[Free Beacon] The scholar of Yiddish Ruth Wisse began her Jefferson Lecture last night at the Trump Kennedy Center in Washington with the observation that "There have been many far more distinguished speakers in this series, but I think none has been older, and no one more grateful."
Wisse didn’t explicitly make the connection between her age—89—and her topic—"our anxieties about endurance"—but I’m old enough myself to begin to understand what she was talking about. So is America, in its 250th birthday year.
Wisse introduced her talk as "a grateful Jewish message on staying power, in three parts."
Part one focused on a Yiddish poem by Abraham Sutzkever that asks "Who will last? And what?" It concludes "Who lasts? God abides — isn’t that enough?"
I took Sutzkever—and Wisse—to be suggesting that faith in God is one secret to endurance, and also that the anxiety about endurance is eased by the knowledge that only God is eternal.
As Wisse put it, "To find lastingness, he insisted, you must look to its source. Trust in eternity can be sought only in the eternal." Or, as she concluded, "Sutzkever, who survived the sacrifice of his formative world—when that’s what it cost to remain a Jew—reminds us to acknowledge before whom we stand. If that secure knowledge could restore him and resurrect the Jewish people, so can it inspire this nation to reach its 2,500th anniversary."
Part two focused on an essential Jewish prayer, the Shma, which begins, "Hear, O Israel. The Lord is our God, the Lord is One. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words which I command you today shall be upon your heart. You shall teach them thoroughly to your children, and you shall speak of them when you sit in your house and when you walk on the road, when you lie down and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign upon your hand, and they shall be for a reminder between your eyes. And you shall write them upon the doorposts of your house and upon your gates." As she put it, the "ratio of content to transmission is about 1:7."
[HotAir] Drone warfare has come to the United States—to the heart of our nuclear deterrent capabilities—and our defenses proved inadequate to stop sophisticated drones from interfering with wartime operations.
Amid the raging conflict in the Middle East, the astonishing events at Barksdale Air Force Base earlier this month have attracted only limited media attention. It is reported that swarms of unidentified drones repeatedly loitered over Barksdale between March 9 and 15, drawing no publicly known effective response from the military or the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Barksdale is the headquarters of the Air Force’s Global Strike Command, which is responsible for the nation’s nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles and strategic bomber forces, including B2, B1, and B52 aircraft. The base is home to the 2nd Bomb Wing B52s and is the central hub of communications and logistical support for coordinating and directing those forces. The fact that potentially threatening drones were able to operate over such a critical complex with apparent impunity over several days, after a similar event, spanning 17 days, occurred more than two years ago at Langley AFB, is astonishing. Reports indicate that Barksdale personnel were repeatedly ordered to take cover as drones roamed over buildings and aircraft.
B-52s are part of Operation Epic Fury, and operations had to be suspended at times because the drones interfered with the aircraft's ability to take off and land safely.
Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, in Bossier Parish not far from Shreveport, was attacked by drone swarms during the week of March 9. The attack disrupted B-52H aircraft launches in support of Operation Epic Fury against Iran. It is the first time a US airbase was temporarily put out of operation in wartime, something that never happened even in World War II.
Each wave forced the Air Force to halt operations and send its personnel to shelters. Barksdale is the command hub of the US Air Force Global Strike Command. Not only are B-52s based there, but the base is part of America’s nuclear triad. It shelters long range nuclear cruise missiles (such as the AGM-86B) and will soon house a new Long Range Standoff cruise missile. Shelters and storage sites for the new missiles are under construction.
The only other significant US airbase for B-52s is in Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota. Both bases are supporting Epic Fury. The aircraft can either fly to the UK and then on to Iran, or (as they did during the period when the UK blocked them) fly directly from Barksdale to Iran, a very long mission requiring eight in-air refuelings.
The drone waves lasted around four hours each day, an extraordinarily long loiter time for a drone. It is not known if the drones were fixed wing or quadcopter types, or how they were powered (liquid fuel or electrical). Each wave consisted of 12 to 15 drones, and the drones flew with their lights on, intentionally making them visible.
Barksdale AFB does not have air defenses, nor does it have fighter jets that can take down drones.
The airbase does have some electronic countermeasures that were designed to disable GPS and the datalinks between the drones and their remote operators. The electronic countermeasures failed to work.
The drones themselves may have been autonomous or semi-autonomous, and operated in ways suggesting the drones were equipped with multiple sensors that directed the behavior of each drone over the base and in response to attempts at jamming.
These aren't your standard DGI drones. They are large, sophisticated, have long loiter times, and presumably have sensors and the ability to carry significant weapons. They aren't anything like the normal drones used in Ukraine, either, and those have done devastating damage. These potentially have far more capabilities.
And not only couldn't we stop them. Apparently we haven't been able to capture any or trace where they came from.
The drones could have come from a potential adversary, China being best equipped to produce a drone of the type that flew over Barksdale. From what has been observed, the drone design surpasses almost anything in the US arsenal.
What we know is that the drones had extraordinary range, could resist broad spectrum jamming, and featured non-commercial signal characteristics. Even more provocatively, the drones used various ingress and egress routes and operated in dispersed patterns, making traceability (via trying to triangulate on signals) virtually impossible.
We do not know if the drones transmitted information while they were over the base or stored information they transmitted later, or whether the drones may have had satellite links.
One way to think about the drone waves is these drones are China’s answer to the shootdown of its spy balloons. A critical one was blown out of the sky by an F-22 in early 2023, but not before it flew over Malmstrom AFB (Montana), which houses Minuteman III ICBM silos, and Whiteman AFB (Missouri), the home of the B-2 stealth bomber.
