Oct 192023
 
 October 19, 2023  Posted by at 9:25 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,


Henri Matisse Bathers by a River 1910

 

Biden Calls Hamas Attack Worse Than 9/11 (RT)
Rushing Into Catastrophe (Paul Craig Roberts)
Israel Delaying Gaza Invasion for Fear of Hezbollah Attack (Tweedie)
Decency Becomes Indecent (Patrick Lawrence)
Israel’s Culture of Deceit (Chris Hedges)
A Half-Century Ago, Another Major Intel Failure Saw Israel’s Leader Resign (IC)
Lavrov: Palestinian-Israeli Conflict May Escalate Into Regional One (Sp.)
US Army Too Weak to Win War in Middle East – Tucker Carlson (Sp.)
Russia Says ‘Masks Are Off’ After US Vetoes UNSC Resolution on Ceasefire (Sp.)
Zelensky Is In Danger Of Being Left Behind By The US (Bowes)
US Facing Military Recruitment Crisis – NYT (RT)
UK Arrests Former UK Ambassador Craig Murray for Supporting Palestine (ICH)
Elon Musk Considers Removing X Platform From Europe Over EU Law (Sp.)

 

 

 

 

Time is The Fire In Which We Burn

 

 

Trump WHO
https://twitter.com/i/status/1714421357058961906

 

 

 

 

Biden born
https://twitter.com/i/status/1714671167184003519

 

 

The Ottoman Empire disintegrated as a result of the Arab Revolt. Israel too will have to vacate its occupied territories and make space for a state of Palestine, which of course, will be a crushing defeat for the U.S. and marks the end of its global dominance.
M.K. Bhadrakumar

 

 

From Alexander Aston: a side by side comparison of a Palestinian rocket strike and an Israeli bombing from the 2021 conflict.

 

 

 

 

Why not just worse than WWII, while you’re at it…

Biden Calls Hamas Attack Worse Than 9/11 (RT)

US President Joe Biden on Wednesday argued that the Hamas attack on Israel was worse than the 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, and vowed that America would “forever” stand with the Jewish state. At least 31 Americans were among “more than 1,300 innocent Israelis” killed by Hamas on October 7, Biden told the audience in Tel Aviv, from the music festival near the Gaza border to the nearby villages and kibbutzes. “Children slaughtered. Babies slaughtered. Entire families massacred. Rape, beheadings, bodies burned alive,” Biden recited, comparing Hamas to Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) and their atrocities to “pure unadulterated evil” that cannot be rationalized or excused.

“Since this terrorist attack took place, we have seen it described as Israel’s 9/11. But for a nation the size of Israel, it was like fifteen 9/11s,” Biden said. “The scale may be different, but I’m sure those horrors have tapped into some kind of primal feeling in Israel, just like it did and felt in the US.” The US leader urged Israelis to not get “consumed” by the “all-consuming rage” they surely feel, noting that the Americans were also enraged after 9/11, “and while we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes.” Biden noted that Hamas “does not represent the Palestinian people,” who are “suffering greatly as well.” The people of Gaza “need food, water, medicine, shelter,” and the US has asked Israel to agree to humanitarian deliveries from Egypt to the Palestinian territory – so long as they are inspected and do not go to Hamas.

The US has pledged $100 million in new humanitarian assistance to both Gaza and the West Bank, to support more than a million displaced and conflict-affected Palestinians, Biden announced. According to Biden, peace will only come with a “two-state solution” and the recent attacks have only strengthened his “commitment and determination” to get that done. “You are not alone. As long as the United States stands – and we will stand forever – we will not let you ever be alone,” Biden told the Israeli audience, concluding, “Israel will be a safe, secure, Jewish, and Democratic state today, tomorrow, and forever.”

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“We are experiencing on the part of Israel and the US a total lack of judgment. The risks are being ignored. It is starting to look like the Armageddon that Revelation describes.”

Rushing Into Catastrophe (Paul Craig Roberts)

The Biden regime refuses to defend US borders but does not hesitate to rush aircraft carrier task forces and the 101st US Airborne Division to defend Israel’s borders. “We have Israel’s back,” endlessly proclaims America’ Jewish Secretary of State. “America can afford two wars,” proclaims America’s Jewish Secretary of the Treasury. But forget protecting our own border and the burdens on American taxpayers. It seems our government is captured and risks our lives and welfare in the interest of another country. It seems everyone in Washington, Republicans and Democrats, especially Republicans, have intense war fever. While Washington quickly escalated the conflict by deploying US military forces to the area, the Republican Senator from South Carolina, Lindsey Graham, blames escalation on Iran and issues a threat: “if you escalate this war, we’re coming for you.” Graham continues with his threats, in our name, to Iran saying the US will “knock Iran out of the oil business.”

Like Israel and the Jewish-American neoconservatives, Graham’s target is the Lebanese militia, Hezbollah: “I am poised to use military force to destroy the source of funding for Hamas and Hezbollah.” Another House Republican, this one from Texas, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, says he is writing legislation for authority to commit the US military to Israel’s war on Palestine. What we are witnessing is Republicans who are as extreme as Hamas. Is this insanity real, or is this showmanship, with political campaign funding in mind, for the US military/security complex who will greatly benefit from America “affording two wars?” We are also witnessing the total failure of Western leadership, not only in Washington but throughout the Western world. Instead of escalating the situation by sending military forces, Washington should have used its offices to calm matters down. Why did not Washington calm the situation down instead of blowing it up?

Moon of Alabama speculates that the US forces accumulating in the war zone are a “war fleet,” the purpose of which is to finally bring regime change to Syria and kick out the Russians in an act of revenge for the Russians preventing President Obama’s planned overthrow of the Assad government. I can understand that the Biden regime’s neoconservatives want to continue their policy of cleansing the Middle East for Israeli expansion, but how safe is it to assume that Putin will run away with his tail between his legs? This would finish Putin as a leader of the dissident world and probably also finish him inside Russia. A show of Russian cowardice would certainly provoke an escalation of NATO’s involvement in Ukraine. It seems certain that a US attack on Syria would result in military conflict between the US and Russia.

The Israelis have been massacring Palestinians and stealing their country bit by bit since 1947, and no one has ever done anything about it. The UN passes resolutions, but the US vetoes them. So this final time Netanyahu expects no opposition, indeed, he expects help from the US and its empire in the commission of his war crimes. It is clear to me that the situation is awash in miscalculations. Hezbollah is a match for Israel. Indeed, the militia has twice defeated the vaunted Israeli Army and driven them out of Lebanon despite Israel’s air power. Syria’s army is battle hardened from fighting the mercenaries Washington sent to overthrow Assad. Like Hezbollah and Hamas, Iran has fervor and a large number of missiles that can hit Israel. If, as is claimed, 5,000 missiles from Hamas overwhelmed Israel’s Iron Dome, the Iron Dome has no chance against 100,000 or 200,000 missiles.

If Israel’s army is sent into Gaza, Hamas will keep it there, and Israel risks being overrun by Hezbollah, Syria, and Iraq and Iran should they care to participate. Faced with Israel’s defeat, Washington would commit its forces with catastrophic consequences. We are experiencing on the part of Israel and the US a total lack of judgment. The risks are being ignored. It is starting to look like the Armageddon that Revelation describes. The problem for humanity is that it has developed weapons that are capable of destroying all life, and these weapons are in the hands of emotional people incapable of restraint and reason. I have been, and continue to be, concerned about the conflict in Ukraine spiraling out of control. The situation developing in the Middle East is more dangerous. There doesn’t seem to be sufficient recognition of this danger. The war propaganda from the presstitutes is extreme and blinds people to reality. Those in office think they are in control, but they are not. Possibly Russia could prevent a wider conflict by raising its military presence in Syria, but Putin is not proactive. You tell me, where are the leaders to prevent a catastrophe?

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“..the likelihood of Hezbollah launching a major operation on Israel’s northern border sharply increased on Wednesday and Thursday following a series of developments in the region.”

Israel Delaying Gaza Invasion for Fear of Hezbollah Attack (Tweedie)

Israel seems holding back on an invasion of the Gaza Strip for fear that Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement will open a second front in the north. Some 199 Israeli soldiers are being held prisoner, along with dozens of civilian hostages, in the Palestinian territory since Hamas and other militant groups launched a surprise attack from the enclave on October 7. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, under political pressure following the humiliation, has vowed to invade Gaza and destroy Hamas. Meanwhile, the likelihood of Hezbollah launching a major operation on Israel’s northern border sharply increased on Wednesday and Thursday following a series of developments in the region. The Palestinian Authority blamed the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) for a deadly bombing of the al-Ahli Baptist hospital in Gaza that killed at least 500 people — an atrocity which sparked immediate protests across the Middle East, North Africa and beyond.

