Tag Archives: Yemen

The Iranian ploy

I saw the article (at https://www.newarab.com/news/houthis-threaten-riyadh-aerial-footage-key-airports) stating ‘Yemen’s Houthis threaten Saudi Arabia with aerial footage of key airports’, the New Arab with the text “The video, titled “Just try it”, contained images of King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah, King Fahd International Airport in Damman as well as the ports in Ras Tanura, Jizan and Jeddah” is a possible ploy. I do not doubt that the Houthi’s (with generous support from Iran) is adding a ploy of threats to their limited tactics. It is clear that Houthi forces can bring something to the table, but I believe that this is nothing more than a ploy. A ploy that could have teeth, but I do not have the required contacts or information to see how serious this is. We see an additional setting with “The threat to Saudi Arabia by the Houthis comes amid reports that the government and Houthis failed to strike a fresh prisoner exchange deal”, which is fun because this was a deal between Houthis and the legitimate Yemen government. So this is all about posturing, or is it?

You see, a few hours later I was given through Arab News (at https://arab.news/6p5tn) ‘Iran’s new president vows balance with all countries, warns US his country won’t be pressured’ where Iran apparently made the claim “He looks forward to engaging in constructive dialogue with European countries”, so there is the carrot. Iran needs Saudi Arabia in a holding pattern, whilst Iran ‘appeases’ European nations. So as I see it Houthi forces are still the barking dogs of Iran and Iran needs this, because their support of Hamas will have secondary contemplations by any nation thinking that talking with Iran is a good idea. It has not now or yesterday worked and it will not work tomorrow either. 

As Iran is hiding their hands behind terrorist organisations like Hamas or Houthi forces, we need to be weary that stability in the Middle East requires both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, they have the growing economies, the larger setting for tourism and the options of uniting Arab nations. The problem is that Iran is a problem. They are crying like little girls as they are denied a larger seat at the Arab table. The only small friend that Iran can rely on is Qatar and they have growing issues with Hamas. How that plays out is beyond me but in this setting we have Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Bahrain, Jordan, Oman and Iraq. They are all playing nice and as I see it, there is not to much love for Iran in this. Qatar is the one successful nation that has been playing a dangerous game, so what happens with them is up in the air. I reckon that the Houthi’s are set to the threat to Saudi Arabia. In this my feelings are that if one attack on a civilian target is done, the might of the Saudi forces will bluntly retaliate against Houthi forces. This has the one complication that Iran has to either commit or desert Houthi forces. This is the ploy as I see it. Iran cries loudly towards Europeans that they are so willing to discuss peace, but they are under the hammer. It will be something like that. So the Iranian ploy is unlikely to work. Europe has enough problems with Russia and Russia could be of little use to Iran. Russia has only one carrier left and they need it in their Ukrainian tactics. But this is about Iran. They are losing ‘useful’ friends a lot faster than they are happy with. It is in that setting that the Houthi threat is (as I personally see it) an Iranian tactic. 

They have to play nice with some people because they are about to learn the lesson Hector Malot taught us with ‘Sans Famille’ and Iran is rightfully worried. You see when the coins come down Iran will have to put up or shut up and they will lose a lot of face in the entire Middle East, sitting at a table where the stabilising points come from Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. That is why (my personal point of view) Iran need Houthi, Hamas and any other player that Iran can place in the field with deniability. It is why I said that whatever Palestine comes through, it will require the eradication of Hamas. Because it will be them who will terrorise the building projects in Saudi Arabia. 

So how can I prove any of this? Well the history of Iran is one. Their actions towards Houthi forces is another and the Iranian actions are right after the threats from Houthi forces. I feel that one ploy is enabling other actions. 

But for the most in this, I am merely speculating. So enjoy this Sunday.

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Spy Games

The first thought I had. An excellent movie with Brad Pitt and Robert Redford, yet what would you think when I told you it is now the BBC who engages this scenario? In comes the BBC (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-67945137) giving us ‘UAE has funded political assassinations in Yemen, BBC finds’. Finds? Found how? Is my initial feeling. I am not stating that the UAE is innocent, I cannot prove that, but can the BBC prove it? So here we get “Counter-terrorism training provided by American mercenaries to Emirati officers in Yemen has been used to train locals who can work under a lower profile – sparking a major uptick in political assassinations, a whistleblower told BBC Arabic Investigations.” So what mercenaries? Not stating that this wasn’t happening, but the question becomes who and to what degree. You see, the presumption linked to “sparking a major uptick in political assassinations” is nothing more than speculation and who is that whistleblower? This first stage has two speculations absent of evidence and all this is linked to American mercenaries? Not the best or most credible source. Wouldn’t you agree? The best we get is that mercenaries possibly trained Emirati officers in counter intelligence. That is quite the leap towards assassination. As I personally see, the better hit is done by the three drivers. Separation, Isolation and Assassination. Yet we can all agree that this isn’t always possible, yet Yemen has a better stage. Get a Houthi rifle (sniper rifle with silencer is best), pay a few kids to be ready to paint ‘traitor’ slogans on the targets house and in the early evening blow his head of and at that very precise moment get those kids to paint the slogans with the reward of cash and each a bag full of food for the family. Not much required for that, was it? 

