[FoxNews] This isn't stickwelding with a Lincoln The faulty work was discovered by internal quality assurance systems
One hopes heads will soon roll.
Newport News Shipbuilding informed the Department of Justice that there may be intentionally faulty welds on non-critical components located on in-service submarines and aircraft carriers, according to a report by USNI News Thursday.
The faulty work was discovered by internal quality assurance systems and early indications show that some of the welding errors were intentional, according to a statement to USNI News.
"We recently discovered through internal reporting that the quality of some welds did not meet our high-quality standards. Upon this discovery, we took immediate action to communicate with our customers and regulators, investigate, determine root cause, bound these matters and insert immediate corrective actions to prevent any recurrence of these issues," the statement reads.
The Navy is now investigating the allegations and are attempting to measure how much has been affected by the faulty work.
Newport News Shipbuilding, a division of Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII), is one of two nuclear shipyards in the U.S. and is currently working on building the Ford-class aircraft carrier and parts of the Virginia-class attack submarine.
There was a time I could assume that at this level, the welder can make a bead look like music and anything less than that is deliberate. Now, whether a black cat or non-sober or foreign saboteur on purpose is the question.
#4
SteveS a good welder can tell plus x-ray of welds.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
09/28/2024 11:44 Comments ||
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#5
#3 don't leave out, in this economy, it requires more work to fix which increases the bottom line of a paycheck for someone.
One theory identifies James J. Kilroy (1902–1962), an American shipyard inspector, as the man behind the signature.[6] James Kilroy had served on the Boston City Council and represented the Roxbury district in the Massachusetts Legislature during the 1930s. He worked at the Fore River Shipyard in Quincy during the war checking the work of riveters paid by how many rivets they installed.[13] Usually, inspectors made a small chalk mark which riveters used to erase, so that they would be paid double for their work. To prevent this, Kilroy marked work he had inspected and approved with the phrase "Kilroy was here" in more durable crayon. - cite
#6
Most faulty welds are the result of not prepping the surfaces well enough, assuming the welder knows how to weld in the first place. It does require not being tired, though.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
09/28/2024 16:38 Comments ||
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#7
Speed. Get this done quick,"non-critical components".
#8
I don't know about warships, but there are no 'non-critical components' on a fire truck.
That includes moral pieces, or flair, or what the kids call 'drip', a games table being installed for a multi-month deployment totally submerged, get it, but it has to stay right there when the brakes are pumped, or people get hurt...or worse. That cooler full of water, fine unless your shit goes from 30 to zero and it breaks loose and hits somebody.
[Breitbart] Venezuela’s SAIME identification and migrant services office announced on Thursday that Venezuelans who requested passports in consulates recently closed by socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro must now go to Caracas to pick them up — an impossible task for many.
The socialist regime’s new measure further complicates the already difficult legal situation of some 2.4 million affected Venezuelans and potentially leaves them without a valid identity document in the short term. In most cases, Venezuelans with expired passports — not valid for international travel — are unable to travel to Caracas to retrieve a new one.
The measure also causes further migration-related woes at a continental level, as countries have to implement special measures to address migrants entering with expired passports or those who will have no valid documentation at all once their current passports expire.
“Venezuelans who are outside the country and have processed their passports through the consulates that are closed, may go to our main headquarters in Caracas to pick up their travel documents,” SAIME announced on social media.
The Maduro regime closed all of its consulates across seven Latin American countries – Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Peru, Panama, the Dominican Republic, and Uruguay – in late July. Maduro cut diplomatic ties with those countries in response to their respective governments questioning the socialist dictator’s fraudulent “victory” in the July 28 sham presidential election.
Maduro, and the Venezuelan authorities subservient to him, continue to insist Maduro “won” — even at the United Nations General Assembly — but refuse to publish vote tallies that can corroborate the claimed results.
According to estimates from U.N.-managed platforms, 2.4 million Venezuelans out of the nearly 8 million who have fled from socialism reside in those seven Latin American countries.
The Maduro regime’s brutal crackdown against dissidents following the sham July election, which left 27 deaths and more than 2,400 detained, also included the arbitrary annulment of the passports of Venezuelan journalists and activists, some of whom are abroad in countries such as Peru or Argentina.
The new SAIME measure is the latest on a lengthy list spanning more than ten years of actions committed by the socialist Maduro regime that have turned obtaining identity cards, passports, and other public office documents into an uphill endeavor for Venezuelans — especially passports for those who have fled the country following the collapse of socialism in Venezuela over the past years.
