- Escobar: The Power Troika Trumps Biden In West Asia
Escobar: The Power Troika Trumps Biden In West Asia
Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Cradle,
The presidents of Russia, Iran, and Turkey convened to discuss critical issues pertaining to West Asia, with the illegal US occupation of Syria a key talking point.
Oil and gas, wheat and grains, missiles and drones – the hottest topics in global geopolitics today – were all on the agenda in Tehran this week.
The Tehran summit uniting Iran-Russia-Turkey was a fascinating affair in more ways than one. Ostensibly about the Astana peace process in Syria, launched in 2017, the summit joint statement duly noted that Iran, Russia and (recently rebranded) Turkiye will continue, “cooperating to eliminate terrorists” in Syria and “won’t accept new facts in Syria in the name of defeating terrorism.”
That’s a wholesale rejection of the “war on terror” exceptionalist unipolarity that once ruled West Asia.
Standing up to the global sheriff
Russian President Vladimir Putin, in his own speech, was even more explicit. He stressed “specific steps to promote the intra-Syrian inclusive political dialogue” and most of called a spade a spade: “The western states led by the US are strongly encouraging separatist sentiment in some areas of the country and plundering its natural resources with a view to ultimately pulling the Syrian state apart.”
So there will be “extra steps in our trilateral format” aimed at “stabilizing the situation in those areas” and crucially, “returning control to the legitimate government of Syria.” For better or for worse, the days of imperial plunder will be over.
The bilateral meetings on the summit’s sidelines – Putin/Raisi and Putin/Erdogan – were even more intriguing. Context is key here: the Tehran gathering took place after Putin’s visit to Turkmenistan in late June for the 6th Caspian summit, where all the littoral nations, Iran included, were present, and after Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s travels in Algeria, Bahrain, Oman, and Saudi Arabia, where he met all his Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) counterparts.
Moscow’s moment
So we see Russian diplomacy carefully weaving its geopolitical tapestry from West Asia to Central Asia – with everybody and his neighbor eager to talk and to listen to Moscow. As it stands, the Russia-Turkey entente cordiale tends to lean towards conflict management, and is strong on trade relations. Iran-Russia is a completely different ball game: much more of a strategic partnership.
So it’s hardly a coincidence that the National Oil Company of Iran (NIOC), timed to the Tehran summit, announced the signing of a $40 billion strategic cooperation agreement with Russia’s Gazprom. That’s the largest foreign investment in the history of Iran’s energy industry – badly needed since the early 2000s. Seven deals worth $4 billion apply to the development of oil fields; others focus on the construction of new export gas pipelines and LNG projects.
Kremlin advisor Yury Ushakov deliciously leaked that Putin and Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in their private meeting, “discussed conceptual issues.” Translation: he means grand strategy, as in the evolving, complex process of Eurasia integration, in which the three key nodes are Russia, Iran and China, now intensifying their interconnection. The Russia-Iran strategic partnership largely mirrors the key points of the China-Iran strategic partnership.
Iran says ‘no’ to NATO
Khamenei, on NATO, did tell it like it is: “If the road is open for NATO, then the organization sees no borders. If it had not been stopped in Ukraine, then after a while the alliance would have started a war under the pretext of Crimea.”
There were no leaks on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) impasse between the US and Iran – but it’s clear, based on the recent negotiations in Vienna, that Moscow will not interfere with Tehran’s nuclear decisions. Not only are Tehran-Moscow-Beijing fully aware of who’s preventing the JCPOA from getting back on track, they also see how this counter-productive stalling process prevents the collective west from badly needed access to Iranian oil.
Then there’s the weapons front. Iran is one of the world’s leaders in drone production: Pelican, Arash, Homa, Chamrosh, Jubin, Ababil, Bavar, recon drones, attack drones, even kamikaze drones, cheap and effective, mostly deployed from naval platforms in West Asia.
Tehran’s official position is not to supply weapons to nations at war – which would in principle invalidate dodgy US “intel” on their supply to Russia in Ukraine. Yet that could always happen under the radar, considering that Tehran is very much interested in buying Russian aerial defense systems and state of the art fighter jets. After the end of the UN Security Council-enforced embargo, Russia can sell whatever conventional weapons to Iran it sees fit.
Russian military analysts are fascinated by the conclusions Iranians reached when it was established they would stand no chance against a NATO armada; essentially they bet on pro-level guerrilla war (a lesson learned from Afghanistan). In Syria, Iraq and Yemen they deployed trainers to guide villagers in their fight against Salafi-jihadis; produced tens of thousands of large-caliber sniper rifles, ATGMs, and thermals; and of course perfected their drone assembly lines (with excellent cameras to surveil US positions).
Not to mention that simultaneously the Iranians were building quite capable long-range missiles. No wonder Russian military analysts estimate there’s much to learn tactically from the Iranians – and not only on the drone front.
The Putin-Sultan ballet
Now to the Putin-Erdogan get together – always an attention-grabbing geopolitical ballet, especially considering the Sultan has not yet decided to hop on the Eurasia integration high-speed train.
Putin diplomatically “expressed gratitude” for the discussions on food and grain issues, while reiterating that “not all issues on the export of Ukrainian grain from the Black Sea ports are resolved, but progress is made.”
Putin was referring to Turkiye’s Defense Minister Hulusi Akar, who earlier this week assured that setting up an operations center in Istanbul, establishing joint controls at the port exit and arrival points, and carefully monitoring the navigational safety on the transfer routes are issues that may be solved in the next few days.
Apparently Putin-Erdogan also discussed Nagorno-Karabakh (no details).
What a few leaks certainly did not reveal is that on Syria, for all practical purposes, the situation is blocked. That favors Russia – whose main priority as it stands is Donbass. Wily Erdogan knows it – and that’s why he may have tried to extract some “concessions” on “the Kurdish question” and Nagorno-Karabakh. Whatever Putin, Russia’s Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev and Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev may really think about Erdogan, they certainly evaluate how priceless is to cultivate such an erratic partner capable of driving the collective west totally bonkers.
Istanbul this summer has been turned into a sort of Third Rome, at least for expelled-from-Europe Russian tourists: they are everywhere. Yet the most crucial geoeconomic development these past few months is that the western-provoked collapse of trade/supply lines along the borders between Russia and the EU – from the Baltic to the Black Sea – finally highlighted the wisdom and economic sense of the International North-South Transportation Corridor (INTSC): a major Russia-Iran-India geopolitical and geoeconomic integration success.
When Moscow talks to Kiev, it talks via Istanbul. NATO, as the Global South well knows, does not do diplomacy. So any possibility of dialogue between Russians and a few educated westerners takes place in Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan and the UAE. West Asia as well as the Caucasus, incidentally, did not subscribe to the western sanctions hysteria against Russia.
Say farewell to the ‘teleprompter guy’
Now compare all of the above with the recent visit to the region by the so-called “leader of the free world,” who merrily alternates between shaking hands with invisible people to reading – literally – whatever is scrolling on a teleprompter. We’re talking of US President Joe Biden, of course.
Fact: Biden threatened Iran with military strikes and as a mere supplicant, begged the Saudis to pump more oil to offset the “turbulence” in the global energy markets caused by the collective west’s sanction hysteria. Context: the glaring absence of any vision or anything even resembling a draft of foreign policy plan for West Asia.
So oil prices duly jumped upward after Biden’s trip: Brent crude rose more than four percent to $105 a barrel, bringing prices back to above $100 after a lull of several months.
The heart of the matter is that if OPEC or OPEC+ (which includes Russia) ever decide to increase their oil supplies, they will do it based on their internal deliberations, and not under exceptionalist pressure.
As for the imperial threat of military strikes on Iran, it qualifies as pure dementia. The whole Persian Gulf – not to mention the whole of West Asia – knows that were US/Israel to attack Iran, fierce retaliation would simply evaporate with the region’s energy production, with apocalyptic consequences including the collapse of trillions of dollars in derivatives.
Biden then had the gall to say, “We have made progress in strengthening our relations with the Gulf states. We will not leave a vacuum for Russia and China to fill in the Middle East”.
Well, in real life it is the “indispensable nation” that has self-morphed into a vacuum. Only bought-and-paid for Arab vassals – most of them monarchs – believe in the building of an “Arab NATO” (copyright Jordan’s King Abdullah) to take on Iran. Russia and China are already all over the place in West Asia and beyond.
De-Dollarization, not just Eurasian integration
It’s not only the new logistical corridor from Moscow and St. Petersburg to Astrakhan and then, via the Caspian, to Enzeli in Iran and on to Mumbai that is shaking things up. It’s about increasing bilateral trade that bypasses the US dollar. It’s about BRICS+, which Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt are dying to be part of. It’s about the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which formally accepts Iran as a full member this coming September (and soon Belarus as well). It’s about BRICS+, the SCO, China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) interconnected in their path towards a Greater Eurasia Partnership.
West Asia may still harbor a small collection of imperial vassals with zero sovereignty who depend on the west’s financial and military ‘assistance,’ but that’s the past. The future is now – with Top Three BRICS (Russia, India, China) slowly but surely coordinating their overlapping strategies across West Asia, with Iran involved in all of them.
And then there’s the Big Global Picture: whatever the circumvolutions and silly schemes of the US-concocted “oil price cap” variety, the fact is that Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela – the top powerful energy-producing nations – are absolutely in sync: on Russia, on the collective west, and on the needs of a real multipolar world.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 07/22/2022 – 23:40 - US Army Embraces "EV Future" With New Electric Hummer
US Army Embraces “EV Future” With New Electric Hummer
On Earth Day (Apr. 22), President Biden stated, “every vehicle in the United States military is going to be climate-friendly.” He said, “we’re spending billions of dollars to do it.”
