Two weeks ago the National Transport Safety Board (NTSB) released a 13 pages long recommendation (pdf) resulting from its investigation into the 737 MAX incidents. Since we dicussed that damning report more bad news for Boeing has come out.

• Boeing's general business is not doing well.
• A newly found structural defect on older 737 NG planes, the predecessor of the 737 MAX, will ground a significant number of those planes.
• There are new damning revelations about the 737 MAX development process that have led to two deadly accidents. The Southwest pilot associated is suing Boeing for making false statements. A whistleblower asserts that Boeing left out safety features because of their costs. A Joint Authorities Technical Review will make it more difficult for Boeing to 'upgrade' older airplane types.
• There are further delays in the MAX return into the air.

As AirInsight analyst Ernest Arvai summarizes:

The MAX is grounded, the 787 is being investigated for quality issues and has major engine problems, the 777-X is even further delayed with engine problems, and the KC-46 is failing to meet needs and currently restricted from carrying passengers and cargo. Now, the prior generation 737NG is developing serious premature failure of structural components that should last the lifetime of the aircraft, and could result in an additional financial drain. We’ve been looking for good news about Boeing, but simply can’t find any.

An order for 22 of Boeing's 787 Dreamliner was canceled. Without new orders the two production lines for the 787 will need only 40 more months to finish the outstanding orders. That is a relative short backlog for a large passenger jet production line. Boeing needs a new mid-range product but has little time to work on it.

Boeing's overall orderbook is shrinking:

Cont. reading: Boeing’s New Problems Reach Beyond The 737 MAX

Monday: Want to bring back US forces engaged in endless wars: Trump

"We want to bring our troops back home. It''s been many many years. It''s been decades, in many cases. We want to bring our troops back home. I got elected on that. If you go back and look at our speeches, I would say we want to bring our troops back home from these endless wars," Trump told reporters at the White House on Monday.

Friday:

Lucas Tomlinson @LucasFoxNews – 17:50 UTC · Oct 11, 2019
Pentagon: Since May, U.S. forces have increased in Middle East by ~14,000: statement. There are currently more than 60,000 U.S. troops deployed to various countries and aboard warships.

Dan Lamothe @DanLamothe – 17:50 UTC · Oct 11, 2019
Pentagon just announced the deployment of two more fighter squadrons, one air expeditionary wing, two Patriot batteries and one THAAD unit to Saudi Arabia just now, moments before briefing with senior officials.

None of which is able to defend Saudi Arabia against another drone or cruise-missile attack.

The troop should be reminded that deployments in Saudi Arabia can end in unfriendly ways.

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Two days ago the New York Times published a sensational story about alleged Russian fiendishness. It was headlined:

Top Secret Russian Unit Seeks to Destabilize Europe, Security Officials Say.

According to the story unit 29155 of the Russian military intelligence service GRU is responsible for the Skripal affair in Britain, the attempts to murder a Bulgarian arms dealer, a failed coup attempt in Montenegro and a 'destabilization campaign' in Moldavia. All those alleged operations have a common aspect. They failed to achieve their alleged objective. But the NYT piece does not emphasize that. It instead raises a very scary picture:

Western security officials have now concluded that these operations, and potentially many others, are part of a coordinated and ongoing campaign to destabilize Europe, executed by an elite unit inside the Russian intelligence system skilled in subversion, sabotage and assassination.

The group, known as Unit 29155, has operated for at least a decade, yet Western officials only recently discovered it. Intelligence officials in four Western countries say it is unclear how often the unit is mobilized and warn that it is impossible to know when and where its operatives will strike.

The purpose of Unit 29155, which has not been previously reported, underscores the degree to which the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, is actively fighting the West with his brand of so-called hybrid warfare — a blend of propaganda, hacking attacks and disinformation — as well as open military confrontation.

The author, Michael Schwirtz, promoted the story on Twitter:

Michael Schwirtz @mschwirtz – 15:57 UTC · Oct 8, 2019
The Russian operatives who poisoned Sergei Skripal with a nerve agent in Britain last year were members of a highly secretive spy unit that until recently was unknown to Western intelligence agencies. My latest dive into Russian spycraft.

