BRICS or Sanctions

Aspiring members cannot choose both, thereby preventing countries like France, which has previously expressed an interest in joining the growing trade bloc, from obtaining membership:

BRICS applicants can’t join in sanctions against any of the economic bloc’s member states, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said on Thursday, outlining one of the conditions for joining the club.

The group that started as an informal association of Brazil, Russia, India and China has since expanded to nine member states and is expected to discuss further enlargement at its summit in Kazan, Russia later this month.

”One needs to pursue a sovereign policy, have a significant role in international and regional affairs, build good-neighborly and friendly relations with the BRICS countries, and not join in illegitimate sanctions against members of the association,” Ryabkov said at a press conference in Moscow on Thursday, when asked about conditions for aspiring members.

This underlines the absolute and utter stupidity of formerly neutral countries like Sweden and Switzerland giving in to US and EU pressure, abandoning their historical neutralities, and taking sides against Russia. Because now, it’s clear that they’re going to end up losing access to most of the world’s population and half the world’s GDP.

Current BRICS member countries account for about 46% of the world’s population and over 36% of global GDP. At least 34 countries have expressed interest in joining the organization.

It’s a real loss for Switzerland, which has already lost a substantial amount of its historical gold trade to Dubai. True neutrality would have put Switzerland in an ideal position to serve as an economic bridge between the US bloc and the China-Russia bloc, but by choosing to side with the former, they have sacrificed the opportunity to do for global trade what they once did for global diplomacy.

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IDF Attacks Russia?

I assumed this report of an Israeli attack on a Russian air base in Syria had to be some sort of war-porn fiction.

ISRAEL is reportedly hitting “terrorist targets in western Syria and along the Syria coastline.”

So far they’ve hit in Latakia and Tartus, home ports of the Russian Mediterranean Flotilla.

Also the Russian Hmeimim Air Base.

The Russian ammo stockpile there is exploding.

Russian air defenses are reportedly firing at Israeli aircraft.

The strikes occurred an hour after the arrival of an Iranian plane belonging to “Qashim Fars” airline.

The source of the bombing is not yet confirmed, but it reportedly involved 30 missiles fired from naval battleships between 3:55 and 4:41 AM.

However, the mainstream reports do at least confirm that the IDF attacked a weapons depot “near” the Russian air base.

Israeli conducted strikes near the Syrian coast this morning, with explosions reported in the vicinity of the Russian-operated Khmeimim Air Base, near the city of Latakia. At this stage, it’s not clear if the Russian airfield was actually hit, deliberately or otherwise — which would be a first. Either way, however, the attacks represent a notable escalation in terms of Israel’s willingness to prosecute targets that are very close to this key Russian military facility in Syria and a major point of pride for Moscow.

Initial accounts from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a U.K.-based information office, describe attacks in the coastal Latakia province, with targets including an ammunition warehouse said to be near Jablah city, not far from Khmeimim Air Base. Weapons supplied by Iran and destined for Hezbollah, its Lebanese ally and proxy, often are delivered first to Syria, for onward transit to Lebanon. The suggestion here is that Iranian munitions headed for the militant group were targeted soon after they arrived in Syria.

So, it’s unclear. And while Russia Today doesn’t have anything about the attack – or near-attack – this announcement today may be related.

The Russian ambassador to Israel, Anatoly Viktorov, has urged Russian citizens to leave the Jewish state in view of the increasing tensions in the region.

They may have invented the word, but I find it very, very difficult to imagine that the Israelis would be so full of chutzpah that they would choose to go hot with the Russians. Even the US neocons have had more sense than to push for that. I mean, I don’t see how the IDF can even hope to handle the Iranians with or without the US military.

I sincerely hope this is an exaggeration, if not a complete fabrication.

UPDATE: It was an exaggeration. But it was pretty close, being only 1.5 kilometers away from the base.

Reports of the Russian Hmeimim Military Base being hit by an Israeli airstrike are false. We have geolocated the video and photo. The photo was taken from the second or third floor of ‘al-Salom Gym’, 35.3721083, 35.9250677, Jableh, Syria. The most likely areas of target are shown on the map as “1” and “2” – although the Russian base (shown on the map) is approximately 1,500 meters away from either target site.

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Will, Not Could

Emmanuel Macron is half-right. But it’s not a situation where the European Union “could die”, it’s one where the collapse of the European Union is absolutely inevitable.

Emmanuel Macron has admitted that the EU ‘could die’ as he issued a dire warning about the bloc’s economy. The French President told the Berlin Global Dialogue event that the EU was over-regulating and under-investing. He also pointed out that both China and the USA outstripped the 27 member-bloc in economic output and investment.

