Tag: perpetual war

Ukrainian Drones Hit Russia’s Third-Largest Oil Refinery, Prompting White House Anger

As discussed in our morning wrap, US equity futures are dipping lower as bond yields in the US continue to move higher as crude continues to surge and is up another 2% on growing fears of middle-eastern escalation after a senior Iranian commander was killed by an Israeli airstrike in Syria yesterday, with Iran immediately vowing revenge, and as Ukraine once again struck oil infrastructure targets deep inside Russia, overnight hitting Russia’s 3rd largest refinery, ~800 miles from the front lines.

As OilPrice details, Ukrainian drones hit the primary refining unit of Russia’s third-largest refinery southeast of Moscow more than 800 miles from the front line, Reuters reported on Tuesday. Ukraine keeps striking Russian oil assets despite the Biden admin’s unequivocal demands for a hard stop, suggesting that diplomatic fallout is now imminent.

The Taneco refinery of Russian company Tatneft in Tatarstan, an industrialized region southeast of Moscow, was attacked by Ukrainian drones in the latest such attack from Ukraine on Russian refining infrastructure.

The refinery has a capacity to process 340,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude. Its primary refining unit, with a capacity to process about 155,000 bpd, was hit in Tuesday’s attack, according to pictures seen by Reuters. The unit caught fire, which was swiftly extinguished, Russian media report.

They also quote Ramil Mullin, the mayor of the city of Nizhnekamsk, where the refinery is located, as saying that there have been no injured people in the attack.

“There are no injuries or serious damage,” Mullin wrote on Telegram. “The technological process of the enterprise has not been disrupted,” the mayor added.

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Global War Status: Russian Front

Bear with me. I’m going to try to tie several threads together into a coherent whole. I’ll be presenting extensive transcripts of Doug Macgregor, which I find largely convincing—with one caveat. That caveat depends on how stupid Western leaders are. That caveat will be tempered by John Helmer’s reporting on the electric war—which translates into whether the stupidity of the Western ruling class can be thwarted by sheer impossibility on the electric level.

To begin, let’s just restate what this war is all about. We’ve been over this many times, but it’s useful to repeat it. The whole point of the war on Russia was—and still is—to effect regime change, break the Russia Federation up into controllable separate entities, and then loot it for its resources—as a prelude to establishing control over China and thus, ultimately, Eurasia, including the Middle East. It’s about Western Ruling Class governance of the entire world, fueled by control over global resources. Everything else, including the climate hoax, is simply subordinate to that end goal.

Ukraine was and remains a stepping stone toward Russia. In the post WW2 world the American—and, thus, Western—way of war is grounded largely on terror. It’s not so much about defeating militaries as defeating populations, forcing populations into submission via the model of Germany and Japan. The means used are flexible, depending on circumstances. Regime change and propaganda—fueled by the seeming inevitable triumph of the secular Western model—is often the preferred or only option, although regime change itself will often require force. This has happened repeatedly but, with regard to Russia, began definitively in Kiev in 2014—the earlier example of NATO’s war on Serbia could not be repeated in the Ukrainian environment. Nevertheless, a coup, fueled by a violent nationalistic minority of the Ukrainian population, was put into effect with the goal of bringing NATO up to the borders of Russia and exerting maximum—short of open war—pressure on Russia’s political structure by destabilizing the Putin government. The goal was to present to the Russia public the view of Putin as unable to prevent NATO’s triumphant eastward expansion and of Putin as opening Russia to possible catastrophe. Solution for the Russian public: regime change.

As we now know, this hasn’t worked. The magic sanctions war—which was supposed to obviate the necessity of massive kinetic warfare—proved to be an abject failure. Russia’s resolve and creative response to the Ukrainian/NATO threat has led the West to the verge of panic, as Ukraine’s military faces collapse. The West faces the collapse of the entire Globalist Project outlined above. What is so worrisome about the Crocus terrorist attack by the West on Russia is that it represents a doubling down of the regime change strategy. As Alastair Crooke has explained (in his most recent conversation with Judge Nap), the Crocus terror attack was not actually “asymmetric warfare” because it did not target Russia’s military. It was a pure terrorist act aimed at political destabilization of Putin’s government—a continuation of past, failed, strategy, but which now risks wider war.

