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Of Cool Heads and Hot Heads

By Philip Kraske • Unz Review • September 29, 2024

Ever more desperate, Israel is working hard to start a world war with the United States on its side. The elimination of Hassan Nasrallah won’t make much difference to Hezbollah’s fight; the new leader will soon step up. But Israel might regret the absence of the cool-headed Nasrallah.

Cool-headedness has actually been the norm this past year, and is among the few hopeful notes on the international scene. Lots of leaders are keeping calm, holding back the factions in their governments that would love to take a crack at the folks thumbing their military noses at them.

China merely tut-tuts about foreign navy ships traversing the Strait of Taiwan, Hezbollah keeps its big missiles in their silos, Iran responds to Israeli attacks with a few half-hearted firecrackers, and Vladimir Putin frowns and issues warning after warning when Ukraine, with Nato help, hits Russian refineries and radar installations. Meanwhile Egypt, Jordan, Iran, Syria, and Turkey — and I’ve probably missed a few — itch to put holes in Israeli runways.

But restraint is the watchword. Unlike before World War One, when governments decided to declare war from one day to the next, countries are looking before they leap. Why? To what do the world’s citizens owe this clear shift to reluctance among national leaders to jump into conflict? It’s often been observed that nuclear weapons have kept the peace among the great powers. Nowadays, however, other elements keep the peace just as well. Here are the three most important ones.

The first is economic. It’s true that capitalist consumerism has atomized the citizenry, but it also keeps people quiet. National leaders figure that the only way to keep everybody fed and employed and hypnotized by Netflix series is to keep the economy running. Take tourism, for example — a labor-intensive industry that absorbs a lot of workers with little formal education. Israel’s has been hammered. Who wants to retrace the steps of Christ in the Holy Land amidst the squall of sirens announcing incoming missiles from Hezbollah? Israel now has to rotate its forces in and out of the military just to keep the economy going. But they’re finally going to throw the Palestinians out, and figure it’s worth the tradeoff.

Other touristy countries have much less to gain. In Turkey, tourism makes up more than ten percent of the economy, and is still growing. In Egypt, it’s 24 percent. Take that away, and the ensuing unrest will topple governments. But their leaders have less to gain from tackling Israel.

The second element is strategic. Just over the last several years, war has turned into a video game of missiles and missile-defenses and drones of all different kinds. As the commentator Alistair Crooke has observed, American aircraft carriers parked in the eastern Mediterranean look like something out of the 1950s. A couple of missiles sent from Crimea would send them to the bottom of the sea in a question of minutes.

Conventional war has all but disappeared. Imagine what would happen to American troop and supply ships traversing the Atlantic. If German U-boats sank nearly three thousand, Russians would sink every one of them, and not from a dank submarine but from a cosy office in Moscow. And crossing the Pacific to attack China would be a suicide mission.

National governments see the destruction wrought by Russian missiles — not its army shelling villages, but the attacks from afar on major cities and infrastructure — and they quickly figure that restraint is the better part of valor.

The third element that makes governments hesitate to get into a fight is that societies are far more fragile than before. Imagine what would happen if the Chinese got mad at the Americans and dropped a few missiles on highway overpasses, which then collapsed highways, between San Diego and San Francisco. Of course, hackers could wreak havoc on just about everything, but if software defenses proved troublesome to them, a couple of missiles — or just bombs placed by hired thugs — on data centers would quickly affect the internet in all kinds of random ways. Well-paid jokers could send drones flying around Atlanta and Chicago airports — or Istanbul’s or Frankfurt’s or Tokyo’s — closing them down. And if some leader were in a bloody frame of mind, he could order the downing of just two commercial airliners, one taking off in Paris and the other in Miami — and watch every flight reservation in the the western hemisphere get canceled in an hour. Citizens of the world’s poorest countries would finally have the last laugh.

In fact, there is a never-declared Mutually Assured Destruction that restrains governments, or quasi-governments like Hezbollah. All to the good, except that conventional war seems to be morphing into terrorism. Now that Israel has opened the Pandora’s box of booby-trapping consumer items, how long will it be before desk lamps — or shoes or avocados — begin to explode in Tel Aviv? Will Kurds need to take apart their Turkish-made earphones? As readers of Unz.com know, attacking China is far more cost-effective through untraceable biological attacks against its people and livestock, and invites no revenge — at least for the moment.

Israel’s attack with pagers and radios, Ukraine’s worthless drone strikes on Moscow apartment buildings, America’s aimless pecking at “terrorists” in Syria and Iraq — these are harbingers of the terrorist world to come.

