Kinnakeet
Well-Known Member
At 35000 feet it is
Middle East War Briefing
- Thread starter GURPS
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And the story changes.
www.foxnews.com
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in Tehran by hidden explosive device: report
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in Tehran, Iran, by a bomb that was secretly hidden months ago inside the compound where he was staying, a report claims.
glhs837
Power with Control
Damn, the patience and planning ....And the story changes.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in Tehran by hidden explosive device: report
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in Tehran, Iran, by a bomb that was secretly hidden months ago inside the compound where he was staying, a report claims.
Thomas Jefferson’s Middle East Policy
For 1,000 years, North African Muslims had been hijacking ships and kidnapping and enslaving Christian sailors and passengers for a thousand years, a constant population of Christians slaving on the Barbary Shore (so-called because Christians saw the locals as barbarians).
Once in Paris, Jefferson, thanks to Don Quixote, likely wasn’t too surprised to learn that, in October, corsairs from Morocco had captured the Betsey, an American merchant ship out of Philadelphia with a crew of ten and one passenger. He couldn’t know, though, that, for the next five years, his principal diplomatic efforts would be repeatedly trying and failing to liberate Americans held hostage in the Middle East.
Jefferson studied North Africa’s geography and discovered that the people on France’s fertile Mediterranean coast successfully farmed the land, North Africa’s coast was also potentially fertile. However, its inhabitants preferred kidnapping and enslaving infidels as a livelihood. He questioned fellow diplomats in the city on how their countries handled the problem. Jefferson also bought himself an English translation of the Koran.
He realized that the term “pirates” was inaccurate. These sea-going hijackers from Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli were not venal, free-booting criminals who, when ashore, swigged rum in taverns and pawed at wenches.
Rather than the black and white Skull & Bones flag, their ships flew three flags vertically arranged: lowest was the pennant of the pasha ruling the ship’s home port; in the middle was the ensign of the pasha’s overlord, the Ottoman Sultan in Constantinople; and above all flapped the green flag of Islam. These unusual “pirates” also prayed three times daily to Mecca and were teetotalers.
In 1785, the “Mussulmen” attacked two more American merchant ships, the Maria out of Boston and the Dolphin out of Philadelphia, kidnapping twenty more Americans into slavery.
When Jefferson, John Adams, and Ben Franklin confronted the crisis that could cripple the American economy, Franklin, the Quaker, argued that America’s trade in the Mediterranean was relatively insignificant, so American merchant vessels should avoid that sea.
Adams, a Boston lawyer familiar with maritime commerce, believed it would be a mistake to abandon the Mediterranean trade. Instead, he believed America should follow the European practice of paying “tribute” to the One True Faith—in practice, “protection” money. After all, if the mighty Europeans could not defeat these water-borne brigands, how could America, a nation without a navy?
Jefferson also knew it was common for the “Mussulmen” to take tribute for a certain period but suddenly accuse the Europeans of some violation, requiring fresh negotiations and a higher price.
In 1786, during a meeting between Jefferson, Adams, and Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, Tripoli’s ambassador to Britain, Adja demanded tribute equal to one-sixth of the new nation’s entire budget. When Jefferson asked why, because the infant U.S. had never attacked Tripoli, the Sheikh explained, “It’s the jihad.”
Jefferson learned that in Islam, the war between the religions is unending, with Believers required to oppress and dominate infidels who refuse to convert. The jihad requires imposing Islam on infidels and subjugating them for their stubborn refusal to adopt the “correct” religion. If the Americans wanted to sail on the Mediterranean, which belongs to Islam, they had to pay.
No wonder Jefferson wanted to fight. He was appalled by these “pirates” who had never entered what Tom Paine would eventually call “The Age of Reason” and waged a religious war. His plan, however, was relatively non-violent: Blockade the ports for years, if necessary. The “Mussulmen,” unable to put to sea, would forget sailors’ skills and be forced to learn agriculture, as the French had.
Mole Hunt Raging in Tehran
Anyway, the humiliation has produced one predictable result already. And for Israel, it couldn't come at a better time, and perhaps also for the long-restive population under the thumb of the IRGC and the mullahs:
Is this a mole hunt? Or is it the start of a purge? It could be both, and neither will make the IRGC or the regime more effective in the short term. Mole hunts distract even the best intelligence and security agencies, soaking up valuable resources that would normally focus outward to look inward instead. And the process of mole hunts necessarily derails efforts by those not investigating the breaches, by sheer intimidation as well as misdirection from top officials in order to trick their own agents into exposing themselves.
