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conflict

Western leadership’s detachment from reality is causing terror and death across the globe

Published

7 months ago

16 minute read

From LifeSiteNews

By Frank Wright

The international crises caused by Western interference in Ukraine and Israel ‘foreshadows the end of NATO and of the EU,’ retired Colonel Douglas MacGregor said.

With defeat looming in Ukraine, and the reckless provocations of Israel threatening a war which could involve Russia and the U.S., the question of the role played by terror in the policies of the “rules-based order” of the West has never been more urgent.

The Russians, with a presence on Israel’s borders, have been drawn into a de facto alliance with both China and Iran, following the failed attempt to destroy its economy by sanctioning it into isolation from the Western system.

Israel’s bombing of the Iranian embassy complex in Syria on April 1, considered to be a grave violation of international law, has been the latest attempt by Israel to provoke Iran into sparking a regional war. Reliable Western commentators such as retired U.S. Colonel Douglas MacGregor, British diplomat Alistair Crooke, former U.S. diplomat Chas Freeman, and many others, have indicated that this is designed to trigger direct U.S. military intervention in a war that Israel cannot possibly win on its own. They warn this would likely lead the United States into a war not only with Iran, but also with Russia. The danger of a nuclear war is clear and present.

What is worse, the nuclear doctrine of Israel, known as the Samson Option, states that in the event of an “existential threat” to Israel, it will launch nuclear weapons at regional – and even European – population centers, taking the world down with it in a deliberate attempt to start nuclear Armageddon. This is the closest ally of the United States, a regime of nuclear blackmail engaged in genocide.

READ: Blinken again vows to have Ukraine join NATO as globalist narrative unravels

A further desperate escalation was seen in the terrorist attack on the Crocus theatre in Moscow on March 22. Four gunmen, captured alive, shot and killed over 140 people before setting fire to the venue. Within one hour, Western sources disclaimed any Ukrainian involvement, saying that “ISIS-K,” an Islamic militant group, had said it was responsible.

U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby confidently proclaimed that “[t]here is no indication at this time that Ukraine, or Ukrainians, were involved in the shooting,” despite hearing of the attack in Moscow only minutes before he gave his briefing at the White House on March 22. “I would disabuse you at this early hour of any connection to Ukraine,” he said. 

Now the Russians are building a case which traces the planning of the attack through Ukraine to Western-backed proxies. This case has been derided in Western media, yet it is one whose central claim has a long pedigree. According to a 2019 report by the U.K.’s Independent newspaper, ISIS commanders and fighters have for years enjoyed a safe haven in Ukraine, with the collusion of its government and security forces.

On November 21, 2019, Oliver Carroll wrote from Kiev. His piece for the Independent was titled “How Ukraine became the unlikely home for ISIS leaders escaping the Caliphate.” In it, he details how “hundreds” of ISIS fighters had made a new home in Ukraine, with the Ukrainian authorities seemingly unconcerned about their presence.

In 2013, Akhmad Chatayev was detained in Ukraine whilst in transit to Georgia. Chatayev, an ISIS commander, had “bomb instructions” and “photographs of dead bodies” on his phone. An alleged bribe saw him released against the advice of the Moscow office of Interpol, says Carroll, in a process overseen by then-Ukrainian Minister of the Interior, Yuriy Lutsenko.

Three years later, Chatayev would be suspected of coordinating the 2016 suicide bombing of Istanbul airport in Turkey.

Carroll’s article also treats the case of Cesar Tokhosashvili, known also as Al Bara Shishani. “Shishani” is the Arabic rendition of “Chechen” – the ethnic and Muslim group native to regions of Georgia and the Russian Federation.

This man was presumed killed in a 2016 air strike in Syria which killed his namesake and erstwhile leader, fellow Georgian Omar al-Shishani. In fact, he escaped to Ukraine and lived there for two years, despite being responsible for “public beheadings” and “directing terror operations abroad.”

“According to the SBU [Ukrainian intelligence], Ukraine’s admittedly unreliable security agency, Al Bara Shishani even continued to coordinate ISIS terror operations from Kiev,” Carroll wrote.

