Tag: perpetual war

Biden orders U.S. military to help defend Israel against future Iranian strikes

President Joe Biden has declared that the United States Armed Forces will help Israel shoot down any Iranian missiles that target the country.

This declaration comes after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced that Iran had fired rockets at various targets in Israel in response to Israel’s invasion of southern Lebanon. The U.S. had reportedly warned the IDF, allowing the Israeli military enough time to engage Iranian munitions with their Arrow-2 and Arrow-3 anti-missile defense systems.

“This is testament to Israeli military capability and the U.S. military,” said Biden. “It’s also a testament to intensive planning between the United States and Israel to anticipate and defend against the brazen attack we expected.”

“Make no mistake, the United States is fully, fully, fully supportive of Israel,” the president added.

While most of the Iranian projectiles were successfully intercepted, this does not mean Israel went away unscathed. Media reports note that some of the Iranian missiles directly targeted Tel Aviv, marking a significant escalation in the ongoing conflict. (Related: Iran blasts Israel with 180 ballistic missiles; Israel preparing to STRIKE BACK.)

Following the Iranian barrage, Biden ordered U.S. military assets in the region to intercept and shoot down any additional Iranian missiles aimed at Israel. This move highlights the rapidly intensifying situation, with the U.S. now actively involved in defensive efforts to protect its ally.

In response to the crisis, the White House has convened an emergency meeting. Vice President Kamala Harris and top national security teams were involved and helped coordinate the U.S. response.

Reports from Israeli Army Radio indicate that the recent Iranian missile strike against Israel involved over 100 ballistic missiles, marking the largest missile barrage in the country’s history. Israel’s security cabinet reportedly had to convene in a bunker somewhere in or near Jerusalem to discuss defense strategies.

Although Israel’s anti-missile defense systems have managed to intercept many of the rockets, a significant number broke through and hit targets on the ground, causing widespread damage and panic. An Israeli official speaking with the Hebrew-language broadcaster Kan News warned that Iran would face a “harsh” response to the missile attack.

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Ukrainian Lines Collapsing In East With World’s Attention On Middle East War

Moscow’s wide-reaching offensive in eastern Ukraine has continued making steady gains, as looming major war between Israel and Iran has largely taken over the news cycle and daily headlines.

Currently Russian forces have advanced to merely within a few a few kilometers of Pokrovsk, a key Ukrainian logistical hub in the region. As we’ve highlighted before, the collapse of Pokrovsk will likely portend a Russian takeover of the whole of Donetsk. 

On Wednesday the Ukrainian army announced that it has fully withdrawn from the eastern town of Vuhledar, describing that it abandoned the area after being almost fully encircled, and coming under heavy Russian artillery bombardment.

“The High Command gave permission for a maneuver to withdraw units from Vuhledar in order to save personnel and military equipment and take up a position for further operations,” a Ukrainian unit deployed there said in a Telegram post.

It cited specifically the “threat of encirclement” and heavy troop losses, and there are reports that Russian forces had already taken control of Vuhleda by the time the Ukrainian announcement was made.

Vuhleda is a significant achievement, and suggests Russia forces will continue to plow through Ukrainian defenses, given it was dubbed a “fortress” city given its long having heavily-fortified surroundings and being in an upland position.

Even The Daily Beast recently underscored that while President Zelensky was pitching his ‘victory plan’ in Washington, his forces were suffering loss after loss:

On a visit to the U.S. last week, Volodymyr Zelensky gave the hard sell to his “Victory Plan” for Ukraine. In meetings with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, and an awkward encounter with former President Donald Trump, the Ukrainian leader insisted his country could still–with Western help–emerge victorious in its long-running war with Russia.

…After two and a half years of war, soldiers are tired. The same soldiers who gave Vladimir Putin’s forces a bloody nose after the February 2022 invasion, and pushed the invaders from Kyiv and Kharkiv, say they are under-equipped and complain that they are being ordered to carry out impossible missions as Kyiv struggles to supply the military with new recruits and acquire more Western weapons to ward off Russian advances.

