pl
RSS- Russians taking reflexive control to a new level
- A New Beginning By Walrus
- It’s Over; Pogo Was Right – By Walrus
- “What are Israel’s protests and general strike about — and how big are they?”
- “As a former IDF soldier and historian of genocide, I was deeply disturbed by my recent visit to Israel”
- Tom67 on Mongolia
- “NASA Composite Booms Deploy, Mission Sets Sail in Space”
- Open Thread – 30 August 2024
- “Putin’s alternative pipeline flops quietly”
- SpaceX is about to send four people on a wild — and risky — mission into the radiation belts.
An important piece was published yesterday at The American Conservative: “America’s Monopoly Crisis Hits the Military,” by Matt Stoller and Lucas Kunce. What I take away from this is that the USA’s most damaging adversary over the past generation is not Russia or China. It is our own financial sector.
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/americas-monopoly-crisis-hits-the-military/
Has Trump caved on China and Huawei?
What is the next step for MbS and Trump after the latest drone attack on Saudi pipelines? It appears that the latest attack last night originated from the north, and NOT from the Houthis in Yemen as first reported. Iraqi PM says “he has no evidence that drone attack on Saudi pipelines originated from Iraq”.
“..the American Bar Association should signal that anyone who defends the border patrol’s mistreatment of children will not be considered a member in good standing of the legal profession.” – NYT op ed today.
The author is director of a Human Rights MA Program and of course nothing says human rights like suspension of the right to a defense counsel. These people are deranged, if I was on this program I’d demand my money back.
The negotiations continue. The US elected a negotiator, not a warmonger nor a fool.
King Lear: with the times so out of joint, a valuable re-read for old men. I would recommend the Ignatius Critical Edition edited by Joseph Pearce for the essays following the play.
Also, I believe the NYT took the election interference banter between Putin and the Donald as an affront directed at the newspaper. Front page above the fold and another grievance to be relished with the canapes and cocktails out at the Hamptons.
They just cannot get over it.
Hi all SST’ers and fellow space cadets..
The US Navy has been assigned a patent on aerospace technology to effect a craft similar to what appeared in released cockpit videos and descriptions of UFOs by Navy pilots.
A technology patented by an aerospace engineer working at the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD) describes a ‘hybrid’ craft that is capable of flying at breakneck speeds in the air, water, and even space using an unprecedented electromagnetic propulsion system.
As reported by The Drive, when looking over a patent on the technology, an examiner for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office responded with skepticism that such a craft exists only to receive a personal letter from the Chief Technology Officer of the U.S. Navy, who explained that Chinese researchers are ‘investing significantly’ in the craft. According to The Drive, letters from the Navy to the U.S. Patent Office seem to suggest that tests of technology have already been conducted by NAWCAD inventor Salvatore Cezar Pais, who holds other mind-bending patents like a ‘force-field’ to fend off an incoming asteroid.
The patent is only theoretical, a concept that although ‘legal’ is interesting in itself.
I’m sure many SST readers could invent a theoretical device of some type (smiley face).
Rob Waddell
https://patents.google.com/patent/US10135366B2/en?inventor=Salvatore+Pais&oq=inventor:(Salvatore+Pais)
I’ll believe it when I see it (i.e. working prototype). Grainy black and white video isn’t enough.
Robert…
Thanks for this story,,,of DEEP Interest to Me..for good reason..Why is the Government finally going Public..? Why show the Videos…Why suddenly Brief Congress on this..??Whats Next..? Show and Tell..??
Well,,,Because there are Unconventional Flying Craft…Out There..as Admiral Byrd said during His Large Expidition to the Artic in 1948….Projjet Blue Book…MUFON etc As I said here in a Previous Post..I am interested in Technology..Things Hypersonic..Robotics..and AI..Both Alien and Artifical..AND UnConvention Things that really do “HUM'” whe3n they fly over..AND The Craft that Flew over Both of Us late at Night and Tree Top High..in a Remote Wilderness.. Made a HUMMING Sound like the Turbine Generator in a Dam..The Ground has a slight Vibration ..and …It flew extremely slow..But at a Steady Pace..It came from our Back..Obviously from the West,,over the Pacific Oceon..Over a Large Mountain Range..Seemed to be Stealth..and I wondered that any Craft could fly tree top high like That…It was Headed toward a NEW Strategic Material Base that has Just Began Storing Nuclear Weapons..Its Path was over largly Uninhabited Areas..It also seem to affect Our sense of Time..and We felt really vunerable for a long time After..I don’t scare easy..I DID File a Report with MUFON..
