IRISH SAVANT: Ukraine: An utter disaster for Russia?

 

Ukraine: An utter disaster for Russia?

Posted by By Savant May 17, 2022

http://www.irishsavant.net/?p=2069

The Russian military intervention in Ukraine is turning into a strategic disaster of such monumental scale as to to bring into question the motives of Putin’s Government in launching the intervention. For a start it’s quite clear after sifting the tsunami of lies from all sides that it is indeed a disaster militarily. In fact anything other than a quick comprehensive victory involving minimal casualties and physical destruction equaled failure. Despite the claims of many experts that Ukraine’s defense infrastructure had been disabled by early precision weapon attacks the resistance not alone survives but seems to be pushing the Russians back months after hostilities began. It’s taken weeks to capture a single steel plant, for God’s sake, the defenders of which were able to see the Russian Black Sea flagship sunk in humiliating fashion a few miles off shore. Surely restive regions with non-Russian ethnic majorities (Chechnya, Dagestan, Ingushetia) are reconsidering their chances of a new violent rebellion in the light of these events? Russian military failure and ineptitude will also embolden adjacent states such as Georgia into more adventures.

The expansion and improved cohesion of what had been a declining and fissiparous NATO must surely represent the biggest single strategic disaster for Russia. Initiatives inconceivable even a few months ago such as Sweden and Finland joining that organisation have now become established fact while its constituent members are ramping up military expenditure. Russia now faces an adversary that is bigger, more hostile, more unified, better armed and more confident than ever before. The damage done to Russian-European relations will take literally generations to repair, assuming it can be repaired. The Russian action also encourages irredentism, still a powder keg in much of Europe where so many countries have historical and/or ethnic claims to parts of neighbouring countries. Hungary with parts of Serbia and Romania, Romania with Moldova and Transnistria, Poland with Ukraine and, well, remember Germany used to stretch all the way up to the Lithuanian border and indeed beyond. Rumours persist of eagerness on the part of Poles, Hungarians and Romanians to recover parts of Ukraine in the (now increasingly unlikely) event of the that country’s dismemberment. Whatever the merits of such claims the potential geopolitical ramifications are horrific. Bear in mind that both Latvia and Lithuania have very large Russian populations, located conveniently near the Russian border. How must the authorities there feel about the events in Ukraine? And by now every country in Europe which had been dependent on Russian energy and agricultural exports must be frantically seeking out alternative long-term suppliers. And finally, the Visigrad Alliance which promised so much in the fight against globohomo has been destroyed in the fallout.

So what happens now? It appears – again, to the extent that we can believe anything emanating from official sources – that Putin expected a quick victory, the surrender of Zelenksy and the scattering of the so-called Nazis. None of these objectives were achieved and almost certainly never will be, short of a protracted meat-grinder war of attrition, if then. Such an imbroglio would suit NATO down to the ground. The most likely outcome will see Russia withdraw under cover of some face-saving form of words. Such an outcome could threaten Putin’s survival. And even were Donbas and the whole Black Sea coast to come under Russian control it’s hard to see any major advantages accruing other than greater control over access to Crimea.

Could Russia have responded in any other way to the endless NATO provocations, ongoing as they have been for decades? The military option may have been hopeless but the economic one has been very different – the full impact on Europe most certainly has not been seen yet. Yet this weapon was deployed only after active hostilities had commenced. Could it have been deployed prior to that with the clear message to NATO: “Cut off and roll back the de facto NATOisation of Ukraine or sanctions will commence”. It’s an option that could have been implemented on a gradual basis to underline Putin’s seriousness. Existing NATO facilities in Ukraine plus the biolabs could have been taken out by those advanced precision weapons we’ve been hearing so much about. Same with the artillery shelling Donbas. I don’t claim any special knowledge and could be totally wrong but it does seem to me that had such options been applied over the last year or so a military invasion would have been unnecessary. Then again maybe Russia thought that this would be another Crimea operation, that Ukraine and the West would just stand by and do nothing of any significance.

This assumes of course that Putin’s real objectives were as stated. I believe they were but what if they’re not? The scale and comprehensiveness of the disaster from a Russian perspective are so great as to suggest the possibility, I put it no stronger than that, of other motives at play. In this post a few weeks ago I wrote “Jews in the West may hate Putin and Russians generally but that country’s Jews proclaim Putin as the best Russian leader ever for their community. Many of the Jewish oligarchs are still in power with their loot intact and enjoy privileged access to the President. Many other factors give us pause for thought. Russia was all on board with the Covid hoax, the mass MRNA vaccination program and the Mark Of The Beast digital ID. Putin’s daughter plays a major role in the transhumanist CRISPR project. His association with the WEF and Schwab goes back thirty years and they refer to one another by their first names. Kissinger has been described as “a valued friend” and is accorded the almost unique distinction of dining at Putin’s private quarters when he visits Russia. Is this the guy saving us from the NWO? Seriously?”

Again, I don’t know. But Putin does seem as committed to the NWO, the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the Great Reset and transhumanism as are his enemies (?) in the West. Or is he destroying Ukraine so as to reestablish the Khazarian Kingdom in time for the Moshiach’s imminent appearance? Crazy? Insane? Maybe. Probably. But ask yourself this. Had anybody predicted twenty years ago the situation we now find ourselves in would you have dismissed them as lunatics as well?

 

IRISH SAVANT: Some random reflections on the Uvalde massacre

 

Some random reflections on the Uvalde massacre

Posted by By Savant May 29, 2022

http://www.irishsavant.net/?p=2140

This post is just a series of unstructured observations on the recent mass shooting in Texas. The scandalous performance of the police is the standout issue for me. Report a racist insult emanating from a crowd of 60,000 football supporters and the police will swing into action, sirens blazing, while their colleagues back at the station analyse gigabytes of film footage to identify the culprit. During the scamdemic police relentlessly hunted down the unvaxxed and the unmasked. Or if parents ask awkward questions at a school board meeting we can be assured that the cops will drag them out into the street and probably charge them with a public order offence. But it’s a different matter when it comes to protecting the law-abiding ordinary citizen. Your house has been burgled? Sorry, we’re busy tracking down hate speech offenders. Get on to your insurers. BLM burning down your neighbourhood? Cops stand idly by.

