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Ukraine claims it could have nuclear weapons within weeks – Bild

RT | October 17, 2024

Kiev has the capability to build a nuclear weapon “in a few weeks,” a high-ranking Ukrainian official told Bild on Thursday after Vladimir Zelensky alluded to such a possibility.

Ukraine needs either membership in NATO or nuclear weapons, Zelensky said on Friday in Brussels, arguing in favor of his “victory plan” to end the conflict with Russia.

This prompted Bild to reveal that a Ukrainian official involved in weapons procurement told them “a few months ago” that Kiev was willing to go nuclear.

“We have the material, we have the knowledge. If the order is given, we will only need a few weeks to have the first bomb,” the unnamed official said, according to the German tabloid, adding that the West should “think less about Russia’s red lines and more about ours.”

In his speech on Thursday, Zelensky claimed to have informed former – and possibly future – US President Donald Trump about Kiev’s possible atomic aspirations.

“Speaking to Donald Trump, I told him: What is the way out for us? Either Ukraine will have nuclear weapons, and they will serve as protection, or we need to be in some kind of an alliance. We don’t know any effective alliances except NATO,” Zelensky said. He also claimed that Trump agreed with him.

The former president has made no mention of Zelensky’s nuclear proposal, however. In the time since their meeting, he also made the case in an interview that nuclear weapons were the greatest threat to humanity and that he had hoped to make a global deal on eventual denuclearization during his first term in the White House.

The leadership in Kiev has long argued that the US and its allies had an obligation to protect Ukraine because of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, in which the US, UK and Russia gave security guarantees in exchange for the removal of Soviet nuclear warheads from Ukraine’s territory. Moscow has maintained that the 2014 violent coup in Kiev put the West in breach of the memorandum and that a hostile, nuclear-armed Ukraine on its doorstep is an intolerable threat to its security.

October 17, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | | Leave a comment

Church raid in Ukraine linked to Zelensky ‘victory plan’ – Russian diplomat

RT | October 17, 2024

An armed raid on St. Michael’s Cathedral in the Ukrainian city of Cherkasy on Thursday directly stems from the policies adopted by Kiev, which is selling out its people to the West, senior Russian diplomat Rodion Miroshnik has stated, condemning the raid.

The church, which was built two decades ago and is the largest temple in modern Ukraine, was in the process of being seized from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC). The initial raid was launched during a night service by armed men in military-style clothes. In the morning, many of the faithful who answered the diocese’s call to defend the cathedral managed to oust the raiders but, hours later, a second attack succeeded.

A military chaplain with the Kiev-backed Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), a rival of the UOC, has declared that the cathedral is now a military church. In the future it will host a center for “national patriotic education, a Sunday school and a school for chaplains,” Vladimir Pedko said on Facebook. Ukrainian officials have claimed that Thursday’s events were part of a lawful transfer of the church to the OCU.

Miroshnik, who leads a special mission in the Russian Foreign Ministry to record and expose Ukrainian crimes, denounced the seizure as “blunt and grim lawlessness covered up by the gang of [Vladimir] Zelensky.”

In a series of posts online, Miroshnik linked the raid with Zelensky’s speech in parliament the day before the raid, in which the Ukrainian leader presented to the public his ‘victory plan’ against Russia. Among other things, he offered the services of battle-hardened Ukrainian troops to Western donors, claiming that eventually they could replace American soldiers stationed in Europe.

“Zelensky almost directly said that Ukraine is essentially a nation-sized private military company (PMC),” Miroshnik argued.

“A PMC nation’s ideology has no place for a thousand-year-old Orthodox linchpin, which has its traditions, rules and principles,” he added. “For the Kiev regime, people are a resource, livestock. Livestock are not allowed to have stable canons of reverence for the faith of their ancestors.”

Earlier this year, the Ukrainian parliament passed a law that established the legal grounds for a likely ban on the UOC. Kiev has accused the church of doing the bidding of Russia.

