Recent Appearances...

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Recent Appearances...

-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-

Wealthy residents of East Coast hamlet hold panicked meeting to keep their nannies and gardeners from being deported as AG Pam Bondi threatens sanctuary towns: 'You're going to be next'

2025-02-07

And so they should, not that the meeting will help protect their illegal people. This is where the can is no longer kicked down the road.

[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] The wealthy residents of East Hampton went into panic mode over the possibility their hired help could face expulsion from the US as part of Donald Trump's mass deportation program.

They prefer cheap illegals who daren’t claim their rights under the law to hiring citizens who need at least minimum wage and can’t be worked for 16-hour shifts. If they really cared about their servants, they’d hire them legally, so they wouldn’t be at risk.

The exclusive Long Island village - with an average home value of $2 million and residents that include Sylvester Stallone's daughters - held an emergency meeting amid fears that ICE would round up the employees of locals.

East Hampton Town Police Chief Michael Sarlo tried to quell their fears by insisting that local cops were not required to assist ICE.

That was the rule during the Biden administration. Under President Trump, the new head of the Justice Department just announced she’ll be cutting off funds to sanctuary communities — and the head of ICE warned there is the risk of arrest for township employees, politicians, and of course those who knowingly hire and hide illegal workers. Not to mention that if ICE has to hunt down illegals on the street, they’re going to deport any random illegals swept up in the net with their targets.

'The only way any of my officers could ever enforce federal immigration law is if they were deputized,' he said. 'The town board would not allow any of our officers to be deputized.'

One migrant resident who spoke at the board meeting was overcome with emotion.

'It's really hard for me when my 10-year-old daughter asked me, "Mom, are you legal?,"' Daniela Rivas said, while adding that others were too 'scared' to attend the event.

'The most important thing we need to focus on right now is our kids. While they're at school, they're scared that when they go back home their parents won't be there.'

East Hampton Village Police Chief Jeffrey Erickson reiterated that local police would not assist federal actions: 'If it is an ICE detainer or an administrative warrant, we do not have the authority, we will not hold them.'

The development came as Attorney General Pam Bondi warned sanctuary cities they 'are going to be next' if local officials continue to harbor and protect illegal aliens over the safety of citizens.

Link

Terror Networks

Terrorist attacks in Dagestan: battered ISIS returns to the Caucasus

2024-06-26

Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Kirill Semenov

[REGNUM] The terrorist attacks in Dagestan, where synagogues and a church were targeted and Russian Orthodox Church priest Nikolai Kotelnikov was brutally murdered, may have been part of ISIS's global strategy to attack civilians, primarily Christians.

Thus, since the beginning of June in Africa (in the Congo, as well as in Mozambique), numerous terrorist attacks have been carried out against local Catholics and Protestants, when ISIS militants broke into Christian villages and carried out massacres of civilians there, and terrorist information resources such as “ Al-Naba” covered these crimes widely.

After the attacks in Dagestan, the ISIS-Velayat Khorasan* media center Al-Azaim also published a message praising the “Caucasian brothers.” Although ISIS has not directly claimed responsibility, such a statement could serve as evidence of the terrorist organization's involvement.

Attacking churches is also a characteristic feature of the ISIS-Caucasus Velayat terrorists*. This group was disbanded at the end of 2017 by the “central command of ISIS” after almost all of its cells were destroyed by federal forces. Nevertheless, in the future, individual ISIS adherents continued terrorist activity in the North Caucasus.

So, in February 2018, on Forgiveness Sunday, there was an attack on a church in Kizlyar. Then the terrorist Khalil Khalilov killed 5 parishioners and was himself liquidated. ISIS Central Command claimed responsibility for the attack, calling Khalil ad-Dagestani a “soldier of the caliphate.”

But after the terrorist attacks at Crocus City Hall in April of this year, there were signs of a revival of ISIS in the Russian Caucasus. Although the first signals sounded even a little earlier, after a group of six terrorists was eliminated in the Ingush Karabulak. However, at that time no direct connection was established between them and ISIS, or at least such evidence was not voiced.

In April, information appeared that ISIS - Velayat Caucasus (Ingushetia sector) published an audio message about the situation of the group. It indicated that this terrorist organization was becoming stronger, larger and more active and was going to choose a “new emir” (the last one was eliminated in 2021).

On April 22, militants possibly linked to ISIS attacked a police patrol in Karachaevsk in Karachay-Cherkessia, killing two law enforcement officers and wounding a third, and seizing their service weapons.

On April 28, suspected ISIS militants attacked a police post in the village of Mara-Ayagy of the Karachay-Cherkess Republic. The terrorists drove up to the post, threw explosives and opened fire, killing 2 police officers and injuring at least 4 people. All attackers were eliminated.

The current terrorist attacks in Dagestan can serve as confirmation that the group has begun to restore its positions in the Caucasus. And here we need to pay attention to the history and specifics of the Caucasian wing of ISIS and its appearance on Russian territory.

FROM “ICHKERIA” TO “CAUCASUS EMIRATE”
The roots of the emergence of ISIS as a global terrorist project should be sought in the arrival in Iraq of a group of al-Qaeda jihadists from Afghanistan led by Abu Musab Az-Zarqawi, who began to implement his own concept of jihadism, entering into increasing disputes with the leaders of this structure, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. And in the Caucasus, the prologue to the emergence of ISIS in this part of the Russian Federation was the arrival of foreign jihadist fighters in the region, primarily from Arab countries.

The first jihadist to go to Chechnya was Ali Fathi al-Shishani, a veteran of the war against the USSR in Afghanistan, an ethnic Chechen from Jordan. This happened even before the first Chechen war, in 1993. Then Fathi, having arrived in Ichkeria, created a “Salafi Islamic jamaat”, consisting of young indigenous Chechens and some Chechens of Jordanian origin. In essence, this is where the spread of Wahhabism in the most radical version of Salafi jihadism in the Russian Caucasus begins.

