Opposition to Further Ukraine Aid Growing Among US House Republicans – Reports
Sputnik – 15.09.2023
WASHINGTON – Opposition to providing more US aid to Ukraine is growing among Republican members of the House of Representatives, an American news agency reported on Friday.
An increasing number of Republican lawmakers, including some so-called moderates, are opposing the addition of further aid to Ukraine as part of a government funding measure slated for a vote later this month, the report stated, citing several Republican lawmakers.
Not just the Freedom Caucus of conservative Republicans, but there are many lawmakers who are concerned with potential additional funding, the report cited US Congresswoman Lisa McClain as saying.
Congress is set to vote on a continuing resolution before the end of September to temporarily fund the US government and avoid a shutdown. The Senate is seeking to include additional aid for Ukraine in the legislation.
Meanwhile, more and more House Republicans come out against further transfers of taxpayer dollars and military equipment to Ukraine.
US Congressman Andy Biggs vowed not to support a new Ukraine aid package and expressed doubt that any such measure would reach the House floor soon, the report said. Biggs pointed out, however, that there still may be enough votes to advance additional aid to Ukraine given the presence of many “war hawks” in Congress, the report said.
US Congresswoman Nancy Mace emphasized that the US House has many other issues to address ahead of further Ukraine funding, the news agency stated.
US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has previously vowed to stop writing “blank checks” to Ukraine and is seeking to detach aid for Ukraine from the spending bill as well as hold a separate vote on it instead, media reported earlier.
In addition to working on passing a spending measure by the end of the month, McCarthy also recently announced an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.
The Biden administration has repeatedly expressed confidence in lasting bipartisan support for Ukraine in Congress and in the lawmakers’ ability to pass more aid packages.
Blinken openly endorses Kiev regime’s attacks on Russia with US-made missiles
By Drago Bosnic | September 15, 2023
As we all know, American involvement in Ukraine is crucial. The United States initiated the war back in 2014 after decades of setting it up by financing the most radical elements of the Ukrainian society, resulting in their takeover of the unfortunate country after the Maidan coup. Since then, the US has been modernizing and training the Kiev regime forces. The culmination of this process was prevented by Russia’s counteroffensive, which forced the political West to invest enormous resources just to keep the Neo-Nazi junta afloat. Since the start of the special military operation (SMO), the political West has been doing everything in its power to keep escalating the conflict.
What started out as deliveries of various types of ATGMs (anti-tank guided missiles) and MANPADS (man-portable air defense systems) soon turned into full-blown support for the Kiev regime through massive shipments of modernized Warsaw Pact-era weapons (tanks, artillery, rockets, helicopters, fighter jets, etc). These were then complemented by NATO and US-made weapons and munitions, the deliveries of which keep escalating to ever more dangerous and longer-range missiles and other systems. All the while, Western officials are parroting meaningless “assurances” that they supposedly “don’t want escalation with Moscow”. Obviously, the exact opposite has been happening.
These schizophrenic tendencies are not subsiding in the slightest, as evidenced by recent comments made by Antony Blinken, the Secretary of State in the troubled Biden administration. During an interview with ABC News on September 10, Blinken stated that it was supposedly “up to Ukraine” whether or not it should target Russia proper with US-made long-range weapons. The idea that the Kiev regime could ever make such a decision on its own is beyond laughable, which means that it’s the belligerent thalassocracy itself that ordered the Neo-Nazi junta to target civilian and military targets within Russia. Blinken’s statement came only a day after ABC News reported that the US would provide the ATACMS to the Kiev regime.
The MGM-140 ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile System) is a US-made supersonic tactical/theater ballistic missile system with a maximum range of approximately 300 km. While its range and maximum speed of Mach 3 don’t exactly make it a revolutionary weapon (for instance, Russia’s “Iskander” has twice the range and speed), this is still enough to jeopardize Russian supply lines, as well as civilian settlements deeper within Moscow’s territory. The ATACMS can also be fired from the tracked M270 MLRS (Multiple Launch Rocket System), as well as the wheeled M142 HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System), both of which have been delivered to the Neo-Nazi junta forces well over a year ago.
The system comes in five variants of missiles developed since the 1990s. The basic M39 (ATACMS Block I) uses INS (inertial navigation system) and carries 950 M74 APAM (anti-personnel and anti‑materiel) bomblets. Its range is up to 165 km. Production ceased in 1997.
