There Can Be Only One

There Can Be Only One
The Russian Bear Loosed ... Again
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet


Nature abhors a vacuum.  When the current leadership of the United States decided the US would no longer maintain its leadership position in the world, a momentary vacuum was created.  As of March 4th, that vacuum was filled.  Vladimir Putin has returned to the Kremlin.  (Geez.  Even the word "Kremlin" causes my heart to go cold and my skin to crawl.) 

The Russian bear, under the leadership of Vladimir Putin, is more than ready to take over the world leadership role from the United States.  That will mean that Mr. Obama can have the back seat he seems to crave so much.

If you are old enough to remember the Cold War, you certainly must be asking yourself if Putin's election as President of Russia means the kick-off of Cold War II.  The return to a bi-polar world could be just around the corner.

Putin has remarked that he sees the United States as a parasite on the world.  Now, that's not a very friendly thing to say, right?  Nevertheless, he said it, and, frankly, I believe he meant it.

Relations with Putin's Russia is going to get very complicated very fast.  Putin is known to long for the old Mother Russia and the gone -- but certainly not forgotten -- Soviet Union.  He'd like, very much, to reconstitute the old USSR.  And I expect he will attempt to, at least, recreate as much of it as he can.

Vladimir Putin

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Dealing with Putin is going to be tough -- very tough.  However, America is blessed with a President who is a "word man" and not an "action man."  I truly suspect Obama believes he can just overwhelm Putin with his soaring oratory and overcome him with just the weight of his WORDS.   As my British friends would say:  "Not Bloody Likely!"

Putin TALKS tough, and goes to great lengths to make sure he ACTS tough -- and is SEEN acting tough.  

Obama plays basketball and golf. 

See how perception can have such a tremendous effect on foreign policy and practically everything else a country does outside its own borders. 

Putin can, and will, make Obama's life much more complicated that it was before March 4th. 

Right at, or near, the top of the list of problems Obama is going to have with Putin is the U.S. plans for the missile defense system deployment in Europe.  Even before Putin walks into his old/new office, that missile defense problem is deadlocked.  At least it is deadlocked as long as Obama remains President of the United States. 

That may change in November -- if the US voters show Obama the door and place a stronger President in the Oval Office.  A new President may just say the heck with Russia and deploy the missile defense system and let the Russians howl all they want.

I suspect that, right off the bat, Putin will want to show off his Russian military might to the rest of the world.  Once again those Bear bombers will be bumping into US airspace off Alaska and they will most certainly be skirting our airspace along the eastern seaboard just as they did for decades during Cold War One. 

Look for Putin to scrape together another Russian Navy from the scrap heap of a navy he now has.  If he is able to keep his nuclear submarines from exploding, he might even be able to get one or two out to blue water -- before they sink or blow up. 

Never fear.  The Russians can be an industrious people.  It will not take long for them to rebuild their military and with the cash pouring in from their oil sales they will be able to afford it. 

Just think about it.  While the US is cutting back on the size of our military the Russians will be working like crazy to build their military UP --  bigger and better than that of the old Soviet Union.  That ought to make for some sweet dreams tonight -- especially for us old codgers who remember what it was like facing down the Russians/Soviets at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin about fifty years ago.   Americans and Soviets were eyeball to eyeball, toe to toe, both sides leaning forward ... waiting, just waiting -- for the Third World War to begin.   Believe me when I tell you -- I do not long for the return of those days and that kind of international stress and strife.

Putin is a man of few words ... far fewer than Obama.  And, unlike Obama, he does not employ nuance.  Nosiree.  He can say Nyet! (NO!) quite clearly and forcefully, thank you!   Putin is famous (or infamous) for being intractable.  When he DOES say "nyet" ... the negotiations are ended, period.

The US can certainly expect to have problems with Putin's government in the Middle East.  That is already clear.  We've learned, just this week, that Russian troops have been deployed to Syria.  The Russian Navy was been represented in Syrian waters for a while now.

What we are about to see, I believe, is a rebuilding of the Russian superpower under Putin.  There is simply no way that can be good for America.

What will be even worse for America is to have Obama reelected and have to watch as Putin chews him up and spits him out.


J. D. Longstreet

Israel Shouldn’t Ask Obama for “Permission”

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

Israel doesn’t trust the Obama Administration.  That is plain. Israel is right not to do so.

There is no love lost between Israel’s government and the Obama administration. 

Somehow, the Obama Administration seems to have the mistaken opinion that Israel is a satellite state of America.  It isn’t. 

When America’s government continues to fly  representatives of the US State Department and the Pentagon into Israel with dictatorial attitudes and demanding Israel do things the Obama way and even demanding that Israel ask permission from the Obama Administration before they mount a raid on Iran’s nuclear facilities, you’d better believe the Israeli government is PO’ed.  In fact there are reports that Israel has filed a “demarche” with the US.  A demarche is a formal protest.  It is rare between “friends.”

Israel should not ask permission or even alert Washington when they execute the raid on Iran.  That is the nature of a secret operation.  You tell no one – period.  You certainly do not tell a government you don’t trust to keep the secret.

It has been a while since America has had such an amateurish foreign policy team.  They bring to mind the “gang who couldn’t shoot straight.”

Israel is well advised to stir as clear of the US State Department as it possibly can. The Department of Defense, under the Obama Administration, is not much better.

Israel is the only friend America has in the Middle East and Obama is losing that friend.  At times, it seems intentional.   One would think Obama is seeking to make it clear to the Islamic nations in the region that Israel is on its own. In more ways than one, Obama has made it obvious that he favors the Islamic nations over Israel. 

One look at the Islamic nations of the Middle East today and you quickly see the entire region is in flames – except for Israel. So much for Obama’s favor.

America’s extremely vocal President, early on in his term in office, made the decision to talk to Iran.  Apparently he had convinced himself that his oratorical skills would just melt the Iranians and he, Obama, would be the “Great Peacemaker” in the Middle East.  Well, that worked our just swell, didn’t it? 

One of the first things you learn on the playground of grade school is that you cannot negotiate with bullies.  You have to overpower them, one way, or the other.  Oftimes that means meeting violence with violence.  Reluctance to actually use violence against a bully will certainly guarantee one’s submission to the bully.  Having said that, it is interesting to note that Islam means “submission.” 

The on-going sabotage efforts by Israel’s Mossad and America’s various spy agencies, have had limited success.  It should be understood that those efforts are not going to bring Iran’s march toward acquiring a nuclear bomb to a halt.  At best those efforts will only slow the program.  But the threat remains and is, in fact, growing.

It is extremely difficult for Americans to accept that the recent American bellicosity framed as “warnings” to Iran by the Obama Administration are sincere.   If Americans don’t believe them, then how on earth can we expect the Iranians to believe them?  Even US government experts have been reported as opining that when the balloon goes up, they simply do not know how Obama will react.

Obama is quickly running out of options.  The threatened oil embargo now appears to be useless when sympathizing countries promise Iran they will make up the difference.  The string is about to run out for Obama and his promises.

The final option is a military strike to cripple or destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities.  That strike will be carried out by the US, Israel, or both.

It would be wrong for America to stand on the sidelines and allow the destruction of Israel and maybe a few eastern European nations to boot – especially when it can be avoided.