The Venezuelan passport ranks as one of the most expensive in the world, with a new one costing the equivalent of roughly $200 in local currency, the Venezuelan bolivar. The hefty cost of a new Venezuelan passport is prohibitively expensive for the majority of impoverished Venezuelans, who earn the official monthly minimum wage of roughly $4 per month — making the passport cost the equivalent of roughly four years’ worth of minimum wage.
In addition to its cost, obtaining a passport appointment is an uphill endeavor due to the frequent platform downtimes caused by infrastructure failures in power and internet connectivity.
The downtimes were further exacerbated in recent years by the Maduro regime switching passport printing provider and other services to Ex-Cle, an Argentine company the administration of former President Donald Trump sanctioned for its role in aiding the Maduro regime’s fraudulent elections. Ex-Cle is believed to hold direct links with Maduro’s Vice President Delcy Rodríguez.
Due to the impossibility of Venezuelans abroad obtaining new passports, countries such as the United States and Argentina have implemented special provisions to recognize Venezuelan passports beyond their printed expiration date. While the measures allow Venezuelans with expired passports to engage with the corresponding countries at a government level, it does not guarantee that banks or other private service providers will recognize them, leading to reported cases of Venezuelan citizens abroad having their salaries withheld, bank accounts disabled, contracts suspended or even losing their jobs for not having a valid passport.
While the Maduro regime has made it difficult for Venezuelans to obtain new passports, it has been accused of selling Venezuelan passports to Iranians, Syrians, and other Middle Eastern citizens in the past, including members of the Shiite jihadist group Hezbollah.
SAIME’s head, Gustavo Vizcaino Gil, was sanctioned by the United States in 2019 for selling passports to Venezuelans non-Venezuelan alike for large sums of cash.
[KhaamaPress] Andrey Rudenko, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister, announced that removing the Taliban ...the once and current oppressors of Afghanistan... from Russia’s list of terrorist groups "will not be a quick process." He explained that it requires changes in Russian law.
In an interview with the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti, Rudenko emphasized that this process is slow due to the necessary legal amendments in Russia.
Despite this, he added that Russia, like some other countries, is ready to develop cooperation with the Taliban.
However,
facts are stubborn; statistics are more pliable... Rudenko pointed out that such cooperation cannot happen until the Taliban is removed from the terrorist list.
In the interview, published on Thursday, Rudenko acknowledged that the Taliban holds power in Afghanistan and is a reality that must be recognized.
In June 2023, Russia’s special envoy to Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, said the proposal to remove the Taliban from the terrorist list had been submitted to President Vladimir Putin ...President-for-Life of Russia. He gets along well with other presidents for life. He is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substance. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to him. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substances... for a final decision.
The potential removal of the Taliban from Russia’s terrorist list is under consideration but remains a complex process. Russia is consulting with its regional partners to determine how best to engage with the Taliban, recognizing their control in Afghanistan.
[JPost] Fredo Blinken: "We're strong. Not weak. Not like people say! And we want respect!"
The Secretary of State also took the moment to warn Israel’s enemies not to use the regional instability to attack American targets.
“You want to attack Israel? Fine, we’ll restrain them again. Just stay away from the Americans, capisce?”
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/28/2024 00:00 ||
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Link ||
[11133 views]
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[IsraelTimes] The US Justice Department unseals criminal charges against three Iranian operatives suspected of hacking Donald Trump ...They hit him with slander, they impeached him twice. Nancy Pelosi tore up his State of the Union address on national TV. They stole an election and put his adherents in jail. They vilified him. They couldn't crucify him, so they shot him. Still, they can't keep him down... ’s presidential campaign and disseminating stolen information to media organizations.
The Trump campaign disclosed on August 10 that it had been hacked and said Iranian actors had stolen and distributed sensitive internal documents. Multiple major news organizations that said they were leaked confidential information from inside the Trump campaign, including Politico, The New York Times
...which still proudly claims Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... and The Washington Post, declined to publish it.
”It’s a fiendish Trump trap, guys — don’t fall for it. No frisson is worth the embarrassment!”
US intelligence officials subsequently linked Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... to a hack of the Trump campaign and to an attempted breach of the Joe The Big Guy Biden ...46th president of the U.S. We get to suffer the consequences... -Kamala Harris Former Oakland mayor Willie Brown's' former mistress campaign. They said the hack-and-dump operation was meant to sow discord, exploit divisions within American society and potentially influence the outcome of elections that Iran perceives to be "particularly consequential in terms of the impact they could have on its national security interests."
