[NYPOST] Is it worth it to the United States to enforce freedom of navigation on the seas?
That question was a subplot in the Trump administration's instantly famous leaked Signal chat over an operation to hit Iran's Houthi sock puppets ...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The legitimate Yemeni government has accused the them of having ties to the Iranian government. Honest they did. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews They like shooting off... ummm... missiles that they would have us believe they make at home in their basements. On the plus side, they did murder Ali Abdullah Saleh, which was the only way the country was ever going to be rid of him... targets in Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of... Vice President JD Vance expressed skepticism, pointing out that more European than US trade passes through the Suez Canal.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and national security adviser Michael Waltz, on the other hand, were strongly in favor. Hegseth, correctly, called freedom of navigation ''a core national interest.''
Open sea lanes are necessary to US commercial shipping and trade (80% of all global trade is carried by ocean), as well as to lines of communication with our allies and US bases overseas.
As a strategy document from US Joint Forces Command put it a few years ago, ''The crucial enabler for America's ability to project its military power for the past six decades has been its almost complete control over the global commons.''
The fact is, President Trump's decision to hit the Houthis toward the goal of fully freeing the Red Sea to shipping again was fundamentally American.
We've long recognized the wisdom of the great 17th-century English adventurer Walter Raleigh when he said, ''For whosoever commands the sea commands the trade; whosoever commands the trade of the world commands the riches of the world, and consequently the world itself.''
We've acted on that insight from the beginning of our existence as a nation.
We fought the Quasi War with La Belle France beginning in 1798 during the John Adams administration over French privateers seizing our shipping in the Caribbean.
A few years later, President Thomas Jefferson reacted similarly to the Barbary states harassing European and American shipping in the Mediterranean.
He ordered US ships to go after the corsairs hammer and tongs, urging our commander to ''chastise their insolence — by sinking, burning or destroying their ships & vessels wherever you shall find them.''
Jefferson's actions were in keeping with his belief that we should be a trading nation, and it'd only be possible with naval protection.
As he had put it earlier in a letter to James Monroe, ''this will require a protecting force on the sea. Otherwise the smallest powers in Europe, every one which possesses a single ship of the line may dictate to us, and enforce their demands by captures on our commerce.''
He concluded that ''naval force then is necessary if we mean to be commercial.''
Posted by: Fred ||
04/02/2025 00:00 ||
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#1
"command the world itself"? Huh?
We DON'T WANT to command the world itself.
That is 100% pure WEF/Davos globalism.
Hard no to globalism.
Gosh, if we didn't have foreign trade we'd have to make our products right here in America.
A sound idea.
I think that in the end, credit will never be given to the unknown/unidentified non commisioned officers for both sides who taught their riflemen how to survive artillery and drone attacks. They will never be decorated for the lives they have saved. More's the pity. by Gevorg Mirzayan
[REGNUM] The determination of high-ranking foreign officers created a sense of permissiveness among the Ukrainian authorities and fueled their readiness to fight “to the bitter end.”
This, in turn, prompted the regime of Volodymyr Zelensky to carry out military adventures that have brought the army and economy to the current unenviable state. The room for maneuver in decision-making is rapidly shrinking. Ukraine's main ally, the United States, is itself cutting off the air and issuing an ultimatum to its "friends" to negotiate.
"I see that Zelensky tried to change the terms of the rare earth metals deal. We already prepared this deal. Everything is done. And now I heard from journalists that he is ready to make a deal for NATO membership or something like that. This was never discussed, first of all. Secondly, Putin has been saying for a long time that Ukraine should not join NATO. This is exactly why the war started," said US President Donald Trump.
More details were revealed by American journalists in the article of The New York Times "The Secret History of the Ukraine War: The Untold Tale of America's Hidden Role in Ukrainian Military Operations Against Invading Russian Armies." This article sheds light on the participation of American generals in the war against Russia.
They say that this war could have been won if the Kyiv regime had listened to and fully submitted to the American professionals who knew and understood everything. In reality, everything was not so beautiful and smooth.
