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Welcome to the World Situation Report For April 10, 2022

Michael Cessna April 10, 2022

The goal of this column is to present news from around the world that is not often – if ever – covered by more mainstream entities, using local sources wherever possible, but occasionally using news aggregators not used, again, by the mainstream media. Also, please note that we do use links to Wikipedia; while Wikipedia is well-known as a largely-useless site for any kind of serious research, it does serve as a launch-pad for further inquiry, in addition to being generally free of malicious ads. As with anything from Wikipedia, always verify their sources before making any conclusions based on their pages.

This column will cover the preceding week of news.

North America

This week, the wave of bomb threats against schools continues, with schools across the country alternatively being evacuated or ordered to ‘shelter in place‘ across the country. Most of the bomb threats against schools this week were delivered by phone, but only one was definitively an automated voice call threat. Interestingly, the targets included a school in the city of Grande Prairie, Alberta in Canada, and a Muslim private school in Worcester, Massachusetts. In the Canadian case, school officials specified to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) that the caller was from the United States.

In Texas, meanwhile, a suspected pipe bomb was disabled at the Ector County courthouse in the county seat of Odessa. As this involved an actual device at a government facility, it falls under the purview of the FBI and the BATFE.

In Mexico, gang violence related to the country’s ongoing drug war continues to erupt in popular tourist destinations, with a beach-side assassination in the west coast city of Acapulco that resulted in a police chase and shootout among sunbathers, and an abrupt uptick of killings in the Yucatan Peninsular state of Quintana Roo.

[Source 1] – [Source 2] – [Source 3] – [Source 4] – [Source 5] – [Source 6]

[Source 7] – [Source 8] – [Source 9] – [Source 10] – [Source 11] – [Source 12]

South America

Three soldiers of the Colombian Army were killed by a roadside IED on the 8th, in the rugged and mountainous Antioquia Department, according to the Army’s 7th Division. Army officials believe the IED was planted by members of the so-called “Structure 18” group, yet another of the kaleidoscope of dissident and breakaway factions that splintered away from the disbandment of the FARC, which had disbanded in 2016 following peace talks with the Colombian government.

In neighboring Venezuela, army troops in rural Apure State reportedly disarmed an IED reportedly laid by the mysterious (and possibly fake) TANCOL group. The Venezuelan government claims that the mystery group was created by the Colombian government to undermine Venezuela and facilitate drug trafficking, while Colombian sources counter that the group is yet another FARC offshoot. Whichever the case, Venezuelan farmers in Apure and next door in Colombia’s Arauca Department are caught in the middle…as usual.

In the Peruvian capital of Lima, protests against the curfew ordered by left-wing President Pedro Castillo turned violent on the 4th. Castillo had ordered the curfew in an attempt to break a strike and demonstrations by Peruvian truck drivers against skyrocketing fuel costs. The strike, which began on March 28th, has begun to seriously impact the Peruvian economy. Various factions within the Peruvian government – including some of Castillo’s allies, slammed the curfew as unconstitutional and “unenforceable.” Protesters reportedly stormed the Supreme Court building, even attempting to set it ablaze, but instead satisfied themselves by looting computers and furniture and burning records. The Freedomist will keep an eye on this situation.

[Source 1] – [Source 2] – [Source 3] – [Source 4]

Africa

The Polisario Front has suspended contacts with the government of Spain, after Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez recognized Moroccan control over the former Spanish colony of Western Sahara. This move marks a sharp reversal of long-standing Spanish policy towards the region, which backed a United Nations call for the self-determination of the Sahrawi people, which Morocco has ignored in its efforts to exploit the mineral-rich region. This move comes after Morocco loosened its border controls on Spain’s only remaining African continental possessions of Ceuta, opening the way for the unauthorized crossing of thousands of young Moroccans and migrants from other African countries into Spanish territory, after Spain allowed a Sahrawi leader into the country for treatment for Covid-19. This is a matter of serious concern, as it could breathe new life into the Polisario Front, which could lead to a further destabilization of the region, and a possible expansion of operations by groups such as Al Qaeda in the Maghreb and potentially even the Islamic State in Libya, or their associates, the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara.

To the south, the Malian Army went on the offensive in the central part of the country, reportedly killing some 22 suspected terrorists. However, the United Nations and some human rights organizations have claimed that the offensive may have seen excessive uses of force, and that civilians may have been killed instead.

In neighboring Burkina Faso, an army outpost in Namissiguima was overrun in a “complex attack“, which left twelve troops dead and another 21 wounded. Although the group conducting the attack was not specifically identified, it was likely the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, who remain the greatest threat in the region.

In a potentially-related event, unidentified gunmen abducted an 83-year old American nun, Sister Suellen Tennyson of the Catholic congregation Marianites of Holy Cross, from the congregation’s house in the parish of Yalgo, part of the diocese of Kaya.

In Nigeria, some 17 troops were reported dead, and another 40 were wounded, after “gunmen” believed to be part of the Ansaru group (a splinter faction of Boko Haram) overran an outpost in the state of Kaduna in a swift and violent attack, mounted on motorcycles, came in armed with AK-47s and RPGs. The attack reportedly destroyed as many as three armored personnel carriers (APC), although precise details remain sketchy.

[Source 1] – [Source 2] – [Source 3] – [Source 4] – [Source 5]

Middle East

Violence continues in Israel, as Palestinian protests and terror attacks by various groups continue throughout the region. Two of the attacks were claimed by the Islamic State. The recent wave of violence has killed and injured dozens, in the ongoing, and seemingly never-ending violence.

[Source 1] – [Source 2] – [Source 3] – [Source 4]

Scattered, low-level fighting continued throughout eastern Syria this week, with Syrian government soldiers being killed in the southern Daraa region, as Israel reportedly targeted several Assad government military sites in the central part of the country with missile strikes. Elsewhere, Turkish units launched drone and artillery strikes against suspected targets across the northern part of the country. This, as several US troops were injured in an “indirect fire” attack on their base in the oil-rich Deir al-Zor region, reportedly by Iranian-backed militias.

