News & views related to the war in Palestine …

News & views related to the war in Ukraine …

News & views not related to the wars in Ukraine and Palestine …

Emil Kastehelmi of the Black Bird Group gives a good overview of the current situation in south-east Ukraine.

Since the Ukrainian command had sent its best units to die in the senseless incursion of the Russian Kursk oblast, the Ukrainian frontline in the south-east deteriorated significantly. Russian forces progressed along the whole frontline.

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There are simply too few Ukrainian soldiers to hold the defensive positions. The increased use of Russian FAB bombs destroy Ukrainian positions and let the Russians proceed.

The most recent Russian progress from the south and the east show the formation of another cauldron which could capture Ukrainian units in and around Kurakhove.

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Russian troops from the east and the south will likely aim at the towns of Andrivka and Konstantinopyl where the T-05-15 road joins the H-15 highway.

Cont. reading: Ukraine SitRep: Kurakhove Cauldron, Broken Deals

I, like others, do not know what exactly happened during the recent Israeli air attack attack on Iran.

I do know however that this, as claimed by the Washington Post, did not happen at all.

What visuals reveal about the impact of Israeli strikes on Iran
Satellite imagery analyzed by The Washington Post shows damage to two air defense installations and at least three sites associated with missile production.

The Israeli attacks — which saw foreign warplanes in the skies over Tehran for the first time since the Iran-Iraq war — showcased the depths of Iran’s vulnerability after a string of recent setbacks.

No foreign warplanes entered the skies over Tehran.

Israeli pilots will not dare to enter a well defended Iranian airspace.

They attacked Iran from the U.S. controlled air spaces of Syria, Iraq and Jordan with long range air-launched missiles.

We know this because the booster parts of those missiles fell within Iraq:

Images and videos on social media from Iraq appear to show booster sections of missiles used by Israel in its overnight strikes on Iran.

The fragments of the missiles appear to have fallen in an area north of Baghdad.
…
Israeli jets conducted strikes on military targets throughout the Islamic Republic in retaliation for Tehran’s ballistic missile barrage on the country earlier this month.

Iraq has lodged an official protest note with the United Nations about the abuse of its airspace by Israeli warplanes.

The Defense Minister of Iran has confirmed that no Israeli fighter jets had entered Iranian airspace.

There were eye witness reports from Iran which described an attack on a industrial building as having come from cruise missile like drones in a northern to southern direction. This would be consistent with drones launched by Israeli (proxy?) forces from Azerbaijan.

In total the outcome of the attack seems to have been minor. An old HAWK anti-air missile site seems to have been destroyed. A S-300 air defense site showed some signs of disturbances but those might have been caused by the launch of its missiles. Three industrial buildings, allegedly used for solid fuel missile motor production, have been hit. But there have been no reports of secondary explosions at those sites which one would expect if fuel had been hit.

The Israeli attack thus ended up to be, intentionally or not, a minor affair.

What is left to say about this?

• Israeli Knesset Passes Bill To Ban UN Palestinian Relief Agency
• Israeli Forces Kill 96 Palestinians in Gaza Over 48 Hours
• Israel Kills at Least 60 in Flurry of Attacks Across Eastern Lebanon

UNRWA is, since 1949, mandated by the United Nations. Banning it is a breach of customary international law.

There is no evidence that any of the strikes in Gaza and Lebanon hit any militant. From what is known all killed and wounded were civilians.

What is left to say about this? How am I supposed to express my outrage?

News & views related to the war in Palestine …

Do they not understand how boring this nonsense is?

How Russia, China and Iran Are Interfering in the Presidential Election (archived) – New York Times
Eight years after Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election, foreign influence with American voters has grown more sophisticated. That could have outsize consequences in the 2024 race.

Written by three 'journalists' and published at the top of the NYT's homepage the intro reads:

When Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, spreading divisive and inflammatory posts online to stoke outrage, its posts were brash and riddled with spelling errors and strange syntax. They were designed to get attention by any means necessary.

“Hillary is a Satan,” one Russian-made Facebook post read.

Posts like that 'one Russian-made Facebook post' (seen by how many?) 'interfered' in the 2016 election and were the reason for Hillery's loss?

Now, eight years later, foreign interference in American elections has become far more sophisticated, and far more difficult to track.

