RANT: A BILL BY ANY OTHER NAME WOULD STILL REEK TO HIGH HEAVEN

 

Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson (ret.) is a Viet Nam War vet. He was chief of staff to the American Sec of State Colin Powell in the early 2000s and has for years taught Government and Public Policy at the venerable College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. Recently, he was interviewed by Glen Diesen on his go-to eponymously-named podcast where the Colonel expressed concern over a piece of legislation, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that is currently winding its way through congress. The grossly inflated military budget bill (nearly $1.15-trillion!) for fiscal year 2027 comes with additional provisions 

 

“…labeled Section 219 or Section 224 in respective drafts, that seek to structurally integrate the U.S. and Israeli defense industrial bases and shift the bilateral relationship from traditional direct military aid to joint co-development and co-production.” (Bloomsbury Intelligence)

 

👉WILKERSON calls the provisions anathema for those who would preserve the sovereignty of the United States and keep its national interests at the forefront of policy-making and legislative initiatives. In effect, NDAA provisions such as the United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative*  allows for “bilateral research, development, and co-production of military equipment, artificial intelligence, and autonomous systems”. In other words, Israel will have access to new weapons technologies as if it were part of the U.S. government and it would have a say about where and how new weapons should be produced and distributed.¹ It works both ways, of course, but clearly Israel would be the main beneficiary if the NDAA bill is ratified by the Senate.

👉It’s no coincidence that Israeli PM Netanyahu quipped some days after the Bill was before the House of Representatives that Israel wouldn’t need the $3 billion it receives annually from the U.S. in cash and war materiel if the Bill passes in the Senate. Ever-the-expert in three-card monte, Netanyahu neglects to inform the American public that this Bill simply hides the aid money and weapons transfer to Israel within opaque War Department budgetary statistics.² Essentially, the NDAA makes Israel part of the U.S. government in ways those pesky Russkies or inscrutable Chinese can only dream of!³  

 

👉While Israel has become, arguably, the most loathed country on the planet—a rogue, apartheid and genocidal nation whose security is ensured by making its neighbours insecure with all its warmaking—you would think the U.S. would want to take a step or two back from its unwavering support of the place. This NDAA bill, if it becomes law, will make separating American national interests from Israel's more difficult and will further erode American sovereignty, along with adding another layer of opacity between the government and the people it purports to serve.😕   

 

CHEERS, JAKE. _____________________________________

 

* Same goes for provisions labelled: “Missile Defense”; “Counter-Unmanned Systems”; “Subterranean Operations”; “Emerging Technologies” and “Intelligence Sharing”.    

1. The proposed budget of the Department of War for fy2027 includes additional expenditures totalling an eye-watering $2.5trillion!

2. Note: Since 2018, when annual audits of federal government departments became mandatory, the War Department has failed every single attempt to account for the money it is given by U.S. taxpayers. Round and round she goes! Where the money stops, nobody knows!

3. Trump’s slavish backstopping of Israel’s military adventures in the Levant to the tune of tens of billions of dollars, and his supine acquiescence for its genocidal actions in Gaza and assorted war crimes in Palestine and elsewhere that clearly do not benefit the United States in the court of world opinion, is puzzling. Along with billions spent defending Israeli interests, to the detriment of America’s own, Trump has opened the proverbial can of worms in his standoff with Iran—a war done at the behest of Israel. With such misadventures in West Asia and elsewhere during the Trump administration, the ‘glow’ is definitely gone from the nation that once saw itself as that “shining city on the hill” and a model for countries everywhere to emulate.

👉The issue of Trump’s kowtowing at every turn to Israel’s Netanyahu may come down to ‘kompromat’ stemming from Trump’s association with Jeffry Epstein. [We’ll only have to wait 60-80 years for those files to be released! Ed.]

 

 

 

 

AND I LOOKED, AND BEHOLD A PALE HORSE....

