Tag: perpetual war

Record Number of Journalists Killed in Gaza

“In war, truth is the first casualty,” said Aeschylus. In the modern era, this includes the journalists devoted to uncovering that truth. On Aug. 22, the Committee to Protect Journalists reported that at least 116 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza since hostilities began. This is the highest death toll in any conflict since the CPJ began gathering data in 1992. 

That number will likely expand in the coming weeks. The group is still investigating nearly 350 additional cases of potential killings, arrests and injuries of journalists and media workers in Gaza. These numbers dwarf those of much larger and longer conflicts. During all of World War II, 69 reporters were killed. In the Korean War, 17. Sixty-three were killed in Vietnam. In the Afghanistan and Iraq wars in this century, 65 and 282. 

The most recent deaths in Gaza investigated by the CPJ occurred on July 31. Ismail al-Ghoul, a 27-year-old Palestinian journalist, and Rami al-Refee, a 27-year-old Palestinian cameraman, were freelancing for Al Jazeera when Israeli missiles hit a car they were using in the Al Shatei camp near Gaza City. According to Al Jazeera, al-Ghoul and al-Refee had been investigating the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, and had been parked in front of his home for five minutes, when they were killed. In a statement, Al Jazeera Media Network called the attack by Israeli forces “a cold-blooded assassination” and pledged to “pursue all legal actions to prosecute the perpetrators of these crimes” and that it “stands in unwavering solidarity with all journalists in Gaza.” 

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Countdown To Crisis, Catastrophe, & Collapse

“All tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but once the fraud is exposed, they must rely exclusively on force.” – George Orwell

“The future’s becoming muddled. The lines of vision are narrowing. But now they’re desperate. All paths lead into darkness.” – Frank Herbert – Dune

Trying to decipher the path ahead becomes more difficult by the day. We are purposefully bombarded with misinformation, disinformation, and propaganda by the ruling class, designed to distract us from their real purpose, real agenda, and real plans to imprison us in their techno-gulag, eating zee bugs in our container sized hovels, using our government issued CBDCs to subsist, unless we dared to question the approved narrative – resulting in our social credit rating dropping into the domestic terrorist zone – getting us banned and shunned from society. This is the New World Order the Davos crowd has designed and will implement as a Great Reset, if they succeed in retaining and increasing control over the U.S. and the rest of the Western World in the next six months.

I know many bloggers/analysts depend on clicks, likes, and subscriptions to their websites/social media to make a living, so they constantly predict Armageddon within the next week, and it never happens. This “little boy who cried wolf” routine has resulted in even the critical thinking among us becoming complacent and unconcerned as we accelerate towards our dire rendezvous with destiny. We shrug off Ukraine invading Russia and bombing a nuclear power plant, while Belarus moves troops towards the Ukraine border, Putin bombs Kiev, and U.S. military equipment is employed by U.S. military personnel against Russia.

We discount the possibility of Iran actually mounting a devastating response against Israel, prompting an even larger response by Israel, and the U.S. getting drawn into the conflict with Iran, because we’ve been here before and nothing happened. And nothing may happen again in the next week, but Fourth Turnings NEVER de-intensify. There will be blood, death, and war on an enormous scale before this Crisis is resolved.

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Secretive SR-72 Hypersonic Aircraft, Successor to Lockheed Martin’s Legendary SR-71, Could Soon Take Flight

In 2013, a feature article appeared on the website of legendary aerospace and defense giant Lockheed Martin that quickly had aviation buffs talking. The piece, titled “Speed is the New Stealth,” claimed that a new hypersonic aircraft was under development at the company’s famous Skunk Works facility, which would soon set a new standard for speed and stealth in American aerospace technologies.

“That’s because today,” the article explained, “engineers are developing a hypersonic aircraft that will go twice the speed of the SR-71.”

“It’s called the SR-72.”

It was a remarkable revelation since 2013 marked nearly 23 years since the fabled SR-71—once the pride of the American stealth reconnaissance arsenal—had been officially retired. The conclusion of the SR-71’s tenure in service resulted from several factors, including maintenance costs amid a shrinking military budget and new vulnerabilities presented by developments in Soviet surface-to-air missile capabilities.

Perhaps the most apparent issue the SR-71 faced was the implementation of newer, less costly, and more effective reconnaissance technologies. Chief among these were satellites that had already proven their resilience in collecting detailed information from the heart of Soviet territory by the final years of the 20th century. Then, in the early 2000s, the CIA began to deploy the first armed Predator drones for missions in Afghanistan, an early showcase for the power and capability of unmanned aerial vehicles as an American military asset in the new millennium.