[Source 1] – [Source 2] – [Source 3] – [Source 4] – [Source 5] – [Source 6] – [Source 7] – [Source 8] – [Source 9]

More US forces came under attack in Iraq’s Al-Diwaniyah, capital of Iraq’s Al-Qādisiyyah Governorate, and in Dhi Qar, when their logistics convoys were attacked by roadside bombs. These attacks have been happening frequently, often several times a week, as local groups demand that the Iraqi government enforce a resolution it passed in January of 2020, to expel all foreign forces from the country. Given Iraq’s track record on the subject of expelling foreign forces like the Islamic State in the last eight years, the question of “how” is begged.

Elsewhere in Iraq, scattered military and police actions resulted in arrests of suspects, and several Iraqi security forces killed and wounded.

[Source 1] – [Source 2] – [Source 3] – [Source 4] – [Source 5]

In Pakistan, the US State Department issued a travel advisory on April 4th, urging US citizens to reconsider travel to the country, due to rising levels of terrorism and sectarian violence. This comes after the March 4th attack on a Peshawar mosque that killed 62 and wounded 196.

Elsewhere in the country, two soldiers and two terrorists were killed in the Sinji area of southwest Balochistan’s Awaran District. This is almost certainly an outgrowth of the long-simmering insurgency in the region.

Meanwhile, a total of five more terror suspects were killed in northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, reportedly from the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan group.

[Source 1] – [Source 2] – [Source 3]

South Asia

India was surprisingly – and thankfully – quiet in general, this week. The only items of real interest were a series of bomb threats against several schools in Bengaluru/Bangalore, made via email, on the 8th. Interestingly, police officials stated that they believed that the emails came from the United States. As we noted above, in our North American section, a school in Canada also received a bomb threat believed to have originated in the US.

Also, two Indian Army soldiers were reported wounded by a bomb blast in the Khunti District, in central Jharkhand State, on the 6th. The device was reportedly of “low power”, and only caused light injuries.

Finally, the US State Department issued another travel advisory, this time for the nation of Sri Lanka, citing elevated COVID-19 risks, fuel and medicine shortages and terrorism.

To quote the advisory in part:

“…There have recently been protests over the economic situation and queues at gas stations, grocery stores and some pharmacies. Protests have occurred throughout the country and have mostly been peaceful. In some instances, police have used water cannons and tear gas to disperse protesters.

“There have also been daily planned power outages across the island, as well as some unplanned power outages, as fuel for backup generators is increasingly scarce. Public transportation in some instances has been limited or curtailed. Travellers should monitor local media for updates on the ongoing situation…”

Forewarned is forearmed.

[Source 1] – [Source 2] – [Source 3]

TECHNICAL DESTRUCTION

Michael Cessna April 9, 2022

If I were to ask the average reader, “What is the most popular combat vehicle of the last c.100years?”, most people would say something like the World War 2 US M4 Sherman tank…or, perhaps, the Soviet T-34 series, from the same conflict (both of which remain in limited service). Some might even say the Cold War-era Soviet T-55 – which also still soldiers on, around the world — but, like virtually everyone else, they would be wrong.

In fact, the most prolific and widely-deployed combat vehicle in modern history is — the humble “Technical.”

*An improvised fighting vehicle armed with a ZU-23 autocannon.*

The Technical – a term whose etymology is generally believed to have originated in the nation of Somalia during that country’s civil war, which began in 1991 (and which included the disaster that is now known as “Blackhawk Down“), when various NGO’s – unable to legally hire armed private security (i.e., “mercenaries“), instead used “discretionary funds for ‘technical services’” to hire “local security” who were, in fact tribal militiamen, who formed the core of the warring tribal/clan armies of the various warlords vying for control of the failed state.

*A “technical” in Mogadishu at the time of the UNOSOM mission (1992 or 1993)*

There is no single model of Technical. In general, a ‘Technical’, as such, is a civilian vehicle – usually a light pickup truck or some sort of 4-wheel drive vehicle, repurposed as an armed combat vehicle, although such vehicles used solely for troop and logistics transport are still considered Technicals. There are a special class of technicals, the “Gun Truck“, that are actual military vehicles, such as WW2 ‘Willys’ Jeeps or M35-series, M939, M809 and later 2.5ton trucks that have been used since WW2, but especially during the Vietnam War. Until very recently, the closest the US military came to deploying a Technical, was the occasional arming of various CUCV-type vehicles, beginning in the 1970’s (but read on to the end). While certainly improvised for combat, such vehicles were not – at those times – generally available to the public; debate on the term continues.

This was not, however, the first use of vehicles that could be classified as “Technicals.” Initially, almost military vehicles were “technically” (no pun intended) ‘Technicals’, simply because there were few “military vehicles”, as such, anywhere in the world. The first truly extensive use of such vehicles came during World War 2, with the British Army’s “Long Range Desert Group (LRDG)“, one of the predecessors of the famed “Special Air Service (SAS)“. Using whatever light civilian trucks they could scrounge up in Egypt at the time, the LRDG conducted deep raids and reconnaissance against Axis forces and installations during the Desert Campaign of 1940-1943. While this model was copied by a few other units during the war, most armies quickly scrapped the idea after the war was over. The reasons are many, but the primary one is that armies are conservative – even reactionary – by nature, and dislike “ad hoc” solutions to problems, unless there is an emergency situation.

*“T10” a T Patrol Long Range Desert Group 30 cwt Chevrolet, during WW2. Public Domain.*

The public’s first real exposure to Technical-type vehicles, however, was the Great Toyota War of 1986-1987, part of the Chadian–Libyan conflict. The nation of Chad – perpetually poor and fractious – needed a way to counter the heavy, Soviet-supplied combat vehicles of the Libyan army of dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Using the only vehicles readily available (mostly Toyota Hilux’s and Land Cruisers) in a manner similar to light cavalry, as well as the WW2 LRDG, the Chadians almost literally “ran rings” around the Libyans, inflicting an estimated 8,500 casualties (dead, wounded and missing), and capturing or destroying an estimated 800 tanks, APCs and other vehicles, as well as around 30 aircraft, wildly out of all proportion to their perceived abilities as an army, French intervention notwithstanding.

(Of note, the Libyan general who lost the Chadian War, Khalifa Haftar), now leads the Libyan National Army (LNA), one of the primary factions in the country’s intermittent civil war.)

While the scale of this defeat brought on pithy jokes and comments about the Libyan Army’s prowess, more sober-minded observers started paying attention to the concept, although little actual work was done during this period.