Last week, officials also revealed that the Iranians in late June and early July sent unsolicited emails containing excerpts of the hacked information to people associated with the Biden campaign. None of the recipients replied. The Harris campaign said the emails resembled spam or a phishing attempt and condemned the outreach to the Iranians as "unwelcome and unacceptable malicious activity."
The indictment comes at a time of heightened tensions between Washington and Tehran as Iran-backed Hezbollah and Israel escalate attacks against each other, raising concerns about the prospect of an all-out war, and as US officials say they continue to track physical threats by Iran against a number of officials including Trump.
Update from the Times of Israel at 1:25 p.m. ET: The FBI named the three hackers as Seyyed Ali Aghamiri, Yasar Balaghi and Masoud Jalili, who were employed by Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard. A photo of the miscreants can be seen at the link.
[Townhall] An independent journalist was suspended from X on Thursday after sharing documents about Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance that were allegedly obtained through the Iranians’ hack on the Trump campaign.
On his Substack, Ken Klippenstein published a 271-page vetting report on Vance, arguing the material is “of keen public interest in an election season.”
“[S]ince June, the news media has been sitting on it (and other documents), declining to publish in fear of finding itself at odds with the government’s campaign against ‘foreign malign influence,’” he wrote.
Last month, the Trump campaign confirmed it had been hacked, with Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung noting the documents were “obtained illegally from foreign sources hostile to the United States.”
Intelligence agencies later confirmed Iran was behind the attack and was seeking to “stoke discord and undermine confidence in our democratic institutions.”
The documents had been sent to media outlets at the time but they were not published.
“I’m just not a believer of the news media as an arm of the government, doing its work combatting foreign influence,” Klippenstein said. “Nor should it be a gatekeeper of what the public should know.”
A spokesperson for X told The Hill the independent journalist was suspended for publishing “unredacted private personal information” in violation of the social media platform’s rules.
#1
The far left and some Democrats are attacking Musk for suspending the "journalist" because free speech. Just let someone hack them and put their personal information out there and the tables will be turned.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
09/28/2024 11:56 Comments ||
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Just as there are those who hate Israel and Jews, there are those who accept them as full members of humanity.
[IsraelTimes] Israel has become the newest non-regional member of the Asian Development Bank, the Philippines-based lender announces, with an analyst cautioning that the move might cause "polarization" in the institution.
The bank’s board of governors had approved Israel’s entry in April 2022 pending its completion of the membership requirements, the ADB says in a statement. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich will be the country’s representative, a source from ADB tells AFP.
The bank now has 69 members, with Japan and the United States the major contributors to its capital, at more than $22.23 billion apiece.
"They [Israel] are allied with US, and basically Europa ...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum... right, but they would want to also... have more friends across the globe, not only those that have been traditionally allied with them," says economist Victor Abola, of the Manila-based University of Asia and the Pacific.
"The greater involvement here means closer strategic ties and trade," Abola tells AFP.
Established in 1966, the ADB is owned by its 69 members, 49 of which are in Asia. Israel, which first applied for membership in January 2022, is the 20th non-regional member.
[IsraelTimes] A group of international trade unions file a complaint against Israel at the UN’s labor organization in a bid to win compensation for 200,000 Paleostinians who have gone unpaid or seen their benefits withheld after Hamas ..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",... ’s October 7 attack on southern Israel.
The nine unions say the workers from both Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... and the West Bank had been employed in Israel before the deadly onslaught, but were barred from entering the country to go to their jobs afterward. As a result, the workers and their families have faced millions of dollars’ worth of lost income, financial insecurity and no access to remedies through the courts, they say.
"These workers have experienced widespread wage theft due to the suspension of work permits and the unilateral termination of their contracts," says a joint statement from the unions, whose members are active in industries as diverse as construction, education, journalism, agriculture, hospitality and transportation. Rape, murder, and terrorism
The filing at the International Labor Organization in Geneva, of which Israel is a member country, is based on language in its constitution that seeks to ensure that countries uphold international commitments they have already made.
[Rudaw] The United States and Iraq on Friday announced they had reached an agreement to end the military mission of the global coalition against the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... (ISIS) in Iraq within a year. The mission will continue in northeast Syria (Rojava) for the next two years.