After the outbreak of war in December 1994, Ali Fathi played an important role in facilitating the recruitment of Arab fighters from Afghanistan. Among those he personally invited was Samir Salih Abdallah al-Suwailim, better known as Khattab, who soon became the leader of all foreign jihadist fighters in Chechnya. But then it was too early to talk about Ichkeria joining the global jihadist project led by Al-Qaeda*, although there were, of course, connections between them.

Although Khattab denied any contact with bin Laden, stating that "there are no relations between them due to the great distance and difficulties of communication," both sides did maintain dialogue through their representatives in the 1990s and early 2000s years.

There was also correspondence between them, which resulted in a heated discussion about strategy, as Khattab and bin Laden had completely different worldviews, and each tried to convince the other of the superiority of their approaches to “jihad.” It was also characterized by personal rivalry between them, especially due to Khattab's growing authority within the jihadist community.

Bin Laden was obsessed with fighting the "Judeo-Christian alliance" and focused his strategy on attacking the "distant enemy", primarily the US and Israel. Khattab, on the contrary, sought to establish an Islamic system in Chechnya and then use it as a base for violent expansion into the neighboring territories of the Russian North Caucasus. Until his death in 2002, Khattab never threatened the United States.

After Khattab was eliminated, his successor as commander of foreign jihadists in Chechnya was Abu al-Walid al-Ghamdi, just like Khattab, a citizen of Saudi Arabia. Al-Walid's approach to the ideas of "jihad" was even more radical. It was he who began to openly call for the use of suicide bombers and justify the recruitment of women to carry out suicide bombings. Al-Walid was killed by fighters of the Vostok battalion in Chechnya on April 16, 2004.

Abu Hafs al-Urduni, who replaced al-Walid, was a Jordanian and finally brought foreign Salafi jihadists in the Caucasus into the service of al-Qaeda, and its most radical wing led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who became the “founder” of ISIS.

In particular, Abu Hafs was mentioned in the report of US Secretary of State Colin Powell to the UN Security Council back in 2003. He was stated to be part of an alleged international network led by al-Zarqawi, from which ISIS emerged.

On November 26, 2006, Abu Hafs al-Urduni was killed in a shootout with Russian special forces in Khasavyurt. And the last commander of the “Arab Muhajirs” in Chechnya was Melfi al-Hussaini al-Harbi, known as Muhannad, who replaced al-Urduni.

Mukhannad began his activities in the Caucasus in 1999 in the Pankisi Gorge of Georgia, populated mainly by ethnic Chechens - Kists. Muhannad lectured on the history of Islam, actively introducing the ideology of Wahabism in the region and preaching the principles of Salafi jihadism. In which, it should be noted, he succeeded, since subsequently many people from this gorge became significant figures among foreign jihadists in Syria and, above all, in the structures of ISIS.

In October 2006, the head of the separatist entity “Ichkeria” (CRI), Doku Umarov, appointed Mukhannad as one of the three deputies of Magomet “Magas” Yevloev, who headed the Ingush sector of the separatists.

After Umarov in September 2007 proclaimed the formation of a new militant organization in the North Caucasus called the Caucasus Emirate in place of the ChRI, Mukhannad was declared his naib, or deputy. This was evidence of the strengthening of the position of Salafi jihadists in the Caucasus, who have become the mainstream of Chechen separatists.

This also emphasizes the role of Muhannad himself, who gained much more influence on the decision-making of the Imarat than his predecessors during the times of Ichkeria. On April 21, 2011, Ramzan Kadyrov told reporters about the destruction of Mukhannad as a result of a special operation that took place on the same day in the Chechen Republic.

FROM “CAUCASUS EMIRATE” TO “ISIS – CAUCASUS VELAYAT”
The Caucasus Emirate tried to distance itself from international terrorist networks, declaring itself as an independent center of world “jihadism,” although it was not against receiving help from the same Al-Qaeda and accepting its emissaries.

But after the liquidation of Doku Umarov, starting in November 2014, the leaders of the so-called. The “jamaats” of the “Caucasus Emirate”, one after another, began to swear allegiance to ISIS (which, since 2013, has been able to carry out widespread expansion in Syria and Iraq) and its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

First, the so-called “Chechen jamaat”, whose leaders swore allegiance to ISIS, their example was followed by Dagestan “jamaats”. And then they were joined by the Ingush, whose leader, although he did not directly swear allegiance to Al-Baghdadi, nevertheless declared support for ISIS. Ultimately, the then head of the Caucasus Emirate, Abu Muhammad (Aliashab Kebekov), found himself isolated and was soon eliminated by Russian security forces.

Thus, the regionalist jihadist project in the Caucasus was replaced by a global jihadist project under the banner of ISIS.

“Central” ISIS announced the creation of the group “ISIS - Velayat Kakaz” on June 23, 2015 and appointed its leader Rustam Asildarov. Thus, ISIS-Caucasus has become part of a wider terrorist network.

This could largely be due to funding issues, since, on the one hand, Western curators were losing interest in the Imaratu, and, on the other, Al-Qaeda, which had previously supported Caucasian terrorists, was plunging into an increasingly deeper crisis.

The participation of jihadists from the Caucasus in the Syrian conflict and their joining the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq created a connection between the “caliphate” and Caucasian militants, including financial ones. This predetermined the flight of field commanders from the Caucasus Emirate to the banners of ISIS. Moreover, many of them understood that their time in the Caucasus had expired, and if they did not try to leave it, finding something to do in other branches of ISIS, they would soon be liquidated by federal forces.

On December 4, 2016, Russian intelligence services reported that they had killed Asildarov and four of his accomplices during a raid in Makhachkala. Aslan Batyukaev became the new leader of ISIS in the North Caucasus.