And as defeat approaches, the losers are bound to raise the ante — especially the Israelis and Ukrainians. As in World War Two, the years of war have corroded their last vestige of ethics, and they know that the Washington elite will ultimately excuse their tactics. The western media would give nothing but dashing accounts of how Zelensky and Netanyahu — harried, exhausted, yet persevering — listened to their advisers, rubbed their necks, and gave the green lights to “limited” chemical or nuclear attacks against advancing enemies. For an excellent example of how flexible, how downright protean, mainstream journalists can be, read New York Times columnist Amanda Taub’s article on the legality of Israel bombing of the Iranian consulate in Damascus: “Israel Bombed an Iranian Embassy Complex. Is That Allowed?” She concludes that it was.

In short, if Hezbollah’s next leader, not so restrained as Nesrallah, unleashes missile hell down the whole length of Israel, Netanyahu and his hard-eyed friends may come to regret finishing him off. Doesn’t history tell the best jokes?

September 29, 2024 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, War Crimes | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Nasrallah assassination aimed at provoking US-Iran war: Russia’s Lavrov

Press TV – September 29, 2024

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says that Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah may have been intended to provoke a war between the United States and Iran.

Lavrov told reporters at a news conference after addressing the UN General Assembly on Saturday that a lot of people believe Israel’s assassination of Nasrallah was aimed at provoking Iran and the US “to unleash a full-blown war in the entire region.”

Killing the Hezbollah leader was “not simply a political assassination. It’s very cynical as an act,” Lavrov said.

“I think – well not even, I think, but a lot of people say – that Israel wants to create the grounds to drag the US directly into this and so to create these grounds, it is trying to provoke Iran,” Lavrov added.

“The Iran leadership, I think, are behaving extremely responsibly. And this is necessary. This is something that we should take due note of.”

Speaking at the UN Security Council meeting on Friday, Lavrov said, “the Middle East is once again on the brink of a big war,” calling for active diplomatic efforts to prevent the “most catastrophic scenario.”

In his UN General Assembly speech, Lavrov condemned the Israeli regime for its “inhumane attack on Lebanon.”

“Another glaring example of terrorist methods as a means of achieving political aims is the inhumane attack on Lebanon that transformed civilian technology into a lethal weapon,” Lavrov said, calling for an immediate international investigation.

‘US knew about Israel’s pager attacks’

Lavrov also told reporters that the US was likely aware of the Israeli regime forces’ plans to launch a “terrorist attack” against Lebanon using communication devices.

He said the complexity of the attack and the leaking of details to Western media indicate Washington’s possible complicity in the terrorist operation.

Last week, thousands of hand-held pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah members exploded across Lebanon simultaneously, killing dozens and injuring thousands, including many civilians. The attack, widely blamed on Israeli spy agency Mossad, drew international condemnation, with UN Human Rights Commissioner Volker Turk calling it a “shocking” and “unacceptable” act that violates human rights laws.

Tel Aviv has not claimed responsibility for the pager attacks, and its allies have denied any knowledge. However, according to Lavrov, Western media reports regarding the details and preparations “indicate to varying degrees the involvement and, at the very least, awareness of Washington concerning the preparation of that terrorist attack.”

September 29, 2024 Posted by | War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , | Leave a comment

Towards a Greater Middle Eastern War & Defeat in Ukraine

Colonel Douglas Macgregor, interviewed by Professor Glenn Diesen

Video at Odyssee
Glenn Diesen | September 24, 2024

I spoke with Colonel Douglas Macgregor about the deteriorating situation in the Middle East and Ukraine. Colonel Macgregor was a senior advisor to the Secretary of Defence under President Trump, he has written several books on military strategy, and is the CEO of Our Country Our Choice which seeks among other things to challenge the bipartisan support for the militarisation of US foreign policy

The war in Gaza has now spread into Lebanon and can seemingly no longer be contained, which threatens to pull in other actors in the region such as Iran. However, leaders in the region are already facing angry populations for failing to take a more hardline position against Israel and the US. Yemen is already striking ships passing through the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, while attacks have also increased on US occupation troops in Syria and Iraq. The US and Israel continue to play good cop / bad cop in which the US provides the weapons and intelligence for the onslaught, while simultaneously complaining they are not able to impose a ceasefire. Israel is in deep trouble as its military exhausts itself and there are no desirable paths to peace, which is why pulling the US into a wider war appears to be the sole solution.

