#2
Arnab is a hothead but it's still great fun to watch an even bigger fool, Charles Kupchan of the Council on Foreign Relations, get bashed. The hypocrisy of American liberal interventionists knows no bounds.
"While debating the Russian military invasion of Ukraine, Goswami lashed out at an American panelist. Addressing his American guest, a professor, Goswami said, “Now I tell you something….First of all, with the greatest of respect, you have no moral standing to talk. You have no position, you as in America, America is in no position to pretend to be the guardian of democracy and human rights.”
Goswami did not stop here as he highlighted the human rights violations committed by the US and its allied forces in several parts of the world including Iraq and Libya. “You are the worst perpetrators of atrocities. You and Barack Obama in 2011 intervened in the nascent Libyan civil war using the NATO and Arab League partners to prolong the war…You launched an armed conflict in at least six countries.”
Soon the video of Goswami’s rant began to be fervently shared by the Chinese embassy in France and other social media influencers. Sharing Goswami’s video with Chinese subtitles and dramatic music, the official Twitter account of the Chinese embassy in France wrote, “America is in no position to pretend to be the guardian of democracy and human rights!” Indian anchor debating with an American professor.”
#7
"You are the worst perpetrators of atrocities. You and Barack Obama in 2011 intervened in the nascent Libyan civil war using the NATO and Arab League partners to prolong the war…You launched an armed conflict in at least six countries.”
Ouch. That is an epic bitch slapping. Why did Kupchan agree to appear on the show? What did he expect?
Satire site...
[GenesiusTimes] US—A recent poll by the Pew Pew Center found that a majority of Americans are "pretty sure" that the people who lied about everything regarding the COVID pandemic are now telling the truth about the Ukraine crisis.
The result spanned all demographics.
"I know the mainstream media, the government, and all the big corporations lied their asses off about COVID. But that was then. I know they’re telling the truth about Ukraine," Philadelphia resident and Ukraine supporter Phil Adolph said.
In a total coincidence, the pandemic, which had occupied the entire news cycle for 2 years was replaced overnight by the Russian invasion. Now the same people who spread misinformation about COVID is telling people what to think about Ukraine.
"Look, I know the media and government lie about everything. But this is different. They wouldn’t lie about a war," Adolph said. "We gotta trust them this time." The joke is not far from the truth.
#1
Yeah, haha, but it's not funny anymore. These fuckheads really do want to drag us into a war with Russia. Let them go fight. Send Hunter Biden to the front lines. Fuck these foolish warmongers
#2
Maybe it would make sense to do a colleration study on the relationship between the ink used to print mail in ballots and the infection rate from exposure to the Covid virus.
#3
I have it confirmed our government has been orchestrating this Ukraine business since mid summer. Cutting off the cash cow was a big Putin no no. Government agencies have been keyed up and prepped. You don't want to mess with the swamp people. An example must be made.
Satire site
[GenesiusTimes] MARTHA’S VINEYARD— After testing positive for COVID-19, former President Barack Obama says he will continue to social distance from Michelle, just as he has done for the last 4 years.
"We, as good Americans, were cautioned about the possibility that one day a hostile virus would invade and it was then that Michelle and I decided to take precautions. We have practiced good social distancing procedures since I left the Oval Office. To no ones surprise except maybe Hillary’s, upon doing so, a dastardly virus assumed the presidency.
"Michelle and I both have had several ’caregivers’ that assist us in maintaining a healthy separation of at least a 6 foot, although I myself prefer New Jersey," Obama said.
The president also said he will continue to quarantine on the couch in the downstairs family room which is the only place he can get away with occasionally catching FOX when he wants to find out what is really going on with the Ukraine and that crazy moron. We believe he may have been referring to Biden, not Putin but our reporter wasn’t 100% sure.
Posted by: Woodrow ||
03/26/2022 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[6 views]
Top|| File under: Tin Hat Dictators, Presidents for Life,
#1
Maybe we should put everything posted about the CDC under War on Terrorism because they’ve killed more Americans than the jihadis have
[ConsortiumNews] As the Russian military intervention rages on, the perceptions of the conflict in Arab newspapers and television news are being shaped by the agendas of the Arab governments that own the media.
Gulf regimes are trying to handle a situation in which they feel they can’t afford to displease either U.S. President Joe Biden or Russian President Vladimir Putin. And their media reflect that.
The rise of satellite television stations and the decline in newspaper readership, has concentrated Arab media ventures in fewer and fewer hands. It was one thing to launch a newspaper with a small staff, and it is another to launch a satellite regional station which costs millions of dollars — and is rarely profitable.
Most television media in the Arab world are controlled by Saudi, UAE and Qatari regimes (or their business affiliates), and by local stations that are controlled either by local governments or by local billionaires. Every Arab country now has a Berlusconi or two (in northern Lebanon alone there are three Berlusconi-style billionaires (Muhammad As-Safadi, Najib Miqati and Isam Faris).
TAKEN BY SURPRISE
The Russian intervention in the Ukraine took Gulf governments by surprise and caused a great deal of anxiety. Here were governments that have tried in recent years to balance their primary loyalty to the U.S. with a new attempt to improve relations with China and Russia.
While Putin intervened in Syria against the wishes of Gulf regimes, which were trying to unseat the Syrian ruler, Bashar al-Asad, the Gulf acknowledged the resolve and determination of the Russian government. Brutality in Russian or American intervention in Syria is of no concern to Gulf despots. They value first and foremost the willingness of the Putin administration to stand by his ally in Damascus in comparison to what they see as a lack of resolve on the part of the U.S. towards its clients in the Gulf.
