Tag: perpetual war

Israeli airstrikes, artillery shelling pound south Lebanon in latest ceasefire violations

Tel Aviv continued its relentless attacks on southern Lebanon on 10 December, carrying out several strikes, including an attack on the Lebanese Civil Defense – violating the ceasefire reached between Lebanon and Israel late last month. 

Several Israeli attacks struck south Lebanon on Tuesday. Al Mayadeen’s correspondent reported that a Lebanese citizen was killed in an Israeli airstrike on the town of Bint Jbeil. 

Israeli forces also targeted rescue teams trying to retrieve bodies in the south. 

“An Israeli helicopter chased Lebanese Civil Defense personnel while they were trying to retrieve the bodies of martyrs from the southern Lebanese town of Shamaa, forcing them to withdraw, and targeting the location they were in with artillery shelling,” Al-Akhbar newspaper reported. 

It reported earlier on 10 December that “a joint patrol of the Lebanese army and the Polish unit in UNIFIL was subjected to warning fire from Israeli forces while trying to open the Aitaroun–Bint Jbeil highway, which had been blocked by the Israelis last Thursday.”

According to Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA), Israeli troops opened fire at the outskirts of the town of Shaqra and other areas in the south, and fired artillery at the outskirts of Sheheen and Al-Jubain. 

NNA also reported “massive bombings” in the town of Khiam, while Israeli troops continued to demolish homes and buildings in the area. 

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Pete Hegseth, a ‘Recovering Neocon?’

Politicians frequently “change their minds.” In principle, willingness to change one’s mind is a laudable trait, whether you’re a politician or any other type of person. To absorb new information, and then adjust one’s outlook in accordance with that information, is a prudent habit to cultivate for anyone who wants to engage constructively with the world. However, the propensity of political figures to “change their minds” usually requires an extra layer of critical examination, unless you’re inclined to just credulously accept their self-serving bulls**t.

When a political figure resolutely declares that they have an unflinching ethical or policy conviction, and then go on to abandon that conviction, at minimum this should obligate some explanation for the shift. If the explanation reflects a sincere and transparent reevaluation of certain facts or premises, that’s one thing to consider. If the explanation reflects naked expediency and opportunism, that’s another thing. If no real explanation is provided at all, that’s something else entirely. “Mind-changing,” thus, is not a virtue unto itself — nor is it necessarily a defect. The crucial factor is the accompanying explanation (or lack thereof), and how much soundness one ascribes to it.

For instance, if Bernie Sanders suddenly announced tomorrow that he was no longer in favor of imposing higher taxes on billionaires, that would certainly raise doubts as to the veracity and coherence of his life-long political project. If Thomas Massie declared he was suddenly in favor of the state controlling key economic sectors, that too would make one wonder about the fundamental reliability and consistency of his long-articulated worldview. So, while political figures are certainly free to “change their mind” about things, the rest of us are also free to make judgments about whether those “mind-changes” are credible.

How, then, to evaluate the claimed “mind-change” of Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Defense? In the recent past, Hegseth wasn’t just a casual supporter of the Iraq War — he was a full-blown professional pro-war activist and lobbyist, whose entire career was conjoined with his strident pro-war advocacy. Hegseth ran a group called “Veterans for Freedom,” whose explicit purpose was to pressure Congress to support the Iraq War and galvanize public opinion behind George W. Bush’s foreign policy, including by appearing in the media to make robust pro-war arguments — a role which Hegseth eventually marshaled into a gig on Fox News. As Hegseth fondly recounted in his 2020 book, American Crusade, one of the group’s primary tasks was to tour around the United States exhorting fellow citizens to join their pro-war cause. “We gave speeches aimed at building support for the war,” Hegseth recalled. “I believed in the mission we had in Iraq.”

But nowadays, Hegseth appears to be singing a different tune. In a podcast appearance last month, host Shawn Ryan asked: “Should we have been in Iraq?” To which Hesgeth replied: “I was a huge proponent of it at the time, but in retrospect, absolutely not,” adding, “I’ve been a recovering neocon for six years now.”

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Latest Statistics on Gaza Genocide Revealed – What We Know?

The Government Media Office in the Gaza Strip publishes an update on the most important statistics of the genocidal war waged by the Israeli occupation. This is what we know.

The government media office in Gaza announced that Israel has committed 9,905 massacres in the Gaza Strip, including 7,160 massacres against Palestinian families.

The numbers were released as part of the latest update on the Israeli genocidal war on the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023.

The report said that the Israeli occupation exterminated 1,410 Palestinian families, and completely erased them from the civil registry. This means that these families have lost the father, mother and all other family members. 