However, after his appointment in 2017, he was forced to leave the Russian Caucasus to save his life, hiding abroad. At the same time, ISIS - Caucasus Velayat was apparently dissolved by the ISIS Central Command as having ceased to exist. Although terrorist attacks on behalf of ISIS continued in the Caucasus, they were carried out either by lone terrorists or by autonomous cells not associated with the central command.

But at the very beginning of 2021, an attempt was made to restore ISIS - Caucasus Velayat. Then Batyukaev returned to Russia. This attempt seemed unsuccessful, since he was killed along with his group of five militants as a result of a special operation by the forces of the police regiment. A. A. Kadyrov on the outskirts of the village of Katyr-Yurt.

However, it is possible that this was not the only group that penetrated the territory of the Russian Federation, and it was from that time that ISIS sleeper cells that were activated in Dagestan began to be restored in the Russian Caucasus. It also cannot be ruled out that the current terrorist activity in the Russian southern regions is supported by “third forces” with which Russia is waging war in Ukraine.

Actually, the unexpected appearance of Batyukaev in the Russian Caucasus at the beginning of 2021 after his disappearance could have been supervised by external actors who were already trying to restore the terrorist network in order to open a second front if necessary. And this moment has come.

Link

Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia

'Simple contract' and its consequences. Ukraine could have joined NATO in 1954

2024-04-12

Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Andrey Zvorykin

[REGNUM] In April, officials at the Brussels headquarters of the North Atlantic Alliance have many reasons for corporate events and mutual congratulations. One after another follows the anniversary of the founding of NATO's European Command and the return of France to the military structure of the bloc, the fifteenth anniversary of the fourth expansion to the east (with the admission of Croatia and Albania to the alliance). But the main, “semicircular” date in Brussels and NATO capitals from Washington to Skopje was celebrated at the beginning of the month. 75 years ago, the North Atlantic Treaty was signed in Washington, marking the beginning of what current NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg called “the strongest, most resilient and most successful” military bloc in history.

The treaty for which the organization is named was signed on April 4, 1949, in the giant neoclassical hall of Washington's Departmental Auditorium on Constitution Avenue (now the building bears the name of billionaire Andrew Mellon ) in front of a large crowd of elite guests and in the presence of President Harry Truman.

Conspiracy theorists like to point out the symbolic significance of the site of the Atlantic Pact. When the building was laid in 1932, the cornerstone was presented to then-President Herbert Hoover by the Masters of the Masonic Lodge. But in fact, if the 1949 treaty symbolized anything, it was another milestone in the unfolding Cold War.

The pact of 12 Atlantic powers became a logical continuation of Winston Churchill’s Fulton speech about the Iron Curtain from the Baltic to the Adriatic, the refusal to include the USSR and Eastern Europe in the “Marshall Plan”, the thermonuclear and hydrogen race, plans for war with the USSR (the American “Totality” and the British “Unthinkable” plan "), the first Berlin crisis and the first proxy clash between the Western and Soviet blocs - the Greek Civil War.

The document was signed by Secretary of State Dean Acheson (soon to be one of the “fathers” of the Korean War) and eleven of his colleagues - the foreign ministers of Canada and a dozen Western European states, from pacifist Iceland without an army to semi-fascist Portugal.

The main allies of the United States in the recent anti-Hitler coalition were represented by politicians with a positive “background”: an opponent of the Munich agreement, a man from Churchill’s team, Ernest Bevin, and the chief of French diplomacy, Robert Schumann - who, however, managed to vote for the dictatorial powers of Marshal Philippe Petain, but miraculously avoided being sent to Dachau for connections with the Resistance.

Truman, presenting the text of the treaty, poured out peace-loving rhetoric: “This treaty is a simple document. The nations that signed it undertake to comply with the peace-loving principles of the UN and maintain friendly relations.”

But, as Joseph Stalin noted a little later (responding to the head of the British Foreign Office on the pages of Pravda ), if “the North Atlantic Pact is a defensive pact” and is directed against aggression, then “why didn’t the initiators of this pact invite the Soviet Union to take part in this pact?”

So adorably disingenuous.

The rhetorical question of the Soviet Secretary General was essentially answered by the first Secretary General of NATO, Baron Hastings Lionel Ismay (this British representative headed the alliance until 1957): the goal of the bloc is “to prevent the USSR from entering Europe, to ensure an American presence in it and to contain Germany.”

The “containment” of the Germans, we note, was expressed in the admission of West Germany to the alliance in 1955. This was already the second expansion to the East after the inclusion of Greece and Turkey bordering the USSR (in 1952).

Moreover, a year after Stalin’s death, in March 1954, the Soviet government sent an unexpected note to the United States, Great Britain and France with a request... for the admission of the Soviet Union to NATO.

Still disingenuous. And still aggressive.

This application, submitted on behalf of three UN members - the USSR, the Ukrainian SSR and the Byelorussian SSR, however, could hardly be considered a consequence of the beginning “de-Stalinization”.

At the beginning of 1949, the head of the Soviet Foreign Ministry, Andrei Vyshinsky, through the leadership of the British Communist Party, sent a proposal to the cabinet of Labor member Clement Attlee to discuss Moscow’s participation in NATO’s predecessor, the Western European Union. London's expected refusal gave Stalin a reason to call the Atlantic blocs a “undermining of the UN.”

It seems that the same Vyshinsky (or rather Nikita Khrushchev and Vyacheslav Molotov ) pursued the same goal in 1954. The USSR's gesture demonstrated to the whole world that behind the talk and construction of a security architecture, a military machine is actually being built, in which there is only room for supporters of redividing the world according to their vision.

The point of no return was the inclusion of Germany in the alliance - which crossed out the provision of the Potsdam Treaty on a non-aligned post-war Germany. Already in response to this, the Warsaw Pact Organization was created, and the bipolar split of the world finally took shape.

