Politics

Civil War Drums, Again?

Bill Collier August 15, 2023

The Democrats Are Playing With Fire In Their Obvious Lawfare Campaign Against Republicans

By Bill Collier- In the opinion of many, “Trump is being illegally targeted with partisan lawfare that is becoming deeply problematic in terms of the integrity and trust brand of our very legal system and indeed almost every major institution, all of which are owned now by radical leftists who hate God and America.”

The fact these offended and angry people may have a valid point is dismissed by those for whom a win for Democrats is somehow such a “win for democracy” that the ends justify the means.

It is not reasonable what is happening here. Where is the crime, beyond a tortured twisting of langauge and law to forcefully shoehorn a “crime” where there isn’t one? It is not a cut and dry case, as it ought to be in order to criminally prosecute one’s political opponents, a principle many even on the right, who loath Trump, have discarded out of expediency.

In the latest indictments by a rabidly partisan DA, in Georgia’s Fulton County where every Democrat vote is counted twice according to rumors, everything Trump et al did has been the standard Democratic Party response to almost every election they lost.

Here is another typical response from Trump supporters, “This corrupt DA RAN ON a ‘get Trump’ platform and took nearly 30 months to manufacture a list of indictments out of thin air, all based on the most obtuse and deranged readings of the RICO statutes in our history! She is truly an epic abuser of power, for whom history will justly have contempt.”

Democrats seem to many to be guilty of worse things, for which nobody is being held to account. This includes people like Biden and his alleged criminal enterprise selling access and policy to foreign buyers, or all those people on the Epstein client list we aren’t allowed to see.

The people whose ox is being gored see a court system making a martyr out of Trump and, regardless of what happens to him as an individual, and it’s clear murder is on their mind, they are creating a fictional superhero whose legend and movement will become ever more powerful and unstoppable among the wrench turners and builders of this country. The effeminate, creepy, demented leftoid scumbag “elites” have no real power.

The power of the effetes at the top right now is the soft power of institutional authority held up by, ironically, the integrity and trust brand of those institutions, which they are pissing away in this obvious bigoted and partisan lawfare campaign which many fear aims to murder Donald Trump, and possibly then his supporters. (This outcome is not a real possibility, it is perceived as a desired outcome by the left.)

The wrench turners and hustlers, the entrepreneurs and drivers, all these workaday folks, see no benefit from the narrative and agenda of these effete rulers who sit on the thin vapors of institutional authority which is only a product of the trust and integrity people see in those institutions.

The narrative of the ruling class is that all the grimy, tough folks whose hustle drives the economy, the 40% or so who have zero dependency on government and whose life’s work is a net inflow to the economy as opposed to being a net drain, are the bad people, while all the effete little cretins are the true heroes of society. King Charles III and Jeff Bezos in all the creepiness are the face of the ruling class, who look and act like primadonas, and who really think they know best.

The agenda of these effete cretin rulers is to subjugate the producers and builders to themselves, to keep the workers down and under control, and to steal their children whom the government schools turn into mentally-ill, but submissive, slaves.

It is all too much, too fast, and, increasingly, too painful.

Some legitimately don’t like Trump, but they understand that whatever happens to him unjustly, and whatever we tolerate being done to him out of revenge or something, could set a precedent and won’t stop with him. Here is a typical satement from a Trump supporter, “If they take Trump down, they will never stop until all their opponents are dead or in jail, and they WILL start the boxcars rolling for the rest of us, guaranteed.”

Well, to be clear, that MAY be the intention of these ruling class fools who sit atop a mountain of air whose very substance they are spending out in their bid to get Trump. Nonetheless, the left will not round up all their opponents because the institutional authority they would need those same people to respect in order to pull that off will be gone.

One doesn’t need to like Trump and one may feel he is over the top, bad, or whatever, but if this prevents you from seeing the injustice and criminality being directed at him by those who are at least no better, than you are essentially fiddling while Rome burns, despite the fact this whole story of Nero fiddling while Rome burned was a myth.

If you think Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, and all the other cast of clowns on the left aren’t at least as bad as you think Trump is, then you are a naive fool, although your opinion and feelings about this mean absolutely nothing to anyone outside the cocktail party circuits you may haunt, a bunch of ruling class fools pulling down their own house upon their own heads, in flames.

