Pentagon | UPROOTED PALESTINIANS: SALAM ALQUDS ALAYKUM

Lloyd Austin, with No evidence supporting him, says Jewish Terrorists fully comply with law when murdering, raping kids, looting

Posted on April 10, 2024 by uprootedpalestinians

Apr 09, 2024

The U.S. defense secretary’s remarks came after Sen. Elizabeth Warren and other law experts around the world asserted that Israel’s Gaza onslaught meets the legal definition of genocide.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Tuesday became the latest Biden administration official to deny that Israel’s six-month bombardment, invasion, and siege of Gaza constitute a genocide, a statement that came after Sen. Elizabeth Warren joined a growing number of international jurists asserting that Israeli policies and actions are genocidal under the letter of the law.

After pro-Palestine protesters wearing T-shirts with the message “Austin’s Legacy = Genocide” interrupted a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Tuesday morning, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) asked the Pentagon chief if Israel was committing genocide in Gaza.

“We don’t have any evidence of genocide being created,” Austin replied after a short pause.

Pentagon’s Tower 22 ‘logistics support base’ is secretly drone base

Posted on February 12, 2024 by uprootedpalestinians

February 11, 2024

Source: The Intercept

What was described by the Pentagon as a “logistics support base” turns out to be a secret drone base for long-range surveillance of fighters in neighboring Syria and Iraq and for conducting airstrikes.

The US military base, Tower 22, in Jordan in October 2023 (Planet Labs LBC / AP)

By Al Mayadeen English

The Pentagon calls the US base in Jordan, Tower 22, a “logistics support base” – however, in reality, the area in which three US troops were killed last month is more than what it seems.

The Intercept reported that Tower 22 is secretly a drone base for long-range surveillance of whom the US perceives as “insurgents” in neighboring Syria and Iraq and to conduct airstrikes, according to two US military sources, while it also represents a staging facility for special operations forces and is a medevac helicopter home base.

Talking to The Intercept, an Air Force airman, whose unit was recently stationed at the base, said, “To call Tower 22 a logistics support base is complete bullshit,” as logistics was only a minor part – or a disguise – to merely deliver food and fuel to the nearby al-Tanf base.

“The main purpose of Tower 22 is to operate drones to spy on insurgents in Iraq and Syria, for targeting purposes,” the airman added, noting, “The main objective I witnessed was taking out targets.”

The base was known, as per the anonymous airman, for providing targeting intel to other Air Force assets in Jordan, such as Muwaffaq Salti Air Base, to conduct airstrikes on said targets.

One story, citing unnamed officials, says that the drone attack that killed the three troops was able to enter Tower 22 after being mistakenly identified as a friendly drone returning to the base. The Intercept later discovered that the base did not have adequate air defense.

A report by Politico two weeks ago detailed how the drone managed to evade detection by trailing behind a US drone that was returning to the base in Jordan at the same time.

‘This is not what it looks like’

Interviews conducted with defense sources and experts paint a clear image of Tower 22’s real purpose to support hostilities with what the US calls “Iran-backed groups”, but the Defense Department is still adamant that this is part of its war on ISIS.

US forces continue to exist in Syria under the basis of Operation Inherent Resolve, the name which the Pentagon selected for the campaign against ISIS that began in 2014, but experts reveal that the alleged “counter-ISIS” mission the US claims to be conducting is not the main focus.

Brian Finucane, a former State Department legal advisor and now with the think-tank International Crisis Group which works to prevent and resolve wars, said, “Whatever they’re doing there, there’s very little evidence that it’s counter-ISIS.”

It is worth noting that ISIS, as former President Donald Trump said in 2018, is the main reason why they should be there, as he said: “We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there,” later announcing that he would withdraw US troops from the region.

However, Finucane explains that Trump was overpowered by hawks like national security advisor at the time, John Bolton, who was trying his best to keep troops there with a new target in mind: Iran.

Even though Tower 22 may have provided logistics like food and fuel for training at al-Tanf, a Pentagon inspector general report last year discovered “no kinetic engagements,” or combat incidents, by coalition forces at al-Tanf in any way present, knowing that the lack of combat at the larger base shows a lesser role for both bases in the fight against ISIS.

“If Tanf doesn’t have a counter-ISIS function, it’s hard to see how a support facility for Tanf does,” Finucane said.

This particular operation on Tower 22 sparked a wave of outrage in the US, with some high-ranking officials calling on US President Joe Biden to nuke Iran.

Biden has blamed “radical Iran-backed militant groups operating in Syria and Iraq,” referring to the Resistance in Iraq which announced earlier this month that they would escalate their attacks after the US conducted several raids in Iraq and assassinated a military official in central Baghdad.

The US President also reaffirmed that the US forces are now “still gathering the facts of this attack,” stressing, “We will carry on their commitment to fight terrorism. And have no doubt — we will hold all those responsible to account at a time and in a manner our choosing.”

Oil, power and cash

The Intercept previously reported that the group that claimed responsibility for the Tower 22 attack that killed three troops stated that it was due to US support for “Israel’s” genocide in Gaza.

With that, the White House maintains that conflicts in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen are all distinct from one another and happen to be emerging coincidentally, contradicting evidence indicating that US support for “Israel” in the Gaza genocide has contributed to regional instability and violence.

Finucane clarifies that “the counter-ISIS mission is the only legal basis there is for the U.S. to be there… There’s no legal basis to have U.S. troops in Syria to be countering Iran.”

The US argues that its presence in the region – be it in Jordan, Iraq, or Syria – is for “defense purposes” against groups like ISIS, but it remains clear that their presence is only a means to an end – oil, money, and hegemony.

These airbases have reportedly been used to violate the sovereignty of Iraq and Syria. In the Syrian Arab Republic, the US military is officially considered an occupying force, while the government in Iraq is working on ending a previously agreed mandate with the US.

The US can either deepen its involvement in Middle Eastern conflicts or recognize the futility of repeating past mistakes. To avoid new conflicts, Washington must reject escalation, cease fueling the Gaza war, and end its unwanted military presence in the region.

EXPOSED: DISTURBING DETAILS OF NEW PENTAGON “PERCEPTION MANAGEMENT OFFICE”

Posted on June 10, 2023 by Zara Ali

JUNE 9TH, 2023

Source

Kit Klarenberg

Ken Klippenstein, an investigative journalist at The Intercept, has exposed how the Pentagon very quietly launched a new internal division, dubbed the “Influence and Perception Management Office” (IPMO), in March.

Its existence is not strictly secret, although there has been no official announcement of its launch, let alone an explanation from Department of Defense (DoD) officials as to its raison d’être or modus operandi. Its budget likewise remains a mystery but purportedly runs into the “multimillions.”

Pentagon financial documents from 2022 offer a laconic and largely impenetrable description of IPMO. The Office, it is said, “will serve as the senior advisor” to Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence & Security, Ronald S. Moultrie, on “strategic and operational influence and perception management (reveal and conceal) matters”:

It will develop broad thematic influence guidance focused on key adversaries; promulgate competitive influence strategies focused on specific defense issues, which direct subordinate planning efforts for the conduct of influence-related activities; and fill existing gaps in policy, oversight, governance, and integration related to influence and perception management matters. [IPMO]…provides necessary support to National Defense Strategy…to address the current strategic environment of great power competition.”

Nonetheless, references to “reveal and conceal” and “influence and perception management” are tantalizing in the extreme. So too, is IPMO’s position within the U.S. national security structure and the Office’s acting director being intimately tied to the Pentagon’s spookiest operations.

Despite its low-key rollout, IPMO looks set to be a hugely influential new DoD agency in the future, waging ceaseless information warfare at home and abroad. What makes the new venture all the more sinister is that such capabilities are nothing new; the Pentagon has managed multiple similar, if not identical, operations in the past and continues to do so, despite significant controversy and public backlash.

Indeed, the DoD’s official dictionary has a dedicated definition of “perception management”, linking the practice to “psychological operations,” which are defined as actions intended to influence the “emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior” of target governments, organizations, groups, and individuals:

Actions to convey and/or deny selected information and indicators to foreign audiences to influence their emotions, motives, and objective reasoning as well as to intelligence systems and leaders at all levels to influence official estimates, ultimately resulting in foreign behaviors and official actions favorable to the originator’s objectives. In various ways, perception management combines truth projection, operations security, cover and deception, and psychological operations.”

This, of course, begs the question of why a new incarnation of what came before and never went away is now being inaugurated by the U.S. defense establishment. As we shall see, no reassuring answers are forthcoming.

“SIGNATURE REDUCTION”

Despite the lack of a public paper trail, a memo outlining IPMO’s modus operandi was acquired by Klippenstein. It offers a hypothetical scenario in which the Pentagon “wants to influence Country A’s leaders to stop purchasing a weapon system from Country B” because it believes the sale “might jeopardize DoD’s military advantage, in some way, if the U.S. ever had to engage in armed conflict with Country A.”

“Assuming IPMO has worked to establish the desired behavior change, how might key influencers be identified that have sway over these leaders’ thought processes, beliefs, motives, reasoning, etc. (including ascertaining their typical modes and methods of communication)?” the memo reads. “Thereafter, assuming an influence strategy is developed, how might the DIE [Defense Intelligence Estimate] or IC [Intelligence Community] determine if DoD’s influence activities are working (aside from waiting and watching hopefully that Country A eventually stops purchasing the weapons system in question from Country B)?”

The document was signed by IPMO director James Holly, previously Director of Special Programs for the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). During this time, he ran espionage operations for an unnamed paramilitary organization in Iraq and was an intelligence officer for a Combined Joint Task Force in Afghanistan.

