Between the war's start last October and recent days, the United States has transferred at least 14,000 of the MK-84 2,000-pound bombs, 6,500 500-pound bombs, 3,000 Hellfire precision-guided air-to-ground missiles, 1,000 bunker-buster bombs, 2,600 air-dropped small-diameter bombs, and other munitions, according to the officials, who were not authorized to speak publicly.
The petition was filed following the dozens of testimonies from security prisoners and detainees who are not connected with Hamas that the Prison Service has significantly reduced their food rations, to the point of starvation, causing them to shed dozens of kilograms.
The plans—whether or not they get adopted in full—reveal hard realities about the aftermath that rarely get voiced. Among them, that Palestinian civilians could be confined indefinitely to smaller areas of the Gaza Strip while fighting continues outside, and that Israel’s army could be forced to remain deeply involved in the enclave for years until Hamas is marginalized.
In late February, Smotrich—an avowed homophobe and proponent of Jewish superiority—signed an agreement with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to transfer a number of governmental powers in the West Bank from the territory’s military commander to Smotrich. (In addition to serving as finance minister, Smotrich is also a minister in the Defense Ministry.) The move was agreed upon in the coalition agreement between Likud and the Religious Zionist Party.
June 29, 2024
Zelenski Changes His Peace Plan
Zelenski's 'peace summit' in Switzerland had failed:
The reviews of Zelenski's latest show ain't positive: … The summit served warmed up bullshit without any significant nutritional value. The most important points weren't even discussed: … The war will continue until the complete destruction of the Ukrainian forces can no longer be ignored.
The last point may have come earlier than anticipated.
On June 27 Zelenski had changed tact (machine translation):
During a speech in Brussels, the president said that Ukraine wants to start negotiations on ending the war in the near future.
"Ukraine does not want to prolong the war, we do not want it to last for years. We need to put a settlement plan on the table within a few months, " he said.
Zelensky said that in the near future it is planned to develop a plan for the second world summit.
On June 28 he gave more details (machine translation):
President Volodymyr Zelensky has said that Ukraine will present its detailed peace plan "this year".
The President announced this during a press conference in Kyiv.
"It is very important for us to show an end-of-war plan that will be supported by the majority of the world. This is the diplomatic path that we are working on. Not everything depends on us, our production of technology, drones, and artillery is really increasing, because we need to be strong on the battlefield. Because Russia understands nothing but force. These are two parallel processes: be strong and develop a detailed, clear plan, and it will be ready this year, " Zelensky said. … Note that the Ukrainian peace plan has long been presented by Zelensky. It implies the withdrawal of Russian troops to the borders. However, many countries of the world (especially representatives of the "global South") consider it unrealistic.
In other words, a new plan will probably be prepared.
Earlier Russia's President Putin had announced his conditions for a permanent peace agreement. How many of them will Zelenski accept within his new 'peace plan'?
The DNC Campaign To Oust Biden Has Failed
Yesterday's assault by the Democratic National Committee on the Joe Biden campaign has failed.
Thursday night, as soon as the Trump-Biden debate had started, anonymous DNC officials contacted their usual 'liberal media' contacts and denounced Biden's performance. Even those media, like CNN and MSNBC, who have for years denied the obvious problems Biden has had, jumped onto the train. Biden, they said, should retreat.
The New York Times mobilized a slew of its opinion writers to convey the message:
But Joe Biden's wife, Dr. Jill Biden, resisted the move:
President Biden knew immediately after stepping off the stage in Atlanta on Thursday night that the debate had gone wrong. In those first stricken moments after a raspy, rambling and at times incoherent performance, he turned to his wife, Jill Biden. … The first lady’s message to him was clear: They’d been counted out before, she was all in, and he — they — would stay in the race. Her thinking, according to people close to her, was that it was a bad night. And bad nights end. … So Dr. Biden spent the 24 hours after the debate putting her decades as a political spouse to the test, projecting confidence and normalcy while effusively praising her husband.