It is beyond the scope of this article to opine about all the things Trump did to contribute to this situation, but suffice it to say his followers can’t and won’t see that as long as the illegal lawfare is being used against him by people who are at least as corrupt as they say he is. An unequal measure is an abomination to God, and by extension, to the people who might feel slighted thereby. Trump supporters cannot even consider that he may bear any blame while they are in the throes of what they feel is an existential crisis which they fear will strip them of their very livelihoods and every freedom.

The possibilities Trump has colored outside the lines, created more enemies than he needed, showed a gross lack of decorum, and overall not been effective in building a functional and effective team, are all beyond the concern of his supporters because they fear that if the system can do this to Trump, it will do it to them. There may be many things Trump did wrong or things he didn’t do that he should have, including curbing his ego, that, if things were different, if he didn’t do the bad and if he did the good, that could have short-circuited this political witch hunt, but now is not the time to even have such a discussion with his supporters as they won’t listen while feeling so under fire.

When considering worse-case scenarios, it seems this illegal lawfare is pushing the limits for 40% or more of the population, even if it was for only 30% it would still be bad, and that throughout history precisely this kind of thing has repeatedly caused violent upheavals. It’s not that every time the effete ruling class go too far against an opponent or a group of people massive violent upheavals occur, but almost every massive violent upheaval has a similar genesis.

Thus it is both reasonable to assess things Trump did to provoke his opponents to an irrational and self-destructive rage while stating that the chief fault lies with those who currently have and are abusing the institutional authority they possess but did not create in such an irresponsible manner as to jeopardize the continued public perception that this institutional authority deserves respect or obedience. For this reason the police officer arresting an actual criminal is not legally supposed to be able to engage in abuse or mistreatment, this crime of police brutality being in many instances worse than what the criminal or alleged criminal has done.

Forget the mere political calculus and election results, i.e. if these over steps will cause one Party to lose at the polls. The deeper and more urgent issue is that illegal lawfare, perceived as such by 30% to 40% or more of the overall population, but most of the producing/working classes, will severely undermine that portion of the population’s belief in institutional authority as their trust and integrity brand comes apart.

It remains fashionable, almost to the point of a fetish, to whine and fear monger about “January 6th” as if this is worse than 911 or the years of violent unrest funded by the left, but the powder keg these foolish and irresponsible actions is building in our society now, which may mercifully not go off before eventually things simmer down, is negligence in the extreme.

Even if things eventually cool down and they powerder keg doesn’t go off, and nobody is saying it 100% will, those who took such crazed actions and engaged in this illegal lawfare still deserve prison themselves. Every prosecutor and their staff and every judge and most all of the Federal permanent administrative state who are engaged in this all deserve to be dealt with on the basis of being subversive rebels from within waging war against these United States of America.

That being said, in the name of peace, even if cool heads eventually prevail, it may be impracticable to go so far as pure justice would demand in each case. Prosecuting the prosecutors who broke the law could only further erode the civil cohesiveness of this country.

After this is sorted, if it doesn’t result in the worse-case scenario, it will be time to assess all that both sides have done to barrel down this dangerous path, and fault will likely be found aplenty in all the major camps whose actions for the past 50 years led to this. But for now, the lawfare insurrection against Trump in particular and Republicans in general (the Georgia indictments essentially aimed at the entire GOP) by the Democrats is by far one of the gravest sins against this country since the Democrats fought to keep their slaves and started what he had hoped would have been America’s ONLY civil war.

FBI Efforts to Spy on Catholics Not an Isolated Incident

Freedomist Editor August 11, 2023

House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) is claiming the original claim by the FBI that preparing to spy on Catholics was an isolated incident is false. In fact, Jordan claims, the FBI was coordinating with multiple offices, all of which seemed to be on board to spy on Americans for their religious beliefs alone.

The original memo had redacted information that Jordan now has access to that refutes that initial claim. Jordan, along with Congressman Mike Johnson (R-LA) sent a letter to the DNC operative Christopher Wray demanding to know why such key information was withheld from the House committee. They didn’t accuse them of lying under oath, but that is what appears to have happened.

They wrote, “[T]he newly produced version of the document explicitly states that FBI Richmond ‘coordinated with’ FBI Portland in preparing the assessment. Thus, it appears that both FBI Portland and FBI Los Angeles field offices were involved in or contributed to the creation of the FBI’s assessment of traditional Catholics as potential domestic terrorists.”

