Tag: war

Michael Snyder notes three very dangerous developments that have the potential to lead to significant large-scale conflict on Zerohedge.

• Israel has been striking Iranian military targets inside Syria for months, but now the rules of engagement have apparently changed, because in recent days the IDF has started conducting airstrikes against Iranian targets inside Iraq. The reason this is being called “an unprecedented move” is because this is the very first time since 1981 that we have seen Israeli airstrikes inside Iraq. Needless to say, these latest airstrikes have absolutely enraged the Iranians.  It looks like the Israeli government has determined that any Iranian military targets outside of Iran itself are fair game, and it is probably only a matter of time before Iran strikes back in a major way.
• The political protests that have made global headlines in Hong Kong in recent weeks have greatly angered the Chinese government.  They were probably hoping that the protests would quickly subside and soon be forgotten, but that hasn’t happened. So now China is faced with a decision.  If such protests were happening elsewhere in China, they would be brutally crushed, but Hong Kong is a special case. If the Chinese are too harsh with the protesters in Hong Kong, that could turn world opinion against them, but if they do nothing that could encourage protests to start happening in other area of the country. In the end, the Chinese will probably do what they always do, and that means crushing the opposition.
• North Korea just fired two more missiles into the ocean. The North Koreans are greatly alarmed by the joint military drills that the U.S. and South Korea will soon be conducting, and whenever they get greatly upset about something they seem to express that displeasure by firing off more missiles.

Of the three, I think the Hong Kong situation is the most delicate and the North Korean one the most trivial. North Korea has carried out more than 80 strategic missile tests since Kim Jong-On became Supreme Leader in 2011, so what do two more signify? However, there is also a fourth major development that is probably as dangerous as all three of those situations combined, but is little noted in the USA as yet because it doesn’t involve Israel or China or nukes.

Turkey has threatened to re-open the floodgates of mass migration to Europe unless Turkish nationals are granted visa-free travel to the European Union. The EU agreed to visa liberalization in a March 2016 EU-Turkey migrant deal in which Ankara pledged to stem the flow of migrants to Europe. In an interview with Turkish television channel TGRT Haber on July 22, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Çavuşoğlu said that Turkey was backing out of the migrant deal because the EU had failed to honor its pledge to grant Turkish passport holders visa-free access to 26 European countries.

“We have suspended the readmission agreement,” he said. “We will not wait at the EU’s door.”

A day earlier, Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu accused European countries of leaving Turkey alone to deal with the migration issue. In comments published by the state news agency Anadolu Agency, he warned:

“We are facing the biggest wave of migration in history. If we open the floodgates, no European government will be able to survive for more than six months. We advise them not to try our patience.”

The migration deal, which entered into force on June 1, 2016, was hastily negotiated by European leaders desperate to gain control over a crisis in which more than one million migrants poured into Europe in 2015.

Under the agreement, the EU pledged to pay Turkey €6 billion, grant visa-free travel to Europe for Turkey’s 82 million citizens, and restart accession talks for Turkey to join the EU. In exchange, Turkey agreed to stop the flow of migrants to Europe as well as to take back all migrants and refugees who illegally reach Greece from Turkey.

Turkey currently hosts an estimated 3.5 million migrants and refugees — mainly Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans. Many of these people presumably would migrate to Europe if given the opportunity to do so….If the EU approves the visa waiver, tens of millions of Turks will gain immediate and unimpeded access to Europe’s passport-free zone. Critics of visa liberalization fear that millions of Turkish nationals may end up migrating to Europe. The Austrian newsmagazine, Wochenblick, reported that 11 million Turks are living in poverty and “many of them are dreaming of moving to central Europe.”

Not every European government will fall if the migration spigot is turned on again – those countries already fortunate enough to have solid anti-migration parties in government will see the strength of those parties skyrocket – but the German and French governments will most certainly fall and the collapse of the Berlin-Paris axis would suffice to account for the European Union as well.

