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The CIA’s war-before-war: From Iraq to Iran

By Shivan Mahendrarajah | The Cradle | May 13, 2025

On 11 September 2001, while smoke still rose from the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, two meetings – one in Tel Aviv and the other in Washington – put Iraq in the crosshairs. Then-Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon convened an emergency meeting of his National Security cabinet and resolved to exploit the attacks to push for war against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

Embedded Israeli agents in the hawkish Bush administration were tasked with advancing this agenda. Meanwhile, former US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, initiated internal discussions on targeting Iraq.

According to then-secretary of state Colin Powell’s testimony to the 9/11 Commission, “Wolfowitz – not Rumsfeld – argued that Iraq was ultimately the source of the terrorist problem and should therefore be attacked.” It was he who insisted that Iraq was the root of the terror problem. Inside the Pentagon, “Wolfowitz continued to press the case for dealing with Iraq.”

On 11 September, the very same day of the terror attacks – and despite the fact that Washington immediately identified Afghanistan-based Al-Qaeda leaders as the culprits – CIA director George Tenet authorized the creation of the Iraq Operations Group (IOG), led by covert ops veterans Luis Rueda and John Maguire.

Within 24 hours, the two were drafting a blueprint for the destabilization of Iraq. Codenamed DB/ANABASIS (“DB” being the CIA’s cryptonym for Iraq), the plan was activated long before any formal declaration of war, and well before the American public was groomed to support the spurious allegation of WMDs in Iraq.

Rueda and Maguire brought deep experience in black ops from Latin America and Afghanistan. Both had failed in earlier efforts to topple Saddam – most notably with DB/ACHILLES in 1995. But now, the stage was set, the funding secured, and the political climate ripe.

The key takeaway: While the world focused on Al-Qaeda and Afghanistan, Iraq had already been chosen as the first target.

Operation DB/ANABASIS

Approved by US president George W. Bush in February 2002 and backed by $400 million, DB/ANABASIS was a playbook of sabotage, disinformation, psychological warfare, armed uprisings, and assassinations of Iraqi officials. Though the CIA is barred by law from conducting assassinations, euphemisms like “direct action operations” cloaked the intent.

The first objective was to deepen Saddam Hussein’s paranoia. By sowing chaos through subterfuge, the CIA hoped he would lash out – arresting, torturing, and executing his own personnel in a desperate attempt to root out traitors.

Maguire’s team entered Iraqi Kurdistan in April 2002, securing the cooperation of Kurdish leaders Masoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani in exchange for US guarantees. By fall, DB/ANABASIS was in full effect.

Iraq, already weakened by wars, sanctions, and a decade of no-fly zones, was being “softened up” before the invasion. The plan was not meant to replace war but to ensure a fragmented, broken state that could not resist one.

Target shift: From Iraq to Iran

In January 2002, president Bush delivered his infamous “Axis of Evil” speech, lumping Iran and Iraq together. The speech, written by neoconservative David Frum, who, like Oded Yinon – author of the “Yinon Plan” – was a disciple of Ariel Sharon.

It followed the strategic logic of the Israeli-authored “A Clean Break” report prepared in 1996 for Benjamin Netanyahu by Richard Perle, Doug Feith, and David Wurmser, among others. The original plan targeted Iraq, Iran, and Syria. To disguise Israeli fingerprints, North Korea was inserted as a decoy.

The strategy was straightforward: Take down Iraq first, then Iran. Once those fell, Syria and Hezbollah would be easy pickings.

Iraq fell in 2003. Syria has been shattered. Now, Iran remains the last domino. And the tools once used against Iraq are being dusted off and re-targeted. This is the CIA’s revised ANABASIS – but this time, it is for Iran.

Remaking ANABASIS for Iran

The principles of DB/ANABASIS are being applied in Iran today: sanctions to weaken the economy, sabotage and assassinations to create confusion and fear, and psychological operations to fracture public trust.

Iranian opposition groups are central to this new campaign. In 2012, former US president Obama removed the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK) from the US State Department’s terrorism list. MEK was relocated to Albania, where it now operates from Camp Ashraf, launching cyber and terror attacks against the Islamic Republic.

The CIA also leverages Kurdish and Baluch separatists in its operations. Mossad, often in collaboration with the CIA, is suspected of orchestrating assassinations of scientists like Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, and terror attacks in Tehran (2017), Ahvaz (2018), Chahbahar (2019), and Shah Cheragh (2022, 2023). The recent Kerman (2024) attack fits the same mold.

Protests after Mahsa Amini’s death were swiftly hijacked by CIA – or Mossad-aligned operatives, armed with Molotov cocktails and firearms – a stark contrast to earlier demonstrations.

Fires in Bandar Abbas, Karaj, and Mashhad also fall within the scope of ANABASIS. These are not accidents – they are acts of economic and psychological sabotage.

The hidden war: Psychological and strategic impact

“Mr Bond, they have a saying in Chicago: ‘Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it’s enemy action’” – Goldfinger (1959).

A respected Iranian analyst described the sabotage in Bandar Abbas, Karaj, and Mashhad as “crude counter-value” strikes. That judgment understates the military and psychological impact: As in Lebanon, these acts damage infrastructure, kill civilians, and provoke panic.

