What about President Trump???

 Every American president (and a lot of other presidents) must be a Zionist, since the countries' political system prevents non-Zionists from getting elected (and AIPAC has a track record that's close to 100% at getting only Zionists elected to US legislatures). So we knew President Trump, like Presidents Biden, Obama, Bush, Jr, Clinton, Bush, Sr, etc., etc., was a Zionist (although some hoped having Arab grandchildren might lessen his Zionism).

But Presidents Biden, Obama, Bush, Jr., Clinton, Bush, Sr., and Reagan all wanted to destroy the Evil Empire that was the USSR under President Reagan and Russia starting during Bush, Sr's term in office.

Since Russia still has the world's largest nuclear arsenal, defeating Russia looked like a good way to get to WWIII, but the people running the US government figure Russia ain't no USSR and probably have let all their nuclear bombs lose their capacity to go off in a thermonuclear explosion, so it would just be the conventional charge detonating unevenly and spreading a bit of radioactive material that has spent a lot of its radiation half-lives. So nothing to worry about.

But some still worry that a cornered, desperate Russia might still be able to start WWIII, and hoped President Trump would turn down the heat.

And, on 19 January 2025, President-elect Trump said the US had to pull out of the Ukraine since the war was destroying the US economy. I'd settle for that. I'd prefer the genocidecomplete and total elimination of the terrorist Arabs attacking the Israelis might be toned back a bit, but that's not going to happen. It is against the law, a serious offence, in the US/UK/EU to criticise anything Israel does to defend themselves from the women and childrenterrorists who are trying to finish the genocide of the Jews that started during WWII. (And, since it's illegal to say anything else, I won't.)

But at least President-elect Trump was pulling us back from WWIII.

Then, on 21 January 2025, President Trump said that Russia must totally withdraw from the Ukraine or Russia would be destroyed. And that remains the official US position, as it has been since the end of WWII, that the USSR/Russia must back down or they will be totally destroyed, since the US has far more advanced nuclear weapons and impregnable defences against a nuclear attack (at least impregnable defences for all the top multi-billion dollar Americans, plus the top civil servants and politicians, and who else really matters?).

Whoever was really running the government under 'President' Biden refused to talk to the Russians. But President Trump has ordered meetings of US and Russian negotiators in Saudi Arabia, and has had two long phone calls with Putin. So that's something we haven't seen for awhile.

The US/UK/EU media, with a few exceptions like Fox News and the New York Post, say that Trump is a terrible President for not completing the total destruction of Russia to which the Great Presidents who preceded him had gotten within easy striking distance. The New York Times explained how  the US generals told the Ukrainians how to kill Russians, and, when the Ukrainian military listened, they managed to kill almost a million Russian soldiers, leaving the Russian military with nothing but young boys and old men. But the Ukrainians far too often failed to listen to their American advisors, so there are still far too many Russian teenagers and geriatrics who would all have been eradicated if only the Ukrainians had listened.

Fox and the New York Post agree that the Great US military has almost destroyed the Russian military, but say this was done very inefficiently, squandering far more money than necessary and leaving the US economy in a very precarious position from which only President Trump can salvage a rescue, and without losing the Ukraine.

Biden, Fox and the New York Post say, was a very weak president, but we finally have a strong president.

In 1980, the US ordered a blockade of Iranian oil (and has since ordered a blockade of Venezuelan oil). But in 2021, Biden lifted the blockade of Iranian oil and let the PRC buy all of it, to which, in 2022, was added a lot of Russian oil after Europe stopped buying it. The PRC economy desperately needs oil (the PRC has the largest number of cars and drivers in the world), and a strong president like Trump will be able to lead the US military to stop the PRC from buying any oil, putting them back as a third-world country, and bringing a lot of jobs back to the US.

And, as I read yesterday (and I'm sorry I forgot to save the person who wrote it), when the US orders that no one can sell any oil to the PRC, all the PRC will be able to say, like the huge MMA guy who sees someone making a pest of himself in a bar, is, "请拿着我的啤酒."

What does the fall of Syria mean for Russia and Iran?

On 6 December, my Arab friends told me that Hayat Tarir al-Shams, a group consisting of just about all Syrians with no outside connections was about to take all of Syria. asked my Arab friends, 'How can you call people from Xinjiang Syrians?' They replied, 'There are maybe a dozen people from Xinjiang, and a total of about a hundred from other countries, but almost everyone in Hayat Tarir al-Shams was born in Syria, and they represent all Syrians, Sunnis, Alawite, Shi'a, Druze, and Christian.' 