Earlier that day, Israel bombed the family home of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, currently hundreds of miles away in Qatar, killing 14 people. And on Thursday morning the Palestinian WAFA news agency reported that a mob of Zionist settlers “under heavy protection from the Israeli police” had stormed the al-Aqsa mosque in East Jerusalem — Islam’s third-holiest site and under the custodianship of neighbouring Jordan. War correspondent Elijah Magnier told Sputnik that the recently announced massive build-up of US forces in the region was intended to guard against the campaign Hezbollah has threatened if Israel launches a ground offensive in Gaza. Those forces include two US Navy carrier strike groups led by the USS Gerald Ford and the USS Dwight D Eisenhower, a US Marine amphibious landing ship with 2,000 marines and F-35 strike aircraft, a squadron of US Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle jets and another of A-10 close support aircraft.

“It is because the Americans with the Israelis believe there is a second front that is going to open up with Lebanon on the northern Israeli-Lebanese borders,” Magnier pointed out. “And this possibility is very much alive, because we’ve seen since the 7th of October the exchange of fire between Hezbollah and Israel.” The war reporter said statements from Israeli government ministers left “absolutely no doubt” that an assault on Gaza would go ahead.”The problem lies in another place. So how long is this Israeli invasion of Gaza going to take? Is it going to be limited only to the north — That is a narrow part of Gaza, so the Israelis are not engaged in a large part?” he asked. He said Israel was wary of withdrawing its forces, including the Golani Brigade, one of just five regular non-reservist brigades in the IDF and which has with experience of fighting Hezbollah, to the south “They don’t want to move them from the front on the northern borders and to take them to Gaza because they are much more afraid of Hezbollah,” Magnier explained.

The Islamic resistance movement is “better trained, they have more experience the way engage with Israel in multiple wars in the past, and they fought against ISIS (aka Daesh)* in Iraq,” he added. “They fought against ISIS and al-Qaeda* in Syria. And they are better equipped with modern technology and long range missiles, drones, anti-ship missiles, everything.” Israel has called up a reported 350,000 army reservists — totalling around a tenth of the country’s workforce — since October 7. “To have reservists going into a deadly trap in Gaza, these reservists need some time to go in and to be trained,” Magnier said — time which Israel does not have. Therefore the Israel strategy is “to level Gaza in the area they want to go in: so they destroy all the buildings and they don’t have civilians because they would be either under debris or killed or have left the area.”

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“No, we, the one nation with the power and influence to stop the most nakedly racist case of violence in the IDF’s long history of such aggression, will do nothing to prevent it.”

Decency Becomes Indecent (Patrick Lawrence)

There have been many, very many singular moments among America’s purported leaders and assorted officials and commentators since Hamas staged its daring assault on southern Israel on the morning of Oct. 7. Let us consider a few of these moments and draw some conclusions. Let us look closely at what is being said and what the American public is now urged to think and accept as Israeli forces prosecute a campaign against Gaza’s 2.1 million people so extreme as to suggest ethnic cleansing is, as many have long argued, the ultimate Israeli project. “Well, there have been some members of Congress who have called for a ceasefire, and they have not gone as far as backing the administration’s call for support for Israel.” This was a reporter’s observation at a press conference last week that featured President Joe Biden’s press secretary, Karine Jean–Pierre, and Jake Sullivan, the president’s national security adviser.

Jean–Pierre’s response merits careful parsing for the large implications we find in it. In my read it reflects Washington’s increasing desperation as Israel’s conduct toward Palestinians tips into a savagery no rational human being can defend. “So, look, I’ve seen some of those statements this weekend. And we’re going to continue to be very clear,” Jean–Pierre replied. “We believe they are wrong, we believe they’re repugnant, and we believe they’re disgraceful.” Let’s not miss what transpired in those few seconds. To call for a ceasefire as the Israeli Defense Forces level an entire city and turn a million human beings into refugees — murdering many children and noncombatants in the process — is humane by any serious definition. To describe such a call as wrong, repugnant, and disgraceful is to assert that what is ordinarily decent must now be cast aside as indecent.

At this point, Washington’s defense of Israel becomes as baldly obscene as the apartheid state’s long record of lawless aggression toward the Palestinian population. Pressing on in a tone that is combative and unmistakably defensive all at once, Jean–Pierre added, “Our — our condemnation belongs squarely with terrorists who have brutally murdered, raped, kidnapped hundreds — hundreds of Israelis. There can be no equivocation about that. There are not two sides here. There are not two sides.” Not two sides, asserted twice. This, too, has implications we must consider. Later at the same presser, another White House correspondent asked Jake Sullivan, “Is the goal the destruction of Hamas? … What is — where do you draw the line? Is there a red line of where do you draw that line of what you need to accomplish?”

Good questions, if inarticulately posed. To which Sullivan replied, “I’m not here to — to draw red lines or issue warnings or give lectures to anybody.” Translation: No, we, the one nation with the power and influence to stop the most nakedly racist case of violence in the IDF’s long history of such aggression, will do nothing to prevent it.

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“Those of us who have covered the occupied territories have run into Israel’s Alice-in-Wonderland narratives, which we dutifully insert into our stories — required under the rules of American journalism — although we know they are untrue.”

Israel’s Culture of Deceit (Chris Hedges)

Israel was founded on lies. The lie that Palestinian land was largely unoccupied. The lie that 750,000 Palestinians fled their homes and villages during their ethnic cleansing by Zionist militias in 1948 because they were told to do so by Arab leaders. The lie that it was Arab armies that started the 1948 war that saw Israel seize 78 percent of historic Palestine. The lie that Israel faced annihilation in 1967, forcing it to invade and occupy the remaining 22 percent of Palestine, as well as land belonging to Egypt and Syria. Israel is sustained by lies. The lie that Israel wants a just and equitable peace and will support a Palestinian state. The lie that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East. The lie that Israel is an “outpost of Western civilization in a sea of barbarism.” The lie that Israel respects the rule of law and human rights.

Israel’s atrocities against the Palestinians are always greeted with lies. I heard them. I recorded them. I published them in my stories for The New York Times when I was the paper’s Middle East Bureau Chief. I covered war for two decades, including seven years in the Middle East. I learned quite a bit about the size and lethality of explosive devices. There is nothing in the arsenal of Hamas or Islamic Jihad that could have replicated the massive explosive power of the missile that killed an estimated 500 civilians in the al-Ahli Arab Christian hospital in Gaza. Nothing. If Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) had these kinds of missiles, huge buildings in Israel would be rubble with hundreds of dead. They don’t. The whistling sound, audible on the video moments before the explosion, appears to comes from the high velocity of a missile. This sound gives it away.

No Palestinian rocket makes this noise. And then there is the speed of the missile. Palestinian rockets are slow and lumbering, clearly visible as they arch in the sky and then tumble in free fall towards their targets. They do not strike with precision or travel at close to supersonic speed. They are incapable of killing hundreds of people. The Israeli military dropped “roof knocking” rockets with no warheads on the hospital in the days leading up to the Oct. 17 strike, the familiar warning given by Israel to evacuate buildings, according to al-Ahli hospital officials. Hospital officials also said they had received calls from Israel saying “we warned you to evacuate twice.” Israel has demanded that all hospitals in northern Gaza be evacuated. Following the strike on the hospital, Hananya Naftali, a “digital aide” to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, posted on X, formerly Twitter: “Israeli Air Force struck a Hamas terrorist base inside a hospital in Gaza.” The post was quickly deleted.

Since the Oct. 7 incursion into Israel by Palestinian resistance fighters, which reportedly left some 1,300 Israelis dead, many of them civilians, and saw some 200 kidnapped as hostages and taken to Gaza, Israel has carried out 51 attacks on healthcare facilities in Gaza that have killed 15 healthcare workers and injured 27, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Out of 35 hospitals in Gaza, four are not functioning due to severe damage and targeting. Only eight of the 22 UNRWA primary healthcare centers are “partially functional,” the WHO says. The brazenness of Israeli lies stunned those of us who reported from Gaza. It did not matter if we had seen the Israeli attack, including the shooting of unarmed Palestinians. It did not matter how many witnesses we interviewed. It did not matter what photographic and forensic evidence we obtained. Israel lied. Small lies. Big lies. Huge lies.

These lies came reflexively and instantly from the Israeli military, Israeli politicians and Israeli media. They were amplified by Israel’s well-oiled propaganda machine and repeated with a cloying sincerity on international news outlets. Israel engages in the kinds of jaw-dropping lies that characterize despotic regimes. It does not deform the truth, it inverts it. It paints a picture that is diametrically opposed to reality. Those of us who have covered the occupied territories have run into Israel’s Alice-in-Wonderland narratives, which we dutifully insert into our stories — required under the rules of American journalism — although we know they are untrue.