Then we are given “The BBC has also found that despite the American mercenaries’ stated aim to eliminate the jihadist groups al-Qaeda and Islamic State (IS) in southern Yemen, in fact the UAE has gone on to recruit former al-Qaeda members for a security force it has created on the ground in Yemen to fight the Houthi rebel movement and other armed factions” in this, where is the evidence that “the UAE has gone on to recruit former al-Qaeda members”, what evidence is there? The press has very little credibility left. As I personally see it, at best, the UAE has a list of Houthi terrorists and spread a list around with ‘There people are wanted dead or alive’, the fact that alleged members of Al-Qaeda see that as a way to make money is beside the point. You see, what evidence is there to state that former members of any organisation are now part of a UAE security force? You see the issue is evidence and we aren’t seeing any. 

This goes on with “The killing spree in Yemen – more than 100 assassinations in a three-year period – is just one element of an ongoing bitter internecine conflict pitting several international powers against each other in the Middle East’s poorest country.” Now consider that the UN gives us “Over 150,000 people have been killed in Yemen, as well as estimates of more than 227,000 dead as a result of an ongoing famine and lack of healthcare facilities due to the war.” This implies that they are dealing with almost 380K kills from various reasons. So where are these 100+ assassinations? Where is the data? Where are the names? We don’t get any and in the first example I gave you, how can you see or prove that there was an assassination and not an execution by who gives a darn? We cannot get the west the acknowledge the Iran backed Houthis attacking Saudi civilian targets with drones and now they have a case of 100+ assassinations? I have some serious doubts here.

Then we see links to two other sources the BBC iPlayer (UK Only) that is not evidence, it is merely a BBC recruiting drive covered in a chocolaty spy story. Then we get more emotions and “Leaked drone footage of the first assassination mission gave me a starting point from which to investigate these mysterious killings. It was dated December 2015 and was traced to members of a private US security company called Spear Operations Group”, so who leaked the drone footage? Has the drone footage been verified as authentic? And suddenly out of the shrubberies comes the Spear Operations Group, so who are they? Apparently a Delaware outfit. And the source gives us a meeting in London 2020. Not dripping in any level of evidence. The other scenario is that a former Navy seal told a BBC person a spy story and he got paid for this. There is no verification on ANY level. There is a photo (anyones guess if that is a real person) with “He refused to talk about anyone who was on the “kill list” provided to Spear by the UAE – other than the target of their first mission: Ansaf Mayo, a Yemeni MP who is the leader of Islah in the southern port city of Aden”, so we will not get any facts, other then the mention that Ansaf Mayo was a target. All the news started spreading these tales 8 hours ago. In a few cases a few hours before the BBC told their story. I have some serious doubts. So who was Ansaf Mayo? The BBC article gives us nothing apart from the fact that he was an MP, so why was he killed? What evidence is there that he was assassinated? What evidence is there that who did that to this person? The list of doubts go up and it all reflects on a simple Spy game story, nowhere near good enough to be the stamped with ‘Approved by John le Carré’. Last we get to ‘investigators from the human rights group Reprieve’ with the text “They investigated 160 killings carried out in Yemen between 2015 and 2018. They said the majority happened from 2016 and only 23 of the 160 people killed had links to terrorism”, so where is their top line data? Consider that that areas had a rather large slice of 380K deaths (this list is a subset of that number) and a group with little to no visibility for the longest of time has any data on 160 people and only 23 had links to terrorism? More questions, especially as too many parties (including the UN) have been silent on Houthi terrorism, they blatantly kept silent to smear the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and this has been going on for years. The list goes on and on and this is the latest approach, now against the UAE. So what gives? The west angry that the UAE joined BRICS? They angry that the UAE is giving too much options to China? Your guess is as good as mine. I have no idea. I am merely questioning the validity of what the BBC is claiming here. I have my own version of these events, which I will not state, because it is pure speculation, I have no facts to support my version and I think that I have that in common with the BBC, we did not get to see any real evidence. Consider that if any of these sources were Iranian, or Iranian sympathisers the entire article collapses like a house of cards. 

