From where I currently sit in windswept Holland, the deployment of a second carrier group sounds a whole lot like "We'll back any play Israel makes, and if Iran gets to feeling froggy, we'll settle their hash, too." All of this could have been foreseen a decade ago. The only wonder is why it took so long ...
Aircraft carriers have always been a key tool in enforcing US foreign policy... Today a critical, crucial element to the ongoing war against terror, they are more important than ever before. I had a Tour-- private tour for only Police & Firefighters in Boston of the USS JFK back in the day they're very impressive notwithstanding their vulnerability to hypersonic missiles.
They are the most impressive example of high tech we have but they would be disabled if not destroyed by a nuclear hit, the entire battle group taken out of action in one blast. Because of nuclear weapons being the great equalizer, allowing even tiny North Korea to strut its stuff on the international stage, the "wow" factor you mention is almost an invitation to the use of nukes. I created a map showing the footprint of a US carrier next to the Big 10 football stadium near where I live. The carrier is larger.
I am very worried that if Iran enters this mess and Israel gets hit with Iranian missiles, Israel, unable to escape the idea of a "second holocaust" that makes it a victim no matter what it does, would, even with the mighty US quite possibly imploring it not to do so, launch a nuclear strike on Iran which could be delivered by Israeli missiles or aircraft.
Data is Classified above my Security rating & Pay Grade of Secret, but I'd give a distinct advantage to US Defences of our Carrier Groups over say a North Korea, or Iran Nuke strike-- just saying. You got to prove it by me before I consider those States a serious threat, and would probably be obliterated in 20 mins time of any airborne threat. Don't quote me but I believe the new CVN-21 Class of Super Carrier has Stealth Electronics even!!! And.., that's the USS Gerald R. Ford the lead ship of her class. The new 13 Billion carrier, and World's largest...
You are speaking in boastful terms, Fireman. I hear the movie Top Gun coming through. Do you believe nuclear war is something the US can win? Pride goes before the fall. Predictions of invincibility have been made throughout history only to be dashed by the reality of conflict. Let me expand on this.
Israel is a perfect example of hubris, supplied to the hilt with everything the US can manufacture including the F-35, their own multitude of tanks, US made white phosphorous shells in use now but not for the first time against Gaza and of course US made cluster munitions that the world condemns but that the US and Israel refuse to renounce. It has a huge stash of US ordinance on hand ready to be tapped. It has nuclear weapons ready to go.
Israelis are very proud of their armed might as you are of that of the US. But they are proud in a particular way as they think it is, as they term it, the symbol of "the New Jew", ready to unilaterally attack anywhere and anyone they want to attack in contrast to the innocent Jews who went to their deaths in the holocaust without a fight (which was of course impossible in their situation). This hubris blinds them to their willful aggression and taking of land and apartheid. As we see going on now, nothing that happens in Gaza is anything but the righteous action of a victim having no connection to the history of atrocious Israeli behavior toward the Palestinians who are not recognized as having any rights, just like the American Indian of the 19th century. Disproportionate response is Israeli policy.
Over the years Israel has pounded Gaza again and again, turned it into a prison, denied it the basics of life unilaterally, "mowing the lawn" as the Israelis term killing hundreds of Palestinians at a time (starting in 2009 and repeated again and again) all the while taking land from the natives as surely as the US did that of the Indians and expecting it to be accepted without resistance.
And yet HAMAS has survived it all, though unable to provide even the most basic defense against US supplied hardware, with Palestinians killed 20 times the number of Israeli dead per UN statistics and now we see the latest chapter, Israel applying much more of the same devastation as it has before (shielded from any sanction by the US). Clearly, as has been said so many times - repeating the same thing and expecting different results is insanity. Watch the statistics as they build toward that 20 - 1 ratio with the US "standing with Israel"
You've expressed your awe of US firepower as Israelis do of theirs. What do you think of liberty and justice for all applied to both the Israelis and the natives? Israelis don't like that idea at all. The land is theirs alone (apartheid) where only they may do as they wish. WW2 Germany used a horrible phrase from an old 19th century German song: "Germany Above All" (Deutschland Uber Alles), in a glorification of nationalism in which German was justified in all that it did. Jews not allowed. Does no one see the irony? The US fought Nazi Germany bitterly and necessarily but has bizarrely come to support a foreign country, Israel, above all, at cost to the US as a country.
I do not share your pride in armed force, or the weapons of war we have, in particular as used by the US frequently from 9/11 right up to now. We have become blinded by our own self-regard, just as have the Israelis and Israeli foreign policy is now ours. We have thrown away our high standing at the end of WW2 and now stand with ethnic cleansing.
Back to War which I always am hopeful could be avoided at all costs, but for the complete and utter stupidity of mankind ie. homo sapiens. In regards to "Top Gun" though the US has demonstrated unequivocally its prowess and proof of power in both World Wars and its post-war action decisively. If the States of N. Korea, Iran, or any others gets involved I still stand by my convictions. I sincerely hope they won't be proven right though!!! Clever tactics, luck and 11 good Carrier groups says we'll be far more successful and form the basis for war-winning...! No need to reply as I'm sure we need to agree to disagree.
I only had a Secret Security Clearance when in the USAF Air Police, but when I chatted with SAC Missile Combat Crew Members back in my time of penal SAC, Strategic Air Command Servitude they told me China was Targeted (only Strategic Bombers B-52's. & Submarines) way back in the early 70's. so I believe nothing would be off the table Ray...!