Months later, the U.S. Army bought a 2022 Hummer EV pickup from General Motors’ subsidiary GM Defense, Detroit Free Press reported.
“The U.S. Army has bought one Hummer through GM Defense,” said Sonia Taylor, GM Defense spokeswoman. She wouldn’t reveal how much the Army paid but said the Hummer retails for approximately $108,700.
Taylor said that selling the Hummer is a ‘stepping stone’ to getting the service electrified. She added:
“We are trying to help defense and government partners transition to an E.V. future, so this is one of the steps.
“Our industry moves real slow. Slower than the commercial market. But this is a positive step in that direction.”
The Army will receive the Hummer “no later than Aug. 31,” Taylor said, adding she doesn’t know what vehicle testing the service will conduct and where.
Detroit Free Press points out the Army’s purchase description summarized in its bid:
“The purpose of this requirement is to procure a new light to heavy duty Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV) or series-hybrid electric wheeled vehicle, for Government analysis and demonstration.”
Even though GM Defense recently rolled out a prototype eLRV, or electric Light Reconnaissance Vehicle, the Army appears to be receiving the civilian model (for now).
Biden’s future “climate-friendly” military could be fraught with sacrifices, including diminishing warfighting capabilities, considering battlefields don’t have convenient charging stations. It’s possible EVs could be used in nontactical fleets.
The Army’s going to have fun testing the new Hummer EV. It has more than 1,000 horsepower, and 11,500 pound-feet of wheel torque, allowing it to achieve 0-60 mph in 3 seconds.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 07/22/2022 – 23:20 - Digital Authoritarianism: AI Surveillance Signals The Death Of Privacy
Digital Authoritarianism: AI Surveillance Signals The Death Of Privacy
Authored by John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,
“There are no private lives. This a most important aspect of modern life. One of the biggest transformations we have seen in our society is the diminution of the sphere of the private. We must reasonably now all regard the fact that there are no secrets and nothing is private. Everything is public.”
– Philip K. Dick
Nothing is private.
We teeter on the cusp of a cultural, technological and societal revolution the likes of which have never been seen before.
While the political Left and Right continue to make abortion the face of the debate over the right to privacy in America, the government and its corporate partners, aided by rapidly advancing technology, are reshaping the world into one in which there is no privacy at all.
Nothing that was once private is protected.
We have not even begun to register the fallout from the tsunami bearing down upon us in the form of AI (artificial intelligence) surveillance, and yet it is already re-orienting our world into one in which freedom is almost unrecognizable.
AI surveillance harnesses the power of artificial intelligence and widespread surveillance technology to do what the police state lacks the manpower and resources to do efficiently or effectively: be everywhere, watch everyone and everything, monitor, identify, catalogue, cross-check, cross-reference, and collude.
Everything that was once private is now up for grabs to the right buyer.
Governments and corporations alike have heedlessly adopted AI surveillance technologies without any care or concern for their long-term impact on the rights of the citizenry.
As a special report by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace warns, “A growing number of states are deploying advanced AI surveillance tools to monitor, track, and surveil citizens to accomplish a range of policy objectives—some lawful, others that violate human rights, and many of which fall into a murky middle ground.”
Indeed, with every new AI surveillance technology that is adopted and deployed without any regard for privacy, Fourth Amendment rights and due process, the rights of the citizenry are being marginalized, undermined and eviscerated.
Cue the rise of digital authoritarianism.
Digital authoritarianism, as the Center for Strategic and International Studies cautions, involves the use of information technology to surveil, repress, and manipulate the populace, endangering human rights and civil liberties, and co-opting and corrupting the foundational principles of democratic and open societies, “including freedom of movement, the right to speak freely and express political dissent, and the right to personal privacy, online and off.”
The seeds of digital authoritarianism were planted in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, with the passage of the USA Patriot Act. A massive 342-page wish list of expanded powers for the FBI and CIA, the Patriot Act justified broader domestic surveillance, the logic being that if government agents knew more about each American, they could distinguish the terrorists from law-abiding citizens.
It sounded the death knell for the freedoms enshrined in the Bill of Rights, especially the Fourth Amendment, and normalized the government’s mass surveillance powers.
Writing for the New York Times, Jeffrey Rosen observed that “before Sept. 11, the idea that Americans would voluntarily agree to live their lives under the gaze of a network of biometric surveillance cameras, peering at them in government buildings, shopping malls, subways and stadiums, would have seemed unthinkable, a dystopian fantasy of a society that had surrendered privacy and anonymity.”
Who could have predicted that 50 years after George Orwell typed the final words to his dystopian novel 1984, “He loved Big Brother,” we would come to love Big Brother.
Yet that is exactly what has come to pass.
After 9/11, Rosen found that “people were happy to give up privacy without experiencing a corresponding increase in security. More concerned about feeling safe than actually being safe, they demanded the construction of vast technological architectures of surveillance even though the most empirical studies suggested that the proliferation of surveillance cameras had ‘no effect on violent crime’ or terrorism.”
In the decades following 9/11, a massive security-industrial complex arose that was fixated on militarization, surveillance, and repression.
Surveillance is the key.
We’re being watched everywhere we go. Speed cameras. Red light cameras. Police body cameras. Cameras on public transportation. Cameras in stores. Cameras on public utility poles. Cameras in cars. Cameras in hospitals and schools. Cameras in airports.
We’re being recorded at least 50 times a day.
It’s estimated that there are upwards of 85 million surveillance cameras in the U.S. alone, second only to China.
On any given day, the average American going about his daily business is monitored, surveilled, spied on and tracked in more than 20 different ways by both government and corporate eyes and ears.
Beware of what you say, what you read, what you write, where you go, and with whom you communicate, because it will all be recorded, stored and used against you eventually, at a time and place of the government’s choosing.
Yet it’s not just what we say, where we go and what we buy that is being tracked.
We’re being surveilled right down to our genes, thanks to a potent combination of hardware, software and data collection that scans our biometrics—our faces, irises, voices, genetics, microbiomes, scent, gait, heartbeat, breathing, behaviors—runs them through computer programs that can break the data down into unique “identifiers,” and then offers them up to the government and its corporate allies for their respective uses.
As one AI surveillance advocate proclaimed, “Surveillance is no longer only a watchful eye, but a predictive one as well.” For instance, Emotion AI, an emerging technology that is gaining in popularity, uses facial recognition technology “to analyze expressions based on a person’s faceprint to detect their internal emotions or feelings, motivations and attitudes.” China claims its AI surveillance can already read facial expressions and brain waves in order to determine the extent to which members of the public are grateful, obedient and willing to comply with the Communist Party.
This is the slippery slope that leads to the thought police.
The technology is already being used “by border guards to detect threats at border checkpoints, as an aid for detection and diagnosis of patients for mood disorders, to monitor classrooms for boredom or disruption, and to monitor human behavior during video calls.”
For all intents and purposes, we now have a fourth branch of government: the surveillance state.
This fourth branch came into being without any electoral mandate or constitutional referendum, and yet it possesses superpowers, above and beyond those of any other government agency save the military. It is all-knowing, all-seeing and all-powerful. It operates beyond the reach of the president, Congress and the courts, and it marches in lockstep with the corporate elite who really call the shots in Washington, DC.
The government’s “technotyranny” surveillance apparatus has become so entrenched and entangled with its police state apparatus that it’s hard to know anymore where law enforcement ends and surveillance begins.
The short answer: they have become one and the same entity. The police state has passed the baton to the surveillance state, which has shifted into high gear with the help of artificial intelligence technologies. The COVID-19 pandemic helped to further centralize digital power in the hands of the government at the expense of the citizenry’s privacy rights.
“From cameras that identify the faces of passersby to algorithms that keep tabs on public sentiment online, artificial intelligence (AI)-powered tools are opening new frontiers in state surveillance around the world.” So begins the Carnegie Endowment’s report on AI surveillance note.
“Law enforcement, national security, criminal justice, and border management organizations in every region are relying on these technologies—which use statistical pattern recognition, machine learning, and big data analytics—to monitor citizens.”
In the hands of tyrants and benevolent dictators alike, AI surveillance is the ultimate means of repression and control, especially through the use of smart city/safe city platforms, facial recognition systems, and predictive policing. These technologies are also being used by violent extremist groups, as well as sex, child, drug, and arms traffickers for their own nefarious purposes.
China, the role model for our dystopian future, has been a major force in deploying AI surveillance on its own citizens, especially by way of its social credit systems, which it employs to identify, track and segregate its “good” citizens from the “bad.”
Social media credit scores assigned to Chinese individuals and businesses categorize them on whether or not they are worthy of being part of society. A real-name system—which requires people to use government-issued ID cards to buy mobile sims, obtain social media accounts, take a train, board a plane, or even buy groceries—coupled with social media credit scores ensures that those blacklisted as “unworthy” are banned from accessing financial markets, buying real estate or travelling by air or train. Among the activities that can get you labeled unworthy are taking reserved seats on trains or causing trouble in hospitals.
In much the same way that Chinese products have infiltrated almost every market worldwide and altered consumer dynamics, China is now exporting its “authoritarian tech” to governments worldwide ostensibly in an effort to spread its brand of totalitarianism worldwide. In fact, both China and the United States have led the way in supplying the rest of the world with AI surveillance, sometimes at a subsidized rate.
This is how totalitarianism conquers the world.
While countries with authoritarian regimes have been eager to adopt AI surveillance, as the Carnegie Endowment’s research makes clear, liberal democracies are also “aggressively using AI tools to police borders, apprehend potential criminals, monitor citizens for bad behavior, and pull out suspected terrorists from crowds.”
Moreover, it’s easy to see how the China model for internet control has been integrated into the American police state’s efforts to flush out so-called anti-government, domestic extremists.
