Lunacy proceeds from crime. In case you wonder why half the country has gone crazy, seek no further than Susan Rice’s stark warning to the other half of the country that is not crazy. Ms. Rice was Barack Obama’s National Security Advisor and then “Joe Biden’s” Domestic Policy Advisor. She did a podcast last week with Preet Bharaha, former US Attorney in the SDNY, now a private lawyer with the Beltway law firm WilmerHale. Her message to Trump supporters: We’re coming after you when we’re back in power. “Revenge is a dish best served cold.”
Their latest prank: a boycott of the State of the Union speech to Congress. So far, seven senators and nine congresspersons have promised to bail on the speech, led ostensibly by Senator Adam Schiff of California, a liar so prodigious and fertile that it can be truly said he never uttered an honest word including “yes,” “no,” and “maybe.” This faction will gather on the mall instead and hurl objurgations at the Capitol rotunda.
All that’s needed to finish them off, really, is passage of the SAVE Act so that voters will be required to prove their identity and citizenship, and absentee ballots will be restricted to the old rules about being too sick to get to the polling place, or else out of the country. Last week, staffers behind the walking mummy, Mitch McConnell, prevented the bill from reaching the Senate floor with some procedural rigmarole. Mr. Trump must call them out, and call out Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), too, for dragging his feet on whatever’s necessary to pass the SAVE Act. The country demands honest elections, and one way or another they’ll get them.
Posted by: NoMoreBS ||
02/24/2026 00:00 ||
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[1763 views]
Top|| File under: Tin Hat Dictators, Presidents for Life, & Kleptocrats
[PJMedia] Pakistain is fighting a domestic war, and the outcomes appear deadly. The province of Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... (in the southwestern part of Pakistain) has experienced yet another insurgency, with the appearance of a series of gun and grenade attacks that have left more than 50 people dead. In a rare admission, Pakistain's Defense Minister Khawaja Asif said the Pakistain army is "handicapped" in its fight against Baloch rebels.
On February 1, a series of gun and kabooms across Balochistan province killed 31 civilians and 17 security service personnel, according to the region's Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti. The Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) rebel group stated that it was behind the attacks, and they claimed that dozens of soldiers were killed.
In response, Pakistain's Security Forces killed at least 145 rebels during a 40-hour shootout, Minister Bugti said.
This marks an escalation of violence in the impoverished but resource-rich province, where Pakistain's government has been battling an ethnic insurgency for decades.
Based on 2025 reports, armed separatist groups in Balochistan — most notably the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) and its allies under the Baloch Raaji Aajoi Sangar (BRAS) alliance — have escalated their tactics from hit-and-run attacks to temporarily seizing control of towns, infrastructure, and sections of highways. This suggests that the Mighty Pak Army is unable to establish a presence in Balochistan.
The Baloch people are an ethno-linguistic group spread between Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistain. Throughout history, they have experienced marginalization within their respective countries. Balochistan comprises approximately 44% of Pakistain’s territory. It stands as the country’s richest, yet most underdeveloped, region.
During the partition of India, Balochistan (specifically the princely State of Kalat) declared independence in 1947. The Baloch briefly held independence from Aug. 15, 1947, to March 27, 1948, rather than joining the new dominion of Pakistain. The Khan of Kalat insisted on illusory sovereignty based on a 1876 treaty, but ultimately acceded to Pakistain under military pressure. Later, the Mighty Pak Army invaded the area, leading to the forced accession of Kalat on March 27, 1948, which the Baloch consider an illegal annexation. The forced merger ignited the first of several armed insurgencies, as many felt betrayed by the forced (rather than voluntary) incorporation into Pakistain.
What followed was decades of severe human rights ...which are usually open to widely divergent definitions... violations, the systemic exploitation of local natural resources, political repression, a lack of autonomy, and conflict with Pakistain's armed forces.
This situation has fueled ethnic discontent and severe anger against the Pak government. Local Baloch activists state that Pakistain's government keeps them poor while looting regional wealth. In response, instead of recognizing the Baloch right to self-rule, Pakistain's security establishment violent mostly peacefully suppresses the Baloch, engaging in acts such as enforced disappearances.
