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I suppose, in a way, you really have to hand it to them.
The Israelis, I mean.
When it comes to all things military, there is no nation on the face of the planet as astute, as innovative, as determined, and as ruthless as Israel. I guess living in a dangerous neighbourhood surrounded by enemies will do that to you.
Continue reading “ISRAELI CRIMES IN GAZA”
I always knew that it was inevitable. But when the Americans told their diplomatic staff in several Middle East countries to pack up and head home on Wednesday, it became imminent.
Israel attacked Iran again, and this time it was for keeps. These two countries have been in a shadow war for decades, and have recently traded blows, right around the time that Israel was putting the boots to all of Iran’s proxy terror groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.
When that it-for-tat business was happening between the two, I took note of the Israeli targets in Iran, and mostly took note of the fact that the Israelis stayed well clear of Iran’s nuclear facilities, something that most international pundits gave Israel credit for, as in credit for showing such remarkable restraint. Those international pundits have a shocking naivety.
Continue reading “ISRAEL STRIKES IRAN HARD”
That ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip is proof that, when serious and earnest minds make it essential to have something done to stop the misery, they can, in fact, stop the misery.
But make no mistake. Nothing like that has happened here. Not in this case.
Yes, there’s a “ceasefire,” or what they refer to as one, but honestly there’s been no “cease” to the “fire,” and that’s something that lay squarely at the feet of the Israelis.
Israel has emerged as the undisputed “victor’ in its campaign against Hamas in Gaza, pretty much levelling the place and breaking untold numbers of rules and conventions that are stated as being important to the international community, the same community that looks the other way as Israel launches as new offensive in Gaza in complete violation of the “agreed-to” ceasefire. Over the past 48 hours, over 90 Palestinians were killed in Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, many of whom were sheltering in “humanitarian” zones that were designated by Israel itself as “safe havens” for innocent “non-combatants.”
The use of italics and that many quotation marks is an indicator of how slippery the slope is here, and how one side’s interpretation of facts on the ground differs from another.
Continue reading “GAZA FALLS OFF THE RADAR”
It’s a bitch of a day to be a dictator, especially one with any fingers in that toxic pie that we also refer to as Syria.
It appears that rebel forces, a term I use loosely to describe the various opposition forces, not necessarily aligned, that have broken out of their positions and attacked and taken Syria’s second-largest city of Aleppo. No rebel force has had a foot in the ground in that city since 2016, back when the Russians carpet-bombed them out of the place, while at the same time indiscriminately killing thousands of innocent civilians. You may know already that the Russians have never been accused of being bleeding-hearts when it comes to civilian deaths, or any deaths for that matter. That said, their murderous tendencies fit hand-in-glove with those of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, and it was those Russian interventions, along with interventions from Iran and Hezbollah, that kept the slimy sum-bitch in power. He did, after all, almost lose that power as a result of the more generalized Arab Spring uprisings of 2011, but hung on by the hair of his chinny chin-chin with the help of his benevolent friends.
But things have changed for Assad, and not in the best of ways.
Those three outside interventionists that prop up his regime are all now themselves involved in existential crises of their own making, because all three kept sticking their faces in places where they did’t belong, and are now paying their respective prices for that.
I’ll go Iran first.
Continue reading “SYRIAN REBELS ON THE MARCH WHILE REGIME ALLIES CRUMBLE”
Iran is in a predicament entirely of their own making, and sad for them — and good for us — everything they do from this point forward makes it worse and worse for them, and conversely, good for us.
That “good for us” thing I popped in there is a lengthy article all by itself, but for the purposes of this one, certain parts of the rationale behind that statement will be shared here.
I’ll spare you the history/current events lesson here because I simply want to get to the point I want to make this morning. That is that Iran, Islamic Republic of, is a paper tiger at best when it comes to military capability. And, as Iran is a key ally of Russia and its leader, Vladimir PotatoHead, this has a lot of meaning attached to it.
Iran doesn’t go up against other nations face-to-face militarily, not since the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980’s, a war that ended only after the mutual exhaustion of both parties involved. Instead, Iran funds proxy militias around the Middle East, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, and the Houthis in Yemen (apologies to any other Islamic militias I may have missed) and uses these proxies to harass their enemies, primarily Israel, and until recently, Saudi Arabia. But Iran stays on the sidelines cheerleading the myriad atrocities performed on their behalf by these militias, playing a game of regional peekaboo that anyone with cognizance can see through. I suppose they feel it gives them some “plausible deniability” when it comes to the havoc caused by their hired guns who they keep fed with missile and rocket technology while Iran itself struggles with a quality of life that its citizens resent having to shoulder.
Continue reading “IRAN-ISRAEL MILITARY EXCHANGE BRINGS THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC A STEP CLOSER TO ITS INEVITABLE DEMISE”
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