The Gulf regimes feel Putin is more loyal than the U.S., and the mischievous behavior of UAE and Saudi Arabia in the last few weeks is an expression of their frustration with U.S. role in the region. (Riyadh, for instance, is in talks with China to trade some of its oil in yuan, which would deal a blow to the U.S. dollar that is used in 80 percent of world oil sales. Until now, the Saudis have exclusively used the dollar. And Emirati and Saudi leaders have refused to take Biden’s phone calls.)
Putin of course stood by al-Asad for his own purposes, which included decimating ISIS, and allowed Israel to attack targets inside Syria while aligning with al-Asad and his regional allies, Iran and Hizbullah.
Gulf regimes feel abandoned in light of what they regard as a U.S. retreat from the region. They calculate that Russia’s role will be increasing and that the U.S. will be preoccupied with conflicts in other parts of the world. The U.S. shift to Asia and the preoccupation with China have oriented the U.S. empire away from the Middle East. However, not completely, because the U.S. still controls most of the governments there. The U.S. has all but abandoned the so-called Arab-Israeli peace process and has arranged for Arab normalizations with Israel.
The Gulf regimes have reacted similarly to the Israeli government, which exhibited great apprehension and perplexity in the beginning of the Ukraine crisis.
The only exception has been Qatari media. Without reservations or equivocations, Qatari regime media has adopted the Western narrative in full. Aljazeera is covering Ukraine in the same way it covered Syria – with unabashed advocacy and without any pretense of objectivity or journalistic dispassion.
Clearly, the Qatari government takes seriously its recent designation by the U.S. as a “major non-NATO ally.” It was stunning to see the U.S. ambassador at the UN citing Aljazeera approvingly. This is the same channel that was associated with terrorism in the minds of U.S. officials. Since 2001, successive U.S. administrations have pressured Qatari rulers to lower the tone that bothered Israel and the U.S. Aljazeera continues to cover the Palestinians rather extensively but its coverage of the U.S. has undergone tremendous changes — a far cry from 2003 when U.S. forces in Iraq targeted Aljazeera’s Baghdad office.
The network started with an Arab nationalist bent, before it was overrun with Muslim Brotherhood staff, and now caters to the NATO agenda no matter.
SAUDI MEDIA
Saudi media were more circumspect about Ukraine at first. Muhammad bin Salman (the crown prince and de facto ruler), has been personally shunned by Biden although his government has not been shunned. He received Jake Sullivan, U.S. national security adviser to the president (but pictures of the meeting were not released to the public.) Contacts between the two governments have not lessened from previous administrations but Biden has not spoken to bin Salman directly and has not allowed him to visit the U.S.
The Biden administration has made strong statements in support of security for Saudi Arabia and has been largely uncritical of Saudi and UAE atrocities in Yemen. But MbS feels humiliated by Biden’s treatment and for that he solidified ties with China and Russia. Russian arms are always available in the face of potential U.S. sanctions, and both the UAE and Saudi Arabia wish to keep their arms purchases diverse in origin.
The U.S. clearly pressured Israel, Saudi Arabia and UAE to toe the line; Israel voted with the U.S. at the General Assembly against Russia (how meaningless it was for the U.S. to arrange for a vote at the General Assembly when it knew that there was no path for a resolution at the Security Council) while the UAE abstained in the vote. The UAE was displeased with Biden’s recent response to Houthi attacks on the UAE.
The Saudi and UAE regimes can harbor frustrations with the U.S. but only up to a point; they are desperately in need of U.S. protection in the region. Their new alliance with Israel must have boosted their self-confidence but they are keenly aware that Israel does not render services on behalf of allies, especially if those services could ignite a regional war in which Israel cannot guarantee victories.
The Saudi regime media split their coverage: Western-oriented outlets, such as Al-Arabiyya and Hadath TV and the daily newspaper Ash-Sharq Al-Awsat — all under the direct tutelage of Muhammad bin Salman – copy and paste from mainstream Western media and highlight the sensibilities of Western governments, even in the racial and ethnic preference for European victims. At first, this coverage of the Ukraine war was mild. But within a few days, it intensified, displaying scenes of civilian destruction and casualties in hospitals.
Of course, it was highly hypocritical for the Saudi and UAE regimes to be covering Russian atrocities in Ukraine while continuing to commit atrocities in Yemen. Yet, the local Saudi media back home — those newspapers that are published only in Arabic and aren’t directed toward the West, the coverage was more restrained. The Saudi government did not want to spoil its budding relationship with Putin, and just this week the Saudi government extended an invitation to the Chinese president to visit the country.
Like Israel, the UAE and Saudi Arabia associated themselves too closely with former U.S. President Donald Trump and that has damaged their image among Democrats. Furthermore, Biden — while continuing to sell arms to the Gulf and reassure those regimes about American protection for their security— had spoken too much about the war in Yemen and about the Jamal Khashoggi murder during his campaign to be able to sidestep the issue. Yet, the necessities of the oil market in the wake of the Russian war may force Biden to do just that: to fly to Saudi Arabia and reconcile with MbS in return for higher oil production and for yet more exorbitant arms purchases.
Qatar has won the race among Gulf countries — and indeed among all Arab countries — to become America’s most valuable ally in the region — after Israel. Qatari media’ coverage shows the regime takes its new status as a favored despotic regime rather seriously.
The UAE had long planned to become the new Israel in the region, but Qatar may have won that dubious honor. The Russian-Ukrainian war may lead the U.S. to further overlook those regimes’ despotism and atrocities in return for continued acts of loyalty.
[WSJ] After invading Ukraine, he’s tightening the screws the way the Soviets did—and that will help the CIA recruit Russians.