As the Somali Civil War increased in intensity, the widespread use of technicals was increasingly studied. As the 1990’s evolved into the early-2000’s, and with wars erupting around the world in the wake of the 9-11 attacks in the United States, regular militaries increasingly found themselves facing – and occasionally using – such vehicles, a few salient point became apparent.

*Chadian soldiers on a Toyota Land Cruiser pickup truck in 2008. Photo credit: Czech Ministry of Defense. Public Domain.*

Technicals, by their very nature as lightweight civilian vehicles, are simultaneously cheap,

commonly available, easy to work on, have a ready supply of spare parts, and generally get far better gas mileage than comparable military vehicles. They can also mount a variety of very powerful weapons, from the BGM-71 TOW Missile and other types of ATGMs, to heavy-caliber recoilless rifles, multiple-launch rocket systems such as the seemingly-immortal Type 63, as well as heavier and longer-ranged rockets, and a variety of other improvised rocket launchers and anti-aircraft cannons. (For a much more in-depth study, please see the excellent Tank Encyclopedia article on Techincals, YouTube video linked below.)

*IRGC Ground Force loading a Type 63 MRL, 2017. Photo credit, Tasnim News, CCA/4.0*

For many national armies faced with tight military budgets – and guerrilla and terror groups – around the world, Technicals are increasingly the first choice when swift formations are needed for attack and/or defense. However, the above comes with a very significant caveat: Technicals, as a class of combat vehicle, typically have little or no armor — which is why casualties among Technical crews meeting determined opposition tend to be very high, compared to more heavily-protected units…a consideration that seems to be an acceptable option for the US Army, given its recent adoption of the Infantry Squad Vehicle (ISV) — all at a staggering cost of nearly $330,000 — per vehicle.

*Infantry Squad Vehicle; 24 January 2020. Public Domain.*

Maybe the Army should call Toyota — their Special Forces did.

Technicals Part 1 (Tank Encyclopedia)

DIY Tanks of Iraq (Source: Vocativ)

*The Freedomist — Keeping Watch, So You Don’t Have To*

The Democratization of Military Training…

Michael Cessna April 7, 2022

Or, Once More With Effort, “Professionals Are Predictable, But The World Is Full Of Amateurs”

It seems that “everyone” has an ax to grind, these days. After over 4000 years of recorded history, it seems that we humans just keep getting more adept at this whole “war thing“.

And – just to be clear – no, this article is not a “how to” do anything. You’re on your own, there.

There are as many reasons to “go to war“, as there are human groups in existence; anytime two or more people decide that they agree on an issue enough that they are willing to do violence – if not agree to lay down their very lives – in that goal’s furtherance, “war” at some level becomes a distinct possibility. And by this, we’re talking about “war” in the sense most people are thinking – replete with dead people, lots of violence, destroyed cities, etc., as opposed to a more figurative example…like, say, “the war on poverty“.

However, most people simply don’t “get” war. From an external view, they do not grasp the intricate web of minutiae that goes into “war”; it’s not simply swinging a sword, or pulling the trigger of a firearm, or pushing a button to launch a missile. It is not only knowing when to do so, but also is knowing how and when to do these things, as well as understanding the systems that enable these actions.

While the individual “spear carrier” does not need to understand the intricacies of the industrial base that created his sword or rifle, his leaders most definitely do. The real challenge for any prospective leader or groups of leaders, though, has always been how to teach some kid – who may even agree with their goals, as far as they can understand them – how to swing that sword, or shoot that rifle.

Military training and military science have evolved over time. Even in the days when muscle power was the definitive factor in combat – swinging a sword is a very physically demanding job, when done for any length of time – it was an understood fact that the person who worked from a regularized system of actions (“drills“, or even “kata’s“, in modern parlance) in combat had a much better chance of winning the fight than someone who simply ran up and tried to smash their opponent in the face with a bat.

However, that kind of training has always been hard to come by – either there simply were not enough people with the knowledge to teach it, or the teaching took too long — it was said of the dreaded English and Welsh Longbowmen, that “if you wanted to train the archer, start by training the archer’s grandfather.” This is why projectile weapons were continuously evolving, much faster than swords and polearms.

The reason for this, militarily speaking, is quite simple: maneuver is a very powerful tool, and if you can hurt your opponent at long range and still stay on the move, that is definitely what you want to do…However, this brought on other problems: horses are faster than humans, but they require a large and intricate infrastructure to obtain and support, complete with specialized fields of labor, such as the farrier; specialized saddle-makers; special armor and weapons to maximize fighting from horseback, and on and on…

This translates across virtually every conceivable field – the never ending quest to “tweak” the equipment you have, and to find The Next Big Thing.

These all contribute to the training problem – “training, techniques (or ‘tactics’) and practices (or, ‘procedures’)” (TTP) – since the TTP’s for any given concept or field are in a constant state of flux.

What this translated to, as recently as the 1980’s, was getting some people together, teaching them how to march, then handing them each a rifle and a few rounds of ammunition to practice, then sending them out to do battle for the “glory” of whatever…with usually predictable results. And make no mistake – this phenomenon was in no way limited to guerrilla bands of former farmers and shopkeepers who had never held a weapon in their hands with lethal intent. There were plenty of armies around the world who did exactly this — and in some places, still do, as of this writing.

But today, things have largely changed. With the advent of the internet, the World Wide Web and digital file sharing, it is now possible to create the core of a training program – at almost every level – simply by searching out the appropriate files and videos. Nothing, obviously, can replace actually running around an assault course with a real weapon, but it is entirely possible to locate acceptable-quality videos and training manuals online to show a person exactly how to run the course – it is up to the searcher to then put into practice what the videos and manuals teach them (see the second video, below).

People love to share; that’s a feature of human interaction. Whether it’s cooking recipes, flower arrangements, tips on fixing your car or what have you, chances are, someone out there has not only written something about it, but may have a video to teach you how to do it for yourself. What’s more, their advice is likely free…whether they intended it that way, or not.

Military training is no different. Finding information in the form of .PDF manuals – everything from the basics of plumbing, to field food service, to how to build a fortified bunker, to just exactly how to go about “taking that hill” – whether created in a government printing office, or written by a private person (whether they are a professional soldier or a gifted amateur), is ridiculously easy, in most parts of the world.