Sabotage works best when it appears random yet coincides with political moments. When former speaker of parliament Ali Larijani appeared on television during the Karaj blackout, the message was clear: Your leaders cannot protect you.

Such operations trigger internal suspicion. Iranian security agencies must investigate colleagues, family members, and even friends. As they chase ghosts, trust breaks down. Counterintelligence will target security staff at affected sites, breeding paranoia. Tehran becomes obsessed with foreign infiltrators and moles.

During the Cold War, the KGB was adept at making the CIA suspect its own staff of betrayal. The resulting “mole hunts,” led by CIA counterintelligence chief James Angleton, devastated morale. The same dynamic is now being replicated in Iran.

The endgame: Collapse from within

The CIA’s strategy aims to destroy unity and morale as precursors to outright war. Washington and Tel Aviv hope that Iran, like Iraq before it, collapses from within under pressure from a disillusioned population.

Maguire once said that DB/ANABASIS was about “settling scores” with Saddam. This attitude – reducing foreign policy to vendettas – still dominates US strategic circles. Inside the Pentagon and CIA, figures view Iran through the lens of the 1979 hostage crisis and Tehran’s support for the Iraqi insurgency and Taliban.

American troops, particularly the US occupation army – which absorbed the brunt of IED attacks in Iraq – hold deep animosity toward Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). One especially deadly IED variant, the explosively formed penetrator (EFP), was attributed to Iranian design, with Israeli intelligence helpfully pointing fingers.

This animus, combined with pro-Israel sentiment and a black-and-white worldview, leads many in the Trump administration to align with Netanyahu – such as Mike Waltz, a leading advocate for confrontation with Iran. According to Foreign Policy :

[We are witnessing the] “ideological struggle between proponents of an America First ‘realist’ foreign policy, particularly regarding Iran, and an entrenched neoconservative faction that is pushing for regime change within yet another Middle Eastern country.”

Trump complains about the “Deep State,” but fails to see its true nature – a network not interested in jailing him, but in bypassing the presidency itself to advance long-standing agendas. For the Deep State and Israel alike, Iran has been the ultimate prize for decades.

May 13, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli massacre at Gaza hospital leaves at least 28 killed, 70 injured

Al Mayadeen | May 13, 2025

In a new escalation of its ongoing war on Gaza, the Israeli occupation military committed a massacre at the Gaza European Hospital on Tuesday evening, targeting the facility and its surroundings in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, with a series of intensive airstrikes.

Al Mayadeen’s correspondent reported that the Israeli airstrikes struck multiple sections of the hospital, including the entrance to the emergency department, the courtyard between the maintenance and anthropology departments, and areas adjacent to two shelter centers: Ehsan al-Agha and Jenin.

The attack caused extensive destruction and resulted in multiple fatalities and injuries, with bodies still trapped under the rubble.

Gaza Civil Defense: At least 28 killed, 70 injured

According to Gaza Civil Defense spokesperson Mahmoud Basal, the bodies of 28 martyrs were recovered from the area around the Gaza European Hospital, which had come under fire belts by the Israeli military. He added that more than 70 people were injured, many of them seriously.

The hospital was reportedly hit with at least six missiles, leading to the collapse of several facilities and severe structural damage. Following the attack, Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, declared a state of maximum emergency, unable to cope with the influx of casualties or take on the burden of patients transferred from the now-disabled hospital.

Medical teams were forced to evacuate the wounded and patients from the Gaza European Hospital to Nasser Medical Complex, as the infrastructure of the former could no longer support medical operations.

The actual death toll is expected to be higher as rescue operations remain obstructed by continuous air raids.

In the early hours of Tuesday, Israeli occupation forces bombed the burn unit of Nasser Medical Hospital, killing several Palestinians, including renowned journalist Hassan Eslaih, whose powerful and unflinching photography has brought global attention to the harrowing massacres committed since the outset of the Israeli genocide.

Palestinian Resistance denies claims about targeted leader

In response to Israeli media reports suggesting that a Palestinian Resistance leader was present at the hospital site, a senior figure in the Resistance affirmed that such claims were untrue.

“Loser Netanyahu is trying to please the Zionist right by claiming that he is achieving success in Gaza,” the senior figure indicated.

Civil Defense condemns Israeli targeting of rescue teams

Gaza’s Civil Defense confirmed that its teams remain unable to access the site of the massacre due to heavy and continuous Israeli shelling. Attempts to retrieve the remaining bodies scattered around the Gaza European Hospital have been thwarted by the Israeli occupation’s deliberate targeting of rescuers.

In a statement, the Civil Defense condemned the attack on its personnel as they attempted to evacuate civilians from a bombed residential building near the customs checkpoint in eastern Khan Younis. The same building was bombed again by Israeli forces while the rescue operation was underway, injuring two crew members and forcing the team to retreat without being able to save trapped civilians.

Continued Israeli raids on Khan Younis, Gaza City

Simultaneously, Israeli strikes continued across other parts of Khan Younis. Two civilians were killed and others injured in an Israeli airstrike on a tent near the Asdaa Gate, west of the city. Another round of airstrikes hit Aabasan al-Kabira, east of Khan Younis.

