Photo, left: Superb Afghan ruby mines are one main target of Taliban.*  US bugs out on Afghans, leaves them to the mercy of the mass-slaughtering, gang-raping, Twelfth Century Deobandis: abandoned are Pashtun, Qizilbash, Hazara, Uzbek, Aimaq, Turkmen, Baloch, Pashayi, Nuristani, Arab, Brahui, Pamiri, Gurjar, and other peoples, as well as every female in the country. Bribery consumes an amount equal to 23% of the GDP of the nation, so justice simply doesn't exist.  Taliban were founded and still are very much run by the Pakistani ISI, the Inter-Services Intelligence, a violent and jingoistic cancer within the Pakistani body politic that intends to own Afghanistan, source of staggering amounts of money from opium, above all, and from precious gems, among many highly saleable items.
L'Afghanistan demande des munitions à la Russie  Alors que les États-Unis et leurs alliés ont retiré la plupart de leurs troupes d'Afghanistan . . .
From personal correspondence with a good friend in Kabul, two days ago: "I am coming back day after tomorrow.   Today the Taliban attack again our family village, 2 soldiers died and 11 Taliban fighters got killed but the Taliban took with them 10 villagers alive among them my sister husband. The situation is very bad in Afghanistan."
This is whom we're abandoning.
* Tech description: Ruby on Marble: An impressive ruby specimen from the classic ruby mines here [probably Jegdalek], which date back even to Roman times. Large crystals in matrix are rare. Large, good crystals in matrix are almost unheard of. This is a rare example of such a piece, with a dominating 3 x 3 x 1.2-cm crystal sticking straight up and completely exposed on either side (a risky bit of prep work, that was!). The crystal is pristine and complete. As you can see, it is also highly translucent and glows when backlit. This specimen was . . . was on short notice auctioned at Sotheby's in 2001. . . .  Comes with custom base, though . . . it displays equally well from either side.
 
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Co-host: Thaddeus McCotter, WJR, The Great Voice of the Great Lakes
 