America cannot afford to alienate Israel.  We need Israel just as they need us.

J. D. Longstreet

Russian Paranoia

Russian Paranoia

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

Ever since America booted Russia out of the northwest territory of America, Russia has had a chip on its shoulder… at least, as far as America is concerned.  We go through cycles with Russia in which Russia loves America for a while, and then Russia hates America for a while.  The cycle seems to continue ad infinitum.

The one thing Russian governments seem to respect is American strength. Every time America elects a weak President, Russia arches her back, raises her hackles, and begins to growl threateningly.  And that is exactly what Russia’s Putin is doing right now. 

For those of you not as old as I am, take my word for it when I say – we have seen it all before.  Russia is a “paper tiger.” 

The Russian people are insecure at best.  They crave a strong central government.  They have never really known what it is like to be free of an all-powerful government and they fear that left to their own devices -- to be free, in other words, they will falter and fail.  They don’t seem to grasp the idea that THAT risk is a part of freedom – the right to fail.

As a result, they are an easy lot to manipulate – and Mr. Putin is a past master at doing just that.

With Russian elections looming, Putin is warning that the Russian government needs more power. (Read Russian government as: “Putin.”) 

Putin is planning a return to the Kremlin in the March elections and HE wants more power. 

Recently Putin told the Duma:  "We are still facing very many uncertainty factors and risks. And in case of a storm, a gale, a crisis, it is very important for the entire team to work in a cohesive manner, for the boat not to capsize." (SOURCE)

Uh-huh.

Oh, Putin will get the powers he wants.  Who is going to stop the ex-KGB official?  

If reference to the opposition party in Russia, Putin has said they should go along with the party in power and “not rock the boat.” He said with Russia experiencing much the same kind of economic downturn as the rest of the world, the opposition party should support the party in power so the “boat” doesn’t capsize. Just this week he said:  "in these circumstances, the ruling party always expects the opposition to behave in a calm manner and not to rock the boat. But these are vain hopes.”  (SOURCE)

Putin went on to say:  "The opposition exists to make sure that the ruling party, the ruling authorities could hold on to the levers of power more strongly and prove to society the correctness of the country's development course." (SOURCE)

Say WHAT?

Putin sounds like a Chicago gangster exclaiming: “Hey! Sit down and shut up!  Me and my boys got this covered!”  And believe me – Al Capone’s gang couldn’t hold a candle to Putin’s alma mater … the KGB.

Putin has gone to great pains to demonstrate the differences between himself and our less than esteemed President Barack Obama.  He is playing on the average Russian’s paranoia concerning the “American threat.”  Putin struts across the Russian stage, shirtless, (At every opportunity.  What’s that about, anyway?) taking great pains to display his masculinity – as if there was some question about that.  Apparently, there is – or was. On a trip to Italy last year Putin is quoted as having said:  “Mr. Medvedev and I are people of a traditional orientation.” (Source)  Ooooo - Kkkkk.

Then, too, there is Mr. Medvedev threatening to target American missile shield sites installed in Eastern Europe -- or in adjacent waters.  Oh, puh-lease!  Those are d e f e n s i v e missiles emplacements.  There are a couple of rogue nations in Russia’s backyard (North Korea and Iran).  By this time next year, EITHER of them could lob a nuclear missile into Eastern Europe causing much death and destruction and touch off a worldwide nuclear conflagration.

The Russian government NEEDS America.  Putin and Medvedev need a foil, off which to play, in order to increase their grasp on power over the Russian people. So, they threaten to fire on our defensive missile sites and, too, they dispatch Russian warships into Syrian waters as another threat to America -- should America, or America-led NATO, decide to intervene in the slaughter in Syria.

Peter the Great had to drag Russia, kicking and screaming, into modernity.  But, honestly, I don’t think “ole Pete” would be happy to learn how his Russia has chosen to allow it’s fear, it’s insecurity, and it’s paranoia, to, again, segregate itself from the civilized world and slip back into the familiarity of it’s much loved primal darkness.

Russia is a disappointment to the world.

J. D. Longstreet

Is Israel Bluffing?

Is Israel Bluffing?



A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet


The world press is assuring us that Israel will strike Iran by Christmas. Hedging their bets, a bit, some proclaim: early in the New Year.

Now, while I am all for an Israeli strike on Iran to take out Iran’s nuclear facilities, I am troubled by all the extremely public saber rattling. It isn’t like the Israeli military to make a public show of military preparations for a raid.

Having read and consulted Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War” on numerous occasions, I can see the importance of keeping the enemy guessing and off balance by playing the world’s media like a Stradivarius. First class militaries, the world over, know one of the greatest weapons they have at their disposal is the near total ignorance of military maneuvering by the press. Call it misinformation or propaganda; the world’s premier armed forces spoon-feed it to the world press. That’s what I think is happening now.
Yes, Israel is going to strike Iran. I haven’t a clue when. And that is the way Israel wants it. In the meantime they have Iran’s nerves on edge and that gives Israel the advantage.

I remember a scrawny kid in my high school class. He was the bookworm of our class. Plus, he wore glasses. You just KNOW he caught the dickens, right? You’d be wrong. See, he earned the reputation of being that “crazy kid who would hurt you badly if you messed with him.” And that was true. He would attack, with the least provocation, his classmates, even his adult teachers, if he felt threatened. Only the unenlightened messed with him … and then only once. That kid spent a lot of time in the Principal’s office, and in the Superintendent’s office. Yet, somehow, he managed to graduate at, or near, the top of his class and win election as the student body president … and he dated some of the prettiest girls in his class.

Yes, I knew him very well. He was small – but he was determined not to be bullied – and -- he would HURT you! He didn’t give a darn whether you liked him, or not. But you would be very wrong not to respect him.

See, he learned to harness and channel that fears and his concerns and make them work to HIS advantage.

Normal human beings understand that a frightened human being is earth’s most dangerous animal. A cornered, frightened, animal (including human beings) will lash out and commit totally unexpected actions risking everything, including their lives, because they believe they have absolutely nothing to lose. Often they are successful in extricating themselves from harm simply because their behavior was unexpected.
Now. Refocus on Israel. Israel is small, arguably frightened, and -- Israel will most certainly hurt anyone suffering from the lack of common sense that would cause the wary to avoid a military confrontation with (some would argue) the second best military on earth.

But, then there are fanatics, all over the globe, blinded by religious zeal that are more than ready to sacrifice their lives to appease some god or other. They are the people who pose the greatest danger to all normal human beings on the earth. I have long accepted that when confronted with a man intent on giving his life in an effort to take mine, the kind thing to do is expedite his journey and send him on to his afterlife and allow him to sort it all out with his personal deity.

One must consider that Israel is confronted with this sort of paradise mania every day. For the most part, we here in the west have come late to this fray. Only in the past decade, or so, have we really come to understand the toll of living under conditions of constant threat. And we Americans STILL do not comprehend that Israel can lose its entire country, its very existence, in a single “lucky” blow from its enemies.

Iran intends to wipe Israel from the map. They have told us so in plain English. That was no threat. It was a statement of intent. Israel would be foolish to believe otherwise. And Israel is NOT foolish.

Iran with nuclear capabilities is a threat that cannot be tolerated by Israel. It ought not be tolerated by the European nations and the United States. But, unfortunately, we have a President who feels more at home with the weak-kneed European governments than with real warriors like the Israelis.