In Ukraine, the situation is also deteriorating quickly as the army suffers from a shortage of manpower, armoured vehicles, ammunition, air defences, aircrafts, and a multitude of other areas. Furthermore, Ukraine’s electric grids are severely damaged, the economy falters, the public grows more unhappy with the aggressive “recruitment” of new soldiers, while political divisions are yet again emerging in Kiev. In the West, there are fewer and fewer weapons to be sent and the US is seemingly reluctant to become directly involved in deep strikes within Russian territory as it will trigger a NATO-Russia war with the possibility of a nuclear exchange. War fatigue is growing throughout the West, with the exception of the UK which remains gung-ho for more war. When the US sabotaged the Minsk agreement and the Istanbul peace agreement, the objective was to use Ukrainians as a proxy to bleed and exhaust Russia to knock it out from the ranks of great powers, and thereafter shift focus to breaking China and thus restoring US global primacy. Instead, we are seeing a Russian victory, a pending unmitigated disaster in the Middle East, while the global majority is constructing a post-American world with BRICS.

We have crossed the point of no return in terms of reaching a peace in Ukraine and the Middle East. The world is heading towards major wars – and the US is approaching this dangerous situation with empty slogans rather than a strategy.

September 24, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Video | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

US deploying more troops to West Asia amid Israeli escalation of violence

Press TV – September 23, 2024

The US Department of Defense has decided to deploy more boots to West Asia amid the Israeli escalation of war in the region.

Additional US troops will be deployed to the Middle East in response to a sharp spike in violence between Israel and Hezbollah forces in Lebanon that has raised the risk of a greater regional war, the Pentagon spokesperson said on Monday.

Gen. Pat Ryder announced the new deployment without providing details on how many additional forces would be needed or what they would be tasked to do.

“In light of increased tension in the Middle East and out of an abundance of caution, we are sending a small number of additional US military personnel forward to augment our forces that are already in the region. But for operational security reasons, I’m not going to comment on or provide specifics.”

The United Nations has sounded the alarm, warning that the escalating violence between the Israeli regime forces and the Hezbollah resistance movement in Lebanon was catapulting the Middle East conflict “to another level”.

Prior to the latest escalation of violence, the Pentagon had announced that the approximately 40,000 US troops deployed in the region were “enough to protect Israel.”

In addition to tens of thousands of troops in the Middle East region, the Pentagon has warships, fighter jets, and air defense systems deployed to protect both its forces and the Israeli regime.

Ryder warned of the potential for the Israel-Hezbollah violence to escalate, calling for a diplomatic solution.

“Clearly there is the potential for these tit-for-tat operations between Israel and Hezbollah to escalate and to potentially spiral out of control into a wider regional war, which is why it’s so important that we resolve… the situation through diplomacy,” Ryder said.

Middle East tensions rose sharply after the Israeli assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and Hezbollah commander Fuad Shakr in Beirut at the end of July, prompting the Pentagon to begin sending additional US troops to the region. The US military claimed the additional American troops would not be engaged by the Israeli forces for “offensive” operations against Hezbollah.

Pentagon’s announcement comes as fears of a broader regional war grow, with Israel striking hundreds of targets in Lebanon following Israel’s communication devices terror attacks which targeted Hezbollah cadre and civilians with exploding pagers earlier this week. The attacks killed 37 Lebanese and injured thousands more.

World powers have called on the Israeli regime and Hezbollah to pull back from the brink of an all-out war, with the focus of violence shifting sharply in recent days from Israel’s southern front with Gaza to its northern border with Lebanon.

Hezbollah, a powerful political and military force in Lebanon, has exchanged near-daily fire with the Israeli regime forces in support of the defenseless Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip.

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq (IRI) and the Ansarallah-led government of Yemen stand alongside Hamas and Hezbollah, targeting US and Israeli positions in the region in an effort to oppose Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

The occupying zionist regime forces launched the genocidal war on helpless Palestinians trapped in Gaza almost a year ago in early October, which has claimed the lives of more than 41,400 people, most of them innocent women and children.

September 23, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Iran Unveils New Missile, Drone With 4,000 km Range Amid Seething Regional Tensions

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 21.09.2024

Mideast tensions are on a knife’s edge, reaching a fever pitch this week after a suspected Mossad attack targeting thousands of pagers and other communication and household electronic devices in Lebanon. The escalation comes as the bloody war in Gaza approaches its one-year anniversary.

Iran revealed a new solid-fueled ballistic missile dubbed the Jihad (‘Holy War’) at a military parade in Tehran on Saturday commemorating the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-1988.
Dubbed the Jihad (lit. ‘Holy War’) the missile has a reported range of up to 1,000 km, and was designed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ aerospace division.