Consider that as you start this Tuesday and I am about to enter Wednesday. A simple spy game story that isn’t worthy to sit on any shelf next to spy story masters like Le Carre, Ignatius, Herron, Greene or Deighton. It was a simple setting and I am rejecting what the BBC is telling us on the simple stage of missing evidence, missing verification and missing top line data in a stage where over 380,000 people were killed, finding 650 people (including children) that were assumed to be assassinated is extremely easy, the evidence was everything here and the BBC didn’t give us any.

Have fun today and that red dot on your chest? Pure imagination.

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A 28 month delay

Yes, that is how I see it and it all started by a story in the Naval News (at https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2024/01/red-sea-crisis-houthis-demonstrate-increased-capability-coalition-demonstrates-increased-presence/) they were not alone, but there I saw a quote that set me in motion. The quote that set it off was “The introduction of a one-way attack USV is of concern”, you see that was an incorrect statement. I made clear reference of this in ‘The Iranian play’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/08/30/the-iranian-play/) there I wrote “Yemen has no infrastructure for this, Iran is the only player willing to supply Houthi forces and that is the problem” I wrote this 28 months ago and in 28 months the Houthi forces never gained the ability to do so, they never had the option or (at that time) trained staff to do anything we saw. The west and others sat on their asses all whilst the problem evolved and ONLY now, now that the fat cats are losing margins in the red sea, NOW we see action. So how stupid was that to begin with?

Al Jazeera (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/1/10/us-uk-forces-shoot-down-21-drones-and-missiles-fired-by-houthis) gives us “No injuries or damage reported in what the US military said was the 26th attack by the Yemen-based group since November 19” as I personally see it, this is pushed by others, happy to use Houthi forces as cannon fodder, but the west remains ignorant and I personally believe it is an intentional form of ignorance. 

Who did anything to stop these drones from getting there in the first place? I can’t have been the only one seeing this 28 months ago? So who was drowning the proper investigations? Who was stopping the media from asking the right questions? Perhaps it was all for the digital dollar. I doubt it, I personally believe this was another setting towards destabilisation of the middle east. It is a personal view and I might be wrong, but ask yourself. Now we see what was clear that many months ago? Are the red sea margins that important to the west? Are margins all they care about or is all that only possible as the middle east stays destabilised? You tell me, I am honestly clueless on what the answer is. Yet when you consider how long these Houthi forces are receiving support in hardware and training all whilst the west has been unable to stop them? 

Now consider three of the least capable parties in all this CIA, MI-6 and DGSE and no one saw this? I will let you ponder all this as the news comes in. Yet consider The Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/10/britain-warns-severe-consequences-houthi-attack-red-sea-repelled) giving us “The Houthis, once seen as a minor localised military force, say the attacks are intended to force Israel to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza” all whilst I gave the lowdown 28 months ago and you tell me, who is doing a number of whom? 

Enjoy the moment when you are merely one day away from Friday.

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In other news

There is news we do not get to see, because it is (my  speculation) in the interest of the western media to not show the better side of Saudi Arabia. I wrote about this particular issue before. But yesterday (at https://www.arabnews.com/node/2431656/saudi-arabia) I saw ‘Saudi project clears 826 Houthi mines in Yemen in a week’. There we are given “A total of 426,090 mines have been cleared since the start of the initiative in 2018”. In addition, the article also gives us “A total of 426,090 mines have been cleared, this include 269,250 items of unexploded ordnance, 142,455 anti-tank mines, 7,943 improvised explosive devices, and 6,442 anti-personnel mines” the larger station here isn’t merely the numbers. It becomes “Where do Houthi forces get these 426,090 mines?” You see, they have no infrastructure to create or manufacture these mines. They also lack funds to acquire them. I still see Iran as the great evil here, but in this I admit that this is speculation bordering presumption. The western media steers clear of this, why is that? The second part is that 826 mines a eeek implies 118 mines a day, that is nothing short of miraculous. Especially if you consider what is involved with mine removal operations. As I personally see it Saudi aid agency KS relief and its managing director Ousama Algosaibi, is due some high Saudi award and the west better acknowledge this part of the equation. The western press is already disregarded as a reputable news source and it is not getting better for them any day soon. 

There are several sides of this event that the western media have ignored and they have ignored it for the longest of times. So how much longer until the media is regarded as nothing more than a courtesan for digital dollars? This event matters. Houthi forces, Iranian backed 

Houthi forces no less have made larger parts of Yemen unliveable. Up to 5 million have been forced to flee their homes and to a larger degree due to mines. That gives us 15% of the population. Now, not all are due to mines, but when you consider the numbers you will agree that the media is not merely shunning its tasks, it has become a joke on several sides of the reporting equation. As such wonder why Arab News is covering this event, more important why others are not. To see the removal of 118 mines a day 365 days a year and they have been doing this since 2018. That is the larger setting (that and where Houthis got that amount of funds in the first place). The KS relief teams have been putting their lives on the line for 5 years and someone needs to stop, pause and realise this. We see the United Nations cry like little babies calling the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia evil and they ignore this part of the equation? 