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Muhammad al-Bashir Authorized to Form Interim Government in Syria

Mohammed al-Bashir, the head of the so-called “salvation government,” said on Tuesday that the Syrian opposition had authorized him to form an interim government in the country.

“By decision of the General Command, we have been authorized to form an interim government. This will be done tentatively by March 1, 2025,” al-Bashir told Al Hadath broadcaster.

The so-called “salvation government” was formed by opposition forces in Idlib since January 2024.

Syrian armed opposition groups captured Damascus on Sunday. Syrian Prime Minister Mohammad Ghazi al-Jalali said that he and 18 other ministers had decided to remain in the capital. Jalali also said he was in contact with the leaders of militant groups that had entered the city. The Russian Foreign Ministry said that Syrian President Bashar Assad had stepped down and left Syria after negotiations with some participants in the Syrian conflict.

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What we know about Mohammed al-Bashir, head of Syria’s interim government

On December 10, 2024, news emerged about the appointment of Mohammed al-Bashir as the head of Syria’s interim government. The decision was made at a joint meeting of the Council of Ministers, which previously reported to President Bashar Assad, and an alternative government formed by opposition groups in 2017. The interim government’s mandate is expected to last three months.

Mohammed al-Bashir was born into a Sunni family in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province in 1983. In 2007, he received a degree in technology from Aleppo University and, in 2021, earned a Sharia law degree from Idlib University. He also completed a course in administration and project management and worked at a plant belonging to the Syria Gas Company.

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Now We Know Why the Presidential Election Results in Romania Were Cancelled – The Winning Candidate Threatened US Weapons Pipeline to Ukraine

The Eastern European country of Romania was in shock after the first round of its Presidential elections in late November as independent, rightwing candidate, Călin Georgescu, a Euroskeptic who has called the United Nations ‘satanic’ came out as the big winner.

Almost as shocking was the fact that the Prime Minister, a leftist-globalist-euro-fanatic candidate, whom all opinion polls called the favorite, came in third and was out of the race.

The BBC reported:

“With more than 99% of votes counted, ultranationalist Calin Georgescu has an unassailable lead of nearly 350,000 votes over center-right candidate Elena Lasconi, with Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu, the pre-election favorite, in third.

The strong showing of Georgescu, who has no party of his own and campaigned largely on the social media platform TikTok, came as the biggest surprise of the election.”

Following his surprising win on Sunday, Călin Georgescu went out and posted a video glorifying God and condemning the emptiness and godlessness of the globalist elites.

Well, Călin Georgescu’s celebrations did not last long.

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Russian Security Service Busts Ukrainian-Linked Criminal Scam Network

Russia has repeatedly warned Western countries that Ukraine’s US-backed so-called “IT army” would become a huge problem for Europeans, as more than 1,000 “call centers” in Ukraine are engaged in the extortion of money under fraudulent pretenses.

A sprawling criminal call center network linked to Ukraine has been busted by Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB).

Here’s What’s Known So Far:

The global criminal group operated call centers where, under the guise of making investment deals, perpetrators defrauded unwitting victims, according to the FSB statement.

Eleven individuals, including leaders and employees of the network’s Russia-based offices, have been detained by security forces.

The network was led by Israeli/Ukrainian citizen Yakov Keselman, who has been detained, and Israeli/Georgian citizen David Todva, who is on the run.

Around 100,000 people across more than 50 countries, including the EU, UK, Canada, Brazil, India, and Japan fell victim to the scammers, who raked in close to a million US dollars a day, according to an FSB statement.

The fraudulent scheme “operated in Russia on behalf of former Georgian Defense Minister and Milton Group founder David Kezerashvili, who is currently hiding in London.”

Kezerashvili is wanted on charges of disseminating anonymous messages upon instructions from the Ukrainian Security Service in 2022 about alleged impending attacks in Russia supposedly being planned, per the FSB.

An investigation into the criminal operation is ongoing.

Anglo-Saxon curators of the Kiev regime have sent their special services’ cyber units to Ukraine to train their hackers engaged in activities against Russia, Artur Lyukmanov, the director of the Department of International Information Security of the Russian Foreign Ministry, told Sputnik this January. He said that Ukraine has de facto become a NATO ground for testing methods of fighting Russia in the digital space.

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Assad’s Downfall Proves Neocons Have Learned Nothing From Disastrous Middle East Meddling

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has fled his country, now under the protection of Vladimir Putin in Moscow. In only a few days, a regime that had withstood over a decade of brutal civil war crumbled into dust before the onslaught of a new rebel offensive.

Now, Syria teeters on the brink of tribal mayhem as disparate factions espousing differing strains of radical Islamism begin to squabble over the carcass and jostle for power. ISIS has even reemerged as part of the victorious rebel coalition, prompting U.S. airstrikes over the weekend.