I am satisfied that Israel is going to attack Iran -- and soon. If things were, as they ought to be in Washington, DC, the United States would be flying alongside those Israeli aircraft dropping bunker-busting bombs on Iran’s underground nuclear facilities. One must remember that Iran has boasted that their first nuclear bomb is for Israel and their second nuclear bomb is intended for the United States. We Americans are under a nuclear threat from Iran just as the Israelis.

When we step back and look objectively at current events on this planet, it is easy to ascertain that Israel has a much better leader in Benjamin Netanyahu than the United States has in B. Hussein Obama. That is VERY clear.

I honestly think there is a streak of envy in Mr. Obama, envy over Mr. Netanyahu’s leadership capabilities. That would explain Obama’s public snubbing of Mr. Netanyahu.

The differences are so clear. Mr. Netanyahu, as a former Israeli Special Forces officer, understands that a leader leads from the front. Mr. Obama has PUBLICLY proclaimed his preference for leading from behind. The two men could not be MORE different.

While the leaders of these two nations are so different the peoples are more alike than different. Many Americans consider Israel something of an extension of the United States. We feel drawn to offer protection to Israel and we hate it when the US government fails to back Israel to the hilt.

If Israel is forced to go it alone against Iran, President Obama will most certainly feel it at the ballot box next year. That is a promise.

J. D. Longstreet

Protective Intelligence Lessons from an Ambush in Mexico

Protective Intelligence Lessons from an Ambush in Mexico
By Scott Stewart

On the afternoon of May 27, a convoy transporting a large number of heavily armed gunmen was ambushed on Mexican Highway 15 near Ruiz, Nayarit state, on Mexico’s Pacific coast. When authorities responded they found 28 dead gunmen and another four wounded, one of whom would later die, bringing the death toll to 29. This is a significant number of dead for one incident, even in Mexico.

According to Nayarit state Attorney General Oscar Herrera Lopez, the gunmen ambushed were members of Los Zetas, a Mexican drug cartel. Herrera noted that most of the victims were from Mexico’s Gulf coast, but there were also some Guatemalans mixed into the group, including one of the wounded survivors. While Los Zetas are predominately based on the Gulf coast, they have been working to provide armed support to allied groups, such as the Cartel Pacifico Sur (CPS), a faction of the former Beltran Leyva Organization that is currently battling the Sinaloa Federation and other cartels for control of the lucrative smuggling routes along the Pacific coast. In much the same way, Sinaloa is working with the Gulf cartel to go after Los Zetas in Mexico’s northeast while protecting and expanding its home turf. If the victims in the Ruiz ambush were Zetas, then the Sinaloa Federation was likely the organization that planned and executed this very successful ambush.

Photos from the scene show that the purported Zetas convoy consisted of several pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles (two of which were armored). The front right wheel on one of the armored vehicles, a Ford Expedition, had been completely blown off. With no evidence of a crater in the road indicating that the damage had been caused by a mine or improvised explosive device (IED), it would appear that the vehicle was struck and disabled by a well-placed shot from something like a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) or M72 LAW rocket, both of which have been seen in cartel arsenals. Photos also show at least one heavy-duty cattle-style truck with an open cargo compartment that appears to have been used as a troop transport. Many of the victims died in the vehicles they were traveling in, including a large group in the back of the cattle truck, indicating that they did not have time to react and dismount before being killed.

Unlike many other incidents we have examined, such as the ambush by CPS and Los Zetas against a Sinaloa Federation convoy on July 1, 2010, near Tubutama, Sonora state, the vehicles involved in this incident did not appear to bear any markings identifying them as belonging to any one cartel. In the Tubutama incident, the vehicles were all marked with large, highly visible “X”s on the front, back and side windows to denote that they were Sinaloa vehicles.

Most of the victims were wearing matching uniforms (what appear to be the current U.S. Marine Corps camouflage pattern) and black boots. Many also wore matching black ballistic vests and what appear to be U.S.-style Kevlar helmets painted black. From the photos, it appears that the victims were carrying a variety of AR-15-variant rifles. Despite the thousands of spent shell casings recovered from the scene, authorities reportedly found only six rifles and one pistol. This would seem to indicate that the ambush team swept the site and grabbed most of the weapons that may have been carried by the victims.

Guns may not have been the only things grabbed. A convoy of this size could have been dispatched by Los Zetas and CPS on a military raid into hostile Sinaloa territory, but there is also a possibility that the gunmen were guarding a significant shipment of CPS narcotics passing through hostile territory. If that was the case, the reason for the ambush may have been not only to kill the gunmen but also to steal a large shipment, which would hurt the CPS and could be resold by Sinaloa for a substantial profit.

Whether the objective of the ambush was simply to trap and kill a Zetas military team conducting a raid or to steal a high-value load of narcotics, a look at this incident from a protective intelligence point of view provides many lessons for security professionals operating in Mexico and elsewhere.

Lesson One: Size Isn’t Everything

Assuming that most of the 29 dead and three wounded gunmen were Zetas, and that most of the 14 vehicles recovered at the scene also belonged to the convoy that was attacked, it would appear that the group believed it was big enough to travel without being attacked. But, as the old saying goes, pride goeth before destruction.

In an environment where drug cartels can mass dozens of gunmen and arm them with powerful weapons like machine guns, .50-caliber sniper rifles, grenades and RPGs, there is no such thing as a force that is too big to be ambushed. And that is not even accounting for ambushes involving explosives. As evidenced by events in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, even convoys of heavily armored military vehicles can be ambushed using large IEDs and smaller, sophisticated explosive devices like explosively formed projectiles.

There are people in both the private and public sectors who cling to the erroneous assumption that the mere presence of armed bodyguards provides absolute security. But this is simply not true, and such a misconception often proves deadly. Indeed, there are very few protective details in all of Mexico that employ more than two dozen agents for a motorcade movement — most are smaller and less well-equipped than the Zetas force that was destroyed May 27. Most protective details do not wear heavy raid vests and Kevlar helmets. This means that government and private-sector protective details in Mexico cannot depend on their size alone to protect them from attack — especially if the attackers are given free rein to conduct surveillance and plan their ambush.

In an environment where the threat is so acute, security managers must rely on more than just big men carrying guns. The real counter to such a threat is a protective detail that practices a heightened state of situational awareness and employs a robust surveillance-detection/countersurveillance program coupled with careful route and schedule analysis.

Indeed, many people, including police and executive protection personnel, either lack or fail to employ good observation skills. These skills are every bit as important as marksmanship (if not more) but are rarely taught or put into practice. Additionally, even if a protection agent observes something unusual, in many cases there is no system in place to record these observations and no efficient way to communicate them or to compare them to the observations of others. There is often no process to investigate such observations in an attempt to determine if they are indicators of something sinister.

In order to provide effective security in such a high-threat environment, routes and traveling times must be varied, surveillance must be looked for and those conducting surveillance must not be afforded the opportunity to operate at will. In many cases it is also far more prudent to maintain a low profile and fade into the background rather than utilize a high-profile protective detail that screams “I have money.” Suspicious events must be catalogued and investigated. Emphasis must also be placed on attack recognition and driver training to provide every possibility of spotting a pending attack and avoiding it before it can be successfully launched. Proper training also includes immediate action drills in the event of an attack and practicing what to do in the event of an ambush.