Tens of thousands of ethnic Baloch people, including students, activists, and professionals, have been subjected to enforced disappearances by Pak security forces throughout the last two decades. The victims are frequently denied access to legal representation, held incommunicado, and subjected to torture, inhumane treatment, or even extrajudicial execution. Although some return after years, they are traumatized and broken. Many never return. Others are found in unmarked graves, their bodies so disfigured that they cannot be identified.
The Pak government has historically denied these allegations, often claiming that some of the missing have joined bully boy separatist groups or fled the country.
In response, families frequently protest in major cities like Islamabad, enduring harsh conditions to demand the safe return of their loved ones.
During a demonstration held in London on January 3, "speakers from the Baloch National Movement (BNM) questioned Pakistain’s claim over Balochistan and criticized the role of Pakistain’s parliament, asserting that it does not represent the Baloch people," the Balochistan Post reported.
They alleged that parliamentary power was dominated by Punjab ...1. Little Orphan Annie's bodyguard
2. A province of Pakistain ruled by one of the Sharif brothers
3. A province of India. It is majority (60 percent) Sikh and Hindoo (37 percent), which means it has relatively few Moslem riots
.... [Pakistain's majority ethnic group] and described Balochistan as an occupied territory under what they termed a 'colonial-style control by the Punjabi military.' The BNM further claimed that the government in Balochistan was a puppet administration with no public credibility or authority, arguing that there was no hope of ending alleged abuses against the Baloch people within Pakistain’s existing political system.
Demonstrators said that enforced disappearances and the practice of collective punishment continue unabated in Balochistan. During the protest, speakers demanded the immediate recovery of Mahjabeen Baloch, Nasreena Baloch, Farzana Baloch, Hani Baloch and Hair Nisa Baloch, whom the BNM claims were taken into custody by Pak forces from different parts of Balochistan and subsequently forcibly disappeared. The speakers described these actions as among the harshest tactics employed by the state to suppress the Baloch freedom movement.
Speakers urged international human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, to increase pressure on Pakistain and to investigate what they described as serious human rights violations in Balochistan. The BNM termed recent developments in Balochistan a 'new moral low' in the ongoing conflict in the region.
In 2023, the Association MIMAN, a nongovernmental organization in special consultative status to the UN, submitted the following written statement to the UN Secretary-General:
Many of the forcibly disappeared Balochs particularly students have been killed and dumped by personnel of Pak secretive agencies accompanied by personnel of Pak Army or Frontier Corps ...a provincial paramilitary force. Total manpower is about 80,000. They are tasked to help local law enforcement in the maintenance of law and order, and to carry out border patrol and a..the Antwerp-based Salafist organization that had campaigned to introduce Sharia law to Belgium before single-handedly making Belgium the highest per capita supplier of jihadis to Syria in Europe. There was a big trial in Antwerp in 2015, but most of those convicted were in absentia...nti-smuggling operations.... , whereas thousands are still believed to be languishing in Pak torture cells.
The alarming lack of accountability for enforced disappearances in Balochistan underscores a deeply troubling culture of impunity. Families' relentless efforts to seek justice are met with indifference, misinformation, or outright denial by authorities. This erodes trust in the justice system and perpetuates a cycle of fear, silence, and helplessness among the Baloch population.
The persistent enforced disappearances in Balochistan pose a significant threat to regional stability and peace. The anguish caused by these disappearances fosters a sense of injustice and resentment, which can fuel extremism and violence. The region's already fragile socio-political fabric is further strained, potentially destabilizing neighboring areas and endangering the broader peace in the region.
The Mighty Pak Army appears to be only interested in securing its economic interests and continuing its crackdown on activists who request an end to human rights abuses and greater political autonomy. However,
the hip bone's connected to the leg bone... Army Chief Field Marshal Asim Munir refuses to claim responsibility for Pakistain's failed Baloch policy.
On the contrary, in November 2025, Pakistain's parliament voted to give army chief Munir new powers and lifetime immunity from arrest and prosecution, a move that critics say paves the way towards autocracy. His field marshal title and uniform are for life, and he will be given "responsibilities and duties" even after retirement, determined by the president with the advice of the prime minister. The expectation is that this will give him a prominent role in public life for as long as he is alive.
[IsraelTimes] Iran-backed PIJ terror group’s flexible command structure and unfettered emphasis on armed conflict has helped it expand influence in the territory, deepening the challenge for Israel
With Hamas ..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",... constrained by a host of political and military factors, Paleostinian Islamic Jihad ...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah... , the most prominent Paleostinian terror group after Hamas, has upped its recruitment and propaganda efforts in the West Bank, analysts and former officials told The Times of Israel.