The military mission of the US-led coalition will wrap up "over the next twelve months, and no later than the end of September 2025, and transitioning to bilateral security partnerships in a manner that supports Iraqi forces and maintains pressure on ISIS," read a joint statement from the US and Iraq.
The statement also said that the anti-ISIS mission in Rojava will continue for another year after the one in Iraq ends.
"As Iraq is a key member of the Coalition, and to prevent the return of the ISIS terrorist threat from northeast Syria, and subject to conditions on the ground and consultations among Iraq, the United States, and the members of the Coalition, the military mission of the Coalition operating in Syria from a platform determined in the HMC will continue until September 2026," read the statement, referring to the US-Iraq Higher Military Commission which has overseen the negotiations.
US forces will continue operations at some level in Iraq through 2026 to support the coalition mission in Rojava, senior government and defence officials told news hounds on Friday.
"Our agreement with Iraq to maintain a presence in Iraq, of the coalition to conduct counter-ISIS operations in Syria through at least September 2026 is evidence of Iraq’s continued participation in that coalition as a member in good standing," said a senior defense official.
Over the next year in Iraq, the US will "stay connected in an advise-and-assist capacity with the counterterrorism services, the joint operations command, the air force, and the Kurdish Peshmerga, all of whom play a very important role in conducting counter-ISIS missions," the defense official said, adding that partnership beyond 2025 will be discussed.
The joint statement said the agreement was the result of nine months of "intensive" meetings.
Baghdad began pushing for a US withdrawal after American forces carried out deadly Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s on Iraqi militias in retaliation for drone and rocket attacks.
The announcement of the agreement came after Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudan ...a Moslem country located in the Horn of Africa. It is noted for its affinity for rule by ex- or current generals, its holy men, and for the oppression of the native Afro population by its Arab conquerors. South Sudan, populated mostly by the natives, split off from Sudan proper, which left North and South Darfur to be oppressed by the guys with turbans... i’s visit to New York to attend the United Nations ...a formerly good idea gone bad... General Assembly and meet with US officials. Sudani hosted US Secretary of State Antony Blinken ...71st United States secretary of state and a leading light of the corrupt and inept Biden administration. He previously served as deputy national security advisor from 2013 to 2015 and deputy secretary of state from 2015 to 2017 under the corrupt and inept Obama administration. He advocated for the 2003 invasion of Iraq while serving as the Democratic staff director of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 2002 to 2008. He was a foreign policy advisor for the Biden 2008 presidential campaign. During his tenure in the Obama administration, Blinken helped craft B.O.'s policy on Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the nuclear program of Iran. We all saw how well each of those worked. After leaving government service, Blinken moved into the private sector, co-founding WestExec Advisors, a lobbying firm... in a meeting on the fringes of the event.
"This historic transition marks one decade since the formation of the Coalition’s military mission in Iraq and Iraq continues to engage with the United States and other members of the Coalition to establish bilateral security relations where appropriate," said the joint statement.
Iraqi forces continue to carry out regular operations against ISIS holy warriors, but government officials have said that the threat from the terror group is contained.
In its latest report on the anti-ISIS mission, the Pentagon said that the terror group is trying to reform and is "on pace to more than double the number of attacks it claimed in 2023."
Hamas would happily return to its former state, though, given access to deliveries via Egypt, so the IDF cannot pull out any time soon.
[IsraelTimes] Army says at least half of organization’s operatives have been killed in the war
The Israel Defense Forces assessed on Friday that Hamas ..one of the armed feet of the Moslem Brüderbund millipede,... has been largely defeated militarily in the entire Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... Strip, and it is now effectively a guerrilla terror group that will take some more time to dismantle.
Hamas is not the same organization it was pre-October 7, in terms of its command and control, weapons, rockets, and operatives, at least half of whom have been killed, according to the military.
The IDF has labeled dismantling Hamas as the most important war goal in the south, but returning the hostages is a more urgent goal and it is receiving priority.
"If we wait, it is not certain that there will be anyone to return," the military is saying.
According to the IDF, before October 7, Hamas had some 30,000 fighters in the Gaza Strip, split into five regional brigades, 24 battalions and some 140 companies.
Each Hamas brigade had an anti-tank missile array, sniper and engineering teams, air defenses, and a rocket firing array, the IDF has said. Each brigade also had a number of outposts and strongholds in their respective regions.
The units have been systematically dismantled by the military over the long months of war.
