Category: Intelligence

Bump Trump: Guide for the perplexed to last week’s Russiagate/Spygate contribution

Too much good stuff: highlights summary of where we are and what we haven’t been wrong about. First compendium of TOC articles on Russiagate/Spygate 2016-2023.

[Note:  in the interest of getting this work in progress posted, I am dispensing with most links in the text.  Every assertion is documented, and the documentation will be found in the series of my articles appended at the end.  It’s a first-ever compilation of such a list of articles, and I hope will be of use for bookmarking.  One thing it settles is the date hacks for when I – and others – recognized the official narrative about Crossfire Hurricane was invalid:  not a reflection of reality.  I want to emphasize that references to the indispensable work of others – the Brigade of Musketeers who have labored long over Russiagate and Spygate – are credited in those articles. I am responsible for the judgments I include in this article; they are not to blame. – J.E.]

All this, and we still didn’t find out why Nellie Ohr got a ham radio license in May 2016.

My bottom-line assessment of this past week’s reporting by Michael Shellenberger and Matt Taibbi up-front:

First, this has served as a good taking-stock moment. Continue reading “Bump Trump: Guide for the perplexed to last week’s Russiagate/Spygate contribution”

TOC Ready Room 9 February 2024: Strikes and rumors of strikes; Bonus: the missing TACAIR?

Deterrence and credibility deficit.

With a second round of strikes completed, the original assessment for the 2 February strikes stands.  We’re not executing deterrence-quality strike events.  This can be readily discerned from the information we’re given about the targets, which reveals a major deficiency in what we’re hitting.

There’s some value to attacking “command and control” assets (though not inherently that much, as one-offs); there’s less to attacking Houthi missiles on launchers.  In both cases, we’re just taking out easily regenerated operational equipment.  Neither the Iraqi militias nor the Houthis have anything approaching the elaborate, expensive, hard-to-replace infrastructure the U.S. uses for these tasks.

Knocking off six launchers at a time is a waste of AVGAS.  It may be cheap in comparison to intercepting Chinese-Iranian former-Soviet knock-off cruise missiles with modern, U.S. Navy Standard Missiles, but that’s an ironic, situational first-world problem that doesn’t get at the real point.  The real point is, Continue reading “TOC Ready Room 9 February 2024: Strikes and rumors of strikes; Bonus: the missing TACAIR?”

When you absolutely, positively have to prevent a world war

Navigating radars, shwacking targets, preventing wars.

Monday 29 January update:  This article has to get posted sometime, so I’m officially cutting it off with a target-set observation on the most recent attacks by Iran’s proxies, including the attack on Tower 22 at the border of Jordan and Syria (near the U.S. base at Al-Tanf).  At least 47 Americans are now said to have been injured by the drone attack there on Sunday, and three soldiers were killed.

I’m not opposed to attacking Continue reading “When you absolutely, positively have to prevent a world war”

In Yemen, Iran moves to occupy the strategic center

Compulsion to attack – the radical Iranian regime’s version of “responsibility to protect”?

Another quick-look on the fast-moving events in the Middle East.

This article, like the previous one of 15 January 2024, will mainly quote from other correspondence.  I make this point to explain the informality of the language and composition, which I am not cleaning up.  The points being made are important, and can be made effectively even in on-the-fly format.

To briefly introduce the topic, the political condition of Yemen – reduced as it often is to warring factions, with no central government in control – is a key element affecting the stability of the whole region.  The conditions of today, with the Houthis, backed by Iran, attacking third parties, can be exploited well beyond the level at which Tehran’s regime is currently exploiting them.

That is the main danger of the current situation. Continue reading “In Yemen, Iran moves to occupy the strategic center”

A bomb is just a bomb: Intent, strategy, and will make it mean something

As time goes by.

Update: Monday 15 January 2024.  The article below was written before Iran-backed attacks on Sunday and Monday, with renewed attacks by proxies in Iraq and the Red Sea, clarified that the strikes by U.S. and UK forces on 11-12 January have not had a meaningful deterrent effect at this point.

Bonus: Continue reading “A bomb is just a bomb: Intent, strategy, and will make it mean something”