This is by far the craziest story I have reported on in the 15 years I’ve been CEO of @gCaptain.
BREAKING NEWS: Confirmation From Dr Sal on the news about @cmacgm and the French Navy I posted to my video this afternoon. Next rumor to confirm is that @JakeSullivan46’s team at White House has running much of the coalition building directly with minimal US Navy or MARAD involvement… and it’s a total mess!
Why is it a mess? The maritime interests of the nation were left to atrophy by the Obama administration who put a junior white house staffer and them a navy O5 submarine commander in charge of the important US Maritime Administration @DOTMARAD. Trump recognized the deficiency and appointed three shipowners to his cabinet, put an experienced admiral in charge of MARAD and opened a maritime desk – headed by a smart and – as @JoshuaSteinman can confirm – put an ambitious USCG officer- inside the national security council. On day one of the Biden administration they closed the NSC maritime desk leaving the White House without any maritime experience. @SecretaryPete was given DOT as a political favor and MARAD was staffed with a long retired Admiral who had a multi-billion dollar climate change agenda.
This is not a political tweet – much of what the Trump administration tried to accomplish in the Maritime domain failed in the last year or was overturned by entrenched civil servants – but they did have an abundance of Maritime and Navy experts at the highest levels and had a few home runs like the revitalization of Philly shipyard, and the building brand new college training ships.
Biden has no maritime expertise on staff. Furthermore Biden put an Army general as secretary defense, and has done a little to nothing to support the US Navy. The bottom line – there is an extreme lack of maritime and naval expertise within this administration. The result is that the cornerstone of Naval strength – which is not our carrier groups, it is the strength of our allied coalitions – has fallen apart over the course of just a couple of days. Out of our naval allies, only ten signed up for Operation Prosperity Guardian. Two of those refused to commit any hard assets. Two had few assets to supply. And one – France – stormed out of the first operational meeting in disgust and quit the group to go protect its own ships.
And now the most important waterway of global maritime commerce is blocked to all but French owned ships (they will open it up to EU ships shortly), US flagged ships with American sailors aboard sit without protection in the Red Sea, and thousands of ships are going around the Cape of Good Hope emitting untold amount of carbon which the Biden administration claims is a priority.
This is an EPIC failure and a completely avoidable one. The White House has no shipping or naval expertise and should not have taken charge of this operation. This operation should have been handed off to @SECNAV with close assistance by @SecretaryPete. I have very little faith in secretary Pete’s Maritime knowledge, but the secretary of the Navy – Carlos del Toro – has done an excellent job in the last few months . He is the one who needs to run point here without interference from @SecDef and @POTUS.
Comment: John Konrad, the author of this rant, has a twenty minute video in which he expands on the problems in our maritime strategy and capabilities highlighted by the Houthis taking pot shots at ship in the Red Sea. He freely admits he knows nothing about naval operations, but he knows plenty about merchant marine operations.
https://twitter.com/johnkonrad/status/1737923451019550812
Mcohen asked me what was going on in the Red Sea a few days ago. I didn’t know and I’m still not sure. I hoped we were planning a quick, swift and precise campaign to take out the missile and drone threat to Red Sea shipping. But I also feared that we didn’t know whether to shit or go blind. Judging by John Konrad’s comments, it may be the later.
James Stavridis, a man who definitely knows naval operations offers his take on the situation and what should be done in a recent opinion piece.
I agree with his take that we should go beyond defensive escorts and carry out offensive strikes against targets ashore. He also mentions that this operation will require a “fully integrated intelligence picture” which will not be easy given the size of the operational area… the size of California. Along with this, we should be denying the Houthis a “fully integrated intelligence picture” by blinding IRGC patrol vessels, the at least one Iranian intelligence collection ship in the area and any other offshore and on shore collection platforms. It would be preferable to accomplish that through EW or other low key means, far preferable to any shock and awe, war with Iran inducing method.
Will we be able to pull off some magical mixture of not too passive, not too aggressive string of actions? As I told mcohen, I don’t know. I think it was Jake Sullivan who tried to put lipstick on the pig by suggesting that the disruption of Red Sea traffic will harm Russia’s ability to move her oil. It’s possible, but I think that’s grasping for straws. Should be interesting.