According to journalist Adrian Shahbaz’s in-depth report, there are nine elements to the Chinese model of digital authoritarianism when it comes to censoring speech and targeting activists: 1) dissidents suffer from persistent cyber attacks and phishing; 2) social media, websites, and messaging apps are blocked; 3) posts that criticize government officials are removed; 4) mobile and internet access are revoked as punishment for activism; 5) paid commentators drown out government criticism; 6) new laws tighten regulations on online media; 7) citizens’ behavior monitored via AI and surveillance tools; 9) individuals regularly arrested for posts critical of the government; and 9) online activists are made to disappear.
You don’t even have to be a critic of the government to get snared in the web of digital censorship and AI surveillance.
The danger posed by the surveillance state applies equally to all of us: lawbreaker and law-abider alike.
When the government sees all and knows all and has an abundance of laws to render even the most seemingly upstanding citizen a criminal and lawbreaker, then the old adage that you’ve got nothing to worry about if you’ve got nothing to hide no longer applies.
As Orwell wrote in 1984, “You had to live—did live, from habit that became instinct—in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.”
In an age of too many laws, too many prisons, too many government spies, and too many corporations eager to make a fast buck at the expense of the American taxpayer, we are all guilty of some transgression or other.
No one is spared.
As Elise Thomas writes for Wired: “New surveillance tech means you’ll never be anonymous again.”
It won’t be long before we find ourselves looking back on the past with longing, back to an age where we could speak to whomever we wanted, buy whatever we wanted, think whatever we wanted, go wherever we wanted, feel whatever we wanted without those thoughts, words and activities being tracked, processed and stored by corporate giants, sold to government agencies, and used against us by militarized police with their army of futuristic technologies.
Tread cautiously: as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, 1984 has become an operation manual for the omnipresent, modern-day AI surveillance state.
Without constitutional protections in place to guard against encroachments on our rights when power, AI technology and militaristic governance converge, it won’t be long before Philip K. Dick’s rules for survival become our governing reality: “If, as it seems, we are in the process of becoming a totalitarian society in which the state apparatus is all-powerful, the ethics most important for the survival of the true, free, human individual would be: cheat, lie, evade, fake it, be elsewhere, forge documents, build improved electronic gadgets in your garage that’ll outwit the gadgets used by the authorities.”
Tyler Durden
Fri, 07/22/2022 – 23:00 - Georgia Ends Abortion With 'Heartbeat' Law After Federal Court Finds It Is Constitutional
Georgia Ends Abortion With ‘Heartbeat’ Law After Federal Court Finds It Is Constitutional
After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, finding that abortion is not a constitutionally protected right and left abortion laws up to individual states, there was considerable clamor by pro-abortion activists about potentially stalling state decisions through legal wrangling. So far, their ability to stop states from representing their constituents has been limited.
Georgia’s Heartbeat bill was actually passed by the Georgia General Assembly into law 2019, but it was blocked in 2020 when the US District Court ruled that the bill was unconstitutional. Everything changed after the Supreme Court decision in June. The law makes abortions illegal after a baby forms a heartbeat, usually at six weeks (babies also form brains and synapse activity at 6-8 weeks), and it matches with similar laws in Texas, Ohio, Oklahoma and many other states.
The law was vindicated by a federal appeals court this week when a three-judge panel ruled that the Supreme Court decision on the Dobbs case negated pro-abortion arguments of constitutionality. The appeals court added that “no clear right to abortion exists within the constitution” and that the state of Georgia is free to prohibit the practice.
Three exceptions are written into the law:
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First, if a pregnancy occurs due to rape or incest it can be terminated as long as a police report is filed documenting the crime.
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Second, if it is determined that the pregnancy presents a serious risk to the life of the mother.
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Third, if there is a medical condition which naturally renders the fetus unviable.
The law also defines a “natural person” to include unborn children, granting personhood to babies still in the womb.
After 50 years of Roe v. Wade the practice has been well ingrained into our culture in medical terms, yet, the conflict over the Supreme Court decision in 1973 has never lost any momentum and it has never been fully accepted as legitimate. Around half of Americans say that abortion should be legal, but only under limited circumstances according to polls.
This was the root argument that abortion advocates made in 1973 after the decision on Roe v. Wade – That abortion would be legal, but with numerous limitations. Planned Parenthood worked extensively to reduce such limitations from state to state through a hailstorm of lawsuits until abortion was widely held to be a primary solution to any and all pregnancy concerns
With a large number of contraception options in play today, the “stigma” of motherhood out of wedlock non-existent, as well as adoption foundations and charities in place, the notion of using abortion as a form of contraception has lost legitimacy. Now, as the Georgia case shows, the decision is once again back in state hands and voter hands.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 07/22/2022 – 22:40 -
- How Mattis Betrayed His Fellow Marines At The Behest Of The Deep State
How Mattis Betrayed His Fellow Marines At The Behest Of The Deep State
Authored by Major Fred Galvin (USMC-Ret) via The Publius National Post,
How the Pentagon’s top-brass generals burned the careers of subordinates but then pivoted to lucrative careers all while losing the wars they were supposed to be winning
My new book, A Few Bad Men, details the mendacity and mad dishonesty of retired Marine General James “Mad Dog” Mattis. The fact that it was written by a Marine once under his command, whom he betrayed for the sake of politics and getting to slap on another star, says volumes about this once-lionized figure.
It all goes back to an incident in Afghanistan in 2007, and the Court of Inquiry trial of innocent Marines that followed, which Mattis himself instigated.
Lt. Colonel Steve Morgan, USMC (retired) and jury member of the 2008 Marine Special Operations Command’s Court of Inquiry says in the foreword to A Few Bad Men, “This is a case of a perfect storm of toxic leadership.”
The most legendary Marine of all time, Lieutenant General John A. Lejeune, the 13th commandant of the Marine Corps, laid out clearly how to effectively nurture and lead Marines:
“Make every effort by means of historical, educational, and patriotic addresses to cultivate in their hearts a deep abiding love of the Corps and Country” and “the key to combat effectiveness is unity and esprit that characterizes itself in complete irrevocable mutual trust.”
If only General Mattis had taken this to heart.
On February 3, 2005, when Lieutenant General Mattis was attending the Armed Forces Communications and Electronic Associations forum in San Diego, he said: “You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn’t wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain’t got no manhood left anyway. So it’s a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them. It’s fun to shoot some people. I’ll be right up there with you. I like brawling.”
He also likes hearing the sound of his own voice.
During this same time, Mattis partnered with General David Petraeus to develop the joint counterinsurgency doctrine of winning hearts and minds. Mattis hijacked the phrase from the Hippocratic oath for his Marines to follow, “First do no harm.” This sounded good to the media and politicians in Washington, but Marines are not physicians and Afghanistan was no sterile operating room. It was a hellscape in which Marines constantly faced threats and the possibility of betrayal from 360 degrees. Mattis’ Marine Hippocratic oath sent mixed signals for his Marines, who had it on his good authority that “It’s a hell of a lot of fun to shoot . . . some people.”
Just over two years later, I led the First Marine Special Operations Task Force. We landed in Afghanistan on February 12, 2007. Before long the First was involved in a complex ambush near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, on March 4, 2007. We were attacked by a suicide car-bomb, waves of Taliban fighters on both sides of the road, a sniper, and a mob that placed an obstacle to trap us in an ambush kill box. We successfully counterattacked, killed the Taliban terrorists, avoided civilian casualties, and returned to base within 20 minutes, where we learned of the Taliban’s swift information operations campaign that was already underway, accusing us of mass-murdering Afghan civilians. The Taliban’s version of events went out within 20 minutes through the BBC followed by countless others. Ultimately, the president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, condemned our actions and the Army generals kicked us out of Afghanistan within five days. Crushing the Taliban in battle morphed into a PR victory for the extremists in the media and a weakening of the allied forces in country. Due process went right out the window.
Ironically, Mattis was assigned as the convening authority by the commandant of the Marine Corps in August 2007, to be responsible for the investigation and a Court of Inquiry into our March 4 battle. Mattis received the results of my polygraph test and the sworn testimony of all the Marines involved in the firefight, confirming that on that morning no Marines said they killed any civilians or saw any civilians killed.
Unlike Lejeune’s comments of “cultivating a deep abiding love of Country and Corps in the hearts of your Marines and that the key to combat effectiveness is unity and esprit that characterizes itself in complete irrevocable mutual trust,” Mattis unleashed an unprecedented 45 criminal investigators and four prosecuting attorneys against the seven Marines falsely accused by the Taliban of mass murder. It would become the longest war crimes trial in Marine Corps history.
Mattis placed a “protective order” (a.k.a. gag order) prohibiting the two Marine officers who he named as codefendants from making any statements to the press or face punishment. Our attorneys would face disbarment. The already unlevel playing field was tilted hard against the Marines who had won a battlefield victory under fire.
Additionally, Mattis’ prosecution team found perceived vulnerabilities in the Marine commandos and commenced “ethnic targeting” of two Hispanic Marines. Mad Dog’s prosecutors continuously interrogated one of them, and the government manufactured a statement from him that our fire was out of control during the March 4 ambush.
The prosecution then threatened to deport the Marine’s mother back to Mexico unless he signed the statement. That Marine testified he was coerced into signing the prosecution’s false statement. Another Hispanic Marine also testified he was repeatedly threatened by the prosecution to take a polygraph, which was not a legal order, but the prosecution ordered him to anyway. None of the other Marines were subjected to these strongarm Gestapo tactics.
Mattis turned the prosecution over to his successor in the fall of 2007 as he received his promotion with a fourth star. The following year, the trial acquitted all of us. No thanks to Mad Dog Mattis. He got his star. A few bad prosecutors under his watch cost the Marines a few good men, and diminished America’s position in Afghanistan at a time when that war might still have been won.