Filling a vacuum created by Hamas — which has faced grinding IDF pressure while its Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... leadership deprioritizes the West Bank — Islamic Jihad has increasingly asserted itself in the northern West Bank, where the Paleostinian Authority’s grasp is more tenuous than the rest of the territory.
With Islamic Jihad more closely supported by Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... than Hamas, more decentralized than Hamas and unencumbered by any pretense toward governance, any move the group makes toward West Bank dominance could prove more of an insidious challenge to Israel.
According to experts, the group will likely be harder to deter or decapitate, prolonging instability, further weakening the PA’s hold on the territory and raising difficult questions about the long-term effectiveness of Israel’s counterterrorism strategy, which may require a shift to more sustained military operations beyond the army’s already robust efforts in dangerous Paleostinian urban settings.
The rise of PIJ, as the group is often referred to, could also give Iran a deeper foothold in the West Bank, analysts say.
Because Hamas has been constrained in the past by the need to maintain a veneer of legitimacy, balancing its terrorist activity with its political and governing goals, Tehran has historically been a more staunch backer of PIJ, which is fully dedicated to armed confrontation and has never claimed any mantle of being a legitimate political representative.
PIJ’s brand of "total, violent mostly peaceful, uncompromising" resistance appeals to many young Paleostinians, "especially when it’s also financially supported," said David Koren, a former National Security Council official. "You can’t measure this electorally — they’re not running for parliament — but at the level of popular terror, they enjoy considerable sympathy."
EFFECT OF COUNTERTERRORISM OPERATIONS ’WANING’
Following the Hamas-led invasion and massacre on October 7, 2023, that sparked the war in Gaza, Israel took steps to ramp up anti-terror efforts in the West Bank, where Hamas had hoped to inspire copycat attacks.
These moves included heavy restrictions on Paleostinian movement in the territory and liquidations of Hamas officials involved in West Bank terrorism.
In the northern West Bank, which has been a particular trouble spot for Israeli forces over the last decade due to the PA’s inability to tamp down terror activity, the army has also carried out large-scale counterterror operations, some of which lasted days or weeks and involve mass displacement of Paleostinian civilians. The operations have typically centered around Nablus; Tulkarem, where a major raid was launched in early 2025; and Jenin and Tubas, which also saw large operations toward the end of the year.
But the effect of Israel’s counterterrorism measures "is waning, and these groups are resurging — especially Islamic Jihad," said Joe Truzman, a research analyst at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies who focuses on Paleostinian terror groups.
PIJ was already showing signs of strength in the West Bank before October 7. The group led much of the uptick in violence and terrorism that began in the West Bank in the summer of 2021, said Truzman, adding that PIJ had more fighters on the ground in the northern West Bank at the time, though it remains difficult to pinpoint how many fighters belong to each terror group.
Israel has had some success in countering PIJ, but keeping the situation in the West Bank contained will require sustained focus given continued military activity elsewhere since October 7.
"Things are manageable right now. They’re not out of control like they were several years ago," Truzman said, adding that in light of recent trends, "people should keep an eye on it."
Much of PIJ’s activity lately has been focused less on terrorism and more on growing its popularity, including building up its ranks.
Some of PIJ’s most effective recruitment methods in the West Bank include delivering sermons in mosques and distributing posters glorifying "deaders" killed in battle with Israel, said Truzman, adding that Paleostinian youth are especially exposed to these practices in Jenin.
He also noted that PIJ’s designated social media accounts for the West Bank have been much more active than Hamas’s, bolstering PIJ’s perceived presence among Paleostinians.
PIJ operates in a different fashion than Hamas, enabling it to create alliances on the ground that Hamas hasn’t managed to form.
Koren, who now leads the Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research, said PIJ has also "grown stronger as the actor that provides sponsorship and protection to armed gangs" such as Jenin’s so-called Brigade 313, an Iran-backed outfit established in 2021.
"PIJ often breaks through organizational barriers to create very pragmatic cooperation with local gangs and gangs operating on the ground," he said. "Groups responsible for very serious terrorist attacks at junctions, against settlers, and others. It shelters militias and gangs, and its cooperation with them has become more natural."
