YEMEN – In a press release dated December 9th, the rebel Houthi government of Yemen announced its intention to blockade the Bab el-Mandeb strait, at the southern entrance to the Red Sea, in order to halt all maritime commerce going to or from Israel, including – significantly – vessels of any nation, including any vessel owned by Israeli companies or individuals. This presents a direct and immediate threat to the Freedom of the Seas doctrine of international law, as there is no way to verify the details of vessels in the Red Sea without physically stopping them. This also places a considerable portion of world commerce in immediate jeopardy, as the Red Sea is one of the main conduits of global commercial traffic, not simply limited to the oil industry.
This comes after weeks of rising tensions, as the rebel Houthi regime has repeatedly attacked and captured commercial vessels in the Red Sea, while firing ballistic missiles supplied by Iran towards Israel. Both United States and French Navy warships have fired in defense of vessel attacked by Houthi forces. These rash actions could lead to an all-out naval war in the Red Sea.
Red Sea, 2005. Photo credit: NASA. Public Domain.
As of press time, the United States has not issued a statement on the situation, although rumors swirl about some form of joint, direct-action against the Houthis.
Keep watch here for further developments.
EDIT, 12.11.2023, 1700hrs CST
A link from the Telegraph shows an estimate of the world’s shipping container traffic – some 12% of the world’s shipping containers, roughly 15 million units – that could be impacted should fighting in the Bab el Mandeb escalate…..
The Freedomist — Keeping Watch, So You Don’t Have To
Part 1 – What Does That Smudge Actually Say, Again?
Maps are funny things. As an old saying goes,
“When in doubt, look at a map – it will always tell you something. It may not be anything you don’t already know, but it will tell you something…”
As with most old sayings, though, this particular one is very nuanced in its meaning.
Maps, in a military or geopolitical sense, are usually a two-dimensional representation of a three-dimensional sphere. Modern computer systems can approximate an accurate 3-D picture of terrain, but those developments are relatively new. For thousands of years, the few maps that existed were very crude, verging into the abstract. Beginning only in the late 18th Century, did maps begin to add more accurate details and consistent distance scales.
Maps, then – as we understand the term – are a surprisingly recent phenomenon. But OH! The power and magic they convey! Depending on your point of view – and your immediate needs – maps can become works of holy writ, exuding an illusion of absolute truth. This is especially important when talking about borders, and where you intend to defend them. And, if you can find an old map whose details you can…“selectively interpret”…those maps can feed visions of military glory…
…Or offer desperate and failing governments a lifeline to motivate (they hope) a depressed and reactionary population.
This was the story in 1982, when the military junta of Argentina, led by General Leopoldo Galtieri, realized that national economies cannot be managed like a military budget, especially when their “security policy” was like some weird nightmare, left over from World War 2. What to do? Galtieri & Co. thought they found an answer in old maps.
There had been an old dispute with the United Kingdom over a group of islands two hundred odd miles east of Argentina, well into the Atlantic Ocean: the Falkland Islands.
The uninhabited, barren and windswept islands had been sort-of settled first by Spain…then England…then Spain again…the Argentina again, until the English returned and made their claim permanent by deporting the few Argentinean colonists back to the mainland, and establishing a colony devoted to sheep herding, maintaining a station for whaling ships, and later, a coaling station for the Royal Navy.
For about one hundred and fifty years, Argentina repeatedly tried to get England into talks to return the islands to them; England was never really interested in talking about anything of the kind, but were too polite to simply tell Argentina to go pound sand – the islands were England’s; English people had settled on the islands and actually developed them; and they had formed a part of England’s military strategies for decades. It just wasn’t going to happen.
But then…Britain’s colonial empire eroded into nothingness, replaced by a loose economic sphere of former colonies, that England didn’t really bother trying to control too closely. Empires, you see, are extremely expensive to create and maintain, and after the hellscapes of World Wars 1 and 2, the people of England more or less lost all interest in spending literal blood and treasure to maintain decisive control over colonies with unhappy and unruly populations, which produced – overall – very little to justify their expense. On top of this, eliminating the ability of people to elevate themselves into higher positions on the social standing tree meant that conquest was just another job that was hard, dangerous, and offered little to show for the effort.