I will let you figure that part out. Enjoy this day today.

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A dangerous escalation

Before I go into the story, I need you to know something. Hamas is a terrorist organisation, no doubt about it. Governments and the United Nations are bending over backwards to avoid phrasing any sentence that combines Hamas and Terrorist. So I have been watching the ‘pro-Palestinian’ events. Too many are riddles with anti-semitics. And as some spokesperson from the United Nations, the simple looking broad with the saggy tits. I had enough. Israel has a right to defend themselves. Yet, I also agree with the actor Misha Collins, who on Twitter stated that what is happening now amounts to war crimes. I cannot disagree with him. Hamas is fully integrated in the west bank, into its populations. The hospitals (at least one) goes into tunnels with weapon caches. All issues. Now that you know that lets get into the article and the actual dangers that Israel is about to face. And Israel went bug-nuts, more then ever. I get the why, but the setting still stands. Israel is basically guilty of war crimes. I have no idea how they could have acted differently. Hamas killed around 1,200 people, most of them civilians and a large group of them children, people were kidnapped and taken into the west bank. Israel lost their cool and went nuts. 

The article (at https://ara.tv/6a4dp) gives us ‘Saudi Crown Prince calls on all countries to stop arms exports to Israel’. I get it Saudi Arabia is a Muslim nation, as such it will side with Muslims. Also on October 20th the BBC gave us “Prince Turki al-Faisal has publicly condemned both Hamas and Israel for attacking civilians” this matters to everyone. Hamas is now and will remain a terrorist organisation, even if the United Nations are in denial. The danger is seen with “Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman urged all nations during an extraordinary BRICS summit on Tuesday to cease weapon exports to Israel.” The title gave us the goods, but it is now a more dangerous setting. You see Saudi Arabia is now a stronger voice in BRICS, they have the money, they have the economic future and that has been enough of an incentive for all governments to react. As I see these useless United Nations, the people who would not clearly act against Houthi terrorists are now even more useless. And when Saudi Arabia gets the upper voice, the UN is mostly done for. 

This is no boast, no grandstanding. The last four events West Bank, Ukraine, Yemen and Syria. In all these matters the UN achieved almost nothing, mere grandstanding and the fuel for a gravy train. That is all the UN now amounts to. So as BRICS grows and there is absolutely zero doubt that this will not happen. All kinds of nations will want a piece of that for their economy. That deflates the UN, sets larger issues with the EU and as you have seen in America, too many voices are not merely against Ukraine, they are more and more pro Russian. That is the future we see coming on all channels but the media is making a populist mockery of it all. And now that things need to be achieved the Kingdom in Saudi Arabia is hugely placed to make it happen. It gets to be worse (or better for me) for that. I once wrote the (partial) script of ‘How to assassinate a politician’ that politician is now the largest person in the Dutch election. Geert Wilders, the anti-Muslim far right voice has the most votes. I might just offer my writing again to Al-Arabiya, Al Saudiya, or Dubai TV. The fact that Geert Wilders is about to become prime minister of the Netherlands might make my script worth a few pennies. 

Still the larger station for Israel changes. There could soon be a setting that the State of Israel will end up standing alone. When America and the Commonwealth need to choose their economies or Israel is not entirely unlikely. I have no idea how that will play out, but as the Ukrainian pressures play out, Russia will be in a new stage. Side with BRICS and Saudi Arabia and end up with the tick of NATO at their front door, or make sure that Europe diversifies. The danger for Israel is not complete, but it is growing and Hamas ends up with winning a war they should never have been allowed to win. Because the moment a terrorist organisation wins a war, we all lose, no exception to that setting. That much is certain and the media stands on its own shores, the one with digital dollars, the populist voice. Because flames get responses, get clicks and sets the populistic people on a typing rampage creating even more clicks. 

Enjoy the day. It is almost Friday for me.

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Is it too little, too late?

That is at times the question. What I think does not matter, I can be opinionated. Yet that part is still part of the speculative side that I walk. Only those who are in power in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia can actually state what is real. The rest including those think tanks are clueless. Well, think tanks have a deeper generic knowledge, as such it is no longer speculation, it is presumption. It is knowledge based on data and knowledge they have, it is more accurate than speculation, but how much more is depending on the political hands that they also feed. 