Russia said that Aleppo had fallen to a combination of jihadists and Turkish army forces with many of the members from Xinjiang and the nearby countries, but they would never be able to go past Aleppo.

And then Hayat Tarir al-Shams took Damascus, while Israel took just about everything south of Damascus and the Turkish flag now flies above Aleppo, while the Daesh flag flies over Damascus.

Members of al-Qaeda and ISIS joined to form al-Nusrah, then renamed themselves Hayat Tarir al-Shams. Some Western reporters in Syria say that a rather large number are not Arabs, but are Sunni Muslims from Xinjiang and countries near Xinjiang, and the group contains no one who is not Sunni. But do you believe them, or actual Arabs (not Syrian Arabs) who say almost everyone in Hayat Tarir al-Shams is a born Syrian, and they represent all of Syria? They certainly heard it in Arabic, and I assume it was Syrian Arabic (or the accent of an Arab country near Syria), but a Sunni Syrian might have been surrounded by Uygurs while saying, 'There's no one here but us Syrians, and many of us are Alawites and Christians and all the other religious sects in Syria.'

CNN are running videos of people describing their horrible experiences in Syrian prisons, videos that are in Arabic (of course) with English subtitles for the CNN intended audience, but Arabs have taped and Instagrammed and Facebooked the videos, and they don't need the subtitles. The prisoners, kept for months without any food or water or sunlight and subjected to vicious beating, came out of their cells after the CNN crew broke open the door which had been left locked, and they looked well dressed, neatly barbered and shaved, and tanned. But one must believe what they say, and most of the Arabs I know say they are obviously telling the TRVTH, the whole TRVTH, and nothing but the TRVTH. (Some of the people who have been covering the Middle East for years, such as Vanessa Beeley and Eva Bartlett, say Hayat Tarir al-Shams are killing people, but are trying to do so privately, and no one is broadcasting any videos of the killings. I only found videos on Telegram that claim to be graphic evidence of Tayat Harir al-Shams atrocities, but it's not clear if one can verify that evidence, but it's on Telegram .

And Hayat Tarir al-Shams aren't killing anyone, they have always been peaceful, according to my Arab friends, who heard their horror stories of life under the Assad regime, and don't believe any of the Telegram videos.

Thousands of Syrians fled to Lebanon, but Lebanon handed them over to Hayat Tarir al-Shams for execution, so that didn't work.

***

But what about Russia? Former president Bashar al-Assad's father brought the Soviets into Syria, and they had a large presence, and fought with Syria to prevent regime change. But now Russia had greatly reduced the Russian presence in Syria from the Soviet presence, and had no idea Hayat Tarir al-Shams would be taking over part of Syria. For now, the northeastern third of Syria, the part with all the oil, is held by the US and Kurds. Erdogan wants all that to be a Kurd- and American-free part of the New Ottoman Empire (Erdogan won't call it that, but Russia do). What used to be southern Syria is now part of Israel, and Jolani, head of Hayat Tarir al-Shams says that Syria will strongly support Israel and do whatever Israel ask. He also says he wants Russia to remain, and Erdogan is welcome to Aleppo.

But Russia are now very weak in Syria, the troops on those Russian bases are not well protected, and could be subject to jihadi attacks, so it's looking like Russia will have to tell Jolani, 'Thanks, but no thanks.'

And that will mean that Russian influence in the Middle East will end, to the very great delight of the US. The Soviets were a world power, but Russia are just a regional power. Still, the Wehrmacht didn't have much luck fighting the Soviets in the Soviet Union, and it's not clear that NATO would be all that successful if they tried to fight Russia inside Russia or the countries adjacent to Russia.

***

Before, Syria had Russian anti-aircraft weapons, and Russian help training Syrian soldiers to use them, so Israel could never fly over Syrian territory. Now, Syria has absolutely no anti-aircraft, so Israel are free to fly over Israel whenever it suits them. Before, Israel wanted to bomb Iran, but the only route to Iran is over Syria, so US planes formed a vast sheet so Israeli planes could fly above the sheet, and Syria knew not to shoot down a US plane. Now, no need for US protection, Israel can bomb Iran whenever they wish. So far, Israel has just been bombing Syria to make absolutely certain that Syria won't be able to put together any antiaircraft protection of any kind. And Hayat Tarir al-Shams have absolutely no problem with this. I'm guessing regular bombing runs on Iraq and Iran will start soon.

