Showing posts with label weapons. Show all posts
Showing posts with label weapons. Show all posts

19 July 2016

The West should end its own terrorism

The Blog


Rejecting the notion that the West is simply a helpless victim of murder and mayhem committed by radical (and usually Muslim) groups, Garrison Center director Thomas Knapp gives a useful reminder.


From his article, posted on 15 July in the aftermath of the terrorist attack in Nice, France:

 Western (including American and French)  troops have killed hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, in the Middle East and Central Asia just since 1991.  Many (maybe most) have been innocent civilians. Their families, friends, countrymen and co-religionists have, unsurprisingly, responded in kind. We should stop supporting military adventurism not just because it inevitably results in “blowback” and dead bodies back home, but because it’s as wrong when “we” do it as it is when “they” do it.

 It is indeed a hard heart that kills. Tools are mere distraction. Hearts — and minds — are where change begins."

 With yet another atrocity occurring in the defenseless and open EU (many people forget the dates of individual terrorists acts now, as terrorism becomes a fact of life within the failing EU), Knapp expects more ridiculous measures by states. They may include "no drive lists" to prevent anyone with possibly radical views from driving heavy trucks, the Garrison Center director wrote on Friday.

Indeed, one consistent behavior of Western states seems to be increased monitoring and bans aimed at previously innocuous devices.

Pressure cookers, vehicles, and possibly even metal bars can expect to be deemed "weapons of mass destruction" in future, as politicians want the whole population in padded cells to enjoy "freedom and democracy".


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24 June 2016

Islamic faith irrelevant to Omar Mateen

The Blog


Commenting on the work of investigators looking at the attack by US citizen Omar Mateen that took the lives of a high number of LGBT people in Orlando, Florida, Beliefnet's Hesham Hassaballa argued it was nothing to do with Islam.


Investigators currently believe even the connection between the gunman and the ISIS terrorist group was nothing more than posing for publicity at best. The shooter had his own reasons for committing his crime. With extremist ideology not an important motivation for Mateen, his Islamic faith was even more irrelevant.

Nevertheless, many other commentators in the media are convinced the attack is just additional evidence to claim all Muslims are terrorists in waiting. The rhetoric of politicians such as Donald Trump is therefore likely to take a boost in popularity, as a result of the shooting.

In conclusion, Hassaballa writes, "it is becoming increasingly clear that this crime had nothing to do with terrorism and ISIS. Omar Mateen fit the typical profile of a mass shooter, and this time, he happened to be Muslim."

Many critics of western media and legal responses to mass murder sprees focus on how Middle Eastern attackers are quickly judged to be religious terrorists even if they were mentally ill, whereas white attackers are only ever judged to be mentally ill or incorrectly medicated.


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24 May 2016

US Empire fears defeat in star wars?

The Blog


According to a recent Stratfor analysis, US generals are getting worried again. This time, about American space dominance in the face of increased anti-satellite capabilities in development by China and Russia.


As always, America sees threats everywhere and gaps in its attempts to manage the entire planet as a single perfect battlefield. The analysis states, "Increased competition in space is reviving fears of a war there, one with devastating consequences".

 Included in the report is an acknowledgement that the increasingly unstable American empire is getting ready for pesky Russian or Chinese rebel attacks by planning to build ultimate battle stations in orbit:
Overall, the United States is getting far more serious about the threat of space warfare. Investment in new technologies is increasing, and the organizational architecture to deal with such a contingency is being put in place. In the race between shield and sword, however, there is no guarantee that offensive ASAT capabilities will not have the advantage, potentially denying critical access to space during a catastrophic celestial war.
Going beyond the Star Wars references, this story has a serious side, with grave implications for US global military dominance as it suffers from the inevitable decline of empire.

Stratfor's analysis admits that the US is more dependent on vulnerable satellites than other powers because of the global remit of its foreign policy (driven by US belief that the country must dominate the world). The US is only interested in military technology it can project globally to maintain its own power and threaten others, and has comparatively no interest in fortifying its own borders against threats or ensuring the regime's own survival.

Such mistaken priorities put the US at a disadvantage to Russia and China when trying to confront those countries at their borders. While US armies will depend on a flimsy chain of defenseless satellites to learn about Russian and Chinese forces, Russia and China will only need to depend on hardened ground-based radar systems deep inside their own territory in the event of war.

US satellite weakness is an additional component of the overall overstretching that is putting US forces on such weak footing against Russia and China in its hopes of "containment" of emerging powers, despite America's vastly greater defense spending. As long as the United States attempts to occupy the entire planet, its forces will be spread too thin to engage Russia or China in any effective way. US military dominance will hang by a thread of dependence on fragile technologies, such as its exposed satellites.