Pushed along by his wife Joe Biden did not step back. The DNC assault on his campaign had failed.
Late last night former President Barack Obama, likely the man behind the 'oust Biden' campaign, publicly threw the towel.
Bad debate nights happen. Trust me, I know. But this election is still a choice between someone who has fought for ordinary folks his entire life and someone who only cares about himself. Between someone who tells the truth; who knows right from wrong and will give it to the American people straight — and someone who lies through his teeth for his own benefit. Last night didn’t change that, and it’s why so much is at stake in November. http://joebiden.com
Gleen Greenwald commented on Obama's intervention:
Once the media starts to realize that they're not going to get Biden out of the race, they're all going to quickly retreat from the past 24 hours and get back on board.
Obama is directing them to do that and giving them the script to use:
The campaign to oust Biden has failed, but the damage is done.
Even pro-Biden voters will, from now on, watch diligently to find the flaws in the next Biden speech or debate.
It will be hard to rebury that issue.
June 28, 2024
Russian Note To The U.S.: Your Drones Are Now Targets
A new statement by the Russian Defense Ministry says:
The Russian Defence Ministry noted the increased intensity of U.S. strategic unmanned aerial vehicles over the Black Sea waters, which are conducting reconnaissance and targeting high-precision weapons supplied to the Armed Forces of Ukraine by Western states to launch strikes at Russian facilities.
This demonstrates the increasing involvement of the United States and NATO countries in the Ukrainian conflict on the side of the Kiev regime.
Such flights increase the possibility of air incidents involving the Russian Aerospace Forces' aircraft, increasing the risk of a direct confrontation between the alliance and the Russian Federation.
The NATO countries will be responsible for this.
The Minister of Defence of the Russian Federation Andrei Belousov has instructed the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces to make proposals on measures for rapid response to provocations.
NATO reconnaissance and radio relay drones were regularly patrolling over the Black Sea before and during recent 'Ukrainian' attacks with long reaching, western delivered weapons on Crimea. This was also case during the recent release of cluster ammunition over a popular beach near Sevastopol which has caused several civilian death and wounded some 100+ people.
While the drones are nominally flying in neural airspace they are obviously used for attacks on Russia assets in Crimea. That makes them, arguably, legitimate targets for Russian air defenses. Russia had so far held back at destroying them. This will now change.
NATO or the U.S. may well regard such attacks on their 'neutral' forces as hostile. Some will press for retribution. But I am convinced that mere attacks on drones will not be seen as sufficient reason to launch World War III.
Trump-Biden Debate Furthers Replacement Talks
Last night's Trump-Biden debate has turned into a disaster for the Democrats.
About two-thirds in Biden is clearly deteriorating. I guess his meds were losing their power. His speech got sloppy. His reactions were mechanical and unemotional.
President Biden hoped to build fresh momentum for his re-election bid by agreeing to debate nearly two months before he is to be formally nominated. Instead, his halting and disjointed performance on Thursday night prompted a wave of panic among Democrats and reopened discussion of whether he should be the nominee at all.
Over the course of 90 minutes, a raspy-voiced Mr. Biden struggled to deliver his lines and counter a sharp though deeply dishonest former President Donald J. Trump, raising doubts about the incumbent president’s ability to wage a vigorous and competitive campaign four months before the election. Rather than dispel concerns about his age, Mr. Biden, 81, made it the central issue.
When the news came out yesterday that Julian Assange would sign a plea bargain on the U.S. controlled island of Saipan I was very skeptical. A plea bargain is where one is under pressure to lie, i.e. to admit a crime that wasn't done, to get out of prison. The whole thing smelled like a trap. I expected bad news to follow.
But now he is free and I hope for him to have time to rest and to recuperate from the torture he was made to go through.
I would still advise him to watch his back. The U.S. deep state is unlikely to ever forgive and forget.
My thanks go out to everyone who kept the case alive and pushed it towards this positive outcome.
June 25, 2024
Ukraine SitRep: State And Military Continue to Deteriorate
The Ukrainian state and its military are falling apart.