Russia have been sending antiaircraft batteries to Iran, so Israel will not be able to bomb Iran, they'll have to use rockets, but rockets were enough to kill everyone in the Iranian Embassy in Syria, and they should be able to do whatever damage Israel wants to do to Iran. Israel wants US help carpet bombing Iran, but US equipment hasn't been doing all that well against Russian antiaircraft in the Ukraine, and Russia do not want Iran to fall to a US/Israeli military intervention and regime change. I fear we shall soon see how well US piloted US jets do against Russian antiaircraft batteries.

***

The PRC has been strictly non-interventionist. If the PRC gets a contract to build a port or airport or railway or whatever, and the US military force regime change to a government that only uses Western contractors (the country gets ripped off, but the senior government officials are very well paid).

Read Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins: they go to a country like Indonesia, the IMF and/or World Bank offer a loan at 10%, and the 'expert' promises a return of 20%, so the returns from the project will make the loan payments with a lot left over.

The IMF and World Bank insist that the country use their contractors who take the money and leave, so no project generating any return, and the loan must be repaid or the country will be blockaded. The country have to sell subsistence cropland to Western buyers who use it for cash crops, leaving many without any food, and all the countries mineral resources must be sold to Western buyers who take the minerals and dump waste in the rivers, leaving the people no safe drinking water. But the heads of state are very well rewarded as most of the population see their lives becoming much worse.

If the West engineer regime change to someone who will take those Western loans that are incredibly profitable to the West instead of the PRC loans that would have resulted in good profits for both the natives of the country and the PRC, the PRC never interferes.

But the PRC desperately needs Iranian oil, enough to send a Naval Fleet that could overcome the US Naval Blockade of Iran, so the PRC could buy as much oil as Iran could produce.

But if the US forces regime change in Iran to a government that gladly accepts US sanctions on selling oil to the PRC, will the PRC still do nothing? At what point, if any, do the PRC decide that non-interventionism is no longer a viable policy?

***

The US plan is to destroy Iran and Russia and cut the PRC completely off from their oil, then pressure the Gulf States to sanction the PRC and not give them any oil. The fact that, in the '40s, the US produced 75% of the world's oil, so the allies had plenty of oil for their airplanes and tanks, while the Axis did not, was one thing that helped the Allies win the war. Probably not nearly as much as the Wehrmacht trying to attack the Soviet Union, but still, having all the oil helped the Allied efforts, and the US is hoping that cutting off all oil and gas will greatly weaken the PRC and make regime change fairly facile.

Or maybe the US will convince the PRC that non-interventionism isn't really such a good policy.

***

I fear we will learn a great deal in 2025 that we'd rather not know.

What happened in Syria???

 On Friday, 6 December, most Arabs heard that Bashar Assad was finished, Hayat Tarir al-Shams was taking over Syria with no opposition, they were not, as many claimed, still al-Qaeda or ISIS, they were reformed (Julani, formerly dressed like a terrorist, put on a suit like Zelenski's), so now they appealed to all Syrians. I checked my (English) sources, and they said Syria was safe, since the Russians were there to protect them.

The US has wanted those Russian Naval Bases in Syria for NATO, and now probably has then. The US has been working on this for a long time. They took all the Syrian oil and a lot of the wheat, leaving Syria with no income. Military officers were paid $30 to $40 a month, the enlisted men about $5, while those in Hayat Tarir al-Shams (or HTS) were getting more than $2,000 a month, and the soldiers and officers in the Syrian Army were promised decent pay if they'd surrender. Most were killed after they surrendered, so they don't need the money, but Bashar Assad's government was overthrown on Saturday, 7 December.

Israel took Southern Syria. Turkey took a chunk of Northern Syria, and demands all the oil property now held by US troops with Kurdish support. Russia have not yet been driven out of Syria, but their position is now very difficult, and they'll probably withdraw and NATO will take their abandoned ports.

***

The Arab League ejected Syria, but the Gulf Arabs promised readmission and money if Syria would cut ties with Russia, the PRC, and Iran.

So, with no money to pay the military, and with Erdogan promising huge sums if they'd surrender, the Syrian military surrendered. Bashar was in the Russian base in Latakia, and it was suggested he go to Russia, so he went on Sunday, December 8.

For now, HTS says a) they have no quarrel with Israel, Israel is welcome to Southern Syria; and b) "Next year in Jerusalem".

Many Syrians are rejoicing, while many others are trying to flee to Lebanon, sure they'll be killed if they stay (and they're probably right).