I spent 34 years in the Central Intelligence Agency’s clandestine service, and watching Vladimir Putin’s brutal war in Ukraine from the sidelines fills me with both sadness and a sense of opportunity. Espionage is a predatory business, and there’s blood in the water. Mr. Putin’s self-inflicted damage has done more to turn his own people against him than anything the West could have done.
Mr. Putin’s disastrous choices are causing military strategists to reconsider which tactics could be used against Russia’s overrated and underperforming armed forces. Political experts and economists are rethinking tools for punishing malign behavior. Other potential aggressors—namely China—must take notice. If your job is cultivating spies, I suspect that recruiting must be good.
Russian mystique is gone. Mr. Putin has proved his country is the declining power that the best-informed Russia watchers claimed it was. Fewer pundits will wax poetic over Mr. Putin’s cunning and strategic brilliance. He might have been a capable operations officer during his KGB career, but he clearly missed the classes on self-awareness and counterintelligence. The more he tightens the security screws and covers Russia’s window to the world, the more likely those he depends on will turn against him.
Resurrecting the Soviet empire, as Mr. Putin wants to do, brings with it the same forces that prompted most of the Warsaw Pact’s best CIA agents to turn against the Kremlin. Agents across the Soviet bloc often shared the same desire: to inflict whatever harm they could. They took up the fight not for money, but to undermine a toxic system that enriched a corrupt elite, wrought suffering and economic stagnation, and occasionally brought the world to the brink.
Some of the CIA’s Russian agents were so dedicated that despite years of service and risk, they refused to give up the fight and leave their homeland even when they were in grave danger. One of the most famous was Adolf Georgievich Tolkachev. Known as "The Billion Dollar Spy," Tolkachev was a Soviet electronics engineer. Angered by how dissident family members had suffered under Stalin and by the Kremlin’s corruption, Tolkachev provided the CIA documents on Soviet missile systems, avionics and radar that undermined Soviet air capabilities—information that continues to provide value today.
Another was Maj. Gen. Dmitri Fyodorovich Polyakov of the Soviet Main Intelligence Directorate. He believed corruption had denied his son vital medical care, leading to the boy’s death. Polyakov helped the U.S. keep the Cold War from ever turning hot by providing key intelligence on the split between Moscow and Beijing that helped persuade President Richard Nixon to undertake the opening with China.
In December 1980, the U.S. used intelligence from Col. Ryszard Kuklinski, a senior officer on the Polish general staff and a CIA agent, to expose Soviet plans to invade Poland. Kuklinski’s decision to turn against his government’s Kremlin masters came after Soviet tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia to crush the Prague Spring of 1968.
If truth was able to penetrate the Iron Curtain and reach the likes of Tolkachev, who never left the country and had no access to the outside world apart from shortwave radio, Mr. Putin won’t be able to extinguish truth in the digital age. Russians have been watching the puppet show and can see the strings.
Mr. Putin has delivered a rival intelligence officer a great gift: a precipitating crisis. The desire to take control over their own destiny amid crisis drives people to spy. Intelligence officers take advantage of that desire to secure an agent’s cooperation through inspiration, trust and means to make a difference. Mr. Putin’s bumbling has provided the crisis, Ukrainian courage the inspiration, and the response of the U.S. and its allies the trust and tools for Russians to strike back.
Some of the CIA’s best agents have been volunteers who finally are pushed over the edge by a life-altering event and offer their services to an intelligence service. Tolkachev, Polyakov and Kuklinski were volunteers. Thanks to Mr. Putin’s deplorable behavior, I expect an increase in Russian volunteers who have toyed with the idea of doing something to better Russia’s future and might now be receptive to an encouraging nudge.
Mr. Putin will use intimidation, violence, repression and bribery to combat counterintelligence risk and will reward blind loyalty from the incompetent and opportunistic sycophants who lord over his system. But these measures will only create incentives for the brave to act—and it takes only a few to make an extraordinary difference.
He has undermined in weeks what Russia took almost 30 years to achieve. The country survived the perils of near-bankruptcy and a crumbling national defense and used oil-fueled economic leverage to increase its domestic prosperity and international influence. Russian armed forces projected power far from home, and the country’s intelligence services acted with impunity, conducting sabotage, assassination operations, cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns that wreaked economic havoc and polarized liberal democracies.
Only weeks ago, Russians were vacationing in far-off destinations and buying imported cars and other luxury items. Today Russians are lucky if they can get to their own money (what’s left of it after the ruble’s collapse) and keep a job. Soon they may struggle to put food on the table. Weeks ago, the world trembled at Russian power. Mr. Putin is no longer the master chess player; he’s the great and powerful Wizard of Oz hiding behind a curtain.
He still could bring the world to an apocalyptic end. But his Cold War predecessors also had that power. It didn’t make Russia great in the eyes of its own people then, nor does it today.
The Soviet state indiscriminately destroyed instead of built, while the Russian elites immersed themselves in luxury as working people toiled and suffered. That drove some of Russia’s greatest patriots to step forward in the past. Mr. Putin may resurrect the Soviet empire, but he will have to contend with a new generation of patriots who will fight for Russia’s freedom and bring about his doom.
Mr. London, a former CIA operations officer, is author of "The Recruiter: Spying and the Lost Art of American Intelligence." He teaches intelligence studies at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and is a nonresident scholar at the Middle East Institute.
#1
This feels right, but I’m not qualified to judge.
He has undermined in weeks what Russia took almost 30 years to achieve.
Yes. President Biden is mostly undermining what President Trump did in four years, the rest being a continuation of what President Obama set in motion. So we know ours can be quickly reversed, with the right man in office. The Russians can not have the same comfort.
Only weeks ago, Russians were vacationing in far-off destinations and buying imported cars and other luxury items.
