We maintain and continue this committee of correspondence in memory of our founder and mentor, Colonel W. Patrick Lang. The image to the right is Marcus, a character from William S. Burroughs’s “The Coming of the Purple Better One.” Colonel Lang would refer to Marcus sometimes in clever jest, sometimes in biting social commentary and sometimes simply because he liked Marcus. May everyone who corresponds here do so in a similar spirit.
Essential Writings on History, War, Religion and Strategy
From the Introduction:
“In the aftermath of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Col. Lang created his own blog which to this day still serves as a committee of correspondence for a large network of former military and intelligence officers, diplomats, and scholars of international affairs.
Since its launch in 2005, the Turcopolier website has had over 40 million unique visits.
Since leaving the government, he has also authored five books, including a Civil War espionage trilogy, a memoir of his years in government service, and a primer on human intelligence.
This present volume—his sixth book—is an anthology of some of his most important writings. The content speaks for itself. So have at it.”
SpaceX’s Starship megarocket will start flying Mars missions just two years from now, if all goes according to plan. “These will be uncrewed to test the reliability of landing intact on Mars. If those landings go well, then the first crewed flights to Mars will be in 4 years,” SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk said via X on Saturday evening (Sept. 7), in a post that announced the bold new target timelines. (Earth and Mars align properly for interplanetary missions once every 26 months.)
“Flight rate will grow exponentially from there, with the goal of building a self-sustaining city in about 20 years,” Musk added in the same post. “Being multiplanetary will vastly increase the probable lifespan of consciousness, as we will no longer have all our eggs, literally and metabolically, on one planet.” Starship isn’t fully up and running yet. It has flown four test missions to date — in April and November of 2023 and March and June of this year. The giant vehicle has performed better on each successive flight, notching all of its major objectives on the most recent mission.
SpaceX is currently gearing up for Starship’s fifth flight, which could take place quite soon; the company has already performed test-fires with the Super Heavy and the Starship that will fly the mission. Flight five will feature some new and dramatic action — the first attempt to land Super Heavy back on the launch mount, an operation that will involve the use of the launch tower’s “chopstick” arms. As Musk often says about Starship flights, excitement is guaranteed.
https://www.space.com/spacex-starship-mars-launches-2026-elon-musk
Comment: This was a bold prediction even by Elon’s standards. Based on current progress with Starship and the amount of work needed to be done, I doubt Spacex will be able to meet that schedule, but it’s one hell of a motivating challenge to everyone involved in the project. I see it as something similar to Kennedy’s call to put a man on the Moon before the end of the decade.
In more SpaceX news, Polaris Dawn successfully launched earlier today. Keith Harbaugh provided a good space.com link on this mission. Even though this is a Crew Dragon mission, this private mission to the Van Allen Radiation Belts will contribute to the goal of reaching Mars with the Starship.
https://www.space.com/spacex-polaris-dawn-astronaut-mission-launch-success
https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/10/science/polaris-dawn-mission-spacex-launch/index.html
The Kremlin signaled its commitment to establish full control over the Russian information space in the future and will likely reattempt to deanonymize Russian social media and Telegram channels even though Roskomnadzor withdrew its recently proposed regulations for now. Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov stated on September 5 that censorship is justified during periods of war and implied that freedom of information would return in peacetime. Peskov also added that Russian media outlets often compete with international media for Russian domestic audiences and argued that Russian content and technological means should not lag in such a “tough” information environment. The Kremlin passed a law in 2014 that tasked Roskomnadzor with creating a registry of all social media users with an audience of over 3,000 people, but Roskomnadzor stopped updating this registry by 2017 and instead created a list of “information dissemination organizers.” These “information dissemination organizers” include social media platforms and websites that were visited by more than 500,000 Russian users per day such as Yandex, VK, HeadHunter, and @iwi. Roskomnadzor’s recent reversal is not indicative of a permanent policy shift, as the Kremlin has passed laws and regulations that Russian milbloggers have vocally opposed before. The Kremlin recently passed laws that Russian milbloggers avidly scrutinized in the past, such as banning the use of personal cell phone devices on the frontlines in Ukraine, for example.
