While the world’s attention is focused on the war raging between Israel and Hamas, the military confrontation between the United States and Hezbollah is heating up. Since the Hamas attacks on 7 October and the subsequent retaliation by Israel, U.S. military bases and outposts in Syria and Iraq are facing daily attacks with rocket, missiles and mortars. I learned today from someone who regularly visits Walter Reed Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland that the wards are filling up with U.S. military personnel wounded in recent attacks on those bases. The White House and the Department of Defense are working actively to suppress this information, apparently out of fear that the American public will recoil at news of the losses and step up pressure for the United States to get out of Iraq and Syria.
Hezbollah leader Nasrallah was very clear in his sermon a week ago (Friday) that if the United States attacks Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria that Hezbollah will retaliate. The New York Post just reported that U.S. combat aircraft hit an Iranian weapons storage base in Syria:
US warplanes struck a weapons storage facility used by Iran and its proxies in eastern Syria shortly after Tehran-backed Houthi forces in Yemen shot down an American MQ-9 Reaper drone.
In a statement, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the strike was in response to more than three dozen attacks on American military sites across Iraq and Syria since Oct. 17. . . .
The Biden administration has vowed not to get in direct combat on Israel’s behalf, but US forces remain in the region on a counter-ISIS mission, while the Pentagon dispatched two aircraft carrier strike groups to the eastern Mediterranean following Hamas’ savage Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel that killed more than 1,400 people — including at least 33 Americans.
This was not a strategic blow to Iran and Hezbollah. It is a tit-for-tat strike that is certain to inspire Iran and Hezbollah to escalate attacks on U.S. bases in Syria and Iraq and to conduct more strikes on Israeli positions in northern Israel. The combat between the United States and Hezbollah is escalating and there is no sign that either side is prepared to backdown. Nasrallah is set to give a new sermon on Saturday and is expected to address the recent attacks on Hezbollah and civilians in Lebanon.
Meanwhile, the war is raging in Gaza, with both Israeli Defense Forces and Hamas and PIJ (Palestinian Islamic Jihad) claiming successes. Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper, is keeping a running list of Israel’s KIAs since October 7. You can see the list here. The Quds News Network reported today that the majority of those listed are Israeli military personnel. Here are two videos showing the different perspectives.
Israel has a clear advantage in tanks and air power. Hamas has the advantage of fighting on its home turf. I think it will be weeks before we know the true story of the losses incurred in this horror. That said, it looks like Israel is doing the same thing as the United States — trying to conceal the true extent of their casualties. The Quds News Network published this on X today:
Israel is facing mounting international diplomatic pressure, including from the Biden Administration. All of the BRICS nations, with the exception of India, are condemning Israel’s indiscriminate bombing as a war crime and calling for a ceasefire. Netanyahu, so far, is refusing to back off.
The US is attacking in Dier Ezor, Syria.
Official Statement from US Central Command (CENTCOM)
Following a series of attacks against U.S. persons in Iraq and Syria, U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM) forces conducted an air strike against a facility in Syria used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and affiliated groups. We will take all necessary measures to defend our people against those who are responsible for the attacks and will respond at a time and place of our choosing.
I think they are using F 15s…. the training facility for same in near my home.
Translation: “Following a series of attacks against U.S. persons in places where they shouldn’t be…”
Well said
But the attacks on the US and Western Civilazation have been on going. It is well documented in the following excellent article!
https://www.unz.com/article/will-the-gaza-war-threaten-jewish-power-in-the-u-s-and-their-status-as-occupying-the-moral-high-ground/
When will Russia come to the aid of Syria?
You achieve more through diplomacy than force. Just because you don’t hear anything from the Russians or Chinese does not mean they are siting and doing nothing. They are the adult in the room not the US or Israel. Pressure will build up on both that they will be isolated by the global south and that’s when the US and Israel have to worry.
Totally agree. While US/UK/ Israel bark like dogs, Russia, China and other countries work in the backstage to finish this tragedy. Very, very sorry for the civil people of both sides, including the Ukrainians for the stupidity of their authorities.
In 2015.
Russia has been in Syria for years and has a naval base there.
All Russia needs to do is supply Syria with weapons and claim no direct involvement in killing Americans (using the same story the U.S. does for killing Russians). Nord Stream Pipeline along with the lives of Russians killed by American weapons in Ukraine will be repaid by thousands of cuts in the Middle East and elsewhere.
But it is unlikely that Russia has a Political Moron like Lindsey Graham who is going to claim “killing Americans” is the best investment ever.
So sad to see the decline of the American Empire in a continuing series of picking fights that they publicly lose, while showing the world they are about killing innocents, and are led by zealous incompetents.
IMHO, Israel will “win” a symbolic victory over Gaza, but in so doing, will undermine Israel’s long term survival.
I like the point about just supplying Syria with weapons and claiming no direct involvement 🙂
Russia would also have to get its own people behind any [amped up] action here. I have figured that Russia was always going to focus on helping Syria evict all the interlocutors once it’s done with the SMO. This will mark the end of US hegemony and control over the region.
“Israel has no right for self-defense in the current conflict, as an occupying state — as was confirmed by the [UN] International Court consultative ruling in 2004.” — Vasily Nebenzya, Russian UN envoy.
Taking into account the illegal occupation of US Bases in the Middle East — the above applies.
Here, once again, we are witnessing the USA’s disregard for International Law in order to uphold the (US) rules based order.
On a side note…. I don’t see any babies listed on the list compiled by Haaretz (Israeli newspaper.
Onde assino?
Good observation, thank you.
Great point!
But, the Rules Based Order says we make the rules and we do as we please.
Does anyone have a copy of the Red Book, “Rules Based Order”?
Is it like Mao’s Little Red Book of inanities?
Could it be conceivably possible that the Syrians want the US out of their country and not just Iran?
This Old World Order needs to be dismantled.
Boilerplate — to be appended to ALL utterances of The Gringo: Where “Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and affiliated groups” is mentioned, subsitute “the Syrian Arab Army and its associated patriotic SYRIAN militias”. All other descriptions are LIES. Iran has NO militias in Syria. Any aid by Iran to Syria is entirely legal and proper and is for the defence of the Syrian people AGINST THE INVADING GRINGO AND HIS ISIS AUXILIARIES.
Much as Ukraine is only nominally a war between Ukraine and Russia but in fact between Russia and the US, so it is in Israel. The war there, nominally between Hamas and Israel, is in fact between the Arab world and the US.
Regime change begins at home.
Just read that RFK, jr. admitted he flew on Epstein’s Lolita Express to the underage island.
Explains his Israel or death position.
As much as I disagree with his Israel-firster obligatory-vote/funding-getter position, at least he admits his errors. Something neither Trump nor Bribem would EVER do.
And maybe the Israel Lobby will be in for a surprise once RFKjr sits in the Oval Office…
Depends on the videos.
He will surprise them with asskissing when they don’t ask him.
I think you’ve got your facts wrong. RFK said he flew on Epstein’s plane to Palm Beach and someplace in Montana. Neither of those places is an “underage island.” I’m tremendously disappointed to see how rigid RFK is when it comes to Israel compared to how analytical and reasonable he is when he considers other issues, but your making up “facts” does not not prove your case or explain anything..
Nutenyahu the genocidal maniac wants to finish The Final Solution to the Palestinian Problem. The West Bank is next. Instead of slow motion genocide it will accelerate as the settlers get more weapons.
Thanks for the scoop on US casualties in Syria and Iraq. I haven’t seen anything about that anywhere else.
And the American public sleepwalks while their children die. But a country whose main focus is legalizing abortion? Why not kill the alive children as well? I guess it makes some odd sense.
Incredible analysis Larry. I drop everything when two people post. You and Simplicius. He has a bit more of an axe to grind than you, but invaluable.
And now I am going to do something I never do. Try to explain myself. Many think I am a China “hater”. I am not. They are a largely peaceful society that just wants to make shit and sell shit. Fucking capitalists. Something we never actually were.
But they are going to fail. And here is why. The movie “Serenity”. My favorite movie quote: It’s how they think: sideways.
It’s how they move. Sidle up and
smile, hit you where you’re weak.
Watch the numbers. International investment is dying. The companies are getting the word. And it is not a law. It is not a sanction. It is “sideways”. Yeah, I wouldn’t do that brother, can I buy you another drink? China’s exports. Dying. The word is out. Don’t buy their stuff.
And like it or not, China is a mercantilist society. They import raw goods, and they sell shit. American business and anyone we can arm lever is going to Mexico or other “friend-shoring” places. Factories are idle. Cargo containers are piling up. And China has one of the worst demographic doom loops. When they did their insane Covid lockdown, it did not help.
China. Ukraine is over. Israel will perform a genocide on Gaza that Hitler would applaud. While the ruling elite claps. (And while the Arab world watches). China.
It is their focus. It is the story that momentary shitstorms obscure. Because China actually scares them. So, China must be destroyed. And the “sideways” war is in full effect. And it will probably fucking work.
Sorry man, you are wrong. As an European, I can say I’m not buying current US stuff, because a) its horribly expensive, b) isn’t that good or even just bad, c) carefully selected chinese products have way better quality/price ratio and d) US products are actually made in China anyway.
Not that things in Europe are much better, but at least we are aware of it, while people like you still believe US is the number one country in the world. It is not. Quítate la caraja.
Blame US oligarchs for it, nobody else. That Nike CEO had it in the head when he wrote his thesis, and the rest followed that path gladly, because they wanted the increased profit and didn’t care neither for US people nor anybody else.
So I’m buying chinese, and happy with that. I used to buy US products. Not anymore, unless they are, say, 1970-80s vintage electronics, still useful for a hobbyst, that can be bought for cheap. But very little more, and even that, I don’t buy it if it has to get over the pond. Western couriers are just pirates. Sorry for the entrepreneurial US guys who make good stuff and try sell it on eBay and other ecommerce platforms. They are good people. I used to buy a lot from them 20 years ago. Again, not anymore
China overtook the US a decade or two ago. Get over it. They produce more real goods that all Western countries together. Almost the entire world owes *a lot* of money to China. The number one chinese debtor? You have three guesses: U-S-A. And please don’t watch so many Hollywood productions. It’s damaging your brain, obviously. Sorry for being a little blunt, but brain-damaged US or US-leaning people is pushing all of us to the abyss.
I actually hope that you are right.
Brazil, Argentina, Chile and other SA countries buy from China big time and made it clear to Uncle Sam that they plan to continue doing it.
Indeed, as the the US market deteriorates and the rest of world exits colonialism the newly free countries will experience consumerist demand which China will fullfil.
I’m in Putins corner on Ukraine, I’m in the Arab corner on Hamas / Israel, I’m in China’s corner on Taiwan. Biden is supremely incompetent.
However, when it comes to Levis jeans now manufactured in China, they suck. Levis has kept their original line open (made in USA). Of course, they’re more expensive, but they’re a far far better quality than Levis made in China.
I agree with you but please don’t make statements like this:
“Biden is supremely incompetent,” which leave the impression that he is anything but a cardboard cut screen behind which the real incompetents hide, all political appointee grifters who only aim to please their donors.
China produces to order so it’s Levi demanding a cheaper product.
USA won’t export secret textile technology to China. In other news, USA keeps it’s carpet making secrets from Persia. All this as a result of Russians stealing secret hypersonic missile technology.
I’ve thought about this for years, trying to guess cost/price ratios at every opportunity.
My best guess for an AVERAGE is this. If US companies spend $1 in China for a finished good produced to their design and sold under their brand, they sell it for $3 in the US. Maybe it’s close, maybe not.
Whenever an analog to that product I’m interested in has been offered in the US by some ma & pa Chinese distributor based in CA with direct contacts with the factory, I’ll buy it. It’s not often but I did it a few times, once for a ss range exhaust hood once. Paid $200 for the same hood when the branded was $600.
Just consider what would happen to the US economy if it decided to allow Chinese car imports and not just car parts. What happened to it with Japan in the 70’s and 80’s? Near panic. Extrapolate as you wish.
Luckily, Washington decided to weaponize import preferences, so it still has a decade or so of breathing space left.
