Synthesist

Black banners over Boston?

2013-04-20T11:10:00.001-04:00

It appears the deceased Boston marathon bombing suspect may have reposted a YouTube video of an Islamic apocalyptic prophecy involving the Black Banners of Khurasan.

Back in 2011, Zenpundit guest blogger Charles Cameron pointed out a book that explains the apocalyptic prophecy.

It’s beginning to be embarrassing how obvious the Khorasan / black banner / Mahdism meme is getting these days.

More background can be found here and here.

Iran and the drone

2012-10-13T10:30:00.000-04:00

Last week, Israeli fighter jets intercepted a drone over Israeli airspace. Reportedly, two Python missiles were required to shoot down the drone.

According to Lebanese media, Hezbollah claims to have assembled an Iranian-made drone.

Nasrallah said the drone, which “was manufactured in Iran but assembled by the resistance group,” was launched from Lebanon and violated Israeli space in which it conducted reconnaissance of “sensitive and important locations” before being shot down.

It should also be noted that Hezbollah flew an Iranian Ghods Mohajer surveillance UAV into Israeli airspace in 2004. Hezbollah is also in possession of Iranian Ghods Ababil UAVs, for which there are both surveillance and attack configurations. Hezbollah does not appear to be exaggerating its capability to send additional drones in the future.

In Iranian media, a legislator counted coup against Israel.

The operation code-named Hussein Ayub saw Hezbollah's drone fly hundreds of kilometers into the Israeli airspace and getting very close to Dimona nuclear plant without being detected by advanced Israeli and US radars, Nasrallah said on Thursday evening.

The implication is that Iran can target Israeli nuclear facilities too, with a possible tit-for-tat if Israel launches air attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities. Iran may have subsidized the drone, as it provides financial backing to Hezbollah. The drone mission may have been a test run, to collect operational data as well as information on how Israeli air defenses operate. Israeli doctrine against drones will accordingly change, now that the element of technological surprise is gone.

A Sputnik moment in alternative energy

2011-06-12T13:31:00.001-04:00

The political aftermath of Fukushima in Japan and Germany has presented the USA with an opportunity in alternative energy.

Manufacturers of solar panels, wind turbines and electricity network systems are among the key groups that stand to benefit most from [Germany]'s decision to shut down its nuclear plants... Chinese [solar panel] manufacturers have price structures that are far below those of European rivals, Wilkinson said, making it increasingly difficult for the Europeans to compete. As a result, some of them have begun to shift production to Asia to take advantage of the region's low labor costs.

However, this is a race that the USA can win, if they step up to the plate. Rising labor costs in China are projected to result in US manufacturing being cost-competitive later this decade.

“All over China, wages are climbing at 15 to 20 percent a year because of the supply-and-demand imbalance for skilled labor,” said Harold L. Sirkin, a BCG senior partner. “We expect net labor costs for manufacturing in China and the U.S. to converge by around 2015. As a result of the changing economics, you’re going to see a lot more products ‘Made in the USA’ in the next five years.”

But will this moment be recognized?

Timing is everything

2011-05-04T07:51:00.000-04:00

In light of apparent Pakistani complicity in sheltering Osama Bin Laden, it's worth re-examining Cheney's 2007 visit to Pakistan.

A suicide bomber detonated himself outside the main U.S. military base in Afghanistan ... less than 24 hours after U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney arrived ... Cheney had just arrived in Afghanistan following a highly secretive four-hour stopover in Pakistan, where he delivered a muscular private message to President Pervez Musharraf, in which he urged him to crack down more aggressively against Taliban and growing al-Qaeda activities.

Assuming this was not a coincidence, just how much pull did Pakistan's ISI and/or military have with Taliban suicide operations in Afghanistan?

Ironically, Osama Bin Laden ended up being a symbolic target

2011-05-01T23:52:00.000-04:00

Looking back at this NATO report from October, I wonder if it was part of a ploy to prompt Bin Laden to change hiding places, risking exposing his location.