***

After 19 Arabs perpetrated the hijacking and suicidal crashing of four airplanes, destroying the World Trade Center, General Wesley Clark said he heard someone say that Iraq and six other countries must be destroyed, seven countries in five years.

It took a little longer. In 2001, of course, President Bush, Jr. said the hijackers were all Afghans, so the US attacked Afghanistan. Then, in 2003, he said he'd discovered three more countries were responsible in what the Washington Post says was one of the best State of the Union Speeches ever given: Iran planned, funded, and organised the attack, and the Afghans were helped by Iraq and the DPRK, so the US had offered Saddam the chance to surrender, he had refused, and the US must invade and destroy the terrorist nation Iraq, and then Iran and the DPRK.

A few weeks later, President Bush, Jr admitted he'd missed two more countries responsible for 9/11: Libya and Cuba.

The list of 7 countries to be destroyed were Iraq, Libya, Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Lebanon, and Iran, and all but Iran have been effectively destroyed. 

Libya had the highest per capita of all the countries in Africa, all from stealing all the US oil under Libyan soil. Now, all that oil goes to the US who share 10% with the UK and 10% with France for helping destroy Libya. The Libyans have nothing but the souk al abid (سوق العبد), that and taking money to put too many desperate people in flimsy boats to try to sail to Europe.

Sudan got a civil war, was broken into two countries, Sudan and South Sudan, both of which are now having civil wars, so two civil wars from one.

Somalia was destroyed by sanctions, as was Lebanon.

And Syria was destroyed by having all the oil and wheat stolen by the US, then sanctions made it just about impossible to do anything.

All that's left now is Iran.

With Syria destroyed, all the Syrian antiaircraft batteries have been destroyed. Before, Israeli planes could not fly directly over Syria, except with a US protective shield: when the Israeli Air Force attacked Iran, they had to fly over Syria, so hundreds of US planes flew below the Israeli planes, so any antiaircraft would hit a US plane, giving the US an excuse to carpet bomb Syria, so Syria did not use their antiaircraft batteries, and Israel managed to attack some Iranian targets. Now, no US shield is needed, Israel can bomb Iran whenever they want.

And the plan is that Iran must be taken out soon, and Trump will either help Israel, or at least make it easy for Israel to destroy Iran.

The "seven countries in five years" starting in 2003 has taken a bit longer than anticipated, six of the seven were destroyed in just 21 years, and the seventh probably has about a year left.

Russia is looking weaker than before after letting Bashar Assad fall, so the US figure NATO can easily destroy Russia without using nukes.

And then the PRC will be all alone, and easily destroyed.

Unless, of course, the BRICS manage to ally militarily and protect each other.

***

Russia are sending a lot of anti-aircraft systems to Iran, so Israeli planes will have to use rockets rather than bombs, and Iran is a very large country, much larger than Syria, so it is not at all clear how effective the Israeli strike made with US support on Iran was. "Devastating, most of the Iranian nuclear programme was completely destroyed," according to Israel and the US. "Minimal damage," according to Iran. And no way of knowing who, if anyone, is telling the truth.

Likewise, the Iranian rocket strike on Israel: "No damage at all," according to Israel. "All intended targets struck and damaged," according to Iran. And, again, no way of knowing.

***

"Fox News" say that Hamas was able to strike Israel on 7 October 2023 and Israel has been unable to destroy Hamas and free all the hostages because President Biden is weak and rather anti-semitic, so he did not give Israel the support they needed to prevent 7 October and to quickly free all the hostages and destroy Hamas, but President Trump is strong, so Hamas will soon be no more, and all hostages will be freed.

Likewise, Russia only dared invade the Ukraine because President Biden was weak, and then he did not give the Ukraine the support they needed to finish the job of crushing Russia, but President Trump will change all that.

President/Candidate Trump said he was not going to continue wasting $trillons on the Ukraine, which does not sound like spending far more to destroy Russia. And it's not clear if Trump believes the story in all the US/UK/EU press that Russia are losing badly in the Ukraine, and with just a little more effort Putin will be deposed and Russia will be no more, the oblasts will be separate, independent, unarmed countries that can't threaten US hegemony. Those actually in the parts of the Ukraine controlled by Russia say Russia are winning the war: people who have checked note that Russia are producing seven times as much artillery as NATO, so even if NATO give the Ukraine all they can produce, it's not nearly enough. But one can't read that in any of the major US/UK/EU media.