The Kremlin continues to appoint Russian Presidential Administration Deputy Head Sergei Kiriyenko to positions overseeing Russia’s informational efforts as part of efforts aimed at shaping Russian identity and ideology. Russian President Vladimir Putin created the “Rossiya” National Center in Moscow on July 1 to preserve the “Rossiya” (“Russia”) Exhibition and Forum that ran from November 2023 to July 2024 Putin signed a decree on September 6 creating an organizing committee for the “Rossiya” National Center, which will “demonstrate [Russia’s] achievements, strengthen national identity,.. create a sense of pride for the country, [and] develop the professional skills of children and youth.” Putin appointed Kiriyenko as the chairperson of the center’s organizing committee, which will plan the center’s activities, propose events that include representatives of foreign governments, and assist Russian media with their coverage of the center’s events. Kiriyenko has a prominent role overseeing multiple Kremlin information operations targeting Russian, Ukrainian, and Western information spaces, and his appointment to supervise the development of the center suggests that the center will play a role in shaping domestic and foreign perceptions of Russia. The “Rossiya” National Center will likely continue these informational efforts to legitimize Russia’s illegal annexation of Ukrainian territories and to promote Russia’s justification of its war against Ukraine. The eight-month-long “Rossiya” exhibition forum featured exhibits claiming that Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia, and Kherson oblasts are part of Russia. The Kremlin has recently appeared to be taking steps to codify a Russian state ideology while bypassing the Russian Constitution, which forbids Russia from establishing a state ideology, by vaguely defining Russia’s “traditional values,” and the “Rossiya” National Center’s emphasis on Russia’s “national identity” will likely further these Kremlin ideological efforts.
https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-september-6-2024
Comment: These two paragraphs from ISW show the other side of Russia’s “information confrontation” activities. Even in the old Soviet literature on the subject, the minds of the Kremlin’s own population was just as important a target as the minds of the enemy, both to protect from adversary influence operations and to shape through active influence operations.
Beyond the discovering, publicizing and prosecuting of foreign influence operations, we do little that resembles this Soviet, now Russian, approach. I say little, but not nothing. Look at the efforts we went to immediately after 9/11 to rally the US population. Although much, but not all of it formed organically. Our teaching of history and, often neglected, civics are efforts to shape our identity and ideology. But all that is mostly at the state and local level. I don’t know if the Department of Education has much to say about that. Many argue that the pushing of DEI and woke ideology is shaping our identity and ideology the wrong way. But that’s the beauty of our system. We, not outsiders, are free to vociferously argue this.
TTG
https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/06/18/russia-growing-internet-isolation-control-censorship
Federal officials have accused Russia of using unwitting right-wing American influencers in its quest to spread Kremlin propaganda ahead of the 2024 presidential election. On Wednesday, the Justice Department charged two employees of RT, the Russian state media broadcaster, in a scheme to secretly fund and direct the production of social media videos that racked up millions of views.
The RT staffers, named in the indictment as Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva, have been charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act. They’re accused of funneling nearly $10 million to an unnamed Tennessee company that contracted with online influencers with big audiences. “The company never disclosed to the influencers or to their millions of followers its ties to RT and the Russian government,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said on Wednesday.
Details in the indictment match Nashville, Tennessee-based Tenet Media, including its website description: “a network of heterodox commentators that focus on Western political and cultural issues.” Tenet was founded in 2022 by Lauren Chen, a conservative Canadian YouTuber, and her husband, Liam Donovan, whose X profile describes him as president of Tenet Media. Chen hosts a show on Glenn Beck’s BlazeTV and is a contributor to right-wing activist group Turning Point USA. She wrote opinion pieces for RT in 2021 and 2022.