#3
Yeah, it's all bad, bad Putin. OK. He's a bad guy and his army sucks. Now tell me about the CIA...and the Biden family...and the Maidan coup. C'mon, WSJ. I know you know. I wanna hear it from you. Yeah, and what about the bio labs? If WSJ is so great, howcome I had to read about it in the Pulse?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
03/26/2022 12:45 Comments ||
Top||
#4
The CIA have been useless for as long as anyone can remember. More like CYA
#5
"Trump's obsession in focusing resources against Osama bin Laden's son Hamza is one example of the president's preference for a 'celebrity' targeted killing versus prioritizing options that could prove better for US security," - Douglas London
What those prioritized options were to Mr. Fancypants London only he can tell. Several angerous tangos were killed in Trump's single term, including Hamza. Hamza was not celebrity, he was the one remnant of the UBL family that could rally the AQ for another 9/11. So forgive me if I don't have any confidence in Mr. Fancypants' shadowy expertise.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited By Aleksandr Kots
[KP] - We do everything quickly - we drive up, jump out of the car, roll into the bunker, - the guide instructs.
Outside the window, the Gostomel sign whistles. We are swiftly rushing along the “landscape” familiar to Donbass. Trees mutilated by shells, mangled buildings of the airfield, hangars turned outward with metal, asphalt broken by mortars ... Cars brake sharply at the bomb shelter, and we quickly go down.
Yes, the Soviet Union knew how to prepare for a nuclear war. A solid bunker with a whole system of rooms is located under the airfield of the Antonov center. Whatever the Ukrainian artillerymen have been trying to break through this underground citadel all month, it is useless. The real epic heroes of a special military operation have been living here for the last month - paratroopers who landed here, deep behind enemy lines, near the capital itself, on the first day of the conflict.
- On the 24th, we loaded into helicopters , MANPADS, heavy machine guns were working on us, - one of the officers recalls. “But there were combat helicopters in front of us, so the landing went well.
After the capture of the airfield, shelling from mortars immediately began, and by nightfall infantry units went on the offensive. Plus their aviation - helicopters, planes. The shelling didn't stop. But everything was well planned for us, all attacks were repelled. Yes, there were small losses, but they had much more of them.
Two days later, our columns approached, a grouping was created here, the enemy was pushed back. There is no environment, we regularly receive letters from home, parcels, personnel leave to rest in Belarus.
- Well, this is not the first time you have been “married”, are there any features of the enemy here?
- Here, in addition to regular formations, irregular ones operate against us. After capturing prisoners and inspecting the dead, we found out that there are foreign private military companies here, well motivated, paid, trained and operating from settlements. They put mortars in the yards, MLRS and work from the peaceful sector. We try to do with minimal damage and provide assistance to the civilian population.
Alexander does not speak, but I know that the main body was supposed to come up on the ground a few hours after they landed. But they met fierce resistance from the national battalions and the defense units. As a result, the paratroopers at the airfield spent two days in a real fire hell, holding their positions.
It was an unprecedented operation. We have not carried out such tactical landings, perhaps, since 1943, when a detachment of volunteer sailors of 275 people under the command of Major Caesar Kunikov landed on the fortified coast of Novorossiysk occupied by the Nazis. He knocked out the German from the opornik, entrenched himself on the bridgehead and repulsed 18 attacks on the first night. And when the ammunition began to run low, he captured the enemy’s artillery battery and fought off the enemy for a week until the main forces approached. Russian naval light infantry fought for seven months in early 1943 at Novorossiysk. Never made their objective, less than 10 miles away.
Military work is in full swing at the command post. A picture from several drones was displayed on large screens, which in real time give out the location of enemy guns, at that moment hitting the airfield and the forward positions of paratroopers fighting in the city of Irpin. The topographer immediately takes the coordinates and transfers them to the attached long-range artillery. In a matter of seconds, the shells first plowed through the howitzer battery, then covered a couple of self-propelled artillery mounts. The drone is sent to look for new "prey". No one celebrates or rejoices - a combat routine.
The commander of one of the groups leads us to his location: "Here we wash ourselves, here we sleep, and this is our bathhouse, we made a steam room, today, by the way, is a bath day."
Steam comes out from under a tent with a powerful potbelly stove installed in one of the rooms. Wherever I meet Russian paratroopers, they always have a bathhouse. And if it is supposed to take a steam bath today, then they will do it with heroic calmness, regardless of the plans of enemy artillery.
We get out of the "bunker" during a lull and go on a "tour" in short dashes. "Shoot every meter" - this is not a metaphor. I was shown a Ukrainian map, on which the airfield is divided into numbered squares, all coordinates are known in advance, the Ukrainians were actually being prepared for war.
Around - piles of burnt equipment - both ours and Ukrainian, on the take-off - a Ka-52 helicopter, which made an emergency landing during the landing. In the far hangar, the remains of the largest aircraft in the world, the An-225 Mriya, are visible. It was the only instance capable of taking to the skies.
"In the early days, there was a powerful shelling here, we managed to save a lot of equipment, but part of it was behind this hangar and the Armed Forces of Ukraine hit there, hit the Mriya and the fuel depot behind it," the paratrooper explained.
Destroyed the largest aircraft in the world - AN-225 "Mriya"
In Ukraine, at the Gostomel airport, the largest aircraft in the world, the AN-225 Mriya, was destroyed. Military correspondent "KP" Alexander Kots came to say goodbye to this miracle of Soviet engineering
Former Antonov pilots said that shortly before the conflict, Germany offered to move the plane to itself, but Kyiv refused. Today, groups of enthusiasts in Ukraine advocate the establishment of an international consortium that would recreate the documentation project. However, if she was at this Antonov airfield, then she was unlikely to have survived the shelling - Ukrainian artillerymen probably destroyed her along with the Dream (Mriya - Ukrainian).