In a recent interview with Judge Antony Napolitano, retired U.S. Army Colonel Douglas MacGregor was asked whether “MI6, the CIA, Mossad” could be behind the terrorist attack in Moscow.

“Yes, we had a hand in it,” said MacGregor, adding that while there was no “concrete evidence” to support that claim, it was “unlikely the SBU did this without U.S./U.K. knowledge.”

MacGregor’s charge about the toleration and even use of ISIS operatives in Ukraine is far from groundless, and extends beyond a couple of documented cases.

In his Independent piece, Carrol cites Vera Mironova, a visiting Fellow at Harvard and a specialist in studying jihadi movements:

Mironova estimates ‘hundreds’ of former ISIS fighters have decamped to Ukraine.

This is not a mere question of quantity – but also of quality. The quality here being danger. ‘But it is not the numbers that should be of primary concern,’ she said. The cluster of terrorists in Ukraine were by their nature a ‘self-selecting’ elite.

Mironova continued,

This isn’t a random selection. The slower guys stop as soon as they get to Turkey. After all, it is a multiple-step operation to get to Ukraine. The ones who get there are the dangerous ones.

Carroll also quotes a Ukrainian investigative journalist, Katerina Sergatskova, who covered the story of Al Bara Shishani’s unexplained release by Ukrainian authorities.

“Sergatskova, who has almost single-handedly covered the subject in Ukrainian press over the past year, says authorities remain strangely relaxed about the issue.”

She said she was accused making the story up by the Ukrainian authorities: “Whenever I wrote on the subject, government officials have accused me of inventing the problem.”

Yet she appeared to be vindicated with the Chechen ISIS commander’s capture – in the “safehouse” of Ukraine’s capital.

But the arrest of one of Islamic State’s top commanders here in Kiev, right under our noses, would surely suggest many of the world’s most dangerous men do think of Ukraine as a safehouse. Corruption in all state bodies – the police, courts, prosecutors – opens doors to abuse.

Carroll notes that the Ukrainian intelligence service met his report with similar denials.

“When contacted by The Independent, the SBU rejected claims that Ukraine was in any way hospitable to international terrorism.”

Russia’s claim that there is a Ukrainian connection to the terror attacks at its Crocus theatre in Moscow is not without “proof,” as many Western media sources assert.

Most of them now rely on the SBU for their “intelligence” reports about the situation in Ukraine, which accounts for the disconnection from reality seen in Western reportage. In this picture, Putin has been dying for two years, and Russia is losing the war. A Ukrainian “victory” is inevitable. Why is this the case?

Because for our “globalist elites,” as Colonel MacGregor styles them, a Russian victory is as unthinkable as it is obvious. Defeat in Ukraine for the political class that has staked everything on winning means they are finished.

“These are the actions of a dying regime” said MacGregor to Napolitano in his April 3 interview.

MacGregor says the recent tactics of the U.S.-, U.K.-, and EU-backed Ukrainian regime, including the strike on a Russian oil refinery, betray a mounting desperation over a lost cause.

“I think the globalist elites running Europe are unwilling to admit the truth” he says.

“They’ve had it.”

He says the rulers of Britain and the EU have “committed suicide by rejecting cheap Russian energy” and face political wipeout in forthcoming elections.

“They’re going to persist in this fantasy [of a Russian defeat] because they have nowhere else to go.”

MacGregor’s assessment of the dire situation of U.S. and Western elites is compounded by the atrocities in Israel – as well as mounting troubles at home. It is a crisis so severe, he says, that it “foreshadows the end of NATO and of the EU.”

Speaking of the so-called “war” in Gaza, he notes that in a war, “Normally we don’t annihilate the entire population on the ground” as Israel has been doing.

Even if you are indifferent to this fact, MacGregor says Netanyahu’s strategy of “eliminating Hamas” does not make sense.

“You can’t kill an idea,” he returns, before saying this strategy has been counterproductive. “What this campaign has done is elevate Hamas.”

Just as the project to destroy Russia on the battlefield and collapse it with sanctions has seen its military strength vastly magnified, and its economic prosperity secured by exclusion from the Western system, the strategy of the Israelis has empowered their enemies and perhaps fatally undermined their own security.