Many of the UOC clerics are being prosecuted for alleged crimes, including Metropolitan Theodosius, the bishop heading the diocese headquartered at St. Michael’s Cathedral. The church was reportedly partially looted and ransacked by unknown persons, who broke into it overnight.

There has also been a legal battle between the UOC and secular authorities for the parcel of land surrounding the cathedral.

October 17, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Zelensky presents ‘victory plan’

RT | October 16, 2024

Vladimir Zelensky presented his much-hyped “victory plan” to the Ukrainian parliament on Wednesday, suggesting it could help bring the conflict with Russia to a close as early as next year. However, he stressed that this outcome is possible only if Kiev rules out any compromises with Russia and receives full support from the West.

In his speech, Zelensky lamented that “victory has become an inconvenient word” for some people, adding, however, that he was certain that his “victory plan” would help end the conflict. “This plan can be implemented. It depends on the partners. I emphasize: on partners. It doesn’t exactly depend on Russia,” Zelensky said, accusing Moscow of not wanting peace.

“If you start moving with this idea, with this particular victory plan…, there may be a deal to end the war no later than next year,” he added, rejecting a freeze of the conflict and any “trade” of territories.

Zelensky said the plan consists of eight points, three of which are classified. First and foremost, the Ukrainian leader demanded that Kiev receive an invitation to immediately join NATO, a move the bloc has been reluctant to entertain, citing fears of being dragged into the conflict with Russia.

Second, he also stressed the need to strengthen Ukraine’s defense capabilities, including by lifting Western restrictions on the use of foreign-made long-range weapons for strikes against Russia, and also called for continued incursions into the neighboring country’s territory.

For the third point, Zelensky proposed to the West that Ukraine “deploy a comprehensive non-nuclear strategic deterrence package on its own land” to keep Russia at bay.

Fourth, he suggested that Ukraine sign with its backers “a special agreement on the joint protection of available critical resources” on its territory. These resources “will strengthen… either Russia and its allies, or Ukraine and the democratic world,” he said.

Finally, Zelensky said Ukraine could share its real-life battlefield experience with the West to “strengthen NATO’s defense and ensure security in Europe.”

Prior to Zelensky’s speech, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov suggested that his plan was just another facet of the US-dictated policy of fighting Russia “to the last Ukrainian.” Peace, he added, can only be achieved if Kiev understands “the futility of the current policy and the need to sober up and realize the reasons that led to the conflict over Ukraine.”

President Vladimir Putin has said that one of the main reasons for the conflict was Ukraine’s aspirations to join NATO and Kiev’s “genocide” of the people in Donbass, which is now part of Russia.

October 16, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

US says can’t continue supplying Ukraine, Israel together as Tel Aviv faces munitions shortage

Press TV – October 15, 2024

Israel is scrambling to supply interceptor missiles amid a looming shortage as the regime is bracing for more retaliatory attacks from the regional resistance, more than a year after it launched the genocidal war on Gaza, a report says.

The report by the the Financial Times came as the United States on Sunday confirmed that its military is sending an anti-missile system operated by American troops to aid the Israeli forces following the Tel Aviv regime’s failure to defend itself against Iran and as Tel Aviv has threatened it will attack Iranian sites.

“Israel’s munitions issue is serious,” the Financial Times cited Dana Stroul, a former senior Pentagon official with responsibility for the West Asia, as saying on Tuesday.

“If Iran responds to an Israel attack [with a massive air strike campaign], and [Lebanon’s] Hezbollah joins in too, Israel air defenses will be stretched,” she said, noting that US stockpiles were not limitless.

“The US can’t continue supplying Ukraine and Israel at the same pace. We are reaching a tipping point.”

Boaz Levy, chief executive of Israel Aerospace Industries, which makes the Arrow interceptors used to down ballistic missiles, said he was running triple shifts to keep production lines running.

“Some of our lines are working 24 hours, seven days a week. Our goal is to meet all our obligations,” Levy said.