To Galtieri and his junta, this seemed like a great time to “revisit the ownership” of the Falklands – after all, England’s main military and economic focuses were on Europe and the Mediterranean. Surely, they wouldn’t mind be relieved of the burden of paying for less than settlers at the literal opposite end of the earth.
This is the sort of “logic” that desperately unpopular and extremely unworldly people engage in, using the post-operative mantra, “Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time!”
Britain, it turned out, was done with giving away things. And, with the after-image of the Iranian Hostage Crisis in the very recent past, it was not about to give ‘hostile actors’ around the world the notion that the few remaining British territories were up for grabs.
The result – the Falklands War – was a dramatic reminder that even the remnants of empires can be extraordinarily dangerous to provoke. Now, if the Reader thinks that the Falklands War served as a teaching tool to petty dictators to not trust old maps, you would be sadly mistaken.
Cut to the last weeks of 2023.
Part 2 – Other People’s Money
The Communist dictator of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, has finally recognized that the policies begun by his predecessor, Hugo Chavez – policies that Maduro enthusiastically expanded on – have resulted – to borrow the immortal words of Margaret Thatcher, the British Prime Minister who determined that Britain would, indeed, fight for the Falklands – in Maduro “running out of other people’s money.”
Venezuela, which should be a ridiculously wealthy nation due to its vast oil reserves, has had its economy and business sectors so badly managed by the Chavez-Maduro regime, that the country is now one of the poorest nations on the planet. And this comes far ahead of any sanctions placed on the country by the United States or anyone else.
Because of the failing economy he is actively trying to destroy, Maduro has decided to revive an old map dispute on his eastern border. You see, Venezuela’s eastern neighbor – Guyana – is a former colony of Britain, about the size of Idaho, but with only half the population. In 1966, just prior to granting Guyana independence, Britain (speaking for Guyana) and Venezuela both agreed to arbitrate the border dispute in the International Court of Justice (ICA). Neither country really pulled out the stops to press negotiations, however, because there was no real need; like many such disputes, this one just laid around, gathering dust.
But now, the winds are blowing in different directions.
Maduro – like most totalitarian dictators – relies on the illusion of “the democratic process” to stay in power. In this case, no election since the ascension of Chavez has been “legitimate” – it’s an open secret, but as long as Maduro stayed within his own borders, no one outside of Venezuela – including successive Presidential administrations in the United States – really cared.
In 2015, however, oil was discovered off the coast of Guyana – in the area off the shore of the disputed region. And, in September of 2023, Guyana issued drilling licenses to various oil companies, including ExxonMobil (which had several oil facilities in Venezuela nationalized many years ago).
Map of Guyana Essequiba. The area lined in orange constitutes the area claimed by Venezuela. Credit: Karl Musser. CCA/3.0.
And in November of 2023, Maduro suddenly announced that his government would hold a referendum among the Venezuelan people, to see if they would mind their government annexing the disputed region, and telling the international courts to shove off. Surprising absolutely no one outside of the denizens of upscale café’s in Hollywood and New York – and, of course, Starbucks’ outlets – Venezuelans “voted overwhelmingly”, as in 95% of voters, that yes, their country should absolutely invade and dismember a neighbor that they have never fought a war with.
Now, it would wrong to assume that this situation is about oil, per se. Oil is a component in this situation, but it is actually not that far into Maduro’s wheelhouse. Maduro’s real problem is that he is up for reelection in 2024, and Venezuelans – like Argentineans before them – are getting fed up with the charade…and Maduro’s real fear is that Venezuelans may just “go all Romanian” on him.
That’s not a bingo card entry anyone wants.
Like Galtieri before him, Maduro is hoping that starting a war will make him popular enough at home to easily retain power – that’s known as “not changing horses in midstream.” The problem? Guyana, while it does not have a very large military, is not an island…Guyana and Venezuela share a border in the disputed region with a third nation: Brazil.
