But, But It Was With Good Intentions, Right?

I leave it here without any long comments. 

Asked about the Saudi-funded spread of Wahhabism, the austere faith that is dominant in the kingdom and that some have accused of being a source of global terrorism, Mohammed said that investments in mosques and madrassas overseas were rooted in the Cold War, when allies asked Saudi Arabia to use its resources to prevent inroads in Muslim countries by the Soviet Union.

Successive Saudi governments lost track of the effort, he said, and now “we have to get it all back.” Funding now comes largely from Saudi-based “foundations,” he said, rather than from the government.

I  wonder what thousands of innocent victims of 9/11 and their families would have thought about that. What about thousands of US servicemen killed or tens of thousands of them maimed and scarred for life. What about millions of people in Middle East killed, maimed, displaced and desperate? Nah, no worry--those were and are "good" terrorists and jihadists--they all stand for democracy.

No Surprise Here.

Here is British "presentation" of "proofs" of Russia poisoning Skripal and his daughter by some nerve agent "Novichok" which, should it have been used would have killed a truck load of people since is incredibly toxic. I know how the training of ZOMP (Defense from Weapons of Mass Destruction) is done in military and, specifically, how it is done re: nerve-paralytic agents in PRE-Novichok era. There is an element in this training which involves simulation of the removal of chemical resistance suite in the absence of proper sprinkler decontamination system and reagents, only using some naturally occurring water, which, BTW may also be contaminated. 

So the element is, with Flag-Chemist standing with the stop watch and observing if you will be able to remove the suit in accordance to algorithm and, get this, without accidental touching even by 1 square millimeter of your skin outside, that is not properly decontaminated, parts of your suit. If you touch it--you are "dead", the exercise continues without you, you get the "fail" mark and then separately from the rest, try to pass.  

What is presented here is a low quality hysterical amateur propaganda with not a shred of evidence of how this "poisoning" have happened that, and I quote:

Can then UK chemical warfare "specialists" explain how these all 2+51+131=184 people are still alive after being subjected to:

which is touted universally as one of a deadliest nerve agent in the world? So, the British proof of Russia's evil doing is this:

Get it? That is the proof that they have "no doubts"--not a single material evidence, sabotage of presenting specimens of this "Novichok" thing for analysis, a hysterical campaign of accusation within minutes of Skripal's poisoning. Me thinks, somebody doth protest too much. 

Meanwhile in her debilitating anti-Russian hysteria, UK somehow overlooked a true Russian crime in using nerve agents against British interests. The name of this super-secret chemical agent is Starichok (old man) and the main effect of it is slow and painful mental degeneration which unfolds over some years. One of the key UK assets has been subjected to this horrible chemical weapon circa 2007 and since then never stopped his mental decline.

A Living proof or Russians using chemical weapons in UK.

Come to think about it, most of Western "elite" has been poisoned by this horrible substance, and yet nobody sounded an alarm in this elite's constant decline of mental faculties. Damn Russians are good at chemical warfare and concealing it, don't you think?  

Facepalm Of The Week.

Remember this triple Ph.D, sextuple M.S. and a prognosticator of prognosticators, and specialist of the specialists,  Russia "expert" par excellence Mr. Blank? Mind you, the guy taught in US Army War College and "consults" today all kinds of US think-tanks and evidently has his roots system deep into the pockets of Atlantic Council, which provides for life-sustaining cash flow in exchange for Mr. Blank's geopolitical and military profundity. This week, Blank blanked even himself circa August 2017 when he suggested to fight those damn Russkies inside the Azov Sea. I guess spirits of Alfred Thyer Mahan, Chester Nimitz and Elmo Zumwalt cried. Now, Dr. Blank went further.

How the US Can Shore Up Ukraine’s Vulnerabilities in the Black Sea. 