Precisely what these roles entailed is not certain. However, that he made the leap from JSOC to IPMO is striking, given the Command is the nucleus of all the Pentagon’s spookiest, most sensitive operations. The division very rarely makes the news, but when it does, the stories are invariably remarkable and disturbing. For example, in May 2021, Newsweek exposed how the Command operates “the largest undercover force the world has ever known” under a program named “Signature Reduction.” In all, 60,000 people – “more than ten times the size of the clandestine elements of the CIA” – are part of this secret army, “many working under masked identities and in low profile.” Working both at home and overseas, its operatives carry out covert assignments using civilian cover “in real life and online, sometimes hiding in private businesses and consultancies, some of them household name companies.”

“Dozens of little-known and secret government organizations support the program, doling out classified contracts and overseeing publicly unacknowledged operations. Altogether, the companies pull in over $900 million annually to service the clandestine force, doing everything from creating false documentation and paying the bills and taxes of individuals operating under assumed names to manufacturing disguises and other devices to thwart detection and identification, to building invisible devices to photograph and listen in on activity in the most remote corners of the Middle East and Africa.”

A series of photos from the Signature Reduction program provided to Newsweek by William Arkin. Editing by MintPress News — **A series of photos from the Signature Reduction program provided to Newsweek by William Arkin | Editing by MintPress News**

This cloak-and-dagger militia moves entirely in the shadows and may contravene U.S. laws, the Geneva Conventions, basic standards of accountability, and various codes of military conduct. Chief among the latter is the longstanding principle that the military does not conduct covert operations on American soil. Yet, JSOC has circumvented this restriction ever since its founding in December 1980, operating under a veil of almost total official secrecy, all the while often in tandem with the CIA.

In June 1984, The New York Times outlined how JSOC effectively acted as a law unto itself, quickly evolving far beyond its original remit to “collect intelligence to plan for special military operations” into “a nighttime operation, with its own weapons procurement and research, as well as communications.”

Two months earlier, a senior Pentagon official told elected lawmakers that the Command was not “an agency of interest to the intelligence oversight committee” and refused to answer questions about its activities.

Nonetheless, the Times offered a brief overview of what was known about JSOC’s activities over the prior four years. In addition to assisting the illegal invasion of Grenada, the Command had provided extensive assistance to CIA cloak-and-dagger operations in Central America. In particular, it supported the fascist Contras in Nicaragua, helping the Agency sidestep Congressional restrictions on its brutal efforts to topple the elected left-wing Sandinista government.

“PROHIBITED, COVERT PROPAGANDA”

JSOC’s involvement in that CIA dirty war is particularly notable given this period gave rise to the very concept of “perception management” as a legitimate form of psychological warfare to be waged by the CIA, Pentagon, and other government agencies against the domestic population.

The overriding objective of this Reagan administration push was to falsely paint the murderous Contras as heroic freedom fighters. In reality, the Contras, with CIA direction, funding and arms, deliberately targeted civilian infrastructure, including schools and hospitals, slaughtered priests, nuns, labor activists, students, peasants and indigenous citizens.

In turn, the social democratic Sandinistas were transformed into viciously repressive autocrats, ruling Nicaragua with an iron fist and transforming their country into a “beachhead” for Soviet invasion of the U.S. Similar propaganda messaging has been employed in every American proxy war since, from Yugoslavia to Ukraine. All this activity, the full extent of which may never be known, represented egregious violations of the 1948 Smith-Mundt Act, which places strict restrictions on the domestic dissemination of state propaganda.

Take, for instance, the Office of Public Diplomacy, a dedicated pro-Contra propaganda unit run by Reagan’s top National Security Council aide Oliver North, who was simultaneously working with cocaine traffickers to arm the Nicaraguan “rebels.” The unit was found to have broken a welter of U.S. laws by separate official investigations into the Iran-Contra scandal. The U.S. Comptroller General, for example, concluded the Office engaged in “prohibited, covert propaganda…beyond the range of acceptable agency public information activities.”

Yet, despite such damning findings, the “perception management” techniques honed by these assorted units, and many of the formal and informal structures contemporaneously created to disseminate CIA, Pentagon, and White House propaganda, did not go anywhere.

Two decades later, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the Pentagon under Donald Rumsfeld’s leadership struck upon the bright idea of creating the Office of Strategic Influence to deliberately plant “misleading” black propaganda in the foreign media, which would then be picked up by the U.S. media.

In a perverse twist, precisely this strategy was used by British foreign intelligence service MI6 as far back as 1998 to lay the foundations for the Iraq War. Under “Operation Mass Appeal”, the agency circulated dubious or even fabricated “intelligence” to editors and journalists on its payroll the world over, influencing the output of leading international news outlets. The spooks sought to “shape public opinion about Iraq and the threat posed by WMD.”

The Office of Strategic Influence operated in secret from its launch in October 2001 until February of the next year, when the mainstream media caught wind of its existence. Due to intense outcry, just a week later, it was officially shuttered at Rumsfeld’s request. Yet, at a November 2002 press conference, the defense secretary made unguarded remarks starkly indicating it very much lived on thereafter:

The Office of Strategic Influence. You may recall that. And ‘oh my goodness gracious isn’t that terrible, Henny Penny, the sky is going to fall.’ I went down that next day and said fine, if you want to savage this thing, fine, I’ll give you the corpse. There’s the name. You can have the name, but I’m gonna keep doing every single thing that needs to be done. And I have.”

OF WORLD WAR III AND UFOS

The Klippenstein-secured memo suggests IPMO is involved in identical propaganda operations to those described here. It notes the Office “is tasked with the development of broad thematic messaging guidance and specific strategies for the execution of DoD activities designed to influence foreign defense-related decision-makers to behave in a manner beneficial to U.S. interests.”

Given that Washington is again heavily engaged in a Nicaragua-style proxy war in Ukraine, an accompanying propaganda unit would be of enormous use. After all, despite the Western media’s best efforts to whitewash the issue, Nazi sympathies of soldiers and military units remain stubbornly flagrant.

The phenomenon of Swastika tattoo and military patch-toting fighters is so profuse that, earlier this month, the New York Times was prompted to publish an article bemoaning how such National Socialist iconography leaves “diplomats, Western journalists and advocacy groups in a difficult position.” On the one hand, “calling attention to the iconography risks playing into Russian propaganda,” on the other, “saying nothing allows it to spread.” The wider question of why so many Ukrainian nationalists eagerly elect to exhibit such emblems was unexplored.

Fittingly too, in December 2022, independent journalist Jack Murphy published an investigation alleging the CIA was “using a European NATO ally’s spy service to conduct a covert sabotage campaign inside Russia under the agency’s direction,” in which JSOC was a key player. The Command purportedly supports these operations “with targeting information from intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance platforms, such as drones, that can see and hear deep into Russia.”

Further clues as to the sudden push to formally codify what the Pentagon has been doing with total impunity for so long may likewise be provided by the online records of private security company Sancorp Consulting, which offers “counter-insider threat solutions, artificial intelligence and machine learning, IT solutions, identity and data activities, intelligence and counterintelligence solutions” to private sector and state clients.

An index of Sancorp’s “past performance” for customers lists providing “specialized and sensitive administrative, security, policy, operations, and analytic support services” to none other than IPMO. Since-deleted records from the company’s website indicate it also counts the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) as a client.

This DoD division is charged with investigating UFOs and other unexplained aerial phenomena. The Pentagon has of late exhibited a pronounced interest in flying saucers, just as it did during the Cold War. Then, the purpose was to bamboozle and bedevil the public while providing cover for experimental U.S. military innovations, aircraft, and testing. There is little cause to believe the DoD’s motives have changed in the present day.

Declassified documents show that for years, the Navy Office of the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Information Warfare, known as N2N6, currently exercises complete control over the dissemination of UFO-related information to American audiences on behalf of the Pentagon. This extends to directing Pentagon divisions to respond to media inquiries and FOIA requests from journalists and the public and how.

Perhaps the Pentagon has decided to bring these responsibilities in-house. Coincidentally, on June 6, an Air Force veteran and former member of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency went public with claims that extraterrestrial craft are routinely recovered in secret by the U.S. government.

This shock exposé couldn’t have come at a better time. As the New Cold War ramps up, and ever-more threatening tech is inevitably road-tested in the skies above Area 51 and other shadowy military installations in the U.S. and elsewhere, it is necessary to misdirect public attention away from the known to the unknown and unknowable. Meanwhile, U.S. military chiefs regularly and openly talk about waging war on China in the very near future – which makes constructing a dedicated propaganda office in advance all the more expedient.

Filed under: Pentagon, Propaganda War, USA | Tagged: "Operation Iraqi Freedom", CIA, CIA Black Ops, Donald Rumsfeld, Global Disinformation, Nicaragua, NSA, Pentagon, Ukraine War, US Propaganda, US proxy wars | Comments Off on EXPOSED: DISTURBING DETAILS OF NEW PENTAGON “PERCEPTION MANAGEMENT OFFICE”

Biden to Order US Dollar Replaced with Trackable “Spyware” Version?

Posted on April 2, 2023 by uprootedpalestinians

April 01, 2023

Former Advisor to Pentagon and CIA: “Your life savings and freedoms are at immediate risk. Do THIS today…”

By James G. Rickards

Region: USA

Theme: Global Economy, Intelligence

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***

Selected text from Transcript

Minor Edits by GR. Important text.

We do not concur with all the statements. It is not an issue of party politics.

***

Where were you on March 9, 2022…

…when President Biden signed the death warrant on American freedom?

Click here or the photo to view the video.

On that day, in a hushed ceremony at the White House… without the approval of Congress, the states, or the American people… Biden signed into law Executive Order 14067.

Buried in his Order are a few paragraphs, titled Section 4… The language in Section 4 makes Order 14067… the most treacherous act by a sitting President in the history of our republic.

Because Section 4 sets the stage for…

Legal government surveillance of all US citizens…
Total control over your bank accounts and purchases…
And the ability to silence all dissenting voices for good.

They’re coming for your money.

And it’s already started.

My name is Jim Rickards.

I’m a former advisor to the Pentagon, the White House, Congress, the CIA, and the Department of Defense. I’m also an attorney, investment banker… and author of 7 books on currencies and international economics.