Jim Jordan says Multiple FBI Offices ‘Coordinated’ on Memo Targeting Catholics › American Greatness – amgreatness.com

Excerpt:

On Wednesday, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) revealed that there were multiple FBI field offices involved in the drafting of a controversial memo outlining a plan for targeting Catholic Americans.

As the New York Post reports, the memo in question was originally thought to have been limited exclusively to the Richmond Field Office in Virginia. However, a less-redacted version of the memo, obtained by the committee last month, reveals that the Richmond field office had a “liaison contract” with the Portland Field Office, and also used information from the Los Angeles Field Office.

Read Full Article

READ FULL FIA WEEKDAY REPORT HERE.

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.

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

Biden Whistleblower Charged with Being Chinese Spy

Freedomist Editor July 12, 2023

The man who claims to have evidence that shows the Bidens were colluding with foreign powers to take cash for favors has been indicted and charged with multiple serious crimes, including one of being a Chinese spy. The man, Gal Luft, is alleging to have been in the room and heard Joe Biden trade cash for influence with foreign agents, among them were the Chinese. Somehow Luft is now suspected of being a Chinese spy that is seeking to discredit the integrity of the Chinese Communist Party and, if he were to be believed, the discrediting of any trust any foreign power might have in welcoming the Chinese into their country.

We at the Freedomist are paying attention to this story, but have some reason to be skeptical of Luft’s claims, but also some reason to suspect the motivations of the charges currently being levelled on the man. Within the next couple of weeks we hope to release a report that might either support his claims with some accountable facts or expose him as a fraud seeking to escape just prosecution.

U.S. Attorney Denies DOK Prevented Him From Charging Hunter….Sort of?

Paul Collier July 11, 2023

U.S. Attorney David Weiss released a statement that denied claims he wanted to bring additional charges against Hunter Biden but was prevented from doing so by Attorney General Merrick Garland. He said:

“To clarify an apparent misperception and to avoid future confusion, I wish to make one point clear: in this case, I have not requested Special Counsel designation pursuant to 28 CFR § 600 et seq. Rather, I had discussions with Departmental officials regarding potential appointment under 28 U.S.C. § 515, which would have allowed me to file charges in a district outside my own without the partnership of the local U.S. Attorney.”

515. Authority for legal proceedings; commission, oath, and salary for special attorneys

(a) The Attorney General or any other officer of the Department of Justice, or any attorney specially appointed by the Attorney General under law, may, when specifically directed by the Attorney General, conduct any kind of legal proceeding, civil or criminal, including grand jury proceedings and proceedings before committing magistrate judges, which United States attorneys are authorized by law to conduct, whether or not he is a resident of the district in which the proceeding is brought.

(b) Each attorney specially retained under authority of the Department of Justice shall be commissioned as special assistant to the Attorney General or special attorney, and shall take the oath required by law. Foreign counsel employed in special cases are not required to take the oath. The Attorney General shall fix the annual salary of a special assistant or special attorney.

This writer is no legal expert, but it seems the denial is not exactly as cut and dried as the MSM would have you believe it is. Perhaps the Attorney did not feel he had enough evidence to pursue charges in one venue, within the parameters of a Federally endorsed indictment and wanted to pursue charges outside that traditional venue, using local magistrate judges.

Biden Energy Policy Seems Designed to Harm America and Aid China

Freedomist Editor July 11, 2023

An article in RealClear Energy written by Andy Puzder and Sanjai Bhagat suggests the effort by the mass mailer President, Joe Biden, to “end our dependence on fossil fuels” is not doing anything to check demand, but rather, is only going to strengthen China while weakening America. While Biden shuts down American energy production in the name of climate change, no such demand is being made on the world’s worst polluter and carbon emitter, China.

From RealClear Energy:

If the goal is actually to reduce global carbon emissions without causing global economic chaos, increased use of dependable and abundant American natural gas makes far more sense than curtailing U.S. production and spending billions on unreliable and expensive “renewable” energy sources. Let’s face it, if renewables were economically viable, dependable, and available in sufficient supply, the Chinese would be using them. In fact, they have every incentive to do so.

