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Meanwhile, In Iraq...
Though it has not received the same amount of media attention as Syria and Egypt, Barclays points out that Iraq has witnessed a relentless wave of bombings and shootings this year and the risks are rising of a return to serious sectarian strife and widespread civil unrest. This is raising the risk of serious sectarian strife and widespread civil unrest, with implications for oil production, exports, and regime stability.
Via Barclays,
On Monday, at least 45 people were killed and hundreds wounded in a string of attacks across the country. It was the third straight day of large-scale, multiple bombings, including a suicide attack at an elementary school in the northern city of Tel Afar on Sunday that killed at least a dozen children. The violence has claimed more than 6,000 lives this year, the highest yearly death toll in five years. Iraq’s Al Qaeda affiliate, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, has claimed responsibility for the lion’s share of the attacks this year and the majority of victims have been Shiite civilians, with places of worship and shopping areas frequently targeted. Leading Iraq experts contend that the goal of Al Qaeda and other Sunni insurgent groups is to draw Shiite militia groups from the sidelines and spark a destabilizing cycle of retaliatory sectarian killings, similar to the events that occurred following the bombing of the Samarra Shrine in 2006. The violent aftermath of that bombing helped set the stage for the 2006-07 civil war.
So far, the radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has refrained from remobilizing his Mahdi army militia, which was responsible for some of the worst acts of violence directed towards Sunni communities in Southern Iraq during the civil war. Nonetheless, news reports indicate that other Shiite militia groups, such as Asaib al-Haq, are rearming and there have been several recent bombings targeting Sunnis (New York Times, September 27, 2013). An increase in such retaliatory attacks could be a key warning sign that the situation is devolving along the lines of the 2006-07 conflict.
As we have mentioned before, the war in neighboring Syria is negatively impacting the security situation in Iraq. Syria has deepened Iraq’s sectarian fault lines, with Prime Minister Maliki’s mainly Shiite government widely seen as siding with the Assad regime and Iraq’s Sunni opposition leaders with the Syrian rebels. Syria has also emerged as a key base for Al Qaeda extremists to launch attacks in Iraq. Hence, we do not believe that Iraq’s security situation will materially improve as long as the Syrian conflict continues to rage on. Next year’s parliamentary polls, tentatively scheduled for April, could further inflame sectarian tensions. Prime Minister Maliki was widely accused of waging a political witch hunt against rival Sunni politicians in the run up and in the aftermath of the controversial 2010 polls. He has also been heavily criticized by his opponents for failing to honor the terms of the power-sharing agreement that allowed him to secure a second term in office despite the fact that his coalition did not win the most seats in parliament. Maliki is widely expected to seek a third term following the August ruling by the Iraqi Supreme Court abolishing term limits.
While civilians have been the primary target of the insurgent violence, Iraq’s energy infrastructure has not been entirely spared. The Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline has been repeatedly bombed and senior Iraqi officials acknowledge that attacks will likely continue because the pipeline runs through insurgent strongholds. In contrast, the southern energy facilities have fared much better to date. Though there was a port bombing in Umm Qasr in August and a bombing of a mosque in the Daura refinery complex in Baghdad in September, the violence has not disrupted any oil supplies from the south.
However, the recent bombings in Basra, the capital of the oil region, show that the south is not beyond the geographical reach of extremist groups and hence targeting of southern facility cannot be entirely discounted, in our view.
...
Over the next two years, a water shortage could stoke the potential for unrest in southern Iraq. In the medium term, the government is likely to face a dilemma on ensuring adequate supplies of water to Iraq’s southern residents while also allowing for increased water for improved oil recovery to meet production targets. As oil and power sector water needs increase, the government will have to juggle the water requirements of restive citizens in Basra, which has in the past experienced protests during extensive power outages.
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That looks like the Socialism Progress curve in the USA.
It could also be your new inverted yield curve courtesy of your Federal Government:
http://dareconomics.wordpress.com/2013/10/14/around-the-globe-10-14-2013/
Bomb Israel!
This is BULLISH for ES. Every bit of news, or none at all, will drive the ES even higher than 3 days before the event.
.
.
Who is buying this market?
I don't understand. Why would today be different than all other days, when HFT is 50% of volume?
Relevant
Just in time for bailing out Dutch Royal Shell... /sarc
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/shell-opens-iraqs-majnoon-oil-field-201...
OK, so HFT accounts for 50% of the volume. That leaves the 50% of volume to someone who is buying this market on the way up. Who would want to bid up this market (in competition with the HFTs) at these levels?
How bad is that going to be when yeild return to their historical average? (like that will be allowed to happen)
And what's that compared to Chicago and Detroit this year??
Iraq? What about it?
We spent the blood of our young men, the country's treasure, pacified the hostile peoples and have taken our troops home. (No, I don't believe anything they say about 40,000 Xe and other mercenaries on the US payroll still being there... that's all part of the Vast RIght Wing Conspiracy, says Piers Morgan)
And this is how the beast we freed repay us.
By new wars and bloodshed after all we've done for them.