Osama bin Laden is living in relative comfort in the far north-west of Pakistan, according to a Nato official who has day-to-day responsibility for the war in Afghanistan.

Iranian neoliberal economic reform

2010-12-22T19:36:00.003-05:00

Naomi Klein's book, The Shock Doctrine, argues that unpopular neoliberal reforms have been pushed through in countries while citizens were in shock, reacting to disaster and upheavals.

It is implied that some man-made crises, such as the Falklands war, may have been created with the intention of being able to push through these unpopular reforms in their wake.

Iran recently introduced an austerity budget, slashing subsidies for fuel and bread.

Iran's government has slashed subsidies on food, doubling the cost of bread in order to ease pressure on an economy straining under international sanctions... Prices for subsidized fuel quadrupled on Sunday as part of a new economic plan ...

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed to end all subsidies by 2013. The pattern fits the thesis of Klein's book, as last year Iran cracked down on dissent, created an environment hostile to protests:

The cuts in subsidies are far more severe [than in 2007] but the response has been muted. Iran observers attribute it to a climate of fear following a government crackdown in the aftermath of the 2009 presidential election controversy.

If Klein's thesis applies, then Ahmadinejad deliberately has been stoking a crisis over Iranian nuclear capability in order to justify suppression of dissent, paving the way for neoliberal elimination of government subsidies.

Limits to the utility of fingerprinting

2010-06-17T21:01:00.003-04:00

According to Kyodo News, a Chinese woman had her fingerprints surgically altered in order to bypass biometric airport security.

Lin Xiuai, 33, a resident of Yokohama, has told investigators she underwent surgery to change her fingerprints at a clinic in China's Fujian Province for about ¥30,000, the sources said.

That's only on the order of U$330. That makes it very cost-effective to defeat biometric fingerprint infrastructure.

Two accounts

2010-06-03T13:40:00.002-04:00

An Israeli media report:

Tens of thousands gathered in Istanbul Thursday for prayers for activists killed in Israel's raid on aid ships bound for Gaza, condemning the Jewish state and shouting support for Hamas.
"Damn Israel! Israel is the angel of death!" chanted the crowd which overflowed the sprawling courtyard of the Fatih Mosque, waving Turkish and Palestinian flags...
"We are all soldiers of Hamas," the crowd shouted.
Nine people - eight Turks and a US national of Turkish origin - were killed in Monday's pre-dawn raid by Israeli forces on the Turkish ferry, Mavi Marmara, the lead ship in the aid flotilla aiming to break the Gaza blockade.
"May your martyrdom be blessed," read a huge banner in the colors of the Palestinian flag, hung on the wall surrounding the mosque courtyard...

In contrast, a Turkish media report:

Thousands of people came to the historic Fatih Mosque in İstanbul yesterday to pay their final respects to the victims, whose bodies were brought to the mosque for a funeral prayer following an autopsy at the Council of Forensic Medicine (ATK).
The bodies were brought into the mosque courtyard while verses of the Quran were recited. The crowd then shouted slogans, including “Damn Israel” and “Murderer Israel-Accomplice US,” following which the funeral prayer was said.
The funeral was also attended by Energy Minister Taner Yıldız, İstanbul Governor Hüseyin Avni Mutlu, İstanbul Mayor Kadir Topbaş, Felicity Party (SP) leader Numan Kurtulmuş and Bülent Yıldırım, chairman of the Humanitarian Aid Foundation (İHH), the aid agency that organized the Turkey arm of the international campaign to send the aid ships to the impoverished Gaza Strip.

The first report makes it sound like yet another angry mob demonstration, easily dismissed. The second report notes the presence of Turkish officials, which I find significant, as well as anti-American sentiments being expressed. I also have to wonder how many of those chanting slogans were mobilized by the marginal Felicity Party and the IHH.

Profiling defeated via jihadi information war

2010-03-11T11:57:00.003-05:00

A middle-aged and suburban would-be terrorist termed "Jihad Jane" in the media was both female and white, as well as born in the USA. Far from being lone wolf operatives, however, the jihadi strategy of recruiting online has an inherent weakness tempering its effectiveness: sites can also be monitored by security agencies.

