Category: Uncategorized

Rumblings in the East

A US general is removed from duty two months early:

Reports are circulating this morning claiming Lt. Gen. Charles D. Costanza, the Commanding General of the U.S. Army’s V Corps, forward based out of Camp Kościuszko, Poland and tasked with the defense of NATO’s Eastern Front, has been removed from command.

NATO’s “eastern Front” is Russia.

The reports allege there has been no official reason given (to the public) for this removal.

The reports conclude that the General had “only two months remaining” on his tenure.

Many, MANY, questions are being asked about this. What did the General do — or refuse to do — that caused his alleged removal?

Clown World wants NATO to go to war with Russia. Their pet politicians will do as they are told, but only to the limits of their capabilities, which are barely capable of keeping the lid on their own captive peoples. Which means that whatever false flags are utilized by the European militaries will have to be overseen, if not necessarily assisted directly, by the US military in Europe.

And while most US generals are not courageous in the political sense, they are not stupid and they are not suicidal. One of the more fascinating things about the various US military defeats is how few casualties have been taken by the US military, even when it is losing. That is a sign that everything isn’t lost as far as the military goes, and I strongly suspect that the generals are very actively obstructing the Trump administration and the other shot-callers for Clown World.

Which may be why Gen. Costanza was removed from command. But I very much doubt they’re going to find any American general willing to help start a completely unnecessary war with Russia that will almost certainly lead to defeat and the Russian occupation of Germany.

DISCUSS ON SG

Translation: The Baltics Will Attack Russia

NATO strategists really assume that the rest of the world is stupid:

U.S. intelligence reports raised new alarms that Russian President Vladimir Putin could provoke a NATO nation with a limited attack as early as this fall, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on Aug. 6.

According to WSJ, officials in Washington previously believed that an attack on a NATO ally would not occur amid Russia’s preoccupation with its war in Ukraine. The new-found belief by U.S. intelligence matches a chorus of similar warnings made by European officials in recent months.

In June, the head of Germany’s army, Lieutenant General Christian Freuding, cautioned that Russia might have the capabilities to strike NATO countries within the next three years. According to WSJ, U.S. officials believe that a large-scale hybrid-warfare attack, or even limited land incursion, may come between the fall of this year and 2029.

The latest intelligence report comes amid warnings from European countries that Russia may also attempt to use false flag-style attacks using Ukrainian-made drones to strike critical infrastructure in the Baltic region.

The whole thing is ridiculous. Russia has the ability to strike every single NATO country, including the USA, right now. And Russia doesn’t require any false flags in order to strike back against the NATO countries already attacking it, including Germany, France, and the UK.

Frankly, Russian forbearance has been astonishing. The Clown World puppets ruling over their European satrapies are fortunate that Vladimir Putin, and not one of his many more militant supporters, is the one calling the shots in Moscow.

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Neocons Scurry for Cover

Even Robert Kagan, the King Neocon himself, is not so much walking back his bellicose imperialism as running away from it:

In 1997, Kagan co-founded Project for the New American Century, a neoconservative think tank that lobbied for a muscular foreign policy and the maintenance of U.S. global hegemony. The group exercised its considerable influence to push regime change in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Kagan’s advocacy has always been based on a belief that the world would collapse into disorder without American leadership, even though U.S. military misadventures have repeatedly destabilized parts of the world.

So, is Robert Kagan now reconsidering his past hawkishness? I interviewed him to find out. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Martin Di Caro: Are you undergoing a conversion? Is that fair?

Robert Kagan: I don’t think so, because I never denied that blowback was a reality. In fact, my writing shows that when the United States is out there acting in the world, Americans tend to not even be aware of the effect of American power on other nations. And so they’re constantly shocked whenever the use of American power leads to a response. The best example is Japan and Pearl Harbor. Many Americans acted like it was out of the blue when Japan attacked us when, in fact, the U.S. pursued policies that were likely to lead to a Japanese attack. The same was true of 9/11 in the sense that it was at least in part a response to the American presence in the Middle East.