The missile one of nearly two dozen Iranian-made long-range strike weapons appearing at the parade, among them the Kheibar Shekan (‘Castle Buster’ or ‘Fortress Buster’), which was fired at terror targets in Syria earlier this year, and the Khorramshahr, named after the Iranian city of the same name, which has a range up to 2,000 km and has a 1.8 ton warhead.

Also making its debut at Saturday’s parade was the Shahed-136B – the latest modification of Iran’s mainstay piston engine-powered Shahed-136 kamikaze drone. The upgraded drone touts a range of over 4,000 km – enough to reach anywhere in the Middle East and most of continental Europe.

Manufactured by the Iran Aircraft Manufacturing Industrial Company (HESA) and Shahed Aviation Industries, hundreds of base model Shahed-136s were used to keep Israeli, US, French, British and Jordanian aircraft and air defenses busy while Iran slipped missiles past them to strike an aerodrome and intel base in April. The base 200 kg drones are equipped with a 50 kg warhead, and have a 2,500 km range.

The weight and warhead characteristics of the new, upgraded model have yet to be revealed, but based on its appearance, modifications are significant, with the new drone featuring a completely different wing configuration, and more bulbous fuselage.

Iran is a regional superpower in the development, production and fielding of drones, missiles, and other advanced weapons, possessing dozens of indigenous designs developed by local companies. The Islamic Republic’s arms industry was grown from the ground up beginning in the 1980s after its traditional weapons sellers slapped the country with an embargo during Iraq’s US-backed war of aggression, and got a major shot in the arm thanks to Iran’s hard-earned status as one of the top scientific powers in the world.

September 21, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

What is Known About US Private Military Companies?

By Svetlana Ekimenko – Sputnik – 21.09.2024

Members of American private military company (PMC) the Forward Observations Group (FOG), took part in the Ukrainian military incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, according to evidence that recently surfaced.

The FOG PMC has also delivered weapons to Ukraine and allegedly assisted the country’s forces in coordinating the delivery of toxic chemicals to the Donetsk People’s Republic for potential sabotage.

Sputnik has looked into how US PMCs are operating.

  • PMCs are often led by high-ranking Pentagon, CIA, and State Department retirees.
  • Units are comprised of ex-servicemen, former special forces officers, graduates of military academies, and foreign mercenaries.
  • The Pentagon’s facilities in San Diego (California), Mount Carroll (Illinois), and Moyock (North Carolina) are used for training.
  • Salaries reportedly range from $400 to $600 a day (some operatives get $1,000 daily).

The Defense Department, State Department, and intelligence agencies are the main customers of PMCs, with contracts worth over $50 million requiring approval from Congress.

The US is not a signatory to the International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing, and Training of Mercenaries, and uses PMCs in circumvention of national legislative restrictions.

The State Department uses the Arms Export Control Act to indirectly regulate American PMCs’ services, including:

  • Advising and assisting foreign defense departments in reforming their armed forces;
  • Creating paramilitary formations, as well as saboteur and militant detachments; coordinating their actions;
  • Providing training missions, reconnaissance, logistics, transport, and technical support;
  • Security for diplomatic staff, commercial organizations, strategic US facilities abroad, including oil fields and pipelines (such as those plundered in Syria and Iraq, where the US maintains troops), and oversight for prisons;

The PMCs active in Ukraine, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry:

  • Academi (formerly Blackwater), part of Constellis Group, which had around 400 personnel in Ukraine until 2022, according to German media.
  • DynCorp International, which offers sabotage and sniper training.
  • Cubic Corporation, providing reconnaissance assistance using satellites and drones, opened an office in Ukraine in 2015.

According to existing data, some 3,000 mercenaries are fighting on the side of the Kiev regime, with at least 300 of them employees of US PMCs.

September 21, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Pentagon says tens of thousands of troops across West Asia ‘enough to protect Israel’

The Cradle | September 20, 2024

The US is confident in its ability to defend Israel given its current force levels in West Asia, Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said on 19 September, amid heightened fears of a wider war between Lebanese Hezbollah and Israel.

“We’re confident in the ability that we have there right now to protect our forces and should we need to come to the defense of Israel as well,” Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said in a press briefing Thursday.

The possibility of full-scale war increased following Israel’s terror attacks in Lebanon, which targeted Hezbollah cadre and civilians with exploding pagers earlier this week. The attacks killed 37 Lebanese and injured thousands more.

US military officials began sending additional forces to the region in July. Tensions escalated after Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah commander Fuad Shakr in Beirut and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran at the end of that month.

