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WSJ Joins Neocons To Instigate War On Iran
Updated below.
The neo-conservatives want to blame Iran for the current war in Palestine/Gaza.
They have for years tried to instigate war against it. Now they again see a chance. But its not a big one – yet.
Yossi Melman is a very well connected Israeli author:
Yossi Melman @yossi_melman – 5:33 UTC · Oct 9, 2023
IDF spokeperson Brig-General Danny Hagari said that there is no indication of an Iranian involvement in the war in Gaza.
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Biden administration scrambles to deter wider Mideast conflict – Washington Post – Oct 8 2023
Asked whether Hamas may have acted in partnership with Iran to disrupt the effort to broker a Saudi deal, Blinken said “that could have been part of the motivation. Look, who opposes normalization? Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran.”
But, he said, “we have not yet seen evidence that Iran directed or was behind this particular attack.”
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Fear not, say the neocons, we still have the Wall Street Journal to carry water for us:
Iran Helped Plot Attack on Israel Over Several Weeks (archived) – Wall Street Journal – Oct 8 2023
DUBAI—Iranian security officials helped plan Hamas’s Saturday surprise attack on Israel and gave the green light for the assault at a meeting in Beirut last Monday, according to senior members of Hamas and Hezbollah, another Iran-backed militant group.
Officers of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had worked with Hamas since August to devise the air, land and sea incursions—the most significant breach of Israel’s borders since the 1973 Yom Kippur War—those people said.
Details of the operation were refined during several meetings in Beirut attended by IRGC officers and representatives of four Iran-backed militant groups, including Hamas, which holds power in Gaza, and Hezbollah, a Shiite militant group and political faction in Lebanon, they said.
WSJ authors in Dubai(!) have access to "senior members of Hamas and Hezbollah"?
Cont. reading: WSJ Joins Neocons To Instigate War On Iran
Palestine Open Thread 2023-234
Only for news & views directly related to the conflict in Palestine.
The current open thread for other issues is here.
Please stick to the topic. Contribute facts. Do not attack other commentators.
Ukraine Open Thread 2023-233
Only for news & views directly related to the Ukraine conflict.
The current open thread for other issues is here.
Please stick to the topic. Contribute facts. Do not attack other commentators.
The MoA Week In Review – (Not Ukraine) OT 2023-232
Last week's post on Moon of Alabama:
> The recurrence of the conflict shows once again that the protracted standstill of the peace process cannot go on. The fundamental way out of the conflict lies in implementing the two-state solution and establishing an independent State of Palestine. <
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Other issues:
Cont. reading: The MoA Week In Review – (Not Ukraine) OT 2023-232
Palestine Is Striking Back
October 5 2023:
Over 800 Israeli settlers storm Al-Aqsa compound during Jewish Sukkot holiday
More than 800 Israeli settlers stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem on Thursday morning under the protection of Israeli forces.
Rabbis, heads of settlement associations, and far-right university lecturers were among 832 people who forced their way into the religious site compound, a source in the Islamic Endowments Department in Jerusalem told The New Arab's Arabic sister site Al-Araby Al-Jadeed.
Israeli forces imposed severe restrictions on Muslim worshippers entering Al-Aqsa and those under 60 were prevented from accessing the site.
It comes during the Jewish religious holiday of Sukkot, which started on 29 September and ends on Friday. The holiday has seen thousands of Israeli extremists storm the Al-Aqsa compound, with almost 1,500 entering the site on Monday.
Israeli extremists also continued on Thursday to hold provocative marches both inside Jerusalem's Old City and outside its walls, attacking Palestinians and their property.
They also beat and spat at journalists in a market area near Al-Aqsa, where shops were forced to close for the sixth day in a row.
The Old City is home to Al-Aqsa as well as the Western Wall and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
The Al-Aqsa compound is the third holiest site in Islam and the most important Muslim place in Palestine.
October 7 2023:
Escalation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
This morning, the Islamic Jihad group announced the start of the Al-Aqsa Flood operation, igniting another local war against Israel. They formally cited regular oppression and attempts on Al-Aqsa as reasons, where local Arab worshippers have been repressed repeatedly (in addition, there have been raids against the Islamic Jihad in Jenin over the past few weeks).
Cont. reading: Palestine Is Striking Back
Ukraine: Financing The War About Hegemony
First some news bits about Ukraine. We will then come to the real issue the war is fought about.
Headlines Politico:
Ukraine is ‘freaking out’ as McCarthy chaos threatens US aid
In Kyiv, officials are at a loss as to what might happen next. Their staunchest military ally suddenly looks unreliable, despite assurances from President Biden and others the U.S. will remain steadfast until Ukraine’s invaders are defeated.
“We are freaking out. For us it is a disaster,” said Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze, a senior Ukrainian MP who chairs the committee on the country’s integration with the European Union.
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The Ukrainian government heavily relies on foreign financial and military aid to keep the economy running and expects to receive $42.8 billion from international donors in the coming year. A big chunk of that would come from the United States.
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“Unfortunately, some [U.S.] lawmakers found it possible to seek trade offs while further aid to Ukraine is in the air,” Vladyslav Faraponov, head of the board of the Institute of American Studies, told POLITICO. “The key message that Kyiv needs to deliver is that we can win together and do it as soon as possible to save a lot of good men and women.”
So the real problem is that Kiev has no chance to win. See for example The Times which talked with (archived) Ukrainian mortar crews near Robotyne, where the Ukrainian counteroffensive is stuck:
The KAB [glide bombs], as well as mines, underground fortifications and a deluge of suicide drones, have pinned down Ukraine’s assault brigades. It is why last month’s penetration of Russian fortifications failed to lead to a full breakdown in their defences.
All over the Robotyne-Verbove line, Ukrainian forces are bogged down.
