You know this is too weird to not be true

Yes, he looks like he molest trees.

Florida Man High on Flakka Assaults Officer, Molests Tree

A Florida man believed to be high on flakka, a drug that authorities say is sweeping the state, attacked a Brevard police officer after twice being shocked with a Taser while he repeatedly saying he was God, according to officials.

Kenneth Crowder, 41, of Melbourne, was arrested Friday on charges of battery on a law enforcement officer, resisting with violence and assault with a deadly weapon on a law enforcement officer.

According to a Melbourne police report, Crowder was spotted by witnesses running naked through a Melbourne neighborhood, yelling that he was a god before committing a sexual act on a tree.

A Melbourne police officer went to the area and confronted Crowder, who was wearing blue jeans and a T-shirt, officials said.

Crowder walked toward the officer in an aggressive manner and identified himself as God, according to police.

The officer used a Taser on Crowder, but he pulled the probes out of his body and continued to fight, police said. Crowder was shocked a second time, but he again pulled out the probes and went at the officer with clenched fists, according to police.

The officer punched Crowder in the face and a scrum ensued, with Crowder saying that he was Thor and trying to stab the officer with the officer's badge, police said.

Other officers arrived and helped subdue Crowder, who was handcuffed and shackled, police said.

Flakka is the a variation of synthetic substances known as bath salts and delivers a cheap, powerful high while acting as an amphetamine, according to officials. The drug can be snorted, smoked or taken by mouth and can cause violent behavior, officials said.

"We have spoken to some medical professionals here and they are starting to see an increase in its use (in Brevard County)," Melbourne police spokesman Dan Lynch said. "It's already in South Florida, and we think it's coming here."...

I've had to deal with suspects on narcotics like this and as much as I make a joke of this, these people are dangerous. Intermediate weapons like Mace and Tasers are often not effective, they will not feel pain and their strength is superhuman. Be careful out there guys.

Officer Down

Lieutenant C. Scott Travis
Bullitt County Kentucky Detention Center
End of Watch: Thursday, March 5, 2015
Age: 55
Tour: 11 years
Badge # 815

Lieutenant Scott Travis suffered a fatal heart attack while clearing snow from the walkways in front of the Bullitt County Detention Center during a heavy snowstorm.

He had cleared the snow shortly before midnight in preparation of shift change, before clearing snow from around several vehicles of fellow officers. He then drove several officers home and returned to the detention center where he complained of chest pains. He refused medical attention and then drove home where he collapsed.

Lieutenant Travis had served with the Bullitt County Detention Center for 11 years. He is survived by his mother and eight siblings.

Rest in Peace Bro…We Got The Watch

Nemo me impune lacessit

Day is done, Gone the sun, From the lake, From the hills, From the sky. All is well, Safely rest, God is nigh. 

Another reason someone with a blade is deadly

I've referenced this post on what a man, armed only with a knife, can do to an officer armed with a pistol:

Well, another example of what a man with a long knife can do to four crooks.

Four Burglars With Pistols Went Up Against One Homeowner With a Samurai Sword — Graphic Photos Show Who Won

Never bring a knife to a gunfight?

That advice doesn’t always hold true.

A homeowner in Cordoba, Argentina, defended his house against four armed burglars Friday night, the Mendoza Post and Daily Mail reported.

The homeowner’s defensive weapon of choice: a katana, the sword preferred by Japanese samurai.

The damage he inflicted on the burglars was ghastly.

The Daily Mail reported that the homeowner, 49-year-old Dias Costa, was asleep with his wife Christina when they heard the break-in around 3:30 a.m.

The four burglars had two pistols between them, the Daily Mail reported, but Costa hacked and slashed his way through the group and sent them fleeing.

Absconding with a few hundred dollars worth of stolen goods, the criminals piled into a car.

The driver, losing blood, quickly crashed it, according to reports.

Four people, three men and one woman, were arrested after seeking treatment for their severe sword injuries, the Post reported.

Meanwhile the Costa family, fearing retaliation, has moved in with relatives, according to the Daily Mail.

The Costas’ case is not the first time a katana has been used for modern-day defense: Two years ago, a Mormon bishop helped a woman fight off a stalker armed with a samurai blade.

Four men, armed with pistols, broke into a house and this was the result. Thankfully this is not in California or New York, he would be charged with aggravated assault. Good work Mr. Costa.

Security Weekly: AQAP Gains as Yemen Implodes, April 9, 2015

By Scott Stewart

Early April 2, a convoy of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula fighters descended on Mukalla, Yemen's fifth-largest city and the capital of Yemen's Hadramawt province. The gunmen stormed the central prison on the northern outskirts of the city and reportedly released some 300 inmates, many of who were AQAP members, including senior military commander Khalid Bartafi. AQAP fighters then moved into the city and seized control of the port, the central bank and several government buildings, including the presidential palace. Bartafi later posted photos of himself in the presidential palace to Twitter.

The next day, the militants turned their attention to nearby military facilities. The soldiers defending the headquarters of Yemen's second military zone and a Special Security Forces base fled after putting up minimal resistance, and AQAP fighters were able to loot weapons stores.

Such raids are not new to Mukalla: AQAP captured the second military zone's headquarters in September 2013. During the group's period of rapid expansion in 2011, it also attacked the central prison and released some 40 AQAP fighters. The jihadist group is continuing to capitalize on Yemen's power vacuum to expand its reach in the country.

A Much Needed Boost

The raid on Mukalla scored AQAP a terrorist trifecta — fighters, weapons and cash — that will greatly benefit its efforts to expand its power base in Yemen. On the manpower front, in addition to releasing foot soldiers, the group recovered Bartafi, a senior military commander who was instrumental in the group's 2011-2012 campaign that captured large chunks of the country. The group also seized large quantities of small arms, light weapons, ammunition and heavy weapons such as armored vehicles and artillery pieces. The New York Times cited a Yemeni official who said the amount of cash looted from the central bank was in the tens of millions of dollars. The windfall will go a long way in paying salaries, buying weapons and purchasing good will from some Yemeni tribes.

Some reports indicated that tribal leaders in Hadramawt were assembling a force to push AQAP out of Mukalla, but the group still controls much of the city. Also, despite the large concentration of AQAP fighters and vehicles in and around Mukalla, coalition aircraft have completely ignored AQAP targets. Instead, coalition aircraft continue to focus on hitting Yemeni military units loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh and al-Houthi militias, a decision that benefits AQAP because it weakens its two most dangerous enemies. In fact, several media outlets reported that AQAP militants stormed and captured a Yemeni border post near Zamakh wa Manwakh on April 6, indicating that the group may again be attempting to seize and control a large portion of Yemen as it did in 2011.

The bounty and publicity that came with the capture of Mukalla could not have come at a better time for AQAP. The group has suffered heavy losses on the battlefield and from airstrikes launched by U.S. unmanned aerial vehicles since January 2012. Also, the Islamic State had begun to supplant AQAP as the most sensational jihadist group in the country. A wave of Islamic State suicide bombings targeting three mosques frequented by al-Houthis in Sanaa and a government building in Saada killed at least 137 people and wounded hundreds more, garnering worldwide attention. More important, the attacks demonstrated that Islamic State members were willing to take deadly action against the al-Houthis, while AQAP fighters were mostly on the defensive. Many younger AQAP fighters were beginning to grumble about the group's lack of success compared to the Islamic State's gains in Iraq and Syria. Some of them even defected, pledging their allegiance to the Islamic State.

In this context, AQAP's capture of Mukalla and nearby military installations was a much needed boost for the group. Battlefield success combined with the release of jihadist prisoners and the infusion of cash and weapons should help AQAP leader Nasir al-Wahayshi and his deputies stem dissent and defections of rank-and-file members.

The Saudi Calculus

Few have benefitted from the bloody and destructive war destroying most of the infrastructure of Yemen's western cities from Saada in the north to Aden in the south — except for AQAP. When Riyadh chose to attack AQAP's enemies on the ground in Yemen, they certainly knew the jihadist group would benefit. Indeed, while AQAP also opposes the various factions of the southern secessionist movement and the forces loyal to embattled President Abd Rabboh Mansour Hadi, none of these groups have been as effective in fighting AQAP as the al-Houthi militias and the Saleh-loyalist units, many of which were trained by the United States.

Why, then, did Saudi Arabia choose to intervene in Yemen's civil war? First of all, this is not the first time it has done so. Following the 1962 Nasserite coup that overthrew the Zaidi Mutawakkilite Kingdom, the Saudis feared they would be the next country the Nasserites targeted. So they intervened on the side of the monarchists, ensuring that the war would be long and bloody, but stay south of the border.

