Gulf state. Two years later, the town countries signed an agreement on the reciprocal opening of trade representative offices.
The Israeli-Omani relation witnessed a setback following the Second Palestinian Intifada in October 2000. However, the relations began to recover in 2008 when Oman’s Foreign Affairs Minister Yusuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah met with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni during their visit to Qatar.
Despite that both countries stated that Netanyahu’s visit was aimed at discussing the peace initiative in the Middle East, some experts say that the Sultanate is playing a role in easing the tension between Iran, its close partner, and Israel. According to this version, Oman is playing a role of a mediator in the indirect negotiations between Iran and Israel." SF and the Omani News Service
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Oman is a nice place. Clean, neat as a pin, and filled with modern amenities and infrastructure. It is the only ME country that looks like an army post complete with white rocks to mark the boundaries of driveways and other such evidences of military "order." This is not surprising since Sultan Qaboos was an officer in the British Army Lowland Scots Regiment "The Cameronians" (long disestablished) while he was exiled from Oman by his father, the previous sultan.
I don't think that Natanyahu wants a negotiated lessening of hostility with Iran. He relishes the hostility. Where would he find another bogeyman as useful as Iran if the Iranians decided to bow down to him.
No. My WAG on his receptivity to Qaboos' invitation is that he is fearful of losing Saudi Arabia as an effective semi-ally in the Arab World and is casting about for new "friends." pl
26 October 2018
25 October 2018
Scary Halloween Bombs to Scare Voters by Publius Tacitus
Whoever cooked up the scheme to send fake bombs to Democrat politicians on the eve of the 2018 mid-term election, you have to give them credit for creativity. The so-called "bombs" sent to the likes of the Clintons, Obama, Soros and Joe Biden are made to appear like real bombs but lack the detonator and other key components that one would normally find with a real Improvised Explosive Device. Friends in ATF and the FBI tell me that these "devices" are to explosives what the little kid dressed as Pocohontas is to real American Indians. Costumed theater.
The audience for this theater is the voting public. The Democrats want you to believe that Donald Trump has stirred up a culture of hate and that some acolyte of Trump has now embarked on his own personal jihad. Of course, those pushing this nonsense ignore Madonna's call to blow up the White House. They ignore Kathy Griffin's decapitation of the President's effigy. They ignore the Bernie Sanders supporter who shot up the Republicans practicing for a softball game. They ignore the mob attacks on Sarah Sanders, Ted Cruz, Mitch McConnell and others in the Trump Administration. They ignore the multiple Antifa attacks that have shutdown conservative Republicans. They ignore the cacophony of epithets hurled by former Obama officials, like John Brennan and Jim Clapper, against Donald Trump.
Nope. It is all Donald Trump's fault. What a crock!!!
RUSSIAN FEDERATION SITREP 25 OCTOBER 2018 by Patrick Armstrong
CHURCH DISPUTE. I dreaded having to write something because I really don't know enough. But US Secretary of State Pompeo has saved me much study by proving that those who see the hand of Washington are correct to do so: "We urge Church and government officials to actively promote these values in connection with the move towards the establishment of an autocephalous Ukrainian Orthodox Church." Who knew an avowedly secular state like the USA felt competent to make rulings on such esoterica as ethnophyletism or autocephaly? You've heard Official Washington's opinion (swiftly retransmitted by your local news outlet), here are others: one, two, three, four, five. Their argument is that Constantinople has arrogated too much to himself and Orthodoxy will split; Washington & Co talk of "freedom" (but don't show much understanding of who's who). This further excuse for violence will increase the misery of Ukraine. (And, ironically, the dominant church in western Ukraine, the home of the Ukrainian nationalism that's driving things, has nothing to do with this: it's under Rome.)
NUCLEAR DOCTRINE. At Valdai, Putin made a statement on Russia's nuclear doctrine. No change, but with a twist that caught people's attention: "Our concept is based on a reciprocal counter strike... any aggressor should know that retaliation is inevitable and they will be annihilated." The attention-catching part was "And we as the victims of an aggression, we as martyrs would go to paradise while they will simply perish because they won’t even have time to repent their sins". Don't forget that American spokesmen have made some stupidly aggressive statements lately.
DRONE ATTACK. The Russian MoD says a US aircraft coordinated the January drone attack on their Syrian bases.
EXPLOSION. There was an explosion and shooting at the Kerch Polytechnic College in Crimea and a number of people were killed. It is said to have been done by one student who then killed himself.
RUSSIA INC. Russia has climbed two places the World Economic Forum ranking to 43 of 140. Current account surplus predicted.
AGRICULTURE. One of the most surprising developments to me, who remembers farms in the 1990s, has been Russia's agricultural turnaround. This five-minute report gives an introduction.
STRATEGIC CULTURE FOUNDATION. Let me put in a plug for this site. It has now acquired quite a stable of writers (myself included) and is a good place to get alternative views to those repeated by the drearily monotonic Western outlets. There may be Russian government money behind it but my bet is that the government's effort is still in RT (see below). My guess (and another author's) is that it's bankrolled by a rich Russian who's tired of the endless anti-Russia coverage. I have never had anything I have written changed or censored. I recommend you bookmark it.
WESTERN VALUES™. Enjoying the irony, RT introduces New Samizdat to bring you the news that the ZapGlavLit (if I may coin a neologism) hides.
NUGGETS FROM THE STUPIDITY MINE. Watch it. Adam Schiff, senior Democrat on House Intelligence Committee.
NATO EXERCISE. NATO bravely shows it won't be intimidated by Russia's building up its military on its doorstep by holding an exercise on said doorstep. "NATO is a defensive Alliance... committed to defense and deterrence." A defensive alliance with a moving doorstep.
INF TREATY. Trump talks of pulling the US out. Is this the loud prelude to re-negotiation that we saw him do with Korea and NAFTA? Or is he clearing the battlespace for the expected damp squib from Mueller or a blue dribble? Tune in in mid-November.
NEW NWO. "The Perfect Storm Bringing China And Russia Together".
OOPS. Apparently many US weapons are very vulnerable to cyberattacks. Stories of cruise missile attacks, USS Donald Cook, destroyers rammed by container ships make you wonder, don't they?
UKRAINE. "Entrepreneurs of political violence: the varied interests and strategies of the far-right in Ukraine" In Open Democracy no less. Bit by bit the word is seeping out. IMF rates Ukraine the poorest country in Europe. This piece gives a summary of its problems with Hungary, Poland and Belarus.
GEORGIA. The Chief Prosecutor’s Office says it has a recording that proves Saakashvili sanctioned the murder of Patarkatsishvili. (English) (Georgian) (At the time some UK outlets blamed Putin but when they discovered he was Saakashvili's enemy they quickly shut up.)
© Patrick Armstrong Analysis, Canada Russia Observer
Gina Haspel "heard Khashoggi audio"
"CIA director Gina Haspel has heard audio recordings that are believed to capture the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, media reports say.
They say Ms Haspel was allowed to listen to the audio during a visit to Turkey earlier this week.
Khashoggi, a US-based critic of the Saudi government, was killed during a visit to its consulate in Istanbul.
Saudi Arabia has blamed the killing on "rogue agents". The case has strained relations with the US and other allies.
Soon after the murder on 2 October, Turkish media quoted officials as saying they had audio recordings of Khashoggi's interrogation and death, but gave no details about the contents or how the audio had been obtained."BBC
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Someone asked on SST what the purpose was of DCIA's trip to Turkey. My suggestion was that she was there as another pair of eyes for Trump.
Well, pilgrims, Gina Haspel has a reputation as a hard nosed fact oriented intelligence pro. There are not a lot of those around any longer. Hiring and promoting policies over the last 30 years have changed the nature of the work force at the national level. The Cold War era IC work force was a lot like a monastic order. It was devoted to the trade of espionage and to analytic studiousness in modern scriptoria. They were intensely proud of the often elegant results of the work.
In the era of identity politics and political correctness the emphasis in hiring and firing has been on things like gender, race, sexual orientation, etc. The old breed are largely gone. "Showboats" are everywhere.
In that context Haspel stands out as an exception. Trump will listen to Haspel on this. pl
23 October 2018
DNC Emails--A Seth Attack Not a Russian Hack by Publius Tacitus
If Russia had actually "hacked" the DNC emails then the National Security Agency would have had proof of such activity. In fact, the NSA could have tracked such activity. But they did not do that. That lack of evidence did not prevent a coordinated media campaign from spinning up to pin the blame on Russia for the "theft" and to portray Donald Trump as Putin's lackey and beneficiary.