  

I GUESS WE SHOULD TALK about Gaza because it hasn’t gone away. Neither have its almost two-million Palestinian residents, who live in squalor amid the ruin of their homeland. Since October of last year, a ‘ceasefire’ has been in place between Israel and the Hamas resistance forces. Brokered through President Trump’s so-called “Board of Peace” with Egyptian and Qatari mediation, and the United Nations Security Council’s backing, the number of attacks by the IDF tapered off considerably. But they didn’t stop. Near-daily violations of the ceasefire have occurred as Israeli air and ground forces shamelessly bomb and raid Gazan tent encampments ostensivley striking "military targets". Since the ceasefire, over 1,260 Palestinians have been killed and 4,150 injured in the attacks. The terms of the ceasefire calls for Hamas to disarm, beginning with their heavy weapons, in conjunction with an IDF withdrawal from Palestinian territory. As usual, Israel moved the goal posts, demanding Hamas fully disarm before any of its troops are removed.

 

THE SHINE on the deal faded soon enough as Israel continues to squeeze Palestinians into barely one-third of their original homeland, first by setting up a ‘security perimeter’, the infamous "Yellow Line" around Gaza beyond which Palestinians could not cross, and along which dozens of Gazans have been murdered by IDF gunfire because they were "too close" to the perimeter. This was followed by the “orange line” which further tightened the noose, taking almost 70% of the enclave. In recent weeks, Israeli Defence Minister, Israeli Katz, has stated the IDF will remain* and that Israeli settlements are planned for northern Gaza where, worryingly, there is less scrutiny and more difficulty bringing in humanitarian aid. SINCE the February 28 assault on Iran by Israel-U.S., Gaza has slipped from the headlines. But a recent UN report states:

 

“Continued Israeli military operations, new displacement and deteriorating access further limited humanitarian assistance and heightened protection concerns across Gaza, according to the latest updates from the UN aid coordination office, OCHA.” (July 21)

 

WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) services have been drastically disabled because of Israel’s deliberate targeting of such support facilities with the inevitable increase in vermin [That be rats. Ed] and communicable diseases.

 

“WASH services in the Gaza Strip face a catastrophic collapse, with roughly 1.8 million people requiring urgent humanitarian assistance. Over 70% of families cannot access the emergency minimum of 6 liters of water per person daily, driving severe public health crises.” (UNICEF)

 

WITH INADEQUATE HUMANITARIAN AID reaching the captive population of Gaza due to deliberate bureaucratic obstacles put in the way of establishing robust and sustainable aid delivery networks, Gaza continues to be strangled, this time, by red tape, and hunger, disease and despair are used to achieve the aims of a racist, apartheid state bent on emptying Palestine of Palestinians. 

Don’t forget the West Bank and East Jerusalem have seen escalating settler violence against Palestinian farmers and villagers. One incident this week, where a Palestinian family was barricaded in their home while dozens of settlers cut off their electricity and water, was so egregious and criminal that the IDF had to intercede, using force to arrest several of the rioters. Normally, the Israeli military are ‘Johnny-come-latelys’ to such situations, rarely making arrests of Jewish settlers. So, we can expect more violence as Israel continues to annex Palestinian lands with its ultimate goal being the exodus of millions of Palestinians currently from the West Bank, along with those in Gaza and East Jerusalem. 

 

The bleak choice between dying slowly or ‘voluntarily migrating' [Where? Ed.] seems to be the only options available for Gaza’s nearly two-million souls.

 

THE WORLD continues to watch Gaza, albeit distracted by war in Ukraine, Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and other hot spots that occupy much of the news media’s bandwidth. The world watches and for the most part shrugs its shoulders as our brave new century’s Levantine genocide continues to attrit the enclave's population, and appears ready to pick up the pace. Stay tuned.  

  

CHEERS, JAKE. _____________________________________

* as well as in Lebanon and Syria. 

RANT: AUGUST 6, 1945

 

YESTERDAY, AUGUST 6, was the 81^st anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. August 9 will be the 81^st anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. Both cities received widespread destruction with total deaths estimated at around 210,000 civilians.* The Hiroshima bomb, nicknamed “Little Boy”, used Uranium-235 as its explosive core, while the Nagasaki bomb used Plutonium-239, with yields of 15 kilotons of TNT and 21 kilotons of TNT¹ respectively.