It was replaced by the M39A1 (ATACMS Block IA) with improved GPS guidance. In part due to its smaller warhead carrying 300 M74 APAM bomblets, the range was extended to 300 km. Production ended in 2003.
The M48 (ATACMS Quick Reaction Unitary or simply QRU) GPS-guided missile carries the WDU-18/B penetrating high explosive blast fragmentation warhead found on the “Harpoon” anti-ship missile, only repackaged into the newly designed WAU-23/B warhead section. Its range is also estimated at up to 300 km. Production ceased in 2004.
The updated M57 (ATACMS TACMS 2000) GPS-guided missile of the same range also uses the WAU-23/B, but its production ended in 2013. It sports an increased accuracy of 9 m CEP (circular error probability), but was soon complemented by the enhanced M57E1.
The M57E1 (ATACMS Modification or just MOD) is also GPS-guided and is essentially an upgraded M39/M39A1 with better propulsion, updated guidance and WAU-23/B instead of the M74 APAM bomblets. It also includes a proximity sensor for airburst detonation, which is particularly deadly against infantry and civilians. Production started in 2017.
As previously mentioned, such weapons are not exactly groundbreaking for the Russian military that possesses far more potent missiles, both ground-based and air-launched, but the real issue comes from the fact that the political West is providing the necessary ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) data. This is a significant force multiplier that can make even a relatively mediocre weapon such as the ATACMS more dangerous. Moscow is doing its best to keep the scope of the SMO localized, but NATO continues to escalate, as evidenced by the resurgent presence of its ISR platforms around Russia’s borders, particularly in the Black Sea, which puts the Eurasian giant’s naval forces deployed there in jeopardy.
The Russian military already shot down some of NATO’s ISR platforms, resulting in several months of pause in flights close to the SMO zone. However, the belligerent alliance recently restarted this highly destabilizing practice. Moscow is perfectly aware that the political West controls the Kiev regime’s targeting, even issuing orders which Russian assets are to be attacked. The sole reason why Russia hasn’t responded by shooting down all NATO ISR platforms in relative vicinity of its forces is that it wants to avoid escalating the conflict into a world-ending thermonuclear confrontation. However, the US-led political West sees this as a weakness and an opportunity to test Russian patience, which is slowly running out.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
Ukraine joining NATO ‘would not promote peace’ – ex-French president
RT | September 13, 2023
Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has warned that Ukrainian membership of NATO and the EU “would not promote peace” and would be perceived as a “provocation” by Russia.
Speaking to French news station BFMTV on Wednesday, Sarkozy argued it is in Kiev’s best interests to remain “neutral” regarding Western blocs. The former leader also insisted that diplomacy with Moscow remains the most prudent option for Ukraine to end the current conflict.
“Bringing Ukraine into NATO would not promote peace,” said Sarkozy, who served as French president between 2007 and 2012.
NATO leaders declared at a summit in Lithuania in July that the bloc would only invite Ukraine to become a member “when allies agree and conditions are met.” NATO had already denied Kiev’s calls for a “fast-track” to full membership in September of 2022.
Moscow has frequently expressed its opposition to NATO’s eastward expansion. President Vladimir Putin cited the bloc’s involvement in Ukraine as among the key reasons when Moscow began its military operation against Kiev last year.
Ukraine has also pursued EU membership and was granted formal candidate status in 2022. In June, sources within the bloc told Reuters that Kiev currently meets two of the seven conditions required to be considered for full membership.
Rather than chasing closer ties with the West, Sarkozy told BFMTV there are “two solutions” available to Ukraine and its allies to bring an end to the hostilities. The first, he claimed, is the “annihilation” of Russia – before explaining that this is unrealistic because “we are not going to wipe out the second nuclear power in the world, or the world risks falling into total war.”
According to Sarkozy, a more achievable scenario is “diplomatic discussion.” The former president stated that his experience had given him a clear view of what can be achieved over the negotiating table. “They tell me Putin has changed and [that] we cannot have discussions with him,” Sarkozy said. “Those who say that are generally those who have never met him.”