Under the new mobilization law the Ukrainian military is said to recruit/mobilize some 5,000 men per day. This is sufficient to replace current losses which are above 2,000 men per day. But the quality and level of training the new forces have is way below the level needed to survive on the frontline.
Losses are high because the mass use of Russian FAB glide-bombs is eliminating all identified agglomeration of forces. Ukraine has found no way to counter these.
For lack of armored vehicles several of the new brigades which were supposed to be mechanized will be pure infantry forces. They will be able to hold positions until they are bombed but will not have the means to attack.
The high rate of mobilization has led to a lack of men power in the rest of the society. Agricultural and industrial productions are down. People who can afford to do so avoid taking jobs for fear of being identified for military service. Others attempt to flee abroad (machine translation):
In the Odessa region, an attempt to illegally travel abroad was stopped by 100 men at once. They had to cross the border on foot and paid from 5 to 18,5 thousand dollars for this.
This is reported by the State Bureau of Investigation.
In revenge for Ukrainian attacks on Russian energy infrastructure the Russian forces continue to dismantle Ukraine's capacities. The electricity network is on the verge of falling apart. Electricity is only available for 10 hours per day. A few Russian hits on those switching stations which receive supply from Europe could finish it off.
Figures vary, and the Ukrainian government is increasingly coy about releasing economic data sets, but the Ukraine’s economy is currently around $180-190bn in size. To put that into context, that is around 11 times smaller than Russia’s economy and 131 times smaller than the US economy. … According to politico, Ukraine borrowed $58bn in 2022, $46bn in 2023 and is set to borrow $52bn in 2024. So, in just three years, Ukraine will have borrowed 82% of GDP.
Ukraine needs to borrow this much because its government spends almost twice as much each year as it receives in income from taxation and other sources.
The Central Bank of Ukraine is trying to help by devaluating its currency. Over the last six month it lost about 10% of its value. The further 'printing' of money, which will heat up inflation, is expected.
Ukraine has suffered a setback in its quest to complete the outline of a debt restructuring before the end-of-August expiry of a two-year payment freeze agreed by private holders of near $20 billion in outstanding international bonds.
The government announced on Monday it had not reached agreement with a group of bondholders, raising the specter that the war-torn country might slip into default.
Against the background of the continuing difficult situation for Ukraine at the front, public criticism of the AFU command is growing.
MP Mariana Bezuglaya again spoke out against Commander-in-Chief Syrsky. She said that after receiving his position, he could not "go beyond" outdated management methods and became "even more authoritarian".
"In this stressful situation, against the background of this huge responsibility, he has become even more authoritarian, increasingly tightening the screws and returning to the so – called classic techniques of the Soviet army," Bezuglaya said in an interview with journalist Natalia Moseychuk.
She bases her opinion on messages that come to her from the military.
Recall that the People's Deputy began to actively "wet" the commander-in-chief, as she had previously done with Zaluzhny, who was later dismissed.
However, in addition to Syrsky, she criticizes much harsher Yuriy Sodol is the commander of the Joint Forces and the Khortytsia group, which operates in the Pokrovsky direction (where the AFU has been losing ground most actively in recent months).
A number of activists like Serhiy Sternenko are also in solidarity with Bezugla in their antipathy to the general.
And yesterday the campaign against Sodol was joined by the chief of staff of" Azov " Bogdan Krotevich. He said that he had filed an application with the State Bureau of Investigation against the Ukrainian general for committing "war crimes".
Yesterday evening Sodol was replaced by a former leader of the 36th Marine Brigade who's track record is in no way better that Sodol's.
Syrski will be the next to fall.
The Russian forces now have the men and equipment to largely overrun the Ukrainian lines. But doing so would cost a significant amount of casualties. They are therefore just waiting for the Ukrainian army to exhaust itself and to fall by its own means. Only after a large scale breakdown of Ukrainian defenses will the order be given to proceed.