While Israel does not disclose the size of its stockpiles, he said “it is no secret that we need to replenish stocks.”

Since early October 2023, Israel has been waging brutal two-front aggression that has killed more than 42,000 people in the Gaza Strip and at least 2,306 others in Lebanon so far.

Over the same period, the usurping regime has also assassinated several resistance leaders, including Hamas’s political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh and Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.

In support of Palestinians in Gaza, resistance groups have launched retaliatory attacks on Israeli targets and vowed to keep fighting until the Gaza onslaught ends.

In response to Israel’s barbaric acts of assassination against the resistance front’s top leaders, Iran carried out Operation True Promise 2 earlier this month.

During the operation, Iran launched some 200 high-speed ballistic missiles at the Zionist entity’s military, espionage and intelligence bases, sending almost 10 million settlers into bomb shelters. Ninety percent of the fired Iranian missiles hit their targets.

Despite Israel’s intensified strikes on Lebanon, Hezbollah managed to conduct the deadliest strikes on the occupied territories in the past year over the weekend.

“We are not seeing Hezbollah’s full capability yet. It has only been firing at around a tenth of its estimated prewar launching capacity, a few hundred rockets a day instead of as many as 2,000,” Assaf Orion, a former Israeli brigadier general and head of strategy at the Israeli military, said.

“Some of that gap is a choice by Hezbollah not to go full out, and some of it is due to degradation by the IDF [Israeli military]. . . But Hezbollah has enough left to mount a strong operation,” Orion added.

“Haifa and northern Israel are still on the receiving end of rocket and drone attacks almost every day.”

Amid the rising retaliatory operations, the report cited analysts as saying “defense planners and Israel’s AI-powered air defenses were having to choose which areas to protect over others.”

“It’s only a matter of time before Israel starts to run out of interceptors and has to prioritize how they are deployed,” said Ehud Eilam, a former researcher at Israel’s ministry of military affairs.

October 15, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Iran’s Missiles: Ted Postol sets the record straight

Daniel Davis | Deep Dive | October 11, 2024

October 15, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, Video | , , , , | Leave a comment

Do They Want American Troops to Die?

By Dan McAdams | Ron Paul Institute | October 14, 2024

Biden administration mismanagement—or worse—from day one of the latest Israeli multi-front war in the Middle East has led us to where we are today, at the brink of an all-out regional war with some 40,000 U.S. troops and multiple U.S. military bases in the region with targets on their back.

Biden’s blank check to Israel after the attacks of October 7, 2023, to launch multiple wars against its neighbors and carry out the mass murder of Palestinian civilians in Gaza has drawn the U.S. right into the middle of a bubbling cauldron of [World War III]. And rather than take a sober look at actual U.S. national security interests, Biden and his neocon incompetents are busy adding fuel to the fire hanging on to the pipe dream that they could do what they failed to do so many times before: remake the Middle East in their neocon image.

According to an article in Politico this past week, while Biden administration officials publicly urged restraint and a reduction in violence, they privately were working with the Israeli government to encourage a widening of Israel’s military operations to include its northern neighbor, Lebanon. Two top Biden administration officials, Amos Hochstein and Brett McGurk, urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to shift Israel’s military focus from the already-flattened Gaza northward to Lebanon.

As Politico reports:

“Behind the scenes, Hochstein, McGurk and other top U.S. national security officials are describing Israel’s Lebanon operations as a history-defining moment—one that will reshape the Middle East for the better for years to come.”

Where have we heard this kind of “let’s do war to re-shape the Middle East” argument before? As Wikileaks reminds us, appearing before the U.S. Congress in 2002 and urging the U.S. to attack Iraq, Netanyahu himself promised that “If you take out Saddam, Saddam’s regime, I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region.”

Yeah, Bibi. How’d that work out for us?