Elsewhere, Civil Defense teams reported recovering 10 bodies and 16 injured civilians from the Afghan family home, targeted by Israeli warplanes near the customs checkpoint in eastern Khan Younis.

In Gaza City, Israeli shelling was concentrated on eastern neighborhoods, including al-Shujaiya, al-Zaytun, al-Tuffah, and the area near al-Shawa Square, resulting in additional casualties and widespread destruction.

Gaza death toll surpasses 52,900

The Gaza Ministry of Health announced earlier on Tuesday that the death toll from the ongoing Israeli war on Gaza since October 7, 2023, has now exceeded 52,900 martyrs, with more than 119,700 injured. Since March 18 alone, over 2,700 have been martyred and more than 7,600 wounded.

Hundreds of bodies remain under the rubble and in the streets, unreachable due to relentless Israeli attacks and debris blocking access.

Ambulance and Civil Defense teams face immense challenges in responding, as they themselves are targeted in what officials describe as a systematic effort to paralyze rescue efforts.

May 13, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Are UK Atrocities in Afghanistan a Smokescreen for IDF Defenders?

Sputnik – 13.05.2025

Emerging reports about atrocities perpetrated by British special forces against civilians in Afghanistan may be a part of a “preemptive defense” of the IDF, former Pentagon analyst Ret. Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski told Sputnik.

If and when stories of “the incredibly disturbing activities of the UK- and US-supported IDF in Gaza” come out, the public would already be taught beforehand that “war is awful, civilians and sleeping children are always killed and it’s just a few bad apples.”

Regarding the UK soldiers and officers involved in illegal activities in Afghanistan, Kwiatkowski believes they should be placed on unpaid leave and “tried in a legal court.”

Any key eyewitnesses and whistleblowers “need immediate protection from suicide or accidents,” Kwiatkowski adds.

May 13, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Key lessons from the Recent India-Pakistan escalation

By Lucas Leiroz | Strategic Culture Foundation | May 13, 2025

Recent developments in the India-Pakistan conflict indicate that New Delhi has suffered a significant military humiliation. Despite the ceasefire allegedly mediated by Washington, reports suggest that hostilities are ongoing — implying that the agreement was either never respected or was quickly broken by one of the parties.

It is unclear whether Islamabad abandoned the path of peace after gaining an advantage on the battlefield, or whether it was India that, unwilling to accept its military defeat, chose to resume offensive actions. The fact remains: tensions are far from resolved, and the international perception is that India severely underestimated Pakistan’s response capabilities.

It is remarkable, from any point of view, that Indian strategists acted as if they could launch strikes inside the territory of a nuclear power without facing serious retaliation. This is a major miscalculation, revealing political amateurism and serious failures in military intelligence.

Even more troubling is New Delhi’s diplomatic conduct at the height of the tension. Amid Iranian efforts to mediate — a country with which India maintains long-standing strategic relations — Indian officials went so far as to publicly insult the Iranian Foreign Minister, with a high-ranking military officer calling him a “pig” on national TV during his official visit to India’s capital. This behavior not only undermines key diplomatic ties but also highlights the disorientation and arrogance currently affecting some key segments of Indian society.

The broader context of this crisis becomes even more concerning when one considers the direct involvement of Israeli “experts” in India’s decision-making apparatus following the Pahalgam attack. The decision to call in military advisors from Israel is neither neutral nor effective. The recent history of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) in dealing with asymmetric enemies is, at best, questionable: its repeated failures against Hezbollah, Hamas, and other supposedly “weaker” adversaries in the Middle East should have served as a warning to India.

It is unwise, to say the least, for a major power like India to entrust a substantial part of its national defense strategy to a foreign military doctrine whose effectiveness is increasingly problematic and doubtful. Israel’s obsession with disproportionate shows of strength, combined with a tendency to underestimate smaller adversaries, appears to have infected Indian strategic thinking in this recent episode.

New Delhi now faces a delicate situation: it seeks to maintain its image as a respectable regional power, yet it cannot conceal the operational and diplomatic failures of recent weeks. Pakistan’s response, by contrast, has been militarily effective and politically coordinated — something India has failed to do during the clash.

Meanwhile, the international community watches with growing concern as tensions escalate between two nuclear powers. Fears of a larger, prolonged conflict are rising, and India’s unpreparedness in handling the crisis only deepens these anxieties.

This case should serve as a lesson. Military strategy requires sobriety, precision, and, above all, realism. Underestimating the enemy, insulting long-time allies, and importing failed military doctrines are a certain path to strategic disaster.

If India wishes to preserve its stability, sovereignty and international position, it must reevaluate not only its stance toward Pakistan but also its entire strategic decision-making framework — including the dangerous influence of foreign consultants who know more about propaganda than real victories.

May 13, 2025 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

The DeepSeek moment for modern air combat – lessons from the Pakistan India air war

The war of systems will define the future rather than stand-alone weapons

By Hua Bin | May 12, 2025

The world just witnesses a shockingly one-sided air war between Pakistan and India last week. Pakistan air force, equipped with Chinese weapon systems, took down a large number of India air combat assets while suffering zero loss.