Purges are even worse, not just because of their usual scope. Purges in regimes like Iran usually involve dominant factions exerting power to get rid of their opponent factions while using the excuse of security. In the most memorable example, Stalin infamously purged thousands of his officers from the military not long before Hitler invaded the Soviet Union and nearly reached Moscow. The infighting could take years and leave the IRGC without enough focus to suppress popular discontent -- and also signal to that restive population that the time is ripe for change, not to mention add more dissenters to their mix.
Arresting a couple of dozen people in the immediate aftermath of the Haniyeh hit isn't a purge ... yet. But consider another famous example of a purge tied also to an assassination attempt: the 20 July 1944 Stauffenberg plot to kill Hitler. The Nazis had rounded up nearly all of the major Stauffenberg assassination plotters within a day, yet they ended up purging thousands by the time they finished. Almost 5,000 people got executed, some as Berlin was falling to the Russians nine months later. It doesn't take much for mole hunts to spin out of control into outright purges, especially in paranoid regimes already riven with internal tensions.
Senior Iranian Ayatollah Threatens ‘Blood Vengeance’ Against U.S., Can Strike Major American Targets in ‘Less Than Half a Day’
In a sermon which aired on Iran’s Khorasan Razavi TV on Friday, Ayatollah Ahmad Alamolhoda declared in the shrine city of Mashhad, that Iran’s “blood vengeance” should extend beyond Israel to include the United States.
“We have to apply this blood vengeance against the United States as well,” he declared, according to his remarks that were translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) which specializes in covering media in the region, as he accused Washington of having given the “green light” for Israel’s targeting of the arch-terrorist on Iranian soil.
Claiming that Iran dominates U.S. interests, the influential prayer leader and father-in-law of Iran’s late President Ebrahim Raisi (known as the “Butcher of Tehran”) warned that Tehran can swiftly strike to avenge “American crimes.”
“Fortunately, we have such domination today over American interests and centers that, if we want, we can carry out strikes against the U.S. in less than half a day,” he asserted, adding that “these strikes would compensate not only for one terrorist attack, but for hundreds of American crimes.”
He then referenced Iran’s 2020 Al-Asad strike, which he insisted demonstrated the Islamic Republic’s capability to devastate U.S. bases.
“The largest American military base is the Al-Asad Airbase in Al-Anbar, in Iraq. We showed, with just eight missiles following the martyrdom of Hajj Qassem Soleimani, that this base is in our crosshairs,” he said. “The experts say that had we launched forty missiles, instead of eight, nothing would have remained of the Al-Assad Airbase, and no American would have survived there.”
The senior cleric also warned that Iran can destroy the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet and disrupt Gulf shipping:
“Well, these are our capabilities today. If we want to take revenge, it [must] not be only against Israel,” he added. “We have to take revenge on America too.”
War Update: The good news was that Iran has not (yet) attacked anybody. But yesterday, the media relentlessly beat the war drums of bad news until media’s parents told it to stop making all that ruckus and go to bed. Here are four quick headlines to get you up to speed. First, the UK Guardian reported the Iranians are wondering why every time they get attacked, people always tell Iran to use restraint:
Next, in a bit of accidental journalistic honesty, Politico reported that the wars in Ukraine and Israel are linked, as I’ve been saying for over a year now:
Of course the two wars are linked. Russia’s recent alliance with Iran began after the ritualistic torching of its relationship with Israel, when Team Biden forced Israel to side with Ukraine.
Never forget that in 2022, the Ukrainians were blowing the Dickens out of Russia using cheap drones, at a time when Russia had no domestic drone industry of its own, and was staring at defeat in the Proxy War. So Russia reached out to Iran:
Russia made some kind of deal with Iran, a desperate deal, which in 2022 provided the Russians with the most advanced drone technology in the world. Now, we are watching the Russians have to cough up the steep price:
Iran didn’t just give Russia thousands of drones. Iran also gave Russia the blueprints. Iran also lent Russia some Iranian drone engineers. Now, Russia is making its own cheap and effective drones. It owes Iran a lot.