So that we don’t get the feeling that the Russian troops on Gostomel are only doing what they heroically hide in the bunker, the guys take us to positions around the perimeter. I would never have thought that BMD (airborne combat vehicle - Auth.) Can develop such speed.
On the runway we flew at least 80 kilometers per hour, looking at the rising black columns of smoke near the city of Irpen. "Armor" throws us off somewhere on the outskirts near the trenches and is carried away to the shelter. The inhabitants of the positions meet with surprising cheerfulness - for people who live in the trenches for a month.
- This is a fortified firing point. Here is the position of the "Korda" (heavy machine gun), here is a place for shelter and rest of personnel, - the soldier shows a dugout dug at a depth and laughs, - it's quite comfortable.
- How do you feel about the enemy?
- Prepared, you can not underestimate him. Artillerymen hit accurately. But our mood is excellent, all are contract soldiers, not the first time in business. All grown men.
- Where are you from?
- From Ulyanovsk. Say hello to children, wife, mom, dad. I love, kiss, your me.
From above it methodically boomed - "these are our Grads on them." Then there was a rustle in the air - "this is the self-propelled guns for us." And no fuss, the cold-blooded calmness of the Gostomel heroes.
Who do not yet know that they have inscribed themselves in the history of the real Russian army, along with Bayazet and the Brest Fortress or the sixth and ninth companies, if you like. Gostomel is our new place of power, a place of Russian military glory.
Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin
[ColonelCassad] 1. Mariupol.
City fights. The enemy continues to retreat in the direction of Azovstal. The encirclement ring is constantly shrinking. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, more than 7,000 people continue to defend themselves in the city. The rest of the group has virtually ceased to exist.
2. Ugledar direction.
Battles for Novomikhailovka. By evening, the enemy held most of the village, the fighting continues. Holding Novomikhailovka is critically important for the Ukrainian Armed Forces to continue holding Maryinka. In Marinka itself, fighting in the ruins of the village. The pace of advancement of the DPR army is not high here.
3.Zaporozhye direction.
There were fights to the southeast and east of Gulyaipole, as well as in the Malinovka area. No changes on the Kamenskoye-Orekhov line. Nikopol also has no promotion.
4.Nikolaev-Odessa.
No major changes. The grouping of the RF Armed Forces, which advanced to Krivoy Rog, is located 15-20 km from the city. In addition to the ongoing missile strikes, it is worth noting the information that has appeared about the preparation of a large-scale flooding of the area in the Odessa region in order to complicate the operations of the RF Armed Forces to blockade the city, around which some of the bridges have already been destroyed. Local residents are seriously worried, as residential areas may be flooded.
5. Avdievka.
Some progress in the Verkhnetoretsky area, fighting near Novobakhmutovka and Troitsky. Novoselka-2 is still under the Armed Forces of Ukraine. There are no fights in the New York area yet.
6. LPR.
There are no major changes in the area of Severdonetsk and Lysichansk.
Ukrainian DRGs reappeared in the southern part of Rubizhne. The city itself is shelled from artillery. In the area of Popasnaya, the LPR troops made some progress. The fighting for the city continues. According to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, 93% of the territory of the republic has already been liberated.
7. Sumy-Chernihiv.
There are battles for Slavutych to the west of Chernigov. The city is blocked, the Armed Forces of Ukraine left their positions on the outskirts and retreated to Slavutych. They are also hammering the positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine near Chernihiv.
In the Sumy region of the Armed Forces of Ukraine from the Akhtyrka region, the enemy launched a counterattack on Trostyanets (a town north of Akhtyrka), fighting was going on in the southern part of the city.
8. Kyiv.
In the absence of the mythical encirclement of the Russian group, fighting continued in the area of the settlement. Irpen, Bucha, Moshchuny, Vyshgorod. To the east of Kyiv, the fighting went to the northeast and east of the Brovary region. The Armed Forces of Ukraine announce the occupation of the village of Lukyanovka.
9. .Kharkov.
Medium-intensity fighting to the north and east of the city. Chuguev is still under the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The artillery of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the MLRS were targeted in the northern regions of Kharkov. At night there were hits in the area of Kharkov airport.
10. Izyum.
According to a number of reports, the command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine yesterday gave the order to leave Izyum and concentrate on the battles for Kamenka. Fighting from there is gradually shifting south towards Barvenkovo and towards Slavyansk. The objects of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Slavyansk, Kramatorsk and Artemovsk were subjected to heavy blows.
The command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is concentrating forces in the Artemovsk region in order to be able both to fend off the breakthrough of the Donetsk Front and to counteract the RF Armed Forces after the breakthrough of the Izyum line.
[YouTube] Excerpt from Podcast with Jordan Harbinger.
Listen to full interview...
https://www.jordanharbinger.com/peter...
On this episode, we discuss the developing situation with Peter Zeihan, a geopolitical strategist.
Here, we examine how the current Russia-Ukraine conflict became a “now or never” option for Putin, the downsides for Russia if it “wins” and what we expect its next steps to be, what NATO is doing to avoid turning this into a nuclear-escalated World War III, why Putin’s actions leading up to this point in time don’t bode well for Russia in any scenario, and what a country like China with expansionist goals of its own might take away from Russia’s hard-earned lessons.