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20 May 2016

"Obama should celebrate" US atrocities

The Blog


While President Obama's planned Japan visit was reported, C4SS writer Kevin Carson wrote to remind us the US atomic bombing of Hiroshima in 1945 was nothing but a act of murder directed intentionally at civilians.


Carson's article counters an earlier article, relating to a prospective visit by President Obama to Japan. Writing on 14 May, the Boston Globe's Jeff Jacoby had suggested Obama should actually tell the Japanese people he is glad about the nuclear bombing of their people as it allowed Japan to be "free" and enjoy "friendship" with the United States.

While the 1945 nuclear terrorism against Japanese civilians is praised by Jacoby for transforming Japan into what the US sees as a puppet state at only the cost of immolated women and children, Carson provides a rather different picture for you to consider. Rejecting Jacoby's view that other intensive bombing attacks on civilians in different countries were also justified to end the war, Carson writes that all "Attempts to terrorize a country into surrender through wholesale murder of its civilian population [are] a crime against humanity — no exceptions."

Carson's article concludes that the US decision to destroy cities was an act of utter barbarity, and finds little parallel anywhere except in primitive genocides committed thousands of years ago:
In fact, there’s no moral difference between Truman’s order of the massacre of the civilian population of two cities amounting to hundreds of thousands of people, and the massacres of civilian populations with which the Assyrians similarly terrorized enemies into surrendering over two thousand years ago. 
Deliberately killing civilians is murder. It’s that simple.
As of this post's creation, Obama is not expected to either apologize for or seek to justify the US regime's extensive and horrific war crimes from 1945 to present when he visits the Hiroshima Peace Memorial.


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3 May 2016

'Nuclear terror' magnet isn't Pakistan

The Blog


In Europe, the US and the west in general, many professed experts would say Pakistan is the weakest link when it comes to nuclear security, and the most likely target of terrorists trying to obtain a nuclear weapon.


However as explained in a report at the Pakistan-based Voice of East website based on facts covered earlier by the Guardian, Pakistan isn't the location where terrorists would obtain nuclear materials. In fact, Europe is.

Terrorists are frequently recruiting and operating with impunity inside Europe without any clear strategy from the EU or NATO, who instead try to cynically benefit by letting them go to Syria to attack their enemy, Bashar al-Assad's troops.

Only the most recent consequences of this were the Paris and Brussels attacks by the so-called "Islamic" State (Daesh). The atrocities marked the return of the unspeakable terrorism for "democracy" that Europe stupidly still justifies and exports for consumption in Syria as an alternative to Assad's government.

According to facts published at the Guardian, Daesh-associated terrorist Salah Abdeslam possessed sensitive information on a Germany nuclear waste facility. Whether the ultimate intent was to cause nuclear disaster there, obtain data on the locations of fissile material, or construct a "dirty bomb", it is a closer call than anything that has been reported in Pakistan of late.

More consequentially, there was a recent scare in Belgium that resulted in iodine capsules being issued to the population in the hopes of fighting radiation sickness after a "dirty bomb".


However, a "dirty bomb" is considered to be no threat as long as you have a fully functioning suit of skin, according to scientists. The US government, and apparently Belgium too, have failed to note this when telling the media over and over again that terrorists may detonate a "dirty bomb" - probably to justify criminal surveillance and human rights abuses by NATO countries.

The likelihood of a Daesh nuclear attack that would kill one or more people is very unlikely, under any circumstances. Daesh lacks the codes or knowledge to detonate any state's nuclear devices or the rockets to deliver such a weapon on target, and lacks the equipment to safely dismantle and handle nuclear devices. It is unlikely that nuclear waste is stored in areas proximate to significant populated sites, making an attack on nuclear waste sites not very threatening.

Despite that more vulnerabilities exist in their own countries, westerners still consume anti-Pakistan propaganda such as statements from regional nemesis India that Pakistan's nuclear weapons are not secure and could easily be obtained by Daesh.


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19 February 2016

Trident nuked by Steve Topple article

The Blog


Journalist Steve Topple got right to the point in a hard-hitting article for Common Space, offering some stunning facts you probably never considered about Britain's "independent" nuclear arsenal.


Rather than presenting moral arguments against nuclear weapons or military-strategic arguments about how only the US benefits from the tiny and weak British island state acting as a second policeman to contain Russian "aggression", Topple goes after the ones who support Trident for financial gain. This is much the way Topple addressed dark money in British politics in another recent article.