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“..Ha’aretz, Israel’s oldest daily newspaper, said Netanyahu “bears responsibility” for the attack. On Tuesday, the newspaper published an editorial titled “Netanyahu: Resign Now!”

A Half-Century Ago, Another Major Intel Failure Saw Israel’s Leader Resign (IC)

In 1973, amid blistering tensions over Israel–Palestine, Arab coalition forces led by Egypt and Syria carried out a surprise attack, successfully pushing Israel, for a time, out of the occupied Golan Heights and the Sinai Peninsula. Israeli intelligence noticed the Egyptian military buildup but incorrectly assessed that they were simply military exercises — an error repeated by the Israeli intelligence this past week, according to a news report. Just before the Hamas attack on Friday, Israeli security chiefs took part in a high-level meeting to discuss whether Hamas’s irregular activity was the prelude to an invasion or simply a military exercise, Axios reported on Thursday. Instead of anticipating the invasion, the chiefs — including the Israeli Defense Forces’ chief of staff, head of military intelligence, and Shin Bet director — decided to wait for more intelligence.

The two attacks a half-century apart also took U.S. intelligence by surprise. In 1973, Robert Gates, then a high-ranking CIA analyst who would later become CIA director and secretary of defense, was providing a briefing on the unlikeliness of military conflict in the Middle East when he learned of the Yom Kippur invasion on the radio. An intelligence community postmortem declassified in 2009 revealed that U.S. intelligence analysts had in fact looked at the question closely and incorrectly judged that there would be no attack despite “plentiful” and “ominous” signs that there would be an invasion. “To intelligence historians, the October 1973 War is almost synonymous with ‘intelligence failure,’” says a report by the CIA’s Center for the Study of Intelligence about the Yom Kippur War.

Israel’s prime minister at the time, Golda Meir, oversaw a victory over the Arab forces — just as Israel’s military will vanquish Hamas and pummel the Gaza Strip — but she faced steady criticism for having ignored warnings from King Hussein of Jordan that a war with Egypt and Syria was imminent. Under pressure to resign, Meir later did. Today, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is under fire for having ignored repeated warnings from Egyptian intelligence. In one such warning, Egypt’s intelligence minister, Gen. Abbas Kamel, personally called Netanyahu days before the attack, warning of “something unusual, a terrible operation,” according to the Israeli news outlet YNet.

Eighty-six percent of Israelis believe their government and Netanyahu are to blame for the attack, according to a new poll released Thursday. More than half of Israelis believe Netanyahu should resign. Shortly after the raid, the editorial board of Ha’aretz, Israel’s oldest daily newspaper, said Netanyahu “bears responsibility” for the attack. On Tuesday, the newspaper published an editorial titled “Netanyahu: Resign Now!”

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“We believe any approaches should be based on a balance of interests of the parties, and not the imposition of someone’s interests at the expense of the interests of others”

Lavrov: Palestinian-Israeli Conflict May Escalate Into Regional One (Sp.)

The Palestinian-Israeli conflict may escalate into a region-wide one, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Thursday. “As for the Gaza Strip, the risk of this crisis escalating into a region-wide conflict is quite serious,” Lavrov told reporters. “We are observing attempts to blame everything on Iran and we consider them quite provocative. The Iranian leadership, I believe, takes a fairly responsible, balanced position and is calling for preventing this conflict from spreading to the entire region and neighboring countries,” Lavrov said. Russia and Turkiye are in contact on the situation in the Middle East, Sergey Lavrov added.

At a press point in Pyongyang, Lavrov was asked to comment on Turkiye’s initiative to create a system of guarantor countries for the parties to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for peaceful settlement. “We are ready to discuss any constructive proposals. This initiative, which I heard the other day, is clearly dictated by the desire to achieve de-escalation and normalize the situation. What exactly is meant, we would, of course, like to hear from our Turkish friends with whom we are in contact on this issue as well,” Lavrov said. “We believe any approaches should be based on a balance of interests of the parties, and not the imposition of someone’s interests at the expense of the interests of others. It seems to me that the Turkish initiative is dictated by the desire to ensure such a balance. We will be ready to cooperate to consider it,” he said.

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Nice talk with Ramaswamy veers into stupidity.

US Army Too Weak to Win War in Middle East – Tucker Carlson (Sp.)

The US will lose in the war in the Middle East if Russia, China and Turkiye are drawn into it, said former Fox News journalist Tucker Carlson in his program on social network X (formerly Twitter). “The stakes are much higher than many Americans realize. It is easy to imagine several other countries being drawn into the conflict between Israel and Hamas. These countries include Russia, Iran, Turkiye, China, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, and probably many others,” Carlson said. According to the journalist, some may support Israel and the US, but most of the countries involved in the conflict will join forces against Washington.

“And that’s going to be a problem. The US military is weaker than it has been in the past 50 years,” Carlson said. The journalist added that the US Army has been exhausted by two senseless conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and has been fragmented from within by the Pentagon’s “buffoonish” policies. “This is not the time for a world war. We will lose it. But our Commander-in-Chief doesn’t realize that,” Carlson said. The journalist also criticized a recent statement by US President Joe Biden, in which the latter, in the context of supporting Ukraine and Israel, described the United States as “the most powerful country in the history of mankind”. “Pride precedes destruction. It always has and always will,” Carlson concluded.

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We will not have a ceasefire!

Russia Says ‘Masks Are Off’ After US Vetoes UNSC Resolution on Ceasefire (Sp.)

The United States showed its true intentions when it vetoed the UN Security Council resolution seeking a humanitarian pause in the Israel-Hamas war, Russian Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations Dmitry Polyanskiy said on Wednesday. “The masks are off. No matter how hard the Americans tried to appear as peacekeepers, they ultimately failed. A huge foreign policy failure for Washington,” Polyanskiy stressed. Earlier in the day, the US vetoed a Brazilian-drafted UN Security Council resolution that calls on Israel to rescind its evacuation order for Gazans. Russia and the United Kingdom abstained. Russia sought to amend the draft resolution to include a condemnation of “indiscriminate attacks” against civilians in Gaza, “in particular heinous strike against al-Ahli hospital,” and also to include a call for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. The UN Security Council rejected both proposed amendments.

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“This fresh conflict, complete with alleged barbaric atrocities, is a far easier sell..”

Zelensky Is In Danger Of Being Left Behind By The US (Bowes)

Earlier this month, the world was shocked at terrorist attacks on Israel by hundreds of Hamas fighters. Not only did it signify the beginning of a new escalation in the age-old struggle between Jews and Palestinians, it also potentially marked a pivot point in political and military support for Vladimir Zelensky’s Ukraine. Before the savage Hamas attacks and the biblically brutal Israeli response, the US and its NATO allies were almost exclusively focused on Ukraine while occasionally glancing nervously toward China. Now, as the Western media spins into overdrive with its gaze firmly locked onto the Middle East, Kiev’s woes are set only to increase as attention shifts away from Kiev and towards Israel, Palestine, and Iran.

It’s worth noting that prior to the Hamas assaults, the trajectory of support for Ukraine already showed signs of waning. Mere months ago, the idea that previously stalwart allies like Poland would be openly questioning the wisdom of their no-strings-attached support for the war-torn state – likening it to a “drowning man” – would have been unthinkable. Couple this with widespread European war weariness, Ukraine’s failed counteroffensive, and collapsing public support for the war in the West, and it was already facing an uphill battle to maintain support from its “partners,” its people, and most importantly American political elites. The last thing Zelensky needed was a globally significant escalation in the Middle East to draw precious resources further away from the proxy war he is fighting against Russia on behalf of Washington. Indeed, a sceptic might suggest that the Hamas escalation offers an irresistible and previously unavailable route for the US to back out of its commitments to Ukraine.

Considering the imminent US presidential election, a ‘good guy vs. bad guy’ conflict with Hamas can be easily spun as an existential threat to a long-time crucial ally and partner, Israel. In contrast, the proxy war in Ukraine is becoming increasingly troublesome for US President Joe Biden, politically and financially. This fresh conflict, complete with alleged barbaric atrocities, is a far easier sell. Meanwhile, despite public pronouncements to the contrary, enthusiasm for sending military aid to Ukraine has been diminishing. Not to mention that the West simply doesn’t have the manufacturing capacity to fuel a large-scale ground war even in Ukraine, let alone a wider conflict. Another crucial issue has been the calamitous cost of Zelensky’s failed counteroffensive. This long-telegraphed manoeuvre, which was supposed to defeat Russia, has depleted Kiev’s manpower, materiel, and reputation in the West without delivering any gains on the battlefield. Instead, it has done nothing but compound the quietly inevitable sense in the West that Kiev will have to seek accommodation with Moscow and concede territory in the process.