But God Almighty, has there even been anything like what we saw here? The cops skulked outside the school for 40 minutes as a deranged shooter blazed away at teachers and students inside. But it’d be unfair to say that they did nothing. When one of the mothers, apparently armed, tried to get into the school to save her kids the cops cuffed her and flung her to the ground. Heckuva job guys. But there’s method in their madness because the cops and their masters fear most of all citizens taking responsibility for their own defense. ‘Law enforcement’ will sit around ignoring real crime but will be galvanised into action at the first hint of vigilante-style activity. Their greatest fear is an aroused and armed citizenry. (But on the other hand cops are walking on eggshells if and when the perp is a POC.) You’d almost imagine that TPTB were trying to engineer societal collapse so as to Build Back Better. Now there’s a thought!

There’s no doubt that the USA is a deeply fractured…..I hesitate to describe it as a ‘society’. But it’s completely wrong to imply that mass shootings are a uniquely American phenomenon – despite popular misconception. An unprepared Ted Cruz was made look bad by a reporter who – and I know you’ll find this hard to believe – had no grasp of the actual facts. Because out of the 97 countries where mass public shootings occurring, the United States ranks 64th in the per capita frequency of these attacks and 65th in the murder rate. Not only have these attacks been much more common outside the US, the US’s share of these attacks has declined over time. There has been a much bigger increase over time in the number and severity of mass shootings in the rest of the world compared to the US.

Naturally enough the tragedy has been seized on gleefully by the usual suspects to press their gun-grabbing agenda. But this is a total red herring. For a start criminals will always get guns. As we saw in Australia the guns seized or handed in will belong to law-abiding citizens. Second, there is no correlation between legalised gun ownership and the murder rate. In fact if anything there’s an inverse correlation. Central American countries and all the ‘liberal’ hell-hole cities in the USA experience far higher rates of mass shootings despite their highly restrictive gun laws. One of the worst school shootings in history occurred in Scotland where it’s very hard to acquire a gun legally. Meanwhile almost every family in Switzerland owns a gun yet the country has one of the world’s lowest murder rates.

Nonetheless the fault lines in American ‘society’ now run deep. There was a time when men took pride in things, in protecting family and community. But most now sense, even if dimly, the growth of evil everywhere. God has been driven from the public domain and increasingly from the private space as well, depravity of every form is celebrated, criminals are cossetted, the economy hollowed out, poverty increases while parasites add billions to their wealth every year. The White middle class, the backbone of the country, gets remorselessly harried and dispossessed, elections get stolen, the Constitution is ignored. And the guilty are never held to account. Which makes this report by an Unz Review commentator both understandable and shocking. “By the time 2014 rolled around, ALL schools in our area had been retrofitted (and new schools designed with) buzz-in systems, where you could not walk into the school without being buzzed in by the front office. Parents would literally have to give their name, the name of their student, and the reason for their visit. You would sit outside and wait a couple minutes while the administration and staff verified that your student was a real student at the school. Once inside, the only place accessible to any visitor was the front office. There was bulletproof glass and / or heavy locked doors leading to all other areas of the school, and this was at multiple schools throughout the years that my son attended. All schools were designed this way!” Guns don’t lead to this. A broken society, a country at war with itself, does. There is no longer a ‘we’ in America. And this didn’t happen organically, it was done deliberately and with great care by way of a project begun nearly a century ago. Project Diversity. And now it’s in overdrive and is in my opinion irreversible.

Of course there was the usual abundance of claims dismissing the shooting as a false flag, that there were no bodies, all were crisis actors etc. I keep an open mind but nothing I’ve seen or read indicates this to be true. Of course TPTB have a vested interest in seeing as much blood-letting as possible as it strengthens their case for the withdrawal of the 2A, i.e. to disarm law-abiding citizens. But this is a long way from saying that the whole thing was a set-up. The likeliest explanation to my mind is that an army of psychologically damaged men has been pumped up with God-knows-what psychotropic drugs (the CIA has been at this for more than fifty years) and let loose on the public. Time-bombs waiting to explode while ‘law enforcement’ looks the other way or, God help us all, trigger the event. The Uvalde shooter, despite being known to police as a serious threat to public safety (he openly boasted of his plans to shoot up the school!) was nonetheless able to buy a semi-automatic weapon without a problem. LIHOP is the likeliest explanation, as this case suggests. There’s also the issue of misinformation. Almost everything officially reported about this incident was subsequently proven to be false. Why was this? Does anyone know? And why the subsequent lack of interest from the media about the numerous conflicting reports? Speaking of which, isn’t it amazing how the Las Vegas massacre, one of the worst if not the worst mass shootings in American history, has fallen off the radar? Like as if the order went out to drop the subject, the way they used do in the USSR. Finally, why was a SWAT team not called from nearby San Antonio, about ten minutes up the road during the 40 minutes that the cops on the scene stood idly by? Incredible, isn’t it?

My final suggestion is that gun control is but one part of the agenda enabled by mass shootings. They also build up an atmosphere of fear and mutual mistrust, justify ever-increasing surveillance and repressive measures, enable circumventing the Constitution while weakening rules of evidence and the capacity to publicly question the authorities.

America will never again see a society where nobody gave a second thought when kids brought guns to school to practice sharp-shooting after classes finished. That America is long gone, never to return.

 

IRISH SAVANT: A puzzling question answered

A puzzling question answered

Posted by By Savant June 10, 2022

http://www.irishsavant.net/?p=2195

There has been much wailing and gnashing of teeth at this chimpout on the NY subway whereby women were terrorised by a wildin’ jogger. Horrified commentators demanded to know why “real men” on the train didn’t come to their assistance. Even Douglas Murray took the opportunity to blast ‘demasculinised’ men for their inactivity. Now that’s a bit strange coming from Douglas, being as he is a poofter of some renown. But he was but one part of a horrified chorus asking broadly the same question.