Most surprising of all is the role of UK-headquartered banks in the investment in the nuclear deterrents of the western countries as well as Russia. Apparently, these banks, their related companies and pro-Trident politicians in the UK are so driven by profit that they work to keep the nonexistent "threat" of nuclear war alive in the public consciousness, while financing both sides. Ultimately, the entire thing often just amounts to con against the public. Although a tense situation exists in Syria and Ukraine, Topple is certain that it will not lead to a nuclear war because globalization is currently too pervasive to allow that.

Topple defuses the apparent nuclear threat skillfully in his article as follows:
Multinational corporate banks are playing one big chess game – except it’s all make-believe and there will never be a checkmate, because that would be unprofitable. Governments willingly participate - those in charge are invariably shareholders in weapons manufacturing companies or their financiers. 
We are not living in some Sean Connery-era James Bond film. The world is intrinsically too financially entwined for either the East or West to ever press 'the button' – and to believe they would is, in my opinion, deluded.
This is no conspiracy theory. Barclays, HSBC and the Royal Bank of Scotland are specifically identified as having a hand in investing in both sides' nuclear deterrents, and this largely links together the financial players behind the nuclear arms industries of Russia and the UK.

In conclusion, Topple states, "There is no threat – except from our own foolhardiness for sleep-walking for decades and allowing this to continue happening."

Topple is a listed member of the Mont Order society, which declared a short set of shared values between its global disparate members in October 2015.


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22 January 2016

Mont: Oregon militants should go home

The Blog


Members of the Mont Order society offered their theories on the actions of political militants who took control of a US Federal-owned Wildlife Refuge in Oregon and are holding it "by force of arms".


In sum, the Mont Order denounces the militants and believes they need to "go home". While members are not necessarily standing with the US government if it eventually detains or eliminates these militants, as some members of the political left seem to be, Mont bloggers and activists see the militants' actions as unjustified.

Wave Chronicle Editor Mike Dodd was strongest in condemning the Oregon militants, stating there is nothing noble or worthy in the cause these militants claim to represent. What they are doing amounts to "dumb white hicks being dumb white hicks", he stated. The Wave Chronicle has already made its opposition to the militants clear in a post, which refuted the less condemning posts at The clubof.info Blog and the KN@PPSTER blog.



Thomas L. Knapp, Garrison Center Director, clarified that he doesn't know enough background on the militants and their prior activities to justify their specific actions. They "have done more than "protest"", he wrote in to the Mont Order. Clarifying where he stands, he stated, "In order to decide whether or not I could support that, I'd need to get a better understanding of their grievances, and of what steps prior to this they took to seek redress of those grievances."

Perhaps closest to the actual events was NaughteeisMaxim, a news media curator and Mont Order member. He agreed with the Wave Chronicle's judgment, writing "dumb fight, dumb issue, wrong time", and emphasizing the fact that the militants are not even from Oregon, but are outsiders and are harming the local community, causing unnecessary tensions. He ridiculed the militants, who are ranchers, and their grievances by arguing, "Personally I'm not for some freaken cow rights to graze in Wildlife Refuge Areas and it should be fenced off to keep the cows out of the wet lands, they can graze everywhere else around the area but ranchers must pay for the privilege to graze on BLM land."

The Wave Chronicle wisely points out that the issue of lead poisoning of children by the authorities in Michigan is a "worthy battle" rather than any issue of farmers' property rights, as appear to be at the heart of the bizarre Oregon standoff.

NaughteeisMaxim argued that the militants should "go home", which is also the name of a campaign aiming to evict the occupying militants from the public-owned Wildlife Refuge.


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8 January 2016

Oregon militiamen vs the 'worse guys'

The Blog


Antistatist writer Thomas L. Knapp, also a Mont Order society member, wrote on 4 January on the stand-off between militia members and Federal authorities at a facility in the US state of Oregon.


Knapp sympathized with the militia members in his short commentary, but stopped short of declaring any support for their actions. He contrasted them with law enforcers, seeing Federal officers as somewhat more arbitrary and dangerous than the militiamen themselves.

 Stating that there is nothing especially different from the Occupy movement or the Black Panthers about these members of the public who choose to defend themselves at occupation-type protests using firearms, Knapp offered the following commentary:
any time any group puts itself in opposition to the existing state, I have to root for them at least a little. And I certainly don't favor the feds moving in and murdering them over possession of a building that the feds built with stolen money on stolen land. If there are no good guys here, there can certainly be better and worse guys. 
Read more at http://knappster.blogspot.com/2016/01/concerning-oregon.html#BVEOpTICZASWGSi4.99
Overall Knapp backed the view of Kent McManigal in a post an another blog. However, he did object to the characterization of these militiamen as "terrorists" by some left-wing commentators, arguing "Some state leftists are making a big deal about these protesters being armed (and, for that reason, are calling them "terrorists")". Knapp pointed out that left-wing groups have also protected themselves with firearms, and it is worth remembering that "terrorist" is more commonly a right-wing slur in US politics rather than a left-wing one.