Russia’s response, which was probably imminent anyway, has been what John Helmer calls the “electric war”. Crooke also refers to this, and specifies that it will also affect Western Europe/NATO. How that effect will occur is explained by Helmer, but first let’s mention one salient fact. The Ukrainian rail system—which is the primary means by which the Ukrainian military transfers troops and supplies—runs on electricity. Remove that capability and the Ukrainian military faces the very real possibility of being largely stranded on the east side of the Dnieper river, subjected to Russian attacks for which it has not defenses. With the fall of Ukraine’s fortress towns and cities in the east, the remains of its military is attempting to dig into the mud, which offers no protection to the Russian glide bombs.

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Terrorism and Kosovo Independence: NATO’s Aggression in 1999. “The First Legalized European Mafia State”

25 years commemoration of NATO’s military intervention against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (the FRY) in March−June 1999 once again opened the question of the Western foundation for Kosovo’s secession from Serbia and its unilateral proclamation of a quasi-independence in February 2008. Kosovo became the first and only European state today that is ruled by the terroristic warlords as a party’s possession – the (Albanian) Kosovo Liberation Army (the KLA). This article aims to investigate the nature of NATO’s war on Yugoslavia in 1999 which has as an outcome the creation of the first terroristic state in Europe – the Republic of Kosovo.  

Terrorism and Kosovo Independence

The KLA terrorists with support from the US and the EU’s administrations launched full-scale violence in December 1998 for the sole purpose of provoking NATO’s military intervention against the FRY as a precondition for Kosovo secession from Serbia hopefully followed by internationally recognized independence. To finally resolve the “Kosovo Question” in the favor of the Albanians, the US Clinton administration brought two confronting sides to formally negotiate in the French castle of Rambouillet in France in February 1999 but in fact to impose an ultimatum to Serbia to accept de facto secession of Kosovo. Even though the Rambouillet ultimatum de iure recognized Serbia’s territorial integrity, the disarmament of terroristic KLA and did not mention Kosovo’s independence from Serbia, as the conditions of the final agreement were in essence highly favorable to the KLA and its secessionist project towards independent Kosovo, Serbia simply rejected them. The US’s answer was a military action led by NATO as a “humanitarian intervention” in order to directly support the Kosovo Albanian separatism. Therefore, on March 24th, 1999 NATO started its military operation against the FRY which lasted till June 10th, 1999. Why the UN’s Security Council was not asked for the approval of the operation is clear from the following explanation:

“Knowing that Russia would veto any effort to get UN backing for military action, NATO launched air strikes against Serbian forces in 1999, effectually supporting the Kosovar Albanian rebels”.[1]  

The crucial feature of this operation was a barbarian, coercive, inhuman, illegal, and above all merciless bombing of Serbia for almost three months. Nevertheless, NATO’s military intervention against the FRY – Operation Allied Force, was propagated by its proponents as a purely humanitarian operation, it is recognized by many Western and other scholars that the US and its client states of NATO had mainly political and geostrategic aims that led them to this military action. 

The legitimacy of the intervention in the brutal coercive bombing of both military and civilian targets in Kosovo province and the rest of Serbia became immediately controversial as the UN’s Security Council did not authorize the action. Surely, the action was illegal according to international law but it was formally justified by the US administration and the NATO’s spokesman as legitimate for the reason that it was unavoidable as all diplomatic options were exhausted to stop the war. However, a continuation of the military conflict in Kosovo between the KLA and Serbia’s state security forces would threaten to produce a humanitarian catastrophe and generate political instability in the region of the Balkans. Therefore, “in the context of fears about the ‘ethnic cleansing’ of the Albanian population, a campaign of air strikes, conducted by US-led NATO forces”[2] was executed with a final result of the withdrawal of Serbia’s forces and administration from the province: that was exactly the main requirement of the Rambouillet ultimatum. 