The first and most obvious question is: How is this possible? But even more pressing is, what are we doing about it? We can't have our most sensitive and important air force bases vulnerable to attack.
And the attacks could be devastating. As at Hickam Field at Pearl Harbor, our aircraft are just sitting out in the open, and despite our having the most powerful strategic bomber fleet in existence, there really are not many of them. Fewer than 75 B-52s, 45 B-1s, and 20 B-2s.
Drones aren't just a big deal in Ukraine, Russia, and Iran. They are now a significant threat right here at home, and we aren't prepared.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited by Mark Leshkevich
[REGNUM] 915 years ago, on March 27, 1111, on the banks of the Salnitsa River—a right tributary of the Seversky Donets, near the modern-day town of Izyum in the Kharkiv region—two armies, Polovtsian and Russian, clashed. "And the regiments clashed in the first battle, and the roar was like thunder, and men fell on both sides," wrote a chronicler. Vladimir Monomakh played a decisive role in the defeat of the nomads. But chroniclers believed that without the help of angels, the Rus would not have achieved their first victory over the Polovtsians deep in the steppe.
While the three Rurikovichs were marching against the Polovtsians in the Donetsk steppe, in Palestine the participants of the First Crusade were defending the recently captured Jerusalem from the Saracens.
And if the “year of four units” did not bring any noticeable success to the European knights, then Europe learned about the success of the Russian princes.
In any case, the Hypatian Chronicle states that after the victory at Salnitsa, the glory of the Russian princes spread “to all distant lands”, to the Greeks, the Ugrians (Hungarians), the Poles (Poles), the Czechs “and to Rome”.
FROM SEVILLE TO RYAZAN
This gave 19th-century historians and modern authors reason to compare the campaign of 1111 with the Crusades. Vasily Klyuchevsky wrote in his " Course of Russian History ":
“While Western Europe, through the Crusades, launched an offensive against the Asian East, and when a similar movement against the Moors began on the Iberian island, Rus', with its steppe struggle, covered the left flank of the European offensive.”
Indeed, those same years of the 12th century became a turning point in the Reconquista—the reconquest from the Arabs and Berbers of the lands that would become Spain and Portugal. Seven years after the victory at Salniza, the Aragonese king Alfonso the Warrior defeated the Moors at Zaragoza.
Academician Andrei Sakharov, director of the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, directly called the Russo-Polovtsian War a “crusade into the steppe” of 1111.
There's another point of view. According to it, the Crusades to Palestine, the Spanish Reconquista, and the victories of the Russian princes over the Polovtsians are three unrelated narratives. In this perspective, the Crusader wars in the Middle East were wars of conquest, the struggle of Castile and Aragon against the Moors was a war against invaders, and the Rus' wars on the steppe frontier were primarily an act of self-defense.
And while the wars between the Catholic kings and the Moorish emirates can somehow be lumped together with the conquest of the Holy Land (after all, other Catholic knights fought on the side of Castile and Aragon), the campaigns of the Orthodox princes are a separate story, in which the religious affiliation of the warring parties played no particular role.
Regardless of how one views the Battle of Salnitsa—whether as part of a certain “offensive to the East” or as a separate event—the role of this half-forgotten battle in Russian history is great.
RESTLESS NEIGHBORHOOD
Ancient Rus' began to consolidate its position in the Black Sea steppes, that is, in the territory of modern-day Donbas and Novorossiya, as early as the 10th century. In 967, Prince Svyatoslav defeated the Khazar Khaganate, which included part of Crimea. The Russian Principality of Tmutarakan emerged in the territory of modern-day Taman.
The former Khazar fortress of Sarkel on the middle Don became the Russian Belaya Vezha. But in the 11th century, the situation changed. The steppes from Lukomorye (the lower reaches of the Don) to the Danube were occupied by the Kipchaks, a people known in Rus' as Polovtsians. The Black Sea region, once a zone of Rus' influence, transformed into a volatile borderland.
The complex relations between the Rurikovichs and the Polovtsian khans could not be reduced to a “confrontation with the Asian East” or to a war between the Orthodox and the pagans (and then with the “Mohammedans”).
For example, in 1099, in the battle on the Vagra River in the Carpathians, the warriors of the grandson of Yaroslav the Wise, Prince David Igorevich, together with the warriors of the Polovtsian Khan Bonyak, defeated the army of the Catholic Hungarian King Kalman I the Scribe, which was many times larger than them.
Russian princes became related to the steppe rulers.
It's enough to remember that the founder of Moscow, Yuri Dolgoruky, was married to the daughter of a Polovtsian khan. This marriage produced another great ruler, Andrei Bogolyubsky.
However, the underlying theme of the relationship between Rus and the Desht-i-Kipchak (Polovtsian Steppe) was raids on Russian lands, the destruction and burning of cities, and the capture and sale of slaves at slave markets.
This became a "tradition," beginning with the destruction of the Pereyaslav Principality in 1061. In 1068, the united Rurikid army, opposing the Polovtsian invasion, suffered a crushing defeat on the Alta River (in today's Kyiv Oblast). A counterattack was necessary.