When places like Fox, CNBC or Bloomberg want to know what’s about to shakeup the global economy, they call me.

Most of all, like you, I’m a proud American patriot.

The disturbing predictions you’re about to see are based on my independent research and my contacts in the intelligence community.

I’ve never made this kind of public announcement before… But it’s my duty to pull the alarm.

This is what I believe Section 4 of Biden’s Order means for all Americans…it is laying the groundwork for…

The US dollar being made obsolete.

Soon, your cash will be confiscated – or will simply be worthless paper.

The cash currency we have now will be replaced with a new, programmable digital tokens.

But the truth is, few outside the deep state recognize Biden’s move for what it really is.

If my predictions are correct, this so much more sinister than simply replacing the cash dollar with a new digitized version…

Friend, this new currency will allow for total control of all American citizens.

Because every “digital dollar” will be programmed by the government… that means they will be able to “turn on or off” your money at will.

Not only that, but they’ll be able to TRACK and RECORD every purchase you make.

This is very different when compared to “online banking”… And it has nothing to do with crypto.

I’ll explain everything in a moment, but what you need to know now is…

AOC has already publicly declared her support for a government controlled “spyware” currency…

The digital dollar means Dems [Deep state] would be able to punish any contribution, purchase, or even social media comment they don’t like.

And this isn’t something years away… It’s starting now.

Biden’s secret army has been hard at work, and… US trials are already well underway.

In fact, our government is racing to catch up…

China and Russia have already launched pilot programs for their own digital currencies.

More than half the countries in the world and almost 90% of central banks are testing or exploring a digital currency right now.

In my opinion, it’s not a question of “Will the US implement a digital dollar?”

It’s just a question of “When”…

And the answer to that is… It’s already happening.

Under Project Lithium and Project Hamilton, the new “spyware” currency has been quietly tested for several years.

There’s no stopping it.

I predict we’ll see a digital dollar hit circulation next year – or 2024 at the latest.

But I do have some good news for you.

It’s almost too late, but you can still protect your assets and your freedom…

…if you know exactly what to do.

In the next 84 seconds, I’m going to show you everything. [See video]

You’ll see the ugly proof of their plan. You’ll see what this could mean for you and your life savings.

I’m also going to show you the ONLY way I trust to protect your money and your freedom from Biden’s new surveillance machine.

I call it “Asset Emancipation” – and it’s easy to do and understand.

If you choose to take advantage of it…

Asset Emancipation is a way to legally secure – and even GROW – your wealth…

While hiding it safely away from surveillance and control.

It’s a loophole designed to outsmart a new spyware currency…

While potentially increasing your personal wealth.

But you must know exactly how to do it.

And that’s what I’m going to show you today.

I must warn you – some of this will be difficult to watch.

But if you care about your money and your freedom, please do not turn away.

Thanks to what you’ll witness here…

You’re about to be much more prepared for the coming storm than your neighbors…

…and that’s a very powerful position to be in.

Imagine if you were German in 1923 and able to somehow avoid the 29,500% hyperinflation that made their money worthless…

Or if you could have “opted out” of Roosevelt’s confiscation of all private gold in 1934…

That’s the power of Asset Emancipation.

And I’ll show you everything right now.

Thanks to Section 4 of Biden’s Order 14067 ordering urgent research into developing the digital dollar…I believe the US dollar, the standard of the world since 1792…

…will be REPLACED by a new currency, the digital dollar.

These new electronic currencies are called CBDCs – or “central bank digital currencies”.

(I call the digital dollar “Biden Bucks” because I want him to take full credit for what I consider to be crimes.)

This is not like the money in your online bank account… No, this is new and different.

Every digital dollar will be a programmable token, like bitcoin or other crypto currencies.

But there’s a big difference…

Cryptocurrencies are decentralized digital currencies. Instead, if it plays out the way I see it…

Biden Bucks will have the full backing of the U.S. Federal Reserve.

They will REPLACE the cash (“fiat”) dollar we have now…

And will soon be the sole, MANDATORY currency of the United States.

When Biden Bucks are rolled out, many experts – myself included… …believe they will begin an era of total government control and surveillance.

This is not hyperbole.

This would dramatically expand the power and influence of the federal government… essentially acting as a new type of “spyware”.

With Biden Bucks, the government will be able to force you to comply with its agenda.

Because if you don’t, they could turn off your money.

This won’t be like freezing a bank account, it will be so much easier.

Because Biden Bucks will be “digital tokens” programmed at the source…

…they could be “turned on or off” at will, with just a keystroke.

And they could be reprogrammed at any time.

With Biden’s secret surveillance army running the show, the anti-freedom implications are almost limitless…

For example, Biden Bucks could be programmed to allow only certain kinds of purchases…

Imagine what this new world could look like…

You want to keep your internal combustion engine car?

Your digital dollars suddenly won’t pay for gas.

Instead, you can be forced to buy an electric vehicle…

That’s just the tip of the fascist iceberg…

They can force you to get vaccinated…
They can force you into solar…
They can force you to use less water or heat…
They can force you to eat fake, plant-based meat…
They can control where you are allowed to travel…
They can stop you purchasing certain items – like guns, ammo, or survival supplies.
They can control to which candidates you are allowed to donate.
And they’ll know every single place you ever spend money. Forever.
America would become a surveillance state.

Every single aspect of your life could be controlled…

Because they’ll control your money.

In fact, I fully expect them to implement a “social credit rating” like in China.

Say the “wrong” thing on social media…
Buy the “wrong” thing…
Subscribe to the “wrong” news channel…
Give money to the “wrong” candidate…
And your rating drops…

Suddenly, your Biden Bucks are frozen or disappearing from your account…

There, a low social score gets you officially labeled “untrustworthy”.

They can take away your ability to travel…
…restrict your internet access…
…deny your family the best schools or jobs…
They may even take away your pets.

I’m not kidding.

All of this is going on today.

Could this really happen in a democracy?

Just ask the truckers in Canada.

Because that’s exactly what happened to them.

Their Prime Minister Trudeau was granted “special emergency powers” during the peaceful trucker protests over his forced vaccination law…

He then ordered all banks to freeze the accounts of the protestors…

AND anyone who aided them in any way.

And it wasn’t just a threat… That fascist froze the bank accounts of non-violent protestors.

He locked up over $6 million in private accounts for protesting a forced vaccination law the truckers believed violated their sovereign human rights.

Think about that… They protested his policies…

So he took away their money.

Think our current government would love to do that?

Me too.

Under Biden Bucks, we’ll lose many of our God-given American rights.

They’ll be replaced by total government surveillance and control.

For almost all Americans, this will be the death of freedom.

Forever. Almost all Americans…

Not you.

You won’t be a victim.

You can beat Biden’s surveillance army at its own game.

The key is what I call “Asset Emancipation”.

Asset Emancipation was created to help you maintain and even grow your personal wealth…

…regardless of what happens to the cash dollar.

Even better…

It’s designed to legally hide your assets away from government surveillance…

And allow you to potentially profit from the turmoil.

For the record…

Asset Emancipation has nothing to do with giving up your passport or fleeing the country…

It also has nothing to do with offshore banks or foreign currency trading…

And you won’t hear about it from your financial advisor, because it’s almost certain…

…he has no clue about this loophole for legally “opting out” of the Biden Bucks surveillance program.

I’ll reveal everything in a moment, but I want to expose how deep this new conspiracy runs…

Programmable currencies will soon replace ALL the cash currencies on earth.

More than HALF of countries and almost 90% of central banks are exploring or testing a digital currency right now.

This includes Japan, Germany, India, France, the UK, Russia, Australia, Brazil, Canada, and China.

In fact, China’s new digital currency – the e-yuan – was used for millions of dollars’ worth of transactions at the Beijing Winter Olympics.

The Economist has announced the rise of government-backed digital currencies, warning they will “shift power from individuals to the state”.

Even an institution as conservative as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) admits these new currencies are “The future of money”.

Make no mistake…

No matter the outcome of any future elections…

This is happening.

The storm is closing in.

If my research and predictions are correct…

Soon, there will be no more cash.

The dollar we know will be dead and buried.

Replaced by programmable Biden Bucks.

The secret surveillance army has been working on this for years…

The U.S. Federal Reserve has been quietly partnering with scientists at MIT to develop a digital currency to replace the dollar.

They call this initiative Project Hamilton.

Then, this year, the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation, the clearinghouse for US stocks, bonds, and other security trades…

…quietly launched Project Lithium.

Project Lithium is testing how a digital dollar will work in the financial markets once the current dollar is dead.

Project Lithium is partnering with the Digital Dollar Project…

…a joint effort started in 2020 between Accenture, US regulators, and tech leaders to create the digital dollar…

Then, on March 29, 2022, just days after Biden’s Order 14067 was signed…

Representative Stephen F. Lynch introduced H.R. 7231, the Electronic Currency and Secure Hardware Act.

This act, co-sponsored by 4 other Democrats…

…ORDERS the Secretary of the Treasury to develop a digital dollar.

I believe we’ll see the first rollout of the new digital dollar – Biden Bucks – in 2023 or 2024.

And it’s right on schedule.

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Filed under: Canada, China, Russia, USA | Tagged: Biden's Foreign Policy, CIA, Digital Dollar Project, Fed, Justin Trudeau, Pentagon, Petrodollar, US Congress | Comments Off on Biden to Order US Dollar Replaced with Trackable “Spyware” Version?

Russia denies downing US Reaper, Pentagon declines disclosing if armed

Posted on March 15, 2023 by fada1

14 Mar 2023

Source: Agencies

By Al Mayadeen English

The US summons the Russian ambassador to Washington to protest the crash of a US MQ-9 drone into the Black Sea.

A US MQ-9 Reaper drone in Afghanistan, March 2016 *(Reuters)*

The Russian Defense Ministry denied US allegations and said its fighter jets did not come into contact with the US MQ-9 drone that crashed into the Black Sea earlier, pointing out that the drone crashed due to “sharp maneuvering”.