Amidst such 21st-century realities, by 2013, Lockheed Martin seemed confident that its vision of a new unmanned hypersonic aircraft capable of flight at six times the speed of sound would soon become a reality. Citing cost-saving production methods and recent advancements made with Aerojet Rocketdyne to “integrate an off-the-shelf turbine with a supersonic combustion ramjet air-breathing jet engine to power the aircraft,” the 2013 article seemed to indicate that the forthcoming wonder machine that Aviation Week had already nicknamed the “son of Blackbird” would soon take flight.

The arrival of America’s next formidable stealth plane, in other words, was right around the corner. Yet despite all the buzz the SR-72 announcement generated at the time, the story eventually receded again into the shadows of the highly classified world of black projects.

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NATO’s Arctic Strategy Is an Overreaction  

In July, the U.S. Department of Defense released its first Arctic strategy guide since 2019. Washington’s concerns peaked when American and Canadian jets intercepted two Russian Tupolev TU-95 strategic bombers and two Chinese H-6 bombers operating in international airspace around 200 miles off the coast of Alaska. While the United States must ensure the security of its territory, including Alaska, overreacting and developing a militaristic hyperfocus on the Arctic, where U.S. interests are limited, would be a blunder. 

The Arctic strategy document highlights the threat of recent Sino-Russian collaboration in the Arctic, citing PLAN and Russian Navy ships operating together in international waters off the coast of Alaska in 2022 and 2023. Russia, which controls the largest swath of Arctic territory of any Arctic nation, has expanded and modernized its Arctic military infrastructure. The region is of great importance to Moscow, as Russia aims to defend its second-strike, sea-based nuclear deterrent capability operating out of the Kola Peninsula to defend the homeland and protect its regional economic endeavors, including oil and gas megaprojects like the Yamal LNG and Vostok Oil ventures. 

Meanwhile, China’s activities in the Arctic have been mainly economic in nature. In the 21st century, China has invested over $90 billion in Arctic energy and minerals sector projects. Beijing’s economic activity aligns with its 2018 Arctic Strategy, which mentions Beijing’s aim to gain more influence in its claim as an Arctic stakeholder. As the U.S. strategy guide mentions, the PRC seeks to promote the Arctic region as a “global commons,” a statement that Washington perceives as an opportunity for China to shift governance of the region in its favor. 

Neither the modernization of Soviet-era military bases nor PRC attempts to construct a Polar Silk Road constitutes enough of a threat to warrant making the Arctic the next battleground of great power competition. Yet the NATO alliance, with Finland and Sweden recently becoming full-fledged members, is determined to confront the perceived threat in the Arctic region.

Although NATO has historically lacked an official position on the Arctic, following the start of the Russo–Ukrainian war in 2022, the Arctic region has become a larger security focus for the alliance. With Finland and Sweden’s ascension to NATO, the alliance’s Arctic presence increased significantly and has been accompanied by large-scale military exercises, such as Nordic Response 2024, which involved 13 NATO countries and 20,000 troops. Moreover, NATO’s new Arctic posture includes enhancing surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities, as well as improving interoperability among NATO member states.

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Destroying Villages in Order To Save Them

A salient feature of the last decade or so has been the steady rise of bizarre cults with legions of fervent true believers, even though we have virtually zero rational grounds for believing in the central tenets of these secular religions. The weirdest thing about these cults is the way in which their true believers ardently sacrifice the very things they claim they wish to save. Consider the following:

1). COVID-19 illness presents close to ZERO risk to healthy children, but this hasn’t stopped the Vaccine Cult from demanding that children receive the dangerous, experimental shots that are neither effective nor safe. The most spectacular irrational outcome is the high incidence of vaccine-induced myocarditis among young athletes for whom COVID-19 posed zero risk.

2). Wind turbines are extremely inefficient producers of electricity that kill hundreds of thousands of migratory birds, wreak havoc in the marine environment when they are placed offshore, and ruin the physical beauty of the landscape. Nevertheless, the bizarre Climate Cult insists that wind turbines are a key weapon in our arsenal for reducing carbon emissions, which the Climate Cult fervently believes to be causing a rise in the earth’s temperature. Destroy nature in order to save it!

3). A human male will obviously have an unfair advantage over a female in almost all competitive sports. And yet, in their fervent proselytization of the bizarre Transgender Cult, votaries have largely succeeded in destroying women’s sports and the dreams of the girls and women who train for them.

4). Importing legions of young men from Arab countries into European countries in which these young men struggle to integrate and find gainful employment has resulted in a marked reduction of public safety in European cities, especially for young women. Yesterday here in Vienna, I had lunch with the former chief of police, who told me that stabbings are indeed much higher in certain districts of Vienna than they ever were in the past. The perpetrators are almost always young males who came to Vienna during the 2015 European migrant crisis.

And yet, the Diversity Cult persists in its bizarre, fetishistic belief that racial diversity per se is necessarily a good thing. Yesterday evening, while pondering the irrationality of the Diversity Cult, I saw the news that a young, foreign-born man stabbed 11 people and killed three at the “Festival of Diversity” that was underway in Solingen, Germany. Diversity will purportedly strengthen and revitalize Germany in the 21st century, even when it results in mass homicide.