NEAR THE BORDER OF THE KHARKIV REGION
The campaign of the Grand Prince of Kiev, Svyatopolk Izyaslavich, the Prince of Pereyaslavl, Vladimir Monomakh (who himself soon assumed the Kievan throne), and their allies began in the second week of Lent, on February 26, 1111. The Russians set out from Monomakh's patrimony, Pereyaslavl, likely on his initiative. Vladimir Monomakh had previously led single-handed troops against the Polovtsians, including defeating the army of the aforementioned Khan Bonyak.
On March 3, 1111, the prince's troops approached the Sula River, which served as the border between the Russian lands and the steppe.
The prince's troops entered the large settlement of Sharukan without a fight—according to one version, it was located in what is now Kharkov. Sharukan, which was called Osenev in Russian chronicles, was most likely inhabited by the sedentary Yases (Alans, the ancestors of the Ossetians) subject to the Polovtsians.
Later, the Polovtsian fortification of Sugrov was captured and burned. The exact location of this "city" is unknown. Some historians suggest that Sugrov was located near the modern village of Krasnaya Gora in the DPR, between Artemovsk and Soledar.
And finally, on the morning of March 27, the "slaughter" began on the Salnitsa River. According to the most widespread version, the battlefield was located on the border of the DPR and the Kharkiv region.
According to chroniclers, the Polovtsians (led by the same Bonyak) had a numerical advantage, and at one point the Russians were in danger of being surrounded. But a coordinated attack by the armies of several princes—Vladimir Monomakh of Pereyaslavl, Svyatopolk of Kiev, and the sons of Prince Oleg Svyatoslavich of Novgorod-Seversk —turned the tide of the battle.
According to chroniclers, Khan Bonyak's army lost 10,000 killed, and the remnants of the nomads retreated to the steppe. The Russians captured "many prisoners" and a large amount of captured weapons.
The initiative passed to the Rurikids. In 1116, Kyiv and Chernigov regiments entered the Polovtsian steppes in the upper Donets River and captured three fortresses.
A 45,000-strong horde led by Khan Atrak chose to migrate beyond the Caucasus Mountains. There, the Polovtsians entered the service of the Georgian king David the Builder, the great-grandfather of Tamara the Great. When Vladimir Monomakh, Grand Prince of Kiev, sent one of his sons to scout the Don, he found no Polovtsians there.
Until the Mongol invasion, Rus' was not threatened by any significant danger from the Steppe—and it is characteristic that in the Battle of Kalka, which was tragic for the Russian lands, the Polovtsians acted not as enemies, but as allies of the Rurikovichs against the Genghisids.
"SCARY CREATURES WITH SHINY WEAPONS"
Even if we do not consider the campaign of 1111 to be a crusade in the strict sense, the perception of these wars was similar.
The Gesta Francorum (a Latin chronicle of the deeds of the Franks and other pilgrims to Jerusalem, written around 1100) states : Christ appeared in a dream to a certain priest and promised to send powerful aid. During the Battle of Antioch (a battle during the First Crusade on June 28, 1098), the enemy was routed by men on white horses with white banners that appeared out of nowhere.
The army was led by leaders resembling Saints George the Victorious, Mercury of Caesarea, and Demetrius of Thessaloniki. Some authors attest to this miracle by claiming that the mysterious riders on white horses were also visible to the Muslim Turks.
Another chronicle of the First Crusade of 1107, the Historia Iherosolimitana, records a conversation between the leader of the crusaders, Bohemond of Taranto, and the "prominent Turk Pyrrhus."
Pyrrhus told Bohemond of the unusual knights in white armor, with shields and banners, who had routed the Saracens during the siege of Antioch. Bohemond realized that they were saints, invisible to the crusaders themselves.
Raymond of Agilles (one of the chroniclers of the First Crusade), writing between 1099 and 1105, reports that on July 1, 1097, at the Battle of Dorylaeum, the Turks saw "two wondrous knights with shining weapons" marching ahead of the crusader army, invulnerable to Turkish spears. The crusaders did not see them, but after the battle, while passing along a road where there had been no fighting, they found dead enemies, likely struck down by these invisible horsemen.
Similarly, the Hypatian Chronicle for the year 1111 reports that many Russian soldiers witnessed the heads of Polovtsians being severed by some invisible force. After the battle, prisoners reported: "Some terrible creatures rode above you with glittering weapons and aided you." Our chronicler explains that these were angels, invisibly assisting the Russian army:
"Let it be known that Christians have an angel, and one given even more so to the baptized, and especially to our faithful princes. However, they cannot act contrary to God's will, but only fervently pray to God for the Christian people. And so it happened: through the prayers of the Holy Mother of God and the holy angels, God took pity and sent angels to aid the Russian princes against the pagans. As He said to Moses: 'Behold, My angel will go before you.'"
While it was common for medieval authors to attribute victories to divine assistance, until the 12th century they rarely reported actual supernatural appearances on the battlefield; and when they did, they were usually saints and the Virgin Mary, not angels.
Rus' acted out of its own interests, within its own political tradition, and within its own system of ideas about war, power, and God's intercession. But the chronicler used the language of sacred victory, understandable for his era and common to the Middle Ages.
[WeaponsAndStrategySubstack] Ukraine has taken credit for the attack claiming they used drones
On March 25, during a massive drone attack in the Leningrad region, the Ukrainian General Staff announced that its “joint forces” had damaged the Vyborg Shipbuilding installation. The success of the attack was a huge disaster for the Russians, with significant geopolitical implications.