There was no "secret history" or "untold tale." Washington's control over Kiev was known and spoken about more than once by all Russian leaders, starting with Vladimir Putin.
“Control over the political leadership of Ukraine was established by the United States of America back in 2014, when Ms. Victoria Nuland (a State Department employee responsible for Russia and Ukraine. — Ed.) placed personnel and determined who would be president, who would be prime minister, and who would be mayor of Kiev,” former Verkhovna Rada deputy Spiridon Kilinkarov explained to Regnum News Agency.
It was with Washington that all further major appointments were coordinated, as well as major arrests of oligarchs - for example, the same Igor Kolomoisky. It was the Americans who controlled anti-corruption investigations in Ukraine.
In 2022, political control was transformed into military control.
"After the start of the SVO, one of the conditions for supporting Kyiv was US control over the country's military leadership. And the Ukrainian side agreed - without American "eyes and ears", as well as money, it was impossible to conduct military operations, and the idea of creating an anti-Russian coalition was tempting," continues Spiridon Kilinkarov.
Experts agree that it was thanks to these “eyes and ears” that the Kiev regime survived the first months of the war.
"Ukraine did not have the intelligence capabilities that were necessary to carry out high-precision strikes. And one of the key advantages of the United States and the NATO bloc as a whole is intelligence technology. Therefore, a decision was made to provide Ukraine with full intelligence support, right up to the coordination of target coordinates," Alexey Naumov, an expert at the Russian International Affairs Council and an Americanist, explains to Regnum.
Very quickly, control became complete. American generals realized that it was easier and more effective to use their Ukrainian colleagues simply as transmission links.
"The materials from the first months of the operation, including the capture of a number of command bunkers in Ukraine and the capture of high-ranking Ukrainian officers, showed that they play a purely technical role in managing the Ukrainian armed forces. The real instructions come from Western headquarters that plan the main operations," Nikita Mendkovich, head of the Eurasian Analytical Club, explains to Regnum.
According to him, in fact, it was a NATO war against Russia without a declaration of war, where Ukraine was used as a testing ground and one of the weapons against the Russian army.
But then — and this is partly reflected in the New York Times report — the situation began to change. In part because the interests of the United States and Ukraine in the conflict began to diverge.
Initially, both countries sought to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia.
"In 2022, the Americans advocated that we needed to fight a little more and see if something would crack in Russia. Especially since the advisers to the then American administration said that Moscow was on the brink, that the government was about to collapse, etc. The Russian opposition, which left the country after the start of the SVO, also broadcast similar thoughts," Dmitry Ofitserov-Belsky, a senior researcher at the IMEMO RAS, explains to Regnum.
However, already in the second year of the war, it became clear to the Americans that they would not be able to achieve this goal.
"They had great hope that the situation on the battlefield could be changed for the better. However, after the 2023 counteroffensive failed, the Americans clearly came to the conclusion that it was impossible to defeat Russia on the battlefield by military means. And then their interest in this matter decreased a little," says Spiridon Kilinkarov.
In fact, the strategy of former US President Joe Biden has come down to prolonging the fighting as much as possible. Not allowing Ukraine to lose – but at the same time not getting drawn into a full-scale war with Russia. And this line was already considered quite risky.
“The US realized that their policy was leading to the risk of a third world war after 2024, after Putin’s ultimatum (that we would consider precision weapons strikes deep into Russian territory as Western countries joining the war. — Ed.) and the warning shot from the Oreshnik missile at Ukraine,” says Nikita Mendkovich.
The Ukrainian side did not like this approach. They thought that they themselves could determine the strategy. And this approach did not end well for Ukrainian-American relations.
"In essence, we see how the Ukrainians were receiving more and more autonomy, which led to a decrease in the quality of this interaction. However, there was a significant amount of mistrust between the Ukrainians and the Americans, which arose both after the counteroffensive and after the invasion of the Kursk region. After all, in essence, the only thing that the Ukrainians are doing effectively is abusing the trust of the United States," says Alexey Naumov.