Petition: Google must end its censorship

A post at Beliefnet's Mont Order-linked L'Ordre blog also responds to the militiamen's protest actions, but focuses more on the aspect of social media commentary saying the gunmen escaped being called "terrorists" because they were white (despite an overwhelming outcry against them over social media that indeed called them terrorists). The post tried to refute this theory, saying ignorance about Islamic clothing and writing has a greater role than skin color in the public image of what a "terrorist" is in America.

Catalyst: A Techno-Liberation Thesis (book)

Other Mont Order-affiliated writers are much more critical of the militiamen, regarding them as "nut jobs" and questioning how they hoped to accomplish anything at a deserted facility in a forest.


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8 December 2015

Syria War producing excuses for WW3

The Blog


Different countries trying to gain the moral high ground and win in the Syrian war at any costs open up new ways for a Third World War to begin.


The growing involvement of great powers in the war-torn Arab country resembles the conditions leading to World War One and World War Two. The world is also divided into two clear sets of military alliances fighting it out in Syria, a theory at Beliefnet states.

 In its conclusion, the Beliefnet post referred to a drone video of the devastation in Syria, comparing it both with World War Two in Europe and how the world would look after a nuclear war. "Today, Syria looks like it has been nuked", the post stated, predicting that the powers increasingly involved there would like to do similar devastation to each other.

The best solution to increased confrontation might be greater transparency, the post argued. Instead, what we see are the powers from opposing alliances, such as SCO members and the "resistance axis" on one side and the GCC and NATO on the other using covert methods and concealing their true intentions or involvement.

Although largely using proxies, world powers seem to have undeclared and invisible "red lines" which cause them to use military force against each other directly in Syria, as Turkey did. The fact that major powers are capable of launching surprise attacks on one another's forces in the conflict in Syria makes escalation highly likely, and even nuclear salvos launched by Russia and the United States on one another become very possible in such a scenario. The post added that there is no precedent for so many nuclear powers challenging each other directly with air forces and ground troops (the US and Russia both have commandos stationed in Syria) in the same civil war.

 The scenario for a world war might involve NATO using its outer members such as Turkey as a paw to attack Russia directly, leading Russia to use missiles against Turkey. If it happened, this may be used to justify US missile launches against Russian territory, and their fire being returned with Russian nuclear attacks against US and NATO targets.

No powers want such a scenario to take place, the blog stressed. However, the previous world wars were not wanted either, and the Third could still happen anyway as a result of diplomatic failures and provocations like Turkey's attack on a Russian jet.


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4 December 2015

'Punish Turkey for assisting terror': WC

The Blog


A top Mont society member and newsletter editor has called for Turkey to be thrown out of the so-called NATO alliance.


Citing the recent incident when Turkish fighter planes shot down a Russian bomber aircraft while it was striking Turkish-backed terrorist targets, Wave Chronicle editor Mike Dodd described the Turkish government as idiots whose actions are beyond belief.

 Not only did the Turkish authorities take lethal action against Russian lives to protect terrorists , but Turkish-supported militiamen also broke the Geneva Convention by murdering an unarmed pilot who had parachuted from the burning aircraft before he had even landed. The Wave Chronicle recommended the RT network video, embedded once again by The clubof.info Blog below.



"It does not require a single brain cell" to realize that the Russian aircraft should not have been shot down, Dodd stated, noting a video was subsequently shown off featuring the destruction of a Russian rescue helicopter with the loss of one soldier using a US-made TOW missile. In response to this, the editor decried the use of American military hardware in supporting terrorists in Syria and condemned the so-called moderate foreign-backed opposition, stating that "the Free Syrian Army are terrorists".

US support for terrorists can be considered treasonous and someone should be on trial for this, according to the Wave Chronicle article. US weapons are being used illegally, by an illegal army, for attacks on Russia and Syria.


The Wave Chronicle editor appealed to world leaders for three steps to be taken in response to this crime. First, the US Congress should bring any Americans involved in illegally arming terrorists to trial for treason against the American people. Second, an investigation should be conducted into the illegal act and all involved should be punished with severity, "no matter who or where they are". Third, NATO needs to strike criminal regimes such as the Erdogan government off its membership lists.

Since Turkey shot down the Russian aircraft, Russia has intensified its air strikes on terrorists near the Turkish territory and has sent additional fighter planes to destroy Turkish jets if needed.