INSTEX is born. France, UK and Germany announced the birth of INSTEX, an instrument allowing the trade between european companies and Iran, as a way to by-pass the US sanctions against anyone trading with Iran in certain sectors.
Instex is acting as a “compensation chamber”, i.e avoiding financial flux between EU companies and ran : an european company A, exporting goods ti Iran, will be paid by the european company B, importing goods from Iran. Its quite similar to the good old “troc” (barter).
The most ironic part is that instrument, which could historically become the first step towards the end of the USD as a global reserve currency, has not been set up by US adversaries or ennemies, but by its closest allies.
” The US elected a negotiator, not a warmonger nor a fool.”
That is not always evident from outside the sandbox. Quora had several interesting discussion threads starting with the Huawei CFO’s arrest in Canada. You will appreciate fraud is one thing, ‘sanctions’ over a matter in dispute with the EU quite another outside the US. Some relevant posts are noted at oldephartte/livejournal.com
this’s one of those rare, extraordinary articles that clarifies & explains an whole lot of deeply disturbing stuff. a must, must read…
If the insanity curve gradient v. time, ie., months to the 2020 election, takes the same exponential shape as it did in 2016, then you’ve seen nothing yet if this event is an early start point.
I doubt that the ‘liberal’ cabal has learned one single thing in the last four years.
There are many interesting discussions all over the internet. The kibitzers kibitz. And as it always has been, much is extrapolated of what is said and not so much is calculated of what is done.
That was announced 6 months ago. It doesn’t seem to have made much headway.
https://eeas.europa.eu/headquarters/headquarters-homepage/57475/statement-high-representativevice-president-federica-mogherini-creation-instex-instrument_en
Putin’s interview with Financial Times has received some attention, mostly re his discussion of problems of neo-liberalism. B – Moon on Alabama, gave a link to the full text, but that is now behind an FT paywall. Helmer – Dances with Bears, gives a link to an official transcript. Worth reading. As commented by others, there is perspective to be obtained by reading the full discussion transcript. Link below…
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/60836
Ehud Barak returns…
https://www.voltairenet.org/article206863.html
A real opposition in the making?
Barbara Ann,
And gee, after doing everything possible to encourage the stampede that overwhelms the BP’s ability to respond, they fault the failure. Quelle surprise…
This is not news to workers who depended on heavy industry for employment.
I’ve worked in these factories since my discharge from the USN in ’72. I’ve witnessed plant closings as owners first moved to the right to work south, Mexico, Asia, and what next Africa?, what I call the last bastion of exploitable labor. By that time AI and robotics will eliminate most factory workers I’m afraid.
I’m still hanging on (yes I must work), to that last work that robots likely will never replace. Repairing automated electro-mechanical systems.
We are indeed in decline.
I’d like to see the Europeans actually use INSTEX instead of just talk about it constantly.
Currently, Bob Lazar decided to start talking again, this time granting an interview to Joe Rogan:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEWz4SXfyCQ
In this interview he again describes his brief experience as a reverse-engineer of alien craft near “Area 51” in which he describes technology which is pretty much what the Navy filed a patent for.
Seems an odd coinky-dink.
What has just been announced by American investigators of the May 14 attacks, purportedly, in at least one account, by as many as SEVEN Houthi drones on the Petroline at Dawadmi and Afif, is that the attacks, they now think, did not come up from Yemen. Rather, the drones were launched from southern Iraq. This is fascinating. The ranges from either north or south turn out to be more or less the same. Something over five hundred miles, under six hundred. It is eerie to me that the drones must have come in over the An Nafud, a strange and terrible desert of dangerous winds and large reddish sand dunes that lies in central Saudi Arabia between Riyadh and the coast. I confess I have just discovered the prophetic ‘Dune’ and watch it in bits and pieces in primitive awe, from time to time. If the drones came in low, was there anyone even there, some crouched hooded figure, to notice them? There doesn’t seem to be any radar out there. The drones came in completely unseen.
I’ve also been looking at the ranges of some Iranian missiles, and what they could do to critical Arabic infrastructure on or near the Persian Gulf littoral in a new war. And now it turns out we’ve entered a new age. Drones look like the coming thing. Five hundred miles plus? And making precise hits at places a hundred miles apart with a nine millimeter message –No Exit for oil if there is war. I think it’s absolutely incredible!