Sarkozy reiterated to BFMTV his stance that Ukraine should pursue firm neutrality in its relationships with Russia and the West, arguing: “When you wave the muleta under the bull’s nose, you shouldn’t be surprised if he attacks.”
Sarkozy’s comments follow the backlash he received for an interview with French publication Le Figaro last month, in which he said Kiev should disregard joining NATO or the EU in favor of “an international agreement providing it with extremely strong security assurances to protect it against any risk.”
Medical chief of Ukrainian Far-Right unit admits “huge losses” on the frontline
By Ahmed Adel | September 14, 2023
The head of the medical service of the Far-Right unit Da Vinci’s Wolves of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Alina Mykhailova, spoke about the difficult situation and, even more surprisingly, admitted to huge losses on the front.
“We are suffering great losses. There is no romance in this. What is happening at the front now is something you will not read in the news,” she said in an interview with Ukrainian media on September 12.
Mykhailova added that for the first time in her life, she was ready to give up absolutely everything and talk to anyone so that her battalion would survive. She also admitted that there is no prospect of a Ukrainian victory in the near future.
“The population is very calm with statements that today or tomorrow there will be victory. It will not happen today, nor tomorrow, nor, unfortunately, in a year,” Mykhailova, who is also a deputy in the Kiev City Council, concluded.
Since the beginning of June, the Ukrainian military has been conducting a counteroffensive in Donetsk, Artyomovsk and Zaporozhye with NATO-trained brigades and Western military equipment. However, they have achieved no success.
Although Mykhailova did not give a casualty figure, Russian President Vladimir Putin recently revealed that the counteroffensive has stalled and led to over 75,500 Ukrainian casualties – shocking for only four months of active combat. Many American and European journalists and military experts also argue that Kiev’s counteroffensive failed and noted the effectiveness of Russian defences.
US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley pointed out on September 10 that Ukraine may only have about 30-45 days of fighting left. However, despite this small timeframe left in the regular fighting season and the huge losses suffered by Kiev, the US and NATO are not fazed and continue to send more military shipments and money into the financial blackhole that Ukraine has become.
The Ukrainian military will be unable to advance any further from their already paltry gains once the season changes. Ukraine and the West have exhausted their ammunition stockpile, and they cannot get supplies quickly enough. Effectively, the Ukrainians cannot do much at this point, even if they want to.
Despite the Ukrainians not being able to do much at this point, as affirmed by Mykhailova, it did not prevent Milley from falsely claiming, “There’s still a reasonable amount of time, probably about 30 to 45 days’ worth of fighting weather left, so the Ukrainians aren’t done. There’s battles not done… they haven’t finished the fighting part of what they’re trying to accomplish.”
The West wants to see the offensive continue even though it has very evidently failed. For this reason, the US continues to increase aid even further, and the indications are that the West will continue this or at least try to sustain it.
US President Joe Biden has provided Kiev with $43.7 billion in military aid since Russia launched its special military operation in Ukraine, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. Recently, the US announced a new security package worth $600 million for Ukraine, which will include ammunition and anti-aircraft equipment.
By providing such equipment, Washington hopes to coerce Kiev to continue the offensive for another 30 days, perhaps even through the winter. For this reason, there has been a huge uptick in rhetoric about Ukraine supposedly breaking Russia’s first line of defence and making slow but steady gains. None of this corresponds with reality.
In the US, most people do not support the current policy of sending more money down the drain in Ukraine. Considering the 2024 presidential election, the Biden administration is under domestic pressure from a chorus of voices calling for a focus on domestic issues. This could be part of the West’s attempt to transfer responsibility for the failure of the counteroffensive to Ukraine itself.
The US has brazenly admitted it worked with the Ukrainians to plan the offensive for months, arming and training the military. Now, the West is criticising Ukraine for its failures.
As US elections are looming and Ukraine cannot win the war, the Biden administration needs to shift the blame and is pinning it directly on the Eastern European country. This demonstrates the confused nature of US policy as, on one hand, it is encouraging Ukraine to continue fighting by sending more weapons and money, but at the same time, narratives are being concocted to explain to US voters why billions of dollars have been wasted on a lost cause. Meanwhile, as Mykhailova highlighted, “there is no romance,” nor any victory for Ukraine through this war.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
Decrepit Britain… Schools Collapsing and Challenger Tanks Blown to Smithereens
By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | September 13, 2023
Britain’s schools are not just out for summer. Autumn too, apparently. Hundreds of schools across England are being forced to close because they are in danger of falling down on the heads of children. That issue alone says a lot about the decrepit condition of Britain today.