So why is it that 22 years later senior U.S. officials are echoing Netanyahu’s bogus 2002 lies to draw the U.S. into another “history-defining” catastrophe in the Middle East? For Hochstein it might be that he is not the unbiased “honest broker” we need to keep us out of unnecessary war. After all, as The New York Times reminds us, Hochstein was born in Israel, had/has Israeli citizenship, and even served in the Israeli Defense Forces!

Now he is serving as President Biden’s top advisor for the Middle East—a position where it is critical to bring no personal biases to the table.

This should not automatically disqualify him from the position, of course, but just as with concerns over Victoria Nuland and Antony Blinken’s Ukrainian background, neocons pushing for war in the “old country” from which they should have left old allegiances behind should raise a few eyebrows.

McGurk is similarly compromised, as he is another Victoria Nuland/Zelig-like character [creature] who has spent his career weaseling into Republican and Democratic administrations as an “expert,” while his actual expertise comprises solely his adherence to the neocon ideology of all war all the time. He was on board for [George W.] Bush’s “remaking of the Middle East” to [Barack] Obama’s fake “Arab Spring to remake the Middle East” to [Donald] Trump’s “trash the Iran deal to remake the Middle East.”

The guy is a loser who has been wrong his whole career, with a trail of failures that would sink a normal person. But like the Energizer Bunny he just keeps on ticking and ticking toward yet another disaster.

As Politico goes on to note, the Hochstein/McGurk plan to urge Israeli attacks on Lebanon was not widely accepted among actual experts in the administration:

“The decision to focus on Hezbollah sparked division within the U.S. government, drawing opposition from people inside the Pentagon, State Department and intelligence community who believed Israel’s move against the Iran-backed militia could drag American forces into yet another Middle East conflict.”

Of course there is built into the Politico article the assumption that Hochstein and McGurk were at all concerned about “dragging American forces” into Israel’s regional war. In fact, their intent was the opposite. They no doubt yearned to draw the U.S. government into Israel’s regional war.

Which brings us to where we are today, with the Biden Administration committing more U.S. weapons systems and more U.S. military personnel to serve on the ground in Israel in its war against Gaza, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran. All at once. How’s that for neocon ambition?

As Pentagon Press Secretary Patrick Ryder announced [yesterday]: “At the direction of the President, @SecDef authorized the deployment of a Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery and associated crew of U.S. military personnel to Israel to help bolster Israel’s air defenses.”

With today’s [October 13] news that Lebanon successfully counter-attacked Israel—hitting an Israeli military base and taking out dozens of IDF soldiers—it appears certain that President Biden and his neocon-dominated foreign policy team are setting up U.S. military members to be killed in Israel to manufacture consent for a full-on US war against all of Israel’s enemies in the region.

They want American soldiers killed in Israel because they know the enormous propaganda value, particularly among a U.S. population that is increasingly against U.S. involvement in Israel’s wars and in favor of ending them instead.

With Kamala tanking in the eyes of a voting public increasingly unappetized by wilted word salads, an old-fashioned war might be just what the Biden brigades are cooking up to pull their chestnuts out of the fire.

With their track record of failure, it is time for those of us who are sane to be very, very worried.

This is going to get really bad really fast if we cannot get the attention of a slumbering—or worse—Congress.

October 14, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Steadfast Noon Risking Noon Twilight: What are the Risks of NATO’s ‘Nuclear Sharing’ Drills?

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 14.10.2024

NATO kicked off its annual Steadfast Noon nuclear exercises this week. What’s important to know about them? What military assets could they involve? What are the dangers associated with them? Sputnik explores.

NATO’s Steadfast Noon nuclear drills began on Monday and will run over the next two weeks, involving some 2,000 personnel from eight bases and over 60 aircraft from 13 bloc countries. The bulk of the drilling is expected to take place over the North Sea (about 900 km from the Russian border), as well as Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and the UK.

Central to the exercises is drilling the concept of ‘nuclear sharing’ – which allows designated NATO allies’ jets to simulate combat missions using US nukes stored on their territory.

