HOLDING THE JERRIES OFF ALL NIGHT LONG: That is the face of a very weary soldier. Great photo, informative caption. The latest in StrategyPage’s Battle of the Bulge photo series. (Yes, there’s a typo in the title. It’ll be fixed.)

GUARDING PRISONERS: The latest in StrategyPage’s Battle of the Bulge photo series. The photographer found a superb angle to take the picture– good visual story telling.

THE GREAT GASOLINE PRICE WAR EXPOSES MEXICO’S CORE PROBLEMS: My latest Creators Syndicate column.

US ARMY M1A2 TANKS IN POLAND: Snow, so it’s a type of cold war exercise.

A VERY SAD BATTLE OF THE BULGE PHOTO: Casualty evacuation. It’s the latest in StrategyPage’s Battle of the Bulge commemorative series. The photo of the stretcher/sled team does a fine job of recording the action.

MEXICO’S GREAT GASOLINE PRICE WAR CONTINUES: The attacks on gas stations in Mexico continue. There is no doubt that Mexican citizens across-the-board are angry with President Enrique Pena Nieto specifically and the government in general.

The L.A. Times lead is a bit sensational but essentially correct:

In Tijuana and Nogales, massive demonstrations over rising gasoline prices forced authorities to temporarily close crossing stations on the U.S.-Mexico border, while in Rosarito protesters cheered as a man intentionally drove his pickup into a group of federal police officers.

More than a week after the government of President Enrique Peña Nieto deregulated gasoline prices, which instantly rose as much as 20%, Mexico is engulfed in a nationwide rebellion.

Four people have been killed and more than 1,500 arrested while looting, staging road blockades and marching in protests such as the weekend demonstrations in Rosarito and along the border.

The price hike, which many believe will lead to higher prices for food and household goods, is opposed by 99% of Mexicans, according to a recent poll, and has drawn the condemnation of business groups, truckers unions, leaders of the political opposition and even the Catholic Church.

Pena’s pulling an Obama and blaming his predecessor for the price hikes.

Do the gas protests connect to the Cartel War? Good question. There is a very reasonable fear in Mexico that some cartel gunmen will toy with political revolt.

That’s why the December 30 report that cartel gunmen had threatened attacks on gas stations caused an immediate sensation. However, within a day the Jalisco state attorney generals office determined the message was a fake.

Here’s part of the alleged message from the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG):

“The CJNG, in support of the working class, commits itself to making burn all the gasoline stations that to December 30 of the current year, at 10:00 p.m.” — before the price increases go into effect — “have not normalized the sale of fuel at the fair price,” the message said, according to the Mexican news outlet Aristegui Noticias.

Stay tuned.

RELATED: A little background on the “impunity issue” that haunts Pena.

CHINA’S NAVAL AVIATION PROGRAM: One step at a time.

There is no fast-track to creating a carrier aviation capability and the Chinese apparently understood that from the beginning.

ANDREW JACKSON AS DONALD TRUMP’S MUSE: An intriguing essay.

Five of Donald Trump’s biggest campaign promises were also made by Andrew Jackson. So let’s keep score. Did Jackson actually keep his promises when he got into office? How did it all work out? And what can Jackson’s presidency teach us about what a Trump presidency might be like?

THE 28TH INFANTRY DIVISION BAND MAKES A STAND AT WILTZ: The latest in StrategyPage’s Battle of the Bulge series.

In this action, for which the Band was awarded the Meritorious Unit Commendation, all but thirteen of sixty member were killed or captured. Of the thirteen, eleven were wounded…

Here’s the official history of Fifth Panzer Army’s attack on the 28th Division.

SOCIAL JUSTICE WARRIORS OF THE SEA: Shark babies eat each other.

Watch the amazing moment when Sir David Attenborough and BBC filmmakers recorded the discovery that some shark babies eat each other before birth.

No. The video clip does not show the cannibalism.

NOBEL PEACE PRIZE UPDATE: U.S. forces strike ISIS-held village in Syria.

Four American Apache helicopters and two back-up helicopters, carried out a commando raid” in Al-Kubar on Sunday at noon…The attack targeted vehicles driven by senior IS fighters coming from Raqa, killing several and capturing others…

Didn’t Obama say the tide of war is receding?

SHED NO TEARS: Iran’s Rafsanjani is dead. He died of a heart attack.

I differ with this assessment:

…a moderate counter-figure to the ultra-hardliners clustered around Ahmadinejad, under whom Iran’s relations with the West plummeted…

Moderate counter-figure? Try calculated rhetorician in robes. Here’s one reason why I differ:

He held the chairmanship of Iran’s main political arbitration body, the Expediency Council, since 1990, when he was appointed by the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

That would be the Expediency Discernment Council.