Well as luck would have I think I can be of help here. For a start the number of real men has declined significantly, a fact supported by the collapse of male testosterone levels in America by a staggering 30% since 1980. Whether or not Serena Williams took it all is irrelevant, the fact is that today’s male is on average a much-reduced specimen in terms of, well, toxic masculinity, compared to his counterpart of forty years ago. By the way I’ve written extensively on this phenomenon in the old blog and am certain that the decline was masterminded as a byproduct of Agenda 2030.

However let us assume the presence of one ‘real man’ in the carriage. Let us further assume that this real man has his head screwed on. That being the case he’ll be well aware that rescuing the damsel in distress places him in a no-win situation. For a start, this being NY he will, as a law-abiding citizen, be unarmed. The same constraint does not apply to the guy chimping out. So by intervening he runs the serious risk of being knifed or shot. He also knows that were he to somehow disable the attacker he’d be in a heap of trouble. You see the attacker is black and the white knight will inevitably be White. You won’t get black passengers preventing a brutha’ havin’ his way with a White beetch. Can you just imagines what a black Affirmative Action DA, advised by slimy lawyers (whose names end in “stein” or “berg”) would do with that? The rescuer knows: The perp will walk while he finds himself up on a charge of “excessive force with racist overtones”. It will be classed as “White vigilantism” and nothing – nothing – scares the effete urban nation-wreckers more than that. Quite likely the perp would not alone walk but get compensation while the white knight gets fined or even jailed. And what of the victim’s gratitude? Don’t take that for granted. The unfathomable convolutions of the female mind are such that she’d likely turn on the rescuer and side with her attacker. Just ask any man who has intervened in a case of domestic violence if you doubt me.

Any would-be rescuer would also wonder why the new empowered woman would need help from a man. A White man at that. Remember the lady who claimed she needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle? We’re all equal now. You asked for equality sister and this is what it’s like. Chivalry is dead, sisters, and feminism killed it. Which in itself raises the question as to why the women in the carriage also stood by during the attack. Why didn’t the equal sisters do their sisterly duty in the face of such gross toxic masculinity? It’s a good question and the only conclusion we can draw is that strong empowered independent women want the benefits of equality but not the downsides. Which is why you see so few women working as miners or block-layers.

1950s America

In the final analysis pervasive societal decay underlies this dismal spectacle. In 1950s America that jogger would have been taken down in the blink of an eye. But that was then, this is now. In the USA and indeed in most White countries what had hitherto been socially cohesive societies are no longer socially cohesive or even societies in any meaningful sense. There is no longer a ‘we’ – instead there’s a fractious, atomised mutually-hostile collection of races and cultures with the core population driven into imminent minority status, discriminated against in terms of employment, education, law enforcement and freedom of expression while their heritage gets endlessly trashed by the political, media and academic establishments. And of course berated for their ‘White privilege’ (once known as ‘working for a living’) which when you unpack it means being held responsible for the acts of your ancestors by blacks who accept no responsibility even for the acts of their own children!

Yet they are forced to sustain a vast and rapidly-growing parasitic welfare class which gets goaded by the nation-wreckers into believing that they are in fact the victims of their unwitting benefactors. Everything is now upside-down, subject to Satanic Inversion. Men become women, women are men, depravity is celebrated, art and music become travesties of their previous forms, maths and science are ‘racist’ because blacks can’t master them. How can Whites, White men in particular, invest themselves in such an abomination? But by withdrawing they are unwittingly hastening national suicide, or more accurately national murder, the murderers being a people who have themselves never fitted in anywhere and whose only real threat comes from a cohesive resistance of blood-and-soil-bound heritage Americans.

So sorry ladies. You asked – and voted – for this. No longer our struggle.

 

 

 

Points that Putin Apologists Miss

by Amir Taheri
April 10, 2022 at 4:00 am

• The second charge related to NATO's alleged rush to included Ukraine, or what [Professor John] Mearsheimer calls "reckless expansion", provoked Putin is equally absurd.

• For almost two decades, Russia made no objection to NATO enlargement that included former members of the Warsaw Pact. Under Putin, Russia even concluded a deal for cooperation with NATO on issues of mutual security with the Helsinki Accords as historic reference. In 2002, Putin met NATO Secretary-General George (Lord) Robinson and quipped that "maybe it is time NATO invited Russia to become a member."

• In NATO's 2008 Bucharest summit, both Georgia and Ukraine expressed the desire to apply for membership but were quietly told not to submit formal applications. The undeclared reason was the persistence of irredentist problems both had with Russia. Putin interpreted that as a rebuff to Kiev and Tbilisi by NATO and invaded Georgia, snatching South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

• What would Putin do if China invaded Russia to regain control of territory that was once Chinese?

• If we accept that what once belonged to one state can never belong to another, Crimea must be handed over to Turkey as successor to the Ottoman caliphate....

What would Russian President Vladimir Putin do if China invaded Russia to regain control of territory that was once Chinese? If we accept that what once belonged to one state can never belong to another, Crimea must be handed over to Turkey as successor to the Ottoman caliphate, or, even better, the Tatar khans who ruled it before the Ottomans. Pictured: Putin (L) and Chinese President Xi Jinping meet in Beijing on February 4, 2022. (Photo by Alexei Druzhinin/Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images)

Who do you think is to blame for the war in Ukraine?

For the Blame-America-International the answer is simple: the culprit is the United States.

At one end of the Blame-America International (BAI), we find usual suspects such as the Khomeinist mullahs, the Sudanese and Burmese jackboots, the Maoists of Eritrea, the Assad clan in Damascus and the bad boys of Belarus. These one could dismiss if only because their mercenary status is clear.

It is at the other end of the spectrum that one finds a potentially more dangerous narrative at a time that what is euphemistically referred to as the world order is facing its biggest challenge since World War II. For here we find individuals and groups that try to use, or rather abuse, such labels as "public intellectuals" and/ or "elder statesmen" to legitimize Vladimir Putin's invasion.

That narrative is peddled by people like former UK Foreign Secretary David Lord Owen, professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, French presidential candidates Marine Le Pen, Éric Zemmour and Jean-Luc Mélenchon, British columnist Peter Hitchens, and a string of lesser known figures in Europe and the United States.