Just goes to show, we should a converted them all to Christianity while we were there.
and if this don't start some hairy shit flinging, I don't know what will... I have done my duty for the day...
"And this is how the beast we freed repay us."
I do not mean to be mean, but if you anyone believes Iraq was about "freeing" them, they need to give up freebasing.
Iraq was and still is about money and power, particularly for Halliburton, Blackwater and their associated cretins. They used our money and blood take and kill in Iraq to enrich themselves and broaden their power (control for future extraction) over us.
See Smedly Butler's quote that, "War is a racket."
Now I am going to go do some maintenance on the guillotine.
Not too long ago the Iraqi oil minister was predicting 12 million bpd by 2016.
Dec 2012 -- 3.2 million bpd.
Sept 2013 -- 2.8 million bpd.
Just like the "success' in Libya.Exceptional even.
The world will not survive many more US victories like these.
The whole point of ionvading oil producing counties is to make oil more expensive.
Otherwise shit's not workin' folks!
Control of oil and ensuring it gets sold in U.S. dollars, supporting the printing machine which in turn supprts all those contracts for multinational corporations and the MIC.
The future-classic econosociopolitical history of our times, "The Decline and Fall of the Petrostate Empire", is being written in real time.
sas,cia the mossad kill both sides stand back chill let revenge take over.
frank kitson british army low level operations.
Mission Accomplished????
Define mission.
Define accomplished.
When people and their tribes have no faith in a corrupt "government" and there is in fact evidence that there is no rule of law, they will "go to the mattresses" to settle things.
Same as it ever was...
I'd be a seller of the December 1000/1200 Call Spread in Monthly Total!
A good friend of mine is a Christian Iraqi and still has alot of family there mostly in the north where it's safer .He was telling me that there is a trend these days when they catch foreign jihadist in the country to tie them up in the street and pouring gasoline on them and lighting their beards on fire .No courts for these fuckers .I didn't know this but for them it's fairly easy to tell the foreign fighters appart from the rest of the population by engaging them in conversation , the Accents in arabic are very specific to country of origin , and even withing Iraq two people from a different part of the country that both speak Arabic can't understand each other .
Very very true. This is even more compounded when non-Arabic speakers are in the mix. It's not just Saudi Arabia and Qatar sending jihadists, although they are the bulk.
Also, the Kurdish and certainly the Peshmerga don't F around.
I never saw it first hand, but have heard of them not even allowing Arabic interpreters into Kurdistan tagging along with US and British troops, and were known to get very frustrated with Arabs being in such convoys or harass them during patrols through town. Of course you wouldn't need an Arabic interpreter in Kurdistan except maybe in Mosul and Kirkuk (border regions and all).
Uncle Sam's Wahabbi proxy army at its best.
If they are using dynamite, perhaps we should nominate them for the Nobel Pieces Prize. I mean Nobel developed that.
Thank you George W. Bush and Barack Obama. May you both rot in the 9th circle of Dante's Inferno forever.
Obama gets one of the mouths. And I don't mean Monica's either.
The Bush regime lied and fabricated "evidence" that was used to deceive Congress, the American people, and the United Nations.
At the time that these absurd claims were being made, experts knew that they were false.
Today everyone knows that the claims were lies.
I wonder why everyone has forgotten how much hate France got for NOT wanting to participate in the Irak war.
The whole dumbass "french fries" , the “cheese-eating surrender monkeys” things and all.
Tony Blair, leader of the more leftward of the two primary parties of the UK, looked at the same evidence and reached the same conclusion as Bush.
The rest of the coalition did the same. As for the evidence being fabricated (which would require Tony Blair being aware of it, too), we have:
August gas attacks in Syria are clearly the work of Assad, as opposed to in April when a UN commission found them to be the work of anti-Assad rebels.
So you think Saddam was a good guy? Wake up! How many countries did Saddam have to attack before you would do something?
@BabyBen
You probably have forgotten that the French participated in 1991 to the 1st coalition against Saddam, when he invaded Koweit.
The second largest European contingent was from France, which committed 18,000 troops.
At that time, the French helped the US in order to “re-establish the democracy” in Koweit.
Unhappily Bush I ordered all troops to stop before Bagdad …
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War
BTFATH
eye-rack? What's that? Is that a X-Factor contestant? They didn't say anything thing about them on American Idol.
Iraqi's, Iranians, Syrians, Palestians... who cares. If it were Jews then you were talking.
Move along.
When they're ALL corrupt, the absolute LAST thing we need anywhere is "regime stability".
I think it is important to remember that when non Muslims kill a Muslims it is an evil thing caused by hatred of Islam. When a Muslim kills a non Muslim it is because the non Muslim is a racist who hates Islam.
When a Muslim kills a Muslim it is because of some foreign government using long standing local differences to achieve some self serving goal.
All of which shows Muslims sure do a bunch of killing without the influence of Islamic teachings. So why do they pray five times a day when Islam has such little importance while committing murder?
Or might there just be some connection with the willingness to kill ano
ther and what is spoken at the Mosque?