TTG
The houthis get there grain from the ukraine.Should be running low by now.So its
really a matter of time before they took advantage of the Gaza war to demand a share of the cheap wheat.Thats the way they think.Next up will be the Mediterranean coast off north Africa.Algeria and morrocco.Block shipping through the straits.Forget about protecting the merchant marine and either starve them or deal from a fresh pack that the ukr/rus war has brought about
https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/yemen-has-enough-wheat-two-and-a-half-months-document-shows-2022-08-10/
I’ll just put up these links and save commenting on them for now other than to note that India appears in TTG’s clever map juxtaposition above, and that the interview here is conducted, obviously, by a member or associate of one or another Intelligence division of the nation of India with a former head of Mossad, born in 1934 in London who is a close relative of Irving Berlin. And I’ll add that Ramaswamy and Nikki Haley are running for President of the USA. And not to believe anything said in the interview, which shouldn’t need saying. And India was a British colony, and London is the capitol of Great Britain. I left out how the top software companies in America would not exist without programmers from the Indian subcontinent, and that I’ve taken up vegetarian cooking with curries which is really delicious but I was disappointed but not surprised to find out that all the curry preparations contain salt, darn it, and I need to be careful about my hypertension. And my craving for meat (actually tuna fish) is so strong now that I may soon fall off this wagon.
—————————————-
Israel Guilty of Very Seriously Underestimating Hama..; War Could Last Years.
Efraim Halevy (Former Head of Mossad & Israeli National Security Council.
https://youtu.be/o9NaN03TfTo
One of the most highly regarded and internationally best respected former head of Israel’s Mossad as well as of the country’s National Security Council has said that Israel is guilty of “a very very serious mis-estimation intelligence-wise of Hamas capability”. Efraim Halevy has also spelt out in great detail how serious were the intelligence and military lapses on Israel’s part when Hamas attacked on October the 7th and he has also specified the different levels at which this happened. Most importantly, Mr. Halevy says that Israeli women soldiers in observation posts were repeatedly reporting Hamas’s preparations, drills and other activities that clearly suggested a major Hamas operation was about to start but were not just ignored but threatened with court martial if they continued with their reports. Mr. Halevy also confirms that an important Israeli army unit was removed from the Gaza border area to the West Bank just days before the Hamas attack and there was unnecessary slowness in returning that unit to the Gaza border.
————
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efraim_Halevy
Sorry TTG. Forgetful these days. I didn’t include today’s linguistic revelation for English speakers. It was inspired by the banner in the background of video whose link I posted just a minute ago – THE WIRE – repeatedly in red block letters on black background.
As you know, “th” is originally theta or Θ in caps, θ lower case.
So “the” translates to θε. ε is epsilon.
And Θε, according to Google translate set to Greek, means God.
An interesting language, English.
“th” was either Thorn (Þ, þ) or Eth (Ð, ð) and Thorn was derived from the Elder Futhark runes, whilst Eth seems to have an Irish origin.
Of possible interest if it’s even true. Eldridge Colby doesn’t like it. Surprise. Eldridge wants a war with Asia, just like daddy.
———————————————–
Japan’s Patriot-missile transfer to U.S. stuns Indo-Pacific watchers
Biden’s focus on Ukraine undermines deterrence against China, analysts say.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/Indo-Pacific/Japan-s-Patriot-missile-transfer-to-U.S.-stuns-Indo-Pacific-watchers
WASHINGTON — Japan’s decision to ship Patriot missiles to the U.S. to help backfill stocks of air-defense systems for Ukraine has surprised analysts focusing on Indo-Pacific affairs.
Many have questioned the rationale of taking weapons out of the Indo-Pacific for a battle in Europe when the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden has said all along that China is the pacing threat.
The transfer of Patriots was a request from the U.S. side. This suggests that the Biden administration has concluded that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan is not imminent. While many in Washington agree to that assessment, some oppose shifting attention away from the Indo-Pacific. (More at link)
F&L –
Japan has their own Patriot-type, medium range SAM – the Chu-SAM Type 03 based on and similar to the Patriot but with changes that adapt it to the needs of the Japan. I suspect those two Patriots were gathering dust after Mitsubishi reverse engineered them to build the Chu-SAM.