Any effort to tell an alternative story has met with stout opposition. Fox News, for example, came under withering fire after it published an article in May 2017 claiming that Seth Rich, a young Democrat operative, had leaked DNC emails to Julian Assange at Wikileaks. The family of Seth Rich reacted with fury and sued Fox, Malia Zimmerman and Ed Butowsky, but that suit subsequently was dismissed.
Now there is new information, courtesy of the National Security Agency aka NSA, that confirms that the NSA has Top Secret and Secret documents that are responsive to a FOIA request for material on Seth Rich and his contacts with Julian Assange. While the content of these documents remain classified for now, they may provide documentary proof that Seth Rich “dropped boxed” the emails to Julian. If these documents are declassified, a big hole could be blown in the claim that Russia hacked the DNC.
Continue reading "DNC Emails--A Seth Attack Not a Russian Hack by Publius Tacitus" »
Bezos' blog (Washington Post) does not love Saudi Arabia. Who knew?
"The Saudis say they are countering Iran, which backs the Houthis. But the Houthis are an indigenous group with legitimate grievances, and the war has only enhanced Iranian influence. As has been obvious for some time, the only solution is a negotiated settlement. But the Saudis have done their best to sabotage a U.N.-led peace process. Talks planned for Geneva in September failed when Saudi leaders would not grant safe travel guarantees to Houthi leaders." Bezos' editorial board at WaPo
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Beneath the largely specious argument that Saudi Arabia has the US by the cojones economically lies the true factor that has caused the two countries to be glued together.
This factor is the Israeli success in convincing the US government, and more importantly, the American people, that Iran is a deadly enemy, a menace to the entire world, a reincarnation of Nazi Germany, and that Saudi Arabia, a country dedicated to medieval methods of operation, is an indispensable ally in a struggle to save the world from Iran. The successful effort to convince us of the reality of the Iranian menace reflects the previous successful campaign to convince us all that Iraq was also Nazi Germany come again.
The Iran information operation was probably conceived at the Moshe Dayan Center or some other Israeli think tank. and then passed on in the form of learned papers and conferences to the Foreign Ministry, the Mossad and the IDF. After adoption as government policy the Foreign ministry and Zionist organizations closely linked to media ownership in the US and Europe were tasked for dissemination of the propaganda themes involved. This has been a brilliantly executed plan. The obvious fact that Iran is not presently a threat to the US has had little effect in countering this propaganda achievement.
Last Saturday morning, the Philadelphia based commentator Michael Smerconish openly asked on his popular talk show why it is that US policy favors the Sunni Muslims over the Shia. i.e., Saudi Arabia over Iran. To hear that was for me a first. This was an obvious defiance of the received wisdom of the age. I can only hope that the man does not lose his show.
It is a great irony that the barbaric murder of a personally rather unpleasant but defiant exiled journalist has caused re-examination of the basis and wisdom of giving strategic protection to a family run dictatorship. pl
22 October 2018
Germany bans arms sales to SA.
"In the United States, a bipartisan group of senators triggered global Magnitsky Act sanctions procedures two weeks ago, forcing Trump to determine possible punishments against Saudi Arabia or Saudi officials over Khashoggi’s killing. If the United States imposed sanctions on Saudi Arabia, other major arms exporters such as Britain would probably also be forced to take similar measures. But in Berlin, top officials hope that their move to suspend future sales could pressure other European allies into following suit, even if the United States refrained from doing so.
Germany’s export stop will have little impact “if at the same time other countries fill this gap,” Merkel’s ally Altmaier acknowledged Monday."
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Germany has gone "anti-medieval" on Saudi Arabia. Who knew this would happen?
This should be an example for all the neocons and hyper-nationalists in the US. The wahabbiyeen are playing them for suckers over the promised contracts. So far the "contracts" are just promises of contracts. That is not an unusual way to proceed in big business contracting; first the promise, then the contract, but nevertheless, the contracts do not exist as yet.
We can survive without Saudi money. So can the rest of NATO. If the Russians and/or the Chinese really want to be stuck with this Tar Baby, let them try it on!
But! But! The Iranian threat! The Iranian threat!
Threat to what? Israel? pl
21 October 2018
Was the Chihuahua the chief rogue?
According to TS Eliot in "Murder in the Cathedral," Henry II (an English king) supposedly asked "Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?" and then, what, forgot about his remark? Having heard the king's perhaps absent minded wish expressed, three knights mounted their steeds (horses) and rode hell bent for the French coast to board ship intent on ridding the world of Thomas à Becket. Was this a rogue operation?
Now, Adel al-Jubeir (aka The Chihuahua) hath spake from beside the golden throne of the Al as-Saud (Custodians of the two holy mosques as Jubeir described King Salman) in Riyadh. Adel is Foreign Minister of The Kingdom. He spake today to an American TV newsie from Fox News. Adel's spakeings included assertion of royal innocence and ignorance of the deed as well as a statement that The Kingdom knoweth not the last resting place of the aforesaid Kashoggi.
Adel should be very, very, careful. Commoners are a dinar a dozen in Wahhabeeland and MG al-asiri may not be a big enough sacrificial camel to mollify the kuffar Asiri looks to me to be a typical shirt-tail boy from the boondocks who joined the Royal Saudi Forces long ago looking for a steady job that did not involve sheep or goats. The Asir Province in the SW of The Kingdom is the very definition of The Boondocks in Saudi Arabia and al-asiri is a commoner like al-jubeir.
Careful, Adel, careful pl
Open Thread 21 October 2018
OK - Go to it! pl
19 October 2018
Jack Keane doesn't know that the Al as-Saud ARE the Wahhabis
"Muhammad ibn Saud and Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab had concluded a formal agreement in 1744: according to one source, Muhammad ibn Saud had declared when they first met,
"This oasis is yours, do not fear your enemies. By the name of God, if all Nejd was summoned to throw you out, we will never agree to expel you." Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab replied, "You are the settlement's chief and wise man. I want you to grant me an oath that you will struggle with me against the unbelievers. In return you will be imam, leader of the Muslim community and I will be leader in religious matters."[12]
Ibn Saud accordingly gave his oath.[12] The descendants of Muhammad ibn Saud, the Al Saud, continued to be the political leaders of the Saudi state in central Arabia through the 19th and into the 20th centuries, and eventually created the modern Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932.[9] The descendants of Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, on the other hand, have historically led the ulema, the body of Islamic religious leaders and scholars,[13] and dominated the Saudi state's clerical institutions.[14]
The agreement between Ibn Abd al-Wahhab and Muhammad ibn Saud of 1744 became a "mutual support pact" and power-sharing arrangement between the Al Saud and the Al ash-Sheikh, which has remained in place for nearly 300 years.[15][16][17][18] The pact between the two families, which continues to this day,[citation needed] is based on the Al Saud maintaining the Al ash-Sheikh's authority in religious matters and upholding and propagating the Wahhabi doctrine. In return, the Al ash-Sheikh support the Al Saud's political authority [19] thereby using its religious-moral authority to legitimize the royal family's rule.[20] In fact, each legitimizes the other.[citation needed]This alliance formed in the 18th century provided the ideological impetus to Saudi expansion and remains the basis of Saudi Arabian dynastic rule today. [21] wiki on Wahhabism
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General (ret) Jack Keane Fox News' "Senior Strategic Analyst" said on the air yesterday that the Saudi government "needs to distance itself from the Wahhabis." this statement displayed a breathtaking lack of knowledge and understanding of Saudi history and actual religiopolitics.
A few thoughts:
1. Islam as an idea system does not recognize the legitimacy of secular rule. Most majority Islamic countries have secular government of some sort. These governments are the result of exposure to Western political thought through colonial experiences or prolonged exposure to such thought by education in Europe or America. That admixture of ideas does not replace the ideal of theocracy in Salafi (purist) Islamic thought which continues to hold secular rule to be impious.