They all build their narrative around three charges.

The first is that Putin and his Russia must be seen as victims of the United States' insatiable quest for global hegemony by constantly trying to downgrade Russia's status.

The second is that, by trying to include Ukraine in its ranks, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) posed a direct threat to Russia's national security, a threat that no Russian leader could ignore.

The third is that Ukrainian leaders, prompted by Washington, refused to recognize Russia's right to "reintegrate" the Crimean Peninsula, a part of Russian homeland that Nikita Khrushchev, a Ukrainian chauvinist disguised as a Bolshevik, snatched away from Mother Russia.

As for the first charge, the opposite may be nearer to the truth.

Four successive US administrations starting with George WH Bush's went out of their way not only to soften the shock caused by the collapse of the Soviet Empire but also to recognize Russia as its legitimate successor with "superpower" status.

Although post-Soviet Russia was diminished in terms of demographic, economic, diplomatic and military power, all treaties and procedural agreements concluded with the USSR remained in force. The US worked closely with Moscow to smooth the difficult transition that Europe faced as the Warsaw Pact was dissolved and the European Union enlarged.

Anxious to keep Russia "on board," the US campaigned for Russia's membership of the G7 (which became G8) and the World Trade Organization (WTO), helped open global capital markets to Russia, and encouraged American businesses to heavily invest in developing the post-Soviet economy.

It is no exaggeration to suggest that the American stamp of approval played a key role in encouraging other foreign investment, especially European, followed by the biggest transfer of technology witnessed in Russian history.

The second charge related to NATO's alleged rush to included Ukraine, or what Mearsheimer calls "reckless expansion", provoked Putin is equally absurd.

To start with, NATO never invites any state to join. It is up to other states to apply for membership and, to this day, Ukraine has not done so and, if it did, it is clear that its application would be unacceptable under NATO's rules, which exclude any country with unresolved irredentist and/or other territorial disputes with any other nation.

For almost two decades, Russia made no objection to NATO enlargement that included former members of the Warsaw Pact. Under Putin, Russia even concluded a deal for cooperation with NATO on issues of mutual security, with the Helsinki Accords as historic reference. In 2002, Putin met NATO Secretary-General George (Lord) Robinson and quipped that "maybe it is time NATO invited Russia to become a member."

Robinson wasn't sure whether that was a serious approach or Russian black humor but reminded Putin that NATO never issues invitation but would consider applications.

In NATO's 2008 Bucharest summit, both Georgia and Ukraine expressed the desire to apply for membership but were quietly told not to submit formal applications. The undeclared reason was the persistence of irredentist problems both had with Russia. Putin interpreted that as a rebuff to Kiev and Tbilisi by NATO and invaded Georgia, snatching South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

The "provocation" charge is equally nonsensical.

However, even if there was provocation shouldn't one apportion blame between the provoker and the provoked? Isn't the rapist who claims he was provoked because his victim wore provocative dress at least as much to blame as the victim?

Without saying so, the pro-Putin chorus is advocating a new concept, that of limited sovereignty for countries that were once part of the Tsarist and/or Soviet empires. That concept would apply not only to Ukraine and Georgia but also to the Baltic republics and the Eastern European members of the defunct Warsaw Pact. In his latest rhetoric, Putin has extended that concept to Central Asian republics, Serbia, Macedonia, Kosovo and Albania in the Balkans.

More importantly, perhaps, should the "threat to national security" be regarded as an excuse exclusive to Vladimir Putin?

The Montevideo Convention of 1933-34, in its Article 8, stipulated that "no state has the right to intervene in the internal and external affairs of another." Later, it became a fundamental principle of the United Nations and the world order that has shaped the global system for seven decades.

Mercifully, not even Éric Zemmour repeats Putin's absurd claim that Ukraine is governed by neo-Nazis, implying that the current war is a sequel to World War II.

However, the claim that Ukraine's refusal to accept the loss of Crimea, and presumably also of Donbas, left Putin with no choice but to invade is equally questionable. What would Putin do if China invaded Russia to regain control of territory that was once Chinese?

If we accept that what once belonged to one state can never belong to another, Crimea must be handed over to Turkey as successor to the Ottoman caliphate, or, even better, the Tatar khans who ruled it before the Ottomans. As for Donbas and chunks of southern Russia returning to "original owners", this means the revival of the Cossack state that once controlled both.

It is a pity, not to say a shame, that hatred for America has led so many otherwise sane people to endorse Putin's authorship of a great tragedy.

Amir Taheri was the executive editor-in-chief of the daily Kayhan in Iran from 1972 to 1979. He has worked at or written for innumerable publications, published eleven books, and has been a columnist for Asharq Al-Awsat since 1987.

This article was originally published by Asharq al-Awsat and is reprinted by kind permission of the author.

 

 

 

China Accelerates Nuclear Buildup, Military Modernization; Biden Speeding U.S. to Defeat

by Judith Bergman
May 9, 2022 at 5:00 am

• "The PRC likely intends to have at least 1,000 warheads by 2030, exceeding the pace and size the DoD projected in 2020." — Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China 2021, US Dept. of Defense.

• "In space, China is putting up satellites at twice the rate of the United States and "fielding operational systems at an incredible rate." — General David Thompson, the Space Force's first vice chief of space operations, quoted in The Washington Post, November 30, 2021.

• "Look at what they [CCP) have today.... We're witnessing one of the largest shifts in global geostrategic power that the world has witnessed." — General Mark Milley, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, breakingdefense.com, November 4, 2021.

• "[T]he Chinese are building up their military capabilities in space, cyberspace, and in the conventional force. It's all happening at the same time." — Timothy Heath, senior international and defense researcher at Rand Corporation, Business Insider, January 4, 2022.

• "To fully assess the China threat, it is also necessary to consider the capability of the associated delivery system, command and control, readiness, posture, doctrine and training. By these measures, China is already capable of executing any plausible nuclear employment strategy within their region and will soon be able to do so at intercontinental ranges as well." ­­ — Admiral Charles Richard, Commander of U.S. Strategic Command, Senate Committee on Armed Services, April 20, 2021.