The air battle featured Chinese-made J-10C fighters, PL-15 air to air missiles, HQ-9 air defense system, and ZDK-03 AWACS. Reported India losses included 3 French-made Rafale fighters, 1 Russia-made Su-30, 1 MiG-29, and 1 Israel-made Heron UAV.

What makes the outcome so shocking is that the Rafale fighter, sold to India at $240 million each, is often lauded as the most advanced European fighter jet, didn’t manage to put up any fight in the confrontation with J-10C. The Mica and Meteor air-to-air missiles carried by Rafale were discovered intact/unfired in the wreckage.

J-10C, by no means a backward fighter, is considered as well past its prime in the Chinese air force whose more advanced fighters include J-20, J-35 (both 5th generation stealth fighters), J-16, J-15 (4.5th generation multirole fighters), let alone the 6th generation fighters (J-36 and J-50) that are being tested.

J-10C is mainly for exports these days. Pakistan has acquired them at $40 million per unit. A few Middle Eastern nations are also considering the jet, including Egypt. Typically Chinese military export is one or one and a half generation behind what the PLA equips itself.

In all fairness, Rafale would be a strong match against J-10C in a head-to-head dog fight. At $240 million, it is even for more expensive than F-35.

Then, how did the Indian air force suffer such a humiliating one-sided loss against a much smaller Pakistan air force?

The answer lies in the strength of the integrated Chinese weapon system used by Pakistan.

Rather than using a hodgepodge of weapons sourced from France, Russia, Israel, and the US, as is the case with India, Pakistan utilized a full suite of highly integrated and synchronised air combat systems from China that include –

– J-10C fighter jet – a 4th generation multirole lighter fighter with a KLJ-7A AESA radar whose detection range exceeds 300km. With gallium nitride technology, it can lock onto the Rafale’s RBE-2 gallium arsenide radar signature 60-100 km before the Rafale even detects it. In modern air war, who sees first fires first.

– PL-15 air to air missile – one of the deadliest beyond visual range air to air missile with strike range over 200km. The PL-15E, the export version, still has a strike range of 150km, significantly longer than the 80km range of the Mica or the 100km range of Meteor, the most advanced European air to air missile.

– HQ-9 air defense system – this older generation Chinese air defense system (the newer one is HQ-19 with much longer range) has a maximum range of 200 km up to an altitude of 30km. While it has a significant shorter effective range than the Russian S-400 system (400km range), it enjoys a seamless data link with the J-10C fighter and PL-15E missile that automatically handles both fighter and missile guidance in combat

– ZDK-03 AWACs – again this is an older Chinese early warning planes, two generations from PLA air force most advanced systems (KJ-3000 and KJ-700). It is tailor-made for the Pakistan air force by China. The AWAC features an Active Electronically Scanned Arrange (AESA) radar with 360-degree coverage, capable of detecting and tracking up to 100 aerial targets, including low-flying and stealth jets. Importantly, ZDK-03 features an integrated sensor and communications suite, including Missile Approach Warning Systems (MAWS) and can maintain data links with ground command centers and friendly aircraft for real-time battlefield coordination.

With Link 17, a two-way communication data link China has helped Pakistan develop, the HQ-9 air defense system passes the Indian Rafale fighter information to the J-10C fighter which fires the PL-15E air to air missile well beyond the range of Rafale’s own missiles. Then the ZDK-03 AWAC maintains the data link with the missile and guides it toward the target.

PLA’s internal data link systems, such as XS-3 and DTS-03, are far more sophisticated than Link 17 or Link 16, the NATO data link standard. They use a combination of Beidou satellite navigation/communication and AI-powered military-grade 5G system. Given their highly classified nature, the systems are under strict export ban.

The Rafales were shot down before they even had a chance to engage with the J-10Cs within the missile range.

The defeat suffered by the India air force is a result of its lack of an integrated air warfare system. Standalone weaponry, however advanced, cannot achieve air superiority without the integration of other air warfare systems and seamless data links in today’s informationalized combat environment. Of course, poor training and tactical planning are also contributing factors.

Pakistan, with its integrated Chinese-made air combat platforms, has achieved a decisive victory over India, whose patchwork collection of various weapon platforms prove both costly and ineffective.

When $240 million Rafale fighters are brought down by $40 million J-10Cs with $180,000 PL-15E missiles, the military world is experiencing its own DeepSeek moment.

I wrote in my essay A Watershed Hypersonic Breakthrough: China’s New Hypersonic Air-to-air Missile (https://huabinoliver.substack.com/p/a-watershed-hypersonic-technology) that China just fielded an ultra-long 1,000km hypersonic missile (which can cover that distance in 8 minutes at Mach 5), designed to neutralize the US F-22 and F-35 fighters and B-21 bomber.

The Pakistan India air combat, labelled as the largest air war in 50 years, is a testing ground for Chinese technologies. With military hardware one to two generations older than PLA’s own, Pakistan has handily beat Indian’s most advanced western weaponry.