***

Net: the world is in a mess, thermonuclear war seems more likely than ever before, and the information in the major US/UK/EU media mostly isn't.

As Tom Lehrer wrote, it's 'So long Mom, I'm off to drop The Bomb'

All the Western media, CNN, MSNBC, BBC, France24, DW, etc., etc., etc. say Israel are just defending themselves in the Ghaza, so ethnic cleansing is their indisputable right under International Law, and Russia are losing badly in the Ukraine, with losses of three armies, more than 1 million men, and a big chunk of Western Russia, and the Ukraine should take Moscow any day now.

So a few $trillion more and we'll finish the job. But the Ukraine need guns and bullets, and without those $trillions, all that we've invested so far will be a big waste and Russia will win.

The US were sure they were winning in Korea, but then the PRC sent in an army with more men than the US forces had bullets. The PRC only wanted to protect the PRC, so they let the US keep South Korea, but North Korea was off limits for the US military.

Then came Vietnam, where the Vietnamese had a lot of help from the USSR and shot down a lot of US planes and took the pilots as POWs.

And now there is Syria, where an Arab friend says that Syria is lost, all are surrendering to the Free Syrian Army, Assad fled to Tehran, and no one has anything that can stop that Free Syrian Army. Russia and Iran have pulled out completely, since they know they are no match for the Free Syrian Army which will have all of Syria in less than 48 hours.

Reading a few more sources, there are the anti-Assad forces under Türkiye, the US supported anti-Assad Kurds, Hayʼat Tahrir al-Sham (formerly al-Qaeda + Daesh), and some Israeli supported anti-Assad forces, and these anti-Assad forces include Syrian Arab Sunnis, foreign Sunnis from places like the PRC, and the -stans, and the Syrian Kurds.

One obvious point that my friend seems to have missed is that a) Russia are very attached to their Mediterranean naval port in Syria and have no intention of giving it up; b) in spite of the Western media, Russian military production far exceeds that of all of NATO, which is incredibly corrupt, with NATO defence companies paying for sales, with weapons contracts that pay $billions, most of which goes as sales commissions and management bonuses, with very little wasted on actual weapons production. Making sales brings in the big bucks, not making weapons.

Russia have a lot invested in the Ukraine, and it's taking time to bring the Russian forces to bear. They were slow 15 years ago, but eventually salvaged the Assad regime that gave them those Russian naval bases that, if Assad is overthrown, will go to NATO.

So the US is pushing hard in the Ukraine, Georgia, Syria, and Romania, and are shooting ATACMS into Russia, killing Russians, and it's not clear how much longer Russia will put up with this before doing something to stop the attacks on Russia by NATO.

The US/UK/EU say, 'If Russia get annoyed, they'll totally destroy Kiev, but we can live without Kiev. Russia wouldn't dare do anything to any NATO nation since they are terrified of Article 5 which would mean the certain end of Russia.'

Of course, the certain end of Russia was clearly seen by Napoleon, and we all remember his great victory over Russia in 1812. And the certain end of the USSR was seen by the Wehrmacht who had a great victory over Russia in 1944. And if Napoleon and the Wehrmacht could do it, surely it will be an easy victory for the US of A.

And if Russia tries to destroy anything outside the Ukraine, the US will up the ante, and it'll be, 'So long Mom, I'm off to drop the bomb,' as Lehrer wrote back in the '60s.

 

 

 

President-elect Trump

In spite of the US news reporting that St Kamala was ahead and almost certain to win, and in spite of the Democrats planning to harvest votes and have the official State Election Committees (at least in the 9 swing states) say that St Kamala won, somehow, no one is quite sure how, Trump won the election and is now President-elect.

In 2016, Trump had no idea what the role of the elected president is (the role is to read the Teleprompter: the people in charge have decided what they're going to do, and the elected 'president' must give their orders as if those are his own orders, and make it sound like that's the only thing the US can do so all is for the best in America, the best of all possible nations).

When Trump ordered all the US troops out of Syria, none left. Now Trump thinks the US president, as Commander in Chief, can order any general who doesn't follow orders removed from his position pending Court Martial. We might see, or Trump might have learned that his job is just to read the Teleprompter.

***

Trump said, if he'd been president, Russia would never have invaded the Ukraine. There are two ways to take this.

First, in December, 2021, Putin wrote St Biden that Russia would never allow the Ukraine to join NATO. The official US response (no idea who really wrote it) was, 'Russia have no say in the matter. The Ukraine will join NATO and host the largest NATO military base and a huge number of nukes that can take out the entire Russian dead-hand nuclear switch before Russia could possibly respond.'