Because this is how you get Nazi 2.0:

A chilling incident in which a young boy and his mother were pushed in front of a high-speed train by an Eritrean man has sent shock waves across Germany and seemingly rekindled anti-migrant sentiment.

The tragedy took place on one of the platforms of the central railway terminal in the German city of Frankfurt – the nation’s second busiest railway hub. An eight-year-old boy and his mother were waiting for a train when they were suddenly attacked by a 40-year-old Eritrean. The assailant grabbed the woman and the child and threw them on the rail tracks right as the high-speed intercity express (ICE) was pulling into the station.

The 40-year-old woman managed to escape near-certain death as she made it to the pathway between two tracks. She tried to reach out to her son when the train ran over him, a witness told German media. The boy died at the scene.

The terrible scene left everyone at the station shaken. The ambulances that arrived shortly had to hospitalize some who were suffering from shock. The boy’s mother was also hospitalized, though there has been no information on her condition.

The perpetrator also tried to force another person onto the railway tracks but his third would-be victim escaped. The attacker then attempted to flee the scene but was pursued by a group of passengers and eventually detained by police outside the terminal.

I won’t blame the Germans in the slightest when they start attacking both their own traitorous politicians as well as the migrants welcomed by them. And that’s definitely “when”, not “if”. Nor will I fault that mother if she goes after every single CDU politician with a woodchipper. Their idiotic virtue-signaling has led directly to unthinkable horrors for the German nation.

Multiculturalism will never, ever, work. Diversity is a curse and a prelude to war. English and Spanish settlers never became American Indians. After centuries of “integration” African-Americans remain a nation apart. After 120 years of immigration to the Middle East, Jews have not become Arabs.

There is no Magic Dirt anywhere to be found on the planet.

The rumor is that the arrested Marines were smuggling in snipers who were intended to attack the President:

Sixteen US Marines were arrested Thursday for alleged involvement in various illegal activities ranging from human smuggling to drug-related offenses, according to a statement from the Marine Corps.

The arrests took place in a dramatic fashion on Thursday morning at Camp Pendleton, California, during a battalion formation.

“Information gained from a previous human smuggling investigation precipitated the arrests,” the statement said. “None of the Marines arrested or detained for questioning served in support of the Southwest Border Support mission.”

I assume these arrests were likely related to the news that an entire SEAL team had been sent home:

Thursday’s arrests come one day after the US military took the rare step of sending home an elite team of Navy SEALs from Iraq due to “a perceived deterioration of good order and discipline” that caused a military commander to lose “confidence in the team’s ability to accomplish the mission.” 

It looks like things are beginning to heat up quickly now that Epstein is in custody and Mueller has been exposed. And apparently it was Russian military intelligence that exposed the plot. We can only hope and pray that the President’s forces are prepared to act soon. Q is confident and states that nothing can stop what’s coming, and we can hope that they are correct.

However, note that the description of the former FBI agent comments on Tucker Carlson’s show was taken out of context, as they clearly referred to the Mueller hearing and not any assassination attempt. So, this may simply be someone putting a few known pieces of the puzzle together in a fictitious manner.

The Iranians are not fooled by the “escalating crisis” either:

As Tehran and London trade accusations over the seized tankers, Iran’s ambassador in London warns that certain forces in the UK aim to use the crisis to boost tensions even further. Ramping up pressure would be dangerous and “unwise,” Hamid Hamid Baeidinejad warned in a tweet on his personal account on Sunday.

That’s why it’s key now for the UK government to “contain those domestic political forces who want to escalate existing tension between Iran and the UK well beyond the issue of ships.”

That said, Tehran is “firm and ready for different scenarios,” Baeidinejad said.

Translation: Iran knows it’s the neoclowns trying to draw the USA into war against Iran using the UK. President Trump knows it’s the neoclowns trying to draw him into war against Iran using the UK. The admirals and generals of the US military know it’s the neoclowns. And they all know this is now happening due to the neoclowns’ inability to start a war with Russia in the 2015-2018 period.