Added to this embarrassing blow to British prestige is the reported destruction of its Challenger 2 main battlefield tank deployed with great fanfare in Ukraine earlier this year.
The supposedly invincible tank was first stopped in its tracks by a Russian mine, and then the turret was promptly blown off by an incoming Russian Kornet missile. It is thought to be first time, the Challenger 2 has been so visibly destroyed. Even the BBC’s reporting couldn’t cover up the shock from such a blow to presumed British military prowess.
In previous deployments during Britain’s criminal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Challengers were up against militarily weaker opponents. They earned an overblown reputation as robust fighting machines. Now up against withering Russian firepower, the British equipment is under more testing conditions – and not faring so well.
Thus, it was a bad week alright for Britain. Schools crumbling from cheap concrete structures and then the formidable Challenger tank being pummeled like a cardboard box under Russian attack.
Interestingly, there is a bodily connection to the seemingly unrelated British misfortunes in the form of Rishi Sunak, Britain’s unelected prime minister. He took over 10 Downing Street last October after his predecessor Liz Truss was ousted due to her gaping incompetence. Truss was only in the job a matter of weeks having taken over from Boris Johnson who was forced to quit over endless corruption scandals.
Sunak, a wealthy heir of Indian heritage whose super-wealthy Indian wife doesn’t pay her taxes in Britain, was shoe-horned into the prime minister job as part of a Tory Party shake-up. He wasn’t elected by the public for his present office. That’s British democracy for you!
As prime minister, Sunak made the decision in January this year to send Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine. The move was seen as a bold escalation and prompted other members of the NATO alliance to send heavier weapons to the Kiev regime. It was followed by Germany supplying its Leopard 2 tanks, the French donating AMX-10s, and there’s talk of the Americans eventually sending their M1 Abrams.
Sunak hailed his decision to donate 14 of Britain’s supposedly finest hardware as a game-changer that would allow Ukrainian forces to advance against Russian lines.
However, eight months later, the purported British game-changer has given the Ukrainian military no gains, neither have the German Leopard 2 tanks, nor all of the other sundry NATO “wonder weapons”.
Indeed, by nearly all accounts, the NATO-backed Ukrainian counteroffensive is rapidly turning from failure to disaster as troops and equipment get decimated by superior Russian firepower. Even former British army officers are acknowledging the disastrous defeat on the battlefield.
Under the unelected Sunak, Britain has pledged a total of £4.6 billion ($5.7 bn) in military aid to Ukraine. Britain is the second biggest sponsor of the Kiev Nazi regime after the United States, which has committed about $44 billion in military supplies to Ukraine.
Now get this. While Sunak has readily green lighted the supply of Challenger 2 tanks, as well as depleted uranium shells, Storm Shadow cruise missiles and RAF spy and fighter planes to the Black Sea, his personal neglect of school restoration projects in England has put hundreds of institutions at risk of collapsing.
Before his Tory Party appointment as prime minister, Sunak was Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, which is also known as the treasury minister. By tradition, the British chancellor resides in No. 11 Downing Street. It is seen as the second-most powerful political office after the prime minister owing to the fact that the chancellor controls the budgets for all other government departments.
While he was in the chancellor job during 2020-22, Sunak slashed funding for the repair of schools by nearly 50 percent. That was in spite of warnings from educational expert committees that a crisis was looming from dilapidated concrete structures. That crisis is now manifesting with the forced closure of over 100 schools across England as the new academic year begins this month. It has become a national scandal owing to fears that pupils’ and teachers’ lives are at risk from collapsing walls and roofs.
Rich boy Rishi Sunak can directly take the blame for much of the scandal even if he tries to worm his way out of accepting responsibility.
This guy like many other Western political leaders is a charlatan and a pathetic Yes-Man for the U.S.-led proxy war against Russia in Ukraine.
Sunak likes to wear tween friendship bracelets on his wrist and he is prone to giving Hindu peace signs when in public.
Meanwhile, in reality, the ultra-privileged occupant in Downing Street signs off billions of dollars worth of weaponry to Ukraine, paid for by the British taxpayers through relentless cuts in their public services, incomes and social conditions. War and poverty go hand-in-hand in Britain.