According to the indictment, the Tennessee company’s founders worked with Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva — who they knew were Russian — to recruit influencers to make videos that were published across YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and X. The indictment says its nearly 2,000 YouTube videos amassed more than 16 million views, which tracks with public statistics on Tenet Media’s YouTube channel. Chen and Donovan didn’t respond to requests for comment.
The charges against Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva come as U.S. intelligence officials say foreign efforts aimed at swaying the outcome of the election are escalating. On Wednesday, the government seized 32 internet domains connected to a separate Russian influence operation, while Iran has recently been accused of trying to hack both the Republican and Democratic presidential campaigns.
What sets the RT operation apart from many other interference efforts is that it appeared to reach a real audience, thanks to the recognizable names attached. “Buying authentic influencers is a far better use of funds than creating fake personas, because they bring their own trusting audiences and are actually, you know, real,” wrote Renée DiResta, the author of Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies Into Reality, about how online influencers spread propaganda and rumors, in a post on Threads.
https://www.npr.org/2024/09/05/nx-s1-5100829/russia-election-influencers-youtube
Comment: Rather than just relying on bogus accounts and bogus personas to further their influence operations, this indictment details efforts to use real social media influencers to assist those efforts. It’s an ingenious plan, but nothing new. US propaganda efforts have inserted content to target audiences through foreign reporters for decades. This plan just moved this technique into the social media era and supercharged it. I’m still impressed. As i said back in 2016, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, you magnificent bastard, I salute you. The co-founders of Tenet Media probably knew exactly what as going on. The influencers could have been fellow travelers, but were most likely useful idiots. They were paid $100,000 a week to say what they pretty much were saying all along and produce some videos. The RT project kept them moving in the right direction, suggested guidance as to the content produced and amplified that content with $10 million dollars. That indictment is linked below.
In a second DOJ action, 32 internet domains established and used by the Russian government to further its influence operations worldwide were seized. This Russian operation was codenamed Doppelganger. I’ve done such infrastructure building in support of my own intelligence collection operations. It’s a lot of hard work. I could actually give the Rooskies some pointers on how to do this more securely, but I won’t. The linked affidavit in support of seizure warrant details the methods used to establish these domains, the people involved reaching up to the Russian Presidential Administration, as well as the planned activities and objectives of Doppelganger.
I first wrote of the Russian concept of reflexive control and Russian influence operations in the 2016 election back in December 2016. That led to one hell of a discussion on the old Sic Semper Tyrannis site. Some refused to believe that Russia would engage in such things. Subsequent open source studies, bipartisan Congressional investigations, the DOJ indictments of the ISA and the GRU 12, along with several others since then, have shown that Russia did and does engage in a sophisticated, clandestine influence operation, but it’s effectiveness is still a mystery. However, many nations, most politicians and businesses of all sizes continue to engage in some kind of influence operations so, I guess, we all figure they work to some extent.
What do we do about it? First we have to admit that Russia, China, Iran, others and the US will continue to do these various influence operations, just as all these nations will continue to conduct intelligence collection operations. Second, we continue uncovering these operations and publicize them. That negates their potential effectiveness and can even work against the objectives of those operations. Kudos to the LE and IC for shining a light on these operations. Keep it up.
TTG
https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1366266/dl
I apologise that my previous post was incomplete in that I had made no suggestions of how we get out of this mess that is Ukraine and Israel and a post without a suggested action is nothing but a pointless rant. My excuse – I am currently operating with only one good eye after surgery.
Putin and Lavrov are going to have to be wooed back to the negotiating table. They no longer trust the collective West so some “circuit breaker’ must be found and a staged approach over years is going to be necessary to rebuild trust.
How we rebuild trust from our side I do not know. I note in passing that there are two American astronauts marooned on the ISS.Russia may have the means of rescue.. There may possibly be mutual stand downs of forces and a treaty needs to be negotiated about Ukrainian neutrality and a non threatening way of providing the Baltic States with security that doesn’t set Putins hair on fire.