Action is always faster than reaction. And even a highly skilled protection team can be defeated if the attacker gains the tactical element of surprise — especially if coupled with overwhelming firepower. If assailants are able to freely conduct surveillance and plan an attack, they can look for and exploit vulnerabilities, and this leads us to lesson two.

Lesson Two: Armored Vehicles Are Vulnerable

Armored vehicles are no guarantee of protection in and of themselves. In fact, like the presence of armed bodyguards, the use of armored vehicles can actually lead to a false sense of security if those using them do not employ the other measures noted above.

If assailants are given the opportunity to thoroughly assess the protective security program, they will plan ways to defeat the security measures in place, such as the use of an armored vehicle. If they choose to attack a heavy target like the Los Zetas convoy, they will do so with adequate resources to overcome those security measures. If there are protective agents, the attackers will plan to neutralize them first. If there is an armored vehicle, they will find ways to defeat the armor — something easily accomplished with the RPGs, LAW rockets and .50-caliber weapons found in the arsenals of Mexican cartels. The photographs and video of the armored Ford Excursion that was disabled by having its front right wheel blown off in the Ruiz ambush remind us of this. Even the run-flat tires installed on many armored vehicles will not do much good if the entire wheel has been blown off by an anti-tank weapon.

Armored vehicles are designed to protect occupants from an initial attack and to give them a chance to escape from the attack zone. It is important to remember that even the heaviest armored vehicles on the market do not provide a mobile safe-haven in which one can merely sit at the attack site and wait out an attack. If assailants know their target is using an armored vehicle, they will bring sufficient firepower to bear to achieve their goals. This means that if the driver freezes or allows his vehicle to somehow get trapped and does not “get off the X,” as the attack site is known in the protection business, the assailants can essentially do whatever they please.

It is also important to recognize that high-profile armored vehicles are valued by the cartels, and the types of vehicles usually armored generally tend to be the types of vehicles the cartels target for theft. This means that the vehicle you are riding in can make you a target for criminals.

While armored vehicles are valuable additions to the security toolbox, their utility is greatly reduced if they are not being operated by a properly trained driver. Good tactical driving skills, heightened situational awareness and attack recognition are the elements that permit a driver to get the vehicle off the X and to safety.

Lesson Three: Protect Your Schedule

Even for an organization as large and sophisticated as the Sinaloa Federation, planning and executing an operation like the Ruiz ambush took considerable time and thought. An ambush site needed to be selected and gunmen needed to be identified, assembled, armed, briefed and placed into position. Planning that type of major military operation also requires good, actionable intelligence. The planner needed to know the size of the Zetas convoy, the types of vehicles it had and its route and time of travel.

The fact that Los Zetas felt comfortable running that large a convoy in broad daylight demonstrates that they might have taken some precautionary measures, such as deploying scouts ahead of the convoy to spot checkpoints being maintained by Mexican authorities or a competing cartel. It is highly likely that they consulted with their compromised Mexican government sources in the area to make sure that they had the latest intelligence about the deployment of government forces along the route.

But the route of the Zetas convoy must have been betrayed in some way. This could have been due to a pattern they had established and maintained for such convoys, or perhaps even a human source inside the CPS, Los Zetas or the Mexican government. There was also an unconfirmed media report that Los Zetas may have had a base camp near the area where the ambush occurred. If that is true, and if the Sinaloa Federation learned the location of the camp, they could have planned the ambush accordingly — just as criminals can use the known location of a target’s home or office to plan an attack.

If an assailant has a protectee’s schedule, it not only helps in planning an attack but it also greatly reduces the need of the assailant to conduct surveillance — and potentially expose himself to detection. For security managers, this is a reminder not only that routes and times must be varied but that schedules must be carefully protected from compromise.

While the Ruiz ambush involved cartel-on-cartel violence, security managers in the private and public sectors would be well-served to heed the lessons outlined above to help protect their personnel who find themselves in the middle of Mexico’s cartel war.

By Scott Stewart

On the afternoon of May 27, a convoy transporting a large number of heavily armed gunmen was ambushed on Mexican Highway 15 near Ruiz, Nayarit state, on Mexico’s Pacific coast. When authorities responded they found 28 dead gunmen and another four wounded, one of whom would later die, bringing the death toll to 29. This is a significant number of dead for one incident, even in Mexico.

According to Nayarit state Attorney General Oscar Herrera Lopez, the gunmen ambushed were members of Los Zetas, a Mexican drug cartel. Herrera noted that most of the victims were from Mexico’s Gulf coast, but there were also some Guatemalans mixed into the group, including one of the wounded survivors. While Los Zetas are predominately based on the Gulf coast, they have been working to provide armed support to allied groups, such as the Cartel Pacifico Sur (CPS), a faction of the former Beltran Leyva Organization that is currently battling the Sinaloa Federation and other cartels for control of the lucrative smuggling routes along the Pacific coast. In much the same way, Sinaloa is working with the Gulf cartel to go after Los Zetas in Mexico’s northeast while protecting and expanding its home turf. If the victims in the Ruiz ambush were Zetas, then the Sinaloa Federation was likely the organization that planned and executed this very successful ambush.

Photos from the scene show that the purported Zetas convoy consisted of several pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles (two of which were armored). The front right wheel on one of the armored vehicles, a Ford Expedition, had been completely blown off. With no evidence of a crater in the road indicating that the damage had been caused by a mine or improvised explosive device (IED), it would appear that the vehicle was struck and disabled by a well-placed shot from something like a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) or M72 LAW rocket, both of which have been seen in cartel arsenals. Photos also show at least one heavy-duty cattle-style truck with an open cargo compartment that appears to have been used as a troop transport. Many of the victims died in the vehicles they were traveling in, including a large group in the back of the cattle truck, indicating that they did not have time to react and dismount before being killed.

Unlike many other incidents we have examined, such as the ambush by CPS and Los Zetas against a Sinaloa Federation convoy on July 1, 2010, near Tubutama, Sonora state, the vehicles involved in this incident did not appear to bear any markings identifying them as belonging to any one cartel. In the Tubutama incident, the vehicles were all marked with large, highly visible “X”s on the front, back and side windows to denote that they were Sinaloa vehicles.

Oil “subsidy” and “tax breaks” nonsense ... Paul Driessen

Oil “subsidy” and “tax breaks” nonsense

Think repealing oil industry tax incentives will increase federal revenues? Think again. 

Paul Driessen

President Obama frequently says Americans “need to end our $4 billion in annual taxpayer subsidies to oil companies.” The latest Democrat bill would have repealed some $2 billion of what Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) and others call “subsidies” and “special tax breaks” for Big Oil.

That’s baloney – shameless demagoguery that will inflict further damage on our struggling economy.

Subsidies are cash payments from government to the private sector. Money is taken from the 51% of Americans who still pay income taxes – and transferred by legislators and bureaucrats to companies and activities that “deserve” or “require” these wealth transfers, because the recipients perform an important service and/or could not remain in business unless subsidized with other people’s money (OPM).