Also, besides military incursions, Riyadh has long meddled in the affairs of its impoverished neighbor by providing money and weapons to tribes and other political actors supportive of Saudi interests. Quite often, such payments went to or through Saleh, who ruled north Yemen from 1978 to 1990 and the united Yemen from 1990 until 2012. Saudi Arabia also intervened on Saleh's side in the 2009-2010 war against the al-Houthis (the sixth such flare-up since 2004).

However, the real driver of Saudi Arabia's involvement in Yemen is its need to strike back against Iran — or at least appear to strike back against Iran — after Tehran and Washington agreed on the framework of a nuclear deal, which is the first step in a broader rapprochement between the two countries. Saudi Arabia sees the improving relationship as a substantial threat to its geopolitical situation, which is based on the promise of U.S. protection. The United States is again pursuing a balance of power strategy in the region. With Iran involved militarily in Syria and Iraq, Saudi Arabia believes it needs to do something to flex its growing strength and showcase its military power.

The Saudi solution was to a select the weakest target: Yemen, which is far easier for Saudi Arabia to attack than Hezbollah, the Syrian government or Iran itself. Intervening in Yemen also provided an opportunity for Riyadh to display its ability to build a pro-Saudi regional coalition. However, Saleh and the al-Houthis proved resilient, standing up to two weeks of airstrikes and showing no sign of capitulating.

As we've previously noted, however, the Yemeni conflict is not sectarian in nature, nor is it a regional one. It is really more of an internal power struggle for control of the country. Nonetheless, forces have worked to make Yemen's struggle appear sectarian. Ironically, one of the first to cast the fight against the al-Houthis as a sectarian struggle was Saleh, who is now aligned with the al-Houthis.

Following his first conflict with the al-Houthis in 2004, Saleh repeatedly attempted to convince the U.S. and Saudi governments that Iran was backing the al-Houthis and that they should respond by supporting Yemen's efforts to destroy the rebels. Saleh even asked U.S. officials for intelligence he could use to kill al-Houthi leader Abdel Malik al-Houthi. However, as numerous State Department cables from 2004 to 2010 demonstrated, the United States was not convinced by the claims of Iranian support, and Saleh and his ministers were unable to show proof of Iranian or Hezbollah connections.

In addition to Saleh, Iran also attempted to portray the al-Houthi conflict as a sectarian struggle to increase the perception of their regional reach and clout in the hopes of intimidating rivals. In fact, Iranian sources in the region even provided Stratfor with false information inflating Tehran and Hezbollah's involvement with the al-Houthis.

It is impossible to be sure whether Saudi Arabia really believes Saleh and Iran's false claims, or if they are merely using them to justify flexing their muscles in Yemen. Either way, Saudi Arabia's destruction of weapons depots it gave to Yemen to help Saleh fight the al-Houthis is an ironic turn of events.

A Dangerous Snake

In the end, Saleh cannot win in Yemen. A man who was once known as being able to "dance on the heads of snakes" because of his prodigious and precarious efforts to balance all of Yemen's competing interests against one another is seeing everything come crashing down around him. Still, Saleh pursues only his own interests and will quickly turn on an ally if doing so benefits him. He has used the conservative tribes and the jihadists against his enemies in the south — for example, during the civil war in 1993-1994 — but also repeatedly against the al-Houthis during the six wars he fought against them. In addition to using the jihadists to attack his enemies, Saleh also used them as a boogeyman to secure funding, weapons and training from the United States.

Since being deposed in 2011, Saleh has been deeply bitter, using his old enemy, the al-Houthis, to lash out against the al-Ahmars, a powerful family that leads the Hashid tribal confederation that started the civil war that ultimately forced Saleh to step down. He has also sought revenge on those he believes are responsible for his misfortune, including Hadi and the interests of the foreign powers. Furthermore, like some sort of comic book villain, Saleh is also seeking vengeance over the June 2011 assassination attempt that nearly killed him and left him scarred.

Yemen continues to deal with a resurgent jihadist group, a vitriolic and manipulative former president, and a wide array of miscellaneous tribal leaders and warlords. Airstrikes and intense urban combat compound the situation. For the past several decades, Yemen has teetered on the precipice of disaster because of endless civil wars, tribal insurrections, jihadist movements, a failing economy, overpopulation, hunger and water shortages. Now the Saudi-led coalition appears to have finally pushed Yemen over the edge and into the void. Like Somalia, Iraq, Libya and Syria, putting Yemen back together again will be difficult and take time. In the instability, AQAP will thrive.

Russia Nervously Eyes the U.S.-Iran Deal is republished with permission of Stratfor."">AQAP Gains as Yemen Implodes is republished with permission of Stratfor.

Geopolitical Weekly: Russia Nervously Eyes the U.S.-Iran Deal, April 14, 2015

By Reva Bhalla

When a group of weary diplomats announced a framework for an Iranian nuclear accord last week in Lausanne, there was one diplomat in the mix whose feigned enthusiasm was hard to miss. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov left the talks at their most critical point March 30, much to the annoyance of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who apparently had to call him personally to persuade him to return. Even as Lavrov spoke positively to journalists about the negotiations throughout the week, he still seemed to have better things to do than pull all-nighters for a deal that effectively gives the United States one less problem to worry about in the Middle East and a greater capacity to focus on the Russian periphery.

Russia has no interest in seeing a nuclear-armed Iran in the neighborhood, but the mere threat of an unshackled Iranian nuclear program and a hostile relationship between Washington and Tehran provided just the level of distraction Moscow needed to keep the United States from committing serious attention to Russia's former Soviet sphere.

Russia tried its best to keep the Americans and Iranians apart. Offers to sell Iran advanced air defense systems were designed to poke holes in U.S. threats to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities. Teams of Russian nuclear experts whetted Iran's appetite for civilian nuclear power with offers to build additional power reactors. Russian banks did their part to help Iran circumvent financial sanctions. The Russian plan all along was not to help Iran get the bomb but to use its leverage with a thorny player in the Middle East to get the United States into a negotiation on issues vital to Russia's national security interests. So if Washington wanted to resolve its Iran problem, it would have to pull back on issues like ballistic missile defense in Central Europe, which Moscow saw early on as the first of several U.S. steps to encircle Russia.

Delegates to the Iranian talks in Lausanne from China, France, Germany, the European Union, Iran, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States speak to the media on April 2. (THOMAS TRUTSCHEL/Contributor via Getty Images)

Things obviously did not work according to the Russian plan. As we anticipated, the United States and Iran ultimately came together in a bilateral negotiation to resolve their main differences. Now the United States and Iran are on a path toward normalization at a time when Russian President Vladimir Putin is trying simultaneously to defend against a U.S.-led military alliance building along Russia's European frontier and to manage an economic crisis and power struggle at home. And the situation does not look any better for Russia on the energy front.

Russia Stands to Lose Energy Revenue

The likelihood of the United States and Iran reaching a deal this summer means that additional barrels of Iranian oil eventually will make their way to the market, further depressing the price of oil, as well as the Russian ruble. To be clear, Iranian oil is not going to flood the market instantaneously with the signing of a deal. Iran is believed to have as much as 35 million barrels of crude in storage that it could offload quickly once export sanctions are terminated by the Europeans and eased by the United States via presidential waiver. But Iran will face complications in trying to bring its mature fields back online. Enhanced recovery techniques to revive mothballed fields take money and infrastructure, which is difficult to apply when oil prices are hovering around $50 per barrel. Under current conditions, Iran can bring some 400,000-500,000 barrels per day back online over the course of a year, but this will be a gradual process as Iran vies for foreign investment in its dilapidated energy sector.

U.S. investors will likely remain shackled by the core Iran Sanctions Act until at least the end of 2016, when the legislation is set to expire. However, European and Asian investors will be among the first to begin repairing Iran's oil fields, as long as Iran does its part in improving contractual terms and the economics make sense for firms already cutting back their capital expenditures.

Europe's New Options

The rehabilitation of Iran's energy sector, however gradual a process that may be, will complicate Russia's uphill battle in trying to maintain its energy leverage over Europe. Russia is a critical supplier of energy to Europe, currently providing about 29 percent and 37 percent of Europe's natural gas and oil needs, respectively. An additional 50 billion cubic meters of natural gas available for export from the United States within the next five years will not be able to compete with Russia on price because of the low operational and transport costs of Russian natural gas. Even so, the United States will still be creating more supply in the natural gas market overall to give Europe the option of paying more for its energy security should the political considerations outweigh the economic cost. The Baltic states are already working toward this option, with Lithuania taking the lead in creating a mini-liquefied natural gas hub for the region to try to reduce, if not eliminate, Baltic dependence on Russia. This year, Poland is debuting its own LNG facility, and the Sabine Pass terminal in Louisiana is scheduled to bring the first LNG exports from the Lower 48 to market, with shipments already contracted for Asia.