Nor did it help any when Team Biden let the Ukrainians use American weapons and our satellite targeting to strike civilian targets inside Russian sovereign territory. Russia is pretty sore about that. One day, we may come to realize that our decision was a foolish error of Bidenic proportions.
Here is a fact: Biden’s Proxy War is driving every major conflict in the world right now.
Third, for what it’s worth, ABC ran a story yesterday reporting that the US and Israel ‘expect’ an Iranian attack soon:
Fourth, and finally, Israel said it has no intention of showing restraint either. The Times of Israel:
In other words, even if Iran misses, or even if it only blows up another desert cactus, Israel will strike back.
So.
☕️ HE’S BAAACK ☙ Tuesday, August 13, 2024 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠
Trump lands back on Twitter and breaks the Internet; FBI digs into Iranian hacking; Mideast war drums continue unrestrained beating; astronauts still marooned; Trump's best lawsuit yet; more.
www.coffeeandcovid.com
Over in the Middle East, the good news yesterday was that war did not break out and Iran did not attack Israel. The AP ran a curiously suggestive headline on the mounting pressure headlined, “Analysis: High-wire diplomacy on possible Iran retaliation in the Israel-Hamas war draws in world.” In Biblical terms, you might say Jerusalem has become a stumbling stone for the world.
The catalog of countries involved in what the AP called a “high-wire act of diplomacy” is too long to list. All the major powers have been sucked into a vortex of looming disaster hovering over Israel: China, Russia, the United States, Great Britain, France, and Germany. And, of course, all the neighboring regional countries are (necessarily) involved, like Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt, Yemen, and all the rest. And because of those countries’ other alliances, most of the rest of the world is either directly or indirectly involved, too.
The dispute is not localized to the area around the Red Sea and the Straights of Hormuz. On Monday, the Washington Post ran a story revealing the conflict’s astonishing reach across the ocean, landing right on the Democrats’ own doorstep, like a paper bag filled with something nasty:
It’s giving the Democrats a migraine. Everyone is waiting breathlessly to see how they handle this potentially explosive intra-party conflict between the supporters of Israel (the party platform) and the supporters of Palestine. The issue could easily affect the U.S election, if it leads to a party rift.
In other words, the Iran-Israel dispute really has become a global conflict. It’s ubiquitous. It’s affecting everyone. And it’s super hard to deal with.
This morning, I’m not as interested in the conflict’s potential to provoke a World War, which obviously remains a clear and everpresent danger. Nor am I looking (or qualified) to place blame, a mystifying and confusing exercise at best.
What has impressed me most about this story is the historic nature of events.
The nature of this conflict, with its far-reaching effects on international diplomacy, energy markets, and global security, makes it an unprecedented historic moment. Unlike past conflicts, the current clash could reconfigure alliances and influence geopolitics in profound and unexpected ways, making it far more than some regional issue, but an issue of serious global concern.
Thousands of years ago, the Book of Zechariah predicted Jerusalem would climactically become a "cup of trembling" (or "stumbling”) for the nations. Zechariah forecast the Jewish nation would become an ultimate focal point of global conflict, and a heavy burden for all those who seek to control it.
It could be just a coincidence. Three thousand years ago, Zechariah might just have been riffing in religious fervor, or maybe he was high on his own supply of fermented figs. But consider that, until 1948, Israel didn’t even exist as a nation, or even an idea of a nation. Israel had been wiped off the map for two thousand years. If Zechariah was guessing, that was a pretty good guess.
Or maybe I’m just seeing things, applying a modern, post-hoc rationale to the ancient text. Either way, it’s interesting. Let me know what you think in the comments.
☕️ HIGH WIRES ☙ Wednesday, August 14, 2024 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠
Politico notices Musk wins vs EU; Tucker interview reframes Watergate; AP makes accidental observation of Biblical proportions; pressured Olympic Committee pulls the plug on controversial sport; more.
www.coffeeandcovid.com
Yesterday, the Washington Post gave us another chance to learn critical reading skills. The paper’s own David Ignatius, who is up to his neck in deep-state contacts, ran an astonishingly detailed op-ed headlined “An eerie quiet as Biden races to silence the guns in Gaza. The ‘eerie quiet’ was the ostrich-like corporate media ignoring the story of Biden’s continuing failure to broker a peace deal with Hamas, despite holding the leverage of half the U.S. Navy and the full weight of the Central Intelligence Agency, which keeps showing up everywhere these days.