The U.S. public is no longer convinced that the gargantuan spending on Joe Biden's private war makes any sense:
Cont. reading: Ukraine: Financing The War About Hegemony
Ukraine Open Thread 2023-231
Only for news & views directly related to the Ukraine conflict.
The current open thread for other issues is here.
Please stick to the topic. Contribute facts. Do not attack other commentators.
Open (Not Ukraine) Thread 230
News & views (not related to the war in Ukraine) …
Ukraine – Fatigue Sets In
The increasing fracture of support for Ukraine not only destroyed House Speaker Kevin McCarthy but is also threatening the structures of the EU and NATO.
The Russian government had predicted that this process would happen:
The Kremlin said on Monday it believed a decision by U.S. Congress to pass a stopgap funding bill that omitted aid for Ukraine was a temporary setback for Kyiv, but forecast war fatigue in the West would grow and increasingly split opinion.
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Asked about the U.S. development, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he thought the setback for Ukraine was "a temporary phenomenon" and that Washington would clearly continue what he called its direct involvement in the conflict.
But Peskov, speaking after the party of Robert Fico won a weekend election in Slovakia pledging to end military aid to Ukraine, said that Moscow had long forecast that the West would grow increasingly weary of supporting Ukraine.
"Obviously, this (the U.S. setback) is a temporary phenomenon. America will continue its involvement in this conflict, in fact direct involvement," said Peskov.
"But we have repeatedly said before that according to our forecasts fatigue from this conflict, fatigue from the completely absurd sponsorship of the Kyiv regime, will grow in various countries, including the United States.
"And this fatigue will lead to the fragmentation of the political establishment and the growth of contradictions."
And so it plays out:
Cont. reading: Ukraine – Fatigue Sets In
Ukraine SitRep: Bad Demographics – End of Support
Via a Responsible Statecraft piece I came onto a EU study that tried to predict the future demographics of Ukraine's population.
The War and the Future of Ukraine’s Population
The study is from early 2022 and is based on Ukrainian casualty numbers from only the very first month of the war. Their worst case scenario was this:
Our third and fourth scenarios assume that the war will continue for a month or longer so that further casualties and refugees are expected. We assume the following casualties: 5,000 deaths among soldiers and 1,500 civilian deaths based on the current trends. There will be 5 million refugees, which is an estimate by UNHCR (UNHCR 2022a)
The real refugee numbers are twice as high and the casualty numbers, wounded and dead, are of course about 100 times higher than the study assumed. It was thus not worth the money that had been spend on it.
Still, some graphs in it are usable.
Yesterday I shortly discussed the op-ed by the former British Minister of Defense Ben Wallace in which he asserts:
The average age of the soldiers at the front is over 40.
He then urges the Ukrainian government to throw more young men into the meat grinder.
My response to Wallace was this:
The young Ukrainians are gone. They either have fled from Ukraine or are wounded, disabled or died. You can not mobilize what is no longer there.
Unfortunately the real situation is worse then I had thought. The EU demographic study included this graph:
Ukraine’s population by age and sex in 2020
bigger
The 'age pyramid' in Ukraine isn't a pyramid. In 2020 there was a huge lack of 15 to 20 years old people. They were simply not there. They never existed. The number of newborns around 2000 must have been horribly low.
The reason for that was likely the serious downturn of Ukraine's economy after it had separated itself from the Soviet Union.
Cont. reading: Ukraine SitRep: Bad Demographics – End of Support
The Average Age Of Ukraine’s Army
Ben Wallace, the former Secretary of State for Defence of the UK, writes in the Telegraph:
Putin is desperately grasping at the final two things that can save him – time and the splitting of the international community. Britain can do something about both. We must help Ukraine maintain its momentum – and that will require more munitions, ATACMSs and Storm Shadows. And the best way to keep the international community together is the demonstration of success.
Ukraine can also play its part. The average age of the soldiers at the front is over 40. I understand President Zelensky’s desire to preserve the young for the future, but the fact is that Russia is mobilising the whole country by stealth. Putin knows a pause will hand him time to build a new army. So just as Britain did in 1939 and 1941, perhaps it is time to reassess the scale of Ukraine’s mobilisation.
Let us not pause for one day. Let us see this through. The world is watching to see if the West has the resolve to stand up for our values and the rules-based system. What we do now for Ukraine will set the direction for all of our security for years to come.
Think for a moment what the aside insert "The average age of the soldiers at the front is over 40" really means. Can Storm Shadows change that fact?
Roland Popp @RoPoppZurich – 5:43 UTC · Oct 2, 2023
Sollte stimmen, was Wallace da über das Durchschnittsalter an der ukrainischen Front sagt, 40 Jahre, dann sind die schlimmsten Mutmaßungen über Verluste weit übertroffen worden.
Paraguay 1870.
Translated from German by Google
If what Wallace says about the average age on the Ukrainian front is true, 40 years, then the worst assumptions about losses have been far exceeded.
Paraguay 1870.
Paraguayan War – Casualties of the war:
Paraguay suffered massive casualties, and the war's disruption and disease also cost civilian lives. Some historians estimate that the nation lost the majority of its population.
Ukraine ain't there yet. But looking at pictures of Ukrainian soldiers at the front Wallace seems to be right. If you are forty or above are you really still able to run, react and fight like when you were twenty? I am not.
The young Ukrainians are gone. They either have fled from Ukraine or are wounded, disabled or died. You can not mobilize what is no longer there.
A huge loss that will forever haunt that country.
End this war now!
Ukraine Open Thread 2023-229
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The current open thread for other issues is here.
Please stick to the topic. Contribute facts. Do not attack other commentators.
The MoA Week In Review – (Not Ukraine) OT 2023-228
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