Worse than that, Daniel Ellsberg made it clear that China was targeted (along with the USSR) for a massive nuclear strike in the early 1960s, if not before that. It was suggested such a war would kill 600 million in six months, or 100 Holocausts, as Ellsberg described it.
This was before we learned of nuclear winter partly through the research of Carl Sagan.
All of what you have accurately outlined cuts against the US as any kind of honest broker in this conflict, as if it has ever been. It also puts the lie to Biden’s cartoonish calls for humanitarian aid, and Israeli circumspection regarding the slaughter of civilians. People with an operating moral compass can see this for the self-serving legerdemain that it is.
thank you, fireman. please open this URL from our canadian blogger, anthony james hall. pay particular attention to the interview w/ univ of ottawa prof. emeritus michel chossudovsky.
language is deceptive and ofttimes deliberately subreptive, colorado, commandeered to suggest or imply broader interpretations in order to guide and control how one thinks. we all do it. thank you for your clarifications, propining me a more accurate understanding of your observations.
I think the perception most people have is that someone standing on the beach of Gaza or Israel will see the carriers and escort vessels; but the reality is those ships are far out in the Med. Carriers require a lot of open area to create the wind conditions needed to launch and recover planes (this can mean high-speed runs that consume a lot of nautical miles). Two carriers operating in the relatively narrow Eastern Med means a lot of complexity in navigation and flight operations - no matter what Biden and his motley crew say. In a time of war, with cruise and hypersonic missiles attacking them, they would be very vulnerable.
If Biden had any semblance of awareness - the reception given to Blinken in the various capitals should dissuade him from a trip to the Mideast. He will go, likely be received politely if not always on his schedule, and except for whatever narrative the administration creates about the trip , will accomplish nothing but further demonstrate the irrelevance of the US to Mideast politics.
Nuclear Powered Aircraft carriers too Ray, and the Navy Boy's are still trying to figure out what to do with the spent Radioactive fuel rods, cells that were onboard the first Nuclear-powered Carrier after its de-commissioning the U.S.S. Enterprise!!!
The solution to this deadly, toxic pollution is dilution. Dilute into a melding of many cultures and religions into one state: the state of isrealistine or palisreal.
This goes far beyond the horrors and atrocities of the moment. (Poor Zalenskyy; all of a sudden Ukraine is soooo 2022.) Nobody has summed it up better than Pogo: "We have met the enemy, and he is us."
I believe Israel has already killed or captured the vast majority of the Hamas attackers.
At what cost to Israeli lives? I'm sure Israel would answer: Whatever it takes.
At what cost to Palestinian civilian lives? The answer here is the lowest "cost" possible. This is what Israel is currently ignoring with its bombing campaign, its siege warfare, etc. The cost in Palestinian civilian lives doesn't seem to matter to Netanyahu et al.
Over what time frame? The problem here is Israel's rush to attack and expunge Hamas while everyone is outraged. The Israeli govt is looking for the most rapid "solution," which is also the most violent and destructive one. Similar to the Bush/Cheney response to 9/11: sweep everything up, related and unrelated. Go big.
They should perhaps receive the same condemnation and punishment as the Israelis who have committed so many atrocities on the Palastinians have received.
Not an unfair response. But it offers Israelis no real alternative to the actions its leaders are contemplating. Assuming the condemnation and punishment you refer to is as toothless as you suggest, and as unsatisfying, I don't see how it improves the outlook going forward -- it seems to beg for more grievous injury.
Not sure that that's true. What seems to have conduced to greivous injury in this case was the long period of greivous injury of Palastinians—including mostly (but not entirely) innocents—by Israelis, not by the former brutal action of Hamas going unpunished. (Indeed, I don't remember them ever having gone unpunished by retributive attacks.) I doubt that if the much more egregious Israeli atroceties had been punished and stopped that we would have seen these horrors from Hamas. I'm not defending those horrors. I'm just pointing out that nobody made your kind of argument against Israeli atrocities, and so I don't see what, in their minds, is so urgent about punishing Hamas for doing what has for so long gone unpunished and ignored on the Israeli side. And indeed, leveling the Gaza strip is not in any way a punishment of Hamas, but rather of the several million Palastinians who are imprisoned there. And conceived as a punishment, it is certainly not proportinal. There is a very real alternative to the actions that Israel's leaders are contemplating: that is to stop the racist violence against the Palastinians and allow them to have a viable Palastinian state on their own land, as is now the view of most of the world, but not of the hate-mongers of the "Collective West".
"Jesus's teachings" - has always been a dilemma for this atheist.
Surely what Jesus is supposed to have said, as written by the Bible authors, are just fabrications. There were no audio recorders or stenographers in those days eh?
Help me with that? Wasn't the Bible written 100's of years after Jesus was supposed to have lived. Right? So anything Jesus is supposed to have said is just hear say, unsubstantiated rumor, passed down by word of mouth by many generations. And we are supposed to believe all the sentences he is supposed to have spoken, written in great detail by the Bible authors, are exactly what he said? Yeah right!
And seems as I've gone this far- surely all we are told to believe about "Jesus" are just hear say and fabrications written by delusional followers of a cult written 100's of years after the guy as supposed to have of lived? Furthermore, is the whole Bible just fiction? Prove to me it isn't!