It is estimated that to rectify Britain’s decaying schools it would cost around $1 billion, which is about a fifth of what Sunak has pledged in military aid to Ukraine. And yet this warmongering charlatan is not even accountable to British citizens.
Evidently, the unelected British prime minister views the funding of a futile, bloody overseas war – which could spiral into a nuclear world war – as more of a priority than the education and safety of British children. Dare we say that’s because he is not a democratically elected leader. He is an abject vassal of American imperialism. Many of his predecessors in Downing Street could be said to have been of the same cringemaking weakness. But the incumbent and unaccountable Sunak is absolutely shameless.
The obscene misallocation of public funds by an unelected prime minister says everything about decrepit Britain. It’s a democracy only in name and even that has become a stretch.
EU states tell Zelensky they won’t hand over draft dodgers
RT | September 13, 2023
The Czech Republic announced on Wednesday that it would not send military-age men who arrived as refugees back to Ukraine to be conscripted. Germany, Austria and Hungary have already made similar declarations.
European conventions exclude extradition for charges such as desertion or draft evasion, Czech Justice Ministry spokesman Vladimir Repka told the outlet iDnes. However, he added that if Ukraine files individual extradition requests citing a specific criminal act they may have committed, Prague may give them more consideration.
Hungary has ruled out any extraditions outright.
“We are not investigating any Ukrainian refugees to determine if they have been called up for military service. Hungary will not extradite them to Ukraine,” Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjén told the outlet ATV on Wednesday. “All refugees from Ukraine are safe in Hungary.”
German officials who spoke to state broadcaster Deutsche Welle earlier this week said that Berlin did not intend to send draft-eligible refugees back, since desertion and draft evasion are not crimes under German law. There are over 123,000 Ukrainian men of military age who are in Germany as refugees, according to official estimates.
Austria was the first to refuse extradition of military-age men. There are about 14,000 potential draftees among the 101,000 Ukrainian refugees in the country.
“That would be a massive encroachment on our statehood, we would never do that,” a spokesman for the Interior Ministry told the outlet Exxpress on September 7.
On the other hand, Poland has already begun sending some Ukrainian men back, according to Hungarian media reports.
A senior lawmaker from President Vladimir Zelensky’s ruling party said in late August that Ukraine might seek extradition of draft-dodgers from the EU. The government in Kiev recently announced another round of mobilization in order to make up battlefield losses, which Russian President Vladimir Putin estimated at over 70,000 in the past three months of heavy fighting.
Zelensky fired all draft commissioners last month and ordered a review of all medical exemptions from military service, citing widespread corruption. New rules were adopted allowing for the conscription of people with mental disorders, chronic diseases, tuberculosis and HIV.
US, Bahrain to Sign Strategic Security and Economic Agreement
By Connor Freeman | The Libertarian Institute | September 11, 2023
The US and Bahrain will ink a deal to upgrade the two nations’ strategic partnership this week, according to Axios. One source briefed on the issue said the White House hopes to use this deal as a framework for other regional agreements. The Joe Biden administration is currently striving to induce Riyadh into normalizing with apartheid Israel.
Washington and Manama have a strong partnership, the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet is headquartered at a large base in Bahrain. Since 2002, the Gulf Kingdom has been a major non-NATO ally of the United States, though this does not include a security commitment.
Two sources familiar with the upcoming deal told Axios, “[it] includes a commitment to consult and provide assistance if Bahrain faces an imminent security threat.” Another source explained that the deal outlines an economic partnership between the two countries, and cooperation involving “trusted technologies.”
Though legally binding, the security commitment will fall short of the NATO-style Article 5 guarantee which Riyadh is reportedly seeking in exchange for normalizing ties with Tel Aviv. Bahrain likely desired a bolstered commitment because of the threat of war with Iran.
However, in March, Beijing achieved a diplomatic feat by brokering a peace deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran. This has sparked a regional realignment with Iran’s ally Damascus being welcomed back into the Arab League after being suspended for more than a decade.
The report says Bahrain’s Crown Prince and Prime Minister Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa is expected to sign the deal during a visit to Washington this week where he will be meeting with Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan.