No one is fooled in the slightest. Send them back too, Mr. President.

As for the recent troops movements into Saudi Arabia, that probably has far more to do with the fact that the Saudis are losing their war with the Houthis in Yemen than anything to do with Iran.

And here I thought utilizing child soldiers was a sign of an uncivilized society:

The best way to fix the U.S. armed forces’ recruiting challenges may involve dipping further into the nation’s high schools.

As the Army, Navy and other services contend with a thriving economy and a directive to expand their ranks, there is a growing debate over whether the military should consider lowering the minimum enlistment age from 17 to 16. More than a dozen countries, including the United Kingdom, already have adopted the policy.

Critics say the idea is deeply flawed and presents a host of societal problems, but supporters argue that the Pentagon needs to think outside the box if it wants to continually overcome one of the toughest recruiting environments in decades.

One would have thought now that women are permitted to serve in combat roles, the doubling of the potential pool of recruits would prevent any personpower shortages. If, of course, one were a clueless equalitarian who doesn’t see sex or color.

Perhaps it would be more efficient to simply declare a warrior caste and require everyone born into those families to serve in the military.

I don’t see what Great Britain has to complain about, considering that they quite literally started it.

TWO British oil tankers with dozens of crew on board were seized by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards less than an hour apart today in the Gulf.

The Government’s Cobra committee is holding an emergency meeting in Whitehall tonight after the Stena Impero and Mesdar were halted by troops in speedboats and helicopters and diverted to Iran.

The raids came exactly two weeks after Royal Marines boarded a supertanker off Gibraltar suspected of carrying Iranian crude oil to Syria – prompting Tehran to threaten “retaliation”.

British-flagged Stena Impero was sailing to the Saudi port of Jubail today but ship tracking data shows it veered off course with a sharp turn north at around 4.17pm UK time. Iran’s state news agency IRNA said it had been “impounded” and claimed the tanker had turned off its tracker, ignored warnings from the Revolutionary Guards and was sailing in the wrong direction in a shipping lane.

The Impero was surrounded by four vessels and a helicopter. State-controlled TV claimed the ship was seized because it was “violating international maritime rules”. Less than an hour later at around 5pm the Mesdar – Liberian-flagged but operated by the UK firm Norbulk Shipping UK – also turned sharply north towards Iran’s coast having been surrounded by ten speedboats after passing westward through the Strait on its way to Ras Tanura.

It looks like the neoclowns couldn’t get President Trump to bite, so they’ve got Theresa May doing their bidding in the hopes of enmeshing the US military that way. I suspect they’re desperate to start a war in the Gulf in the hopes of creating a distraction from the coming Epstein-related arrests. And I very much doubt that either the President or the U.S. Navy is going to fall for the neoclown antics.

One article on the Daily Mail finally gets around to admitting that the Iranian response was both provoked and measured by the initial British action.

Fears were raised that the Iranian authorities were trying to seize a UK ship in retaliation for the detention of the Grace 1 tanker. The Iranian ship was detained off the coast of Gibraltar on July 4 after it was suspected of violating EU sanctions by carrying a cargo of crude oil destined for Syria. The ship’s captain, chief officer and two second officers were arrested and bailed and an investigation is ongoing.

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called the tanker’s seizure an act of ‘piracy’ on Tuesday and warned the UK to expect a response.

Of course they knew Iran would do something like this. However, I expect they were looking for a more violent escalation. It’s a little hard to bang the war drums when the other side is obviously just responding in kind to your own actions.

A major crack in the NATO wall:

President Donald Trump has said Washington will not sell Turkey its next-generation F-35 jet fighter, after Turkey took delivery of the Russian-made S-400 air defense system. Turkey has been a partner in the F-35 program.