While US officials say they will help defend Israel, they claim they will not help it in an offensive war against Iran or Hezbollah.

“We are there in the defense of Israel, should we need to come to their defense. We’re not going in and supporting offensive ground operations in what they do, whether it be in the north or in Gaza,” Singh stated in the press briefing.

US officials speaking on condition of anonymity told the AP that additional resources sent to the region since July have helped as the US forces carry out operations targeting Axis of Resistance groups in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen.

In addition to Hezbollah, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq (IRI) and the Ansarallah-led government of Yemen have hit US and Israeli targets in the region in an effort to oppose Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

The AP reported that about 34,000 US troops have traditionally been deployed to West Asia. The number grew to about 40,000 in October last year as additional ships and aircraft were sent in after the start of the war on Gaza.

Several weeks ago, the total temporarily spiked to nearly 50,000 when US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin ordered two aircraft carriers and their accompanying warships to stay in the region.

One aircraft carrier has since left, but US navy warships remain scattered across the region, from the eastern Mediterranean Sea to the Gulf of Oman. Air force and navy fighter jets are strategically based at several locations.

The USS Abraham Lincoln and its three destroyers are in the Gulf of Oman. Two US navy destroyers are in the Red Sea.

There are six US warships and three naval destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean Sea.

Six F/A-18 fighter jets and the USS Georgia guided missile submarine are in the region, but US officials refuse to say where.

The air force has four land-based fighter squadrons in West Asia, which include a squadron of A-10 Thunderbolt II ground attack aircraft, F-15E Strike Eagles, and F-16 fighter jets. US officials also declined to say where the planes are based.

Should the US join Israel in fighting a war against Iran, the air force can also launch attacks from bases within the US itself.

In February, two B-1 bombers flew more than 30 hours from Dyess Air Force Base in Texas and back to strike 85 Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) targets in Iraq and Syria.

September 20, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The US has allowed Israel’s attack on Lebanon, and now war may follow

By Robert Inlakesh | RT | September 18, 2024

On Tuesday, Israel was accused of detonating hundreds of wireless communication devices that were primarily being used in a civilian capacity, injuring upwards of 4,000 people. Although the details are still being ironed out, this attack will now force Hezbollah to make major decisions in retaliation.

Less than a day after the Israeli security cabinet officially adopted a new war goal of returning their displaced residents to areas close to the Lebanese border, an indiscriminate attack was carried out throughout Lebanon. This indicates that the war in Gaza has now expanded in the eyes of the Israeli political and military leadership to include Lebanon. However, there are question marks surrounding how such an escalation will take shape.

The US role

Commenting on the issue to reporters, US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said that “the US was not involved in it, the US was not aware of this incident in advance and, at this point, we’re gathering information.” He then even went as far as suggesting that the US government was gathering information just as journalists around the world are.

While this was Washington distancing itself from the incident, it is almost comical for an American official to inform the media that the Biden administration has no special information from its ally on the incident. Taking this at face value, it is an embarrassing admission that the ally to which the US has provided tens of billions of dollars worth of weapons and aid over the past 11 months does not even have channels of dialogue to discuss an attack which could lead to a regional war.

Even if we are to assume that the US had no idea about the attack, which is doubtful, the mere fact that American bipartisan support for Israel throughout the course of its war on Gaza has not buckled under immense international condemnation is telling. Every single organ of the United Nations has been ringing the alarm bells, accusing Israel of committing war crimes, and even the United Kingdom has decided to cancel 30 of some 350 weapons-licensing contracts over violations of international law.

While the US has continually stated that it seeks to de-escalate tensions and that it disapproves of an Israel-Lebanon war, at best it is doing nothing to stop it. If the US government were truly so out of the loop with Israel’s escalatory steps and really wanted to stop a regional war, the wake-up call should have come at the end of July.

When Israel bombed a civilian apartment building in Beirut’s southern suburb of Dahiyeh, killing Hezbollah commander Fouad Shukr, then only hours later assassinated the leader of Hamas, Ismail Hanniyeh, in Tehran, this would have been the time when the Americans put pressure on the Israelis to stop. Instead, the US government decided to do the very opposite. At the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) session called to discuss the issue, they condemned Iran. On top of this, just under two weeks later, the US decided to approve a $20-billion weapons package for Israel.

Israeli terrorism 

There can be no doubt that the act of sabotage carried out on Tuesday was done using terrorist tactics and its intended goals are important to analyze. While all the precise details remain hidden as to how Israel managed to detonate hundreds of pagers, the impacts are crystal clear and we have enough information to render a judgment.