Last week, Brett McGurk, Biden’s top Middle East official on the National Security Council, visited Bahrain for meetings, discussing the final details of this new agreement, with the Crown Prince as well as other officials.
Bahrain is also a signatory of the Abraham Accords which is a thinly veiled foundation for a regional military coalition led by the US and Israel eyeing Iran. Under the accords, Gulf dictatorships such as Bahrain recognize Israel – absent a Palestinian state or end to the apartheid regime – and in turn receive increased access to advanced weapon systems manufactured by the US military-industrial complex. Washington is attempting to exploit the arms deals as a way of securing concessions from regional countries, namely downgrading economic ties with China.
Recent polling has shown that as a result of Israeli massacres and war crimes committed against the occupied Palestinians, the Abraham Accords are becoming increasingly unpopular among the populace in signatory states including Bahrain and the UAE. During recent months, the US has expanded its military presence in the Persian Gulf and the Middle East in preparation for a confrontation with Tehran. This weekend, David Barnea, the chief of the Israeli Mossad, declared Tel Aviv will launch another assassination campaign within the Islamic Republic.
Why Are We in Niger?
By Ron Paul | September 11, 2023
The July military coup in the west African country of Niger has once again brought attention to the fact that the US government runs a global military empire that serves Washington’s special interests, and not the national interest.
Before the coup made news headlines, most Americans – including many serving in Congress – had no idea the US government maintains more than 1,000 troops stationed on several US bases in Niger. But it’s even worse than that. A recent report in The Intercept suggests the Pentagon repeatedly misled Congress about the extent and the cost of the US presence in Niger.
According to The Intercept, “in testimony before the House and Senate Armed Services Committees in March, the chief of US Africa Command described Air Base 201 (in Niger) as ‘minimal’ and ‘low cost.’” In fact the US government has spent a quarter of a billion dollars on the base since construction began in 2016.
So when did Congress declare war so as to legalize US military operations in Niger? They didn’t. But as Kelley Vlahos writes in Responsible Statecraft, US troops have been “training” the military in Niger since 2013 and the US government has constructed a number of military bases to “fight terrorism” in the country and region.
Does that mean that the Pentagon is operating in Niger under the 2001 authorization for the use of military force (AUMF) meant to track down those who attacked the US on 9/11? It’s a good question and thankfully one being asked by Sen. Rand Paul in a recent letter sent to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.
Senator Paul first pointed out in the letter, “the Administration’s limitless interpretation of the 9/11 AUMF and frequent use of Title 10 authorities results in military operations abroad conducted with little Congressional oversight and even less public scrutiny.” Such actions “undermine our Constitution,” he writes as he asks, “in how many countries are US forces conducting operations authorized by the 2001 AUMF.”
Ironically – or maybe not – one of the coup leaders in NIger had been trained by the Pentagon at Ft. Benning, Georgia, and at the National Defense University in Washington, DC. What is the US government training foreign military officers to do, exactly? Overthrow their own governments?
Whatever the case, it appears the coup government in Niger may be seeking a withdrawal of foreign military on its soil. Mass protests against French military presence has led the French government to begin talks with the coup government on withdrawal. There are rumors that the coup government may next request US troops to leave the country.
We should pre-empt their possible request by withdrawing all US troops immediately from Niger (and the rest of Africa) and closing all military bases. The claim that the US government is fighting terrorism in the area is doubtful. After all, in both Libya and in Syria the US government backed terrorist groups against governments it sought to overthrow. President Biden’s national security advisor Jake Sullivan famously wrote to his then-boss Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2012 that, “in Syria, al-Qaeda is on our side.”
Congress must step up and exercise its oversight authority to end the counter-productive US military presence in Africa. Our military empire is bankrupting us and turning the rest of the world against us.
Copyright © 2023 by RonPaul Institute
Pentagon Misleads Congress About Number of Bases in Africa
By James Tweedie – Sputnik – 12.09.2023
The US military maintains a string of bases spanning the Sahel region of Africa. Tunde Osazua, coordinator of the US Out of Africa Network — part of the Black Alliance for Peace — said they amounted to a military occupation of the continent.
The US Department of Defense has lied to Congress about its shady activities in Africa — funded by taxpayers. Peace campaigner Tunde Osazua told Sputnik that the US Department of Defense was not coming clean to legislators about its network of bases across the continent.