“The situation with Turkey is very complex and tough. We are in contact with Turkish officials,” Trump said. US officials had long threatened to exclude Turkey from the F-35 program, claiming that operating the jet alongside the S-400 would allow Moscow to learn its secrets.

As Trump made the announcement to reporters on Tuesday, his nominee for Secretary of Defense, Mark Esper, reiterated the president’s position during his Senate confirmation hearing. Turkey “can either have the S-400 or…the F-35,” Esper said. “You cannot have both.”

At a speech in Ankara one day earlier, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hailed the arrival of his newly acquired S-400 batteries from Russia. Erdogan promised to go “much further” and set up “joint production with Russia” in future.

China is beginning to wield its economic power:

The Chinese foreign ministry has warned that American firms would be banned from doing business in China if they are involved in any arms deals with Taiwan.

“In order to safeguard national interests, China will impose sanctions on US companies involved in arms sales to Taiwan,” foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told reporters on Monday. “The Chinese government and Chinese companies will not cooperate and do business with these US firms,” he added.

Answering reporters’ questions, Geng said the details about such companies and the timeline of any penalties against them will not be disclosed at present.

As the world’s sole economic superpower, the USA has been throwing its weight around this way for decades. But now China has the ability to do so as well, and due to its much larger population and larger economy (in PPP terms), it will likely be able to wield this power more effectively than the USA in the future.

Are you beginning to understand how the neoclown gatekeeper strategy works yet?

There’s a new “anti-war” think tank coming to town. It will promote a new US foreign policy — one based on diplomacy instead of sanctions and war. Sounds great, until you hear it’s being funded by Soros and Koch.

The ‘Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft’ will oppose Washington’s “endless wars” and will “challenge the basis of American foreign policy in a way that has not been done in at least the last quarter-century,” according to co-founder Trita Parsi.

With financier George Soros coming from the left (though he’s hardly a real leftist) and industrialist Charles Koch coming from the right, everyone is supposed to applaud the bipartisan nature of the initiative. The Boston Globe called it “one of the most remarkable partnerships in modern American political history” as though the two billionaire businessmen come from alternate universes.

Named after John Quincy Adams, who declared in 1821 that the US “goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy” but is the “well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all” and the “champion and vindicator only of her own,” the think tank will offer a platform to both progressive voices and anti-interventionist conservatives.

The Globe writes that this will mean its writers will “likely” advocate for things like pulling US troops out of Afghanistan and Syria, putting an end to regime change wars and “less confrontational” policies toward China and Russia. The problem here is not the concept. It’s just a question of whether or not the venture can actually be taken seriously when Soros and Koch’s fingerprints are already all over the world’s current endless wars, conflicts and regime changes.

Take some well-known Soros-funded think tanks; the Center for American Progress and the Atlantic Council, for example. They haven’t exactly been the biggest peace-pushers in the think tank world. The AC also received funding from a slew of arms manufacturers, so you’d be hard-pressed to find any anti-war sentiment there. Soros has also been linked to the “pro-democracy” European group Avaaz, which has advocated for no-fly zones in Libya and agitated for regime change in Venezuela and Iran.

Koch too has been linked to havoc-wreaking policies everywhere from Iraq to Venezuela. Despite supposedly opposing the Iraq war, independent journalist Caitlin Johnstone notes that Koch has been a major donor to the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute, whose members are considered leading architects of the invasion.

This new think tank is as fake as the Edmund Burke Center for National Conservativism or whatever the neoclowns’ latest charade is called. It’s neoclowns from top to bottom and they’re attempting to subvert the opposition to neoclown warmongering by taking control of the opposition to imperialist warfare. National Review and the modern conservative movement are the model; the plutocrats provide lavish funding for a false front organization that is designed to vacuum up all the minds, money, and media that might otherwise go to the genuine opposition.

“The Quincy Institute opposes wars of no purpose that drag on endlessly.”

Wars of reasonable duration that aim at destroying any nation that the neoclowns don’t like, on the other hand, are just peachy.