Last March the IRGC ran a massive exercise involving at least fifty drones and other pilotless planes, most of them described as domestic RQ-170’s, which were launched from different bases a thousand kilometers, or about 620 miles, away. These drones flew south to Farur Island, a small uninhabited island off of Qeshm island, which is also, it seems, a commando base with gunnery ranges. Targets were attacked. The exercise was deemed a success. I see it, again, as being eerie; as eerie as the attack of a swarm of manta rays. I once rowed my Alden ocean shell out into the Rappahannock off of Mosquito Point (which is across from Stingray Point), saw some motion in a nearby ‘fish trap’, an elaborate labyrinth of long fixed poles, and rope and wire mesh, which lures fish in, where they can be held for days. I rowed closer and took a look. The fish trap was full of stingrays; it seemed like more than a dozen of them, feasting. They seemed to know the way in and the way out, too. Edgar Allen Poe missed that one as a possible story, though he had a few about boats.
Moving right along… but still about troubling things. The surprises in store. The Petroline runs across Saudi Arabia from the Damman area on the Gulf to Yanbu, on the Red Sea. A very important point on it is Abqaiq. Abqaig is about thirty miles slightly southwest of Dharan. It is the largest plant of its type in the world. It removes hydrogen sulfide from oil. This makes it possible to ship crude oil in a tanker. If Abqaig was knocked out, Saudi oil production would drop from roughly six million plus barrels a day to about a million. It would be a real hit on the world economy. It would finish off MBS, who looks like he is on his way down, anyway.
With both drones and missiles, Iran has got the range.
Tucker in the DMZ and Bolton banished to Outer Mongolia, very interesting. Might Fox have vacancy soon?
Tidewater,
What is the actual evidence that any of these drones flew 500+ miles?
Barbara Ann,
Next up, your local police department. See Portland
aidingpolicing Antifa and their assault on independent journalist Andy Ngo, who is obviosly not with the correct NGO or the Washington Post. The reason for masks and gloves is to prevent identification when conducting a pre-meditated attack. The Portland police recieved the NYT message loud and clear some time ago. And here I thought only the Sheriff and deputy in Broward County were cowards.Tidewater –
The Saudi East-West Crude Oil Pipeline 5 million barrel per day capacity makes it a prime target. And its 750 mile length through mostly empty spaces makes it hard as hell to defend.
I am a bit surprised it hadn’t been sabotaged previously with C4 by dissident Saudis, perhaps Baharna Shia or by AQAP. Kind of like what happened in Bahrain to the pipeline linking Bapco refinery with Aramco’s main pumping station at Dhahran in Saudi Arabia, which was sabotaged 18 months ago. They caught the saboteurs, Bahraini citizens, or claimed they did and gave them life sentences.
Speaking of stingrays, the Turkish Navy supposedly has a mobile naval mine, i.e. an armed underwater drone called ‘vatoz’ meaning stingray. They allege it can attach itself under a hull without the help of a swimmer. It is controlled acoustically, but at what range? And I have to wonder if the IRGCN has a copy?
The Quincy Institute will launch in November, with core funding from George Soros and Charles Koch and the following mission statement:
“The Quincy Institute promotes ideas that move U.S. foreign policy away from endless war and toward vigorous diplomacy in the pursuit of international peace.”
Cofounders include Trita Parsi, Andrew Bacevich, Suzanne DiMaggio and Stephen Wertheim.
https://quincyinst.org/
Picked up from a Stephen Kinzer article:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2019/06/30/soros-and-koch-brothers-team-end-forever-war-policy/WhyENwjhG0vfo9Um6Zl0JO/story.html
Fred,
Might be relevant that the Iranians have captured US drones over the past decade. Perhaps they have based their own off retro-engineering US drones; in which case, a strike of that distance is not out of the question.
Theoretical flight ranges are not evidence.
Everything Putin says appears on the site in Russian and in English. Remove the en. from the URL to get the the Russian and add it to the Russian to get to the English. The English usually trails the Russian by a couple of days or, on really long ones, like his recent Direct Line, come in as they translate it.
Similar with PM http://premier.gov.ru/en/events/
500 is chickenfeed. Iran claims to have drones with a range 0f 3000 kilometers (~1860 miles). I’ll go with 50% of that, which still puts them over 900 miles.
You can bet the farm that we tracked the 620-mile drone flight to Farur Island that Tidewater mentioned.
Serious though it all is, I maintain that one of the best ways to combat these loony progressives is thru ridicule. And when they insist on doing stuff like crying over empty Texan parking lots, how can you not? Looking forward to your next post Fred.