Military training video courses – some of them quite extensive, as in the first video, below – are equally accessible for most people with the acumen to navigate LiveLeak, YouTube or Vimeo. For the raw, untrained amateur, the sheer wealth, depth and breadth of information available is staggering, so much so, that it can overwhelm them. For the experienced trainer, however, there is a vast Archive of tools to study, that anyone who knows what they’re looking for can access for their training program, for free, between their morning Lifer Juice and lunch.

For the aspiring totalitarian, this is a terrible, terrible thing, because it undermines the State’s monopoly on the application of force as a tool of control — if every Tom, Dick and Harriet in your country knows how a military force operates (even if only in the crudest, most basic manner), your loyalist military will be facing a staggering number of enemies, far more than they have ammunition to deal with, and possibly so many that they will begin to desert, rather than try to plant your boot for you…Much more so, when the enemy is literally at the gates, and you find yourself begging and press-ganging your citizens into your army, handing them weapons for free that you previously prevented them from owning — that’s the real takeaway from Ukraine, but I digress…..

Of course, if you are a Libertarian with the proper outlook on the world in general – and human civilization in particular – this is probably the closest to heaven that you are going to get to, since The People now have the means to stand up to those professional armies that you are so worried about. (We’ll leave talk about casualties another time…)

So — the next time a politician starts talking about limiting the availability of, or the access to, information – of whatever stripe – remember that information is the real root of all power, and if a politician doesn’t want you to have it, you should probably be seriously worried about why they don’t want you to have it.

Biden’s Covid-19 Propagandist Moves Into New Disney Digs

Paul Collier April 7, 2022

Biden’s Covid-19 content marketing manager is no longer working for the President, as she has taken a new job with Walt Disney, pushing woketarianism on the masses. As Disney appears all-in on becoming a company of woketarianism, the Covid-19 agit prop wizard, Kristina Shake, now sets her sites on moving from ostensibly attempting to stop a virus to intentionally trying to spread one.
The move showcases just how incestuous the relation is between the DNC-CCP and its corporate ‘allies,’ who are also best frenemies with America’s number one enemy, China. Given the anti-American nature of woketarianism (which denies the individual altogether, let alone individual rights), it seems fitting a member of the most anti-American regime in US history would move so seamlessly from one agit prop war machine aimed at American freedom, Covid lockdown, to another, Disney woketarianism.

Former Biden COVID messaging aide lands at Disney amid ‘wokeness’ turmoil

From www.foxnews.com
2022-04-06 01:48:50

Excerpt:

The Walt Disney Company has announced Kristina Schake, who had led President Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine education efforts, will serve as its executive vice president of global communications.

In her new role, Schake, who also served as global communications director for Instagram, will report to Chief Corporate Affairs Officer Geoff Morrell and “be responsible for the Company’s worldwide communications strategy and operations, while also serving as lead spokesperson,” according to Disney.

“I could not be more pleased to welcome Kristina to Disney and to have her leading communications for the company,” Morrell said in a statement.

Schake was appointed in 2021 by Biden as counselor to the secretary…

Read Full Article

Steele Dosier Becomes Terror to Durham’s DNC Lawyer Target

Freedomist Curator April 7, 2022

It appears that the DNC cybersecurity Clinton lawyer that is finding himself targeted by Special Prosecutor John Durham is hoping that a key part of the evidence that might be counted against him, the Steele Dossier, be excluded from the trial. Michael Sussman is accused of being a covert Clinton operative while seeking to give credibility to the Steele Dossier to government officials.
The slow-going probe of John Durham appears to be building a case that the bulk of the Trump-Russia-Collusion hoax was created and manipulated by Hillary Clinton operatives in 2016, both within and outside of government itself.

Democratic lawyer Sussmann doesn’t want Steele dossier brought up during Durham trial

From www.washingtonexaminer.com
2022-04-05 23:49:13
Jerry Dunleavy
Excerpt:

The Democratic cybersecurity lawyer charged by special counsel John Durham with lying to the FBI about working for the Clinton campaign doesn’t want British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s dossier brought up at the trial following indications from the special counsel that it will be.

Michael Sussmann was indicted last year on charges of concealing his clients, Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and “tech executive” Rodney Joffe, from FBI general counsel James Baker when he pushed since-debunked claims of a secret backchannel between the Trump Organization and Russia’s Alfa-Bank. He has pleaded not guilty.

Steele created his now-discredited dossier after being hired by opposition research firm Fusion GPS, which was itself hired by Perkins Coie and Marc Elias, the general counsel for Clinton’s campaign.

Durham appears to be building a case that many collusion claims can be sourced back to Democratic…

Read Full Article

Oregon Governor Must Face Covid-19 Infected Prisoners, Judge Rules

Freedomist Curator April 7, 2022

Governor Kate Brown of Oregon will now have to face prisoners at court over her handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. During the pandemic, the Judge forced healthy and sick inmates to continue to live close to one another while also not offering inmates vaccines, which weren’t widely available until February of 2021.
A magistrate judge has ruled the lawsuit credible and set a class-action eligibility standard. The eligibility standard is that you were a prisoner between February of 2020 and February of 2021 and caught Covid-19 14 days or more after becoming incarcerated. In addition to the Governor being sued, so are key members of her then Covid-19 task force.
The prison is not included in the lawsuit as its actions were mostly required due to the Governor’s orders.

Federal judge grants class-action status to Oregon’s COVID-sickened prisoners

From ktvz.com
2022-04-06 05:16:33

Excerpt:

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A federal judge has certified a class-action lawsuit in Oregon over state leaders’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic inside its prisons.

A group of adults in custody who contracted COVID-19 first sued the state in April 2020, alleging culpability by Gov. Kate Brown, Corrections Department Director Colette Peters and Health Authority Director Patrick Allen, among other state officials. The lawsuit acknowledges Corrections has taken some measures but argues they have not been enough.

“This really is quite a groundbreaking order, and decision, and it could potentially be a model for advocates in other parts of the country where they’re having similar problems,” Corene Kendrick, deputy director of the American Civil Liberty Union’s National Prison Project, told Oregon Public Broadcasting this week.