Most of the processing of the minerals needed for electric-vehicle batteries happens in China. Using wind, solar, and batteries for energy production and transportation requires significantly more metals (three times more copper, seven times more rare earths, 19 times more nickel, 25 times more graphite, and 42 times more lithium) than natural gas, oil, or coal production and transportation. The U.S. mines and processes a negligible amount of these metals, which primarily come from countries such as Australia, China, Congo, and Indonesia. Notably, 60% of rare earths are mined in China. Chemical processing, battery components, and assembly are mostly done by Chinese companies. China also processes 87% of rare earths, 65% of cobalt, 58% of lithium, and 40% of copper.

So, while the DNC-CCP hampers American energy production at home, they drive us to depend on energy sources that the Chinese control, removing American energy independence and creating a dependence on a regime that seeks to destroy the American republic so they can lead the world into “socialism with Chinese characteristics,” something, apparently, many corporate “American” leaders seem also to support alongside the DNC-CCP operatives that currently control our Federal offices despite being adamantly opposed to republicanism.

Judge that Stoppped Anti-Free-Speech Collusion Between DNC and Big Tech Brings Receipts

Freedomist Editor July 10, 2023

The Federal Judge that put a halt to the overt collusion between the DNC and its big tech anti-American allies brought receipts. Louisiana U.S. District Court Judge Terry Doughty added documents to his ruling that shows the clear evidence that the DNC had direct access to major social media companies which was used to de facto order the seditious corporations to ban political opponents and beliefs that countered their perverse narratives.

One of the most damaging bits of evidence that the DNC revolutionaries within the Federal government successfully blocked the Wyoming Department of Health from posting claims about Covid-19 and effective treatment that cut against the terrorist message the DNC and its allies were pushing on the American people with a hope to demoralize and crush the American spirit of individual liberty.

Obama Admin Doxxed Flynn to Set Him Up For Lawfare Assault

Paul Collier July 10, 2023

The Daily Signal claims that documents they received through a Freedom of Information Act Request (FOIA) reveals the Obama administration, with no just cause, doxed then Presidential candidate Donald Trump’s announced National Security advisor nominee Michael Flynn. He then shared that private information with numerous officials, many of which are now part of the mass mailer President Joe Biden’s anti-American administration. These officials then used that information to conduct a Lawfare assault on Flynn that led to his resignation and prosecution President Trump had to pardon him from to protect him from the far left’s unconstitutional attack

The lawfare assault began when the Deep State’s Intelligence Officials for some reason intercepted a call between Flynn and the Russian ambassador (a call that is normal for incoming Presidents’ cabinet members to make, including the Obama administration and the Biden administration) and used that intercept to justify exposing Flynn’s private information along with the Russian ambassador even though it is illegal to do. The intelligence community is not allowed to dox American citizens in the course of its investigation of foreigners with rare extreme exceptions, none of which were met in this phone call.

One of the most damning shares that occurred was with the then-Deputy Treasury Secretary Sarah Raskin, who happens to be the wife of seditionist congressman Jamie Raskin (D-MD), a man who voted AGAINST certifying Trump’s 2016 election (he was and still is an election denier, which is ok if you’re denying the enemy of the far left child grooming cult that is the DNC).

Mercenaries, Spies & Private Eyes, Part 2 – Is the PMC Era Coming To An End?

Michael Cessna July 8, 2023

Mercenaries have been around for a very long time; so long, in fact, that working as a “sell sword” is regarded as a prime candidate for the title, “The Second Oldest Profession”; the Freedomist even covered this previously. During the Italian Renaissance, the sometimes substantial forces of various condottieri mercenary captains had a noted and significant impart on Western History. In the modern day, from 2003 onwards, this has been exemplified by the rise of the “Private Military Company” (PMC).

While some people may think that mercenaries are a relatively recent phenomena, having been largely eliminated after the Napoleonic Wars, the truth is that the profession has continued on up to the present day, albeit on a more individual level, more than massed units like the hired Hessian troops of the American War of Independence.

(An important note is that those to whom the 19^th Century term “filibusters”, as related to military activity, applied were not ‘mercenaries’ in the traditional sense, as military filibustering was rarely done at the behest of any internal faction in a country. Military filibusters were essentially well-armed bandits with political aspirations.)

Many military figures of world history were mercenaries at one time or another, figures like the Athenian general and historian Xenophon, author of The Anabasis, which chronicles the withdrawal of some ten thousand mostly-Greek mercenaries from the Achemenid Empire, to Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, the Prussian professional soldier who joined George Washington’s army, and had such an impact on it, that he is regarded as one of the ‘founding fathers’ of the United States Army.