And, besides the competitive price for the same or superior quality of Chinese prodcuts, in relation with electronic devices, like smartphones, you, moreover, get a device with no backdoor for the US spies, which is not a despicable advantage, since, I fear, most of the current state of affairs in already ruined for the ages to come Europe, with any political party, authority or reresentive, highly likely cogido por los huevos hasta ponerse azul, is able to defend the interests of its country and people in the least, isdue mainly to this spying fact, in which it seems to collaborate the unidos al nacer corporation “United States of America and Israel”, through their multiple spying programs and bugs….and their mafioso nature and way of proceeding …
Dirty U.S. Politicians and traitor/”capitalists” built China.
So much unwritten knowledge/knowhow has been lost over the past generation that it would take 2 or 3 more generations to even figure out what was lost. No one sitting at a desk, tapping on a keyboard has any idea of how economies are McGuyer’d together the way the U.S. once was.
Whatever China’s future is, American manufacturing methods, seemingly insignificant details, are all now in China’s hands.
We’ll how did Russia and China get hypersonic missiles? They couldn’t have stole the technology from the US. Because the US is nowhere near fielding a hypersonic missile. Russia was years ahead of the US in satellite and manned space flight in the 50 and 60’s. China has just launched its moon mission and seems to be ahead of NASA in getting a manned base on the moon. Germany had technology during ww2 that the US could only dream of. Not sure the world has ever needed US tech for their on use. They need it only to learn how to defeat it. The only thing the US was ever good at is exporting war. We’ve existed for 230 years and of those years we have been at peace for only 16. We are the most hated nation on the face of the earth.
“We are the most hated nation on the face of the earth.”
Brits would say that you stole that from them.
So true…
European economy is doing great and European manufacturing! European society is in great shape! Besides some native American ancestors, my ancestors that left Europe were smart, hard working and said screw the aristocrats and inherited privilege!
“And like it or not, China is a mercantilist society. They import raw goods, and they sell shit. ” Sure, like Russia is: they export raw good and they buy shit. Notice a certain complementarity here? Sanctions were supposed to break Russia, but they are breaking the west instead. Sanctioning China, embargoing it, cutting off trade will only hasten the collapse of the western economies further.
You may think that China is a capitalist country because it created business entities to deal with the west in a capitalist mode, but the fundamental economy is and has been about lifting people out of poverty, not profit. China is not dependent on selling finished goods overseas to ‘realize profit’ in the capitalist fashion. They require inputs of raw materials, but if the west stops trading with them, Chinese demand for raw materials will shrink correspondingly. China will still have plenty of material goods for its own people, and their economy will not crash because of trade issues with the west. The west, on the other hand, will find that their dependence on Chinese manufacturing isn’t so easily overcome. Not only do capitalist corporations require a constant churning of consumer goods to realize their profits, in an environment of shrinking markets, they require price inflation to keep profits up. If they don’t, they initiate a deflationary spiral. This is the vey dilemma that is playing out now- money printing is not just about keeping the government funded, but also about keeping the banks solvent and the corporations profitable. As markets shrink, this scheme falls apart.
The program of destroying the production base in other countries to create new and dependent markets is not viable anymore. The global south is organizing to resist this and the US simply doesn’t have the military capacity to achieve this goal anymore.
Dude. Listen to yourself. Russia and China are in no ways similar. Russia has shit the world cannot live without. Oil and food. China has to import energy and food to survive. And they do that by importing parts and raw goods, improving them. and selling them with a markup to pay for those imports.
China exports nothing they do not FIRST IMPORT. Russia and China are in no ways similar. Except that they are in the Evil Empires crosshairs.
Russia is COMPLETELY self-sufficient. If the fucking world blew up, Russia would be fine. China DOES NOT LIVE WITHOUT SHIPS RUNNING BOTH WAY. As you will find out in the coming decade.
I think you’re wrong on China. High IQ highly educated and diligent. If it was so easy for Fortune 500s to move they would have long ago to India which has even more people. But they still have shit on the streets.
China and Russia resources will be unbeatable unless you like paying twice for half. Markets won’t allow that.
Sorry, man. wrong again.
First, the thing you are blaming China for, is exactly what the western countries have been doing for at least 200 years. Think of the british empire. There’s a difference, though: China has never been imperialist, and even today, isn’t China who has 800 military bases all around the US. So, between the confucian chinese and the western warmongers, I’m not with the warmongers. Even if I like US people. But US people and US elites are not the same thing. US elites are the biggest danger in the world.
I changed my mind when the country that purports to be the light of democracy used obviously fake WMD threats to invade an oil-producing country, dismissed the United nations, even put that country’s president to “trial” and hanged him without giving any evidence. Since then I think the US is now the same thing that Germany was in 1930-40. Trust me: I’m from a country that had the only officially fascist regime that survived for 40 years, of course with the support of… Again you have three guesses. Let me make it clear: here we are able to detect a fascist just by the smell.
Second, and more importantly. China is in Eurasia, this means they can reach most of the human kind (about 5 billion people) by land. This is called the belt and road initiative. Perhaps you have heard something about that, didn’t you? Moreover, they have a frontier with the biggest country in the world, the one that has more natural resources and the one that is at also defending itself against the warmongers that promote “democracy” all over the world.
Third, and even more important: If chinese commerce ceases, it’s the western countries who will suffer. Our (remaining) factories can not produce even electronics appliances unless they purchase not just chinese electronic components, but even the electric wire and the plug. They bought it by the container, and without that supply, our factories can’t live
Might be why they are “making friends” and building railways to Russia and other markets thro Iran/Turkey etc ? The issue now during the “Great Reset/Pretending” maybe that the the West is now only a Military shadow of its former self, a soon to be Bankrupt, Globalist PR construct and the rest of the world now knows it?
The knife cuts both ways, mate. China exported $500 million worth of semiconductors to Russia in 2022, up from $200 million in 2021. What do you think those chips are used for, washing machines and toasters?
You think Russia can maintain the SMO without the tacit assistance of China? Chinese purchase of energy through the Power of Siberia pipelines and the artic route allows Russia to fund its military spending otherwise how is it going to pay for it? War bonds denominated in roubles?
Honzo, “Sure, like Russia is: they export raw good and they buy shit.”
Nonsense. Russia is a powerful manufacturer, especially of military/defensive goods.
They build function not razzmatazz.
The West builds advertising, games, entertainment, narratives. And damn poor stuff at that.
Narrative? A Story. A Fiction. A Lie. Pretty much describes what the West is all about.
Rare earth elements.
Timber, iron, oil, wheat, produce…I used to peruse an old ’46 World Book Encyclopedia. They have it all.
I think there’s a monument near Twin Towers in NY with a slogan ” Trade will save the world.” I spent a part of my childhood in the middle of nowhere in the Russian Far East, and even in the peak of the Cold War and the peak of Communism, there still was the hush hush border trade over there with Japanese kids jackets and lasting forever Chinese thermoses. China wants to trade and will trade . China didn’t come here to grab our industries, they were offered to China on a silver platter to the detriment of own blue collar workers. Now, the white collar jobs are given to India, etc. – accounting, payroll, IT services, HR, even your medical records – you’d never know who reads them and what country nowadays. Unless this drain of everything right from under us stops, we (US taxpayers) are doomed.
I remember a Time or Newsweek cover with the following: “Made in China – the three most feared!dreaded (?) words in US manufacturing”. I cannot remember the precise year, but it was in the early nineties.
I couldn’t believe the irony in a business magazine when US companies were setting up factories in China because of cheap labour, and then complaining about what they themselves were doing.
Buried somewhere in your comment is a stark reality: China and Russia haven’t started anywhere near as many wars as the West, many of which nations have been on a non-stop orgy of aggression and colonisation for more than a millennium. I guess the West inherited it from the Huns.
No; from English robber-barons. Nasty zero-sum crabs in a very small bucket. See: Operation Ajax. City of London’s MI6 and CIA are still joined at the hip.
The Huns had little on the US since it’s inception.
“All wars are bankers’ wars.”
“War is a racket.” Smedley Butler, US Marine Major General (both quotes)
By “racket”, he means in the Mafioso/gangster sense.
As Mike Pompeo openly admitted of the CIA “We lied, we cheated, we stole”.
They ALL are doing this intentionally, with malice of forethought. From the line of Uniparty Dem/Rep puppets in the POTUS office, Pentagon and Congress down.
And what “banking” family stays in the Davos/Bilderberg/corporate shadows, fomenting their Great Reset Panopticon POPULATION REDUCTION scheme?
The Rothschilds.
Lord Walter Rothschild wrote the Balfour Declaration for rubber-stamping by the British gov’t , then virtually unchanged, the UN. Klaus Schwab of WEF “you will own nothing” fame is a blood-Rothschild via his mother.
Not conspiracy “theory”, CONSPIRACY FACT.
I live in a country (Australia) whose economy works as you describe: it exports commodities (ore, coal, food, etc.) and it uses the income derived from those sales to import stuff like electronics, cars, whitegoods, etc.
It’s a good model provided you don’t piss anyone off, because then you find yourself in a very lonely place indeed.
Russia only superficially resembles that model. Very superficially.
What Russia does is that it exports commodities (and, boy, does it ever), but it uses the income derived from those sales for import-substitution.
As in: the income derived from the sale of commodities is used to underpin a domestic manufacturing and production economy that can supply those manufactured goods rather than importing them.
So Russia produces its own wide-bodied aircraft, when no individual European country can do that.
Russia builds nuclear powered ice-breakers, and maintains a very serious shipbuilding industry, and makes rolling stock for its rail network as well as having a vibrant car manufacturing sector, and St Petersburg and Moscow have public transport systems that most big cities can only dream about.
That’s why the sanctions have failed, whereas even a fraction of those sanctions would have crushed the Australian economy overnight.
EU: No whitegoods for you!
RU: We’re good, we make our own.
USA: No electronic chips for you!
RU: No problems, we make our own.
The West had this quaint idea that Russia was a gas station with nukes, and the West was simply deluding itself: Russia was much closer to being an autarky than any individual European country could hope to be, and arguably is on a level akin to – if not better placed than – the USA itself.
After all, the Americans have shipped so much of their manufacturing to China, whereas the Russian never outsourced their industries.
THIS. Russia is completely self-sufficient.
Totally correct appraisal. The difference is between young capitalist economies (China and Russia) and senescent capitalist economies (the EU and the USA). The socio-economic energy released inside China and Russia with their transformation to capital-formation economies has been fueling their ascent while old Western economies are riddled with an execessive load of parasitic groups.
Agreed, except Russia is certainly better placed than the US.
Not only economically, but educationally, culturally, & socially.
Called “Dutch Disease” in economist terms. Canada suffers the same malady, as does most of Africa and South America. To the benefit of the US and Western EU… but then the US decided (Nord Stream 1&2 bombed) to deindustrialize and demilitarize (NATO weapons/cash to Ukraine) Germany and thereby the EU.
In short, deindustrialization tends to happen as an economy shifts to relying on resource exports rather than a mixed economy, with maximum self-sufficiency where possible. Puts countries at the mercy of external regimes and circumstances. Unfortunately, the EU/US have no significant resources left to export, and the US corporates deindustrialized nearly all but the MIC and US auto industry decades ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_disease
(I’m no fan of Wikipedia, but this entry is accurate.)
https://www.caranddriver.com/features/g22639636/most-american-cars-and-trucks-you-can-buy/
Nice list, Yeah.
Curt–and that’s why our government irrationally hates it. And hates putin and co. who preserved russia’s capabilities.
China exports nothing they do not FIRST IMPORT.
Wrong on so many levels, I won’t even begin. If you’d have said Japan, I’d have stayed mum.
Anyway, whatever China is short of raw material wise, they’ll pretty much get from Russia now, without the western cobwebs attached.
I think biological economists call it ‘synergy’. lol
to HONZO
Yours is the correct account !
a very lucid analysis, clearly expressed and easy to understand,
again, fathomable !
I only buy Made in China preferably with chinese nomenclature and alibaba. Figure if Fortune 500s sold us out 40 years ago I’ll sell them out. Fuck em’
No iphone here. I got a ulefone. No Dewalt cordless set I dragon star.