In Southern Europe, the picture for Russia is more complicated but still distressing. Aside from the significant issue of cost for energy companies already cutting their capital expenditures, Turkey's veto on the transit of LNG tankers through the Bosporus effectively neutralizes any LNG import facility project on the Black Sea. But Europe is proceeding apace with the much more economically palatable option of building pipeline interconnectors across Southeastern Europe. This does little to dilute Russia's control over energy supply, but it does strip Moscow of its ability to politicize pricing in Europe. Pipeline politics in Europe have allowed Russia to reward — and punish — its Eastern European neighbors through pricing contracts. However, Brussels is more thoroughly examining contracts signed by EU member states for this very reason and in line with one of the main tenets of the EU's Third Energy Package, which seeks to break monopolies by splitting energy production and transmission and to implement fair pricing. Meanwhile, the construction of interconnectors allows member states to influence pricing downstream from Russia.

This gambit has been on display over the past year in Ukraine. Kiev depended heavily on its neighbors in Slovakia, Poland and Hungary for reverse flows of Russian natural gas at discounted rates to stand up to Russia's energy swaggering. Though Russian natural gas will still be flowing primarily through these pipelines, the expansion of interconnectors will open up options for non-Russian natural gas from the North Sea and from LNG terminals in Northern Europe to make their way southward to embattled frontline states such as Ukraine.

Russia thought it would be able to keep a hook in Southern Europe through the construction of South Stream, a mammoth pipeline project with a $30 billion price tag and 63-bcm capacity that sought to cut Ukraine out of the equation by moving natural gas across the Black Sea and through the Balkans and Central Europe. The combination of plunging energy prices and growing EU resistance to another pipeline that would allow Russia to draw political favors sent this project to the graveyard, but Russia had a backup plan. The Turkish Stream pipeline would make landfall in Turkey after crossing the Black Sea, before using the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline and the Trans-Anatolian Pipeline to feed Southern Europe through the web of interconnectors and pipelines already in development. On the surface, Moscow's plan appears quite brilliant: Use the very infrastructure that Europe was already counting on to diversify away from Russia and then, when the political skirmishing over Ukraine eventually settles down, reinsert itself into Europe's energy mix via a willing partner like Turkey.

Post-South Stream Options
Click to Enlarge
But the plan remains full of holes. Someone needs to pay for the main pipeline expansion between Russia and Turkey, and both countries will struggle to find private investors in this geopolitical and pricing climate. Moreover, there is no indication that the Europeans will be willing to take additional Russian natural gas from a yet-to-be-built Turkish Stream when a perfectly good pipeline running from Russia to Eastern Europe already exists. Russia does not have the option of refusing natural gas shipments when it is already desperate for those energy revenues. In the end, this is a Russian bluff that the Europeans will not be afraid to call. When Putin agreed to a three-month natural gas deal with Ukraine last week (with a huge discount to boot, at $247.20 per thousand cubic meters), he likely did so realizing that Russia playing hardball with Ukraine on energy would only spur further investment and construction into pipelines and connectors in Southeastern Europe that would accelerate the decline of Russia's energy influence in Europe. The best he can hope for is to slow that timeline down.

Not only will Russia's pricing leverage wane in Europe over the long term, but its influence on Europe's energy supply also will decrease over the longer run. Azerbaijan was the first southern corridor supplier to Europe circumventing Russia and is now expanding that role by bringing natural gas from its Shah Deniz II offshore fields online for export. Turkmenistan is still vulnerable to Russian meddling but has been increasingly willing to host Turkish and European investors looking to build a pipeline across the Caspian to feed Europe. Whether these talks translate into action will depend on the Turkmen government's political will to stand up to Moscow, not to mention legal battles over the Caspian Sea. But while the lengthy courting of Ashgabat by the West continues, a rehabilitated Iran is now the latest addition to the list to join the southern corridor.

Russia's Influence Wanes in the Middle East

Just a day after the Iranian nuclear framework deal was announced, Russia's state-owned RIA Novosti published a story quoting Igor Korotchenko, the head of the Moscow-based Center for Analysis of World Arms Trade, as saying it would be a "perfectly logical development" for Russia to follow through on a sale of S-300 surface-to-air missiles to Iran if the embargo is lifted. Korotchenko noted that specifications to the deal would have to be made as "the United States is watching very closely" to whom Russia sells these weapons. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov also made a point to say the U.N. arms embargo against Iran should be lifted as part of the nuclear deal. These well-timed statements likely caught Washington's eye but probably did little to impress. The S-300 threat mattered a lot more when the United States needed to maintain a credible military deterrent against Iran. If the United States and Iran reach an understanding that neutralizes that threat through political means, Russian talk of S-300s is mostly hot air.

This was a small yet revealing illustration of Russia's declining position in the Middle East. For many years, the Middle East was a rose garden for the Russians, filled with both sweet-smelling opportunities to lure Washington into negotiations and ample thorns to prick their American adversary when the need arose. Russia's support for the Syrian government is still relevant, and Moscow will continue to court countries in the region with arms deals out of both political and economic necessity. Even so, bringing down the Syrian government is not on Washington's to-do list, and countries like Egypt will still end up prioritizing their relationship with the United States in the end.

Russia's influence in the Middle East is fading rapidly at the same time Europe is starting to wriggle out of Russia's energy grip. And as Russia's options are narrowing, U.S. options are multiplying in both the Middle East and Europe. This is an uncomfortable situation for Putin, to be sure. But a narrow set of options for Russia in its near abroad does not make those options any less concerning for the United States as the standoff between Washington and Moscow continues.

Russia Nervously Eyes the U.S.-Iran Deal is republished with permission of Stratfor.

Officer Down

Police Officer Robert Wilson, III
Philadelphia Police Department, Pennsylvania
End of Watch: Thursday, March 5, 2015
Age: 30
Tour: 8 years
Badge # 9990

Police Officer Robert Wilson was shot and killed when he and his partner interrupted a robbery at a video game store at 2101 West Lehigh Avenue at approximately 4:45 pm.

The officers were conducting a security check of the businesses in the strip mall and had parked in front of the store. Officer Wilson went into the store to conduct the security check and to buy a video game for one of his sons. While he was inside two brothers entered the store and announced a robbery, not noticing Officer Wilson's presence or the patrol car parked out front.

Officer Wilson immediately announced himself. He exchanged shots with the two brothers as he drew fire away from the customers and employees. He was struck three times during the shootout in which over 50 shots were fired. The two men then exited the store where they were engaged in a shootout with Officer Wilson's partner, who had remained in the patrol car. One of the subjects was wounded during the second shootout.

Both men were arrested and charged with Officer Wilson's murder. One of the brothers was on parole for robbery at the time and both had extensive criminal histories.

Officer Wilson had served with the Philadelphia Police Department for eight years. He is survived by his wife and two young sons.

Rest in Peace Bro…We Got The Watch

Nemo me impune lacessit

Day is done, Gone the sun, From the lake, From the hills, From the sky. All is well, Safely rest, God is nigh. 

A good overview of Iran's nuclear development program.

For a country sitting on one of the world's largest oil reserves, for some reason the mullahs in Tehran say they need nuclear reactors for power. In the immortal words of Doctor Evil, "Riiiight".

STRATFOR did a quick overview of their nuclear facilities and seems there is a lot not covered by this agreement, oh, treaty, wait, framework, that's what they are calling it.

Forgive me if I have a disturbing lack of faith in this.

Mapping Iran's Nuclear Program

After double overtime negotiations in Lausanne, Iran and six world powers have announced a framework deal that largely covers the key points of a nuclear agreement but that leaves the technical details to be worked out over the next three months.

The joint statement outlined several key points:

- Natanz will be the only Iranian facility allowed to carry out uranium enrichment, and the deeply buried

- Fordow enrichment site will be converted into a nuclear research facility.

- Iran will be allowed to continue enrichment in limited amounts, and all spent fuel will be shipped out of the country.

- The Arak heavy water reactor, which is still under construction, will be redesigned so that no plutonium is produced at the site.

- All three of the sites will be heavily supervised.

Notably, there was no mention of the Parchin military facility, where Iran has been suspected of engaging in nuclear weapons research. Iran has publicly insisted that it would not subject its military facilities to inspection, though it is unclear what has been conceded to assuage concerns about the activity at this facility.

The statement also did not specify how long the terms of the final accord would last — another question left for the final agreement.

Though there are several critical ambiguities in the joint statement, on the whole this statement is highly favorable to Iran. The careful wording was designed to enable Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to sell this deal at home, and could help stave off U.S. congressional dissent in the months leading up to the June 30 deadline — though the deal does not depend on congressional approval for implementation.