Formally, the first military action of the alliance was Operation Maritime Monitor in 1992 - the deployment of a NATO naval group led by the American aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt to the Adriatic to enforce the blockade of Yugoslavia.

But in fact, the participation of the European allies and Canada in the Korean War (formally a military action of the UN), and the support that Britain, France, Germany and Italy provided to the United States during the Vietnam War - all this was due, among other things, to obligations under the alliance.

What an attempt to bring the country out of strict subordination to the alliance (theoretically, this is possible thanks to Article 13 of the North Atlantic Treaty) may turn out to be can be clearly seen in France. Charles de Gaulle, who had long sought the same powers that the United States and Great Britain had, became disillusioned and in 1966 announced the withdrawal of the Fifth Republic from the military organization of the alliance, retaining membership only in the political structures of NATO.

De Gaulle lost his post two years later - after ultra-left protests (ironically, many of the leaders of “Red May 1968” would later become systemic Atlanticist politicians and ideologists), and France began to drift back to the alliance. In 1995, Socialist President François Mitterrand returned the country to participation in the development of NATO military plans. In 1997, Gaullist Jacques Chirac made an attempt to bring France back into the military organization of the alliance - but could not agree with Bill Clinton on the division of powers on the southern flank of NATO.

And in 1999, France already fully participated in the aggression against Yugoslavia unleashed by the same Clinton : NATO planes that attacked the defenseless European country took off from both the American aircraft carrier Enterprise and the French Foch.

“Without any resolution of the UN Security Council, they directly began military operations, a war, in fact, in the center of Europe,” noted Russian President Vladimir Putin on the 25th anniversary of the NATO strike on Yugoslavia.

Only in 2009, another Gaullist, Nicolas Sarkozy, de jure approved the return of France to NATO military structures. But to join the “action”, which claimed the lives of 2.5 thousand peaceful Serbs and Montenegrins, no formal decision was required.

Just like Romania - which, without waiting for formal inclusion in the alliance, provided its territory for NATO attacks on Yugoslavia.

Such a development would hardly have been possible if it had not been for the end of the Cold War on Western terms. Let us recall that in 1990, an agreement was concluded between representatives of the USSR, the USA and the Federal Republic of Germany (without the participation of representatives of the GDR) on the unification of Germany under the leadership of the Federal Republic of Germany - that is, in fact, on the annexation of the GDR by West Germany.

Led by Mikhail Gorbachev, the USSR pledged to withdraw troops from East Germany in exchange for a verbal promise from NATO representatives not to expand the alliance’s borders further to the east.

For a long time, the leadership of the alliance completely denied the fact of oral agreements with the head of the USSR. Only in 2018 were documents declassified that contained information that there was an agreement. “We deceived him,” as the theorist of Western geopolitics Zbigniew Brzezinski said about Gorbachev.

As a result, first in 1990, the NATO border moved east to the Oder-Neisse line, the former border of the GDR. And then the alliance began to pick up the legacy of the Warsaw Pact dissolved in July 1991.

To all Russia’s attempts (its applications to join NATO were rejected in 1993 and 2000) to come to an agreement on security issues, the alliance responds with hysterical cries about Russian aggression (exactly repeating NATO’s rhetoric towards the USSR).

In 1999, after the required transition procedures, Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic joined NATO, and in 2004 seven more countries, including three former Soviet republics - Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. The Kaliningrad region became an enclave surrounded by NATO countries; the border of the alliance with Russia ran along the Narva River, 130 km from St. Petersburg.

Throughout the 90s, zeros and tens, the alliance “digested” the Balkans. In 1995, NATO countries carried out the “Considerate Force” action - aerial bombing of the Bosnian Serbs (152 civilians were killed, 273 were injured). Four years later, the above-mentioned aggression against Yugoslavia followed - Operation Allied Force.

Let us add that during this “action to protect Kosovo Albanians,” which had no military-strategic significance, NATO used prohibited weapons, including shells with depleted uranium.

At the same time, the alliance absorbed the loyal republics of the former Yugoslavia - in 2004, the process of admitting Slovenia ended, in 2009, Croatia was included in NATO (along with Albania, a former neighbor and mortal enemy of Yugoslavia), in 2017, the “master” of Montenegro, Milo Djukanovic, for his accommodation were rewarded with the inclusion of the republic in the alliance. And finally, in 2020, North Macedonia was admitted to NATO.

Now almost all fragments of dismembered Yugoslavia have the opportunity, as junior partners, to participate in actions to introduce democracy in third world countries. Three such actions can be distinguished since the beginning of the century.

Firstly, this is the Afghan campaign. If we do not count the assistance of NATO countries to the “freedom fighters” - the Mujahideen during the war of 1979–1989 (thanks to which the military-political career of Osama bin Laden was successfully launched ), then October 2001 should be considered the starting point.

During the American Operation Enduring Freedom (2001–2021) and the “work” of NATO members of the International Security Assistance Force, 46,300 civilians were killed. The production of methamphetamine in democratized Afghanistan increased 10-fold in 2017–2021 alone, and by 2018 the share of the Afghan “product” in the global heroin market was 92%.

The ending of the American and NATO operation in Afghanistan is well known. The world will long remember people falling from great heights, trying to cling to taking off planes and service dogs, who were several positions higher on the American evacuation lists than even the British allies.

If NATO entered Afghanistan under the guise of a UN Security Council resolution (adopted, however, only two months after the invasion), then the Americans and their alliance colleagues began the war in Iraq of 2003–2011 without any regard for international law.

Iraq’s “punishment” for the mythical development of weapons of mass destruction (remember Secretary of State Colin Powell ’s test tube that became a meme ) turned into a humanitarian disaster. According to a report from the Iraqi Ministry of Health to WHO alone, up to 203 thousand civilians died during the first stage of “democratization” (2003–2006). According to the non-governmental project Iraq Body Count, by 2011, 1 million 620 thousand people were killed, died from wounds and diseases caused by the war, of which 72% were civilians.