They also have the same SM-3 anti-ballistic missiles that the US Navy uses. Much longer range than the Patriot. They have those in ground based launchers and also on board several Kongo Class destroyers.
Thanks. Sounds like sloppy reporting as usual but it’s often sloppy on purpose.
Almost no coverage on this situation but there will be. It doesn’t take long for civilizations to break down when shipments of energy and food gets delayed for weeks or not delivered at all.
This guy does some decent coverage at the 23:00 minute mark but don’t watch the beginning of the video with the kooky planetary alignment stuff. I will try to find better videos but almost nobody is talking about it.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/qmwkcyy7bSI/
Possibly you want to read this by a Peter Schroeder which appeared on Dec 20, four days ago. If you look past the face of it, it’s interesting given election years in US and RF. Because behind the scary talk it hints strongly at a need or desire for contact. And because of how severely allergic politicians and security officials (who precisely works for who is a lively topic) are about daring to be overheard whispering in such a way that hours of supercomputer Fourier analysis of their taped whispers might suggest they were interested in talking to the very ebil Rooskies .. well because of that and possible back-scratching deals between Biden and Putin which might, say, feature faux but terrifying escalations followed by heroic day, ass, and all of creation-saving “breakthrough negotiations” (starring, we hope, I don’t know about TTG, but we hope – Rocky squirrel and Bullwinkle moose) .. well you get the idea, there has to be a very good reason … (Chuckle chuckle) and who better to provide the reason than … (we leave that for our next episode where the fair maiden little bo peep turns out in reality to be ..)
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/real-russian-nuclear-threat
Some relevant items on Telegram this AM translated from Russian.
1-France, Spain and Italy withdrew from the US anti-Houthi operation Prosperty Guardian, refusing to transfer their warships to US command.
2-The Indian Navy said a coast guard ship assisted Indian shipping company Macsons tanker Chem Pluto after it was hit by a UAV. None of the tanker’s 20 crew members, all of Indian origin, were injured, but the ship was damaged and its seaworthiness was impaired.
The tanker was transporting oil from Saudi Arabia to the port of Mangalore in India.
2- links to this with text below:
https://t.me/infantmilitario/115765
The British Maritime Trade Center reports a UAV strike on a ship causing an explosion on board approximately 200 nautical miles off the Raval area of India. It was also reported that the fire on board was extinguished and there were no casualties.
A pic is at the 115765 link which contains this text for those wo Telegram:⬇️
UKMTO WARNING 018/DEC/2023 ATTACK – INCIDENT 018 UPDATE 01
Incident Date: Incident Time: 23/DEC/2023 0607UTC Source: CSO Issued: 23 DEC 23 0730UTC UKMTO have received a report of an attack by Uncrewed Aerial System (UAS) on a vessel causing an explosion and fire. Incident 200NM South West of Veraval, India, Fire extinguished, no casualties Authorities are investigating. Vessels are advised to transit with caution and report any suspicious activity to UKMTO. VERAVAL, INDIA
F&L,
This is strange. The distance from Yemen, say from a port like Mukalla, Hadhramaut, to this ship, which was some two hundred miles offshore of Veraval, must be at least 1200 miles. I didn’t think that the Houthis would have the ability to locate and target the ship or have a drone (UAS) with that kind of range to go that far out over the ocean, find it, and hit it. It’s getting deep and dark. Could that have been the work of an Islamic underground in India? Iran?
WSJ is saying Iran. Some Indians believe it was Pakistanis.
Tidewater,
Yes it is strange. I don’t know precisely what is going on yet. The chess board is huge and the potential for serious screwups is significant as a consequence. That’s one reason I posted that long video of the Indian and Israeli secret service luminaries (which I have not watched in it’s entirety) which imo signals that much more is involved than meets the eye – however it’s also an attempt to obfuscate and manipulate opinion on the part of Israel especially – note that they chose an esteemed doyen who is on record as being critical of the Isr ultra right for decades.
