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China makes weapons ‘breakthrough’

RT | August 12, 2023

Chinese military scientists have reported a research breakthrough that could make it possible for Beijing to develop high-energy laser weapons that can shoot for as long as their operators desire, without interruption and without any degradation in performance.

Scientists at the National University of Defense Technology in Changsha, China, published the results of their research earlier this month in Acta Optica Sinica, a peer-reviewed Chinese journal. They claim to have developed a new cooling system that makes it possible to operate high-energy lasers “indefinitely,” without any effects from overheating.

“This is a huge breakthrough in improving the performance of high-energy laser systems,” the team said in its research paper. “High-quality beams can be produced not only in the first second, but also maintained indefinitely.”

The cooling system controls gas flows to remove heat from inside a laser weapon, preventing vibration and disruptions in performance. It can enable longer operation, increased range and greater firepower, the scientists said. They noted that 60 years on from the invention of the first ruby laser, weapons developers haven’t been able to create “death rays that can instantly kill targets.”

Some of the most high-profile US laser weapons projects have been canceled, despite shooting down targets in testing. “The true reason for the cancellation of these projects was that their destructive power did not meet expectations,” the Chinese scientists said. Longer, continuous operation times are needed to extend the range of laser weapons beyond a few kilometers, they said.

Such weapons generate high-energy beams that heat up the gas in their path as they pass through the air, creating turbulence. This effect can distort the beam, diminishing its accuracy and strength. The heated gases can also contaminate the mirrors in a laser weapon, reducing performance and potentially damaging a system.

The Chinese researchers said they developed a system that blows gas through the weapon to remove waste heat and keep the mirrors clear. Their technology is already being used in a number of laser weapons that the Chinese military has under development.

Beijing reportedly intends to use such weapons against drones, missiles and aircraft. They also could be used to target satellites, disrupting enemy communications, navigation and surveillance capabilities.

August 12, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , | 2 Comments

The appointment of a special counsel for Hunter Biden’s case is just a trick to better shield the US president and his son

By Tony Cox | RT | August 12, 2023

US Attorney General Merrick Garland, who works for President Joe Biden, desperately wants the world to know that the government’s investigation of his boss’ son is utterly apolitical. America’s top law-enforcement official is so desperate, in fact, that he has appointed a special counsel to handle the case.

That’s right. No mere employee of Garland’s US Department of Justice (DOJ) is going to be leading the criminal investigation of Hunter Biden. Garland on Friday assigned a special counsel to the case because he wanted to demonstrate to Americans the DOJ’s “commitment to both independence and accountability in particularly sensitive matters.”

Make no mistake: This is definitely one of those “particularly sensitive matters.” The president’s son has been accused of a litany of crimes – from failing to pay taxes to making an illegal gun purchase to transporting women across state lines for prostitution. It turns out he’s the sort of guy who was brazen enough to take pictures of himself smoking crack and driving his Porsche at 172 miles per hour, then to leave those images and countless other incriminating files on a laptop computer that he abandoned at a Delaware repair shop.

Most sensitive politically is the evidence suggesting that Hunter Biden ran an influence-peddling operation in which he allegedly solicited bribes in Ukraine and other countries by selling the family “brand.” The brand was then-Vice President Joe Biden and the political clout that he could wield for the family’s friends.

Those claims are the most serious because they connect the commander-in-chief to the alleged conspiracy. In fact, Hunter Biden allegedly patched in his father on conference calls with overseas business associates and once tried to coerce a Chinese businessman to resolve a payment dispute by claiming that Joe Biden was sitting next to him and would make the partner regret failing to comply.

President Biden has angrily denied having been with his son when the shakedown message was sent. He also has repeatedly denied having any knowledge of or involvement in his son’s business dealings. As evidence continues to mount to the contrary, it’s easy to see why Garland is concerned about public perceptions heading into the 2024 presidential election.

Republicans have accused the DOJ of giving the president’s son preferential treatment and of trying to protect the Biden family as Joe Biden seeks re-election. Two-thirds of US voters polled by Rasmussen Reports agreed, saying Hunter Biden got favorable treatment from federal prosecutors because his father is the president.

If all that doesn’t make the investigation politically sensitive enough, the cherry on top is that a DOJ special counsel has filed dozens of felony charges against Biden’s chief 2024 rival, former President Donald Trump, in two separate cases. Trump, the first ex-president in US history to be criminally indicted, has claimed that politically motivated prosecutors are trying to interfere in the election because Biden can’t defeat him in a rematch of their 2020 battle.

Garland’s solution was to appoint a special counsel in the Biden case. However, it turns out that the prosecutor assigned to the role is the same DOJ employee who has been running the Hunter Biden investigation since 2019. David Weiss, US attorney for the district of Delaware, was elevated to special counsel status at his own request. “Upon considering his request, as well as the extraordinary circumstances relating to this matter, I have concluded it is in the public interest to appoint him as special counsel,” Garland said.

The Pro-Biden press corps – meaning pretty much the entire US legacy media – nodded approvingly. For example, the New Republic was quick to claim that Biden’s attorney general had “annihilated several main Republican talking points.” The move “fully insulated the investigation from accusations of government interference,” the outlet added. NBC News said “distrustful” Republicans were still critical of the appointment.

As Garland pointed out, as special counsel Weiss will no longer be subject to “day-to-day supervision” by any Department of Justice (DOJ) official. And if the administration were to torpedo the investigation or block the filing of any charges, Garland would be required to inform Congress. The attorney general and Biden’s media backers also have noted that Weiss was appointed to his job by Trump and was allowed to continue leading the Hunter Biden investigation when the new president came into office.

But what really changed? Garland has repeatedly claimed that Weiss was given full authority all along to make prosecutorial decisions without any interference from higher-ups. If Garland is to be believed, Weiss merely has the same authority now, and his prosecutorial decisions will still have to conform with DOJ policies. He will have broad authority to file charges in any jurisdiction he chooses, but his boss insisted that he had that latitude before.

Weiss has backed up Garland’s claims that the investigation has been free of political interference. He denied allegations from IRS whistleblowers that the administration had declined to give him special-counsel status and that he had been prevented from filing indictments against the president’s son in Washington and Los Angeles, where some of the alleged crimes supposedly occurred.