The same report has said that in some instances entire battalions are refusing orders from command centers as they see them as “suicide missions”.

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Let’s talk about… “WWIII” trending again, as war in ME expands

The year-old Israeli-Hamas war is, we are told, spreading across the region. Following Israel’s bizarre “pager  attack” last month the IDF have “shifted focus” to Lebanon.

Two days ago an Israeli strike on Beirut is said to have levelled six buildings and “wiped out” the entirety of Hezbollah’s leadership.

Yesterday, Iran responded by firing “hypersonic” missiles at Tel Aviv that either breached the Iron Dome missile defense system or did NOT breach it depending on who you ask.

Today, Israeli troops are reportedly crossing into Lebanon to fight on the ground. Iran is expected to continue to respond.

Reports claim over a million Lebanese – around one fifth of the entire population – have fled their homes due to Israeli bombing. A very large number indeed.

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Israel’s 1981 Attack on Nuclear Facility “STARTED” Iraq’s Nuclear Weapons Program

Biden announced that Washington doesn’t support an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, which to some knowledgeable observers, given Biden’s record, makes that more likely. 

There are many other hypocrisies and fallacies, but obviously the first thing to be said about Israel’s propaganda regarding Iran’s nuclear program being weaponized is that Israel has its own massive nuclear weapons program that both it and the US government have refused to acknowledge for decades, as I’ve long documented.

But one myth is little known and important to understand as Israel seems to be eyeing striking Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The Telegraph yesterday claimed: “Israel did the world a historic favour when it bombed Iraq’s Osirak reactor in 1981.”

Bullshit.

Israel would claim in 1981: “From sources whose reliability is beyond any doubt, we learn that this reactor, despite its camouflage, is designed to produce atomic bombs.” Which seems to be a case of projection given their deceit regarding their Dimona facility.

In fact, Richard Wilson, who was Mallinckrodt research professor of physics at Harvard University, visited the Osirak Iraqi reactor in 1982 after it was bombed by Israel. He told me back in 2006: “Many claim that the bombing of the Iraqi Osirak reactor delayed Iraq’s nuclear bomb program. But the Iraqi nuclear program before 1981 was peaceful, and the Osirak reactor was not only unsuited to making bombs but was under intensive safeguards. Certainly, Saddam Hussein would clearly have liked a nuclear bomb if he could have had one, but the issue is whether there were enough procedures for that reactor in place to prevent him from doing so and all the indications are that there were enough procedures.

“The Osirak reactor was destroyed in June 1981. It was not until early in July 1981 that Saddam Hussein personally released Dr. Jafar Dhia Jafar from house arrest and asked him to start and head the clandestine nuclear bomb program. The destruction of Osirak did not stop an Iraqi nuclear bomb program but probably started it. Worse still, the Israelis were so pleased with themselves that it appears that neither they nor the CIA looked for and understood the real direction of the Iraqi nuclear bomb program.

“In the international discussions with Iran, this must be borne in mind. Bombing a peaceful program, rather than controlling it, is very dangerous. But, alas, this is not the lesson that many people, who have not studied the technical evidence, have gained.” Wilson died in 2018. See his piece in New Outlook: “Iraq’s uranium separation: the huge surprise.”

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Media Urge Expansion of Ukraine War—Nuclear Risk Be Damned

Ukraine has for months been asking the Biden administration for permission to use long-range US, British and French weapons to strike deeper in Russian territory, which would be a clear escalation in the war. Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that the move would cross a red line for him, and recently announced that he was loosening Russia’s nuclear doctrine for using nuclear weapons.

Despite the risks of such escalation—and a lack of evidence that it would shift the war in Ukraine’s favor—Biden’s public reluctance to loosen his limits has been met in the war-hungry media primarily with derision.

The US, Britain and France have all supplied Ukraine with long-range missiles, including Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS). But Biden has thus far limited their use to border areas. Britain and France are following Biden’s lead on range limitations.