Brazil is a massive and powerful nation within the region. Even given the ludicrous and destructive policies of its current ruling party, the Brazilian economy is a powerhouse, regionally. As well, its armed forces are nothing to mess with; the Brazilian military – at all levels – seriously outclasses that of Venezuela. Maduro’s outlandishly comical “referendum” is so divorced from reality, not even a hardened Socialist leader like Lula da Silva can let such an idea go.
This is shaping into a potential three-way war, which could include a rarity, for the modern day: and actual naval battle. This is due to the geography of the region, with puts a large amount of the disputed region within range of naval forces’ fire support capabilities on the Caribbean coast, to say nothing of the extensive network of rivers that form the best highways in the interior.
In any shooting war, Venezuelan forces will be at a serious disadvantage if Brazil enters the fray.
This does, however, beg the question: What about the United States?
In the United States, the administration of Joe Biden is giving typically half-hearted and limp-wristed lip service to tell the kids in the south to calm down. The Swamp – or, if you prefer, “Sodom on the Potomac” – is far more concerned with events in Ukraine, Israel, and potentially in the Bab al-Mandeb, at the southern entrance to the Red Sea, to worry about a minor territorial squabble in South America. Functionally, refusing to take decisive action on its proverbial doorstep would be a foreign policy disaster on a scale with Jimmy Carter’s inability to deal with the Iranian hostage crisis.
…So – is there a “wild card” in this mess? Yes, there is: ExxonMobil.
Big Oil is not dead. Far from it. Venezuela long ago parted company with ExxonMobil and other foreign oil producers. And now, from ExxonMobil’s view, Maduro is trying to muscle in on their turf, yet again.
But ExxonMobil is “just a corporation,” right? What could they possibly do? Twenty years ago, that answer would have been simple: suck it up, count your losses, and find somewhere else…But that was twenty years ago, and a lot has happened since then.
There is absolutely nothing stopping ExxonMobil – especially in concert with other corporations – from fielding its own armed forces…including naval and air forces…to insert themselves into a potential Venezuela-Guyana war, if the potential returns are worth the risks. Guyana’s estimated 11 billion barrels (at the low end) is a pretty big incentive.
This last scenario would be no more than an interesting action-adventure story, if the players in Washington, DC, were not so incompetent and self-absorbed.
Happy voting.
The Freedomist — Keeping Watch, So You Don’t Have To
In mid-November, the South American nation of Guyana appealed for help to both the United Nations and the International Court of Justice, which just handed down a sternly worded finding on 12/1/2023 on the matter. Guyana, which shares its western border with Venezuela, became justifiably alarmed after Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro’s government scheduled a public referendum for December 3, 2023, “asking” the Venezuelan people if they would be okay with annexing the Essequibo region from Guyana – which comprises some two-thirds of Guyana.
Map of Guyana Essequiba. The area lined in orange constitutes the area claimed by Venezuela. Credit: Karl Musser. CCA/3.0
So – what’s going on, and why should you care? In reverse order, the reasons you need to care about this are simple.
First, unlike the current wars in Ukraine and Israel, this is on the proverbial doorstep of the United States. Second, is that seemingly tired old problem: oil. Third, the very fact that this has even come up, is yet one more pointed demonstration of the abject and total failures of both the Biden administration, and the neo-con RINO’s desperately clinging to power inside the GOP, best described by GOP candidate Vivek Ramaswamy as “Dick Cheney in three inch heels”.
Venezuela and Guyana form part of the northern coast of South America. Any war in South America is of preeminent importance to the United States, because of the potential to spill onto the United States’ doorstep, in addition to all the other problems spilling over a border that the Biden administration apparently believes not to exist. A Venezuelan attempt to “flex” for imperialist territorial expansion would – and threatens to do so – lead to a much wider war, as Brazil’s territorial integrity is also threatened by Maduro’s actions.
The question is, why? The answer is simple: oil.
Venezuela has been tied into the global petroleum extraction network since the early 1900’s; indeed, the country was the world’s third largest producer of crude oil in 1940, and was the tenth largest producer in 2008. However, beginning in the mid-1970’s, a series of terrible decisions by successive governments nationalized the country’s oil industries. This resulted in the companies whose plants were confiscated politely refusing to continue to perform maintenance and upkeep on the systems…that should not have come as a surprise to anyone, but apparently did. And, as the oil infrastructure fell apart, Venezuela was unable to attract another other foreign companies to invest in their national oil fields, which – again – should have surprised no one.