A few days after receiving this letter in 2022, Putin ordered the 'invasion'. What else could he possibly have done? What leader of a major power could respond to such a letter in any other way?

Had Trump received Putin's letter and written back, 'Under no circumstances will NATO allow the Ukraine to join,' there would have been no 'invasion'.

But the Trump team are now trying to say, 'Putin knew President Biden was weak and could not put up an effective defence of the Ukraine, so he invaded. Putin also knew that Trump was too strong, that any attempt to invade with Trump as president would result in the absolutely certain destruction of Russia, so Putin would never have dared to invade had Trump been president in 2021 and 2022.'

One of Trump's nominees who will 'negotiate' with the Ukraine and Russia said that he will demand an immediate ceasefire by both sides, and will offer to Russia that the Ukraine will not join NATO for 10 years, but Russia must withdraw from the Ukraine. If Russia refuse, NATO will send $trillions in armaments to the Ukraine, enough to make everything already sent seem insignificant, so Russia, facing a strong president, will immediately back down.

Or, in simpler words, Trump's appointees have absolutely no idea what is happening in the Ukraine, no idea what the US should do, and a firm conviction that the US must make sure that the US Defence-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-Media Complex executives continue to get $trillions in profits from the US taxpayers and printing presses, and what could possibly go wrong?

****

I remember the Cuban Missile Crisis. We lived in a small village, and all our relatives from cities they expected would be destroyed came to stay in the homes of my father and uncle. I had to sleep on the floor, because they got my bed. Everyone was sure we were close to WWIII and nuclear destruction, but it was all fake.

First, the US put nukes in Turkey. The USSR was furious, and said, 'If you don't remove those missiles from Turkey, we'll put nukes in Cuba.' President Kennedy called Khrushchev and said, 'I have to run for re-election and  you don't, so if you'll say the USSR backed down, the US will do everything the USSR wants.' So the Soviet Fleet turned around and retreated back to the USSR, and the Soviets said they removed all the nukes from Cuba as ordered by the US.

Then the US, with Soviet inspectors watching, secretly removed all the nukes from Turkey, but this was classified Top Secret for 20 years. (To this day, no US nukes are in Turkey, now all those nukes are in Türkiye.)

Today, this ain't no Cuban Missile Crisis. President Biden is incapable of making a coherent call to Putin to make an offer. 

And Trump's appointments are a very mixed bag with regard to the Ukraine. Some say we must keep sending even more money to the Ukraine until Russia are completely destroyed and no longer a threat to US hegemony. Other say we must stop sending all that money to the Ukraine and put it to better uses, but not much agreement on what those 'better uses' might be.

Some say that money should help Americans live better lives, while others say we must use the money being squandered in the Ukraine against a weak Russia and use it to a) help Israel ethnically cleanse all Arabs from Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria, and b) destroy Iran and the PRC.

***

It is not clear if WWIII will be postponed until after 20 January 2025, Inauguration Day (for that matter, it's not clear who will be named as president on that day), or if Biden will try to get it over with before he leaves office (in which case, he'll be leaving an office that probably no longer exists).

Since Biden (i.e., the people actually running things while pretending it's Biden) seem to want to go out with a big bang, we're in for six or so exciting weeks.

And, if there is still a world on 21 January 2025, we'll have to see what Trump and his appointees do about WWIII.

Iran is trying to kill Trump???

For reasons I cannot imagine, after three attempts to assassinate Former President Trump, he announced that it was Iran trying to kill him. Most of the establishment media (excluding Fox and the New York Post) say that Trump would be, by far, the worst president ever if re-elected, and the poll of presidential historians favoured by Wikipedia already has him rated worst president based on his first term when he had no idea how things worked, and the media reiterate that his second term promises complete disaster for the US and the world.

But Vice-president Harris is already backing Israel, who say Iran must be taken out, so it looks like, no matter who wins the election, war between the US and Iran is inevitable. How this war will probably go does not seem at all clear to any of the mainstream media I watch or read.

In 1988, the USS Vincennes shot down Iran Air Flight 655, a plane filled with 290 suicidal jihadis, or so the sailors on the USS Vincennes said, a plane trying to crash into the USS Vincennes and kill everyone on board, so they had no choice but to shoot the plane down. Photographs show that the plane must have been flying backward at the USS Vincennes, since the tail of the airplane is pointing at the ship, not the nose.