COPYRIGHT: STRATFOR.COM

I respectfully disagree with STRATFOR when they say it does not have to go through the Congress. This is a treaty in spite of the lies of the Obama regime and it must be subject to Senate ratification.

Security Weekly: The Islamic State's Appeal, March 26, 2015

          By Scott Stewart

The events of the past week have created a lot of discussion about the Islamic State's expansion. First there was the March 18 armed assault at the Bardo National Museum in Tunis that resulted in the deaths of 23 people, 20 of who were foreign tourists. Then there was the March 20 triple mosque bombing in Sanaa, Yemen, that resulted in at least 142 deaths. Finally, on March 23, there were rumors that a brigade of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb fighters may be defecting to the Islamic State and that some al Shabaab members in Somalia also want to join the group.

These developments follow the announcement earlier this month that Nigerian jihadist group Boko Haram has joined the Islamic State, as well as earlier announcements that jihadists in Pakistan, Algeria, Libya and Egypt have joined the group.

The seemingly rapid spread of the Islamic State has caused some concern, and to help understand the group's rise, we first need to understand its appeal.

The Draw of a New Brand

After the 9/11 attacks, al Qaeda became the leading global jihadist brand. Following al Qaeda's success — and a massive public relations success it was — a number of existing jihadist groups became al Qaeda franchises in an effort to benefit from its popular brand. These included Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's Jamaat al-Tawhid and Jihad group in Iraq, which in 2004 became al Qaeda in the Land of the Two Rivers. After a series of name changes, the group would eventually break away from al Qaeda in 2014 to become the Islamic State.

 

Other organizations that adopted the al Qaeda brand include the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat in Algeria, which in 2006 became al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, and several smaller jihadist groups in Yemen that joined together in 2009 under the leadership of Nasir al-Wahayshi to become al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.  

Adopting the al Qaeda brand was seen as a way to rejuvenate the existing jihadist groups by gaining the additional attention, funding and recruits that came with the al Qaeda name. In some places, the strategy worked. For example, foreign recruits and funding flowed into the Iraqi al Qaeda franchise following its entry into the al Qaeda constellation. Indeed, the franchise gained so much funding and manpower that it siphoned off resources from the al Qaeda core to the point where the core leadership had to ask al-Zarqawi for financial help in 2005. But in other places, the al Qaeda branding was simply ineffective; for example, Jemaah Islamiyah in Indonesia, which changed its name to Tanzim Qaedat al-Jihad, withered away.   

As we have discussed for the past decade now, once the United States and its allies focused their power on al Qaeda, the group became severely degraded and its ability to launch attacks was heavily affected. As franchise groups in places such as Iraq grew in power and influence, the core struggled for relevance. This struggle was not only on the physical battlefield, but also on the ideological battlefield. There was a lot of ideological tension between the al Qaeda core and some of the new franchises. As early as 2005, this tension became visible from the interactions between core leader Ayman al-Zawahiri and al-Zarqawi. There was also tension within the franchises, especially al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, over whether to continue following the al Qaeda ideology.  

The al Qaeda core's influence had diminished so much that by mid-2013, the Islamic State felt it could defy al-Zawahiri. The group split from al Qaeda in January 2014 and declared the establishment of the caliphate on June 29, 2014.   

One of the primary factors that contributed to al Qaeda's decline was the frustration that many jihadists felt over al Qaeda's empty claims and threats. The group repeatedly threatened to strike the United States with an attack more devastating than the ones on 9/11, generating a lot of excitement in the jihadist realm. However, as the years passed and al Qaeda was unable to deliver on its threats, the group increasingly became seen as hollow. Indeed, the al Qaeda core has not been able to strike the U.S. homeland since 2001.   

Jihadists who were initially excited and energized by the thought of the United States and its European and Muslim allies being attacked and defeated became increasingly disaffected and dissatisfied with al Qaeda's ineffectiveness as the years dragged on. Osama bin Laden had become an iconic leader for his defiance of the Americans and their allies in addition to his boldness in attacking U.S. interests. Yet, before his death, rank-and-file jihadists had began criticizing him for being a coward who was hiding from the Americans rather than fighting on the front lines and leading the charge. Bin Laden's death and replacement by the irascible al-Zawahiri was also a critical event that undermined the morale of the global al Qaeda movement.   

In just a little more than a decade, the group that had at first appeared to be an exciting new alternative to the older, ineffective and marginalized jihadist groups had gradually been reduced to the same state of irrelevancy as the former groups that had assumed the al Qaeda brand name.   

This dynamic is very similar to what we have seen in other radical movements, including the white supremacist movement and the environmentalist and animal rights movement. Younger members of the movement become frustrated that the old guard is not doing anything, so they break off from the more mainstream groups to form more radical splinters. Generally these new radical groups learn that being an effective terrorist organization is not as easy as it would seem at first, especially when confronted by heavy pressure from law enforcement and security services. Eventually, the new splinters become moribund like their parent organizations, and the cycle starts again. It is easier for a group to criticize others for a lack of attacks than it is to plan and execute the attacks of its own.  

The al Qaeda message was essentially, "If we continue these attacks, we will one day realize the caliphate" — and this became frustrating for many idealist jihadists. When the Islamic State came along with its message of, "The caliphate is here," it attracted many of those who were dissatisfied with al Qaeda's more gradual approach and its focus on striking the United States rather than local enemies. The Islamic State's initial battlefield successes in Iraq served as an additional multiplier to convince jihadists that it was the real deal and that the thing they had been waiting for had finally come. The jihadist grassroots were primed to accept the brash, uncompromising and apocalyptic message of the Islamic State.   

Many people have expressed surprise that the atrocities committed by the Islamic State have not alienated more jihadists. This is because the transcendent purpose of the Islamic State is so powerful that it overrides any qualms about how it is to be achieved. To quote leadership guru Simon Sinek, "People don't buy what you do; they buy why you do it. And what you do simply proves what you believe." The Islamic State is pursuing a "why" that has a very powerful appeal to grassroots jihadists around the globe. Its barbaric actions prove that its members are true believers who do not care about any consequences or repercussions.   

This is a very powerful force that has an incredible pull — especially on the marginalized individuals who tend to flock to cults, gangs and radical groups. We are seeing this pull not only in the young aspiring fighters and brides that are traveling to Syria, but also in the grassroots jihadists who are practicing leaderless resistance and conducting attacks in other places. However, while the appeal is powerful, it is only powerful for a very limited segment of people. The Islamic State's brutality and attacks on other Muslims have alienated many of their intended audience.   

Impact of the Appeal   

One impact of the Islamic State's appeal that goes beyond branding is that certain groups, such as Boko Haram before it actually pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in August, are attempting to copy its method of operations. This has included kidnapping large numbers of girls, attacking Muslims declared to be apostates and declaring an Islamic Caliphate after seizing a large piece of territory. Recent suicide bombings of mosques by Islamic State supporters in Yemen also appear to have been influenced by the Islamic State's actions in Iraq and Syria. Such attacks are a way of differentiating Islamic State followers from al Qaeda adherents.     

The Islamic state also has shown a mastery of social media that eclipses al Qaeda's. This social media activity, along with the group's dramatic progress in mid-2014, has attracted funding and foreign volunteers. It has also helped motivate a number of grassroots terrorists to conduct attacks in the West. It remains to be seen if the surge in grassroots attacks in recent months is a temporary phenomenon or if it will be sustainable.   

It is important to understand that not even a year has passed since the Islamic State declared the establishment of its caliphate. The shine is only now beginning to wear off as the group, which promotes itself as an inexorable force blessed by Allah, experiences significant and repeated defeats on the battlefield. Its leaders will attempt to deflect some of these defeats through apocalyptic ideology that claims the group will suffer heavy losses until a small core of true believers is led by the Prophet Isa, which is Arabic for Jesus, in a final battle at Dabiq in Syria, where they will finally defeat the "crusader forces" led by the Antichrist.  

This justification may convince some of the most-hardcore idealists, but it will probably not be accepted globally. The others will become disenchanted once they realize the Islamic State will not be able to deliver on its promises. There have been many reports of foreign fighters being executed for attempting to leave the Islamic State and return home, so disillusionment may be starting to take root and spread through the ranks of the group's fighters. Such executions will even serve to further the spread of disenchantment. 

When considering the impact of the Islamic State's appeal, it is also important to keep in mind that in every instance outside of Syria and Iraq where the Islamic State has claimed to have established a new franchise — what they refer to as a "wilayat," or province — that new group has sprung up in areas where jihadists were already active. Indeed, Tunisia, where the Bardo Museum attack happened last week, has been plagued by a jihadist problem for quite some time now, and the Tunisian authorities have been fighting a counterinsurgency against the jihadist Uqba ibn Nafi Brigade and Ansar al-Sharia Tunisia in the mountainous Kasserine province near the Algerian border since 2012. (Uqba ibn Nafi Brigade recently pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, and the Tunisian government believes the group was responsible for the Bardo attack.) We have written repeatedly about the danger jihadists pose to Tunisia and were not surprised they carried out an attack in Tunis. The only real surprise was that the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack instead of another group.   