NATO’s nuclear sharing concept goes back to the Cold War, when the US deployed thousands of surface-to-surface, surface-to-air, air-tor-air and air-to-surface weapons with nuclear payloads to allied countries, including Canada, the UK, Greece, Turkiye, Italy, and West Germany. Guarded by US Air Force or Army personnel, the arms remained (and still remain) under the control of the US military, which has the codes needed to arm them.

By 1991, the USSR removed all its nuclear weapons from Eastern Europe, and urged the US to do the same. Washington never did, and today, keeps 100-150 B61 nukes in Europe and Turkiye, including:

  • 10-15 bombs at Belgium’s Kleine Brogel Air Base – deliverable by F-16 MLU and F-35A jets.
  • 10-15 B61s at Germany’s Buchel Air Base – carried by PA-200 Tornado jets and eventually, F-35As.
  • Up to 45 B61s at Italy’s Aviano and Ghedi air bases, deliverable by F-16 C/Ds, Tornados, and F-35As.
  • About 20 bombs at the Netherlands’ Volkel Air Base, delivered by F-16 MLUs and F-35As.
  • Up to 50 B61s at Turkiye’s Incirlik Air Base, deployed by unspecified US military aircraft.

Poland has expressed readiness to host US nukes under the Nuclear Sharing program. It’s likely the bombs would be deployed at Lask Air Base, central Poland, where the US Air Force has a forward presence, and has already participated in nuclear drilling.

The B61 has been in production since the 1960s, with over 3,000 bombs of 13 different variants created. Today, the arsenal consists mostly of B61 Mod 3 and Mod 4 gravity bombs, according to the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. Produced since 1979, these weapons have a yield between 0.3-170 kt (Mod 3) and 0.3-45 kt (Mod 4). A Mod 7 variant also exists, with a yield between 10-340 kt.

Work is underway to replace all three with the Mod 12, which has a 0.3-50 kt yield. Production began in 2021, and 400-500 bombs are expected, according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

What are the Risks Associated With Nuclear Sharing?

While B61s are tactical weapons, that doesn’t make them less dangerous than their strategic cousins, in light of the US nuclear doctrine’s allowance for nuke use in a first strike, even against “non-nuclear weapons states,” in certain circumstances. The bombs that devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 had yields of 15 and 21 kt, respectively.

The deployment of US nuclear weapons abroad frees the Pentagon’s hands for nuclear aggression involving tactical weaponry far beyond America’s home shores.

Nuclear Sharing program nukes are stored in so-called ‘Weapons Storage and Security System’ (WS3) facilities, situated in underground vaults. While info about the facilities, and even basic details on the nukes’ placement is ordinarily kept in strict secrecy, details about risks associated with hosting the weapons do occasionally leak out.

In 2023, the Federation of American Scientists published a photo of a damaged B61 at Volkel Air Base, showing the misshapen nuke on a trolley with one of its stabilizer fins missing. Neither US nor Dutch authorities informed the public of any incidents involving nukes at the base.

FAS researcher Hans M. Kristensen speculated at the time that the weapon was hit with “significant force,” possibly by a vehicle in transit, or “bent out of shape by the weapons elevator of the underground storage vault.” In any event, the incident constituted “the first publicly known case of a recent nuclear weapons accident at an airbase in Europe,” the observer noted.

FAS stressed that while the risks of an accidental detonation was extremely minute, such an eventuality would have risked widespread nuclear contamination.

Nuclear Sharing is also risk for another reason: heightened nuclear danger.

In the 1980s, when the US placed nuclear-armed Pershing and cruise missiles in Western Europe, it sparked the largest mass protests in modern European history, with three million people in Western Europe, and two million elsewhere, protesting the weapons, and for good reason: the deployment forced the USSR to put its nuclear forces on hair trigger alert, nearly sparking an all-out nuclear war in 1983.

