RANT: LET ME GET THIS STRAIT..OR PERHAPS NOT

  

IS IT JUST ME or are things getting a little harry out there on the knife’s edge of international relations? Is reasoned, reality-based decision-making now old-fashioned and sooo last century? Maybe. But when billionaire real-estate sharks mascarade as diplomats, like  the dynamic duo of Witkoff & Kushner, you would think the Trump administration would get the memo that the whole world is laughing at them and sees them for what they are—unserious people acting in positions of great importance and caught butt-naked in their ineptness as the curtain rises and the klieg lights highlight every naughty bit and unmentionable. Let those two go to Abu Dhabi* and build another condo tower or something and get out of the way for real diplomats [do the Americans have any? Ed.] to handle the politics and brokering of peace deals, trade deals and other treaty initiatives.

As I write this (Thursday, May 20), we’re still in a waiting game following Trump’s less than triumphant visit to China, with little results coming from the get-together even with the string of billionaires Trump had in his entourage. Meanwhile, a second attack on Iran is highly probable, and we could see missiles flying by the weekend. 

Trump has painted himself into a corner by going along with the Israeli scheme of regime change in Iran. (Actually the Israelis would prefer to see Iran balkanized like Syria and made impotent with internal conflict.) It didn’t work the first two times: in the “Twelve-Day War” last June, or the rematch of February 28 to the April 7 ceasefire. Heck! Go for it, Mister President! After all, three times’s a charm, isn't it?

Trump doesn’t want to be involved in a protracted war in the Middle East, yet he doesn’t know how to get out the mess he’s made. He might do what he did in the Twelve-Day War—make a big strike somewhere, declare victory and go home. Or he could double down on stupid and continue fighting an Iranian foe that’s holding most of the cards. In the first scenario he’d have to eat a lot of crow pulling his forces out of the region with none of the mission objectives achieved, no matter how they spin the PR. The second scenario is fraught with dangers and a high probability of not achieving anything like a military victory, just like the first two times Israel and the United States attacked Iran. A third possibility is for Trump to admit he's made a mistake and to go home, withdrawing American forces from West Asia (Middle East) altogether. 

👉That’s the best solution, and one that saves lives and billions in treasure the United States can no longer afford to squander on overseas military adventures. How likely is #3 do you think? For someone like Trump, to admit he was wrong and had been led around by the nose by Israel that is desperate to wreck Iran so it can emerge as the preeminent power in the region. Some sort of explosion is likely in the cards. Stay turned.¹

 

 

CHEERS, JAKE.

_____________________________________

 

* Perhaps the UAE might not be such a good place to broaden your real estate portfolio just now. The Gulf state is a signatory to the Abraham Accords which was a 2020 initiative by the Americans to bring Gulf Arab and neighbouring Arab states into a formal treaty normalizing relations with the state of Israel. Had a state like Saudi Arabia become a signatory to the agreement, others would follow and the aspirations of the Palestinian people for a homeland would be in jeopardy. The October 7 attacks in 2023 put an end to that possibility. SIGNING the Accords, while Israel killed thousands of their fellow Arabs, would have been politically impossible for leaders wary of their restive populations who watch, with growing anger, Israel’s genocide and ethnic cleansing of Gaza and its assaults on the West Bank and Lebanon.

👉My point is that the UAE may have made a big mistake signing onto the Accords with Israel: If the Americans and Israelis renew their attacks, an Iranian retaliation would surely result in the destruction critical infrastructure throughout the UAE, along with any nation, Gulf or otherwise, that assisted in the assault on Iran.

 
1. AS OF THIS WRITING, the Hormuz Strait is still controlled by Iran. It's been eleven weeks since the blockade began, following the February 28 attacks by Israel and America. The American blockade of Iranian shipping is also still in force. Now, a trickle of shipping passes through the straits each day compared to pre-war traffic of 120 to 140 ships. Oil tankers bound for China are the exception. Others may have to pay a toll or make some arrangements with Iran for safe passage.