On August 16, 2021, the world watched in awe as the Taliban marched into Kabul unopposed and nonchalantly shot photos in the Afghan presidential palace. The group’s rapid seizure of territory and capture of Kabul so stunned the world that the United States failed to evacuate thousands of its Afghan allies in time (though it did get some 120,000 people out before leaving). But the Taliban’s lightning advance should not have been a surprise. Despite an entrenched tendency to conceptualize jihadist groups as intrinsically irregular combatants—born out of two decades of US military experience during the post-9/11 wars—several such organizations have demonstrated a capability to effectively adopt conventional warfighting methods.
The Islamic State (IS) group achieved similar feats in its military campaigns several years earlier, marking a decades-long culmination of jihadist conventionalization, or adaptation of jihadist fighting styles to conventional warfare. The jihadist ideology has always sought the establishment and preservation of a caliphate by force, necessitating the development of robust conventional warfare capabilities to seize and defend territory. The case of IS reveals the most important characteristics of this jihadist way of war and how to fight against it. It also illuminates major lessons about the future jihadist threat and how the United States can more effectively work with its allies to meet it.
The IS way of war developed out of an ideological divergence between IS and its former parent organization, al-Qaeda. Having witnessed the swift demise of Afghanistan’s Taliban regime following the 2001 US-led invasion, al-Qaeda head Osama bin Laden urged his followers to refrain from openly holding territory and confronting larger, more advanced forces like the US military until their adversaries were sufficiently weakened and the jihadists gained enough public support.
Nonetheless, the foundational jihadist principle of tamkin (a degree of empowerment that, in this context, enables consolidation of land to govern) proved stronger in the minds of al-Qaeda affiliates than their leader’s advice and it would remain the norm for jihadist groups to attempt to hold territory through campaigns of conventional warfare. Such was the case with al-Qaeda-affiliated groups in Iraq, Mali, Somalia, and Yemen. IS, developing out of al-Qaeda’s Iraqi affiliate, ventured further than any other jihadist group, taking on an apocalyptic outlook and labeling al-Qaeda and its supporters apostates for delaying the return of the caliphate. Indeed, IS saw the caliphate as not only its vision of a just society based on sharia (Islamic law), but also the base of the supposed forces of good against the antichrist in an imminent apocalypse.
With this sense of urgency, IS went about devising a strategy for seizing the considerable territories it would need to build its caliphate. The group’s early-2013 entrance into the ongoing Syrian civil war marked its definitive shift toward conventional warfare, and patterns in its operational style began to emerge. Four variables informed the IS way of war: organizational innovation, shaping operations, will to fight, and retention of the initiative.
The 2012–14 period featured extensive reorganization and expansion of the IS military (the group was known at this time first as the Islamic State of Iraq and later as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria). Most significant were the group’s creation of battalions, each with 300–350 fighters, all governed by a formalized bureaucracy called the Department of Soldiers and an improved military industry apparatus under its Committee for Military Manufacturing and Development. This augmented organization enabled the group to grow exponentially, absorbing more than forty thousand foreign fighters from over 110 countries and bringing its total numbers of fighters and their dependents possibly into the hundreds of thousands. The new arrivals often came with technical education and military experience that helped further boost IS military capabilities. At the same time, the group’s expanded military industrial capacity allowed it to build small arms, mortars, rockets, and—most importantly—suicide bombs on a large scale with a high degree of standardization.
High explosives production and other innovations fueled IS’s most important battle tactic: the frequent use of suicide car bombs (SVBIEDs, or suicide vehicle-borne improvised explosive device), often so heavily up-armored that they were nearly impervious to small arms fire and RPGs. The group used these SVBIEDs as shock weapons followed by a light infantry assaults. On the offensive, IS deployed SVBIEDs much like a regular army might use artillery or airstrikes—to soften up and demoralize targets in preparation for or close support of a ground assault. Exemplary of this tactic were IS attacks on Menagh Air Base (August 2013), Tabqa Airbase (August 2014), and the Ramadi city center (May 2015). On the defensive, IS frequently used SVBIEDs and follow-on light infantry advances in brutal tactical and operational counterattacks, particularly in eastern Mosul (October–December 2016) and, as I recount in my book, throughout the Hajin pocket along the Euphrates River in northeastern Syria (November 2018–March 2019).
Key to IS military success was the group’s ability to weaken targets before engaging them in combat. As Craig Whiteside has shown, a flexible tribal engagement strategy, hostile to some Arab tribes and conciliatory with more amenable ones, facilitated IS gains particularly in Iraq’s Anbar province by winning a degree of acquiescence and support from tribes that could have blocked the group. One example is the mid-2014 IS alliance with the Albu Karbuli and al-Salmani tribes against the more hostile Albu Mahal in al-Qaim in exchange for plunder and governance responsibilities. In contrast, as at Haditha, tribes and local populations that remained staunchly opposed to the organization largely held out against IS attacks, though jihadist assassination campaigns against hostile tribes, such as the Albu Nimr, at times helped tip the balance in IS’s favor. Infiltration of enemy security forces and insertion of sleeper cells were additional effective shaping tactics that helped cause Iraqi units to collapse during the IS assault on Mosul in June 2014 and a year earlier at the IS-orchestrated Abu Ghraib prison break. In defensive operations, IS shaping capabilities were much diminished over time, especially when it could no longer plan to attack targets far in advance and had to invest resources in preparing to meet adversary offensives. This helps explain why IS was far less successful in defending its territory than it was in seizing it.