It is beyond doubt that the emerging conflict in the Middle East threatens the continuity of physical and ‘emotional’ support for the Ukrainian proxy war. That’s not to say that it doesn’t concern Russia – it does. However, it does not bode well for Zelensky. As pressure to hold elections builds, he looks increasingly vulnerable, with a distinct sense of desperation leaking into the narrative. This was subtly evident when Grant Shapps, the new British secretary of state for defence, recently parroted the stock response when quizzed on the ability to “run two wars” at the same time, he responded that “Zelensky will be reminding us all, not only why it’s very important that we still maintain this battle, and show that we can so that Putin doesn’t win, but also don’t get distracted by the wider issues.” He added, “The war in Europe is absolutely at the forefront of our minds.” This reassurance is, of course, exactly the kind of thing that ominously happens publicly when the opposite is increasingly true in the background.

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“..up to 77% of young people in the United States cannot enlist for a variety of reasons, including being overweight, drug abuse, or having physical or mental impairments..”

US Facing Military Recruitment Crisis – NYT (RT)

The US Army, Navy and Air Force are facing shortfalls in recruitment targets this year, as the Pentagon struggles to compete with civilian employment, while up to 77% of young people have been deemed ineligible to enlist, the New York Times said on Tuesday. By the end of its recruitment year on September 30, the US Army fell short of its target of adding 65,000 people to its ranks, the NYT says, instead ending up with about 50,000 new personnel. It is the third successive year that the army has not met its goal, prompting military bosses to cut unfilled positions and shrink its active duty membership to 452,000 from 485,000 in 2021.

The recruitment logjam has created “an existential issue for us,” Army Secretary Christine E. Wormuth told reporters this month, even as some branches of the military relax recruitment standards and even offer financial compensation of up to $75,000 to join. Primary factors in the stalled recruitment effort include many Americans seeking employment in the private civilian sector, as well as large sections of US youth being deemed ineligible to even apply. A recent report by the US Department of Defense concluded that up to 77% of young people in the United States cannot enlist for a variety of reasons, including being overweight, drug abuse, or having physical or mental impairments. The US Navy also fell short by about 7,500 hires this year, despite recruitment initiatives, including financial incentives. Even the Air Force, traditionally considered an attractive destination for new recruits, added about 10% less than expected.

“It’s been getting harder to recruit, and the military expects it to continue to get harder,” David R. Segal, a University of Maryland professor who studies historical enlistment trends, said according to the NYT. However, one US military branch not experiencing such issues is its Marine Corps. By the September 30 deadline, the Marines had already exceeded its goal of 28,900 enlistments – and did so with little-to-no extra perks or financial incentives. “Your bonus is that you get to call yourself a Marine,” a Marine Corps commandant said earlier this year, according to the Times. “That’s your bonus.”

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“Under international law, atrocity crimes must not only be punished but also prevented.”

UK Arrests Former UK Ambassador Craig Murray for Supporting Palestine (ICH)

Craig Murray was detained on Monday under the UK’s so-called Prevention of Terrorism Act after he returned from a trip to Iceland. Before his arrest, he had taken part in a pro-Palestinian protest outside Iceland’s parliament building. In another X post on Sunday, Murray had clearly indicated his support for Palestinian resistance movement Hamas, and the Lebanese Hezbollah movement. On the same day, Murray reposted an earlier X post by Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, calling on the world body to intervene for an immediate ceasefire in Israel’s ongoing bloody war against the Gaza Strip, adding, “Under international law, atrocity crimes must not only be punished but also prevented.”

His detention came amid an all-out war waged by the Israeli regime against the besieged Gaza Strip, which has so far claimed the lives of more than 2,800 Palestinians and injured close to 11,000 others. The war was waged after an operation by Gaza’s resistance groups, which has so far left some 1,200 Israeli forces and illegal settlers dead and close more than 200 others captive. The resistance factions launched the operation in response to the Israeli regime’s decades-long campaign of bloodshed and destruction against Palestinians. UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has said those supporting Hamas following the operation would be “held to account,” vowing support for the Israeli regime and pledging readiness on the part of London to provide Tel Aviv with military assistance.

Upon arresting Murray, British authorities seized his phone and other electronic devices. He was also questioned about attending the pro-Palestinian protest outside the Icelandic parliament. A former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, Murray was sacked by the country’s Foreign Office for criticizing the host country’s human rights record as well as vehemently opposing the United States administration’s extraordinary rendition program, which involved torturing terrorism suspects. Following his sacking from the British diplomatic service, Murray embraced journalism and human rights activism, and established his own blog to publish his views and findings.

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What is this? China?

Elon Musk Considers Removing X Platform From Europe Over EU Law (Sp.)

US billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk is considering removing his social networking service X (formerly known as Twitter) from Europe amid the European Union’s investigation into compliance with the Digital Services Act (DSA), US media reported Wednesday, citing people familiar with the company. Musk is increasingly frustrated with having to comply with the EU’s regulation, one of the insiders told the media, adding that the entrepreneur has discussed the removal of the X application’s availability in the region or blocking users in the EU from accessing the app — the way Meta* is blocking users in Europe from accessing its Treads app. Musk has met with European Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton at least twice this year about what X needs to do to comply with the regulations, but he has lost patience with the situation, the magazine cited one of the people as saying.

In August, the EU adopted the DSA — a set of regulations aimed at creating a safer digital space across the EU, which requires online platforms to have effective and transparent systems for content moderation and remove false, misleading, or harmful information. Earlier Wednesday, the European Commission published a set of recommendations for member states to “coordinate their response to the spread and amplification of illegal content, such as terrorist content or unlawful hate speech,” to ensure compliance by online platforms with the DSA and enable its prompt enforcement. Breton said last week the European Commission sent X a formal request for information, which he called “a first step in our investigation to determine compliance with the DSA.”

Last week, Musk and Breton had a spat after the commissioner said he sent a letter to Musk requesting a reply within 24 hours to claims that X is spreading illegal content and disinformation about the Israel-Palestine conflict. Breton informed Musk that if an investigation is launched into the presence of prohibited materials on X, penalties may be imposed up to 6% of the company’s global revenue under the EU laws. Musk then responded, asking Breton to provide a list of violations to let the public see them and underscored that the social media platform is an open source and is transparent.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

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https://twitter.com/i/status/1714608514553848124

 

 

Optics

 

 

Kazakh
https://twitter.com/i/status/1714693070728376430

 

 

 

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle October 19 2023

Viewing 20 posts - 1 through 20 (of 20 total)
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  • #144951

    Henri Matisse Bathers by a River 1910   • Biden Calls Hamas Attack Worse Than 9/11 (RT) • Rushing Into Catastrophe (Paul Craig Roberts) • Israel
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle October 19 2023]

    #144956
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Insurrection at Capital! 1,000 “Protestors” shut down Congressional business and won’t leave!

    Get woke, go broke: Victoria’s Secret reverses trans, fat, and annoying models (they added Rapapoe). But for no reason, they’re just being more inclusive to allow thin people to shop.
    Chart
    https://assets.zerohedge.com/s3fs-public/styles/inline_image_mobile/public/inline-images/Snag_2fd4b96.png?itok=Fl4hIPtD

    Oh wait: But you’re all Socialists, who want ESG, how is it you want 6-figure paychecks at major corporations, like Marxist Moroccan Doctors from Harvard and BLM?

    Also down for their “Equality”, “Equity”? They FIRED THE WOMAN. So they pick women to put into these failing positions as a kind of sabotage, undermining woman as CEOs, same as they destroy women in sports, and in safety, safe places everywhere such as prisons. So Woke ESG Corp, Fires the Diversity hire. Maybe they should put in an old White man like Biden, then when it doesn’t work out, go around the black woman, and put in another old white man like Newsom.

    See, — I – don’t care. It’s not MY fight. I’d hire a person with qualifications and success. But YOU decided those factors are irrelevant and the only thing that matters is their grievance matrix, so I’m giving you appropriate grievance for it.

    BTW, Victoria’s Secret models were never sexy to begin with. Women who look like heroin junkies and have the chest and hips of a 11 year old boy are not attractive. I dunno, make them look like women or something? I’m funny like that. Victoria’s Secret was notorious for having no sizes over 10 or something as well, therefore being wearable for like the top 10% of American women. “We support the top 10%!!!”

    Honestly, they could have done that foray into selling successfully. But a much better use of our time than Israel.