The US and the west would be making a deadly mistake to underestimate the Chinese military in Western Pacific and challenge China in a kinetic war.

The cherry on top is that India, despite western media’s hype as a counterbalance to China, proves it is just noise and can barely serve as a speed bump.

May 13, 2025 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

US War on Yemen Exposes Limits of American Military Might

By Brian Berletic – New Eastern Outlook – May 13, 2025

Despite years of devastating military and economic pressure, Yemen’s Ansar Allah movement continues to defy U.S. operations, exposing the growing limitations of American military power in the region.

Yemen, a nation of approximately 40 million people, is one of the poorest nations on Earth. It has suffered decades of political instability, including a US-engineered regime change operation in 2011 followed by a nearly 7 year long war with a US-armed and backed Saudi-led Persian Gulf coalition. The war included air strikes and a ground invasion, along with economic sanctions and a naval blockade. Subsequently, the UN has declared Yemen to be one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, with up to 14% of the population displaced by conflict.

Since then, the US has carried out direct attacks on Yemen. Both the previous Biden administration and now the current Trump administration have carried out military campaigns in a bid to subdue Ansar Allah (often referred to as the “Houthis”) – the military and political organization administering Yemen’s capital and surrounding cities along the nation’s western coast.

The most recent military campaign has included strikes on civilian infrastructure, including a major port and reportedly a reservoir.

Leaked messages between the US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, the US Vice President and other senior officials reveal the deliberate targeting and complete destruction of residential buildings to kill a single suspected enemy individual.

Despite the tremendous power of the US military and the protracted brutality the US has applied to Yemen, Ansar Allah remains a viable political and military organization. It continues to target and destroy US drones conducting surveillance and attacks in Yemeni airspace, as well as targeting US warships in the Red Sea, amid a much wider blockade Ansar Allah has placed on Israeli-bound vessels and now US oil shipments.

While Ansar Allah has regularly claimed to have targeted and forced US warships to flee, a recent CNN article appears to confirm that indeed drones and anti-shipping missiles targeting US ships have not only forced them to take evasive maneuvers, they have also caused material losses including a $60 million F-18 warplane.

The article admits:

A US official said initial reports from the scene indicated the Truman made a hard turn to evade Houthi fire, which contributed to the fighter jet falling overboard. Yemen’s Houthi rebels claimed on Monday to have launched a drone and missile attack on the aircraft carrier, which is in the Red Sea as part of the US military’s major operation against the Iran-backed group.

Other Western media outlets have admitted the loss of multiple $30 million drones over Yemen. An April 29, 2025 article by France 24 reported that the US had lost up to 7 MQ-9 Reaper drones over the previous 2 months.

The drones are used to identify and guide munitions to targets. They have a service ceiling comparable to modern manned warplanes like the US F-35 Lightning. The regular loss of MQ-9 drones over Yemen implies that Ansar Allah possesses air defense systems also capable of reaching altitudes manned US warplanes operate at. This is why the US has failed so far to establish air superiority over Yemeni airspace, forcing the US to instead carry out standoff strikes.

Standoff strikes involve the use of long-range precision guided missiles fired far beyond the reach of enemy air defenses. The missiles then travel into enemy airspace to strike their targets. While the obvious advantage of this strategy is avoiding enemy air defenses, there are many disadvantages, including the use of standoff munitions which are expensive and made in relatively small quantities. Enemy radar systems can detect stand-off weapons as they travel across their airspace, allowing them to potentially intercept the incoming missile. It also provides personnel and equipment time to take cover before the stand-off munitions reach their target.

Western media outlets have reported that Ansar Allah is believed to have surface-to-air missiles from Iran. This includes systems like the Barq-1 and Barq-2 air defense systems. These are comparable to the Russian-made Buk air defense system. While considered a “medium range” air defense system, it is capable of targeting modern warplanes at their maximum service ceiling.

Western media outlets have also noted the US’ use of electronic warfare aircraft against targets across Yemen, armed with anti-radiation guided missiles designed to detect and home in on radar signals. Such missiles are used as part of “suppression of enemy air defenses” (SEAD) missions to either force air defense operators to turn off their radar sets to prevent their destruction, or to target and destroy the radar set if they don’t. Whether switched off or destroyed, the radar systems are unable to target and destroy incoming warplanes, allowing airstrikes to be conducted.

Despite the simple premise, the detection and suppression of enemy air defense systems as part of SEAD missions is dangerous and complex. The fact that Ansar Allah is still regularly detecting and downing MQ-9 drones means US SEAD missions have fallen short of destroying Ansar Allah’s air defenses and establishing air superiority over Yemen.

The limitations of US military power have been steadily exposed in recent conflicts. The US proxy war in Syria and now its military operations against Yemen has required US warplanes to conduct standoff strikes because of an inability to either destroy or evade Russian and Iranian-designed air defense systems. The transfer of US weapons to Ukraine and their failure on the battlefield there have further exposed the limits of US military might.