Radical, English-language Islamist websites that promote a violent jihad, or holy war, against the West have become more effective at recruiting Americans and providing a place for armchair terrorists to meet and plan attacks in the U.S. or abroad, experts say.

The war on terrorism is also an information war.

Gender profiling no longer viable

2010-01-24T02:21:00.003-05:00

According to recent reports, militants allied with al Qaida have trained women with a Western appearance as suicide bombers.

The women, who may have a "non Arab" appearance and be travelling on Western passports, have been prepared for their missions by the Yemeni group responsible for the operation to blow up an airliner over the United States on Christmas Day.

At this point, I have to wonder if a goal of militants is to provoke the West into instituting regular body cavity searches at airports.

Racial profiling of terrorists now futile

2009-12-30T11:35:00.004-05:00

The recent attempted in-flight bomb attack by a Nigerian national means that racial profiling of terrorists based on previous cases cannot merely be restricted to Arab Muslims, but also African Muslims. At this rate, it's only a matter of time before Asian and Caucasian militants are employed to get past airport screening. Back in September, Pakistan reported encountering a village of white expat German radical Muslims near the Afghan border.

Update: In 2007, two members of a bomb plot in Germany were white German nationals who had converted to Islam. Combined with the potential from Indonesian Islamic militants, no race can be ruled out as a potential threat.

Countering the body cavity bomb

2009-09-30T16:59:00.002-04:00

It turns out that recently a suicide bomber attacked a Saudi prince by hiding the bomb in an undignified body cavity. One potential technological countermeasure that could be adapted to airport security requirements: ultrasound scans to search for detonators.

Settling old scores

2009-09-17T11:24:00.002-04:00

It's adding up to quite a month. In Somalia, US special forces killed a militant leader alleged to have been behind the 1998 embassy attacks in Kenya and Tanzania. Now, Indonesian police claim to have killed the alleged mastermind of the 2002 and 2005 Bali bombings. Drone attacks on militant leaders continue in Pakistan. Are we seeing an escalation in targeted killing as a tactic?

Fiscal conservatism is off the US roadmap for now

2009-07-05T12:33:00.005-04:00

Future epic tax increases are hardly a new concern. I expect little to be done regardless of which political party wins the election in 2012. I note that the current House minority leader made excuses for growing, record budget deficits in 2003.

...judging by a bill that Congress is taking up Monday, the lasting fiscal legacy of the Bush administration will also include a historic rise in domestic spending that could affect everything from consumer interest rates to a fiscal landscape that could force epic tax increases in future.

The piece Boehner wrote has been taken down from his web site, but remains archived.

... Republicans also are far from being purely conservative. A conservative would like to see the government shrink; a Republican does too, but - in acknowledging political realities (a new defensive posture after September 11th for one) and the multitude of stakeholders in government after years of liberal control - has often had to settle for simply slowing its rate of growth. Republicans have accepted such realities as the burdens of majority governance.
The Republican Party has in recent years, contrary to conservative means - but still consistent with its fundamental tenets - sought to use the power of government for conservative ends.

The end result of this compromise? The Tax Cut and Spend Party.

High altitude ice particles may have affected Air France 447

2009-06-04T15:16:00.004-04:00

Here's a scenario that may account in part for the recent loss of Air France 447: high altitude ice crystals inducing engine shutdown. The shutdown of both engines happened to a Qatar Airways A330 in 2006.

At high altitude near intense storms, moisture turns into tiny ice crystals that can be sucked inside an engine. At first, the crystals melt. But sometimes the water freezes again on metal surfaces. Eventually, accumulating ice can either break into chunks that damage turbine blades, or melt and douse the ignition system...
By examining the dual-engine flameouts in relation to storm patterns, Mr. Hookey and other investigators began unraveling the icing mystery. Powerful thunderstorms, particularly over the Pacific Ocean in the spring and summer, can spawn smaller-than-normal ice particles...

High altitude? 35,000 feet. Near intense storms? The aircraft flew right into a thunderstorm zone. Wrong ocean, but the right seasonality for high altitude ice particles.