There's history and then there's faith, Dennis. Historians have carefully studied the Gospels. Three out of four, I believe, show evidence of being written within a few decades after the death of Christ. I believe John's account was written somewhat later. Roughly 75-100 years later if memory serves.
Are we to trust word of mouth accounts? Yes, I think so. Cultures have shown a remarkable ability to preserve their history through word of mouth, and of course early Christians were also literate, i.e. they wrote things down.
Now, if you're a person of faith, you may believe the Gospel is literally the Word of God and that the authors were guided by the Holy Spirit and protected against error. Obviously, that is belief, not proof.
Jesus quite obviously brought a New Testament that was very different from the Old one. Perhaps you might see him as a rabbi, or teacher, for that was what he was. Believers, of course, see him as the messiah, the son of God, again a matter of belief and faith.
Faith is believing things with no evidence, Bill. I have faith that fairies live in the bottom of my garden. There is nothing one could not believe in on Faith.
And you seriously believe that gullible, superstitious, ignorant folk, who were already inclined to believe in the supernatural, faithfully conveyed by word-of-mouth things that were probably just rumours to start with - for a few decades, let alone for 75-100 years. I don't.
To believe anything that is written in the Bible is true is a huge leap of faith - oops, here we go again! And of course, the good book is the most revised book in World.
Anyway, let's not turn this thread into the discussion we are going down. I for one don't have the energy for that anymore.
Take care my friend. Sitting here in the middle of the night in New Zealand watching Al Jazeera on TV, and thousands of people being killed over different religious believes of what THEIR GOD told them. Battle of the "Gods". When will man ever learn that we will be better off without religion.
And the US's support for the ethno-supremacist Israeli's makes me feel very ashamed. Conveniently forgetting that in 1948, 750,000 Palestinians were routed from their homeland by religious zealots.
EDIT: Does anybody know the truth of what Jesus said or did even a few decades later? Look at what's happening in Gaza right now. People believe diametrically opposed things of what actually happened last Wednesday- depending on what tribe they are in.
The only hope we have in my opinion is if Putin and Xi can get these crazed people, and that includes Netanyahu, Biden and Sunak, to come to the table.
Well, if you believe the Gospels, Dennis, that is what Jesus said. He came with a New Testament, one based more on love than on wrath.
What we see in Israel today is the wrath of the Old Testament: an eye for an eye, and worse. We're not seeing "love thy neighbor," that's for sure.
Though I was raised Catholic, today I'm more agnostic than anything. If you prefer atheism that's fine with me, not that you need my approval.
But personally I don't see the need to attack people for their religious belief nor the need to attack people for not having a belief in a higher power.
Religious belief (or lack thereof) is personal, a choice, a freedom. You are free to believe or not to believe. Or to be unsure what you believe.
It is the concept of forgiveness which is taught in the Christian faith, and that is the singular philosophical difference between it and Judaism. The fact that it is, is proof that someone initiated it. Whether or not that person was Jesus or even if Jesus was a real person, or ever existed is beside the point.
Hardly beside the point my friend - the whole foundation of Christianity is that their God was Jesus, a guy who rose from the dead!
According to the Bible, Jesus Christ is the incarnate Word of God, fully human and fully divine, Creator and Savior of the World, and the founder of Christianity.
And don't get us started on the forgiveness which is taught in the Christian faith!
"If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. They shall say to the elders, “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.” Then all the men of his town are to stone him to death." - Deuteronomy 21:18-21
That's Biblical forgiveness eh! Forget forgiving the poor guy who eats too much and gets drunk- - stone the bastard to death! LOL
"If a man is found lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman."- Deuteronomy 22:22
Forgiveness for sexual indiscretion - nah! kill em both! LOL And does any couple nowadays get the electric chair for screwing around? Of course not! This part of The Bible is deemed ridiculous. Cherry picking.
If I could jump in...I think there has to be punishment for those who participated and committed the atrocities - but I'm not sure that artillery and bombing are good methods of doing that. While in the immediate term, it satisfies blood lust, it does nothing longer term but further inflames the cycles of violence. As long and as difficult as it may, the solution may be police work rather than military operations to find and punish those responsible (admittedly that ultimately may involve military action - but directed at individuals not locations where innocent people reside).
The bigger question it seems to me is how to prevent the inevitable escalation that results from retribution from a "terrorist" attack. That's the difficult hurdle - understanding motivation without condoning what appears to be nihilistic violence.
If only the US response to 9/11 was "good old-fashioned police work", which was tossed around for a nanosecond, millions would be alive today. We all know however war is a racket and escalations are fantastic for the MIC bottom line.
Watching our demise play out in slow motion is such a bummer.
TomR - I agree with you, and to some extent, the prior reply. Blood lust and eye-for-an-eye responses may feel good emotionally (for a time) but usually perpetuate cycles of violence. In a vacuum, good old-fashioned police work might supply an answer. Practically, it seems an impossible tool to implement here. How does Israel conduct a “search” in someone else’s sovereign territory? How do they effect an “arrest”? How do they effect either of these without military force under the circumstances here, i.e., alleged perpetrators hiding in urban centers populated with civilians, squirreled away in 1,000 miles of underground tunnels, and heavily armed.
My frustration with the critics of Israel’s stated planned actions is simply what “lesser” intrusive actions, less destructive to innocent human life and limb, are available (ignoring the political realities Israel’s leaders face if they do nothing)? None?