Back in 1988, there were still many independent news media in the US, and some of them said the USS Vincennes shot down an Iranian airliner that was flying away from the ship, and posed to threat of any kind to the ship. Fortunately, all the US media are now owned by four or five corporations who let the CIA write, or at least proof, everything they print, so all tell whatever story the US government wants told.

And all say Iran are a very weak nation, all their illegal attacks on Israel were war crimes that were completely stopped by Israel's air defences, with help from the US and US allies. One can see a video showing missiles hitting Israel, but Russia joke that the US and Israel say those were the Israeli missiles rising to hit the incoming Iranian missiles, but the film is run backward by Iran to make it look like it is Iranian missiles actually landing on Israeli targets. In any case, Israel put up a cover of smoke so no one could photograph the area where those Iranian missiles might have landed, and Israel reiterate that not one Iranian missile hit Israel. So nothing to worry about, Israel can destroy Tehran and Qom and Iran can do nothing about it.

Going back to 1988, Iran had nothing they could use, nothing they could shoot at the USS Vincennes. They have been working on that problem for the past 36 years. Iran now have a large number of anti-ship missiles ready to deploy should a US fleet approach Iran, a fact that seems to have escaped the CIA agents who are supposed to be spying on Iran, I guess they're too busy proofing all the US news media to make sure every story is the official US government version. The US fleet will have one or more aircraft carriers from which the US plan that planes will bomb Iran. Not clear where those US planes will land after dropping their bombs. Not clear if there will be any US planes to actually drop any bombs.

But both Trump and Harris are determined to destroy Iran to protect Israel, if Israel can't do it alone, as Israel has promised that they can. Someone leaked US classified documents with the US assessment of Israeli preparations for a major strike against Iran, mentioning Israeli attack planes and refuelling planes that would carry missiles within range of Iranian targets (not clear if the Israeli planes would actually fly over Iran: they never fly directly over Syria, but use short-range missiles from outside the Syrian border: this is in response to Russia providing Syria with antiaircraft batteries that can strike any planes flying over Syrian territory).

Again, Israel and the US seem unaware of Iranian defences, or at least the media report that Iran have no effective offence nor defence against Israel with or without the US military providing support (the US will provide Israel with whatever military hardware they request, and the US Air Force and other services did help Israel shoot down hundreds of Iranian drones, none of which did Iran intend to actually reach Israel, so the US might send US planes to help the Israeli planes attacking Iran).

The US/UK/EU media all keep saying that Russia is very close to complete defeat in the Ukraine, the sanctions completely collapsed the Russia economy so Russia only has, in addition to Soviet weapons from WWII and Czarist weapons from WWI, all taken from the museums where they were housed, weapons and ammunition from the DPRK and Iran, but these are all very, very primitive in comparison to the ultra-advanced NATO weapons with which the Ukrainian military have been provided, so we've seen the best weapons Iran can produce, and they are not up to much.

Only the reporters actually in the Ukraine, reporters like Eva Bartlett and Vanessa Beeley, report that Russia are winning, but such stories are never allowed in any US/UK/EU media. And Tucker Carlson was fired for reading a Top Secret paper released by (now gaoled) Airman Teixeira that said Russian troop losses were only 10% to 20% as many as Ukrainian losses, when the official US/UK/EU figures are more than one million Russians soldiers have been killed and only 31,500 Ukrainian soldiers.

And I suspect the official US assessment of Iranian offensive and defensive capabilities that appear in the US/UK/EU media are about as accurate as the official US/UK/EU media reports on the battle in the Ukraine.

Of course, it is said that someone sent a ship with 100 tonnes of yellowcake, the name for uranium oxide, to Israel, and 60 tonnes of yellowcake are enough to generate a chain reaction which will produce enough plutonium for many bombs, so many figure Israel must have more than 100 nuclear bombs (and might have done one test in 1979 somewhere near the southern tip of Africa, but that evidence of a nuclear test is now officially a 'device malfunction').

Iran has relatively little uranium under Iranian soil, and no access to uranium from any other source, so there is no way Iran can have a bomb, but they've been less than one month away from a nuke for the past 30 years, according to Netanyahu, who has been reiterating that a US regime-change invasion of Iran is essential and urgently needed.

And it looks like neither Harris nor Trump would do anything to stop Israel from nuking Iran, so not much difference for the Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrians, or Iranians who gets elected week after next.