In most cases, pre-existing organizations or splinters of a jihadist organization are rebranding themselves as Islamic State franchises rather than new groups forming to claim the name. There are numerous examples of this: Jund al-Khalifa in Algeria (a splinter from al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb); the Sinai faction of Ansar Beit al-Maqdis in Egypt; Boko Haram; some elements of the Pakistani Taliban; the Dagestani faction of the Caucasus Emirates; and a faction of Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines. As we noted above, radical groups have a natural tendency to fracture, especially after they have proved themselves ineffective in making progress toward their stated goals. However, the Islamic State's emergence and its success in Iraq have dramatically accelerated this process. Moreover, the Islamic State's scathing and repeated public attacks on al Qaeda's leadership will make it very difficult to gloss over the differences and reconsolidate the jihadist movement unless the Islamic State can do so by force, which is not likely, given the constraints the group faces.   

Jihadist groups' tendency to splinter means that, rather than adding to the jihadist realm, the Islamic State is siphoning off former al Qaeda jihadists or picking up jihadists al Qaeda did not want or who did not like al Qaeda. In many places such as Syria, Pakistan and Libya, these Islamic State franchise groups have even engaged in combat against other jihadists. This means that as jihadist groups splinter and weaken, and as jihadists kill other jihadists, the global jihadist movement will experience a net loss rather than a victory.

"The Islamic State's Appeal is republished with permission of Stratfor."

Geopolitical Weekly: China's Fragile Evolution, March 24, 2015

By Rodger Baker and John Minnich

Last week, China's anti-corruption campaign took a significant turn, though a largely overlooked one. The Supreme People's Court released a statement accusing former Politburo Standing Committee member Zhou Yongkang, the highest-ranked official thus far implicated in China's ongoing anti-corruption campaign, of having "trampled the law, damaged unity within the Communist Party, and conducted non-organizational political activities." In Chinese bureaucratic speak, this was only a few steps shy of confirming earlier rumors that Zhou and his former political ally and one-time rising star from Chongqing, Bo Xilai, had plotted a coup to pre-empt or repeal the ascension of Chinese President and Party General Secretary Xi Jinping. Thus, the court's statement marks a radical departure from the hitherto depoliticized official language of the anti-corruption campaign.

Of course, it has long been clear that the Xi administration's anti-corruption campaign is far more than just a fight against graft — it is also a political purge designed to tighten the new leadership's control over Party, government and military apparatuses. But up to now, official language on the anti-corruption campaign has been couched in terms of fighting graft and abuse of power "for personal gain." So far as we are aware, very few if any official statements have alluded to "political activities" by suspects — and certainly none concerning high-profile figures like Zhou, whose position at the top of the country's energy industry and domestic security apparatus made him one of the most powerful Chinese politicians of the 2000s. Whatever the court's precise intent, that it chose language even hinting at a coup by Bo and Zhou is extraordinary.

If we accept that the use of a phrase like "non-organizational political activities" is significant, then we have to ask what the decision to use that phrase at this time may signify. To our minds, two possible interpretations stand out. First, it could mark a nascent shift in the way Chinese authorities frame the anti-corruption campaign and imply that going forward the campaign will become more overtly political. Second, it could signal that Xi and his allies, confident of having fully eliminated any threat posed by Zhou and his associates, are acknowledging an end to one phase of the anti-corruption campaign — the elimination of competing factions — and are now embarking on the further consolidation of authority and control over the far reaches of the bureaucracy.

If the former interpretation is correct, the anti-corruption campaign is about to get more brutal and potentially more destabilizing, as it moves from a relatively focused purge and general cleansing of the Party to a full-on assault against those who have the strength to challenge Xi's nascent authoritarianism. According to the latter hypothesis, with the would-be challengers routed and acknowledged as anti-Party plotters, and with political power firmly centralized under Xi and his allies, China's leaders can now put politics aside and move on to the more difficult and important task of building a government ready to manage the profound social and political disruptions that will almost certainly accompany China's economic slowdown.

Xi's Strategy

In either case, the anti-corruption campaign and political centralization are not occurring in a vacuum. The campaign may be the highest profile of Xi's initiatives thus far, but it alone is clearly not sufficient to deal with China's myriad problems. The question, then, is what to expect next.

Two recent developments in particular frame our understanding of the trajectory of China under Xi and his strategy for ushering China and the Communist Party safely through the difficult years ahead. First is the Party's renewed emphasis following the Fourth Plenary Session in October on establishing effective rule of law. Second is the announcement in February that going forward, the anti-corruption campaign would center on 26 of the country's largest state-owned enterprises, with a focus on resource, construction, heavy industrial and telecommunications businesses. This announcement came one month prior to renewed government pledges to merge and consolidate the state sector. It also stands out as the first time the government has pre-emptively and publicly named potential future targets – thus, in theory, giving them fair warning. As one official put it, the government plans to "hang the sword of Damocles" over the state-owned sector's head.

The thread that binds these two seemingly disparate elements together is the problem of political development in the context of rapid social and economic change — that is, how to build flexible and adaptive governing institutions capable of adjusting to meet the emerging needs of an urbanizing and industrializing (in some regions, post-industrializing) society like China's.

Although Chinese society and its economy have undergone profound changes over the course of the past 30 years — China's economy has grown nine-fold since 2000 alone — the country's political structure has changed only incrementally. To be sure, China's government is in many ways stronger and more effective today than it was when Deng Xiaoping took power in 1978. But it retains the same basic form he put in place more than two decades ago. As long as China's economy was growing of its own accord, this model sufficed. Its task was simply to prevent politics — a second Mao — from derailing the economy. But as the anti-corruption campaign and Xi's power consolidation drive signify, the model of consensus-based political decision-making put in place by Deng is breaking down.

The leadership transition from former President and Party General Secretary Hu Jintao to Xi was the first since the late 1970s that was not pre-ordained by Deng. Following the ravages of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and the brief reign of the so-called Gang of Four, Deng assumed the mantle of Chinese leadership, reversing many of Mao Zedong's economic policies, but also fundamentally altering the political organization of China. Rather than Mao's revolutionary model, which required perpetual upheaval, Deng proffered an evolutionary model — one that would use consensus politics to both break down the extreme factionalism of the Mao era and undermine the ability of any single individual to rebuild a clear faction in the face of multiple competing and cooperating interest groups.

To further reinforce stability, Deng selected both Hu and his predecessor, Jiang Zemin, ensuring more than two decades of clearly defined succession plans. During the economic growth of China's nearly three-decade “miracle,” the system of political consensus proved largely effective. The main purpose of government was to provide stability in the Party and the overall economic system, primarily serving a managerial role rather than a truly innovative leadership role. Certainly there were crises during these years, but these were frequently short-lived, and the government response was often one of delay followed by mitigation, rather than the implementation of any significant change in the underlying political, economic or social systems.

But as China neared its 2012-2013 leadership transition, it was clearly entering uncharted waters. Not only did this transition move beyond anything Deng had prepared for, it also occurred at a point where China's Deng-era economic model had clearly run its course. As with many of the Asian economic tigers before it, China's export-oriented and government investment-heavy model had reached a point where growth alone was no longer sufficient to sustain economic activity, and society had evolved faster than the political model. The global economic crisis, along with Europe's sustained sluggishness, only served to reinforce the end of China's easy times, and made it clear to China's leaders that they could no longer postpone what they had been delaying for more than a decade: a restructuring of the economy to one that would better harness internal consumption.

Xi Jinping's actions are symptoms, not causes, of the breakdown of the Deng political and economic model. As we wrote previously, the anti-corruption campaign is one element in a broader evolutionary process driven by the realization that the transition between China's former economic model (based on low-cost exports and investment-led construction) and new economic model (based on domestic consumption, services and high value-added manufacturing) will entail five to 10 years of immense social, economic and political strain. Simply put, the old model, whose legitimacy rested on the promise of ever-rising material prosperity and stability, is no longer viable.

Toward a New Political Order

What China is building in the old model's place appears to be a more centralized and more personalized political order: in essence, a dictatorship under Xi. At the same time, given the trajectory of Chinese social and economic development — the need to stimulate domestic consumption and innovative, high value-added industry — it is also clear that to succeed, this new order will have to differ fundamentally from the kind of dictatorship established under Mao.