• There is now as well the added probability of China and Russia engaging in military coordination.... a strategic partnership of "no limits" and with "no forbidden areas" in an agreement that they said was aimed at countering the influence of the United States.

• This cooperation has already seen China undermining Western sanctions on Russia and supplying Russian President Vladimir Putin with the lifeline he needs to continue his war in Ukraine.

• "The friendship between the two peoples is iron clad." — Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, Associated Press, March 7, 2022.

• "For the first time in our history, the nation is on a trajectory to face two nuclear-capable, strategic peer adversaries at the same time, who must be deterred differently." ­­ — Admiral Charles Richard, Senate Committee on Armed Services, April 20, 2021.

• [T]his is NOT the time for the US to cancel the sea-launched nuclear cruise missile (SLCM-N), as President Joe Biden plans to do.

• Meanwhile, Biden's proposed defense budget risks speeding the US to defeat by insufficiently taking into account the current skyrocketing inflation, as acknowledged in early April by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Pentagon comptroller Mike McCord. "This budget assumes an inflation rate of 2.2%, which is obviously incorrect because it's almost 8%," said Milley. "Because the budget was produced quite a while ago, those calculations were made prior to the current inflation rate."

• "Nearly every dollar of increase in this budget will be eaten by inflation. Very little, if anything, will be left over to modernize and grow capability." — Representative Mike Rogers, (R-Ala.) House Armed Services Committee, Defense News, April 5, 2022.

The accelerating pace of China's nuclear buildup is concerning in itself, but even more so given that the military buildup constitutes just one, but significant, part of China's general military buildup and modernization. Pictured: DF-17 hypersonic missiles at a military parade in Beijing, China, on October 1, 2019. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)

When the Pentagon assessed China's nuclear arsenal in its annual report to Congress on China's military power in November 2020, it projected that China's nuclear warhead stockpile, which the Pentagon then estimated to be in the low 200s, would "at least double in size" over the next decade. The Pentagon also estimated that China was "pursuing" a "nuclear triad", meaning a combination of land-, sea- and air-based nuclear capabilities.

Just one year later, in November 2021, the Pentagon found itself acknowledging that China's nuclear buildup was taking place at an astonishing speed, with the nuclear warhead stockpile now possibly quadrupling from the estimated low 200s in 2020 over the next decade:

"The accelerating pace of the PRC's nuclear expansion may enable the PRC to have up to 700 deliverable nuclear warheads by 2027. The PRC likely intends to have at least 1,000 warheads by 2030, exceeding the pace and size the DoD projected in 2020."

In addition, China is no longer merely "pursuing" a nuclear triad but appears to have already achieved the basics of it:

"The PRC has possibly already established a nascent 'nuclear triad' with the development of a nuclear-capable air-launched ballistic missile (ALBM) and improvement of its ground and sea-based nuclear capabilities."

China, according to the report, is also "constructing the infrastructure necessary to support this force expansion, including increasing its capacity to produce and separate plutonium by constructing fast breeder reactors and reprocessing facilities," while "building hundreds of new ICBM silos, and is on the cusp of a large silo-based ICBM force expansion comparable to those undertaken by other major powers."

The accelerating pace of China's nuclear buildup is concerning in itself, but even more so given that the military buildup constitutes just one, but significant, part of China's general military buildup and modernization. Last summer, for instance, China tested its first hypersonic weapon. In space, China is putting up satellites at twice the rate of the United States and "fielding operational systems at an incredible rate," according to General David Thompson, the Space Force's first vice chief of space operations. China and Russia's combined in-orbit space assets grew approximately 70% in just two years, following a more than 200% increase between 2015 and 2018 according to Kevin Ryder, Defense Intelligence Agency senior analyst for space and counterspace in the U.S.

According to General Mark Milley, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff:

"If you look at, again, 40 years ago, they had zero satellites...They had no ICBMs...They had no nuclear weapons... They had no fourth or fifth-generation fighters or even more advanced fighters, back then... They had no navy...They had no sub-force. Look at what they have today... So if you look at the totality, this test [of a hypersonic weapon] that occurred a couple weeks ago, is only one of a much, much broader picture of a military capability with respect to the Chinese. That is very, very significant. We're witnessing one of the largest shifts in global geostrategic power that the world has witnessed."

According to Timothy Heath, a senior international and defense researcher at the Rand Corporation think tank:

"It's important to see the modernizing nuclear arsenal as part of the bigger picture, in which the Chinese are building up their military capabilities in space, cyberspace, and in the conventional force. It's all happening at the same time."

On April 20, 2021, U.S. Strategic Command's chief Admiral Charles Richard made it clear in testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee that China is no longer a lesser nuclear threat than Russia:

"While China's nuclear stockpile is currently smaller (but undergoing an unprecedented expansion) than those fielded by Russia and the United States, the size of a nation's weapons stockpile is a crude measure of its overall strategic capability. To fully assess the China threat, it is also necessary to consider the capability of the associated delivery system, command and control, readiness, posture, doctrine and training. By these measures, China is already capable of executing any plausible nuclear employment strategy within their region and will soon be able to do so at intercontinental ranges as well. They are no longer a 'lesser included case of the pacing nuclear threat, Russia." (Emphasis in original).

China's nuclear acceleration is not all, however. There is now as well the added probability of China and Russia engaging in military coordination: In February, the two powers declared that they were entering into a strategic partnership of "no limits" and with "no forbidden areas" in an agreement that they said was aimed at countering the influence of the United States.

This cooperation has already seen China undermining Western sanctions on Russia and supplying Russian President Vladimir Putin with the lifeline he needs to continue his war in Ukraine. China has not only supplied material support through a variety of deals with Russia, it has also refrained from condemning Russia's invasion and has criticized the sanctions.

In March, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi called Russia the "most important strategic partner" for China.

"No matter how perilous the international landscape, we will maintain our strategic focus and promote the development of a comprehensive China-Russia partnership in the new era... The friendship between the two peoples is iron clad."

On April 19, China reassured Russia that it will continue to increase "strategic coordination."