It would be great to rewind or restart the clock and find an all-encompassing solution to the historical problems arising from the partition of the ancient land of Palestine, of the distribution of limited water resources, of Israel’s self-defense concerns after being attacked multiple times (without even getting into the question whether the attacks were actually self-defense), of Jordan’s massacre of many Palestinians who lived there after partition, of … well … frankly one could go on for paragraphs.
My focus is on the here and now and what is politically, morally, and militarily feasible? (History certainly provides few (any?) examples of countries that suffered attacks on its citizens analogous to what Israel sustained here and stayed their hand where they had the military capacity to respond. I’m not sure we, as humans, have the capacity to stay our hands under these circumstances.)
"stayed their hand"???? nescient nonsense, colorado! israeli zionists have NEVER "stayed their hand"! certainly not against palestinians, whose civilians have been brutalized, demonized, denigrated, disempowered, dispossessed, dehumanized, and savagely slaughtered by zionist israelis even before partition's nakbah in 1947/'48. where is your humanity and concern for the helpless who are unable to defend themselves against the far superior military power of the uber-militarized israelis, gratis the US/UK coalition against palestinians?
As ground troops crossed into the Strip, Israel let loose with abandon its explosive arsenal. Gaza’s civilian population and infrastructure—homes and businesses, schools and mosques, hospitals and ambulances, power stations and sewage plants, civilian shelters and civilians fl eeing in panic—came under relentless, indiscriminate, disproportionate, and deliberate attack. Israel reportedly fired 20,000 high-explosive artillery shells, 14,500 tank shells, 6,000 missiles, and 3,500 naval shells into the enclave. This breakdown did not yet include bomb tonnage—over 100 one-ton bombs were dropped on the Shuja’ iya neighborhood alone. More than 1,500 Gazan civilians were killed during Protective Edge. (In Israel, six civilians were killed.) In a 2014 global ranking of the number of civilian casualties resulting from explosive weapons, tiny Gaza placed third—below Iraq and Syria, but ahead of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Ukraine. Large swaths of Gaza were reduced to rubble; Gaza’s economy “effectively collapsed,” while recovery was “expected to take decades.” The overwhelming violent force Israel unleashed was designed to limit IDF combat casualties by blasting everything and everyone within sight of the invading army, and to subvert Gaza’s will to resist by terrorizing the civilian population and pulverizing the civilian infrastructure. But it also indexed the sadism and brutalized indifference permeating the ranks of the IDF. The Goldstone Report had concluded that the Israeli objective in Cast Lead was to “punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population.” Protective Edge was a repeat Israeli performance but on a vastly greater scale. Peter Maurer, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, observed after touring the ravaged Strip, “I’ve never seen such massive destruction ever before,” while the UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process observed, “No human being who visits can remain untouched by the terrible devastation that one sees.”It was a “wild war of revenge,” Haaretz journalist Zvi Bar’el recalled, that “turned the entire Gaza population into an ‘infrastructure’ to be destroyed.” “In the 30 years that I have spent researching and writing about Gaza and her people,” Sara Roy of Harvard University refl ected aft er Protective Edge, “I can say without hesitation that I have never seen the kind of human, physical, and psychological destruction that I see there today.” Even UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, who habitually took his cues from Washington, was moved (or felt compelled) to tell the UN General Assembly during the operation, “The massive death and destruction in Gaza have shocked and shamed the world,” while a few months later he told a press conference aft er visiting Gaza, “The destruction I have seen coming here is beyond description.” Meanwhile, the consensus opinion inside Israel was that Protective Edge constituted a “limited military operation.”
sorry Ray. I read it all but I don't understand it. You are prophesying doom I think but I don't understand what I take to be your 'proofs' that your prophesies are accurate, nor what the exact doom will be, nor what we should do today about it all. :(
From where I currently sit in windswept Holland, the deployment of a second carrier group sounds a whole lot like "We'll back any play Israel makes, and if Iran gets to feeling froggy, we'll settle their hash, too." All of this could have been foreseen a decade ago. The only wonder is why it took so long ...
Yes, I think so.
Aircraft carriers have always been a key tool in enforcing US foreign policy... Today a critical, crucial element to the ongoing war against terror, they are more important than ever before. I had a Tour-- private tour for only Police & Firefighters in Boston of the USS JFK back in the day they're very impressive notwithstanding their vulnerability to hypersonic missiles.
They are the most impressive example of high tech we have but they would be disabled if not destroyed by a nuclear hit, the entire battle group taken out of action in one blast. Because of nuclear weapons being the great equalizer, allowing even tiny North Korea to strut its stuff on the international stage, the "wow" factor you mention is almost an invitation to the use of nukes. I created a map showing the footprint of a US carrier next to the Big 10 football stadium near where I live. The carrier is larger.
I am very worried that if Iran enters this mess and Israel gets hit with Iranian missiles, Israel, unable to escape the idea of a "second holocaust" that makes it a victim no matter what it does, would, even with the mighty US quite possibly imploring it not to do so, launch a nuclear strike on Iran which could be delivered by Israeli missiles or aircraft.