The campaign against Zhou and Bo was more than a personality clash, and much more than an issue of basic corruption. It was a battle between competing models for the Party to maintain authority and control during the economic transition — and it was a battle over how the economy would make that transition. On the one hand, Bo — and by implication Zhou, as Bo's patron and ally — seemingly espoused what amounted to a return to the revolutionary politics of the Mao era, in which political legitimacy would rest not with the administrative apparatus, and certainly not within the rule of law, but in the hands of a charismatic leader, presumably Bo himself. On the other hand, if recent pledges to strengthen the rule of law and streamline and improve the functioning of powerful state-owned enterprises are to be taken seriously, then Xi and his allies would appear to be driving toward something else. The Xi camp's vision seems to be a political framework that could draw on elements of Mao's legacy — centralization of political power and nationalism, most saliently — while ultimately preserving the Deng model's promise of evolutionary, rather than revolutionary, change.

Let us assume that the politicization of the charges against Zhou is a sign of the Xi camp's victory over the Zhou and Bo camp regarding the political, social and economic model for Chinese reform. If that is the case, the Chinese leadership is, at least publicly, seeking a model that, though under tight central leadership, will try to rest on an autonomous, efficient and high-performing bureaucracy. This model also will almost certainly entail some level of legal protection for private and intellectual property rights — at least those of Chinese citizens — as a means to stimulate domestic consumption and innovation.

Recent Communist Party pronouncements on the importance of strengthening the rule of law, far from empty doublespeak, represent embryonic moves toward this end. The same goes for the anti-corruption campaign, especially in its application to the process of consolidating and streamlining the state sector. Authoritarianism and effective rule of law are not fundamentally incompatible. Neither are dictatorship and efficient administration. History offers several examples of countries that combined strong government and legal protection for things like private property and contracts without also adopting democracy: 19th century Prussia, for example, or 20th and 21st century Singapore. As China's leaders attempt to bolster their own rule of law and bureaucratic reforms, these examples are likely not far from their minds.

But the problem with this comparison is that Prussia, at its peak in 1871, had fewer than 25 million people. At the end of the Napoleonic Wars, its population measured only 10 million. Singapore is a city of 5.4 million. The leaders of each country worked for decades, over successive generations, to build high-performing bureaucracies that combined the kind of effective protection of property rights historically necessary to support the transition to advanced industrial economies. The differences between Prussia and Singapore and China are so many and so great as to make comparison virtually impossible. But two key differences — two fundamental constraints on China — stand out: size and time.

Evolutionary Versus Revolutionary Change

Throughout history, China has struggled with a common cyclical problem: To manage a nation as vast as China, the central government that first pulled together the far reaches of the empire needs to build and expand a bureaucracy to manage the complexities and scale of China. Over time, that very bureaucracy steadily usurps power from the center, and parochial interests reign supreme. At times of national crisis, the center tries to reclaim authority and control, only to realize that power has fragmented. The bureaucracy is resistant to change, and the system often breaks down after struggling to reform. Then, a new centralizing power rises from the ashes of the old, and the cycle begins again.

The Communist Party is no stranger to this cycle. Mao followed a revolutionary path, allowing frequent disruptions to keep the bureaucracy from ever fully usurping power from the center. Deng encouraged the bureaucracy, hoping that the economic prosperity it could bring would ultimately allow the center to balance the competing centrifugal forces with a fairly light touch. While Deng's model was a revolutionary shift from the Maoist model, it was predicated on a slow, steady evolutionary change in China and assumed it could somehow avoid the challenges of China's centuries of cycles. The transition from Hu Jintao to Xi Jinping, and the attendant challenge from Bo Xilai, questioned whether the Deng model was still applicable.

The difference between the Xi model of reform and the vision espoused by Bo was in part in how they would harness support from the population. Both Xi and Bo would need to reallocate capital from the more economically advanced coast and Yangtze River basin. Bo, who had built a cult of personality in Chongqing and blended Chinese nationalism with Party veneration, was apparently going to justify that through revolutionary propaganda, following the Maoist pattern of harnessing the vast masses of economically disenfranchised to force the redistribution of wealth.

Xi, on the other hand, though certainly consolidating power and taking on a more controlling tone, appears to be pursuing a more evolutionary path to reshape China's economic landscape. Rather than Maoist revolutionary ideology, Xi's propaganda machine nearly paints him as an equivalent of a U.S. or European president, a leader best qualified to be trusted to guide the Chinese forward through difficult times. While he is harnessing a type of Chinese nationalism or extreme patriotism, it is intended to keep all of the Chinese agreeing on policies, rather than turning against one another.

The fundamental question, however, is whether China has time for an evolutionary change. Other Asian nations that underwent significant economic and political transformation, from Meiji-era Japan to Park Chung-hee's South Korea, each made more radical and rapid changes — something that may be forced upon China's leaders. But each did so with the attending major social disruption and a heavy hand in domestic security. Major economic overhauls are messy affairs, and China has decades of dead wood to trim from its economy due to the lingering effects of Mao's intentional drive to ensure massive industrial redundancy, as well as to mismanagement and frequent unprofitability among state companies.

Although Singapore and even Prussia may be idealized models for China as countries that were able to transform and retain tight central authority, Lee Kuan Yew and the kaiser never had to manage a population of nearly 1.4 billion people, more than two-thirds of whom have effectively been left behind over three decades of promises that everyone would get rich in the end. As China tries to transition away from low-end manufacturing and economic stimulus driven by government-financed construction, it is the low end of the economic spectrum that will be disproportionally affected. A gradual shift in its economic model would allow China to slowly metabolize these displaced workers, but it is far from certain that China has the time to allow for this slow change, as the rest of the global economy is shifting with or without Chinese consensus.

China's Fragile Evolution is republished with permission of Stratfor.

Happy April Fool’s Day

Been off the net the last couple of weeks. It’s been crazy. Three shootings, two at one of my men and a block party for a “rap artist” (a bigger oxymoron than military intelligence) where two gangs went at it for a bit, one gang banger down and one gang banger in training injured. I’m still getting the hang of reviewing reports and I know when I get into work today it’s gonna be a long one.

This is my “Monday”, the first day of my work week. I’m off Monday/Tuesday, so I have the leftover reports from Sunday night, Monday and Tuesday to review. Last Wednesday I spent most of the shift reviewing the reports, oh joy. The good news is I am starting to see fewer errors and I’m getting through them a bit faster. I get the impression my guys were not used to having someone look at their reports and holding them to a standard. Good to know I can still make an impression! :<)

Right now I’m sitting in a Denny’s (and yes, there is a La Quinta next to it) with my computer, iPhone and breakfast. I needed to get my truck’s oil changed and the Wal-Mart is only a five-minute walk from Denny’s. I walk in and I discover the retiree set is in out. The place has only ten people in it, all but one will be AARP members getting their Early Bird Special. There is one twenty something white male sitting, perhaps a soon to be former resident of the La Quinta.

I wonder if I’ll be in a similar situation soon enough, but I refuse to join AARP. Obamacare pushers will never get a dime from me. Last month, soon after turning 50, I received a letter from them asking for my money, to join that group. I sent the packaging back with a simple letter to never contact me again. Yo guys, you started as a group to give seniors better insurance rates and you will die as because you sold out your members on insurance. Good riddance.

Got some time to kill so I can finally get on the blog and drink some not so good coffee. I shouldn’t say that, Maxwell House (or whatever generic this is) is ok, but I know what I like, Community New Orleans Blend. But you take what you can get and this is the best I can right now.

Just been joined by a early thirty-something with a cute boy, assumed his son, sitting just in front of me. And next a early 40s couple and then a 50 something, looks like a trucker, next to me. The working people must be getting ready to start. And this place normally packed on the weekends (Blue Knights meets here for rides) so they will be busy soon enough.

Well, onward. I get a cup of this “coffee” and head back to see if my truck is ready in an hour like they say (normally it’s not) and I have to pick up a few things while I’m out. Beth hates Wal-Mart and the old place has declined in the last few years (IMHO) but this store is fairly clean. And the people are actually nice. Then I have to take care of a few things before I get ready for work. Oh, joy. So once again we start the week. Hope your Wednesday goes well, and that is no April Fools Joke. Live Long and Prosper!

Security Weekly: Security for Meetings, March 19, 2015

By Scott Stewart

In last week's Security Weekly I discussed an attack against U.S. Ambassador Mark Lippert in Seoul that occurred as he was attending a breakfast meeting hosted by the Korean Council for Reconciliation and Cooperation at the Sejong Center for the Performing Arts.

After that article, I received an email from a friend who works for a large global nongovernmental organization. He asked if I could write a Security Weekly discussing how people without a security background can help plan security for meetings and conferences. I'd be remiss if I didn't first recommend that NGOs, companies and academic institutions hire or train up competent security professionals to help them secure their people and assets. However, I also understand that budgets — and sometimes organizational and corporate culture — often make that difficult, and as a result non-security people are often tasked with planning conferences and meetings.