Meanwhile, as the ceasefire of hostilities holds, each side is locked in an economic war to see how long their economies can hold out with global shipments of nearly 20% of the world's oil and derivatives now delayed, and fuel shortages begin wrecking economies without petroleum supplies incoming from the Persian Gulf. 

👉Any re-starting of hostilities might mean the straits will be closed altogether, along with the potential wreckage of Gulf states' oil infrastructures—a catastrophic outcome, I'm sure you'll agree. 

👉Hold onto yer hats! This ain't over yet. And don't forget, there's still Ukraine!

 

 

 Time for Lunch

 

 

 

 

RANT: WHAT'S A LITTLE OIL AMONG FRIENDS?

  

Get the New! and Improved! housewife-helper, K-Tell’s Trump-O-Manic!*

 

FRIENDS, watch how easily its blades shred any and all laws, rules of decorum and engagement, standards of statesmanship, international treaties, probity and diplomacy of all sorts. Its ergonomic design makes quick work of slicing and dicing those pesky treaties, agreements and contracts old and new. A must have for every authoritarian’s kitchen. On sale wherever fascism is on the march! Buy two and get the second one for half price! Going fast! Deal is good until Armageddon envelops the globe in a nuclear fireball. No refunds.

 

👉WELL, I GUESS most of us were relieved that TACO¹ Trump came through with his usual climb down from launching further missile and jet sorties against Iran on April 8/26. The two-week ceasefire is barely holding though. Israel, for its part, has redirected its war machine against Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza² but particularly Lebanon, where its kill rate, some days, is comparable to last year’s genocidal onslaught against the Palestinian population of Gaza. In Lebanon, over 2,000 have been killed, (including 166 children) and 6,800 wounded, since the start of March, with Israel giving Lebanon the ‘Gaza treatment’, levelling entire villages and ethnically cleansing the Lebanese ever northward with the goal of creating a DMZ south of the Litani River. Israeli bombardments of the Lebanese capital, Beirut, are meant to destabilize the country and compel the government to disarm the Hezbollah militias, something, if attempted, would probably lead to civil war, which would be just fine with the Israelis; a dysfunctional Lebanon is one less competitor in the Levant and they get to hover up Lebanon’s offshore oil and gas reserves, as well.👍 

 

TRUMP claims to have phoned Israeli PM Netanyahu asking him to scale back his attacks on Lebanon. Bibi apparently said ceasing IDF attacks on Lebanon was not part of the ceasefire deal. So, bombs away! Yada yada yada…😉 Israel has said it is currently holding talks with Lebanon on “disarming Hezbollah”. [Hezbollah militias, like Iran’s missilery, are the only defences strong enough to stand against Israel aggression. Ed.] We’ll see how that goes, but is there anyone who believes a single word uttered by these fucks?🙎 

 

IN THE MEANWHILE, US VP Vance went to Pakistan last weekend to hold talks with the Iranians. He brought along Trump’s son of a bitch-in-law Jared Kushner and Trump golfing buddy Steve Witkoff, both of whom shouldn’t be anywhere near a negotiating table—and were specifically not invited by Iran given their duplicitousness in previous negotiations that were performative and a cover to launch surprise attacks on Iran (last June and February 28, this year). After a marathon bargaining session, Vance left Islamabad having failed to reach an agreement with Tehran.  

 

WITH THINGS SHIFTING so swiftly, I thought I would wait until Armageddon to file a final report, but my better angel convinced me to note a few of the twists and turns in this increasing shit-show brought to you by the Washington Inepts (a.k.a. “the Epstein Class”) and their entourage:

 

👉RECALL THAT IRAN Iran closed the Straits of Hormuz following the February 28 surprise attack by Israel and the United States, allowing only friendly countries or countries that pay a ‘transit fee’ safe passage through the Strait. Obviously, America and its allies (including most of the Gulf Arab states that host American military bases, most of which have closed BTW, perhaps permanently, following Iranian bombardments) are mostly excluded from the Hormuz unless they make some sort of arrangement with the Iranians. 