Hour One
Monday  26 October 2015 / Hour 1, Block A: Tom Joscelyn, Long War Journal senior editor, and Bill Roggio, Long War Journal & FDD; in re: With Russians in Syria, al Q & its sister organizations are ganging together, making a big push – inlcl not-even-jihadists – to join them against Russia. "Joint ops rooms" – unified chain of command. You'll always find al Nusrah and jarar al Shaams at the top.  "Al Q wants us to keep getting these US TOW missiles."
Near Kurdistan n central Iraq.  US training Kurds?  Doesn't look like training – looks like  actual fighting. "US military kabuki theater." Since we all know that Pres Obama ended the war. Delta Force are counterterrorism shock troops; they don't train, they kill.  SecDef Ash Carter says, "It's not a combat operation but they were in combat."  They're frontline trainers?? this Administration will just try to run out the clock.  / Australia: An unnamed al Qaeda "moderate"  Usama Hamza Australia.   He's probably Matthew Stewart, an Aussie service member who joined al Q in 2001. Note that al Q is using the brutality of ISISI to portray itself as moderate. Mene mene. "Blessed attacks on the Twin Towers."
Al Q has a saying: Those who work in silence. How many people does Stewart now train?
Ansar al Sharia; Al Qaeda operates in southern Helmand province. According to multiple reports, al Qaeda and its newest regional branch, al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent, are operating in the southern Afghan province of Helmand. Terrorists are being trained in Helmand to carry out operations throughout Southeast Asia. And As Sahab, al Qaeda's propaganda arm, has operatives in Helmand as well.  . . . The Taliban continues to press its offensive in southern Afghanistan and is reported to have advanced within miles of the city of Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital of Helmand.  . . . US Special Forces, Kurdish troops, raid Islamic State prison in Iraq  . . . The military's claim that the US troops who participated in the action were military advisers and not engaged in a combat mission is implausible, given the involvement of Delta Force operators. One US soldier was killed. . . . US praises role of Iranian-backed Shiite militias in Baiji operation.
Officials continue to whitewash the role that Iranian-backed Shiite militias play in Iraq's offensive against the Islamic State. The US continues to provide airstrikes to these militias, which are Iranian clients responsible for killing hundreds of American soldiers and remain hostile to the US.
Are we losing Afghanistan again? An opinion piece originally published at The New York Times. As the Taliban expands its influence in Afghanistan, al Qaeda has re-emerged as a force in the country. More US forces, and not fewer, are required to turn the tide.
Monday  26 October 2015 / Hour 1, Block B: Tom Joscelyn, Long War Journal senior editor, and Bill Roggio, Long War Journal & FDD; in re: Afghanistan: threatening Helmand Province, Taliban heartland. Where most Afgh opium comes from.  Strategic for Taliban and the Afgh govt. All the districts (i.e., counties) in Helmand are Taliban-controlled or almost so.  Consolidating control over new areas. The Afgh army – bugged out?   The US?    Unh – the US is providing air support but  . . .   Afgh brought in sort of SWAT units; they depart, too.  In southern Helmand, Baramshah town:  training camps, operatives, incl Indian and Pakistani jihadists groups allied with Taliban. Recruit in India, train in Afgh, feed them back to India.  At least two  ops from Pak & two from India have been captured so far; probably in fact and on the ground,  multiples of hundreds. /  Al Shabaab in East Africa contesting ISIS expansion.  Horrendous, inadequate reporting in the US: Al Shabaab has been an al Q op since the beginning. ISIS has tried hard to fget al Sh to defect and join ISIS, recently about 20 fighters did and say they're pat of the so-called caliphate. Shows that the ISIS propaganda has failed so far.  A dozen videos and months of proclamations, ISIS has twenty fighters, whereas al Sh has thousands, according to State Dept.  Meanwhile, al Shebaab has quietly been taking out defectors – they're rounded up like sheep and executed.
Monday  26 October 2015 / Hour 1, Block C: Gordon Chang, Forbes.com, in re:  Freedom of navigation exercises expected within 24 hours, reports say. USS Lassen, an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer, is at this moment sailing into the Spratleys to challenge the bogus . . .
---will sail within 112 nautical miles of China's fake islands.   China said it'll have a "decisive response" to US pursuing freedom of navigation. Rhetorically, China has been very sharp, even threatening using missiles.   "Overdue response to China's destabilizing deeds in hte region." A political challenge, but needed: if we let China exercise dominion and control over one of the world's most-navigated passages.  This is the first but not the last freedom-of-navigation exercises. Forces the Obama Adm to look at China in a distinctly negative way.  Confrontation; neither side can back down US ship will be accompanied by surveillance planes and more.
USS Lassen to challenge China's Spratly Islands claim 'within hours'  The Navy destroyer USS Lassen will challenge China’s 12-mile sea claims around a controversial South China Sea island within hours, a U.S. defense official confirmed Monday. The Lassen, an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer, is already under way, conducting exercises in the South China Sea. It will transit within 12 miles of a manmade island that China has rapidly built up among a chain of elevated coral reefs, islands and land formations known as the Spratly Islands.  That buildup, which includes an airstrip and appears to be for military purposes, has increased tensions between China and many of the United States’ Pacific allies.   Malaysia Armed Forces chief Zulkefli Mohd Zin last week heavily criticized the Chinese buildup, calling it "unwarranted provocation."
The Lassen will have overhead watch from a U.S. maritime patrol craft, a U.S. defense official said on background because he was not authorized to discuss the movement. The same official said the movement would take place “within hours.”  Secretary of Defense Ash Carter has regularly challenged the Chinese territorial claim of the islands and the waters surrounding it. Carter has said the United States “will fly, sail, and operate wherever the international law permits, and we will do that at the times and places of our choosing, and there’s no exception to that.”  According to a maritime report by the Department of Defense, there are more than 200 Spratly land features, though that figure varies based on how geographers count them. Vietnam occupies 48 of the Spratly Islands, Taiwan occupies one, the Philippines occupies eight, Malaysia occupies five and China occupies eight, according to the report.  China, Taiwan and Vietnam each claim all of the Spratly land features.  Carter has said the United States is not taking a position on which nations have sovereignty over the islands. Every nation can claim up to 12 nautical miles from its coast as sovereign territory. But it’s China’s rapid buildup of an airstrip on the Fiery Cross Reef that has generated the most concern.  The Lassen’s home port is Yokosuka, Japan, and last week made a port stop in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia after spending the previous four weeks conducting maritime patrols throughout the South China Sea.
On the first half of their patrol, the Lassen reported “numerous interactions occurred while at sea with foreign vessels, including the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy Jiangkai-class frigates,” according to a Navy news release. “Lassen used the codes for unplanned encounters at sea and standard bridge-to-bridge communication to ensure safe and professional navigation.”
China claims an abolition of all State-controlled capital controls by 2020 – same as they promised by 2000. Don't hold your breath; and their economy is so far gone, they can't solve this. Note:$460 billion left China in the last quarter. Gravely inefficient investment; how do they resolve a meeting where no one tells the truth? They do it all the time – have been for 67 years. 
Demography has gone seriously wrong in China. Wives will be shared; women will have multiple husbands?  http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonchang/2015/10/25/china-economist-value-of-females-going-up-men-will-have-to-share-wives/
Five-Year Plan to Offer Clues on China’s Economic Path  China's Communist Party this week is expected to approve an economic blueprint for scaling back the role of the state over the next five years. China’s Communist Party this week is expected to approve an economic blueprint for scaling back the role of the state over the next five years, while offering clues about the leadership’s appetite for bold change in the face of slowing growth. As WSJ’s Jeremy Page and Mark Magnier report:
The four-day meeting of the Central Committee—the party’s top 300 or so leaders—is a test of whether the political clout President Xi Jinping has amassed since coming to power three years ago has enabled him to overcome resistance to the reform program he unveiled in 2013. As China’s leaders struggle to steer the economy onto a different growth path, a central question around the meeting, which begins Monday, will be whether much-used reform mantras, some of which date back to a similar plenum in 1993, will translate into decisive action. “The next five years will be very important for restructuring the economy,” said Jia Qingguo, associate dean at Peking University. “The traditional way of managing the economy is meeting more and more obstacles.”
Monday  26 October 2015 / Hour 1, Block D:  Michael Ledeen, FDD & pyjamasamedia, in re: http://pjmedia.com/michaelledeen/2015/10/25/whos-winning-in-syria/ John Kerry goes to get help from Russia and Iran to stabilize the Middle East.   Five minutes ago, they were our foes.  "Beseech. Beseech."   . . .  Do you really want Putin and Khamenei running the region?  Damascus would have been a bloodbath without Russia? It is a bloodbath.  You could go live in the mahdi's paradise in Syria.  In fact, seems that Russians are retreating and getting killed, while Assad's enemies are advancing . Obama has been saying since Minute One that it'll turn out badly for Russia – will Kerry go rescue them?   Iran is the bad actor in the Yemeni, Iraqi, Horn of Africa civil wars, and in Gaza to oppose Egypt.  This is the Obama policy: to forge a strategic alliance with Iran.  Whatever Obama has done: that's what Khamenei wants.   Coming this week: Iran's fifth "Hate America Day."
 