In words reported by the Daily Telegraph, Macron said: ‘The EU could die, we are on a verge of a very important moment. Our former model is over – we are over-regulating and under-investing. In the two to three years to come, if we follow our classical agenda we will be out of the market’.

One of the central tenets of the EU is the “free movement of people”. Which is a necessary component of free trade; the benefits of free trade necessarily derive from labor and capital flowing to the places where production is most advantageous. This already produces serious problems, but with financialization, globalism, and debt completely interfering with these flows, the costs of free movement are even worse than they should be while the benefits are never realized.

Either the nations collapse into civil war and barbarism or the EU does. And it’s clear that more than one-third of the native populations have already figured this out. The worse things get, the more people will understand that the status quo is simply not an option.

And, of course, they’re doing what all bureaucrats do when faced with failure: prescribing more of the poison that is already killing them.

Former Italian Prime Minister and former European Central Bank chief, Mario Draghi, said that the bloc cannot compete alone with the likes of China and the United States and needs a far more integrated single market to create pan-European businesses of the require global scale. 

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Satanists Confirmed

The evils of the Hellmouth are no secret to anyone who reads this site. But it’s remarkable to see individuals with direct and extensive experience of Hollywood confirming what everyone here already knows.

Hercules actor Kevin Sorbo dropped a massive bombshell Tuesday, claiming he left the entertainment industry because of a proliferation of pedophilia.

I didn’t get “blacklisted” from Hollywood, I left because they’re all pedos.
— Kevin Sorbo (@ksorbs) October 1, 2024

It was previously believed the Hercules: The Legendary Journeys actor had left or was pushed out of Hollywood over his conservative views and Christian beliefs; however, his new commentary sheds light on the real reasons he left the industry.

The Satanists of the Hellmouth hide behind the protection provided to them by Holocaustianity. They are not evil because they are of any particular genetic heritage – to the best of our current understanding, anyhow – they are evil because they quite literally worship Satan and are consciously at war with God Almighty, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ of Nazareth, and heritage America. Deviant sexual practices are a significant element of their wicked rites, which includes the systematic sexual abuse of children.

Ben Hirsch, the cofounder of Survivors for Justice, an organization that advocates for victims of sexual abuse in Orthodox communities, suggested that the rate of abuse could exceed 50 percent for boys within Hasidic enclaves.

As the growing P. Diddy scandal shows, it’s not about race or nationality, but religion. Specifically, about the secret satanic religion behind Clown World that promises earthly success in lieu of eternal salvation. While the authorities are no doubt doing their utmost to contain the damage being caused by the Sean Combs revelations, the truth is gradually being exposed, drop by drop. And it is good, in fact, it is declared, that we will hate the wicked, just as they hate us. We are fortunate that they make it so very easy for us to do so by their abominable practices. The only “god” by whom they are chosen is the god of this world.

The just abhor the wicked man: and the wicked loathe them that are in the right way.
— Proverbs 29:27

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The Same Failed Strategy

If what we’re hearing in the news reports concerning the US-Israeli strategy is even remotely true, the Tel Aviv regime is going to fail as comprehensively, and quite possibly, as catastrophically, as the Kiev regime. First, as Larry Johnson points out, the IDF is spreading itself too thin by attacking on too many fronts.

Israel is not in a position to fight a multi-front war and it does not have the strategic depth to fight wars of attrition. And that’s exactly what it’s got itself into now. It’s not going to be able to finish off Hezbollah in a week. It couldn’t even finish off Hamas in 12 months. It’s not going to be able to finish off Syria, finish off the Houthis or finish off Iran… That’s what Israel fails to understand. It does not have the ability to sustain itself in these kinds of operations for an extended period of time.

The idea, of course, is to get themselves overwhelmed – or at least present the appearance of being overwhelmed – and thereby force the USA to bail them out. This isn’t an unreasonable concept based on the history of the Arab-Israeli wars, as going back to the Ottoman Empire, an external force has always been stepping in to freeze any conflict that looked like it was heading for a transformative conclusion, whether it was the Ottomans, the British, the Soviets, or the USA. And, of course, invading Iran on behalf of Israel has been the primary objective of the US-based neocons since Michael Ledeen turned “Faster, Please” into the “Carthago delenda est” for them back in 2005.

Thus far, no Western leader has endorsed the call for an Iranian referendum. Now is the time. If the mullahs unexpectedly accept it, they will either receive confirmation of their claims to legitimacy, or be permitted to peacefully leave their posts. If they reject it, then no Western leader will be able to dismiss the calls for democratic revolution in Iran, and a united West can do for Iran what was done for Ukraine.

