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Improvised Sharks – A New Face of Shoestring Warfare

Michael Cessna August 12, 2023

The genesis of this article came from a completely different angle, namely, the deployment of laser weapons to the battlefield. However, as things frequently go, that initial idea led to something of much more immediate interest.

Previously, the Freedomist has covered some aspects of “improvised warfare” that some seem to take as James Bond-like fantasy. Yet, as we progress through the third decade of the 21^st Century, remotely controlled drones – available in most countries through their local Amazon store – capable of both conducting tactical combat surveillance, as well as tactical air support by dropping small fragmentation grenades, are serious and maturing battlefield threats, threats that military and security forces are struggling to counter.

“Improvised warfare” has been around since the first caveman grabbed the jawbone of his last dinner to bash in the noggin of another caveman trying to muscle in on the first one’s turf. Throughout military history, outside of the heroically vast and sweeping battles of storied yore, there has always lurked the “PBI” – the “Poor, Bloody Infantry” – struggling to make do with usually-substandard weapons and equipment, improvising on the fly, on the idea that “if it looks stupid, but works – it isn’t stupid.”

This is also true in naval warfare. “Suicide boats,” in the form of “fire ships”, go back to at least the 3^rd Century AD in China, and the 5^th Century AD in the Mediterranean, and those dates are only the earliest we have on record. The use of fire ships in combat has always been problematic, as controlling the vessels after the skeleton crews abandoned them was impossible, and the abandoned vessels could easily come back on the attackers.

*Chinese fire ships used by the navy as floating incendiaries, from the Wujing Zongyao military manuscript written in the year 1044 during the Song Dynasty. Public Domain.*

As naval technology advanced however, fire ships, as such, disappeared, replaced by explosive-laden boats propelled by early steam engines. These boats had some advantages, not being as subject to winds as the old ships, and their explosive warheads were much more capable of inflicting serious, if not fatal, damage to large warships. Still, the inability to steer the boats remotely left their utility still strictly limited.

As with so many things in the military sphere, during World War 2, everything changed. The intersection of technologies with mass production and sincere desperation, allowed the first tactically useful guided weapons, not simply on land and in the air, but at sea, human control was still the primary aiming method until the last moment.

Post-WW2, the use of explosive motorboats continued, eventually evolving into actual “suicide boats”, where the crews rode the craft directly into their targets. While this was always a danger for the operators of these boats, very few navies outside of WW2 Japan set out with this as their operating profile. Beginning in the 1980’s, this began to change, first with the LTTE in Sri Lanka and with Iran in its “WW1, 2.0” war with Iraq. This is, in fact, what happened to the USS Cole (DDG 67) when it was attacked at anchor in October of 2000, as the suicide crew happily “saluted” the American crew before detonating their massive charge, nearly destroying the ship.

And then – another “sea change” (no pun intended) happened.

As the Soviet Union collapsed, and Communist China finally figured out how mix capitalism with a brutal, totalitarian governmental system, the West welcomed the Communist remnants into a burgeoning world trade system with open arms. As the global economy shifted and changed, the technology sector exploded in its own form of “business as war.” Technology once reserved only to the “Great Powers” became ‘democratized’, available at reasonable prices to the general public. While major nations certainly had far better and more capable – and much more expensive – systems, smaller states (and groups) suddenly had access to technology and manufacturing bases that significantly increased their capabilities versus local opponents (including their own citizens, but that’s another conversation, entirely).

*Container port in operation. Credit: Piqsels.com. Public Domain.*

All that was waiting was another spate of desperation to drive improvisation.

As the “Global War on Terror” (the “GWOT”) drove on in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the many small, localized wars it spawned drove desperate innovation, once again. Various ethnic and religious factions around the world desperately sought some sort of advantage. This has led to everything from “homemade tanks”, to artillery, to ‘sci-fi’ weapons manufacture.

But now, desperation-induced technological innovation has caught up with the navies of the world.