At the present time, there is nearly a total news blackout in Russia and the Russian security services have launched an intensive investigation, looking for sabotage or other evidence of insider dealing. Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), the KGB successor, has established a “special filtration zone” at the shipyard, interrogating all night shift workers and specifically looking for anyone who had access to the Purga’s ballast control systems or the hull’s underwater fittings. An FSB working theory is that the Kingston valves (seawater intakes) were sabotaged.
The Russians have also stepped up diver protection patrols in Vyborg bay, launching frequent anti-sabotage boat patrols (Protivodiversionnye Sily i Sredstva - Counter-Sabotage Forces and Means). Apparently they are hunting for underwater divers and UUVs. Meanwhile there are extensive interviews of workers at the yard and intensive “scrubbings” of mobile phones.
The target was the Purga (Blizzard).
The Purge is an icebreaker patrol ship dedicated for FSB Border Control work. In the FSB version the ship is optimized for surveillance, icebreaking, and sovereignty protection. In April 2012 the FSB announced that the country was planning to build 20 frontier posts in the Arctic region. Reasons for this development can be found in the increased abilities to explore hydrocarbon deposits in the north. It would also give Russia an ability to patrol and service the Northern Sea Route. The Arctic is a core priority for Russian sovereign identity and economic future. Damaging a vessel specifically built for this environment directly challenges Russia’s ability to police and militarize the opening polar shipping lanes.
The US has been trying to match Russia’s accelerated effort to build icebreakers.
Dealing a significant setback to Russia’s arctic ambitions appears to be a significant policy objective of both the US government and its northern NATO partners (i.e., Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Germany).
Initial reports, supported by Ukrainian claims, was that the Purga (and secondary damage to the Burilichev) was caused by drones. The Ukrainians also put out that the damage was possibly caused by a modified “sport” aircraft, either an A-22 or E-200, (something like a Cessna 150) carrying a 500kg bomb. Neither claim makes any sense.
CONCLUSION
The loss of the Purga is a major strategic setback for Russia and the FSB’s role in Russia’s arctic operations. The damage to the Burilichev also represents a severe loss for Russia’s strategic operations if it turns out that the Burilichev cannot be repaired.
Russia remains mostly incapable of stopping highly consequential attacks on its territory, a major security vulnerability and operational failure.
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] Two recent court rulings have answered longstanding questions about social media’s harmful impact on teenage users - and will likely have a big impact on your 401(k).
Juries in New Mexico and California found that social media platforms YouTube, Facebook and Instagram are addictive and harmful for younger users.
These household names are massive cash cows for their parent companies - Meta and Alphabet, which also owns Google, - and while the courts awarded relatively small amounts to plaintiffs this time, the longer-run implications are much more serious.
Shares of Meta dropped more than 8 percent the day after the ruling was handed down, while YouTube and Google parent Alphabet was down about 4 percent.
Alvaro Bedoya, a former FTC commissioner, wrote on X that ‘a jury of regular people has managed to do what Congress and even state legislatures have not: Hold Meta and Google accountable for addicting young people to their products.’
Some investors are now asking if this is social media’s Big Tobacco moment.
How do cigarette companies relate to social media platforms? Two words: Giant lawsuits.
In the early 1990s, it emerged that tobacco companies had concealed the fact that they knew all along that cigarettes were not only highly addictive but also caused cancer - after decades of pleading ignorance.
The class-action lawsuits began, and by the mid aughts Big Tobacco had paid out hundreds of billions of dollars in settlements.
Now a huge cohort of individuals, local school districts and individual states are lining up to sue social media companies, alleging personal injury or claiming the products are hurting students.
Alphabet and Meta are among the most prominent members of the famous ‘Mag 7’ group of stocks that now make up more than 30 percent of the S&P 500.
And these two stocks are without a doubt a big part of your 401(k) retirement fund, which is typically invested in assets like a S&P 500 index fund.
Shares of the two companies are down sharply over recent months, with Alphabet 16 percent below its most recent high and Meta down nearly 30 percent since its most recent high.
The companies’ AI woes are well known, but now they have weight from a storm of litigation to contend with as well.
Advocates for children harmed by social media draw strong parallels between tobacco and social media.
“For the parents whose children died as a result of social media harms, today’s verdict is a huge step toward truth, justice, and accountability,” Sarah Gardner, chief executive officer of Heat Initiative, which seeks to hold tech accountable for its harms, told CNN.
Gardner said that the California ruling was ‘social media’s Big Tobacco moment,’ when the harm the companies cause children was ‘proven in a court of law.’
In the case, a 20-year old Los Angeles woman said she became addicted to Instagram and YouTube as early as age six.
Social media companies have long been shielded from most legal threats by laws that make them immune to legal challenges regarding the content posted by users, but this case targeted site features rather than content.
The plaintiff claimed that social media features like push alerts and infinite scrolling dominated her childhood, leading to compulsive use, anxiety, body dysmorphia, self-harm and suicidal thoughts.
In their verdict, the jury wrote that both companies had acted with ‘malice, oppression or fraud.’
So the Smart Phone Generation does have serious issuses and is being mentally and politically steered. Like the tin hats have been saying for
10 + years.
[PJMedia] Will Fariah Brewer be disciplined? Will she be thrown out of the military?
Wearing a hijab, Brewer on Monday recorded a video that quickly went viral. In it, she happily admits that if she is commanded, as a member of the U.S. military, to fight other Moslems, she would disobey the orders. She makes this clear in the context of a discussion of the conflict with the Islamic Theocratic Republic of Iran.
Will the Army take action? Or would doing anything to call Brewer to account be "Islamophobic"?
This Muslim woman in our military says she will refuse commands if they target Muslims.
