Doug Macgregor paints a pretty grim picture of the world we’re facing—on the brink of a major war that few Americans want but that the Ruling Establishment are cruising toward. Clearly Macgregor is greatly disturbed by what he sees us moving towards. I suspect he’s been working overtime, trying to awaken government officials that he has access to regarding the dangers ahead. However, before we get to my summary/transcript of Macgregor’s presentation to Judge Nap, I want to point to what appears to me to be a glimmer of hope, as a bit of a contrast to Macgregor’s decidely dark view.
Readers will recall, I’m sure, that Schumer has called for Netanyahu to be replaced, and that over the past weekend Pelosi called for an immediate halt to arms transfers to Israel. Some readers may also recall that back when I did the podcast with Tom Luongo I made the point to Tom that Black Americans are not at all on board with the Zionist genocide on Palestinians and that this could really hurt the Dems—it is a Dem regime, after all. Tom was a bit surprised at the time, but—without getting too deep into this—for Blacks this war on Palestinians looks like a White war against People of Color. Never mind any other nuances—impressions are what matter. I would argue that the Schumer, and then the Pelosi, initiatives reflect Dem awareness that this war is damaging their electoral hopes very seriously and are attempting to react to this dynamic. As I argued to Tom, it’s not just Middle Eastern Americans who are outraged by the Zionist genocide—it’s a very substantial portion of the Dem Base.
So, this morning, fortuitously, this article popped up:
Black Georgia voters abandoning Biden say they're sending message on Gaza: 'Democrats should listen'
'We're tired of hearing him say these things, these empty promises,' one former Biden supporter told CNN about choosing a third-party option this election
Please note: It’s not just Zhou that they’re sending a message to—it’s the Dem party. Blacks who oppose genocide see that the Dem party is enabling genocide. That is a sea change in how Blacks and other minorities view the Dem Party. Now, of course, that doesn’t mean these people are going to flip to Trump. Instead they’re talking about flipping Third Party—but in the full realization that this will help Trump. They feel that strongly about the evils of Zionism.
This has been building, of course, but it was already apparent within weeks of the genocidal Zionist onslaught against Palestinians in Gaza. This, I argue, is what drove Schumer to make his call for Netanyahu’s ouster. Schumer knows that anyone who replaced Netanyahu would be more of the same, but it would provide cover for the Dems. When that didn’t work, they brought Benny Gantz to DC in the hope that they could pressure Netanyahu to call off the mass murdering. That turned out to be a real learning experience in the realities of Israeli society. Gantz told our rulers in no uncertain terms that he supported genocide. That finally led to Pelosi’s initiative which, practically speaking, was an escalation from Schumer’s initiative. Count on it—what used to be smoke filled rooms have been full on non-stop brain storming and hand wringing for months, with Dems trying to figure a way to satisfy both Jewish money men as well as the Dem folks-of-color Base voters.
This political desperation may yet save the world from the prospect of a war that Doug Macgregor believes could go nuclear virtually from the outset. Macgregor maintains that Americans aren’t “engaged”. This article suggests otherwise. Maybe not all Americans—although I would argue, more than Macgregor supposes—but engagement, like all else in politics, matters at the margins. The percentages of Dems voting “uncommitted” when given the option, the fact that the Dem brand itself—not just Genocide Zhou—is now being identified with genocide, has vast political implications.
With that intro, we turn to my edited summary/transcript. I have edited for intelligibility and readability. However, I have not used any words that Macgregor did not use. He used the words “mass murder.” Here’s the link to the video, which contains more of great interest than I summarized/transcribed. Now, this video discussion works off Macgregor’s article that appeared today:
And will Netanyahu bring the U.S. along for the ride?
That article is also a must read. For example, here is a topic that will show up in the interview:
Washington knows that Israel’s war in Gaza is not about Israeli national security or even the elimination of Hamas. It is what Muslims think it is: a war for Jewish regional supremacy with the expansion of Israeli power from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River. Prime Minister Netanyahu’s public warmongering is simply the verbal expression of that vision.