On January 30, 2017, the Saudi Arabian frigate RSN Al Madinah (FG 702) was struck and seriously damaged by an explosive-laden speedboat. Initially, it was believed that the craft was a piloted suicide boat deployed by the Shi’a Islam Houthi rebels of Yemen, which country has been in its most recent civil war since 2014. Soon, though, it became apparent that the attack craft was actually a remotely- controlled craft.

Speculation immediately turned to Iran. Iran, in addition to being co-religionists to the Houthis, was already supplying the rebels with short-range ballistic missiles and combat drones. In this regard, Iran differs from Ukraine only in that they supply their craft externally.

*Ukrainian naval drones, c.2022. Unknown author.*

Given the rapid advances in remote-operations technology, it would be no great task to re-engineer common pleasure boats to function as drone attack craft; as well, the issue of a simplified, “standard issue” refit kit (similar in theory to an aircraft JDAM unit) is virtually guaranteed.

But ultimately – what does all this actually mean, in the grand scheme of things?

Simply, insurgents and guerrillas are now much more capable than they were in the past, as they are now capable to extend remote-controlled warfare into the nautical dimension. With the democratization of military training, this opens the ugly possibility of radical forces being capable of enforcing localized (if not regional) combined-arms dominance over all the most capable of national militaries.

The fact that this is an operational possibility worthy of consideration is not something that should alarm only strategic planners – it is something that average citizen needs to seriously consider.

Act accordingly.

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

Hunter’s Plea Deal Falls Apart as His Law Team is Exposed for Lying to the Court

Freedomist Editor July 27, 2023

One of Hunter Biden’s lawyers allegedly contacted the court to get an item removed from evidence that could hurt Hunter. They did so while pretending to be a Republican, a charge they deny. The Judge was having none of it. She threatened to sanction the lawyers (which she still might). She then nullified the plea deal, citing no case law to support it, and not wanting to give Hunter Biden a blank check to avoid further prosecution.

The Judge, U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika, a Trump appointee, asked Hunter, “Without me saying I’ll agree to the plea agreement, how do you plead?” Hunter replied, “Not guilty, your honor.”

U.S. Attorney David Weiss of Delaware pointed out one of the charges Hunter faces is tax evasion, saying “Hunter Biden received taxable income in excess of $1,500,000 annually in calendar years 2017 and 2018. Despite owing in excess of $100,000 in federal income taxes each year, he did not pay the income tax due for either year.”

The staffer of the law firm defending Hunter Biden, Jessica Bengals, was accused of pretending to be a Republican when he called into the court. The Judge said “It appears that the caller misrepresented her identity and who she worked for in an attempt to improperly convince the Clerk’s Office to remove the amicus materials from the docket.”

Bengal’s response was “I am completely confident that I never indicated that I was calling from Mr. Kittila’s firm or that I worked with him in any way,”

Kevin McCarthy rightly pointed out that without a GOP-majority in the House the deception behind this plea deal would never have been discovered. In response to this latest development, McCarthy said “If you’re sitting in our position today, we would know none of this if Republicans had not taken the majority. We’ve only followed where the information has taken us. This is rising to the level of impeachment inquiry which provides Congress the strongest power to get the rest of the knowledge and information needed.”

Biden’s China Expert Spoke at Pro-CCP Conference, Just Like Indicted Whistleblower Did

Freedomist Editor July 26, 2023

Gal Luft, a whistleblower claiming he has evidence of President Biden’s selling out Americans to the CCP, is being charged with colluding with the Chinese Communist Party for doing the same thing that President Biden’s National Security Council China Director did, give a speech at a pro-CCP event in China. That Director is Paul Haenle, who continues to serve in the anti-American regime.