Mattis went on to serve as the commander of all U.S. Forces in the Middle East at U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Florida. As I detail in A Few Bad Men, there he came under the influence of Elizabeth Holmes, founder and CEO of Theranos. Holmes had a device she claimed could detect all kinds of disease in a few drops of blood. It would change the world, if it worked. Holmes contacted Mattis in August 2012 and wrote Pentagon officials requesting, “How do we overcome this new obstacle? I have tried to get this device tested in theater asap, legally and ethically. This appears to be relatively straight-forward yet we’re a year into this and not yet deployed.”
The main problem Mattis was willing to overlook was that the FDA had not approved Theranos’ blood testing technology to be used on our troops in Afghanistan, but Mattis was hoping he could push it through, right or wrong.
Mattis retired and went on to make a fortune serving on four corporate boards, including Theranos and military contractor General Dynamics. Theranos’ technology would not only be denied FDA approval, but it was proven to be a fraud. During the Elizabeth Holmes trial, Mattis, who had served as a Theranos board member for several years, testified that he was unaware of any of Theranos’ scandalous actions. This seems unlikely, given Mad Dog’s legendary tenacity, and the fact that he had a fiduciary duty to know what was going on.
Holmes’ device never worked. She is now a convicted fraudster. Was Mattis her gullible mark or a greedy participant?
Mattis’ disgraceful actions are laid bare in A Few Bad Men. He used his position as secretary of defense to bottle up the Freedom of Information Act requests to get our testimony in that March 4, 2007 ambush exposed. Our shocking testimonies have now been released and tell a terrible story of betrayal by a Marine against other Marines. They reveal why the Pentagon’s top-brass generals who burned the careers of subordinates but then pivoted to lucrative careers with every defense contracting company lost their forever war in Afghanistan, and really, haven’t won a war in decades.
* * *
Major Fred Galvin (USMC-Ret), author of A Few Bad Men: The True Story of U.S. Marines Ambushed in Afghanistan and Betrayed in America.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 07/22/2022 – 22:20 - President's Party Up Against Poor Odds In The Midterms
President’s Party Up Against Poor Odds In The Midterms
The Democrats are controlling the House, the Senate and the presidency at the moment, but the midterm election coming up at the end of the year has the power to change this Status Quo. With the Republicans’ conservative roll-back in full swing, you would expect Democratic voters on the left to be energized, but the party is up against a historical precedent at the same time: The president’s party rarely does well in the midterms.
As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz shows, based on data by The American Presidency Project, there is only two presidents of the modern age who could expand their party’s showing in both chambers in the midterms or at least not lose ground: Bill Clinton, during his second term, and George W. Bush, during his first, when he managed to flip the Senate in his favor while holding on to the House just one year after 9/11.
Against these few success stories stands a long line of defeats.
You will find more infographics at Statista
Barack Obama lost control of the House forever two years into his eight-year term and suffered another major setback in his second midterms when he lost the Senate as well. Bill Clinton in 1994 lost control of both chambers of Congress by the middle of his first term and never won them back in the six years that followed despite the gains he made in his second midterm election. After George W. Bush’s successful first midterms, debacle followed four years later as he lost both chambers in 2006 amid fall-out from Hurricane Katrina and the war in Iraq.
While the proof of midterm losses for sitting presidents is resounding, the reasons behind them are more muddled. Nobody really knows why the midterms are so hard for incumbents irrespective of the political climate. Depending on how a president is perceived by his voters, he could be hit by either apathy or disappointment. Other than 9/11, which helped George W. Bush succeed, other national crises have not proven a good predictor for midterms success, which leave two more possible culprits: presidential approval and the state of the economy.
Neither will work in Biden’s favor in November.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 07/22/2022 – 22:00 - Biden Ripped For $1BN Arms Deal With UAE After Khashoggi Lawyer Given 3 Years In Prison
Biden Ripped For $1BN Arms Deal With UAE After Khashoggi Lawyer Given 3 Years In Prison
Authored by Brett Wilkins via Common Dreams,
Progressive Dems this week decried the Biden administration’s approval of a nearly $1 billion weapons support deal with the United Arab Emirates—a move that came days after an Abu Dhabi court controversially sentenced a Virginia civil rights lawyer to three years in prison.
The US State Department’s approval of the $980.4 million agreement for “upgrades and sustainment” of the UAE’s fleet of Boeing C-17 Globemaster III military transport planes was announced Tuesday, two days after the Abu Dhabi Criminal Court sentenced Asim Ghafoor to three years behind bars, a fine of over $816,000, and deportation upon completion of his sentence for alleged money laundering and tax evasion.
Ghafoor, a U.S. citizen who previously represented murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi and his fiancée, Hatice Cengiz, was arrested Thursday at Dubai International Airport while en route to Turkey to attend a family wedding, the group Democracy in the Arab World Now (DAWN)—on whose board Ghafoor serves—said Friday.
Getty Images The US-UAE deal was announced days after Biden met with and praised leaders of Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, countries accused of perpetrating human rights violations ranging from war crimes and apartheid to the killing, and persecution of U.S. citizens.
“It’s clear that Biden isn’t breaking with Trump on the Mideast,” MSNBC journalist Mehdi Hasan tweeted Tuesday, a reference to then-President Donald Trump’s embrace of Arab dictators and unconditional support for Israel’s right-wing government. “Israel, Saudi, the UAE… Biden [is] doubling down on support for them, even when they kill or detain U.S. citizens and residents.”
US lawmakers, activists, and journalists are leading condemnation of Ghafoor’s imprisonment. Middle East Eye reports nearly a dozen members of Congress, including Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), and Don Beyer (D-Va.) have demanded Ghafoor’s release.
“I am appalled that Asim Ghafoor, American lawyer who represented Khashoggi, was detained and imprisoned in UAE based on an in absentia conviction with no notice or opportunity to defend himself,” Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) tweeted Tuesday, adding that Ghafoor “must be freed and allowed to return to the U.S.”
It’s clear that Biden isn’t breaking with Trump on the MidEast. Israel, Saudi, the UAE… Biden doubling down on support for them, even when they kill or detain US citizens & residents. And no sign of the Iran nuclear deal being restored either, which Biden once claimed he’d do. https://t.co/d5M5AWXHjP
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) July 19, 2022
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Meanwhile, Cengiz said in a statement Tuesday that she believes Ghafoor’s prosecution was politically motivated. “I have an ongoing civil lawsuit against the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, and his co-conspirators in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. The trial begins soon,” she explained. “Asim Ghafoor is part of DAWN’s legal team in this lawsuit. I am concerned that the UAE has jailed Asim to intimidate the legal team and myself, and anyone who calls for democracy in the Middle East.”
Matt Duss, who advises Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on foreign policy, sardonically questioned the UAE’s commitment to fighting the type of corruption of which Ghafoor is accused.
“If you believe that UAE, a global destination for kleptocrats’ stolen wealth, has suddenly joined the anti-corruption fight and just coincidentally started with Jamaal Khashoggi’s lawyer, I would very much like to invite you to my poker game,” he tweeted.
In explaining why Ghafoor was arrested, the Emirati state news outlet WAM claimed the apprehension was the result of “mutual coordination to combat transnational crimes with the United States.”
However, State Department Spokesperson Ned Price said during a Monday press briefing that the U.S. did not want Ghafoor arrested, and that administration officials “conveyed our expectations to our Emirati partners that Mr. Ghafoor receive continued consular access, that he be afforded a fair and transparent legal process, and that he be treated humanely.”
Price stated that “we see no indication at this point that [Ghafoor’s] detention has anything to do with his association with Jamal Khashoggi, but we’re still gathering information.”
#UAE had Sheikha Latifa, daughter of the ruler of Dubai (al-Maktoum), dragooned home after attempting to flee UAE in 2018. UAE rights defender #AhmedMansoor remains in jail. The credulity of @StateDeptSpox statement in #UAE‘s “due process” for detention of #AsimGhafoor is absurd. https://t.co/UJEnTzSgVa
— Michael Page (@MichaelARPage) July 20, 2022
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According to The Washington Post, the U.S. Department of Justice, when asked if it requested an Emirati investigation of Ghafoor, said that the agency “does not publicly comment on communications with foreign governments on investigative matters, including confirming or denying the very existence of such communications.”
Although the Biden administration was initially applauded for pausing arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the UAE, human rights defenders have condemned renewed deals including the 2021 sale of tens of billions of dollars worth of Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter jets, armed drones, and munitions to the Emirati government.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 07/22/2022 – 21:40 - Cadillac Reveals New $300,000 Electric Sedan
Cadillac Reveals New $300,000 Electric Sedan
“Celestiq has arrived, bringing to life Cadillac’s purest expression of design and innovation. A defining statement of a true Cadillac flagship,” Cadillac tweeted Friday morning while unveiling new images of its $300,000 ultra-luxury electric sedan.
The Celestiq is Cadillac’s first major attempt to reclaim its decades-old slogan “Standard of the World” with a handcrafted luxury sedan equipped with an all-wheel-drive electric powertrain capable of a +300-mile driving range and packed with groundbreaking technologies (including a hands-free assisted-driving system).
“Those vehicles represented the pinnacle of luxury in their respective eras, and helped make Cadillac the standard of the world,” Tony Roma, chief engineer of the Celestiq.
“The Celestiq show car — also a sedan, because the configuration offers the very best luxury experience — builds on that pedigree and captures the spirt of arrival they expressed,” Tony Roma, chief engineer of the Celestiq, said in a statement.
Cadillac plans to produce only 500 Celestiqs per year in an $81 million facility at GM’s Global Technology Center in Warren, Michigan.