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20 November 2015

Russia to carpet-bomb ISIL out of Syria?

The Blog


What will the Russian Federation's new deployment of strategic bombers to the battlefields of Syria mean for the war?


Russia's fighter jets have already been rolling back territorial gains by terrorist groups including the so-called Islamic State (ISIL, ISIS). But these inflict only piecemeal losses on the militants, compared with the area-bombing capabilities of aircraft like the Tupolev Tu-95 and Tu-160. Such strategic bombers are capable of leveling entire towns and destroying whole armies single-handedly.

The efficiency of all airstrikes against ISIL has been suspect. The US-led coalition has been striking ISIL positions for over a year with almost no effect. In fact, the terrorist group has actually gained more territory throughout the US-led air campaign in Syria, as is demonstrated by maps of the conflict so far. The Russian-led airstrikes have been somewhat more effective, clearing key highways and fortifications for the advancing Syrian Army - a force the US refuses to acknowledge or work with, in the belief that it is not "legitimate".


However, the course of the war is still slow, and thousands continue to face torture, genocide and persecution at the hands of the many sectarian militias supported by the West to take control of the country. Russia has compared ISIL with Nazi Germany, with no illusions about how the group should be dealt with and the kind of firepower that might be necessary to defeat it.

In an analysis for the Beliefnet website all the way back in June, it is advocated that strategic bombers are used instead of mere fighter jets (although in that case it was supposing the US would be doing all the bombing). The bombers should be used with the aim of wiping entire ISIL-controlled towns off the map and making it clear that this so-called "state" will be destroyed at all costs by the most powerful weapons available.

The analysis noted that the goal of such bombing is to put the enemy on the run, making them reactive rather than active, which will enable them to be fought on better terms. They will be drastically weaker on the battlefield, as they will be unable to hold any base or position for long.

ISIL has made no secret of the fact that it is in a state of war with Russia, the US and other major powers. It's recent attacks on Paris, and on a Russian airliner over Sinai, have been described as acts of war. France and Russia now not only say ISIL is intolerable and must be destroyed at all costs, but that they will do it themselves if the US is not capable.

World powers accept that ISIL is a significant military opponent. They want to eliminate  ISIL's capacity to wage war, which means they won't hesitate to use their most powerful weapons. Such weapons will be determined by the size and nature of military targets, as they were in the Second World War, and not by moral concerns about how such strikes may later be perceived.

The more civilians are killed by ISIL, the more the case for 'pinpoint' strikes against ISIL weakens and the stronger the case for indiscriminate area-bombing of ISIL becomes. Russia's movement of strategic bombers to the battlefields of Syria might mean they are moving to apply exactly this ruthless approach to warfare.


If used to its greatest extent, such a weapon will batter ISIL's already ruined territory into craters, and demolish any semblance of "state" in the "Islamic State". If Russia and its allies intend to treat ISIL like Nazi Germany, the geopolitical analysts comparing Russia's involvement with the Soviet War in Afghanistan are far off the mark in their historical comparisons.


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8 September 2015

US Black protesters to receive weapons?

The Blog


Writing at the Center for a Stateless Society (C4SS), analyst Ryan Calhoun praised an initiative by a local chapter of the Oath Keepers militia to arm protesters in Missouri with assault rifles.


The Oath Keepers are a decentralized militia in the United States who conform to a libertarian interpretation of the United States Constitution. While Calhoun noted that adherence to the Constitution is not a perfect ideology, with the Constitution itself being responsible for some historic injustices like slavery at certain times, he noted that more faithful adherence to the Constitution may result in a better regime in the United States at this juncture.

The national leadership of the Oath Keepers has continued to hold a "colonial" attitude towards its relationship with the Black communities most subjected to injustice by police forces in Missouri, seeing its role as the defense of businesses from the "rioters", as the American regime prefers to call Black protesters. The local chapter of the group in Missouri, however, has other intentions.

"The Missouri Chapter of Oath Keepers want to arm 50 black protestors with AR-15s", Calhoun points out, and this has caused a kind of schism within the Oath Keepers, as the chapter would prefer to arm the Black community and enable it to defend itself from police brutality rather than simply backing up the police state for the sake of protecting businesses.

Calhoun praised any move to arm the police-occupied Black community for the purpose of "handing over the power of a rifle to men and women who we, as a society, have stripped of the right to self-determination".

Whether or not the Missouri Chapter's efforts succeed, the next time the US police state tries to forcibly suppress protests, the regime might not just have to watch out for Black protesters but for militias of all races who recognize the plight of this minority and its need for armed defense.


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