China-Russia cooperation is going to affect US strategic deterrence. Admiral Richard told the Senate Armed Services Committee in early March that the US needs to have plans for scenarios in which the two powers cooperate militarily, adding:

"I'm very concerned about what opportunistic aggression looks like. I'm worried about what cooperative aggression looks like... We do not know the endpoints of where either of those other two are going either in capability or capacity. We're just now starting to work out what three-party stability looks like, what three-party deterrence dynamic works out."

In his April 20, 2021 testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Richard said:

"For the first time in our history, the nation is on a trajectory to face two nuclear-capable, strategic peer adversaries at the same time, who must be deterred differently. We can no longer assume the risk of strategic deterrence failure in conflict will always remain low."

In the light of China's accelerating nuclear buildup -- and the nuclear threat that Russia poses with its thousands of tactical nuclear weapons -- this is NOT the time for the US to cancel the sea-launched nuclear cruise missile (SLCM-N), as President Joe Biden plans to do.

The missile, according to the Wall Street Journal, "is considered a 'tactical' nuclear weapon that has a lower yield than 'strategic' options and might be used on battlefield targets. The missile could be launched from submarines or destroyers" and "is needed to deter Russia and others" and, according to the article, would also be useful "in dissuading China from using a nuke on Taiwan, without the longer and fraught debate of, say, putting American nuclear weapons on Japanese soil... [and] reduce proliferation at a volatile moment."

The acceleration of China's nuclear and military modernization, and the new situation of tri-polar deterrence that the U.S. finds itself in for the first time, necessitate increases in US military research and development, acquisition and procurement. Meanwhile, Biden's proposed defense budget risks speeding the US to defeat by insufficiently taking into account the current skyrocketing inflation, as acknowledged in early April by Gen. Milley, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Pentagon comptroller Mike McCord. "This budget assumes an inflation rate of 2.2%, which is obviously incorrect because it's almost 8%," Milley noted. "Because the budget was produced quite a while ago, those calculations were made prior to the current inflation rate."

"Nearly every dollar of increase in this budget will be eaten by inflation," Representative Mike Rogers (R-Ala), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said. "Very little, if anything, will be left over to modernize and grow capability."

Judith Bergman, a columnist, lawyer and political analyst, is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Gatestone Institute.

 

 

 

Concerning 'China's Master Plan to Destroy America'

by Lawrence Kadish
May 19, 2022 at 9:30 am

(Image source: iStock)

China has been unabashed about making its intentions known. Already in 1999, two colonels in China's People's Liberation Army, Qiao Liang and Wang Xiansui, wrote, "Unrestricted Warfare: China's Master Plan to Destroy America." In it, the authors "suggest the significance of alternatives to direct military confrontation, including international policy, economic warfare, attacks on digital infrastructure and networks, and terrorism. Even a relatively insignificant state can incapacitate a far more powerful enemy by applying pressure to their economic and political systems." Ideally, "one might not even know that one is the target."

There seem to be so many policy decisions now that would appear to help America's adversaries such as Russia and especially China, rather than what is best for America, that, on February 2, 2022, the Republican Leader of the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy -- despite a disagreement with former President Donald Trump and a subsequent "genuflection" by way of apology -- after mentioning the current administration's "self-created crises," noted that "Almost every page," of the Biden Administration's 3000 page America Competes Act "has a provision that helps China but hurts America." McCarthy cited, among other matters:

On page 1689, it provides a new, unlimited green card program for the Chinese Communist Party to exploit. It also allows research funds to freely flow to colleges and universities that host Confucius Institutes – which are essentially CCP propaganda centers that censor our campuses.

These policies would make our nation more vulnerable to Chinese espionage, which is already widespread.

In fact, the threat of Chinese spying in America is so widespread that the FBI has 2,000 active cases to counter it, and opens a new case every 12 hours. "

On page 1392, it gives $8 billion of taxpayer money to the unaccountable UN Green Climate fund, which has already funneled at least $100 million to China.

And to make matters worse: when Republicans offered amendments to prevent China from accessing that money, Democrats said no.

Now, American tax dollars could be used to fund solar panels and batteries made by slave labor.....

Just three years ago, there were bipartisan discussions to start a China Task Force. Discussions lasted for a year.

But when we were ready to launch the group in February 2020, Speaker Pelosi walked away.....

On the issue of COVID – perhaps the greatest offense China has committed – House Republicans offered eight reasonable solutions to achieve justice for Americans and hold China accountable

"One of those solutions was to relocate the Olympics from Beijing. This has been House Republicans' firm position from the beginning.....

The actions of the majority tell you all you need to know about who they truly want to help:

Themselves. Their corporate allies. And the Chinese Communist Party.

Well, if that's how America competes with China, then America is going to lose.

I implore my colleagues to take some time and think deeply about what our country stands for....

The future of our country is at stake.... [Emphases in the original.]

We saw, in addition, how the Biden administration closed virtually all energy exploration and development as well as thousands of American jobs, its first day in office. This was reportedly done to help create a clean planet free of carbon emissions and to promote the manufacture of solar panels and electric vehicles. It turns out however that planes do not yet fly by using windmills or solar panels. In fact, the leading country manufacturing solar panels and the batteries needed for electric vehicles is... China. The Chinese Communist Party, the leading manufacturer of batteries needed for electric vehicles, not only has what has been called an obsession about acquiring rare earth minerals needed for electric vehicle batteries, but has also building more than half the coal plants than the rest of the world combined.

That leads to the subject of dark (anonymous) money, funneled to politicians and officials through Bermuda, where privacy policies do not require donors to disclose their identities, thereby creating the captivating potential for them to be the ones who determine America's policies -- possibly policies that help those donors but that set America back. An earlier article on these pages noted that:

"The loophole has apparently been serving as an open invitation for Russia -- in particular its largest oil and gas company, Gazprom -- to channel unlimited, unaccountable millions in dark money (anonymous donations) to American non-governmental organizations; these then fund 'green' programs that discourage 'dirty' energy exploration, and encourage the use of 'clean' energy, such as solar panels and wind turbines. Unfortunately, even if they were able to meet all energy needs -- which is disputed -- they are not widely available or ready for use."