I don’t have much information on this, but what I thought interesting about the American investigators’ theory that Iraq was the point of departure of the drones was their conclusion that the explosives used in the Dawadmi and Afif attacks were of a different type than Houthi explosives; also that the drones themselves were of a somewhat different design. This reminds me that it has been observed from the wreckage of Houthi missiles in Saudi Arabia that they did not have factory welds. In other words, missiles and drones had been brought down via the supply trail through Oman in sections and assembled in Yemen. But, of course, a lot of evidence is self-supplied by drone since they are suicide drones. I don’t know if it would be considered good news or not if they came from much closer, having been driven into Saudi Arabia by dissidents. Actually, from what I have read, the Iranian drones have a greater range than five or six hundred miles… I think we are going to be learning a great deal more about all this very soon.
As to drone capability, I think it is accurate that Iranian technology cannot yet power their drones with jet engines. There is speculation about a certain German engine that may have been copied. I suppose the correct description of how drones are powered is that they are ‘piston driven.’ I will look for that. Another thing about Iranian drones is that they do not yet have the capability of carrying something like a Hellfire missile, which could be launched from great altitude. What they are capable of doing is carrying a large amount of explosives and crashing them on target in surprise attacks, because the drone has a very small ‘cross-section’ –it seems to be difficult for radar to identify or target one.
Eugene,
That’s nice but not evidence. A few weeks ago it was a claim of missles in a sailing dowh. It’s a big desert with lots of untracked traffic. A technical can drive a drone to a launch point too; Or a string of camels carry the pieces to an assembly – launch area.
I don’t know anything about the Barharna Shia, or about that particular incident, but you bring up a very interesting point. Is it possible that there is a a growing resistance movement in parts of Saudi Arabia? I have read that the Iranian leadership has come to the conclusion that Saudi Arabia has been badly demoralized by MBS. The government has been crippled and is disloyal. The regular army was never designed to fight a war in Yemen. Its purpose has always been internal order. The war is bankrupting the Saudi government. The ruling class and royal family is seething with hatred and fear, and wealth is being moved out. MBS’s projects have failed badly. The country is rotten at its core. Iranian leadership believes that now is the time to commit to violent, asymmetric, clandestine war against the Saudis. To test them, again and again…The one thing I noted some time back was that the western press more or less overlooked the execution of the Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr. The west didn’t care about it. Trump should have stopped it. He didn’t. The mistakes are adding up. This was not only horrifying, a blatant, very cruel and criminal use of juridical authority to intimate the Shia of the Eastern province; it was also stupid. There is a working community of Shia in the Al Hasa which is deeply involved in the critical desalination industry there. The Shia understand the whole vast oil infrastructure. They make it run. Why on earth would you want to alienate these people? They live there. They work there. They have been there more than a thousand years. How is it that MBS and the Saudi leadership cannot get used to that? A Shia underground in the Eastern Province could do a lot to help Iran in any war. One thing it could do is to provide Iran with groups of forward observers. These could help direct Iranian missile fire onto targets, possibly in real-time, which might be critical to Iran, since many of its missiles are not precisely accurate.
And then there is the whole question of the security of the desalination plants and cyber warfare…
Lot of big subjects here, right on time, too…
The Lion and the Lamb have found common cause. I said long ago that when non Zionist billionaires and business elites like Koch felt their interest threatened enough they would make a move. I predict others of their kind will join their group.
This is direct challenge to the Neo Think Tanks and Fifth Column orgs congress calls on for foreign policy opinions.
God speed gentlemen.
I had mentioned in my comments to you about the Shia in the Eastern Province, that Trump should have stopped the execution of Nimr al Nimr. Trump was not president until a few weeks later. Most likely he didn’t know about Nimr then and he doesn’t know about him now. Or care. But there is an execution rampage that is continuing in Saudi Arabia, and I blame Trump for this. It is not just bad policy; it is madness. Trump’s indifference to the brutalizing of the Shia in the Eastern Province, and his toleration of MBS’s psychopathic criminality, suddenly look as if they are mistakes which have added up to real trouble. The west thought it would go on forever? Maybe not. We might just be looking at the violent disruption of a sick society. The question remains: Is there a growing resistance movement in eastern Saudi Arabia?