    Speaking of grievance, Israel, shopping for a massacre, here’s a Bill Maher but only on related subject:

    Muslim-American comedian makes everything up. Every act, every story of racism and hardship of his entire life, his whole set. Just made up. Because there’s so much racism in America, he has to fabricate it, having NO racist experiences of his own, at all.

    So he, like so many, pray, PRAY for massacres, genocides, “Oh if ONLY there were a genocide in my neighborhood to protest! So exciting! And I’d jump in on the side of slaveowning Nike and Genociding Apple, not…oh wait…”

    So now they’ve got one they are jumping in! I mean, not the boring one of everyone in America being killed with opioids, deaths of despair, etc. That’s the WRONG genocide. We need a shiny fashionable genocide, that’s the only one that counts. One that has a hashtag.

    France Evacuates Six Regional Airports after ‘Threats of Attack’ 

    Point. So WERE there any attacks? Or is the French Service just using a payphone and yanking your chain?

    “British Energy Secretary Warns Of UK Dependence On Foreign Regimes
    Coutinho said the UK would be forced to import up to 80% of its oil and gas by 2030, rendering it “subservient to foreign regimes”…

    Ah, IF ONLY they owned Russia in the 2nd Crimean War, this National Security Threat would be solved! How did OUR gas get under THEIR snow?

    From yesterday, Why would Israel call for the evacuation of the hospital if they didn’t plan for 3 days to level it? Yet Bibi says it’s a loose RPG whut dun it. Sigh.

    Back to important things, someone pointed out that the Fed is raising due to inflation. That’s the true part of the lie, because no one is going to buy a 30 year bond that loses 30% on the day of purchase. However, that is a RESPONSE by them to the situation, not one they are in control of. Because bond auctions are ALREADY failing, even in a war, they have to take off the pressure by raising rates to find more buyers. Now note this is a rear-guard action, and history says one they can keep going a long time, as rates rise for decades, a decade, and stop somewhere, last time 21%. But they aren’t controlling it.

    As that occurs you will have the same as the 1970’s inflation as well, and repudiation of currency, and shrinking of the United States and its power. Which means…? Commodities all go up, oil, imports, etc, until we reach a steady state where we buy so little overseas as we can’t afford it, and make so much here, because of cheap labor, that we’re 1:1 and the currency halts there.

    Unf unless you’re in oil futures and have a iron stomach for 50% swings, there’s no place to hide. It’s culture-wide. And if you’re rich, including the crime, riots in Chicago’s Louis Vitton stores. Home invasions and rapes where they light you on fire in trendy Williamsburg. But don’t worry, rape and light your wife on fire and they’ll be on the streets of NY by morning, just like you wanted.

    ““The scale may be different, but I’m sure those horrors have tapped into some kind of primal feeling in Israel,”

    …Or at least we HOPE it did. That was the point in doing it, after all. Calls out there, Israelis know Bibi did this. He is responsible, however it was done. Don’t believe the media, we know they lie up close, so why would we trust them to report accurately on sentiment in Israel?

    They’re under the same occupation we are, where the government is now almost entirely against the will of the people. ..As discussions yesterday about “who’s responsible”. I voted, and then they picked the other guy anyway, and that other guy ALSO did the exact #Opposite of everything he said. So the moral thing to do in that case is start a civil war and remove that government? O Rly? No, it’s just a strategy in game theory. We voted AGAINST all these wars, including Israel, over and over again, and the elected just did it anyway.

    “..Ha’aretz, Israel’s oldest daily newspaper, said Netanyahu “bears responsibility” for the attack. On Tuesday, the newspaper published an editorial titled “Netanyahu: Resign Now!”

    Like this. So (Insert group here) is collectively responsible? Try to not have cartoon thinking. We have courts because ONE man is responsible, and we seat him in the docket.

    “Eighty-six percent of Israelis believe their government and Netanyahu are to blame for the attack, according to a new poll released Thursday.”

    So should we take out the 86%, or the 14%? Or both? Should they start a civil war, go up and shoot the Lukud. Cmon be productive, what are your suggestions?

    “The risks are being ignored. It is starting to look like the Armageddon that Revelation describes.”
    • Rushing Into Catastrophe (Paul Craig Roberts)

    Yes because they read that book and WANT that to happen. Knowing you are soft on that story. They are using it as a template. For your mind.

    “US forces accumulating in the war zone are a “war fleet,” the purpose of which is to finally bring regime change to Syria and kick out the Russians”

    Yes. They have “Plans”. Their “Plan” never changes, no matter how long or who is involved. Cue 200 year old Crimean War here. Well at least they’re easy to predict, being Alien insect Overlords with no imagination.

    “If Israel’s army is sent into Gaza, Hamas will keep it there,”

    An excellent point. Hamas may or may not win, but they can tie up half of the Israeli army while everyone else cuts them to pieces. They may have suddenly realized this and delayed, but they also can’t just attack Syria (they have) without losing the PR “signaling”. Then it’s all obvious. Israel is merely attacking Syria and Russia. That’s the α to Ω.

    So then Russia tsunami-bombs London for amusement? There’s hardly any point, Israel is a non-entity, lacking an army and a culture. If it goes here, the U.S. will – precisely as they wished – remove and exit the war just as Tsar Nicolas did. America First.

    “• Russia Says ‘Masks Are Off’ after US Vetoes UNSC Resolution on Ceasefire (Sp.)

    Voting against peace is the American Way!

    “It’s worth noting that prior to the Hamas assaults, the trajectory of support for Ukraine already showed signs of waning.”

    Yes, follow the media, the “Signaling”. They clearly said we are abandoning Ukraine. “As Long as It Takes!!!” Therefore unless we surrender and all the warmongers hung, they must open a new front somewhere. “And Then a Miracle Happened.”

    ““..up to 77% of young people in the United States cannot enlist for a variety of reasons, including being overweight, drug abuse, or having physical or mental impairments..”

    This could not be more intentional. After WWII – WWI actually – the U.S. was on a hot and heavy, universal nutrition and health kick in order to have soldiers who could fight. After the Robber Barons of the 1910s, American men were too thin and weak to carry a pack, no joke. Like now.

    But somewhere after the Cold War, they flipped to do everything AGAINST health and nutrition. “And Then a Miracle Happened”, all on its own! Nobody did it but suddenly everyone did the #Opposite of the last 100 years! Huh. So strange. As they attacked and colonized the internal flyover states like an African colony, drugs were handed out like candy and nutrition cut more under Clinton et all than Reagan’s “Ketchup is a vegetable” that was so advertised. Erased all the Civil Readiness, bomb shelters, organizers…

    If you keep going where you’re headed, eventually you arrive. Fast forward 40 years and here we are! The American male, who was arranged to LOSE the war, is now too sick and weak to resist. And although we’ve reported monthly on it for 40 years, 480 months in a row, it’s the world’s biggest surprise! Whooda knewd?

    We’ve been fighting glyphosate alone for 30 years? Here they can erase smoking in 5 years and are about to outlaw menthols yet we have a city’s worth of fentanyl arriving daily? So helpless! Can’t figure it out! NY Times, c’mon. YOU said you wanted this. “Learn to Code”. “If they’re too stupid to rent a moving van…”

    “Marines had already exceeded its goal of 28,900 enlistments – and did so with little-to-no extra perks or financial incentives.”

    Get woke, go broke. The Marines remain FOR America, and AGAINST high heels. Unlike the Army, Navy….
    BTW the Marines are the only force that is solidly pro-people in the U.S. Civil War games.

    “• UK Arrests Former UK Ambassador Craig Murray for Supporting Palestine (ICH)

    What the actual F?? Craig Murray is an f’ing diplomat. I guess you see why they arrested Count Dankula. Well there you have it, UK, the only country less free than Ukraine.

    “• Elon Musk Considers Removing X Platform From Europe Over EU Law (Sp.)

    * And all of Europe.

    Window:

    They had ones that use styrofoam beads for insulation. Much better idea as sand will also glaze the glass. (The beads had too much static and were hard to control though)

    #144957
    Red
    Participant

    The derivative Market is at nearly 700 trillion! As Celente says: when all else fails they take you to war!
    700 trillion! 700 trillion. One dollar per second 24/7/365 for approx. 30,000 years =one trillion only 30 years for one billion 700,000,000,000,000 and now I’m hearing quadrillion!!!? The next eighteen to twenty four months will be interesting for a lot of bad news as TPTB try to distract from the coming mess. War being the best distraction of all and helps remove some of that fake debt.

    Remove the space between . and com.
    https://rumble. com/v3plqq4-derivatives-and-the-coming-collapse-w-alex-at-reporterfy-live.html

    #144958
    oxymoron
    Participant

    So if everyone is looking at the US AND Russia AND Iran AND Israel AND Hamas AND Syria, who are they NOT looking at.