Earlier, the US European Command claimed that a Russian fighter jet dumped fuel on an American drone over the Black Sea and then collided with it, causing the drone to crash. The White House called the crash a result of “reckless” behavior by Russia.

“The Russian fighters did not use their onboard weapons, did not come into contact with the UAV and returned safely to their home airfield,” the Ministry confirmed.

The Russian Defense Ministry indicated that the US drone fell into the Black Sea on Tuesday morning due to its own sharp maneuvering, confirming that Russian fighters did not come into contact with it and did not use weapons.

“As a result of sharp maneuvering around 09:30 Moscow time [06:30 GMT], unmanned aerial vehicle MQ-9 went into an uncontrolled flight with a loss of altitude and collided with the water surface,” the Ministry said.

The Ministry clarified that on Tuesday morning, the airspace control of the Russian Aerospace Forces had recorded the flight of the US unmanned aerial vehicle MQ-9 over the Black Sea in the region of the Crimean peninsula in the direction of the Russian state border.

The flight of the drone “was carried out with transponders turned off, violating the boundaries of the area of the temporary regime for the use of airspace, established for the purpose of conducting a special military operation, communicated to all users of international airspace and published in accordance with international standards,” the statement read.

It added that Russian fighters from the air defense forces on duty were scrambled in order to identify the intruder.

US summons Russia ambassador over drone crash

Following the incident, the US summoned Russia’s Ambassador to protest the crash, the State Department confirmed.

“We are engaging directly with the Russians, again at senior levels, to convey our strong objections to this unsafe, unprofessional intercept, which caused the downing of the unmanned US aircraft,” State Department Spokesperson Ned Price told reporters.

Price said the Russian Ambassador in Washington has been convened at the State Department Tuesday afternoon and the American ambassador in Moscow registered a “strong objection” to the incident.

The spokesperson said the incident marked a clear violation of international law.

US had to crash drone in Black Sea after damage: Pentagon

On the other hand, the Pentagon claimed that the US military was forced to essentially crash its MQ-9 Reaper surveillance drone because of the damage caused when it was allegedly struck by a Russian jet.

“Because of the damage, we were in a position to have to essentially crash into the Black Sea,” Brigadier General Pat Ryder told reporters, adding that the drone was basically unflyable after the damage.

Ryder said Russia had not recovered the crashed drone at this point.

The Pentagon spokesperson declined to disclose whether the Reaper drone was armed, saying he is not “going to get into the specific profile of this particular aircraft. As you know the MQ-9 does have the ability to be armed.”

Austin not in contact with Shoigu over drone crash

Elsewhere, Ryder said that US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has not talked to Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu after the recent incident.

“In terms of Secretary Austin talking to his counterpart, not at this time,” Ryder said. “To my knowledge, DOD [Defense Department] officials have not spoken specifically to Russian authorities on this particular incident.”

Related Stories

Filed under: Russia, USA | Tagged: Black Sea, Crimea, Ned Price, Pentagon | Comments Off on Russia denies downing US Reaper, Pentagon declines disclosing if armed

Miseducated (Andrei Martyanov)

Posted on February 2, 2023 by fada1

February 01, 2023

Please visit Andrei’s website: https://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/ and support him here: https://www.patreon.com/bePatron?u=60459185

Colonel Macgregor and Judge Napolitano: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmIKB… Please subscribe and support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/martyanov Buy Me a Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/smoothiex12 Music by Anton Ovcharenko. My blog: https://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/

Filed under: American Elite, Russia, Ukraine, United Kingdom UK, US-led NATO Alliance | Tagged: Andrei Martyanov, Bakhmut/Artemovsk, Douglas Macgregor, Pentagon | Comments Off on Miseducated (Andrei Martyanov)

Russia: US Patriot systems in Ukraine would be legitimate targets

Posted on December 16, 2022 by martyrashrakat

December 15, 2022

Source: Agencies

By Al Mayadeen English

Russia warns the coveted missile-defense batteries would “definitely” be fair game if delivered to Ukraine by Washington.

The Kremlin sends a stark warning about US Patriot missile defense systems should the US authorize them to be delivered to Kiev.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that the US Patriot missile defense systems would “definitely” be a target for Russia.

This comes shortly after two United States officials and a senior administration official revealed that Pentagon is finalizing plans to send the Patriot missile defense system to Ukraine, which could be announced as soon as this week, US media outlets reported on Tuesday.

The plan needs to be approved by US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin before it is sent to President Joe Biden for his signature, with the three officials telling CNN that approval is expected.

For months, Kiev has been calling on Washington to send Patriot missiles, which are highly effective at intercepting ballistic and cruise missiles.

In late November, Pentagon Press Secretary Brigadier General Pat Ryder said the US has no plans “to provide Patriot batteries to Ukraine but again, we’ll continue to have those discussions.” The statement came on the same day that another senior Defense Department official stated that the United States is considering sending Patriot surface-to-air missiles to Ukraine.

Patriot would help secure airspace for NATO in eastern Europe

Should the plan be approved, the Patriot “would be the most effective long-range defensive weapons system sent to the country and officials say it will help secure airspace for NATO nations in eastern Europe,” according to CNN.

It pointed out that “it is not clear how many missile launchers will be sent but a typical Patriot battery includes a radar set that detects and tracks targets, computers, power generating equipment, an engagement control station, and up to eight launchers, each holding four ready-to-fire missiles.”

The media cited officials as saying that “once the plans are finalized, the Patriots are expected to ship quickly in the coming days and Ukrainians will be trained to use them at a US Army base in Grafenwoehr, Germany.”

On that note, the deployment of Patriots and any supporting NATO personnel to Ukraine has received considerable opposition from Moscow, with Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, saying that they would turn into “legitimate targets” for Russian forces.

Israel agrees to fund ‘strategic materials’ for Ukraine as US weapons supply shrinks: Report

Posted on November 19, 2022 by martyrashrakat

Tel Aviv is also allowing NATO members to supply Ukraine with weapons systems containing Israeli components, after the White House called on them to ‘team up’ with the west against Russia

November 18 2022

(Photo credit: Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters)

Desk-ByNews

Israel has allowed NATO member states to provide Ukraine with weapons that contain Israeli-made components and has funded the delivery of “strategic materials” to Kiev, under pressure from the White House, according to an exclusive report by Haaretz.

Citing three senior European diplomatic officials, the report alleges that several weeks ago, US officials pushed Israeli authorities to “team up with NATO and the west in the struggle against Russia.”

Specifically, Washington wanted Tel Aviv to supply Ukraine with anti-aircraft batteries, as the US is reportedly “running low” on some high-end weapons systems and ammunition to transfer to Kiev.

According to US officials that spoke with CNN, after nine months of funding hostilities, the Pentagon is seeing its stockpiles “dwindle.” As such, Washington redoubled its push to have its allies fill in the gaps, allowing the war machine to march forward undisturbed.

But after talks between US and Israeli officials, Tel Aviv instead agreed to fund the delivery of “strategic materials,” with the approval of outgoing Prime Minister Yair Lapid and Defense Minister Benny Gantz.

In order to do this, Israel transferred several million dollars to an unidentified NATO member state that is “deeply involved in supplying military equipment to Ukraine.”

The unnamed country used the Israeli funds to purchase the “strategic materials” for Ukraine, in a scheme reminiscent of Poland’s recent role as a middleman to acquire Israeli anti-drone systems for the Ukrainian military.

While Hareetz claims to have knowledge of what the “strategic materials” actually are, they have refused to identify them at the request of their anonymous sources, likely to prevent a retaliatory response from the Kremlin.

In addition, the Israeli defense ministry has reportedly “eased its guidelines and agreed that NATO members such as the UK could supply Ukraine with weapons systems containing Israeli components.”

Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky has repeatedly pleaded with Israel to supply his country with weapons, including the Iron Dome missile defense system. Israel – which depends on diplomatic ties with Moscow to illegally bomb Syria – has officially refused.

Russia has issued stern warnings to Israel against supplying weapons to Ukraine. But despite this, on several occasions, Tel Aviv has not only openly backed what Moscow calls the “neo-Nazis” in Ukraine, but many Israelis have flocked to join the Ukrainian army as mercenaries.

Filed under: "Israel", Poland, Russia, Ukraine, US-led NATO Alliance, USA | Tagged: Benny Gantz, CNN, Iron Dome, Pentagon, Ukro-nazis, Yair Lapid, Zelensky | Comments Off on Israel agrees to fund ‘strategic materials’ for Ukraine as US weapons supply shrinks: Report

Decoding the Pentagon’s online war against Iran

Posted on October 2, 2022 by Zara Ali

October 01 2022

From a click of a button in the US to violence on the streets of Tehran, the latest protests in Iran are being engineered and provoked from outside.

Source

By Kit Klarenburg

The civil unrest in Iran in response to the recent death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while she was waiting at a Tehran police station, although rooted in legitimate grievances, also bears the hallmark of a western-sponsored covert war, covering multiple fronts.

Mere days after the protests erupted on 16 September, the Washington Post revealed that the Pentagon had initiated a wide-ranging audit of all its online psyops efforts, after a number of bot and troll accounts operated by its Central Command (CENTCOM) division – which covers all US military actions in West Asia, North Africa and South and Central Asia – were exposed, and subsequently banned by major social networks and online spaces.

The accounts were busted in a joint investigation carried out by social media research firm Graphika, and the Stanford Internet Observatory, which evaluated “five years of pro-Western covert influence operations.”

Published in late August, it attracted minimal English-language press coverage at the time, but evidently was noticed, raising concerns at the highest levels of the US government, prompting the audit.

While the Washington Post ludicrously suggested the government’s umbrage stemmed from CENTCOM’s egregious, manipulative activities which could compromise US “values” and its “moral high ground,” it is abundantly clear that the real problem was CENTCOM being exposed.