Iran’s action in the Hormuz Strait interdicts approximately 20% of the world’s petroleum shipments causing oil prices to rise and stock markets to fall. The United States responded, after last weekend’s ceasefire talks failed, by ‘blockading the blockade’😂 saying it will stop all ships passing through the Hormuz, including ships paying their way, so as to further squeeze the Iranians. 

Question: Will the U.S. board and capture Chinese or Russian ships, or French or British vessels as they enter and emerge from the Strait? Are they that foolish? And do they plan to stop Iranian registered ships? NOTE: Iranian oil added to world oil supplies and is crucial in keeping oil prices down. Most of Iran’s oil infrastructure remains intact for this reason. And Trump initially allowed Iranian oil to be shipped throughout the war so there would be no oil shortages globally affecting gasoline prices, and anger voters at home. 

👉Will Trump target oil refineries and fields in Iran if the conflict erupts again? This would initiate Iranian bombardments of the Gulf States’ infrastructure in those countries that continue to host American military bases and allow their air space to be used by American and Israeli warplanes. If Gulf oil is cut off altogether, a global depression by the fall would be inevitable, perhaps one worse than the Great Depression of the 1930s. 

IRAN HAD FOUR demands going into the the ceasefire between Iran and Israel/United States that went in force on April 8, wobbling like a bowlful of Jello on a train. Iran complained that Israel’s continued bombing of Lebanon was a violation of the ceasefire agreement. Israel said “Nah-uh” and Trump TACO-ed and did his usual nothing to restrain the Israelis. The Iranians brought up this issue up a major concern during the ceasefire talks with Vance.

 

Islamabad talks: Iran's major agenda items: 1. It has a right to enrich uranium to levels commensurate with use in a civilian nuclear industry. 2. Downsizing Iran’s missile force is unacceptable as Iran considers it a critical deterrent against attacks from Israel, a state that has (undeclared) nuclear weapons (between 90-200 warheads). 3. Return of Iranian frozen assets and removal of all sanctions that have for so long immiserated the Iranian population. 4. Accepting Iran’s sovereignty over the Hormuz Strait. These are Iran’s top four agenda items. There are others, including a cease-and-desist order stopping further Israeli aggression against Iran, but also their violence against Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank.

HOWEVER, THE FACT THAT Trump sent diplomatic lightweights instead of a professional negotiating team to Islamabad suggests the U.S. president didn’t expect any breakthroughs last weekend and never really wanted any. Instead, the Americans are spinning the narrative that Iran was uncooperative during the talks, in order to justify their own, illegal war against Iran. 

👉The Iranians came to the talks with few expectations and left with no illusions.

 

THE BLOCKADE is only days old and already economies around the world are shaky. A prolonged blockade of the Strait, along with the American ‘counter’ blockade—if that is even feasible—may lead to a global recession, even a depression if vital supplies of Gulf oil, natural gas, fertilizers, urea, helium³ etc., are not reestablished.😰

 

The ceasefire is set to end next week, and the Iran War will probably reignite. More fun for West Asia, and for us too. So, drop your cocks and grab your socks! Hold onto your hats, too!

 

 

CHEERS, JAKE. _______________________________________________________

 

* Keep away from pets and children.

 1. “Trump Always Chickens Out.”

 2. “Since the ‘ceasefire’ in Gaza took effect six months ago, Israeli attacks have killed at least 738 people and injured more than 2,000. In total, since launching its genocidal war on Gaza, Israel has killed or injured at least 10 percent of the enclave’s population, killing more than 72,000 people, the majority of them women and children, and injuring at least 172,000 others, with thousands more buried under the rubble and presumed dead.” (Al Jazeera) And lest we forget: Israel has bombed Gaza thirty-six out of the last forty-days.