I don't want to comment on this sheer delirium which lacks even basic military sense but I still think that this pearl of a stratagem should be documented here. Consider what great strategist Blank suggests:

The United States, or even NATO, could lend Ukraine ships that it no longer needs and place them under Ukrainian flags, and see to the training and outfitting of those ships in return for leasing either bases in Ukraine along the Black Sea or, if that is excessively provocative, leasing those energy fields now occupied illegally by Russia. We could, with Ukraine, then contest that Russian ownership, enhance Ukraine’s defense capabilities, and enhance NATO’s presence in the Black Sea. Admittedly doing so can only be feasible if Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense wakes up to the naval threat and opportunity and launches genuine reforms. It also is a possibility that Russia will be so provoked that it will immediately undertake new operations against Ukraine. While this is possible, such operations will only likely prolong the war and heighten the costs to Moscow and arouse even stronger NATO resistance at a time when Moscow has shown no desire to widen the scope of its kinetic combat operations against Ukraine. So there is an element of risk in this proposal. But we offer it in order that others may refine it to minimize that risk and enhance the benefits that would accrue to the West and to Ukraine.

This delirium of a desperate man is what today defines US Russia "expert" community's level. Hey, at least he recognized that there is some risk. He also, probably is not well-acquainted with basic (forget augmented) Salvo Model and Russia's capability there to make a life span of any combat ship in the Black Sea extremely short if push comes to shove. So, I will leave it here, because I am getting tired commenting on all this off the wall military amateurism and butt-hurt "analysis" (wink, wink) of all those "experts" in US media. Let people who read this blog judge for themselves what modern US geopolitical "academe" has become. In fact, there is a good illustration on what it is today. One really has to ask the question--what are they sniffing, or smoking there. If it wouldn't have been so dangerous it would have been utterly hilarious.

 

Patriot's SNAFU.

Make no mistake, any complex military technology is usually very difficult to use unless one becomes a true professional and, as it is often the case, such complex systems are prone to failures. Such as S-300 here:

Yet, it seems US-made Patriot anti-missile system is unable to catch any break in terms of performance as of lately. First it failed to intercept ancient Yemeni SCUD, now this. The video is startling. 

I can only speculate on what made this missile "go back", but I experienced a friendly fire in my life and it is an incredibly unpleasant experience the moment you recognize that things get FUBAR really fast.  It was one of the closest (not the closest, though) brushes with death which I experienced as a military professional and it is definitely unique.  

This video is dramatic, indeed. As some news agencies report--one man was killed and several others were wounded on the ground in Riyadh because of this situation. So, one may then understand why both Saudis and Turks bought S-400. I have to, however, account for a recognized low standard of maintenance in Arab militaries in general and it seems with Saudis the pattern with Patriot system begins to emerge. 

In some sense this SNAFU and missile trajectory are emblematic of US foreign policy in a sense that Donald Trump and his national security people, obviously, have some bizarre understanding of the events outside the White House and if POTUS thinks that shutting down Seattle's Russian Consulate and sending 60 Russian diplomats out of the United States on a.. hm... trumped up charges in Skripal Affair are improving US-Russian relations, as he called for four days ago, one is forced to contemplate a possibility that those people in and around White House are indeed delusional. Obviously Russia's response will be symmetric and most likely US Consulate in Yekaterinburg or St. Petersburg will be shut down. There is even a probability, however low, that diplomatic relations can be completely shut down by Russia but we have to wait and see. Britanistan obviously wanted to feel in control and important when unleashing Skripal's false flag I see no harm for Russia in stopping any diplomatic relations with UK. In the end, British Defense Minister--Gavin Williamson--a guy with a vast military experience through his adult-life long managing a pottery and a fire-place manufacturing company, in a fine British tradition of Dickens' and Jerome K. Jerome's wit and elegance, demanded for Russia to "shut up and go away". I think Russia should do just that and break any contacts with UK. 

Sorting things out with the US may take longer but there is no doubt at this stage that Russian-American relations are damaged beyond repair and it would take a completely new crop of competent and non-corrupt American political leaders--a very remote perspective and prospect, if possible at all--to try to repair these relation. Trump is certainly not in this league, in fact no one is in the current American political top.  Russia, meanwhile, already did what Colin Powell wisely suggested for the US to do in 1990s--"We simply must nail a shingle to our door with the words "Superpower lives here". This is exactly what Russia did and that is why so much hysteria. But, as we all know, this too shall pass either by means of curing the patient or by means of patient's death. Looks like nobody in Russia gives a damn anymore what it should be.  

   

It Is Friday.

The sound which fades...ethereal. 

 

On Bolton And Others...