Republican lawmakers were unimpressed by the fact Weiss was appointed as a US attorney by Trump, pointing instead to actions that suggested he was trying to protect the Bidens. The Delaware prosecutor’s investigation dragged on for four years, during which the DOJ declined to set the record straight when former US intelligence officials falsely claimed the laptop scandal was a Russian disinformation operation, deceiving voters just before the 2020 election. When Weiss finally did file an indictment in June, it was limited to tax and gun matters.

Weiss made a deal with defense lawyers that called for the felony gun charge to be dropped if Biden adhered to the terms of a diversion agreement. The president’s son also was enabled to avoid jail time on the two misdemeanor tax charges to which he agreed to plead guilty. It was a political happy ending that would allow Hunter Biden to move on, free of any felonies on his record, and end the distraction he was creating for his father’s re-election campaign.

Unfortunately for the Bidens, US District Court Judge Maryellen Noreika was taken aback by the deal, at least partly because it appeared that Weiss had given Hunter Biden immunity from prosecution for other possible crimes. The judge refused to accept the plea bargain late last month and sent the lawyers back to the drawing board to work out a revised agreement. Weiss said in a court filing on Friday that talks on a new plea deal were at an “impasse,” suggesting that the case was headed for trial.

It’s unlikely that such a trial would ever be allowed to happen, making a public spectacle of the allegations against Hunter Biden at a time when his father is asking voters for another four-year term in the White House. Even as Garland assures the public that the investigation will be guided “only by the facts and the law,” Weiss will have other concerns. Whether he carries the title of special counsel or US attorney for the district of Delaware, his job is to give the appearance of enforcing the law without causing any serious harm to the Bidens.

August 12, 2023 Posted by | Corruption, Deception | , , | 1 Comment

The Illusion of Scandal: How Washington is Attempting to Dismiss $20 Million as an Illusion

By Jonathan Turley | August 10, 2023

I previously wrote a column marveling at the success of the Bidens in pulling off one of the neatest tricks in political history. I analogized it to how Houdini used to make his 10,000-pound elephant Jennie disappear on a stage in front of a live audience. The media and political establishment is now striving to top that performance by declaring $20 million in payments to Biden family members as an “illusion” of influence. At the heart of this scandal is the BFF, the Biden Family Fund.

Here is the column:

This week, President Joe Biden responded to calls for greater access to the media with a blockbuster interview with . . . the Weather Channel.

The interview immediately prompted critics to speculate that the president wanted to continue to talk about the weather — the same claim made after the disclosure of his participation in various dinners with his son’s foreign associates.

As the number of these dinners, meetings and outings increase, Joe Biden appears to have covered more meteorological subjects than Al Roker.

The problem is that conditions are worsening in Washington.

This week, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer released a third report on the ongoing investigations into the Biden corruption scandal.

The latest bank records indicate the Biden family has received more than $20 million, including from corrupt Kazakh figures.

Some of this money provided Hunter Biden with extravagant toys. On April 22, 2014, Kazakh oligarch Kenes Rakishev wired $142,300 to the Rosemont Seneca Bohai bank account.

That account then shows the exact same amount being wired to a New Jersey car dealership for a Fisker sports car for Hunter. Finding the Fisker unsuitable, Hunter traded it in for a Porsche.

Notably, these payments often coincided with dinners and meetings with Joe Biden.

Russian oligarch Yelena Baturina, the widow of Moscow ex-Mayor Yury Luzhkov, wired $3.5 million to Rosemont Seneca Thornton Feb. 14, 2014.

She later attended a dinner with Joe and Hunter Biden at Washington, DC, hotspot Café Milano.

For weeks, Joe Biden’s prior claims have been collapsing as his allies in the media and Congress struggle for an alternative spin on these new disclosures.

The president’s denials of any knowledge of his son’s foreign dealings finally have been exposed as a lie.

Even the Washington Post has acknowledged Biden lied when he insisted that Hunter never made any money in China.

It was always a boldfaced falsehood (and a confusing claim from a man who insisted that he had no knowledge of his son’s foreign dealings).

But the testimony of associate Devon Archer and new bank records forced the paper and others to recognize the falsehood.

There is also the confirmation that Biden’s long denials that he attended key dinners with Hunter’s business associates were false.

Most notably, the media are grudgingly admitting that Hunter was openly selling influence peddling and access to his father as part of what Archer called “selling the brand.”

The final line of defense is now that Hunter Biden was selling access to Joe Biden but it was an “illusion.” The reason, they claim, is there is no evidence of direct payments to Joe and Jill Biden.

There is, of course, nothing “illusionary” about tens of millions moving to Hunter and other family members.

But political spins are often built on illusions. The latest is that Joe Biden only benefits from these payments if they were directly deposited in his accounts.

For a family that Hunter explained was “the best” at this type of dealing, it is absurd to expect a deposit slip from a corrupt Ukrainian official to the account of Joe and Jill Biden, one of the most vulnerable accounts in the world to review and monitoring.

These claims, moreover, ignore emails discussing Hunter’s and his father’s use of joint accounts to pay for expenses, including how one account was used to pay Joe’s taxes. There is also Hunter’s complaint that he was using half of his earnings to support his father. Indeed, one trusted FBI informant said that, in planning a bribe, one foreign figure was told to avoid direct payments to Joe Biden. Today, that is as amateurish as an envelope of cash and the Bidens have been in the business of influence peddling for decades.

Responding to the new evidence, Washington Post columnist Phillip Bump led the charge in asking: Where’s the bribe?

In other words, as long as Hunter got the luxury car, Joe didn’t benefit or receive a bribe.

(Notably, Bump did not have the same high standards when he pushed the false claim over a photo op in Lafayette Park and later refused to concede with the rest of the media on the lack of Russian collusion with Donald Trump.)

Not even millions to Biden children and grandchildren would seem to satisfy Bump as an inducement for the then-vice president.

Yet the greatest illusion is the claim Joe Biden would only be motivated by a direct payment to one of his accounts.

Biden clearly benefited from millions going to the Biden Family Fund (BFF). Even grandchildren received some of the transfers funneled through a labyrinth of accounts.

Joe Biden is 80 years old. Despite holding only government jobs in his career, he is worth an estimated $8 million.

Forbes reported he earned $17.3 million over the four years he was out of office. He will never spend his fortune. Any additional money would have to pass to his descendants.