It’s axiomatic: a soldier in the U.S. military should be loyal to the United States. But in a lengthy discussion of Islam and nationalism, the Islamic site The Message International laments the division that national boundaries have brought to the international Moslem community, and states that "since Moslems too often have put their national loyalty before their faith, the results are plain for all to see." The article decries "divisive ...politicians call things divisive when when the other side sez something they don't like. Their own statements are never divisive, they're principled... nationalist sentiment" and calls for Moslems to become "a united ummah" that "cuts through all artificial boundaries arising out of race, ethnicity, or culture."
What that means is that if there is a conflict between one’s loyalty to Islam and one’s loyalty to the U.S., a knowledgeable and observant Moslem will choose Islam. This is not the same as Christians or members of other faith groups putting their faith first, because Islam is political, supremacist, and expansionist in a way that Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism are not.
We have seen before what putting the umma, the global Moslem community, above loyalty to the U.S. means in practice. In April 2005, a Moslem serving in the U.S. Army, Hasan Akbar, a convert to Islam from a leftist family (his original middle name was "Fidel" — his name was Mark Fidel Kools), was convicted of murder for killing two American soldiers and wounding fourteen in a grenade attack in Kuwait. In the midst of his grenade and small-arms attack on March 22, 2003, he screamed: "You guys are coming into our countries, and you’re going to rape our women and kill our children."
Even though Hasan Akbar was an American, when he became a Moslem, any allegiance he may have had to America was gone. His allegiance lay solely with the umma.
Similarly, on Nov. 5, 2009, in Fort Hood, a Moslem U.S. Army psychiatrist, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, murdered thirteen unarmed soldiers and maimed over forty others while screaming "holy shit! Allahu akbar." Before his murderous jihad rampage, Hasan had raised eyebrows with his Islamic proselytizing, which he carried on even when he was supposed to be conducting medical briefings. Yet he kept on being promoted: the army brass was happy to have a Moslem soldier; his presence proved that they weren’t "Islamophobic." Anyone who might have questioned Hasan’s loyalty would have been under suspicion of "Islamophobia ...the irrational fear that Moslems will act the way they usually do... " himself.
In July 2011, another Moslem soldier, Pfc. Naser Jason Abdo, was arrested for plotting to explode a bomb at a restaurant near Fort Hood frequented by military personnel. As he was led out of a federal courtroom a day after his arrest, Abdo shouted out the name of his hero and role model: "Nidal Hasan Fort Hood 2009!"
Then there was John Thomas Booker, another convert to Islam who changed his name to Muhammad Abdullah Hassan, apparently because he admired Nidal Hasan. Hassan, according to the alert that the FBI and U.S. military distributed, Hassan was "recruited by the U.S. Army in Kansas City, Mo., in February 2014 and was scheduled to report for basic training on April 7. But he was discharged last week, apparently after law enforcement authorities learned of his alleged plan." His plan was to stage a Fort Hood-style jihad massacre of his own. He wrote on Facebook (spelling and grammar as in the original): "Oh those of the ummah of the Prophet Muhammad(S)j. I will soon be leaving you forever so goodbye! I am going to wage jihad and hopes that i die."
Another convert to Islam in the U.S. military, Nicholas Teausant/Ased Abdur-Raheem, was a member of the Army National Guard who wrote on Instagram: "don’t get me wrong I despise america and want its down fall but yeah haha. Lol I been a part of the army for two years now and I would love to join Allah’s army but I don’t even know how to start."
Fariah Brewer is yet another convert to Islam in the U.S. military. She was wearing what the Salty Soldier describes as "Army Operational Camouflage Pattern (OCP) uniform, with a U.S. flag patch clearly visible" when she affirmed that she would disobey an order to fight fellow Moslems. Not The Bee reported Thursday that Brewer "states on social media that she ’revert[ed] to Islam’ in December 2023," and "reportedly laughed about joining the Army for the benefits." Not The Bee adds the eyebrow-raising fact that "Brewer’s father is reportedly in prison for murdering a veteran in 2011."
So what happens now? Will Brewer remain in the military? Will Secretary of War Pete Hegseth deal with the issue of the divided loyalty of Moslems in the military? Or will this ongoing problem continue to be ignored?
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/28/2026 7:23 Comments ||
Top||
#5
Well, when a christian soldier refuses to follow orders and fight due to ethics, they get a courtmartial and dishonorable discharge.
Just for comparison.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
03/28/2026 8:11 Comments ||
Top||
[Townhall] Our society has left young American men behind — villainizing them as toxic and openly discriminating against them — even as countless numbers strive to do the right thing. Increasingly, they face dwindling job opportunities, struggle to start families, and endure a culture that often seems to stigmatize traditional masculinity.
Politically, President Trump has built a coalition that has appealed to these disaffected young men, arguing that the system is rigged against them and that the "forgotten man" has been sacrificed to satisfy the interests of a globalist elite.
The blame for this is often pointed at a shift in our national institutions. Education, particularly higher education, has adopted political and cultural sensibilities that eschew traditional masculine traits like strength. Hollywood, too, has largely replaced iconic alpha-male roles with characters that young men say feel inauthentic to them today. In agrarian and even early industrial eras, men’s superior strength and stamina meant they could always put food on the table, but the "soft social" skills of the office have become the primary currency in a post- industrial age.
Moving past politics, though, there is a deeper, more biological force driving their decline—and it is hidden within their very own bodies.