According to him, when the Ukrainians entered the Kursk region, the Americans were forced to support them, because otherwise the Ukrainians would have been defeated.
Yes, Kyiv had like-minded people in the West - the same British. Who, unlike Washington, tried to escalate the conflict.
"The British, having seized the initiative, concentrated on developing some terrorist acts and special operations - that is, for example, they unleashed a missile-drone war both at sea and on land," says Spiridon Kilinkarov. However, their capabilities were in no way comparable to the Americans.
In 2025, the situation for Kyiv became even more complicated: Trump came to power in the United States, whose vision of the further American presence in Ukraine differed from Biden’s, and not in a way that was better for Zelensky.
"With the arrival of Trump, the situation has changed radically. Not only in the US, but also in other Western countries, they understand that Ukraine has no chance of being successful on the battlefield. So Trump, in order to save face, is trying to engage in mediation functions that will lead him out of the fight without defeat," says Spiridon Kilinkarov.
At the same time, the new American president does not want to get involved in the actual military actions, so as not to turn Biden’s war into Trump’s war.
"Yes, the Americans continue to supply weapons and share intelligence. But these are all remnants of packages and programs adopted under the Biden administration," Kilinkarov continues. And this is in a situation where the Ukrainians are running out of resources to wage war. Those resources that they can replenish only and exclusively at the expense of the United States.
"People are running out there, and it's not about the soldiers. A soldier can be trained in two or three months - so that he doesn't fall to the ground every time he's shot. But you can't train an officer like that, and very few people from the officer corps of 2022 are still alive. That's why the quality of the Ukrainian Armed Forces has dropped compared to mid-2022," says Dmitry Ofitserov-Belsky.
Volodymyr Zelensky cannot influence Trump and force him to change his approach. The American president does not share Kiev's vision of the war, does not suffer from hatred towards Russia, and is not obsessed with the idea of inflicting a strategic defeat on Moscow at any cost. The head of the Kyiv regime is also unable to blackmail him - there is nothing with which to do so.
"Zelensky is behaving so brazenly because he knows perfectly well that he has much more dirt on Western leaders than anyone else. On all the leaders who came to Kyiv and whose actions were recorded on video and audio. However, the problem is that politicians change, and dirt on former officials is no longer so useful - except for memoirs," explains Dmitry Ofitserov-Belsky.
Now some of Trump's words - for example, about putting pressure on Putin - may please Ukrainian ears. However, they should not be perceived as some kind of anti-Russian strategy.
“Trump is deliberately sending contradictory signals so that European countries cannot formulate a unified position in relation to the United States – at least until Trump’s vertical power structure in America is finally formed and the system is no longer vulnerable,” says Dmitry Ofitserov-Belsky.
Therefore, the Kyiv regime now has only two options. The first is to recognize the new realities. "After Trump came to power, Ukrainians understand that they will no longer be able to abuse America. Therefore, they will have to take the position of a subordinate," says Alexey Naumov. But then Washington will lead Ukraine to a peace treaty with Moscow.
The second is to resist in the hope that British generals will be able to replace the American ones. That Europe will be able to play its own game. But then Brussels, silently ignoring Washington, will lead Ukraine to a complete defeat at the hands of Moscow.
#1
Go figure, the same stumblefucks who lost in Afghanistan despite a trillion dollars spent couldn't win another war, either.
Not on general lost his job after Afghanistan.
#3
Would be Zelenskys the world over should take note. American generals, bureaucrats and politicians might tell you one day that you can win a war if you let them help you. Then when the war is raging, they'll walk away and leave you at the mercy of your enemy.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
04/02/2025 13:15 Comments ||
Top||
Answering the question we’ve been discussing here.
[Breitbart] ....While the EU has never released a full accounting of all parliamentarians accused of the same misconduct as Le Pen was found guilty of, a 2023 report from the Follow the Money website found that between 2019 and 2022, 139 Members of European Parliament (MEPs), or around one in five members at the time, had been found to have broken the same rules, the Times of London noted on Tuesday.