Why did Biden effectively close the US oil spigots so that he is now imploring America's adversaries, such as Iran and Russia and Venezuela, for oil, and offering to provide them with jobs and profits rather than Americans? The planet's air will be just as carbon-filled.

Is it possible , as Peter Schweizer has reported here, here, here and here, , that there are many people inside America, like a fifth column, willing to sell out our country for profits and their quarterly shareholder reports? Every investment in China not only supports a country that takes its profits from slave labor and organ-harvesting from live prisoners until they died when their heart were removed, but also is developing an advanced war machine to displace America as the world's leading superpower. If we want an America like that, all we have to do is look at what the Chinese Communist Party has done in Tibet, Hong Kong and the lockdowns in Shanghai and other cities. No safe spaces there.

Recently it emerged that the president himself offered amendments to an upcoming bill to be voted on by the World Health Assembly the week of May 22. Alarmingly, the bill would reportedly make all US policy on healthcare legally dependent on the World Health Organization (WHO). When Taiwan informed the WHO early on that the COVID-19 virus was transmissible human-to-human, the WHO chose to disregard the warning. The WHO instead proceeded, apparently at the behest of China, to lie to the world about the warning. According to reports based on US intelligence, China has also been busy gene-splicing to create "super soldiers," as well as collecting DNA from people around the world, possibly to develop a virus that is even more lethal for biowarfare against the US.

Domestically, why is the national debt being run up beyond a ruinous $30 trillon? From whom are we borrowing that much and to whom will we be paying "the interest rate comet"? China?

Why are is our government allowing, without any reaction, the deaths of more than 107,000 of its own citizens from fentanyl and other drugs, largely from China, that are smuggled in daily through our open southern border?

Lawrence Kadish serves on the Board of Governors of Gatestone Institute.

 

More Islamic Death Threats in Europe: Dutch MP Geert Wilders Targeted Twice

 

 

 

More Islamic Death Threats in Europe: Dutch MP Targeted Twice

by Pete Hoekstra
May 11, 2022 at 4:00 am

• Geert Wilders has dedicated his life to supporting freedom of speech and religious tolerance...

• What seems to have earned him these death threats is his unrelenting passion for freedom. To others, it seems, this commitment, is not a plus. Radical cleric Muhammad Abdullah Ahsan, for instance, recently proclaimed: "The rascals like Geert Wilders can't be stopped by mere condemnation. He must be handed over to Muslims for public execution to ensure world peace."

• "It is no use threatening me, Muslims in Pakistan, Netherlands or anywhere else. Fatwas won't stop me.... Freedom is my ideology. And no one will stop me." — Geert Wilders, Twitter, April 15, 2022.

• "An Imam who wants a politician dead is—however reprehensible—allowed to say so." — Geert Wilders, NIS News Bulletin. March 15, 2005.

• Islam is the Trojan Horse in Europe." — Geert Wilders, speech in the Dutch Parliament, September 6, 2007.

• "There is no such thing as 'moderate Islam'. As Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan said the other day, and I quote, 'There is no moderate or immoderate Islam. Islam is Islam and that's it."' — Geert Wilders, speech in the Dutch Parliament, September 6, 2007.

• "We must never give a free hand to those who want to subjugate us." — Geert Wilders, Middle East Online, May 31, 2011.

• "'I feel that the more Islam that we get in our societies the less freedom we get.' He opened the press conference with a quote from George Orwell's preface to Animal Farm: 'If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they don't want to hear'". — Margaret Davis, quoting Geert Wilders, in The Independent, October 16, 2009.

• The American version [of George Orwell's Ministry of Truth, the US Disinformation Governance Board] is to be headed by a supposed "expert" on disinformation, Nina Jankowicz, who already has a record of unexpertly dismissing Hunter Biden's easily verifiable laptop as a "Trump Campaign product;" supporting the notoriously false "Steele Dossier;" saying on National Public Radio: "I shudder to think about if free speech absolutists were taking over more platforms," and, while discussing "online abuse" against women, she actually recommended deploying the police...

• "Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one's thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down. They know its power.... Equally clear is the right to hear. To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker." — Frederick Douglass, freed slave, December 9, 1860.

• Freedom of speech in free nations should supersede imposing even more limitations on freedom.

• As the powers that be continue clamping down on the free speech we all should cherish, we must recognize the value and strength that people like Wilders, and even those who burn flags, bring to the public square. We may or may not agree with their views, but should recognize that through their freedom of expression they enrich the debate and discourse. They make us stronger, not weaker.

Geert Wilders, a Dutch Member of Parliament, has dedicated his life to supporting freedom of speech and religious tolerance... What seems to have earned him these death threats is his unrelenting passion for freedom. Pictured: Wilders speaks to the media outside the Dutch Parliament on March 22, 2021. (Photo by Phil Nijhuis/ANP/AFP via Getty Images)

Last month, a Dutch Member of Parliament, Geert Wilders -- the leader of the Party for Freedom, which is the largest opposition party in the Netherlands' Parliament -- received two fatwas. Fatwas, officially, are Islamic religious opinions; they sometimes contain calls, however, to kill whomever might be considered insufficiently supportive of Islam or its prophet, Mohammad.

Wilders has dedicated his life to supporting freedom of speech and religious tolerance, and pointing out problems in radical, violent Islamist extremism. Because of this, he has been the target of frequent death threats by Islamist leaders. There are many who appear to prefer religious conformity, restricted speech and often the death penalty for what they might consider blasphemy.

As for this author, born in the Netherlands, it was always a particular pleasure for many years, while serving as a member of the US Congress, to meet with political visitors from the Netherlands to the US. A special one, with whom I often met, is Wilders.

What seems to have earned him these death threats is his unrelenting passion for freedom. To others, it seems, this commitment, is not a plus. Radical cleric Muhammad Abdullah Ahsan, for instance, recently proclaimed: "The rascals like Geert Wilders can't be stopped by mere condemnation. He must be handed over to Muslims for public execution to ensure world peace."