There’s a reason that most men have low energy and, despite wanting to do everything the right way, still feel stuck and left behind: the havoc that toxic chemicals leaching off every day plastic products have unleashed on their bodies. The sperm counts of men have dropped more than 50 percent since 1973, and testosterone is declining in men of every age, including boys who haven't even finished high school.
The numbers should have triggered a national emergency, but instead, the truth has been suppressed for decades. Many American men are paying the cost, essentially being the victims of a forced chemical castration. Microplastics, which come from plastic packaging, containers, and synthetic materials common in our daily lives, have been found in human testicles, sperm samples, and even in the placentas of newborns. Scientists refer to them as endocrine disruptors—chemicals that interfere with the body's hormone system and lower testosterone production.
#2
It’s my understanding that for both men and women, greater physical activity, especially aerobic and weight bearing exercise, leads to higher testosterone levels. How much does increased time binge-watching tv and gaming drive lower testosterone?
#3
/\ Many years ago there was a cartoon illustration by I believe the late Gahan Wilson, that depicted the "Future Man." It was essentially an expressionless potato shaped fellow with spindly arms and legs'
I've looked for the cartoon on-line many times but have never been able to re-discover it.
So go back to Glass Bottles with a 5 or 10 cent deposit.
Walking the Roads as a kid, kept fed me with Moon Pies, Honey Buns, Squirrel Nut/Zippers, Moo-Cow candies and RC's. Plus I got lots exercise
picking them up for the deposit.
Now think of the Homeless feeding themselves a little.
#9
The problem is they don't acually have a test for microplastics.
What they do have is a chemical test for compounds that might be plastic residue. Any kind of polymer. Or propane, for that matter. Just hydrocarbon. Or carbohydrates.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
03/28/2026 12:08 Comments ||
Top||
#10
Walking the Roads as a kid, kept fed me with Moon Pies, Honey Buns, Squirrel Nut/Zippers, Moo-Cow candies and RC's. Plus I got lots exercise
picking them up for the deposit.
I remember days like that. Good times.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
03/28/2026 13:04 Comments ||
Top||
#11
Of course, we needed all that exercise to burn off the sugar. But it had to be better than sitting inside with an electric screen of some sort.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
03/28/2026 13:27 Comments ||
Top||
#12
An interesting comment at the link. Very comprehensive. He/she/they/them should do a study!
I suspect the drop in testosterone is a multi-factor problem with plastics just one component.
Culprits include:
• Plastics - already discussed here
• Pesticides - as you mentioned [comment above]
• Obesity - Cruddy lifestyles including bad diet and being sedentary
• Low Sleep - High stress, lack of sleep
Diet:
• Soy - A little isn't supposed to be able to hurt men, at least not in isolation from these other factors. But check product labels. It's added into everything.
• Trans Fats - thanks to the radical vegetarians who pushed this poison along with the lie that "fat makes you fat"
• Less meat - Meat provides zinc, cholesterol, fatty acids that help the body produce testosterone along with B12, creatine, carnosine, and taurine.
• Synthetic foods & vitamins - especially things that are readily available naturally like Vitamin D.
• Chemical-laced water
People should consider raising their children - but boys in particular - in as "primal" and natural a fashion as possible, if they want to reverse this.
Posted by: Bobby ||
03/28/2026 15:22 Comments ||
Top||
#13
but boys in particular
Physically stronger and more powerful as a group, but in so many ways more fragile. Y’all are a precious natural resource that needs to be carefully preserved — because I really don’t want to live my old age entirely among females.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited by Shamil Kerashev
[REGNUM] Donald Trump's words are once again being widely circulated online. The US President allegedly announced that he had received an offer to become "the next supreme leader of Iran." He allegedly declined.
It sounds surreal, as if creative pranksters had gotten through to the Oval Office. And although Trump's actual meaning was somewhat different (he simply asserted that no one aspires to the IRI leadership), it's telling that many, including some media outlets, readily believed the distorted quote.
This striking incident fits perfectly into the turbulent information flow that has been building for almost a week now. The Iranians are said to be desperate to strike a deal with the US on virtually any terms—including a complete renunciation of nuclear research.
"We're having very substantive negotiations with the right people. You can't even imagine how much they want to reach an agreement with us," Trump emphasized while speaking to reporters at the White House.
Who are these "right people"? Tehran insists it hasn't heard anything about them.
Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who had been mentioned as a possible accomplice, immediately issued a denial. "The Iranian people demand the full punishment of the aggressors, and we are currently focused on fulfilling this task," he wrote on social media.
According to Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps spokesman Ebrahim Zolfaghari, the Iranians "have no intention of making agreements with the enemy, either now or in the future," and Trump is "negotiating with himself." Elias Hazrati, head of the Iranian government's information council, expressed a similar sentiment.
However, an alternative picture is being painted overseas. According to anonymous sources at Bloomberg, the US has conveyed an impressive list of demands to certain "influential Iranian figures"—from curtailing the nuclear program and refusing to support the Shiite "axis of resistance" to reducing armed forces and limiting the missile arsenal. The document could be signed in Islamabad, where J.D. Vance is reportedly planning a visit.
The destination of the American No. 2 seems far from random, as Pakistan is assigned a crucial role in the global economic project "One Belt, One Road." American analysts believe that even by simply visiting there, the US Vice President will send an unambiguous signal to Iran about the threat of a logistical blockade from the east.
But are such actions, which closely resemble pressure, consistent with the stated attempts to create a comfortable negotiating environment? And is such an environment being created at all?