2. Islamic culture does not normally legitimize the concept of kingship. (malikiya) or rule by a sultan or shah (Iran). Islam as such seeks a worldwide Islamic community ruled by scholars and judges of the Islamic law (sharia). A sultan is someone who merely holds actual power to control land, population and territory. The term does not denote legitimacy from the Islamic point of view. Islamic history is dotted with individuals with title of secular rule who claimed Islamic legitimacy because they were also head of some dissident Islamic sect. An example would be the Sultan of Oman who protects the dissident and from the Sunni point of view heretical and apostate Ibadhi sect. The Jordanian and Moroccan kings are generally accepted as legitimate rulers only because they are believed to be Alids, descendants of the Prophet Muhammad, and endowed with a special barakat (grace) from God. The Ottoman Sultan derived his supposed legitimacy from being both sultan and caliph (commanders of the faithful) The Ottomans created this dual status in the 16th Century CE precisely because they sought a plausible claim of Islamic legitimacy as head of the 'umma. The lack of a plausible claim to Islamic legitimacy was IMO the major weakness of the Pahlavi dynasty in Iran This weakness made possible effective resistance to them that eventually resulted in the rule of the mullahs and wilayet al faqih (rule of the scholars).
3. The Al as-Saud (the Saudi royal family) have none of that. As stated in the text quoted above, their claim to Islamic legitimacy derives entirely from their 300 year old relationship with the Wahhabi cult. They and the Wahhabi 'ulema are locked in an embrace that has been until now utterly unbreakable because the general internal consent to their "kingship" is based altogether on the Al as-Saud's role as protectors of what has been seen among the Wahhabi masses as the only true form of Islam. They and the Al as-Sheikh family are a kind of moiety, a duopoly related by function and often marriage in the control of what became Saudi Arabia in the early 20th Century.
4. Saudi Arabia is a medieval state adorned with modern infrastructure. Their society never experienced anything like the Renaissance that brought Europe out of the medieval mindset. The Saudi rulers think the ideas of statehood that emerged following the Treaty of Westphalia to be a joke that the Europeans and Americans claim to believe in. They see the rest of the world, including non-Wahhabi Muslims as "the other," enemies to be thwarted, tricked ad exploited . The notion that they will be shamed by what Mister Bone Saw did is ludicrous.
5. IMO Trump, Pompeo et al are seeking a way to preserve the relationship of the US with this demoniacal relic of the medieval past. My WAG on this is that MBS and company will construct a suitable fall guy group from whom confessions will be extracted claiming them to be "rogues" and then the "conspirators" will be executed, probably in public.
6. The Al as-Saud will then wait to see if the West is mollified. IMO they will not accept any form of punishment for what they see as just retribution visited upon Khashoggi. If threatened they will try to retaliate.
For those who would actually wish to understand all this I would recommend "The Social Structure of Islam" by Reuben Levy and "The Venture of Islam" 4 vols. by Marshall Hodgson. Both these works are concerned with the high culture of Islam.
pl
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_ash-Sheikh
18 October 2018
The demise of Davos in the Desert - TTG
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin just announced he will not be attending the Future Investment Initiative Summit in Saudi Arabia next week. Obviously he didn’t decide this on his own. His announcement stated that this was done after consultation with Trump and Pompeo. Given that this “Davos in the Desert” summit is the brainchild of MbS, this official and personal snub by the Trump administration could be a sign of future sanctions… or it could be an effort to get through this crisis with the issuance of a wrist slap. A lot will depend on how MbS reacts. Judging by his reaction to a mean tweet by the Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister earlier this year, it would not surprise me if MbS goes ballistic over the collapse of his summit.
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Last summer, a standoff between Saudi Arabia and Canada gave us a window into how Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman deals with critics — but most of the world looked away. It started with two tweets. On Aug. 2, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland wrote on Twitter that she was alarmed by the detention of Samar Badawi, a Saudi human rights activist whose brother, Raif Badawi, was arrested in 2012. Raif Badawi’s family lives in Canada. The next day, Global Affairs Canada weighed in, urging Saudi authorities to release civil and women’s rights activists.
Saudi Arabia was not having it. In a blustery Aug. 6 tweetstorm, the country’s Foreign Ministry announced that it was recalling its ambassador to Canada and gave the Canadian ambassador to Saudi Arabia 24 hours to leave. The state airline said it would stop flying to Toronto. Saudi scholarship students were told to pack their bags. Trade and investment were frozen.
Pulling ambassadors and threatening to suspend investment was a “massive overreaction” and offered an important lesson, said Thomas Juneau, assistant professor of public and international affairs at the University of Ottawa. “The lesson was that MBS is reckless and completely overreacts to threats,” he added, using the crown prince’s nickname. (Washington Post)
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Trump and Pompeo are now pushing for more time for the Saudis to investigate the disappearance of Khashoggi, essentially stalling for time. I doubt Pompeo’s recent trip to Riyadh and Ankara was a search for the truth. It was a desperate effort to coordinate a way out of this mess and preserve the existing Saudi-US relationship. I’d like to know what Pompeo promised Erdogan in an effort to make this all go away. Was it enough? I doubt it. This situation is absolute gold for Erdogan’s dreams of a renewed Ottoman Empire.
How about MbS? Did Pompeo convince him to meekly accept whatever slap on the wrist is on the way? I doubt that as well. The Trump administration pretty much destroyed what was left of “Davos in the Desert.” If I had my family stationed in the Kingdom, I’d get them out right now and have my go bag within arm’s reach at all times. Without any degree of hyperbole, I predict MbS is about to get medieval on someone’s ass… someone beyond an aging expatriate reporter. The chessboard of the Middle East may be about to change dramatically. The result will be a lot of crying in Tel Aviv and Washington and a lot of smiling in Ankara and Tehran. And maybe an end to the needless dying and suffering in Yemen.
TTG
The killers are associated with MBS
"On October 16th, unnamed Turkish officials reportedly provided the Washington Post with scans of passports supposedly carried by seven men who were part of the 15-person team suspected in the disappearance and likely killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
The passports add to the public information provided by Turkish officials as it seeks to fill out gaps in the narrative of what purported after Khashoggi entered the Saudi consulate on October 2nd. The Washington Post published the passports, but obscured the names and faces of the suspects, because it reportedly had no time to verify the people’s identities.
Turkey maintains that Jamal had been killed and dismembered within the Saudi Arabian consulate. It also claims that a 15-man team dispatched from Saudi Arabia played a major role in the killing. One man from the group is the head of the medical forensics department in the Saudi ministry of interior.
Turkish officials also reportedly confirmed that the 15 names reported in the Daily Sabah are the actual names of the suspects." SF
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Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy. There is no constitution. There is no legislature. Instead, there is "consultation." There are no laws that are not royal whims or Wahhabi Hanbali Sharia. Ah, no, my bad! There is also 12er Sharia in the Eastern Province for the Shia second class subjects (not citizens) who live there.
Turkey clearly is intent on "outing"Saudi Arabia as the butchers who killed Khashoggi and cut up his body in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, thus preparing it for re-export to The Kingdom.
Why are the Turks doing this? IMO, the Erdogan government wants to establish itself as the leading power in the world Islamic community, the 'Umma. the Ottoman Sultan Caliph was effectively that in Sunni communities and Erdo seeks to "restore" Ottoman times.
Donald Trump has one hell of a problem, largely of his own and Jared's creation, but, to be fair, also the product of 70 years of IMO misguided US insistence that the Saudis were a normal, post Treaty of Westphalia country that thought of the US as an ally rather that an alien entity to be manipulated and deceived whenever possible.
The Turks evidently really have "the goods" on MBS who is effectiely both head of state and head of government in SA. IMO they will drive the evidence home with the world media seeking to force an acknowledgement of their position in the world by Trump. pl
16 October 2018
"Who needs Saudi Arabia?" Washpost editorial
"As for arms sales, someone needs to brief Mr. Trump on the actual results of the promises made to him when he visited Riyadh last year. As Bruce Riedel of the Brookings Institution sums it up, “The Saudis have not concluded a single major arms deal with Washington on Trump’s watch.” Moreover, an end to supplies of U.S. spare parts and technical support, something Russia cannot provide, would quickly ground the Saudi air force. That would have the welcome effect of ending a bloody bombing campaign in Yemen that a U.N. investigation concluded was probably responsible for war crimes." Washpost
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Once again, I am not a great fan of Bezos or his blog, but two days in a row they have printed something I can agree with. Something has changed for him.
It has become a meme in the blather that runs shrill and shallow in the US media, that Saudi Arabia is a faithful, and indispensable ally of the US in the ME. Bezos disputes this and so do I.