The petroleum industry does not receive “subsidies” to produce oil and natural gas. It doesn’t even get “special tax breaks” or outright tax credits. What are falsely described in these terms are actually tax deductions for costs incurred by companies in the process of exploring, drilling, producing and refining the oil and natural gas that energize this nation’s economy and living standards.

These tax deductions are equivalent or similar to deductions claimed by every US business, large and small, for things like facilities depreciation, equipment, utilities, payroll, and research and development. They are intended to ensure that businesses, like individuals, recover their costs and get taxed only on their net incomes. For oil companies those deductions include:

* Geological and geophysical costs, for exploration to assess prospects prior to drilling;

* Intangible drilling costs – equipment, labor, fuel and supplies associated with drilling expensive wells;

* Expensing “tertiary injectants,” water and chemicals injected into older wells to keep them producing;

* Domestic manufacturer’s deductions of up to 6% of income earned from extracting oil and gas (farmers, manufacturers and other producers can deduct up to 9% of earned income);

* Percentage depletion allowance, allowing for gradual recovery of up-front investments in a petroleum (or iron, gold, limestone, et cetera) deposit that is gradually extracted and depleted. The allowance is not available to “integrated” companies that produce, refine and market oil.

White House, congressional and eco-activist claims that repealing these deductions will generate “billions in new revenues” reflect an abysmal grasp of basic business, economic and behavioral principles.

Thankfully, more Americans are beginning to understand that repealing any or all of these deductions will increase oil companies’ individual project and overall operating costs. That means future bonus bids will decline, wells won’t be drilled, fewer deposits will be profitable enough to develop, and wells and fields will be abandoned prematurely. Oil and gas will be left in the ground, crews will lose jobs, tax and royalty payments will dwindle, and the USA will send billions more overseas for imported oil.

Informed Americans also recognize that, in 2008, oil and natural gas provided 61% of the energy that powers America. Natural gas generates almost a quarter of our electricity. These fuels provided affordable energy 24/7/365, supported 9.2 million jobs, kept millions off welfare and food stamp rolls, and generated billions in revenue for federal, state and local governments.

Wind and solar combined accounted for barely 0.6% of total US energy, and 1.9% of electricity generation, in 2008 – providing expensive, intermittent, heavily subsidized energy 8/6/312 or less.

In subsidies per unit of energy actually produced, gas-fired electricity generation got 25 cents per megawatt-hour in 2007 subsidies; coal received 44 cents (mostly for clean technology research). By comparison, wind turbines got 23.4 dollars and photovoltaic solar received 24.3 dollars per MWh.

One project alone – the $2-billion Shepherds Flat wind farm in north-central Oregon will transfer $500 million in hard cash subsidies, plus a subsidized loan guarantee of $1.1 billion to White House friend Jeffrey Immelt, General Electric and their partners. These OPM subsidies equal 80% of the $2-billion in tax breaks that Senators Reid and Schumer are so exercised about. The contract was GE’s largest in FY 2009. (Ethanol subsidies totaled nearly $5 billion in 2010, more than double the senators’ target.)

Shepherds Flat will be the world’s largest wind farm: 338 gigantic 2.5 MW turbines, 97 miles of new roads and 167 miles of high voltage transmission lines sprawling across 32,000 to 83,000 acres (up to twice the size of Washington, DC) of the scenic Columbia River Gorge area. At best, the turbines may average one-third of the 2.5 MW stamped on their nameplates. At the whim of the winds, the farm will generate electricity at wild swings between zero and the turbines’ combined rated capacity of 845 MW.

That’s about one-quarter to one-half of what a single modern coal, gas or nuclear power plant generates 90-95% of the time, day after day, all year long … from a tiny fraction of the wind farm’s land area.

As is the case with Pacific Northwest hydroelectric, Four Corners coal and Arizona nuclear power, Shepherds Flat will supply electricity for Southern California, so that state can maintain its lifestyle, meet its lofty renewable energy goals and be “green,” by using energy generated in someone else’s backyard.

Building and installing the turbines will require some 1.5 million pounds of rare earth metals (from Mongolian areas devastated by mining and smelting the metals), plus at least 700,000,000 pounds of concrete, steel, copper and fiberglass … accompanied by the fossil fuel energy, pollution and CO2 associated with mining, smelting and manufacturing these materials. The turbines will impact scenery and wildlife habitats, and kill numerous bats, falcons, hawks, eagles, owls, egrets, herons, ducks and curlews.

However, environmentalists, legislators and regulators treat those impacts – as well as noise, human health, airspace, Defense Department and other concerns – very differently from the way they handle hydrocarbon projects. In their quest for “green” energy at any cost, they simply brush these issues aside.

Our taxpayer subsidies are financing all of this, and generating impressive profits for their recipients. GE, for instance, generated over $5 billion in US profits in 2010 – but paid no US income taxes.

Compare this to Big Oil companies, which likewise made big profits last year… but also paid big taxes. ExxonMobil, for example, earned $30.5 billion in profits in 2010, on revenues of $383 billion, and paid $1.6 billion in US income taxes. Its combined lease bonuses, rents, royalties, taxes and other payments to the US Treasury totaled almost $10 billion last year. The company also paid state and local levies.

Overall, a Tax Foundation analysis of Energy Information Agency data shows, the largest integrated oil companies paid $1.95 trillion in corporate income, severance, property, excise and sales taxes, between 1981 and 2008. During that time, those companies’ total combined profits (net of taxes and expenses, and after adjusting for inflation) were $1.4 trillion – or 40% less than they paid in total taxes.

The “green” agenda – to use mandates, subsidies, regulations and taxes to coerce a shift to “renewable” energy and “fundamentally transform” our energy, economic and social structure – is rationalized largely by fears of “dangerous manmade global warming.” It is deceptive, costly, environmentally harmful, and devoid of genuine scientific evidence to support its alarmist claims.

Europe’s catchy “20-20-20” climate action plan (20% renewable energy, 20% reduction in overall energy consumption, 20% cut in greenhouse gas emissions, by 2020) carries a minimum price tag of OPM $300 billion. It may reduce average global temperatures by 0.1 degree F (0.05 Celsius) by 2100 … assuming climate change is actually driven by carbon dioxide, rather than by multiple, complex natural forces.

Only mad dogs, environmentalists, liberal Democrats and RINOs would buy into such nonsense.

____________

Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow and Congress of Racial Equality, and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power - Black death.

The Middle East Mess ... Alan Caruba

 

The Middle East Mess

By Alan Caruba

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Anyone such as myself who lived through the long years of the Vietnam quagmire knows that the United States is repeating the same errors in the Middle East that we did with that nation. We seem incapable of recognizing a civil war when we see one and incapable of not inserting ourselves in the midst of it.

I speak specifically of Libya and the inchoate decisions and measures taken by the Obama administration. To suggest that the present White House and State Department have a Middle East “policy” is to vastly overstate and misunderstand their ignorance of that region of the world and the forces at work within it.

The United States has been militarily involved in Afghanistan since 2001, shortly after 9/11. What should have been a short sortie to inflict punishment on the al Qaeda and the Taliban has turned into a classic “quagmire”. The invasion of Iraq in 2003 reflects this as well.