"In fact, indirect negotiations are underway between the US and Iran through the exchange of messages through Islamabad. In this context, the United States has submitted a fifteen-point document, which is currently being reviewed by Iran," Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar clarified.
Hence, the conclusion is that no one has even bothered to prepare any official US-Iranian meetings yet. Essentially, this is merely a kind of "warm-up"—a supposed indirect dialogue that hasn't yet yielded any tangible results. And it's not a given that it will in the foreseeable future.
If Washington's emissaries suddenly (who knows) establish some kind of unofficial contact with anyone, they would do well to keep in mind that the Logan Act is still formally in effect in the United States. This federal law, passed by Congress back in the late 18th century, strictly prohibits "private diplomacy" with foreign powers that Washington publicly considers hostile.
However, the rather strange and highly contradictory rhetoric about "negotiations" may have a very prosaic explanation. According to a Financial Times investigation, exactly fifteen minutes before one of Trump's statements, gigantic ($580 million!) bets were placed on Wall Street on a drop in oil prices. Oil prices actually fell due to the subsequent expectation of de-escalation.
It was impossible to determine who exactly was so prescient. Rumor has it that some "unknown traders" were involved. Regardless, the abnormal surge in stock market activity led to a sharp jump in the S&P 500 index—which, in turn, added nearly two trillion dollars to the market capitalization of the American market.
It's worth clarifying here: insider trading in the US is actually a serious criminal offense, which has always carried long prison sentences—for example, the managers of the hedge fund SAC Capital once found themselves behind bars. However, these days, the rules of the game seem to be changing before our eyes.
One gets the feeling that US foreign policy is mutating into a kind of commercial project, directly dependent on rumors, false information, and the alternation of ultimatums with “peacekeeping” speculation.
But what should Iran do? Apparently, its military and political leadership has already figured out the Americans' plan and is taking countermeasures. Specifically, it is opening the Strait of Hormuz to tanker fleets of friendly states. This creates clear preferences for the BRICS energy bloc, while simultaneously leaving the collective West out of the loop on safe fuel shipping.
This clever move, among other things, demonstrates how clear the conclusions Tehran has drawn from previous attempts to genuinely reach an agreement with Washington are.
As a reminder, back in 2018, the Islamic Republic fulfilled all its obligations under the nuclear deal, as confirmed by the IAEA, but the Americans unilaterally withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
A couple of years later, without batting an eye, they assassinated an Iranian national hero, IRGC General Qasem Soleimani. And now, finally, they've resorted to direct bombing of Iranian infrastructure, which, characteristically, was preceded by some negotiating activity both times—in the spring of 2025 and the winter of 2026.
Is it any wonder that the current US “megaphone diplomacy” is causing Tehran, to put it mildly, bewilderment?
"Currently, our policy is to continue resistance, and no negotiations are underway. Only regional exchanges have taken place, which have not affected the firmness of our position," noted Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.
When and under what conditions will the White House itself recognize the ineffectiveness of its manipulative strategy? Will Iran's current efforts be enough? Or will someone else—one capable of slamming their fist on the table at the right moment—be required to finally sober up the American elites? The answers will have to wait.
But events in the Middle East have already shown that, under the "incoming" Tomahawks and menacing shouts from the Oval Office, it is not necessary to simply survive.
You can also methodically build your own geopolitical reality, strengthen relations with allies, and, most importantly, create tangible problems for your opponent. Even if your opponent, out of habit, believes they hold all the levers in their hands.
Posted by: badanov ||
03/28/2026 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1767 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
Useful illustrative photos and PowerPoint slides at the link. Select bits below — read the rest, including another rant against President Trump at the link. Note that Mr. Cooper appears to specialize in airplanes, so does not address except in passing the obliteration of Iran’s navy, before returning to rant about the obliteration of its air force. If those here with more knowledge of the subject would share their analysis of Mr. Cooper’s, I would be grateful.
[XxTomCooperXx] Have received really a lots of messages with, essentially, the same content in regards of specific topics. Thus, I’ll address these in form of a ‘special Q&A feature’.
1.) Regarding those MANPAD-hits on USN’s F/A-18Es and/or F/A-18Fs… (as it turned out: both videos were taken in the Chahbahar area):
AFAIK, no: the IRGC didn’t claim a ‘shot down’. Or if, then it claimed a ‘shot down’ in the case of the jet visible on the second still - in reaction to which the CENTCOM denied the loss.
I’m ‘booking’ them as a pair of damaged US jets (and the pilots/crews as taught few elementary lessons about air-showing-it over the combat zone).
As for ‘how comes the missile missed/detonated behind the jet’ etc.... Oversimplified: the seeker-heads on IR-homing/heat-seeking missiles from the 1980s-1990s are programmed to go for the hottest part of the jet. No matter from what aspect, that’s always the exhaust/s or, and even more so, the hot exhaust BEHIND the jet. The problem is that jets are moving and it takes a fraction of second for the fuze to activate: this fraction of the second is usually enough for the missile to detonate in the hot plume behind the exhaust, and thus well behind the targeted aircraft, instead actually hitting and damaging the airframe.
With other words: both of these cases are indicating the deployment of MANPADs from the 1980s or 1990s, nothing modern. While, especially modern jets have lots of built-in survivability.
Additionally to the above mentioned, please mind that MANPADS - like, for example, the 9K38 Igla-3 (ASCC/NATO-reporting name ‘SA-14’) - have a warhead of mere 1kg.