A few points:
Yes, they chop heads off after Friday prayers outside the local mosque. They also do hands and feet. They stone to death women found guilty of adultery. They sew them in bags before the men present throw handy five pound rocks at them. The government is deeply approving of this. Sound familiar? Yes, it should. The jihadis whom the Saudis sponsor in Syria do the same things. The Sunni jihadis are nearly defeated in Syria and it has become clear that the Saudi government has been evacuating their leaders, probably with US connivance, so that they can pursue greater visions of jihad elsewhere.
The importance of Saudi Arabia in the world oil market is IMO now much exaggerated. They can undoubtedly do some damage by manipulating the short term contract (spot) market but this is something they would pay for heavily. The Kingdom is cash strapped. It was not for nothing that MBS turned the Ritz Carlton in Riyadh into a prison for the wealthy including many of his own kin in order to squeeze and in some cases torture them into handing over a lot of their cash to the government. Depressed petro sales at artificial prices will only further reduce revenue to the government.
The notion that Saudi intelligence contributes much to the GWOT is a joke. Saudi intelligence competence is something that exists only in pitchmen's claims voiced by TV touts. In fact, they get almost everything they have from the US and are like greedy baby birds always looking to be fed. They cannot organize a trip to the gold plated toilet. It took 15 of them to ambush Khashoggi, well, OK, 14 of them and a doctor to carry the electric bone-saw.
We need to sell them more equipment that they cannot use? It does not appear to me that any of the contracts that they promised to DJT has been signed. Their technique is simple. Keep the hope of profit for the US alive as leverage.
Lastly, the chimera of a great Arab alliance (a la NATO) is delusory. The Saudis lack both the organizational ability for such a thing and significant military power. They possess one of the world's largest static displays of military equipment. They have neither the manpower nor the aptitude to use such equipment effectively. As I have written previously, the Gulf Arabs have long had such an alliance. It is the GCC and it has never amounted to anything except a venue for the Arab delight in meetings and blather.
The basis for the desire for such an alliance is the Israeli strategic objective of isolating Iran and its allies; Syria, Hizbullah and Hamas with an eventual hope of destroying the Iranian theocracy. Israel is frightened of a possible salvo of many thousands of missiles and rockets into Israel from Lebanon as well as an eventual successful creation of a missile deliverable nuclear weapon by the Iranians. These are real and credible threats for Israel, but not for FUKUS. Israel has only two really valuable counter-value targets; Haifa and Tel Aviv. A hit on one or both with a nuclear weapon would be the end of Israel. The Israelis know that.
Adroit information operations carried out over generations by the Israeli government and its supporters have created in the collective US mind an image of Iran as a disguised 3rd Reich. This was well done. The same operation was run against Iraq with magnificent results from the POV of Israel
Saudi Arabia is a worthless ally. pl
HARPER: RESTORING AMERICAN MANUFACTURING
On October 5, the White House released a 139-page report, "Assessing and Strengthening the Manufacturing and Defense Industrial Base and Supply Chain Resiliency of the United States." The report had been originally due to be completed in April, but the deadline was extended, due to the importance of the study and the involvement of the Defense Department, the Commerce Department, the Treasury Department and the White House in researching and writing it.
The report is unclassified (there is a Classified Action Plan which calls for a further Defense Department study on industrial base requirements for military force modernization) and is well-worth reading in its entirety. It is the most comprehensive assessment of the US manufacturing sector by the US Government in 65 years--since President Eisenhower conducted the Solarium Project to prepare for the Cold War. Needless to say, it is not a pretty picture. From 1979-2017, the country lost 7.1 million manufacturing jobs, with more than 5 million lost since 2000.
The report pinpoints many national security vulnerabilities as the result of the out-sourcing of our manufacturing base. Rare earth and other strategic materials vital to defense production, space research and high-tech manufacturing outside the defense sector are all imported. Many vital production facilities for the defense sector rely on one producer, or rely on firms that are facing bankruptcy. STEM education (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) are declining. Highly skilled workers are reaching retirement age, and firms are finding it nearly impossible to recruit and train younger replacements.
The report is a call to arms, for a revival of the nation's manufacturing sector, through improved STEM education, capital investment in choke points, and a launching of apprenticeship programs, to encourage young generation men and women to seek jobs in the manufacturing sector that can provide a middle class standard of living without the need for a four-year college degree and post-graduate degrees.
President Trump signed Executive Order 13806 on July 21, 2017, commissioning the study. It is a start to reviving the US industrial base, not as some Fortress America, but as a step towards reversing a policy of globalization and out-sourcing that has gone on for 40 years and has led to a hollowing out of our production. This will not end the existing globalized supply chain, but will provide a road map for specific actions which, over time, can restore US productivity. Coupled with the long-promised investment in infrastructure, it's a good starting point. Let's see how the Administration and Congress translate this study into actual policy.
15 October 2018
The jihadis reject any chance of peace in Syrua.
"On October 14, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra; HTS) released an official statement, in which it vowed to continue its “Jihad” [the Islamic term for holy war] against the Damascus government and refused to give up its arms or to ditch its foreign fighters.
“We will not deviate from the option of jihad and fighting as a way to achieve the goals of our blessed revolution, first and foremost to bring down the criminal regime, free the prisoners and secure the return of the displaced to their country … Our weapons are a safety valve for the Sham revolution,” HTS statement said.
The radical group added that it appreciates the efforts of everyone who worked to protect its areas in a clear hint to Turkey. However, it warned from the “maneuvers of the Russian occupier and from trusting its intentions.”
“All the attempts of the criminal regime and its allies will fail and will be defeated, just like every other occupier throughout history,” HTS stated." SF quoting HTS.
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HTS has conveniently set itself up for elimination in Idlib after the US mid-term election in early November. As I have said before I think there is a modicum of understanding between Trump personally and the Russian government. CIA communications to US Embassy Moscow would be a reliable means for that.There is nothing illegal about that. POTUS is constitutionally solely responsible for foreign affairs. The US Senate's role is limited to ratification of treaties, confirmation of ambassadors and such other background functions. IMO the Russians do not want to cause a flap in the US before the election. How helpful of them! When the election is pat, there will be opportunity to crush HTS into the grease spot on the M5 that it deserves to be. The jihadi persistence in shelling the western parts of Aleppo City is another matter. SAA action there can be expected. pl
13 October 2018
Did you sell yourself to murderers, daddy?
"“Why do you work for a murderer?”
Increasingly, it seems that is a question many Americans should be preparing themselves to answer.
Each year, Saudi Arabia employs, through consultants or otherwise, a host of retired American generals, diplomats, intelligence experts and others. Until now, they could assure themselves this was a win-win: lucrative for them, to be sure, but also enhancing mutual understanding with an important U.S. ally.
Now, as more and more evidence implicates Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, in the reported murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi on Saudi diplomatic property in Istanbul, the equation has changed.
So how might, say, a retired Air Force colonel explain his work when his daughter asks, “Daddy, why do you work for a murderer?”
“Well, it helps to pay your future college tuition,” he might answer. “And besides, I finally get to fly business class. Riyadh is no picnic, but they always spring for a couple of nights in a five-star hotel in London or Abu Dhabi on the way over and the way back. . . . And if I don’t do it, someone else will.”" Hiatt
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As H. Rap Brown would have said, "the chickens are coming home to roost."
Fred Hiatt is the neocon editorial page editor of Jeff Bezos' blog AKA the Washington Post. I seldom agree with anything that he and his henchpersons write but this time he has it right.
I never had anything to do with "The Kingdom" except in so far as it was an intelligence collection or analytic target of the US. I never worked in retirement for any company that did contract work for Saudi Arabia. That was a deliberate choice for me. I know the place well and it has ALWAYS been a sinkhole of medieval theocratic barbarism adorned with modern infrastructure that was constructed by foreign contract "slaves."
When I arrived in SA many years ago to be the military attaché in the US Embassy, I discovered that my five immediate predecessors were all retired from the US Army and working in SA for "big bucks." How could it be I thought that the chief US military intelligence officers in the embassy who had been Counselors of Embassy could be doing that? Simple, they had all been bought and paid for.
I did not follow that path. Throughout my tour of duty there I relentlessly told the story in my office's reporting of the military ineptitude of the Saudis and the corrupt practices common in the awarding of all foreign military sales contracts to The Kingdom. The goal of these hard money purchases from the US, the British, the French, etc. was always the same. It was the enrichment through "commissions" of all Saudi and foreign agents in the transactions. In the case of the foreigners the "pay off"was often made after retirement from government service.