The most essential and consistent characteristic of the IS way of war was the high will to fight of its fighters along with a preference for engaging significantly demoralized foes. Shaping operations, coupled with information warfare and high IS determination, aimed to maximize the morale differential between IS and its adversaries so that when combat ensued, the latter would already be so brittle that victory would come quickly. American veterans of battles against IS remarked to me that IS fighters showed consistently high levels of determination and rarely fled or surrendered in disarray. Azad Cudi, a member of the US-backed People’s Protection Units (YPG), even recalls an instance of foolhardy jihadist determination at the battle of Kobane (September 2014–March 2015), with fighters reinforcing a position no less than four times despite airstrikes vaporizing it each time. IS won major, quick gains when it achieved a wide morale differential and suffered when it could not. Indeed, with some exceptions (like the sixteen-month IS offensive on Ramadi), the group’s most significant victories were won in a matter of days or weeks; getting bogged down against a determined foe or in a defensive posture forced IS to rely more heavily on the inconsistent tactical combat proficiency of its fighters, which reduced their success even though these fighters would mostly stand their ground and fight to the death unless they decided to retreat.
With organized, highly determined fighters and weakened adversaries, taking the initiative and keeping enemy forces on their toes was essential. Accordingly, IS fighters generally fought aggressively, with high mobility and frequent fighting patrols. This aggressive style kept IS adversaries constantly guessing, often paralyzing them, as at Ramadi in early 2015. Michael Knights and Alexander Mello aptly characterized the IS operational style as “tactical restlessness,” an “almost pathological need to take the initiative and attack the enemy. This approach can and does help sustain morale and extend the operational experience of surviving troops, but it also tires troops and continually erodes overall force strength.”
The resulting self-attrition of the IS operational style is further reason for IS to prefer fast-paced operations, and its persistence even on the defensive ultimately contributed to the group’s inability to win virtually any defensive battles, when its enemies held the initiative. Moreover, an intensifying air campaign from late 2014 onward considerably reduced the organization’s mobility and exacerbated the self-attritional effects of its aggressive approach, notably at Kobane.
While IS remains in an insurgent posture, we should not forget that its ultimate goal, like that of all jihadists, is to control and govern territory. If given the opportunity, IS is likely to pursue conventionalization again. The organization’s entrenchment in Iraq and Syria in 2013–19 necessitated intensive military efforts to dislodge the jihadists from their territories and led to the deaths of tens of thousands as well as widespread displacement and devastation.
Although IS is now deprived of its territories in Iraq and Syria, its style of conventional warfare was on display with the Taliban’s recent recapture of Afghanistan. The rapid weeklong offensive culminating in the fall of Kabul followed months of surrenders to the Taliban, negotiations with tribes to acquiesce to the group’s rule, and buyoffs of police and militias as US forces departed. These efforts were strikingly similar to the IS tribal engagement campaign in Iraq. Where the Afghan army had a presence, the Taliban infiltrated its ranks, assassinated important military figures, and threatened soldiers’ families to instigate desertions, just as IS had done to Iraqi security forces. Demoralized by the American withdrawal and without hope for reinforcement, any remaining army units collapsed quickly and the Taliban entered Kabul without any fighting, reminiscent of the fall of Mosul to IS in less than a week.
Hence, the Taliban’s aggressive retention of the initiative in a fast-paced, merely weeklong nationwide offensive after such a sweeping shaping campaign resembled—likely inadvertently—the IS style of territorial acquisition, indicating the emergence of an increasingly effective jihadist way of war.
In its former territories, IS has reverted to an insurgent posture, but is re-conventionalization possible? On the organizational front, the group’s ranks in Iraq and Syria are decimated, down to only ten thousand according to the latest US Department of Defense estimates.
At the same time, the group has maintained a steady pace of attacks since 2019, including complex high-casualty strikes such as a bombing in Baghdad in July 2021 and regular deadly ambushes in Syria’s Badia desert region on forces loyal to embattled dictator Bashar al-Assad. If Assad regime forces are unable to retain control over the Badia, that region could become a flashpoint for IS recruitment and territorial rebuilding, with IS already performing shaping operations there like extortion and intimidation of locals and tribal communities. Despite considerable Russian and Iranian military support and access to armor and airpower, the regime has recently made virtually no progress against any major rebel faction, raising questions over its forces’ morale and continued willingness to fight. With morale and some shaping activities in its favor, IS might use a small territorial enclave (in the event of a reduced regime presence) in the Badia as a base for organizational rebuilding and future conventionalization.
Moreover, IS might attempt larger operations at al-Hawl refugee camp or prisons holding IS fighters in northeast Syria under the control of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The camp holds some 59,000 people, including an estimated 8,555 individuals linked to IS per camp administration statistics, while SDF detention centers hold thousands of IS members. The camp’s horrendous conditions, as well as IS efforts to enforce its extreme interpretation of sharia in the camps, like punitive killings, leave camp residents more vulnerable to radicalization and cooptation by IS.
A significant escape from al-Hawl or the prisons would help replenish the group’s ranks and reenergize its conventionalization. However, the SDF—with vital US support—has managed to keep IS activity down, and attacks in SDF territories are considerably less lethal than those in regime-held ones. Also, a large SDF counterterrorism operation in al-Hawl in March greatly reduced killings in the camp. An exceptionally large IS assault on al-Sinaa Prison in January 2022 in SDF-controlled Hasakah that led to seven days of heavy fighting is a stark reminder of the enduring threat the jihadist group poses, but the coalition and SDF response rendered the assault a failure, indicative of the robust cooperation between the two and the SDF’s strong development.
Hence, the SDF is a major obstacle for IS activities in al-Hawl and prisons, but the potentially grave consequences of a successful IS breakout operation still make them a point of concern for IS re-conventionalizing.
Finally, IS could find resources for a resurgence outside Iraq and Syria. In 2014, when IS was still accumulating territory, it sent many of its fighters to help establish territories in Libya, which they did successfully. Today, the group’s West Africa Province still controls territory in Nigeria and carries out major military operations against the Nigerian army and the forces of neighboring countries.