What does the committee think? I seek constructive comments. Denial and blame games are not appropriate just now. What is more important is reversing our declining reputation and attractiveness to slow the stampede of nations to BRICS and the SCO.
It’s over, Ukraine is finished. The Israel project is finished. Both disasters are a direct result of decades of our own Suicidal Statecraft as Barbara Tuchman termed it. There can be no doubt as to our culpability. As Pogo observed “We have met the enemy and he is us”. We must now focus on firstly, ending this mess without sliding into unwinnable nuclear war and associated global destruction and secondly, forging a new, realistic, path for the United States in a multipolar world. My biggest fear is that the leaders of the deep state may prefer to die, taking western civilisation with them in a nuclear holocaust , rather than admit failure and their own guilt.
There is no question that Ukraine has lost the war we encouraged them to start. In my opinion, Putin is going to leave whats left of Ukraine as an object lesson, a chamber of horrors, for the rest of the world – the seven billion people in some one hundred countries outside the West, of exactly what relying on America will get you. Similarly NATO is finished – exposed as a pack of barking chihuahuas. The countries of Europe and the European Union have trashed their economies through sanctions and been exposed as run by gutless compradors doing our bidding despite the reservations and wants of their own citizens. I’ve just come back from Europe; nobody tells you about the signs “expressing displeasure with Israel” scrawled on walls in Italian cities or the shuttered German factories. My reading of the Germans and Italians is that they are sullen and miserable, conscious of the fact that their votes no longer count – actions are determined by un-elected bureaucrats in Brussels who dance to American tunes. Anyone who disagrees is labelled a “far right extremist”, strangely, there is no category of ‘centre right” , everyone not a centre left globalist is an extremist. What’s worse, anything classed as ‘extremist’ is criminalised and as events in Britain appear to indicate, the utterance of anything not sufficiently newspeak is grounds for prosecution. We, the great bastion of free speech, appears to have nothing too say about this, which is unusual considering our staunch defence of democracy in Venezuela for example.
Sanctions? What a great idea that has been. First it demonstrates the level of risk involved in holding any assets where America can reach them, second it has stimulated the Russian and Chinese economies into an orgy of import replacement. It has also escaped the financial geniuses who developed sanctions that the sanctionees might object to this hindrance of their business activities and might decide to make alternative financial arrangements, a project which I believe is nearing completion. To put that another way; we aren’t indispensable after all.
The “arsenal of democracy?” Not any more. The addictive western military dream – a small professional boutique army – highly professional, trained to a fault, gilded with special forces and dripping with high tech complex and expensive weaponry has been shown to be a bad joke by Russia. Drone wars mean volumes of soldiers. That means conscription, standardised training and simple to use weaponry. The Russians have that; we don’t. We cannot even match Russias production of ammo. The performance, of our weapon systems, or lack of, is available for viewing on youtube. Pity the poor dumb Ukies who relied on it. In my opinion, we have twenty years work to reshape our defence forces and their equipment and training before we can match Russia and China. For a start, we are going to require an honest draft. “But look at what we did in WWII” you say? That was indeed the greatest generation doing the work, not todays self absorbed, badly educated and unmotivated youth.
We did this to ourselves, Pogo was right. We confused financial masturbation with real economic achievement. We hollowed out our economy. We forgot about character, trust, honesty, persistence and hard work. Greed isn’t good. If we elect tricksters and crooks we have only to blame but ourselves.. The stock market once existed to raise capital not to be a casino. We used to hire people on the basis o experience and achievement not because they won some sort of corporate beauty contest. Look at Boeing. We allowed our institutions, all of them, to become corrupt political toys instead of servants of the people. But worst of all, we allowed our universities to pedal snake oil and poison to our children to the point where most Americans have no idea where the rest of the world is located, still less who might live there and this deliberate profound ignorance goes all the way to the White house.