Despite this, the US remains a dangerous threat to the nations it targets. In Syria, the US used asymmetric military power in the form of armed militants, economic warfare, and political interference to succeed where its airpower had failed. While the disparity between US military might and that of the nations it targets has narrowed significantly over recent years, its vast array of economic and political weapons remain potent alternatives.

Only time will tell whether the emerging multipolar world can close the gap in regard to these US advantages in the same way it has regarding America’s quickly shrinking military advantages.

May 13, 2025 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

The Met Office is Unable to Name the Sites Providing ‘Estimated’ Temperature Data For its 103 Non-Existent Stations

By Chris Morrison | Daily Sceptic | May 12, 2025

Last year the UK Met Office was shown to be inventing long-term temperature data at 103 non-existent weather stations. It was claimed in a later risible ‘fact check’ that the data were estimated from nearby well-correlated neighbouring stations. Citizen super sleuth Ray Sanders issued a number of Freedom of Information (FOI) requests to learn the identity of these correlating sites but has been told that the information is not held by the Met Office. So the invented figures for the non-existent sites are supposedly provided by stations that the Met Office claims it cannot identify and are presumably not recorded in its copious computer storage and archive.

Mr Sanders is understandably unimpressed with the explanation that this vital identifying information is not retained, writing: “Is the general public just supposed to ‘believe’ the Met Office without any workings out evident. To me, and every single scientist who has ever lived, it is imperative to show the data used – ANYTHING LESS IS NOT VALID. No Verifiable Data Source = No Credibility = no better than Fiction.”

Until recently, the Met Office showed weather averages including temperature for over 300 stations stretching back at least 30 years. The data identified individual stations and single location coordinates, but when 103 were found not to exist the Met Office hastily rewrote the title of the database to suggest that the figures arose from a wider local area.

Following the change, Sanders sought FOI guidance about Scole, a temperature weather station in Norfolk that operated for only nine years between 1971 to 1980. Type in Scole on the new ‘location’ database and it is identified as one of five sites that are the “nearest climate stations to Scole”. Sixty years of average data are given including 10 years before Scole was actually established. This itself is odd since the Met Office justifies ‘estimating’ data for closed stations to preserve long usability of the data. It would appear a stretch to use this explanation to justify preserving 1960s data from a station that did not open until 1971. Sanders made a simple request and asked the Met Office to reveal the names of the weather stations used in compiling the climate average data for Scole from 1990 to 2020. If the Met Office was unable to supply the full list, he made it as easy as possible and asked for the name of the last station supplying data.

The astonishing claim that the Met Office was unable to help because the information was not held was followed by an explanation that “the specific stations used in regressive analysis each month are not an output from the process”. The unimpressed Sanders observes that the Met Office archives billions of numbers and data items but does not seem to keep a record of its workings out. “So they have no proof whatsoever of how their climate averages were compiled,” he observes.

Sanders also sought similar details about another ‘zombie’ site, namely, Manby in Lincolnshire. This actually closed for temperature readings in 1974 but again 60-year averages are currently available. Sanders was intrigued by this site since the CEDA archive that collects Met Office data showed it was still open, a claim also made in an earlier FOI disclosure by the state meteorologist. Again Manby is identified as the nearest climate station when its name is searched on the climate averages site. But the Met Office’s Weather Observations Website shows it is closed and Sanders notes the Met Office has since confirmed that to him. It has been 50 years since an actual temperature reading was taken at Manby but as with Scole the Met Office under a FOI request is unable to name any of the ‘well-correlated’ sites supposed providing data.

It is difficult to understand why the Met Office cannot answer a simple question seeking guidance on where temperature readings were taken. Presumably they would be obtained from the five nearest ‘stations’ identified when a location is entered into the climate averages database. But as the Daily Sceptic has reported in the past, there might be problems with this approach. Cawood in the West Riding of Yorkshire is a pristine class 1 site designated by the World Meteorological Organisation as providing an uncorrupted air temperature reading over a large surrounding area (nearly 80% of Met Office sites are in junk classes 4 and 5 with ‘uncertainties’ of 2C and 5C respectively). Cawood has good temperature recordings going back to 1959. But no rolling 30-year average for Cawood is provided. Instead, the Met Office flags data from five other sites, four of which don’t exist, with the fifth located 27 miles away at a 163 metres higher elevation. Even worse, the location of Norwich brings up five nearby stations, including Scole, none of which exist.

As the Daily Sceptic has noted in the past, the Met Office has only itself to blame for the often trenchant criticism it receives on social media about its temperature collecting operations. It does a fine job of forecasting weather, but activist elements in its operation have weaponised inaccurate temperature recordings to promote the politicised Net Zero fantasy.

Recently, the chief scientist at the Met Office, Professor Stephen Belcher, called for Net Zero “to stabilise the climate” claiming he saw “more extreme weather” in the Met Office’s observations. In the UK, he suggested that between 2014-2023 the number of days recording 28C had doubled, while those over 30C had tripled compared to 1961-1990. A more extreme weather trend is not something that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has seen, while observations about more recent hot days might ring truer if they were not based on the increasingly urban heat-ravaged Met Office databases.

And Ray Sanders’s take? “We are regularly told in the mainstream media, particularly the BBC, that we are entering an existential ‘climate emergency’, so how is it nobody wants to discuss the obviously fictional data that is being manipulated to support this ‘argument’?”