#OpIran

CENTCOM’s geographical purview includes Iran, and given the Islamic Republic’s longstanding status as a key US enemy state, it’s perhaps unsurprising that a significant proportion of the unit’s online disinformation and psychological warfare efforts were directed there.

A key strategy employed by US military psyops specialists is the creation of multiple sham media outlets publishing content in Farsi. Numerous online channels were maintained for these platforms, spanning Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and even Telegram.

In some cases too, fake journalists and pundits, with numerous “followers” on those platforms emerged, along with profile photos created via artificial intelligence.

For example, Fahim News claimed to provide “accurate news and information” on events in Iran, prominently publishing posts declaring “the regime uses all of its efforts to censor and filter the internet,” and encouraging readers to stick to online sources as a result.

Meanwhile, Dariche News claimed to be an “independent website unaffiliated with any group or organization,” committed to providing “uncensored and unbiased news” to Iranians within and without the country, in particular information on “the destructive role of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in all the affairs and issues of Iran and the region.”

Their respective YouTube channels pumped out numerous short-form videos, presumably in the hope they would be mistaken for organic content, and go viral on other social networks. The researchers identified one instance in which media outlets elsewhere had embedded Dariche News content into articles.

An army of bots and trolls

Some of the fake news organizations published original material, but much of their output was recycled content from US government-funded propaganda outfits such as Radio Farda and Voice of America Farsi.

They also repurposed and shared articles from the British-based Iran International, which appears to receive arm’s length funding from Saudi Arabia, as did several fake personas attached to these outlets.

These personas frequently posted non-political content, including Iranian poetry and photos of Persian food, in order to increase their authenticity. They also engaged with real Iranians on Twitter, often joking with them about internet memes.

Pentagon bots and trolls used different narrative techniques and approaches in an attempt to influence perceptions and engender engagement. A handful promoted “hardliner” views, criticizing the Iranian government for insufficiently hawkish foreign policy while being excessively reformist and liberal domestically.

One such bogus user, a purported “political science expert,” accrued thousands of followers on Twitter and Telegram by posting content praising Shia Islam’s growing power in West Asia, while other “hardliner” accounts praised the late General Qassem Soleimani of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), slain in an illegal US drone strike in January 2020, as a martyr, and encouraged the wearing of hijabs.

The researchers state the purpose of these efforts was unclear, although an obvious explanation is the Pentagon sought to foster anti-government discontent among conservative Iranians, while creating lists of local “extremists” to monitor online.

Orchestrated opposition

Overwhelmingly though, Pentagon-linked accounts were viciously critical of the Iranian government, and the IRGC. Numerous Pentagon bots and trolls sought to blame food and medicine shortages on the latter, which was likened to ISIS, and posting videos of Iranians protesting and looting supermarkets captioned in Pashto, English, and Urdu.

More sober posts criticized Tehran for redistributing much-needed food to give to Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, while others highlighted embarrassing incidents, such as a reported power outage that caused the country’s chess team to lose an international online tournament.

Furthermore, multiple fake users claimed to seek “justice for the victims of #Flight752”, referring to the Ukraine International Airlines flight accidentally shot down by the IRGC in January 2020.

Using hashtags such as #PS752 and #PS752justice hundreds of times, they blamed Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei personally for the incident.

Following the outbreak of war in Ukraine in February, these accounts used Persian versions of widely-trending hashtags #No_To_Putin and #No_To_War – themselves overwhelmingly disseminated on Twitter by pro-Ukraine bot and troll accounts, according to separate research.

The users condemned Khamenei’s verbal support of Putin and accused Iran of supplying drones to Moscow, which it was claimed were used to kill civilians.

They also pushed the narrative that Iran’s collusion with Russia would result in adverse political and economic repercussions for Tehran, while making unflattering comparisons between Khamenei and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

“One has sold Iran to Russia and ordered their peoples’ murder,” one account tweeted. “The other is wearing a combat uniform alongside his people and has stopped the colonization of Ukraine by Russia with all his might.”

Scattershot fury

There were also cloak-and-dagger initiatives intended to damage Iran’s standing in neighboring countries, and undermine its regional influence. Much of this work seems to have been concerned with spreading panic and alarm, and creating a hostile environment for Iranians abroad.

For instance, accounts targeting audiences in Afghanistan claimed that Quds Force personnel were infiltrating Kabul posing as journalists in order to crush opposition to the Taliban. They also published articles from a US military-linked website that claimed on the basis of zero evidence that the bodies of dead refugees who’d fled to Iran were being returned to their families back home with missing organs.

Yet another damaging false narrative perpetuated by this cluster in late 2021 and early 2022 was that the IRGC was forcing Afghan refugees to join militias fighting in Syria and Yemen, and that those who refused were being deported.

Iraq was a country of particular interest to the Pentagon’s cyber warriors, with memes widely shared throughout Baghdad and beyond depicting IRGC influence in the country as a destructive disease, and content claiming Iraqi militias, and elements of the government, were effective tools of Tehran, fighting to further Iran’s imperial designs over the wider West Asia.

Militias were also accused of killing Iraqis in rocket strikes, engineering droughts by damaging water supply infrastructure, smuggling weapons and fuel out of Iraq and into Syria, and fuelling the country’s crystal meth epidemic.

Another cluster of Pentagon accounts focused on Iran’s involvement in Yemen, publishing content on major social networks critical of the Ansarallah-led de-facto government in Sanaa, accusing it of deliberately blocking humanitarian aid deliveries, acting as an unquestioning proxy of Tehran and Hezbollah, and closing bookstores, radio stations, and other cultural institutions.

Several of their posts blamed Iran for the deaths of civilians via landmine, on the basis Tehran may have supplied them.

Laying the ground

Other CENTCOM psychological warfare (psywar) narratives have direct relevance to the protests that have engulfed Iran.

There was a particular focus among one group of bots and trolls on women’s rights. Dozens of posts compared Iranian women’s opportunities abroad with those in Iran – one meme on this theme contrasted photos of an astronaut with a victim of violent spousal abuse – while others promoted protests against the hijab.

Alleged government corruption and rising living costs were also recurrently emphasized, particularly in respect of food and medicine – production of which in Iran is controlled by the IRGC, a fact CENTCOM’s online operatives repeatedly drew attention to.

Women’s rights, corruption, and the cost of living – the latter of which directly results from suffocating US sanctions – are all key stated motivating factors for the protesters.

Despite the rioters’ widespread acts of violence and vandalism, targeted at civilians and authorities alike, such as the destruction of an ambulance ferrying police officers away from the scene of a riot, they also claim to be motivated by human rights concerns.

Establishment and fringe journalists and pundits have dismissed as conspiracy theories, any suggestions that protests in Iran and beyond are anything other than organic and grassroots in nature.

Yet, clear proof of foreign direction and sponsorship abounds, not least in the very public face of the anti-hijab movement, Masih Alinejad, who for many years has encouraged Iranian women to ceremonially burn their headscarves from the confines of an FBI safehouse in New York City, then publicizes the images online, which travel round the world and back via social media and mainstream news outlets.

A regime-change war by other means

Alinejad’s activities have generated a vast amount of fawning and credulous media coverage, without a single journalist or outlet questioning whether her prominent role in the supposedly grassroots, locally-initiated protest movement is affiliated with foreign hostile interference.

This is despite Alinejad posing for photos with former CIA director Mike Pompeo, and receiving a staggering $628,000 in US federal government contracts since 2015.

Much of these funds flowed from the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the US government agency that oversees propaganda platforms such as Radio Free Europe, and Voice of America, the latter of which has produced a Farsi-language show fronted by Alinejad for seven years.

These clusters of social media posts may appear innocuous and authentic in an age of click-bait and viral fake news, yet when aggregated and analysed, they form a potent and potentially dangerous weapon which it turns out is one of many in the Pentagon’s regime-change arsenal.

Filed under: Iran, USA, War on Iran | Tagged: CENTCON, CIA Black Ops, Color Revolutions, GCC Media Lies, Mahsa Amini, Mainstream Media Lies, Media manipulation of the public mind., North Africa, Pentagon, regime change, Social Media Censorship, West Asia | Comments Off on Decoding the Pentagon’s online war against Iran

US Hypersonic Missile Test Fails

Posted on June 30, 2022 by uprootedpalestinians

June 30, 2022

By Staff, Agencies

Bloomberg reported that “An American hypersonic missile test flight ended in a failure in Hawaii on Wednesday.”

The US military department offered few details of what happened, stating only that “an anomaly occurred following ignition of the test asset.”

“While the Department was unable to collect data on the entirety of the planned flight profile, the information gathered from this event will provide vital insights,” Pentagon spokesman Navy Lieutenant Commander Tim Gorman was quoted as saying by the news agency.

The botched test was part of the Conventional Prompt Strike [CPS] program, under which Lockheed Martin is trying to develop weapons capable of flying at speeds of Mach 5 and above, for the use of submarines and surface ships.

It suffered another setback in October 2021, when a booster rocket failed to deliver its hypersonic glide vehicle during a test at the Pacific Spaceport Complex in Kodiak, Alaska. The booster was not part of the weapon system, defense officials stressed at the time.

Despite the failure of both tests, the Pentagon said it remains confident that it is on track to field offensive hypersonic capabilities in the early 2020s.

The US has been struggling to keep up with China and Russia in the development of hypersonic weapons. There have been a number of successful tests under various American programs, but the country is yet to have a modern system in service.

Filed under: China, Russia, USA | Tagged: Hypersonic weapons, New arms race, Pentagon, Russian hypersonic missiles | Comments Off on US Hypersonic Missile Test Fails

US soldier arrested over suspected base bombing in Syria

Posted on June 22, 2022 by martyrashrakat

June 22, 2022

Source: Agencies

By Al Mayadeen English

The US Air Force says that an Airman was taken into custody over suspected involvement in the attack that targeted a US military base in Deir-Ezzor.

