Tag: perpetual war

‘Psywar’: U.S. Army Releases Disturbing Psychological Operations Recruitment Video

An unsettling video from the U.S. Army’s Psychological Operations (PSYOP) division portrays faceless heads and displays and entones cryptic messages in order to recruit more soldiers for intellectual warfare.

“Ghosts in the Machine 2” was quietly released in the early morning hours of Thursday on the branch’s 4th PSYOP Group YouTube channel, exactly two years after the drop of the similarly perplexing original “Ghosts in the Machine” recruitment video. 

The video starts with a quote from Nobel prize-winning author John Steinbeck on a pitch-black screen: “I am a little man and this is a little town, but there must be a spark in little men that can burst into flame.”

An audio recording of some of the late President John F. Kennedy’s June 1963 remarks in West Berlin then plays in the background as the on-screen text states that the biggest “weapon” in the hands of an oppressor is “the mind of the oppressed.”

Dark, haunting imagery including masks, ghosts, and burning, faceless mannequins flashes across the scene as recognizable historic speeches and flashing text continue:

“Behind every idea… a belief… PSYWAR”

“Behind every choice… invisible hands”

“Behind every emotion… fire”

The video ends with intense music, war footage, and the question: “Do you believe in the power of words and ideas?”

“WE BELIEVE” is then displayed in large font before the link to the Army’s Special Operations recruiting page.

According to the branch’s PSYOP career page, soldiers are trained to “strategically influence and deceive” in order to “help sway opinions and actions of foreign governments, groups, and individuals.”

“It’s a recruiting video,” the Army major who created the video told the Associated Press ahead of the release. “Someone who watches it and thinks, wow, that was effective, how was it constructed — that’s the kind of creative mindset we’re looking for.”

The major, who asked to not be named, is a member of the 8th Psychological Operations Group based at Fort Liberty, North Carolina.

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Back Door War: SecDef Admits US Troops In Gaza May See Combat

In a fascinating exchange US Rep. Matt Gaetz probed US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin about the role of the estimated 1,000 US troops involved in building a floating pier to deliver aid to Gaza. Austin insisted that they were not “boots on the ground” although he admitted they would be armed and would respond to incoming fire. Injecting US troops into a warzone requires a Congressional vote, Gaetz warned Austin.

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Campus Protests: The Kids May Not Be Alright, But They Are (Mostly) Right

I’m too young to remember the campus convulsions of the 1960s, but older friends who were there tell me that the growing campus protest movement against US support for Israel’s war in Palestine bears a striking resemblance to those days.

I happen to support that movement’s goals, at least to the extent of wanting to see the US government butt out of other people’s arguments.

I’m told by some “pro-Israel” friends that the student protesters are all “anti-semites” and “supporters of Hamas,” and that if I support them I must also hate a particular ethnic group and support terrorism as a tactic.

But I don’t hate any ethnic groups, nor do I support Hamas any more than I support the Israeli Defense Forces.

I don’t doubt that SOME of the student protesters fall into the “hater” category, simply because the protests are a convenient bandwagon for “haters” to ride on. The next large political event I attend that doesn’t have a least a few weirdos hanging around, trying to grab a little unearned credibility by association, will be the first.

I just want a government that claims it works for me to stop handing out weapons and cash to other governments. Especially, though not only, to crybully regimes that constantly play the victim while also occupying territory outside their borders for decades on end, imposing apartheid regimes on the inhabitants of those occupied territories, murdering anyone who resists (along with many who don’t), etc.

To the extent that the kids on campus are seeking the same thing, they’re doing God’s work and have my full support.

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Despite Media Cheerleading, $61 Billion Won’t Beat Russia

The United States continues to be the world’s banker for war. Last week, the U.S. invested $95 billion more in war. $61 billion of that is headed to Ukraine. While Congress waved Ukrainian flags, the American mainstream media abandoned its responsibility as investigative journalists and dutifully and enthusiastically acted as cheerleaders, celebrated the continuation of war and led the call for more.