In Oregon, 45 people in the Department of Corrections custody have so far died after testing positive for COVID-19, and more than…

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If You Want to Beat Google, Build a Customizable Search

Parker Davis April 7, 2022

The best way to beat Google might not be to do exactly what google does, provide an ai-algorithm-driven search that has some universal, local, and ip-specific search variations. and do what it only does at a very limited level, enable users to create highly customizable search engines that are heavily unique to the users that create them.
You can create your own customizable search engines on google, but the options are significantly limited. A new search engine venture is getting started called Kagi, which will allow users to create fare more powerful, unique search engines than google currently offers. You can sign up for a beta account today.
Not only can you create these highly customizable search engines, you can also own your search data, as opposed to google, which affords you privacy that many these days are earnestly seeking in this culture of censorship.

The Next Google

From dk.b.io

Excerpt:

Why should everyone have the same search experience? We all have our own preferences about how things should look and work.

Kagi is the most customizable search engine ever. You can change everything, from surface level appearances, to the final ranking of results.

“Everybody has different preferences of how they want a search engine to look and feel. Our goal is to provide tools and empower users to do that instead of trying to be smart and creating an average search engine for an average user. There’s no average human.” – Vladimir Prelovac, Founder of Kagi

Read Full Article

Welcome to the World Situation Report For April 3rd, 2022

Michael Cessna April 3, 2022

The goal of this column is to present news from around the world that is not often – if ever – covered by more mainstream entities, using local sources wherever possible, but occasionally using news aggregators not used, again, by the mainstream media. Also, please note that we do use links to Wikipedia; while Wikipedia is well-known as a largely-useless site for any kind of serious research, it does serve as a launch-pad for further inquiry, in addition to being generally free of malicious ads. As with anything from Wikipedia, always verify their sources before making any conclusions based on their pages.

This column will cover the preceding week of news.

North America

Starting off in the United States, a wave of bomb threats against both shopping centers and various schools kept emergency responders busy across the country this week. While some calls were made by persons calling various locations, there is an uptick in threats of this type being made via social media platforms such as TikTok, from ‘dummy’ accounts; this is interesting, as it may signal an evolution of the waves of mass robo-call bomb threats against K-12 schools that plagued the United States and several European nations several years ago. The Freedomist will continue to monitor the situation, to see if this suspicion develops into a trend.

[Source 1] – [Source 2] – [Source 3] – [Source 4] – [Source 5] – [Source 6] – [Source 7]

Turning to Mexico, an “operator” of the Sinaloa Cartel, one Manuel Andrés, alias “El Griego”, was assassinated in a restaurant in San Luis Río Colorado, Sonora, just over the border from Arizona, yet another casualty in that country’s long-running drug- and gang-related violence.

[Source]

South America

Turning to South America, the advocacy group Human Rights Watch (HRW), issued a report on the 28th of March accusing the army of Venezuela, long-suffering under the rule of dictator Nicolás Maduro, of actively aiding Colombia’s National Liberation Army (ELN) against the forces of a rival guerilla group, the so-called “Joint Eastern Command” – a little-known breakaway faction of the mostly-demobilized Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). According to HRW’s report, the rival guerilla groups began skirmishing in January of 2022, fighting over control of territory and illegal activities in Colombia’s Arauca state and Venezuela’s Apure state, with reports of mass kidnappings, assassinations of local leaders and waves of internally-displaced refugees numbering in the thousands attempting to flee the violence.

In Columbia proper, meanwhile, national leaders blamed the bombing of a police station which killed two children and injured 39 others in the Colombian capital city of Bogota last week on other, unspecified dissidents of the FARC.

This comes as a report of some 11 FARC dissidents belonging to the splinter faction “Segunda Marquetalia” were killed in skirmishing with Colombian forces near the nation’s southern jungle town of Puerto Leguizamo. Many of the various splinter groups to have rejected the 2016 ceasefire and official disbanding of the FARC have gone to work as muscle for various cocaine cartels, guarding the coca fields and the resultant shipments.

[Source 1] – [Source 2] – [Source 3]

Africa

In Africa, the Nigerian state of Abuja saw a sudden spate of violence, as unidentified gunmen abducted traditional ruler His Royal Highness (HRH) Alhaji Hassan Shamidozhi. This comes as bandits attacked a train from Abuja, bound for Kaduna. Army units promptly responded to the attack on the train, reportedly carrying nearly one-thousand passengers, but reports indicated that some number of people were kidnapped by the attackers, and carried off. Elsewhere along the same rail line, police bomb squad units defused an IED planted on the rails near the town of Rigasa.

In the Central African nation of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), rebels of the “M23” group reportedly shot down a United Nations (UN) helicopter (reportedly an Aérospatiale SA 330 Puma), killing eight peacekeepers and UN observers, six military personnel from Pakistan, and a pair of observers from the Russian Federation and from Serbia in the country’s North Kivu province. The group, attached to the UN’s MONUSCO mission in the country, were assessing the situation in the province, following a wave of attacks in the region by the M23 group that has sent thousands fleeing for safety. The M23 group has denied the attack, claiming that the helicopter was shot down by DRC armed forces.

On the continent’s Indian Ocean coast, Mozambique’s government made a statement that its army, the Mozambique Defense Armed Forces (FADM), had conducted a “successful operation” in the Macomia District of the nation’s Cabo Delgado province, reportedly destroying a “hideout”. This comes shortly after another operation, on Matemo Island, part of the Quirimbas Islands group, that reportedly killed some twenty Islamist terrorists from ISCAP. However, the conflict – simmering since 2017, with occasional bouts of significant combat – is difficult to report on, as Mozambique’s government actively restricts reporting on the conflict.

[Source 1] – [Source 2] – [Source 3] – [Source 4] – [Source 5] – [Source 6] – [Source 7] – [Source 8]

The Middle East

The region remained largely quiet this week, “quiet” in comparison to the normal regional news cycle. In a surprise announcement on March 30th, the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthi government in Yemen said that it was suspending military operations in the Arabian Peninsular nation, as a goodwill gesture to allow peace talks to take place between the various Yemeni factions, in an attempt to end the long-running civil war in the country. This comes, as the Saudi government “blacklisted” some ten individuals and 15 entities for facilitating the financing of the Houthi movement.