3. Helium is rare on earth. It is created by the natural radioactive decay of heavy elements like thorium and uranium. The world’s largest deposits are found in the South Pars and North Dome gas fields in the Persian Gulf seabed. It is used to make semi-conductors, and for high-tech, medical, and aerospace applications. 

 

p.s. There are some hardliners who seek to revoke Israel’s membership in various international organizations, athletic events or things like EuroVision. I disagree. I think Israeli athletes, entertainers, etc., should be allowed to attend all venues. However, their participation should be limited to silently hanging their heads in shame.

 

"Egads! What have we done!"

 

 

 

RANT: TOMORROW

 

TOMORROW (August 6) is the eightieth anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing by the United States, the first time a nuclear weapon was used in war. (The bombing of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, was the last time such a weapon was used. So far.) Much has been written about these two Japanese cities, destroyed by America’s atom bombs, because they represent the ultimate of cautionary tales. If we treat nuclear weapons, of whatever size, as somehow ‘useable’ in a conflict, as tactical weapons that can draw a line in the sand to make your opponent stop and reconsider their actions, and if we assume such weapons can be contained on a battlefield and not spread to a broader, even a global, conflagration, then we are kidding ourselves. Escalation is almost guaranteed following a nuclear detonation, particularly if the other side is also a nuclear power. 

 

The BBC recently published an interesting article on a subset of victims of the Hiroshima bombing, namely Koreans living in the city at the time. Of Hiroshima's 420,000 people, 120,000 were Korean (IIUC the population statistics from the article). In addition, of the immediate dead following the detonation, which was some seventy-thousand people, 20% were Korean. 

Korean nationals were in Hiroshima as part of a conscripted work force or else they had come there to escape poverty in their homeland. Note: Korea had been a colony of Imperial Japan for some thirty years prior to WWII and tens of thousands of its citizens were dragooned into supporting Japan's war effort, in its factories and other sectors needing manpower. Following the bombing, the conscripts were given tasks like retrieving and burning the dead. This exposed them, disproportionately, to dangerous levels of radiation.

 

Granted, the dangers of radiation poisoning were not well known at the time, still the Koreans were treated as essentially slave labour before, during, and for a time, after the war. Many of the survivors returned home and many suffered the aftereffects of radiation exposure with higher rates of cancer, heart and kidney disease, etc. According to one survivor, a Mr. Shim:

 

“Koreans were second-class citizens – often given the hardest, dirtiest and most dangerous jobs… In the aftermath of the bomb, this distribution of labour translated into dangerous and often fatal work for Koreans in Hiroshima. Korean workers had to clean up the dead… At first, they used stretchers, but there were too many bodies. Eventually, they used dustpans to gather corpses and burned them in schoolyards. It was mostly Koreans who did this. Most of the post-war clean-up and munitions work was done by us." (BBC)

 

SCORES of returnees, including Mr. Shim, settled in Hapcheon, a small county in South Korea, dubbed “Korea’s Hiroshima” because so many survivors chose to live there. Long term studies of the survivors suggest higher than normal mortality rates when compared to Japanese survivors, and higher rates of disease and genetic disorders affecting their second and third generation descendants. Eighty years on and the peoples of two countries live with life altering effects stemming from the detonation of a single atomic bomb. Imagine the effects today’s nuclear arsenals would have on our cities should they ever be used.

👉Let’s hope that never happens.🙏

 

Cheers, Jake.

   

[The Day After and Threads are a couple of movies that should scare the pants off any viewer. Both depict life in a city following a nuclear attack. Hang on to yer knickers!]

 

 

 

RANT: RUB-A-SUB-SUB: THEM’S FIGHTIN’ WORDS!