The question is, do you act even though you know that there is going to be blowback because the stakes are worth it. So, I never doubted it and, as I say, recognizing the effect of American power on other nations is an important part of my history.

Di Caro: Yet for decades you have advocated for U.S. interventionism and, in the case of the Iraq invasion of 2003, a preemptive war…

Kagan: Wait a minute. Can we stop right there? When you say that I’ve advocated for intervention for decades, what in particular are you talking about? I certainly supported the interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo, but it’s not like I was just calling for intervention everywhere at all times. That’s a shorthand that you use, but it’s what people think, you know?

Di Caro: Do you reject the neoconservative label?

Kagan: I do reject it, not only because it has taken on connotations that I think are frankly antisemitic, but because it’s just a bad description of what I am. What I am is a liberal. Lib-er-al. My foreign policy is liberal. If you look back on the history of American foreign policy, the people who have pursued the policies that I favor have always tended to be progressive and liberal. And conservative foreign policy in America has always tended to be in the direction of restraint. I worked for the neoconservatives. I worked for Irving Kristol. They were called neoconservatives because they had been on the left and then they were newly on the right.

Now, all of this is absolutely absurd, as Simplicius notes.

Someone is extremely defensive over the repudiation of what is essentially his life’s work. This is nothing more than a desperate attempt to salvage credibility. In accordance with the extremely tetchy tenor of his responses, Kagan again reverts to knee-jerk defensiveness… It’s clear he realizes how bad he looks in hindsight and can’t help but adopt an almost whiny tone in attempting to rewrite his key role in America’s geopolitical depletion.

I’ve read Kagan’s books, and he’s been methodically retreating from the idea that America’s military can impose satanic imperialism on the world for nearly 20 years now, despite his previous advocacy of it. The jungle, as he calls it, has proven to be significantly more resistant to the order he wishes to impose out of the chaos that he, his wife, and the other neocons have been causing for at least the last 40 years.

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Air Supremacy Established

But not in the Middle East, in the Gulf, or in Iran. In Ukraine:

Numerous reports are coming in from several different geographic areas of Ukraine claiming “Ukraine has no more air defenses.” Those reports go on to say that Russian missiles and drones “are not being intercepted AT ALL.”

Last night in Kiev, Russia targeted the capital with 4 Zircon/Oniks missiles, 24 Iskander-M/S-400 missiles, and 115 strike UAVs including Shahed (mostly jet-powered), Gerbera, and Italmas types, as well as “Parodiya” decoy drones (98 shot down). The Ukrainian Air Force reported that air defense forces failed to shoot down any Russian missiles overnight.

This morning, Russian Combat Aircraft had complete freedom over the war zone, carrying Fuel-Air-Bombs (FABs) directly to the front lines to blow up Ukraine positions, without being fired upon even once by surface to air defenses. Russia now has absolute air superiority at the front, Russian bombers are flying for the first time since 2023 right up to the front lines again – which makes it far easier to drop heavy bombs.

With this new development, the last Ukrainian fortress belt in the Donbass will fall in the autumn.

The boots on the ground are still necessary to take the ground and win the war. But the key component has now been established.

DISCUSS ON SG

The Daily Machiavelli

Having finished with their collective read of THE GUNS OF MARS, the subscribers of Castalia Library voted on the next Library work to be excerpted daily. The vote went as follows:

  • 16% Pensées
  • 23% History of Florence
  • 23% History of Freedom of Thought
  • 12% De Bello Gallico
  • 27% Discourses on Livy

And so we have begun the daily excerpting of Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus Livius by Niccolò Machiavelli. Today features the introduction, so it’s not too late to join in and read along:

Although the envious nature of men, so prompt to blame and so slow to praise, makes the discovery and introduction of any new principles and systems as dangerous almost as the exploration of unknown seas and continents, yet, animated by that desire which impels me to do what may prove for the common benefit of all, I have resolved to open a new route, which has not yet been followed by any one, and may prove difficult and troublesome, but may also bring me some reward in the approbation of those who will kindly appreciate my efforts.