*Baron Frederick William von Steuben, c.1780. Painted by artist Charles Willson Peale (1741–1827). Public Domain.*

In the aftermath of the overthrow and ultimate execution of French king Louis XVI, France instituted what we would now refer to as “national mobilization”, the vast size of the armies the revolutionary government was able to field proved so attractive to nations everywhere, notions of unique national character were deliberately reinforced. As a result, it came to be considered odd – if not more than a little dirty – to serve in the armed forces of another state.

And yet such service, primarily for money, continued. The French Foreign Legion, established in 1831, was created to place foreigners who had previously served as mercenaries in French royal service, into the French Army for service outside of France. Smaller such units appeared from time to time, but after about 1820 or so, the “Soldier of Fortune” phase began in earnest, first with the Filibusters, but soon incorporating many individuals, mostly former soldiers but also a few pure amateurs, who were what we would now call “adrenaline junkies”, following reports of wars breaking out in various places around the world, where formal military education and technical abilities were scarce. The advanced education and experience of many of these individuals often proved invaluable to their employers. As just one example, British Royal Navy Captain (later Rear-Admiral) Thomas Cochrane, 10^th Earl of Dundonald, was instrumental in creating the revolutionary navies of Brazil, Chile and Peru, in the 1820’s and 30’s.

*Admiral Lord Cochrane, portrait of James Ramsay, c.1830. Public Domain*

By the 1890’s, “freebooters” and soldiers of fortune were seemingly everywhere, fighting for almost all sides in world conflict zones. With the advent of weapons such as practical machine guns and quick-firing artillery, coupled to a highly permissive “cash-n-carry” environment for buying weapons, meant that those individual’s technical skills were often absolutely decisive in conflicts in remote areas.

Following World War’s 1 & 2, however, the world saw the return of mass national mobilization, and a reinforcement of the perceived uniqueness of national character. As a result, aside from long-established units like the French Foreign Legion, “mercenary work” mostly vanished completely, for about fifteen years. As the tensions of the Cold War increased, however, the decolonization of Africa initiated a series of “proxy wars”, which would define much of the following thirty years. In 1961, mercenaries returned to the world’s consciousness in force – both literally and figuratively.

In 1961, Thomas Michael Hoare (who would come to be known as “Mad Mike”), a former officer in the British Army and veteran of the Burma Campaign in the Second World War, was hired by Moïse Tshombe, the leader of the nascent breakaway province of Katanga, to form the core of an army to secure the state’s independence.

Although that effort was ultimately unsuccessful, Tshombe – in the absolutely wild world of Congolese politics (YouTube link; language warning) – was recalled to become the country’s fifth Prime Minister in mid-1964, to deal with the so-called “Simba Uprising”, a massive and extremely bloody rebellion in the vast state’s northeastern regions. Tshombe, in turn, recalled Hoare to recruit a force of mercenaries to act as a spearhead to the wavering Congolese Army. Hoare promptly recruited mercenaries through newspaper advertisements in South Africa and Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), and formed his unit as “5 Commando, ANC”.

*Troops of the mercenary-led 5 Commando, ANC, during Operation ‘Dragon Rouge’, 1964. US Army Photo. Public Domain.*

Although the force got off to a rocky start, it was quickly whipped into shape (mostly by enforcing a regimen of discipline that western armies had long ago abandoned.) Hoare quickly began rolling up the Simba’s, in a series of operations that resulted in the liberation of Stanleyville (now Kisangani). In traditional mercenary fashion, Hoare’s c.300 mercenary troops and their Congolese allies happily sacked the city in the aftermath, blasting open bank vaults and looting anything not nailed down. Atrocities – although nowhere near the levels committed by the Simba’s – were rampant. Hoare’s unit would ultimately be disbanded in 1967, after some six years of mostly-successful operations. A few other pseudo-units of (mostly White) mercenaries came and went in the Congo during the 1960’s, contributing to actions that would leave the Congo devastated into the modern day.