June 23, 2024
Open (Neither Ukraine Nor Palestine) Thread 2024-149
News & views (notr related to the wars in Ukraine and Palestine) …
Israel’s current strategy of heavy military operations may kill some Hamas fighters, but this strategy is only strengthening the bonds between Hamas and the local community. For nine months, Israel has pursued virtually unfettered military operations in Gaza, with little evident progress toward any of its objectives. Hamas is neither defeated nor on the verge of defeat, and its cause is more popular and its appeal stronger than before October 7. In the absence of a plan for the future of Gaza and the Palestinian people that Palestinians might accept, the terrorists will keep coming back and in larger numbers.
Israel’s Supreme Court has ruled that Israel’s rule over the territory amounts to a temporary military occupation overseen by army generals, not a permanent civilian annexation administered by Israeli civil servants.
Mr. Smotrich’s June 9 speech at a West Bank gathering may make that posture harder to maintain. In it, he outlined a carefully orchestrated program to take authority over the West Bank out of the hands of the Israeli military and turn it over to civilians working for Mr. Smotrich in the defense ministry. Parts of the plan have already been incrementally introduced over the past 18 months, and some authorities have already been transferred to civilians.
June 21, 2024
Ukraine Open Thread 2024-147
News & views (related to the war in Ukraine) …
June 20, 2024
Hizbullah Ready To Defeat Israel
On October 8, a day after Hamas attacked Israel, the Lebanese Hizbullah joined the fray. It sent missiles towards military installations in north Israel. 80,000 Israeli settler living in the north fled from their homes. They are still sitting in hotels around Israel and are waiting for the return of quietness to that front.
Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah had announced that the current northern tit-for-tat campaign between Hizbullah and Israeli forces would continue until a permanent ceasefire is agreed upon in Gaza.
But the radicals in charge of Israeli policies do not want a ceasefire in Gaza. They want to eradicate Hamas and as much of the Gazan population as possible. A ceasefire would prevent them from doing so.
On the other hand there is pressure from northern settlers who want to return to their homes. But without a ceasefire in Gaza the low level conflict in Israel's north and southern Lebanon is bound to continue.
Instead of working towards a ceasefire in Gaza the Israeli military and government are planning to invade southern Lebanon and to occupy it up to the Litani river.
The plan is delusional. Hizbullah is grounded in the Shia communities which inhabit south Lebanon. Is Israel expecting that population to move out? That is not going to happen.
Hizbullah, with its number of forces exceeding 100,000 men, is well prepared for a fight. South Lebanon is criss-crossed with well prepared fighting positions and tunnels. More than 150,000 missiles, many of them long range, are ready to be launched against military and economic targets in Israel. The 2006 invasion of south Lebanon ended in an utter defeat for the Israeli army. There is no reason to believe that a renewed fight would have a different outcome.
In case of a new conflict Hizbullah has plans to cross the border and to occupy parts of norther Israel. It is also ready to expand a war should this be necessary:
Scott Pelley: Are the wars in Israel and Ukraine more than the United States can take on at the same time?
President Biden: No. We're the United States of America for God's sake, the most powerful nation in the history– not in the world, in the history of the world. The history of the world. We can take care of both of these and still maintain our overall international defense.
[T]he Biden administration’s mindset of restoration has occasionally struggled against the currents of our disordered times. An updated conception of U.S. leadership—one tailored to a world that has moved on from American primacy and the eccentricities of American politics—is necessary to minimize enormous risks and pursue new opportunities. …
That seems like a well intended advice. The U.S. tends to intentionally ignore the consequences of its policies. It does not reflect on them. Should it start doing that its policies might change:
That is a rather weird question. NATO is a consulting mechanism. It does not have tanks, guns or nuclear forces. All such tangible things are owned and controlled by this or that member country.
NATO does not have a nuclear force and currently neither NATO nor those member countries which have nuclear forces are interested in expanding them. The question states as a fact that NATO is expanding something. It is not doing that.