I made this clear in my office's reporting, and the DIA of that time stood bravely behind me even as they were threatened by the "friends" of Saudi Arabia in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. I, personally, was threatened with career destruction by several seniors including the USAF major general who headed the US Military Training Mission (USMTM) established in country if I did not desist from exposing the situation. I did not desist.
It is nevertheless true that many, many retired senior military officers and diplomats have sold themselves either directly to Saudi enterprises in that country or to foreign companies which represent the House of Saud. Their contribution to the enabling of the spread of Wahhabi fanaticism throughout the world is immeasurable.
It should be noted that this enabling persisted under both Democratic and Republican Administrations.
I am sorry for the self-referential nature of this post but I felt I must speak out.
For shame! pl
“Enemy of the People” - TTG
Jamal Khashoggi went missing on 2 October after entering the Saudi Embassy in Ankara. His fiancee was left waiting outside the embassy entrance. That much is fact… and only that much. Turkish authorities, including Turkish Intelligence, believe Khashoggi was interrogated, tortured, murdered and dismembered by a Saudi assassination squad sent by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS). They say there is video and audio evidence of this. Pretty damning if true. The Saudis claim Khashoggi left the Embassy under his own power shortly after he entered. If that’s the case, where is he? Perhaps the Saudis snatched him and whisked him off to Riyadh. That's possible, but so is the grim prospect of a Saudi hit team torturing and dismembering an enemy of MbS. My gut tells me that’s exactly what happened.
But let’s put this in perspective. The Saudis have arrested maybe hundreds of their writers, journalists and clerics. The Saudis chop heads. They chop hands. They lock up and torture members of their own royal family. It's their nature. A lot of countries come down hard on their enemies. They even whack their enemies, including their own citizens. Obama whacked Anwar al-Awlaki with a drone. I bet that dismembered his ass. And the USG declared that a righteous kill. So, the torturing and dismembering of Khashoggi as horrible as it is (and it is horrendous), is not without precedent in the game of nations.
How did Khashoggi get on the wrong side of MbS? He was once a favorite of the Saudi royal family. In 2017, Khashoggi became disillusioned with MbS and his promises of reform and modernization. In September of that year, he announced his break with MbS in a piece for the Washington Post. He remained a vocal critic of MbS since then and recently broke with Saudi policy in Yemen. The final straw may have been Khashoggi’s work to launch an NGO, called Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), to boost democracy and human rights in the Arab world. The idea that this criticism and resistance was coming from a respected insider was too much for the notoriously thin-skinned MbS to stomach. Thus the fifteen man snatch/assassination team (with bone saw) was dispatched from Riyadh to Ankara.
Reactions to the disappearance of Khashoggi may threaten MbS's plans for an economic renaissance in the Kingdom. Richard Branson pulled back from two projects, a billion dollar investment in Virgin Galactic and a project to develop Red Sea tourism. Many CEOs have said they will pull out of MbS’s futuristic mega city project. A number of journalists and media CEOs have also pulled out of a major investment conference in Riyadh later this month. However Steve Mnuchin, Dina Powell and Thomas Barrack still plan on attending this event. This is in line with the Trump administration’s reaction to the Khashoggi affair.
Trump’s reaction can be summed up in this one quote from a recent White House photo op.
“ I will not be in favor of stopping a country from spending 110 billion dollars which is an all time record and letting Russia have that money and letting China have that money because all they have to do is say that’s okay we don’t have to buy it from Boeing. We don’t have to buy it from Lockheed. We don’t have to buy it from Raytheon and all these companies. We’ll buy it from Russia. We’ll buy it from China. So what good does that do us? There are all these other things we can do. Khashoggi is not a US citizen, is that right? He's a permanent resident, okay. We don’t like it. We don’t like it even a little bit, but as to whether we should stop 110 billion from being spent in this country, knowing they have four or five alternatives, two very good alternatives, that would not be acceptable to me."
This is what we should expect with a businessman as President, a laser focus on profit with no concern for other factors. MbS knows this and acts accordingly. This 110 billion arms deal is from Trump’s first overseas trip as President to Saudi Arabia back in May 2017. This deal is similar to Trump’s deal with Kim Jong Un to rid North Korea of nuclear weapons. Neither is likely to come to fruition anytime soon. Congress is in no mood to approve any more of those arms sales and seems to be willing to work in a bipartisan manner to ensure further deals do not go through. They also seem ready to halt support for the war in Yemen. We’ll see how that shakes out.
There is also the matter of optics for Trump. The relationship between the royal family and the Trump family is unnaturally close. There is still no US Ambassador in Riyadh. The relationship seems to flow directly through Jared Kushner and MbS. There are also sizable Saudi investments in various arms of the Trump Organization. To be fair, the royal family has done this with many US presidents. Look at Saudi investments in the both the Bushes and the Clintons.
I do not think Trump can wait out the Khashoggi affair until it fades from the headlines. The growing Congressional distaste for the war in Yemen will keep the pot stirred as will the Media for losing one of their own. Add to that the still unhealed wound of 9/11. Last March a US District Court judge in Manhattan ruled that 9/11 victims' lawsuits against Saudi Arabia under the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA) have standing and will go to trial. This is bad timing for MbS and the rest of the royal family.
I have long thought our relationship with the Saudis not to be in our best interests. My first assignment after being pulled into the Defense HUMINT headquarters was as the Regional Desk Officer for the Arabian Peninsula. After working for years against the Soviet and Russian target, I discovered what a hostile place the Peninsula was for people in my line of work. The Saudis are not our friends or even allies. It is as cold a transactional relationship as can be. I don’t want war. I don’t want the royal family to be violently overthrown. What may come out of that chaos could be far worse. But we shouldn’t be enabling them to the extent we have done so for decades.
TTG
12 October 2018
"An entertainment"
"Our Man in Havana is a 1959 British spy comedy film shot in CinemaScope, directed and produced by Carol Reed and starring Alec Guinness, Burl Ives, Maureen O'Hara, Ralph Richardson, Noël Coward and Ernie Kovacs.[2][3][4] The film is adapted from the 1958 novel Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene. The film takes the action of the novel and gives it a more comedic touch. The movie marks Reed's third collaboration with Greene" wiki
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Graham Greene called this novella and the screen play derived from it "an entertainment." It is certainly that. I suppose that money was the reason that it was filmed in Black and White but I can't imagine it in color. The richness of the material is such that color would be just too much, like an excess of sauce on a fine steak.
The cast is simply wonderful as is the direction. It is hard to pick and choose among the great dialog and acting but who could forget Captain Segura (Ernie Kovacs) answering a question with "No, Mister Wormold, you are not of the torturable class ..."
I mentioned to someone yesterday that when I ran Defense HUMINT I used episodes of "Reilly, ace of spies" as the basis for seminar discussions with new entry trainees. This was also true of "Our man in Havana." pl
11 October 2018
RUSSIAN FEDERATION SITREP 11 OCTOBER 2018 by Patrick Armstrong
WAR. I didn't notice this at the time, but it's effectively a declaration of war against Russia. I will be writing more but, in essence, the US State Department official responsible for Russia has given the game away. "It continues to be among the foremost national security interests of the United States to prevent the domination of the Eurasian landmass by hostile powers. The central aim of the administration’s foreign policy is to prepare our nation to confront this challenge by systematically strengthening the military, economic and political fundaments of American power." It's a Mackinder war; so far fought by sanctions (the economic fundament) and propaganda (political fundament). Ignore details of the latest accusations against Russia (Star Wars, organic food); they're only there because, unlike the Romans, the Americans are uncomfortable about their imperium unless they drizzle moralistic cant over it. But think about it: when American businessmen outsourced manufacturing to China, Beijing took advantage of the gift. NATO expansion destroyed better relations with Russia. Washington alienates the Iran that its failed wars make more influential. Its wooing of India isn't going well (see below). Destruction is its policy in MENA. And CAATSA will alienate everyone else. I call it a series of unforced errors.
SKRIPALMANIA. Has now been completely outsourced to Bellingcat. Which tells the discerning observer two things: 1) there is no evidence 2) the truth is probably the opposite. (And for those of you who take Bellingcat seriously: become discerning.)
LATEST. Do the Russians spy? They'd be fools not to. Do I believe this? Not from these sources.
THE CONSPIRACY. Bit by bit, slowly (far too slowly) the story comes out. A DNC/FBI/CIA conspiracy to discredit Trump. I just read Shattered where it is stated that the Russia story was invented as the excuse for failure: but the book establishes that defeat was the consequence of never being able to articulate a reason to vote for her, a disorganised campaign and not observing the dissatisfaction that Sanders and Trump (and Bill Clinton) perceived. The Russia stuff is 1) a distraction from failure, 2) a hook on which to hang Trump and 3) propaganda for the "Mackinder war".