Looking around Wal Mart at the fat bodies I bet 20% of America drops dead without drugs China makes. We coudlnt even fight them. Lose 20% first couple months.
I agree
Harbor Freight, HD and Lowes’ little growing nightmare.
To Pogo below:
Harbour Freight and the Canadian equivalent, Princess Auto, products are OK, but not the same quality in many cases. Fine for occasional use, and I have even bought-and-tossed after a few uses. Saved more $$ on having the pros do the job, but not sufficient durability if it was my day-job.
@ A P says
That’s why I said ‘growing’.
Same quality as what? Dewalt that they instruct the Chinese factory to replace metal gears with plastic to cut costs? (It’s a rumor, probably true)
I had a Porter Cable multi-tool that bit the dust after a year of light use. Sure, I prefer Bosch & Dewalt but how much of it is a quality vs status thing.
I can buy a cheap $40 6″ vise, poorly forged at HF or a $200 one with the precision of a micrometer. One I can’t even find elsewhere, BTW.
What about our ‘name brand’ appliances? Designed for obsolescence in 5 years or less? It’s all a racket.
Anyway, I agree – lots of throw away tools at HF and lots of lifelong stuff. It’s all in how you pick ’em.
Now, that’s reminded me of our elections. Why we always end up with the throw away stuff though is still stumping me.
The Korean War should be a stark reminder to those that doubt China’s hidden combat power and willingess to absorb casualties. That was so bad for US prestige that DC didn’t even want a monument.
A “mercantilist power” or not, China makes stuff- lots and lots of it. Cheaply. Not $800k each for Excalibur 155 mm artillery shells that are easily jammed, or $20,000 hammers for F35s. The US is good at making debt and enemies, while China builds logistical capacity (Belt and Road) and has money to buy allies. Its political class is far more immune to bribery, double agents, honey pots, and kompromat than the perverts in DC. China’s strength is its unity- our strength is our… what?
War with China is national suicide for the US.
My boys won’t be here to fight that war.
Course of the Korean happened because USA completely gutted its ground forces, thinking its newly created Air Force, along with nukes would intimidate any nation from acting up. The only ground troops near Korea were occupation forces in Japan, who grew fat and lazy with their easy duty. Moreover MacArthur completely failed in his duty to keep these troops in fighting shape, preferring to swan about as The American viceroy of Japan
And once the American recovered from the ass kicking the North Koreans gave them, mostly with the help of God and a division of Marines, they proceeded to deploy into North Korea in a most haphazard and tactically unsound way, as if there were no more enemy to deal with. At which point, Mac ignores warnings of hundreds of thousands of Chinese infiltrating into the South. So, yeah, a military catastrophe was all but guaranteed
But once all the pathological stupidity was fixed, America fought at least half a million Chinese to a standstill .. an excellent outcome given the formidable defensive terrain of Korea and the courage and tenacity of Chinese and North Korean soldiers
And the fact that there was no monument for decades to Korean War vets is apalling, as they were all horribly victimized by the negligence of their military leaders, especially MacArthur
Post WW2 the US was desperate to avoid another Bonus Army, so de-mobilized quickly and provided the GI Bill (originally the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944) to that end.
Still the returning GIs would not be deterred from the ideal of “democracy” and “a chicken in every pot, a car in every garage” they fought, killed and watched their fellow GIs die for. The corporates and politicians sitting across the bargaining table faced educated men, hardened and fearless from combat, with the ability to organize and use force to bring change if those who stayed home to guard the cash-box would not deliver decent wages and working conditions.
In short, the nascent NeoCons and their corporate masters were afraid for their own literal skins, justifiably so.
We need to bring that fear back to the political/corporate class. ESPECIALLY the Rothschilds and their ilk.
There is a monument to the Korean war at the corner of Boardwalk and Park Place in Atlantic City last time I was there (not joking, the Monopoly game names are unrelated).
“our strength is our… what? ”
DIVERSITY.
Nothing makes a nation better than the diversity of Ghettos.
God Help Us said:
“That was so bad for US prestige that DC didn’t even want a monument.”
Au contraire.
The U.S. did build a very nice memorial, right on the Mall, for its sons who fought and all-too-often died in Korea:
https://www.nps.gov/kowa/index.htm
I’ve been there.
It is very moving.
I utterly respect those men of my father’s generation.
Search Youtube for: “technology china” and “infrastructure china”. Watch the videos of the Westerners who live there carefully. Not propaganda, but reality. Oh my god. You will be surprised. The future already exists in China. You can then compare that with the realities in the USA and the UK. Decay and regression.
We know nothing about the real world. Because we are constantly fed propaganda throughout our lives. Often without realizing it.
https://youtu.be/UFFHnWO4jbo?si=IHUke-Yb7QYKbIkh
https://youtu.be/H7KuavdsImY?si=Lt2y7sXqy80PSW1j
I like this man’s videos:
https://youtu.be/vEVjA6f_2qM?si=jeFJIIQ9NYH4FM07
https://youtu.be/4cvg5vJqtZw?si=BY9kfTU3qv_dCrks
https://youtu.be/MB2rUKMUNiQ?si=FuhDSCSdSuuosgCE
https://youtu.be/VhJaPmGeDAM?si=lPaJ3L1qjsqvCRxD
https://youtu.be/W08tUhJI_jU?si=mW69mkwvyOY_vQp3
https://youtu.be/iliNZa6geZs?si=7INh7y2RZNMWVyG3
In the West, I only hear lies and silence about the reality of the world. I only feel aggression. War, terror, regime change, sanctions, how evil the others are. How much democracy and freedom do we have in the West? The world wants to develop peacefully. The world no longer wants to be subject to orders from the West. The world no longer wants to be plundered. The Anglo-Saxon oligarchs are losing control in this multipolar world. That is the real reason for the wars in the world and now in West Asia.
In it’s losing to China, the USA, can claim, “but we lost because they embraced coal”, any source of energy. And we saved the Earth….for China.
Excellent post heikomr thanks for those videos. I’ve said it before, if I were a young man again,, my bags would be packed for China. Furterama right there peeps.
heikomr…
Dito
You are wrong.
The “rest” of the world- outside America and the “west”- is China’s primary market of the future.
America and the west are collapsing.
The “rest” of the world is turning away- fast.
Your view is the typical myopic view of a western exceptionalist imagining America/the west- are indispensable on the world stage.
The “western era” of global dominance is ending right now.
“Your view is the typical myopic view of a western exceptionalist imagining.”
Bingo! He is still in the denial phase.
Since this:
“America/the west- are indispensable on the world stage.”
contradicts the rest of your comment, maybe you meant to say,
“America/the west- are NOT indispensable on the world stage.”
His punctuation is incorrect/confusing. He is stating that the idea that “America/the west are indispensable” is a western myth.
“… exceptionalist imagining America/the west- are indispensable on the world stage.”
“Watch the numbers. International investment is dying. The companies are getting the word.”
I’m looking at the investment data (FDI: foreign direct investment) and the data show a much more nuanced situation.
Worldwide, FDI has been constant at a maximum level of 1.5 trillion USD on average since 2006, with rather wide fluctuations.
In the BRICS, FDI into them has been stable with mild fluctuations since 2007 and increasing since 2020, while they are investing a lot less in non-BRICS since 2018.
In the European Union yes, you are right, FDI from them into the rest has been decreasing substantially since 2012 and FDI into them from the rest has totally collapsed since 2019.
In the group of developing countries, FDI into them has been strong, non-fluctuating, and increasing since 2020, while their FDI into other countries has collapsed in 2021.
I can do this by geographic region as well and many other groupings, but you get the gist.
FDI is not dying.
It is stable or increasing in some regions and decaying severely in other regions.
A complex picture.
Tell this to Apple, for example, which 80/90% of its IPhone are made in China. Multiply this by every product consumed in this planet and you will see that China has become the factory of this world. China sells a lot of cheap products, but has many with good quality and is getting better. GM, Ford, Stellantis, VW are certainly very worried about the China’s economy/commercial tsunami.
China can – and does – built exquisite products that are of exceptional quality.
They’d be more than happy to supply such product to Walwart, but that’s not what Walmart wants. It wants products that are cheaper that their competitors.
China: We can do that too, how many do you want?
Walmart: How many can you provide?
China: Name a figure, and we’ll supply them on time, and on budget
I have a Chinese $3400 carbon fiber bike that beats a $12,000 cannondale all to hell.
Hi Everybody.
Well, there is a solution to America’s problems, but…
You guessed it. Learn mathematics and the other hard sciences. Get an engineering degree. Work on the shop floor, get your hands dirty.
Learn and practice real skills. When you get home, tend your garden, practice with your guns and fishing rod. Learn to eat squirrel stew.
Don’t waste your family’s capital sending your kids to an Ivy-League degree mill majoring in useless crap. Reject Wokeness.
Our parents and grandparents survived the Depression, we can get out of this mess if we get our heads out of our asses.
Cheers!
I am also an old fart (65) but too set in my ways to follow your sage advice. But fortunately, my son seems to be going along the path you describe. My goal is to help him succeed.
Our parents and grandparents survived the Depression, we can get out of this mess if we get our heads out of our asses.
That was a different society altogether. Might as well call it a different country.
different century also–one in which hard work was expected
OldFart, you are peddling ideas that don’t work anymore and you must be wondering why younger people aren’t taking the bait. There was a class war in the US. It was “the suits” versus all the workers, including engineers, etc. That was i over and the financial elite won it by the end of the 1980’s. This .01% elite treats everyone as disposable. Go to college and invest 4 years getting an engineering degree ? Well, you’d better make it 6 years and some masters in engineering because bachelors degrees haven’t been good enough since the 1970’s. That degree is an investment, and you have to make it pay back the investment – if you can. If you are an American, you will be competing with knowledge worker from around the world, and from the H1-B migrants in the US. In the US, it’s a given that immigrant workers are preferred. They may be smarter, maybe not, but the employers know they will work harder than the natives, because conditions are worse where these migrants come from. So for now, you have to be verrry picky about what kind of degree you get. Certain software skills are valuable, but those skills can become obsolete before you’ve paid back you student loans. I could go full nerd and name software skills that were hot and now are not-so-hot. Ruby On Rails is cooling down. Very nice ride while it lasted – if you happened to know about it when the window opened, and could get the skills. Let me mention just two “canaries in the coal mine”. One was the destruction of Hewlett-Packard. It set the standard for a great company, well run, and able to handle all the storms. Until a sbotage operation was put in place. Carly Fiorina rad AT&T into the ground and then she was picked to do the same for H-P. Barclays Bank and Deutsche Bank conspired to make her CEO over the strenuous objections of Bill Hewitt. As soon as she got into power, she bought Compaq Computer, a real loser of a company that never innovated. Fiorina said it was to get a better grip on the PC market, which is worse than laughable. In fact, all the loser managers with a dog-eat-dog mindset, managers who wouldn’t know a real innovation if it bit them, were brought in, or they jumped in – same thing really, and drove out the competent H-P managers. Parts of H-P, like the medical equipment were allowed to break free. But the H-P of old, where new industries were a way of life, is long gone. Here’s a shorter story. H-P invented the oximeter for reading blood oxygen levels. It was a huge rack of equipment, but it worked. In the late 1970’s, some techies started a company they named Biox Technologies. They shrank that rack of electronics into something cheap and tiny. The business took off. But it was a one-product company, possibly because Colorado venture capitalists are relatively impecunious and not very smart. After the produces were perfected and the market got saturated, the investors sold BIox to a large corporation. First thing they did was fire all the engineers – don’t need new products, and kept the suits because they needed the suits to run the marketing.
So, Oldfart, marketing is a more secure route to a good income that engineering or any other traditional industrial work. It’s easier, takes less brains, and is relatively more immune to foreign competition. Remember that slogan from the 1980’s, “Work smart, not hard” ??? Smart as in “wise guys”, not as in advanced engineering.