We noted ahead of today’s preview that the luxury sedan is scheduled to go into production by late 2023.
Cadillac did not release details about Celestiq’s range, performance, or other metrics.
Cadillac appears to be reimagining the future of American luxury, though it’s still a Cadillac…
Tyler Durden
Fri, 07/22/2022 – 21:20 - Tverberg: Why Raising Rates To Reduce Inflation May Work Out Very Badly
Tverberg: Why Raising Rates To Reduce Inflation May Work Out Very Badly
Authored by Gail Tverberg via Our Finite World blog,
Are we headed for very high energy prices? Or, are we headed for a financial system that starts falling apart? The whole economic system may change remarkably. For example, what many people thought was money, or a promised pension plan, may not really be there when the time comes to get value from it. Shelves in stores may be empty when it comes time to make a purchase.
Most people do not understand that the world economy is a physics-based system, powered by energy. If the energy is suddenly much less available, there will be a huge problem. The world economy has been powered by a rapidly growing supply of energy for over 200 years.
Figure 1. World energy consumption by fuel based on Vaclav Smil’s estimates from Energy Transitions: History, Requirements and Prospects (Appendix) together with data from BP’s 2011 Statistical Review of World Energy for 1965 and subsequent. Wind and solar are included in Biofuels.
My concern is that the current attempt to bring inflation down will lead to falling energy supply and a world economy that is rapidly changing for the worse.
Figure 2. Energy amounts for 2010 and prior equal to those in Figure 1, with a corresponding amount for 2020. Future energy for 2030, 2040 and 2050 are rough estimates based on the observation that the world is now reaching extraction limits for both coal and oil.
Everything I can see says that world leaders are not able to face the possibility that the world is already running seriously short of oil and coal. Future supplies are likely to be much lower, and much more expensive, if they are available at all. Other energy types (including natural gas, nuclear, hydroelectric, wind and solar) are simply add-ons to a system built using coal and oil.
Current world leaders do not realize that the energy situation is very much like the water level in Lake Mead. Looking at it from the top, there still seems to be water there but, in fact, the required depth is lacking. Water for watering crops will soon be exhausted. The world’s energy supply is not a whole lot different. The supposedly proven reserves do not tell us anything at all. It is the amount of fossil fuels that can be affordably extracted that is important. We have already exceeded the amount that can be affordably extracted. If central banks cut back future energy supplies using higher interest rates, we can expect to encounter major problems going forward.
In this post, I will try to explain some of the issues involved.
[1] The amount of energy the economy requires depends very much on population. The greater the world population, the more oil is needed for food production and transportation. Non-oil energy is a bit more flexible in quantity than oil, but the total quantity of energy per capita needs to keep rising to prevent very adverse outcomes.
Figure 3. World per capita energy consumption by source, with the 1950-1980 period of rapid growth highlighted. Amounts are equal to those used in Figure 1, divided by population estimates by Angus Maddison.
Figure 3 highlights the fact that the period of Rapid Energy Growth between 1950 and 1980 was a period of unprecedented growth in per capita energy consumption. This was a period when many families could afford their own car for the first time. There were enough employment opportunities that, quite often, both spouses could hold down paying jobs outside the home. It was the growing supply of inexpensive fossil fuels that made these jobs available.
If a person looks closely, it is possible to see that the 1920 to 1940 period was a period of very low growth in energy consumption, relative to population. This was also the period of the Great Depression and the period leading up to World War II. Sluggish energy consumption growth at that time was linked to very undesirable socioeconomic outcomes.
Energy is like food for the economy. If energy of the right kinds is cheaply available, it is possible to build new roads, pipelines and electricity transmission lines. World trade grows. If available energy is inadequate, major wars tend to break out and standards of living are likely to fall. We now seem to be approaching a time of too little energy, relative to population.
[2] Recently published data through 2021 indicates that energy consumption growth is not keeping up with population growth, similar to the situation of the 1930s. This says that the economy is doing poorly. Supply lines are broken; most jobs don’t pay well; many goods that normally would be available aren’t available.
Figure 4. World energy consumption per capita, based on information published in BP’s 2022 Statistical Review of World Energy.
Figure 4 shows that the year with the highest per capita energy consumption was 2018. This agrees with other information such as automobile sales.
Figure 5. Auto sales by country, based on data of vda.de
For example, the number of automobiles sold seems to have peaked back in the 2018 period. China and India are both reporting fewer automobile sales recently. The economy was already sliding into recession in 2019. The 2020 shutdowns hid the very poor condition the world economy was already in. If people were forced to remain in their homes, they could not take to the streets to protest their poor wages and pension plans. The shutdowns helped give the impression the world economy was doing better than it really was.
Figure 4 shows that even with the bounce back in 2021, total energy consumption per capita is still below the 2018 and 2019 values. This contrasts with the situation that occurred after the 2008-2009 Great Recession. By 2010, per capita energy consumption was back above the 2007 and 2008 values.
[3] We can look back and see how rising interest rates were used to slow the world economy in the 2004 to 2006 period, and how different the economic situation was then compared to now. Even with the rapid growth the economy was making at the time of the interest rates increases, the result was still a deep recession in 2008-2009.
Figure 6. Figure similar to Figure 4 showing world energy consumption per capita, except that notation has been added with respect to the timing of increases in US Federal Reserve Target Interest Rates.
It is clear from Figure 4 and Figure 6 that between 2001 and 2007, the quantity of energy consumed per capita was rising rapidly. This was the period shortly after China was added to the World Trade Organization. Manufacturing was rapidly being moved to China. China’s demand for energy products of all kinds was rising rapidly. As a result of this greater demand, oil prices were increasing between 2001 and 2007. To try to reduce inflation, the Federal Reserve raised target interest rates in the 2004 to 2006 period and gradually brought them down, starting in late 2007.
There are two things that are striking about this earlier situation:
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The world economy (as shown by rising energy supply) was growing much more rapidly during the 2001 to 2007 period than it is in 2022. All the world economy is trying to do now is get back to where it was before the 2020 shutdowns, in terms of energy consumption per capita.
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Eventually, there was a bad reaction to the higher interest rates of 2004 to 2006, but this did not come until 2008-2009. This was a much longer lag than most people would expect.
Now, in 2022, we cannot get energy consumption per capita up to the 2018 and 2019 levels. There are many unfinished automobiles, waiting for missing parts. Appliances of many kinds are not available without a long wait. Fertilizer is often not available. Broken supply lines leave many store shelves empty. It is not that demand is unusually high; it is the supply of the energy products we need to grow food and to transport many finished goods that is not available.
Raising interest rates is a way to reduce the demand for finished goods and services, such as automobiles and appliances, if the world economy is growing very rapidly, as it was back in the 2001 to 2007 period. If the problem is an inadequate supply of finished goods and services (due to broken supply lines and low wages for workers), then raising interest rates is entirely the wrong medicine. It will cause even fewer automobiles and appliances to be made. It will cause many current workers to be laid off. Such an approach, when the world is trying to deal with too few workers, will tend to make the situation worse, rather than better.
[4] The trend in fossil fuel supplies is concerning. Both oil and coal are past peak, on a per capita basis. World coal supply has been lagging population growth since at least 2011. While natural gas production is rising, the price tends to be high and the cost of transport is very high.
Most energy charts are similar to Figure 7, showing energy consumption on a total product supplied basis, without reference to the size of the population using those resources.
Figure 7. Total quantity of oil, coal and natural gas supplied based on information published in BP’s 2022 Statistical Review of World Energy.
Figure 7 indicates that coal supplies are, in some sense, the most troubled of the three types of fossil fuels. In the 2001 to 2007 period, China was able to ramp up its manufacturing using coal, but eventually those supplies ran short. In fact, coal supplies around the world started running short. Instead of telling us about the shortfall in production, we started hearing a story that sounds a lot like The Fox and the Grapes of Aesop’s Fables: Coal is a horribly polluting fuel which we don’t really want anyhow.
To understand how these quantities correspond to the world’s rising population, it is helpful to look at consumption divided by population, shown in Figure 8.
Figure 8. Oil, coal and natural gas energy consumption per capita, based on data in BP’s 2022 Statistical Review of World Energy.
Figure 8 shows that oil consumption per capita was relatively stable up until 2019. Then, it suddenly dropped in 2020, and it has not been able to fully recover from that drop in 2021. In fact, we know that as oil production has tried to increase in 2022, its price has risen further. Of the years shown, 2004 was the year with the highest oil consumption per capita. That was back at the time that “conventional” oil production peaked.
Figure 8 shows that the peak production of coal, relative to world population, was in the year 2011. Now, in 2022, the least expensive coal to extract has been depleted. World coal consumption has fallen far behind population growth. The big drop-off in coal availability means that countries are increasingly looking to natural gas as a flexible source of electricity generation. But natural gas has many other uses, including its use in making fertilizer and as a feedstock for many herbicides, pesticides, and insecticides. The result is that there is more demand for natural gas than can easily be supplied.
[5] Governments and academic institutions have gone out of their way to avoid telling the world how important energy of the right types and in the right quantities is to the economy.
Politicians cannot admit that the world economy cannot get along without the right quantities of energy that match the needs of today’s infrastructure. At most, a small amount of substitution is possible, if all the necessary transition steps are taken. Each transition step requires energy of various kinds. For example, a small amount of intermittent wind can be added to the fossil-fuel generated electricity supply, if care is taken to ramp up fossil-fuel generated electricity to offset the lack of wind when there is a shortfall in supply. Otherwise, battery or other storage is needed for the wind energy until the wind energy is truly needed by the system.