As a final disclaimer, there is so much variation in the size and type of meetings and conferences that no guide can possibly cover them all. But I will try to provide some general guidelines.

Step 1: Threat Assessment

To assess the threats to meeting participants, you must first have a full understanding of the meeting's format and purpose. A small, private, invitation-only meeting requires far different security preparations than a large meeting open to the public and advertised in advance. Obviously, it is preferable that the threat assessment be completed before a location and venue are selected and be used to help guide those decisions rather than being done after the fact.

When considering the types of threats that could affect meeting participants, it is also important to remember that not all threats are connected to violence. Intelligence threats, natural disasters, fire, medical emergencies and health threats such as disease must also be considered.

The threat assessment must be conducted at several levels to determine an appropriate venue for the desired type of meeting, considering the specific venue, but also the city, region and country, for potential threats. Should we hold this meeting in Kandahar, or is Kabul safer? Do we stand a greater risk of losing proprietary information if we hold our Asian sales conference in China instead of Japan? Given the French emphasis on economic espionage, do we really want to have our corporate board meeting in Paris? Should we hold that meeting in New Delhi during prime dengue season? The primer we published for planning a safe trip abroad provides a list of good resources for obtaining much of the information required for such an assessment. Local contacts and trusted in-country security contacts can also be valuable in this process, especially with regard to specific venues.

In terms of venue, obviously the size of your audience is going to influence your choice of location: There may be a limited number of venues that can handle the number of people you expect to attend your event. But in general, there will often be a need for a decision on whether it is better to try to keep your meeting location low-key and out of the spotlight, or whether you will opt for the more visible security presence at a more high-profile venue.

As we have discussed for many years now, there is a terrorist threat to high-profile Western hotels. While hotel security managers have done a great job of hardening their security to counter this threat, it nonetheless persists, and by simply holding your meeting in a Western hotel you might place your people in a "wrong place, wrong time" situation. Thus, a risk/benefit analysis must be made to determine whether the superior security at a Western hotel is worth the tradeoff that the venue itself could be targeted merely for being a Western hotel. The answer to this question will vary based on the purpose of the meeting, the profile of the attendees, and the country and city in which the meeting will be held.

"Because we've always met there" is not an adequate reason to continue meeting at a specific venue if the assessment is that meeting at the venue presents a risk. Indeed, a long history of meeting at the same location could mean that any actor who poses a threat is also aware of this history and would have ample time to plant a listening device or prepare for an attack before the meeting.

Step 2: Protective Intelligence Assessment

In addition to considering general threats related to your organization, the country and city of the meeting, and the venue, you also need to conduct a granular assessment of any threats to your organization as it pertains to that particular place. Are there people or groups in the place where the meeting will be held that have come to the attention of your organization in a negative way in the past? Protesters, disgruntled customers, angry former employees, or mentally disturbed individuals with an abnormal focus of interest on your organization? Hopefully, your organization maintains a database of such people and groups to assist in this task.

If such people or groups are in the area where the meeting will be held, an assessment should be made of the danger they pose and the likelihood of them discovering your meeting and attempting to disrupt it. The names, information and photos (if available) of such people should be shared with venue security and local law enforcement. If deemed appropriate, meeting attendees should also be briefed about potential threats — especially if there is a chance such individuals approach or confront meeting attendees. In this situation, it is much better for attendees to be forewarned than it is for them to be caught off guard.

If there is a VIP attending your meeting, you should contact their staff to determine if they are bringing security with them or if they expect you to provide appropriate security for them. You will have to coordinate or create a plan for their arrival, a holding or safe room, and contingency plans in case of fire, attack or medical emergency.

In such a case you should also do a protective intelligence assessment on the VIP to see what their threat profile is and if they could be dragging security problems, in the way of protesters, mentally disturbed individuals or even terrorism, to your event. The VIP's security team can be a valuable source of such protective intelligence.

When I was working for a large multinational company, we once had a high-profile CEO of another company come to speak at a large customer event. Not only did our security team have to provide security for the CEO during the trip, but he was also a veritable magnet for mentally disturbed individuals. The CEO's visit was discussed in advance by the local news media and his presence resulted in several mentally disturbed individuals showing up at our event in an effort to contact him.

Step 3: Planning

It is difficult to plan security for an event at a venue without first visiting the venue. This will allow you to assess the security personnel and procedures in place and determine if additional security is needed. Such additional measures may include bomb or technical security countermeasure sweeps. For some larger events, you might have to arrange for additional access control and some sort of magnetometer or pat-down screening for members of the public attending.

Registration and badging are also important access control tools. Many times hotels and convention centers will have a trusted security vendor who can provide additional security officers. It is sometimes possible to coordinate with the local police to hire off-duty officers or even to arrange for on-duty officers to provide extra security for a meeting depending on the location and circumstances.

When looking at the security of a venue it is very important to physically examine all the fire exits and fire control equipment. On many occasions, I have encountered meeting venues with fire exits that were clogged with furniture or other items and therefore impassible, fire doors padlocked shut with a chain, and fire extinguishers that were expended, expired or otherwise not properly charged. Such equipment, including emergency lighting — and if appropriate, backup generators — should be inspected. Fire is a very real killer and should not be ignored, so fire evacuation plans are important.

From a statistical standpoint, a medical problem such as a heart attack is also far more likely to impact a meeting participant than a terrorist attack. Meeting planners should therefore plan for medical emergencies, including medical evacuation in places were modern medical care is not available.

Communications planning is also important. Planners need to ensure they have a way to quickly contact security personnel, key meeting coordinators, transportation companies and local authorities. Depending on the size of the event and the location, radios may prove to be more useful than cellphones. This is especially true in emergency situations that take the cellphone network down or if the cellphone network becomes overloaded as the result of an emergency situation. Backup communication channels should also be planned.

Depending on the threat and the venue, thought should be given to providing a security briefing to conference participants instructing them what to do in the case of a terrorist attack, fire or natural disaster. Security conditions and considerations for participants engaging in events outside of the meeting venue can be discussed. At the very least, event staff should be thoroughly briefed on what to do in the case of such emergencies.

In an event where access control is deemed necessary, it should be maintained for the entire meeting and access control points should not be abandoned after the event begins. A way for access control personnel to signal a problem to security and law enforcement should be established, as should a means of alerting the participants to an active shooter or other urgent security problem.

But access control will not be necessary for every event. Your security plan needs to be measured, appropriately logical and as non-invasive as possible to protect against the threats identified in your assessment.

One other thing that is critical to remember is that security plans must be flexible. It is a rare event that comes off without a hitch, and security plans must be able to adapt to changes and problems that arise. Indeed, it is hoped that the security plan will provide a general guide to respond to unforeseen events.

Security for Meetings is republished with permission of Stratfor."

Geopolitical Weekly: Can Putin Survive?, March 17, 2015

By George Friedman

Editor's Note: This week, we revisit a Geopolitical Weekly first published in July 2014 that explored whether Russian President Vladimir Putin could hold on to power despite his miscalculations in Ukraine, a topic that returned to prominence with his recent temporary absence from public view. While Putin has since reappeared, the issues highlighted by his disappearing act persist.

There is a general view that Vladimir Putin governs the Russian Federation as a dictator, that he has defeated and intimidated his opponents and that he has marshaled a powerful threat to surrounding countries. This is a reasonable view, but perhaps it should be re-evaluated in the context of recent events.

Ukraine and the Bid to Reverse Russia's Decline

Ukraine is, of course, the place to start. The country is vital to Russia as a buffer against the West and as a route for delivering energy to Europe, which is the foundation of the Russian economy. On Jan. 1, Ukraine's president was Viktor Yanukovich, generally regarded as favorably inclined to Russia. Given the complexity of Ukrainian society and politics, it would be unreasonable to say Ukraine under him was merely a Russian puppet. But it is fair to say that under Yanukovich and his supporters, fundamental Russian interests in Ukraine were secure.

This was extremely important to Putin. Part of the reason Putin had replaced Boris Yeltsin in 2000 was Yeltsin's performance during the Kosovo war. Russia was allied with the Serbs and had not wanted NATO to launch a war against Serbia. Russian wishes were disregarded. The Russian views simply didn't matter to the West. Still, when the air war failed to force Belgrade's capitulation, the Russians negotiated a settlement that allowed U.S. and other NATO troops to enter and administer Kosovo. As part of that settlement, Russian troops were promised a significant part in peacekeeping in Kosovo. But the Russians were never allowed to take up that role, and Yeltsin proved unable to respond to the insult.