Byren writes:
Jens Stoltenberg, the 13th secretary general of NATO, says that the alliance is in talks to deploy more nuclear weapons and modernize their delivery systems. Stoltenberg told the Telegraph in the UK: “I won’t go into operational details about how many nuclear warheads should be operational and which should be stored, but we need to consult on these issues. That’s exactly what we’re doing.” Stoltenberg emphasized that NATO is a “nuclear alliance.”
The Telegraph piece on the Stoltenberg interview is a write-up, not a transcript. It is inaccurate. Here is what it says:
Nato is in talks to deploy more nuclear weapons in the face of a growing threat from Russia and China, the head of the alliance has said.
Jens Stoltenberg added that the bloc must show its nuclear arsenal to the world to send a direct message to its foes in an interview with The Telegraph.
He revealed there were live consultations between members on taking missiles out of storage and placing them on standby as he called for transparency to be used as a deterrent.
Mr Stoltenberg said: “I won’t go into operational details about how many nuclear warheads should be operational and which should be stored, but we need to consult on these issues.
“That’s exactly what we’re doing at Nato, for instance at meetings in Nato, a nuclear planning group as we had during the defence ministerial meeting this [last] week.”
The above sounds as if Stoltenberg was actively doing something. But that is simply not what he said:
Here is a transcript of what Stoltenberg actually said. As suspected, I think there has been too much parsing of his words.
The “operational” vs storage thing was introduced by the interviewer. And “transparency” was in the context of openness about exercises.
As the audio of the interview provides, the whole issue was prompted by a misleading remark by one of the interviewers, not by Stoltenberg himself:
Telegraph: Do you think European allies should follow the lead of the United States by putting more warheads on standby rather than having them in storage?
Britain, which is the country the Telegraph is asking about, usually has one nuclear submarine on patrol and ready to use with a number of others in training or revamp. Only the submarine on patrol will carry nuclear warheads. The ones for the other submarines are usually in storage. To put more of them on 'standby', whatever that may otherwise mean, would not provide a ready way to launch them. It would thus be useless.
The interviewers question to Stoltenberg is answered by him with generalizations and a hint to the ever 'ongoing consulting' on the issue.
Genuinely astonishing how the final communiqué of Swiss “Summit on Peace in Ukraine” (link) is basically 6 out of the 12 points of China's February 2023 "Peace plan" (link), and only that.
In short it's the Chinese peace plan, without:
A call for a cessation of hostilities
A call to resume peace talks.
A call to "abandon the Cold War mentality"
A call to resolve the humanitarian crisis.
An agreement to remove "unilateral sanctions"
An agreement to support post-conflict reconstruction
The only points it keeps from the Chinese peace plan are:
Point 1: To base the resolution of the conflict on the UN Charter
Point 6: Asking that all prisoners of war and detainees should be released
Points 7 & 8: Calling for nuclear plants to be safe and stating that nuclear weapons shouldn't be used
Points 9 & 11: Asking that food security and supply chains be maintained and be weaponized
And that's almost 1 year and a half AFTER the Chinese Peace Plan, which the West rejected immediately out of hand and ironically criticized as being "vague" even though the outcome of this Swiss summit is now far vaguer, in fact it's so vague it removed all the aspects of the Chinese plan that actually proposed a path to a sustainable peace …
Just goes to show how far away we are from peace, almost 2 years and a half into the war… And also goes to show that maybe, just maybe, China's proposal wasn't so bad after all 😏
The final declaration included a clause on the need to involve "all parties" in the negotiations, which can be interpreted as a desire to involve the Russian Federation in future summits. This was stated by many participants of the summit (primarily from the countries of the "global South"). Zelensky also said about his desire to see Russia at the second summit, saying that Russia's presence there would mean that it "wants peace."
But given the complete discrepancy in the positions of the parties regarding how they see the end of the war, it is still very early to talk about any negotiations. These positions may become closer under the influence of two factors-the situation on the battlefield and / or coordinated pressure on both belligerents by their key international partners. And only in the case of such a convergence of positions will real negotiations become possible.