I can tell you that that 5 times a day thing is often a load of crap. I've heard many many calls to prayer and I've seen thousands of people just keep on walking going about their daily business.
Oh man, thankfully I was there in 2007. A year so good it wasn't even listed!!! Those were good (sarc) times rolling through those urban deathtraps and surrounding areas with impassable roads during & after the rainy season. The aftermath of market bombings...if you haven't seen one it's like unicorns and rainbows and shit. Trust me.
2009 was boring though. I'll admit that we were told not to go out more than once a week and basically sat around waiting to invest out paychecks during the draw-down. Did train plenty of Police and some Army. "YALA YALA (Hurry Up)" It's one of the only Arabic words I know, certainly the only one I ever used with frequency.
The country needs a strong leader to keep the peace. Oooops! That's what they had.
Most of Africa and the Middle East CAN NOT function without an iron fist.
While most of the civilized world would be restricted and stifled by such a fist, there are some parts of the world where the people/cultures are so dysfunctional that they literally cannot function without strong leaders.
Regarding the Middle East and Mesopotamia in particular: Saddam was just the latest manifestation of 5,000 years of strongman rule. It didn't matter whether the guy's hame was Gilgamesh, Hammurabi, or Tiglath-Pileshar.
If there was no native ruler strong enough, then the vaccum would be filled by a strongman from the Iranian Plateau or from Annatolia (Sassanids, Ottomans, etc.). Iraq & Syria are more or less lowland civilizations and very much prone to invasion from the Mountain Civilizations from the Zagros or Annatolia when and if those tribes were strong and organized enough to do so.
Saddam was just the latest manifestation of native-born strongmen after nine centuries of Iranian/Mongol/Turkish/British rule, and after overthrowing Kings Faisal I & II.
A native leader put in place and financed by....the USA
We should invade iraq! bomb them into the stone age...in an effort to bring peace and stability!
GOD BLESS YA!
Iran is now doing just that, so we don't have to. Bless'em all!
With Iran re-opening yet another active front against the USA, et al, Saudis, etc, the war in the mideast just transmogrifies with another dimension of killing the innocent for Tehran's gain.
Radical action in northern Africa is just a kiss away from the major oil fields, just a kiss away as Jagger said.
JAOF Just Another Obama Failure. Spread peace anywhere he touchs.
Or maybe it is SOS.....Success Obama Style!
Like everything else we've done in the ME for the last 12 years and much longer.
"Who cares"?
How do you give a moral conscience to a Nation that never has had one and more importantly probably never will?
Meanwhile in the US, more top DOD brass have been "relieved of duty" since Petreus and McKristol.
Three more in the last 2 weeks:
www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/10/01/marine-generals-forced-to-retire-ove...
www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/10/11/air-force-general-in-charge-nuclear-...
Hero today, O'tomahawked tomorrow.
Very dangerous event(s) indeed. Especially when you put it into context with Senator Graham's warnings. This is the equivalent of the Minot to Barksdale incident on "steroids" and you can bet that these guys lives have been threatened if they ever speak out with the truth of why they were terminated.
I would like to believe these gentlemen have a large number of enlisted as well as officer ranks ready to support them with there lives if necessary as the B-52 crew members who mysteriously died under very suspicious circumstances when Dick Cheney made his requests for not creating a "paper trail" for the cruise missiles that went missing in '07.
Let's hope these involuntarily separated Generals and Admirals have the intestinal fortitude to becomes whistleblowers to tell the American people what they witnessed before their separation and what we might need to anticipate coming from this.
are you joking or a joke? why do blindly lionize members of the most corrupt insititution in the US?
This isn't Hollywood. If they had the "...intestinal fortitude to become whistleblowers..." then they would never have made the rank of general or admiral. They are not promoted to those ranks based on intelligence or leadership skills. They are promoted based on the degree of benefit to higher-ups and politicians they serve under. Budding psychopaths, one and all.
But don't take my word for it. Ask one of the 2.3 million active duty U.S. service members (0.6% of the population) how many would support their suck-up general officers and admirals with their lives. Nobody serves those bastards - the idea is to serve one's country.
Better yet, ask any vet about loyalty to these butt-kissing pussies. There are 23 million or so vets in the U.S. - 7% of the population. Shouldn't be hard to find one.
i'm a vet, and i'd say you are right, it's no different than a corporation.
Your comments are both well taken and well founded.
Given the stakes being so high, I was merely suggesting that even a "bobble head" will do his or her job from time to time when they know they have no other recourse.
I mentioned the Minot/Barksdale incident for a reason as this was a prime example of when an ordnance crew in charge of nuclear warheads both officer and enlisted rank involved did what they were trained to do by the book and made the ultimate sacrafice for it -unfortunately when it was inCONUS with the enemy this time being the V.P. of the United States and two Director(s) within the IC.
If it happens a second time, and I'll use that word again -Let's hope for all of our sakes we have another group within the Air Force and Navy that will do the same again if they are unfortunate enough to encounter that kind of an unthinkable request.
peace.