Disinformation from abroad — particularly from Russia, China and Iran — has matured into a consistent and pernicious threat, as the countries test, iterate and deploy increasingly nuanced tactics, according to U.S. intelligence and defense officials, tech companies and academic researchers. The ability to sway even a small pocket of Americans could have outsize consequences for the presidential election, which polls generally consider a neck-and-neck race.

U.S. presidential election campaigns spend billions of dollars on fine tuned advertisements aimed at carefully targeted micro-audiences. It isn't even plausible that social media posts by this or that foreign actor could have comparable effects.

Russia, according to American intelligence assessments, aims to bolster the candidacy of former President Donald J. Trump, while Iran favors his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris. China appears to have no preferred outcome.

Should we not be especially afraid of the 'sophisticated' and 'difficult to track' foreign interference by China because it has no preferred outcome?

Here is the NYT's example for it:

This year, a deepfake video of a Republican congressman from Virginia circulated on TikTok, accompanied by a Chinese caption falsely claiming that the politician was soliciting votes for a critic of Beijing who sought (and later won) the Taiwanese presidency.

How could a fake video of a Republican congressman with Chinese caption that was used to discredit a Taiwanese politician influence a U.S. election in which China has 'no preferred outcome'? What is the logic therein?

I have no idea. Nor has the New York Times. It just claims that it does.

Whoever works in western media which carries nonsense like the above should contemplate how much they are contributing to this:

For the third consecutive year, more U.S. adults have no trust at all in the media (36%) than trust it a great deal or fair amount. Another 33% of Americans express “not very much” confidence.

News & views related to the war in Palestine …

News & views related to the war in Ukraine …

Last week's posts on Moon of Alabama:

Color Revolutions:

• Oct 21 – "Democracy" in Moldova
  Related:
  – Georgian Rural Voters Care More About Grape Prices Than Geopolitics – RFE/RL
  – Georgian Election Commission’s preliminary results put ruling party at 54% – Agenda.ge
  – Republic of Georgia’s Ruling Party Claims Election Victory – New York Times

> The opposition, which has been divided into four main political forces, had claimed victory before preliminary results of exit polls were announced. <

U.S. Election:

• Oct 22 – Election Musings
  Related:
  – Neocons Circling Trump Campaign – Consortium News
  – Election Exclusive: British Advisors to Kamala Harris Hope to "Kill Musk's Twitter" – Disinformation Chronicle
  – How Does AIPAC Shape Washington? We Tracked Every Dollar. – Intercept

Ukraine:

• Oct 23 – Ukraine – Zelenski Begs Russia To Renew Deals He Had Botched
• Oct 26 – How Russia Is Overwhelming Ukrainian Frontlines
  Related:
  – How A False Flag Massacre Led To The Proxy War In Ukraine – The 307
  – Ukrainian incursion in Kursk struggles as Russians retake territory – Washington Post
  – Putin claims to have received "secret proposal" from Ukraine – Pravda.ua

BRICS:

• Oct 25 – BRICS Sensation No. 1 – India's Turn From U.S. To China
  Related:
  – Factors Underlying Sino-Indian Rapprochement At BRICS – Analysis – Eurasia Review
  – BRICS 2024 Kazan Special Coverage – Simplicius
  – The times are a-changing and the BRICS Summit is a major factor – Gilbert Doctorrow

Palestine:

• Oct 25 – What Has Israel Achieved In The Last Year? – by Arch Bungle
  Related:
  – How Israel is preparing for a long regional war – Middle East Eye
  – Summary. Of Israel attack on Iran – Reminiscence of the Future …
  – Why Did Israel Just Launch a Tiny Attack on Iran? Three Major Possibilities – Military Watch
  – Hezbollah proving a formidable foe against Israeli forces in Lebanon – Washington Post
  – 'The Entire Population of North Gaza Is at Risk of Dying': UN Relief Official – Middle East Eye

—
Other issues:

Cont. reading: The MoA Week In Review – OT 2024-257

There seems to be a bit of a panic along the Ukrainian front lines. Several units, for lack of men, have recently left positions they were supposed to hold. The daily progress of the Russian forces along the line is increasing.

The medium level of the Ukrainian military seems to understand that their defense is breaking down.

Strana reports (machine translation):

[T]he Third assault brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine called to prepare for the defense of the Dnipropetrovsk region

Deputy commander of the Third Assault Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Maxim Zhorin called for preparing the Dnipropetrovsk region for defense.
…
"We need to prepare the Dnipropetrovsk region for defense today. We should not constantly move from city to city, while at the same time hastily preparing these cities for defense. All this needs to be planned, and build a strong line of defense ahead of time. Instead of waiting for the front line to move to another locality, " Zhorin said.