Now, says MacGregor, “The only solution is the final solution.” Speaking of the Israeli move to destroy Gaza and starve its population of over 2 million, he said, “Hatred has taken over.”

There are no limits to Israeli offensive operations, be they conducted against civilians, or the Iranians. Since Israel bombed Iran’s embassy complex in Syria on April 1, frantic measures have been reportedly underway to prevent a large-scale military retaliation against Israel.

As former British diplomat Alastair Crooke pointed out, “Even Nazi Germany respected embassies.” In another interview with Napolitano, he stressed the need to “deradicalize” the Israelis, saying that it was “Western [intelligence] services” which had “created ISIS” in the first place.

To bomb an embassy is to attack the sovereign territory of another nation. This is an act of terror for which Israel has, as yet, faced no consequences. With the U.S. continuing to arm Israel, it is noteworthy that the Israeli army has now almost completely withdrawn from Gaza.

This may be due to rumors of an Iranian demand made to the U.S. for an immediate ceasefire and to cancel the planned ground assault on Rafah by Israel. Talks are underway in the Egyptian capital of Cairo to agree a halt to Israel’s assaults.

Yet the Israelis maintain they are simply withdrawing to mount another attack on the Palestinians. Zionist extremist and Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has vowed that, “If Netanyahu ends the war without the Rafah operation, he will lose his mandate.” The implication is that either the killing stops, or the leadership goes.

The regime, MacGregor points out, has become “a pariah” like Israel. He warns that “no one wants to serve in our military anymore,” and gravely mentions the likelihood of the U.S. resorting to the recruitment of illegal migrants to swell the ranks of an army whose wars are destroying the U.S. and the West.

The big picture is alarming. When you zoom in to the shady pixels, the devil emerges from the detail. As MacGregor says, we are ruled by an elite insulated from reality, and whose only interest lies in serving their own insane agenda, whatever the cost in human life.

“The globalists denounce isolationism – but they are the cause of our isolation,” he says.

The world has united in horror at the lengths to which this elite will go to preserve itself. MacGregor’s warning of the dangers at home are the domestic dimension of a campaign of death, degradation, and plunder which makes our current leadership the enemy of humanity and of life, wherever it is found.

To MacGregor, it is a case of us or them.

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conflict

Sec Def Austin Unveils $400 Million Arms Package For Ukraine — But One Thing Is Missing

Published on October 22, 2024

By

From the Daily Caller News Foundation 

 

By Jake Smith

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin arrived in Ukraine but isn’t bringing the good news Kyiv wants to hear, as the country continues to struggle to hold the front line amid Russian advances.

Austin has been intimately involved over the last two years in overseeing U.S. military aid to Ukraine, of which there has been approximately $70 billion. The Defense Secretary touched down in Ukraine on Sunday in a show of continued support and announced a new $400 million arms package, but won’t be giving Kyiv what it really wants — the ability to use U.S.-provided long-range missiles to strike deep inside Russian territory, according to multiple reports.

The request to use the missiles for such a purpose has been something Ukraine has asked for for months; as Ukraine can’t produce such weapons, it is looking to the U.S. and Europe for help.

Austin arrived in Ukraine without signaling that the request would be filled, and that’s likely to leave Kyiv unsatisfied. The administration has been hesitant to allow Ukraine to use U.S. or European-provided missiles to conduct long-range attacks against Russia, in part because it could escalate the war and drag the U.S. further into the conflict.

“We think it is wrong that there are such steps,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in early September, according to The Washington Post. “We need to have this long-range capability, not only on the occupied territory of Ukraine but also on the Russian territory, so that Russia is motivated to seek peace.”

The idea has been frequently discussed between U.S. and Ukrainian officials but nothing has come to fruition. Austin has also previously said that he doesn’t think it would significantly improve Ukraine’s odds of victory, noting in an early September press conference that “there’s no one capability that will in and of itself be decisive in this campaign.”

Ukraine is also pressing the administration for NATO membership, but Austin had no new updates to give on that request either, according to reports. The Biden-Harris administration has said that Ukraine’s fate is eventually to join NATO but hasn’t provided a timeline for when.