The ongoing war began on October 7 when Hamas-led hard boyz rampaged through southern communities, slaughtering some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 251 hostages to Gaza.
Israel launched its military operation, which has stretched for over 11 months, aiming to eliminate Hamas and bring back those kidnapped. In recent days, the military’s focus has shifted north to Leb ...an Iranian satrapy currently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers... , as Israel began a sustained offensive against Hezbollah’s missile capabilities.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 41,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 17,000 combatants in battle and another 1,000 hard boyz inside Israel on October 7.
17,000 dead out of 30,000 Hamas plus perhaps another 5,000 others (pulling a number out of my hat), that is indeed about half the fighters dead, plus the same number or probably more wounded… that’s an awful lot of fighter casualties, right?
Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gazooks as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.
Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip stands at 348.
[IsraelTimes] Senior Israeli official briefing reporters argues that Hezbollah leader is ‘lynchpin’ that has been keeping together an Iranian plot aimed at destroying Israel by 2040
By targeting Hezbollah’s leadership in a major Beirut Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... on Friday, Israel is hoping to avoid launching a ground invasion in Leb ...an Iranian satrapy currently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers... , a senior Israeli official told news hounds on Friday.
The strike targeting Secretary General His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah ...The satrap of the Medes and the Persians in Leb...> and other brass hats in the terror group huddling at a main command center in Beirut’s Dahiyeh suburb was aimed at breaking Hezbollah, the bigwig explained during a briefing with news hounds on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York following Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address there earlier in the day.
The official claimed Israeli intelligence had uncovered an Iranian plan to encircle Israel and eliminate the Jewish state by 2040. However,
today is that tomorrow you were thinking about yesterday... Hamas ..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",... leader Yahya Sinwar jumped the gun by ordering the October 7 terror onslaught before other Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... proxies were ready.
Israel has been working to fend off this Iranian plot since October 7 but understood that Nasrallah was the "lynchpin" who could not be ignored.
Nasrallah has led Hezbollah for 32 years, and since October 7 has directed the terror group’s near daily cross-border attacks against Israel that have forced tens of thousands of civilians to evacuate border towns.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said: "We cannot survive if we don’t stop this and reverse it," he said, referring to the threat to Israel from Iran-backed militia in the region.
"It’s impossible to reverse it without a general war. That was the assumption — a general war with Hezbollah, which entails the possibility of a broader war with Iran," he surmised.
"The other way to do it was to take him out. If you take him out, you not only neutralize that front — because nothing else will — but you also break a lynchpin. You break a central axis of the axis," the senior Israeli official claimed.
Nasrallah became secretary general of Hezbollah in 1992 at just 35, the public face of a once shadowy group founded by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Revolutionary Guard Corps in 1982 to fight Israeli forces who were then occupying southern Lebanon.
Israel killed Nasrallah’s predecessor, Sayyed ...Arabic term meaning your/his lordship. Groveling in His Exalted Presence is encouraged... Abbas al-Musawi, in a helizap.
The official defended Israel’s action when asked why killing Nasrallah would change the threat from Hezbollah when earlier liquidations of terror leaders had not hobbled their organizations.
"I think it’s different," the official said. "In many ways he keeps this thing focused, alive and kicking."
"Some people are irreplaceable. It happens. Some people do not have a substitute. That’s one of the cases, there’s no question," the official said.
"About 10 days ago or two weeks ago, the cabinet made a decision that we cannot have — after a year — Israelis who are basically refugees in their own land," the official said.
"So we added a formal war aim to bring our people back, to degrade Hezbollah’s power, to be able to push them back from the border, to destroy the infrastructure along the border, to change the balance of forces."
"The most important thing that we did was to try to take out about half of the missile and rocket capabilities that he built up over the last 30 years with Iran and to take it out in a few hours. And we did," the official said.
"I can’t tell you what will evolve, but I can tell you that this could be a pivot. We don’t seek a broader war. In fact, we seek not to have a broader war and Iran has to consider what it does now," the official said.
Israel has intensified its strikes against Hezbollah in recent days in order to ensure that the terror group doesn’t set a precedent by having forced tens of thousands of Israelis to evacuate their homes for such a long period of time, the official said.
He added that Israel now has momentum against Hezbollah and must keep acting forcefully in order to capitalize on recent gains.
While initial Israeli security assessments indicated that Nasrallah did not survive Friday’s strike, the bigwig said it could take weeks for Israel to confirm his death.