And if my poor talents, my little experience of the present and insufficient study of the past, should make the result of my labors defective and of little utility, I shall at least have shown the way to others, who will carry out my views with greater ability, eloquence, and judgment, so that if I do not merit praise, I ought at least not to incur censure.

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It’s Not Happening

Now George RR Martin can’t even write blog posts without help because he’s depressed.

George RR Martin has opened up about experiencing depression during a “stressful” and “overwhelming” year, as readers continue to await the long-delayed sixth instalment of his A Song of Ice and Fire series.

The 77-year-old American author, whose fantasy novels shaped and inspired the hit HBO television series Game of Thrones, wrote candidly about his recent difficulties in his first personal blog post for almost six months.

“This year has been … stressful, to say the least,” he wrote in a post titled Better Late Than Never. “So much has been happening, it’s been overwhelming. Some great things, exciting things. Dreams coming true. But there have been nightmares too. I have lost friends. Battled sadness and depression. The worst may be yet to come.”

He explained that posts published on his website since February had been written by his assistants because he had continued to fall behind despite their help.

Martin, who turns 78 in September, also reflected on ageing; “getting old is no fun”, he wrote, although he added that the year had contained “amazing times” alongside its difficulties.

“I suppose that’s just life. Of course, I knew that. If you’ve read my stories, you know that.”

Among the year’s highlights, Martin noted that A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, HBO’s Game of Thrones prequel based on his Tales of Dunk and Egg novellas, had received nine Emmy nominations, including for outstanding drama series.

His comments come amid continued speculation about The Winds of Winter, the planned sixth and penultimate novel in A Song of Ice and Fire. The book has been in progress since the publication of the fifth instalment, A Dance with Dragons, in 2011, and has become one of the most eagerly awaited novels in modern publishing. No publication date has been announced.

Yet another sound reason to support the Byron AI…

Because once he’s gone, there is no way whomever turns out to be his literary heir doesn’t sell off the rights to a corporation that will finish it.

DISCUSS ON SG

5GW Meets 3GW

The militaries of the West are not even remotely ready to fight WWIII:

A top military official has claimed that Nato is more than a decade behind Russia’s military capabilities, months after a British brigade was wiped out by a Ukrainian unit in war games. Last year, the UK took part in a war simulation in Estonia involving more than 16,000 troops from 12 Nato countries but were ‘destroyed’ by Ukrainian troops in a ‘horrible’ defeat.

The embarrassing loss came only months before Ukraine’s former commander-in-chief warned that it will take more than a decade for Nato to catch up to half of Russia’s military capabilities. Valerii Zaluzhny, considered to be one of the most trusted public figures in Ukraine, has said Nato was still behaving as if future conflicts would be similar to the Second World War.

Kyiv’s ambassador to Britain reportedly said: ‘Most likely, Nato will remain in the same form as it is, and will spend 12 years, like Ukraine, transitioning to standards that need to be achieved in order to reach at least half of the level of the Russian Federation.’ The former general added that Ukrainian forces were superior to armies in Nato, who were still working to ‘doctrines’ set up in the 1940s, according to The Times.

It’s not possible. The Western fake democracies have degenerated under six decades of liberalism, feminism, and immigration, so their capacity to even make the necessary decisions to begin catching up is nonexistent.

It’s not an exaggeration to contemplate the possibility that 5GW marks the effective end of the West’s centuries of dominance.

DISCUSS ON SG

The Next Step

The first two Veriphysics works have been very well received and reviewed. However, a comprehensive philosophical system for the 21st Century requires more than a critique of the flaws of the dominant current philosophy, it requires a Metaphysics, an Ethics, and perhaps even a Politics if it is to provide a coherent system by which men can live their lives. After all, now that we have the key to the door that Kant locked, we still need to know what to do with that access to the Real.