Data is Classified above my Security rating & Pay Grade of Secret, but I'd give a distinct advantage to US Defences of our Carrier Groups over say a North Korea, or Iran Nuke strike-- just saying. You got to prove it by me before I consider those States a serious threat, and would probably be obliterated in 20 mins time of any airborne threat. Don't quote me but I believe the new CVN-21 Class of Super Carrier has Stealth Electronics even!!! And.., that's the USS Gerald R. Ford the lead ship of her class. The new 13 Billion carrier, and World's largest...
You are speaking in boastful terms, Fireman. I hear the movie Top Gun coming through. Do you believe nuclear war is something the US can win? Pride goes before the fall. Predictions of invincibility have been made throughout history only to be dashed by the reality of conflict. Let me expand on this.
Israel is a perfect example of hubris, supplied to the hilt with everything the US can manufacture including the F-35, their own multitude of tanks, US made white phosphorous shells in use now but not for the first time against Gaza and of course US made cluster munitions that the world condemns but that the US and Israel refuse to renounce. It has a huge stash of US ordinance on hand ready to be tapped. It has nuclear weapons ready to go.
Israelis are very proud of their armed might as you are of that of the US. But they are proud in a particular way as they think it is, as they term it, the symbol of "the New Jew", ready to unilaterally attack anywhere and anyone they want to attack in contrast to the innocent Jews who went to their deaths in the holocaust without a fight (which was of course impossible in their situation). This hubris blinds them to their willful aggression and taking of land and apartheid. As we see going on now, nothing that happens in Gaza is anything but the righteous action of a victim having no connection to the history of atrocious Israeli behavior toward the Palestinians who are not recognized as having any rights, just like the American Indian of the 19th century. Disproportionate response is Israeli policy.
Over the years Israel has pounded Gaza again and again, turned it into a prison, denied it the basics of life unilaterally, "mowing the lawn" as the Israelis term killing hundreds of Palestinians at a time (starting in 2009 and repeated again and again) all the while taking land from the natives as surely as the US did that of the Indians and expecting it to be accepted without resistance.
And yet HAMAS has survived it all, though unable to provide even the most basic defense against US supplied hardware, with Palestinians killed 20 times the number of Israeli dead per UN statistics and now we see the latest chapter, Israel applying much more of the same devastation as it has before (shielded from any sanction by the US). Clearly, as has been said so many times - repeating the same thing and expecting different results is insanity. Watch the statistics as they build toward that 20 - 1 ratio with the US "standing with Israel"
You've expressed your awe of US firepower as Israelis do of theirs. What do you think of liberty and justice for all applied to both the Israelis and the natives? Israelis don't like that idea at all. The land is theirs alone (apartheid) where only they may do as they wish. WW2 Germany used a horrible phrase from an old 19th century German song: "Germany Above All" (Deutschland Uber Alles), in a glorification of nationalism in which German was justified in all that it did. Jews not allowed. Does no one see the irony? The US fought Nazi Germany bitterly and necessarily but has bizarrely come to support a foreign country, Israel, above all, at cost to the US as a country.
I do not share your pride in armed force, or the weapons of war we have, in particular as used by the US frequently from 9/11 right up to now. We have become blinded by our own self-regard, just as have the Israelis and Israeli foreign policy is now ours. We have thrown away our high standing at the end of WW2 and now stand with ethnic cleansing.
Back to War which I always am hopeful could be avoided at all costs, but for the complete and utter stupidity of mankind ie. homo sapiens. In regards to "Top Gun" though the US has demonstrated unequivocally its prowess and proof of power in both World Wars and its post-war action decisively. If the States of N. Korea, Iran, or any others gets involved I still stand by my convictions. I sincerely hope they won't be proven right though!!! Clever tactics, luck and 11 good Carrier groups says we'll be far more successful and form the basis for war-winning...! No need to reply as I'm sure we need to agree to disagree.
I only had a Secret Security Clearance when in the USAF Air Police, but when I chatted with SAC Missile Combat Crew Members back in my time of penal SAC, Strategic Air Command Servitude they told me China was Targeted (only Strategic Bombers B-52's. & Submarines) way back in the early 70's. so I believe nothing would be off the table Ray...!
Worse than that, Daniel Ellsberg made it clear that China was targeted (along with the USSR) for a massive nuclear strike in the early 1960s, if not before that. It was suggested such a war would kill 600 million in six months, or 100 Holocausts, as Ellsberg described it.
This was before we learned of nuclear winter partly through the research of Carl Sagan.
All of what you have accurately outlined cuts against the US as any kind of honest broker in this conflict, as if it has ever been. It also puts the lie to Biden’s cartoonish calls for humanitarian aid, and Israeli circumspection regarding the slaughter of civilians. People with an operating moral compass can see this for the self-serving legerdemain that it is.
thank you, fireman. please open this URL from our canadian blogger, anthony james hall. pay particular attention to the interview w/ univ of ottawa prof. emeritus michel chossudovsky.
https://anthonyjhall.substack.com/p/from-auschwitz-to-gaza?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1274843&post_id=138051489&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=plbzb&utm_medium=email
language is deceptive and ofttimes deliberately subreptive, colorado, commandeered to suggest or imply broader interpretations in order to guide and control how one thinks. we all do it. thank you for your clarifications, propining me a more accurate understanding of your observations.
Never forget the Navy's mission: Control of the seas and projection of power.