October 14, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

French MEP backs Medvedev’s attack on NATO

RT | October 14, 2024

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was stating the “absolute truth” when he took aim at NATO countries and their support for Ukraine in a scathing recent social media post, French MEP Florian Philippot has said.

The European Parliament member was commenting on a post published by Medvedev on Sunday, in which he pointed to the problems that Ukraine’s Western backers are facing with their economies.

“The West has no money to clean up Florida after Hurricane Milton, no money for French farmers, no money to revive the German industry,” Medvedev, who now serves as deputy head of the Russian Security Council, wrote on Telegram.

These countries, however, still have funds to bankroll “a bunch of drunk and crazy” Ukrainians and to produce weapons “to exterminate the Slavs in the military conflict,” he added.

In a post on X, Philippot, who is leader of the Patriots party, wrote that Medvedev “just smashed the NATO countries by throwing absolute truths at them.” Philippot also took aim at French President Emmanuel Macron, saying he is “also taking a beating” for his recent pledge of a “new check for 3 billion to Zelensky.”

Philippot called on Macron to “stop these checks and these arms shipments,” arguing that Medvedev’s remarks are “factually terribly true!”

During a visit last week to a military camp in eastern France to inspect the training of Ukrainian troops, Macron pledged some €3 billion ($3.3 billion) worth of military aid for Kiev this year. Earlier in 2024, French farmers staged massive protests across the country, demanding that preferential trade rules granted to Kiev be lifted and calling for more government support.

In the US, former President Donald Trump last week accused the administration of President Joe Biden of neglecting the survivors of Hurricane Helene in the southeastern part of the country while sending billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Germany, which has emerged as one of Kiev’s top backers, is facing a new recession and its economy is set to contract for a second straight year due to shrinking industrial output, high energy prices, and weak foreign demand, according to reports.

October 14, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Smotrich: Israel’s future is ‘to expand to Damascus’

MEMO | October 13, 2024

Israel’s finance minister Bezalel Smotrich has acknowledged his aim for a Jewish state that not only encompasses all Palestinian territories but also extends to Syria, in the latest such open statement referring to Tel Aviv’s potential pursuit of a ‘Greater Israel’ project.

In an interview for a documentary produced and aired by the French-language channel Arte, titled ‘Israel: Extremists in Power’, Smotrich stated that “I want a Jewish state… that operates according to the values of the Jewish people”.

He was then posed the question of whether Israel aims to extend its sovereignty which currently “starts at the [Mediterranean] sea and ends at the [Jordan] river”, to which he smiled and said “okay, bit by bit”.

Smotrich stated that “it is written that the future of Jerusalem is to expand to Damascus”, adding ominously “only Jerusalem, until Damascus”. The documentary then detailed the Israeli finance minister’s plan – and that of other extremist and right-wing Israelis – to have Israeli statehood extend into Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia.

His comments come at a time when Israel continues to bombard Lebanon and launch its ground invasion, with many illegal Jewish settler groups advocating for Israeli forces to remain in Lebanon and settle the country. Efforts have steadily been made on that front, an example being a childrens’ book which was recently published on the Israeli occupation of Lebanon.

Although the Israeli government itself has kept the scope of its aims on defeating the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah, and has not formally announced any plans to occupy Lebanon and settle Jewish immigrants on newly-conquered territory.

The views of government figures such as Smotrich, however, as well as their significant support base, increasingly ignite concerns that Tel Aviv could potentially possess the goal of expanding Israeli territory in the Middle East via conquest of surrounding Arab states.

October 13, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Netanyahu orders UN to evacuate Lebanon peacekeepers

RT | October 13, 2024

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has demanded that UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres withdraw UNIFIL peacekeepers from southern Lebanon, adding that by remaining there they are “providing a human shield to Hezbollah terrorists.”

In a Hebrew-language video message posted to social media on Sunday, Netanyahu told Guterres “it is time for you to withdraw UNIFIL from Hezbollah strongholds and from the areas of combat.”