“A united West can do for Iran what was done for Ukraine.” That certainly did not age well; I’m absolutely certain the Iranian people do not see Ukraine as a positive model for themselves and that they would very much like to avoid the fate of the Ukrainians.

What struck me most, however, is the way that the neocons are relying upon their usual strategy for winning an Iran-Israeli war. What strategy is that? You guessed it: regime change. That’s why the media is relentlessly pushing the rhetoric that the missile attack “failed,” that it was “an embarrassment,” and that the Tehran regime was “humiliated.” The idea is to cause the government to collapse and be replaced by one more willing to surrender, just like Russia has surrendered due to all of the failures, embarrassments, and humiliations endured by Vladimir Putin over the last two years.

This is, of course, retarded. But as far as I can tell, and insofar as the global media has specifically articulated it, that’s the actual objective here. Note the video in which a British Sky News reporter asks an Iranian professor if Iran lost a “war” to Israel – by which he clearly meant an exchange of air and missile strikes, not an actual war on the ground – could the Iranian regime survive? The professor just laughed at him, and rightly so; this is a government that survived 600,000 fatalities and eight years of very bloody air, sea, and land war in defeating the invading Iraqi forces despite the massive assistance provided to Saddam Hussein by the USA, the French, and the Arab states.

It is evident that the US-Israeli plan for victory is to hope that the other side simply doesn’t have the stomach for any direct conflict that lasts more than a few weeks. But while that plan has worked in the past, Persians are no more Arabs than the Afghans or the Russians are.

UPDATE: Apparently this is the Dahiya doctrine, conceived by an IDF Chief of General Staff, Col. Gabi Siboni. Either he read too much Douhet or he didn’t pay enough attention to the complete failure of the Allied air campaign against Germany during WWII to achieve its objectives, let alone force regime change.

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They’re SO Not There To Help

The federal government does not want to help you. It has been actively trying to kill you, and attempting to interfere with anyone who gets in the way. This attempt to shut down donations and volunteers in Tennessee is no different than the attacks on all the doctors, nurses, and people speaking out in public about the dangers of the vaxx. Numerous people on social media are reporting some form of the following:

The feds are confiscating donations in Tennessee

Red Cross and FEMA/TEMA has arrived and all donations that has been given to local high school volunteers have been CONFISCATED.

Starting with Davy Crockett High school, They are taking over all volunteer schools in Washington Co, & Greene County.

In order for anyone to get donations that was given they must be approved.

All monetary donations have been taken as well and placed into a TEMA account. If you are unaware of how that works- those items doesn’t all get used for this particular disaster.

Volunteers have been asked to leave, and was told in order to help they MUST be trained by United Way.

PLEASE, I know I already made a post on Red Cross and FEMA the other day, but please if you donate, donate to a church or give to individuals.

They can not take supplies from churchs! Church members will make sure your donations get to the correct hands.

We are still taking donations here, as well as picking up donations this weekend- our donations will be going directly to church’s for them to help the communities.

I know several others that are picking up donations and taking them as well.

And if you would rather donate directly to a church for a church to take- I can put you in contact with churches also.

UPDATE: If that wasn’t bad enough, members of the 82nd Airborne, based in North Carolina, are being denied passes to go home and help their families, because the clowns in Washington deem it more important for them to be on call to go and fight for Israel, as despite all of the billions and billions in US funding provided over the years, apparently there are doubts that the IDF can defeat a Lebanese militia without their assistance.

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History Number Seven

Yesterday we announced that the October-November-December 2024 book for Castalia History, Book Seven in the series, will be A Bibliography of English Military Books up to 1642 and of Contemporary Foreign Works. With an Introductory Note by Charles Oman. Edited by H.D. Cockle. For more details of why we selected this excellent and extremely rare book, visit the Castalia Library substack. Below is an image from one of the 900 books listed that was published in 1625.

In other news, the Hypergamouse campaign is soldiering on toward its second stretch goal. Lacey is wrapping up the cover and we’re selecting a pair of artists for potential alternative covers.

And the September-October Library/Libraria book is JANE EYRE by Charlotte Brontë. We’ve heard back from the bindery in Tennessee, and while several roads are washed out and they’ve repeatedly lost power, everyone is all right, our books are dry, and the schedule for both WAR AND PEACE and STUDIES IN THE NAPOLEONIC WARS should be more or less on time.