Folks, we are heading for a showdown with the facts of life as demonstrated by Russia and China. Given that the same idiots who got us in to this mess are still in charge, then in all probability we are sleepwalking into nuclear confrontation. All it will take is one or two more missteps and it will not be stopped. If we were smart, which we are not, we would stop both wars right now by ceasing weapons supply and other measures. We could then consider how we might reform ourselves so that there is a chance of planetary survival for all of us, because from where I sit, there is no way out.
The largest since the start of war, the protests and strike are the latest outpouring of anger against PM Netanyahu for failing to reach a ceasefire. Protests have erupted across Israel, accompanied by a general strike, after the recovery of six bodies of captives held by Hamas and other Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip since the start of the war on October 7. Despite Israel’s military saying the captives were killed by Hamas shortly before Israeli soldiers reached them, the outpouring of public anger has focused squarely on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his cabinet’s repeated failures to finalise a ceasefire that might see the captives return home.
How big is this? Very big. On Sunday evening, about 300,000 people took to the streets, closing down roads and demanding the government change its course of action to save the remaining captives still in Gaza, who are estimated to number 100. And on Monday, Histadrut, Israel’s largest trade union — it represents about 800,000 workers — called a one-day general strike. It was backed by Israel’s main manufacturers and entrepreneurs in the high-tech sector. As a result, large parts of Israel’s economy were shut down for several hours before a labour court ordered protesters to return to work at 2:30pm (11:30 GMT).
Who joined the strike? Ben Gurion International Airport, Israel’s principal international gateway, was shut down from 8am (05:00 GMT) until the strike was called off. In 2023, 21 million people landed at or flew from the airport. The Israel Business Forum, which represents most private sector workers from 200 of the country’s largest companies, joined the strike as did large companies from Israel’s tech sector, such as Wix, Fiverr, HoneyBook, Playtika, Riskified, AppsFlyer, Monday.com, AI21 Labs and Lemonade. The Manufacturers Association of Israel followed, accusing the government of failing in its “moral duty” to bring the captives back alive, and the Israel Bar Association’s director, Amit Becher, called on “all lawyers to go on strike”. Hospitals and health clinics operated at lower capacity, but the Magen David Adom — the national medical, disaster, ambulance and blood service — functioned normally. The Israel Electric Corporation and the Mekorot water company also worked at lower capacity during the strike, but fire and rescue services operated normally. Many government and municipal offices were also shuttered on Monday. Those included Tel Aviv’s municipality, which provides services to the country’s economic hub.
The Teacher’s Union, a branch of Histadrut, said schools from kindergarten to 12th grade would be open only until 11:45am except schools for special needs students. The Association of University Heads said Israel’s research universities would also join the economic shutdown although some scheduled exams would still be held. Leading bus companies – including Egged, Dan and Metropolin – also took part in the strike in addition to Tel Aviv Light Rail and Haifa’s Carmelit underground railway system. Train delays were also reported during the strike.
What’s happening with the protests? Alongside the general strike, Israeli activists working with the family members of captives in Gaza announced that they intend to hold a series of protests nationwide on Monday. According to a statement by the Hostage and Missing Families Forum, demonstrators had planned to block important roads and intersections along with entrances to many government and regional offices. This follows Sunday night’s protests, the largest held since the start of the war on Gaza in October, which saw about half a million people pour into the streets. More than 300,000 people rallied in Tel Aviv, which has seen weekly demonstrations for close to a year.
What has been the political response? It has been divided. The far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, submitted an urgent request to the attorney general to order a halt to the strike. Smotrich, who along with far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has been a staunch opponent of a Gaza ceasefire, also directed the treasury not to pay salaries to anyone who joins the Histadrut strike. Netanyahu and Smotrich, who is under European Union scrutiny for potential sanctions, had sought an injunction to stop the strike. Smotrich has accused Histadrut chief Arnon Bar-David of “choosing to represent Hamas’s interests” by weakening the Israeli economy.