  

THE PHOTOGRAPHS BELOW are of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the days after the bombings. One should note that while the Nagasaki bomb was more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, the damage to the city was less and the death toll lower. This is because the bomb was dropped slightly off target, whereas the earlier Hiroshima bomb was dropped on the city centre, not far from city hall, where the building’s skeletal remains at ground zero can be seen in the distance on the left bank of the Ota River. Hiroshima is on a flat river plain where there are few natural obstacles to deflect the blast and fire. The city of Nagasaki, by contrast, sits in “an amphitheater of steep coastal slopes and peaks”, which absorbed and deflected some of the 21 kT blast. Both cities were destroyed and tens of thousands died in an instant with many more succuming to injuries and radiation poisoning in the days, weeks and months after the bombs fell. 

 

HIROSHIMA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NAGASAKI

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

THE DRAWING BELOW is from the book Unforgettable Fire—Pictures Drawn by Atomic Bomb Survivors, published by Pantheon Books, 1977. 

 

"The girl was injured on the chest and covered with blood. She had no shoes on her feet. Still able to think clearly she avoided the many splintered things on the road and trudged towards her home where her family was waiting for her.

Passing through Matoba section, the girl and I came to the area called Kojin-machi Akebono-cho. On both sides of the road there were temples. Everywhere was a sea of fire. No road was open for us anymore except for a narrow path and that was barely passable. The clothes which we earlier had dipped in water had already dried so much that they were almost to the point of burning. There was no time to lose. We dipped our clothes in the water that was stored in an air-raid shelter and dashed through the fires desperately.

‘Awfully hot! Is this the end of my life?...Oh God!...Help me!’ I murmured and prayed.

When we managed to come to a safer place, we looked back at the path we had dashed through. It was the most frightful scene I had ever witnessed in my life. Yet even at this safer place, I found many dead bodies lying in the air-raid shelter, under fallen trees, and everywhere. When we final arrived at the girl’s home at Nakayama section, the darkness of the summer’s night was already falling upon us.”

CHEERS, JAKE. ____________________________________

 

* Figures include immediate deaths from the explosions and those later succumbing to radiation burns and radiation sickness by the end of 1945.

 

1. “TNT” stands for “trinitrotoluene”, a compound that has a chemical “punch” less than dynamite but is more stable with a longer burn rate, making it useful as a propellant in firearms, bombs and artillery shells. Dynamite’s higher shattering effect (“brisance”) and shorter burn rate is aided by the addition of nitroglycerin, a relatively unstable substance, which gives dynamite a “higher detonation velocity, a sharper shattering effect, and more chemical energy per kilogram than TNT.” Dynamite is a “high explosive” useful in mining, excavation, and blowing shit up.

TNT is used as the “benchmark” from which to gauge the relative power of various explosives including nuclear weapons. For comparison, the explosive potential of today’s nuclear weapons are orders of magnitude greater than those early bombs at the end of WWII. For example, 1 megaton=1000 kilotons=1,000,000 tons. Recall that the Hiroshima detonation was roughly 15 kilotons or 15,000 tons of TNT. Just a burp by today’s standards!

 

👉The largest nuclear weapon ever detonated was in 1961 over the Novaya Zemlya archipelago in Russia’s far north. Dropped from a high-altitude bomber, the explosion registered as 50 megatons or 50,000,000 tons of TNT. The Nagasaki bomb (“Fat Man”) yielded 21 kilotons or 21,000 tons of TNT.

 

💥DID YOU KNOW that a Plutonium-239 sister to the Nagasaki bomb, was the one they tested at the Alamogordo (nicknamed "Trinity") test site in New Mexico on July 16, 1945? The bomb's builders didn't bother testing a Uranium-235 bomb because they knew it would work with its relatively simple firing mechanism. The bomb with the Plutonium core was triggered by explosive charges surrounding it, forcing the core to implode and in doing so releasing a tremendous burst of light, heat and blast. The scientists at the Trinity test site weren't sure if it would work. But it did. And here we are.💥

 

👉WE CAN REST EASY, HOWEVER, with the assurance that modern nuclear arsenals rarely keep in stock warheads with over one or two megatons of explosive power (something about overkill, I should think). And, should anyone want to get an understanding of what it would be like to live in a city when a 1 Mt nuclear device is detonated they should read Annie Jacobsen’s Nuclear War. [A word of caution for those who like to read in bed: Be prepared or you’ll shit the sheets for sure! Ed.] 