5). Already in the year 2015, I began to perceive that the oligarchs who run Ukraine were making a huge mistake by getting into bed with the oligarchs who run the U.S. intelligence agencies, military-industrial complex, and Biden Crime Family. Cozying up with the U.S. military and intel establishment would certainly frighten the Russian Bear and make him aggressive. Far better for the poor people of Ukraine to tone down the nationalism and seek friendly and cooperative relations with Russia.

Note that the exact same reasoning has applied to every country in the Western Hemisphere in their relations with the United States government since President Monroe announced his Monroe Doctrine. As the former Mexican President, Porfirio Diaz once lamented: “Poor Mexico—so far from God, and so close to the United States.”

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WWIII: Russia Continues Opening Investigations Into Foreign Journalists Who Kremlin Says Crossed Into Russia Illegally To Film Ukrainian Incursion

Russia’s FSB security service said it had launched a case against “foreign journalists Simone Traini and Stefania Battistini, who illegally crossed the State Border of the Russian Federation”, reported The Moscow Times.

It said the journalists had “carried out video shooting in the territory of the settlement of Sudzha”, a town in the region that Ukraine’s forces claim to control.

The Italian reporters were shown driving in an armored vehicle past Russian road signs before arriving in Sudzha, around 10 kilometers (six miles) from the border, where a journalist spoke to local people.

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has launched investigations into two more journalists, one German and one Ukrainian, who traveled to the town of Sudzha after illegally crossing the Russian border in the Kursk Region, the FSB said in a statement, reported Russian state news agency TASS.

“The Russian FSB has launched criminal investigations into Nicholas Simon Connolly, a reporter for the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle (designated in Russia as a foreign agent media outlet), and Natalya Nagornaya, a correspondent for the Ukrainian TV channel 1+1, who illegally crossed the state border of the Russian Federation and recorded video footage near the town of Sudzha in the Kursk Region. The FSB is conducting the investigations under Article 322.3 of the Russian Criminal Code,” the statement reads.

The article carries a penalty of up to five years in prison.

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How Israel’s quadcopters traumatise, maim and kill Palestinians in Gaza

In the course of more than ten months, Israel unleashed an array of weaponry in its genocidal war on the Palestinians in the besieged coastal enclave, killing and wounding thousands. One of the most deadly weapons in Israel’s arsenal is the quadcopter. 

A drone with four propellers, the quadcopter follows its targets in different spaces, including narrow alleys of streets, tents, and inside houses. The 1.6-metre Quadcopter is electronically controlled remotely. It can easily take off and move vertically and horizontally for military or civilian service. It weighs about ten kilograms only. 

Usually, the Israeli army deploys quadcopters for intelligence purposes to facilitate its mission on the ground. Nevertheless, the Israeli army have equipped these drones with explosive devices, transforming them into deadly suicide attacks.

Dozens of quadcopters have so far killed hundreds of Palestinian civilians by launching guided missiles. 

“Quadcaptors have killed about 1,000 Palestinians, including 350 women and 150 children, during the current genocidal war,” the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza noted in a recent press statement. 

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Ukraine Might Be Gearing Up To Attack Or Cut Off Belarus’ Southeastern City Of Gomel

Its Foreign Ministry’s ominously implied ultimatum to Minsk and reaffirmation of Ukraine’s right to self-defense suggest that Kiev might invade Belarus’ Gomel Region and/or Russia’s Bryansk Region.

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry released a statement on Sunday warning about what it described as the “threat” posed by Belarus’ military buildup along the border, the motivations of which were analyzed here in early August. Belarusian President Lukashenko also drew attention last week to the whopping 120,000 Ukrainian troops that he claims were the first to deploy there. For reference, Belarus only has around 65,000 active soldiers, one-third of whom are stationed along the Ukrainian border.

Less than a week ago, a small Ukrainian force unsuccessfully tried to invade a tiny village in Russia’s Bryansk Region that’s only 30 kilometers from the Belarusian border. It was likely a probing attempt in hindsight, but any Kursk-like invasion along that front could risk impeding or even cutting off Russia’s military logistics to Belarus’ southeastern city of Gomel. That’s because there’s a nearby highway running between there and Bryansk’s eponymous capital just 30-50 kilometers inside of Russia from the border.

Ukraine might be gearing up to either attack Gomel (which is just 30 kilometers from the border) or at least threaten Russia’s military logistics to there from Bryansk judging by its Foreign Ministry’s statement, which the “Kyiv Independent” noted was the first about Belarus since last September. They ominously implied an ultimatum by writing that “we urge its armed forces to cease unfriendly actions and withdraw forces away from Ukraine’s state border to a distance greater than the firing range of Belarus’ systems.”