As such Reuters gave us (at https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/italy-ends-yemen-linked-embargo-arms-sales-saudi-arabia-2023-05-31/) ‘Italy ends Yemen-linked embargo on arms sales to Saudi Arabia’ this is good for Italy and it will help the EU, but how much? That remains to be seen. This 11th hour turnaround might have som impact, but will it be enough. For it to matter the UK needed to come across months ago and they didn’t and now China has the bulk of the orders ready for consideration. Italy as such might get some, but will it be enough and there the setting of ‘too little too late’ comes into play. Even as they include the UAE, the setting was always going to be the massive billions that the KSA had to spend and even as we consider that the KSA expenditure reached $75 billion last year, most of it is now going towards China. A safe bet is 40%-50%, but I reckon that China stands to gain up to 70%, all that revenue lost to the US, UK and the EU. The losses for these three are likely THAT big. Mine is not presumption, I do not have certain access. It is speculation at best, but how wrong do you think I am? We saw the courting by Chinese officials in 2021 and 2022 and now that they have made their impact Italy is now ending its embargo with a nice “praising Saudi Arabia’s recent peace mediation efforts”? Who are they kidding? The UK handed their revenue to the tea grannies of the CAAT, well a lot of good that did, China just took over and now none of them have anything to tell anyone. Well CAAT can state that they kept their heads high, so when OPEC adheres to the need of Just stop oil and 250K barrels a day go to China instead of the UK, what will have been achieved? I can tell you, nothing. Nothing will have been achieved, but the quality of life in the UK will go down further. 

We see now all kinds of changes and whilst the political arms give lame excuses all around us, the reality is that we opened our big mouths and there is a cost to that, but when the coffers are empty like most coffers in the US, the UK and most EU countries the cost of living will bite more and more. I tried to warn you all for at least three years and these options are all scuttled and they will not mature. So as Italy is making its step hoping there is some time left, I wonder if there was any time left. It is my speculative view that this is too little and it is way too late, but then my speculation could be wrong. You tell me, I honestly am not certain at present. 

Enjoy the day, the day before the weekend is merely one day away.

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The two coloured fence

It is always nice to see fences in books, images and within the mind. They usually have one colour and more often then not it is a white fence. This is what our mind perceives, yet what happens when the fence has two colours, each side it’s own colour and the neighbour has the other colour. Both unaware as they both see one colour. This was my mindset when I saw ‘Assad in Saudi Arabia reflects the Middle East’s new normal’ (at https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/05/22/assad-saudi-arabia-reflects-middle-easts-new-normal/) the issue here is that it is a decent version to hold, and it isn’t set to both neighbours, it is optionally seeing one side, not wrong, not at fault, it merely is. The thought sparked through when I saw “Assad, who experienced a rehabilitation arguably years in the making, but which was no less jarring for his critics and opponents. A decade ago, officials in the Gulf monarchies were conspiring on ways to oust Assad. They poured resources and arms into the civil war raging in Syria, backing a motley grouping of anti-Assad rebels. As Assad turned his guns on his own people, bombing Syrian cities and unleashing chemical weapons on civilians, they placed the regime in a deep freeze, casting it out of the Arab League” this happened, there is no denying it, so when we are given “British Syrian activist Razan Saffour told my colleagues, reflecting on the Syrian regime’s return to the Arab League. “Instead of holding Assad accountable for his heinous crimes … he is welcomed and even rewarded, as if the past 12 years of suffering and bloodshed never occurred,”” There is no denying this, but we all changed the circus of events. For the largest extent the west scuffled its feet, it jigged in place to avoid any actions in Yemen and Syria, even the chemical attack in Ghouta had no activity from anyone in the west. The Middle East is still reeling all over the place and Saudi Arabia with its own Ally USA who deserted them when they needed them the most had to change tactics. It cannot have a war on both fronts and the war in Ukraine opened up a new dialogue, uniting the Arab League nations, with Saudi Arabia strongly at the helm. With Syria it stands to get the side of Oman, Jordan and I believe Palestine, Egypt is already on the Saudi side and they pretty much deliver the dialogues with Algeria and Libya, Yemen is an unknown at present and the UAE should be a strong ally if Saudi Arabia brings a strong united front, but that is how I optionally (wrongly) see it. The more nations Saudi Arabia unites, the easier the other come along to the Saudi side. This now gives the west a much larger problem, because the trump cards Saudi Arabia holds is China and that is a massive part of the Middle East where China now gets a larger influence. There is then the larger benefit, it takes Russia out of the equation for all of them and that is what the league requires. Russia meddling is for them a problem and the Sudan has enough problems. The Middle East doesn’t need to be the clambake buffet that Russia serves. Saudi Arabia has larger plans and 2030 is merely kicking it off, it is not the destination for Saudi Arabia, it is only 6 years away and all this is coming to some kind of pinnacle (not sure what shape it ill take) but whenever it kicks off, the puzzle pieces will start to shape the image we will get. Egypt and it 5G alliance, the economic beachheads in Palestine and Syria pushing towards Jordan with the water investments, Saudi Arabia is shoring up all the borders of the Arab Leagues. You will see them as separate issues, but I am not certain. It is like watching a symphony unfold whilst the west watches the string section listening to its music, yet when you try to align the brass, woodwork and percussion, it doesn’t work yet. Why? I believe that they aren’t called to attention yet, when they do the entirety of the music will alter and to a decent degree, at that point the sections are all aligning to something more, something we haven’t heard anywhere before. The west was always about the diva’s, and they called their own form of attention drowning out the music. Here we see a different score, all about a symphony we weren’t ready for and that will alter the sound, because the stage is not merely assisted, it is a much larger front and the US blew its options. I reckon that Saudi Arabia is testing whether China could hold that place and that is the sum of the symphony we will get to see and I reckon that this starts in 2029 with the opening acts in 2030. 