Such a small warhead would ‘border on miracle’ to shot down ‘even’ an F/A-18E/F. Not to talk about certain more advanced types.
Readers of books like, for example, War of Intervention in Angola, Volume 4, are certainly going to recall cases (and not ‘just a few’) were the stuff as old as MiG-21bis was surviving direct hits by FIM-92A Stingers, in Angola of the late 1980s. Here’s one example:
2.) …which is bringing me to the next topic: aircraft survivability, and your questions like, ‘how could that F-35 come away from such a hit’ and/or ‘how could that F/A-18 come away form such a hit’...
Attached below please find a photo and two stills from a video from testing of the F-35. The photo is showing the complete test rig, the two stills are showing a direct hit by a MANPAD-like warhead on the ‘feathers’ of the afterburner ‘can’.
Bottom line: for actually shooting down any such aircraft by a ‘missile’, one needs weaponry with much more sophisticated seeker heads, and much bigger warheads.
For example: a warhead calibre 60kg-70kg - like that on an AIM-54A Phoenix/Fakkur-90 air-to-air missile of the Iranian F-14s, or Taer-2 SAM - is certain to be far more lethal than the 20kg-heavy warhead of the Taer-3C.
Combined with three similar questions prompted by the same illustration -
- this with ‘obliterated’ is prompting me into the following explanation.
Sure, some 17 years ago I’ve co-penned the book IRIAF 2010: Modern Iranian Air Force, but: this does not mean I know precisely how many of what types were still in service with the IRIAF as of, say, 27 February this year. A lots of things have changed ever since, and over all these years, have been ‘distracted’ by researching, writing, illustrating, or helping other authors publish some 250+ other books. But, few things are sure:
The illustration is based on videos released by the IDF, and sat photos released by other sources so far. I’ve got no idea if the IDF has got additional videos showing the destruction of additional IRIAF aircraft, or if there are additional sat photos showing destroyed IRIAF aircraft - but which haven’t been released yet. One way or the other: the grand total of IRIAF aircraft confirmed as ‘destroyed’ so far is irrelevant, because - except for transports (see below) - the mass of jets confirmed as destroyed by the US-Israelis were non-operational. And then: non-operational for years already. In detail:
10 F-7s: delivered in the early 1990s, the mass of Iranian F-7s were meanwhile subjected to two overhauls, and thus at the end of their flying careers. Indeed, the majority of those that were still active were used as advanced trainers and expected to be replaced by Yak-130s. Thus, sorry but: ‘no major loss’.7 F-14: the ones hit were non-operational for years already (indeed: several were parked in exactly the same spot for years already). Moreover: as of early 2025, the IRIAF still had some 60 F-14-airframes on hand, of which around 24 were ‘recently operated’, of which around 10 were ‘regularly operated’ (roughly 50:50 for training and air defence purposes). Foremost, this is a far cry from ‘Israelis destroyed all the remaining Iranian F-14 Tomcats’ (and there is no need for Tom Cruise to cry).
3 Su-22: these were ex-Iraqi jets (evacuated to Iran in 1991), and were operated by the IRGCASF, not by the IRIAF. Had next to no combat use (indeed, I doubt even the IRGCASF knew why was it wasting time to overhaul and operate them; especially not since, back in 2015, it made ‘much better use’ of them through donating some 6-8 to the Assadist regime in Syria).
2 MiG-29: the remaining aircraft of this type were out of ressouces and proved ‘hard’ to overhaul; thus, even had the Israelis destroyed all the 20 or so that were still intact (less than 10 were fully mission capable), ‘no big deal’. But, so far, there’s no evidence that the US-Israelis have destroyed as many.
1 F-5, 1 F-4 and 1 Yak-130: all of this is ‘no big deal’. Before this war, the IRIAF still had a sizeable fleets of F-5B/E/Fs and F-4E, and most of these were operational. Thus, the more important question would be: where are all these jets now?
1 Bell 214: we’ve had this one (at least on this blog). Was an example operated by the Islamic Republic of Iran Red Crescent, which meant that when bragging with its destruction the Israelis were actually bragging with a war crime.
4 ‘Other’… what do you expect me to say in this regards?
The Ilyushin Il-76, Lockheed C-130 Hercules and Boeing 747s… these were the true heavy losses of the IRIAF in this war. Especially the loss of 15 C-130E/Hs is going to be felt massively: regularly overhauled at Mehrabad, and largely in good condition even after some 50 years in service in Iran, they were the backbone of the IRIAF’s transport fleet.
Posted by: Clem+Elmish4239 ||
03/28/2026 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1793 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
Not having relevant experience, it seems to me the argument is that Iran never really did have much of an air force to obliterate, so the expensive weaponry to obliterate it was a big waste of explosives and jet fuel.
Perhaps better work for a few A-10s?
Posted by: Bobby ||
03/28/2026 0:13 Comments ||
Top||
#2
It appears I do not have a lot of relevant experience in posting comments, either. Sorry.
Posted by: Bobby ||
03/28/2026 0:14 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Love you, Bobby — give me a moment to delete the double post.
#6
Yes, excellent indeed. My prayers are with our brave pilots and operators as a long overdue bill is finally settled. Please widen the gates of hell, more are coming.
#7
FWIW Tom Cooper also rails on Putin as well as Trump in the article. He's cynical about politicians in general but very well versed on aircraft, having written over 50 books analyzing their capabilities and how they were implemented tactically in various conflicts.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
...the irrational fear that Moslems will act the way they usually do...