I think the perception most people have is that someone standing on the beach of Gaza or Israel will see the carriers and escort vessels; but the reality is those ships are far out in the Med. Carriers require a lot of open area to create the wind conditions needed to launch and recover planes (this can mean high-speed runs that consume a lot of nautical miles). Two carriers operating in the relatively narrow Eastern Med means a lot of complexity in navigation and flight operations - no matter what Biden and his motley crew say. In a time of war, with cruise and hypersonic missiles attacking them, they would be very vulnerable.
If Biden had any semblance of awareness - the reception given to Blinken in the various capitals should dissuade him from a trip to the Mideast. He will go, likely be received politely if not always on his schedule, and except for whatever narrative the administration creates about the trip , will accomplish nothing but further demonstrate the irrelevance of the US to Mideast politics.
Nuclear Powered Aircraft carriers too Ray, and the Navy Boy's are still trying to figure out what to do with the spent Radioactive fuel rods, cells that were onboard the first Nuclear-powered Carrier after its de-commissioning the U.S.S. Enterprise!!!
The solution to this deadly, toxic pollution is dilution. Dilute into a melding of many cultures and religions into one state: the state of isrealistine or palisreal.
Make sausage not humanburgers.
*Where are the peace makers*
They are all Dead, or haven't even been Born yet!!! Apparently...
This goes far beyond the horrors and atrocities of the moment. (Poor Zalenskyy; all of a sudden Ukraine is soooo 2022.) Nobody has summed it up better than Pogo: "We have met the enemy, and he is us."
It's his one claim to fame: constant feeding the war machine. On all other matters he's backboneless. He folds like an umbrella.
Up-dated: https://i.imgflip.com/1ilcst.jpg
You are getting legal, hold a court.
Stop counting bodies! It ain't no game it is crime against humans.
Open Gaza and stop "settlers" outside the fence of that 'open air concentration camp'?
Fascism of any sort is abominable.
I remember when a young USAF captian wrote to Aviation Week that a carrier bombing Iraq in 1990 averaged about 20 strike sortie per day.
Next edition an AF colonel apologized for the captain pointing to the obvious.
Now with USS Ford the hifh tech unproven systems will shut the deck down after a day or two of 20 sorties......
There are submarines and there are targets. A lot of USAF prepositioning in the region is top cover for the USN!
Curious what you believe would be an appropriate response by Israel, if any, to the recent Hamas attack and killings?
The appropriate response by Israel
1. Kill or capture the Hamas attackers.
2. Deploy security forces against the possibility of repeat attacks.
3. Do everything possible to get Hamas to release their hostages.
4. Hold an immediate inquiry into why Israel was caught off-guard.
5. Retain the moral high ground by showing patience and restraint. No one doubts Israel's military strength and resolve. Use it wisely.
What is inappropriate:
1. Bombing Gaza relentlessly and ruthlessly.
2. Cutting off food, water, electricity, while forcing a mass evacuation of Gaza.
3. Invading Gaze and destroying it in urban warfare.
4. Netanyahu using this "opportunity" to neutralize his political opposition and evade trials for corruption.
5. Committing what may prove to be a genocide in the name of vengeance and "security."
"Kill or capture the Hamas attackers."
I have no military background, so I ask:
How would you achieve this goal? At what cost to Israeli lives? At what cost to Palestinian civilian lives? Over what time frame?
I believe Israel has already killed or captured the vast majority of the Hamas attackers.
At what cost to Israeli lives? I'm sure Israel would answer: Whatever it takes.
At what cost to Palestinian civilian lives? The answer here is the lowest "cost" possible. This is what Israel is currently ignoring with its bombing campaign, its siege warfare, etc. The cost in Palestinian civilian lives doesn't seem to matter to Netanyahu et al.
Over what time frame? The problem here is Israel's rush to attack and expunge Hamas while everyone is outraged. The Israeli govt is looking for the most rapid "solution," which is also the most violent and destructive one. Similar to the Bush/Cheney response to 9/11: sweep everything up, related and unrelated. Go big.
Thank you. Fair response.
They should perhaps receive the same condemnation and punishment as the Israelis who have committed so many atrocities on the Palastinians have received.
Not an unfair response. But it offers Israelis no real alternative to the actions its leaders are contemplating. Assuming the condemnation and punishment you refer to is as toothless as you suggest, and as unsatisfying, I don't see how it improves the outlook going forward -- it seems to beg for more grievous injury.
Not sure that that's true. What seems to have conduced to greivous injury in this case was the long period of greivous injury of Palastinians—including mostly (but not entirely) innocents—by Israelis, not by the former brutal action of Hamas going unpunished. (Indeed, I don't remember them ever having gone unpunished by retributive attacks.) I doubt that if the much more egregious Israeli atroceties had been punished and stopped that we would have seen these horrors from Hamas. I'm not defending those horrors. I'm just pointing out that nobody made your kind of argument against Israeli atrocities, and so I don't see what, in their minds, is so urgent about punishing Hamas for doing what has for so long gone unpunished and ignored on the Israeli side. And indeed, leveling the Gaza strip is not in any way a punishment of Hamas, but rather of the several million Palastinians who are imprisoned there. And conceived as a punishment, it is certainly not proportinal. There is a very real alternative to the actions that Israel's leaders are contemplating: that is to stop the racist violence against the Palastinians and allow them to have a viable Palastinian state on their own land, as is now the view of most of the world, but not of the hate-mongers of the "Collective West".
Act like civilized country and shun their ancient blood feud!
'Eye for eye' is ancient law and long proven unprofitable.....