A modern update: One of my nephews loves rockets and aerospace. He graduated from one of America’s best universities, got high grades, and has been working for several years in his field, first near Seattle, now on the East Coast. But what I didn’t know until a few weeks ago, is that he has never had a permanent job. He’s still just an intern… No job security. Hot-shot field, plenty of elbow grease and long hours, but financially, it’s crap. Same as it has been for the last 50 years, in fact. I learned a long time ago that half the engineers have their heads stuck up some part of their anatomy and there’s no use trying to set them straight on their dismal job prospects. The other half never loved the field and eventually move on to a better career.
The one thing you got right is to make a flinty-eyed examination about the value of your education. Financial and moral value both matter. Most people get one or the other and not both. Just be clear about what you are investing in.
“And the American public sleepwalks while their children die. But a country whose main focus is legalizing abortion? Why not kill the alive children as well? I guess it makes some odd sense.”
USA have been killing live children all along, all around the world. Numbers are unknown, but could easily make USA #1 alive-children-killer. You need to be special kind of ignorant prick not to notice that, especially being a part of the US killing machine.
I think Israel wins the prize this year. Unfortunately, we still provided them with the means.
It’s a team effort. They are the ones doing the trigger pulling, but without USA they would have been eaten alive. Same goes for other bloodthirsty crazies USA have been financing since forever.
It is not true that China doesn’t produce good quality.
Check the high quality and independently produced chips and Huawei phones. I bought a G5 Huawei phone when in Dubai a couple of years ago and besides costing a 1/3 of an Apple, the quality was awesome, especially the camera.
https://youtu.be/uV2Wbg9r3EY?si=lzwG0kqKA4wrAXj0
https://youtu.be/ohjl_H_Fa0U?si=-dwyF79m5owZSUUT
China, also manufactures some excellent quality electric scooters, EVs and are way ahead of anyone in solar panels. American cars are made to last 80k and Toyota and Honda reach easily 200k and with care reach 300 to 500k.
The US and China need each other, we buy their “shit” goods and they buy our “shit” bonds.
GM’s biggest market is China. The same with Merc and BMW.
China is doing around the world what it does at home. It invests in building structures and infra structures. We invest in paper and bubbles.
The Chinese Government has raised millions into the Middle Class while Western Governments are destroying the Middle Class.
China’s Government is building, the captive US Government is destroying.
Sure do miss my Huawei phone. I would buy a new one in a heart beat. Apple can’t have that opportunity out there so the rules based order makes sure the market works irs magic
Longtail, you wrote “…as thecsettlers get more weapons.”
I encourge you and all commenters and readers to read Larry’s Nov. 6 post:
AMICHAI ELIYAHU LETS THE NUCLEAR CAT OUT OF THE BAG; AND MACHINE GUNS FOR ISRAEL
As Larry writes, why does the US need to supply Israel with firearms when Israel has its own bustling firearms industry?
Anti-Hamas Gazans are helping Israel locate Hamas tunnels and positions in Gaza City. The tunnels have turned into death traps. Hamas has made many enemies among its own people….and now it’s payback time.
Hi, do you have a link to support that, sincere request
I sincerely doubt that. I hate to break it to you but the entire Muslim world and much of the non-Muslim world is beginning to see Hamas as freedom fighters.
One may condemn a particular action, such as killing civilians, but that no way changes the objective or nature of their heroic struggle for freedom against a brutal messianic occupier with obvious ethnic cleansing intent.
If you can’t put links that confirm this BS just don’t put the BS here
This website is far too good for that
So put it up Sen
Sounds like wishful thinking hasbara.
The Gazans are helping WHOM to locate Hamas tunnels?!
Those who tell them to go south to be safe and then bomb them en route? Those who murder their children and entire families?
Think before you type.
Now, the Zionists pretend to be Chinese. 😉
Yea, they have even consulted Zelensky on how to conduct great counter-offensive.
Sen Wang: Nonsense! Those anti-Hamas people you have invented must live in the imaginary unbombed section of Gaza.They are certainly getting imaginary food and water from Israel.My only follow up question for you is,Who is your paymaster?
American troops on Syria? Wait. What did you say? Syria? Syria. Seriously?
I assume Syrian troops in West Virginia probably would not have an easy time.
Yes, and the idea can be restated in more specific terms. The American bases have been tenable only so long as the threat was locals with rifles. Locals with more and more sophisticated weapons/missiles and technical support from Iran or Russia or both make these bases untenable.
Change the scale a bit and the same can be said about the much larger base called Israel. The gradual use of more and more sophisticated missiles by proxies makes Israel, in its current state, untenable. This is the context in which the Russians, Chinese and connected community work diplomatically. Their job is to bring Americans and Israelis along to a new reality.
Today they bombed a bunch of targets in Syria claiming “self defense ” Invaders and occupiers have no inherent rights to self-defense.
Why this is being tolerates I have no idea.
If Russia truly is an ally of Syria and Iran they need to start enabling and taking those S-400 systems hot otherwise the “ally” status is meaningless
You should send telegram to Kremlin right away.
I’m feel terrible to have this attitude but I swear I’d not shed a single tear if the Russians or Iranians wiped out the American based illegally occupying Syria.
Donald Trump ordered them out. The Pentagon lied to to commander in chief and left them there.
Someone needs to be held accountable for this treason and the only way that will happen is a mass destruction of these bases.
Word. And keep in mind, no one held a gun to anyone’s back and forced them to enlist. There were no Press Gangs. Most of those with any brains or integrity left .mil when the Vaxx mandates took effect. Those remaining are all of the unfortunates who enlisted to get cash for college, training for a trade, or medical freebies.
I enlisted in 1969. It was either that or get drafted, run away to Canada, or go to prison. I was fortunate I did not get blown to smithereens. And there were no folks saying: “Thank you for your service” when I was walking through LAX coming home on leave. The long-haired maggots and their tie-dyed, butt-ugly braless skanks spit at me and called me a baby killer. But the baby killing did not really start until Roe v. Wade in 1973. And now Ohio has enshrined it in their Constitution. Over 61 million of our citizens have been murdered in their mother’s wombs. And these woke “Progressives” are stressing over the Muzzies shooting up an Israeli rock concert?! This corrupt, sinful, syphilitic-thinking country deserves a huge chastisement.
If it’s any consolation, the vast majority of people having abortions are the ones any person who cares about the future of America should want to get abortions.
They can answer to God for their sin, but in the meantime we don’t need to encourage them to produce more like them to build on the havoc the likes of “abortion rights” types have sewn in all facets of society.
I agree. And Payback on us is going to be a bitch.
And the other thing, we are being set up to take in a ton of Palestinian refugees.
I can see the psychological manipulation already being set into motion. The israel loving republicans are wanting israel to destroy every Palestinian. Rah rah go Bibi. Then the pro Palestine movement is curiously being led by people with last names that end in berg. So get one side all riled up to destroy every Palestinian, which could never happen so there will have to be hundreds of thousands still standing, and then get the other side into a love affair with the Palestinians. And voila. Here they come to the USA. Israel gets rid of its problem. And stupid republicans are wondering how the hell did this happen, how did my town get flooded with Palestinians? Because we thought Bibi loved us, but he was only ever using us?
Well, you jumped into bed with Bibi. Don’t tell me you believed him when he said he wouldn’t —— in your mouth.
What makes you think the Palestinians would want to come here?
They have a homeland. They want it back from the thieves that stole it.
We’re far more likely to be invaded by Zionist refugees.
Good point Mary, but there are always going to be a good number who want to relocate here. Look around. It would be ridiculous to argue that no one would choose America over their ancestral homeland. People dump their homeland every day to come here.
A good 10% to 20% of the Palestinian population would not hesitate one second if the option is the USA (or Europe) or getting bombed into oblivion. Plus the charity groups and religious organizations and NGOs not to mention the likes of rashida tlaib and all of her useful idiots will be paving the way.
The Israelis and their American co-conspirators wouldn’t being playing both sides like this if there was zero chance of it not working and not effecting a mass exodus from Palestine.
You can think I’m wrong but I’d bet you $5 I’m not. Just watch.
“The long-haired maggots and their tie-dyed, butt-ugly braless skanks spit at me and called me a baby killer. But the baby killing did not really start until Roe v. Wade in 1973.”
Yea. You were killing only subhumans, and their lives don’t count.
How do you know what he did? He enlisted in 1969, but when in 1969. If it was late 1969, theres a good chance he wasnt even sent to Vietnam. If its early, he probably was
And why do you only speak of Americans killing civilians. When did the phenomenon of the boat people occur? Why were there no desperate refugees taking to the sea while they could be protected from pirates by the US Navy? Hundreds of thousands of boat people were victimized this way
And if this war was so awful to civilians, why did this phenomenon occur during “peacetime” .. after Saigon fell to the Communists. How can peace be infinitely worse than “genocidal war”?
Because, as anybody with 2 rational brain cells can infer, the aftermath of a Communist takeover is always worse than any war. Ask any Cambodian who survived the killing fields
Don’t play naive. By “you” I did not mean him personally, but USA. That’s what triggered you. You felt accused. And you should.
I speak about Muricans killing civilians because you/they/them are the ones on the high horse, denying everything, and pretending to be the good guys. Fuck that. They are alway blaming someone else for their crimes. It’s alway Russians, Chines, communists, Stalinists, Maoists, Putinists, Native Americanists, whateverists. It’s never your fault. I guess it takes more than 2 rational brain cells to realize that you were the bad guys all along, and the time of reckoning is upon you. You have gathered a lot of bad karma, and the bill is long. Poor mental gymnastics it the comment section won’t help.
Yes I enlisted in 1972. I was safe from being drafted but I cone from a military family. Its what we did.
It was a different world then. There are no more servicemen in my family after me.
I have actively and successfully discouraged my grandchildren from joining.
My daughter was offered medical school to join the Navy. With my help it wasn’t necessary we paid for it ourselves, best decision we ever made.
“Donald Trump ordered them out”, he didn’t set the date of withdrawal, it might take another 20 years, like in Afghanistan.
Donald Trump couldn’t order a porn actress to keep her mouth shut after blowing him. People thinking that he can give orders to anyone are really special, and not in a good way.
And even then there would be no accountability. Americans need to wake up and realise that they have lost their country – the old rules and laws that made America are no longer in effect (except for the little people, of course).
How long it took for Brits to wake up after losing an empire?
They’re still in a daze.
What amazes me is that no one is putting the screws on Netanyahu. The Israelis must be blind with a Messianic vision. If this situation isn’t immediately tamped down, all hell is going to break lose. I keep looking for a word from the Pope, from the Rabbis, from the Orthodx Patriarchs, from the Dali Lama, and even King Charles. None. Russia, China, and the West Asia oil sheiks should be reacting to an emergency and not just standing by to see what happens. Biden is being led around by the nose by his merry band of neocons and Netanyahu. Once again, no game plan and no clearly defined objective…lets just get involved in a war that will do no one any good just for the fun of it. Sooner or later a lucky shot willput a hole in a ship. Then what? Mission accomplished? If Hamas represents Palestininan ‘self determination’, then good luck extinguishing that. If Iran correctly reads, IMO, that an aggressive expandingI srael is an existiansial threat, then how far will that go? And the other West Asian stat es will find themselves in agreement with Iran and will react accordingly. At what cost to all? It seems the Russian military has determined that Israel is more a threat than a friend. When will the US militarty figure out the same? India’s Muslim population is apparently larger than Pakistan’s. That has to be simmering. Talk about things having the potential to spin out of control. Meanwhile, intelligent debate is being stifled in the US.
Again, the fascination of watching a train wreck.
HAMAS is an acronym
It was a revolt against PLO corruption
That’s right. In 2007, about 70% of the people in Gaza voted for Hamas because they objected to the PLO’s corruption. Something else that isn’t mentioned in the West, is that the CIA and Mossad tried a coup against Hamas to reverse the election. I don’t usually quote Wikipedia, but this is accurate enough:
“In the April 2008 edition of Vanity Fair it was revealed that after the 2006 elections Dahlan had been central in a US plot to remove the democratically elected Hamas-led government from power. The Americans provided money and arms to Dahlan, trained his men and ordered him to carry out a military coup against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. However, the elected Hamas government forestalled the move and itself carried out an armed counter-coup.”