Like many, I thought that the application of U.S. military intervention would somehow drag the Middle East into the 21st century, but clearly the region remains subject to the seventh century religion of Islam and its schism between the majority Sunnis and the minority Shiites. Islam, plus a tribalism that reaches back millennia, renders the Middle East intractable to the West’s efforts.

Billions have been squandered in Afghanistan and Iraq, while the real enemy, Iran, has been allowed to go unscathed in its pursuit of regional hegemony and its pursuit of nuclear parity with its “neighbors”, Pakistan, India, and Russia.

As this is written, Saudi Arabia has concluded that the United States will take no action to stop the Iranian nuclear program and is seeking to pull together a Gulf State coalition to end the expansionist ambitions of the Iranian ayatollahs. The Saudis have also consulted with Israel.

Forty years seems to be the limit that Middle Eastern populations will tolerate the various despots that have controlled Islamic nations. In Tunisia, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, Egypt and Syria those in charge have found themselves under siege and, in some cases, removed.

In two cases, Libya and Egypt, the Obama administration has openly sided with the rebels. At the same time, it has incomprehensibly offered a weak defense of Syria’s dictator, Bashar el-Assad, Iran’s strongest ally in the region. Sensing a shift in power, even Egypt’s new ruling body has reached out to Iran to thaw decades of antipathy.

The only consistent Middle Eastern policy of the Obama administration has been its hostility to Israel, the region’s only democracy and America’s traditional ally since its founding just over sixty years ago. For all the caterwauling about the Palestinians, they have long since been abandoned by the Arab nations and are now well within the Iranian orbit of influence and support.

The Palestinians could have had a separate state decades ago but have always pursued an all-or-nothing policy aimed at the destruction of Israel. It is widely believed that they will initiate a new war as Iran’s proxies, from Lebanon in the north and Gaza in the south.

The Palestinians, in fact, have a sovereign nation. It is called Jordan which lost the West Bank, part of ancient Israel, to modern Israel after attacking it in 1947-48 and 1967.

Iraq has made it clear to the United States that it wants to see American troops withdrawn as agreed by the end of the year. Its Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki recently ordered an attack on Camp Ashraf, home to 3,500 Iranian dissidents for the past twenty-six years. That should tell even the casual observer that Iraq is now in the Iranian orbit. This is true as well of Lebanon, first occupied by Syria for decades and now in the grip of the Palestinian Hezbollah.

As to the Iranian people, the Obama administration made it clear they have been abandoned after protests against Mamoud Ahmadinejad’s stolen election last year received no support whatever by a U.S.

America has severely weakened itself since 9/11 with ill-advised military excursions that, like the Vietnam debacle, have proven costly in treasure and lives sacrificed in an area that is resentful of our unwanted incursions, coupled with our addled “nation building” schemes.

There is a massive realignment occurring as the result of the popular uprisings against despots across the North African Maghreb and the heart of Middle Eastern nations, several of which were the artificial creations of Western interests. Resentments against the tyrannies of former despots will likely give way to new despots, not democratic reform.

There is no end to the resentment against America and the West.

Lacking any kind of cohesive policy toward Arab nations except for the oil they provide, the only sensible policy America should pursue would be to drill for our own extensive oil reserves to prevent a severe shock to our economy and security. So long as Obama is President, this will not happen.

There is no perceivable policy in place to stand against Iran and has not been since the Carter administration abandoned the Pahlavi regime in 1979. The fall of Tunisia’s Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, Egypt’s Mubarack, Syria’s Assad, and the resistance to Gadhafi, along with unrest in Yemen and Bahrain will be seen, in retrospect, as inevitable.

What remains is a Maghreb and Middle East in a volatile struggle to determine whether it returns to an Islamism reminiscent of the Ottoman Empire or an enlightened embrace of Western values.

There is little reason to hope for a good outcome.

© Alan Caruba, 2011
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Alan Caruba's commentaries are posted daily at "Warning Signs" his popular blog and thereafter on dozens of other websites and blogs. If you love to read, visit his monthly report on new books at Bookviews. To visit his Facebook page, click here For information on his professional skills, Caruba.com is the place to visit.

China and the End of the Deng Dynasty

By Matthew Gertken and Jennifer Richmond
Beijing has become noticeably more anxious than usual in recent months, launching one of the more high-profile security campaigns to suppress political dissent since the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989. Journalists, bloggers, artists, Christians and others have been arrested or have disappeared in a crackdown prompted by fears that foreign forces and domestic dissidents have hatched any number of “Jasmine” gatherings inspired by recent events in the Middle East. More remarkable than the small, foreign-coordinated protests, however, has been the state’s aggressive and erratic reaction to them.
Meanwhile, the Chinese economy has maintained a furious pace of credit-fueled growth despite authorities’ repeated claims of working to slow growth down to prevent excessive inflation and systemic financial risks. The government’s cautious approach to fighting inflation has emboldened local governments and state companies, which benefit from rapid growth. Yet the risk to socio-political stability posed by inflation, expected to peak in springtime, has provoked a gradually tougher stance. The government thus faces twin perils of economic overheating on one side and overcorrection on the other, either of which could trigger an outburst of social unrest — and both of which have led to increasingly erratic policymaking.
These security and economic challenges are taking place at a time when the transition from the so-called fourth generation of leaders to the fifth generation in 2012 is under way. The transition has heightened disagreements over economic policy and insecurities over social stability, further complicating attempts to coordinate effective policy. Yet something deeper is driving the Communist Party of China’s (CPC’s) anxiety and heavy-handed security measures: the need to transform the country’s entire economic model, which carries hazards that the Party fears will jeopardize its very legitimacy.

Deng’s Model

Former paramount leader Deng Xiaoping is well known for launching China’s emergence from Mao’s Cultural Revolution and inaugurating the rise of a modern, internationally oriented economic giant. Deng’s model rested on three pillars.

The first was economic pragmatism, allowing for capitalist-style incentives domestically and channels for international trade. Deng paved the way for a growth boom that would provide employment and put an end to the preceding decade of civil strife. The CPC’s legitimacy thus famously became linked to the country’s economic success rather than to ideological zeal and class warfare.

The second pillar was a foreign policy of cooperation. The lack of emphasis on political ideology opened space for international maneuver, with economic cooperation the basis for new relationships. This gave enormous impetus to the Sino-American detente Nixon and Mao initiated. In Deng’s words, China would maintain a low profile and avoid taking the lead. China would remain unobtrusive to befriend and do business with almost any country — as long as it recognized Beijing as the one and only China.

The third pillar was the primacy of the CPC’s system. Reform of the political system along the lines of Western countries could be envisioned, but in practice would be deferred. That the reform process in no way would be allowed to undermine Party supremacy was sealed after the mass protests at Tiananmen, which the military crushed after a dangerous intra-Party struggle. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and the People’s Armed Police would serve as Deng’s “Great Wall of steel” protecting the Party from insurrection.

For three decades, Deng’s model remained mostly intact. Though important modifications and shifts occurred, the general framework stands because Chinese-style capitalism and partnership with the United States have served the country well. Deng also secured his policy by establishing a succession plan: He was instrumental in setting up his immediate successor, Jiang Zemin, and Jiang’s successor, current President Hu Jintao.