Before you dismiss that as an extreme statement, consider that it is the Israelis themselves who continually evoke the ‘biblical’ parallel of ‘Amalek’—a direct appeal to and justification for genocide. In another must read article today, Alastair Crooke maintains that Israel, by its transgressive action against a diplomatic establishment and by its transgressive genocidal war, aims to
destroy the norms, conventions and laws of warfare; to create geo-political anarchy in which anything goes …
and to substitute for long established moral norms
This Israeli chaotic ‘Biblical’ nihilism …
In other words, an extreme ideology of ‘chosenness’ that overturns any moral order to the world.
On to Macgregor and Judge Nap:
Col. Douglas Macgregor: Is WWIII Here?
Most of the world backs Russia, not America, in the Western war against Russia. The American Empire appealed to the world for support, and that appeal fell flat. BRICS is a rallying point for much of the world, to get out from under American financial hegemony, which would also help in getting out from under the threat of American regime changing and election meddling. The West is "on the road for humiliation" in Ukraine. If it ever came to a land war between Russia and NATO, Russia would "win hands down".
Mike Johnson: His paymasters are the same paymasters controlling everything else. You've gotta look at who's putting money into his reelection fund, political action committee, that keeps him in office. And I think you'd find that these paymasters are behind most of the Dems and, certainly, large numbers of the Republicans. This has nothing to do with right and wrong. It has everything to do with paying tribute to the people who keep you in office, who bought your office for you, and are gonna keep you there. That's all.
10:40 transition to Palestine, Nap asks whether the war is "about Israel's national security or about expanding the land mass of the Israeli state."
First of all, if it were about Israeli national security I imagine the Israelis would have gone about it rather differently. They coulda used Special Ops forces rather than bombing the place into submission. The bombing simply made Gaza easier for Hamas to defend--everybody knows that.
This no longer has anything to do with Israeli national security because Hamas on its best day could never challenge the Israeli state and threaten its existence. This is an old plan, taken off the shelf, dusted off, and put into action. This is something the Israelis have wanted to do for a long time, which is: eradicate what's left of the Arab population [half of Greater Israel] from Israel. I've had more than one tell me privately, We should've done this thirty, forty years ago. It wasn't possible then because thirty or forty years ago the Israel Lobby didn't control the US government. Today the Israel Lobby controls the US government, they control media, they control finance. Not just us, but also London and much of Western Europe. As a result they can impose discipline and that's what you're seeing in operation. We are going to back Israel to the hilt. So, yes, we're backing the expansion of the Israeli state--no question about it.
Re: Leon Panetta advocating the "decapitation" strategy--Israel should've gone after Hamas leaders. Mac says the decapitation strategy has always been nonsense. Then:
If you're an Israeli and you look at Gaza, you conclude that there's only one way to keep Hamas from threatening Israel--I'm not signing on to this--YOU REMOVE THE POPULATION. This is the point. It's Israel's way or the highway. The population in Gaza must be expelled or killed--whether that comes from kinetic action or starvation or anything else is irrelevant to the Israelis. The Gaza population has to go.
We in the US are hostage to Israeli control. Netanyahu has made it clear more than once that he calls the tune in Washington--HE DOES. What counts more than anything else is what Americans THINK. Americans aren't really engaged, and that's part of the problem--how do you get Americans to understand what's being done in their name? This is depressing, but Aaron Mate and Brother Blumenthal make these points over and over and over again.
How will Iran respond to Israel's attack?
It's important to remember that Ramadan is still in progress. Iran is thinking all this over very carefully and is waiting for Ramadan to end. OTOH, Iran's response must communicate Iran's its strength, power, influence and reach. Whatever it does has to meet that test. OTOH, Iran doesn't want the war to widen to include the US. Within the last 24 hours Iran sent a message to the US reminding us that they had not closed the Straits of Hormuz because they had chosen not to do so. That was a clear message to the US that if we push this too far Iran will unhinge the global economy.