Firstly, the fact that this occurred across Lebanon and its victims were not just confined to those in the rank-and-file of Hezbollah has now left a lingering feeling of anxiety among the general public. The question cannot help but be posed: If the Israelis can blow up pagers, can they also detonate phones, laptops and other devices, and how many other plots of this nature do they have up their sleeves? This also impacts Hezbollah itself, because there has been a clear breach in the group’s security on one level or another, which directly caused a temporary issue with the means of communication used by the group’s military personnel.

According to the information we have so far, it appears that Israeli intelligence operatives managed to rig a batch of pagers with small amounts of highly explosive material. While the scale is unique in history, this tactic is nothing new. In fact, in 1996, Mossad assassinated a leader of Hamas’ al-Qassam Brigades named Yahya Ayyash, by planting explosive material inside his phone and detonating it remotely. In the 1980s the Israelis even operated a group called the Front for the Liberation of Lebanon from Foreigners (FLLF) to carry out acts of terrorism while posing as a Christian fascist organization, one of its operations attempted to assassinate the US former ambassador to Lebanon, John Gunther Dean.  

If this action was carried out as a means of impacting Hezbollah’s communications, prior to Israel launching a larger-scale military operation, then it would have made sense as a tactic that would on some level degrade the capabilities of the group and force them to find alternative means of issuing orders to certain cadres. Yet, this is not what happened, they gave the Lebanese group the time to recover from this blow and so it must be seen within a different context, one of point scoring.

It now puts Lebanese Hezbollah in a tough position. The group must mount some kind of response to this attack, one that is designed to deter the Israelis from carrying out similar attacks in the future. However, the secretary general of Hezbollah, Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah, has made clear that, while his party is prepared for war, it is only interested in continuing to maintain a support front for the Palestinian groups fighting Israel from Gaza. 

Since October 8, Hezbollah has carried out thousands of targeted attacks against Israeli military facilities, primarily targeting surveillance, air defense and espionage equipment, but also striking army personnel too. On top of this, the Lebanese armed group has also been targeting specific populated areas that are located along the border region, with rocket barrages, forcing around 100,000 Israelis to flee.

On the other hand, roughly 110,000 Lebanese have been forced to flee their homes in southern Lebanon due to Israeli bombing attacks that have been much more devastating on the nation’s civilian infrastructure than Hezbollah’s has been on Israel’s. In fact, while Hezbollah attacks have only resulted in a handful of Israeli civilian deaths, nearly 200 civilians have been killed by Israeli strikes on Lebanon. This being said, there can be no denying the success of Hezbollah’s operations in conducting a war of attrition that is burdening Israel psychologically, militarily, and economically.

What comes next

Israel has carried out this operation in an attempt to score points against Hezbollah, primarily in the propaganda war, and the alternative goal is to drag the group into opening up a shooting war. The Israelis do not want to be seen as starting the war against Lebanon, both because they seek the support of the collective West and know that the conflict will result in a stalemate at best.

If Hezbollah does not mount a considerable defensive counter operation, it will signal weakness to the Israelis and likely encourage them to continue carrying out similar offensive operations throughout Lebanon. While, on the other hand, if the Hezbollah response is too severe, it may give Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the perfect excuse to launch the war that he has been threatening to wage for months now.

This moment requires Hezbollah to step up and take risks militarily, at a time when they now have a popular mandate inside Lebanon to respond in self defense. It is clear that the strategy of the Lebanese group has been to continue its daily operations in support of the Gaza Strip, and Israel is determined to end this, which is why it is now attempting to transform the nature of the war and expand it outwards. Unfortunately, due to the US providing full and unconditional support to the Israeli government as it expands the war, we are no longer looking at a war which is isolated to Gaza. Unless there is a ceasefire deal signed with Hamas soon, it appears inevitable that we are heading towards a Lebanon-Israel war that will drag in the entire region.

Robert Inlakesh is a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker currently based in London, UK. He has reported from and lived in the Palestinian territories and currently works with Quds News. Director of ‘Steal of the Century: Trump’s Palestine-Israel Catastrophe’.

September 18, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Washington, Baghdad clinch deal on US troop withdrawal from Iraq: Report

Press TV – September 6, 2024

The US and Iraq have reached an agreement for the withdrawal of US-led coalition forces from Iraq, which would see hundreds of troops leave by September 2025 and the remainder by the end of 2026, according to a Western media report.