Putin also replaced Yeltsin because of the disastrous state of the Russian economy. Though Russia had always been poor, there was a pervasive sense that it been a force to be reckoned with in international affairs. Under Yeltsin, however, Russia had become even poorer and was now held in contempt in international affairs. Putin had to deal with both issues. He took a long time before moving to recreate Russian power, though he said early on that the fall of the Soviet Union had been the greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20th century. This did not mean he wanted to resurrect the Soviet Union in its failed form, but rather that he wanted Russian power to be taken seriously again, and he wanted to protect and enhance Russian national interests.

The breaking point came in Ukraine during the Orange Revolution of 2004. Yanukovich was elected president that year under dubious circumstances, but demonstrators forced him to submit to a second election. He lost, and a pro-Western government took office. At that time, Putin accused the CIA and other Western intelligence agencies of having organized the demonstrations. Fairly publicly, this was the point when Putin became convinced that the West intended to destroy the Russian Federation, sending it the way of the Soviet Union. For him, Ukraine's importance to Russia was self-evident. He therefore believed that the CIA organized the demonstration to put Russia in a dangerous position, and that the only reason for this was the overarching desire to cripple or destroy Russia. Following the Kosovo affair, Putin publicly moved from suspicion to hostility to the West.

The Russians worked from 2004 to 2010 to undo the Orange Revolution. They worked to rebuild the Russian military, focus their intelligence apparatus and use whatever economic influence they had to reshape their relationship with Ukraine. If they couldn't control Ukraine, they did not want it to be controlled by the United States and Europe. This was, of course, not their only international interest, but it was the pivotal one.

Russia's invasion of Georgia had more to do with Ukraine than it had to do with the Caucasus. At the time, the United States was still bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan. While Washington had no formal obligation to Georgia, there were close ties and implicit guarantees. The invasion of Georgia was designed to do two things. The first was to show the region that the Russian military, which had been in shambles in 2000, was able to act decisively in 2008. The second was to demonstrate to the region, and particularly to Kiev, that American guarantees, explicit or implicit, had no value. In 2010, Yanukovich was elected president of Ukraine, reversing the Orange Revolution and limiting Western influence in the country.

Recognizing the rift that was developing with Russia and the general trend against the United States in the region, the Obama administration tried to recreate older models of relationships when Hillary Clinton presented Putin with a "reset" button in 2009. But Washington wanted to restore the relationship in place during what Putin regarded as the "bad old days." He naturally had no interest in such a reset. Instead, he saw the United States as having adopted a defensive posture, and he intended to exploit his advantage.

One place he did so was in Europe, using EU dependence on Russian energy to grow closer to the Continent, particularly Germany. But his high point came during the Syrian affair, when the Obama administration threatened airstrikes after Damascus used chemical weapons only to back off from its threat. The Russians aggressively opposed Obama's move, proposing a process of negotiations instead. The Russians emerged from the crisis appearing decisive and capable, the United States indecisive and feckless. Russian power accordingly appeared on the rise, and in spite of a weakening economy, this boosted Putin's standing.

The Tide Turns Against Putin

Events in Ukraine this year, by contrast, have proved devastating to Putin. In January, Russia dominated Ukraine. By February, Yanukovich had fled the country and a pro-Western government had taken power. The general uprising against Kiev that Putin had been expecting in eastern Ukraine after Yanukovich's ouster never happened. Meanwhile, the Kiev government, with Western advisers, implanted itself more firmly. By July, the Russians controlled only small parts of Ukraine. These included Crimea, where the Russians had always held overwhelming military force by virtue of treaty, and a triangle of territory from Donetsk to Luhansk to Severodonetsk, where a small number of insurgents apparently supported by Russian special operations forces controlled a dozen or so towns.

If no Ukrainian uprising occurred, Putin's strategy was to allow the government in Kiev to unravel of its own accord and to split the United States from Europe by exploiting Russia's strong trade and energy ties with the Continent. And this is where the crash of the Malaysia Airlines jet is crucial. If it turns out — as appears to be the case — that Russia supplied air defense systems to the separatists and sent crews to man them (since operating those systems requires extensive training), Russia could be held responsible for shooting down the plane. And this means Moscow's ability to divide the Europeans from the Americans would decline. Putin then moves from being an effective, sophisticated ruler who ruthlessly uses power to being a dangerous incompetent supporting a hopeless insurrection with wholly inappropriate weapons. And the West, no matter how opposed some countries might be to a split with Putin, must come to grips with how effective and rational he really is.

Meanwhile, Putin must consider the fate of his predecessors. Nikita Khrushchev returned from vacation in October 1964 to find himself replaced by his protege, Leonid Brezhnev, and facing charges of, among other things, "harebrained scheming." Khrushchev had recently been humiliated in the Cuban missile crisis. This plus his failure to move the economy forward after about a decade in power saw his closest colleagues "retire" him. A massive setback in foreign affairs and economic failures had resulted in an apparently unassailable figure being deposed.

Russia's economic situation is nowhere near as catastrophic as it was under Khrushchev or Yeltsin, but it has deteriorated substantially recently, and perhaps more important, has failed to meet expectations. After recovering from the 2008 crisis, Russia has seen several years of declining gross domestic product growth rates, and its central bank is forecasting zero growth this year. Given current pressures, we would guess the Russian economy will slide into recession sometime in 2014. The debt levels of regional governments have doubled in the past four years, and several regions are close to bankruptcy. Moreover, some metals and mining firms are facing bankruptcy. The Ukrainian crisis has made things worse. Capital flight from Russia in the first six months stood at $76 billion, compared to $63 billion for all of 2013. Foreign direct investment fell 50 percent in the first half of 2014 compared to the same period in 2013. And all this happened in spite of oil prices remaining higher than $100 per barrel.

Putin's popularity at home soared after the successful Sochi Winter Olympics and after the Western media made him look like the aggressor in Crimea. He has, after all, built his reputation on being tough and aggressive. But as the reality of the situation in Ukraine becomes more obvious, the great victory will be seen as covering a retreat coming at a time of serious economic problems. For many leaders, the events in Ukraine would not represent such an immense challenge. But Putin has built his image on a tough foreign policy, and the economy meant his ratings were not very high before Ukraine.

Imagining Russia After Putin

In the sort of regime that Putin has helped craft, the democratic process may not be the key to understanding what will happen next. Putin has restored Soviet elements to the structure of the government, even using the term "Politburo" for his inner Cabinets. These are all men of his choosing, of course, and so one might assume they would be loyal to him. But in the Soviet-style Politburo, close colleagues were frequently the most feared.

The Politburo model is designed for a leader to build coalitions among factions. Putin has been very good at doing that, but then he has been very successful at all the things he has done until now. His ability to hold things together declines as trust in his abilities declines and various factions concerned about the consequences of remaining closely tied to a failing leader start to maneuver. Like Khrushchev, who was failing in economic and foreign policy, Putin could have his colleagues remove him.

It is difficult to know how a succession crisis would play out, given that the constitutional process of succession exists alongside the informal government Putin has created. From a democratic standpoint, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin are as popular as Putin is, and I suspect they both will become more popular in time. In a Soviet-style struggle, Chief of Staff Sergei Ivanov and Security Council Chief Nicolai Patryushev would be possible contenders. But there are others. Who, after all, expected the emergence of Mikhail Gorbachev?

Ultimately, politicians who miscalculate and mismanage tend not to survive. Putin miscalculated in Ukraine, failing to anticipate the fall of an ally, failing to respond effectively and then stumbling badly in trying to recoup. His management of the economy has not been exemplary of late either, to say the least. He has colleagues who believe they could do a better job, and now there are important people in Europe who would be glad to see him go. He must reverse this tide rapidly, or he may be replaced.

Putin is far from finished. But he has governed for 14 years counting the time Dmitri Medvedev was officially in charge, and that is a long time. He may well regain his footing, but as things stand at the moment, I would expect quiet thoughts to be stirring in his colleagues' minds. Putin himself must be re-examining his options daily. Retreating in the face of the West and accepting the status quo in Ukraine would be difficult, given that the Kosovo issue that helped propel him to power and given what he has said about Ukraine over the years. But the current situation cannot sustain itself. The wild card in this situation is that if Putin finds himself in serious political trouble, he might become more rather than less aggressive. Whether Putin is in real trouble is not something I can be certain of, but too many things have gone wrong for him lately for me not to consider the possibility. And as in any political crisis, more and more extreme options are contemplated if the situation deteriorates.

Those who think that Putin is both the most repressive and aggressive Russian leader imaginable should bear in mind that this is far from the case. Lenin, for example, was fearsome. But Stalin was much worse. There may similarly come a time when the world looks at the Putin era as a time of liberality. For if the struggle by Putin to survive, and by his challengers to displace him, becomes more intense, the willingness of all to become more brutal might well increase.

Can Putin Survive? is republished with permission of Stratfor.