Such decentralized cooperation can make terrorist networks harder to dismantle, potentially requiring more frequent Israeli military operations in areas like Jenin and Tulkarem.
Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council in Washington, stressed that PIJ’s success in recruitment in the West Bank cannot be divorced from the territory’s dire economic straits. Prior to October 7, Israel gave hundreds of thousands of Paleostinians work permits, allowing them to earn higher wages, but following the attack, almost all of these were frozen due to heightened security, harming the financial outlook of many in the West Bank.
While recruitment methods were historically more based in ideology, "nowadays, you can’t really recruit anyone without a financial incentive," he said. "You have something like half a million unemployed laborers in the West Bank who can’t get work permits in Israel anymore. And so mass unemployment provides a significant opening for exploitation."
Alkhatib noted that just because PIJ had an increased presence, it did not mean there was specific support for its brand of holy warrior ideology.
"There is support for anybody who fights Israel, the resistance, et cetera, broadly speaking," he said.
Polling has consistently shown West Bank Paleostinians, as opposed to their Gaza counterparts, favoring ’armed struggle’ against Israel as ’the best means of achieving Paleostinian goals.’
Polling by the independent Ramallah-based Paleostinian Center for Policy and Survey Research has consistently shown "armed struggle" against Israel as the most popular option for "achieving Paleostinian goals" toward statehood among West Bank Paleostinians, though a survey published in May 2025 showed that less than 50% support the option for the first time since September 2022.
In Gaza, negotiations have been more popular than armed struggle since September 2024, the pollster has found.
According to Alkhatib, one factor that put a dent in West Bank support for armed conflict with Israel was the IDF’s extended counterterrorism campaign Operation Iron Wall from early to mid 2025, which began in Jenin and spread to other areas in the territory, displacing some 40,000 Paleostinians in the process.
The mass displacement was "a cautionary tale for a lot of people in the West Bank who realized that we really don’t want to turn our territories, our area, into another Gaza," he said.
NO POLITICAL PROGRAM ’OTHER THAN CHAOS’
Yet heedless aggression against Israel regardless of the consequences seems to be PIJ’s modus operandi.
"They don’t have a particular program other than chaos and resistance," said Alkhatib.
Unlike Hamas, PIJ has no desire to lead the Paleostinian people. Truzman, the FDD analyst, said PIJ "mingles in politics" but has no political wing.
Meanwhile,
...back at the cheese factory, all the pieces finally fell together in Fluffy's mind... Hamas’s capacity to assert itself in the West Bank has been curtailed by its need to preserve its rule in Gaza, which has been devastated following the October 7 attack, said Koren.
"From the moment Hamas became heavily bogged down in Gaza — and also wanted to preserve its governing control there while absorbing severe blows, both military and economic — its ability to operate in Judea and Samaria diminished, especially financially and in terms of leadership coordination," he said, using the Hebrew name for the West Bank.
At the same time, Israel has cut Hamas down in the West Bank and elsewhere by killing its big shots, including those involved in directing the terror group’s West Bank activity, said Koren.
Most prominent among these was reportedly Saleh al-Arouri, Hamas’s veteran West Bank chief, who was killed in Beirut in January 2024.
Arouri was considered a key link to Iran and Lebanese terror group Hezbollah. He was replaced by his lesser-known deputy Zaher Jabarin, who analysts say is viewed as less charismatic or effective than Arouri.
Jabarin, based out of The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...a NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis.... member, but not the most reliable... , was seen as the criminal mastermind of a string of botched bombing attempts that succeeded only in killing a single Paleostinian attacker.
Citing associates of Gaza’s Hamas chief Khalil al-Hayya, Saudi outlet al-Hadath reported in May that Hayya had accused Jabarin of "failing to complete the work" left behind by Arouri.
With Hamas itself split between pro-Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi... i and pro-Iranian camps, the episode demonstrated the existence of possible deeper fractures within Hamas.
PIJ-IRAN TIES ’MORE COMFORTABLE FOR BOTH SIDES’
The financial and political constraints on Hamas have provided a space for PIJ, "which identifies an opportunity and seeks to exploit" the vacuum with help from Iran, Koren said.
Because PIJ’s "focus is narrower and purely military, it can allocate its resources more easily and carry out terrorism in Judea and Samaria," he added.
From the outset, Iran’s ties to PIJ have been "more natural and more comfortable for both sides" than its ties to Hamas, according to Koren.