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Blaming Russia For “Havana Syndrome” Pushes The Opposite Narrative Than Intended

For Russia to have successfully used a mobile directed energy weapon over 1,500 times, including against the US’ “top 5%, 10% performing officers across the Defense Intelligence Agency,” then it must have deeply penetrated the US Government in order to discover those elite targets’ identities and locations.

CBS News, The Insider, and Der Spiegel released the findings of their joint investigation on Sunday blaming Russia for “Havana Syndrome”, which refers to the mysterious ear and head pain that over 1,500 US Government (USG) staffers across the world claim to have experienced since 2016. It appeared timed to coincide with Congress’ plans to vote on Ukraine aid sometime later this month, with the intent obviously being to scare lawmakers into approving more funds for America’s proxy war on Russia.

It might have the opposite effect than intended, however, since those outlets’ dramatic claims paint a picture of deep Russian intelligence penetration of the US’ diplomatic and security services that can’t be remedied by simply sending more money to Ukraine. If what they wrote is true, then Russia has created a mobile directed energy weapon (DEW) that it’s already successfully used over 1,500 times, including against the US’ “top 5%, 10% performing officers across the Defense Intelligence Agency”.

This startling statistic comes from the recently retired Army lieutenant colonel who ran the Pentagon’s investigation into the matter. He claimed that this elite echelon of victims had all “worked against Russia, focused on Russia, and done extremely well” but were then “neutralized” after their injuries. His allegations contradict the Intelligence Community’s (IC) official review from last year that no DEWs nor foreign adversaries were responsible for these “anomalous health incidents”.

Those who take the IC’s official review at face value suspect that the prior hysteria about “Havana syndrome” was just a means of fearmongering about Russia, which they also naturally believe is the motive behind the latest joint investigation’s findings. Meanwhile, those who suspected that the IC’s official review was a cover-up take the latest joint investigation’s findings at face value, which means that they truly believe that Russia has deeply penetrated the US’ diplomatic and security services.

There’s no credible evidence to suggest that this is the case, especially since Russia would have presumably been much better prepared for responding to America’s diplomatic and military provocations throughout the course of their ongoing proxy war if it had moles within both. Nevertheless, the only way that one can believe that it’s systematically targeting members of those institutions who had all worked against it “extremely well” in the past is if it knew who they were and where they lived.

That in turn obliges one to believe that it must have deeply penetrated them in order to obtain this highly classified information, thus meaning that Russian spies are more highly placed than anyone had thought even after the witch hunt that followed the Russiagate hysteria. Once again, there’s no credible evidence that this is the case, and another argument against this theory is that Russia isn’t targeting any similarly prominent Ukrainian diplomats or security officials despite being at “war” with their country.

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Hawaii is only U.S. state not covered by NATO defense agreement

Sweden became the newest member of NATO earlier this month, joining 31 nations in the security alliance, including the United States.

Well, make that 49 of the 50 United States.

Because, in a quirk of geography and history, Hawaii is not technically covered by the NATO pact.

If a foreign power attacked Hawaii — say the U.S. Navy’s base at Pearl Harbor or the headquarters of the Indo-Pacific Command northwest of Honolulu — the members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization would not be obligated to rise to the Aloha State’s defense.

“It’s the weirdest thing,” says David Santoro, president of the Pacific Forum think tank in Honolulu, who added that even most Hawaii residents have no idea their state is technically adrift of the alliance.

“People tend to assume Hawaii is part of the U.S. and therefore it’s covered by NATO,” he says.

But, he concedes, the tip-off is in the alliance’s name – North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Hawaii is, of course, in the Pacific and, unlike California, Colorado or Alaska, the 50th state is not part of the continental U.S. that reaches the North Atlantic Ocean on its eastern shores.

“The argument for not including Hawaii is simply that it’s not part of North America,” Santoro says.