  

 

WE ALL KNOW how hurtful name calling can be. It makes the recipient cry, or it can fire them up to punch back with words or fists. And mean tweets? We’ve all had them (well, I haven’t, but no matter). They’re like digital gauntlets thrown down or, better yet, smacked across the kisser of the addressee for all to read. Like a red flag to a bull, they've launched flame wars across the internet ever since ARPANET was born in the early 1970s.

Today, of course, name calling and mean tweets are the daily slings and arrows we all face online if we engage in anything other than posting cute kitten pics on our personal blogs. If we get a mean tweet or a half-star rating on whatever it is we post for review, then it’s BAMB! We come back with a zinger of our own. Folks, it’s one thing for losers those who have lots of time on their hands to wield sharp words like Ninja warriors brandishing ninjatō swords in battle. But, after a while, if you're like most people it's ho-hum. Time to scroll on. Except, if you’re the notoriously thin-skinned President of the United States that mean tweet is another matter altogether. 

 

SO, LAST WEEK, there was a flame war on social media between President Trump and Dimitry Medvedev, the former Russian president and current Deputy Chair of the Russian Security Council. Medvedev, who loves to troll Western elites, got a rise out of Donald Trump when he mocked Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on Indian goods into the US as a penalty for India continuing to import Russian oil. Trump responded (on Truth Social), calling the economies of Russia and India “dead” and that his tarriff warnings should be taken seriously. Medvedev responded by saying that Russia and India were far from dead and reminded the American president that Russia has a "dead hand" and that Trump should not forget about it. The Russian was referring to the “dead hand” strategic defence system first activated in the 1980s. It ensures a launch of Russia’s ICBM missile force should there be a decapitation strike on Moscow. [BOAKYAG time. Ed.] It’s definitely provocative trolling but just that--trolling. Just words in the ether. Nothing more.

 

👉EXCEPT TRUMP,* called Medvedev’s X-post a “threat” and announced last Friday that he was repositioning two “nuclear submarines” closer to Russian shores (presumably one in the North Atlantic, the other in the Pacific). Whether they are nuclear “armed” or merely nuclear “powered” is unknown. Instead of an angry reply to Medvedev’s comment, Trump decides to threaten Russia with nukes.¹

👉WHAT THE FUCK?!! Moving subs closer to Russian shores and shortening the time SLBMs (Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles) take to reach their targets, how is this a good thing? If you think Russia is treating this as a joke, you’re either kidding yourself or you’re an ostrich with your head in a hole and your feathery ass in the air! Think about it: WWIII because of a mean tweet! Perhaps we don’t deserve to exist as a species if this is the best and brightest we have leading us. Sometimes I feel like I'm living in an idiocracy. Or at least next door to one. Just sayin'.

 

 

 Cheers, Jake. ____________________________________ 

 

* I think we should consider the possibility that Trump is losing his marbles. Such a dangerous, pig-headed decision suggests to me that the American president is increasingly non compos mentis. Is America so  lacking in leadership that they must pick candidates from nursing homes? This is crazy! Thank our lucky stars there’s someone with a normal brain in the Kremlin! 

 

1. Recall that Trump recently okayed the transfer of nuclear bombs from America to an American base in Great Britain, the first time in nearly twenty years that B61-12 gravity bombs have been deployed there. Provocative? Yes. A threatening gesture? You bet. And you can rest assured that's how the Russians view such a move. And an American four-star general commented last week how NATO could overrun the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad lickety-split. These are not signals of diplomacy, tolerance and good will. Earlier, in June, there was Ukraine's "Operation Spiderweb" and those drone attacks on Russia's strategic bomber fleet. Also that month, NATO member states (including Canada) agreed to increase defence spending to 5% of GDP by 2035. 😆  What message is Russia to take from all this? Our 'betters' are playing with fire. And all of us are liable to get burned.☮

 

[For a discussion on this serious matter, watch the short interview George Galloway has with Scott Ritter, former  United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) weapons inspector, author and commentator, here at the 1:07:57 mark of Galloway’s YouTube show. If Scott is worried, all of us should be worried.]