After the bombing, more than 750 hospitals, 3,970 clinics and 5,700 educational institutions were destroyed.

If not all NATO partners took part in the aggression against Iraq (Britain, Turkey, Italy distinguished themselves, including the “newcomer” Poland), then the intervention in Libya of March - October 2011 was already a joint action of the majority of the alliance members. Except perhaps for Germany, which allowed itself to abstain. One of the main initiators of the aggression was Nicolas Sarkozy, who returned France to the NATO military structure.

The Ministry of Health of the then-not-yet-destroyed Libyan Jamahiriya managed to report 700 civilians who died in March–May 2011 after attacks on Tripoli, Benghazi and other cities. If we believe the latest estimates from Iranian sources, up to 40 thousand Libyans became victims of the NATO intervention.

The main thing is that NATO’s assistance to the Libyan “democratic opposition” in “liberation from the tyranny of Muammar Gaddafi ” led to the complete destruction of Libyan statehood and two civil wars (2011–2014 and 2014–2020), which also claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people, in particular 14, 2 thousand people during the last conflict. One of the most stable and socially prosperous countries of the former third world has turned into another “failed state” and a supplier of migrants to Europe.

From February 2022 to the present day, the Kiev regime has been the next object of NATO’s special care.

The alliance is close to the geopolitical goal identified at the end of the Cold War. With the admission of former “neutrals” - Finland and Sweden - to NATO, an anti-Russian sanitary cordon has practically been built from the Barents Sea to the Black Sea, the links of which are intended to be post-Soviet countries from Estonia to Moldova and Ukraine. The plans were disrupted first by the failure of the pro-Western “color revolution” in Belarus in 2020, and then by the beginning of the Northern Military District.

Today, NATO continues its aggressive policy, sponsoring the Ukrainian regime with weapons that are used to attack peaceful Russian cities.

Residents of Belgorod, as well as residents of Belgrade, are unlikely to agree with the compliment that Jens Stoltenberg gave on the 75th anniversary: “We are doing something right! We helped spread peace, democracy and prosperity throughout Europe."

Link

-Lurid Crime Tales-

Haiti‐Less Violent Than Chicago?

2024-03-14

[Powerline] So Haiti is back in the news. As I mentioned yesterday, I thought the Clinton Foundation had fixed the place! Or Colin Powell in the 1990s. Or something. How soon until Biden sends in American troops? Or lets 500,000 Haitians come to America?

Anyway, Haiti is in the state of nature right now, with gangs and mobs rampaging. And yet, as a smart left-leaning friend of mine (I do have a few of those—opposition research) points out, the murder rate in Haiti is lower than many American cities:

Table of our Top 25 can be seen at the link — eighteen of them more than Haiti’s 41/100,000.

Link

-Great Cultural Revolution

Army Recruitment of White Soldiers Plummets, Take a Wild Guess Why

2024-01-12

[Red State] Military recruitment is in trouble, with the U.S. Army missing its goal by about 10,000 new soldiers in 2023. What's causing the slowdown that has left the nation's oldest service branch in peril even as threats around the world grow?

According to a new report, the shortfall is coming from a lack of white recruits, a problem that has grown progressively worse since 2018.

BLUF:

Diversity, equity, and inclusion and an obsession with intersectionalism have inundated the Army and the military as a whole. Illustrating that is current Joint Chiefs of Staff Charles Brown, who bragged that he used "diversity" as a barometer for promotions and staffing.

What does that tell a potential white recruit? It tells them that they shouldn't bother signing their life away because they won't be treated fairly and will not be promoted based purely on merit and accomplishment. They simply aren't "diverse" enough, and given the Biden administration is still pumping out DEI studies claiming more bias is needed, anyone thinking about joining should know it's only going to get worse.

More from Paul Joseph Watson

Link

Home Front: Politix

Austin has completely failed. The US Army is run from a hospital bed

2024-01-10

Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Malek Dudakov

[REGNUM] A new scandal in Washington - US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was hospitalized. And at the same time, he did not bother to notify anyone of his incapacity - neither his subordinates at the Pentagon, nor his superiors in the White House. We learned about the illness of the head of the Pentagon almost by accident.

And this became the personification of the entire systemic crisis in which the US military machine now finds itself.

Lloyd Austin, a 70-year-old gerontocrat, found himself on the operating table on December 22. He was then quickly discharged, but on January 1, Austin began experiencing pain and complications. And he was hospitalized again, and for quite a long period of time, which already exceeded one week.

This was hidden in every possible way by Austin's inner circle. Only later, when the scandal broke out, did Austin have a telephone conversation with Joe Biden.

Republicans in Congress are furious.

Such clumsy secrecy is not the custom of the White House apparatchiks. They usually communicate health problems strongly in advance. This was the case, for example, with Colin Powell or George W. Bush, who also had to undergo surgical operations.

And Biden, although he tries not to advertise his health condition, honestly reported a broken foot after playing with a dog. Or about past chemotherapy.

In addition, Austin chose to leave the Pentagon in autopilot mode at the most inconvenient moment.

Indeed, right now, US military strategy faces a painful defeat in Ukraine after failing to carry out a counteroffensive. The situation at the front for Kyiv is sharply worsening, and military tranches have been greatly reduced.

At the same time, the United States is stuck in a proxy war in the Middle East, where it is not really able to cope with the Houthis and pro-Iranian forces in Iraq.

In parallel to this, a new escalation has begun on the Korean Peninsula - and the upcoming elections in Taiwan could lead to a conflict situation in the South China Sea.

Articles of impeachment against Austin have already been presented in the lower house of Congress. Among the reasons is the chaotic flight of the United States from Afghanistan, which undermined American positions in the Middle East. And also the failure to secure the US southern border, which is being stormed by hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants. And the lag in the arms race from China.