In Pakistan, six Pakistani soldiers were killed, along with three terrorists, in an assault on an army post in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on the 30th. Meanwhile, other insurgents blew up a rail line near the Kotri area of Sindh province; no groups had claimed responsibility for the attack as of press time. Elsewhere in Sindh, a special antiterrorism court sentenced Zahidullah Suleman and Bismillah Haji Lala to death for plotting an attack on the Sindh Assembly building in an attempt to rally support for a war against the state. The court also laid down life sentences on three other defendants – Muhammad Qasim, Inamullah Bilal and Gul Muhammad – on a range of charges including possession of explosives, police encounter and attempted murder.

[Source 1] – [Source 2] – [Source 3] – [Source 4] – [Source 5]

Southern Asia

Finally, turning to India, police in Rajasthan arrested several suspects believed to be connected to Islamist terror groups, seizing approximately 12kg/26lbs of completed explosive devices and bomb-making components. Elsewhere, India remained mostly quiet, although a scattering of IED’s, most suspected to have been placed by Maoist Communist insurgents, injured several people throughout the “Red Corridor“.

[Source 1] – [Source 2] – [Source 3] – [Source 4] – [Source 5]

War of the Revenants

Michael Cessna March 29, 2022

Or, The Great Game in the One-N-Twenty, as the Shade of Sykes-Picot Rears Its Ugly Head

rev·e·nant
‘rev??näN,-n?nt/
noun
noun: revenant; plural noun: revenants

a person who has returned, especially supposedly from the dead.

Origin
early 19th century: French, literally ‘coming back,’ present participle (used as a noun) of revenir .

[Source – Google]

A walk down Memory Lane, because even with all eyes focused on Ukraine, China and the multiple, deepening scandals in the United States, there are other enemies who are still out there, enemies thought dead…but who are very much alive.

In the week preceding January 10, 2016, the conflict in war-torn Iraq and Syria entered a new, and extremely dangerous phase. To understand why, we need to dial back, and quickly review the last few years of the regional conflict.

In 2003, the United States invaded the Iraq of Saddam Hussein. The why’s and wherefores of the US invasion and conquest of Iraq aside, this seminal event is what sparked the state of affairs.

The origins of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) are shrouded in confusion and rumor, but it is generally agreed that it accreted from several sources, including the Jordanian-born Salafist radical Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, survivors of US detention camps, including their nominal leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi at the time, and a group of surviving officers of the disbanded Iraqi Army and the Iraqi Republican Guard Corps, with at least some funding, advice and moral support from the remnants of the Al-Qaeda organization.

However, it is vital to remember that ISIL’s initial wave of success, riding on the back of the confusion caused by the fallout of the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ uprisings, petered out in early 2013, and was only revived by under-the-table assistance from Turkey:

This allowed ISIL to operate from its territory, under the guise of supporting the anti-Assad “Free Syrian Army”. In looking over the date-progression in the animated map, above, it is absolutely clear that ISIL was using base areas in southern Turkey, unfettered by Turkish security forces.

Then, as Russian and Syrian government forces closed in on the FSA- and ISIL-controlled city of Aleppo, in the north of Syria, Turkey doubled down, intervening directly in the conflict, while chastising the US over its refusal to designate various factions of Kurdish ground forces as “terrorist organizations” – primarily because even the Presidential administration of Barack Obama had finally accepted that the Kurds were the one group that it could fully rely upon in the area, within their limits. As well, several Gulf Arab States, led by a Saudi Arabia currently eye-deep in a vicious ground war on its own southern border with Yemen, hinted that they, too, might attempt to intervene to prevent the total collapse of anti-Assad resistance.

For Turkey’s part, this is easy to understand. Turkey desires a much greater role in directing regional affairs, as was demonstrated in their active support for pro-Palestinian activists in the “Freedom Flotilla’s” of 2010 and 2014. Where Turkey erred was in assuming that it could secure its southern borders, as well as play ‘kingmaker’ in both Iraq and Syria, by supporting – however tacitly – groups such as the FSA, ISIL and the Al-Nusra Front, while ignoring its own Kurdish problem.

This, more than anything, is what undermined Turkey’s position: ethnic Kurdish areas comprise the southeastern one-third of Turkey’s territory, as Kurdish forces have coalesced over the last twenty-five or so years, and become far more professional militarily. Turkey’s adamant refusal to even consider negotiation with the Kurds brought it to the brink of war with Vladimir Putin’s Russia, as the Russian colossus ground away at the groups Turkey was supporting, and the US and Russia no longer simply provided aid to the Kurds, but are coordinating operations with them at some level.

The danger for Turkey, at this point, was abundantly clear: acknowledgement of Kurdish autonomy in Iraq or Syria would put pressure on Ankara to do likewise, and end its ongoing internal campaign against the Kurdish PKK in its southern region…in effect, this would severely weaken Turkey and ultimately result in its partition.

In threatening to intervene significantly in Syria – an intervention that, although left unspoken, would certainly bring Turkish and Russian military forces into direct conflict with each other – Turkey banked on its membership in NATO to deter Russia from taking any substantive military action against Turkey directly.

This was whistling past the graveyard, as Russia had already invested far too much to simply back away. That, in turn, left NATO, and the US, with the stark choice of abandoning a member-state, which risked destroying the alliance wholesale, or in actively aiding Turkey militarily, an action which would certainly lead to a general war — in other words, with no hyperbole, World War III.

This was headed off by cooler heads in NATO, who told Turkey flatly that Article V did not apply if Turkey was the original aggressor, which it most certainly was.

But what of the other players involved in this? Why are they rattling their sabres?

Saudi Arabia is divided. Internally, there are certainly factions within the Saudi power structure who actively support ISIL, as much as there are others who are adamantly opposed to the terrorist regime. However, Saudi Arabia is tasting, for the first time in a very long time, the addictive drug of military power with its intervention in Yemen. Appearing as a strong and powerful champion of Sunni Islam is seen as a vital necessity, due to the internal divisions within Saudi Arabia.

In the case of Iran, they have been at the “war thing” for several thousand years, and are quite competent, militarily speaking, when its ‘government du jour’ gives its military the chance to actually do the tasks that they are armed and uniformed to carry out. This is clear in Iran’s response to the threat to their fellow Shiites in Iraq.