The exception is spelled out in the Washington Treaty, the document that established NATO in 1949, a decade before Hawaii became a state.

While Article 5 of the treaty provides for collective self-defense in the event of a military attack on any member state, Article 6 limits the geographic scope of that.

“An armed attack on one or more of the Parties is deemed to include an armed attack on the territory of any of the Parties in Europe or North America,” Article 6 says. It also says any island territories must be in the North Atlantic, north of the Tropic of Cancer.

A U.S. State Department spokesperson confirmed that Hawaii is not covered by Article 5 but said Article 4 — which says members will consult when “the territorial integrity, political independence or security” of any member is threatened — should cover any situation that could affect the 50th state.

The spokesperson also said any treaty amendment to include Hawaii would be unlikely to gain consensus because other members have territories outside of the boundaries set in Article 5.

For instance, NATO did not join founding member the United Kingdom’s 1982 war with Argentina after Argentine troops invaded the Falkland Islands, a disputed British territory in the South Atlantic.

NATO has not responded to a CNN request for comment.

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Israeli Airstrike Hits Iranian Consulate Building in Damascus, High-Level Iranian General Reported Killed

On Monday, an Israeli airstrike leveled an Iranian consulate building that’s next to the Iranian embassy in the Syrian capital of Damascus, marking a significant escalation in Israeli attacks on Iranians in the region.

Initial reports say at least seven people were killed, including Gen. Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a senior commander in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Several Iranian diplomats and other IRGC members have also been reported killed, but the details and final death toll are not confirmed.

Iran has confirmed the death of Zahedi, who oversaw the IRGC’s Quds Force operations in Syria and Lebanon, and is vowing a harsh response. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani Tehran will “decide on the type of response and punishment against the aggressor.”

The bombing of the diplomatic facility comes a few days after Israel launched some of its heaviest airstrikes in Syria that reportedly killed 52 people, including Syrian soldiers and members of Lebanon’s Hezbollah. Israel has also killed multiple members of the IRGC since it ramped up airstrikes in Syria after October 7.

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Russian nexus revealed during 60 Minutes Havana Syndrome investigation into potential attacks on U.S. officials

A lead U.S. military investigator examining reports of what has become known as Havana Syndrome told 60 Minutes he believes U.S. officials are being attacked by Russia and that the official threshold to prove it was set impossibly high.

Greg Edgreen, a now-retired Army lieutenant colonel who ran the Pentagon investigation into what officials refer to as “anomalous health incidents,” said the bar for proof was set so high because the country doesn’t want to face some very hard truths, like the existence of possible failures to protect Americans.

“Unfortunately I can’t get into specifics, based on the classification,” Edgreen said. “But I can tell you at a very early stage, I started to focus on Moscow.”

A 2023 government report deemed it “very unlikely” that a foreign adversary was behind the mysterious brain injuries suffered by U.S. national security officials, yet more than 100 Americans have symptoms scientists say could be caused by a beam of microwaves or acoustic ultrasound. Victims are frustrated that the government publicly doubts an adversary is targeting Americans. The ongoing, five-year 60 Minutes investigation has now uncovered new evidence pointing toward Russia.

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Russia Demands Ukraine Arrest and Hand Over SBU Head Vasyl Malyuk, After He Admits on TV Role in Terror Attacks

Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has come out and unveiled Moscow’s demand that Ukraine authorities hand over all people connected with terrorist acts committed in their territory.

The list surprisingly even includes the head of Kiev’s SBU Security Service, Vasyl Malyuk.

Besides the recent ‘bloody Crocus terrorist act’, the attacks in question include bombings that killed the daughter of a prominent nationalist philosopher, a war blogger, and another incident in which a writer was seriously hurt.

While the investigation by the Russian authorities indicate that the traces of all these crimes lead to Ukraine, in the case of Malyuk there is a voluntary admission on TV.

“We will not officially admit this in any way, but at the same time I will tell you some details,” he said in an interview with a Ukrainian TV channel.