As a result, the spiraling failures of Maduro’s increasingly socialism-driven economy and government has created a growing and increasingly desperate need to revive the country’s only remaining viable export industry, in his case, by bringing in Iranian technicians to try and get the nation’s oil industry back on its feet…If that sounds like a disturbing idea – Iranians flooding into a country within easy striking distance of the United States – that’s because it is.
So, how does this relate to Guyana?
In 2008, as Venezuela doubled down on excluding foreign companies from its oil industry, ExxonMobil (one of the companies forced out by Venezuela) began exploring the offshore region of Guyana, on the hunch that since the two countries were physical neighbors, there should have been a high likelihood that Guyana should possess exploitable reserves…and, in 2015, Esso (a subsidiary of ExxonMobil) hit paydirt, discovering the first of several rich offshore oil fields off Guyana’s Caribbean coastline. After a series of negotiations, on 19 September of 2023, Guyana authorized several oil companies – including ExxonMobil – to begin drilling in their offshore fields.
An increasingly desperate Maduro, seeing the continuing disaster of his party’s long-discredited Socialist policies, chose this moment to revive an old territorial dispute that Venezuela had chosen not to pursue, which laid a Venezuelan claim to some two-thirds of Guyanese territory…that part, or course, that contains most of the new oil fields.
For those readers of “a certain age”, if this sounds a little like 1981-1982 in the South Atlantic, you are not alone. Forty-odd years ago, another South American dictator sniffed rumors of oil in an area his country had long-claimed, and – with tensions mounting at home over disastrous economic policies and midnight death squads everywhere – Argentinean junta leader General Leopoldo Galtieri decided that the United Kingdom would not fight over the Falkland Islands, if not too much blood was spilled invading them. Turns out, he was very wrong.
Maduro’s “popular” referendum is a clear attempt to justify an invasion, one that is sickeningly lopsided, as the Guyanese military is barely 3% the size of Venezuela’s armed Forces…the ringer being, of course, being Brazil, whose armed forces outmatch Venezuela’s by at least double, if not triple…The possible consequences of a desperate Socialist country sparking a regional war that could disrupt not just oil production but commercial shipping in the Caribbean, in general, are something every American needs to be worried about.
But then, there is the last question: Why does Maduro think that he can get away with Saddam Hussein-levels of bad decisions? In a word – Joe Biden and the Democrat-Neo-Con alliance, which desires a weak United States, one that they think that they can rally to their side like FDR did in 1941.
That they cannot do so, because of the actions they have taken in public – not even bothering to hide it – have so soured their potential recruiting bases, that they cannot meet their manpower needs without reviving the Draft…which even their supporters in the deluded Left are stating a flat, hard-no to.
If this sounds pessimistic – it is. Expect shortages, if Maduro thinks his calculus is correct…which it might be, unlike Saddam’s.
Part 2 – Saying the Quiet Part Out Loud
But, on the other side of the world, another “Rumble in the Jungle” is brewing: Myanmar/Burma’s ruling military clique, the so-called “Tatmadaw”, is collapsing. In this, the only real question is if the radical Socialist junta will go down like the collapse of the Somoza regime of Nicaragua in 1979, and the following multi-sided civil war (encouraged, being fair to history, by the United States) or if it will go the way of Yugoslavia – violent and bloody, but mercifully short, in comparison.
Beginning in late October of 2023, a coalition of formerly rival ethnic/tribal groups in Myanmar united in a virtually unheard of alliance, to launch a massive, coordinated offensive across the country, swiftly overrunning several regime military bases along the Myanmar/Communist China border, and forcing the surrender of several military units in their entirety. This is causing a collapse in morale, both among troops and in their families, who are now being forced to pull security for their deployed husband’s military bases. In fact, the junta has begun mobilizing civil servants and local police as second-line military forces, to try and stem the tsunami of military defeat.