The war will continue until the complete destruction of the Ukrainian forces can no longer be ignored.
June 16, 2024
Some Links And An Open Thread 2024-146
From a recent email exchange with an MD:
Me: "How long will it take for me to get back into the saddle?" MD: "Recovery time is often calculated as one month per decade of life." Me: "Sigh!"
A few days ago a MoA reader I had not known of contacted me and offered to help. He is living in the same city as I do. I had thought that I would be able to do small stuff, like shopping, as soon as I was back home. Wrong – I didn't even make it half way :-(.
So yesterday Nico came by and did some grocery shopping for me. My fridge now filled! Great! Thanks!
—
The issue below deserves a serious write up. Alas, I am currently not up to it. It was an incredibly irresponsible campaign and some people likely died over it.
Pentagon ran secret anti-vax campaign to undermine China during pandemic – Reuters The U.S. military launched a clandestine program amid the COVID crisis to discredit China’s Sinovac inoculation – payback for Beijing’s efforts to blame Washington for the pandemic. One target: the Filipino public. Health experts say the gambit was indefensible and put innocent lives at risk.
First thought: This wasn't a war. So why the f*** was the Pentagon at all involved in any such stuff?
All the business of war, and indeed all the business of life, is to endeavour to find out what you don’t know by what you do; that’s what I called ‘guessing what was at the other side of the hill.’
“Find out what you don’t know by what you do“. It’s not easy, it’s not necessarily pleasant but it’s what you have to do in order to minimise your surprise when whatever it is actually comes over the hill at you.
My advice to all young diplomats and analysts [is that] if you want to understand Mr Putin’s foreign policy, listen to what he’s saying. You won’t like it, but you need to understand it, you need to listen to it. The place to start is the Munich speech in 2007.
“Listen to what he says”. It’s quite easy to. Putin has said a lot and most of it appears on the Presidential website in English as well as the original Russian. Never read what the Western reporters say he says – they almost always distort it – read the original. I’m sure that both Wellington and Bristow would agree.
And that’s what intelligence is all about. Try and understand how the other guy sees things.
Every few years Putin comes out with a speech or memorandum which explains – past, presence and future - and argues for the position at large Russia is taking.
People who read these speeches will understand Russia. People who don't won't.
The later will miss the facts and come to false conclusions. Acting upon those they will weaken their own positions.
One can avoid doing so by reading Putin's latest speech held yesterday at the Russian Ministry for Foreign Affairs. It is quite long but has to be so as it necessarily touches on everything. It includes a kind of peace offer for Ukraine: Hand over the provinces Russia has recognized at its own and gain peace. It was and is not expected that the 'West' will move towards that direction. In consequence the aims of the war will have to change.
With nearly 10,000 words the speech is very long. No summarization will do it justice. I therefore urge you to read it in full.
The English language version was published in full by Sputnik. The authoritative official translation, which will soon appear on the Kremlin website, is not yet complete. As access to both sides may be limited a full copy of the speech is attached below.
What follows is a full reproduction of the English language version Sputnik put out.
Please check here for previous notes of absence and updates.
In the end it has turned out to be a one-and-done procedure and I am happy to say that it is now done with:
The good news: I am likely to recover in full with better health than I have previously had.
The not-so-good news: It will take much longer to recuperate from this than I had expected.
The procedure I went through was a quite extended variant of what WebMD calls a Aortobifemoral Bypass.
When my chest was opened up the conditions found in place were worse (…"they always are"…1) than expected. They required bypass procedures more extensive (in size), but less delicate (in number of new shunt connections), than anticipated.
Everything went more or less smooth and, after some seven hours of diligent work, the professors and MDs were satisfied (…"they always are"…) with the job they had done on me.
The physically drain the (larger than expected) procedure took on me has been much stronger (… "it always is" …) than I had anticipated. The intellectual drain, in consequence of the physical one, was even worse. My current task is to rebuild both strengths. This will take months.