RETURN. Moscow has been quietly trying to get some of its rich emigrés to return. Here's one interesting story. I am amused by the conceptual difficulties the authors have with his story: fear for his life or that his money will be lifted? Berezovskiy – and just after begging Putin to let him back, Perepilichniy, Glushkov, Golubev and Skripal and Litvenenko. Russian exiles don't last as long in the UK as elsewhere; maybe GRU hitmen only have maps of England. And remember the "Cyprus haircut".
LAUNCH FAILURE. The emergency system worked and both passengers landed safely. Videos.
BATTLEFIELD TESTING. "Russia’s Military Operation in Syria: Three Years On" is a round-up of all the weapons they have tested. A lot.
S300s. Have been delivered to Syria – video. 24 S300PM launchers and 300-plus missiles. They were formerly in Russian service until replaced by S400s and were handed over for free. Tough talk from Israel. An alternative opinion: an Israeli writer thanks Russia for "saying to Israel: Stop right there".
VICTIM OF RUSSIA. Says Volker. No, of Kiev. Americans do swallow whatever Kiev feeds them – remember Senator Imhofe and his photos of Russians invading through the Ukrainian mountains?
AMERICA-HYSTERICA. The Daily Beast has forgotten the first rule of decision-based evidence-making when it says there's no evidence of Russian interference in US midterms: after the decision, you create the evidence. If the Dems win, then the Russians didn't; if the Repubs win, they must have.
INDIA. Putin visited and business was conducted. Washington will not be happy: Delhi will buy Russian warships and S400s and oil from Iran. Some think Delhi has capitulated to Washington but I don't agree. I think it's doing what every wise middle power does: don't be drawn into anyone's orbit and avoid offending the mighty. Beijing's very successful strategy: “hide your ambitions and disguise your claws”.
CHEAP AND STUPID. More nuggets from the Stupidity Mine. The US Navy will blockade Russia (are there no atlases in Washington?). Syria "that flopping cadaver of a regime". Britain will defend the Arctic from Russian land grabs (atlas please). Destroy Russian missiles. They're so frustrated: other people they've demonised have gone (Aidid, Saddam, Milosevic....) but Putin goes on and on.
US BIOWEAPON LAB? Suggested by a former Georgian minister; reiterated by the Russian MoD; denied by everybody else. Some reporting and a discussion; you decide; I don't know, information wars go both ways. This story, however, does seem to be real.
© Patrick Armstrong Analysis, Canada Russia Observer
A Modest Proposal for the Future of Puerto Rico (humor)
Puerto Ricans are US citizens, free to move to the continental US (or Hawaii) any time they like. Once there they no longer have status as Puerto Ricans (except in their minds). In particular they are no longer exempt from paying US federal income tax.
Some Puerto Ricans, but not many, want independence from the US. What most want is a lot of federal money. The island is known in Spanish as "El Estado Asociado Libre de Puerto Rico," (Associated Free State of Puerto Rico). They have a separate Olympic Team and do their best to play the "Wise Latino" card in Latin America. Unfortunately, for them, they are not thought well of in Latin America, being considered a matriarchal society and lacking in machismo.
The woman mayor of San Juan and many other Puerto Ricans have complained bitterly about a lack of sufficient federal response post-hurricane on the island. The electric grid before Hurricane Maria was a ramshackle collection of bits and pieces in which public utility money had been re-purposed to other uses by the management and it took a long time to restore electricity across the island.
IMO the island should be sold to Canada, a country literally lacking a place in the sun. A great many Canadians experience the yearly embarrassment of being guest Snowbirds passing the winter among the Americans in South Florida. Possession of Puerto Rico would eliminate that necessity for sunshine starved people from the far north. San Juan would provide a warm weather port for the Canadian Navy and rum might become a major Canadian export product.
The Commonwealth is not a state and an act of the US Congress is all that would be required to transfer the island to Canada. A "good deal" sale price of around $1oo bucks, US, might be arranged if Canada accepts Puerto Rico's government debt with the island. The debt is substantial as a result of a long term inclination toward artistic improvisation with regard to public money.
Living people of Puerto Rican descent could retain US citizenship if they wish or they could become US/Canada dual nationals like me. Future generations of island residents would be wholly Canadian.
Canada prides itself on its supposed acceptance of one and all. This would be an opportunity to demonstrate that. pl
10 October 2018
Habakkuk on the roots of the Trans Atlantic cabals
On Herman, there is a useful interview he gave to the intelligence historian Michael Phythian in 2016. It can be read in a few minutes, and should I think give food for thought not simply to Brits but to Americans.
(See https://lra.le.ac.uk/bitstr... .)
Having found the ‘Intelligence Power in Peace and War’ book very instructive, but rather too ‘academic’ for my taste, I was reassured to see that part of the reason for this was that Herman had to be concerned to get it ‘cleared.’
Also of great interest is Herman’s contribution to the collective biography of Michael MccGwire in the 1998 symposium ‘Statecraft and Security’, edited by Ken Booth, which condenses a discussion of some crucial history and issues into a very lucid five pages. (The book can currently be bought online by Americans for less than $5, and the discussion is on pps. 93-8.)
Part of the reason his book was written is that, as the description of MccGwire’s contribution to British naval intelligence and the subsequent marginalisation of his ideas makes very clear, Herman thought that British intelligence as a whole had not been very successful in making sense of crucial areas where technical military analysis and political analysis are inextricably intertwined.
The continued relevance of these arguments has been made dispiritingly apparent over the past few years by claims by one Colonel Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, and the way that the British MSM has been prepared to accept him, and what he writes, at face value.
Formerly commanding officer of Britain’s Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) Regiment and Nato’s Rapid Reaction CBRN Battalion, and assistant director of Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance Land Forces, HdBG, as some of us who have been taking an interest in his activities have got used to calling him, retired from the Army in 2011.
Since then, he has emerged as a key figure in British ‘information operations’ in relation to CW, in Syria and elsewhere.
Continue reading "Habakkuk on the roots of the Trans Atlantic cabals" »
09 October 2018
HARPER: NIKKI FINDS THE DOOR
Good riddance to Nikki Haley, the soon-departed UN Ambassador. Ignore most of the speculation about her grand future plans to run for President or take Lindsey Graham's Senate seat if Trump dumps Jeff Sessions and replaces him with the South Carolina Senator. The simple explanation that often is the most sensible is that Haley's influence with the President had reached near zero. She was iced out by her ideological ally John Bolton and by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. She had no future inside the Trump Administration, having angered the President a few times and tried to grab the spotlight even more often. Trump's UN General Assembly performance was another point of upset for Haley--further indication how far outside the loop she had descended. It was just time to go. Smart move for someone as ambitious as she is. For some, New York City is Siberia when all the action is in the immediate vicinity of the Oval Office.
"Before Brett M. Kavanaugh, there was Stanley Matthews ..." Kristine Phillips at WP
"Before Brett M. Kavanaugh, there was Stanley Matthews, whose confirmation was so fraught and divisive that it took a second nomination to cement his place on the Supreme Court. President Rutherford B. Hayes, Matthews’s old friend from his home state of Ohio, selected him in 1881, but his nomination languished in the Senate Judiciary Committee without a vote. Newly elected President James A. Garfield promptly renominated Matthews, and the Senate confirmed him on a 24-23 vote — the narrowest margin in the Supreme Court’s history.
One-hundred and thirty-seven years later, another divided Senate would confirm Kavanaugh on a 50-48 vote. The parallelism between the two judges' contentious confirmation battles was first reported by the National Constitution Center, a Philadelphia-based nonprofit museum about the Constitution.
Like Kavanaugh’s, Matthews’s confirmation was condemned by some in the media. The Philadelphia Times said it was proof that a “moral dry-rot has taken hold of some of the public men of the country.”
“To see Stanley Matthews don the robe and go upon the bench will be the saddest thing yet witnessed by those who have watched with pain the gradual degradation of the bench,” the May 17, 1881, article said." Phillips for Washpost
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SWMBO states firmly that people who blather of "Never before ..." etc. are terminally ignorant.
IMO there is very little new that occurs in history. Gadgetry (technology) changes more and more rapidly) but Humans as a species, while they may be evolving, are doing so very slowly, both physically and socially.