Map of Operation 1027, as of 7 November 2023. Credit: Clyde H. Mapping. CCA/4.0
Obviously, the Freedomist has been remarking on this situation for some time, mostly in the context of the 3-D printing revolution. The facts are that the world was content – again – to allow a brutal, dictatorial regime to make a mockery of civilized society, because the profit margin is so high.
For Communist China, however, Myanmar is far from a laughing matter. The ruling junta, the “Tatmadaw”, is a vital component in the CCP’s “Belt & Road Initiative”, and if their allies in the junta go the way of Somoza or Yugoslavia, their entire plan is in jeopardy. What Communist China chooses to do about this is anyone’s guess.
Part 3 – Where Do We Go From Here?
Functionally, the moves by Maduro’s Venezuela are far more important to the United States in the immediate short-term. The hopeful collapse of the Myanmar regime, while definitely of regional importance in the Indian Ocean region, is mostly of academic interest for the US. While that may sound harsh and uncaring, it is not. It is simply the recognition of global realities.
The United States – for good or ill – is committed to the support of both Israel and Ukraine. And, as it and its European allies have discovered, neo-con fever dreams mixed with deranged, far-Left utopian word-salad does not equate to valid battle calculus, even in the short term.
The world is racing towards a cliff, and the leaders of the nations most capable of preventing that from happening are too concerned with pet delusions to even start getting a handle on the problem.
2024 is looking pretty grim, at present.
You should take action to protect yourselves, and those you are responsible for, now.
Washington and London certainly aren’t.
The Freedomist — Keeping Watch, So You Don’t Have To
A potential regional war is brewing in South America as Brazil moves troops towards its border with Venezuela in response to the fascist left country’s alleged looming invasion of neighboring state Guyana. Venezuela appears prepared to invade Guyana with the hope of annexing the country into its own territory.
Venezuela is claiming ownership rights of a huge swathe of Guyana called the Essequibo region. The rubber-stamp parliament passed a resolution initiated by dictator Nicolas Maduro to “allow” the Venezuelan voters to decide if they want to annex Guyana to gain control of the disputed region. Guyana has petitioned an international court to rule on this de facto move for annexation but has not received word back from the court.
The referendum is to be held Sunday, December 2, but skirmishes between Venezuelan and Guyanan troops are already being reported. Brazil has committed itself to defend Guyana should Venezuela choose to invade, which could lead to a regional war in South America.
The NYTimes is citing two anonymous intelligence officials who are claiming an Abu Dhabi company called G42 that collects the DNA of millions of Americans has direct ties to the Chinese Communist Party. G42 is tied to the CCP through ByteDance, holding over $100 million in stocks to the CCP-controlled company, which also owns TikTok.
We already know ByteDance shares its internal data with the CCP, so it is not a great leap to rightly assume the CCP would require access to the data of G42 just to ALLOW them the “right” to own such a significant amount of stock in the CCP-controlled company.
G42 even has ties to OpenAI, with former and possibly future OpenAI CEO Sam Altman saying of their relationship with the CCP-contaminated company, “Leveraging G42’s industry expertise, we aim to empower businesses and communities with effective solutions that resonate with the nuances of the region. This collaboration lays the foundation for equitable advancements in generative AI across the globe.”
When water mixes with mud, it becomes muddy water. When freedom mixes with tyranny, it becomes tyranny disguised as freedom.
It appears the Israeli military had ample warning of the October 7 Al Aqsa Flood terror assault launched by Hamas that led to the slaughtering of 1300 Israeli citizens, allegedly. Two anonymous sources that claim they were present during the presentation of a report to a high-ranking military intelligence officer said the report was dismissed by the official as being an “imaginary scenario.”
To be sure, this claim being made by anonymous sources lowers the validity of the claim, but the claim seems to have some merit to it. According to the sources, the report was sent through a secure communications system, which included specific details such as Hamas’ plan to attack multiple border posts, then spread into surrounding kibbutzim with the intent to kill as many civilians as possible.