"Western officials only recently discovered" the "highly secretive spy unit". One wonders how they did that. The best guess is that they googled it:

Cont. reading: “Top Secret” Russian Unit That “Destabilizes Europe” Is A Well Known Small Arms Training Base

So it begins:

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced that a Turkish military operation into Syria has started.

Erdogan said on his official Twitter account Wednesday that the operation, named “Peace Spring,” has begun. He said the operation aims to eradicate “the threat of terror” against Turkey.

Earlier, Turkish television reports said Turkish jets had bombed Syrian Kurdish positions across the border from Turkey.

The plan is as we anticipated. A major goal is to interrupt the M4 highway that runs parallel to the border and allows for troop movements between the east and the west of the Kurdish majority areas. The highway is about 20-30 kilometers from the border. The sector Turkey is attacking right now has only a minority of Kurdish people amongst a majority of Arabs.

Ragıp Soylu @ragipsoylu – 11:34 UTC · Oct 8, 2019
How will Turkey conduct the operation in Syria?
• First phase: 120km area between Tal Abyad/Rasulayn, where US troops withdrew
• Airforce, drones/jets and howitzers will pound YPG targets
• Then Turkish Special Forces and Syrian National Army will enter
— Turkish reports

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Cont. reading: Syria – Turkey Again Invades

This morning U.S. President Donald Trump has a little surprise for the Kurds in Syria:

Today, President Donald J. Trump spoke with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey by telephone. Turkey will soon be moving forward with its long-planned operation into Northern Syria. The United States Armed Forces will not support or be involved in the operation, and United States forces, having defeated the ISIS territorial “Caliphate,” will no longer be in the immediate area.
…
Turkey will now be responsible for all ISIS fighters in the area captured over the past two years in the wake of the defeat of the territorial “Caliphate” by the United States.

This actually is not a surprise. Trump had tried several times to remove the U.S. from Syria and was only held back by the borg. Last December then Secretary of Defense James Mattis resigned when Trump ordered the troops to leave Syria. I do not expect anything similar to happen now.

Turkey long wanted to move into the Syrian border area east of the Euphrates. It sees the YPG resistance group, with whom the U.S. allied to go after ISIS, as a threat to its country. That view is justified.

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Erdogan wants to take a 30 kilometer deep strip including the M4 highway which runs west to east in that area.

Cont. reading: Syria – Trump Gives A Green Light For Another Turkish Invasion

Last week's posts at Moon of Alabama:

• September 30 – Senior Twitter Executive Joined British Army Troll Brigade

Related:
Elite UK military unit secretly trained by leftist regime-change advocate Gilbert Achcar and other academics – Ben Norton, Grayzone

• October 1 – China's Anniversary Parade Reveals New Weapons That Will Influence U.S. Strategies

• October 3 – When Ukraine's Prosecutor Came After His Son's Sponsor Joe Biden Sprang Into Action

Related:
Impeachment, Brought to You by the CIA – Rob Urie, Counterpunch

Giovanni Cavalcanti @giovannicavett – 23:55 UTC · Oct 4, 2019
Joe Biden loses his cool when confronted by a reporter asking whether there was ‘conflict of interest’ regarding his son's Ukraine/China business scandal. video

The Hunter Biden story is a troubling tale of privilege – Washington Post:

Less privileged Americans can’t be faulted if they wonder why their addicted loved ones are on the streets or in the morgue while the vice president’s son is blessed with diamonds and sinecures. Multitudes locked up for years under Joe Biden’s crime bill might ask why the author’s son traveled the world scot-free. And sober working people making $50,000 a year may be skeptical of a system in which a vice president’s addicted son reportedly collected that sum every month.