In the map video above, ISIL’s strategic intent in Iraq can be discerned by watching the area around Baghdad: ISIL wisely did not attempt to actually storm the mega-city [1], but neither did they attempt to cut its road access. That it could have done so at any time should be painfully clear, but yet that did no act to do so. The reason for this seemingly-puzzling action – or lack of it – as the Iraqi Army was collapsing before the ISIL juggernaut.

[1] — Megacities In Future Operations

Iran saw that one of ISIL’s primary strategic goals was to goad them into sending in the Iranian army, the “Artesh”, to save Shia Iraq from ISIL. This would have resulted in ISIL calling on the wider Sunni world to wage its version of “jihad” against a group it hates worse than any other, as it views Shia Islam as a terrible heresy to its own beliefs, a heresy far more terrible and threatening to itself than other nations or religious faiths.

Instead, Iran sent the Quds Force, Iran’s “special operations” force. Sending in this very capable unit demonstrated Iran’s resolve, bolstered the flagging Iraqi Army, and required only a very tiny “footprint” on the ground.

This caught ISIL flat-footed, and at the end of its initial supply chain. At this point, ISIL fatally turned inward, trying to organize its rear areas, while getting as much equipment as possible from its suppliers, including Turkey.

This was an inevitably fatal move, because ISIL could not create the necessary internal infrastructure to support a modern military force in the absence of massive external aid – neither Iraq nor Syria were ever very heavily industrialized, and ISIL combat forces destroyed much of what heavy industries were present. Similarly, like the Taliban in Afghanistan, ISIL’s religious dogma severely limits its ability to create the vibrant defense industrial base without which it cannot win, in the absence of massive supply from a friendly foreign government.

Thus, the minute Russia injected itself into the conflict, essentially replicating what the US did in the early phases of its invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, ISIL and its allies – “moderate” and otherwise – appeared doomed, as there was no way that they could respond to precision Russian airstrikes.

Unless Turkey tried to intervene to aid them directly – and that was “a bridge too far” for Ankara.

The days of ISIL and its allies seemed to be numbered, as late as 2018…but, the Islamic State – like a poorly-treated cancerous growth – did not die out. Frayed nerves, along with poor decision-making and thought processes have allowed this regional conflict to metastasize into a world-spanning war, as happened almost exactly one hundred years ago.

The Unseen Blade

Michael Cessna March 25, 2022

Or, Professionals Are Predictable, But The World Is Full Of Amateurs

Any reader of this publication is almost certainly familiar with any number of terrorist and/or guerilla groups. Indeed, we see their depredations on an almost daily basis — depending on where the reader lives in the world, terror group news may be the only news available.

But, from a purely psychological point, knowledge of the various terror groups around the world is comforting: with relative ease, the inquisitive person can find out the basics on virtually any group with perhaps an hour or two of research online. “Google Fu” is a working verb, now. In that sense, groups like the so-called “Islamic State“, Al Qaeda, Boko Haram and any other “dead-enders” around the world are not really all that scary — when you learn about your enemy, you steal some of their power, and make them that much less, in your mind.

But — what about the group you’ve never heard of?

What I mean, here, is that unknown group — the group on no one’s radar. The group that sits quietly, like a spider at the center of its web, waiting for a hapless fly to get stuck. The group that explodes (sometimes, literally) onto the world scene: Who are these people? What do they want? How many of them are there? And so on…

The cold facts of life are that, for all the uncountable billions of dollars spent on the kaleidoscope of intelligence disciplines by various countries, there are well in excess of seven billion people in the world, currently. No matter how much intelligence agencies may desire it to be otherwise, there is simply no way to monitor every individual in a meaningful, timely manner.

Case in point – David Coleman Headley.

Headley (a committed member of the Lashkar-e-Taiba terror group) was that group’s principle reconnaissance operative that they used to scout the city of Mumbai, prior to the group’s bloody attack on the city in 2008. Headley might have been many things…James Bond, he was not. He made mistake after mistake, “bush-league” errors in tradecraft that no operator with the slightest pretense to competence would have made.

And he still got away with it.

Although he did not actually take part in the attacks in India, Headley continued his career as the “perfect” terror scout (a consequence of his United States citizenship, and his West European features – inherited from his American mother, a daughter of the Philadelphia Society) Headley was able to move freely around the world, scouting multiple potential attack locations for the LeT. It was not until he turned up on the United States’ Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) radar (when he attempted to scout out an attack location in Denmark for Al Qaeda) that the DHS agents who intercepted him in Chicago, Illinois in 2009, began seriously questioning him. Headley, assuming that DHS knew all about his Mumbai scouting work as well, confessed without prompting.

Intelligence agencies throughout the West had absolutely no inkling of the scale of Headley’s connection with terror groups prior to his “on loan” work for Al Qaeda.

But Headley was, indeed, ultimately working for well-known terrorist groups, most of whom were under some level of surveillance; Headly was not an “independent operator”. The same rules applying to Headley, applied equally to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, Britain’s MI6 and the old Soviet KGB, as well as its replacement, the Russian Federal Security Bureau (FSB).

What follows is a cautionary tale, one that explains why eternal vigilance at the individual level is the price we all pay for the benefits of globalization and a much smaller world than existed a hundred years ago.

When examining the structure of any group, whatever its aim, the following five archetypal people must exist to make the organization work:

The People Person. This is the person who recruits people to whatever the group’s stated cause is. How public that statement of purpose is, directly affects how quickly a group can expand its numbers with “spear carriers”.
The Banker. This is the fund-raiser, the person who obtains money for the Cause, whoever that is. The Banker is the person who finds the money necessary to make the group function externally — it’s one thing to gripe in private. To act outside the status of a discussion group, money – a lot of money – is required.
The Support Person. This is the person who makes the drudgery work: they take the money provided by the Banker, and use it to purchase all the “stuff” that the Cause needs, whether that is buildings, office supplies, advertising space, food, medical supplies, etc. They might use the people recruited by the People Person, but this is not strictly necessary.
The Idea Person. This is the person who can form and articulate the Big Idea, both to the core group and the recruits, but also to the outside world. This person is sometimes the Leader, but not always.
The Leader. The Leader is the “front man”. They may also be the Idea Person, but not always. This is the person who can be held up as the prime example of the goals of the organization; this can, obviously assume messianic proportions.

Aside from the possible overlap between the Idea Person and the Leader, these people are mutually exclusive of each other — it is virtually impossible for a single person to perform even two of these functions, far less, all five. This is a very good thing, as it becomes increasingly more difficult to assemble more or less complete strangers into a functioning group.