Good discussion, Tidewater, mostly about the drone attacks, but I was also struck about your encounter with the rays in the fish trap at the mouth of the Rappahannock. With those drones and missiles, I wonder if any type of terminal guidance is used or contemplated. In the early 80’s we used laser designators to guide artillery and air strikes. We also used offset target beacons to provide pinpoint guidance for B-52 strikes. We only had to get within a few kilometers of the target and give an exact distance and azimuth to the target. It sure beat having to actually get on top of the target. If I were with the Houthis or the IRGC, I’d be looking hard at that technique.
Thanks Patrick — helpful tip. I’m not a regular follower of such details, but every so often it helps to check original source texts when the spin gets too dizzy-making. I appreciate your columns and the other info from knowledgable folks here.
Andy Ngo is a conservative blogger beaten by antifa fascists in Portland. He was kicked, punched and in the hospital with possible bleeding on the brain. A woman standing near him took pictures which she showed to the police for them to be able to identify Ngo’s attackers to arrest. The police did nothing. The mayor and city council have given orders to not interfere, and the police only arrested three people dumb enough to physically harass the men in blue. I’ve also seen a photo a middle age man bleeding from a head wound inflicted by the black clad masked criminals.
Mayor Wheeler has remained quite.I hope the Justice Department investigate him and our police chief for allowing antifa to control our streets through violence.
This is the future of America if the Democrats gain control.
Tidewater –
The Baharna are Bahraini Arabs and they make up a large chunk of Bahrain’s population. But there are also many Baharna Shia in the eastern province of Saudi Arabia and in Qatar.
Sheikh al-Nimr that you mention was most probably Baharna. But his execution (along with 47 others at the same time) is old news. Just a little over two months ago the Saudis executed 33 of their Shia citizens. And one of them was crucified. Perhaps the head-chopping was not considered enough of a deterrent?
As to your question: ”Is there a growing resistance movement in eastern Saudi Arabia?” Most definitely IMO. And not just in the east with the Shia. But also by the Sunni Sahwa movement, which has been oppressed. Three popular Sunni clerics involved in that movement are currently on death row. And there is also dissent by some of MbS’s kin in the House of Saud. They never liked him to start and have now taken note of the growing anti-Saudi public opinion in the US. Sooner or later they are going to roll him up in a rug and stomp him a bit.
Fred –
Skepticism is good. I have a streak myself.
Forgot the link
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/antifa-attack-portland-andy-ngo-portland-proud-boys-alt-right-a8981331.html
I remember an important radar in Iraq being taken out that way; and I remember being surprised and kinda’ impressed with the whole thing. Also, as I tend to, thinking about the negatives, for example, wondering if the Iraqis had any patrols out and wondering if they used dogs! (I’ve read that Arabs don’t like dogs because of their grooming habits.) I have this red alert thing about that kind of dog barking. Meaning things going bad. I think it is not only in spy movies that I have heard this…. Now I remember! It was on weekend night police. But lasers! I have just been thinking about lasers. I have been wondering if an air base like Al Udeid or other facilities or buildings would be vulnerable to an improvised laser attack while other things are happening, say 81 mm mortar rounds are coming in. This would be done by bundling lasers, perhaps cheap ones, maybe putting together a bundle with sex lasers each, and you put four bundles to a two by four, and you attach them to steel fencing poles or to boulevard sodium vapor lamps. (It might be all about the land mines you put around the lasers. And, of course, you are wearing a Turkish uniform.) What you are trying to do is sweep a large area like an air field at random with lasers. You could do it straight down a highway or a runway. This would include the fueling areas where it is unlikely the teams would be wearing goggles. I think it could be done. Al Udeid is not way out in the desert, all by itself. There are major boulevards within a mile or so.
Another thing I have been thinking about is tire-shredders. But I will save that for later.
You know, I just remembered something extraordinary about the hit on the pipeline. Almost immediately after the attacks, there were news reports that videos were streamed showing the whole thing as it went down on Houthi T-V. I thought that was really surprising. I didn’t know that the Houthis watched T-V.
Sometimes history repeats itself. I think Portland, Oregon and their Antifa hoodlums would do well to reflect upon the Spartacist uprising in Berlin in 1919. Mayor Edward Wheeler will meet the same fate as Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. A wiki article about this event is at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartacist_uprising
Philip Kerr died if cancer last year, leaving us his final Bernie Gunther novel, Metropolis, which is a prequel to his others. It takes place in 1928 and begins with Bernie’s promotion to the homicide group. None of his books were ever turned into films, although with the popularity of Babylon Berlin in Germany, this may change. Those who were wise enough to hold on to his first two novels can be consoled by the fact they are worth over $100 apiece, at least for awhile.