Each generation believes it brings something radically new to the world but they are wrong in thinking that. I am 78. My generation was absolutely sure that we were riding a wave of human progress such as had never before occurred. We were not. I know quite a lot about human history and it has always been thus. pl
08 October 2018
"Upcoming Elections" By Richard Sale
Our judgments reveal who we really are.
An election is an occasion for ordinary people to endorse or reject certain political programs or personalities. If you belong to a political party, you have already given up a great deal of your intellectual independence, your self-ownership. Belonging to a party means that you have no choice but to endorse the party’s platform, many party members are hardly aware that that program was put in place by senior political figures who serve their own self-seeking agendas. I know a few close friends, one of whom is a former Colorado legislator, who have forsaken their own deep, personal convictions in order to submit to their leaders. (They tell of this without blushing.)
I don’t belong to a political party, (*) not because I think I’m superior to the rest of us, but because I abhor anything that drives us to think in unison, which is what a political party demands. Even in a group we retain our own individual view of life and our personal circumstances, but such things don’t seem to matter in an election. It is a sad fact that a political party thinks in a herd. A party by its nature ignores our temperament, moral character, intelligence, and education. The less educated a voter is, the more he or she is liable to be swept along with a leader’s rhetoric, the spate of clichés he or she utters, ignoring the knowledge and experience that enables a voter to cross examine what they are being told. Voters remind me of schools of minnows that veer one way only to suddenly veer in another. All of us are supposed to arrive at our conclusions by strenuous study, comparison, and dispassionate analysis, not mere association. Unanimity is the enemy of individual thought. An election assumes that we are all basically the same that every personality has an equal worth, and that reasonable people will do as they’re told by their leaders and endorse the majority.
But is the majority right?
Very often, it’s not.
Craig Murray: “The Holes in the Official Skripal Story”
"The nub of the British government’s approach has been the shocking willingness of the corporate and state media to parrot repeatedly the lie that the nerve agent was Russian made, even after Porton Down said they could not tell where it was made and the OPCW confirmed that finding. In fact, while the Soviet Union did develop the “novichok” class of nerve agents, the programme involved scientists from all over the Soviet Union, especially Ukraine, Armenia and Georgia, as I myself learnt when I visited the newly decommissioned Nukus testing facility in Uzbekistan in 2002.
Furthermore, it was the USA who decommissioned the facility and removed equipment back to the United States. At least two key scientists from the programme moved to the United States. Formulae for several novichok have been published for over a decade. The USA, UK and Iran have definitely synthesised a number of novichok formulae and almost certainly others have done so too. Dozens of states have the ability to produce novichok, as do many sophisticated non-state actors.
As for motive, the Russian motive might be revenge, but whether that really outweighs the international opprobrium incurred just ahead of the World Cup, in which so much prestige has been invested, is unclear." Craig Murray
https://southfront.org/craig-murray-the-holes-in-the-official-skripal-story/
07 October 2018
The mask slips off: Appointing judges is just as political as electing them
By Robert Willmann
On Friday, 5 October, the U.S. Senate voted on whether to end unlimited debate and the possibility of a filibuster on the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh, through a vote on "cloture", the gimmick allowing Senators to do a filibuster or stop one, without actually having to stand up and filibuster.
Shortly after Supreme Court Judge Anthony Kennedy announced on 27 June 2018 that he would be leaving the court, we discussed here on SST the fact that former president Obama, former Democratic Democratic majority leader Harry Reid, current minority "leader" Charles Schumer, and Senate Democrats muscled through a new "interpretation" of the Senate rules that allowed a vote on cloture to require only a simple majority instead of 60 votes, for federal district trial court and court of appeals judges, and other presidential appointees; but for supreme court nominees, 60 votes were still required at that time [1]. This allowed the Obama administration to push through nominees easier.
But when Donald Trump was elected president, the vacancy on the supreme court after the death of Antonin Scalia remained. Trump appointed Neil Gorsuch. A cloture vote was demanded to end debate on Gorsuch and to proceed to a final up or down vote. But the vote was not successful and did not get the required 60 votes. The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, then followed up on what he said when the Democrats changed the filibuster rule: "You'll regret this, and you may regret it a lot sooner than you think". He did what Harry Reid had done, and with the slight Republican majority, reinterpreted the Senate filibuster rule to remove the 60-vote requirement for supreme court nominees. The Democrats could hardly effectively protest, as they had unclean hands from their own prior actions. A second cloture vote was taken on Gorsuch, and it passed, since only a simple majority was required. On the subsequent final vote, he was confirmed. Had Obama et. al. not been greedy and arrogant, the monkey would have been on the back of the Republicans about changing the filibuster rule, and I think it is likely that McConnell would not have changed it. The dynamic in confirming supreme court justices appointed by Trump would have been dramatically different.
When the Kavanaugh nomination was made, the Democrats again did not think past the end of their noses, and tried to block him through a three act play with an accusation of sexual misconduct made by Christine Blasey Ford. Two more accusations then conveniently showed up, along with obviously coached "protesters". But with no real supporting evidence, the entire approach began publicly to implode on itself, and behind the scenes, enough votes were put together to confirm Kavanaugh's appointment.
Continue reading "The mask slips off: Appointing judges is just as political as electing them" »
06 October 2018
I look forward ...
... to the confirmation process for Trump's next SCOTUS nominees. pl
05 October 2018
The Draken Harald Hårfagre is in Washington, DC - TTG
The world's largest modern Viking ship and her international crew of thirty-five arrived at the District Wharf today as part of her North American tour. She will be in DC through 15 October with daily ship tours, a nearby Draken Village and cultural events hosted by the Royal Norwegian Embassy. I missed the port call of the Hōkūleʻa last year. I have no intention of missing the Draken Harald Hårfagre. Wooden Boat magazine had a pretty good write up a while back. I was in awe of the craftsmanship in her construction. I can hardly wait to rub my hands over her timbers and see the iron riveting up close. I want to talk to the crew about how she handles under sail. How close can she sail to the wind without much of a keel? I've been studying the construction and sailing mechanics of South Pacific shunting proas lately. There's a surprisingly large group of proa enthusiasts in Poland and Germany. Maybe I can strike up a discussion on this subject with one of the international crew members. This should be a fun visit to DC next week. Here's a description of the ship from the website.
***************
With great interest for sailing, boatbuilding and vikings the project to build and sail the greatest viking ship of modern times started. The curator of the project, Sigurd Aase, wanted this extraordinary ship to follow in the wake of one of the most challenging viking explorations – the Viking discovery of the New World. In March of 2010, construction began on what would be the largest Viking ship ever built in modern times. Named after Harald Hårfagre, the king who unified Norway into one kingdom, the great dragon ship came together in the town of Haugesund in Western Norway.
The Vikings left almost no record of how they built their ships, or how they sailed them. Draken Harald Hårfagre is a recreation of what the Vikings would call a “Great Ship”, built with archaeological knowledge of found ships, using old boatbuilding traditions and the legends of Viking ships from the Norse sagas.
Plank by plank, nail by nail, more than 10 000 of them, the ship was constructed by a band of experienced boat builders, historians, craftsmen and artists. 115 feet from stem to stern, 26 feet wide, 260 square meters of silk sail and a 79 feet tall mast made from Douglas fir. She is a seaworthy ship, able to sail the Oceans of the World. At a hundred and fourteen feet of crafted oak, twenty-seven feet on the beam, displacing eighty tons, and with a thirty-two hundred square foot sail, this magnificent ship is indeed worthy of a king.
Norway’s leading experts in traditional boat building and the square sail were engaged in the development and construction of the ship. The construction is an experimental archaeological research program, and the aim was to recreate a ship with the superb seaworthiness that characterized the ocean going long ships in the Viking Age.
TTG
Trump would have won either way.
The Democrat/Progressive/Neo-bolshevik coalition handed Trump a massive political gift in the way they conducted themselves in the Kavanaugh advise and consent process.
The Left succeeded in giving Trump material with which to whip his hard core supporters, and I suspect, a lot of Independents, into a white hot intention to "vote the bastids out."
Susan Collins the girl from Caribou, Maine and St. Lawrence University made what I consider to have been an historic speech today in justifying her vote tomorrow to confirm Kavanaugh. Slippery Joe Manchin of West Virginia then immediately announced that he, too, would vote for Kavanaugh, Trump carried WV by 40 odd points and only yesterday Manchin's opponent for re-election, had the advantage for the first rime in polling over Slippery Joe. But, then, I suppose his decision today had nothing to do with that.