The lower-ranking soldiers also warned their analysis of several videos showed Hamas was rehearsing taking hostages, and that they felt an attack was imminent, the person said. The memo was triggered by the sighting of a high-ranking Hamas military commander overseeing the training, who was identified by the sentries against a database of faces and identities maintained by Unit 8200, a part of the Israeli intelligence corps.
In the last week or so, many people have been sharing images of what they feel are alarming amounts of military air traffic culled from various online tracking websites, purporting to show a “highly unusual” increase in air traffic throughout the Middle East and the eastern Mediterranean (a.k.a., “The Levant”).
For those who are exploring a new landscape on the internet, such as aircraft and ship tracking websites, these images can, in fact, look incredible. Most of the online maps are indeed very cluttered, to such an extent that many computers have a hard time keeping up with the running updates, unless a user “drills down” to a very narrow region.
And to be fair, given the recent events within the region, with terrorist massacres in Israel, leading to brutal counterattacks by Israel, and the hysterical responses from throughout not just the region, but the threat of this new “Yom Kippur War” expanding to include most of the region – something that the few sane leaders of the world ‘body politic’ is desperate to prevent – is certainly making many people terrified of anything new and strange, that is presented with either incomplete, or flat-out wrong context, deliberately or otherwise.
The short answer to the “unusual increase” in aircraft activity in the Middle East is that it is a giant “nothingburger.” The long answer is far more mundane…but not so the reason behind it.
The fact is that Israel has severely neglected its defenses, both internal and external, for at least twenty years. Externally, Israel fell into the complacency trap of “Victory Disease” (the laziness and complacency resulting from too many victories), in that it felt that its “Iron Dome” missile defense system was mostly unbeatable, while its more conventional forces could easily handle anything that “Iron Dome” could not.
Internally, this dangerous complacency was compounded by Israel’s disastrous moves, beginning in 2012, to restrict the ability of Israeli citizens not on military or police duty, to owning or possessing military style firearms.
And on October 7, 2023, Israel and its citizens were given a stark wake up call as to why you should never beat your swords into plowshares before the right time.
As a result, Israel suddenly found itself in a desperate, grueling and bloody war against an implacable and bloodthirsty enemy at one end of its country, while facing another potential – and much more dangerous – foe to their north. While this is certainly not an unusual circumstance for Israel, Israel the state, as well as Israeli citizens, now finds itself being rudely forced to reorient its mental perspective on reality.
All-out war, as should be clear to anyone who has read an article on the Russo-Ukrainian War in the last almost two years, consumes people, ammunition, vehicles and supplies at a ferocious rate. While the scale and pace of the war in Israel may not currently be at the same overall scale as what is happening in Ukraine, when adjusted for scale, Israel is not much better off than Ukrainians.
In answer, the United States – long Israel’s only truly reliable ally – has doubled down on US support to Israel in the current conflict, complete with sending two complete carrier battle groups to the region, potentially committing US forces to direct combat in the conflict.
Obviously, no matter the Reader’s feelings – one way or another – about the current conflict, the United States has to supply Israel with weapons, ammunition and much else, exactly as it has for Ukraine. Normally, such supplies are sent by ship, and then by rail or road. The reason is simple: it is vastly more efficient than air transport.
Sometimes, however, speed is essential. Relatively small and light supplies, like ammunition and medical supplies, can be rushed to a conflict zone relatively quickly, as these are always the most critical supplies that would be needed early on in a conflict. In the case of any sudden uptick of military air traffic, however, there is currently another factor:
Volcanoes.
In 2010, a series of volcanic eruptions from the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland in April of that year completely shut down all air traffic in Europe outside of Spain and a tiny portion of France. That was, obviously, a very annoying situation for many travelers, as it up-ended flights throughout the world.
Military planners, already struggling to juggle the delivery of supplies to multiple active and potential combat areas, now have no choice but add the potential of a natural disaster shutting down European airspace for an unknown period. The only real option is to start drawing supplies from existing bases in the region, and sending those to Israel…by air.
At the same time, however, those supply bases will need to be restocked, and fast, given the potential for regional escalation. This problem can be solved via a surge in sending war materials and equipment to those bases via conventional shipping…that seems to be happening.