The Reuters news agency, quoting multiple unnamed sources within the governments of the US, Iraq, and other countries, said the withdrawal plan “has been broadly agreed but requires a final go-ahead from both capitals and an announcement date.”

“We have an agreement, it’s now just a question of when to announce it,” Reuters quoted a senior US official.

An official announcement was initially scheduled for weeks ago but was postponed due to regional escalation related to Israel’s genocidal onslaught on Gaza and to iron out some remaining details, the report quoted the sources as saying.

Farhad Alaaldin, foreign affairs adviser to the Iraqi prime minister, told the news agency that technical talks with Washington on the coalition drawdown had concluded.

“We are now on the brink of transitioning the relationship between Iraq and members of the international coalition to a new level, focusing on bilateral relations in military, security, economic, and cultural areas,” he said.

According to the agency, the US and Iraq are also seeking to establish a new advisory relationship that could see some US troops remain in Iraq after the drawdown.

The agreement comes six months after Baghdad initiated talks with Washington on the withdrawal of US forces stationed at Iraqi bases.

Those talks began after a wave of rocket and drone attacks on American forces in Iraq and Syria in retaliation for Washington’s support for the Israeli genocide in Gaza and its atrocities against the Iraqi people.

The Iraqi resistance groups have been pressing for an end to the presence of foreign forces in Iraq for more than a decade after a US-led coalition invaded the country in violation of international law based on false claims of it owning weapons of mass destruction.

There are nearly 2,500 American troops in Iraq and some 900 in Syria as part of what Washington claims to be a fighting force against Daesh.

The US has maintained its presence even after the Arab country and its allies, including Iran, vanquished the Takfiri terrorist group in late 2017.

In 2020, the Iraqi parliament voted for the expulsion of US forces. The vote came after Iran’s top anti-terror commander, martyr General Qassem Soleimani, and deputy PMU commander Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis were assassinated in a cowardly drone strike ordered by then-US president Donald Trump outside of the Baghdad airport.

On January 8, 2020, Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) targeted the US-run Ain al-Asad air base in Iraq after launching a wave of attacks to retaliate for the assassination of the two top anti-terror commanders.

September 6, 2024 Posted by | Wars for Israel | , , | Leave a comment

Turkish protestors demand expulsion of US warship docking in Izmir Port

Press TV – September 3, 2024

Turkish citizens have taken to the streets in Izmir to demonstrate against the docking of an American warship, expressing solidarity with Palestinians and their opposition to US all-out military support for Israel amid the Gaza genocide.

Turkish parties on Monday night gathered at the Izmir port entrance to voice their opposition to the USS Wasp anchoring, one of the ships sent to the region by the US to support the Israeli regime.

Waving the Palestinian flag, protesters held banners reading “Our country’s ports cannot be supply and logistics points for murderers” and “We do not want the US ship that brings war and death to Palestine in Izmir.”

They chanted slogans such as “Down with Israel,” “Down with NATO” and “Down with USA,” demanding the immediate departure of the American ship from the Port of Izmir, as they honored the memory of Palestinians killed in Israel’s US-backed war in Gaza.

The USS Wasp, carrying nearly 1,500 US soldiers, anchored at the port of Izmir on Sunday after participating in bilateral at-sea training with Turkish Navy ships in August. The vessel, along with its accompanying ships, the USS Oak Hill and the USS New York, has been positioned in the region since June as part of deterrence efforts against possible threats to Israel amid high tensions in the region.

Protesters issued a stern warning to the Izmir Governorship, declaring they will not leave the port until the ship departs.

The protesters condemned the United States for its role in causing suffering and violence in Iraq, Syria, the West Asia region, and globally.

“It has been almost a year. Israel is carrying out a brutal massacre in Gaza. By killing tens of thousands of people, Israel is not only committing a great crime against humanity. It is also persistently continuing an unlawful and unscrupulous incitement to drag our region into a bloody war,” the protesters said in their statement.

The statement emphasized that the United States openly backs Israel and its military actions, and questioned its occasional ceasefire calls.

They also called on the Turkish government to remove the American soldiers from the streets of Izmir, after two US Marines from the USS Wasp were assaulted during a port visit in Izmir on Monday, as part of a protest against Israeli actions in Gaza and decades-long “US imperialism.”

“US soldiers who have the blood of our soldiers and thousands of Palestinians on their hands cannot tarnish our country. Every step you take on these lands will be met with the response you deserve,” the Turkey Youth Union (TGB), which carried out the attack said in its statement on Monday.

Fifteen individuals involved in the incident were detained by Turkey’s police.

The US has ramped up its military presence in the region as the Israel war on Gaza rages on.