As you may have heard already, Donald Trump got himself new National Security Adviser in form of John Bolton. John Bolton is an odious figure and, among many fine qualities defining this guy is his draft-dodging, cowardice and a complete detachment from any military-political realities of the world, he is a lawyer by trade and sometimes goes under the title of diplomat, which he is not. In fact, diplomacy as such--a craft of building and maintaining international relations to the benefit of own nation--does not exist anymore in the US. Bolton is not an exception, if someone thinks that Trump went completely mad by appointing this psychopath--they are wrong. Bolton, in fact, is a concentrated embodiment of modern US "elites" or "establishment". The problem is not just Bolton, however insanely aggressive (the obverse side of cowardice and a collection of inferiority complexes) he is at the expense of others--the problem is institutional and cultural--it is increasingly obvious degeneracy of US ruling class.

America can not and does not produce anymore real statesmen. And most American establishment are people of similar nature as Bolton. I did a short review of the situation with US "elites" about 2.5 years ago. So, now this guy has Trump's ear. What possible "advice" will this "adviser" give Trump. Let's list some of them:

1. War on Iran;

2. War on Syria;

3. War on North Korea;

4. Possibly war on Russia (China?).

I am not being  facetious, I just listed points of Bolton's agenda which he was promoting for years and never made a secret of it. Once Mattis and Kelly, last two people in Trump Administration who have at least some grasp of real warfare, are removed from Administration, the preparation with the war on Iran will start. 

What kind of war, one may ask? Well, if it is going to be land invasion of Iran, that will be the end of the United States as a country. Not because Iran can attack the US, but because even if the US Armed Forces overcome, with relatively few casualties, Iranian Army, which is better than Arab militaries but still is not a first class fighting force, what would follow--that is going to be a wowser. Unlike anything US encountered before in the Middle East, occupying such country as Iran, where overwhelming majority of Iranian 80+ million strong population will be thirsting for American blood and will have many means to draw it, is simply beyond American resources. To start with, Iran's area is five times larger than, say, Vietnam's. Unlike Iraq, Iran's terrain is extremely complex and mountainous. In general, the number of casualties US military will face will be on the order of magnitude larger than in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. In fact, Vietnam War may begin to look like a rather tame military affair. In the end, can US control Iran without capturing Tehran (a city of 12 million people) or Mashad (3 million), Isfahan (1.9 million) among many, or without controlling Mazenderan and its coast? I am all eyes and ears for anyone to give me a realistic number of US troops required to occupy this country. Do I hear the word Draft (which Bolton and most US elite so successfully dodged) in the air? So, in this case the issue of American internal policies not only may but will become so huge and so toxic that, well... make your own conclusions.

But the main issue here is not even Iran, but, as you might have guessed it already--Russia. And Russia can do a lot and I mean a lot, to address the Iran War, if one breaks out, and to make sure that Iran stands as a nation. In fact, something tells me that such contingencies are being discussed already between Russia and Iran. Iran is no friend of Russia but, judging by the latest events in Russia, Russia and overwhelming majority of Russians had it with the US and the West and Russia is a very wrong country to fvck with on any level once she decides that she had enough and it seems like that she, indeed, had it. But I am sure, John Bolton being a "specialist" in military affairs knows all that, right? I kid, I kid. I, in the last 4 years observed not a single American civilian, and even, which is terrifying, many military people, of prominence, who understand modern warfare realities of this moment of time. 

I am not going to review what Russia may do, and she will, since she also has some issues in Caucasus which need serious diplomatic addressing and she will not allow destabilization of Caucasus. Nor will she allow appearance of any hostile power on the shores of Caspian Sea. Bolton, being totally ignorant (it is not an assumption--I know this for a fact) of actual US resources, or lack thereof, issue will have, or already has, in mind a sort of replay of the sharper and more aggressive Cold War 1.0. There could be very few less qualified than Bolton people in Washington who could be entrusted with such an amateur plan, but once the first bombs start falling on Iran, or, for that matter on North Korea, the United States will start its countdown to own implosion. It seems that in general the United States has a constant issue with her National Security Advisers, be it late Zbig, whose loyalty was to Poland and who in his pathological Russophobia unleashed forces of Islamic jihad, or be it John Bolton, who is utterly unqualified in any matters concerning actual national security--the pattern is very clear. So, in order to not leave all of you in a somewhat depressed mood, I suggest we all listen to Bolton himself, Michael, of course. And what did you think? BTW, what a beautiful piece of music and lyrics.