Chinese stimulus, not global recovery

2009-05-19T16:12:00.003-04:00

When the US administration announced massive spending in response to the ongoing economic downturn, China was left with the dilemma of what to do with US trade surplus dollars now that Treasuries would be a bad bet going forward thanks to inflation. Gold and precious metals are not an option, though China has stockpiled gold reserves in the past several years.

A recent Bloomberg piece points to what is going on with China's apparent stockpiling of resources.

China, the world’s second-biggest energy consumer, will provide the [$10 billion] loan to the [Brazilian] oil company known as Petrobras, which will supply 150,000 barrels of crude a day to the Asian nation this year and 200,000 barrels in 2010...
Lula, 63, is seeking to attract investment and open China’s markets to Brazilian exports ... to help blunt his country’s sharpest economic contraction on record. China is securing energy resources to power its economy, the world’s third-largest, by offering loans to oil-producing countries including Russia, Venezuela and Kazakhstan.
China also agreed on Feb. 17 to provide Russia with $25 billion of loans in return for 300,000 barrels a day of oil for 20 years. Venezuela’s Petroleos de Venezuela, known as PDVSA, will provide 200,000 barrels a day to the Asian country to pay down a $4 billion loan from China Development Bank Corp.

With this, the pieces begin fall in place. What we are seeing is a hybrid strategy which resembles both global economic stimulus and resource colonialism.

Wall Street analysts who view Chinese stockpiling as indicating recovery are mistaken. Stockpiling is more properly viewed a strategic move as well as a stimulus measure.

China is stockpiling commodities such as copper and iron ore as part of a reallocation of its sovereign wealth amid concern that the value of its dollar assets may decline, according to the Royal Bank of Canada.

Stockpiling props up current resource prices, reducing the need for companies to shutter mining capacity due to cash flow and profitability concerns. At the same time, loans provide much needed capital to developing economies, and secure longer-term access to needed resources at favorable prices, thanks to the impact of the ongoing economic crisis upon emerging markets. This combined investment boosting resource extraction infrastructure will moderate the impact of any resource supply squeeze when economies eventually ramp up, at least for the Chinese economy. It can even be argued that China is also countering peak oil concerns by investing in efforts to bring new supply to market.

Explaining the H1N1 influenza death rate in Mexico

2009-04-30T22:08:00.007-04:00

In a highly unscientific "study", I heard reports question why the suspected death toll for H1N1 is higher in Mexico, but no subsequent answers followed. Naturally, I turned to Google for insight.

In 2006, researchers found that a country's income was the biggest predictor of its death toll in an influenza pandemic. The lack of income per capita in Mexico is evident in the large number of uninsured citizens who accordingly receive minimal federal health care in what amounts to a three-tier health system. This figure of 50 million uninsured out of an estimated population of 110 million amounts to approximately 45%.

According to a 2007 news release from the New Mexico Department of Health, influenza was not systematically monitored in Mexico. While this lack of monitoring may be in part due to lack of resources, it was likely aggravated by the World Bank-led neo-liberal health reform, which failed to prevent a shortage of adequately skilled staff and likely increased the bureaucratic barriers to inter-state cooperation in communicable disease monitoring.

My tentative conclusion is that poverty, insufficient resources, organizational dysfunction, and a lack of political will for influenza surveillance left Mexico in a condition vulnerable to an influenza pandemic.

As a consequence, it's entirely possible that H1N1 has gone undetected for some time and that the apparently high death toll to date (based on suspected rather than confirmed cases) could be more a function of total population infected rather than elevated lethality.

Undermining Karzai

2009-04-12T13:03:00.005-04:00

Recently, it was reported that Mohammad Asif Mohseni refused change for controversial Afghan legislation mandating that Shiite women must submit to sex from their husbands.

"It is not possible for all women to pay the same amount of money as men are paying. For all these expenses, can't we at least give the right to a husband to demand sex from his wife after four nights?" [Mohammad Asif Mohseni] said.