For most wealthy people in their final years, the challenge is not raising more money but getting that money to your children without heavy taxes or delays.

This money was going to his BFF. That is a benefit and probably of greater value to a man of Joe Biden’s age and wealth.

None of this has stopped politicians, press and pundits from insisting that absent a direct payment to the president’s account, there is no corruption or crime.

After all, $20 million going to a president’s family is like complaining about the weather in Washington.

Jonathan Turley is an attorney and professor at George Washington University Law School.

August 12, 2023 Posted by | Corruption, Deception | , | 1 Comment

No US Presidential Election in 2024

The Automatic Earth | August 11, 2023

In January 2023, US special counsel Jack Smith applied for -and received- a subpoena for Twitter, specifically for all of Donald Trump’s utterances at the site through the years, including the ones he may have never published. Note: the subpoena came long after Trump left Twitter. And no, it wasn’t X then, and therefore it is not now. He wrote it when it was Twitter. Important. Trump left Twitter (was cancelled) on Jan 8 2021, Elon Musk bought it on October 27 2022, and renamed it “X” in late July 2023. Just so we get our horses and dogs in line.

Special counsel Jack Smith received his Twitter/Trump subpoena with the added provision that it had to be entirely secret, not even Twitter or Trump could know. US District Court Judge Beryll Howell gave Smith what he wanted, agreeing that if Trump’s years-old Twitter past was known, he would become a flight risk. But both Smith and Howell knew this was absolute nonsense. Not only is Twitter the last place you turn to when you have nefarious secrets to hide (it’s the opposite!), but the man is running for President, for God’s sake! And because of some 5 year old -or so- tweets he would pack in the family and disappear to an -underground- bungalow on Vanatua, never to be heard from again?

I would put this down as the moment when it became impossible for the US to have a presidential election in 2024. We’ve had some 8 years of this anti-Trump circus now, non-stop, Hillary, Pelosi, Adam Schiff and Robert Mueller, yada yada yada, but I don’t think we’ve reached the point before where the elections might as well be cancelled. We’re there now though. And that is a BIG point. We’ve let it come far too far. We’re in slapstick territory.

Think of it as a boxing match. In the one corner, we have the former champion/president, wearing the slightly widened red trunks. At age 77, he looks somewhat bruised and battered, but he doesn’t look beaten- yet. What’s noticeable though is that his corner is empty, except for Melania cleaning his brow, not even his own party is there to support him. There are some 90 million Americans behind him, but they are at home.

In the other corner, the defending champion, in blue trunks, weighing in at about 25 pounds and falling, looks a little lost. But behind him in his corner he has thousands of operatives: his entire party, plus the CIA and NSA and FBI and DOJ. And all the newspapers and TV channels and social media in the country. And all the judges and prosecutors, the DAs and GAs, it’s a veritable love-in. The guy in the blue trunks could be braindead and he’d still win. And I wish I was a cartoonist, and could capture the entire image in one frame. I can see it in front of my eyes, but I can’t draw it.

Where the boxing analogy goes astray is that in this case the blue side is allowed to harass the red side before, during and after the (preparations for) the fight, and during the fight itself. You can’t a have a free and fair fight, and a level playing field, if some “blue operatives” can put shackles on the ankles and wrists of the red candidate, or even lock him up while he’s preparing for the bell to ring. If the system allows him to be a candidate, it must also allow him to prepare for his candidacy, in the same way that his opponent can. That is not happening.

US special counsel Jack Smith has announced that the US plans to drag Trump before court after court starting January 2 2024. At least 3 major indictments (will be a dozen) , likely many more, and at my last count, 82 charges (it’s impossible to keep up). Smith can then finger pick any of these charges to put Trump in custody, whenever he feels like it. The judges are almost all “blue”, and so are the jury pools: New York and DC. And this is while he’s supposed to be campaigning!

And also: Trump allegedly already spent $40 million on legal expenses. But what if Trump doesn’t have $40 million? We could argue the $40 million should be spent on his campaign. Look at Imran Khan, guys, who was just convicted to a 3-year prison term in Pakistan on US directives. Like Trump, he is the most popular political candidate in his nation, and they got him on selling necklaces when he was PM.

That is Trump’s future too. And hence, the end of American democracy. He doesn’t stand a chance. And if he doesn’t, the system doesn’t, and you don’t. You’re fine as long as you agree with the boot stomping on your neck, and you maybe even enjoy it. But if you don’t, Jack Smith and his ilk – and Obama, Hillary, Adam Schiff, Pelosi, the whole gang, will come with charges and indictments directed at you.

You’re on the verge of the abyss. if you want to take your chances with what you might find down there, fair enough. But always know that you have a choice. And that, if somehow they do manage to stage a presidential election in November 2024 as things stand now, it’ll be fake from A to Z. Grow a pair, people, grow a backbone. You’re going to need them.

August 12, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | 2 Comments

AZ Governor Katie Hobbs Asked Twitter To Censor Her Critics, Emails Show

By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | August 11, 2023

In a controversial blend of politics and social media censorship, it has been revealed that Democratic Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs has intervened with Twitter, now X, in an effort to silence critics of her tweet where she equated Trump supporters to neo-Nazis. This revelation raises critical concerns about free speech and political bias in the era of Big Tech censorship.

Hobbs had targeted Trump and his supporter base in a contentious 2017 tweet during her tenure in the Arizona state legislature. “Trump has made it abundantly clear he’s more interested in pandering to his neo-nazi base than being president for all Americans,” she stated, an assertion that drew widespread condemnation from her digital audience. This criticism wasn’t taken lightly by Hobbs, who ascended into her role as Arizona secretary of state while these contentious debates raged on.

Hobbs’ contentious social media posting subsequently ignited debates over her impartiality in administering elections, upon which the Democratic leader demanded the censorship of online judgments against her.

Leaked emails confirmed by Arizona Capitol Oversight, a conservative political entity, revealed Hobbs officially contacted Twitter in November 2020 to sanction her online critics.

However, when Twitter demanded further details to justify Hobbs’ request, she was unable to produce the required evidence. Instead, she laid claim to being “harassed” by political opponents for her comments labeling them as Nazis. Hobbs went on to argue that they had weaponized a three-year-old tweet to spread threatening messages.

Despite countless appeals for responses from X and Hobbs regarding the censorship requests, reactions have yet to surface. In the shadow of these unfolding revelations, there is mounting evidence that many more federal departments than expected could be deliberately downplaying their engagement in online censorship.