“The IDF has repeatedly asked for this, and has been met with repeated refusals, all aimed at providing a human shield to Hezbollah terrorists,” he continued.

UNIFIL, or the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, was formed in 1978 to oversee the withdrawal of Israeli forces to below the so-called ‘blue line’, which separates Lebanon from Israel and the occupied Golan Heights. Headquartered in the town of Naqoura, UNIFIL is currently composed of around 10,000 troops from around 50 countries, who are tasked with monitoring the demilitarization of southern Lebanon between the blue line and the Litani River.

Israel maintains that UNIFIL has done nothing to prevent Hezbollah entrenching itself in this region, while preventing its own forces from responding to the threat. In the weeks since the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) crossed the blue line and entered southern Lebanon, UNIFIL has claimed that Israeli forces have repeatedly hit its bases and outposts.

Four Sri Lankan and Indonesian peacekeepers were injured on Thursday and Friday when Israeli tanks fired on their watchtowers, UNIFIL said. Another was hit by gunfire at Naqoura later on Friday, although UNIFIL said that it could not identify the origin of the fire. IDF bulldozers have demolished UNIFIL walls and bunkers, while a contingent of Irish peacekeepers found themselves surrounded by Israeli tanks earlier this week when they refused the IDF’s demand that they leave their outpost.

Switching to English, Netanyahu told Guterres to “get the UNIFIL forces out of harm’s way. It should be done right now, immediately.”

“Your refusal to evacuate the UNIFIL soldiers makes them hostages of Hezbollah,” he continued, warning that “this endangers both them and the lives of our soldiers.”

UNIFIL has refused to withdraw from its positions, and in a joint statement on Saturday, 40 countries contributing to the mission called on Israel to investigate the attacks on peacekeepers. One day earlier, the leaders of France, Italy, and Spain expressed “outrage” at the attacks, and accused Israel of violating UN Security Council resolution 1701, which states that its forces cannot operate in southern Lebanon.

Netanyahu said that Israel “regrets” injuring the peacekeepers, but added that the “simple and obvious” way to prevent further bloodshed is “just get them out of the danger zone.”

Israel escalated its military campaign against Hezbollah last month, pounding Beirut with a wave of airstrikes including one that killed the group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah. A ground invasion followed, and the death toll in Lebanon currently stands at over 2,100, according to the country’s Health Ministry. The IDF has acknowledged the deaths of two dozen of its soldiers in Lebanon, although Hezbollah insists that the true scale of Israel’s losses is far higher.

October 13, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Stock depletion prompts ‘Israel’ to restrict arms use

Al Mayadeen | October 13, 2024

The Israeli military has adopted a policy of “strict weapons economy” regarding the use of shells and other arms in response to the depletion of ammunition stocks and the global embargo on arms exports to “Israel”, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.

According to Haaretz sources, the Israeli military is now operating under “tight weapons management,” with the authorization for using certain weapons being elevated in some cases to brigade commanders who hold the rank of colonel.

This policy is designed to ensure that senior commanders prioritize weapon usage based on their operational objectives, a responsibility previously handled by lower-ranking officers.

The Israeli military also mentioned that its “ammunition economy” for Iron Dome interceptions began in the second week of the war. However, the current state of ammunition stocks has necessitated further restrictions.

This comes as “Israel” is facing relentless military operations involving rocket, missile, and drone launches by the factions of the Axis of Resistance, namely Hezbollah, the Palestinian Resistance, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, and the Yemeni Armed Forces, since the onset of the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023.

In light of these developments, countries such as the United Kingdom, Germany, and Canada have recently imposed restrictions on arms exports to “Israel”, raising concerns that Israeli-owned companies may not be able to offset these losses.

The devastating number of Palestinian civilians killed due to Israeli attacks on Gaza sparked widespread pressure on several countries to limit their weapons exports to “Israel”, especially after an International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling called on the occupation entity to do everything possible to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza.

In a related context, the Israeli security establishment has expressed concern over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to delay Security Minister Yoav Gallant’s visit to the United States.