Austin could be the first US minister in more than 150 years to be impeached by Congress.

The Senate also announced hearings with his participation. So that immediately after being discharged from the hospital, Austin would be dragged to explain his behavior to legislators. These hearings already promise to be very scandalous - and could be a strong blow to the position of the entire Biden team.

Austin's illness became a convenient occasion to once again criticize the state of affairs inside the Pentagon.

After all, the personal negligence of the current US Secretary of Defense is just the tip of the iceberg. The Pentagon now finds itself in its worst crisis since at least the Vietnam War. Moreover, the problems are getting worse in many directions at once.

In 2023, due to a severe shortage of recruits, the strength of the US Armed Forces has collapsed below 1.3 million soldiers. This is the minimum figure for more than 80 years - since the pre-war 1940. The situation is worst in the American army - here the reductions amounted to 8%. The Pentagon has been faced with a shortage of people willing to serve for a long time, but it was during the era of Biden and Austin that the problem became fundamental.

There are many reasons.

This is also the politicization of military service, where Democrats are imposing racial and gender theories with all their might and teaching the basics of BLM. And the deplorable state of the military infrastructure - the same barracks with mold, cockroaches and rats. But there is also simply a shortage of young Americans who would meet the physical standards of the service. And they would like to spend at least three to four years of their life in the military sphere.

The shortage of troops is already severely limiting the Pentagon's ability to be present in all hot spots.

Difficult choices have to be made—for example, starting in 2024, the White House is forced to reduce the contingent of American troops in Europe, redirecting some to the Middle East. In addition, Washington considers it necessary to maintain a large contingent in the Indo-Pacific region.

That is why the Pentagon is torn between all fronts, nowhere having an advantage over its opponents, be it Russia, China or the proxy forces of the Middle East.

The shortage of basic weapons is becoming increasingly apparent.

Over the two years of the Ukrainian conflict, the Pentagon has used up ten years of stockpiles of shells and missiles. Many of them had to be removed from their warehouses in Israel or South Korea. Now both countries are in dire need of ammunition amid the global escalation. But the US’s ability to support them is now limited.

Austin actively called on corporations in the military-industrial complex to increase weapons production. But so far without any clear success. It was only possible to double the production of shells - from 14 to 28 thousand per month. But this too is burned through on the Ukrainian front in a matter of days.

But, for example, there are problems with the production of the same Javelin anti-tank missile systems - they are produced at a rate of two thousand per year. And in this way, the United States will need twenty years to make up for what was lost in Ukraine.

The production of not only conventional ammunition, but also serious types of weapons is in crisis.

For example, the assembly time for one Virginia-class submarine has increased from six to nine years. The same applies to aircraft carriers of the latest modification, destroyers and torpedo boats. Corporations in the military-industrial complex are acutely short of engineering personnel and technological base to maintain production. And many simply do not have the motivation to develop - they are already monopolists who can always count on Pentagon contracts.

Therefore, it becomes obvious that the United States is lagging behind in the new arms race. And not only from Russia or China, but even from Iran and North Korea, which already have their own hypersonic missiles. And China is now demonstrating the first prototypes of electromagnetic weapons.

Similar developments were also carried out in the USA, but they ended in failure. And the creation of American hypersonics found itself in a comatose state after unsuccessful tests of Lockheed Martin missiles.

In fact, during the three years of Biden's presidency, he has not been able to boast of a single military success.

His team is only desperately trying to maintain the status quo - with US military dominance. But doing this is becoming increasingly difficult - after all, the Pentagon no longer has absolute superiority; only relative superiority remains in certain areas, and it is quickly fading away. Austin, like Biden, is a product of a different era, so they both don’t really know what to do in conditions where the United States is no longer the world’s first military force.

Well, now - against the backdrop of all the scandals - it’s hardly worth waiting for Austin’s resignation. He has completely failed to lead the Pentagon. But Austin knows how Washington works.

And he early on became a partner in a lobbying firm called Pine Valley Capital Partners, along with current Secretary of State Antony Blinken. He has very good connections with other Biden apparatchiks - and they will not hand over their man, fearing that he will leak dirt on them.

Therefore, the current scandal with Austin's disease is the personification of not only Washington bureaucracy and negligence, but also obvious corruption.

But for Democrats, this story will have unpleasant consequences in any case. After all, it will only add popularity to the proposals of Donald Trump, who promises, if he wins the election, to organize large-scale purges in the Pentagon and intelligence services, throwing out corrupt officials and slobs.

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Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia

Colin Powell was right after all!

2023-12-14

[American Thinker] With the conflict in Ukraine at a stalemate and the prospects of a Ukrainian "victory" dim, perhaps it would have been wise for our current administration to have followed the doctrine elaborated by Gen. Colin H. Powell before engaging in foreign conflicts. As an infantry officer in Vietnam, Powell saw firsthand the lackluster effects of the Johnson and later Nixon administrations attempting to fight a protracted proxy war against the Soviet Union through gradual escalation, as opposed to an all-out effort to defeat the enemy. Our military was burdened with extremely restrictive rules of engagement, and our force levels were only gradually increased to match those of our adversary.

Based on this experience, Gen. Powell formulated the "Powell Doctrine," which postulated that America should resort to significant foreign military intervention only if political and military leadership could positively answer the following crucial questions:

1. Is the goal clear and vital to national security? Is it achievable?
2. Do the American people support military intervention?
3. Is there a plausible and credible exit strategy to avoid perpetual war?

Under the doctrine, if the U.S. could answer yes to these questions, then decisive or even "overwhelming" force would be utilized against the enemy to end the war as quickly as possible and to minimize casualties.

As chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Powell under President H.W. Bush had the opportunity to put his own doctrine into action during the first Gulf War, or Operation Desert Storm. Under Powell’s command, the nearly 1 million U.S. and coalition forces defeated a capable Soviet-trained enemy in less than seventy-two hours.