August 12, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | | Leave a comment

Free Speech To The Supreme Court — And Beyond!

Historic Missouri v. Biden Censorship Lawsuit Likely Headed To Supreme Court

BY ALEX GUTENTAG | PUBLIC | AUGUST 11, 2023

Yesterday the Fifth Circuit court heard oral arguments in the Missouri v. Biden case, and the judges did not hold back. One judge suggested the government “strongarms” social media companies and that their meetings had included “veiled and not-so-veiled threats.”

Another judge described the exchange between the Biden administration and tech companies as the government saying, “Jump!” and the companies responding, “How high?”

“That’s a really nice social media company you got there. It’d be a shame if something happened to it,” the judge said, describing the government’s coercive tactics.

Attorney John Sauer, representing Louisiana, masterfully argued that the government had repeatedly violated the First Amendment. He pointed to specific evidence of coercion in the Facebook Files.

“You have a really interesting snapshot into what Facebook C-suite is saying,” Sauer explained. “They’re emailing Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg and saying things like… ‘Why were we taking out speech about the origins of covid and the lab leak theory?’” The response, Sauer said, was, “Well, we shouldn’t have done it, but we’re under pressure from the administration.”

He also cited an email from Nick Clegg, Facebook President of Global Affairs, that pointed to “bigger fish to fry with the Administration – data flows, etc.”

On Monday, Public reported that these “data flows” referred to leverage the Biden administration had over the company; Facebook needed the White House to negotiate a deal with the European Union. Only through this deal could Facebook maintain access to user data that is crucial for its $1.2 billion annual European business.

But Sauer also made it clear that coercion was not the only basis on which the court could rule against the Biden administration. Joint activity between the White House and social media platforms would also be unconstitutional.

Sauer compared what the government had done to book burning. “Imagine a scenario where senior White House staffers contact book publishers… and tell them, ‘We want to have a book burning program, and we want to help you implement this program… We want to identify for you the books that we want burned, and by the way, the books that we want burned are the books that criticize the administration and its policies.”

Daniel Tenny, the attorney for the Department of Justice, was left nitpicking and misrepresenting the record. In one instance, he denied that Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins had hatched a plan to orchestrate a “takedown” of the Great Barrington Declaration. Why? Because, Tenny said, according to their emails, they actually planned a takedown of “the premises of the Great Barrington Declaration.”

Tenny also stated that social media companies had not removed any true content. From the case’s discovery as well as the Facebook Files we know that is far from true. Facebook, against internal research and advicedid remove “often-true content” that might discourage people from getting vaccinated. Facebook’s own emails clearly suggest that the company only did this due to pressure from figures within the Biden Administration.

Tenny also claimed that when Rob Flaherty, the White House director of Digital Strategy, dropped the F-bomb in an exchange with Facebook it was not about content moderation. In fact, it was precisely about content moderation and occurred during a conversation about how Instagram was throttling Biden’s account. Ironically, the account couldn’t gain followers because Meta’s algorithm had determined that it was spreading vaccine misinformation.

Later, Sauer demolished an earthquake hypothetical that Tenny had introduced to justify state-sponsored censorship. “You can say this earthquake-related speech that’s disinformation is false, it’s wrong,” Sauer said. “The government can say it’s bad, but the government can’t say, ‘Social media platforms, you need to take it down.’ Just like a government can’t stand at the podium and say, ‘Barnes and Noble, you need to burn the bad books, burn the Communist books, whatever it is.’ They can’t say take down speech on the basis of content.”

Based on this hearing, the plaintiffs in Missouri v. Biden may have a strong chance of winning. Biden’s DOJ simply had no valid arguments to present. The evidence is clear: the administration brazenly engaged in an unlawful censorship campaign and instrumentalized private companies to do its bidding. This total disregard for fundamental civil liberties will be a stain on the Democratic Party for years to come.

The Supreme Court will be the supreme victory in the US, but our free speech work won’t be done after we win there. No nation enjoys free speech protections like ours. And so, after we win in the US, you can expect to see us helping our allies abroad achieve similar protections from government strongarming, aka censorship, in their own nations.

August 12, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

How Americans released in swap deal engaged in espionage activities in Iran

By Khosro Mokhtari | Press TV | August 12, 2023

Iran’s foreign ministry on Thursday issued a statement confirming reports of a prisoner swap deal between Tehran and Washington, which includes the unfreezing of Iranian funds abroad.

“Iran has received the necessary guarantee for the US commitment to its obligations in this regard,” the statement noted, adding that the transfer of funds has always been a priority for the ministry.

Prior to the ministry statement, IRNA cited official sources as saying that five American prisoners will be released from Evin Prison “within the framework of an agreement mediated by a third party.”

The report further said that more than 10 billion dollars of Iran’s frozen assets in South Korea and Iraq will be unblocked under the agreement that was reached following extensive two-year negotiations.

Five prisoners each from Iran and the US will be exchanged under the deal. The exchange, however, will happen only once the money is deposited into Iranian accounts.

Five Iranians who would be freed as part of the swap agreement were jailed for trying to circumvent US sanctions, according to Washington’s claims, while five Americans in Iran were booked for espionage.

Late on Thursday, Iran’s deputy foreign minister and nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to announce that the process of releasing billions of dollars of Iranian assets had commenced.

“Tehran has received the guarantee of Washington’s commitments. The release of several Iranians who were illegally detained in America is in this context,” he wrote.

Foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, in a tweet on Saturday, said since the beginning of President Ebrahim Raeisi’s government, dynamic diplomacy was put into action to “obtain the maximum national interests and the rights of the great nation of Iran.”

“In addition to continuing the process of neutralizing illegal sanctions, the path of negotiation and diplomacy was never abandoned. Efforts continue to obtain final results and full realization of Iran’s rights,” the top diplomat wrote, in reference to the unblocking of Iranian assets abroad.

Among three American prisoners who will be freed as part of the swap agreement include Emad Shargi, Murad Tahbaz, and Siamak Namazi. The other two have not been publicly identified.

Emad Shargi

Emad Edward Sharqi, who was born in Iran and holds American citizenship, was sentenced to 10 years in prison in January 2021 on charges of espionage and gathering military information.