The event he spoke at was called “The Contemporary World Multilateral Dialogue on Global Trends and China in the Coming Decade,” which was held in Beijing in 2013, while Biden was still Vice President. As a matter of fact, Luft and Haenle spoke on the same panel. Luft might be guilty of sedition, but so is Haenle. However, unlike Haenle, Luft appears to want to make amends for his crimes, turning states evidence, as it were, and the DNC-controlled DOJ must silence this man before he ever gets a chance at exposing their boss, Joe Biden, for the acts of sedition he has been participating in (and continues to do).

Also at that same event was Chen Quitu, who served as President of the Hunter-Biden-linked CEFC China Energy Board.

DOJ Sues Texas For Protecting Its Borders

Freedomist Editor July 24, 2023

With the Biden administration doing everything it can to keep America’s borders wide open in what looks increasingly like a rogue regime aiding and abetting America’s foreign enemies, Texas has moved to protect its own borders, and the DOJ doesn’t like it. They’re threatening to sue the state for placing barriers along the Rio Grande River. The Governor has announced that DOJ has no jurisdiction to prevent Texas from protecting their border when the Federal government not only is NOT doing their job, but they appear to be actively subverting any efforts to protect Americans from this “immigrant” invasion.

The DOJ said in a letter, “The State of Texas’s actions violate federal law, raise humanitarian concerns, present serious risks to public safety and the environment, and may interfere with the federal government’s ability to carry out its official duties.”

You can think of this move along the lines of passing laws that make it illegal for people to defend themselves against attacks, such as we have with anti-gun laws in America today, and around the world, such as in Britain, having laws that make it illegal for you to use physical violence to stop a person from invading your home.

The move by the DOJ makes it all the more naked the nature of the Democratic Party, of which the DOJ has now become nothing more than a weapon of lawfare aimed at the heart of the American republic itself. Abbot responded to the threat by the DOJ to sue them if they fail to comply within a week, “Texas has the sovereign authority to defend our border, under the U.S. Constitution and the Texas Constitution. We have sent the Biden Administration numerous letters detailing our authority, including the one I hand-delivered to President [Joe] Biden earlier this year.”

Cutlass Rattling – World Powers Face Off Over Commercial Shipping & Grain

Michael Cessna July 21, 2023

Since 2021, there has been a war simmering between the United States and Iran. The US began seizing – via court-based “arrest” orders – ships carrying cargo (mostly oil) –out of Iran, to various nations that the United States has under economic sanction. The nations under US sanctions, such as Venezuela, have no real method to respond to the United States.

Iran, however, is a different matter.

Iran has begun seizing ships in the Persian Gulf by force, and in earnest, in response to the actions by the United States; the number is now up to twenty vessels. Additionally, some firms in the United States have begun to refuse to unload ships seized with Iranian cargo, fearing Iran seizing their vessels in retaliation.

Because of the clear threat presented to the “freedom of the seas”, the United is now responding to Iran by reinforcing its forces in the Persian Gulf with additional destroyers…and a few thousand US Marines.

While the first inclination of many will be to recall that the United States severely damaged the Iranian Navy in 1988’s Operation Praying Mantis – launched in response to an Iranian naval mine severely damaging the USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG-58) – that was some thirty-five years ago.

*Iranian frigate IS Sahand (74) burning on 18 April 1988 after being attacked by aircraft of U.S. Navy Carrier Air Wing 11. US Navy photo. Public Domain.*

Iran’s naval capability – while still no match for the US Navy in a direct fight – has significantly improved since their defeat, very likely enough to cause serious damage to United States forces in the process. Such a defeat, were it to happen, would almost certainly spark hysterical screams from within Washington, DC, demanding an all-out invasion.

*LtGen Paul K. Van Riper, USMC (retired), c.1995. LtGen Van Riper led the “opposing force” in the “Millennium Challenge 2002” exercise. USMC official photo. Public Domain.*

This is certainly not a whimsical or marginal threat. There has been a long-standing resistance within the Washington establishment to any rational negotiations with Iran; indeed, this escalated after then-President Donald Trump called off a disproportionate attack in response to Iran shooting down an unmanned US surveillance drone in 2019. In fact, hysterical calls for war with Iran have been a steady feature of US rhetoric for over a decade.