Khomeini’s Iran plays a long game and it’s a dangerous game. Rafsanjani was a hard line Khomeinist who was dedicated to advancing Khomeini’s violent vision.

RELATED: Yesterday I added a link to a recent StrategyPage update as background to a post. It drew a couple of thank yous and that’s good. Over the years I have shared my disgust with lack of media context with Glenn, Ed and Stephen. The StrategyPage archives are a trove of “deep news” or “deep dive news.” Here’s the latest Iran update, from December 2016. It’s long. But here’s a useful extract:

The new American president-elect was elected in part because of popular anger over the 2015 Iran treaty. Then there is the fact that the most dangerous threat to Israel is not even Arab but Iran. Iranians are constantly reminded by their leaders that the official Iranian position is that any Moslem nation (especially Saudi Arabia and Turkey) that improves relations with Israel is betraying Islam. Iran also insists that the United States cannot be trusted and that the economic sanctions the July 2015 treaty lifted are not the main economic problem for Iran. That would be the two years of very low oil prices, which is Saudi Arabia’s way (along with some other local Sunni oil states) to put the hurt on Iran. That is only partially true but not relevant to the Iranians. One reason for seeking nuclear weapons is to give Iran the ability to persuade the Saudis to ship less oil and let the price go up. After that there will be the demand to let Iran run the Moslem holy places in Mecca and Medina. The Saudis are not willing to make deals that involve Iranian domination of the region. Yet the low oil prices have hurt the Saudis as well and all the Gulf oil states recently agreed to lower production in an effort to get prices up. What Arabs and Iranians both downplay is that the American fracking technology is changing the oil market more than anything else as is the growing use of non-oil fuels for energy. Even with record low prices the fracking industry survives and as the price of oil goes up more fracking operations resume production. Add to that recent natural gas deposits discovered and rapidly developed in Israel coastal waters and you can see why political relationships are shifting in the Middle East.

THE ONLY GOOD TIGER IS A DEAD TIGER: A German Tiger tank transformed into a junk pile. Today’s StrategyPage Battle of the Bulge photo. This is really a superb post-combat photo.

GUNMAN IN MEXICO WOUNDS U.S. CONSULAR OFFICIAL: Mexican authorities report the attack occurred on Friday in Guadalajara (Jalisco state). Mexican security forces are looking for the gunman.

Surveillance video of the attack shows the gunman following the official in a parking garage. The official, whose name was not released, was dressed in shorts.

The shooting appeared to be a direct attempt to kill the consular employee.

The attacker doesn’t appear to try to approach the official while he is walking, but instead waits for him to exit the parking garage in his vehicle and fires a round into the car’s windshield.

A cartel “warning” or an assassination attempt? Who knows. The article discusses past attacks on U.S. consulate personnel.

BACKGROUND: StrategyPage.com’s latest Mexico update (from December 2016).

SWEEPING A MINEFIELD: An American tank hits a minefield. Combat engineers move forward to clear out the mines. This superb (and cold) photo is the latest in StrategyPage’s Battle of the Bulge series. Note the silhouetted fifty caliber machine gun on top of the disabled tank.

PANZER WITH BAZOOKA PANTS: The latest in StrategyPage’s Battle of the Bulge series. A GI is inspecting a knocked-out German tank sporting a metal mesh skirt.

THE WAR IN SYRIA: US-backed Kurds seize an ISIS fortification that is also an ancient fortress.

“The Syrian Democratic Forces, supported by American special forces and international coalition aircraft… took control of the ancient Qalaat Jaabar fortress,” said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group.

It said the Islamic-era fortress was captured after fierce fighting with the jihadists.

Yes, American special forces soldiers have their boots on the ground.

QUALITATIVE IMPROVEMENT IN NORTH KOREAN MISSILES: This is from Reuters. The source is the U.S. State Department. For a change the State Dept. and moi agree on something. In missile testing failure is progress. Except when The New York Times reports on U.S. anti-ballistic missile tests. Then failure is failure is failure (I apologize to roses) and the failure is attributed to Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush…Hold the presses…and attributed to Donald Trump!

The United States said on Thursday North Korea had demonstrated a “qualitative” improvement in its nuclear and missile capabilities after an unprecedented level of tests last year, showing the needed to sustain pressure on Pyongyang to bring it back to disarmament negotiations.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken told a joint news conference after a meeting with his Japanese and South Korean counterparts that North Korea had conducted 24 missile tests in the past year, as well as two nuclear tests, and learned from each one.

“Even a so-called failure is progress because … they apply what they have learned to their technology and to the next test. And in our assessment, we have a qualitative improvement in their capabilities in the past year as a result of this unprecedented level of activity,” he said.

