Global War Roundup: Middle East, Palestine, Russia

As anticipated, this week is turning out to have a fair share of distractions from normal posting—welcome distractions! Let’s start with the Middle East, where the big story (as predicted) is the effective blockade of the Suez Canal by Yemen’s Houthis.

Yesterday, Simplicius had a very good roundup on the Houthi blockade and the problems that it poses for the US. The context for all this is the US claim to be the guarantor of freedom of navigation around the world (except that we go bonkers if the navies of other nations approach our shores). That puts the American Empire in a bind—it’s a use it or lose it situation. The claim requires the US to act upon interference such as that of the Houthis, blocking an international waterway—if we don’t act, our claim to be the one and only guarantor loses its credibility. The problem is, if we do act there is no guarantee of success, and plausible reasons to anticipate some sort of failure. Failure could simply mean that commercial shipping firms continue to avoid using the Red Sea—very possibly for an extended period of time. But failure could be worse than that: it could involve damage to US and/or allied warships.

@Megatron_ron comments in two tweets, illustrating what a sticky situation the US faces:

The US announced the start of Operation "Prosperity Guardian" in the Red Sea

The UK, Bahrain, Canada, France, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Seychelles and Spain will also be involved in the operation.

They will try to keep the safety in the Red Sea. Already almost 80% of the shipping companies have given up trade with Israel, so most likely these guardians of the Red Sea will watch out for each other.

Carrier Strike Group 1 led by the 'USS Carl Vinson' is moving towards the Middle East (currently stopped in Singapore), after leaving the mission in the Philippines prematurely.

If a war escalates there between the US and the Houthis, the Suez Canal will be completely closed and all ships will bypass all of Africa to reach Europe, causing the price of goods to rise.

From a military point of view, the US risks losing some of its carriers and warships, knowing what weapons the Houthis have at their disposal.

The US sends warships to protect ships going to Israel, but they can only make the situation worse, so that not only Israel but all of Europe suffers economically.

Here are some of the practical problems the US faces:

• The Houthis’ missile and drone launchers are mobile, which means they could prove difficult to locate and destroy.

• The Houthis’ air defense systems, while perhaps not up to first world standards, are by no means negligible. They have shown themselves quite capable of downing Western military aircraft of various sorts, although perhaps not the most advanced.

• The US is probably not entirely sure exactly what the Houthi arsenal contains, in terms of air defense and anti-shipping missiles. So far we’ve seen drones and cruise missiles, but they could have more capable weapons up their sleeves, possibly supplied via Iran.

• Many of the Houthis’ drones/missiles are quite inexpensive—in the $50k range. US naval air defense missiles are expensive—in the neighborhood of $500k apiece, with shootdowns often requiring more than one missile. That’s a very unfavorable tradeoff if the confrontation lasts for very long.

• US air defense ships—destroyers and frigates—have limited supplies of missiles on board. Resupply cannot be carried out at sea. The nearest possible sites to carry out resupply are Djibouti (this is why I stressed the importance of that small country previously) or, possibly, Oman (much more distant than Djibouti).

• Theoretically a rotation of ships could be maintained, to insure a well armed vessel is present at all times. The problem that arises is that the Houthis might be able to launch a sustained attack, using inexpensive drones, that could force a naval ship to use up its supply of air defense missiles. For a ship caught in such a position, Djibouti suddenly becomes a distant harbor. No ship can outrun missiles. How safe Djibouti will be remains to be seen.

• Yes, I’m speculating. But these are all real and very practical difficulties.

Here’s a further problem. While the US has announced its grand coalition of nations that will, ostensibly, be trying to break the Houthi blockade (above), there are three nations that are notably absent from the list: Saudi Arabia, Oman, and the UAE. That makes safe transit for the entire length of the Red Sea problematic. Furthermore, all three of the nations (Oman for quite some time) are on good terms with Iran and could possibly facilitate aid from Iran to Yemen. And then there is the issue of these actions also raising the already elevated anti-US sentiment in the region. All this is happening at a time when US preparedness is at historically low levels, as Simplicius documents at length: More AFU Downers from the Press Mill + Persian Gulf Updates.

Meanwhile, the Israeli war on Palestinians doesn’t appear to be going well. By all accounts little progress on the ground is being made, and casualties are high. In particular, snipers are targeting IOF officers, with devastating results. Hebrew Channel 13 is reporting that some wounded IOF soldiers in hospital have refused to meet Netanyahu. Not a good sign.