The 3rd Assault Brigade is part of the fascist Azov organization. Politicians also chime in:

Mariana Bezuglaya urged to prepare circular defense of Pavlograd and Izyum

Cont. reading: How Russia Is Overwhelming Ukrainian Frontlines

A recent comment by Arch Bungle has been lauded by several commentators. It deserves, slightly edited, its own thread.

Exile | Oct 25 2024 7:49 utc | 145

Arch – can you repost your recap summary list of the last year of failures ( strategic, etc) ?

Arch Bungle | Oct 25 2024 8:28 utc | 148

Posted by: Exile | Oct 25 2024 7:49 utc | 145

Gladly (with some recent additions):

What has Israel achieved in the last year?
Let's take a stone cold sober recap, I've compiled a list of the top 29 accomplishments of Israel in 2024:

1. Israel has essentially lost territory in the north of Occupied Palestine. Hezbollah's rocket barrages over the last eleven months has driven the settler population out of the North. This is likely permanent. Israel's settler population in the Gaza envelope has also been thinned out since the 7 October attacks.

Moreover, current ongoing attacks from Yemen, Iraq, Iran and Lebanon are depopulating Israel.

2. The Houthi have put an unbreakable chokehold on the Red Sea and all Red Sea shipping. There is no way to break this chokehold. The USN and all other Western navies have tried for almost 12 months and failed utterly.

Attempts to conduct strikes on the Houthi, including massive strikes on core infrastructure in Hodeida have yielded ZERO results over a period of almost a year. The Israelis are to thank for this achievement.

3. The cementing of Hezbollah as the primary military force in Lebanon: Hezbollah's Radwan forces have proven capable of protecting Lebanon's southern borders with Palestine. All attempts by the IDF and their supporting American Special Forces to take control of this area and drive the Radwan forces back have failed.

Cont. reading: What Has Israel Achieved In The Last Year? – by Arch Bungle

Some commentators wrote that this blog, and others, have neglected the current BRICS summit. They are right to a point.

BRICS is a long term project. It is the development of an economic and political conglomerate of supernational organizations designed to be an alternative to the ones created by the 'West' after the second word war.

There are several misunderstandings and a lot of wishful thinking about BRICS in alternative media.

BRICS will not replace the U.S. dollar. Any short term plan to replace of the currently most important global medium of financial transactions (not of real stuff trade) is unrealistic. Yves at Naked Capitalism has written several pieces to lay that out.

BRICS is not a military alliance. Iran joining BRICS does not mean that Russia or China or anyone else will come to its defense should the U.S./Israel attack the country. While they would probably provide some help in the background both will likely avoid any direct involvement.

Building BRICS will take several decades. Ad hoc reporting of and commentating one of its summits is not of much value without detailing the larger contexts. It will do that whenever the subject deserves it.

During the current BRICS session the most sensational issue with long term consequences actually happened shortly before the summit.

India has dropped the U.S. friendly anti-China policies it had implemented during the first two terms of the Modi government. It is (again) making nice with China and Russia while shunning U.S. attempts to make it a sidekick for U.S. policies in Asia.

This piece in Asia Times provides the background:

Cont. reading: BRICS Sensation No. 1 – India’s Turn From U.S. To China

News & views related to the war in Palestine …

News & views related to the war in Ukraine …

News & views not related to the wars in Ukraine and Palestine …

The actor who has been playing the President of Ukraine for a while is getting cold feet. Winter is coming and the energy networks of Ukraine are near to the point of total breakdown.

There could have been agreements in place to prevent that. But the Ukrainian side had botched those deals. Now Zelenski is begging to renew them.

In late 2022 the Russian military launched a bombing campaign against electricity switching stations in Ukraine. A lot of transformers got blown up. The Ukrainian military responded by concentrating its air defenses near electricity stations. That was exactly the effect the Russian's had asked for. The air defense installations, not the electricity stations, had been their real target.

After splitting from the Soviet Union, Ukraine had had the best air defenses money could buy. During the fall and winter of 2022 most of it had been destroyed. The Russian campaign against electricity stations came to a halt.

In 2023/24 the Ukrainian military started its own campaign against infrastructure in Russia. Several refineries were hit by drones and went up into flames. Gasoline production in Russia was falling significantly and export of gasoline had to be stopped for a while.