Hour Two
Monday  26 October 2015 / Hour 2, Block A: David Drucker, Senior Congressional correspondent, Washington Examiner, & John Fund, NRO, in re:
Monday  26 October 2015 / Hour 2, Block B: John Fund, NRO, and David Drucker, Senior Congressional correspondent, Washington Examiner, in re:
Monday  26 October 2015 / Hour 2, Block C:  Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents, in re:
Monday  26 October 2015 / Hour 2, Block D: Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents, in re:
 
Hour Three
Monday  26 October 2015 / Hour 3, Block A: Mary Kissel, Wall Street Journal Editorial Board & host of Opinion Journal on WSJ Video; in re: Opinion Journal: Ben Carson’s Unlikely Rise / Editorial Page Editor Paul Gigot on the retired pediatric surgeon’s surge in Iowa polls.
Opinion Journal: Obama-Testing
Monday  26 October 2015 / Hour 3, Block B:  Josh Rogin, Bloomberg View, in re: http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-10-20/obama-s-push-to-close-gitmo-is-stuck-on-uruguay-six-
Monday  26 October 2015 / Hour 3, Block C:  Sebastian v Gorka, Marine Corps University, in re; http://www.newsweek.com/new-video-shows-us-forces-rescuing-isis-hostages-hawija-raid-387289
Monday  26 October 2015 / Hour 3, Block D:   Robert Zimmerman, behind the black, in re: A detailed update on the Falcon 9 return-to-flight  Link here. It appears that SpaceX hopes to complete the following launches in quick order:
1. November 24: First Falcon 9 upgrade launch: 11 Orbcomm low-orbit satellites
2. December 15: Last old Falcon 9 launch: Jason 3
3. December 27: Second Falcon 9 upgrade launch: SES-9 geosynchronous communications satellite
4. Early January: Third Falcon 9 upgrade launch: Dragon and the Bigelow BEAM inflatable module to ISS
All these dates are of course subject to delays. Launches 1 and 3 will definitely attempt vertical landings of the first stage on a barge. The main point of the article . . . was to note that the SpaceX is now ready to do a full thrust test firing of the first stage that will be used in the November 24 launch, doing that test at its McGregor, Texas, test facility. As noted, “All Falcon stages pass through the Texas site, allowing them to be fired up and tested for any issues prior to continuing their journey to the launch site.” The article then described one case where the testing successfully spotted an issue that was fixed prior to launch.  This speaks volumes about the robustness of SpaceX’s manufacturing process. Their rockets are built in one place, shipped to another for testing, and then shipped to a third for launch. And all within mere weeks. This robustness also suggests that the rocket’s first stage will be able to withstand its vertical landing and be able to be reused, as planned. The article also provides some further insights in why the company switched the SES-9 and Orbcomm launches.
 
Hour Four
Monday  26 October 2015 / Hour 4, Block A: Man-Eater: The Life and Legend of an American Cannibal by Harold Schechter  (1 of 4)
Monday  26 October 2015 / Hour 4, Block B: Man-Eater: The Life and Legend of an American Cannibal by Harold Schechter  (2 of 4)
Monday  26 October 2015 / Hour 4, Block C: Man-Eater: The Life and Legend of an American Cannibal by Harold Schechter  (3 of 4)
Monday  26 October 2015 / Hour 4, Block D: Man-Eater: The Life and Legend of an American Cannibal by Harold Schechter  (4 of 4)
..  ..  ..