The Netanyahu government has promised a “strong” response to Hamas, which like many previous occasions has insisted that the six captives were killed as a result of Israeli air strikes.
Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid, who has called on the government to reach a deal, backed the strike. He has accused the Netanyahu administration of pushing the country into “the greatest anarchy” and argued the public is showing “incredible control” in the face of mismanagement by the government.
Is there any chance for a ceasefire? The latest round of mediated negotiations in Qatar and Egypt in recent weeks have stalled again amid an exacerbating humanitarian crisis in Gaza and as voices inside and outside Israel accuse Netanyahu of blocking an agreement by presenting outlandish demands to serve his political interests. Key sticking points continue to include Netanyahu’s insistence on not withdrawing from the Philadelphi Corridor, which constitutes Gaza’s southern border with Egypt, and the Netzarim Corridor, the Israeli military route that has cut Gaza in half.
Senior Hamas political official Khalil al-Hayya told Al Jazeera on Monday that Netanyahu is also refusing to release some of the older Palestinian prisoners held by Israel as part of an exchange deal. Israel has yet to confirm or deny this claim.
Comment: This is an “explainer” put out by Al Jazeera. Seems fairly factual without a lot of hidden editorialization. Will this popular resistance to Netanyahu lead to his downfall? Neither the Israeli police nor the IDF are staging mass arrests or beatings of the demonstrators. At least there’s that. I don’t see Netanyahu backing down. That would mean his loss of power and probably his freedom.
The demonstrators aren’t cheering for Hamas. They want them dead probably more than Netanyahu wants them dead. The demonstrators want the remaining hostages back and are not willing to sacrifice them to the Hannibal Directive or to saving Netanyahu’s corrupt ass.
TTG
This summer, one of my lectures was protested by far-right students. Their rhetoric brought to mind some of the darkest moments of 20th-century history – and overlapped with mainstream Israeli views to a shocking degree. In 19 June 2024, I was scheduled to give a lecture at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) in Be’er Sheva, Israel. My lecture was part of an event about the worldwide campus protests against Israel, and I planned to address the war in Gaza and more broadly the question of whether the protests were sincere expressions of outrage or motivated by antisemitism, as some had claimed. But things did not work out as planned.
When I arrived at the entrance to the lecture hall, I saw a group of students congregating. It soon transpired that they were not there to attend the event but to protest against it. The students had been summoned, it appeared, by a WhatsApp message that went out the day before, which flagged the lecture and called for action: “We will not allow it! How long will we commit treason against ourselves?!?!?!??!!”
The message went on to allege that I had signed a petition that described Israel as a “regime of apartheid” (in fact, the petition referred to a regime of apartheid in the West Bank). I was also “accused” of having written an article for the New York Times, in November 2023, in which I stated that although the statements of Israeli leaders suggested genocidal intent, there was still time to stop Israel from perpetrating genocide. On this, I was guilty as charged. The organiser of the event, the distinguished geographer Oren Yiftachel, was similarly criticised. His offences included having served as the director of the “anti-Zionist” B’Tselem, a globally respected human rights NGO.
As the panel participants and a handful of mostly elderly faculty members filed into the hall, security guards prevented the protesting students from entering. But they did not stop them from keeping the lecture hall door open, calling out slogans on a bullhorn and banging with all their might on the walls.
After over an hour of disruption, we agreed that perhaps the best step forward would be to ask the student protesters to join us for a conversation, on the condition that they stop the disruption. A fair number of those activists eventually walked in and for the next two hours we sat down and talked. As it turned out, most of these young men and women had recently returned from reserve service, during which they had been deployed in the Gaza Strip.
This was not a friendly or “positive” exchange of views, but it was revealing. These students were not necessarily representative of the student body in Israel as a whole. They were activists in extreme rightwing organisations. But in many ways, what they were saying reflected a much more widespread sentiment in the country.