He entered Iran in 2016 in the guise of a businessman, but the economic activity was actually a cover for his espionage in the military field, especially in the field of transportation and helicopter warfare.

With the help of his accomplices, Sharqi collected information about Iran’s helicopter industry. The documents recovered from his possession show his activities were in the field of military espionage, not business or trade as was reported in sections of Western media.

The purpose of these actions was to help the US policymakers implement the sanctions regime against Iran to hit the international supply chain for helicopter spare parts intended for the country.

Sharqi was arrested for the first time in April 2018 and remained in prison until December of that year before he was released on bail. But before the appeals court was held, he planned to escape from Iran.

While staying in a private home, unaware of Iranian intelligence monitoring, he contacted the American spy network and asked them to arrange for him to be secretly transferred abroad.

On the day of the planned escape, he met with a spy aide, removed the SIM card and turned off his cell phone to prevent tracking. After that, they headed to western Tehran’s bus terminal where, using a false identity, he bought a ticket to travel to Iran’s western border.

Iranian intelligence services deliberately allowed the escape to proceed almost to its planned point, with the aim of discovering and arresting his accomplices.

Sharqi and several others were eventually arrested and convicted under Iranian law.

Murad Tahbaz

Murad Tahbaz, who was born in the United Kingdom and also holds an American passport, was sentenced to 10 years in prison in November 2019 for being the ringleader of a spy network that operated under the guise of environmentalism.

Tahbaz co-founded the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation, formally a conservation organization whose primary concern was the endangered Asiatic cheetah which lives mainly in the northern Dasht-e Kavir desert of Iran.

The same geographical area is also home to two of Iran’s largest rocket sites, which are under strict surveillance, and long-term observation of the activities of these self-proclaimed environmentalists revealed that they were more interested in those facilities.

Furthermore, monitoring of Tahbaz’s contacts revealed that he was in close contact and communicating on a regular basis with American, British and Israeli spy agencies.

The investigation showed that certain individuals involved were misled about the true intent of the project, which was falsely presented in Western media as alleged evidence of collective innocence.

Siamak Namazi

Siamak Namazi was born in Iran and moved to the United States with his wealthy family in the early years of the Islamic Revolution.

In October 2016, Namazi was sentenced to 10 years in prison for espionage and cooperation with the US government and foreign intelligence networks.

At the end of the 1990s, he tried to become an intermediary in making deals between American and Iranian companies, founding the consulting company “Atieh Bahar Consulting” in Tehran.

Namazi’s company concluded a gas agreement with the UAE-based company “Crescent Petroleum” on the export of gas to Sharjah, but the project resulted in costs only for the Iranian side and an Emirati lawsuit of $32 billion.

Evidently, it was a well-planned fraud aimed at harming Iranian interests, for which Namazi was rewarded with the position of head of strategic planning at Crescent Petroleum.

Over time, it was revealed that “MIC” was actually a covert network filled with US government employees who later held numerous other anti-Iranian positions.

These include the position of editor-in-chief of the VOA Persian propaganda channel, jobs at the US government’s Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS) at the Pentagon’s National Defense University, the Office of Iranian Affairs at the US State Department, etc.

Namazi himself participated in gathering information about the Iranian pharmaceutical network, whose extensive study he presented at the US government’s Wilson Center (WWICS).

This activity under the guise of humanitarian work had the purpose of making it easier for American hawks to increase sanctions on Iran, that is, to show them how and where to hit the Iranian pharmaceutical industry.

Namazi was eventually arrested in October 2015.

His father, Iranian-American businessman Baqer Namazi, who had been convicted in Iran on spying charges, was released and allowed to leave the country in October last year on humanitarian grounds.

Namazi, 85, was arrested on February 22, 2016, when he came to Iran on the pretext of visiting his jailed son. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison for “collusion with an enemy state.”

US politicization of cases

The cases pertaining to these American spies were subjected to politicization by the US government, whose official narrative was followed by all Western media organizations, without a single exception.

The legal basis of cases filed against them by the Iranian judiciary was ignored, according to observers, and the same clichéd stories about groundless arrests, show trials and harsh prison conditions were repeated by the US officials and the mainstream media.

According to legal researcher Alireza Sadeghian, Westerners jailed in Iran for spying are often described as “political hostages, businessmen, environmentalists, humanitarians, activists, human rights fighters to generate sympathy for them.”

“This American self-righteousness is not questioned in the West, as if the US is an authoritative legal model, not the country with the largest number of prisoners, a far higher incarceration rate and prison violence rate compared to Iran,” he said on the Press TV website, referring to blatant US duplicity and hypocrisy.

To influence public opinion in the West, US media would publish emotional statements from family and lawyers, describing them as “innocents” who were “wrongly framed” by the Iranian authorities.

After the senior Namazi was released last October, Jared Genser, an attorney and pro-bono counsel for the Namazi family, was quoted as saying by PBS that he was “wrongfully held in Iran for more than six-and-a-half years,” disregarding legal merits of the case.

In May 2022, an AFP report stated that Americans and Europeans have been held in Iran “as part of a deliberate policy of hostage-taking to extract concessions from foreign governments.”

‘Hostages & ransom’ narratives

Western pundits and so-called rights groups fail to mention Iranians languishing in US prisons, arguing that the Americans are being exchanged for “ransom,” which is the illegally frozen Iranian money.

Such rhetoric, according to experts, is reminiscent of the 1979-1981 American manipulations, when the staff of the US embassy in Tehran was detained, according to the Western narrative, due to Washington’s refusal to return billions of dollars stored in American banks.

Even at that time, Washington denied its widespread espionage activities in Iran, despite undeniable evidence in the form of discovered equipment and classified documents in the seized embassy.

The American audience was deprived of the true motives of the embassy seizure. The captives were called hostages, and the demand for the return of frozen assets was misrepresented as a ransom, alluding that billions of dollars in frozen funds were US property.

“The claims of Iran randomly arresting American citizens for financial and other benefits is simply false and empirically unproven, as evidenced by the cases of temporary detention of 10 American sailors, three mountaineers, and numerous other examples,” said Mahmoud Mortazavi, a political analyst.

“On the other hand, the released Iranians in the United States were not arrested for espionage but for trying to circumvent US sanctions, i.e. trade for mutual benefit.”

He hastened to add that, unlike American spies in Iran, they did not plan industrial espionage, plant sabotage, assassination of American commanders, or other destructive activities.