Contrast this today with the conflict in Ukraine, where it appears, after two years of incessant conflict and the expenditure of billions of dollars, that there will not be a clearly defined "winner." In addition, thousands of lives, both civilian and military, have been lost, and our current administration has yet defined for the American people a plausible strategy of end state other than "regime change" in the case of Vladimir Putin.

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Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia

Former US Army Colonel l Lawrence Wilkerson on a likely large-scale Russian offensive

2023-10-15

Direct Translation via Google Translate.. Edited.

Text and video taken from the V Kontakte page of Armed Forces of Novorossiya (VSN)
Former US Army Colonel and former Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell Lawrence Wilkerson on a likely large-scale Russian offensive: They [the Ukrainians] are committing suicide on these Russian defense fortifications. And let's see what will happen in the future if Russia bleeds Ukraine so successfully. And there is every chance that this will happen. Then we will “invite” Russia to attack, and she will be able to take significant parts of Ukraine that it never claimed, that it doesn’t want, didn’t want initially.

We should have come to the negotiating table weeks ago for a diplomatic solution. I just hope it's not too late. I hope that we haven't passed the point that I just talked about, where Russia will have a new incentive to take a completely new position in this conflict and say: screw this US election, screw it all, we don't care, we We will take as many territories as we can. And then we will present it to you as a fait accompli. I believe that this is where we are heading. This is how a military conflict develops. This is not what we wanted to get. We don't want an effective Russian crushing force in the heart of Europe.

Link

-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-

USAA-Who Knew-The Decline and Fall of a Once Great Company

2023-08-22

[AmericanThinker] On August 25, 2023, the United Services Automobile Association (USAA) will convene its annual members meeting to re-elect the CEO and Board of Directors. For over 100 years, USAA has provided insurance and banking services to the military community and relied heavily on this symbiotic relationship to promote its business model. But since 2020, when Wayne Peacock became USAA's only non-veteran CEO, the corporation has embraced diversity, inclusion, and equity (DIE), corporate social responsibility (CSR), and environment, social, and government (ESG) programs.

Soon after Mr. Peacock's appointment as CEO, USAA renewed its exclusive sponsorship with the National Football League, disregarding pushback from many of its members, who objected vehemently to players taking knee during the playing of the National Anthem. USAA executives dismissed these concerns, framing the disrespectful display as a freedom of speech issue. The implication was that USAA's financial support of unpatriotic, controversial behavior is compatible with the company's mission.

USAA is regarded as one of the world's most admired companies, but further inspection reveals that the company may be treading on past laurels. Employee morale and customer service are sagging, as the company faces class action lawsuits and a tarnished reputation as a result of substantial fines levied for lying to regulators. Mr. Peacock's leadership style and priorities are serious concerns for the membership, who question the appropriateness of his $4.8-million 2022 compensation package for performance.

USAA's extreme emphasis on DIE, CSR, and ESG metrics comes as a surprise and to the dismay of many of its loyal customers. The company's departure from its fiduciary responsibilities and foray into the realm of politics contributed to the first non-profitable year in 2022, the first in its 100-year history.

Effective leadership requires open communication and consideration of the needs of those under one's charge. As General Colin Powell noted, "leadership is solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you problems is the day you stop leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership." USAA's departure from this fundamental element of leadership is a sign that the company has drifted away from its core values — service, honesty, and integrity.

Link

-Short Attention Span Theater-

Biden tapping Gen. Charles Brown for chairman of the Joint Chiefs

2023-05-25

[CBS] President Biden is nominating Gen. Charles "C.Q." Brown Jr.

...fighter pilot and the first African American to serve among the Joint Chiefs since Colin Powell became chairman three decades ago...

to serve as the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the president is expected to announce Thursday in a White House Rose Garden ceremony.

Brown is currently the Air Force chief of staff.

The position is the nation's highest-ranking military officer, and the chairman is the primary military adviser to the president, as well as to the defense secretary and National Security Council.

Brown would replace Gen. Mark Milley, who was appointed by then-President Donald Trump in 2019. The chairman serves at the pleasure of the president for a four-year term. Milley held the job during the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol and the deadly withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan.

Politico - Same story.

Link

Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia

How the drone attack on the Kremlin is connected to the US nuclear sensors in Kyiv

2023-05-06

Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[REGNUM] After the attack of Ukrainian drones on the Kremlin, another attack began on social networks, informational: an openly fake stuff was circulated that Russia would launch a nuclear strike on Ukraine in response to the raid. And before the attack, a reputable and well-informed publication reported that the United States is installing equipment on Ukrainian territory that can detect the use of nuclear or radiological weapons (“dirty bombs”).

American specialists are installing sensors in Ukraine "that can detect‌‌ bursts of radiation from nuclear weapons or dirty bombs."

"Part of the goal is to make sure that if Russia uses a radioactive weapon on Ukrainian soil, the atomic signature (of that weapon) and Moscow's fault can be verified." Information about this appeared in The New York Times on April 28.

The authors of the publication emphasized that at the current stage of the conflict in Ukraine, "experts are worried about whether Russian President Vladimir Putin will use nuclear weapons in combat for the first time since the American bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945."

Less than a week after the publication of the placement of atomic sensors in Ukraine, on May 3, unknown drones attacked the official residence of the Russian president, the Moscow Kremlin. According to a statement by law enforcement agencies, two drones attacked the building of the Senate Palace, on the roof of which the Russian state flag is installed, with an interval of 15 minutes.

Officials in Kyiv and Washington disowned the attacks, calling what happened "Russia's internal affairs." But, as Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov noted , the nature of the provocation directly indicates that it was carried out by the Ukrainian special services, which operate in close conjunction with the United States.

"Often, even goals are determined not by Kyiv, but by Washington. Not every time Kyiv is given the right to choose means. Washington must clearly understand that we know this," Peskov stressed.