    China.

    Nobody look at China. Innocent as babes they are. I think they have some moves up their sleeves (see Wuhan and the WHO)
    I am cautious of the powerful ones that are NOT involved in a fight. Sun Tzu and stuff.

    #144959
    Just Some Randomer
    Participant

    @Red – a lot of people will argue that the notional 700 trillion figure is gross and actually nets out to a much smaller exposure, e.g. I have an outstanding derivative of $1bn with Joe but I have a hedging derivative with Bob. If one transaction loses money the other side will gain so my exposure is actually way below the notional value of the two combined.

    This of course works splendidly until someone in the hedging chain goes broke and cannot pay up, so I lose $10m on the deal with Joe and go to Bob to collect my $9.5m offsetting gain – only to find that Bob has gone bust and can’t pay up.

    It is at this point that my supposedly small net exposure very suddenly becomes a very large unhedged exposure.

    The chances of that 700trn total outstanding derivative pool ever being unwound calmly and completely without some party in the chain going under and triggering a cascading failure is somewhere in the regions of zero.

    #144960
    zerosum
    Participant

    SOUND OF WAR. …. EXCUSES!
    DON’T BLAME ME. IT WAS’T ME. NOT ME. I’M INNOCENT. IT’S NOT MY FAULT.
    ———–
    • Rushing Into Catastrophe (Paul Craig Roberts)

    Intense war fever

    What we are witnessing is Republicans, (and FOX NEW), who are as extreme as Hamas.
    Defend US borders, first in Ukraine, then in Israel, eventually in the south.
    ———-
    The smell of death is everywhere.

    Israel is defending its borders with Gaza, West Bank, Jordon, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, the Arab world.
    Israel is defending its action from worldwide protests.
    Civilians streaming into hospitals after missile attack in Southern Gaza city.

    • Israel Delaying Gaza Invasion for Fear of Hezbollah Attack (Tweedie)
    ————
    MSM Description/allegations of Amas, and sympathizers

    A savagery, they’re repugnant, disgraceful, obscene,
    Our condemnation belongs squarely with terrorists who have brutally murdered, raped, kidnapped hundreds.

    • UK Arrests Former UK Ambassador Craig Murray for Supporting Palestine (ICH)
    He had taken part in a pro-Palestinian protest outside Iceland’s parliament building.

    ———
    • Israel’s Culture of Deceit (Chris Hedges)

    Israel engages in the kinds of jaw-dropping lies that characterize despotic regimes. It does not deform the truth, it inverts it. It paints a picture that is diametrically opposed to reality.
    ——-
    Is another proxy war/front similar to Ukraine being repeated in Israel/Amos/middle east?
    ———
    • US Facing Military Recruitment Crisis – NYT (RT)

    In other words 77% of young people in the USA have been deemed legible for the meat grinder.
    ———
    I remember:
    Last time 21% interest rates.
    As that occurs you will have the same as the 1970’s inflation.
    ——–

    #144961
    jb-hb
    Participant

    Yes, all the woke employee-activists that want the 6 figures and want to prevent the 6 figures. It’s not beside the point, it’s destroying entire industries now.

    We found the flawed, least-worst ways to cooperate, developed at cost, painstakingly, slowly, over thousands of years. We were ALREADY using a complex, interconnected system of cooperation.

    Then along came some people saying “No! You should be COOPERATING!” and proceeded to shut down all modes of cooperation. You must give up all those Old Ways. (shit that beta tested for 30,000 years as the only thing that marginally works)

    It has hit dating like a ELE meteor, like a supernova. Which is kind of everything, really, when it comes to society, to humans living. Finding a partner, raising kids, stuff like that. Here’s what has been done to current teens, 20 somethings and 30 somethings. And this is no joke, no trivia, no inconsequential by-they-way. This is how human beings LIVE and what is happening to them currently:

    #144962
    anticlimactic
    Participant

    “Israel seems holding back on an invasion of the Gaza Strip for fear that Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement will open a second front in the north.”

    Not sure if this is true. With no power, water or food then the longer the delay the weaker the opposition will be. Why should they risk Israeli lives when they can sit back and watch Palestinians die, especially after bombing the hospitals and destroying residential buildings.

    It seems that Israel intends to empty Gaza by any means. Egypt will be the ‘bad guy’ if they don’t let hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in. Any remaining in Gaza will be killed.

    You have to be suspicious. Netanyahu has a map of Israel which no longer shows the Palestinian enclaves. Hamas has a surprisingly successful attack. Israel uses this as justification for clearing out the Gaza strip. Neat!

    #144963
    jb-hb
    Participant

    …up to 77% of young people in the United States cannot enlist for a variety of reasons, including being overweight, drug abuse, or having physical or mental impairments.

    Who are these “young people” who would enlist? I never heard of “young people” fighting any war.

    Are we worried 77% of young women cannot enlist? (starting with the 25% on psychoactive medications…) …to fight as front line infantry? Women are people, right? But there are no men’s issues, I forgot. Please remember to rebrand any apparent male issue as more properly a “peoples'” issue.

    The video I put above calls some attention to the dynamics affecting males for a good 30 years now. Increasingly. Poisoning them far more effectively than any fentaynl or prescription drug or suicide overdose they take as a result of the poisoning.

    Men were making more on average because they were working more OVERTIME than women. And choosing a few more practically useful professions a bit more (useful to women, I might add…) They were doing this to up their game. FOR women. For their place in society which is half women.

    So what happens when you shut that engine off, make it a punishment/shame system instead of a reward system? Then you get unhealthy men – sorry… “people” unable to fight in a war, which taken by itself, maybe is meh depending on your vested interests in victory, but as a completely overarching measurement of your society’s health is QUITE alarming. You might not be interested in it, but it is very very interested in you.

    What happens if men STOP working for their place in society and to up their game for women? We are already finding out because it is already happening. The effects are pervasive, spread out, unmeasured, but not unexperienced. Amongst other things, women are the unhappiest they’ve ever been, so men need to start doing better. Male suicide and drug addiction and unemployment and disability is through the roof – Women Most Affected. Not even men’s issues, really. Just means there’s more men need to do better.

    And of course under the current value system, a man crying about bad circumstances isn’t being a real man. A REAL man would suck it up, figure out a way, do better, make it work. By complaining about it, you establish yourself as an icky, ew, gross, lower value man. Yuck. Do better. Or go die somewhere – message received.

    Like if you got rid of all the grass and then said hey, where’s all the milk? I used to buy milk in the stores for my baking, for my breakfast cereal, to put in my coffee. Cows need to Do Better. And things like military readiness – or industrial readiness for a materials war – are not somehow floating in space, free from consequences and causality.

    And I say this as a long time atheist libertine liberal 2x idiot obama voter. (what was I going to do, vote for Bain Capital?) It sounds like I am some sort of christian conservative from the 1980’s, but damn, nobody in a position of authority – you know, 70-80 year olds – sees what they are doing to children-30’s people. Or what, consequently, they have done and they are doing to their own families, communities, cities, nations, and civilization.

    Just like the leaders of the US and Isreal trying to play out a drama from what, 1967? Dudes, the world isn’t 1967, but even more so, YOU turned your own power base into something that cannot make your dreamt-of scenarios work. That was YOU. Your own genius made 77% of your population incapable of enacting your plans

    Just retire. Just golf and enjoy your sea-level mansion and stop stopping people from finding real solutions to real things that are happening. And that applies to practically every field of interest in human society now. You had some great dream of standing on top of the world’s biggest cheese wheel evar and you killed all the grass as part of that plan or something?

    #144964
    WES
    Participant

    Israel is waiting until Joe leaves. Has Joe left yet?
    No Joe is waiting for his Israeli birth certificate so he can get an Israeli passport!
    It is part of Joe’s exit “off ramp” strategy!
    /s

    #144965
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    @ aspnaz

    You lack understanding of groups.

    Let me provide you with an example that you may reflect on and hopefully improve your understanding.

    Consider the family as the most simple group.

    Father, mother and children.

    If the father is a murderer, rapist, thief and arsonist then he is a criminal that should be annihilated.

    The mother and children are not necessarily guily of any crime by being a member of that family/group.

    Reflect on this.

    Next increase the group size to community, and then country.

    #144966
    tboc
    Participant

    Do you ever consider our lives may have become a poor parody of Sancho Panza?