The article was remarkable in that it disclosed so many fresh details. For example, it off-handedly mentioned where a top Hamas leader was sitting yesterday, an underhanded threat (it said Hamas chief Yehiya Sinwar was “trapped underground in Gaza and running out of ammunition and supplies”). It also described fresh intel suggesting that Iran was standing down for the foreseeable future, following the “the biggest American military effort to aid Israel since the 1973 Arab-Israeli War.”
These are details we’ve never heard before. Literally no other corporate media platform is reporting anything like this level of granularity, not even about the record-setting scope of U.S. military involvement. It seems more likely than not that Ignatius was carrying water for the negotiating team.
In other words, the article was intended to be a sneaky message to Hamas. Consider who’s negotiating for the U.S.:
Ignatius didn’t point this out, although he should have, but the CIA, leading the negotiating team, isn’t a diplomatic agency. It’s utterly remarkable, a violation of every diplomatic protocol there is. Where is the State Department? Why isn’t State leading the mediating team, with CIA support?
Let’s try to guess.
The CIA has three missions: information gathering, analysis, and covert operations. Negotiating with Hamas is unlikely to be an ‘information gathering’ mission. Nor is it ‘analysis.’ But it could easily be a covert operation. In other words, Burns isn’t there to negotiate. He’s not trained in that. He’s there running an operation.
If they wanted peace, they’d have real negotiators there. So we can assume the CIA has different goals. Maybe they’re using the conference to find Hamas and root them out. Maybe that’s why Hamas stayed away.
The bottom line is that recognizing the “peace talks” as a CIA covert operation offers much more explanatory power for what we’re observing than does the official narrative. For example, it would explain the CIA chief’s ‘leadership,’ the absence of the State Department, and all the opaqueness around the ‘peace process,’ which looks more like covert ops than traditional diplomacy.
So it’s perhaps unsurprising they haven’t signed a deal; peace might not be the goal. The Biden Administration has never made peace with anyone.
☕️ COACHED ☙ Thursday, August 22, 2024 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠
Daily DNC update for non-watchers; betting markets begin shifting; FTC loses in agency powers case; WaPo dishes truth about peace talks; Trump expands platform; CNN slips in Kamala truth bomb; more.
www.coffeeandcovid.com
Expert discusses Hezbollah's new EMP weapon
The Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jarida reported that Iran has supplied Hezbollah and other Iranian proxy forces with electromagnetic ordnance, which can disable communication systems and shut down radars. Rotem Mey-Tal, CEO of Asgard Systems, a company developing military technology for the defense industry and the initiator of the "30U30 in Defense" competition for 2024, discussed the issue.
First, what is electromagnetic ordnance?
"Describing electromagnetic ordnance is like talking about something no one has ever seen, but everyone understands exists and is present in reality—in our case, on the geopolitical and military chessboard of the Middle East. In essence, imagine lightning striking the building you live in, not hitting a lightning rod or antenna, but the entire building, causing all the electrical panels, water heaters, water and electrical systems, household appliances, computers, television systems, and even life-saving medical systems to stop working. It's like a power outage, but in this case, the systems can also burn out from the inside like in an electrical short."Where is this threat aimed?
"I suspect the threat is more focused on bases, strategic facilities, desalination systems, and the Israeli power grid. However, it's impossible to say precisely, as such a weapon has never been used in history, so there are no sources or references to learn from."Is this an escalation? How do you think such a threat should be addressed?
"In my personal opinion, not only is this an escalation on the map of potential threats, but it should also be regarded as close to a non-conventional weapon threat. Just as no sovereign country would tolerate a non-conventional weapon threat, the same applies here. This is because, in 2024, electronic processors manage and operate all the vital systems in the State of Israel—infrastructure, medical systems, security, and military applications.
PIERS MORGAN: Do you not feel that something has to give here, that this has to get resolved somehow, and that the only way to do that is, as with all these situations, you have to eventually compromise in some way? The problem for Netanyahu is that people think he is completely incapable of offering Hxmas any compromise. Therefore, there is no deal. So the families of the hostages are still there, and hundreds of thousands of protesters in Israel are on the streets of Tel Aviv right now. They are of the firm belief that it's his own intractable position on this, which is not going to allow any kind of ceasefire to be achievable.