During the past two years in Mozambique, IS-affiliated fighters seized and then lost the towns of Mocimboa da Praia and Palma. IS-linked jihadists in the Democratic Republic of the Congo staged a complex breakout of 1,300 inmates. Of particular concern is the activity of IS-Khorasan Province (IS-K), the IS affiliate in Afghanistan. One of IS’s more lethal and tactically proficient provinces, IS-K was formed largely by defectors from the Taliban and other jihadist groups and seized territory from the Taliban in 2014–15 before being repulsed by the Taliban and US-backed Afghan security forces.
IS-K has benefitted from the US withdrawal, perpetrating dozens of attacks since August 2021, and now wages a fierce insurgency against the Taliban. The growth of IS-K or other provinces could give IS the opportunity to once again transfer experienced fighters to places where it seeks to conventionalize.
This analysis has identified three flashpoints for a potential IS resurgence: Assad regime territories in the Badia; al-Hawl and prisons under SDF control; and the growth of IS provinces outside of Iraq and Syria, IS-K in particular. Just as US support has been crucial for defeating the caliphate, so too will it remain paramount for continuing effective counter-IS operations in Iraq and Syria.
In areas where the United States has lesser or no presence, such as West Africa, Afghanistan, and Assad regime territory, it might exert some pressure through limited airstrikes when needed, but it can also foster its partners’ capabilities so that when the next jihadist conventional campaign begins, we will be prepared to meet it—as we were not in Afghanistan.
#1
Nice islamic fellating article. The 'IS way of war'. The IS way of war' is successful only so long as it is being challenged by unmotivated, confused people. People who think there are good muslims and bad muslims and Ally muslims and non Ally muslims. That muslims can be hired as interpreters and intermediaries and contractors during war operations against muslims. That muslim intelligence can be treated as clean and muslims can be aided to fight their own little battles in order to accomplish the larger objective.
That's the extent of the islamic 'art of war'. Fight only fools and weaklings with notions of nobility that outweigh prudence.
#2
The piece is actually by Ido Levy, of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Shafaq are actually a pro Kurdistan agency, they don't fellatio jihaders. It's just a well written and better researched piece of analysis.
You should have read it more carefully instead of being triggered at the certain words used. In fact, Levy's book 'Soldiers of End-Times' should be required reading for officers facing any islamic regime's fighters and even counter intelligence operators.
Hatred is good. One cannot dominate physically without adequate hatred. But underestimation of the enemy is foolishness. This is the one lesson the western world refuses to learn, since their view of anything west of the pacific was never based on righteous rage or smart appraisal but racial contempt and indifference. And they always faced it with the same industrial 'efficiency' the IR had taught them was next to divine. Think Skynet, it's thoughtless machines rolling over things it considers beneath itself and too stupid to counter it. [Art unconsciously imitates life] But the manifesto thumping commie, the sunnah bearded moslem, the hitherto disenfranchised lésbian loon, the Jordan Peel-ed wakandan ... they all hate with a fervent malice. Malice and supremacist angst is inherent in islam, which is drilled into moslems from infancy. Violence is prescribed in the marxist bases of most anti-America sentiment today.
There are valuable lessons in the way rag-tag groups of opponents and activists unite under a single criminal philosophy and motivated by only burning hatred they bring down teched-up giants defended by only lumbering bureaucracies. And once they do, they generally tend to replace the old order with their own. This applies to armies too. On the field, a guerilla culture of opportunity and plodding, sacrificial fighting is necessary only up to the point you don't have dominance. Once dominance is established, forces integrate conventionally and streamline their efforts, put better tactics into use, they now control rather than extort local economies. They become armies, they recruit professionally, they establish standards and regimens and routines. The daesh was shown a crushing momentum of marching death with over two thousand precision guided WMDs by the coalition, starting with the Kobani seige. It only ramped up from there and drove them into hiding or surrender. And that's where you may be right. Taking prisoners, especially trusting the Kurds and Iraqi moslems to deal with the survivors... again, self-righteous hubris writ into the many Magna Cartas and Bills of Rights and UNDHRs and Geneva and the complex ROEs that emasculate any credible response to islamist militarism. That's something that serves the islamist well. The west essentially forgot the principles of the bible and replaced them with some faggot philosophies of humanism couched in psychosocial verbiage. [A topic for another day, old bugbear of mine.]
But the teach is good. Levy's analysis describes how the guerilla type asymmetric thingy evolves into a full fledged militarized platform of administration and established emirates. This has been proven and shall be again. One must learn from this before simply saying 'Hmpf!' and sucking on that vape stick content in the knowledge that there is a soldier out there ensuring this never happens to them. Hatred. It takes adequate hatred. An overpowering compulsion to see scores of dead bodies of the young and old of those that endanger your young. To make it happen. Unless we have that we shall suffer from a proliferation of ISISes and commie outfits and militants and their lawfaring enablers until all is lost. The scales shall not always be evenly balanced, they will tip one day. The islamist is confident they will in his favour because he, his wife, his goddamn children and his ass... they're all invested in it. Are we? How many jihaders have you offed personally, dweller of the accursed deep?
Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. - GaWd!
PS: 'Tis R'lyeh, dude. Cthulhu is imprisoned in R'lyeh, which is located somewhere in the baltic sea. Clever that.
#3
R'lyeh is in the Pacific, somewhere "north and east" of Australia. I read the damned books; Lovecraft never mentions the Baltics.
And let them hate, so long as they die.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
03/26/2022 12:55 Comments ||
Top||
#4
^ I stand corrected. Charles Stross put it in the Baltic somewhere, Rob. A newer re-telling, not canon I agree. Yes, Howard placed it in the Pacific.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