Trump has three fully vetted future nominees standing in line for the day when God calls Ginsburg and/or Breyer home. Two of these potentials are women. The other is "a person of color." All are Appeals Court judges.
If Collins had not opted for Kavanaugh, Trump would have raised a cry of "You see what they did! I need more Republican members of both houses!"
Since Kavanaugh will evidently not be defeated, Trump will say "You see what they ALMOST did? I need more," etc.
Trump was in a win-win situation. Maybe it is the Leftist coalition who are the stupid people. PL
04 October 2018
Lockheed's concept moon lander
"Lockheed Martin has unveiled the designs for a reusable lander built to ferry four astronauts and 1.1 tons of cargo between lunar orbit and the surface of the moon. Leveraging tech from the aerospace giant's Orion spacecraft for deep-space missions, the 14-meter, single-stage vessel can camp for up to 14 days on the moon. Upon touchdown, the crew will use the craft's lift elevator platform to get from the cabin to the surface, before blasting back to their home base aboard the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway -- a small space station that NASA plans to start constructing in 2022.
With enough juice to last the full two weeks, refuelling would take place between missions, though the lander can also be powered up on the surface. The preliminary concept relies on four modified RL10 engines, but other engines could also be utilized.
Lockheed's vehicle would be be twice as tall as the Lunar Module used during the Apollo missions to the Moon nearly half a century ago, reports Ars Technica, which carried two astronauts for brief stints of just a few days. The company says it will also serve as a precursor for its Mars lander -- also built to carry four people -- which is integral to its Mars Base Camp orbiting mission." engadget.com
-----------
I wish I were younger. No. I wouldn't have made the cut for space travel. No good at math, I never was. If there were some nice hostile aliens to fight then I might have made the team.
Seriously, this is a marvelous concept machine. 14 days on the lunar surface, actual cargo carrying capacity, these are wonderful things to accomplish
Still waiting for the Alderson Drive, let's have another look at the theories of relativity. pl
https://www.engadget.com/2018/10/04/lockheed-martin-reusable-lunar-lander/
03 October 2018
BRIBERY (Patrick Armstrong)
A question and discussion for all you Americans. It occurred to me some time ago and I am struck with the fact that it doesn't seem to be raised by anyone.
When did it become unremarkable for American presidents to be come very very rich on retirement?
FDR was pretty well-off but there's nothing to suggest he became richer in the White House.
Truman retired and went home and lived on his pension.
Eisenhower ditto.
Johnson ditto.
Nixon ditto and wrote many real books (real as opposed to pseudo biographies)
Carter ditto.
Bush I and Bush II ditto.
But Clinton upon retirement made big bucks – several 100 million. I used to wonder why anyone would pay money to listen to Clinton give a speech on "what I would do if I became POTUS" until I realised that the speaking fees were post-bribes (and, as the husband of the next POTUS, pre-bribes.)
Obama's on the way to that kind of money.
Any comments?
02 October 2018
Our enduring presence” - TTG
Presidential candidate Trump promised to stay out of foreign wars. In April, the US president said the forces would leave Syria soon with the decision taken “very quickly” on how long they will remain there. “We’ll be coming out of Syria, like, very soon. Let the other people take care of it now,” he stated. On Sept.24, US National Security Adviser (NSA) John Bolton said the US would remain in Syria “until Iran leaves”. “We’re not going to leave as long as Iranian troops are outside Iranian borders, and that includes Iranian proxies and militias,” the NSA formulated the US position. According to Military Times, his statement was “signaling a fundamental shift from the current counter-terrorism operations to a mission focused more on geopolitical maneuvering and proxy warfare.”The source believes the White House has revealed a massive mission creep. It cited James Phillips, senior research fellow for Middle Eastern affairs at the Heritage Foundation, who said. “I would prefer to keep US troops there indefinitely, because they also serve a purpose in blocking Iran’s freedom of movement and access to lines of communication that would connect western Iraq with Lebanon.”
Earlier last month, the secretary of state’s Special Representative for Syria engagement James Jeffrey said that the US military could pursue an enduring presence in part to complicate Iranian activities in the country. According to him, the forces will remain beyond “the end of the year”.
Looks like they will stay much longer. Special Representative for Syria Engagement, Ambassador James Jeffrey, openly intervened into Syria’s internal affairs by threatening it with sanctions the US would impose if it Syria did not align its domestic laws with Washington’s instructions. According to him, the US would work with countries in Europe, Asia and the Middle East to impose tough international sanctions in circumvention of the UN Security Council if Syria’s government failed to cooperate on rewriting the country’s constitution as a prelude to elections. “We will make it our business to make life as miserable as possible for that flopping cadaver of a regime and let the Russians and Iranians, who made this mess, get out of it,” he warned.
It has been recently reported that the United States has set up a new military base near the Iraqi town of Al-Qa’im in Anbar province on the Iraqi-Syrian border. It is located near the strategic border crossing that links to the Syrian town of Abu Kamal. The US air defense and electronic radar systems in Kobani, the Aleppo governorate in northern Syria, and on the territory of the al-Shaddadi base in the Hasakah province. A no-fly zone could be established in northern Syria stretching from Manbij to Deir ez-Zor. The US will stay to prevent Iran from gaining access to the Mediterranean Sea. (by Arkady Savitsky in Strategic Culture)
************************
Yesterday morning Colonel Lang emailed me about an apparent US policy change for the worse in Syria. At his request, I planned on doing two pieces on the subject, the one I just posted on the situation at Tanf and a second one about the situation east of the Euphrates. However, this morning I found this piece in “Strategic Culture” by Arkady Savitsky that did a far better job at addressing this subject than I would have done. Please read Arkady’s entire article.
I will add two additional points. First, Erdogan has announced that his forces are preparing to secure the YPG-held territories in the al Raqqa, al Hasaka and Deir Ezzor governorates. How does that square with the US-planned enduring presence in those areas? Are we gearing up for a US-Turkey war for eastern Syria? My second point is that the Rojava Kurds are about to receive a right royal screwing. They pulled out of the talks with Damascus, probably under pressure of the US. That was a supremely boneheaded move by the Kurds. All they have to do is look at the fate of those who chose to take part in the reconciliation process. Former jihadis are being welcomed back to the fold. The Kurds would do at least that well if they stayed the course with the Damascus talks. Now they stand to be kicked in the teeth by the Turks and stabbed in the back by the US. Such promise. Such waste.Their choices exasperate me.
TTG
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/turkey-aims-to-control-ypg-held-territories-east-of-euphrates/
https://southfront.org/syria-foreign-minister-accuses-u-s-of-sabotaging-talks-with-kurds/
Showdown at Tanf - TTG
The reconciliation process initiated by the Russians in Syria has saved countless lives of soldiers, civilians and even jihadists. It also preserved SAA fighting strength, brought a lot of Syrian territory back under the control of Damascus. It brought former jihadists back into the fight on the side of the SAA. This process may appear to be tedious and without the glorious satisfaction of annihilating jihadis in a costly series of rapid offensives, but I firmly believe the reconciliation process is the right way for Syria. This strategy is now being brought to bear at Tanf.
The first evidence of this was the mid-September agreement for the removal of the US trained and backed al-Qaryatayn Martyrs Brigade and 5,000 civilians from the Rukban refugee camp to the Euphrates Shield-held area in northern Aleppo. This was the work of the Russian Reconciliation Center. More recently, tribal leaders from Damascus have met tribal leaders at the refugee camp to discuss their situation. A list of refugees wanting to engage in the reconciliation process is being prepared. Many of those not reconciling with Damascus will be shipped north to join the al-Qaryatayn Martyrs Brigade and their families. The camp evacuations are already be underway. Next week the Russians will escort a UN aid convoy into the Rukban Refugee Camp.
Although the US has apparently acquiesced to the Russian plan to depopulate the Rukban Refugee Camp, I believe Russia has cleverly outmaneuvered the US. The SAA is steadily destroying the remaining jihadis on the al-Safa plateau. I believe the US forces at Tanf will soon be left alone without jihadis to control or even any remaining jihadis to fight. The “fighting ISIS” rationale will disappear and the real reason for remaining at Tanf will become clear. At Israel’s behest, we are blocking the Teheran-Baghdad-Damascus highway.
TTG
https://southfront.org/us-backed-militant-group-in-al-tanaf-accepts-evacuation-agreement-report/
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