So America needs another foreign war to secure passage through the Suez canal of 1/3 of China’s global export trade and whatever amount of fossil fuels Europe imports from the Persian Gulf States. This on top of funding Ukraine, supporting Israel in its current conflict, and leaving our own border open.
You may want to look at the ECB, latest European elections, and ask just what the Brits in the City of London and associated banksters are up to.
Stavridis makes sense to me, for whatever that’s worth. These meddlesome camel jockeys seem like perfect targets for US ordnance.
But then I’m a known colonizer genocidal racist Nazi. So I can freely think about how to solve problems in problem plagued places full of problem causing people. As soon as a US missile kills a civilian the world will further turn against the US – and you know that will happen sooner than later, even if it’s just made-up propaganda, because if it’s on the internet and it makes the US (or Israel) look bad, then it’s true, as far as the chattering ninnie activist class is concerned.
You’re missing the point. And the point is twofold. One – what the Houthis are doing is in violation of international law, so it’s not a matter of being brave and tough and Two – that care must be taken due to the potential for this to spread, increasing not only the unpredictability of events but the danger to the US side due to its already stressed resources committed to several other present active theatres. This game as it stands could be played out very much to the detriment of the US side if the game player is skillful and the US side a blunderbuss.
It seems to me that we in the US know only one solution to any problem. We should think about our past escapades in Afganistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria that is only in the last 15 years. How many of these countries turned out to be at least not hostile at this present moment? We supported Saudi’s in their fight against Yemeni Huthis, till the Saudi’s were left to negotiate with the Yemenis and are almost at the point of some kind of deal. Now talking about Huthis these might look like camel Jockeys as some one said but they are tough fighters with nothing to loose. Also it is not a very friendly terrain. If we hit them hard they are not going to take it lying down. Say God forbid they sink one of our ships what are we supposed to do? Full scale war? After starting the Ukraine war or at the least giving backing to Ukraine, now we are counting Dollars. Like Kissinger said “To be an enemey of US it is dangerous but it is fatal to be a friend”. I don’t profess to know the solution but we need to think first before we shoot. Thanks
I suspect the Houtis know they can not win a war to close off shipping in the Red Sea.
Their claim is they will do this until, in a nutshell:, “Until the siege has lifted and humanitarian supplies are allowed to flow into Gaza”, which leaves them an honorable way to cease this fairly soon. It’s a condition which will be obtained not only with an IDF withdrawal, but also by the IDF achieving near complete control which may be only a couple weeks away at the rate the IDF is going.
I’d like to see that fleet just gather intel for the moment, and only start pounding the place after it becomes clear the Houtis are insisting the Israelis stop trying to police HAMAs out of existence. It’s a fair-to-middlin’ bet they are only doing this to satisfy their obligations to Iran. to whom they have a debt of honor. As recent history has shown, the Houtis are a mighty tough nuts to crack.
ML,
Good observation in your 2nd paragraph – as early this morning that in fact the US abstained on the UN vote to allow aid:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/un-to-vote-on-watered-down-resolution-on-aid-to-gaza-without-call-for-suspension-of-hostilities
Also this morning – I didn’t include this in my reply to Tidewater above, though it reiterates it is more up to date. I keep in mind always the Gulf of Tonkin when reading these things especially regarding naval incidents. “Did this really happen as asserted here?” I ask myself given that this is the Murdoch WSJ and that Israel wants intervention in Iran badly for so long – and the video of the Indian interviewing the Israeli rings bells. (Please pardon my paranoia.) Why would Iran do this?
————————————
U.S. Says Iran Drone Struck an Oil Tanker Near India
Attack in the Indian Ocean signals an expanding risk to shipping after Yemeni rebels’ attacks in the Red Sea.
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/u-s-says-iran-drone-struck-an-oil-tanker-near-india-db4a1233
A chemical tanker in the Indian Ocean was struck by a drone launched directly from Iran early Saturday, the Pentagon said, signaling a widening risk to shipping after Yemeni rebels started attacking vessels in the Red Sea.