Thus, most people today are convinced that the economy doesn’t need energy. They believe that the world’s biggest problem is climate change. They tend to cheer when they hear that fossil fuel supplies are being shut down. Of course, without energy of the right kinds, jobs disappear. The total quantity of goods and services produced tends to fall very steeply. In this situation, there is likely not enough food for all the people in the world. War is likely to break out over limited resources.
[6] Once the economy starts heading downward, it is not clear that the economy can ever “catch itself” and start back on an upward path again, even for a short while.
Back in 2001, the World Economy was able to get a “bail out” from China’s rapid growth in coal production, but as we have seen, world coal production is no longer growing as fast as population.
Back in about 2010 and 2011, growth in US crude oil from shale formations was able to temporarily bail out world oil supply, but now this is also failing. Also, even the recent “growth” shown is to a significant extent from the completion of “drilled but uncompleted” wells started earlier. Eventually, there are no more “DUCs” to complete.
Figure 9. EIA chart showing US Field Production of Crude Oil through June 24, 2022.
In fact, despite all of the supposed high reserves of many kinds around the world, there is little evidence that the Middle East, or anywhere else, can actually raise production much higher.
Once the economy starts shrinking, debt defaults are likely to become a big problem. Banks will find their balance sheets impaired. They may be forced to close. Citizens with deposits may find that only part of their balance is available to spend.
Government programs will necessarily be forced to cut back to match the energy supplies that are available. For example, if road paving material is not available, roads cannot be repaved. If fuel cannot be found for school buses, students may need to learn at home.
Governments at all levels have promised pension plans. In fact, many employers have promised pension plans. Without a growing supply to cheap-to-produce energy, these promises are meaningless. Somehow, governments will find it necessary to cut back on their promises. Perhaps, Social Security and Medicare programs will be handed back to US States to fund, to the extent that the states have funds for these programs. Governments around the world can expect to face similar problems.
With less energy supply available, the whole world economy that we know today seems likely to start falling apart. Fewer goods will be available through international trade. It is cheap energy that has allowed today’s economy to function. Once this cheap energy is depleted, the world economy will need to shrink back in many ways, at once.
We don’t really know precisely what lies ahead, and perhaps, this lack of knowledge is for the best. We cannot even imagine a world economy changing rapidly for the worse.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 07/22/2022 – 21:00 -
- These Are The 20 Nations With The Fastest Declining Populations
These Are The 20 Nations With The Fastest Declining Populations
Since the mid-1900s, the global population has followed a steep upwards trajectory.
While much of this growth has been concentrated in China and India, researchers expect the next wave of growth to occur in Africa. As of 2019, for example, the average woman in Niger is having over six children in her lifetime.
However, as Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu details below, at the opposite end of this spectrum are a number of countries that appear to be shrinking from a population perspective. To shed some light on this somewhat surprising trend, we’ve visualized the top 20 countries by population decline.
The Top 20
The following table ranks countries by their rate of population decline, based on projected rate of change between 2020 and 2050 and using data from the United Nations.
Many of these countries are located in or near Eastern Europe, for reasons we’ll discuss below.
The first issue is birth rates, which according to the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE), have fallen since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Across the region, the average number of children per woman fell from 2.1 in 1988 to 1.2 by 1998.
Birth rates have recovered slightly since then, but are not enough to offset deaths and emigration, which refers to citizens leaving their country to live elsewhere.
Eastern Europe saw several waves of emigration following the European Union’s (EU) border expansions in 2004 and 2007. The PIIE reports that by 2016, 6.3 million Eastern Europeans resided in other EU states.
The Outliers
There are two geographical outliers in this dataset which sit on either side of Europe.
Japan
The first is Japan, where birth rates have fallen continuously since 1970. It wasn’t until 2010, however, that the country’s overall population began to shrink.
By the numbers, the situation appears dire. In 2021, 811,604 babies were born in Japan, while 1.44 million people died. As a result of its low birth rates, the island nation also has the world’s highest average age at 49 years old.
The Japanese government has introduced various social programs to make having kids more appealing, but these don’t appear to be getting to the root of the problem. For deeper insight into Japan’s low birthrates, it’s worth reading this article by The Atlantic.
Cuba
The second country is Cuba, and it’s the only one not located within the Eastern Hemisphere. Cuba’s fertility rate of 1.7 children per woman is the lowest in the Latin American region. It can be compared to countries like Mexico (2.2), Paraguay (2.5), and Guatemala (3.0).
Cuba’s immigration is also incredibly low compared to its neighboring countries. According to the International Organization for Migration, immigrants account for just 0.1% of its total population.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 07/22/2022 – 20:40 - Texas GOP Training 5,000 Election Workers, Poll Watchers To Improve Election Integrity: Spokesman
Texas GOP Training 5,000 Election Workers, Poll Watchers To Improve Election Integrity: Spokesman
Authored by Gary Bai via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
The Texas GOP says it is stepping up election integrity efforts in the state by training and recruiting election personnel watching the polls, according to a party spokesperson.
“Texas should be the standard bearer for all things Republican, with a Republican-dominated legislature and state office for going on 20 years now,” Wesolek said, noting that the issue of election integrity is “absolutely” a part of this axiom.
Texas GOP chairman Matt Rinaldi (left) presides over procedures at the Republican Party of Texas Convention in Houston, Texas, on June 18, 2022. (Darlene McCormick Sanchez/The Epoch Times) Since former U.S. President Donald Trump left office in 2021, the Lone Star State’s Republican Party has trained over 5,000 election workers and poll watchers in the state, as part of an effort to “set the goalpost” for improving election integrity statewide and beyond, party spokesperson James Wesolek told The Epoch Times in an interview in July.
“When it comes to good Republican policy, Texas should be leading the way and showing what that means … what good Republican policy looks like,” the spokesperson added.
The Texas GOP’s in-house staff and contractors, in partnership with the Republican National Committee, county-level Republican parties, and other grassroots groups, conduct training and recruitment of election personnel in the state.
The poll watchers would observe the conduct of the election and report irregularities and violations of the Election Code, if any, to election officials. All political parties are allowed to hire election workers to observe all parts of election administration.
“It’s a team effort, and in the end, it’s all a responsibility we feel to be accountable to the voters of Texas,” Wesolek said.
Texas’s Republicans, in conjunction with former U.S. President Donald Trump and other conservative figures, have been voicing their concerns about how the 2020 election was administered.
More than 5,000 delegates at the biennial Texas GOP Convention last month voted and passed a resolution that stated President Joe Biden “was not legitimately elected” and that “substantial” election fraud in key metropolitan areas influenced the results of the 2020 presidential election in favor of Biden. This resolution makes the Lone Star state the first to reject the 2020 election results. Democrats and legacy media have vociferously denied such allegations, claiming them to be unfounded.
At the convention, the delegates voted for eight out of 15 topics they deemed important, which then became the official legislative priorities for the Texas GOP during the 88th session (2023-2024) of the Texas legislature.
Out of these eight selected priorities, the “Protect our Elections” legislative priority would guide the Texas legislature in passing measures that Republican delegates believe would improve election security in the state.
These measures include restoring felony penalties and enacting civil penalties for Election Code violations, requiring voter citizenship verification, restricting mail-in ballots to only the disabled, military personnel, and citizens that are out of state, reducing the time allowed for early voting, eliminating the three-day gap between early voting and election day, and establishing closed primaries in Texas.
“Despite the legislative priorities that we have, we’re still out in the field training poll watchers and election workers every day so that we can trust and verify, make sure that our election integrity laws that are already on the book are followed, that the law is followed, that there are repercussions for [election fraud] when it happens,” Wesolek said.
“And some of what we had seen in our legislative priorities stems from those efforts where [the poll watchers] noticed that there was lack of enforcement for some of [the election integrity laws] and wanted to get that addressed,” the spokesperson added.
Bill filing for Texas’s 88th legislative session begins on Nov. 14.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 07/22/2022 – 20:20 - Families Brawl At Disney World As The Company Brand Decays
Families Brawl At Disney World As The Company Brand Decays
It seems like Disney has been deliberately chasing controversy the past couple of years. Leaks of management video conferences have shown the company to be widely engaged in distributing woke propaganda through its entertainment media. They openly opposed Florida’s anti-grooming bill which prevented teachers from engaging in sexualized discussions with young children. And, a majority of their box office movies and streaming content has fallen flat in terms of audience numbers and revenues.
Disney’s stock has plunged by around 30% in the past six months, and the company is now heavily relying on cash from the theme parks to keep itself afloat. Public sentiment towards Disney is in steep decline according to polls, and this is likely due to far-left ideology being injected into every facet of the conglomerate. That said, there is also an increasing number of incidents of violence at the parks as well as negative encounters with employees.
The latest event involved a big brawl between two families at Disney World, apparently over a woman leaving an attraction line and then returning to her family. This set off the chaos in the video below:
Some of the guests have now been arrested and banned from the park, but only after the fight went unimpeded and security was nowhere to be seen. This is just one among a host of incidents that have ruined the image of a company which once relied entirely on family friendly, non-confrontational and non-political fun. This doesn’t look like much fun, but many might find it funny to watch Disney implode.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 07/22/2022 – 20:00 - What We Know About The 22-Year-Old Who Stopped A Mass Shooting In Indiana
What We Know About The 22-Year-Old Who Stopped A Mass Shooting In Indiana
Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Authorities revealed that the 22-year-old Indiana man who stopped a mass shooting at an Indiana mall over the weekend is Elisjsha Dicken.
The suspect was identified as Jonathan Sapirman, 20, who was killed by Dicken. Sapirman killed three people, identified by local officals as Pedro Pineda, 56; Rosa Mirian Rivera de Pineda, 37; and Victor Gomez, 30.