While the reasons for this hysterical behavior by long-serving chickenhawks in the Washington Swamp are unclear, they are nonetheless real. And with the weak, disconnected and floundering administration currently in place in the Swamp, wallowing in failures both domestic and foreign, highly irrational decisions are a serious possibility.

Iran is not Iraq. An irrational and ill-advised war against the current iteration of Ancient Persia – no matter how technically weak it may appear – would be an absolute disaster for the United States in the immediate sense, but also for the wider world, as the impact on the global trade system would not simply be catastrophic, but could swiftly escalate out of control.

For far too long, the people of the United States have bought into the mythology of “American Invincibility”. While this belief was justifiable until about 2010, it is no longer the case. The US Navy currently fields less than 300 vessels; all of the armed services except the Marine Corps have admitted that they expect to fall short of their recruitment targets by at least 20%, if not more. As the Biden administration openly admitted less than two weeks before this writing, US industry has not been able to step up the production of basic artillery ammunition to meet the needs of the administration’s support to Ukraine.

There is nothing left for the United States’ potential need for combat operations, should that happen.

*Munitions Production on the Home Front, 1914-1918. Imperial War Museums. Public Domain.*

And there are painfully few options available, if any still exist at all. Despite some twenty-odd years of near-continuous combat, neither US industry nor the wider population have been mobilized for the possibility of a major war…or wars. In 1941, as the forces of Imperial Japan were attacking Pearl Harbor, the United States had been girding for war for nearly two full years, mobilizing a “command economy” to increase the production of war materiel to support Great Britain in its war against Hitler’s Germany, and instituting the first peacetime military draft in the country’s history, giving all of the armed services of the day time to bring in and train troops in readiness for war.

None of that has been happening in the last 20+ years. And the cold reality is that it is likely not possible, without twenty years, minimum, of corrective measures: Thirty years of globalism’s industrial and business realities have removed the bulk of heavy industrial manufacturing from within the borders of the United States. Likewise, there is virtually no chance of the Draft being reactivated; while it is certainly still on the books as a legal option, the social policies instituted, promoted and encouraged by the Democrat Party in the last fifteen years have poisoned the recruiting well for the military, encouraging the armed service’s core demographics to pointedly not step forward to enlist. Basic training has been eroded to the point where the vast majority of troops with under ten years service are not psychologically prepared for combat at any level.

And yet – the chickenhawks of the Swamp persist, thinking that their actions to please their vote base have had no impact on military readiness – despite facts to the contrary – because they are so disconnected from the real world…

…Now, if the issue were simply Iran and a shortfall for materiel’s shipments to Ukraine, this might not be that large of a problem. A problem, certainly, but not a critical one.

However, as many chickenhawk cheerleaders crow over the recent attack on the Kerch Bridge over the Sea of Azov, Russia’s response was swift and decisive: Russia has abandoned the deal it agreed to previously, which allows the export of Ukrainian grain crops to supply the world’s food needs.

*Satellite picture of Crimea, 05-16-2015, with location of the Kerch Bridge in red. NASA. Public Domain.*

Russia is now actively targeting the port city of Odessa with long-range missile strikes, and is laying naval mines to close off Ukraine’s remaining coastal regions. Moscow has also hinted at the possibility that it will attack commercial vessels attempting to reach Ukraine.

The real danger in this series of moves lies far to the south, where Egypt is critically dependent upon Ukrainian wheat to feed its population. In the face of this loss, Egypt – already struggling with massive unemployment and the irrational and childish dismissal of its concerns over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dame (GERD) project by the government in Addis Ababa.

This is important, because if Egypt lashes out against Ethiopia in desperation – using an air force largely reequipped by the US – it could easily spark a much wider war, a war that could easily result in the closing of the Suez Canal…an act that, as was demonstrated by the grounding of a single container ship in 2021 for less than a week, would up-end the world trade system.

Which loops us back to Iran.