“The motor vessel Chem Pluto, a Liberia-flagged, Japanese-owned, and Netherlands-operated chemical tanker was struck at approximately 10 a.m. local time today in the Indian Ocean, 200 nautical miles from the coast of India, by a one-way attack drone fired from Iran,” a Pentagon spokesperson said in a statement.
While Iran has struck tankers in the past, it is the first time the U.S. alleged Tehran had directly targeted ships since regional tensions flared up again after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israeli citizens.
The vessel is owned by Japan’s Rio Brillante and managed by the Netherlands’ Ace-Quantum Chemical Tankers, which is connected to Israeli shipping tycoon Idan Ofer. Rio, Ace-Quantum and a spokesman for Ofer didn’t respond to requests for comment.
There were no casualties and a fire onboard the tanker was extinguished, the Pentagon said, adding that no U.S. Navy vessels were in the vicinity and that the U.S. is in communication with the vessel as it continues toward a destination in India.
When asked about suspicions Iran was involved in the attack, a spokesman for the Iranian delegation at the United Nations declined to comment immediately
The Houthis, an Iranian ally in Yemen, started attacking commercial vessels passing through the Bab el-Mandeb strait, which connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and by extension the Indian Ocean, in response to an Israeli ground offensive in Gaza.
The Chem Pluto, which was loaded with refined products, was sailing from Jubail in Saudi Arabia to Mangalore in India when it was struck 200 nautical miles southwest of Veraval, India, U.K.-based maritime artificial-intelligence company Windward said.
The attack also prompted an Indian Navy ship to head toward the vessel to provide assistance, said Christopher Long, intelligence director at Neptune P2P. The Indian Navy didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Long said the attack took place 1,530 miles from Yemen, within reach of the Shahed 136, an Iranian attack drone used by the Houthis that can fly up to 1,600 miles. Whoever was behind it, “this incident is a game changer due to how far from land that it happened,” said Long, a former British Navy officer in the Persian Gulf.
A Houthi spokesman neither denied nor confirmed involvement. “We take pride in what we do and officially declare it,” he said, adding that the Houthis are keen on causing any possible harm to Israel until it allows more food and medicine into Gaza and ceases aggression. (More at link)
Konrad jumped the gun with his whining. Those US flagged ships are now being escorted by both the US and French Navies through the Gulf of Aden headed for the Bab el-Mandeb. https://twitter.com/mercoglianos/status/1738263827622351188?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1738263827622351188%7Ctwgr%5E9b7c9ea32c467b5f3d0ad3a77731fe3de4b013a8%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fgcaptain.com%2Fwatch-us-sailors-stranded-red-sea-immediate-military-support%2F
They should be careful though, Houthis are now using sea-skimming drones.
US Carrier Strike Group 2 is also in the area.
French are back in the Prosperity Guardian Coalition:
https://twitter.com/johnkonrad/status/1738609873229664362/photo/1
I thought that in addition to an IRGC intel ship in the Red Sea, that the Iranian Navy also had a destroyer there?
Leith,
Interesting. Can you make any sense out of this reply of a “gcaptain” directly below your link? No doubt plenty of people have an interest in the story being one way versus another.
https://x.com/gcaptain/status/1738255897166528650
F&L – Below meaning older? What date?
Sorry – I gave the link. Below meant directly beneath in the display but that can change depending. It’s no longer relevy anyway, it was answered by another poster on X.
Leith –
This is gcaptain. Two updates near the top of page.
https://gcaptain.com/french-navy-quits-operation-prosperity-guardian/
“Jake Sullivan tried to put lipstick on the pig by suggesting that the disruption of Red Sea traffic will harm Russia’s ability to move her oil. It’s possible, but I think that’s grasping for straws.”
Perhaps Jake Sullivan should look at facts before he starts putting on makeup. The number of non-western tankers carrying oil and liquified natural gas (LNG) in the Red Sea has surged since the Yemeni armed forces began targeting Israeli-linked vessels.