However, the U.S. is providing Ukraine with $400 million worth of weapons systems, Austin announced on Monday, including munitions, armored vehicles and tanks, according to reports. The aid will certainly meet some of the needs of Ukraine’s military but is not as large as some of the prior multi-billion dollar packages.

“The United States understands the stakes here, Mr. President,” Austin told Ukrainian Zelenskyy in Kyiv on Monday, Reuters reported.

President Joe Biden’s options to help Ukraine are starting to run out as he prepares to leave office in January. Even with U.S. and European-provided military aid, it has done little more than help Ukraine maintain a defensive position against Russia, which has shown no signs of stopping its invasion campaign.

Russia launched sweeping missile and drone strikes against targets in Eastern Ukraine over the weekend ahead of Austin’s visit, according to Reuters. Ukrainian forces staged a successful incursion into regions in Western Russia at the end of the summer but Russian forces have started to retake some of the territory in recent weeks, The New York Times reported.

The odds that Biden can secure substantially more funding from Congress to aid Ukraine are slim; it was already difficult for the president to secure the last $60 billion aid package in April, as the sentiment among some lawmakers is that the administration doesn’t seem to have a plan to end the war and move Ukraine toward victory.

It will be either presidential candidates Donald Trump or Kamala Harris who will have to pick up where Biden left off. Harris would likely mirror Biden’s approach to the war and continue strong U.S. support for Ukraine’s military campaign, but some critics fear that she lacks the needed foreign policy wisdom to properly maneuver the conflict.

Trump has vowed to end the war before January if he’s elected in November, touting his ability to negotiate with both Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin. He has also signaled he may end military aid to Ukraine in favor of seeking a peaceful settlement between Kyiv and Moscow.

Austin on Monday dismissed ideas that U.S. support for Ukraine would end if Trump were elected in November.

“I’ve seen bipartisan support for Ukraine over the last 2-1/2 years, and I fully expect that we’ll continue to see the bipartisan support from Congress,” Austin said, according to Reuters.

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conflict

Middle East War Shows No Signs Of Stopping One Year After Oct. 7 — And No Clear Path To Exit

Published on October 8, 2024

By

From the Daily Caller News Foundation 

 

By Jake Smith

The chaos of Hamas’ October 7, 2023, invasion of Israel is still being felt one year later as the broader region grapples with a conflict that has shown no signs of stopping.

Hamas Oct. 7 terrorist attacks caught Israel by surprise and resulted in the murder of approximately 1,200 people and the kidnapping of hundreds of others, including American citizens. Israel retaliated and launched a war against Hamas in Gaza, which a year later has not ended but instead spilled into the broader Middle East and drawn in other bad actors such as Hezbollah and Iran.

“We’re still stuck in Oct. 7, 2023, in one unending day of terror, of fear, of anger, of despair,” Yuval Baron, an Israeli citizen whose father-in-law is still being held by Hamas in Gaza, told Reuters.

Israeli forces have largely occupied Gaza and killed thousands of Hamas operatives, largely crippling the terrorist group’s capabilities, although it has come at great humanitarian cost to the enclave, according to Reuters. The conflict has displaced millions of Palestinians and wreaked havoc across Gaza, leaving many areas uninhabitable, Bloomberg reported.

The effort to build Gaza after the fighting ends — whenever that may be — will likely be an incredibly costly venture that could take years and require joint cooperation between several Arab states, according to Bloomberg. Millions of tons of debris will have to be cleared from the enclave while buildings are repaired or replaced.

“We thought it would be two months [of fighting] — at most,”  Mohammed Shakib Hassan, a Palestinian civil servant who fled his home after Israeli forces entered Gaza last year, told The New York Times. “Twelve months have passed in front of our eyes.”

Israel, with the help of the U.S., has on several occasions made offers for a ceasefire in Gaza conditioned on the release of the remaining hostages held by Hamas and the surrender of the terrorist group, but these proposals have been rejectedmultiple times. Yayha Sinwar, the leader of Hamas who has been hiding underground in Gaza, reportedly believes that he is not going to survive the war and has zero intention of reaching a ceasefire deal with Israel at this point in the conflict, according to U.S. intelligence assessments reviewed by The New York Times.