A customer shops for a pistol in Tinley Park, Illinois, on Dec. 17, 2012. (Scott Olson/Getty Images) What Happened in the Incident
Dicken was accompanying his girlfriend at the Greenwood Park Mall, located 15 miles south of Indianapolis, when a shooter opened fire after emerging from the mall bathroom, Greenwood Police Chief Jim Ison said.
“I will say his actions were nothing short of heroic,” Ison said of Dicken.
Dicken then “engaged the [shooter] from quite a distance with a handgun, was very proficient in that, very tactically sound, and as he moved to close in on the suspect he was also motioning for people to exit behind him,” Ison explained during a news conference.
Authorities in the news conference said Sapirman’s motive is unknown. Before he opened fire, Sapirman spent more than one hour in the mall bathroom, Ison said.
In this aerial view, a water tower is seen outside of the Greenwood Park Mall in Indiana on July 18, 2022. (Jon Cherry/Getty Images) He had purchased three weapons and brought them to the mall, Ison said, but he only used a Sig Sauer M400 rifle.
Legal Implications
Indiana attorney Guy Relford, who is representing Dicken, said that his client followed the law.
Relford issued a statement saying he’s “a true American hero who saved countless lives during a horrific event that could have been so much worse if not for Eli’s courage, preparedness and willingness to protect others.”
“Because we want to respect the on-going criminal investigation by the Greenwood Police Department and take time to honor the three innocent lives lost, we won’t be making any substantive comments on Sunday’s events until after the authorities’ investigation is closed,” Dicken’s lawyer added.
As of July 1 in Indiana, state law no longer required individuals to have a permit to carry a firearm. Officials said Dicken was armed with a 9mm handgun.
Dicken was not technically allowed to carry a gun inside the mall as the Greenwood Park Mall’s website says it has a no-gun policy.
However, the rule “certainly has no effect whatsoever on his ability to use force to defend himself or to defend the other people in the mall,” Relford told the Indianapolis Star. He said that if Dicken carried the firearm into the mall and was told to leave and he doesn’t, he could be charged with trespassing.
Read more here…
Tyler Durden
Fri, 07/22/2022 – 19:40 - DOJ Sabotaged Trump Release Of Russiagate Docs
DOJ Sabotaged Trump Release Of Russiagate Docs
The Department of Justice blocked the release of hundreds of pages of ‘Russiagate’ documents that were declassified by then-president Donald Trump, who wanted to expose FBI abuses against he and his inner circle surrounding the 2016 US election and beyond.
After the agency refused, citing last minute ‘privacy concerns,’ they defied a subsequent order to release the materials after redactions were made, according to Just the News, which has obtained a memo from the National Archives written by former White House Chief-of-Staff, Mark Meadows, hours before Trump left office on January 20, 2021.
Meadows’ memo confirmed prior reporting by Just the News that Trump on Jan. 19, 2021 declassified a binder of hundreds of pages of sensitive FBI documents that show how the bureau used informants and FISA warrants to spy on the Trump campaign and misled both a federal court and Congress about flaws in the evidence they offered to get approval for the investigation.
The declassified documents included transcripts of intercepts made by the FBI of Trump aides, a declassified copy of the final FISA warrant approved by an intelligence court, and the tasking orders and debriefings of the two main confidential human sources, Christopher Steele and Stefan Halper, the bureau used to investigate whether Trump had colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election. -Just the News
Investigations into Trump and his campaign, as we know, found that there was no collusion with the Kremlin. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton authorized the dissemination of a fabricated claim that the Trump team was communicating with a Russian bank.
The declassified documents have never seen the light of day – as the DOJ disobeyed a direct order from the sitting US president, through Meadows, to declassify and expeditiously release them after private information was redacted.
“I am returning the bulk of the binder of declassified documents to the Department of Justice (including all that appear to have a potential to raise privacy concerns) with the instruction that the Department must expeditiously conduct a Privacy Act review under the standards that the Department of Justice would normally apply, redact material appropriately, and release the remaining material with redactions applied,” wrote Meadows – who told JTN that he was dismayed at the DOJ’s refusal to follow lawful instructions from the president.
“Well, you know, the swamp is pretty deep,” he said. “But when we look at this, this particular president was all about draining the swamp, you know, and when he was running, that was more of a campaign slogan. When he got there, he realized that not only was the swamp very deep, but they they would fight back. And oftentimes he said, ‘You know, I want to do this and get this out to the American people, not just the classification in terms of issues that affected him or his campaign personally, but issues that affect the American people.”
“What would happen is he would have a directive, and then we would see, as people were leaving the Oval Office, you know, they were nodding compliance in the Oval Office, and the minute they go out, they said, ‘Well, we’re not going to do that’ or ‘We’re going to find all the reasons not to do it.’ So I found that very often while I served as chief of staff, but also found that as a member of Congress, that many times we would go in and the president was all in on a transparency issue, only to find that many, whether they be at a particular agency or the Pentagon, they started pushing back.”
According to Meadows, if the documents are ever released they’ll show that congressional Democrats and FBI leadership knew they were lying.
“We found that not only were some of the allegations made by some of the Democrats false, but they were kind of guilty of what they were accusing Donald Trump of,” he said.
Read more here… and see Meadows’ memo below.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 07/22/2022 – 19:40 - These Are The World's Highest-Grossing Companies
These Are The World’s Highest-Grossing Companies
Walmart is the top-selling company in the world, turning over around $573 billion in annual revenue.
This is according to the Statista company database Company DB. The company in second place, e-commerce giant Amazon, is a whopping $100 billion behind that with a revenue of around $470 billion.
You will find more infographics at Statista
Two Chinese companies are also included in the list.
The State Grid Cooperation of China, which is in the business of electricity generation, transmission and distribution, and China Petroleum, a state-owned oil and gas enterprise.
Two more fossil fuel companies, state-owned Saudi Aramco from Saudi Arabia and British-owned Shell, also make the Top 10.
Apple and Volkswagen are the only two consumer goods companies that appear on the list. A third retailer – and a second one from the traditional brick-and-mortar field – appears in rank six: U.S. drug store chain CVS.
This means that Amazon remains the only seller dedicated exclusively to e-commerce on the list for now.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 07/22/2022 – 19:20 - Republican Mayra Flores Accuses Democrat Opponent Of Paying Blogger For Racist Posts
Republican Mayra Flores Accuses Democrat Opponent Of Paying Blogger For Racist Posts
Authored by Darlene McCormick Sanchez via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Republican Congresswoman Mayra Flores responded to racial stereotypes and crude language used to describe her by a South Texas blogger paid with campaign money from Congressman Vicente Gonzales, her Democratic opponent in the Texas District 34 midterm election.
Republican Mayra Flores, a legal immigrant from Mexico, won her bid for Texas Congressional District 34. (Courtesy of Mayra Flores) In a Twitter post on Monday, Flores accused the Gonzales campaign of paying for a blogger to “run hateful and racist ads” against her. The posts that appeared in the McHale Report blog referred to her as “Miss Frijoles,” “Miss Menudo,” “Miss Enchiladas,” and a “cotton-pickin’ liar.”
“I am disgusted that Vicente Gonzalez has hired a creepy blogger to attack my Mexican heritage and sexually degrade me, but I won’t let this distract me from my work,” she told The Epoch Times via text. “Vicente Gonzalez is an example of everything that’s wrong with Washington. It’s truly sick,” she said.
Jerry McHale, a longtime South Texas blogger, also used sexually crude language in a May 13 headline about the Congresswoman: “Does Flores Want Trump to Come & Take Her [expletive]???”
My far left opponent, Vincent Gonzalez, hired a local blogger to run hateful & racist ads against me!
But, I love frijoles & I grew up eating frijoles. I am not embarrassed of my upbringings & frijoles w/tortillas de harina is simply the best. Here’s to Miss Frijoles 2022 #TX34 pic.twitter.com/7z5SRGCfUv
— Mayra Flores (@MayraFlores2022) July 18, 2022
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Federal Elections Commission data shows Gonzalez made campaign advertising expenditures to Jerry McHale of $1,200 on June 24 and $1,000 on October 27, 2021.
McHale told The Epoch Times that Gonzalez never told him what to write, and he has never spoken to the Congressman. He was unapologetic for the language used in the blog. The self-described ultra-left Democratic blogger said he had no regrets using “satire” to describe Flores or “punching hard” at Republicans. He said Gonzalez and other politicians pay him to run photos with wording akin to a headline.
Colin Steel, campaign manager for Gonzalez, did not return a call seeking comment. However, he told NBC News, which first reported the story, that Gonzalez disapproves of calling Flores names and denied any wrongdoing.
Flores became the first Republican elected in the heavily Hispanic Rio Grande District in more than 100 years. The devout Christian won a special election for the district on a conservative platform of God, family, and country.
Rep.-elect Mayra Flores (R-TX) stands with her family and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) for a portrait after being sworn-in on June 21, 2022 in Washington, DC. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images) The controversial blog is just the latest incident in the rough-and-tumble political race for Texas District 34, which Flores aims to keep red. During her swearing-in ceremony, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi appeared to nudge Flores’ daughter to the side, which prompted Flores to condemn Pelosi on social media.
Read more here…
Tyler Durden
Fri, 07/22/2022 – 19:00 - It's "Embarrassing" – Aussie Govt Probes Central Bank's Terrible Track-Record
It’s “Embarrassing” – Aussie Govt Probes Central Bank’s Terrible Track-Record
In a stunning admission in this age of delusion, the Australian government has launched a probe into the central bank’s dismal forecasting and policy track record.
As The FT reports, the review comes after the institution was heavily criticized for delaying interest-rate hikes despite soaring, and persistent, inflation.
The RBA came under fierce criticism after it was forced into a U-turn three months ago when soaring inflation shredded its dovish policy stance.