The Iranians are not going to launch everything they own at Israel. Their response will be less than that, but more than just a symbolic strike. It will be meaningful. There are a lot of options.
If the US threatens Iran, Putin will absolutely not sit by and do nothing. Putin will act as an ally of Iran. Russia has placed troops next to the Golan Heights--that's a clear signal. The true trigger will be Israel attacking Hezbollah. If Iran's response is a strike that is strategically meaningful but not designed to inflict mass casualties in Israel, then I think Rafah will fall. I don't know how many people will be murdered as a result of those attacks, but I'm sure it will be substantial. And then the Israelis will turn on Hezbollah.
That's an entirely new game, and I wouldn't be surprised if the Israelis actually used some tactical nuclear weapons against Hezbollah, because the Israelis understand that any battle against Hezbollah is a battle of annihilation. So I think they'll use tactical nuclear weapons, and they can do that.
The pressure from the "Arab Street" on Arab rulers to take action against Israel is enormous. If the events as described take place Egypt and Jordan could be drawn in. But the weapons that Iran and Hezbollah have are far more lethal than anything previously seen in the region. Therefore the Israelis will be inclined to use tactical nukes, especially against a concentration of force. A tactical nukes is defined as "less than 5 kilotons." You would only know it was a tactical nuke based on the detection of U-238 in the soil, some of the gases emitted in the atmosphere, the shape of the cloud, the height of the cloud--which would be much higher than anything you would see with conventional weapons. We would know it. What would we do or say about it, given the control exerted here in Washington, I'm sure we would not do or say anything, and I'm sure we'd deny that it was used at all. But that's Pandora's Box. Once that's open, all bets are off.
Surprised at the revelations re Israel's AI programs, used to indiscriminately kill large numbers of non-Hamas civilians?
No, not surprised at all! From the Israeli vantage point, if you are standing near or around someone whom they consider to be the enemy you are effectively a co-belligerent. You deserve to die. The majority of Israelis think the Arabs who live in Gaza should be exterminated.
[Interesting discussion of AI.] AI does what it's programmed to do, and will go to the extremes that the Israelis have gone if that's what it's programmed to do.
[Further discussion of the conceptual limitations of most generals re technology.]
We should want to end conflicts principally on terms that favor YOU, but also terms that your opponent can live with. We in the West have a legacy of annihilation inherited from WW2. Putin doesn''t. What you're seeing with the Israelis, frankly, is that they've decided that the population in Gaza should either be driven out, starved, or killed. So they are organizing to do that. That's their goal. I don't think it's a good idea. I don't think Israel will survive [?], because I don't think it's legitimate in any shape or form. I also think there are alternatives to mass murder. But, again, THAT'S THE VIEW [of Israelies]. But you haven't seen any of that with the Russians. Not at all, and you're not going to unless we are very stupid. Given the clown show in Washington, stupidity is on stilts already.
How close are we to a major war--Middle East, NATO - Russia?
The Iranians and Israelis will answer that question. We'll find out when the Iranians launch their counterstrike. If they do what I think they'll do, that will not be justification for all out war by Israel or anybody else. However, the next decision that has to be made is by the Israelis. If Israel responds with overwhelming force against Iranian targets then I think you'll get your regional war. What people don't understand is that other nations [he names Turkey and Russia] won't sit it out--they'll be obliged to intervene. I think you'll see the entire Muslim world coalesce into a loose confederation of states that all agree that Israel has to be opposed. I hope it doesn't reach the point where they all decide that Israel has to be annihilated. That's my greatest fear. Israel is the state that is currently trying to annihilate what it says are its enemies in Gaza, and risks the same thing happening to them. That's always the danger in war.
Ramadan ends this morning
I just watched the Carlson interview with a Palestinian Christian pastor from Bethlehem. The interview is sobering. The American government, and much of the evangelical community in America, are turning a blind eye toward the extermination and oppression of Palestinians by Israel.
This video was difficult for me to watch.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1777800149818822809