“With every passing day the threat does get more acute,” Blinken said, and referred to comments by North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, on Sunday that his country was close to test-launching an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) of a kind that could someday hit the United States.

Wynken, Blynken and Nod…excuse me, his name is Blinken.

VERY MUCH RELATED: My latest Creators Syndicate column.

NORTH KOREA BEGINS THE NEW YEAR: It’s the same old belligerence. However, now the dictatorship intends to test an ICBM. My latest Creators Syndicate column. (bumped)

A GERMAN PANZER OUT OF THE FIGHT: The latest in StrategyPage’s Battle of the Bulge retrospective. As commenters have noted, the series has included many photos that are poignant studies of exhausted, suffering and courageous people. This one, however, focuses on vehicles. I think it’s a good example of quality pictorial history. You get an accurate depiction of the battlefield (terrain and environmental conditions) and a strong sense of associated combat action (armored warfare). The photo also stirs memories of the time I spent in (West) Germany very cautiously crunching snow and ice in tanks and personnel carriers.

Note the webmaster thinks the German tank was abandoned.

RELATED: The nice comments by Instapundit readers have been gratifying. Like I said in mid-December, I didn’t know the webmaster was going to do this series until I discovered a couple of photos on StrategyPage. Yes, I have failed to put up several Bulge photos on the day they were posted. I’ve tried to be consistent but, you know, holidays. Eventually I’ll link to the ones I missed. Readers can always go to StrategyPage photo gallery and click through the entire series.

OSAMA BIN LADEN’S SON ON TERRORIST WATCH LIST: His name is Hamza. He is now a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist.”

The United States added Hamza bin Laden, son and heir of the late global jihadist leader Osama bin Laden, to its terrorist blacklist on Thursday.

Hamza, who is in his mid-twenties, has become active as an Al-Qaeda propagandist since his father’s death at the hands of US special forces in 2011.

According to letters found in the Navy SEAL raid on Osama’s hideout in Pakistan, Hamza wrote to the Saudi-born Al-Qaeda leader asking to be trained to follow him.

A CIA analyst who examined the letters told AFP that in July 2009, when Hamza wrote the letter to his father’s Abbottabad hideout, they had not seen each other for eight years.

Read the entire report.

ITEXIT?: Steve Forbes says: “Support is growing for an exit, but that option isn’t a solution for Italy’s woes.” His post is short but pithy.

IF IT’S OK FOR CHINA TO COMPLAIN ABOUT TRUMP’S TWITTER DIPLOMACY: Surely Japan gets to gripe about China’s ship diplomacy.

More than 100 Chinese vessels trespassed into Japan’s territorial waters near the Senkaku islands in 2016, and in 2017 incursions have been taking place daily, Japanese newspaper Mainichi Shimbun reported.

A total of 121 vessels sailed near the disputed Senkaku Islands, also known as the Diaoyutai Islands in China. It is the second-largest annual number of Chinese ships entering disputed areas since Japan announced the nationalization of the Senkakus in September 2012.

STRATEGYPAGE WARS UPDATE: I linked to this late last night, so this is a bump. Jim Dunnigan puts together this long and detailed twice a year.

Sample:

The vast majority of the military related violence and deaths in the world comes from many small wars, insurrections and other lethal conflicts that get little media attention outside where they take place. Some of the underreported wars are not so little but are not noticed by the mass media. While causalities from international terrorism are relatively few, the dead and wounded from all the other wars actually comprise over 80 percent of all the casualties. The Islamic terrorism looms larger because the terrorists threaten attacks everywhere and at any time, putting a much larger population potentially in harm’s way, and the more numerous potential victims are unhappy with that prospect. In the West, and most Moslem nations, Islamic terrorism remains more of a threat than reality. In fact, casualties from terrorist attacks were declining before ISIL and Boko Haram gave them a momentary boost. Most of the victims are in Pakistan, Nigeria, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, where Islamic terrorists have been operating for decades. In all of these places, except for Afghanistan, Islamic terrorism related deaths were down in 2015 and that trend is continuing.

OBAMA PEACE PRIZE UPDATE: U.S. troops operating inside Mosul.

I’m not at all surprised by this, but according to the article this is the first time it has been publicly acknowledged.

ISIS has had more than two years to prepare and fortify their stronghold, and the Iraqis are now faced with clearing more than 200,000 buildings in the city — a process that involves clearing each one from the roof, through every room and closet, and down into the tunnels between the structures.

Dorrian described the current fight in the eastern part of the city as “extraordinarily dangerous,” adding later that once the Iraqis cross the river and enter the west it is going to be a “very tough fight there as well.”