US President Joe Biden’s administration acknowledges the deployment of around 900 troops in Syria

The Pentagon revealed that a US airman is currently in military custody for suspected involvement in an insider attack on a US base in Deir-Ezzor, in northeastern Syria earlier this year, as the suspect is expected to be charged in the coming weeks.

US Air Force Spokesperson Ann Stefanek announced the arrest on Tuesday and told CNN that the suspect – who has not been publicly identified – was placed in custody earlier this month.

“As part of an ongoing investigation, on June 16, an Airman was taken into custody stateside in conjunction with the attack in Green Village, Syria. After reviewing the information in the investigation, the Airman’s commander made the decision to place him in pretrial confinement,” the spokesperson indicated.

Initially, US officials thought that an April 7 attack on the US base came as a result of indirect artillery or rocket fire.

However, earlier this month, the Pentagon pointed out that the US service member was a “possible suspect”, noting that it found evidence of the “deliberate placement of explosive charges.”

CNN cited two officials as saying that the explosives used in the attack on the US base were “not insignificant”, while another official said the explosives were “military grade.”

Furthermore, the officials revealed that the attack took place in the middle of the night, and have got their hands on surveillance footage where they observed two instances of a figure moving quickly.

It is noteworthy that US President Joe Biden’s administration acknowledges the deployment of around 900 troops in Syria despite objections from the Syrian government.

The US for years has been backing the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), aiding in resource theft and US occupation in northeastern Syria for oil and gas.

Filed under: USA | Tagged: Deir Ezzor, Global war on Syria, Pentagon, Syrian Democratic Forces [SDF] | Comments Off on US soldier arrested over suspected base bombing in Syria

Russia Warned US Ahead of Airstrikes on Occupied Al-Tanf Base in Syria

Posted on June 18, 2022 by uprootedpalestinians

Since the start of the Ukraine war, Russia has been bolstering its military cooperation with Syria

June 17 2022

ByNews Desk

US officials revealed to CNN on 17 June that the Kremlin warned Washington before launching airstrikes against US-backed armed groups in southeastern Syria.

Earlier this week, an unidentified drone strike hit Al-Tanf base in southeastern Syria, which stretches for over 50 kilometers and is occupied by the US army.

The airstrikes targeted positions held inside Al-Tanf by fighters from the CIA-trained Maghawir al-Thawra (MaT) armed group, which seeks to overthrow the government in Damascus.

While no casualties were reported from the drone strike, an unnamed US official told CNN that the Russians achieved their goal of “sending a message” that the attack could be carried out without fear of retaliation.

After receiving the Kremlin warning, the Pentagon alerted the fighters to move their positions, according to the unnamed officials.

The drone attack came in response to a roadside bomb attack that MaT had carried out against Russian troops. It also marked the first time that Russian forces had attacked a US-occupied military base in Syria.

Al-Tanf base is one of the most strategic military garrisons for the US occupation in Syria. In addition to housing hundreds of troops, the base is also used to train armed groups waging war against the government of Syria.

Over recent months, Moscow has intensified its military cooperation with Damascus in an effort to help authorities regain full control of the country.

On 15 June, Vladimir Putin’s special envoy to Syria, Alexander Lavrentyev, said Moscow would “not turn a blind eye” to Turkish military incursions on Syrian soil.

Lavrentyev firmly stated that Russia would not abandon its allies in West Asia.

A day later, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad announced the beginning of the process for Syria to formally recognize Donetsk and Luhansk, the two republics in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine.

In an interview with Russia Today (RT) on 9 June, Al-Assad praised the repositioning of the Kremlin on the global scale, saying Russia has restored a much needed international balance.

“We can look at Russia from two angles: the angle of the ally who, if he wins a battle or if his political position on the world stage becomes stronger, is beneficial for us; and from another angle, Russia’s strength today constitutes a restoration of balance,” President Al-Assad said.

Filed under: Russia, Syria, Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, Turkey, Ukraine, USA | Tagged: Global war on Syria, Pentagon, The illegal US base in Syrian Al Tanf, US Proxy War on Syria | Comments Off on Russia Warned US Ahead of Airstrikes on Occupied Al-Tanf Base in Syria

US tested neuromodulators on socially vulnerable Ukrainians: Russia

Posted on June 17, 2022 by indigoblue76

16 Jun 2021

The Russian armed forces expose the atrocities of the US military biological programs in Ukraine and Cuba.

Source: Agencies

By Al Mayadeen English

The US administration acknowledged the financing of 46 Ukrainian biolabs

Igor Kirillov, the head of the radiation, chemical and biological defense of the Russian Armed Forces, revealed Thursday that employees of the laboratory in the village of Sorokovka in the Kharkov region tested highly active neuromodulators that caused irreversible damage to the central nervous system as part of the US military biological program in the region.

Sorokovka hosted a branch of the Merefa laboratory, built at the expense of the Pentagon, Kirillov said. In Merefa, laboratory staff performed experiments on patients from psychiatric clinics in Kharkov, he added.

“In accordance with the available information, highly active substances of neuromodulators were tested on socially vulnerable citizens of Ukraine, which caused, among other things, irreversible damage to the central nervous system. This is a clear violation of the norms of international treaties in the field of human rights,” Kirillov warned.

Experiments have been ongoing since 2011

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the laboratory in Sorokovka was listed as a company for the production of food additives, and with the start of the war in Ukraine, the equipment under the control of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) was taken to the western regions of Ukraine.

Kirillov mentioned that experiments on mentally ill people in Ukraine have been ongoing since at least 2011, adding that one of the curators, US citizen Linda Oporto Alharoun, has repeatedly visited the laboratory near Kharkov.

He recalled that earlier, the Russian Defense Ministry had reported that employees of the biological laboratory in Merefa, built with US funding, had conducted experiments on patients of psychiatric clinics in Kharkov in the period from 2019 to 2021. One of the organizers of this illegal activity was US citizen Alharoun.

US confirmed link between Pentagon & biolabs in Ukraine

The Russian official pointed out that the US had confirmed the connection between Pentagon and biolabs in Ukraine.

Kirillov told a briefing that “on June 9, the Pentagon website published an official statement on US biological activities in the post-Soviet space. In it, the US administration acknowledged the fact of financing 46 Ukrainian biological laboratories and the connection of the US Department of Defense with the Ukrainian Science and Technology Center.”

He also noted that Russia has documents proving the connection between the Ukrainian Defense Ministry and the US on biological laboratories.

Infectious diseases on the rise in Donbass due to biolabs

Kirillov underlined that infectious diseases have become more frequent in the Donbass region after Pentagon started funding Ukrainian biological programs in 2015.

“Infectious diseases have become more frequent among residents and military personnel of the LPR [Lugansk People’s Republic] and DPR [Donetsk People’s Republic] after the start of funding of Ukrainian biological programs by the Pentagon in 2015,” he said.

He also noted during the briefing that the incidence of tularemia in the DPR increased by 9.5 times in 2016 when compared to 2007.

Biolabs in Ukraine caused dengue outbreaks in Cuba

In the same context, the Russian official revealed that biological laboratories in Ukraine cultivated dengue mosquitoes that caused artificial outbreaks in Cuba during the 1970s and 1980s.

Kirillov considered that the history of the outbreaks induced in Cuba in the 70s and 80s of the last century is completely silenced, especially the use of Aedes mosquitoes as biological weapons – the same ones that the US military cultivated in Ukraine.

Filed under: Russia, Ukraine, USA | Tagged: Bioterroism, CUBA, Donbass, Donetsk, Dpr, Kharkiv, Lugansk, Pentagon, Russian Defense Ministry MOD, US-run biolabs in Ukraine | Comments Off on US tested neuromodulators on socially vulnerable Ukrainians: Russia

US, China Military Chiefs Trade Barbs at 1st Meeting

Posted on June 11, 2022 by martyrashrakat

June 11, 2022

By Staff, Agencies

US War Secretary Lloyd Austin has met with Chinese State Councilor and Minister of National Defense Wei Fenghe amid heightened tensions between the two countries over recent remarks regarding the Taipei regime.

US President Joe Biden stoked tensions when he said in May that Washington would defend Taipei if China were to attack the wayward island.

Two days later, China conducted a military drill near the island.

Speaking at the military leaders’ first face-to-face meeting on Friday on the sidelines of the annual Shangri-La Dialog in Singapore, Austin said that the “US remains committed to our longstanding one-China policy, which is guided by the Taiwan Relations Act, the Three US-China Joint Communiques, and the Six Assurances.”

According to a statement from the Pentagon, Austin also warned his Chinese counterpart that Beijing must “refrain from further destabilizing actions toward Taiwan.”

“The Secretary reaffirmed the importance of peace and stability across the Strait, opposition to unilateral changes to the status quo, and called on the PRC [People’s Republic of China] to refrain from further destabilizing actions toward Taiwan,” according to the statement.

A US military official present at the meeting told CNN that Austin warned his Chinese counterpart that the People’s Liberation Army had become increasingly aggressive, unsafe, and unprofessional in the region.

“Secretary Austin also raised concerns about … statements by PLA officials that the Taiwan Strait is not international waters. [People’s Republic of China] officials have said that multiple times to the United States over the last several months and that’s deeply concerning,” the US official said. Austin also asked his Chinese counterpart not to provide any material support to Russia, the official added. In China’s post-meeting press conference, Senior Col. Wu Qian insisted China had not provided Russia with material support. “China did not provide military assistance to Russia. That is for sure.” However, Wu described the meeting, which last nearly an hour, almost twice as long as planned, as having a “good effect.” It was “candid’ but “positive and constructive,” he pointed out. Chinese leaders have repeatedly warned the United States’ officials that Taiwan is an inseparable part of the mainland, and Beijing will not hesitate to start a war over the region.