However, if three of these archetypal people do assemble, with some form of malicious intent, the potential scale of destruction becomes terrifying. Below we’ll look at a “near-miss”…a near miss incidentally, that led – in a peripheral way – to this author joining The Freedomist.

(NB: This specific incident ultimately led to the author’s joining the old MilitaryGazette blog, because while I had joked for years that I could equip an army out of an Army-Navy store, I had never actually tried to price it out…but that’s another story, entirely.)

Many years ago, this author was contacted by a friend on Facebook, who sent a link to a story at Cracked! magazine. The story was exactly the kind of thing I love to read. But it was just one entry in an article full of similar entries. So, I read on. That led me to the first part of this cautionary tale: the story of David Deng.

David Deng (real name: Yupeng Deng), a Chinese national, walked into an Army-Navy surplus store in Southern California in 2008, bought a used uniform, and put together enough patches to look believable (to those with no experience to speak of) as a colonel in the US Army Special Forces, styling himself as something that translates into English as the “Supreme Commander, U.S. Army/Military Special Forces Reserve“.

He then opened what he termed an “Army recruiting office” in Temple City…but he only recruited people just arriving in the United States from the People’s Republic of China (PRC), people who did not speak very good English, and had very little real knowledge of the United States, or of its military. Deng presented the US Army as if it were a ‘tong‘, in which a person had to pay a fee to join, along with monthly dues, and would have their citizenship “fast-tracked”. Additionally, they would receive uniforms and military identification cards that would give them some level of immunity for minor offenses, like traffic tickets. Of course, the uniforms came from Army-Navy surplus stores, and the identification cards came off of Deng’s printer…but his “recruits” didn’t know that.

Deng managed to get his private “army” into various parades and celebrations in Los Angeles County’s Chinese community, including photo-ops with local political figures. Although people thought this “unit” to be rather strange, and somewhat sloppy (Deng, not being military himself, had no real idea of what or “how” to teach his “troops”), no serious questions were raised…

…For nearly four years.

It was not until 2011 that Deng’s scam was blown, when some of his recruits tried to pay their monthly dues at real Army recruiting offices, that David Deng’s army appeared on the radar of the real US Army…and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The FBI then swiftly moved in, and rounded up Deng and his hapless recruits. The FBI quickly determined that his recruits actually thought that they really were in the US Army, and that they really had “enlisted” to serve the United States, and earn their citizenship. US courts declined to prosecute Deng’s recruits, as a result – no wrongdoing on their part, just falling for a vicious, narcissistic crook.

What was shocking, however, were the numbers involved.

The FBI knows for certain that Deng had recruited about one-hundred and fifty people…but they believe the actual numbers could be far higher — on the order of eight hundred individuals. For anyone who knows anything about armies, that’s enough people for anything from an infantry company (the number the FBI knows about for certain), up to a battalion (for the larger number).

To give you an idea of what eight hundred armed men can do, eight hundred ISIL fighters, riding in Toyota pickup trucks, captured the city of Mosul, Iraq in 2014.

It is a good thing that Deng never had weapons to hand out to his army, along with any sort of real training and/or lethal intent for them…

…Which brings us to our next person: Jeffery Alan Lash.

Pacific Palisades is a quiet, upscale suburb of Los Angeles, California. One sunny day, someone walking along the street became curious about an SUV that had been parked in the same spot for almost two weeks. Peering in, they saw a figure that appeared to be dead, and immediately called police…who were already en route to the scene, summoned by another phone call.

When the police arrived, they knew they had an unusual scene: the vehicle and the identification on the remains identified a local man, who lived just a few doors down the street. When they received no answer to a knock at the door, the police obtained a warrant to enter…and just as quickly backed out, and called in the police department’s EOD unit.

It took hours to empty the residence. Within, police found over 1,200 firearms of various types, piles of miscellaneous gear and equipment..and so much ammunition that they stopped counting it early on, and simply weighed it for the evidence locker — ultimately, between five and six tons of ammunition, in various calibers, were recovered.

While the specific details of the story – strange as they are – make for an interesting read, the takeaway for this article is that this one man had managed to somehow put the money together to assemble a large enough quantity of small arms to outfit a battalions-worth of people, of eight hundred to one-thousand troops…and did it without appearing on anyone’s radar, until he apparently died of natural causes.

Now, I want to be clear, here: there is absolutely no evidence that has come to light, to indicate that David Deng and Jeffery Alan Lash ever knew each other, or were in any way insipired by one or the other. However, in these two stories, we have two of the five archetypes: the People Person (Deng) and the Banker (Lash) who tried to be the Support Person.

Lash’s arms buying – whatever he was buying weapons for – could have equipped some kind of military force. Not very well, but those hypothetical troops would have been armed with real weapons, and would have been capable of executing some level of military mission…again, not very well, but far better than most guerilla armies are capable of doing, especially when they start out.

Likewise, Deng’s recruits were never given any kind of real training that would have allowed them to carry out any kind of realistic mission…but they could have been given that training.

Aside from them not knowing each other, what Deng and Lash lacked was an Idea Person and a Leader. In effect, the two were, hypothetically speaking, just two steps away from creating a real, functional military unit: they needed to have known each other, and needed someone to give them direction on what to do. Speaking as someone who has managed battalion-scale Issue Points and Warehousing operations in a military context, the author is left somewhat breathless at the potential these two men represent — although the days of Bannerman’s are long gone, and while these men – primarily Lash, in this instance – didn’t assemble the kind of gear or carry out the training for Deng’s recruits that I would have, they did far better than they had any right to.

At the end of the day, though, what does the foregoing actually mean?

In a word (okay, three words), globalization and mass production – whatever their very real benefits might be – have also brought into sharp focus the fact it is relatively easy to assemble a force that can function as a military unit, in a relatively short period of time…given more money, it is equally possible to assemble and train that force to some level of competence above that of a street gang, using materials freely available online.

You, the Reader of this piece, need to remain vigilant — there are plenty of David Deng’s and Jeffery Alan Lash’s out there in the world. Do not assume that because it looks complicated, it can’t be done.

Find a way to get inside the enemy’s OODA Loop.

Forewarned, is forearmed.