May 13, 2025 Posted by | Deception, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | | Leave a comment

Heating costs for Hungarian families could triple under EU plans to ban Russian gas, think tank warns

By Thomas Brooke | Remix News | May 13, 2025

Heating bills for Hungarian households could rise by as much as three and a half times if the European Union moves forward with a full ban on Russian natural gas imports, according to a new report by the Századvég Institute, as cited by Magyar Hírlap.

The economic research group estimates such a move would impose nearly HUF 1,100 billion (approximately €2.8 billion) in additional annual costs on Hungary, putting severe pressure on both the country’s energy system and its citizens.

According to Századvég, their calculations — based on publicly available domestic and international energy data — show that a total ban on Russian energy imports would result in a doubling of gas prices and heightened volatility on European energy markets. This would not only harm the EU’s competitiveness but also destabilize Hungary’s long-standing utility bill reduction program, which currently ensures some of the lowest heating costs in Europe for Hungarian families.

Earlier this month, the European Commission published a roadmap outlining its intention to wean European nations off Russian gas before a wholesale ban came into effect by the end of 2027.

“No more will we permit Russia to weaponize energy against us… No more will we indirectly help fill up the [Kremlin’s] war chests,” European Commissioner for Energy Dan Jorgensen told reporters.

The move, however, faces stiff opposition from several nations still heavily reliant on Russia for their imports and unsure of where alternative energy sources will be found for an acceptable price.

In addition to Hungary, Slovakia is also holding firm against the plans. Prime Minister Robert Fico said earlier this week he would veto the move in the European Council if need be.

“A halt of gas supplies will cause instability. Our petrochemical plants were set up to use Russian oil for oil refining, and the shutdown may cause technological problems. I hope that our EU partners will learn about this when legal acts are adopted,” Fico said.

“If it is necessary for all 27 countries to agree, we will use our veto power,” he added.

Currently, Hungary imports around 4.5 billion cubic meters of Russian gas annually through a long-term supply contract, which covered more than half of the country’s total gas consumption last year.

Replacing this volume on international markets, the institute notes, would cost Hungary an estimated HUF 660 billion more. When including Russian gas delivered to Hungary by alternative routes, the shortfall reaches 7.5 billion cubic meters, raising the potential total impact to HUF 1,100 billion annually.

The institute highlighted that Hungarian households today pay an average of HUF 176,900 (around €435) per year for heating, thanks to state price regulations. Without these protections and based on current exchange rates, that figure would nearly double to HUF 355,310. If Russian gas were banned outright, average heating costs could skyrocket to HUF 625,000 (€1,540) — more than three and a half times the current average.

Századvég recalled that the EU’s reliance on Russian gas fell from 40 percent before the war in Ukraine to below 20 percent in 2023. This dramatic shift led to a doubling of gas prices on the Dutch energy exchange. Under the European Commission’s new strategy, prices could rise from €35 to €70 per megawatt hour, according to the think tank’s projections. They warned, however, that actual increases could be even steeper due to market instability triggered by supply shocks.

The report also emphasized the cumulative effect of EU sanctions on Hungarian households. Since 2022, Századvég estimates that higher energy prices, loss of export markets, and increased borrowing costs have drained HUF 2.2 million (€5,430) from the average Hungarian household. The direct financial cost of Ukraine’s accelerated EU accession process would add HUF 458,000 annually, while a ban on Russian gas could tack on another HUF 448,000.

“Brussels’ three highest priority objectives — arming Ukraine, accelerating EU accession, and banning Russian energy — would impose unbearable burdens on Hungarian families,” the Századvég Institute concluded on its website.

May 13, 2025 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

The Deep State Goes Viral: Foreword

By Jeffrey A Tucker | Brownstone Institute | May 12, 2025

The following is Jeffrey Tucker’s Foreword introduction to Debbie Lerman’s new book, The Deep State Goes Viral: Pandemic Planning and the Covid Coup.

It was about a month into lockdowns, April 2020, and my phone rang with an unusual number. I picked up and the caller identified himself as Rajeev Venkayya, a name I knew from my writings on the 2005 pandemic scare. Now the head of a vaccine company, he once served as Special Assistant to the President for Biodefense, and claimed to be the inventor of pandemic planning.

Venkayya was a primary author of “A National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza” as issued by the George W. Bush administration in 2005. It was the first document that mapped out a nascent version of lockdowns, designed for global deployment. “A flu pandemic would have global consequences,” said Bush, “so no nation can afford to ignore this threat, and every nation has responsibilities to detect and stop its spread.”

It was always a strange document because it stood in constant contradiction to public health orthodoxies dating back decades and even a century. With it, there were two alternative paths in place in the event of a new virus: the normal path that everyone is taught in medical school (therapeutics for the sick, caution with social disturbances, calm and reason, quarantines only in extreme cases) and a biosecurity path that invoked totalitarian measures.

Those two paths existed side-by-side for a decade and a half before the lockdowns.