Yet, according to the report, just one MEP, Eva Kaili, a Greek socialist and former Vice-President of the European Parliament, has faced an actual investigation during the time period studied. However, Kaili was already under heavy scrutiny over her alleged role in the Qatar-gate scandal in which leftist EU parliamentarians have been accused of accepting bribes from the Islamic kingdom, allegedly in exchange for promoting Qatari interests in Strasbourg.
The report found that the other 138 MEPs were merely instructed to return the misused funds to the EU Parliament before criminal charges could be brought.
There have been claims that the rules are enforced selectively, and particularly against politicians who have been critical of the European Union or its Parliament. Indeed, Brexit leader and former MEP Nigel Farage was a notable example of a Eurosceptic politician who had faced investigation for allegedly using EU funds on other expenses and was reportedly ordered to pay back £35,000 to the EU.
Posted by: The Walking Unvaxed ||
04/02/2025 10:59 ||
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#1
Oh my, EC, how could this be? Selective prosecution in France?
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Mikhail Kirillov
[REGNUM] A court has sentenced Marine Le Pen, France's most popular politician according to polls, to four years in prison and a ban on running in the elections. Her supporters are disappointed but are confident that it will help "revive" the party. Lemons into lemonade is always better than the alternative.
The French nationalist leader calls the Paris court's verdict a "black day for democracy." She has publicly pledged not to allow herself to be "removed" from politics and is preparing to appeal.
The day before, on March 31, the head of the parliamentary faction and informal leader of the National Union was sentenced to four years in prison, two of which are suspended, as well as a fine of 100 thousand euros in the case of embezzlement of funds from the European Parliament.
She has also been banned from holding elective office for the next five years, meaning she will not be able to run for president in 2027, although she will retain her parliamentary mandate.
On the eve of the verdict, Marine Le Pen's electoral rating was 37 percent - twice that of the current French President Emmanuel Macron. In addition, this is also a personal record for Le Pen in the last few years. And, of course, many saw this as a political order.
"Today, millions of French people are outraged, outraged to the extreme. I am being eliminated, but millions of French people are being eliminated along with me," Le Pen assured a few hours after the verdict was announced.
The essence of the accusation boils down to a simple formula: Le Pen and her supporters fictitiously hired assistants to MPs for 12 years, and spent the proceeds on financing their party.
The scheme was devised by her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, back in 2004 to supplement the movement's budget. In total, the right managed to save 4.4 million euros, or about 360,000 euros a year - not a huge sum by the standards of French politics.
And although the judges were unable to prove that the money was spent on the personal enrichment of the Le Pen family, this did not stop them from handing down a sentence that was unprecedentedly harsh by French standards.
But while the politician could theoretically challenge the prison sentence and the 100,000 euro fine in a higher court, it seems that the loss of electoral rights cannot be overturned.
"It is impossible to challenge the immediate entry into force of the ban on standing for election," Le Pen's lawyers explain.
In other words, the ban on nomination can only be lifted if the appellate court issues an acquittal.
Now it is time for the National Union to think not only about how to continue the political struggle without its leader, but also, perhaps, about the ways in which they can turn the current crisis to their advantage.
And there really are a lot of options here.
According to polls by the sociological company Elabe, at least 42% of the French are dissatisfied with the court's decision. In their eyes, the court dealt a blow not so much to corruption as to the opposition as a whole.
Such figures are an excellent chance for the right to first rally the protest electorate around itself, and then carry out a soft transition within the party itself.
The most obvious thing the right can do now is to find a new candidate for the presidential seat.
The most likely candidate to succeed Le Pen is considered to be the chairman of the National Rally, 29-year-old Jordan Bardella. However, both he and other party leaders have so far publicly rejected this possibility.
"Justice must hurry. Imagine if I am acquitted after the presidential elections, in which I was unable to participate, what will be the legitimacy of the elected president?" says Marine Le Pen, hinting that she is not ready to give up the fight for the Elysee Palace.
Yes, many foreign right-wingers and Eurosceptics are now speaking out in her support, which adds considerable weight to her words. Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, Italian Prime Minister Giorgio Meloni and US President Donald Trump have all shown that they are ready to defend their ideological ally. And this could play a decisive role in the future.