Last month, in response to further advances by Russia into Ukraine, Ukraine launched a surprise invasion into Russian territory in Kursk. Since then, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has pressed the US for more and longer-range missiles, Putin has increasingly raised the specter of nuclear retaliation.

Under its 2020 nuclear doctrine, Russia could respond with nuclear strikes to nuclear or conventional attacks it deemed a “threat to its existence,” if they came from a nuclear power. His new doctrine lowers the bar, so that a “critical attack” on Russia carried out with the “participation or support of a nuclear power” would be grounds for launching a nuclear response—including against the supporting power.

In other words, if Ukraine used long-range missiles supplied by a NATO power to launch an attack on Russia that it deemed “critical,” Putin could respond with a nuclear strike, against either Ukraine or against that NATO country.

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Will the Forever Wars Ever End?

September marked the 23rd anniversary of al-Qaeda’s 2001 attacks on the United States, which left nearly 3,000 people dead. For the two decades since then, I’ve been writing, often for TomDispatch, about the ways the American response to 9/11, which quickly came to be known as the Global War on Terror, or GWOT, changed this country. As I’ve explored in several books, in the name of that war, we transformed our institutions, privileged secrecy over transparency and accountability, side-stepped and even violated longstanding laws and constitutional principles, and basically tossed aside many of the norms that had guided us as a nation for two centuries-plus, opening the way for a country now in Trumpian-style difficulty at home.

Even today, more than two decades later, the question remains: Will the war on terror ever end?

Certainly, one might be inclined to answer in the affirmative following the recent unexpected endorsement of presidential candidate Kamala Harris by two leading members of the George W. Bush administration which, in response to those attacks, launched the GWOT. First, Bush’s vice president, Dick Cheney, who, after September 11th, sought to take the country down the path to what he called “the dark side” and was a chief instigator of the misguided and fraudulently justified invasion of Iraq in 2003, endorsed Vice President Harris. Then, so did Alberto Gonzales who, while serving as White House counsel to George W. Bush and then as his attorney general, was intricately involved in crafting that administration’s grim torture policy. (You remember, of course, those “enhanced interrogation techniques.”) He was similarly involved in creating the overreaching surveillance policy designed and implemented during the first years of the war on terror.

Consider those surprising endorsements by former Bush war hawks a possible coda for the war on terror as a major factor in American politics. In fact, for almost a decade and a half now, there have been signs suggesting that the denouement of that war might be at hand (though it never quite was). Those markers included the May 2011 lethal raid on the hideout of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden; President Barack Obama’s December 2011 authorization for the “final” withdrawal of American troops from Iraq (though a cadre of 2,500 military personnel are stationed there presently and another 900 are in neighboring Syria). In August 2021, 10 years after the killing of bin Laden, the U.S. did finally exit, however disastrously, from its lost war in Afghanistan. And in 2022, a U.S. drone strike killed bin Laden’s successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

The counterterrorism measures have had an impact on the American threat environment. As reported in the Department of Homeland Security’s 2024 Homeland Threat Assessment, in 2022, “Only one attack in the United States was conducted by an individual inspired by a foreign terrorist organization” such as al-Qaeda or ISIS.

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The US Privately Encouraged Israel To Escalate in Lebanon

POLITICO reported on Monday that despite the Biden administration’s public calls for a ceasefire in Lebanon, White House officials privately told Israeli officials that they agreed with the plan to escalate in Lebanon and shift its focus to the north.

The report, which cited US and Israeli officials, said the message was delivered by Brett McGurk, the top Middle East official on the National Security Council, and Amos Hochstein, an Israeli-born veteran of the Israeli Defense Forces who works as a special advisor for President Biden.

The report said that Israel told the US of its plans to focus on Lebanon but didn’t offer much detail, and McGurk and Hochstein “relayed to their Israeli counterparts that — while they still urged a cautious approach — the timing was likely opportune for such a move, especially after Hezbollah had been significantly degraded in the months prior.”