I've not seen a report that mentions his historical ties to Iran. Until 2005, he had previously been the leader of Harakat-e Islami-yi.

During the 1980s, the movement was part of the 'Tehran Eight', an alliance of Shiite mujahedin factions supported by Iran that fought against the PDPA government and Soviet troops.

This could be a calculated move to alienate Karzai from the West. From the standpoint of near-border security, Iran would gain from seeing all US presence driven from both Afghanistan.

Prisoner shell game

2009-03-19T22:39:00.002-04:00

It was widely reported in January that President Obama signed an order to close Guantanamo by the end of the year.

Where will the prisoners go? It was reported in 2008 that a contract was awarded to build a prison complex in Afghanistan, due for completion before the end of the year.

For example, on Aug. 1, the Army Corps of Engineers announced that Prime Projects International, a firm based in Dubai, [UAE], had won a $50 million contract to design and build a prison complex at Bagram to hold 1,000 high- and low-risk detainees. The complex is not expected to be completed before October 2009.

In addition, the Pentagon plans to expand intelligence operations at Bagram, the main prison in Afghanistan.

According to NPR, the number of Guantanamo detainees peaked at 775, a figure well within the capacity of the new prison complex.

Stiglitz makes a modest proposal

2009-02-02T22:25:00.003-05:00

Joseph Stiglitz' proposals got my attention. First, let the banks go bust, then step in:

Mr Stiglitz's radical proposal is a "Chapter 11" scheme for households to allow them to bring their debts under control without having to go into bankruptcy. "Families matter just as much as firms. The US government can borrow at 1% so why can't it lend directly to poor people for mortgages at 4%," he said.

TARP is a bust. Buying preferred shares from banks and expecting them to suddenly start lending again can't work. My reading of the situation is that the credit crunch isn't a dysfunction of the market, but a reflection of markets operating efficiently. Why would a bank rationally risk losing funds on the interbank lending market when there are other banks still yet to collapse? The uncertainty and reluctance to loan is a reflection of real risk. The market is functioning according to the rules of the system, but isn't functioning the way we want it to. Credit is not flowing through the network. Nor is it reasonable to expect that banks can be "bribed" into taking more risk, not after so many were burned by the sub-prime mortgage meltdown.

Stiglitz' proposal to bypass the banks and lend directly to mortgage holders effectively routes around "damage" in the network. It's a novel approach to getting credit where it's needed. If the banks can't do it, create a new mechanism that can.

Crashing the credit network

2008-11-25T11:16:00.004-05:00

It appears that those coping with the credit crisis aren't sufficiently ramped up on network theory. This paper by Zhao et al, titled "Tolerance of scale-free networks against attack-induced cascades", has a paragraph which captures the current situation.

... the presence of such a small set of important nodes means that the network can be fragile because attack on one or a few nodes in this group can have a devastating effect. In particular, considering that those nodes typically handle a substantial fraction of loads necessary for the normal operation of the network, an attack to disable one or few of these nodes means that their loads will be redistributed to other nodes. Because the amount of the redistributed loads can typically be large, this can cause other nodes in the network to fail, if their loads exceed their capacities, which in turn causes more loads to be redistributed, and so on. This cascading process can continue until the network becomes disintegrated. Indeed, simulations show, for instance, that for a realistic power-grid network, attack on a single node can disable more than half of the nodes, essentially shutting down the network...

Lehman Brothers was a well-connected, load-bearing node in a complex network of credit. Its sudden disappearance crashed the credit network. In a disintegrated credit network, no one will lend out money; that condition describes the credit crunch we're experiencing now, where governments and central banks are having to step in as lenders of last resort. Under normal functioning conditions, the loss of a random node won't crash the network. We're not in normal conditions. Calls to "amputate" or otherwise permit major credit nodes to fail apparently reflect a failure to recognize the failure modes that networks can exhibit.

Cascading failure is evident in the commentary on the collapse on a Krugman's blog entry.

What the article really adds, though, is the details of the chain reaction that did the damage... Lehman’s fall led to (1) a run on money market funds, causing commercial paper rates to soar (2) soaring rates on credit default swaps, driving AIG over the edge and sending LIBOR sky-high.