    There is a video of a conversation between Hoyle and Feinman that could be accessed from Youtube. The setting was contrived and the role of narrative was quite visible by today’s standards, yet there is value in the conversation. There is gnawing evidence that some reject the Uncertainty Principle the Observation Problem the double slit experiment – Particle/Wave duality – and indeed entropy. At times it seems as if everything from Heisenberg through Hawking and Penrose have gone out the window with the baby and the bathwater. Nature of course abhors a vacuum and the empty space has been filled with the absolute certainty of Brooksian whataboutism. I do miss Feinman’s impish grin and wrinkle of the nose.

    There seems to be quite a lot of certainty in the peanut gallery of late

    #144967
    zerosum
    Participant

    The chant …. kill, kill, kill, Iran is multiplying.

    #144968
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    Deep Dive on WHO Plot to Take Over the World!


    James Roguski discusses the plot to take over all nations through a framework convention and how the core issue stems from the 1969 World Health Assembly (WHA) and the illegitimate manner in which the International Health Regulations (IHR) were passed. He describes the stealth techniques and Delphi method used by various actors who are attempting to ram through totalitarian legislation all the while violating international law. He still holds out hope some leaders will reject the upcoming IHR amendments but the onus is now on citizens to pressure their governments to put a stop to this.

    James Roguski: Deep Dive on WHO Plot to Take Over the World!

    #144969
    John Day
    Participant

    Fascists Crave Genocides https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/fascists-crave-genocides

    Former UK Ambassador, Craig Murray, who was recently detained by UK counterterrorsim forces, with his phone and computer confiscated (again). Murray had spoken against the genocide of Palestinians at a conference in Iceland, and they had some important questions they had to ask him about who else he had talked to, and so on. Thx. Christine.
    Fascism in the West to Enable Genocide in Palestine
    ​ The UK and the US are both sending military assistance to Israel to commit a calculated and deliberate act of genocide, which is already underway.​
    ​ Over 500 children have been killed in Gaza in the last week and over 2,000 maimed, many with life changing injuries. Nobody can claim they do not know what is already happening or what is about to unfold. The cutting off of food and water to Gaza is a major international crime, which the western proponents of the “rules based order” universally refuse to condemn.
    ​ In both the UK and the US there can be no more stark illustration of the lack of any kind of meaningful democracy, than the fact that there is no major political party that opposes the genocide – despite massive public opposition.
    ​ The bought and paid for media and political class in the west are extremely nervous, throughout the western world. Now they have come to the final genocide for which zionism has always aimed, they face a good deal of popular resistance.
    ​ Throughout Europe there is a massive gap between the zionist unanimity of the politicians and the much greater understanding of the Palestinian situation among the general public. Tellingly the response by the zionist political class has been a wave of outright fascist suppression.

    Fascism in the West to Enable Genocide in Palestine

    ​Also from Christine. (I missed the Sunday protest at the Texas State Capitol, but it looks like a very good turnout from the pictures.) It’s not “just lefties’.
    Mass protests erupt in US against Israel war crimes
    https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/10/19/vjas-o19.html#1325383710

    ​The US veto was the only vote against. Russia presented a previous and broader proposal, better for Palestinians, which had already been voted down before this one.
    Russia Says ‘Masks Are Off’ After US Vetoes UNSC Resolution on Israel-Palestine Ceasefire
    https://sputnikglobe.com/20231018/russia-says-masks-are-off-after-us-vetoes-unsc-resolution-on-israel-palestine-ceasefire-1114294854.html

    ​ Many Israelis blame govt for Hamas attack, believe Netanyahu must resign: Poll
    ​ The polls revealed that four out of five Jewish Israelis have been blaming Netanyahu and the government for the Operation Al-Aqsa Flood carried out by Hamas against Israel.
    “An overwhelming majority of 86% of respondents, including 79% of coalition supporters, said the surprise attack from Gaza is a failure of the country’s leadership, while a staggering 92% said the war is causing anxiety,” it stated.
    “Furthermore, almost all of the respondents (94%) believe the government has responsibility for the lack of security preparedness that led to the assault on the South, with over 75% saying the government holds most of the responsibility,” as per the report.
    https://www.wionews.com/world/majority-israelis-blame-govt-for-hamas-attack-believe-netanyahu-must-resign-poll-646303

    #144970
    John Day
    Participant

    ​ Defense expert refutes Israeli military claim about hospital attack in Gaza​ Detailed and straightforward analysis. Thanks Christine. 500# or 2000# JDAM?
    ​ A defense expert on Wednesday dismissed the Israeli military’s claim that the hospital attack in Gaza, which killed 471 people, including women and children, was caused by a rocket fired from within the coastal strip, calling it unrealistic and asserting that if it was fired from Gaza, Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system should have been activated.​..​..Aslan said, while referring to various assessments made regarding the munition responsible for the attack, that “in attacks targeting populated areas, munition fuses can be time-delayed to explode 50-100 meters above the ground before hitting the target.”
    ​ “This increases the impact of the attack. Looking at the area affected by the explosion and the traces left on the ground after the explosion in the attack on the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza, it can be suggested that the munition was set to explode prematurely in order to achieve an explosion in the air for a greater impact. This seems to have ensured a wider area of effect for the explosion,” he said.​..
    ..He emphasized that there is a high likelihood that the munition used in the attack was dropped from a warplane.
    “Therefore, the possibility of Israel using the ​(500# US made) MK82 bomb, which they have used before and can guide through a kit, is emphasized.
    https://www.aa.com.tr/en/politics/defense-expert-refutes-israeli-military-claim-about-hospital-attack-in-gaza/3025487

    ​ The Israeli attack on a hospital in Gaza was carried out with a “proximity fuse” bomb that explodes high above the ground, an expert told Anadolu on Wednesday.
    Retired military officer and ammunition specialist Engin Yigit said there was a strong possibility that the attack was carried out with an MK-84 guided bomb.
    Yigit said considering the images of the moment of the attack, the probability that the ammunition was a JDAM-equipped 2,000-pound (910-kilogram) Mark 84 (MK-84) bomb increased.
    ​ He noted that Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) is the name of one of the guidance kits. “You can make the bomb guided with a kit that you attach to the front or back of MAK-82, MAK-83, MAK-84 bombs.”
    ​ “JDAM is a type of kit that allows precise delivery of the bomb to the target,” he said. “The said kit attached to the bomb makes the bomb smart and provides precision strike capability.”
    https://www.aa.com.tr/en/world/absence-of-craters-in-gaza-hospital-attack-suggests-use-of-proximity-fuse-ammunition-specialist/3025513

    ​Simplicius has: Israel + Ukraine War Mega-Update (I’ll excerpt a little, but it is all important, and much of it new.)
    ​ Credible reports state that Israel’s true reason for getting cold feet is that it fears Hezbollah’s threat of activating the northern front if Israel were to commit into the bog of Gaza.​.
    ..The other announcement is that the White House is very “concerned” about Israel’s lack of strategy related to a Gaza assault, and wants the settlement to be more “political.” The amount of aid is said to be held up partly due to this…
    ..The U.S. knows that global sentiment is drastically turning against it and the West in general. To create another ongoing bloodbath in Gaza would mean the U.S. may lose critical support and geopolitical influence…
    ..Qatar, Jordan, Turkey and many others have come out with big statements in support of Palestine. Particularly vis a vis Saudi Arabia, the motions are huge because KSA has always been one of the key linchpins holding the global Atlanticist Empire afloat…
    ​..The scale of how much U.S. debt Saudi Arabia secretly holds is said to be off the charts and if it were to dump it all, it could potentially collapse the entire global financial system in one swoop.
    ​ So the fact that KSA is now being led increasingly into the arms of Russia and China (recall KSA is now an official member of BRICS, starting on January 1, 2024), is a big deal. Inroads were made toward Israeli normalization but now KSA has cut them off and is increasing its entrenchment with the Eastern bloc.​..
    ..Iran can wreak havoc on global markets, transits via the known chokepoints of the Persian Gulf, etc. This is underscored by the fact that the Iranian minister called for a total oil embargo on Israel during this meeting…
    ​..Thus, these are some of the reasons U.S. is frightened of the risks, and is likely transferring that fear onto Israel, which is now unsure of what to do.
    ​ In fact, Putin just announced a new full-time Mig-31K patrol of the Black Sea, armed with Kinzhals, and appeared to imply that this was to put the U.S. carrier groups in the crosshairs…
    ..Blinken’s and Biden’s recent MidEast tour has, by all accounts, backfired as a disaster…
    ..At the UN Human Rights Council, members even turned away from the U.S. ambassador​ (Impressive video clip of mass shunning during US Ambassador’s speech) …
    ..While the U.S. continues to stumble into zugzwang traps, isolating itself as the global villain, Russia and China continue to build a new world…
    ​..Current news is that Biden is once more in the process of presenting a $100B aid bill, but this time split between both Israel and Ukraine, though there’s no information to the actual split percentage.
    ​ As a last note on the Israeli situation, this Israeli woman claims that her sources confirmed that Netanyahu issued a deliberate 7 hour ‘stand down’ order to all IDF at the start of ‘Al-Aqsa Flood’. If true, this would confirm the entire thing being a Pearl Harbor and 9/11 style falseflag​.
    https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/sitrep-101823-israel-ukraine-war

    ​ Chris Hedges, long a Mideast reporter, on Israel’s Culture of Deceit (long and detailed)
    ​ When oppressors speak to the oppressed exclusively through indiscriminate violence, the oppressed answer through indiscriminate violence.
    ​ The cartoonist Joe Sacco and I watched Israeli soldiers taunt and shoot small boys in the Khan Younis refugee camp in Gaza. We interviewed the boys and their parents afterwards in the hospital. In a few cases we attended their funerals. We had their names. We had the dates and locations of the shootings.
    ​ Israel’s response was to say that we were not in Gaza. We had made it up.