The Russians retaliated by renewing their campaign against Ukraine's electricity network. But this time the targets were not just switching stations but the generation facility themselves. The non-nuclear electricity production in Ukraine got decimated.

In its daily briefings the Russian Ministry of Defense called the attacks on Ukrainian electricity stations a direct retaliation for Ukrainian attacks on Russian proper. For example:

This morning, in response to the Kiev regime's attempts to damage objects of Russian power infrastructure and economy, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation delivered a group strike by long-range precision weaponry at objects of the Ukrainian military-industrial infrastructure and AFU aviation bases.

With their generation capacity in danger and under the threat of blackouts the Ukrainian government got to its senses – at least for a while. Secret negotiations were arranged in Doha, Qatar, to stop the infrastructure attacks on both sides.

In August 2024, shortly after the Ukrainian army had launched an incursion into the Kursk oblast of Russia, the Washington Post reported:

Cont. reading: Ukraine – Zelenski Begs Russia To Renew Deals He Had Botched

News & views related to the war in Palestine …

The current presidential election cycle is the least attractive I have ever watched.

Donald Trump is doing his usual talk giving promises which no one believes he will keep.

Kamala Harris is as disagreeable as many have feared. She is basically an empty vessel with a tendency to authoritarianism. The vessel is ready to be filled with whatever new war project the neo-conservatives – see Liz Cheney – are planning for.

Biden was and is clearly beyond the point of pursuing another presidency. Moving him aside was the best thing the Democrats could do. Offering Harris as a replacement – without any campaign, vote or legitimization – was the worst thing they could do. They will rue this mistake.

My hunch is that Trump will win the election. What policies will follow will largely depend on the people he will select to run the show. He had previously chosen people who were opposing and sabotaging his policies. He lacked the authority and/or will to rein them in. I do not believe that he has learned from it.

Whoever may win the presidency will anyway not make a big difference.

I expect the new president to double down on the anti-Russian project in Ukraine and on support for the genocide the Zionist are committed to finish. The U.S. will continue to be bogged down in Europe and west-Asia. The 'pivot to Asia' to counter China's rise will continue to stall. The economic standing of the U.S. will continue to deteriorate.

This is good news for China, Russia, the BRICS project and those involved in it. As the old world order continues to drag itself down the new one gains time and space to evolve from it.

Yesterday's election and referendum in Moldova again demonstrate how little respect the official 'West' has for the holy grail called 'democracy'.

Moldova backs joining EU by razor-thin margin as president condemns ‘assault’ on democracy – CNN

Moldovans have voted by the thinnest of margins in favor of joining the European Union, near-complete results showed Monday, as President Maia Sandu condemned an “unprecedented assault” by foreign actors on the country’s democracy.

With more than 99% of votes counted, 50.4% had voted “yes” in the pivotal referendum on whether to enshrine in the country’s constitution a path towards the EU, according to the Central Election Commission.

In 1990 Moldovia had 4.5 million inhabitants. This is down to 2.5. to 3 million today, of which nearly a million are living abroad.

Abroad is also where a real vote on a referendum would be decided. And abroad is where the manipulation of yesterday's vote took place.

These were the result before the votes of those who live abroad were counted in:

Europe Elects @EuropeElects – 5:50 UTC · Oct 21, 2024

Moldova, EU membership referendum:
98.8% counted
The difference is for 744 votes for In favor

Against: 50%
In favor: 50%

Former British ambassador Craig Murray watched the vote:

Craig Murray @CraigMurrayOrg – 14:39 UTC · Oct 21, 2024

Moldova's rigged EU referendum "voted in favour" of joining the EU by 50.4% to 49.6%.

No led until the last minute when 180,000 votes from Moldovans living in the EU were added in at a claimed 90% Yes.

While allegedly only 5% of the 300,000 Moldovans living in Russia voted!

Why didn't more of those Moldovans who are living in Russia go to vote? The Russian Ambassador in Vienna explains:

Mikhail Ulyanov @Amb_Ulyanov – 14:00 UTC · Oct 21, 2024

Moldovan authorities opened only two polling stations in Moscow for 400,000 Moldovan citizens living in Russia (instead of 17 in the past). And someone calls the current Moldovan authorities “democratic”? Gross manipulation of elections and referendum on #EU membership.

No 'Western' media will inform the public about this manipulation which l might well lead to an outcome that the majority of Moldovans oppose.