• October 4 – How An Ever Sanctioning Superpower Is Losing Its Status

Related:
America now solves problems with troops, not diplomats – The Conservation

• October 6 – The U.S. Led Coup Attempt In Iraq Will Further Weaken That Country

Related:

Lost Weapons @LostWeapons – 9:53 UTC · Oct 6, 2019
multiple videos of protesters being shot by snipers pic.twitter.com/gNJ9Hosljm

Other issues:

Former Israeli Intel Official Claims Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell Worked for Israeli Intel – Whitney Webb, UNZ
Jeffrey Epstein Raked In $200 Million After Legal and Financial Crises – New York Times

Use as open thread …

The current unrest in Iraq began a week ago after a prominent general was removed from his post:

Lieutenant General Abdul Wahab al-Saadi was the great Iraqi military hero of the war against Isis, leading the assault on Mosul which recaptured the de facto Isis capital after a nine-month siege in 2017.

But at the weekend he was suddenly removed as the commander of the Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) shock troops, the elite corps of the Iraqi armed forces, by Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi. He was instead given what the general considered to be a non-job at the Defence Ministry.

Saadi has refused to accept the move against him, and described his new posting as an "insult" and a "punishment". His effective demotion has provoked a wave of popular support for arguably Iraq’s most esteemed general, on the streets as well as on social media.

The CTS is a force that often cooperates with the U.S. military. Abdul Wahab al-Saadi is a U.S. trained officer. He was suspected to be the head of an imminent overthrow of the government.

For months there have been rumors of a U.S. instigated coup in Iraq:

Republic of Sumer @Sumer_Iraq – 14:30 UTC · Oct 4, 2019
Over two months ago, Qays Khaz’ali said:

There’s plans to change Baghdad government in November, with protests erupting in October. Protests not spontaneous, but organised by factions in Iraq. Mark my words

Qays Khaz’ali is a leader of Shia groups who twelve years ago fought against the U.S. and British invaders.

Cont. reading: The U.S. Led Coup Attempt In Iraq May Further Weaken That Country

The Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke yesterday at the yearly Valdai Discussion Club meeting in Sochi. A video with English translations and excerpts of the transcript are here.

With regards to the global system Putin made an interesting historic comparison:

in the 19th century they used to refer to a “Concert of Powers.” The time has come to talk in terms of a global “concert” of development models, interests, cultures and traditions where the sound of each instrument is crucial, inextricable and valuable, and for the music to be played harmoniously rather than performed with discordant notes, a cacophony. It is crucial to consider the opinions and interests of all the participants in international life. Let me reiterate: truly mutually respectful, pragmatic and consequently solid relations can only built between independent and sovereign states.

Russia is sincerely committed to this approach and pursues a positive agenda.

The Concert of Europe was the balance of power system between 1815 to 1848 and from 1871 to 1914:

A first phase of the Concert of Europe, known as the Congress System or the Vienna System after the Congress of Vienna (1814–15), was dominated by five Great Powers of Europe: Prussia, Russia, Britain, France and Austria. […] With the Revolutions of 1848 the Vienna system collapsed and, although the republican rebellions were checked, an age of nationalism began and culminated in the unifications of Italy (by Sardinia) and Germany (by Prussia) in 1871. The German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck re-created the Concert of Europe to avoid future conflicts escalating into new wars. The revitalized concert included France, Britain, Austria, Russia, and Italy with Germany as the main continental power economically and militarily.

Bismark's concert kept peace in a usually warring Europe for 43 years. If Putin wants to be the new Bismarck I am all for it.

Putin also made a rather extraordinary announcement:

Cont. reading: How An Ever Sanctioning Superpower Is Losing Its Status

There are some serious questions around the Biden family involvement in the Ukraine that the media have not picked up on.

The first regards the ownership of the company which hired Joe Biden's son Hunter for an exorbitant amount of money while Joe Biden ran the U.S. Ukraine policy.

The second question is about the firing of the Viktor Shokin, the former Prosecutor General of the Ukraine. Trump accuses Joe Biden of having intervened in favor of his son's sponsor to get Shokin fired. The timeline below supports that assertion.