If the United States tilts that windmill, it will destroy the International North–South Transport Corridor, the decade-old project by Russia, China, Turkey, India and Iran to build a trade corridor designed to drastically shorten the transit of commercial cargo, bypassing the Suez Canal entirely.

This is a hair-trigger environment that is capable of sparking World War 3. This is not hyperbole, in any way.

It is solely the construct of the Swamp – a body that imagines itself as completely immune to anyone it deems “lesser”…which term includes you and I.

Let that sink in.

FBI Lied to Social Media About Hunter Biden Laptop Authenticity

Freedomist Editor July 21, 2023

Testimony before the House Judiciary committee by Laura Dehmlow, section Chief of the Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF) of the FBI exposes the agency’s complicity in burying a pre-2020-election story exposing a laptop of Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, which contained numerous incriminating evidence of influence selling to foreign companies by the Biden family. She alleges the FBI knew from the start the laptop was legitimate but chose to remain silent when the DNC machine pushed forward the myth the laptop was a Russian hoax.

The House Judiciary GOP tweeted out “Testimony reveals the FBI knew the Hunter Biden laptop was authentic, but when asked by a social media company about the laptop’s authenticity the FBI said ‘no further comment.’”

This writer wants to once again point out the fact that the FBI, led by a Trump-appointed director, chose to intentionally mislead the American public about the truth of the Hunter Biden laptop to protect Joe Biden, who was running against Donald Trump. They chose to violate American law to protect the then-sitting-President’s opponent. There is little more damaging than this, yet the DNC and its anti-American supporters continue to defend this man and his crack-whore son.

The House GOP writes:

As the federal court in Missouri v. Biden explained in damning language, the FBI’s actions prevented millions of Americans from having a clear understanding about a salient issue in the 2020 presidential election: The FBI’s failure to alert social-media companies that the Hunter Biden laptop was real, and not mere Russian disinformation, is particularly troubling. The FBI had the laptop in their possession since December 2019 and had warned social-media companies to look for a “hack and dump” operation by the Russians prior to the 2020 election. Even after Facebook specifically asked whether the Hunter Biden laptop story was Russian disinformation, Dehmlow of the FBI refused to comment, resulting in the social-media companies’ suppression of the story. As a result, millions of U.S. citizens did not hear the story prior to the November 3, 2020 election.

New Zealand Mass Shooting Breaks Left’s Antigun Narrative

Freedomist Editor July 21, 2023

A shooting just before the Women’s World Cup in Aukland, NZ has left 2 dead, 3 injured, with the shooter also being killed in a shootout with police that injured one officer. The shooter, Matu Tangi Matu Reid, 24, was on house arrest for domestic violence he was convicted of carrying out against his then-girlfriend.

After New Zealand passed some of the most anti-gun laws in the world (second only to countries like China and North Korea), another mass shooting has demonstrated confiscating guns from law-abiding people won’t stop insane people from mass killings, be it with guns, cars, knives, or chemicals.

The shooter is a non-white, also dispelling the other favorite leftist trope to scare people to hand in their guns, that it’s only white supremacists mass murdering the world, so it’s racist to resist gun confiscation plans.

Democrat Behind Whistleblower Claim That DOJ Protected BIden

Paul Collier July 20, 2023

Unfortunately for the party of sedition, the Democratic Party, one of the IRS whistleblowers who has come forward is Joseph Ziegler, a registered Democrat. Ziegler was interviewed by CBS News’ Catherine Herridge and spoke before congress, claiming in both that any effort to fully investigate Joe Biden or Hunter Biden was cut off by higher ups with the excuse that such a move would require too high an approval to happen.

The investigation of Hunter Biden seemed to implicate Joe Biden, who was then a private citizen. Remember, the Hunter Biden investigation happened under Donald Trump’s watch, with a DOJ that had obviously gone rogue, defying the Trump administration in every turn and protecting his potential future opposition for the 2020 election.