Osazua explained that General Michael Langley, commander of the US Africa Command (AFRICOM), had briefed Congress on the military’s facilities in Africa, including the ‘enduring forward operating sites’ at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti and the Cat Hill air base on Ascension Island, the tiny British South Atlantic colony, along with 12 other “posture locations”.
“He claimed that those locations have minimal permanent US presence and low cost facilities and limited supplies for the US forces The soldiers and their personnel are there to perform critical missions and quickly respond to emergencies,” he noted.
“Experts say that he misled Congress, that AFRICOM’s chief basically lied about the size and the scope of the US presence on the African continent,” Osazua said. “Instead of 12 posture locations there are no less than 18 outposts in addition to Camp Lemonnier.”
“This is according to what AFRICOM itself released in its own secret 2022 Theater Posture Plan, which I think might even understate the current footprint of AFRICOM on the continent.” In fact, peace group World Beyond War has listed around 55 US military installations in Africa, he pointed out.
The anti-imperialist campaigner said the Pentagon was “essentially lying to Congress about this.”
“They’re trying to say that they’re doing a lot with very few resources when there’s a lot of funding for… what is military occupation,” Osazua said. “it’s clear that the US military activity on the continent is extensive. A few years ago a report came out that said that there are close to 3,500 missions per year that the AFRICOM takes part in on the continent. That’s close to ten missions a day.”
The commentator noted that the west African state of Niger had become “a particular point of focus” since the recent military takeover, with former colonial power France refusing to evacuate its troops and embassy and some of its compliant governments in the region threatening military intervention.
AFRICOM’s Airbase 201 is also in Niger, featuring a 6,200-foot runway taxiways, hangars, living quarters, roads, utilities, munitions, storage, an aircraft rescue and firefighting station — all within a 25-kilometer security zone.
But Osazua stressed “how the people and the government have responded to US and French military presence on their soil, which again amounts to a basically military occupation.”
Musk threatened with investigation for blocking Ukrainian attack
Elizabeth Warren speaks during a Senate Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington DC, April 27, 2023 © AP / Jose Luis Magana
RT | September 12, 2023
US Senator Elizabeth Warren has called on Congress to investigate Elon Musk over his refusal to enable a Ukrainian drone attack on the Russian naval fleet in Crimea. Despite condemnation in Washington, Musk has defended his decision to cut satellite service to the Ukrainian military.
“The Congress needs to investigate what’s happened here and whether we have adequate tools to make sure foreign policy is conducted by the government and not by one billionaire,” Warren told reporters at the US Capitol on Monday.
Musk and other Big Tech CEOs are due to meet with US lawmakers to discuss artificial intelligence on Wednesday. However, the subject of the hearing has been overshadowed by news that Musk intervened last year to prevent six Ukrainian naval drones from hitting Russian ships at the Crimean port of Sevastopol.
The Ukrainian military had been using SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service for communications and guidance since the beginning of the conflict with Russia. When Musk learned that the drones were en route to Sevastopol, he ordered SpaceX engineers to shut down the service within 100km of the Russian peninsula, CNN reported on Thursday, quoting an upcoming biography of the billionaire.
As a result, the drones “lost connectivity and washed ashore harmlessly,” the report claimed. Ukrainian Digital Transformation Minister Mikhail Fedorov then begged Musk to turn the signal back on via text messages, but Musk refused.
“If I had agreed to their request, then SpaceX would be explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation,” the billionaire explained last week, adding that he never allowed the service to be activated near Crimea in the first place.
Musk’s explanation caused outrage in Kiev, with President Vladimir Zelensky’s top aide accusing the SpaceX CEO of “committing evil.” In the US, CNN anchor Jake Tapper argued on Sunday that Musk had “effectively sabotaged” an American ally, and asked US Secretary of State Antony Blinken if he should face “repercussions” for thwarting the attack.
Blinken refused to condemn Musk, but several members of Congress have spoken out against the billionaire. Musk “cannot have the last word when it comes to national security,” Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jack Reed told reporters on Monday.
At the time of the thwarted attack, Musk was bankrolling Ukraine’s access to the Starlink network. The Pentagon has since stepped in to partly fund the program, and Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said on Monday that future contracts between the military and private firms like SpaceX will likely include “assurances” that these technologies can be used for offensive purposes.