Filed under: China, Russia, Taiwan, US Foreign Policy, USA | Tagged: Pentagon, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin | Comments Off on US, China Military Chiefs Trade Barbs at 1st Meeting

China Could Starve US Military-Industrial Complex of Ability to Build Weapons with One Move

Posted on June 6, 2022 by uprootedpalestinians

JUNE 5, 2022

Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360°

TEHRAN (FNA)- China’s control of nearly 90 percent of the world’s supply of rare earth minerals threatens to ground US military aircraft, halt American tanks in their tracks, prevent the country’s most advanced surface-to-air missiles from taking flight, and stop troops from communicating using their portable radios, according to a report.

Congress and the Pentagon are aware of the issue and want throw cash at the problem to solve it, according to a Fox News report.

Late last month, lawmakers on the House Armed Services Committee asked for a special fund in the fiscal 2023 defence budget for rare earth minerals. The Pentagon itself is seeking a $253.5 million cash injection for the procurement of strategic minerals, including titanium, tungsten, and cobalt.

Senate Armed Services Committee lawmakers have put together their own bill, dubbed the REEShore Act, seeking both cash for minerals and government incentives to mine them in the USA.

The bipartisan REEShore Act bill was cosponsored by Republican Tom Cotton and Democrat Mark Kelly, with Kelly, a retired astronaut, claiming he could actually see the impact of China’s rare earths mineral mining while flying in space.

“I’ve flown in space over China many times, orbited this planet hundreds of times. You look down over China and you see like what looks like lakes of very strange colours. And it’s because that they’re processing of things like rare earth metals. It’s a very dirty process”, Kelly told Fox.

Cotton warned that the Pentagon’s existing rare earths stockpiles would last “under a year” if China cut off supplies.

Ronald Reagan Institute director Roger Zakheim complained that the US had effectively “given” China its monopoly in this area.

“We’ve essentially ceded it to China and that impacts everything from our F-35 fighter aircraft to the phones that we use every day in our lives,” he said.

The US was a global leader in rare earths production and processing for most of the 20th century, but ceded its position to China in the 1980s, with the PRC now controlling the vast majority of the market thanks to tightened US environmental regulations, globalisation, and warming US-China ties in the 1990s and 2000s.

Amid the slow souring of relations starting in the mid-late 2010s, US officials and media began complaining about China’s dominance in rare earth minerals, with the issue brought up repeatedly during Washington’s trade wars with Beijing during Donald Trump’s presidency. Over the past three years, US officials and the Pentagon have announced a series of plans to diversify rare earths production and processing to Africa, Australia, and even the UK.

The danger of a Chinese cutoff of US access to strategic minerals has garnered fresh attention under the Joe Biden administration amid the heating up of tensions over a broad range of issues, from US commitments to Taiwan and the challenging of Chinese claims in the South China Sea to Beijing’s diplomatic support for Russia in the Ukraine crisis and unsettled trade and technology disputes.

Chinese industry experts have dismissed the US’ ability to quickly or easily replace the Asian nation’s rare earths, with Renmin University of China researcher Chen Xiaoqin telling Sputnik in 2019 that if the Americans could find an alternative to Chinese supplies, they would have done so a long time ago.

Drew Horn, a former US Army Green Beret-turned-founder of GreenMet, a US hedge fund investing in securing strategic rare earth minerals, told Fox it would take a tremendous amount of effort for the US to challenge China’s hegemony in this sector.

“It’s incredibly difficult to synchronise and bring all of it together in a way that actually moves the needle. Because what you’re talking about is essentially creating a vertically aligned supply chain that now only exists in China,” he complained.

Filed under: China, USA | Tagged: Pentagon, Rare earth minerals, The US Military Industrial Complex (MIC) | Comments Off on China Could Starve US Military-Industrial Complex of Ability to Build Weapons with One Move

Russian MoD: Briefing on the results of the analysis of documents related to the military biological activities of the United States on the territory of Ukraine

Posted on May 29, 2022 by martyrashrakat

May 28, 2022

The Russian Defence Ministry continues to study materials on the implementation of military biological programs of the United States and its NATO allies on the territory of Ukraine.

Under the Convention on the Prohibition of Biological and Toxin Weapons, each State Party submits an annual report in the form of a declaration of compliance with the requirements of the convention. It is currently the only reporting document on the implementation of the Convention in the framework of the Confidence Building Measures.

Due to the investigation of US military and biological activities on the territory of Ukraine, we have analysed the documents sent by these states to the UN.

It should be noted that neither Ukraine nor the United States provided information on cooperative biological research and development in the area of biological protection in the said submissions (in Form A, Part 2 “i”). Also, Poland and Germany have not declared engagement with Ukraine in their reports.

In addition, in these reports (Form F) for the period from 2016 to 2020, Ukraine states that: “The Government of Ukraine has not conducted and is not conducting any offensive or defensive activities in the framework of biological research and development programmes. The Government of Ukraine does not have any information on such activities of the former USSR on the territory of Ukraine since January 1, 1946”.

This contradicts a May 20, 2022 statement by Lewis Gitter, U.S. Deputy Permanent Representative to the OSCE, that assistance to Kiev is aimed at “…reducing biological and veterinary risks, as well as securing the illegal stockpiles of biological weapons left behind by the USSR…”.

In addition, there are numerous inconsistencies in Ukraine’s reporting. Thus, the Confidence Building Measures form A for 2020 declares the complete absence of national biosecurity programmes. The Research Institute of Microbial Strain Biotechnology in Kiev, as a participant in the biological defence programme, is listed in part 2 “i” of this form.

In addition, the characteristics of the facility (area of laboratory facilities, number of staff) do not match the information previously submitted by Ukraine.

The question arises: Why did the US and Ukraine’s reporting documents to the UN not include work under the joint military-biological projects codenamed UP? Such secrecy is another reason to think about the true goals of the Pentagon in Ukraine.

The official documents before you confirm that the Pentagon, represented by the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), is organising work with a clear military-biological focus.

Note the memorandum prepared by the Office of the US Secretary of Defense regarding the UP-2 project to map highly dangerous pathogens in Ukraine.

The document notes that the main objective of this project is to collect information on the molecular composition of pathogens specific to Ukraine and to transfer samples of strains.

Separately, it is emphasised that this work should be in line with the main guidelines for the Ukraine Cooperative Threat Reduction Programme on Preventing the Spread of Biological Weapons on November 29, 2005.

A similar memorandum was prepared as part of the UP-1 project to study rickettsia and other diseases spread by arthropods. The document notes the need to transfer all collections of highly dangerous pathogens to a central reference laboratory in order to facilitate their orderly export to the USA.

As part of the Cooperative Threat Reduction Programme, an extensive UP-4 project was carried out to investigate the possibility of spreading highly dangerous infections through migratory birds. Documents received show that 991 biological samples were collected between November 2019 and January 2020 alone.

A total of ten such projects (including UP-3, UP-6, UP-8, UP-10) have been reported to have involved work with pathogens of particularly dangerous and economically important infections – Congo-Crimean fever, leptospirosis, tick-borne encephalitis and African swine fever.

Today, we would also like to draw attention to the numerous breaches of safety requirements in Ukrainian laboratories.

For example, work with dangerous pathogens under Pentagon control in Kharkov, Kiev and a number of other cities was carried out in laboratories with insufficient staff protection. However, according to official data, only three laboratories with a BSL-3 biosafety level are authorised to conduct such tests. These are the Odessa Anti-Plague Institute, the Lvov Research Institute of Epidemiology and Hygiene and the Public Health Centre in Kiev.

The Security Service of Ukraine noted the preconditions for the emergence of biological threats due to systematic violations and poor quality of work in the reconstruction of biolaboratories.

Black & Veatch, for example, declared that it spent UAH 37.8m on upgrading three veterinary laboratories in 2013. An independent expert review found that the actual cost of the work was overstated compared to the reported costs by UAH 17.7 millions.

This difference was reportedly sent to the accounts of fictitious companies such as Golden Ukraine, BK Profbudinvest and Capital Trade Agency, which further confirms the use of “grey” financial schemes in the personal interests of US and Ukrainian officials.

It is noteworthy that the US handlers demanded that the reference laboratory in Merefa be given a higher level of biosecurity. The Kharkovproject organisation said that this was not possible under the prevailing conditions and refused to approve the project. However, the regional administration decided to go ahead with the reconstruction. The facility was commissioned in circumvention of biosafety regulations and requirements. In doing so, the Pentagon’s total cost for its modernisation was around $15 million. But where the funds really went is unknown.

Note the report of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine on the results of an inspection of the strain collection of the Ukrainian anti-plague institute in Odessa, which totalled 654 samples. There were 32 strains of anthrax, 189 of tularemia, 11 of brucellosis and 422 of cholera in storage at the facility.

The report shows gross violations of storage conditions for micro-organisms, lack of access control and management systems and inadequate ventilation systems.

In April 2017, there was a case of internal laboratory infection with tick-borne encephalitis in one of the institute’s laboratories as a result of a safety violation.

According to eyewitness accounts of an incident that took place in 2021, an employee of a biolaboratory removed several vials containing dangerous microorganisms from the institution’s premises. The consequences of such cases can only be guessed at.

It should be noted that all violations occurred during the period of the US bio-threat reduction programme. This demonstrates that Washington’s officially declared goals are merely a screen for the implementation of illegal military-biological activities in Ukraine.

The neglect of pathogens, the unprofessionalism and corruption of the executive branch, and the destructive influence of US handlers pose a direct threat to Ukrainian and European civilians.

Russian Defence Ministry experts have confirmed that Ukrainian biolaboratories are connected to the global communicable disease surveillance system.

The backbone of this network, which has been formed by the Pentagon since 1997, is the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (Maryland). It includes land and naval laboratories as well as military bases around the world.

It should be noted that the deployment of such a network follows a typical scenario.

The Americans are initially concerned about the state of the epidemic in the region. The next step is to ensure that officials, particularly those in the health ministries, have an interest and a financial incentive to work together, and to enter into intergovernmental agreements. As a result, a biocontainment facility is erected and connected to the single biomonitoring system. All of the country’s biological developments become the US domain. Moreover, restrictions are placed on local professionals’ access to a range of tests, as well as on their results.