    Chris Hedges: Israel’s Culture of Deceit

    ​ Meryl Nass MD presents Emanuel Pastreich, The Forbidden Truth: Israel and the U.S. Are “Toys of the Billionaires”. “A War with Iran Is Just Around the Corner”.
    ​ Tel Aviv is an hour from Gaza, but it took 6 hours to send troops? Bibi has some ‘splainin’ to do
    ​ Finally, we must recognize that as this scheme for total global control starts to fall apart, the rich and powerful will quickly launch into a “blame the Jews” campaign, just as they did in the 1930s. The financial collapse will be blamed on Israel, and on the vilified “Jew.” Do not deceive yourself.
    ​ If Netanyahu calls the Palestinians “animals” today, future politicians in the United States and Europe will not hesitate to refer to the Jews in similar terms to avoid exposing the true hidden hand of the spider’s web economy spread out in the tainted ashes of the British Empire.
    ​ And so here we are. We see the children of the Jews who watched furious Germans and Poles screaming for the murder of the Jews, and what are they doing? They are collaborating with the dark forces planning the liquidation of all Palestinians in Gaza.
    https://merylnass.substack.com/p/the-forbidden-truth-israel-and-the

    #144971
    John Day
    Participant

    Professor Anthony Hall provides History from Auschwitz to Gaza
    ​ As I am writing, a massive genocidal assault is underway on the stateless people of Gaza. Most of the 2.3 million people in Gaza were born into this open air prison where Israel is using its absolute control over what can be brought in and carried out to deny the inhabitants food, water supplies, electricity, and fuel. The inmates of this tightly packed urban space are being bombed, killing tens of thousands with the promise of a ground invasion to eliminate those trapped inside the densely packed and foul urban strip of Mediterranean coast line.​ The US Armed Forces is backing up the many violations of international law that are underway in an unfolding abomination that clearly belongs in the very Big Leagues of terrible war crimes.
    https://anthonyjhall.substack.com/p/from-auschwitz-to-gaza

    Putin, Xi In Beijing Pitch For ‘Alternative World Order’ As Biden Departs A Burning Middle East
    https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/putin-xi-beijing-pitch-alternative-world-order-biden-departs-burning-middle-east

    ​Last month I wondered how long this would take. You can’t refine diesel fuel out of fracking liquids. Texas is set up to refine Venezuelan heavy crude.
    Biden Lifts Sanctions On Venezuela Dictator Maduro In Exchange For Oil
    https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/biden-lifts-sanctions-venezuela-dictator-maduro-exchange-oil

    ​ Megawatt Power military radar installations kill mass populations of endangered birds, but are otherwise safe and necessary. From Meryl Nass MD’s site:
    ​ GLOBAL EXTENT OF BIRD ARMAGEDDON by Arthur Firstenberg​, And how it will be spun to push avian flu shots on poultry and people​
    ​ Anders Brunstad alerted me to the installation of one of the most powerful radar stations in the world on the Varanger Peninsula in Finnmark, Norway just before tens of thousands of birds fell dead all over the peninsula. The southern and eastern coasts of the peninsula also have 4G+ and, increasingly, 5G service, added recently.
    ​ At Ekkerøy Nature Reserve, on the southern coast of the peninsula, at least 15,000 endangered kittiwakes died at the end of July and beginning of August 2023. They nest there in the summer on high cliffs where they are directly in the line of fire of the radar, which is 50 kilometers away. The restaurant at Ekkerøy was forced to close for the summer because it was “raining down” dead birds. The total population of these seabirds in Norway was only about 50,000.
    https://merylnass.substack.com/p/global-extent-of-bird-armageddon

    ​ Steve Kirsch , The “died suddenly” vax vs. unvaxxed statistics tell you everything you need to know
    ​ The vaccine advocates claim that people have been dying suddenly throughout history and it’s nothing unusual. But they aren’t telling you that nearly all the “died suddenly” were COVID vaccinated.
    https://kirschsubstack.com/p/the-died-suddenly-vax-vs-unvaxxed

    #144972
    John Day
    Participant

    Jessica Rose Ph.D. Confirmations emanating from VAERS of Epoch Times report on seizure safety signals for toddlers and young children​
    It’s even worse than reported.
    https://jessicar.substack.com/p/confirmations-emanating-from-vaers

    ​Peter McCullough MD on results of mRNA COVID vaccines on cultures of rat heart cells.
    Direct Cardiac Effects of mRNA-Based SARS-CoV-2 Vaccines​ , Isolated Cardiomyocyte Study Finds Dysfunction within 48 Hours
    https://petermcculloughmd.substack.com/p/direct-cardiac-effects-of-mrna-based

    ​More from Gadfly of the Globalists, Meryl Nass MD: The WHO, the Coup and You
    (your taxes, your body and your mind. WHO is not limited to diseases that spread across countries, either)
    Tricks of the WHO Trade: Coverage not Care, Mental Health, Non-infectious diseases and Financing
    https://merylnass.substack.com/p/the-who-the-coup-and-you-your-taxes

    ​Sasha Latypova may be counting unhatched chickens today. I hope they hatch.
    Breaking: Pfizer is going under the bus…​
    Health Canada miraculously “found” SV40 promoter in Pfizer vials! So many governments are suddenly finding things that have been lost for years…
    https://sashalatypova.substack.com/p/breaking-pfizer-is-going-under-the

    #144973
    John Day
    Participant

    How come I never heard of this globalist “owner”? Thanks Christine.
    ​Liechtenstein’s Prince Hans-Adam II’s Family-Owned Firm LGT Group Reported Record Assets Under Management Last Mon­th
    ​ Europe’s richest royal family builds nearly $300 billion finance empire
    ​The finance empire behind Liechtenstein’s Prince Hans Adam II is flourishing from its main area of expertise: managing money for the world’s superrich.​..
    ​ The prince, LGT’s sole beneficiary, is now the world’s 215-richest person with a fortune of about $9.2 billion — 71 spots higher than at the start of this year, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
    ​ Unlike other European monarchs, such as Britain’s King Charles III, the prince owns his family’s most valu­able assets personally, making it the oldest fortune on Bloomberg’s wealth ranking.
    https://www.business-standard.com/world-news/europe-s-richest-royal-family-builds-nearly-300-billion-finance-empire-123092901398_1.html

    ​John Michael Greer, Bracing for Impact
    ​ Those of my readers who’ve been poor, as I have, know that it takes a fair amount of skill to live comfortably on a scant income. The more practice you have, and the more time you have to explore the options before it counts, the easier it will be for you to get by. Since the crunch hasn’t hit yet, you have the chance to get some of that practice and some of those explorations out of the way now, while you still have your current income and resource base to fall back on if you need to. That’s what collapsing now, ahead of the rush, gives you the freedom to do.
    ​ Imagine for a moment that your income were to drop sharply—or, which amounts to the same thing, that runaway inflation were to make it worth much less than it is today. Take some time over the next few days to figure out where you would cut back so that you can get by on less. Focus on ways to decrease your outgo, not to increase your income; that latter’s a different project for another day. Make a list of possibilities. If you live with other people, discuss the subject with them and, if they’re willing, get them involved in drawing up the list.
    ​ Then—before raw financial necessity forces you to do so—take some of the items on your list and put them into practice. Make some changes to save money, cutting an expenditure here, doing things in a cheaper way there. Pay attention to the results, and discuss it with the people you live with. Then try something else. Get some experience under your belt so that, when the crunch arrives, you aren’t left flailing.

    Bracing for Impact

    #144974
    John Day
    Participant

    Russia inactivates Global Hawk spy drone over Black Sea, and more from Military Summary:

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