His obituary was printed in the Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/mar/25/philip-kerr-obituary
Tidewater,
“the American investigators’ theory….their conclusion that the explosives used in the Dawadmi and Afif attacks were of a different type than Houthi explosives…”
Wow, the Houthis only have 1 type of explosive and are completely incapable of obtaining any other explosives available in the world?
“also that the drones themselves were of a somewhat different design”
wow, so if one suicide bomber uses a Toyota and another bomber uses a Land Rover they must be from different organizations!
“This reminds me that it has been observed from the wreckage of Houthi missiles in Saudi Arabia that they did not have factory welds.”
How much does being an intel agent pay for pumping out conclusions like this?
I wonder if anyone from say “the Green Helmets” welded together drone components, deployed them to Saudi Arabia and attacked the pipeline who would
1) stand to gain
2) get blamed
Apparently our analyzers know the answer to number 2 based on
a) only Houthi’s knowing how to weld things and
b) Houthi’s being incompetent in obtaining explosives in the nefarious world of weapons sales and
c) Everything fits the “narrative” and how dare anybody point out any potential flaws to theories that might mean ‘Merica won’t be bombing Iran today over this latest outrage.
Tidewater,
“Trump should have stopped it. He didn’t.”
When did Trump become King of Saudi Arabia?
Martin Oline
Antifa is not a group of workers fighting for economic reasons but a bunch of hedonistic trustafarians that want to freeload off the working people. They remind me more of Hitler’s brown shirts, in that they are used by Portland’s progressive mayor and city council and vocal progressive citizens as a paramilitary police to violently attack right wing demonstrators. The police were told to keep the couple hundred left wingers, mostly antifa, from the couple dozen proud boy demonstrators but to not interfere otherwise. The police use to arrest violent protesters and the left always claimed police brutality. City gomint feels has to placate their leftie base to keep power. Every authoritarian elite needs a paramilitary force to eliminate dissenters. That’s why our city’s leaders enable the violence of the antifa fascists.
A few simple restrictions could lessen the violence would be to make it illegal in a demonstration to cover your face,carry pack or club or projectile. That is how they kept the demonstations a the last Republican Convention from turning violent.
I take your point that there could be deception in the accounts of the pipeline attacks that is designed to add to the neocon case for war. A check on new reports from Yemen which said that a Houthi-aligned television station called Al-Masirah TV had a report on the attacks and streamed video purportedly from a Houthi scout drone is not confirmed by a number of news reports. What seems to have happened was simply that Al-Masirah T-V showed Houthi leaders reporting that the attacks had occurred. Nothing about live-steaming shown in the Sanaa area. Interesting. A mix of fact and fiction? Does any such video actually exist? This could be seen as weakening the case that Houthi drones were the ones that attacked the pipeline at Dawadmi and Afif. There is another thing to consider. From which direction, north or south, would there be less Saudi/American radar sites and missile batteries? I think it would be from the north. We are, of course, at the mercy of information sources on this, but it looks to me like a drone attack from Iraq has to be seriously considered.
As to the question of debunking the idea that a “dhow” could carry a missile. I didn’t exactly follow that one. It was obviously possible and likely true. Why not? ‘Dhow’ is the east African name for Arab sailing vessels. There are quite a few other Arabic ships, as for example, Kuwaiti boums, which are surprisingly large. One way that Iranian arms shipments have gotten through to the Houthis is by boums that go down to Socotra where it seems there are a number of islands that could be drop-off points for transfer to smaller dhows. A missile could be carried on and launched from almost any kind of a sailing vessel or ship that is large enough. Container ships could carry them, and I think such designs exist.
Trump has got the con.
Colonel – since it is an open thread might I use it to speak of the death of a man I believe few might have heard of in the States.
Christopher Booker was a gifted writer and not afraid to put conviction before career. He, together with his friend Richard North, were fighting for UK independence long before the name “Brexit” became current and long before the rest of us even thought it might be possible. A quiet and courteous fighter but dogged; I hope it is not an intrusion to remember him in your pages.
http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=87287#disqus_thread
Martin,
What defeat in war have the people of Portland experienced that would be comparable to WW1? Have the folks there been paying reparations that are bankrupting them to such an extent that they need to rebel against the democratic politicians who have been running the city for years?
Sorry to hear that kerr has passed. All his books were good reads. Have you read his other-than-Bernie stuff, the football mysteries or Inspector Grushko?
Thank you author. Keep it up.