Sunday, February 7, 2016

Saudi Arabia started the Oil War to neutralize Iran

 
As the expression goes, " all politics is local", and that truism might apply to many situations too long to describe here; in the case of the OPEC overproduction it is precisely why Saudi Arabia started this market move.


While American media is fixated on what happens to its companies, they have overlooked the wider more important reality of oil price and purchasing power. Of course the stated reason why OPEC increased production was to increase market share.

Saudi Arabia tried to stop the Iran nuclear deal. They even sounded like Israel in the hopes that Obama would relent. They didn't work. Obama wants a legacy and isn't responsible for protecting Saudi Arabia. Any longer. In fact, with all the illicit support of wahabism and radical Sunni terror, it's more likely this is Obama's payback of Saudi intransigence.



Iran gave up a nuclear program to sell more oil in the wider market which was known to the Saudis as the deal deadline approached.  They faced an 86-million population enemy (in comparison to their 26 million ) that could bring an enemy army right up to Saudi borders with the permission of Iraqi leadership and assault.  The rise of ISIS also gave Iranian hard-liners the justification to enter into Iraq in force should the battle go poorly.  And go poorly it did last summer when Saudi production stayed over demand and started the run on over supply.  ISIS came within 150 km of Baghdad which when you look at that in context of Saudi local politics is a big problem.

In fact, the slow nature of Iraqi counter-offensive against ISIS / da'esh - barely gained Ramadi by January- gives the Iranians more and more justification to pressure Baghdad to let them launch Revolutionary Guard divisions straight into Mosul. This is exactly why the Saudis are now changing their tune towards foreign army / coalitions in Iraq.  Now they are offering their army to go into Iraq not just to defeat ISIS but to make sure that they don't leave a way open for Iran to follow them back.

Better to fight them over there than in your home is also a truism. And Saudi would rather drawn down their wealth than risk arming Iran with more expensive modern weapons.

From an unconventional perspective, having IS operating in Sunni territory acted like a buffer zone to protect one flank from Shia invasion.  They were a resistance point against invasion. IS  united the local population there and neither party trusts Baghdad and would fight Iranian forces on sight.


This is why Saudi has been foot dragging on attacking fellow Sunnis they might need in a few months. Only when greater threats appear through inaction does the kingdom change it's strategy.

So yes, Saudi Arabia wanted to bankrupt shale oil explorers in the US with expensive production costs. The US media can bore you with the dull interpretation of average reporters and journalists trying to remain relevant but aren't willing to do the heavy lifting of assessing data in sum.

But in the local context take all the factors lying in front of you and presented poorly, and reconstruct them along the skeleton I have laid out - remember I was the first person to link the Russian jet bombing to ISIS before they even admitted it was payback to Russia for Syrian invasion.

Thursday, November 19, 2015

About time....

It seems that adversity does make strange bedfellows... what should have been done in 2014.

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

How CNN helps the terrorists: exciting threats and hysteria feeds the fear

Terror operations work on the principle of targetted violence backed up by propaganda; that small violent act gets lucky sooner or later against a small number of targets; which then gets amplified by the spread of fear in the form of propaganda.  That leads to an over-reaction by the larger, numerically-superior force that spends inordinate resources and effort to placate the population. That drives the larger force to play the terrorists' game without defeating them.

It's like fuel, oxygen, and heat cause fire. The oxydation chain reaction needs a perpetual  presence of all three elements to succeed. Cut one off and the fire dies.

With terrorism, you need violent acts, the spread of propaganda, and then an over-reaction in a chain reaction over and over again.

But how can you do that when the terror attacks are 10 months apart? People lose interest and go back to their lives. They forget to be terrorized. They stop feeding into hysteria. If you let it recede and people move on and the terror objective fails. So how does it succeed? Simple: CNN helps the terrorists.



How does CNN fit in?  Unwittingly, or perhaps ignoring that reality for personal gain, CNN and other media continue to pass on unfiltered, unrealistic, and unhelpful information over and over from the terror group into the mainstream communication stream into the minds of the larger force. They take unrealistic information at face-value without doing the homework to measure it's actual value.  They feed sensationalism because it gets eyeballs for viewership and TV ratings. Not for public good. For advertising dollars. That's the most cynical reason to perpetuate terror propaganda. I wouldn't go so far as to say they are two sides of a conspiracy but they feed one into another in a way that is not helpful to defeat the objective of terrorism.

When CNN doesn't measure one terrorist amongst 2 million Syrian refugees as a largely successful operation that's tainting reality. When CNN passes on threats against Washington without any measure, do they realize the terrorists would find it easier to attack Boston or New York now that the government is fixating on the political action rather than considering threats rationally?

When CNN pumps propaganda, it harms the real process. Governments are forced to waste effort countering threats that may not be realistic but are bolstered by inaccurate and uncritically vetted journalism that regurgitate the fear and mass produce it unto hysteria. The more they spew sensational fear, the worse it gets for the people planning to guard against terror. Can we blame politicians for knee-jerk political posturing based on civilian fear?

But does the media consider this factor of liability as much as they do lawsuits from companies for slander? For product defect reports? Should they be this cavalier with human lives by obfuscating security forces from the real purpose?

Saturday, October 31, 2015

Did daesh down Russian plane?

No technical reason Russian plane went down, no pilot warning, no emergency maneuvers...

Sounds suspiciously like revenge...

Update: the reason why daesh didn't claim responsibility is that they were hoping Russia would continue to attack the wrong groups in Syria and help daesh's objectives.

Monday, October 12, 2015

#Obama admits failure in Iraq and Afghanistan

#Obama's success metric when judging Putin propping up Syria's al-Assad:

"One of those players, Kroft points out, is Russia, which recently stepped up airstrikes and naval bombardments in support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. President Putin "is challenging your leadership, Mr. President," Kroft says.
#Obama disagrees. "Steve, I've got to tell you, if you think that running your economy into the ground and having to send troops in in order to prop up your only ally, is leadership, then we've got a different definition of leadership," he says."

So by his own metrics: Afghanistan and Iraq are failed expeditions. For those that didn't catch his subtle flaw; let me elaborate.

He's propping up this president in Afghanistan. And before him it was Karzai.

And #Obama is propping up this president in Iraq.  And before him it was al-Maliki.

So by Obama's own standards, these are failures too. It was only when Steve Kroft pushed Obama that this truth came out.

Saturday, October 10, 2015

Give the Kurds a homeland



If you want a natural counterbalance to the rise of Islamic extremism, then give Kurds what they want in northern Syria and Iraq.  Kurds want a homeland and they are willing to fight to keep extremist out.
There's the Wests' ground forces to exploit air power.

Friday, October 9, 2015

The Other Reason Putin is Attacking ISIS / Rebels

It's been reported by Western reporters the obvious reasons why Putin is on the march in Syria. Oil, European sanction lifting, his economy...

This one shows Putin took my advice and is trying to put a wedge between Europe and USA for his own benefit.  http://www.cnbc.com/2015/09/28/putins-moves-in-syria-may-be-linked-to-sanction-hopes.html

But the less reported reasons are perfectly plain if you look at Russian newspapers. In English.

They understand the power dynamic of Assad versus the other factions. But what they don't seem to see is that Arabs won't accept Assad.


First, Russians are just as horrified as the West about ISIS and it's brutality.
 The Russian people have not had 10 years of agony and war in the Middle East so their younger generation doesn't know what the USA is recovering from. Young people don't have memory. Russians don't like Islam and don't want to sit by while they gain strength.

What some people don't realize is that Putin is very much like Bush II, they both believe in the Wolfowitz Doctrine


Of course in Russia and Syria, they believe ISIS is a USA invention. 


But more importantly, Russia is afraid of attacks at home. 

According to Sotnikiv, terrorists may arrange terrorist attacks inside Russia as well.
"They could be terrorist attacks on train stations, or in any place, where they can find some kind of breach in security. They have a lot to choose from. Unfortunately, this is inevitable, because there are underground extremist groups in Russia too, and they will declare war on the Russian Federation under the pretext of helping brothers in Islam," the expert said.
"Terror attacks may occur in the near future - not only in the Caucasus, but also in Central Russia - anywhere in Russia," the expert told Pravda.Ru.
- See more at: http://english.pravda.ru/news/hotspots/02-10-2015/132226-russia_isis-0/#sthash.GpPjRAmn.dpuf
 "They will use any type of attacks, but this war has only just begun, and, like in any war, the enemy will fight back. There is definitely a serious threat to the Russian military. There will be attacks against Russia and then there will be more of them to follow," the expert told Pravda.Ru.

According to Sotnikiv, terrorists may arrange terrorist attacks inside Russia as well.

"They could be terrorist attacks on train stations, or in any place, where they can find some kind of breach in security. They have a lot to choose from. Unfortunately, this is inevitable, because there are underground extremist groups in Russia too, and they will declare war on the Russian Federation under the pretext of helping brothers in Islam," the expert said.

"Terror attacks may occur in the near future - not only in the Caucasus, but also in Central Russia - anywhere in Russia," the expert told Pravda.Ru.
"They will use any type of attacks, but this war has only just begun, and, like in any war, the enemy will fight back. There is definitely a serious threat to the Russian military. There will be attacks against Russia and then there will be more of them to follow," the expert told Pravda.Ru.
According to Sotnikiv, terrorists may arrange terrorist attacks inside Russia as well.
"They could be terrorist attacks on train stations, or in any place, where they can find some kind of breach in security. They have a lot to choose from. Unfortunately, this is inevitable, because there are underground extremist groups in Russia too, and they will declare war on the Russian Federation under the pretext of helping brothers in Islam," the expert said.
"Terror attacks may occur in the near future - not only in the Caucasus, but also in Central Russia - anywhere in Russia," the expert told Pravda.Ru.
- See more at: http://english.pravda.ru/news/hotspots/02-10-2015/132226-russia_isis-0/#sthash.GpPjRAmn.dpuf
 According to Sotnikiv, terrorists may arrange terrorist attacks inside Russia as well.
"They could be terrorist attacks on train stations, or in any place, where they can find some kind of breach in security. They have a lot to choose from. Unfortunately, this is inevitable, because there are underground extremist groups in Russia too, and they will declare war on the Russian Federation under the pretext of helping brothers in Islam," the expert said.
"Terror attacks may occur in the near future - not only in the Caucasus, but also in Central Russia - anywhere in Russia," the expert told Pravda.Ru.
- See more at: http://english.pravda.ru/news/hotspots/02-10-2015/132226-russia_isis-0/#sthash.GpPjRAmn.dpuf

http://english.pravda.ru/news/hotspots/02-10-2015/132226-russia_isis-0/