Recently someone tried to kill Mahmud Abbas. They failed and, sad to say, killed one of his bodyguards instead. Abbas’s son was given the tobacco monopoly by Israel decades ago. That monopoly used to be worth $ 35 million a year. I’ve talked with people who made lengthy visits to the West Bank and they all say it’s a shockingly class-stratified society, with the PLO politicians in Ramallah at the top of the pyramid.
Gaza Hurts the heart of any decent human being but Zionist run the world other than a few spots and you can guess which ones… they are in US crosshairs
US is run by Zionists.
From Congress & executive branch to the 3-letter agencies. So they don’t say shit.
From the biggest banks to the privately owned Federal Reserve.
From Hollywood MSM to the biggest corporations.
All under Zionist influence.
Same with EU.
Zionists can be Jews, evangelical Christians’ or just right wingers like Murdoch
Eitherway US won’t cross them ask USS Liberty
And Rashida Tilib stands up to ask for anyone to support her in condemning the genocide (Nakba 2.0) of innocent, imprisoned Palestinians and they vote to censure her! She could be kicked out of Congress by these assholes!
AIPAC should be forced to register as a foreign agent.
One might legitimately wonder what ‘America’s Tentacles’ equivalent would look like … historically one might even consider how long the middle east, the fertile cresent etc has been a geopolitical balliwack of the Persian/Iranian folks.’ compared to that of the US/West…
Of course a bully arranging to have the blame fall on the victim when they finally push back is not even a slightly new phenomenon.
The US needs to bomb the world’s biggest state sponsor of terror. Yes – the US needs to bomb itself. Just take out DC. The rest of us are upwind, thankfully.
The Pentagon was good about reporting most casualties until the Biden people came along. I suspect several American GIs have been killed on wounded in Ukraine from bomb and missile attacks. They’ve admitted that dozens of Army officers were there to track supplies, and I assume some advisors in rear areas. All I have found is the odd death of a senior US Army intelligence officer.
https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2022/09/12/101st-airborne-intelligence-official-dies-on-europe-deployment/
That base in Romania despatching materiel to Odessa
Bet he was zapped inside Odessa
Wonder how many of these weapons came out of Afghanistan?
FUSA AINO is the designated loser of WWIII.
This is a feature to internal quisling traitors of the UNI scum villainy hive.
Just as Orwell said citizens won’t be looking up from telescreens and they don’t have the intellectual horsepower anyway.
The order out of the chaos will be administered by PRC/PLA.
That is the Great Reset Leap Forward model for the world.
Enjoy the now purple hairs and sodomites because it’s all downhill from here.
Hopefully this mess can be contained. It’s a bad time to have a dunce like Brandon in the White House.
Unfortunately, I just got done watching the Republican Presidential debates. Except for Ramaswami, all appear to be neocon war mongers who’s greatest desire is to please the Israeli Lobby.
Pretty sure Ramaswamy wants to fight China over Taiwan.
“Until we achieve chip-independence.” He’s willing to start WWIII in earnest so Americans can have cheap phones.
I don’t trust Ramasamy. He is too glib by far, and reminds me too much of Mr Hope and Change.
I agree his stance on China is dumb. I wish he would parrot Col. MacGregor instead. But, as always, the election comes down to voting for the least repugnant. Thus, I’ll pull the lever for Vivek because he at least dares to say that the US’s interest should be placed in front of Israel’s. That take guts given the Israeli Lobby’s domination over the US elections.
And to Elial’s point, I don’t trust any of them. So what does one do?
Refuse to vote for ANY of them!
Maybe by sending a write-in of no confidence would get their attention?
Who won? “No confidence!”
Pretty sure Haley wants to fight the world over Tik Tok, pita bread and matrioshka dolls. They’re all spying on us and stealing our bank accounts, she says.
America has become an insane asylum posing as a nation.
“an insane asylum posing as a nation.”
Best snark I’ve seen in a month. Short, witty and to the point.
Immediate retaliation for the US attacks on Deir Ezzor today: “The Islamic Resistance in Iraq confirmed it targeted US bases and forces in Syria and Iraq on multiple occasions on Wednesday, as the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip continues for the 33rd day.” (english.almayadeen.com 11/8/23)
https://jamesburrillangell.substack.com/p/strange-states-autonomous-administration
The time of US bases in the Middle East is over! Since US Forces transformed the temporary bases into permanent ones in the holy land in Saudi Arabia, against the wishes of the local authorities, with the viceroy of the region comfortable in an office in Florida – the great trigger for Islamic terrorism.
And support for Israel further isolates the US and the West from 80% of the world. But Biden Administration continues to discourage the genocide in Gaza everyday by sending more weapons to Israel. Yet another intelligent strategy that could even lead to the end of Israel. Only then will the Israelis overthrow Netanyahu. In the desert or in WWIII. Let’s hope not!
Israel and its US puppet state are trying to dismantle Geneva and other Conventions for a freer hand to impose own „Rules“ that state US and Israel are permitted to liquidate what they define as „vermin“ and be sanctified by global adulation
Media in Europe is flooded with Jewish Narcissism and claims of rampant anti-Semitism as if lese-majeste for condemning Netanyahu and his criminal regime is akin to Persecution of Jews ……..the main goal is the desperate attempt to de-humanise and de-legitimise Palestinian suffering
It is so blatant and so contrived that the mask has slipped
Anti-semitism is rampant in the US too: a man tore a poster off a lamp post . The poster was decrying the Israeli deaths on Oct 7.! He just ruthlessly and criminally peeled it off and removed it! Luckily a patriotic American confronted him.
I saw it with my own eyes on TV and got shivers down my spine.
That is rank anti-semitism, the worst form of hate, and I hope he gets life for his act of hate!
If we are not vigilant to stop this in time, next other terrorist anti-semites like that man may start building ovens. (Might even be able to get copies from Russia’s archives of the blueprints the Soviets had from the last time they built replicas).
See something, say something.
Western Ukraine is likely to end up a hotbed of antisemitism. When the leadership finally leaves with their pockets full to their overseas mansions.
America may well go down that path too. Europe and Russia have already been through the phenomenon, but the US has yet to.
to ariadna
antisemitismo è strappare poster?
e massacrare con bombe 20.000 donne e bambini semiti-palestinesi cos’è
pro-semitismo?
guarda che la maggior parte dei coloni sionisti che massacrano e rubano le proprietà palestinesi non sono semiti ,sono suprematisti askenazi europei.
antisemitism is tearing up posters?
and massacring 20,000 Semitic-Palestinian women and children with bombs is what
pro-Semitism?
Look, most of the Zionist settlers who massacre and steal Palestinian property are not Semites, they are European Ashkenazi supremacists.
Repeat after me:
1. Israel has a right to exist.
2. Israel has the right to defend itself.
Anywhere. Including on what the UN still quaintly calls illegally occupied territory.” Don’t call it that! Call it “southern Israel.”
3. Any criticism of Israel is anti-semitism because only the Jews are semites. Anti-semitism is the worst form of hate and must be punished.
Repeat this until you have it memorized. Tomorrow I’ll teach you more rule-based axioms rooted in our values.
🤣🤣🤣 I guess some people are blind to irony. Perhaps the dosing will work?
Think you may have missed the sarcasm in Ariadna’s post.
“Anti-semitism is rampant in the US too”
It was rampant from circa 1870 courtesy of the Ku Klux Klan and others until circa 1950, somewhat dormant between 1960 to 1970 depending on location and presentation, becoming more resurrgent since then.
It was useful throughout to the zionists and “The United States of America including but not restricted to Israel”, less so for the Bundists and others whose property and to a degree lives were inherited by the zionists courtesy of interactions between the zionists not restricted to Mr. Kastner and co-conspirators.
A significant recent catalyst was sending a Jewish American Princess back to the former Pale of Settlement to welcome the locals back into their own homes without benefit of salt.
As was perceived by some from 1969 onwards, during the ongoing transcendence of “The Soviet Union” by The Russian Federation from circa 1985 until 1995 anti-semitism through some organisations became more pronounced, and like the loudmouth tourists arrangements, other arrangements not including exile to B that you are prone to cite, were put in place to progressively minimise racial hatreds in The Russian Federation which are not yet perfect, but deemed necessary in preparation for when likely “The United States of America not including Israel” exists.
The purpose throughout has been the transcendence of coercive social relations by mutually agreed co-operative relationships for mutual benefit informed by the question “How to drown a drowning man with the minimum of blowback ?” which continues to enjoy attainment – sometimes informed by Mr. Schrödinger’s cat – but not perfection in The Soviet Union and “The United States of America including Israel and co-conspirators” trajectories, since Mr. Brezhnev is no longer engaged in the export business and Austria no longer enjoys the benefits derived there-from.
I tend to view antisemitism as cause and effect. When one has a 3000 year history of not getting along with your neighbors, one might look at the mirror and say, could it be me?
Best comment ever!
Antiamericanism is the new antisemitism. Some have alread been accuse of it on this site.
I know! Let’s make Israel the 51st state!
That way we could take away their illegal nuclear weapons and then they’d only have 2 senators instead of 100!
Excellent comment Adiadna! Very funny! 🤣
Thank you
US & co never cared about Geneva & stuff. Napalm, Agent Orange, white phosphorus, depleted uranium, cluster bombs, you name it.
When USA Apache gunship shoots up a minivan with kids, proud Muricans congratulate the gunner on good shooting, and blame parents for bringing kids to war, and try to arrest Assange for leaking the video.
There has been some talk of an oil boycott. I don’t know how viable it is.
I think there are unwritten rules about what each side thinks it can get away with before triggering an all out war. For example, Iran is probably trying to act through proxies rather then act directly. Israel doesn’t seem to think it has any bounds, though.
” Israel doesn’t seem to think it has any bounds, though.”
No, but Netanyahu explained why very rationally citing Joshua.
Yea, vegetable oil boycott, by cooking with lard.
Modern society runs on hydrocarbons from the ground. You can’t just go back to horse carts and steam engines.
Meanwhile, the Houthis have downed an MQ-9 Reaper operating in Yemen air space………..
https://warnews247-gr.translate.goog/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-GB
And the Empire of Lies is opening another front in Georgia………
https://warnews247-gr.translate.goog/sti-dini-tou-polemou-kai-i-georgia-enopla-epeisodia-se-n-osetia-kai-abchazia-eisevalle-omada-saboter-me-natoika-opla-leei-i-moscha-synagermo-ston-rosiko-strato/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-GB
Now you know why Russians never invested much in that type of drones.
I hate rooting against my country, but, it’s behavior is so vile I find myself doing so. We need to get rid of this neocon parasite which is destroying this nation before it’s too late.
The song of the US military in the ME: Looking for Death in All the Right Places.
But hey, we have to fight them there so we don’t fight them here, right?
What a disaster! Of course lots of investors in Raytheon, etc, are smiling.
Anyone surprized just hasn’t been paying attention. The ‘games’ have been going on for decades.
The bill will have to be paid and seems to coming due with increased rapidity.
“US Forces” in Syria “…remain in the region on a counter-ISIS mission”.
Yeah, kinda like “US Forces” helped their “useful terrorist” ISIS steal Syrian oil for year(s) till the Russians intervened and showed the world photos of the long line of oil trucks going into Turkey that somehow the “US Forces” somehow “didn’t see”.
ONLY THEN did the “US Forces” pretend to do something about “ISIS”… which DJT says is “finished”, but the CIA or “US Forces” somehow keep resurrecting for more nefarious purposes.
Even so, “US Forces” are only there to stand in the way of Iran getting all the way to Lebanon along the Shia Crescent for US-owner Israel… at least until the “traumatic brain injuries” become too bad. But in the meantime, they’re still stealing Syrian oil.
The excuse given for not attacking oil convoys was they didn’t want to cause environmental damage, as if all the military action somehow wasn’t. Then they gave 15,000 or so ISIS members and their families safe passage out of Syria, I guess they felt bad about Russia killing off their friends.
The US fought ISIS for years, and Russia put them out of business in weeks. And Trump took credit. The unanswered questions is who gets the money for the stolen oil, and what are they spending it on? Maybe Larry’s old friends at the CIA? More of the Iran/Contra financial shenanigans?