“[Ansarallah] have been tremendously precise in not hitting non-western oil tankers,” Viktor Katona, an analyst at commodities data firm Kpler, told MEE. “There are a lot of Saudi, Iraqi, and Russian tankers in the Red Sea, and [Ansarallah] haven’t hit a single one.”
https://new.thecradle.co/articles-id/16119
The Yemenis have stated that they are closing the red sea to Israeli owned or related ships, till Israel stops bombing Gaza. So they are not hitting the other ships conducting business with the rest of the world. Today a ship belonging to Israelis had been hit in the shores of India by an aerial drone. No one has claimed the responsibility for the attack. But who ever did it, it shows long arm of the whatever entity it is.
Muralidhar –
MV Chem Pluto is reportedly Liberian flagged, Japanese-owned, and Netherlands-operated. Her crew included 20 Indian citizens. She was carrying Saudi crude to India through the Arabian Sea.
How does Israel fit in that picture? Iran either has better intel on the shipping industry than we do, or it’s a mistaken target.
See my reply to Mark Logan that the WSJ is asserting Iran did it. I don’t believe it yet, as mentioned also. That’s not to say it isn’t true.
The way I see it Houthis have already achieved their main goal, most of the shipping traffic is avoiding the Red Sea. They’ve also done a couple of important things to demostrate their anti-shipping ability, first was to score a hit with an anti-ship ballistic missile against a moving ship and second was executing a drone attack deep in the Indian Ocean.
For shipping to come back, US will have to demonstrate the ability to protect the shipping. I have severe doubts about that, short of instituting a convoy system. Due to the LCS fiasco US has a limited number of ships it can deploy and, due to elimination of missile loading cranes from destroyers, ships it deploys will need to go back to base to reload missiles.
I am not confident that US strikes on launch sites will be effective, Saudi air force has had years of US supplied intelligence, targeting and weapons, and has failed to suppress Houthi missile and drone launches. Best thing would be to stay out of it, have Israeli cargo trans-shipped through Greece or Cyprus, and close Eilat completely. If Houthis score a lucky hit on a US ship, which has a decent chance of happening, US prestige would sink even further.
Thank you sir you made my point much better than I did. Thanks again.
US carrier groups were never designed to do this task. It is a show of force. Nothing more. It can hit targets but it’s very limited because it also has to protect the fleet so anyone thinking the US Navy is going to save the day against these so called pot shots, all I can say you are in for a rude awakening. It is not what a carrier group does and has never done.
Even if they could do it nobody in this clown car knows how to do it. They will some low level targets then declare victory. NO. That stance is not going to work anymore. I was on the Lincoln for almost a year and the best we could do was level a few targets. Securing a massive shipping lane is not going to happen.
Quiet in the Pentagon today. No scheduled press briefings by SecDef or his Deputy Katie Hicks; and not by CJCS, ViceCJCS & CNO either. Same for CentCOM. Same for White House.
The Pentagon press briefing on the Red Sea is two days old:
https://www.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/3624974/pentagon-press-secretary-maj-gen-pat-ryder-holds-a-press-briefing/
The UN World Food Program has ‘paused’ N. Yemen food aid. “Food stocks in areas under the Sana’a Based Authorities’ control are now almost completely depleted and “resuming food assistance, even with an immediate agreement could take up to four months due to supply chain disruptions, the agency added.”
However, “in areas under Government control, food distribution will continue…”
“Almost completely depleted? ” Doesn’t this mean that hundreds of thousands of Houthis –or could it be more than a million?– now face not just hunger, as they have for the last eight or nine years, but now actual starvation, and this is on the rocket docket, coming right soon, possibly beginning within the next three weeks.
What happens when it starts? What do we do?
Tidewater,
The UN World Food Program is most successful in feeding their bureaucrats? As to Yemen, they’ve been getting starved by their opponents for years now. Lots of articles in the archives highlighting that war.
https://turcopolier.com/houthi-power-why-are-we-opposing-these-people/
https://turcopolier.com/gone-with-the-wind/
Tidewater,
Gaza is also being starved. Hunger in the countries bordering the gulf of aden is chronic and epic – Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Yemen etc. If you consider the cutoff of grains from the countries bordering the Black sea and subscribe to “Archives of the Tin Foil Hat Runway Models” you might suspect that some great master plan is afoot. I don’t subscribe despite my fondness for runway models. However You’ve nailed it again, unfortunately. Hunger will be used as a weapon, the angelic Israelis already are.