Hamas’s ties with Iran have known ups and downs, such as during the Syrian civil war, when Hamas allied itself with the predominantly Sunni rebel forces fighting Syria’s Iran-backed president Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Before going into the family business Pencilneck was an eye doctor. If he'd stuck with it he'd have had a good practice by now... , who was toppled in late 2024. PIJ continued to support Assad, who had hosted the terror group’s leadership in Damascus for years.
"Unlike Hamas — which has significant constraints when it comes to deepening Iranian influence because of the Sunni—Shiite divide — Islamic Jihad, from its inception, has viewed the Iranian Islamic Revolution as a source of inspiration," he said.
That means a continued rise in PIJ prominence could deepen Iran’s influence in the West Bank, making the territory into another battleground for the Islamic Theocratic Republic to challenge Israel.
Like Hamas, PIJ is Sunni, but its affinity with Shiite Iran is alluded to in the name of Jenin’s Brigade 313, which derives from the number of people set to accompany the second coming of Imam Mahdi, a messianic figure in Shiite Islam.
Awdah TV, an outlet belonging to the PA’s dominant faction, Fatah, has said the number is commonly used by pro-Iran forces in the Middle East and shows the Jenin Brigade is itself an Iranian proxy. While the brigade also includes members of Hamas and other gangs, it has been described in Arabic media as an affiliate of al-Quds Brigades, PIJ’s armed wing.
Among the terror attacks claimed by Brigade 313 was a shooting near the northern West Bank village al-Funduq that killed three Israelis and maimed eight in January 2025, as the brigade was being targeted by PA and then IDF forces in Jenin.
Speaking to UK-based Arabic newspaper al-Araby al-Jadeed in December 2024, during the PA operation, Jenin Brigade commander Nour al-Bittar dismissed PA accusations that his group was backed by Iran.
"If they claim that we have Iranian funding, then what about their funding, which comes from the United States?" he said. "Our support for resistance is not contingent on money or interests — it’s a patriotic and religious duty toward our nation."
Alkhatib has written that Brigade 313 represents an Iranian attempt in the West Bank to "bring about the collapse of the PA and trigger a massive Israeli counterattack" in the hope that the violence would help salvage Iran’s regional terror proxy network, which has taken a blow since the October 7 attack.
Alkhatib told The Times of Israel that constraints facing Hamas amid the war in Gaza meant that PIJ was "much more useful moving forward as an Iranian proxy than Hamas."
"Iran is looking at this... and thinking Hamas is constrained by a whole host of limitations, whereas PIJ is the only group that remains politically free," he said.
[Breitbart] Transgender individuals commit “disproportionate shares of mass public and active shooting attacks,” a Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC) report shows.
CPRC studied data from 2018 to 2024, finding that attacks by transgender shooters was “at least 12 times their share of the population” in 2024.
They noted that the data has been studied by others, who failed to reach similar conclusions because they did not “adjust for transgender individuals’ share of the population.”
CPRC explained:
Different estimates place transgender individuals at varying shares of the population, and researchers measure attacks in different ways (for example, distinguishing between active shooting attacks and mass public shootings). But regardless of how one breaks down the data, transgender individuals commit these attacks at disproportionately high rates. …In 2024 transgender individuals committed active shooting attacks at least 12 times their share of the population and possibly more than 16 times their share.
They noted that if the focus is broadened from 2024 to become an examination of the entire timeframe, 2018 to 2024, transgender shooters still commit attacks at a larger share, albeit less disproportionate.
CPRC observed: “Using only the FBI data over the entire period…[of 2018 to 2024], transgender individuals commit active shooting attacks at 3.4 times their share of the population, and if you use the higher Census estimate that they make up one percent of the population, it is 2.5.”
They point out: “Again, most of the discussions about transgender individuals dismiss it as a serious concern because they only examine their attacks as a share of total attacks and don’t adjust for transgenders’ share of the population. But once one realizes that is the only way to properly analyze the data, regardless of how one measures it—whether using only FBI data or the expanded dataset—active shooting attacks committed by transgender individuals are becoming a serious problem.”