Hu’s policies have not differed widely in practice from Deng’s. China’s response to the global economic crisis in 2008 revealed that Hu sought recourse to the same export- and investment-driven growth as his predecessors. Hu’s plans of boosting household consumption have failed, the economy is more off-balance than ever, and the interior remains badly in need of development. But along the general lines of Deng’s policy, the country has continued to grow and stay out of major conflict with the United States and others, and the Party has maintained indisputable control.

Emergent Challenges

Unprecedented challenges to Deng’s model have emerged in recent years. These are not challenges involving individuals; rather, they come from changes in the Chinese and international systems.

First, more clearly than ever, China’s economic model is in need of restructuring. Economic crisis and its aftermath in the developed world have caused a shortfall in foreign demand, and rising costs of labor and raw materials are eroding China’s comparative advantage even as its export sector and industries have built up extraordinary overcapacity.

Theoretically, the answer has been to boost household consumption and rebalance growth — the Hu administration’s policy — but this plan carries extreme hazards if aggressively pursued. If consumption cannot be generated quickly enough to pick up the slack — and it cannot within the decade period that China’s leaders envision — then growth will slow sharply and unemployment will rise. These would be serious threats to the CPC, the legitimacy of which rests on providing growth. Hence, the attempt at economic transition has hardly begun.

Not coincidentally, movements have arisen that seek to restore the Party’s legitimacy to a basis not of economics but of political power. Hu’s faction, rooted in the Chinese Communist Youth League (CCYL), has a doctrine of wealth redistribution and Party orientation. It is set to expand its control when the sixth generation of leaders arrives. This trend also exists on the other side of the factional divide. Bo Xilai, the popular Party chief in Chongqing, is a “princeling.” Princelings are the children of Communist revolutionaries, who often receive prized positions in state leadership, large state-owned enterprises and the military. This group is expected to gain the advantage in the core leadership after the 2012 transition. Bo made himself popular by striking down organized-crime leaders who had grown rich and powerful from new money and by bribing officials. Bo’s campaign of nostalgia for the Mao era, including singing revolutionary songs and launching a “Red microblog” on the Internet, has proved hugely popular. It also has added an unusual degree of public support to his bid for a spot on the Politburo Standing Committee in 2012. Both sides appeal to the inherent value of the Party, rather than its role as economic steward, for justification.

The second challenge to Deng’s legacy has arisen from the military’s growing self-confidence and confrontational attitude toward foreign rivals, a stance popular with an increasingly nationalist domestic audience. The foreign policy of inoffensiveness for the sake of commerce thus has been challenged from within. Vastly more dependent on foreign natural resources, and yet insecure over prices and vulnerability of supply lines, China has turned to the PLA to take a greater role in protecting its global interests, especially in the maritime realm. As a result, the PLA has become more forceful in driving its policies.

In recent years, China has pushed harder on territorial claims and more staunchly defended partners like North Korea, Iran, Pakistan and Myanmar. This trend, especially observable throughout 2010, has alarmed China’s neighbors and the United States. The PLA is not the only institution that seems increasingly bold. Chinese government officials and state companies have also caused worry among foreigners. But the military acting this way sends a particularly strong signal abroad.

And third, Deng’s avoidance of political reform may be becoming harder to maintain. The stark disparities in wealth and public services between social classes and regions have fueled dissatisfaction. Arbitrary power, selective enforcement of the law, official and corporate corruption, and other ills have gnawed at public content, giving rise to more and more frequent incidents and outbursts. The social fabric has been torn, and leaders fear that it could ignite with widespread unrest. Simultaneously, rising education, incomes and new forms of social organization like non-governmental organizations and the Internet have given rise to greater demands and new means of coordination among dissidents or opposition movements.

In this atmosphere, Premier Wen Jiabao has become outspoken, calling for the Party to pursue political reforms in keeping with economic reforms. Wen’s comments contain just enough ambiguity to suggest that he is promoting substantial change and diverging from the Party, though in fact he may intend them only to pacify people by preserving hope for changes in the unspecified future. Regardless, it is becoming harder for the Party to maintain economic development without addressing political grievances. Political changes seem necessary not only for the sake of pursuing oft-declared plans to unleash household consumption and domestic innovation and services, but also to ease social discontent. The Party realizes that reform is inevitable, but questions how to do it while retaining control. The possibility that the Party could split on the question of political reform, as happened in the 1980s, thus has re-emerged.

These new challenges to the Deng approach reveal a rising uncertainty in China about whether his solutions are adequate to secure the country’s future. Essentially, the rise of Maoist nostalgia, the princelings’ glorification of their Communist bloodline and the CCYL’s promotion of ideology and wealth redistribution imply a growing fear that the economic transition may fail, and that the Party therefore may need a more deeply layered security presence to control society at all levels and a more ideological basis for the legitimacy of its rule. Meanwhile, a more assertive military implies growing fears that a foreign policy of meekness and amiability is insufficient to protect China’s access to foreign trade from those who feel threatened by China’s rising power, such as Japan, India or the United States. Finally, a more strident premier in favor of political reform suggests fear that growing demands for political change will lead to upheaval unless they are addressed and alleviated.

Containing the Risks

These emerging trends have not become predominant yet. At this moment, Beijing is struggling to contain these challenges to the status quo within the same cycle of tightening and loosening control that has characterized the past three decades. Though the cycle is still recognizable, the fluctuations are widening — and the policy reactions are becoming more sudden and extreme.

The country is continuing to pursue the same path of economic development, even sacrificing more ambitious rebalancing to re-emphasize, in the 2011-15 Five-Year Plan, what are basically the traditional methods of growth. These include massive credit expansion fueling large-scale infrastructure expansion and technology upgrades for the export-oriented manufacturing sector, all provided for by transferring wealth from depositors to state-owned corporations and local governments. Modifications to the status quo have been slight, and radical transformation of the overall growth model has not yet borne fruit.

In 2011, China’s leaders also have signaled a swing away from last year’s foreign policy assertiveness. Hu and Obama met in Washington in January and declared a thaw in relations. Recently, Hu announced a “new security concept” for the region. He said that cooperation and peaceful negotiation remain official Chinese policy, and that China respects the “presence and interests” of outsiders in the region, a new and significant comment in light of the U.S. re-engagement with the region. The United States has approved China’s backpedaling, saying the Chinese navy has been less assertive this year than the last, and Washington has since toned down its own threats. China’s retreat is not permanent, and none of its neighbors have forgotten its more threatening side. But China has signaled an attempt to diminish tensions, as it has done in the past, to avoid provoking real trouble abroad (while focusing on troubles at home) for the time being.

Finally, the security crackdown under way since February — part of a longer trend of security tightening since at least 2008, but with remarkable new elements — shows that the state remains committed to Deng’s general deferral of political reform, choosing strict social control instead.

The Deng model thus has not yet been dismantled. But the new currents of military assertiveness, ideological zeal and demand for political reform have revealed not only differences in vision among the elite, but a rising concern among them for their positions ahead of the leadership transition. Sackings and promotions already are accelerating. Unorthodox trends suggest that leaders and institutions are hedging political bets to protect themselves, their interests and their cliques in case the economic transition goes wrong or foreigners take advantage of China’s vulnerabilities, or ideological division and social revolt threaten the Party. And this betrays deep uncertainties.