In the CBS News Interview, Ziegler told Herridge, “It’s a matter of are we treating everyone the same? Are we treating all taxpayers the same? And in this case, no. I don’t think so.”

Herridge follows up by asking him if he wants the DOJ to revisit the recent Hunter Biden plea deal. He responded “This is up to the U.S. Attorney who brought the charges, David Weiss, and it’s up to the judge to make that decision. But at the end of the day, it’s a matter of are we treating everyone the same. Are we treating all taxpayers the same?”

Herridge follows up by asking “And in this case?” Ziegler answers, “And in this case, I don’t think so.”

The problem for the DNC is their go-to card to distract from the overt lies they must tell just to claim the power they have (that the white cis-gendered devil will destroy the world unless we become racist and bigoted and totalitarian, which is the only way to end evil, which can actually happen) is to use their six degrees of phobic language game to demonize the truth tellers before anyone else listens to them fairly.

By six degrees of phobic language game I am referencing the “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” game, where you choose an actor and try to connect that actor through six movies or less, a game that is easy to play if you have a thorough working knowledge of the cast and crew in movies. The same game can be claimed with declaring dog whistle guilt, that is, to connect a belief or statement of fact to some true evil by connecting it to the evil through a connection of “related” facts. This is how the DNC connects patriotism to white supremacism, integrity to white supremacism, rejecting the murdering of unborn children to white supremacism, etc.

They can still do their six degrees of phobic game, but not so easily when the accuser happens to be a registered democrat who also happens to be a member of a “protected” DNC class, a homosexual.

House Republicans Investigate Berkeley’s CCP Ties

Freedomist Editor July 19, 2023

GOP House members stand alone in signaling the alarm that the Chinese Communist Party has infiltrated our universities and colleges. No Democrat joined them in efforts to investigate the deep ties discovered between the bastion of leftist brainwashing, the University of California Berkeley. House Republicans sent a letter to the dean of Berkeley Michael Drake, pointing out the unholy alliance between his university and the CCP’s Tsinghua University in Shenzhen.

The letter points to the work the two schools do together developing technologies that share American secrets with Chinese Communists, creating national security threats to the country. The letter was signed by committee chairman Mike Gallagher (R-Wisc.) and Congresswoman Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.).

They wrote, “Berkeley’s P.R.C.-backed collaboration with Tsinghua University raises many red flags.”

This is the second time Congress called the Marxist-training University into question for its CCP ties. In May, the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee exposed $200 million in funding it accepted from groups directly connected to the CCP.

Again, no Democrat joined in the effort to expose these CCP ties and attempt to bring people to justice who participated in this act of treason.

U.S. Must Choose Between Fighting Climate Change or Opposing CCP?

Paul Collier July 18, 2023

China’s state spokesperson newspaper Global Times warned the Americans that if they don’t back off cracking down on China, China will stop “cooperating” with American on “Climate Change.” This happened as the Mass Mailer President Biden Committee’s “Climate Czar” John “Private Jet” Kerry praised the fascist state that is currently engaging in a Hitlerian holocaust of Uighurs. He said of the fascist government that they were “doing an incredible job of building out renewables,” urging the CCP and America to put aside “political issues….and come together to take action.”

The Global Times editorial pulled no punches, however, and contained no plaudits, as Kerry’s opening statement to the Climate Summit between himself and Chinese officials in Beijing.

The editorial read, “If the U.S. continues its crackdown on China, escalating tensions and hostility between the two sides, it is unlikely to be conducive to any kind of cooperation, including on climate change. While Washington has long wanted to isolate climate change issues from its other political and trade policies related to China, there is actually no way to separate bilateral cooperation on global warming from the broader context of China-U.S. relations.”

Kerry’s visit comes right after Treasury head Janet Yellen visited the fascist state, herself praising China’s efforts on global climate change and spreading the lie America can work with China to save the planet from certain man-made doom.

If only the Nazis cared about the planet like Kerry does, he’d probably support them as well.