I’ve been working on a structure of the metaphysics of Veriphysics for a few months, and have reached the point that I’m now beginning to lay out the skeleton. So if this sort of thing is of interest to you – and I am entirely aware that it will not be to most readers – you might want to start following the Veriphysics site that has lain fallow since June.

However, for love of all that is Good and Beautiful and True, do resist the temptation to try to demonstrate what a Smart Boy you are by proving that you’ve read a little Plato, or Spinoza, or Augustine and are familiar with their various definitions of seemingly relevant concepts. That sort of triviality doesn’t even get you past the bar for entry to the discussion here.

Just to be perfectly clear, I think anyone who is retarded enough to opine without having first read the relevant books and papers in their entirety, and preferably at least twice, should be sterilized on sight.

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A Negative Indicator

Trucking companies are starting to go under.

Ten freight and freight-dependent businesses filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the same two-week window. The most alarming is Eagle Logistics, a large carrier with 151 trucks and over 240 drivers, which operated a dedicated U.S. Postal Service route. Eagle listed assets of less than $50,000 and liabilities of up to $10 million. That’s a catastrophic insolvency. Also on the list are intermodal drayage carriers, livestock haulers, and warehousing providers. The crisis is national: California, Michigan, Wisconsin, New Jersey—the map of distress is spreading.

These bankruptcies tell us that companies can no longer pass on the cost of fuel to their customers, and they can no longer absorb the losses themselves. They are simply shutting their doors.

It’s always a concern when the economic pipelines start seizing up. Playing more financial games isn’t going to prop the faltering real economy up much longer.

DISCUSS ON SG

TRANSLATION: Cádiz

The eighth volume of the Episodios Nacionales, the great historical novel cycle of Spain, Cádiz carries Gabriel Araceli into the besieged island city where Spain’s first constitution is being born, and where a drawing-room intrigue will end in blood on the sand.

It is 1810, and Cádiz is the last free city in Spain. While French cannon fire arcs across the bay and the newly convened Cortes debates sovereignty, freedom of the press, and the abolition of feudal lordships, Gabriel finds himself entangled in a world of tertulias and domestic politics more dangerous than any battlefield. The condesa Amaranta needs his help to recover her secret daughter, Inés, from the household of the formidable doña María de Rumblar, a Catholic absolutist matriarch who has imprisoned the girl behind the walls of a household so rigidly governed it resembles a convent. To reach Inés, Gabriel must navigate a social minefield: the effusive doña Flora, whose speeches are torrents of self-interruption and genuine warmth; the feckless young Count Don Diego, who is supposed to marry Inés for family advantage; and the absurd Don Pedro del Congosto, commander of a militia so magnificently incompetent that its members are named after parrots and peacocks.

At the centre of everything is Lord Gray, a brilliant, melancholic Englishman who delivers dazzling speeches against his own country, joins the beggars at the Carmen convent for the philosophical experience, and quotes Byron while systematically destroying the people around him. Gabriel believes Lord Gray is pursuing Inés. He is wrong. The truth, when it comes, is worse than anything Gabriel has imagined.

The Episodios Nacionales is a cycle of forty-six historical novels tracing the history of Spain from the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 through the Restoration of the 1870s. Written between 1872 and 1912, the cycle is one of the supreme achievements of European fiction — a work that stands with Balzac’s Comédie Humaine and Trollope’s Palliser and Barchester novels as a panoramic portrait of an entire nation across a century of upheaval. This is the first complete English translation of the eighth volume.

CÁDIZ by Benito Pérez Galdós is this week’s new translation. It is the eighth of the first series of the Episodios Nacionales and was translated from the original Spanish by Vox Day. The ebooks have already gone out to the subscribers. It’s now available on Amazon for Kindle, KU, and audiobook. An excerpt is available at Castalia Library.