August 12, 2023 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , | 2 Comments

Pakistan Risks Losing Much More Than Affordable Gas If It Abandons Its Iranian Pipeline Plans

Another Consequence Of The Post-Modern Coup

BY ANDREW KORYBKO | AUGUST 12, 2023

Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper reported early last week that Petroleum Minister Musadik Malik told the National Assembly that their country plans to suspend its obligation to purchase Iranian gas due to fear of US sanctions and that international arbitration will likely determine the penalty that they’ll pay. After the news broke, he then tried explaining away this scandal by insisting that his side is actively exploring “creative solutions” to avoid scrapping this decade-old pipeline, but the damage was already done.

No serious observer thought that Pakistan had the political will to defy the US on this issue after the post-modern coup that took place in April 2022. Former Prime Minister Imran Khan (IK) was ousted via superficially “democratic” means that were supported by the US as punishment for his multipolar policies. In particular, top regional diplomat Donald Lu expressed concern to the former Pakistani Ambassador the month prior about his country’s economic ties with Russia.

The First Post-Coup Attack Against Pakistan’s Energy Security

This was confirmed by the cable that the Ambassador sent to Islamabad after their meeting, which was just leaked last week by The Intercept and analyzed here. Its relevance to the lede is that this document removes any doubt that the US is opposed to Pakistan obtaining energy security. Lu was reported by the Ambassador to have complained about the former premier’s trip to Moscow precisely because it “was for bilateral economic reasons” driven by IK’s desire to clinch a major energy deal with President Putin.

Seeing as how Pakistan’s pursuit of energy security via the aforementioned major deal with Russia that IK wanted to clinch in Moscow was one of the reasons why the US prioritized the post-modern coup against him, it therefore follows that it wouldn’t support Pakistan pursuing the same via Iran either. While it’s true that Pakistan recently imported Russian oil for the first time, this was with US approval out of desperation to see whether its proxy’s collapsing economy could be saved through these means.

Rethinking The Reasons Behind The Regime’s Import Of Russian Oil

There are several reasons, however, why it’s unlikely that IK’s envisaged energy deal will come to pass. First, Pakistan requires US approval to continue buying Russian resources, which can’t be taken for granted. Second, reliable Pakistani media recently reported about technical obstacles to these plans. Third, the latest release of IMF funds might have come with the unofficial condition of buying oil from elsewhere. And fourth, the initial purchase could have been political to deflect from IK’s accusations.

To elaborate, his replacements ran with the narrative shortly after receiving their first-ever import of Russian oil to claim that it allegedly puts to rest any speculation about them coming to power with US support as part of the latter’s plot to sabotage relations with Moscow. Their subsequent delay in setting up a “Special Purpose Vehicle” for taking their plans to the next level reinforces suspicion that this purchase was largely for domestic political purposes, ergo another reason why the US approved it.

Rethinking The Reasons Behind Pakistan’s Pipeline Deal With Iran

Political motivations could also have been at play when Pakistan agreed to build a gas pipeline with Iran in 2013, which came amidst deteriorating ties with the US brought about by the Abbottabad raid in 2012 and NATO’s cross-border attack from Afghanistan the year prior in 2011. In this case, the purpose would have been to signal its displeasure with the US in the hopes of prompting it to initiate a meaningful rapprochement, not advancing a partisan agenda at home like its import of Russian oil did.

Nevertheless, the point is that the recent problems in finalizing an oil deal with Russia are eye-opening enough to inspire a rethinking of Pakistan’s calculations in agreeing to its gas pipeline deal with Iran a decade ago now that the latter is also on the rocks. The failure of either plan, let alone both, will harm the country’s energy security by depriving it of the opportunity to reliably receive low-cost oil and gas respectively.

Qatar’s Place In The US’ Post-Coup Strategy Towards Pakistan

Comparatively more expensive resources from the Gulf would then be the only realistic solution for meeting Pakistan’s needs, which seems to be exactly the outcome that the US wants since it prefers for Pakistan to receive them from those countries than from Russia and Iran. The best-case scenario from the US’ perspective is for Pakistan to become dependent on Qatari LNG since Washington nowadays regards Doha as more geostrategically reliable in the New Cold War than Saudi Arabia or the UAE.

Towards A US-Led Qatari-Pakistani-Ukrainian Quadrilateral

Despite their sharp differences during the Trump Administration, they’ve since patched up their problems so well under the Biden one that the US Ambassador to Qatar bragged earlier in the month that “Our diplomatic ties are stronger than they have ever been.” This followed the Qatari Prime Minister’s visit to Kiev in late July that came shortly after the Ukrainian Foreign Minister’s first-ever one to Islamabad just a week before, where he was suspected to have clinched another secret arms deal.

India’s Economic Times then reported last week that “Pakistan seeks Gulf state help for shipping weapons to Ukraine”. Although no country was named, the abovementioned sequence of events strongly suggests the formation of a US-led quadrilateral involving Qatar, Pakistan, and Ukraine, the first two of whom are already close energy partners. Bearing all this in mind, there’s reason to believe that Qatar might be the unnamed Gulf state in that Indian media report.

Accelerating The Erosion Of Pakistani Sovereignty

Oman cultivated a reputation for neutrality over the decades, which Saudi Arabia and the UAE are now emulating towards the NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine through their refusal to arm Kiev or sanction Russia. Bahrain and Kuwait, meanwhile, have always been comparatively smaller players in international affairs. By contrast, Qatar is known for the leading role that it played in the “Arab Spring”, and its attendant reputation for boldness and rapprochement with the US cast suspicion on it in this context.

All of this pertains to the lede since Pakistan would be forced to become more dependent on Qatari LNG if it officially scraps the gas pipeline deal with Iran, thus leading to higher financial costs and less sovereignty in the long run. The first consequence stands on its own but also segues into the second since it could lead to Pakistan needing endless IMF bailouts with all that entails for its sovereignty, not to mention the very high likelihood that Doha will exploit its energy role over Islamabad to other ends.

Concluding Thoughts

To wrap it all up, the post-modern coup that the US supported against IK in April 2022 was intended to deal a deathblow to Pakistan’s sovereignty, and it arguably succeeded. That country’s energy security will now no longer be ensured by diversifying its portfolio with low-cost Russian and Iranian oil and gas imports respectively. This will force it to pay higher costs from other suppliers, which will keep it in a perpetual cycle of financial dependence on the IMF with all the associated political strings.