Consider that I could be completely wrong, and my paraphrasing sounds nice, but it holds no water. Yet consider that Saudi Arabia has several trillions all over the league invested, we merely thought they had no connections, but I am not certain of that. You see, I always believed that Saudi Arabia will do what is best for ITS own nation and ITS own citizens, when that is accepted as true, then the investments change shape and we see that Iran and Yemen are merely disruptive sides, sides it cannot use and there Syria plays a second role. If Yemen and Iran are cast out when Russia does become desperate (it close to being that now) those nations feel the dangers of total chaos, Wagner made sure of that part of the brief. In this the war in the Ukraine opened doors for Saudi Arabia, it didn’t close them. This is how I see it, this is how I interpret the data, but then again I could be wrong, at present with all the IP and other settings I might say ‘There is a first time for anything’ I have ben right so far, even with my IP sides made public, in at least two cases the world is moving there and I can now sit and watch the unfolding of a few items. We all have to sit, watch and adjust our course. Every business does that, even when they leave billions on the floor. It is common sense to make sure that the mission and course are on track. A lesson I learned in the 90’s. I considered what was and I saw that it was short sighted, but I did not take into consideration the personal course of some, were merely on self focus, not on the company. As such I need to consider that as part of the course, not what is best for the company but what is best for the shareholders and the executives. I reckon the course of Governor Ron DeSantis is a perfect example. Whatever HE needs at the expense of nearly everyone in Florida. So whatever colour the fence has is whatever they think it needs to be, but there is the other side of the fence and when you see both colours you have a much better chance of seeing the whole playing field. It was never on the Washington Post, I merely noticed other elements and I personally believe that they were part of a bigger picture and it fits the timeline of 2030, but again, I could be wrong. 

Enjoy the day.

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The paper tiger

There is a tiger is the fields, the people aren’t afraid, they aren’t worried because the tiger is a paper one. That is the setting and it came to me from the Guardian. The article (at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/may/14/more-than-300000-syrian-civilians-died-any-attempt-to-rehabilitate-assad-is-utterly-shameful) gives us ‘More than 300,000 Syrian civilians died. Any attempt to rehabilitate Assad is utterly shameful’, is that so? Well, it is a point of view, and Simon Tisdall is not completely wrong, actually he sort of is. I cannot fault him for anything but the reality is a lot less appealing and that is the problem, the less appealing truth behind this. You see no one ever cared about Syria. The west did not because Syria has no economic value, it has no oil, just like Yemen. And for all intents and purposes America is already broke and the EU and Japan are right next to America in this. So whilst we saw the Ghouta chemical attack and we saw the news of what happened on 21 August 2013, almost 10 years ago now. Was something done? A week later investigators looked around and The UN investigation team confirmed “clear and convincing evidence” of the use of sarin delivered by surface-to-surface rockets. Nothing was done. That is the reality and we need to take notice. You see at present Syria is one step away from becoming a Russian satellite state. Now with the Arab League back in the fold they will get some of the rebuilding revenue and it will not all go to Russia, I reckon a better setting. So even as I understand the setting of Simon, making Syria a pariah is a lot worse and that goes nowhere. In addition to all this is that the Yemen side is there too, nothing was done by any of us, only now that the Ukraine is under attack things are done, not enough and not fast enough, but something is done. Basically the world did 100% more in the case of the Ukraine then it did in case of Syria or Yemen. I feel that the west is only acting because the Ukraine with its 21st largest army was able to stop Russia with one of the three largest armies in the world and the losses are adding up for Russia