 

 

    

 

CRINGE PIC: MINISTER SHOWS OFF “HAKA DANCE” CHOPS AT BON VOYAGE CEREMONY

  

IN A PHOTO TAKEN MAY 30, Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir is seen performing the traditional Māori Haka Dance, which is known for its elaborate facial gestures and guttural chanting, before kneeling assembled members of the Global Sumud Flotilla, a group of over 50 ships and 250 activists that earlier sailed from the Turkish port of Marmaris in an attempt to deliver food and medicines to Gaza. Israeli naval forces interdicted the ships and brought the activists to Israeli ports where they received a traditional Israeli welcome, a sumptuous, brief stay in the country after which the flotilla members were escorted to vessels and planes for their return trip home. 

Here, the National Security minister squats over a member of the flotilla as he performs the tongue-wagging portion of the New Zealand tribal dance which represents both a greeting and farewell. All-in-all it was happy sailing for the Sumudniks! Bravo, Minister Ben-Givir, for displaying to the world all that Israel has become! Yalla Bye from the land of the chosen people!

 

Cheers, Jake. 😛_____________________________________

 

 

 

 

RANT: YCMTSU!

 

I WAS READING THE OTHER DAY an article about increasing security at Canada’s maximum-security prisons using a system that’s tried and true, namely building moats around the facilities. But with a twist. Prisons Canada proposes stocking the water barriers with man-eating beavers! Too medieval? Perhaps. But it's cost effective, even with the special training beavers would undergo to develop a taste for human flesh. To that end, recent advances in brain-computer interfaces, micro-cranial digital arrays and pioneering work on behaviour modification* will shortly be used in demonstration trials to be held at the retired Kingston Penitentiary (“The Pen”) which was decommissioned in 2013. Federal prisoners from around the country will be installed there beginning next month. The prison has been a tourist attraction of the “Limestone City” for the last few years and city council has just approved a schedule that will minimally affect the tourist trade at the hoary, 191-year-old institution, and where mock prison breaks by convicts attempting to swim the beaver-laden moat will be part of weekly live matinee performances beginning this fall. And…. Well, you get the picture!😆

 

👉BUT A REAL-WORLD PROPOSAL has been made by Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir to build moats around prisons housing “security prisoners”, most of them Palestinians, upwards of 10,000 by some estimates. Many are children, young men incarcerated under Israel’s harsh terrorist laws, without formal charges or even court appearances. This psychopath, Ben-Gvir, wants to use Nile crocodiles to guard against prison breaks. IKYN!👉Fortunately, the animal-rights group “Let Animals Live” petitioned the Jerusalem District Court and got a temporary injunction against the project. Naturally, Ben-Gvir was in typical spittle-flecking outrage mode at the court's ruling against his scheme. 

It would be even nicer if Israeli courts ruled in favour of the over thirty percent of Palestinian prisoners held as “administrative detainees” without criminal charges, some for years. How about an organization called “Let Palestinians Live”? Just sayin’.   

👉Here’s a thought. What will the 99% Arab population of Egypt say if their government allows Nile crocs to be sent to Israel to guard fellow Arabs? Would this absurdity (and obscenity) raise-the-hackles of enough Egyptians to demand their government does something to aid the Palestinian cause? Stay tuned.

  

CHEERS, JAKE. _____________________________________

* THANKS to the CIA and its brilliant MK-ULTRA teams in their decades-long experiments on how human behaviour can be altered and controlled using regimes of drug therapy, sleep deprivation, stimulus-response protocols, etc. Whatever can be done to, and with, the human brain surely can be done to a beaver’s brain, as this new initiative by Prisons Canada in partnership with C.S.I.S. (Canadian Security and Intelligence Service), Britain’s M-I6 and Israel's Mossad will prove.