Australia’s treasurer Jim Chalmers said the review would consider the performance of the central bank, its board composition and its inflation targeting strategy.
“We face a complex and changing economic environment, and now is the right time to ensure we’ve got the world’s best, the most effective central bank,” Chalmers told Australia’s public broadcaster ABC on Wednesday.
In fact, Philip Lowe, RBA governor, admitted in May that the central bank’s forecasting had been “embarrassing” given it had indicated that it would keep rates as low as possible until 2024.
“We should forecast this better. We didn’t,” he said.
Additionally, Lowe acknowledged the reputational damage from the “disorderly” exit from yield control.
The review will consider how the RBA reacts during times of crisis when monetary policy moves are limited.
“The outlines of the review encompassing its governance, culture and recruitment processes are quite broad, and certainly broader than the recent reviews undertaken at the Fed and the ECB,” said Alvin Tan, the head of Asia currency strategy at RBC Capital Markets in Singapore.
“The outcome of the exercise could be more important on the governance and culture aspects rather than the inflation goal.”
The final report and recommendations, due by March 2023, will also come just six months before Lowe’s seven-year term expires.
How long before a similar probe is unleashed on The Fed’s “embarrassing” track record… or worse still The ECB or BoJ’s?
Tyler Durden
Fri, 07/22/2022 – 18:40 - Pennsylvania Prohibits 'Zuck Bucks' Ahead Of 2022 Midterms
Pennsylvania Prohibits ‘Zuck Bucks’ Ahead Of 2022 Midterms
Authored by Rita Li via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Pennsylvania has banned public officials from receiving and using private election grants, including those from nonprofits, in a bid to boost election integrity by reducing outside influence.
Facebook founder, Chairman, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington on April 11, 2018. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) As of July 2022, over 20 states have passed laws banning or restricting public officials’ use of unregulated third-party monies when conducting elections. It comes after conservative analysts contend that such funds—dubbed “Zuck Bucks”—were allegedly strategic in their placement in swing states, beefing up vote totals in 2020 for then-presidential candidate Joe Biden to eventually win the election.
Election offices across Pennsylvania received more than $25 million in “Zuck Bucks” grants during the 2020 election cycle, according to data released by Capital Research Center.
Democrat Gov. Tom Wolf signed into law Senate Bill 982 (pdf) on July 11 mandating that public officials of state and local governments “may not solicit, apply for, enter into a contract for or receive or expend gifts, donations, grants or funding from any individual, business, organization, trust, foundation, or any nongovernmental entity for the registration of voters or the preparation, administration or conduction of an election in this commonwealth,” as per the new election integrity legislation.
“For us, reform begins with prohibiting private groups from funding election administration,” the bill’s primary sponsor state Sen. Lisa Baker said in a statement issued upon the law’s passage. She called the amendments “substantial structural improvements.”
“No matter who on the outside is contributing, no matter their expressed motivations,” Baker said, “millions of dollars coming in from national figures or organizations naturally raises suspicions of hidden agendas.”
Instead, the bill introduces a brand new “election integrity grant program,” wherein the state’s Department of Community and Economic Development is permitted to provide $45 million each year—or $5.15 per registered voter—to reimburse counties.
Yet it limits the circumstances for use of the grants, such as “payment of staff needed to pre-canvass and canvass mail-in ballots and absentee ballots” and “physical security and transparency costs for centralized pre-canvassing and canvassing.”
The total amount of the grants will be determined based on the population of registered voters in the previous primary election. To qualify for the state deal, counties are required to open and count ballots from 7 a.m. on Election Day, which doesn’t allow counties to process mail-in ballots ahead of Election Day.
Counties can submit applications between Aug. 1 and Aug. 15.
Third-Party Grants
A Mark Zuckerberg-funded activist group, the Chicago nonprofit Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL), flooded election offices largely in Democratic Party strongholds with hundreds of millions of dollars in 2020, which experts have seen as an apparent effort to drive up voter turnout for that party.
The billionaire Facebook founder, along with his wife, Priscilla Chan, donated $350 million to CTCL to fund local election offices nationally, calling them “COVID-19 response grants.” The money was advertised as a resource to buy personal protective equipment and reduce the spread of the coronavirus—yet COVID-19 response turned out to be a fraction of the total expenditures.
Researchers at the Capital Research Center, a Washington-based conservative non-profit organization, found that CTCL had given grants to 10 of the 13 counties Biden won in Pennsylvania, one of which—Erie County—flipped from Trump’s 2016 column.
“Together, these 10 counties received $20.8 million, or over 83 percent of all CTCL grants to Pennsylvania,” the report reads. “In contrast, CTCL gave grants to 12 of the 54 counties Trump won statewide. These 12 counties received just $1.73 million, a mere 7 percent of all CTCL funds in the Keystone state.”
The five biggest grants per capita in CTCL-funded counties statewide all went to those that Biden won, the study shows.
A spokesman for Facebook did not respond to a request for an interview.
Zuckerberg commissioned a report in December, which emphasized that “more Republican jurisdictions, defined as municipalities that voted for Trump in 2020, applied for and received grants.” The conclusion was deemed misleading among some election data experts because Republican jurisdictions were far more likely to receive grants of less than $50,000, which would likely not be enough to materially change election practices in the recipient jurisdiction.
Read more here…
Tyler Durden
Fri, 07/22/2022 – 18:20 - US Fighter Jets Now Under Consideration For Ukraine: Air Force Chief
US Fighter Jets Now Under Consideration For Ukraine: Air Force Chief
For weeks there have been rumors and widespread reports that the United States is close to starting a formal training program for Ukrainian pilots in order to better combat superior Russian aerial forces. But amid the weapons bonanza being offered and shipped from Washington to Kiev, it was also reported that fighter jets were never on the table – not even from allies.
This is particularly so after in March a proposal for Poland to send its own MiG-29 fighters to Ukraine, which Ukrainian pilots are already trained on, fell through in a bizarre and somewhat diplomatically embarrassing way, given Warsaw prematurely claimed the White House had agreed to replace its donated MiGs with F-16 jets. The Biden administration then rejected that any agreement was made, and the whole fighter jets for Ukraine initiative appeared shelved. But now fresh words from Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall have revived speculation the Biden administration is intensely mulling jet transfers.
Frank Kendall III, via Air Force Magazine “Despite previous reports to the contrary, the United States is indeed considering sending fighter jets to Ukraine and training their pilots how to fly them, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall says,” reports Newsmax based on his revealing words before the Aspen Security Forum this week.
He stressed that while the “right now problem” remains ground-based fighting particularly in the East, creating an urgent need for more artillery and heavy gun systems, Ukraine’s military will soon need better aerial assets to stave off Russia’s assault.
“We’ll be open to discussions with them about what their requirements are and how we might be able to satisfy them,” Kendall said, before saying it remains “largely up to Ukraine” to decide what type of aircraft would meet its needs.
“There are a number of international opportunities that are possible there,” he said. “Older US systems are a possibility” – he added while raising the possibility of A-10s, which have been in process of an off-and-on retirement under the Pentagon
Currently, the draft National Defense Authorization Act just passed in the House authorizes up to $100 million to establish a Ukrainian pilot program to train on American aircraft (F-16s in particular), which is the biggest indicator yet the Biden administration could be poised to pull the trigger.
Top US Air Force command seems to be on the same page on the issue, as Politico reports of separate statements this week:
Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. C.Q. Brown hinted that the U.S. or one one of its allies may soon send fighter jets to Ukraine.
“There’s U.S. [fighter jets], there’s Gripen out of Sweden, there’s the Eurofighter or the Rafale. So there’s a number of different platforms that could go to Ukraine,” he said…The Ukrainians are unlikely to get MiGs, he continued, because it’ll be hard to get parts from Russia. “It’ll be something non-Russian, I could probably tell you that. What I can’t do is tell you what it’s going to be,” he concluded.
“lawmakers recently approved $100 million as part of the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act to train Ukrainian pilots to fly U.S. fighter jets as the campaign against Russia rolls into a fifth month.” https://t.co/sF4VTNgp6P
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) July 22, 2022
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Without doubt, Moscow would view this as a huge escalation, and a significant step toward fulfilling Zelensky’s ultra-provocative and risky request to “close the skies”. Already there are rumors that in some cases NATO operators themselves could be manning some of the more sophisticated longer range rocket systems recently sent to the Ukrainian battlefield. Might this one day be the case with allied aircraft issued to Kiev?
It remains, however, that US-made jets would require a steep learning curve for Ukrainian pilots, possibly taking years to train on them – depending on the system. On this question, Air Force Secretary Kendall alluded to the possibility of accelerated training in the Wednesday remarks.
Meanwhile, in fresh comments reported by The Wall Street Journal, President Zelensky has stressed the need for anti-air defense systems is more “more urgent” than ever amid increasing Russian reliance on long-range missiles. He also again asserted that Ukraine’s position is that it won’t negotiate with Moscow until the army has reclaimed all lost national territory. Anything less “will only prolong the war,” he stated.
And speaking of the ongoing weapons bonanza, some of the latest headlines Friday:
- BIDEN AUTHORIZES SECRETARY OF STATE BLINKEN TO DIRECT THE DRAWDOWN OF UP TO $175 MLN IN DEFENSE AID FOR UKRAINE -WHITE HOUSE
- WHITE HOUSE SPOKESPERSON KIRBY: U.S. DEFENSE DEPT TO ANNOUNCE UKRAINE WILL GET UP TO 580 PHOENIX GHOST UAVS
- WHITE HOUSE SPOKESPERSON KIRBY: TOTAL U.S. SECURITY ASSISTANCE FOR UKRAINE COMES TO $8.2 BLN
Tyler Durden
Fri, 07/22/2022 – 18:00
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