BTW, what are modern Jews exactly ? This ?
https://anonamos.substack.com/p/what-is-a-modern-jew-exactly
No such thing. The Red Sea Pedestrians are immortal.
Immutable.
Proteic only for the purpose of mimesis.
Interesting article, but I’m not a religious guy. However (quote):
So obviously, it’s correct to say that while all Jews must be circumcised, not all those who are circumcised are Jews.
I have to say, in this case, I’m all for getting the nuclear head, not just for medical reasons
“it’s correct to say that while all Jews must be circumcised, not all those who are circumcised are Jews.”
Yes, of course. Jews are circumcised in the cradle, on day 8, Muslims when they are 12 years old. If you are not not a jew by mitochondrial rights (Jewish maternal line), and therefore already “chosen,” you can’t bribe Yahweh with your foreskin donation to get cult membership.
“Les jeux sont faits, auquen prépuce vas plus!”
It’s more than foreskin, it’s an introduction to oral sex and homosexuality!
https://www.newsweek.com/rabbi-infant-penis-herpes-1460790
I wonder what the job description for the position of mohel specifies. And how the synagogue interview of applicants goes.
Lots of skits about Christian faith and practices (see Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm*) but none on the elder brothers,’ although the material is rich.
————–
*I remember one episode in which Larry is a guest in the house of some Christians. He goes to the bathroom and there is an icon of Virgin Mary or Jesus (don’t remember which) on the tank of the toilette. (Not clear if Larry thinks that Christians keep their icons on the toilet or if he feels that’s where they belong.) He urinates and ends up “inadvertently” splashing the icon. When the host enters the bathroom next she lets out a scream of religious ecstasy that the icon “weeps.” That’s how Christians are, see?
Larry David’s show is very successful.
My contention is modern Jews are Star Bellied Sneetches. The Israeli ambassador to the UN even let this slip out!
https://youtu.be/PdLPe7XjdKc?feature=shared
The Biden / Putin summit in the spring of 2021 was result of Zionist Jews storming private homes and desecrating the Jerusalem mosque, and things spiraling out of control; the USA requested that summit out of no where. Biden had shit his pants.
What is happening now almost blew up then!. . . the problem then as now: is the USA government has failed to conceptualize and cannot seem to perceive actual situation on the ground; and apparently believes she still have power to put the genie back in the bottle all over again. The 2021 summit prevented things from going past the point of no return. Then, . . . all of this was immediately forgotten about in the West.
Be that as it may: This time, there was a very short window. That window closed on Oct. 8. And we’ve gone past the point of no return.
A retired USA army colonel said last week that a bunch of USA and Israel military got mauled, with many dead, trying to “rescue” “hostages” recently.
In addition to 10K+ civilians dead in Gaza, tens of thousands injured. . . IDF has lost more than a hundred tanks and armored vehicles in its “ground invasion”, thus at least 200 killed IDF there; another 100+ in the Lebanon/IDF theater. USA bases in Iraq and Syria under constant attack, by various militias; and Deir Zor, pitched battles with Syria Army and US Army now. This is escalating, not de escalating.
& for the fist time, Hisb Allah is targeting inside “Israel.”
I read today that USA personnel had supposedly taken over “operational control” of Dimona Nuke War plant. . . .”Israel” having kept that “secret” that they “don’t have nukes” and the USA going along with that lie. . . welp, now USA and Israel have lotta splaining to do. . . since IAEA must inspect it and Russia is now demanding that be done. . . this is side show in a sense —
With IDF in quagmire now in Gaza, Israel depopulating the environs & depopulating Galilee, since Hisb Allah is shooting at everything. . . and USA under fire. . . . all over the region. . . what do you suppose this can result in?
Since there is no longer any “United Nations” and “international” “Law” itself has been genocided by this lack of response to genocide. . . .”foreign” troops may begin occupying sections of “Israel” . . . this may sound far-fetched. . .this is one direction this may take? What legal basis can anyone assert with a straight face to stop this, given barbaric massacres in Palestine?
For the first time, the Zionist Jews realize things will never be the same. . . and many are getting the hell out ASAP; others are committing pogroms in West Bank. . . .I wouldn’t be surprised if a Hisb Allah force ends up in Jerusalem, in near future, the way things are going. . . .What’s to stop Syria from climbing the Golan Heights, Egypt to start firing at IDF? What’s to stop Jordan King Abdullah’ and Queen Raina to march on Jerusalem?
If the governments don’t do something, they will be toppled [Erdogan, at least rhetorically, understand this better than any of his regional brethren]. . . it is this exact dynamic that: no one in the west wants to touch. . . and they ignore it at the peril of their sacred cow/Israel.
Nov. 29 less than three weeks away. . . By then Bibi may be gone; and Biden out by Xmas?
That no less a coward than Blinken is now saying Israel can no longer occupy Gaza. . .this is ominous sign for his Zionist frens. . .and indication just how out of control things become. Our government has lost the plot.
“mutual assured destruction”
https://twitter.com/amalsaad_lb/status/1722215361721045448
https://korybko.substack.com/p/nasrallahs-speech-confirms-that-mad
-30-
Oddly enough (given the dark clouds gathering) I find reasons for optimism in your info and comment.
“What’s to stop Jordan King Abdullah’ and Queen Raina to march on Jerusalem?”
This film in alleged production sounds quite of the fantastic genre to me….
She sit quite comfortably at the WEF, by the side of Schwab, for that to happen..to talk about so called “sustainable development” and the dark future for the proles….we have been tasting in full during the past three years….
Or, if that would get to happen, it would be precisely because of that…as a new chapter of the series…”New Woorld Disorder”…
We have plenty of kings, who only look out for preserving their privileges and fortune, and we lack statesmen of grassroots origins compromised whith defending the interests of out nations and peoples…..
IMO, the people who should march on Jerusalem are those risking and losing their lives and never seeing a penny during the past decades to defend the right to exist of their peoples…while the Jordan Royals were dedicated to hedonism and making truce with those now causing the Palestinian genocide….
They all brought this disgrace on their own people, out of greed and negligence for decades…
What’s this business of the US fighting ISIS in Syria?
When I watch a TV series I try to make sure I don’t miss any episode because if I do I hate it when I find out the loving couple got divorced and I have no idea what happened.
Aren’t these the guys with the shiny brand new Toyota trucks? The ones who were treated in Israeli hospitals when they got wounded?
What did I miss?
Why the rift? What happened? Did we cheat on them? And of we did, can’t they forgive us after all we’ve done for them?
It’s like the US is trying to stop the genocide by providing more bombs and other instruments of genocide to Israel. It’s the usual business of lies.
You lost that relevant episode when all the high security prisons around the Middle East, and beyond, were freed from their most dangerous criminals to be trained against the enemies of The Empire…
These, of course, although represented as so, for future uses in terrorist attacks and flase flag operations, to criminalize muslim people when needed or try to destroy peaceful convivence, and thus development and future, in Europe, as has been planned, are not, in any way, religious people of any kind…but criminals who would do anything for money….and even enjoy bestialyt and bloodspread…many of them pasychopaths or affcitiante to drugs…
In photographs of Fallujah, Bagdad and the like, you always could watch, if attantively watching, aboard the shiny Toyotas, a lot of montaraces, with long hair and beard, and a really fierce appearance, probably all under heavy drugs like Captagon, and some other always masked to the eyes, appearing amongst that crowd of ragtags….one here another there…
I would bet the masked dispersed scarce ones were Western trainers…
In fact, I am not sure this episode was even broadcasted during the series emission, but was commented by several analysts…
Old commenter Biswapriya Purkayasta used to makee some good comics about that in the past…
ariadna,
Your avatar seems to match your personality.
Not a bad thing. Not a good thing. Just a neutral observation.
In did not choose it. It was bestowed upon me.
You think you can read one’s personality in the person’s writing style?
“You think you can read one’s personality in the person’s writing style?”
With enough material, yes. Caveat applies, because of differences between on-line personalities and real-life ones. In real life people can get punched in the face for saying things. On-line, not so much.
U.S. military bases and outposts in Syria and Iraq – Did Syria and Iraq invited the U. S. to put military bases in their countries?
If God didn’t want us to attack/set up bases in those places He wouldn’t have made their resources and geostrategic position so dam’ attractive.
Egging on a war that the west the goes on to lose (Ukraine), is one thing, and it is losing with the most fanatical proxy on the planet. Going in directly and losing, and you lose if you then have to lose face (and whole lot of other stuff) pulling back, quite another.
There is not going to be a world war simply because europe has absolutely zero (ZERO) intention of fighting one, and that includes the bellicose UK- who is always after egging on les autres. Not so publicly, Europe is sick to death with this bonkers regime run by someone who should be in a care home, and which has bounced it into this Ukraine nonsense which has been an economic disaster for it.
So the US goes it alone (I just choked on my cornflakes) -against multiple enemies!!!! Yeah, right, bring it on, eh? You have to be cracked to think that is going to happen any time this side of pigs flying.
Exactly. The WWIII is a fantasy because Western economies are in ruins and cannot even produce ammunition after the adventure in Ukraine. So today, not even with the credit that Zelensky wants. And the continuation of the State of Israel in the Middle East is increasingly unsustainable. Many have already defected, like the Ukrainians, and what sense of security will those who remain after this attempted genocide by the great Israel have? Do they intend to build a great wall or live like in American Far West with a gun strapped to their leg?
Everything that Israel is doing today in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank will have consequences that will last over time. Regardless of the change in the status quo after the crisis, which already seems more than evident. That is why Israel has already lost this war far beyond the hearts of the majority of humanity. An ethnically pure state was a bad idea from the outset. And to me it still seems like exactly what Hitler was looking for. Perhaps because Zionism has always been the brother of Nazism.
Or, perhaps… the ‘father’ of Nazism? Ashken-nazi ?
“An ethnically pure state was a bad idea from the outset. And to me it still seems like exactly what Hitler was looking for. Perhaps because Zionism has always been the brother of Nazism.”
There is nothing wrong at all with an “ethnically pure state” if it so evolved organically, for geographic or historical reasons. Like Japan.
What is wrong is trying to achieve it by ethnic cleansing of the minorities who live there.
What is TWICE wrong is to occupy someone else’s land and proceed to ethnic cleanse the native population to obtain, not even an ethnically homogeneous population (which the Sephardim and Ashkenazim are not), but a cult devoted to a certain ideology.
Larry
I’m not as sure as you that Zionists vs. Palestine was not a false flag op.
Israel has been trying to steal Gaza oil since the 1999 discovery. A year ago Israel lost its final appeal for legal taking, and sought Plan B. (illegal)
A convenient stockpile of missiles for Hamas might be expected to trigger them. Which vengeance outburst could “9/11-justify” lsrael’s American style of stealing oil: their Nagasaki tactic of obliterating the owners.
Massmedia even coined it ‘Israel’s 9/11’ while the actual 9/11 is still credibly thought worldwide to have been false flag. (Not your belief, certainly, and buried under a CIA denial-sarcophagus poured thicker than the ones covering up their Kennedy murders.) Still, self-inflicted 9/11 false flag arguments are “out there” where people are surveyed about it.
Just my thoughts in reading this:
https://southfront.press/follow-the-gas-to-understand-the-war-between-israel-and-hamas/
.
Israel trying to steal the Gaza oil is really just a tiny part of a much bigger puzzle. The ongoing conflict between Palestinians and the Zionist regime of Israel which is a serving busboy of the western deep state banking cartel whose historically assigned mission is to make sure that by instigating tensions/crisis/bribery ….there would be a steady flow of cheap energy from the region to the global market that in turn preserve the strength of the US dollar as the primary trading currency across the globe. It’s through this mechanism that imbecilic characters roaming western capitals supposedly as politicians could run very high levels of deficits – in the US’ case about $35 trillion, and organize their nonsensical narratives about democracy, neoliberalism, lgbtq, transgender…This war is also an extension of the war on Russia by NATO’s Ukrainian proxies plus the one coming against China in Taiwan. Therefore, it’s really about the Eurasian centric new Multipolar Order versus the declining Zio-globalist led Rules Based Bullshit(Order) which the Biden administration keeps promoting.