All of these problems could be avoided if our Neocon rulers were willing to tell Israel to stop the genocide. This puzzles Arnaud Bertrand:

Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand

It is absolutely extraordinary to me that the US would rather 1) completely obliterate whatever remained of its moral standing in the world, 2) risk a regional conflict and 3) cause economic pain to itself and the world... rather than use its leverage to tell a very tiny country to stop waging an insanely immoral war, which by the way is also against their interests. This is undoubtedly something that will be puzzle many historians in the future.

Quote

Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III @SecDef

The United States will remain deeply committed to the security and self-defense of the State of Israel. Let me be clear: our support for Israel’s security remains unshakeable. And it always will be.

[video] 0:20 / 0:29

2:48 AM · Dec 19, 2023

Some commentators are pointing to intriguing connections—connections that have been kept tightly under wraps in the US for years. Could this change?

Megatron @Megatron_ron

BREAKING:

170 people with links to Jeffrey Epstein are set to be named in court documents in early 2024

It has long been known that Epstein was part of an intel blackmail op—most believe it was joint CIA/Mossad.

Keith Woods @KeithWoodsYT

Epstein's money and expensive houses were provided for him by Jewish billionaire Les Wexner, who has extensive ties to Israel Wexner's foundation donated millions to Israeli PM Ehud Barak and researched how to shape American public opinion on Israel.

[video]

From Red Pill USA

6:58 AM · Dec 19, 2023

Red Pill USA @Red_Pill_US

It's all connected... How do we know for sure? Bc no arrests have been made. Those who are supposed to be investigating Jeffrey Epstein's and Ghislaine Maxwell's clients won't be investigating themselves.

3:44 PM · Dec 16, 2023

But don’t fall far the narrative that this was all just a Mossad plot. The US government has been protecting Epstein and preventing the release of the key evidence—who may have been blackmailed? Can you say: CIA. But why stop there? The Maxwells are from the UK. Can you say MI6? Richard Poe can (h/t Tom Luongo). He can also say GCHQ (btw, we covered all of this way back then):

Last night, @realDonaldTrump said, "The mail-in voting scam is the latest part of their four-year effort to overturn the results of the 2016 election."

21:08 - 21:15 min.

I think he was giving us a clue.

@POTUS was reminding us that the 2020 election fraud and the 2016 "Russian interference" scam were both perpetrated by the same people.

So who are these people?

Let's look at the timeline.

On June 16, 2015, @realDonaldTrump announced he was running for president.

In late 2015, British eavesdropping agency GCHQ reportedly discovered "interactions" between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence.

GCHQ passed on this "material" to then-CIA chief John Brennan in the summer of 2016.

The Guardian:

"US and UK intelligence sources acknowledge that GCHQ played an early, prominent role in kickstarting the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation...

"One source called the British eavesdropping agency the 'principal whistleblower'."

In October 2015 — while "principal whistleblower" GCHQ was compiling its Russiagate report for Brennan — Lord Mark Malloch-Brown starting pushing Smartmatic technology as "the future of U.S. voting."

Malloch-Brown is Smartmatic's chairman.

@RudyGiuliani and @SidneyPowell1 have both accused Smartmatic of coordinating the digital fraud in our 2020 election.

All voting systems used in our 2020 election run on Smartmatic software.

Plainly, the British are up to their eyeballs in the plot to oust @realDonaldTrump.

Now we just have to figure out WHY.

And of course there’s more.

On to Russia. This will be brief, because we’ve got Alexander Mercouris to explain it. It’s really simple. Russian officials are saying, Hell No! to the idea that they would ever negotiate with the Kiev regime. What they’re saying is, No need to negotiate—we’ll simply tell you what the terms are. Your role is to surrender unconditionally, and we’ll take care of the rest. And don’t expect to catch a break of any sort.

Two final political notes.

Can you imagine how Putin is enjoying watching the US flailing about in the Middle East? Why would he not just sit back and watch, for the time being? Well, and maybe provide some quiet assistance.

Yesterday Trump stated that he would appoint national security people who would be loyal to him and carry out his policies. Easier said than done! Nevertheless, it appears to me that he’s playing this cautiously, not boxing himself in. There’s plenty of time for more Zhou regime screwups to have their effect. And interestingly, the Afghan debacle is still numero uno on the list of things that voters remain POed about in re Zhou. Ukraine, NATO, Middle East … 2024 could be a helluva ride.