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The silver that medicine dropped — four thousand years of clinical use, four decades to erase.
Colloidal Silver — First Edition, 2026, Paperback
Lies are Unbekoming | October 16, 2026
Silver was medicine. Not alternative medicine. Not folk medicine. Medicine. In surgery. In obstetrics. In the burn ward. In water treatment. In the household medicine chest. Every physician before 1938 knew this.
By the 1870s, silver nitrate was standard in surgical wound care across the leading hospitals of Britain, Germany, and the United States. Colloidal silver preparations — Collargol, Argyrol, Protargol — entered European and American practice through the 1890s and early 1900s and became standard antiseptics in military field medicine. By the time Fleming grew his first penicillin mould in 1928, silver was the first-line antimicrobial of the Western pharmacopoeia. The Lancet and the British Medical Journal carried the clinical reports in volume. The practice ran continuously through the Victorian era, the Edwardian era, the First World War, the interwar period. By 1980, almost all of it was gone.
What has not been treated at book length, until now, is how a four-thousand-year clinical record disappeared from mainstream medicine within four decades of the Flexner Report — and what the honest account of silver looks like once that record is reassembled.
Colloidal Silver reconstructs the pre-1938 record from The Lancet, the British Medical Journal, and the primary literature of the era; recovers Robert Becker’s bioelectric framework from the regeneration research the pharmaceutical model buried; and places silver inside a practical terrain-paradigm guide to its current place — in water, on the body, inside the body, and in the chronic conditions where antibiotics have failed. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Pharma- and Gates-Funded GAVI Seeks to Assure Parents
- John Mearsheimer Talking Iran with Iran
- Inside Bill C-22, Canada’s Patriot Act.
- China’s FM: Palestinian cause is ‘greatest injustice of the century’
- US sympathy for Palestinians surpasses support for Israelis
- Israeli rabbi permits occupiers to steal Palestinian olive harvest in West Bank
- Spanish firm sells Latvia vehicles equipped with Israeli tech despite arms embargo
- Saudi Arabia under fire… Yemen is burning down the House of Saud
- Israeli Spy Pollard stole the files, today’s it’s delivered through official channels
- Why Iran Didn’t Walk Away
- If Americans Knew
- NPR investigation finds evidence of widespread fraud at mall kiosks tied to Israeli skincare brand
- Tucker Carlson exposes Israeli Lies about the Oct 7th attack, Charlie Kirk, and the U.S.
- Israel has detained thousands of Palestinian children since Oct 7th – over half spent time in solitary, many uncharged
- Israeli Analysis: Is Netanyahu Planning an ‘October Surprise’ Attack Before Israel’s Election?
- Israeli settlers brutally attack Palestinians and Washington Post female photographer, 65
- Words Have Changed, Occupation Continues: The Reality of the Gaza Ceasefire
- Gaza’s child amputees are growing faster than their prosthetics allow
- Israel keeps Palestinians struggling just to survive–Daily Update
- Israeli firm used online ads to run vast spy operation, researchers say
- No, the world zionist movement is not an antisemitic conspiracy theory
- No Tricks Zone
- New Study Suggests Large Regions Of The Pacific Ocean Have Been Cooling For The Last 80 Years
- Germany’s Green Energy Debacle: High Energy Costs Force Kahla Porzellan to Close After 182 Years!
- New Study: 50 Years Of The Most Aggressive ‘Net Zero’ Policies Can Only Affect The Global Climate By 0.03°C
- US September “Heat” Was No Record…Many Records Set Decades Ago
- Latest European Green Energy Debacle; Portugal’s Largest Flagship Solar Park Insolvent!
- Green Energy Debacle: German Expert Professor Fritz Vahrenholt Warns Of Severe Economic And Social Consequences
- Two More Paleo Reconstructions Affirm Meters-Higher Sea Levels Across Ireland, Brazil 7000-6000 Years Ago
- New Study: Earth And Venus Surface Warmth Largely Explained By Convection And Lapse Rate, Not CO2 Or Radiation
- 2025 Nature Paper Claiming Worsening Global Drought Gets RETRACTED …Heavily Flawed
- New Study: ‘Global Drought Shows No Detectable Recent Acceleration Under Climate Warming’