Mercenary activity simmered for another twenty years, with Western mercenaries – usually, but not always, former soldiers – taking part in many, possibly a majority, of the conflicts of the 1970’s and 80’s. In the aftermath of the rise and fall of “Executive Outcomes” (defunct in 1998, but recently reestablished), the prototype for the modern PMC, the United Nations passed a frankly idiotic and laughably unenforceable prohibition against mercenaries, “formally” outlawing the practice and denying them status as prisoners of war under the increasingly irrelevant Geneva Conventions…which were rarely, if ever, extended to captured mercenaries, in any case.

The September 11^th, 2001 attacks are what ultimately rode to the rescue of the mercenary profession. The reason was painfully simple: With the end of the Cold War in 1991, most of the nations of the world severely trimmed their massive military establishments, leaving their capability to deploy military force critically short. As there were no national mobilizations after the attacks, and the dawning of the “Global War on Terror” mostly took the form of actions by small units of superbly (and expensively) trained special forces units, backed up by comparatively small numbers of conventional troops, the military landscape seemed to have changed.

A Special Forces company commander meets with village elders and members of the 1st Kandak, 209th Afghan National Army Corps April 10, 2007. Photo Credit: Specialist Daniel Love, U.S. Army. Public Domain.

However, this change was actually a mirage, an image warped by a declining lack of military knowledge among the general population. In fact, the cuts in manpower during the 1990’s had been so deep, across the globe, that military forces – including those of the United States – were left completely incapable of operating for any length of time in a war zone. With the various wars and military actions abroad becoming increasingly unpopular “back home”, there was no interest in trying to expand the manpower numbers of western military forces (which is an entirely different story on its own), a solution had to be found, and quickly.

This is what led to the rise of the 21^st Century PMC.

Private Military Companies are a polite legal fiction, designed to hide their status as mercenaries (thus avoiding legalistic maneuvers by nations of the UN) by usually referring to them as “security contractors”, who insist that they take no active role in military actions, merely defending themselves. It’s a paper-thin dodge, and one no one with any concept of self-decency ever really believed.

As of the beginning of 2022, however, the world’s military calculus has begun to shift once again. With military actions such as the Tigray War and the Russian invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, the return of mass warfare (long thought vanished as a realistic possibility) has returned, with a vengeance.

Massed wars – “main force conflicts”, if one prefers – like these in the modern era are inimical to most flavors of PMCs. Fighting insurgents armed with individual small arms and a few light weapons is one thing – contesting a battlefield against a first-tier military state is another matter, entirely. To borrow the words of author Thomas Ricks, few “contractors” within any PMC has a dog in any fight like that.

While PMC’s will continue to be employed in the short term, it is a virtual certainty that the non-state supported, independent PMC will vanish within ten years.

…Assuming, of course, that Western States can fix their broken military forces.

Let that sink in.

DNC-Big Tech Censorship Collusion Busted Up?

Paul Collier July 5, 2023

The DNC-CORPO alliance that gave us a Federal government instructing their social media allies on what messages to block and who to cancel has been busted up by a ruling by U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty. The Federal Judge placed an immediate injunction on Federal agencies working with social media companies to “advice” them on methods of censoring the American people.

He said in his ruling, “During the COVID-19 pandemic, a period perhaps best characterized by widespread doubt and uncertainty, the United States Government seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth.’ “

The ruling comes after a lawsuit was filed by Louisiana and Missouri Attorneys General who allege the Biden administration is using the federal government to direct social media companies to censor the free speech of their constituents, citizens in their respective states. The lawsuit says the Federal government’s efforts to protect the official narrative during Covid-19 led to them violating the rights of American citizens and overstepping their authority. The judge agreed.

The New York Times referred to the ruling as a hindrance on the ability to check misinformation, meaning they directly stood against the 1^st amendment and freedom of the press specifically. This is a clear sign (one of many) of the New York Times’ status as a DNC ally in good standing who does not fear the censorship they so willingly support against others because they know they are part of the elites who have special rights not given to them by the American people or the Constitution.

The confidence of the American people that these DNC-infested federal agencies will honor the ruling and cease all operations should be extremely low, so any claims the ruling ends the censorship collusion between big tech and the DNC should be taken as wishful thinking. However, the ruling does mean that if and when (and this writer is betting the when is almost guaranteed) they get exposed for doing this again, Republican Attorneys General might have some legal backing to begin arresting the seditionists within their state openly violating American Rule of Law in an effort to overthrow the Republic and replace it with a DNC-CCP dystopian terror state.