But, on cue, the neocons crawled out of the woodwork to gloat, finding some solace in the bloodshed and mayhem after their recent electoral drubbing. In a little over 24 hours, they proved that they’ve learned nothing from over two decades of disastrous American meddling in the Middle East.

Unrepentant warmonger and Never Trumper Bill Kristol wasted no time waxing poetic on the carnage, posting on X, “The fall of Assad. On some days, one can believe that while the arc of the moral universe is long, it bends toward justice.” Perhaps the image of a toppled Assad statue reminded Kristol of when the same thing happened during the fall of Saddam Hussein in Iraq — back when people actually cared about what he had to say.

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Safe while Syria burns

More than 350 Israeli airstrikes targeting Syrian territory in the past hours, and an enemy Israeli occupation of Syrian territory equivalent to twice the size of the Gaza Strip, and their army is less than 40 km away from the capital Damascus.

After a rather turbulent 48 hours I am safe and will be writing and broadcasting as normal very shortly. I had one hour to pack one suitcase, take one dog and get through a border swarming with armed thugs looting and fighting amongst themselves over the spoils. The night before was spent besieged by armed groups firing in the air to celebrate their “victory” while Israel started using bunker buster bombs on Syrian military sites and air defence close to the house. The house shook from top to bottom. At 10am truckloads of armed thieves arrived and battered at my front gate. I was on the phone to a friend who begged me to find a weapon – clearly I don’t have any. I yelled at them from inside and the dogs went crazy. After three batterings they left.

Much more to recount over the coming days. Social media is a mess of lies, misinformation and downright hypocrisy. Thank you to everyone who emailed and messaged, it really lifted my spirits at an all time low.

I wrote this note this morning. I need a long time to process the loss for the whole world and for me as a human being who saw my future living in my beloved Syria.

Anyone who can explain why Assad’s pre-recorded farewell speech and possible explanation of the catastrophic events was not aired, as planned, after he left the country, please get in touch.

All the backstabbers who are now turning against Assad, protecting their interests – you were in a position to say something for 14 years. Why didn’t you?

I don’t blame any of the ordinary people for adopting the new era. People in Syria are isolated and afraid, some are terrified.

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#1 Weakness Of US Defense Is Its Own General Officers

Decades from now, historians and academics will analyze our current US military. Likely, the analysis will not be kind. Facts:

1. The US has the largest military budget of any country in the world. Currently, the US spends over $831B on defense. This is how this financial outlay compares to other countries in the world as of 2024:

  US   $831 Billion

  China   $227 Billion

  Russia   $109 Billion

  India   $74 Billion

  Saudi Arabia  $71 Billion

  United Kingdom $62 Billion

  Germany  $55 Billion

  Japan   $53 Billion

  Australia  $52 Billion

  France   $49 Billion1

2. The US enjoys the most technologically advanced military in the world. Systems like the F-35 fighter, Ford Class aircraft carrier, UAVs, and cyberwarfare equipment have no equal currently in the world.

 Historians of the future will then ask the obvious question – “Why can’t the US of the early 2000s win long wars?” Many variables need to be considered when explaining success or victory on the battlefield. Technology, quantities of equipment/vehicles, numbers of troops, training of troops, leadership, geography, and weather are among the factors involved. Even luck/misfortune is a variable when the ‘fog of war’ is considered. Wars that last years require immense resources. Long wars also usually exclude luck as an isolated variable because a single ‘lucky’ attack outcome is unlikely to substantially change the outcome of a long, larger war. The obvious conclusion is that the military leadership failed.

 Generals neither start wars nor resource them. These actions belong to politicians and elected civilian officials. However, once the decision to go to war is made, the outcome in the “sandbox” that is the battlefield is dependent on the military leadership in charge of the troops, resources, tactics, and strategy employed.

 Our military looks pretty in videos with its modern equipment and sleek aircraft, ships, and vehicles. Our troops look crisp and smart in their uniforms. US generals brief often their optimistic appraisals they do of the military to describe its state of readiness. This is no different than any other field of endeavor – sports, business, etc. Sports teams can have beautiful stadiums and muscular athletes in smart uniforms, but still have losing records. Businesses can have gorgeous, modern buildings and very stylistic logos but still lose money.

 The critical and tragic difference is that in almost all other professions, failure results in analysis of leadership and likely turnover of leaders that fail to perform to satisfaction. In 2023, 8 of the 32 teams in the NFL fired their head coaches for failing to perform. In the American corporate world, 2024 saw the most CEOs ousted since analyst firm Challenger, Gray, and Christmas began tracking the date in 2002 – over 1,800!2

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