The Ready Reserve Force ship MV Cape Orlando is currently underway from Tacoma, WA, crossing the Pacific Ocean. The Cape Orlando, originally berthed in Oakland, was actually boarded by pro-Palestinian protesters on November 4th, delaying its departure for Tacoma. (The protestors were not charged.)
While the MV Orlando is certainly the most public of the ships potentially carrying supplies to the combat area, it is also certainly not the only one.
What is happening is clear: a giant “shell game” is underway, with supplies being shuffled as quickly as possible, to cover as many holes as have been left open by shockingly poor military policies by the West and its allies over the preceding c.30 years…But such circumstances cannot endure forever.
Sun Tzu, Author of Art of War. Photo: Gary Todd, 2008. Public Domain.
The death cult known as Hamas (which, in Hebrew, appropriately means violence) has the Mainstream media not only as its content market machine, but also as its co-conspirator in crime. Journalists embedded with Hamas during the October 7 terror assault that resulted in women, children, and infants being slaughtered knew what was going to happen and did nothing to inform the Israelis their citizens were about to be murdered.
On October 7, Hamas terrorists were not the only ones who documented the war crimes they had committed during their deadly rampage across southern Israel. Some of their atrocities were captured by Gaza-based photojournalists working for the Associated Press and Reuters news agencies whose early morning presence at the breached border area raises serious ethical questions.
What were they doing there so early on what would ordinarily have been a quiet Saturday morning? Was it coordinated with Hamas? Did the respectable wire services, which published their photos, approve of their presence inside enemy territory, together with the terrorist infiltrators? Did the photojournalists who freelance for other media, like CNN and The New York Times, notify these outlets? Judging from the pictures of lynching, kidnapping and storming of an Israeli kibbutz, it seems like the border has been breached not only physically, but also journalistically.
Four names appear on AP’s photo credits from the Israel-Gaza border area on October 7: Hassan Eslaiah, Yousef Masoud, Ali Mahmud, and Hatem Ali.
Eslaiah, a freelancer who also works for CNN, crossed into Israel, took photos of a burning Israeli tank, and then captured infiltrators entering Kibbutz Kfar Azza.
… Let’s be clear: News agencies may claim that these people were just doing their job. Documenting war crimes, unfortunately, may be part of it. But it’s not that simple.
It is now obvious that Hamas had planned its October 7 attack on Israel for a very long time: its scale, its brutal aims and its massive documentation have been prepared for months, if not years. Everything was taken into account — the deployments, the timing, as well as the use of bodycams and mobile phone videos for sharing the atrocities.
Is it conceivable to assume that “journalists” just happened to appear early in the morning at the border without prior coordination with the terrorists? Or were they part of the plan?
And why would Hamas want their atrocities documented other than for the same reason serial killers keep evidence of their crimes close to their hearts? It was for the trophies, it was for the bragging rights that those who slaughtered infants and children would gain from their fellow cultists, and the MSM journalists knew this, were complicit in this, and have now made themselves justified targets by Israel’s intelligence agency, Mossad, for righteous retribution after participating in the murders themselves and failing to warn the innocents of the death that was coming their way.
Whatever Israel has done that is not just it in no way, shape, or form justifies what Hamas did on October 7 in the name of their pedophilic god, Allah, and it certainly doesn’t justify mainstream media’s willing participation in this slaughter.
Every day these same content marketing death machines assault the world with psychological terrorism that serves their pedophilic god, the rainbow-colorist god of the DNC-CCP, here, they just murdered people directly as opposed to indirectly, doing what they do best, spreading hate and fear into the hearts of their readers.
U.S. Intelligence is claiming the Assad regime of Syria has agreed to deliver weapons to Hezbollah from Russia, with Wagner Group assisting in teaching Hezbollah how to use the weapons systems. These systems include Russia’s SA-22 missile system, an air defense system that could threaten Israeli jets. The U.S. has warned Russia, Iran, and anyone who cares to listen, they will intervene on behalf of Israel should these nations choose to attack Israel while it deals with Hamas.