The singular distinction that Jesus made in his teachings from those of his predecessors, was the concept of forgiveness.
Sadly, many of those who call themselves Christians, don't follow Jesus's teachings.
"Jesus's teachings" - has always been a dilemma for this atheist.
Surely what Jesus is supposed to have said, as written by the Bible authors, are just fabrications. There were no audio recorders or stenographers in those days eh?
Help me with that? Wasn't the Bible written 100's of years after Jesus was supposed to have lived. Right? So anything Jesus is supposed to have said is just hear say, unsubstantiated rumor, passed down by word of mouth by many generations. And we are supposed to believe all the sentences he is supposed to have spoken, written in great detail by the Bible authors, are exactly what he said? Yeah right!
And seems as I've gone this far- surely all we are told to believe about "Jesus" are just hear say and fabrications written by delusional followers of a cult written 100's of years after the guy as supposed to have of lived? Furthermore, is the whole Bible just fiction? Prove to me it isn't!
Let the wailing and gnashing of teeth begin!
There's history and then there's faith, Dennis. Historians have carefully studied the Gospels. Three out of four, I believe, show evidence of being written within a few decades after the death of Christ. I believe John's account was written somewhat later. Roughly 75-100 years later if memory serves.
Are we to trust word of mouth accounts? Yes, I think so. Cultures have shown a remarkable ability to preserve their history through word of mouth, and of course early Christians were also literate, i.e. they wrote things down.
Now, if you're a person of faith, you may believe the Gospel is literally the Word of God and that the authors were guided by the Holy Spirit and protected against error. Obviously, that is belief, not proof.
Jesus quite obviously brought a New Testament that was very different from the Old one. Perhaps you might see him as a rabbi, or teacher, for that was what he was. Believers, of course, see him as the messiah, the son of God, again a matter of belief and faith.
Faith is believing things with no evidence, Bill. I have faith that fairies live in the bottom of my garden. There is nothing one could not believe in on Faith.
https://www.gotquestions.org/faith-vs-belief.html
And you seriously believe that gullible, superstitious, ignorant folk, who were already inclined to believe in the supernatural, faithfully conveyed by word-of-mouth things that were probably just rumours to start with - for a few decades, let alone for 75-100 years. I don't.
To believe anything that is written in the Bible is true is a huge leap of faith - oops, here we go again! And of course, the good book is the most revised book in World.
Anyway, let's not turn this thread into the discussion we are going down. I for one don't have the energy for that anymore.
Take care my friend. Sitting here in the middle of the night in New Zealand watching Al Jazeera on TV, and thousands of people being killed over different religious believes of what THEIR GOD told them. Battle of the "Gods". When will man ever learn that we will be better off without religion.
And the US's support for the ethno-supremacist Israeli's makes me feel very ashamed. Conveniently forgetting that in 1948, 750,000 Palestinians were routed from their homeland by religious zealots.
EDIT: Does anybody know the truth of what Jesus said or did even a few decades later? Look at what's happening in Gaza right now. People believe diametrically opposed things of what actually happened last Wednesday- depending on what tribe they are in.
The only hope we have in my opinion is if Putin and Xi can get these crazed people, and that includes Netanyahu, Biden and Sunak, to come to the table.
Well, if you believe the Gospels, Dennis, that is what Jesus said. He came with a New Testament, one based more on love than on wrath.
What we see in Israel today is the wrath of the Old Testament: an eye for an eye, and worse. We're not seeing "love thy neighbor," that's for sure.
Though I was raised Catholic, today I'm more agnostic than anything. If you prefer atheism that's fine with me, not that you need my approval.
But personally I don't see the need to attack people for their religious belief nor the need to attack people for not having a belief in a higher power.
Religious belief (or lack thereof) is personal, a choice, a freedom. You are free to believe or not to believe. Or to be unsure what you believe.
from a philosophical eclectic and religious nullifidian's peurview, thank you, dennis merwood.
'peur'view, as in a fearfully anxious purview.
It is the concept of forgiveness which is taught in the Christian faith, and that is the singular philosophical difference between it and Judaism. The fact that it is, is proof that someone initiated it. Whether or not that person was Jesus or even if Jesus was a real person, or ever existed is beside the point.
Hardly beside the point my friend - the whole foundation of Christianity is that their God was Jesus, a guy who rose from the dead!
According to the Bible, Jesus Christ is the incarnate Word of God, fully human and fully divine, Creator and Savior of the World, and the founder of Christianity.
And don't get us started on the forgiveness which is taught in the Christian faith!
"If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. They shall say to the elders, “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.” Then all the men of his town are to stone him to death." - Deuteronomy 21:18-21
That's Biblical forgiveness eh! Forget forgiving the poor guy who eats too much and gets drunk- - stone the bastard to death! LOL
"If a man is found lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman."- Deuteronomy 22:22
Forgiveness for sexual indiscretion - nah! kill em both! LOL And does any couple nowadays get the electric chair for screwing around? Of course not! This part of The Bible is deemed ridiculous. Cherry picking.
"RELIGION is manmade. Even the men who created it cannot agree on what their Prophets, Redeemers, or Guru's actually said or did."
So what specifically? No consequences for the killers and kidnappers whatsoever? Just asking.