US forces in Syria are likely in a very interesting and potentially very difficult legal situation.
Consider the following facts:
1. The US and Syria are not in a formally declared state of war with each other.
2. Apart from a few air strikes, in the 10 years or so US forces have been in Syria, there has not been a constant state of hostilities between US and Syria there.
3. In the absence of hostilities between the US and Syria, the US may not be an “occupying power” under the laws of war.
4. US forces presence in Syria does not have the consent of the Syrian government.
5. There is no “Status of Forces” agreement or treaty in place regulating the legal regime for US Forces in Syria.
6. Given the above, US forces in Syria are very likely subject to Syrian civil and criminal law and may not be protected by the laws of war.
7. If so, US commanders in Syria are potentially liable to arrest under Syrian civil and criminal law for a wide range of offenses including but not limited to:
– illegal importation of weapons and ammunition,
– illegal possession of weapons and ammunition
– failure to comply with immigration regulations
– failure to comply with labor regulations,
– failure to make customs declarations for imports
– failure to pay customs and excise duties
– failure to pay income taxes and social security
– failure to comply with any of the other multiple requirements of a modern bureaucratic state
– criminal liability for damage caused by military operations
– criminal liability for deaths due to military operations
to Itexpat
vai a dire al tribunale de L’Aia che li arresti e li processi come criminali di guerra e li metta nella stessa cella di Putin…
ciao!
You must be confused about the “rules based system”.
The whole point is the rules/laws do not apply to the US.
You have put US and legal in the same sentence by mistake.
Obviously the flow of real information is being strongly suppressed by zio-controlled MSM in the west. Here is the authentic news we got recently that roughly 140 Zionist regimes’ Merkava tanks have been hit in and around Gaza so far. Each one of those tanks has a 4 member crew (commander, driver, gunner and loader) but still the Israelis maintain the number of their casualties at around 30, which is a big lie. Frankly, their lying habit is now reaching the stratosphere, so nobody should believe the IDF. Moreover the actual so-called Shia Crescent covers Kuwait, Northern Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Qatar with extension to Yemen. So it’s way larger than what the above map is indicating. The Iraqi-Syrian resistance groups – not Lebanese Hizbollah – claimed responsibility for numerous small scale warning shots on illegally occupied gatherings of the US military in the region but those attacks have the potential to increase incrementally.
RUS, CHN, and IND won’t take the Bait.
Not a Global War
Not every wars need weapons to be fought and won.
I see more the BRICS countries like unobtrusively steering a lot of baits and the westerners are biting most of them.
This is all horrifying. However, I don’t think that any of the countries of the ME or the rest of the world want this to devolve into all-out war. The only certainty if that happens is everyone loses.
The best we can hope for is that the war is contained within Gaza and that as it becomes like Stalingrad for the Israelis the appetite for more fighting will decrease and everyone can sit down and come up with a permanent solution, which has to start with Israel getting out of all occupied territory. They may not like it, but increasing Israeli death toll and global isolation will weigh on it heavily. There’s also the fact that the U.S. is approaching an election and shipping boatloads more $ to fight another foreign war is going to be a hard sell, particularly given the domestic political passions that have now torn a part of the left away from Biden.
I think a key escalatory step was the move of a U.S. SSGN, carrying over 100 Tomahawks, into the CENTCOM Area of Operations.
https://www.dvidshub.net/news/457251/ohio-class-submarine-enters-us-5th-fleet-area-operations
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio-class_submarine
https://www.csp.navy.mil/SUBPAC-Commands/Submarines/Guided-Missile-Submarines/
The deployment of that high-capacity Tomahawk-carrier opens the door to the following scenario:
1. Israel and Hezbollah begin trading strikes (Israel’s air force, Hezbollah’s missiles).
2. The U.S. comes in on Israel’s side, launching carrier-based air (from the Ford, which seems to have remained in the Eastern Med) against Hezbollah.
3. Hezbollah and its allies retaliate by attacking U.S. assets in the Middle East in earnest, seriously bloodying them.
4. The U.S. now has the excuse to do what the neocons have been urging it to do, namely
launch devastating air strikes against key Iranian facilities.
Those 100+ Tomahawk missiles on the SSGN will be a key part of those strikes.
5. The Iranians may not be able to match the U.S. militarily, but they do have an asymmetric asset: the large number of their sympathizers in the continental U.S.
Terrorism would, in that situation, strike the U.S.
Now, forget for a minute the details of that scenario.
Consider some questions:
Why is the U.S. so hostile towards Iran?
Why did the U.S. invade Iraq?
Why did the U.S. participate in the destruction of the Gaddafi regime in Libya?
Why has the U.S., for many years, worked to destabilize the Assad regime in Syria?
There is a blatant common thread in those actions.
Each of Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Iran, before they were neutralized, posed a potential threat to Israel.
No, those wars and military actions, were not done to enrich the MIC.
If we weren’t spending so much on those foreign wars, there were many high-tech weapon systems and programs that could have been funded.
No, it was all about Israel.
That’s my opinion, anyhow.
“5. The Iranians may not be able to match the U.S. militarily, but they do have an asymmetric asset: the large number of their sympathizers in the continental U.S.”
Iran possess thousands upon thousands of similar missiles as Tomahawk, with varying degrees of accuracy – strength across several thousand miles within its own borders and an equal number outside which are pinpointed at enemy targets at a 2000+ miles radius. The only thing the US can boast about is nuclear tipped missiles which of course is a different story altogether.
In short limited strikes here or there mean absolutely nothing but making Iran and its allies even more resolute. The US must plan for an actual military conquest by land of the entire country requiring at least 2 million ground troops etc.
Those that are impressed by 100 Tomahawks should read a bit about Trump strikes on Syria. Focus on how many missiles were used, and what were the effects.
CIA has a clan feud against Iran ever since they reversed its takeover with puppet Shah. If I were Israel, I would have installed dual-national moles in the CIA and FBI decades ago. Ask how the FBI released the High Fivers Dancing Israelis?
Better to ask why the CIA and its newspapers seems to be going along so far with the genocide? Above my pay grade.
*** U.S. INCHING TOWARDS WORLD WAR III ***
It’s true that Genocide Joe Biden is a disaster in every way, and the old man has totally failed in crafting any sensible response to the events in Southwest Asia.
These days I’ll admit to being as paranoid as hell, but can it be a total coincidence that a fanatical “Good Christian” End-Timer” became the Speake of the House of Representatives at the same time the Apartheid state was gearing up for a war of extermination in Gaza? From the Financial Times:
**** … he believes the US is a Christian nation founded on biblical principles, and he is a “Christian Zionist” supporter of the politically philo-Semitic and theologically antisemitic view that the Book of Revelation will be fulfilled in modern-day Israel. Remember, that involves the second coming of Jesus in a prophesied rapture in which the righteous will ascend to heaven and the rest, including the Jews, will be slaughtered.
Some people would call Johnson a Christian nationalist. I prefer the term “end-of-days Republican”. ****
https://www.ft.com/content/a922cb8e-ddaa-484c-a720-e4c4e970304f
This character is a second 9/11 event from becoming President of the US. Yes, a land-based version of the USS Liberty attack would install Johnson as President of the US.
“Bad situations” can always get worse, so I’m left in a very unhappy condition of praying for the continued safety and good health of our warmongering dementia-patient POTUS. And also for his half-wit VP.
“WW3” looks more and more like the last decolonization war and the last bit of colonialism are slowly and methodically erased worldwide. A very painful process , like boiling a frog by slowly heating the water until it’s too hot.
The end of an epoch.
And those from colonial powers still fail to acknowledge what is going on.
My SWAG is that Hamas benefits from higher numbers of dead, and Israel benefits from lower numbers of dead. But since no one in the West leadership gives a damn about dead civilians unless they are Israeli – its Israel that is low balling.
“Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome.” — Charlie Munger
Interestingly, my SWAG regarding timelines of armor losses to get unsustainable* for Israel of about 3 weeks, corresponds to the former Israeli prime ministers “political” estimate of 2-3 weeks.
*unsustainable means having to weaken other fronts – particularly the northern and/or West Bank.
I suspect Hamas can replenish soldiers with volunteers through tunnels from Egypt faster than Israel can hire ex-Ukrainian Nazi mercenaries. And yes, that is a thing.
When the USS Carney a couple of weeks back can claim to have shot down a Houthi missile(?SIC?) aka drone attack on… Israel, over 2,000kms away, for whom are they even pretending this is true/relevant?
What sort of citizenry swallows this guff – paid for by their taxes?
Therefore it makes perfect sense that “US warplanes struck a weapons storage facility used by Iran “and its proxies in eastern Syria shortly after Tehran-backed Houthi forces in Yemen shot down an American MQ-9 Reaper drone.”
Yemen, Syria,Lebanon,Iraq…? – in the 70s a NYer cartoon showed two commuters bemoaning the ‘secret bombing of Laos’ – one sez to the other “Laos,Cambodia why can’t we just stay in in Vietnam where we belong?“
Sermon? We can assume that you are not a fan of Hezbollah. Well you have to be a patriot at some point supposedly.
Any ideas how America fights Hezbollah with 2000 marines?
Manheims legacy air force and tomahawks?
Everyone gets more amusing the older they get
The United States makes proclamations and statements based on dubious and erroneous optics, for the sake of internally consumed political theatre, owing nothing to actualities in the real world.
If some coteries within the US wish to initiate war they should not indulge in hearsay and behind the hand whispering of falsehoods.
The ‘game’ against Iran has been played on paper and each time it was played it was an unmitigated disaster for the United States and any man who said so was fired and so now we have ‘yes’ men in dresses , and lots of prospective former US naval diving attractions in the Mediterranean.
Hey, Hamas? “Don’t start none, won’t be none.”
Two questions Larry:
1) I’m not seeing being taken into consideration the depleting effect on the IDF’s anti-air defence munitions as the result of the ongoing Hamas rocket bombardment – these rocket-attacks on Israel seem to me to be NOT merely ‘pinprick attacks’ – they are continuously eroding Israel’s supply of air-defence munitions – same with Houthi rocket attacks and Hezbollah’s northern territories rocket attacks. Israel & the USA have finite numbers of iron-dome interceptors & other anti-air munitions… When they’re gone, they’re gone. Think Russia vs Ukraine: Russian strategy to deplete Ukraine’s air-defence capability, ie Russian rocket & drone attacks on power facilities etc were not so much to degrade power utilities, though they certainly had that effect, but were primarily and successfully used as a means to deplete Ukrainian air-defence capability because Ukraine had no choice but to defend them… I suggest that Palestinians have learned from that and are implementing their own equivalent. In order to hold onto power, the present Netanyahu-led govt is forced to do its utmost to protect Israeli civilians from attack (all the more so following their Oct 7th failure to do so), however, sooner or later the Israelis are going to have to cut back on their air-defence of civilian targets in order to concentrate their finite anti-air defence munitions on their strategically vital command / military / logistics / utilities hubs & infrastructures… At this point – if not before – the Netanyahu-led govt will be ousted by Israelis. In my opinion it’s folly to think IDF soldiers will be prepared to continue to suffer heavy casualties while their families back home are actually / potentially being decimated by aerial attacks… They will demand a truce / ceasefire.
2) Would you agree with me that Erdogan’s change of posture to that of supreme muslim military sultan & saviour was spurred by his sudden realisation that Gazan offshore natural gas exploration rights were potentially coming up for grabs as the UK / BP rights period is about to expire?
.
This nothing new about the US hiding their casualty figures. Even today we don’t know the real casualty numbers from the Iraq war. When they were bombing Serbia and the US lost their famous super stealthy aircraft and you could see on the news people dancing on a wing section, which they gave to China, the US refused to acknowledge the aircraft was shot down, even to this day.
The way the US media is structured where 5 or 6 people control the majority of the media they keep the US people in the dark like mushrooms. Nothing will change until this monopoly is broken up.
“…the US refused to acknowledge the aircraft was shot down, even to this day.”