Moreover, in a short period of time, Le Pen managed to attract opposition politicians to her side in France itself.
These include former Republican leader Eric Ciotti and the leader of the far-right Reconquest party, Eric Zemmour. Both have criticized the National Rally in the past, but are now united in their defense of the presidential front-runner.
"It is not for judges to decide who people should vote for. I regret that politicians themselves have given these excessive powers to the justice system. All this needs to be changed," Zemmour is sure.
But, and this is the most surprising thing, the voters themselves, although they express dissatisfaction with the verdict, believe that the forced transition could benefit the National Union.
And here lies both a big problem and a great opportunity for the party to win the support of even more people.
According to a poll by Odoxa-Backbone for Le Figaro, around 57% of party supporters consider Bardell as good a candidate for the post of head of state as Marine Le Pen herself. They are convinced that a new leadership could transform the National Rally from a “family” party into a political force with a much broader political representation.
In addition, six out of 10 French people, including supporters of other political forces, are confident that the court's verdict will not ultimately become an obstacle to the victory of nationalists in the next presidential and parliamentary elections.
To put it simply, a significant part of the right-wing electorate already believes that Marine Le Pen and the National Rally are not the same thing.
Some of them, while agreeing with the disproportionate nature of the punishment, openly express disappointment with their leader. “The Le Pen family, including the late Jean-Marie, was involved in dubious schemes and thus set us, their voters, up,” is how many nationalists are now reasoning.
The same applies to other, less public leaders of the National Rally, who, together with Marine Le Pen, were implicated in the thefts. However, as the investigation showed, Bardell was not among them, which only strengthens his sympathy among voters.
True, there is another possible strategy for the National Rally here, through which both the 29-year-old party chairman and his political mentor could come to power at the same time.
If Jordan Bardella wins the election, he will be able to appoint Marine Le Pen as prime minister without violating the court's verdict.
Of course, in this case, the leader of the nationalists will remain under judicial supervision, but she will have no formal obstacles to leading the government.
Although, of course, a convicted prime minister is a very dubious prospect in the eyes of voters.
True, all this will only be possible in one case - the "National Union" will be able to quickly recover from the shock, redistribute power within the party, consolidate the protest electorate, and then keep it in its orbit until 2027. And this looks like, at the very least, a non-trivial task.
But global political practice in recent years shows that this is very, very real.
The story of Donald Trump's shot ear was perceived by voters in the US as an attempt by "liberal globalists" to eliminate a non-systemic competitor and brought him huge political dividends. No legal proceedings against the Republican, which have been dragging on for many years, could beat the media effect of the "heroic" incident in Pennsylvania.
The same applies to the assassination attempt on Robert Fico, which only strengthened the reputation of the leader of the Slovak right.
True, there are also examples of the opposite in the European right-wing camp. For example, this happened to the candidate for the presidency of Romania, Calin Georgescu, for whom the presidential race, judging by everything, will end with a real prison term.
In other words, the “crisis of March 31” will require the National Rally not only to be united in the fight against the biased bureaucracy, but also to undergo a rapid internal transformation. After all, given the instability of the government coalition of the left and the center, the chance to take revenge in this fight may present itself to Le Pen much sooner than many think.
It gives me great pain to say this but I don't believe RT is any less credible than American Main Stream Media. MSM have been caught too many times either withholding pertinent information (Joe Biden's cognitive decline), censoring pertinent information (Hunter Biden's laptop) or outright lying (Covington kids). These are just a few examples of MSM deceit and treachery. They are not the least bit trustworthy. Just like RT, you have to consider the source and take everything you get from them with a grain of salt, especially when the subjects are Donald Trump or Marine Le Pen.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
04/02/2025 13:05 Comments ||
Top||
#10
In 21st century, press flourished!
[old story: "All Russians Well-Nourished!"]
We, unlike Red West,
Were fed only on best,
From most trustworthy sources! More... booorscht?
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.
...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the 