The Saker has an important interview with an expert sinologist, which addresses the current stare-down between the US-led globohomo hegemony and the Sino-Russian leadership of the nationalist resistance to it.

A Sino-Russian alliance has long been seen in both the U.S. and in Europe as one of the greatest threats to the West’s global primacy and to Western-led world order. As early as 1951 U.S. negotiators meeting with Chinese delegations to end the Korean War were instructed to focus on the differences in the positions of Moscow and Beijing in an attempt to form a rift between the two. Close Sino-Soviet cooperation seriously stifled Western designs for the Korean Peninsula and the wider region during that period, and it was repeatedly emphasized that the key to a Western victory was to bring about a Sino-Soviet split. Achieving this goal by the early 1960s and bringing the two powers very near to a total conflict significantly increased prospects for a Western victory in the Cold War, with the end of the previously united front seriously undermining nationalist and leftist movements opposing Western designs from Africa and the Middle East to Vietnam and Korea. Both states learned the true consequences of this in the late 1980s and early 1990s when there was a real risk of total collapse under Western pressure. Attempts to bring an end to China’s national revolution through destabilization failed in 1989, although the USSR was less fortunate and the results for the Russian population in the following decade were grave indeed.

Today the Sino-Russian partnership has become truly comprehensive, and while Western experts from Henry Kissinger to the late Zbigniew Brzezinski among others have emphasized the importance of bringing about a new split in this partnership this strategy remains unlikely to work a second time. Both Beijing and Moscow learned from the dark period of the post-Cold War years that the closer they are together the safer they will be, and that any rift between them will only provide their adversaries with the key to bringing about their downfall. It is difficult to comprehend the importance of the Sino-Russian partnership for the security of both states without understanding the enormity of the Western threat – with maximum pressure being exerted on multiple fronts from finance and information to military and cyberspace. Where in the early 1950s it was only the Soviet nuclear deterrent which kept both states safe from very real Western plans for massive nuclear attacks, so too today is the synergy in the respective strengths of China and Russia key to protecting the sovereignty and security of the two nations from a very real and imminent threat. A few examples of the nature of this threat include growing investments in social engineering through social media – the results of have been seen in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Ukraine, a lowering threshold for nuclear weapons use by the United States – which it currently trains Western allies outside the NPT to deploy, and even reports from Russian and Korean sources of investments in biological warfare – reportedly being tested in Georgia, Eastern Europe and South Korea.

The partnership between Russia and China has become truly comprehensive, and is perhaps best exemplified by their military relations. From 2016 joint military exercises have involved the sharing of extremely sensitive information on missile and early warning systems – one of the most well kept defense secrets of any nuclear power which even NATO powers do not share with one another. Russia’s defense sector has played a key role in the modernization of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, while Chinese investment has been essential to allowing Russia to continue research and development on next generation systems needed to retain parity with the United States. There is reportedly cooperation between the two in developing next generation weapons technologies for systems such as hypersonic cruise and anti aircraft missiles and new strategic bombers and fighter jets which both states plan to field by the mid-2020s. With the combined defense spending of both states a small fraction of that of the Western powers, which themselves cooperate closely in next generation defense projects, it is logical that the two should pool their resources and research and development efforts to most efficiently advance their own security.

Remember, the world is not binary. The fact that the globohomo hegemony is pure satanic evil does not mean that either the Chinese or the Russians are good guys. But at least they don’t eat people and molest children, and in the case of the Russians, hate Jesus Christ and persecute Christians.

Needless to say, Vladimir Putin’s remarks on the failure of liberalism and globalism are quite pertinent here:

 So, the liberal idea has become obsolete. It has come into conflict with the interests of the overwhelming majority of the population. 

The liberal idea failed the West because it proved to be directly contradictory to all three pillars of the West, Christianity, the European nations, and the Greco-Roman legal and philosophic legacies. It was, in the end, intrinsically anti-Western.