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A Question of Identity

The debate moderators asked Tim Walz why he lied about being in China during the Tiananmen Square Massacre. After rambling for two minutes about sometimes being a knucklehead and getting caught up in the rhetoric it seemed like Tim Walz admitted lying. When the moderator asked him to explain why he lied he backtracked and claimed he was in China during the massacre despite photographic evidence he was in Nebraska at the time.

Obviously the man identifies as having been a Chinese student in a specific geolocation in the space-time continuum. What does “photographic evidence” have to do with anything? After all, this is a man who not only believes that men can identify as women, but ordered tampons put into the boys rooms in schools in support of those theoretical alternate realities.

The fact that anyone would ever even consider voting for the Harris-Walz ticket, combined with the fact that 1,312,349 people voted to RE-ELECT Walz as the Governor of Minnesota, is sufficient proof that representative democracy is an unmitigated catastrophe and a worse form of government than monarchy, the lottery, or pretty much any other historical or imaginary form of government.

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An Incoherent Narrative

Both Israel and the USA are crowing that the Iranian missile attack did absolutely no harm whatsoever to Israel. Ha ha ha, so very funny!

  • Israel’s defence system halts barrage of missiles as Iran’s attack falls flat.
  • In a major embarrassment for Iran, the US said that the missile volley was ‘defeated and ineffective’, with just one reported death – a Palestinian man who was killed by shrapnel in the West Bank.
  • Iran’s Missile Barrage Fails Again
  • Like its previous attack in April of 2024, the onslaught failed to leave a mark on the Jewish state.
  • IDF says no harm… It emphasized that there was no damage to the “competence” of the Israeli Air Force in the attack, and said the IAF’s planes, air defenses, and air traffic control were operating normally.

In some reports, there is whiplash, as the narrative lurches from one extreme to the other:

As Iran unleashed a salvo of missiles, ordered by its supreme leader Ali Khamenei, falling projectiles burned like comets against the night sky after the rockets were intercepted by Israel’s ‘Iron Dome’ defensive system. The sickening attack, which Israel has vowed to exact revenge for…

What is “sickening” about an embarrassingly “ineffective” attack “failed to leave a mark” and harmed almost no one? And how is one salvo of missiles a “major escalation” in response to a) days of relentless bombing of a foreign country and b) a ground invasion of a foreign country?

Meanwhile, Iran claims to have fired Fattah-2 hypersonic missiles, and there is video evidence of at least three hitting their targets. So unless Iran did not actually fire the missiles and the videos are from Ukraine, the IDF is obviously lying; the best US systems have not been able to shoot down any Russian hypersonics in Ukraine. That being said, it’s highly unlikely that any F-35s were destroyed on the ground and the Iranian claim that “a large number of tanks were destroyed” can almost certainly be dismissed in the absence of any satellite imagery or videos showing the wrecks.

However, the one thing that can be believed amidst all the ridiculous lies and hypocrisy is the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps warning about what will happen if Israel doesn’t heed the Iranian message: “If the Zionist regime responds to our attack, our next strikes will be more destructive.”

It’s clear from the incoherency of the Clown World narrative that they’re not sure what to do in light of the usual rhetoric falling so flat. When NATO “allies” are calling for a UN invasion of Israel and most of the world is wondering how Russia, Belarus, and China are being sanctioned while Israel isn’t despite the customary media barrage, it’s clear that no amount of rhetoric will change the new power dynamic.

And what use is Israel’s so-called “Samson Option” in deterring the sovereign nations? Seeing Israel set off suitcase nukes in some European capitals in an attack that couldn’t possibly be blamed on them would be seen as a very fortunate development in Beijing, Moscow, and Tehran.

Regardless, the present small-scale war in the Middle East isn’t going to be settled by air strikes any more than the much larger-scale war in Ukraine will be. And it’s already evident that Hezbollah’s ability to engage on the ground hasn’t been seriously affected by the air war.

Hezbollah has launched more than 100 rockets into Israel, with the group claiming it has targeted troops massing on the border as the Israeli Defence Forces ordered more troops and armoured units to join its ground invasion of Lebanon. Hezbollah said this morning that its forces had confronted Israeli soldiers who were infiltrating the southern village of Adaisseh and forced them to retreat.

This is the fourth Israeli invasion of Lebanon since 1979. What it is supposed to accomplish that the others didn’t is very unclear at this time. As far as I can tell, the Israeli strategy is to continue escalating until the USA declares war on Iran, while hoping that Russia, Turkiye, and China all stand by and do nothing. That might have worked in 1991, or even as late as 2008, but I very much doubt it will do so in 2024. The tail may be able to wag the dog, but it’s a terrible idea when the dog is facing a bear.