What the mainstream media did not do is tell the American public that, while $61 billion is a lot of money, it is not enough to change the inevitable long-term outcome of the war. The current package of lethal aid will change the situation. It will prolong the war, and it will prolong Ukraine’s suffering. But it will not alter Ukraine’s inevitable defeat.

Few, if any, of the large American mainstream media bothered to investigate the aid package or report that, after money is allocated to keeping the Ukrainian government solvent, funding current military operations in the region and replenishing the U.S. stockpile of weapons, only about $14 billion is left for actually procuring new weapons for Ukraine.

Instead, mainstream media headlines proclaim a fresh beginning and celebrate the potential for the new package of lethal aid to push Ukraine to victory over Russia and prevent Russia from marching through Ukraine into Europe. But neither is true.

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Bill To Prolong Death and Destruction

I am speaking about a $95-billion foreign military aid package that included $61 billion for Ukraine. Speaker Mike Johnson’s turnaround from opponent to supporter of the war in Ukraine raised many eyebrows. His meeting with Trump in advance of this announcement added intrigue and speculations about the reasons for this sudden change of heart.

Most likely both men decided that it would help Trump and the GOP to win votes in November, and how many more Ukrainians would die in the process was of no particular concern to them.  Instead, Johnson used the same Lindsey Graham and Co’s language that financing this war was the best investment ever made since no Americans were dying, and the only new element was that the Speaker added a personal touch by adding his son into the equation.  “To put it bluntly, I would rather send bullets to Ukraine than American boys,” Johnson told reporters last week. “My son is going to begin in the Naval Academy this fall. This is a live-fire exercise for me as it is for so many American families. This is not a game; this is not a joke.”

Well, nowadays it is useless to ask whether such statements correspond to moral, ethical, or any other values that US and EU politicians (there are exceptions, of course, but, so far, their numbers are not enough to change the course) claim to adhere to but Ukrainian President Zelensky surpasses their cynicism by thanking Congress saying “The vital US aid bill passed today by the House will keep the war from expanding, save thousands and thousands of lives.” He is talking, of course, about saving American, not Ukrainian lives.

Such statements and actions from Washington or Brussels, and from Zelensky confirm what was known anyway. The West found a foreign leader ready to serve its interests of weakening Russia by sacrificing the Ukrainian people and their country in exchange for money and glory.  In the Western media, he is now George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Winston Churchill together in one face.   I doubt all of them or their heirs would be thrilled by being compared to someone who converted his own country into a foreign mercenary legion.

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Biden Considering Bringing Some Refugees From Gaza To The US

The Biden administration appears to have gotten its Soros marching orders to pour gasoline into the fire, with CBS reporting that the White House is considering bringing “certain Palestinians” to the U.S. as refugees, a move that would offer a permanent safe haven to some of those fleeing war-torn Gaza, and would also drastically escalate what has already been the 2024 equivalent of the 2020 BLM summer of violence, only this time with spoiled, rich Marxist kids pretending they live in the 1960s and their actions can stop the war in Vietnam Middle East.

According to the report, in recent weeks senior officials across several federal U.S. agencies have discussed the practicality of different options to resettle Palestinians from Gaza who have immediate family members who are American citizens or permanent residents.

One of those proposals involves using the decades-old United States Refugee Admissions Program to welcome Palestinians with U.S. ties who have managed to escape Gaza and enter neighboring Egypt, according to the inter-agency planning documents.

Top U.S. officials have also discussed getting additional Palestinians out of Gaza and processing them as refugees if they have American relatives, the documents show. The plans would require coordination with Egypt, which has so far refused to welcome large numbers of people from Gaza.

Those who pass a series of eligibility, medical and security screenings would qualify to fly to the U.S. with refugee status, which offers beneficiaries permanent residency, resettlement benefits like housing assistance and a path to American citizenship.

While the eligible population is expected to be relatively small, the plans being discussed by U.S. officials could offer a lifeline to some Palestinians fleeing the Israel-Hamas war, which local public health authorities say has claimed the lives of more than 34,000 people and displaced hundreds of thousands of civilians in Gaza.