This could bring about a dramatic escalation of the conflict and threaten to bring the U.S more directly into the fight, however, the U.S. asserts Iran, which is becoming a proxy for Russia and China, is not interested in having this fight escalate to a wider regional war, rather they are interested in manipulating their proxies to destabilize Irael while it fights Hamas.
From cnn.com: The US intelligence community believes – for now – that Iran and its proxies are calibrating their response to Israel’s military intervention in Gaza to avoid direct conflict with Israel or the US while still exacting costs on its adversaries.
But the US is also keenly aware that Iran does not maintain perfect control of its umbrella of proxies – in particular over Lebanese Hezbollah, the largest and most capable of the various groups. Hezbollah is an ally of Hamas, the group that attacked Israel on October 7, and has long positioned itself as fighting against Israel. US officials are deeply concerned that the group’s internal politics may cause Hezbollah to escalate simmering tensions.
The US also does not always have perfect visibility into the communications between Iran and its various proxies, according to sources familiar with US intelligence in the region.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, did not deliver the decisive declaration of war against Irael the Palestinians were hoping for.
From Newsweek: Nasrallah touted Hezbollah’s current involvement in the conflict, saying his group had joined the war on October 8. He largely renewed warnings to the United States and Israel that the group’s lower-level leaders had already made. He also called for a ceasefire in Gaza and reiterated Hezbollah’s support for Hamas and the Palestinian people.
“The depth of the disappointment for those who want Hezbollah to do more against Israel is a reflection of the height of anticipation leading up to Nasrallah’s speech. For them, Nasrallah’s speech failed to deliver,” said Firas Maksad, a senior fellow and director of outreach at the Middle East Institute.
Maksad told Newsweek that Nasrallah simply outlined what the group was already doing to divert Israel’s military resources away from Gaza and toward Lebanon. The Lebanese group’s leader also said that Hezbollah and Iran had no role in planning or foreknowledge of Hamas’ attack on Israel, as Iran and lower-level Hezbollah leaders have previously said.
Still, the moment an Israeli jet is shot down by a Russian air defense system, the risk of escalation is very real, whether anyone wants it or not.
The Spanish Election this year produced uncertainty as the party that won the most votes, the conservatives, have little to no chance to form a majority government while the ruling Socialist party just needs to appease to Catalan separatists to seal the deal. The Socialists have formed a coalition with the leftwing alliance in an effort to encourage the Catalan separatists to join. What remains to be seen is if they can get that support without granting amnesty to the Catalan separatists in jail and in exile.
Pedro Sanchez, the incumbent and acting Prime Minister, formed an alliance with the leftwing Sumar alliance, and has announced plans to form a government that will concentrate on worker reform and equality. In his speech celebrating the new alliance, he made no mention of the amnesty demands of the Catalan faction. The two parties do not have enough seats to form a government. They need the Catalan faction in order to gain the majority required to form that new government.
The leftists, both the Socialists represented by Sanchez, and the Sumar alliance, seem hellbent on driving their economy further into the ground, promising to lean hard into the man-made climate change hoax, to reduce the workweek, force higher wages, and “focus on equality.” All of these things sound good to a child with a child’s understanding of the world, but to an adult, we understand that forcing wage prices, that sacrificing the poor for the planet, that forcing “equality” on people will only lead to unintentional, dire consequences the left seems too immature to ever understand.
Yolanda Díaz, the head of the far-left coalition now partnering with the socialists, said this of the deal, “It’s an agreement for the people and a commitment to our country. We’re going to gain time for living, that’s what politics is for. This legislature will become a legislature that’s about having time to live, to look after ourselves and to be happy. We’ll reduce the working week without reducing wages.”
The Spanish people voted for the further undoing of their state by delusional fantasy dreamers who don’t believe money costs anything or that actions, in general, controlled from a central authority, won’t become inherently corrupt as power corrupts and absolute power (the kind of power leftist systems ALWAYS creates) corrupts absolutely.
Perhaps the Catalan separatists should consider taking the deal, even without the amnesty, even without being granted more powers of self-rule, as this leftist government forming is sure to destroy Madrid’s power to govern over the land at all, leaving more than just Catalans with the option to self-rule in the very near future.
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