The observations of babeltuap and others here have led me to conclude that Winkin’ Blinken and his scurvy neocon crew have again fogged up terribly. (Decoders: o = u, g1 = c, g2 = k in “fogged” thank you very much F&L, you’re welcome TTG). They have “disastered” the entire world right in front of our eyes while we were looking elsewhere. Well, here’s to Winken Blinken and Madeline and while we’re at it – everyone who starves hundreds of thousands of human beings to death .. good job! I’m off to Macdonald’s and on my way I’ll pick up some Ring Dings and a $7 latter to slurp and munch on the way. Dostoevsky’s Underground Man had it figured out long ago when he said that for his morning tea he would gladly starve to death the millions of children in foreign lands for the simple reason that he took very little enjoyment in life but that his morning tea was an exception, he enjoyed it very much. Actually he didn’t quite put it so positively cruelly, rather that life as the Underground Man lives it necessitates overlooking an abundance of awfulness while his daily pursuits permit so few pleasures that the most insignificant of them are cherished.
Somewhere within the infernal adding machines that people like Rupert Murdoch and Winken Blinken have in place of minds, the remorseless creaking gears and springs have determined that numerous fine and shiny pennies can be made from a global hunger calamity. And for plutocratic devils and fiends such as those two and a few hundred others, shiny fine pennies are the bitter and impoverished Underground Man’s cherished cup of tea. And the devils and the Devil himself understand this only too well and adjust the price of tea accordingly as they load the voting ballots onto trucks and pay journalists to compose tales of chads and a noble candidate who concedes for the benefit of the country.
“Well you see the Uranians did this and now all the children of Ethiopia are starving, so President Joe Biden has no choice but to .. ”
“Very good, excellent in fact, now you only need to change one letter.”
Wasn’t it the illustrious former Secretary of State Madeline Albright, neocon extraordinaire herself who said that starving 500,000 Iraqi children to death was an excellent idea?
Appears Wikipedia has the whole 8th edition of the Britannica online or at least they’re up to letter B.
Language topology – is that a subject or did I just make it up? Reason to mention is that Bab in Babel and Bab El Mandab are apparently Arabic and Baber might be one of the Indian languages but I’m not sure. And nearness of India, Yemen etc. Bab is palindromic, interesting as a gate (Bab) goes in and out and the old legends about divine messages being written in languages or codes that read the same way no matter how they were viewed. Luckily TTG administered thorazine remotely back when I was wondering about the Don river and Armageddon – Arma gde Don – gde meaning where in Russian. Arma – armada .. army .. . A couple of years ago I did an etymological / historical investigation on the word Armageddon. The results were very interesting. This Bab El Mandab didn’t popup but at least two others did which mentioned the term “gates” in the respective lingos. And they weren’t in the un-holy land though one or two were. However I only spent a few hours at it and I’m not a professional historician or etymologist. Thermopylae means hot gates. Nothing surprising about gate-like geographic regions being associated with wars or battles that were compared to world ending events. The earthquake which separated Africa from Asia? Very interesting – the legend of Moses parting the Red Sea has been linked by some historicians to a Krakatoa magnitude or more explosion of Santorini long ago and of course one of many versions of the legend of Atlantis. Some thinkers associate an event like that to the mysterious sudden end of the first Bronze age in 1188 BC (or was it 1288 – whatever it was, such precision about an event so long ago is either very impressive or indicative of something else) and the battle of Troy.
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica,_Ninth_Edition/Bab-el-Mandeb
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica,_Ninth_Edition/Baber
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica,_Ninth_Edition/Babel
John Helmer has several very interesting stories up on this exact topic.
https://johnhelmer.net/honey-trap-for-israelis-and-americans-in-the-red-sea/
Scroll down for the others or hit the home page button.
CEASE FIRE….
wtf?
how hard is it for the most obvious, simple, practical, MORAL solution?
Operation Prosperity = Operation Kill, Kill and Kill