Needless to say, this comes from the same admin which a few days ago decided against a ban of menthol cigarettes over fears it would alienate the black vote, and today targeted the pot-smoking voters with a report the DEA was preparing to reclassify marijuana to a less dangerous drug category. The same admin which in the past 2 years has welcomed over 20 million illegals with the hope that they will illegally vote for Biden and the Democrats, and thus enshrine the current kleptofascist regime in perpetuity. So it is hardly a surprise that Biden, desperate to avoid losing the vote of the ultra-left progressive wing of the Democrat party which just happens to sympathize with Hamas, will pander to this group whose votes may end up deciding the November election.

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Pentagon Chief Engaged In Pressuring EU Countries To Give Up Their Patriot Systems

America’s top defense official is engaged in efforts to pressure European countries to give up their own US-made anti-air defenses for Ukraine.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Tuesday he’s been actively encouraging countries to donate their Patriot missile systems to Ukraine. “There are countries that have Patriots, and so what we’re doing is continuing to engage those countries,” Austin testified before a House Armed Services Committee hearing.

“I have talked to the leaders of several countries… myself here in the last two weeks, encouraging them to give up more capability or provide more capability,” he said.

Last Friday Austin announced that as part of a massive new $6 billion aid package for Kiev, the US will provide additional Patriot missiles. This is part of the first approved roll-out in the wake of Biden signing into effect the $61 billion in defense funding for Ukraine belatedly approved by Congress this month.

President Zelensky and his top officials have been essentially begging for more Patriots as Russia continues pummeling its cities and infrastructure. 

A Ukrainian outlet has quoted Zelensky as ramping up the pressure on his backers in NATO:

“Regarding the number of missiles to Patriots, we really expect a positive result in this regard. Thank God that after we convened the Ukraine-NATO Council, we received an assurance that there will be no delays in the process (of supplying missiles to the Patriot systems – ed.), Volodymyr Zelensky said.

Earlier this month a disturbing report by Financial Times identified Greece and Spain as being under the most pressure from Western allies to give up what few Patriot anti-air defense systems that they possess.

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Jamaal Bowman ‘Fully’ in Favor of Resettling Gaza Migrants in U.S.

Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) expressed his full “support” for the United States to “bring in” Palestinian refugees from Gaza.

During an interview with a reporter from Yonkers Voice, Bowman said the U.S. is a “land of immigrants” and “asylum seekers” that has always opened its “doors to immigrants,” saying, “[I] fully support that,” in response to a question regarding the U.S. opening its doors to migrants from Gaza.

“Should the United States bring in people from Gaza?” the reporter asked Bowman.

“We are a land of migrants, and we are a land of asylum seekers — anyone escaping persecution and oppression and violence — the United States has always been an open home to those people,” Bowman answered:

So, whether they’re coming from Palestine, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Mexico, [or] Haiti, they’re coming here to contribute to our economy, which 99.9 percent of them are. We’ve always been a place to open our doors to immigrants coming here, so, yeah, [I] fully support that.

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Ukraine Army Chief Admits ‘Tactical’ Retreat Underway

The Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Syrskyi has just issued a new dire assessment confirming widespread international reports that Ukraine forces are getting beaten back from the frontlines.

He has confirmed that his outnumbered troops have fallen back to new positions on the eastern front, west of the villages of Berdychi and Semenivka, outside of Avdiivka – and near Novomykhailivka. Gen. Syrskyi has essentially admitted for the first time that a ‘tactical’ retreat is underway.

“The situation at the front has worsened,” Syrskii wrote on Telegram, ironically coming just days after President Biden signed into effect a $61 billion defense aid package for Ukraine. The Pentagon has vowed to ship new weapons as fast as possible, while some Ukrainian officials have been warning that it is too little, too late.

“In general, the enemy achieved certain tactical successes in these areas, but could not gain operational advantages,” Syrskii said, noting too that Russia has been able to pour additional manpower into the east with ease.

“The enemy has engaged up to four brigades in these directions, and is trying to develop an offensive west of Avdeevka and Maryinka,” the top Ukrainian commander said.

The statement also comes following Russia’s defense ministry announcing that its forces had captured the village of Novobakhmutivka on Sunday.

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