Reuters reported:

“‘Russia has turned over to Ukrainian authorities its demands … for the immediate arrest and extradition of all those connected to the terrorist acts in question’, the [Russian Ministry’s] statement said.

The ministry statement said those to be handed over included SBU head Vasyl Malyuk, who has acknowledged [in an interview with Ukrainian television channel ICTV] his service was behind attacks on the bridge linking Crimea to the Russian mainland […].

‘The Russian side demands that the Kyiv regime immediately cease all support for terrorist activity, extradite guilty parties and compensate the victims for damages’, it said.

‘Ukraine’s violation of its obligations under anti-terrorist conventions will result in it being held to account in international legal terms’.”

Here are some other excerpts by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs:

“Other barbaric terrorist attacks using explosive devices cost the lives of journalists D.A. Dugina and M.Yu. Fomin (V. Tatarsky), led to the serious injury of the writer E.N. Prilepin and the death of his driver A.I. Shubin, the death of five people as a result of the explosion of the Crimean Bridge, 42 people were injured in an explosion in a cafe in St. Petersburg.”

It does seem odd for a warring party to demand another to comply with treaties and conventions.

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Israel Creates ‘Kill Zones’ in Gaza Where Anyone Who Enters Gets Shot

Israel has been creating “kill zones” in the Gaza Strip in areas where the Israeli military is operating, and anyone who enters will get shot even if they’re unarmed civilians, Haaretz reported on Sunday.

The report said anyone killed in a designated kill zone is labeled a “terrorist” even if they “never held a gun in their lives,” and they are “often civilians whose only crime was to cross an invisible line drawn by the IDF.”

One Israeli reservist who was recently in north Gaza said the “feeling we had was that there weren’t really rules of engagement there.”

Other sources in the IDF told Haaretz that Israel’s claim that 9,000 out of the 32,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza are “terrorists” is not valid. “In practice, a terrorist is anyone the IDF has killed in the areas in which its forces operate,” an Israeli reserve officer said.

A senior officer in Israel’s Southern Command said it was “astonishing to hear the reports after every operation regarding how many terrorists were killed.” He added that Hamas fighters don’t operate in large groups, saying, “You don’t need to be a genius to realize that you don’t have hundreds or dozens of armed men running through the streets of Khan Yunis or Jabaliya, fighting the IDF.”

Another reserve officer who spoke with Haaretz said he was tasked with telling senior IDF officers how many “terrorists” were killed in operations his men carried out and said no one “can determine with certainty who is a terrorist and who was hit after entering the combat zone of an IDF force.”

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EASY TIGER! GOP Rep. Tim Walberg Suggests Ending War in Gaza and Russia ‘Like Nagasaki and Hiroshima’

Michigan Congressman Tim Walberg appeared to get somewhat carried away with his rhetoric during a town hall meeting with constituents this week.

The event, which was held at Dundee Village Hall in Michigan, allowed attendees to ask Walberg his view on various hot button issues of the day.

One man said he knew a soldier who was travelling to Gaza to help build a port at the request of the Biden administration as Israel carries out its war against Hamas.

“Why are we spending our money to build a port for them?” the man asked, according to a video posted on the X platform.

“It’s Joe Biden’s reason; we need to get humanitarian aid into Gaza,” Walberg responded. “I don’t think any of our aid that goes to Israel to support our greatest ally, arguably maybe in the world, to defeat Hamas and Iran and Russia, and probably North Korea’s in there, and China, too, with them helping Hamas — we shouldn’t be spending a dime on humanitarian aid.”

The Congressman then brought up the example of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, when the allies dropped two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities, which together killed over 100,000 people.

Although the bombings did bring a swift end to the war with the surrender of the Axis powers, debate over the ethics of the decision is debated to this date.

“It should be like Nagasaki and Hiroshima,” he continued. “Get it over quick. The same should be in Ukraine. Defeat Putin quick.”

In a statement to Detroit News, Walberg’s spokesman Mike Rorke insisted that he “vehemently disagrees with putting our troops in harm’s way.”

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