And these numbers are staggering that the Ukraine with the army and hardware they had were able to pull this off and now the west is starting to become aware that there is no aftermath for them. Germany had been for the longest time been pussyfooting on hardware delivery, only to see that Pro-Russian politicians in Germany were stoping this. American politicians were no better here. In Florida we get “Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla, a leader of a small but vocal wing of isolationist Republicans in the House, has introduced a “Ukraine Fatigue” resolution seeking to end “military and financial aid” to Ukraine.” And he is not alone in the US. America has (in my humble opinion) become a collection of pussies that were nice when they were nothing more than rich bullies, but that is now over, the wealth is gone and as such the field of superpowers is changing. It will soon evolve into a new setting with China (the force), Saudi Arabia (the bank) and India (the consumer), in that stage I want Russia to have as little options as possible and we might not like this, but it beats Russia having satellite nations making things globally worse. To prevent it actions were required, actions that remained absent in the west and that danger is still not over, because Iran is still a consideration and Russia likes a nation with so much anti-American sentiment. As such the evolution that the Arab League is making makes a lot of sense, I prefer these two listening to Saudi Arabia than taking snacks and ‘carefully considered actions’ from Russia, because that will surely make things a lot worse. 

And now as we see more and more technology interactions between Russia and the UAE, economic values will spread all over the Middle East, which is good. Yet they also fall away from American shores which is not that great, especially when you see that America remains one step short on defaulting on their loans. 

Yay, Monday!

Enjoy the day.

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What’s the play?

That is the question I had before and again now when I read the AL Monitor article (at https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2023/04/saudi-arabia-seizes-127-million-captagon-pills-pomegranate-bust). There we see ‘Saudi Arabia seizes 12.7 million Captagon pills in pomegranate bust’. Now any nation will have drug problems, it is almost a fact of life. Some will give in and try it. But consider that the population of Saudi Arabia is almost 36 million. As such this shipment represents the ability to get a third of the nation high. And it leaves me with questions. Did these people want to get caught? Consider the simple setting. When you are dopey the dealer, you might be able to sell 100-200 pills at best. Perhaps in some areas of Aramco, near the monotone drilling (a pure speculation from me) perhaps 400 pills. To get that much pills implies a distribution system with 31,750 dealers. I know too little about Saudi Arabia to make that call, but if we adhere to statistics then the idea that Saudi Arabia has more than 500 dealers is almost preposterous and when consider the numbers something does not add up. So are these drug smugglers looking to get arrested? I reckon that it might be decently easy to hide 1000 pills in a pomegranate shipment, perhaps even 2000-3000, but twelve million? So I had questions and this is not the first time I see an article pass by like that, I had questions then too, but to be honest, this is a niche market I absolutely do not care about. So we see that two Egyptians, one Syrian and one Yemeni national were arrested. Four people from different nations (more questions) and as such they ‘thought’ to strike it rich? As such we get more “The highly addictive substance travels through Jordan to reach Gulf states, where it has been a drug of choice among disenfranchised youth, particularly in Saudi Arabia.” This gives us more, you see some numbers give us that this group contains 4.79 Million people, yet drug users tend to be male, so it is merely 50% of that and they ship enough to cover 100% of that group many times over? This makes zero sense, yet the idea that someone is TRYING to create a drug problem in Saudi Arabia, that partially makes sense (but the shipment is at least 1000% too big), yet that is also speculation from me. Moreover when you consider the setting, optionally smuggling via Yemen instead of Jordan makes more sense to me. There are a whole range of questions that shape in my head, but they are all related to the first premise, what is the actual plan here, because this is not an approach that any drug dealer would go for. To keep 3-5 years of evidence somewhere in their place of ‘trust’? The article also gives us “In March, Saudi Arabia seized 4.6 million amphetamine pills hidden in a shipment of ceramic toilets, sinks and washbasins and arrested a Jordanian national.” I seemingly more discrete amount, but still way above the normal amount. I wonder if they are also investigating in Saudi Arabia what the plan was of these four dopes, because this is not about a simple drug heist, this much amphetamines implies a very different stage and I can only speculate (which I will not do) on what that plan is, but consider the cost of these pills, the cost to create and what kind of incomes these 4 people had. When you add the elements up you come to the same conclusion as I did. This was about something else. Perhaps the drugs were a diversion? When you go back to some sources, one gave me “One Chinese website even advertises a “captagon tablet press” for $2,500 that can spew out tens of thousands of pills an hour. For a few dollars” this comes with the added question of the cost of the chemicals and the added source gives me “A Captagon pill costs just a few cents to produce in Syria or Lebanon” then consider that the maker would charge perhaps $0.50 per pill, that implies that the shipment represented a little more than $6,000,000. So where did these four dopey’s get that much money? And that is on the premise I hold, should the cost be $1 per pill (seems more likely) especially when the implied street value in Saudi Arabia is $20, the cost marker shifts buy a lot, so is one of these 4 wealthy? I personally doubt it.