This was backed up by them reminding Belarus that “We warn that in case of a violation of Ukraine’s state border by Belarus, our state will take all necessary measures to exercise the right to self-defense guaranteed by the UN Charter. Consequently, all troop concentrations, military facilities, and supply routes in Belarus will become legitimate targets for the Armed Forces of Ukraine.” The stage is therefore set for opening up another front on this false pretext if Kiev has the political will to do so.

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Ukrainian Commanders Blame Poorly Trained Soldiers for Donbas Losses: ‘Panic & Chaos’

As Kiev attempts to bask in triumph over its territorial gains inside of Russia, its forces are losing territory along the Eastern front lines in Ukraine. Ukrainian military commanders say the reason for the losses is poorly trained soldiers; many are even afraid to fire their weapons. 

Speaking with the Associated Press, a battalion commander in Ukraine’s 47th Brigade said, “Some people don’t want to shoot. They see the enemy in the firing position in trenches but don’t open fire. … That is why our men are dying. When they don’t use the weapon, they are ineffective.”

After pushing Kiev to forego a diplomatic settlement with Moscow in April 2022, Western leaders pledged that they would arm, equip, and train Ukrainian soldiers to fight off the Russian invaders.

However, two and a half years into the conflict, it has turned into a war of attrition, and Kiev’s backers are struggling to sustain Ukraine’s military amid massive losses. 

While Kiev has not made an official statement regarding its casualties, they are estimated to be well into the hundreds of thousands. Support for the war has also been dipped in Ukraine, leading Kiev to draft more Ukrainians, including increasingly younger citizens, into the military. 

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You Will Hear the Names of the Dead: The DNC in Chicago

A couple of weeks ago, I plunged into Lake Michigan. Unlike usual, the water felt warm. It was easy to run all the way in and easy to float over the waves. Montrose beach was crowded with families, pitching tents to keep out of the sun. Children played, laughed, and cried. Midwesterners who still hadn’t made it out into the sun crisped their pale shoulders. It would have been a perfectly relaxing day, but fighter jets circled above everyone’s heads — doing dives and turning every which way. Mothers plugged their children’s ears and I saw a baby wearing noise cancelling headphones.

It was the Air and Water show — an annual proud display of American military capabilities. They are the same jets that fly over the shores of Gaza, dropping bombs on families. That’s what I thought about — it was just by happen stance that we were there watching these planes as a performance rather than in Gaza as weapon of mass slaughter. The more places I travel to, the more I realize how much the world looks the same. People everywhere are really kind and generous — the only thing that separates us is if the stars align to have us born under the boot of the United States or not.

As the jets flew over our heads I felt my stomach sour. In two weeks, the Democratic National Convention would come to Chicago and it was a present opportunity to make clear the contradictions that kept me up at night. Once months and months away, the DNC was finally around the corner.

This week, members of the Democratic Party came from all parts of the country to convene in Chicago. They were coronating Kamala Harris as their presidential nominee, a woman no one really voted for. Even in the face of this blatant lack of democracy, the party members were elated to choose her. They carried signs with her husband’s name and applause erupted from the tens of thousands of people in the United Center when she declared that the United States would have the “most lethal military” in the world under her leadership. To the people well aware of the millions of people the United States killed in the last twenty years alone, her statement was a threat.

The week was marked by the obvious gaps between the people going into the United Center and the people outside of it.

There was a young woman that sat outside the exit of the Democratic National Convention on its third night reading the names of the children Israel has killed in the last ten months. She did it for hours, until her speaker battery died. She did it alone, taking care to pronounce every child’s name correctly and to say their age at the time of their murder. Without her, many of the DNC guests wouldn’t necessarily be confronted with the carnage members of their party is carrying out.

Outside the gates of the DNC I saw a young woman making sure the children of Palestine weren’t just numbers, and I saw people laughing at her for doing so. They laughed loudly and mocked her voice. They mocked the names of the dead babies. They yelled at her to leave them alone. They left the coronation ceremony livid that they had to even hear about Gaza.

That night was demoralizing, and it’s something I will remember for the rest of my life. Democrats laugh at the names of dead children. They openly refuse to let a Palestinian speak for two minutes at their four day long event. They order riot cops on people protesting a genocide. They have their parties, fundraisers, and happy hours while bodies pile up. If they really didn’t think the genocide was so bad, they wouldn’t get so mad at us for reminding them. They knew that the people they were rallying behind are cheering on mass slaughter — they’ve just weighed their fun, their careers, and their vanity against the lives of 180,000 Palestinians and decided that nothing could be more important than themselves. I don’t care what they said to me, or my friends, but I hope our faces and our presence made them feel even an ounce of discomfort. In the best case scenario, I hope they went to sleep hearing the echoes of the martyrs names. I still foolishly hope they turn a corner at some point.

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