Senior officials indicated that Gallant’s planned meetings with US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and other top officials in Washington were intended to discuss “Israel’s” arms requirements and shipments, as well as the potential for an attack on Iran.

Netanyahu postponed Gallant’s trip, insisting on speaking directly with US President Joe Biden before the visit.

A couple of days ago, Netanyahu and Biden held a 30-minute phone call—their first in seven weeks—during which they discussed the possibility of an Israeli attack on Iran, with the Israeli premier seeking to gauge US support and understanding of the situation.

October 13, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Former NATO Secretary General stupidly celebrates his own failure to achieve security

By Lucas Leiroz | Strategic Culture Foundation | October 12, 2024

Jens Stoltenberg is finally no longer the leader. This is not necessarily good news, as the new secretary general appears to be even more bellicose than the previous one and promises policies that could easily lead to strategic disaster in the current tensions between the Atlantic alliance and the Russian Federation. However, it is undeniable that one of the worst administrations in NATO’s history – and the one that came closest to an open confrontation with Moscow – has now ended.

Stoltenberg has recently made a number of statements praising his supposed “achievements” as NATO leader. He claims that under his leadership the alliance has achieved its highest numbers of troops on the eastern flank. Stoltenberg has also acclaimed himself for his success in allowing countries such as Finland and Sweden to join NATO as well as significantly expanding the number of troops on combat readiness for the event of a war.

In fact, Stoltenberg seems to be delighting over his own failure. It was under him that NATO saw the start of the continent’s biggest conflict since the World Wars in Europe, reaching a critical point in the regional security architecture. These tensions, which could at any moment escalate to the level of an open war with direct Western involvement, are precisely the consequence of the irresponsible policies implemented during Stoltenberg’s disastrous administration.

NATO’s expansion into Eastern Europe, both in terms of new members and available troops, is not something to be celebrated, but rather lamented. It was precisely this expansion that led to the current conflict. If Stoltenberg were indeed a rational, prudent leader with a strong strategic sense, he would have been able to use diplomacy with the member countries and negotiate a de-escalation of the suicidal policy of “containment” against Russia. But, on the contrary, Stoltenberg endorsed all this and was active in worsening the Ukraine crisis, contributing significantly to the escalation of tensions and the beginning of the current war.

More than that, he failed to stop the warmongering of the member states, allowing NATO to begin full support for the Kiev regime. This support is now at its most critical point, as the alliance’s countries are close to authorizing the use of long-range weapons against Russian civilian targets – which could lead to a nuclear world war. Stoltenberg, even now out of office, is partly to blame for this, as it was under his administration that this anti-Russian madness was launched by NATO.

Furthermore, it must be emphasized that the alliance has never been so fragile. Contrary to what Western war propaganda claims, anti-Russian policies are not strategically beneficial for NATO. On the contrary, in addition to threatening global peace, these measures put the very stability of the alliance at risk. NATO is not “stronger and more united than ever,” as the former secretary general says, but at its most fragile and delicate phase in history.

On the battlefield, Russian forces destroy NATO equipment – and troops disguised as “mercenaries” – every day. The U.S. and Europe no longer have the capacity to continue supporting Kiev continuously, given the large number of losses on the front lines, but at the same time, the alliance is unable to end this support, falling into a vicious cycle of violence and defeats. In addition, countries dissatisfied with the situation, such as Hungary and Slovakia, are already beginning to create a dissident position within NATO itself, threatening the bloc’s long-term stability.

In the end, it was under Stoltenberg that NATO, pursuing irrational “expansion to the East,” reached its current stage of weakness, demoralization, and disunity. And, to make matters even more catastrophic, an open world war could yet emerge as a belated consequence of NATO’s actions over the past ten years.

Instead of celebrating his own failure as a leader, Stoltenberg should simply be grateful that he had the opportunity to leave office before the worst-case scenario arose.

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October 12, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

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