"As for Washington’s attitude, I drew attention to the statement of [head of the State Department] Tony Blinken , who said that the United States would not dictate to Ukraine the methods by which it defends its sovereignty," said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

The attack on the Kremlin was accompanied by numerous stuffing in social networks. One of them belongs to foreign agent Vladimir Osechkin , who fled abroad, who, referring to a certain “source in law enforcement agencies”, claimed that in response to the attack on the Kremlin, the Russian Aerospace Forces were allegedly preparing to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine as retaliation. Allegedly, nuclear weapons have already been delivered to the tactical bomber airfield.

Despite the obvious fakeness, the stuffing was quickly picked up by a number of Western media and Telegram channels that are associated with Western intelligence agencies. At the same time, which is typical, the West did not begin to discuss the possible involvement of the United States in the incident, focusing on the publication of "stuffing".

However, there are some circumstances that make it possible to suspect Western intelligence services of organizing an attack on the Kremlin, said Vadim Kozyulin , head of the Center for Global Studies and International Relations at the Institute of Current International Problems of the Diplomatic Academy of the Foreign Ministry.

“Some connection between the attack on the Kremlin and publications on the “nuclear” topic can be traced. Moreover, the reaction of the American media, as well as the American military, was very calm. They disowned the attack, although according to a number of indicators it can be assumed that it could not have done without Washington, Kozyulin told REGNUM . - In particular, the guidance of drones was most likely carried out using military GPS navigation, which Ukraine does not have. But the United States could well provide guidance for this attack.

A reasonable question arises: why should Washington plan an attack on the Kremlin, and then spin the topic of the “nuclear threat”. Sources of the NYTimes and other American media do not specify why it was necessary to send such specialized military assistance to Ukraine, especially now. But it should be noted that the United States has been supplying equipment and equipment for radiation protection for a long time.

“Earlier, even before the start of the NMD, the United States brought in ten thousand suits of radiochemical protection, put in radiation and chemical protection vehicles,” the editor of the Arsenal of the Fatherland magazine, military expert Alexei Leonkov , noted in a commentary to REGNUM news agency . - Then it was reported that this equipment and equipment was needed in order to examine a certain area where there is an increased radioactive background.

That is, the topic of “the threat of radioactive contamination” has been in their clip for a long time.”

The expert drew attention to the fact that the topic of radiation provocation by Ukraine and its partners was repeatedly raised by the Russian Ministry of Defense in connection with the possible actions of Kyiv, the ultimate goal of which is to accuse Russian troops of using nuclear weapons.

“Ukraine is ready to go all out if we look at all the terrorist attacks in which it participates as a performer. It can play any role, the West will try to evade responsibility, as happened in the case of the attack on the Kremlin,” Leonkov added.

Let us recall that this is not the first time that the United States has used the story about "regimes that have weapons of mass destruction" as material for organizing provocations. As an example, we can recall the legendary test tube of US Secretary of State Colin Powell , with the help of which the United States justified the military invasion of Iraq .

In April 2018, the United States announced the use of chemical weapons already in Syria, accusing the country's government of violating human rights. The scandal was used as a pretext for launching a massive strike on Syrian territory even before the necessary investigation was carried out on the ground. As Kozyulin notes, the Syrian example could theoretically be used to organize a similar stuffing in Ukraine.

“There are a number of signs that allow us to establish the origin of radioactive materials by the radiation background that will be detected at the explosion site. It will be necessary to try very hard to substantiate this, - the expert noted. —

On the other hand, if the provocation is carried out, the US may start a public campaign to denounce Russia even before any investigation is carried out.”

According to Kozyulin, the so-called “dirty bomb”, which Ukraine can collect from its radioactive waste, can be used to organize such a provocation. The use of this kind of ammunition can cause an increase in the radiation background, which can be used for propaganda purposes.

“There is a certain probability of such a scenario," the expert said.

However, the provocation can also pursue more global goals than just "accusing Russia."

As Alexei Leonkov notes, the key strategic task for the United States is the destruction of the bloc between Russia and China. For China, the topic of non-proliferation of nuclear weapons is critically important, so the pretext with a radioactive threat can be promoted precisely for diplomatic purposes.

“In essence, Ukraine is not the most important aspect. Now there is a global confrontation between the United States and China for Europe, and an alliance with Russia is extremely important for China, the expert notes. - Therefore, a provocation with a "nuclear threat" on the model of how it was in Syria is an opportunity to prevent Europe from leaving the control of the United States.

And most importantly, to destroy relations between Moscow and Beijing. Because China is very sensitive about the use of nuclear weapons."

On May 4, US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haynes, in her statement, spoke of a serious deterioration in relations between Beijing and Washington and at the same time strengthening relations between China and Russia. A similar opinion was expressed by the chairman of the Committee of the Chiefs of Staff of the US Armed Forces, Mark Milley, in an interview with Foreign Affairs.

“It is not in the interests of the United States to see the formation of a strategic military alliance between Russia and China, and we will do everything possible to make sure that this does not happen,” Mark Milley said. The only question is whether a nuclear provocation falls under the words "everything possible" or whether Washington is not yet ready to cross this line.

May 5, 2023
Sergey Adamov

Link

-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-

Biden expected to nominate Air Force general as next Joint Chiefs chairman

2023-05-06

[FoxNews] Air Force Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., is expected to be the next Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman following Gen. Mark Milley's departure.

President Biden is expected to recommend Air Force Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., as the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as Army Gen. Mark Milley's four-year term approaches its end.

If nominated and confirmed by the Senate, Brown, who currently serves as the chief of staff of the Air Force, would become the second black man in the position. Army Gen. Colin Powell, who was appointed to the post by former President George H.W. Bush in 1989, was the first.

Though Brown was long expected to become the 21st Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Biden also interviewed Gen. David Berger, the 38th Commandant of the Marine Corps, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Link

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