Game theory and the food supply chain

2008-10-26T19:41:00.004-04:00

Has Wal-Mart been studying game theory lately?

"I firmly believe that a company that cheats on overtime and on the age of its labour, that dumps its scraps and chemicals in our rivers, that does not pay its taxes or honour its contracts, will ultimately cheat on the quality of its products," said Lee Scott, the company's chief executive, speaking in Beijing at a specially convened conference for suppliers...
"When we have bought overseas, we have purchased historically in a very transactional manner. We need deeper, longer-term relationships with suppliers so they are not based upon the last penny but provide a quality product at a very good price.

This sounds analogous to a tit-for-tat solution to the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma. In tit-for-tat strategy, cooperators (safe food suppliers) will be rewarded. Defectors (cheaters who water down food products unsafely) will be punished (left to go bankrupt). Therefore reputation counts.

Aftershocks

2008-09-27T05:56:00.003-04:00

Richard Herring pointed to 1998 as the start of the real-estate bubble in the United States.

Until about 1998, you were making about as much on your house as on your treasury bill, as if you have invested in treasury bills. The appreciation started just about as interest rates went down... But it led to a circumstance where most of the people doing the business had not in their lifetime experienced a downturn in house prices.

And that in turn led to one of the unreasonable assumptions which underpinned the subprime crisis. It's also worth recalling the origins of the recession that began in 1998. Nouriel Roubini states it succinctly:

During the Asian crisis the yen weakened all the way to 147 to the US dollar by late August 1998; and the BoJ reduced its policy rate to 0.25% ... Then in August 1998 Russia defaulted ... and this default triggered a seizure of global financial markets as major players with levered position started to get margin calls, had to dump their assets to cover their margin calls and started to cover their yen carry trade shorts. LTCM then was hit by this liquidity seizure and avoided a near default in late September 1998 via a private sector bailout coordinated by the NY Fed.

The current liquidity crisis is to some degree an aftershock, an unintended consequence of the response to the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis and 1998 Russian financial crisis.

Make money, not war

2008-09-02T20:39:00.004-04:00

Back in February, it was reported that Chinese aimed to send tens of millions of workers to Africa.

An estimated 750,000 mainly rural poor have moved there ... working on projects to build railways, construct electricity grids and even farm the land.
... officials want more of China's surplus rural population of tens of millions of people to follow them, saying they will earn money and help the continent to develop.

Obviously, this measure is aimed at tackling rural unemployment. However, this policy is more intriguing once one considers that these workers being sent abroad are more likely to be male than not. This may be another strategy for tackling the gender imbalance: exporting young males abroad so they won't make trouble on the home front, thus defusing the threat posed to political stability by the youth bulge. According to a report last year:

China will have 30 million more men of marriageable age than women in less than 15 years as a gender imbalance resulting in part from the country's tough one-child policy becomes more pronounced, state media reported Friday.

The numbers line up pretty well for order of magnitude.

The Pentagon and the Poisson distribution

2008-08-07T11:50:00.003-04:00

In "Statistics of Deadly Quarrels", Richardson plotted the magnitude of conflicts (by death toll) and ended up with a statistical curve that was near a Poisson distribution. Assuming this trend continues, what should this mean for Pentagon planning? From a review of Richardson's book:

It's no surprise that the two World Wars of the 20th century are at the top of this list; they are the only magnitude-7 conflicts in human history. ... the remainder of the 315 recorded wars, along with all the thousands of quarrels of intermediate size, produced less than a fourth of all the deaths.
The list of magnitude-6 wars also yields surprises, although of a different kind. Richardson identified seven of these conflicts, the smallest causing half a million deaths and the largest about 2 million...

While planning for the Big One is traditional, the statistics imply that we should also expect a larger number of Smaller Ones that may require US-led intervention, and an even greater number of lower-intensity conflicts which may tie up significant resources due to sheer quantity. Iraq is likely not an exceptional case, but merely a conflict further down the curve.