At Naked Capitalism Yves Smith reposted a 2014 piece by Richard Smith who at that time looked into the Hunter Biden appointment to the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian gas producer. Yves writes:

Richard [Smith] did a deep dive into the dodgy appointment of Hunter Biden and then Secretary of State John Kerry’s long-standing bundler, Devon Archer, to the board of Burisma Holdings. Richard quickly got past the noteworthy fact that Biden Jr. was being paid quite a lot for no relevant expertise and no investment in the company…so what was he being paid for, exactly? Oh, and Richard also describes how Hunter’s and his uncle James Biden’s past financial rides were with con artists.

But the real puzzlement is that from everything that can be inferred, Burisma is either tiny or just a shell company. So who is behind these big director payoffs payouts? Richard found some bread crumbs that pointed to Burisma being owned by Privat Group, a conglomerate controlled by the Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky.

Burisma is officially owned by Mykola Zlochevsky, a former Ukrainian Minister for Natural Resources who (illegitimately) issued oil and gas licenses to companies he himself owned. But Richard's trail shows that Burisma was sold or raided with the help of various shell companies and that the real owner is probably the Nazi loving criminal oligarch Igor Kolomoisky.

The German state funded DW notes an additional candidate:

Cont. reading: When Ukraine’s Prosecutor Came After His Son’s Sponsor Joe Biden Sprang Into Action

News & views …

The People's Republic of China held a great parade (3h video, shorter version with comments) to celebrate the 70th anniversary of its founding. Some interesting new weapons were on display that are of strategic significance.

China has, like Russia and Iran, used the decades the U.S. military wasted with counter insurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan to build strength where the U.S. military has weaknesses. Those weaknesses are most visible in the Navy:

New classes of quiet diesel submarines and new developments in mine and torpedo technology make operations close to tense coastlines far more dangerous today than in the past. As a result, U.S. aircraft carriers are no longer immune from risk when entering waters within range of enemy forces.

More serious still is the deployment of Russian and Chinese area denial systems, like the so-called carrier killer DF-21 antiship missile developed in the last decade by China. Its range of over 1,000 miles far outstrips the range of any warplane on U.S. flight decks today. Sailing a U.S. carrier strike force through the Taiwan Strait these days—in a show of support for pro-democracy forces in Hong Kong, for instance—would risk catastrophe.

Iran does not yet possess anything as sophisticated as China’s DF-21. However, its domestically produced Noor antiship missile (itself a reverse-engineered rip-off of an earlier Chinese cruise missile) is dangerous at over 100 miles. […] The combination of these missiles and Iran’s fleet of fast and cheap patrol boats has been enough to keep the USS Lincoln out of the Persian Gulf as tensions between Iran and the United States increased this summer.

The carrier killer DF-21 is no longer China's top weapon. It is a ballistic missile and a U.S. carrier group may be able to use its missile defenses to take it down. China used the last years to exceed its capabilities.

AP reports of today's parade:

One closely-watched weapon unveiled Tuesday was the Dongfeng-17, a glider capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. Foreign analysts say is designed to maneuver at high speed to evade anti-missile defenses.

Another missile displayed, the Dongfeng-41, is believed to have a range of up to 15,000 kilometers (9,400 miles), which would make it world’s longest-range military missile. Analysts say it may be able to carry as many as 10 warheads to hit separate targets.

Here are some screenshots from the parade video.

DF-17

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The DF-17 is a road mobile system. Its first stage is a solid fuel missile. The second stage is the hypersonic glider which can fly beyond mach 5 and is maneuverable. This is another aircraft carrier killer against which the U.S. has absolutely no defenses.

DF-41

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The DF-41 is a road mobile beast. The 8 axle vehicle can transport, erect and launch the missile. The DF-41 is supposedly a solid fuel missile. That means that it only requires a very short time to deploy and launch. It will be difficult to interdict while it is still on the ground. There were a total of 16 of these monsters in the parade.

There were other systems of interests.

Cont. reading: China’s Anniversary Parade Reveals New Weapons That Will Influence U.S. Strategies