The Gravity of 2012

As the jockeying for power ahead of the 2012 transition has already begun in earnest, signs of vacillating and conflicting policy directives suggest that the regime is in a constant state of policy adjustment to try to avoid an extreme shift in one direction or another. Tensions are rising between leaders as they try to secure their positions without upsetting the balance and jeopardizing a smooth transfer of power. The government’s arrests of dissidents underline its fear of these growing tensions, as well as its sharp reactions to threats that could disrupt the transition or cause broader instability. Everything is in flux, and the cracks in the system are widening.

One major question is how long the Party will be able to maintain the current high level of vigilance without triggering a backlash. The government effectively has silenced critics deemed possible of fomenting a larger movement. The masses have yet to rally in significant numbers in a coordinated way that could threaten the state. But the regime has responded disproportionately to the organizational capabilities that the small Jasmine protests demonstrated, and has extended this magnified response to a number of otherwise-familiar spontaneous protests and incidents of unrest.

As security becomes more oppressive in the lead up to the transition — with any easing of control unlikely before then or even in the following year as the new government seeks to consolidate power — the heavy hand of the state runs the risk of provoking exactly the type of incident it hopes to prevent. Excessive brutality, or a high-profile mistake or incident that acts as a catalyst, could spark spontaneous domestic protests with the potential to spread.

Contrasting Deng’s situation with Hu’s is illuminating. When Deng sought to step down, his primary challenges were how to loosen economic control, how to create a foreign policy conducive to trade, and how to forestall democratic challenges to the regime. He also had to leverage his prestige in the military and Party to establish a reliable succession plan from Jiang to Hu that would set the country on a prosperous path.

As Hu seeks to step down, his challenges are to prevent economic overheating, counter any humiliating turn in foreign affairs such as greater U.S. pressure, and forestall unrest from economic left-behinds, migrants or other aggrieved groups. Hu cannot allow the Party (or his legacy) to be damaged by mass protests or economic collapse on his watch. Yet, like Jiang, he has to control the process without having Deng’s prestige among the military ranks and without a succession plan clad in Deng’s armor.

More challenging still, he has to do so without a solid succession plan. Hu is the last Chinese leader Deng directly appointed. It is not clear whether China’s next generation of leaders will augment Deng’s theory, or discard it. But it is clear that China is taking on a challenge much greater than a change in president or administration. It is an existential crisis, and the regime has few choices: continue delaying change even if it means a bigger catastrophe in the future; undertake wrenching economic and political reforms that might risk regime survival; or retrench and sacrifice the economy to maintain CPC rule and domestic security. China has already waded deep into a total economic transformation unlike anything since 1978, and at the greatest risk to the Party’s legitimacy since 1989. The emerging trends suggest a likely break from Deng’s position toward heavier state intervention in the economy, more contentious relationships with neighbors, and a Party that rules primarily through ideology and social control.

"China and the End of the Deng Dynasty is republished with permission of STRATFOR."

The Battle For Jerusalem Has Begun 

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

"You should know that the Zionist regime has reached the end of the line and no one can save this regime.”   Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a speech Thursday April 7^th, 2011. (SOURCE)

Earlier, on April 4^th, Ahmadinejad said: “A Mideast without Israel and America is now possible.” (Source)

American evangelical Christians are backing Israel now, more than ever, as they interpret Obama’s rejection of Israel as the fulfillment of Bible prophesy in reference to the so-called “end-times.”

In the Scriptures, as the huge armies gather from, in my opinion, Russia, China, and the Arab Nations to bring all their power to bear in a combined effort to destroy Israel, it becomes clear that the US will not intervene on Israel’s behalf.

The alignment of nations against Israel today is eerily like the alignment of the great nations from the North (Russia), from the East (China) and from the South (the Arab Nations) … in fact, EXACTLY as laid out in the scriptures.

(As Iran is backed by Russia, we have to add Iran to the Army from the North. Remember, too, the Iranians are not Arabs.  They are Persians.)

Students of Bible prophecy, observing the events unfolding in the Middle East today, are fairly trembling with anticipation. Observing the events they have studied for so long seem suddenly to be prophecy no longer -- but real world fact -- is sending shock waves of jubilation through certain denominations within the Christian faith.

Why?

Because their faith teaches that when they see these things happening -- then their “redemption is nigh.”  In other words, the Rapture of the Church is at hand. 

Look.  This is important stuff!  Whether you are Christian, or not, whether you are a believer, or not.  Whether you are Gentile or Jew, agnostic, atheist, or secularist, there can be no question that an event of earth shaking importance is about to happen in the Middle East.  In fact, I believe it has already begun.

In my opinion, it is sensible to believe that, at some point, Iran will attack Israel with nuclear weapons -- unless, of course, Israel takes Iran’s nuclear capability away. Israel has first AND second strike nuclear capabilities … NOW. 

The situation in the Middle East is so fluid that it is difficult to stay abreast of it on a daily basis.  There is one thing fairly certain.  That is that Iran is in there, somewhere, pulling the strings that will leave them in the catbird’s seat when things begin to settle down. 

The creation of an Islamic caliphate has been suggested as Iran’s motivation.  That is certainly a possibility but I think it is much simpler.  It is, I believe, a power grab by the mad mullahs and their puppet Ahmadinejad. 

Do not be so naive as to believe that Israel has been sitting in its bunker while all the surrounding Muslims have been clawing at each other’s eyes.  Israel has, quite possibly, the best intelligence service existing on the planet today… far better than either the US or British intelligence services. If anyone knows what Iran is up to, what all the fighting in the Arab countries surrounding them is REALLY about -- it is Israel’s Mossad.  And that intelligence is in the hands of Israel’s IDF and their Prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, himself, a former member of the Israeli Special Forces.

Looking past religion … take a look at the price of gasoline today.  Now, consider this:  When the Muslims turn their rage on Israel, there is every reason to believe that the US oil supply from the Middle East will be cut off –completely.  The Suez Canal will last … maybe… 48 hours, as will the Straits of Hormuz.  That means, what … eight or ten dollars a gallon gasoline?  We should be so lucky!

Now, I am not a theologian.  I’m not a prophet.  I’m not an “expert” on anything I am aware of … believe me.  I’d like to think I’m a fair “pamphleteer” …  and that’s about all.  But, I am aware of what’s going on round me.  I make a real effort to stay informed on current events … and I don’t mean the lives of movie and TV celebrities and/or royalty.

Too often I have had friends say to me, when I question them about current events:  “I don’t worry about that because there is nothing I can do about it, anyway.”  That cop-out won’t fly any longer. Do you realize that a virtual hand-full of Americans changed one half of the national legislative body of the United States last November?

By this coming fall, I expect we will see a strong push by the Obama Administration, in league with the UN, to force upon Israel a Palestinian state -- and in the process take away a portion of the city of Jerusalem in the deal.  Any fool can already see that such a move will only bring on war between the two states and Israel will conquer and take back that which is rightfully her’s and, I expect when the dust is finally settled, Israel will own ALL of the land God gave them … not just that sliver they hold today.

So. When is the Battle of Armageddon?  I have no idea. But this I do know:  Hung out to dry by the US and much of western Europe and the English speaking world, Israel will still have any ally. See. Like so many others of my generation – I have read the book – and I know how it ends.  Israel will win -- decisively!

Oh. Israel’s ally?  Just God.

J. D. Longstreet