The report contradicts public claims from US officials that they have been seeking a ceasefire in Lebanon and are working toward a diplomatic solution. But US actions have shown they do support Israel’s actions in Lebanon, as the Biden administration gave Israel $8.7 billion in new military aid amid the dramatic escalation.

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NATO developing plans for MASS CASUALTIES in WWIII conflict with Russia

Lieutenant-General Alexander Sollfrank, the head of NATO’s logistics command, confirmed this week that the Western-led security bloc is developing new mass evacuation and rescue plans in preparation for a future war with Russia.

NATO is working, according to Sollfrank, to expand its operational capacity for extracting large numbers of wounded troops from the front lines. The apparent plan is for another world war that results in large numbers of casualties, and NATO recognizes that it will face heavy battlefield losses against Russia.

Russia’s air force has vaunted rockets and missile stockpiles that will make it too risky for medical evacuations via aircraft. This means NATO troops will need to operate “hospital trains” instead to extract large numbers of wounded soldiers off the battlefield.

“The challenge will be to swiftly ensure high-quality care for, in the worst case, a great number of wounded,” Sollfrank said.

The German military, in which Sollfrank is a general, recently announced that it expects Russia will have the capacity to attack a NATO country as soon as 2029. This means there is still time for NATO to build up its defenses against such an attack.

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The military showers universities with hundreds of millions of dollars

The divestment campaigns launched last spring by students protesting Israel’s mass slaughter in Gaza brought the issue of the militarization of American higher education back into the spotlight.

Of course, financial ties between the Pentagon and American universities are nothing new. As Stuart Leslie has pointed out in his seminal book on the topic, The Cold War and American Science, “In the decade following World War II, the Department of Defense (DOD) became the biggest patron of American science.” Admittedly, as civilian institutions like the National Institutes of Health grew larger, the Pentagon’s share of federal research and development did decline, but it still remained a source of billions of dollars in funding for university research.

And now, Pentagon-funded research is once again on the rise, driven by the DOD’s recent focus on developing new technologies like weapons driven by artificial intelligence (AI). Combine that with an intensifying drive to recruit engineering graduates and the forging of partnerships between professors and weapons firms and you have a situation in which many talented technical types could spend their entire careers serving the needs of the warfare state. The only way to head off such a Brave New World would be greater public pushback against the military conquest (so to speak) of America’s research and security agendas, in part through resistance by scientists and engineers whose skills are so essential to building the next generation of high-tech weaponry.

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The Israeli Government Must Be Stopped

The Israeli government has been dragging Western weapons and militaries into wars for far too long, putting all of the world — and its global institutions — at risk. The move into Lebanon, creating more dead, injured, traumatized, and homeless already in huge numbers ought to snap some war supporters out of their trance.

The danger of a catastrophic war on Iran that is joined by the United States and NATO on one side, and additional nations on the other, looms horrifically on the horizon.

It is high time for the world’s governments, including that of Israel’s top supplier, the United States, to begin complying with the International Court of Justice, the United Nations General Assembly, and each of the treaties and domestic laws violated by each arms shipment.

While the UK and Canada have stopped some weapons, that is far from sufficient. While a handful of U.S. Senators anti-democratically plan a vote weeks from now after a U.S. election, on halting illegal arms shipments to Israel, that is far from sufficient, and yet more than we see in the U.S. House of so-called representatives.

Western governments have emboldened the Israeli government with weapons supplies for so long that Israel understands there are no limits. There is nothing it can do that anyone could reasonably expect the U.S. and allied governments not to support, not to protect with propaganda assistance, Security Council vetoes, and yet more instruments of mass killing. That has to change.

Public pressure in the West has prevented western governments from going to war with Iran for decades. But Israel is now expanding an existing war in an effort to create a wider war without any debate or decision. Western media is already using the passive language of “being dragged into” a war — as if no decision need be made at all. This could not be more dangerous, more dishonest, more opposed to the supposed ideal of democracy.

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