Another radical Islamist leader, Saad Hussain Rizvi Sahib, according to an online post, "issued a fatwa against the Arrogant [sic] Greet [sic] Wilders, to Kill [sic] him and he ordered Ummat-a-Muslima to spread this message to Muslims of Haaland and kill him as soon as possible."

In response to these latest threats, Wilders tweeted: "It is no use threatening me, Muslims in Pakistan, Netherlands or anywhere else. Fatwas won't stop me..... Freedom is my ideology. And no one will stop me."

After years of countless threats, Wilders, since 2004, has been forced to live with around-the-clock security, generously provided by the Dutch government. "It is a situation," he has said, "that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy". "I am in prison," he has said privately; "they are walking around free."

"An Imam," Wilders has noted, "who wants a politician dead is—however reprehensible—allowed to say so."

Wilders' first alleged "offense," in 2004, was to have been part of a team that created a ten-minute film, Submission, produced and directed by Theo van Gogh, to dramatize the abuse of Muslim women that sometimes takes place based on three Quranic suras: 4:34, 2:222 and 24:2.

Film critic Phill Hall wrote:

"'Submission' was bold in openly questioning misogyny and a culture of violence against women because of Koranic interpretations. The questions raised in the film deserve to be asked: is it divine will to assault or kill women? Is there holiness in holding women at substandard levels, denying them the right to free will and independent thought? And ultimately, how can such a mindframe exist in the 21st century?"

After Submission (the English for the word "Islam") was released, a 26 year old Dutch-Moroccan Muslim, Mohammad Bouyeri, murdered van Gogh by shooting him and slitting his throat. Bouyeri later told a Dutch court, "If I ever get free, I would do it again." Papers on a knife stuck in van Gogh's body warned that Wilders, among others, would be next. Since then, for 18 years, Wilders has had constantly to move from one safe house to another, unable to live in his own home or with the freedom to go out alone in public. His life, every minute, is in extreme danger.

Wilders, nonetheless, sees the personal sacrifice as the price to be paid to advocate for a free society and free speech, saying:

"[T]he point is, if you really speak out in favour of freedom, let alone if you use the freedom of speech. ... [a]nd why Islam (I'm not talking about the people, but the ideology of Islam) why they are not free. ... [y]ou either get fatwas as I got; you are taken to court by people who hate your guts. You are silenced in parliament...."

Free speech, he comments, is "absolute for the people who talk according to the wishes of the elite that are in charge. But if you diverge from that, it's very relative, it's non-existent."

Wilders is indeed extremely outspoken. To the Dutch Parliament, he said, "Islam, is the Trojan Horse in Europe, and, "there is no such thing as 'moderate Islam'. As Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan said the other day, and I quote, 'There is no moderate or immoderate Islam. Islam is Islam and that's it.'"

In New York, after the 9/11 attacks, he said, "We must never give a free hand to those who want to subjugate us."

In London, he said, "I feel that the more Islam that we get in our societies the less freedom we get [and quoting George Orwell]: 'If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they don't want to hear'".

Yet, despite years of death threats and a lifestyle no one would want, he remains a passionate advocate for free speech. This conviction -- aligned with America's First Amendment and dating back to our founding fathers, flies in the face of today's trends in the West where "cancel culture" runs rampant and people try to silence those with whom they disagree.

Here in the US, you were not allowed to talk freely about the very real possibility that the Covid virus, which has killed more than six million people worldwide, may have escaped from a Chinese laboratory; and you were blocked from making any statements about treatments for Covid that were not approved by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. You also could not, in the middle of a national campaign for the presidency, talk about Hunter Biden's laptop computer, filled with potentially damaging evidence that voters might find useful as they assessed which candidate to vote for.

The most recent assault on freedom of speech in the US now comes from the Department of Homeland Security, which is armed: the Disinformation Governance Board. According to its website, it supposedly "protects free speech." The great American public, evidently sensing something awry, immediately renamed it "The Ministry of Truth" after the government's propaganda center in George Orwell's novel, 1984.

The American version is to be headed by a supposed "expert" on disinformation, Nina Jankowicz, who already has a record of unexpertly dismissing Hunter Biden's easily verifiable laptop as a "Trump Campaign product;" supporting the notoriously false "Steele Dossier;" saying on National Public Radio: "I shudder to think about if free speech absolutists were taking over more platforms," and, while discussing "online abuse" against women, she actually recommended deploying the police:

"We need to at least upskill police officers and local law enforcement to deal with these things and perhaps start some collaboration... Online, that just doesn't exist yet. So I'm hopeful for that architecture to come into play."

The historian Robert Spencer commented:

"'[D]isinformation' and 'hate' re entirely subjective categories, based on the point of view of the person who is doing the evaluating.... [and] who gets to decide what 'hate speech' is? Nina Jankowicz, apparently."

As the freed slave Frederick Douglass said in 1860:

"Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one's thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down. They know its power.... Equally clear is the right to hear. To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker. It is just as criminal to rob a man of his right to speak and hear as it would be to rob him of his money."

Who really believes that the rhetoric of Wilders -- or just about all of us, for that matter -- would ever pass the scrutiny of the new Orwellian-sounding federal Disinformation Governance Board? Certainly not those who embrace free speech. In my years in Congress there were frequent votes about flag desecration, well-intended attempts by colleagues to ban defiling the American flag. I love our flag as much as anyone can, but voted every time against making flag desecration a crime. Freedom of speech in free nations should supersede imposing even more limitations on freedom.

As Wilders receives still new fatwas, we would do well recognize the price that he and others have paid for expressing their points of view. As the powers that be continue clamping down on the free speech we all should cherish, we must recognize the value and strength that people like Wilders, and even those who burn flags, bring to the public square. We may or may not agree with their views, but should recognize that through their freedom of expression they enrich the debate and discourse. They make us stronger, not weaker.

Peter Hoekstra was US Ambassador to the Netherlands during the Trump administration. He served 18 years in the U.S. House of Representatives representing the second district of Michigan and served as Chairman and Ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee. He is currently Chairman of the Center for Security Policy Board of Advisors.