That is not true. There is even a photo of pilot on Wikipedia, in addition to other stuff.
The real acknowledgment is in Top Gun sequel, where Tom Cruise is shot down by the same missile system 🙂
Wikipedia is not an official government website unless you know more, but to mu knowledge the US Government has not officially acknowledged it. Now you go into the realm of fantasy with Top Gun 2. That’s utter nonsense.
Wikipedia is another propaganda outlet for The West. It is part of the stucture keeping “people in the dark”. If MSM/Wikipedia acknowledges something, that is equivalent to USA government admitting it.
I have no idea what official US government website says, but I do know that Lt. Colonel Darrell Patrick “Dale” Zelko can not just talk without US Government approval, not to mention shaking hands with Lt. Colonel Zoltan Dani, or posing next to remains of his former plane is Belgrade’s museum.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-20209770
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_F-117A_shootdown
US government is denying some other planes being hit, but that’s another story.
The part about Top Gun is a joke. You can easily tell that, because it ends with 🙂. Jokes sounding like utter nonsense is a comon thing, and is intentional.
…The IDF made sure they took off the uniforms of these young people and dressed then in civilian clothing.
(And something about “indiscriminate”.)
https://twitter.com/Israel/status/1720726277865320616?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1720726277865320616%7Ctwgr%5Eeb5d8d906bd2e678426ee888b342ab19a9b9c2ac%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fredstate.com%2Fbobhoge%2F2023%2F11%2F04%2Fdont-look-away-idf-releases-video-of-israeli-music-festival-carnage-by-hamas-n2165902&fbclid=IwAR3tR4sygGlfCP-tlEFiC679WxLS2uTqVPjq5heYxG9VIjr-hEg-YBe6RSA
You gotta know when to fold them, hasbarnik.
Because they have a lot to lose, they will surely never confront the few countries that are well armed, the rest of them can be destroyed with impunity.
The idea must be to annihilate defenseless peoples who have earned racist hatred to terrorize the world because we are entering a stage in which the privileged will have to openly show their total lack of scruples. As things are, what it is about is “money or life.”
Seen this way, the Israeli provocation may be part of an attempt to carry out a large-scale massacre in the Middle East under the religious pretext of fighting Islam to drag Christianity into another genocide.
If building the so-called Western civilization cost more than a billion dead when everything seemed like just an illusion, it will be normal to kill several billion to maintain the privileges that their predecessors earned with so much blood.
The world can experience selective massacres.
So the USAF launches air strikes to teach the other side not to mess with the USA.
And then those same people mess with the USA.
General: Well, bomb them again!
Flunky: Yessir! Right Away Sir!
General: And???????
Fluky: They aren’t stopping their attacks.
General: Well, bomb them again!
Flunky: Yessir! Right Away Sir!
[Rinse and Repeat]
Meno to the White House: Maybe try a different tack, because this one ain’t actually working.
The beatings will continue until morale improves.
“Netanyahu, so far, is refusing to back off.”
Bibi has no reason to back off. As corrupt an arse as he is, still he is an exceptionally astute politician and knows the world inside and out. He knows nothing will be done – only growls, barking and murmurs. He doesn’t even care if the US backs off as he knows that the Jewish lobby will prevent that.
Though I wish desperately that he isn’t, he is probably right. I doubt Iran, Turkey or the other Arab states will do anything concrete (I truly hope I am wrong). I think China and Rusia will try to influence the UN, but the UN is a toothless dog incapable of much of anything outside of an ocassional bark or growl.
But having said all that, I also believe that Oct 7 changed everything long-term. The multi-polar world will be accelerated as a result. The US and Israel will lose what credibility they enjoyed among the world community. The Muslim world will continue to grow stronger whilst the Western alliance (and Israel) will weaken.
If I am reading Andrie M. correctly,The war crme tribunals will be in Russia.
https://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2023/11/about-tribunal.html
Its best we get it through our heads that “The West” has lost moral legitimacy , its secular institutions are to be ignored and bypassed.
I hope Iran cohosts the tribunals.
“Its best we get it through our heads that “The West” has lost moral legitimacy”
How can you lose something you never had?
Judge Napolitano and Alastair Crooke cover this new narrative of “all Palestinians” are complicit on their talk this morning.
It is an excellent interview. Both Israel and the US are screwed.
https://www.youtube.com/live/K5wu_2Vl0e0?si=a3S_qxQHWNaSn7gB
Israel does not have defendable borders.Its like Britain and USA reconstituted the state of Israel to gather jews who survived WWII and put them in one place, so there could be a final solution. Israel has not been allowed to win a war decisively but has been stuck in an endless war.What if WWII had been conducted with endless ceasefires? We would still be fighting nazis in Germany.The present populations of Israel and Gaza were born there,that is now their country.There are no longer any ”palestinian” refugees.Calling them refugees with ”right of return” is like calling the Indians who fled Pakistan in 1947 refugees.The descendants of those people are not considered refugees from what is now Pakistan are they?Its a cluster fck that must be benefiting somebody.Admit it was a mistake to recreate Israel,move it to the USA or allow them to win a war and set up defendable borders.Nobody wants the ”palestinians”,Jordan expelled hundreds of thousands so did Kuwait,Egypt doesnt want them,Lebanon has had its fill of them.Why should the jews be stuck with them,they cant behave and be peaceful,and it suits other arab countries that they make trouble for Israel.Could they all just FOAD? I’m tired of hearing about them.
A resolution to the crisis via two states, or bi-national One state (like South Africa) will transform the region into an exceptionally dynamic and prosperous part of the world.
A serious long term peace plan would involve water from Ceyan (Turkey) and Belt and Road infrastructure (China). It would be a superb success for both peoples.
Those who wish to drive out the Palestinians/Jews from the region are the problem. The answer lies in diplomacy through the Multi-polar UN once the neocolonialist Rules Based System has been kicked into touch.
Take a look at what China just achieved with the rapprochement of Saudi/Iran and the shutting down of the Yemeni War.
Better times will come once the colonial parasites propping up the Rules based System are gone.
Hundreds of Gaza residents accompanied the Hamas terror units that crossed the Gaza fence on October 7, joining gleefully in the atrocities. No one forced them. They are not innocent.
This is but one sign that the Gaza population is more of a Hamas partner than a Hamas victim. Opinion polls show more than 80% support for Hamas in Gaza. In other words, the people of Gaza, who voted for Hamas in 2006, continue to support Hamas. They collaborated in the Nazi-like war crimes.https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/11/remaking_gaza_a_harsh_and_necessary_road_map.html
Where lies and fabrications intersect with twisted thinking = Israel and Zionism.
I am past the point where I wonder if comments like yours are due to blind ignorance or rabid malice. It makes no difference. However it arises it is venomous BS, ludicrously spiced up with “Hamas = Nazi” idiocy.
I just want to see the recordings/videos that the journalists got to see.Too many morally superior opinions being tossed around.Just make all recordings available,I can decide on my own opinion,dont need a ”fact checker”or a curator of the right opinion.If somebody wants to cheer for one side or the other that is their business,If they both fell into a bottomless pit nobody would miss either band of Semites. Douglas Murray in the ME.https://youtu.be/dZcNEnjVa4E
“Israel does not have defendable borders.”
No. Israel has no DECLARED borders because it is not done stealing land.
“like Britain and USA reconstituted the state of Israel ..”
Slick. You don’t “reconstitute” something that never existed. You INVENT it.
“Israel has not been allowed to win a war decisively”
Oy, if only those who “reconstituted” it would have supported it more to fulfill its messianic mission…but no, they held it back!
“There are no longer any ”palestinian” refugees.”
Beneath contempt.
“Nobody wants the ”palestinians”,Jordan expelled hundreds of thousands so did Kuwait,Egypt doesnt want them,Lebanon has had its fill of them.Why should the jews be stuck with them,they cant behave and be peaceful”
Try this shoe you are selling on the other foot:
Nobody wants the ”Chosen”, European countries expelled them more than 120 times. Every country in which they set up shop, subverting the government, national institutions, and culture and claiming special victimhood rights has had its fill of them. Why should, not only the ME, but any country be stuck with them, they can’t behave and be peaceful.”
For their own security and the sake of peace, help them move to a safe place without neighbors: B I R O B I D Z H AN!
Instead of the arrogant aberration of “healing the world” let them try to humbly heal themselves. The Red Sea Pedestrians are a troubled people, suffering the pangs of Pre-Traumatic Syndrome.
I have been hearing this “WW III” shtick dozens of times since February 2022 from an awful lot of sources. Perhaps it’s time to switch to a different schtik.
Isn’t it curious, that the ultra-Islamist, ISIS the beheaders, are relatively quiet in this conflict?
And the first mention of them is that, like the Americans and Israelis, they are hitting Syrian targets:
ISIS CELLS KILL 34 TROOPS IN CENTRAL SYRIA, GET HAMMERED BY RUSSIAN AIRSTRIKES
https://southfront.press/isis-cells-kill-34-troops-in-central-syria-get-hammered-by-russian-airstrikes/
Tells one a lot about the nature and handlers of ISIS.
ISIS: Israel Secret Intelligence Service
Here from the Times of Israel in Nov 2017, ISIS apologies to Israel for mistake attacking one of their positions.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/ex-defense-minister-says-is-apologized-to-israel-for-november-clash/
And the Daily Mail:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4456130/ISIS-fighters-APOLOGISED-attack-Israeli-soldiers.html
More needs to be said about this.
I forget the name of the Jewish woman who produced those impressive videos of beheadings by ISIS: high production values, clever use of light and a horizon line in the desert behind them worthy of Antonioni.
Maybe she retired. Sometimes loss of a talent like hers sinks the enterprise. Pity.. Just think of what she could have come up with on Hamas.
Relating to previous posts by Larry in connection with possibility of Israeli forces opening fire on their own civilians on October 7th:
More footage of IOF helicopters firing on unidentified cars is circulating:
“The Apache pilots testify that they fired a huge amount of munitions, emptied the ‘belly of the helicopter’ in minutes, flew to re-arm and returned to the air, again and again. But it didn’t help and they understand it,” Mako reported.
The Apache helicopters appear to have focused on vehicles streaming back into Gaza from the Nova electronic music festival and nearby kibbutzes, attacked cars with apparent knowledge that Israeli captives could be inside.
They also fired on unarmed people exiting cars or walking on foot through the fields on the periphery of Gaza.
One Apache pilot reflected on the tortuous dilemma of whether to shoot at people and cars returning to Gaza. He knew that many of those vehicles may have contained Israeli captives. But he chose to open fire anyway.
“I choose targets like that,” the pilot reflected, “where I tell myself that the chance that I am shooting here on hostages as well is low.”
However, he admitted that his judgment “was not 100%.”
In 4 hours, 300 cars were targeted.
The video I’ve seen clearly shows that the cars were targeted from the air. Explains the charred bodies in the cars.
It is quite clear that Israel cares little for the hostages / prisoners held by Hamas by the way they are indiscriminately massively bombing Gaza.
All tears from the Israeli government about Oct 7 are crocodile tears.
And also explain the uncaring way Hamas militants transported that German-Israeli girl in a hurry, which was used to try to show that they were desecrating her corpse by some media, which then ended in a Palestinian hosptial in Gaza to be ateken care until recovery….
Thus, in the end, Hamas saved her life, and could well be that most of alleged Hamas victims were really victims of “friendly fire”….
We all recall Bucha….
The channels showing the video state it was leaked by IDF….
https://twitter.com/Resist_05/status/1722558761121038787?s=
High defintion it does not have, but forensics could take it out the proofs out of it, I guess, if existing….
All must condemn the terroristic slaughter of Israeli citizens by the IDF!
crickets.
Funny how quiet world leaders are.
If anyone watched the Republican debates last night, it was the most disgusting display of fascism yet. These are not “leaders” — they are servile dogs.
“If anyone watched the Republican debates last night, it was the most disgusting display of fascism yet. ”
Maybe there is a silver lining in this. America’s infrastructure is crumbling. It could use a few autobahns and a cheap, domestically produced “people’s car.”
Key fact: US Defence Budget = Annual Interest Cost of National Debt