"I think it’s too early to say, but, you know, it’s a question of time. Sometimes they hide the fact when we succeed," the official told news hounds.
"Certainly if he’s alive, you’ll know it very immediately. If he’s dead, it may take some time," he added.
Asked whether Israel would now consider a ceasefire in Lebanon following Friday’s strike, the bigwig was non-committal.
On Thursday, Israel shrugged off a US-led attempt to implement a 21-day ceasefire.
"We are further along than we were, but [Hezbollah] still [has] thousands of rockets," the official said, adding that it would consider itself even closer if Nasrallah was killed in today’s strike. "But in war, when your guy is down, you keep moving."
#1
One can understand Russia's position. But: "Germany's Baerbock: Destabilizing Lebanon Is Not In Israel's Interest" - who asked you you brainless c*nt who almost destroyed (with help) your own country?
[Rudaw] The US government on Thursday pledged $535 million of additional humanitarian assistance for Syria, encouraging other countries to do the same, as UN agencies are warning of a new displacement crisis after thousands of people have fled Israeli Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s in southern Leb ...an Iranian satrapy currently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers... The US has provided more than $18 billion in humanitarian assistance since the Syrian civil war began in 2011, including $1.2 billion in Fiscal Year 2024, re-emphasizing it is support for the Syrian people.
[Rudaw] The Kurdish authorities in northeast Syria (Rojava) decreed general amnesty on Tuesday for thousands of prisoners, excluding fighters and others who have committed violence.
According to a statement from the Democratic Autonomous Administration in North and East Syria (DAANES), "1,120 of them were released in several batches immediately after the amnesty law was issued [on September 24]."
The amnesty excludes those who fought against the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the leaders and trainers of terrorist organizations, and those guilty of bombings, treason, and espionage.
Rojava is controlled by the Kurdish-led SDF, the partnered ground force in Syria of the US-led international coalition against the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... (ISIS).
"Only those whose hands were not stained with the blood of Syrians," are included, according to the statement which cited violations of DAANES law.
The remaining 400 convicts will be released after serving half of their sentences, provided their crime is covered by the amnesty law and "after ensuring their good conduct during the period [of their sentences]," the statement detailed.
Authorities said they pardoned 35 of the 63 female prisoners being held.
Following the military defeat of ISIS in Syria in Baghouz and Hajin in early 2019, the SDF detained tens of thousands fighters, their families, violent mostly peaceful criminals, and others for breaking the laws of the autonomous administration.
Iraqis and Syrians make up the majority of the 40,000 people who have been held at the al-Hol camp in Hasaka province. Iraq announced last week that it is in the process of repatriating 4,000 people from al-Hol, but those who have committed violent mostly peaceful crimes would not be granted return to the country. The camp has been branded a breeding ground for terrorism.
In July, Rojava authorities decreed another amnesty, saying it was a response to requests from tribal leaders during a May forum. It aimed to provide reintegration opportunities for individuals who also had not committed violence.
On Monday, Syrian state media reported that President Bashir al-Assad issued a decree to grant general amnesty for offenses prior to September 22, including obligatory military service breaches, deserting the military, and misdemeanors.
Assad’s reported amnesty does not include those guilty of "serious assault on society and the state, bribery, some misdemeanors of forgery, attacks on public morals, and some types of theft."
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.
...the once and current oppressors of Afghanistan...
...They hit him with slander, they impeached him twice. Nancy Pelosi tore up his State of the Union address on national TV. They stole an election and put his adherents in jail. They vilified him. They couldn't crucify him, so they shot him. Still, they can't keep him down...
...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum...
..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",...
...71st United States secretary of state and a leading light of the corrupt and inept Biden administration. He previously served as deputy national security advisor from 2013 to 2015 and deputy secretary of state from 2015 to 2017 under the corrupt and inept Obama administration. He advocated for the 2003 invasion of Iraq while serving as the Democratic staff director of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 2002 to 2008. He was a foreign policy advisor for the Biden 2008 presidential campaign. During his tenure in the Obama administration, Blinken helped craft B.O.'s policy on Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the nuclear program of Iran. We all saw how well each of those worked. After leaving government service, Blinken moved into the private sector, co-founding WestExec Advisors, a lobbying firm...
..one of the armed feet of the Moslem Brüderbund millipede,...
...Arabic term meaning 
...an Iranian satrapy currently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling 