If I could jump in...I think there has to be punishment for those who participated and committed the atrocities - but I'm not sure that artillery and bombing are good methods of doing that. While in the immediate term, it satisfies blood lust, it does nothing longer term but further inflames the cycles of violence. As long and as difficult as it may, the solution may be police work rather than military operations to find and punish those responsible (admittedly that ultimately may involve military action - but directed at individuals not locations where innocent people reside).
The bigger question it seems to me is how to prevent the inevitable escalation that results from retribution from a "terrorist" attack. That's the difficult hurdle - understanding motivation without condoning what appears to be nihilistic violence.
If only the US response to 9/11 was "good old-fashioned police work", which was tossed around for a nanosecond, millions would be alive today. We all know however war is a racket and escalations are fantastic for the MIC bottom line.
Watching our demise play out in slow motion is such a bummer.
TomR - I agree with you, and to some extent, the prior reply. Blood lust and eye-for-an-eye responses may feel good emotionally (for a time) but usually perpetuate cycles of violence. In a vacuum, good old-fashioned police work might supply an answer. Practically, it seems an impossible tool to implement here. How does Israel conduct a “search” in someone else’s sovereign territory? How do they effect an “arrest”? How do they effect either of these without military force under the circumstances here, i.e., alleged perpetrators hiding in urban centers populated with civilians, squirreled away in 1,000 miles of underground tunnels, and heavily armed.
My frustration with the critics of Israel’s stated planned actions is simply what “lesser” intrusive actions, less destructive to innocent human life and limb, are available (ignoring the political realities Israel’s leaders face if they do nothing)? None?
It would be great to rewind or restart the clock and find an all-encompassing solution to the historical problems arising from the partition of the ancient land of Palestine, of the distribution of limited water resources, of Israel’s self-defense concerns after being attacked multiple times (without even getting into the question whether the attacks were actually self-defense), of Jordan’s massacre of many Palestinians who lived there after partition, of … well … frankly one could go on for paragraphs.
My focus is on the here and now and what is politically, morally, and militarily feasible? (History certainly provides few (any?) examples of countries that suffered attacks on its citizens analogous to what Israel sustained here and stayed their hand where they had the military capacity to respond. I’m not sure we, as humans, have the capacity to stay our hands under these circumstances.)
"stayed their hand"???? nescient nonsense, colorado! israeli zionists have NEVER "stayed their hand"! certainly not against palestinians, whose civilians have been brutalized, demonized, denigrated, disempowered, dispossessed, dehumanized, and savagely slaughtered by zionist israelis even before partition's nakbah in 1947/'48. where is your humanity and concern for the helpless who are unable to defend themselves against the far superior military power of the uber-militarized israelis, gratis the US/UK coalition against palestinians?
allow me to refresh your memory, colorado:
As ground troops crossed into the Strip, Israel let loose with abandon its explosive arsenal. Gaza’s civilian population and infrastructure—homes and businesses, schools and mosques, hospitals and ambulances, power stations and sewage plants, civilian shelters and civilians fl eeing in panic—came under relentless, indiscriminate, disproportionate, and deliberate attack. Israel reportedly fired 20,000 high-explosive artillery shells, 14,500 tank shells, 6,000 missiles, and 3,500 naval shells into the enclave. This breakdown did not yet include bomb tonnage—over 100 one-ton bombs were dropped on the Shuja’ iya neighborhood alone. More than 1,500 Gazan civilians were killed during Protective Edge. (In Israel, six civilians were killed.) In a 2014 global ranking of the number of civilian casualties resulting from explosive weapons, tiny Gaza placed third—below Iraq and Syria, but ahead of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Ukraine. Large swaths of Gaza were reduced to rubble; Gaza’s economy “effectively collapsed,” while recovery was “expected to take decades.” The overwhelming violent force Israel unleashed was designed to limit IDF combat casualties by blasting everything and everyone within sight of the invading army, and to subvert Gaza’s will to resist by terrorizing the civilian population and pulverizing the civilian infrastructure. But it also indexed the sadism and brutalized indifference permeating the ranks of the IDF. The Goldstone Report had concluded that the Israeli objective in Cast Lead was to “punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population.” Protective Edge was a repeat Israeli performance but on a vastly greater scale. Peter Maurer, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, observed after touring the ravaged Strip, “I’ve never seen such massive destruction ever before,” while the UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process observed, “No human being who visits can remain untouched by the terrible devastation that one sees.”It was a “wild war of revenge,” Haaretz journalist Zvi Bar’el recalled, that “turned the entire Gaza population into an ‘infrastructure’ to be destroyed.” “In the 30 years that I have spent researching and writing about Gaza and her people,” Sara Roy of Harvard University refl ected aft er Protective Edge, “I can say without hesitation that I have never seen the kind of human, physical, and psychological destruction that I see there today.” Even UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, who habitually took his cues from Washington, was moved (or felt compelled) to tell the UN General Assembly during the operation, “The massive death and destruction in Gaza have shocked and shamed the world,” while a few months later he told a press conference aft er visiting Gaza, “The destruction I have seen coming here is beyond description.” Meanwhile, the consensus opinion inside Israel was that Protective Edge constituted a “limited military operation.”
sorry Ray. I read it all but I don't understand it. You are prophesying doom I think but I don't understand what I take to be your 'proofs' that your prophesies are accurate, nor what the exact doom will be, nor what we should do today about it all. :(
You're prophesying it right there, Ray.
"... the Western powers have already made the CHOICE of Destruction and is leading this World to it Day by Day ..."