Washington has sent 50,000 tons of arms and ammunition to Israel since October 7 when the regime launched its genocidal war on Gaza.

Late last month, the US completed the air delivery of its 500th consignment of weapons and munitions to Israel since it launched its genocidal war in October.

September 3, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Point of No Return in Middle East & Ukraine

Odysee
John Mearsheimer, Alexander Mercouris & Glenn Diesen | August 30, 2024

I had a discussion with Professor John Mearsheimer and Alexander Mercouris about the political West being on the brink of two major wars. Both Israel and Ukraine are fighting wars they cannot win, both are doubling down through reckless escalation, and neither is pursuing a diplomatic path to a peaceful resolution.

Consequently, both Israel and Ukraine are desperately seeking to drag the US into a wider war as the only solution. With incremental escalation, no diplomacy and the absence of serious discussions about the deep trouble we are now in – both Israel and Ukraine are successfully getting the US increasingly involved.

August 31, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Masochistic Naivete: Another Great Danger

NewZealandDoc | August 28, 2024

Long covid may or not be a chimera, but the long reach of covid certainly isn’t, as I have learned from an unexpected situation that involved the gratuitous remarks of a covidian doctor here that created difficulties for me. I am hopeful, however, of a positive resolution to this unnecessary development.

This incident merely strengthened my belief that the enemy we are up against, large and small, local and global, is unprincipled, lawless, low, and, given the measures unleashed against the world in the name of protecting us from a danger they created in the first place — dangers heaped upon dangers! — murderous.

If ever I believed in the trustworthy authority of the major media, having grown up on Time, Life, Newsweek, ABC, CBS, NBC in my early youth, and, later, on The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books et al. in my later years, that belief has been smashed into a thousand pieces as I watched all of them drop the veneer and flash the biceps of complete and utter fraudulence in our faces, day in, day out, relentlessly. I now ignore them completely.

If ever I believed in fair play and the rule of law, the inconstant application of justice has shaken some sense into me. What kind of system inveigles a Reiner Fuellmich into an arrest and incarceration, or deceptively seduces the founder of Telegram into an apprehension? Need I mention the numerous illegitimate legal attacks against a former President of the United States, still ongoing? Need I mention the attempt to murder him in the cold light of day? Should I hark back yet again to New Zealand’s use of stormtroopers to invade and disperse the Parliament Protests of 2022?

Should I mention the UK arrests for social media expressions of free speech, or the many and multifarious ways that Big Social Media have censored those whose political inclinations or opinions had been targeted by the governments they had a right to criticize? It has become nearly comic to listen to and watch presenters on YouTube who resort to code words to evade algorithms that would punish their channels?

Dare I refer to the unnecessary wars and the horrific numbers of the dead in the Ukraine and the Middle East, promoted so enthusiastically by the ‘liberal’ so-called democratic Left in the United States, not to mention the openly authoritarian EU?

By the strange contorted logic of our ‘now’, universal inoculation, active armed conflict, and perpetual fear of pandemics mark the road to … to the well-regulated world ordained by some occult globalist racketeers for their own benefit.

Given all of the above, one would think that any vestiges of naivete would be gone as we figure out a way to save ourselves. It’s an interesting word, ‘naive’ — coming as it does from the Latin nativus, and meaning, essentially, being innocent or artless as a newborn babe in the corrupt and devious system devised by humankind to regulate itself. When we use the phrase ‘I wasn’t born yesterday’ we’re saying we’re not naive.

Yet I can’t count how many times so many friends have expressed astonishment at each new depredation and each miscarriage of justice, and how so many still have faith in a legal system that has been commandeered by our enemies. I can’t count how many times people will say, about the latest jab-implicated adverse event, ‘this will turn the tide!’ Or how many game-changers there have been that have only resulted in the game going on with even more ferocity against our cause.

While I believe that it is very important for us to continue to report truth, it is equally important for us to know what we are up against. To know that facts are hardly guaranteed to change the minds of the sleepwalkers around us.

It is destructively naive to believe that simply by being virtuous we will win the day, or that the courts will come to our rescue because of our well-prepared evidence, or that martyrdom will be glorious.

General Patton is reputed to have said that ‘no dumb bastard ever won a war by going out and dying for his country.’

As Irregulars against Established Power we must fight smart, and fight to live, and we by no means can count on the System to assist us. We must recognize the murderous intensity of our enemy, the rigged judicial system, the coopted media, and adjust our strategies.

Or else.

Emanuel E. Garcia, M.D.

August 2024

August 30, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , , | Leave a comment

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