I had not been to Israel since June 2023, and during this recent visit I found a different country from the one I had known. Although I have worked abroad for many years, Israel is where I was born and raised. It is the place where my parents lived and are buried; it is where my son has established his own family and most of my oldest and best friends live. Knowing the country from the inside and having followed events even more closely than usual since 7 October, I was not entirely surprised by what I encountered on my return, but it was still profoundly disturbing.
In deliberating these issues, I cannot but draw on my personal and professional background. I served in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for four years, a term that included the 1973 Yom Kippur War and postings in the West Bank, northern Sinai and Gaza, ending my service as an infantry company commander. During my time in Gaza, I saw first-hand the poverty and hopelessness of Palestinian refugees eking out a living in congested, decrepit neighbourhoods. Most vividly, I remember patrolling the shadeless, silent streets of the Egyptian town of ʿArīsh – which was then occupied by Israel – pierced by the gazes of the fearful, resentful population observing us from their shuttered windows. For the first time, I understood what it meant to occupy another people.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/13/israel-gaza-historian-omer-bartov
Comment: Thus begins a long article by Omer Bartov, a world leading scholar on genocide and the Holocaust. The entire article is well worth a close read. In my reading of this article, Bartov is not saying that Israel is an inherently evil entity, but it is doing evil things. It’s a case, as Nietzsche would say, of staring into the abyss and having the abyss stare back. The Israelis exist in an exceedingly dangerous neighborhood. Hamas and others want to destroy Israel, not just establish a Palestinian state. Israel must and will fight against that destruction, but not all of her neighbors, or Palestinian inhabitants, are working for the destruction of Israel.
In contrast to the analysis of Bartov, stands this interview with Dan Shueftan, an Israeli academic and chairman of the National Security Studies Center at the University of Haifa. My thanks to mcohen for linking to this video a week or so ago. He presents his views rationally, but I see those views as a perfect example of what Bartov observed among so many Israelis. Of course what Shueftan makes sense as long as you suspend any belief that Palestinians should not exist and that Israel must continue to exist no matter what the cost. Even with that assessment, I strongly recommend viewing Sheuftan video. He speaks for many Israelis and their supporters and he speaks well.
Certainly it would be too much to expect that all Israelis back away from their darkest emotions just as it would be too much to expect that all Russians, Ukrainians and other East Europeans back away from their darkest emotions. But I don’t think it’s too much to ask that Israelis and her supporters back away from the hard line ideologues of the Netanyahu government. This weekends mass protests in Israel show that’s possible. But at the same time we must ask that Palestinians, and their supporters, back away from the jihadis of HAMAS, the Palestine Islamic Jihad and ISIS.
TTG
This a comment of Tom67 in reply to elkern in a recent post “Putin’s alternative pipeline flops quietly.” I find Tom67’s comment worth a separate post.
I am married to a Mongolian, speak Mongolian run an outdoors company in Mongolia and used to have a sideline doing journalism in Mongolia. So here in a nutshell is the Mongolian position:
1. Mongolians hate and fear China. If not for Russia Mongolia would be long gone and have suffered the fate of Tibet. That is simply a fact.
2. The Mongolian army is still closely linked to the Russian army and all higher officers have trained at the Frunse academy.
3. The Russians try to keep Mongolia as independent of China as much as possible. For instance they tried to organise a new railway line from one of the greatest copper mines in the world (Oyun Tolgoi) to the Transsib to give Mongolia the chance to export the copper not through China. There was much jockeying behind the scenes and the effort came to nought.
4. Economically China is slowly but surely taking over. This process has accelerated since the war in Ukraine began. Telecommunications is in Chinese hands and people don’t talk about certain subjects on the phone anymore.
5. Russia is between a rock and a hard place. Either lose Mongolia and have China no more than 250k from Lake Baikal (now more than a 1000k) or else lose in Ukraine and have NATO at her door.