And/or a dragon. China is very unhappy with the USA’s continued interference in its internal affairs, as a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry made clear yesterday.

Phoenix TV: The White House announced on its website the decision to provide around US$ 567 million military assistance to China’s Taiwan region. What’s China’s comment?

Lin Jian: The US again provides weapons to China’s Taiwan region, which seriously violates the one-China principle and the three China-US joint communiqués, especially the August 17 Communiqué of 1982. The move is in fact emboldening Lai Ching-te and the DPP authorities as they cling to the stance of “Taiwan independence” and make deliberate provocations on the one-China principle. This once again shows that the separatist moves for “Taiwan independence” and connivance and support for such moves from US-led external forces are the biggest threat facing cross-Strait peace and stability and cause the greatest disruption to the real status quo in the Taiwan Strait. Let me be clear, “Taiwan independence” separatism is a dead end and what the US has done to assist the “Taiwan independence” attempt by arming Taiwan will only backfire. We urge the US to earnestly abide by the one-China principle and the three China-US joint communiqués, and stop arming Taiwan in any form. No matter how many weapons the US provides to the Taiwan region, it will never weaken our firm will in opposing “Taiwan independence,” and safeguarding China’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity.

UPDATE: Apparently Hezbollah wasn’t just blowing smoke. Ground operations are always more costly than air operations in terms of human life. And while the Israelis claim to have killed 20 Hezbollah “operatives”, that’s an equation that favors the Hezbollah-Iranian alliance even if the number isn’t exaggerated. Martin van Creveld has repeatedly warned that Hezbollah’s light infantry is very good, even if they don’t have much in the way of armor or artillery, and absolutely no air support.

The IDF announced the first fatalities of Israel’s ground operation in Lebanon on Wednesday after eight soldiers were killed during battles against Hezbollah operatives in the south of the country.

It is perhaps worth noting that this means the first day of the invasion has already accounted for 6.6 percent of the 2006 war’s IDF fatalities. That indicates that if the current conflict lasts as long as the previous one, it will cost Israel about twice as much in terms of manpower. I find it hard to imagine that any objective that can be reasonably achieved will be worth that cost. If killing Lebanese is the goal, the air strikes have already accomplished that at a much lower cost to Israel.

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Hunting Neil Gaiman

The investigative reporters behind the Tortoise Media reports that exposed Neil Gaiman as an alleged sex predator speak out about how they went down the rabbit hole.

Paul Caruana Galizia: The risk was was we end up telling a story of what he might describe as a messy and difficult sexual relationship, and that he’d never done anything like that before, and it’s a he said-she said situation. As Rachel mentioned, we heard from Scarlett an allegation that there were other women, and which is one we took seriously as well and was also another big public interest test for us. If he’s done this many, many times, then there’s are stronger reasons to do this story. You know, you might argue that he is a threat to young, vulnerable women and that he uses his image to lure them in to problematic sexual relationships, which is also an issue, and so we started exploring all those things. It took a while to break through this real silence around him and this real culture of secrecy and fear, actually, and so speaking up was really quite difficult for them. It took months of turning over stones until we got a lead to a woman who told us that she met Neil Gaiman when she was 18, at a book signing, and began a sexual relationship within two years, and her descriptions of that sexual relationship matched in really precise ways what Scarlet had told us even though they were separated by two decades and many continents.

Rachel Johnson: As far as we were concerned one of the public interests was the fact that Neil Gaiman’s persona and also his career placed him in continuous contact with young admiring women there was his social media activity which is very intense. He connected with fans all the time. There were his book signings, his attendance at readings and and conventions again placing him with young fans, impressionable fans, and then of course the fact that he had a child and this was where Scarlet comes in. So that meant that we felt there was a strong public interest in reporting the allegations, because
several of the women said to us, ‘we don’t want him to be cancelled, we just want him to stop, we just want him to be held accountable for his behavior in these situations with very young women.’

As I said from the start, there was absolutely no way, no chance at all, that the encounter with Scarlett was the first, or even the tenth, time he’d done something like that. Players are going to play, haters are going to hate, Gammas are going to gamma, and predators are going to prey upon starry-eyed young women who are overly impressed by media whoredom.

But regardless of what happens in the end, these brave women have accomplished something that is both worthwhile, unthinkable, and well worthy of note. They’ve actually caused the most relentless self-promoter in the entertainment industry to stop promoting himself in public for the first time since he was seven years old.

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