The Biden-Harris administration has spent months brokering negotiations between Israel and Hamas and working with regional mediators to try to reach a deal, but these efforts have largely been fruitless. Though President Biden has on several occasions predicted that a ceasefire could be reached in short order, his own officials now privately believe it will be near impossible to get a deal done between now and January, the end of Biden’s term.

“They’re probably not going to get one before the election, or before January either. But that’s not on them, per se. It speaks to the difficulty of how far apart [Israel and Hamas] are,” former State Department official Gabriel Noronha told the Daily Caller News Foundation in September.

There have been various roadblocks to getting a deal done. Specifically, Israel wants to leave troops along the Gaza-Egyptian border, arguing that it would stonewall Hamas from trafficking in weapons, but Hamas has rejected this term.

Though the prospects of a deal are unlikely at this point, Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza has largely come to a close as the terrorist group’s capabilities have been vastly diminished.

“Hamas is a shadow of its former self. Israel is going to continue to try to eradicate them, but it’s sort of a guerilla campaign. Hamas is being starved and smoked out. I suspect that you’re going to see Hamas go underground somewhat — more figuratively than literally at this point,” Noronha told the DCNF last month.

Instead, Israel has shifted much of its forces and focus away from Gaza and toward Lebanon, which houses the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah. Hezbollah is Iran’s largest terrorist group in the Middle East and has engaged in cross-fire skirmishes with Israel since last October out of support for Hamas, displacing thousands of civilians near the Israel-Lebanon border, according to NPR.

Hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah have reached a boiling point in recent weeks, as Israel has launched sweeping airstrikes against the terrorist group in southern Lebanon and killed the group’s leader in an airstrike in late September, according to The Washington Post. Israeli forces have begun ground raids against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, in what could be the prelude to a much larger ground invasion.

The Biden-Harris Administration, along with other allies, also put forward on Sep. 26 a separate ceasefire proposal for Israel and Hezbollah, although it was seemingly ignored by both parties.

“It’s clear that Israel is determined to rid Lebanon of Hezbollah,” senior fellow at the Strauss Center and former Pentagon official Simone Ledeen told the DCNF. “They need Hezbollah to lay down their arms and surrender… the Israelis [are] really focused on getting to that objective.”

The multi-front Middle East conflict extends also to Iran, which — though it has helped orchestrate and fund the various terror attacks against Israel — made an unprecedented move in April and launched a sweeping missile strike against Israel from directly within Iran’s borders, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Iran launched a similar attack against Israel last week in the form of roughly 180 missiles, most of which were intercepted by U.S. and Israeli forces.

Israel is expected to respond with an attack directly against Iran, although the timing and nature of the move is publicly unknown. The Biden-Harris administration is helping coordinate the attack with Israel, though it wants Israel to avoidgoing after the country’s nuclear facilities.

“The launch of over 180 ballistic missiles by Tehran requires a decisive reaction to prevent future attacks,” Israeli intelligence agent Avi Melamed said in a statement on Monday. “Currently, it seems that Israel is finalizing its operational plans while the U.S. prepares munitions to defensively counter any potential Iranian counterstrike.”

The conflict extends even further into Iraq, Syria and Yemen, all hotspots for other various Iranian-backed terrorist groups that have attacked U.S. and Israeli forces in the region since last October, according to Axios. Israeli forces have launched a series in those regions, too, in recent months.

Until the current Middle East conflict comes to an end, the possibility of regional peace may be too far out of reach, even as that remains a goal for other key Arab states and Western nations. Iran’s “axis of resistance” has taken severe blows since last October, according to Axios.

But Israeli forces are stretched across multiple fronts in a conflict with no clear end game, and the Israeli people seem to be growing more and more weary of the conflict; 23% of Israelis considered leaving the country in the last year, according to a recent poll cited by Axios.

“This war won’t end because nobody is willing to blink,” Thomas Nides, former U.S. ambassador to Israel, told the Times. “In the meantime, everyone is losing — hostages and their families, innocent Palestinians, Israelis displaced from northern Israel, Lebanese civilians. And it’s truly tragic.”

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