Moreover, considering the trend of many countries replacing oil with gas, Pakistan’s capitulation to US sanctions pressure and resultant decision to pull out of its pipeline deal with Iran will make its energy security much more dependent on its already close Qatari industry partner. The emerging triangle between those two and the US could therefore lead to Pakistan entering into dual-vassalhood status vis-a-vis its “senior” partners, which would make it very difficult to ever regain its lost sovereignty.

August 12, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , | Leave a comment

Fresh missile attacks on Crimean Bridge foiled, local reports say

RT | August 12, 2023

Russian air defenses have shot down two incoming missiles in the vicinity of the Crimean Bridge, the region’s head, Sergey Aksenov, reported on his Telegram channel on Saturday. Photos and videos have been circulating on social media depicting what appears to be several columns of smoke coming from the transport infrastructure.

In his post, Aksenov wrote: “Air defenses have shot down two enemy rockets in the Kerch Strait area.” He added that the “Crimean Bridge has not been damaged,” and called on local residents to remain calm.

Meanwhile, Aksenov’s aide Oleg Kryuchkov, revealed on his Telegram channel that a “smoke screen has been set off by the special services.” He also wrote that the Crimean Bridge would be reopened to vehicles “very soon.”

Later in the day Aksenov issued another message, saying that one more missile had been downed over the Kerch Strait. The official also expressed gratitude to the Russian air defenses for their “professionalism.”

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, Ukraine “attempted to conduct a terrorist strike on the Crimean Bridge using a guided air-defense S-200 missile converted into a strike version” around 1pm Moscow time on August 12.

It said Russian air defenses had “detected the Ukrainian rocket in a timely manner and intercepted it in mid-air.”

The statement added that the foiled missile attack had not caused any casualties or destruction.

Commenting on the latest attempted missile strikes on the Crimean bridge as well as a separate thwarted drone attack on the peninsula early on Saturday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova strongly condemned these “terrorist attacks.”

She went on to stress that despite the bridge being a “purely civilian infrastructure,” it has been attacked repeatedly since last fall.

According to the Russian diplomat, Kiev is targeting the transport artery in retaliation for its faltering counteroffensive, which has so far failed to live up to high expectations.

Zakharova concluded that by engaging in such “barbaric actions,” Ukraine is showing its true face to the international community. The official also warned that Russia would retaliate.

On July 17, two seaborne explosive-laden drones rammed into the Crimean Bridge, causing one of its inner segments to collapse. The attack claimed the lives of two adults, leaving their teenage daughter seriously injured, and orphaned.

President Vladimir Putin described that incident as “yet another terrorist attack by the Kiev regime,” adding that the bridge was not being used for the transport of military supplies.

Late last month, the head of Ukraine’s intelligence service SBU, Vasiliy Malyuk, confirmed that it was behind the deadly truck bomb blast last October. The explosion killed several civilians and seriously damaged the bridge’s structure.

The bridge was built in 2018 to connect Crimea to the Russian mainland.

August 12, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

World sliding toward WW3 as more warhawks grab power in Washington DC

By Drago Bosnic | August 12, 2023

It’s hardly breaking news that there are numerous warhawks among the political elites in Washington DC. These people have been behind every instance of (geo)political instability initiated by the United States, be it illegal coups, civil wars, invasions, etc, all of which resulted in an exponential exacerbation of the supposed “problem” they were seemingly designed to “resolve”. Such warhawks are oftentimes so shamelessly belligerent that they don’t even bother concealing their openly planned war crimes under the guise of the mythical “moral high ground” used by other more subtle Washington DC warmongers.

It’s important to note that their style has always been preying on the weak, as these warmongers mostly focus on bringing the wanton “freedom and democracy” to those unable to retaliate or at least defend themselves. Direct attacks are unmistakably preceded by economic warfare (primarily sanctions) and “isolation” by the so-called “international community”, that is, the political West and its vassals and satellite states. After all, those are the countries “that matter”, the much-touted “garden”, while the rest of the world (or better said, the actual world) is “simply a jungle”, as EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell (in)famously stated.

And yet, in recent years, the warhawks have become so overconfident that they don’t even consider the possibility of engaging in actual diplomacy (unless arm-twisting is considered “diplomatic”), not even with countries that have the means of bringing all the “freedom and democracy” the US “exports” back to it. This includes not only “pocket superpowers” such as North Korea, but also geopolitical giants wielding unprecedented military and/or economic might, such as Russia and China, the two only near-peer adversaries to the United States. Such dangerous trends in American politics are only getting worse.

Namely, as if there weren’t enough war criminals in Washington DC, the US government is becoming a virtual hive of such power circles. Infamous neoconservatives such as John Bolton, Michael McCaul and Lindsey Graham, whose political influence has become dangerously powerful, are now getting significant backup that includes rabid Russophobes and Sinophobes such as Victoria Nuland and USAF General Charles Brown. Such warhawks are now gaining even more influence, meaning that America’s foreign policy is set to become more belligerent than ever before (if that’s even imaginable to most people).

In early October last year, John Bolton, former US National Security Advisor, infamous for his insistence on invading Venezuela, Iran and North Korea or escalating the ongoing war of aggression against Syria, Libya, Yemen, etc, openly stated that Russian President Vladimir Putin is on the US target list and threatened he might be assassinated. And while his directly visible political influence may seem to be dwindling, Bolton’s close associates are grabbing more power than ever. Namely, he was one of the most prominent members of the infamous Washington DC-based think tank known as the Project for the New American Century (PNAC).

PNAC’s main focus was making the already extremely belligerent US foreign policy even more aggressive. One of the original founders of the now-defunct think tank was Robert Kagan, notorious for being one of the strongest proponents of America’s aggression against the world. There’s not a single war Kagan hasn’t supported. Worse yet, he regularly and deliberately spreads disinformation in order to speed up wars, as evidenced by his unadulterated lies in years before the illegal US invasion of Iraq. Kagan is the husband of Victoria Nuland, who was directly involved in the illegal Maidan coup that resulted in the war in Donbass that killed upwards of 15,000 people by early 2022.