Yet when you consider these elements the entire shipment of over 12 million pills makes less and less sense. This was not a simple drug shipment, or a simple smuggling operation. This is about something more and I wonder what I would find if I start data mining that evidence. From smuggling routes to financial data and that is before we consider that Saudi Arabia starts asking questions from the Syrian or Lebanese governments, they both would be in serious hot waters if they were in any way aiding drug smuggle into Saudi Arabia and still the largest question remains open: “Why that much drugs?” I end with a lot more questions than I had before the article and I reckon some Saudi’s might have the very same questions.

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A story for the ages

That is the thought I woke up from (about 34.6 minutes ago). Most of us know the Age of reason, which is often phrased as ‘an intellectual and philosophical movement that dominated the world of ideas in Europe during the 17th to 19th centuries’ Is often linked to ‘The Age of Reason; Being an Investigation of True and Fabulous Theology’ a work by Thomas Paine. In this book he made deism appealing and accessible to the masses and it started something. Yet what followed wasn’t as nice as e think it was. We merely think of the age of industrialisation, but in 1993 I was captured by Kazuo Ishiguro’s Remains of the day, the movie (I never read the book). There Christopher Reeve tells us as Jack Lewis “Europe has become the arena of Realpolitik, the politics of reality. If you like, real politics. What you need is not gentlemen politicians, but real ones” it struck me how much the UK and the world seemingly had relied on Nepotism. As such the field of ‘granting an advantage, privilege, or position to relatives or close friends in an occupation or field’ changed into a new form of nepotism ‘granting an advantage, privilege, or position to a fellow alumni’s in an occupation or field’ it might certainly be better, but there is a danger there too. The people from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania will obviously disagree with me,  but there is a correlation with certain schools and it is all ‘equalised’ with terms like ‘they think like we do’ approach. Yet all this goes further. As the 19th century passed, we saw the age of Politics evolve into the age of Wall Street. I think the clearest point was the Ghouta chemical attack in 2013 when we saw that on, or around June 13th 2013, the United States government publicly announced it had concluded that the Assad government had used limited amounts of chemical weapons on multiple occasions against rebel forces, killing 100 to 150 people. US officials stated that sarin was the agent used. Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes did not say whether this showed that Syria had crossed the “red line” established by President Obama in August 2012, which was interesting because when I went to primary school we heard that ANY use of chemical agents was a red line. The line was replaced to a new setting, as I personally saw it Syria had no economic value to Wall Street, this happened again when different lines were crossed in Yemen with Houthi terrorists, that nation had no value to Wall Street other than the revenue of war machines and as I personally saw it Wall Street was industrious in indirectly stopping actions. This was however not possible in the Ukraine and now there were two issues. The first is that Ukraine was too close to the EU and the power of the Euro (a currency Wall Street Neds to remain high, or on par with the dollar) as such a new setting evolved. 

The age of politics is over, we see Yemen, now Ukraine and the Sudan and in the latter two the Wagner group is overly active. So what will the next age be called? The age of war, the age of mercenaries? Your guess is as good as mine but there are too many pieces and events that show that the age of politics is over, what follows it is unknown. Perhaps the age of Islam? What we can see is that the Middle East is the only real economic power remaining. Unlike the US, it does not have a $30,000,000,000,000 debt, if anything it is making billions with Aramco, a grocery store valued at $2,000,000,000,000 making it almost on par with Apple. In the age of money talks and bullshit walks, the US has become the silent mute we now all point to, especially as it is driven by media that openly lies about election results. The media is so clear about what is true is not the same as what is truth, but in all this the simple setting is that the age of Wall Street is over,  the USA is no longer a superpower. That age is gone and we are unsure what follows, there is every chance that this new age has China firmly at the helm with Saudi Arabia and OPEC at its side. Where does Russia fall? Well their open lies on all media and the fact that the second largest military force is unable to deal with the 21st largest army (Ukraine) implies that they are soon imploding all over the place and the inhumane and apparently acceptable claims by the Wagner group, I do not think that Russia will be tolerated much longer, not by the old power players or by the ones replacing them. We now hear “Evgeny Prigozhin stated that Russian mercenaries will no longer take Ukrainian defenders captive, instead opting to “kill all on the battlefield,”” a setting which was set in the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War in article 13. If we see the Geneva convention as one of the great achievements in politics we now see that the inaction by all others imply that the age of politics is over, it is dead, and it’s rotting cadaver remains in the street. Another piece of evidence that the age of politics is over, because if that was not the case EVERY newspaper and their websites would be all over this screaming outrage, but that is not the case, most of them are talking about Tucker Carlson. That is how bad it has become.

Try to enjoy Tuesday whilst still alive.

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