For now China needs the help of Russia in the Taiwan matter. That is why I suppose China hasn’t been more forceful in Mongolia yet. Still the Chinese drive a very hard bargain and Russia certainly would prefer to open Nord Stream again. That is why I believe that Russia is still amenable to a negotiated solution in Ukraine. For the same reason I believe the Chinese won’t mind if the Ukraine war goes on for quite a while longer. Certainly a total Russian victory is the last thing they want.
Comment: Mongolia is obviously in a precarious geographic position and does not want to go the way of Inner Mongolia. And now both the US and NATO are sticking their toes in the Mongolian waters. Seems both Moscow and Washington can agree that Mongolia’s continued independence is a good thing. Perhaps we should make it known to Moscow that we prefer Mongolia and the states of Central Asia remain strongly within Russia’s sphere of influence and do what little we can to facilitate that rather than trying to isolate Russia from those nations. An isolated and bitter Russia is not in anyone’s interests, nor is a collapsed Russia. Russia’s turning to the East does not necessarily mean she has to turn,with hat in hand, increasingly to China.
TTG
NASA’s Advanced Composite Solar Sail System is now fully deployed in space after a successful test of its sail-hoisting boom system. Mission operators confirmed success at 1:33 p.m. EDT (10:33 a.m. PDT) on Thursday, Aug. 29, after receiving data from the spacecraft. Centrally located aboard the spacecraft are four cameras which captured a panoramic view of the reflective sail and supporting composite booms. High-resolution imagery from these cameras will be available on Wednesday, Sept. 4.
During the next few weeks, the team will test the maneuvering capabilities of the sail in space. Raising and lowering the orbit of the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System spacecraft will provide valuable information that may help guide future concepts of operations and designs for solar sail-equipped science and exploration missions.
The Advanced Composite Solar Sail System spacecraft orbits Earth at approximately twice the altitude of the International Space Station. From above, the sail will appear as a square, with an area of approximately 860 square feet (80 square meters) – about half the size of a tennis court. Now, with the sail fully extended, the Solar Sail System may be visible to some keen skywatchers on Earth who look up at the right time. Stay tuned to NASA.gov and @NASAAmes on social media for updates on how to catch the spacecraft passing over your area.
Comment: I just happened to spot this today. Some here might remember my interest in solar sails from a post I did several years ago about the Planetary Society’s LightSail 2. At that time NASA planned a fairly ambitious solar sail mission, Solar Cruiser, with a 1600 plus square meter sail. For comparison, LightSail 2 had a 32 square meter sail and this Advance Composite Solar Sail System has an 80 square meter sail. Unfortunately, NASA cancelled the Solar Cruiser in 2022. A smaller solar sailor, NEA Scout, was launched, but the project team lost communications with the craft shortly after deployment. That one was supposed to chase an asteroid. I’m hoping that if this test is successful, private space companies, with NASA assistance, will take this technology and run with it. Maybe the Planetary Society will have another go at it.
Seems the novel part of this mission is how the booms are stored and extended. It reminds me of one of those party favors that start as a flat coil and extent into a rigid tube when you blow into it. Fairly simple, really. I wonder if that’s how NASA came up with the idea.
As I mentioned in my 2021 post, my interest in solar sails was sparked by Arthur C. Clarke’s “The Sunjammer” when it appeared in Boys’ Life in 1964. I found a link to the story with the artwork that appeared in that old Boys Life. It’s a ripping good yard. I highly recommend it. The one thing that would make it better is to have the original Boys Life magazine and reading the story by campfire with the full Moon above.
TTG
https://www.nasa.gov/general/nasa-next-generation-solar-sail-boom-technology-ready-for-launch/
Share your thoughts about Trump’s wild Arlington Cemetery ride and Harris’ very safe CNN interview… or whatever else tickles your fancy.
TTG
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