She was recently promoted to acting Deputy Secretary of State by President Biden, placing her in one of the most influential positions in the State Department, second only to Secretary of State Antony Blinken. It should be noted that while Nuland was serving in the Obama administration, one of her phone calls with the then US ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt was leaked. In February 2014, she told Pyatt that Arseniy Yatsenyuk will become the new prime minister of Ukraine, which he did that same month. During the call, she also clearly expressed her stance on the significance of the European Union in decision-making when it comes to the political West’s foreign policy.

Nuland was one of the architects of the Neo-Nazi junta’s seizure of power in Ukraine, making her directly responsible for the ongoing hostilities. She also supported both US terrorist attacks on the Nord Stream pipelines and the setting up of military biolabs in Ukraine. Her no less aggressive ally Lindsey Graham also actively took part in pushing Ukraine into a bloodbath, while also calling it the “best money we’ve ever spent” because “Russians are dying”. He is also notorious for actively calling for US aggression in Mexico. The strong influence of such warhawks exponentially raises the possibility of a world-ending thermonuclear confrontation.

Unfortunately, this isn’t only limited to the political establishment. Namely, the Senate Arms Services Committee recently voted to confirm General Charles Brown as the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, replacing Mark Milley. He is adamant that the US confrontation with China in the Asia-Pacific is inevitable and that Washington DC should further militarize the area. Coupled with resurgent Neo-McCarthyism that also includes congressman McCaul’s insistence on direct confrontation for semiconductors, as well as calls for placing Taiwan under the US nuclear umbrella, this is bound to put America on a collision course with China.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

August 12, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , | 5 Comments

Ex-Pentagon Analyst: US Got Rude Awakening in Ukraine After Downplaying Russian Air Power

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 12.08.2023

August 12 is Russian Aerospace Forces Day. In light of the critical role played by Russian air power in the military operations in Ukraine, Sputnik decided to reach out to retired US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski for her take on the conflict, and what the Pentagon got dead wrong in its assessment of Russian capabilities.

Saturday marks the 111th anniversary of the August 12, 1912 order establishing the Imperial Russian Air Service as a separate branch of the armed forces. In the century-plus since, Russia’s air forces have faced multiple reorganizations, and been known by multiple names, from the Soviet Air Forces (1918-1991) to the Russian Air Force (1992) and finally the Russian Aerospace Forces (2015 on). But throughout, its mission remained the same – to defend the nation’s airspace and provide ground support for the Army.

From the very beginning of the escalation of the Donbass crisis into a full-blown Russia-NATO proxy war in Ukraine in February 2022, the Aerospace Forces have played a key role in Russian offensive and defensive operations.

Its role has become especially noticeable amid Ukraine’s two-month old counteroffensive attempt, which US and NATO officials and generals now openly agree seems “extremely unlikely” to succeed, as Ukrainian forces have failed to break through even a single major Russian defensive line while taking staggering losses in troops and equipment.

Russia’s overwhelming superiority in the air has played a decisive role in halting Ukraine’s offensive operations, striking whenever they attempt a major armored maneuver, and keeping an eye out for movements in coordination with satellite intelligence and reconnaissance drones. So intense has the devastation of Ukrainian forces been that panicky NATO and Ukrainian officials have begun to blame one another over “tactics” or the lack of equipment and ammo instead of asking questions about the reasonableness of pushing Ukrainian troops to attack entrenched Russian positions without air cover or artillery superiority.

Rude Awakening

The Russian Aerospace Forces’ performance in Ukraine “has probably surprised many in the West,” says retired US Air Force veteran, former Pentagon analyst, anti-war whistleblower and activist Karen Kwiatkowski, “in part because of Western assumptions.”

“I think that the level of advanced technology in… the current Russian Air Force, and the relative newness of many of these systems compared to what we have in the West, has been a surprise, in part because Western analysis of intelligence is geared to downplay Russia and Russian capability in all ways. The Russophobia, and also a certain contempt for Russia, in DC and inside the Pentagon is a factor,” Kwiatkowski told Sputnik.

“I suspect also that how the Russian Air Force uses these systems in battle is also a surprise for the West, and particularly the US. Obviously, the Ukraine battlefield has been a testing ground for high-tech and rapidly adapting drone warfare, even as in some ways it reminds of a slogging land war in Europe faced in World War I,” she said.

Characterizing the Russian Aerospace Forces as a true “national defense air force,” as opposed to the “offensive, forward-operating Air Force” which the US has, Kwiatkowski said that Russian air power seems geared toward supporting land and sea operations “in a tightly integrated way” with “focus and exceptional skill set for ground support.” This is as opposed to the US and NATO powers, “where air forces seek to ‘dominate the skies’ in a somewhat competitive way with the separate Army and Navy missions,” she said.

“For us in the West, it remains difficult to get accurate assessments of battlefield performance in Ukraine, and that deficiency of hard data impacts not just commentators and technicians, but our top Pentagon and national political leadership,” Kwiatkowski stressed, after being asked to assess the performance of Russian Aerospace Force assets in Ukraine. “That said, it seems to me that the US media is somewhat hysterical over Russian drones, attack helicopters like the modern and capable Ka-52, and the Su-27 fighters in their various battlefield and defensive roles,” indicating their effectiveness.

Kwiatkowski highlighted the Lancet drone in particular, which is used by the Ground Forces, as a major “game changer” in Ukraine, given its success in devastating even the latest NATO ground-to-air weapons and Leopard tanks.

“The Lancet represents the evolution of Russian drone technology and design. It can carry different munitions, and serve different purposes on and above the battlefield, and appears to be cost effective to produce. It really represents what rapid evolution and development in a weapon, using real world data and learning, can produce,” the former Pentagon analyst said.

Unconventional Times Call for Unconventional Tactics

Along with strategy and weapons, Kwiatkowski also pointed to the surprising and “non-traditional, almost experimental” aerial disruption tactics employed by Russian military pilots in recent months, including against US-operated reconnaissance drones over the Black Sea and in Syria, by making close approaches and dumping fuel on them, or conducting other unpredictable aerial maneuvers.

“This kind of creativity, that functionally serves both Russian political as well as practical interests of air defense and air superiority, is impressive. It speaks to training, and competence of Russian pilots, but also that they are well-led and well-supported by their military and political leadership. I cannot say if this is the case, but this is the conclusion I draw,” Kwiatkowski summed up.

August 12, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment