WORLD at WAR, OFFICIAL 2013 THREAD (Doom always only a moment away)

Don't forget Ansaru - those Nigerian baddies have been busy lately...

Anita Hunt did a Who's Who in Timbuktu that lists the principal players in Northern Mali - you need to read the Updates at bottom to get everything.

Here's Link - [link to lissnup.wordpress.com]

Yes - she's just a crazy lady in UK - but she knows half of Mauritania & half of Mauritania has a cousin in Mali...

Darby,
Thanks for the link...I'll have a look at it.
Our most dangerous and unpredictable cross border baddies of the day is Ansaru. We prevent kidnapping...they kidnap (especially French nationals)...see the nexus? Boko Haram are of specific interest in Nigeria although they seem to primarily attack churches, police stations, government buildings, although they do go after foreign national corporations that support their primary targets. We view things a little differently here, our scope is narrower than an interested observer. It sounds crass and uncaring, but I really couldn't care less if our intel tells us some group is going to attack some "poor innocent" village within our area of operations. Sure, I may pick up the phone and drop a dime in exchange for beefing up the favor bank and that is only if there is no chance of compromising a source. However, if we have a client in the area that could be compromised I will open the gates of hell to get his butt out right now. It's the groups that target foreign nationals and foreign held properties and corporations that we concern ourselves with.

Last Edited by Gerry52 on 02/21/2013 11:44 PM

Breedlove, sounds British.

Dang...a little attitude. LOL

no more than Franklin, Washington or Lincoln

I'm sorry, Dr. Swin, I meant Strangelove's familiar.

Hello all,
I saw this and wanted to know what you(everyone) thinks?


Pro-Obama think tank downplays regional threat of a nuclear Iran
[link to www.worldtribune.com]

probably the same think tank that downplayed the Japanese prior to Pearl Harbor too.....

Or like Connie Rice who didn't think anything was really that unsual.

No need to import yellow cake from Africa - Iran announces that it has discovered new domestic uranium deposits

[link to www.bbc.co.uk]

everytime I hear yellow cake I swear I see twinkies

Knowing that the communist party system in China is not a monolitic bloc, like in NK or in the former UDSSR.

The regions are loosly coupled to the center, giving the overall system elasticity and in case of problems, the center is not directly affected.

The glue holding all that together is the party, its ideas, national sentiments, the military and police, and social / cultural / educational indoctrinations.

The latter ones, are eroding, due to the internet and foreign companies implementing in China and people being able to travel.
A friend of mine is in China, working there as an ingenieur. They have a nice big appartment, women coming in to clean up and cook.
He says, that they are constantly being monitored and spied on, if they travel, people are going into the appartment and going out. They are monitored and watched.

The chinese communist party are occupied with the above latter point: that the glue is starting to crack.

I am hesitating to give a Mali update. This war is going to be long term and under the radar .... .

There are zones stretching from mali, nigeria, tschad and liby up until egypt, that are shadow zones, zones used by local criminals, hisbollah and iran arms trafficing, local muslim fanatics. It is a mixture of religious fanatism, local gangsters trying to make money and local groups in war with their respective government.

In a single phrase: a place where you never would want to put a foot.

But there are interests, one is that France is aligned historically with certain governments, others are more economically related, oil, gas, uranium, other arguments are, that things going on there have direct impact to what is showing up in the sinai.

Looks like north of Mali, in the south of Algeria there is a big stretch of mountains. There is water, caves, a heavenly place for people who need to hide.

French forces have entered this area. Since then Gao is under attack by suicide squats.
I can tell you, that there will not be any prisoners. No prisoners.

The US forces have a drone base in neighbour nigeria, which is in big extension.

This is not a battle, where you go in, win, and go out. This is going to be a long term shoot to kill mission.
The french foreign legion is there, not the regular army.

I think of birthday cake with sugary icing flowers - somehow I think uranium doesn't taste the same.

Haaretz reports Kerry plans to push for a peace agreement between Israel & PA before the end of Obama's second term.

Here are a couple excerpts from article -

...In internal discussions, American officials have also described the resumption of a diplomatic process with Palestinian leaders Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad as a "stopgap emergency measure" aimed at avoiding renewed violence, the collapse of the Palestinian Authority and a Hamas takeover of the West Bank. Preventing all three of those developments are viewed as critical not only for Israel but for the stability of Jordan and the international stature of the United States.

.,.With the expected Senate confirmation this week of former Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel's appointment as Secretary of Defense, the so-called "Quartet of Senators" - which includes Obama, Hagel, Kerry and Vice President Biden - will be established to navigate U.S. policy toward the Middle East. The four share the view that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is central to the future of the Middle East, but Kerry, it seems, is more convinced than the others that something can be done about it as well

[link to www.haaretz.com]

it's laughable, people ten times smarter than he is have tried and failed...but it'll be nice a nice change...he can't get swift boated there

House Intel Chair Mike Rogers Calls Chinese Cyber Attacks 'Unprecedented'

House Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Rogers, R-Mich., said it was "beyond a shadow of a doubt" that the Chinese government and military is behind growing cyber attacks against the United States, saying "we are losing" the war to prevent the attacks.

"They use their military and intelligence structure to steal intellectual property from American businesses, and European businesses, and Asian businesses, re-purpose it and then compete in the international market against the United States," Rogers said this morning on "This Week."

"It is unprecedented," Rogers added. "This has never happened in the history of the world, where one nation steals the intellectual property to re-purpose it - to illegally compete against the country…and I'll tell you, It is as bad as I've ever seen it and exponentially getting worse. Why? There's no consequence for it."

[link to news.yahoo.com]

Thanks Darby.

We have a problem, if we want it, or not, and I think we need to include it in our discussions.

Sorry Aton, new topic

There seems to be real concern that the Palestinian Authority may fall apart or that Israel may be looking at a 3rd Intifada. It started as a hunger strike. Then a prisoner died.

Here's the most recent Washington Post article -

[link to www.washingtonpost.com]

A few years back our company looked into providing cyber security to our clients. After roughly six months of research, interviews and meetings with government and private cyber security agencies we came to the conclusion that based upon the current attitudes and lack of money being thrown at the problem that we would lose the battle and we don't ever lose...Our job is to bridge,"It can never happen to us" with, "Were all going to die!" So, we have to chose our battles carefully. Unlike the government we must operate at a profit, so this is one of the times that I see a need for government to step in and throw huge amounts of cash and brain child treasure at the problem. We will never make the Chinese stop stealing our secrets, so, the only other choice is to protect them better. A friend that contracts with us on computer related tasks who has more PhD's than I can count has written a propriety based operating system utilizing rolling code, thus changing the operating systems codes hundreds of times per minute. He is at some time in the future going to market it to the govt to distribute it to companies involved in secret products marketed to our government. However, at this point he knows things aren't bad enough for anyone to buy his product, so he sits on it. The Chinese aren't the only folks stealing secrets and valuable information off our hard drives, the numbers are well into the thousands of hackers that are doing it for fun and profit or political reasons. No matter what our government says, they are still not treating the problem with the dedication required to bring it under control or at least make it somewhat manageable. A dirty little secret we in the industry know, is that we know, they know the computer triggers required to shut down huge swaths of our infrastructure. Why haven't they? I have no clue, maybe because by leaving everything alone they know they can continue to pick our cyber brains and there is nothing we can do about it...why kill the golden goose.

Walking the dogs tonight, I have come to sense the doom hanging high in the air this year. Much going on. Only one of the following is not true, you decide which it is.

Kerry will not achieve peace this year between the PA and Israel.

I will exit the military sometime this year.

I watched an Osama bin laden documentary last night and they said that Obama made the tough decision to hit the unknown hideout of some big Al Quaeda guy who was tall and stood alone, and thus he, Bibi believes, obama, will make the tough decision and hit Iran before Israel must act.

Iran has truly decided to finalize a nuclear bomb this year.

It is a full moon.

There will be no new matters or so called wars in the Middleeast this year.

I just find the whole prospect of John Kerry actually achieving middle east peace when so many others have tried and failed miserably laughable. If he had John Edwards with him he might have a shot...albeit a better shot of having Edwards get himself a few new mistresses more than anything

Nothing is going to happen until after Obama's visit to the ME. Then the shit hits the fan shortly after. Enjoy the next month of peace it may be our last.

Some say we may have to wait for the Iranian election too as the puppet masters there do not want war until after the election, but there is a strong argument that counters that for which Ahmadinejanut wishes to be the one to usher in Mahdi, so he wishes to push the envelope NOW!

MM, Gerry or anyone well versed with Iranian politics (for lack of a better word for what the Mullahs do there I suppose) Is there a possibility of a coup led by Ahmawhackjob and people in the IRGC that are loyal and share his views or do the Mullahs maintain the upper hand there? To me a coup and him taking over as dictator or whatever they wanna call it would be to me at least the last straw and the Israelis at the very least would have no choice but to hit em at that point.

Intelligent thoughts would be great on this...just spitballing here

MM I think you hit the nail on the noggin Amedinanut feels his whole mission in life is to usher in the 12th imam. I believe shtf before he leaves office.

I'm not so sure that while Obama is on the ground in Israel the Palestines won't attempt to disrupt his visit especially based upon recent accusations of torture, murder and mistreatment of prisoners in Israeli prisons. What do they have to lose? I know there are planners on his protection detail that are looking hard at vetoing the trip last minute. Could be interesting.

I just can't see anyone taking on the Mullahs, that would be tantamount to taking on their religion. Iran isn't there yet. In Iran even a small group of religious zealots will quickly drown out a group of social moderates as some of the young people wish to become. There are lots of folks in Iran that see the insanity of the situation, but don't dare say anything. They understand the consequences of joining a coup. The Mullahs are not known for dishing out humane sentences of punishment. I would think twice if I knew someone was going to hack off my head, in public, on film with a dull butter knife if I was caught.