DOUGLAS MURRAY: But there it is again, if I can say so, Piers—it's the same thing. There’s this presumption that it’s Netanyahu who is uncompromising. We end up with this notion because Netanyahu is a democratically elected leader, so it’s assumed that some pressure can be brought to bear on him. In my view, it’s not Netanyahu who’s uncompromising—it’s Hxmas. They could have handed back the hostages last October. They could have chosen not to do any of this.
I mean, they could have tried to build a state since 2005 when Israel withdrew from Gaza and handed the place over to them. Hxmas could have used the billions of dollars in aid that British, European, and American taxpayers gave them since 2006. They could have used that money to build up Gaza, to create a thriving, prosperous society. They could have made it a booming Mediterranean paradise. They could have created wealth for their people, but instead, what did they do?
They built downwards instead of upwards. They constructed a tunnel network bigger than the London Underground, and they siphoned off the money, just like Yasser Arafat did before them, making themselves rich. Why is Ismail Haniyeh worth billions of dollars? Why is Khaled Meshaal worth billions? Why do their children live like princes in luxury apartments in Doha?
Because they took the money from Americans, Brits, and Europeans and kept it for themselves, while leaving the people of Gaza in misery and poverty. Since 2005, there has been a complete counterfactual of what could have happened, but the Hxmas leadership didn’t want that. They’ve openly said they’re willing to use Palestinian children as human shields to manipulate world opinion. These are fanatics. They’re willing to sacrifice their own citizens to turn the world against Israel.
Hollywood Celebrities Claim Arms Exports to Israel Are ‘Illegal’ in Latest Ceasefire Push
We stand with international humanitarian and human rights organizations, unions, policymakers, grassroots movements, a majority of Americans, and citizens around the world calling on our leaders to uphold U.S. and international law.*
It is illegal to supply or use weapons to commit “grave human rights violations,” including striking schools or hospitals, restricting humanitarian aid, and killing children.
The always-elusive Hamas Peace Deal brokered by the deep state is going nowhere fast. The Wall Street Journal ran a story yesterday headlined, “CIA Chief Says Fresh Peace Proposal for Israel and Hamas Is Expected in Days.” I guess they need a ‘fresh’ proposal because the old one was starting to stink.
In the same interview where he promised never to give up on negotiating a peace deal in Gaza, CIA Director Bill Burns vowed that Ukraine should keep fighting to the last Ukrainian. No peace deal for Ukraine. Burns said, and I am not making this up, Ukraine shouldn’t negotiate because Putin is cocky and smug.
Completely absent from the useless WSJ article was any curiosity whatsoever about why is the CIA running Middle East peace talks instead of the diplomats from the State Department?
The obvious answer is that the interminable ‘peace talks' are not peace talks at all. They are just a cover for some ongoing CIA operation in the region. Our uncurious corporate media is there to help the CIA in whatever way it needs. Because after all, that is media’s job now.
☕️ TOOTHLESS ☙ Thursday, September 12, 2024 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠
The Haitian Invasion story keeps getting bigger and murkier; CIA tries, tries again for peace deal; pushback for girl's sports by heroic school district; pushback on WHO treaty in Congress; and more.
www.coffeeandcovid.com
Biden Admin Pushes Israel to Give Land to Hezbollah
Making deals with Islamic terrorists doesn't work
- "In its boldest move, Hezbollah sent four drones toward the Karish platform several weeks ago, all of which were intercepted by the Israel Defense Forces," reported The Times of Israel on July 31, 2022.
- This was exactly what surrendering part of the gas field to Hezbollah was supposed to prevent.
- "The proposal for this point involves recognizing it as part of Lebanon, with UN forces deployed there as a neutral party for both sides." — The Jerusalem Post, September 8, 2024.
- United Nations forces are absolutely useless and pull back whenever there's any conflict. (Nor is the UN remotely neutral.)
- Hezbollah will claim any territory it gets and attack anyway because that is what Islamic terrorists do. Hezbollah is backed by Iran. It's going to attack when Tehran tells it to. As an Islamic terror group, attacking non-Muslims and dominating them is a fundamental religious obligation. So making deals with it won't work.
- Just like making deals with Hamas doesn't work.