Posted by: Skidmark ||
02/24/2026 10:27 ||
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[1760 views]
Top|| File under: Nut Jobs
**CubeSats can function as compute nodes in distributed satellite systems**, enabling advanced missions through collaborative processing. The **CubeSat Cloud** framework demonstrates this by using clusters of CubeSats (5–25 units) as a distributed computing system for remote sensing data. It employs a **Master node** to orchestrate missions and **Worker nodes** for distributed storage, processing, and communication, leveraging high-speed inter-satellite links and efficient data transfer protocols like **CubeSat Torrent**. This approach enables **4.75–23.15× faster processing** compared to a single CubeSat, with minimal bandwidth and memory overhead.
Modern CubeSats are increasingly equipped with powerful onboard computing. For example, the **Colossus Kestrel** uses an **NVIDIA Jetson TX2i module**, providing massive parallel computing for image processing and AI tasks. Similarly, the **BeaverCube Flight Computer** integrates a **Raspberry Pi** and includes a **fault detection, isolation, and response (FDIR)** system to maintain autonomy and mission continuity. These systems support high-performance computing (HPC) in space, overcoming traditional limitations in power, volume, and mass.
The **CubeSat Space Protocol (CSP)** enables a service-oriented network topology, allowing subsystems to communicate via standardized interfaces and reducing dependencies, which enhances scalability and redundancy. This architecture supports seamless integration of compute-intensive payloads, such as those using **GPU-based processing** for pattern recognition in Earth remote sensing, achieving up to **14.72× acceleration** over traditional ARM-based systems.
[National Review] Six weeks ago, the United States pulled off an unprecedented tactical and strategic military coup. At every level, the raid that resulted in Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro’s capture demonstrated the dazzling extent of U.S. capabilities.
The raid was a feat of intelligence work. The CIA laid the groundwork for it beginning last August, with the introduction of a clandestine team that tracked Maduro’s travel patterns and compromised human assets in his orbit. It was also a display of technological prowess in the digital realm. "It was dark; the lights of Caracas were largely turned off due to a certain expertise that we have," the president said in the wake of the strike, acknowledging the previously undisclosed U.S. cyber capabilities deployed against the Venezuelan regime.
The raid featured an impressive use of combined arms as well. "Operation Absolute Resolve" used 150 air assets — fighter aircraft, B-1 bombers, unmanned surveillance drones, and penetrator helicopters — to neutralize Venezuela’s radar and anti-air defense network as well as to introduce and extract American special forces. Those forces (U.S. Army Delta Force commandos, to be specific) executed with precision the raid they had practiced for months at a scale replica of Maduro’s safe house.
Those commandos even deployed a new weapon that the president refers to only as "The Discombobulator," a weapon that ensured that Venezuela’s defensive weapons would "not work." In addition, reports indicate that U.S. forces deployed what’s being described as a "sonic" device that incapacitated enemy forces. "Suddenly I felt like my head was exploding from the inside," said one of the raid’s survivors. The weapon reportedly "brought Venezuelan soldiers to their knees, ’bleeding through the nose’ and vomiting blood." Venezuelan and communist Cuban security forces resisted U.S. forces, but they caused no American casualties. Thirty-two of the Cubans who served in Maduro’s praetorian guard were returned to Havana in shoeboxes.
Posted by: Besoeker ||
02/24/2026 07:19 ||
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[1760 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
To me - Seems Iran is protected.
Like I always say, all the whitepapers I ever read, still have the mullahs running persia as a regional hegemon.
#2
Not protected anymore. For a long time we used Iraq under Saddam as a check against Iran, but Iran also served as a useful check against Saddam.
But things change:
Iraq is a non issue now
Iran has been helping the Russians
Iran has provided too much support to Hamas & Hezbollah
Iran is getting closer to that the nuclear weapon they will never be allowed to have.
Either Trump has had enough of Iran or been listening to those that think a change in Iranian government is a good thing.
#4
The USA will have little problem hitting anything it wants to.
However, it's not really clear what the USA will hit. Presumably all the IRGC district and local offices (guessing about 100-200 targets). What about the IRGC mini villages - about the same number of targets
Then there are the battlefield targets, several hundred missile sites, similar number of drone sites, tank storage sites, naval vessels and operation assets and so forth.
Could possibly hit almost all of them in a week but that will result in 10k to 100k civilian casualties and also likely will kill dozens of people who are intel assets to the USA or the IDF (or both).
Yes, it may be worth doing but its not going to be clean and neat.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
02/24/2026 16:08 Comments ||
Top||
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.
...1. Little Orphan Annie's bodyguard
..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",...