Now I found myself speaking with the guy who claims credit for having mapped out the biosecurity approach, which contradicted all public health wisdom and experience. His plan was finally being implemented. Not too many voices dissented, partially due to fear but also due to censorship, which was already very tight. He told me to stop objecting to the lockdowns because they have everything under control.

I asked a basic question. Let’s say we all hunker down, hide under the sofa, eschew physical meetings with family and friends, stop all gatherings of all kinds, and keep businesses and schools closed. What, I asked, happens to the virus itself? Does it jump in a hole in the ground or head to Mars for fear of another press conference by Andrew Cuomo or Anthony Fauci?

After some fallacy-filled banter about the R-naught, I could tell he was getting exasperated with me, and finally, with some hesitation, he told me the plan. There would be a vaccine. I balked and said that no vaccine can sterilize against a fast-mutating respiratory pathogen with a zoonotic reservoir. Even if such a thing did appear, it would take 10 years of trials and testing before it was safe to release to the general population. Are we going to stay locked down for a decade?

“It will come much faster,” he said. “You watch. You will be surprised.”

Hanging up, I recall dismissing him as a crank, a has-been with nothing better to do than call up poor writers and bug them.

I had entirely misread the meaning, simply because I was not prepared to understand the sheer depth and vastness of the operation now in play. All that was taking place struck me as obviously destructive and fundamentally flawed but rooted in a kind of intellectual error: a loss of understanding of virology basics.

Around the same time, the New York Times posted without fanfare a new document called PanCAP-A: Pandemic Crisis Action Plan – Adapted. It was Venkayya’s plan, only intensified, as released on March 13, 2020, three days before President Trump’s press conference announcing the lockdowns. I read through it, reposted it, but had no idea what it meant. I hoped someone could come along to explain it, interpret it, and tease out its implications, all in the interest of getting to the bottom of the who, what, and why of this fundamental attack on civilization itself.

That person did come along. She is Debbie Lerman, intrepid author of this wonderful book that so beautifully presents the best thoughts on all the questions that had eluded me. She took the document apart and discovered a fundamental truth therein. The rule-making authority for the pandemic response was not vested in public-health agencies but the National Security Council.

This was stated as plain as day in the document; I had somehow missed that. This was not public health. It was national security. The antidote under development with the label vaccine was really a military countermeasure. In other words, this was Venkayya’s plan times ten, and the idea was precisely to override all tradition and public health concerns and replace them with national security measures.

Realizing this fundamentally changes the structure of the story of the last five years. This is not a story of a world that mysteriously forgot about natural immunity and made some intellectual error in thinking that governments could shut down economies and turn them back on again, scaring a pathogen back to where it came from. What we experienced in a very real sense was quasi-martial law, a deep-state coup not only on a national but on an international level.

These are terrifying thoughts and hardly anyone is prepared to discuss them, which is why Lerman’s book is so crucial. In terms of public debate about what happened to us, we are barely at the beginning. There is now a willingness to admit that the lockdowns did more overall harm than good. Even the legacy media has started venturing out to grant permission for such thoughts. But the role of the pharmaceuticals in driving the policy and the role of the national-security state in backing this grand industrial project is still taboo.

In 21st-century journalism and advocacy designed to influence the public mind, the overwhelming concern of all writers and institutions is professional survival. That means fitting into an approved ethos or paradigm regardless of the facts. This is why Lerman’s thesis is not debated; it is hardly spoken of at all in polite society. That said, my work at Brownstone Institute has put me in close contact with many thinkers in high places. This much I can say: what Lerman has written in this book is not disputed but admitted in private.

Strange isn’t it? We saw during the Covid years how professional aspiration incentivized silence even in the face of egregious violations of human rights, including mandatory school closures that robbed children of education, followed by face-covering requirements and forced injections for the whole population. The near-silence was deafening even if anyone with a brain and a conscience knew that all of this was wrong. Not even the excuse that “We didn’t know” works anymore because we did know.

This same dynamic of social and cultural control is fully in operation now that we are through that stage and onto another one, which is precisely why Lerman’s findings have not yet made their way to polite society, to say nothing of mainstream media. Will we get there? Maybe. This book can help; at least it is now available for everyone brave enough to confront the facts. You will find herein the most well-documented and coherent presentation of answers to the core questions (what, how, why) that all of us have been asking since this hell was first visited upon us.

May 13, 2025 Posted by | Book Review, Civil Liberties, Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , , | Leave a comment

THE REAL PETER MARKS REVEALED

The HighWire with Del Bigtree | May 8, 2025

Del celebrates the launch of ICAN’s “Secret Recordings: The Real Peter Marks”, a comprehensive timeline featuring documents obtained through FOIA and recorded Zoom calls with Peter Marks, M.D., former Director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research. Many of the videos show victims of severe COVID-19 vaccine injuries, as well as physicians who witnessed these injuries firsthand, pleading with the FDA to take action and inform the public of the potential risks. Get a glimpse of the press conference held in Washington, D.C., and learn how to access the full timeline—including complete video recordings and a comparison of what Marks was privately acknowledging versus what he was publicly saying about the safety of these products.

May 13, 2025 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Video | , | Leave a comment