Meanwhile, the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) is actively implementing automated disease monitoring hardware and software, as well as systems to control access and movement of pathogenic biological agents in storage and research facilities.

Equipping biological facilities with these information systems as part of the Biological Threat Reduction Program allows the U.S. to secure its military contingents in deployment areas, remotely monitor biolaboratories outside national jurisdiction and influence the global biological environment.

As part of the special military operation, materials of US instructors training Ukrainian specialists in emergency response to smallpox outbreaks were discovered in biolaboratories in Ukraine.

The Pentagon’s interest in this infection is far from accidental: the return of the smallpox pathogen would be a global catastrophe for all mankind.

Thus, compared to COVID-19, this pathogen is just as contagious (infectious), but its lethality is 10 times higher.

As early as 2003, the US Department of Defense established the Smallpox Vaccination Programme, which requires all US military personnel to be vaccinated. Vaccination in the United States is compulsory for diplomatic and medical personnel. This demonstrates that the US considers smallpox as a priority pathogenic biological agent for combat use, and that vaccine prophylaxis activities are aimed at protecting its own military contingents.

Lack of proper controls and biosecurity breaches in the US could lead to the use of this pathogen for terrorist purposes. Between 2014 and 2021, unaccounted-for vials of the virus were repeatedly found in laboratories at the Federal Drug Administration and the US Army Infectious Disease Research Institute (Maryland) and the Vaccine Research Centre (Pennsylvania).

Work at these organisations was in violation of World Health Assembly Resolution 49.10 of 1996, which stipulated that only one US laboratory, the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, could store smallpox pathogen.

It should be noted that smallpox vaccination, which is not currently available in many countries, provides protection against monkeypox.

The World Health Organization has announced an emergency meeting of Member States on the outbreak of this dangerous infectious disease in May 2022.

We know that by now 98% of those affected are men over the age of 20 of non-traditional orientation. Earlier, Dr David Hermann, who heads WHO’s emergency department, told the American press that sexual transmission was the main cause of the spread of the disease.

According to a WHO report, the West African strain of monkeypox originated in Nigeria, another state in which the US has deployed its biological infrastructure.

According to available information, there are at least four Washington-controlled biolaboratories operating in Nigeria.

In this connection, it is worth recalling a strange coincidence that needs further specialist verification. For example, according to European and US media reports, the Munich Security Conference 2021, i.e. against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, was a scenario for dealing with an outbreak caused by a new strain of the monkeypox virus.

Against the backdrop of multiple US biosafety violations and the negligent storage of pathogenic biomaterials, we call on the World Health Organisation leadership to investigate the US-funded Nigerian laboratories in Abuja, Zaria, Lagos and inform the global community of the results.

Filed under: Nigeria, Russia, Ukraine, UN, US-led NATO Alliance, USA, USSR | Tagged: Bioweapon, FDA, Kharkiv, Pentagon, Russian Defense Ministry MOD, US-run biolabs in Ukraine, World Health Organization -WHO | Comments Off on Russian MoD: Briefing on the results of the analysis of documents related to the military biological activities of the United States on the territory of Ukraine

Who is the end user of the US weapons sent to Ukraine?

Posted on May 28, 2022 by uprootedpalestinians

26 May 2022

Source: Al Mayadeen

Joe Joubran

A detailed look into the deliveries of US armaments and weapons shipments to Ukraine.

The US has few ways to track the substantial supply of anti-tank, anti-aircraft, and other weaponry it has sent across the border into Ukraine

Introduction

The U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said that the U.S. wants Russia’s military capability weakened so that it cannot carry out another invasion (April 25, 2022). So the U.S. is arming Ukraine against Russia.

The Biden administration sees the transfer of hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of equipment to be vital to the Ukrainians’ ability to hold off Moscow’s invasion. But the risk is that some of the shipments may ultimately end up in unexpected places.

The decision of the given short-term needs of Ukrainian forces for more arms and ammunition will lead to the long-term risk of weapons ending up on the black market or in the wrong hands was accepted.

Usually, the U.S. military has a great concern about the end-user of the US made weapons and equipment. They have specialized teams to track these weapons and equipment in almost all countries (except North Korea).

This strict rule does not much apply in the case of Ukraine, where there is a great risk. This conscious risk is up to the Biden administration to take.

1- The goal

The goal now is what Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin called a “weakened” Russia, one that won’t be able in the future to “do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine.”

But first, the supplies of weaponry, notably long-range artillery, have to be delivered, and the Ukrainians have to be trained to use new Western systems, a process that is underway but will take time.

The United States and its allies are speeding up the deliveries. But transferring them from Eastern Europe into Ukraine is going to require an unprecedented logistical effort at a time when the main supply lines are increasingly being targeted by Russian missiles.

Figure 3: S-300 missile
Figure 1: Javelin missile
Figure 2: Stinger missile
Figure 3: S-300 missile
Figure 1: Javelin missile
Figure 2: Stinger missile
Figure 3: S-300 missile

2- The Russian Threat

U.S. Officials are less concerned that the weapons may fall into the hands of the Russians.

A source familiar with the US intelligence said that it does not appear that Russia has been actively attacking western weapons shipments entering Ukraine – although it is unclear exactly why especially since the US has intelligence information that the Russians want to and have discussed doing so both publicly and privately.

There are a number of theories for why the shipments have so far been spared, including that Russian forces simply can’t find them – the weapons and equipment are being sent over in unmarked vehicles and often transported at night.

It could also be that the Russian forces are running out of munitions and don’t want to waste them targeting random trucks unless they can be certain they are part of an arms convoy.

In general, Russia doesn’t have perfect intelligence visibility into Ukraine, and their air capabilities over western Ukraine, where the shipments are coming in, are extremely limited because of Ukrainian air defense systems.

The Pentagon says it has not yet seen Russian attempts to interrupt the weapons transfers or the shipments moving inside Ukraine.

3- Tracking the supplies

The US has few ways to track the substantial supply of anti-tank, anti-aircraft, and other weaponry it has sent across the border into Ukraine, a blind spot that’s due in large part to the lack of US military on the ground in the country – and the easy portability of many of the smaller systems now pouring across the border.

Both current US officials and defense analysts say that the risk is in the long term, because some of those weapons may wind up in the hands of other militaries and militias that the US did not intend to arm.

US intelligence sources have fidelity for a short time, but when it enters the fog of war, they have almost zero. “It drops into a big black hole, and you have almost no sense of it at all after a short period of time.”

In making the decision to send billions of dollars of weapons and equipment into Ukraine, the Biden administration factored in the risk that some of the shipments may ultimately end up in unexpected places.

4- The American politics

The Biden administration is giving new, heavier weapons to Ukraine because the US military is not on the ground, and the US and NATO are heavily reliant on information provided by Ukraine’s government.

Ukraine has an incentive to give only information that will strengthen its case for more aid, more arms, and more diplomatic assistance.

Top of Form

The US and western officials have offered detailed accounts of what the West knows about the status of Russian forces inside Ukraine: how many casualties they’ve taken, their remaining combat power, their weapons stocks, what kinds of munitions they are using, and where.

But when it comes to Ukrainian forces, officials acknowledge that the West – including the US – has some information gaps. Western estimates of Ukrainian casualties are also not accurate, according to some sources familiar with US and western intelligence. “It’s hard to track with nobody on the ground”.

5- The risk

Recently, the US agreed to provide Kyiv with the types of high-power capabilities some Biden administration officials viewed as too much of an escalation risk, including 11 Mi-17 helicopters, 18 155 mm Howitzer cannons, and 300 more Switchblade drones.

a- Where weapons are used

The U.S. Defense Department couldn’t track the weapons sent for particular units, according to Pentagon press secretary John Kirby.

Trucks loaded with pallets of arms provided by the Defense Department are picked up by Ukrainian armed forces – primarily in Poland – and then driven into Ukraine, “then it’s up to the Ukrainians to determine where they go and how they’re allocated inside their country.”

b- Monitoring Tools

A congressional source said that while the US is not on the ground in Ukraine, It has tools to learn what’s happening, noting that the US has extensive use of satellite imagery and both the Ukrainian and Russian militaries appear to be using commercial communications equipment.

The US military views the information it’s receiving from Ukraine as generally reliable because the US has trained and equipped the Ukrainian military for years, developing strong relationships. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t some blind spots, such as on issues like the operational status of Ukraine’s S-300s.

Conclusion

Finally, the western supply to Ukraine is certainly the largest supply to a partner country in a conflict. The Biden administration and NATO countries say they are providing weapons to Ukraine based on what the Ukrainian forces say they need, whether it’s portable systems like Javelin and Stinger missiles or the Slovakian S-300 air defense system.

Javelin and Stinger missiles and rifles and ammunition are naturally harder to track than larger systems like the S-300. Although Javelins have serial numbers, there is little way to track their transfer and use.

The biggest danger surrounding the flood of weapons being funneled into Ukraine is what happens to them when the war ends. Such a risk is part of any consideration to send weapons overseas.

For years, the US sent arms into Afghanistan, first to arm the “mujahidin” in their fight against the Soviet army, then to arm Afghan forces in their fight against the Taliban.

Some weapons ended up on the black market including anti-aircraft Stinger missiles, the same kind the US is now providing to Ukraine. Some US officials feared that they could be used by the Taliban against the United States.

Other weapons have ended up arming US adversaries. Much of what the US left behind to help Afghan forces became part of the Taliban arsenal after the collapse of the Afghan government and military. The problem is not unique to Afghanistan. Weapons sold to other countries found their way into the hands of terrorists. The risk of a similar scenario happening in Ukraine also exists.

In the Defense Department, there are raising concerns about the end-use monitoring of weapons being sent to Ukraine.

The opinions mentioned in this article do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Al mayadeen, but rather express the opinion of its writer exclusively.