What is less clear is what will happen in the Ukraine, where Harris has promised complete victory and Trump refuses to say what he will do. When president, Trump read on the official US Presidential TelePrompter, 'I order the US military into Syria to bring peace, freedom, and democracy,' and Trump said, 'I order all US troops out of Syria.' Twice. The third time, he said, 'Now I understand US troops will be going into Syria to steal all the oil, and then we'll sell that oil, so this won't cost the US 1¢, it will make the US money, and I fully support this move.'

Net: the people who run the US wanted Trump to order the troops into Syria to bring peace, freedom, and democracy, but they couldn't get him to do that, and now rate Trump as worst person ever to play the part of US president and speak the lines he or she is given with the right timbre.

But, in his second term, Trump might order generals who fail to follow his orders, e.g., 'All US troops must leave Europe!' fired. Not clear that a single general would leave, or the US military would do anything any differently than their original plans, but it was bad enough that Trump ordered all US troops out of Syria. Twice! We can't have that happen again. So the US government is doing everything it can to make sure the next president is Harris, not Trump, since we know she'll read the official Presidential TelePrompter and never ad lib.

And she has promised the total defeat of Russia, and the restoration of 1991 Ukraine. So what could possibly go wrong???

Iran’s Nuke?

Iran was offered the JCPOA by Obama, but it was cancelled by Trump. The dimmycrats figure Trump was stupid and evil, but they figure that with or without his cancelling the JCPOA.

Clinton ordered a strict blockade on Iraq. No food, no medicine, no vaccines or antibiotics, so childhood diseases that could have easily been treated proved fatal, and malnutrition plus treatable medical problems killed at least 500,000 Iraqi children, a number the US said was well worth it. Clinton promised an end to the blockade if Iraq allowed UN inspectors to verify that Iraq had no WMD.

 Just as soon as those UN inspectors verified no WMDs in Iraq, the Bush, Jr. government announced that they had found anthrax and other biological WMD, and ordered an invasion, execution of all top Iraq government officials, and killed several million more Iraqis than the blockade had already killed.

Then Bush, Jr ordered a strict blockade on Libya and made the same offer, and Qaddafi accepted. As soon as the UN inspectors verified no WMDs, Obama announced that he’d found WMD in Libya and ordered the US military to kill Qaddafi, and lots of other Libyans, and the US military were glad to comply. Then Obama tightened the blockade on Iran (there since 1979) and offered the JCPOA. Plan A, of course, was for Hillary to find WMD and order the overthrow of the Ayatollah. Only Trump got elected and cancelled the JCPOA, and, as a result, we still have the Iranian Ayatollah.

Meanwhile, Clinton, Bush, Jr, and Obama blockaded the DPRK and made the same offer. Kim Jong Il had a huge explosion set off in a mine and said he’d set off a nuke, but seismic evidence was ambiguous. His son, Kim Jong Un set off an explosion in a mine that was unambiguously a nuke. Nothing has happened to the DPRK.

 So why doesn’t Iran have a nuke?

The US executed two Jews for giving away the big secret to a nuke, a secret known to just about every physicist: one needs a pile of about 60 tonnes of uranium and three years. The first US pile was created in Chicago in 1942, and that pile had about 5 tonnes of metallic uranium and the rest was yellowcake, both made as pure as possible, and a chain reaction started, a chain reaction that produced plutonium, something that does not occur in nature. (The pile also needs very pure graphite and cadmium, but graphite and cadmium are easy to obtain, and refining the graphite isn’t that difficult, the hard part is getting enough uranium.)

In 1945, the US obliterated Hiroshima and Nagasaki with two nukes. The US, after Nagasaki was destroyed, explained that there had been a secret test of the first nuke. The US also explained that all three nukes were based on a critical mass of U₂₃₅. They also explained that they got the U₂₃₅ by taking pure uranium, which is mostly U₂₃₈ with a tiny amount of U₂₃₅. One transforms metallic uranium into uranium fluoride gas and centrifuges the gas to separate out the U₂₃₅. It takes a lot of centrifuging, because each round only increases the percentage of U₂₃₅ by a small amount. Eventually, one gets almost pure U₂₃₅, which is a fissile material that can form a nuclear bomb.

I saw a Disney comic in the ‘50s where the duck scientist, Ludwig von Drake, has a tiny speck of U₂₃₅, which he said was the most powerful explosive in the world. He threw the tiny speck of U₂₃₅ into a huge canyon. Someone said, ‘Nothing happened.’ Ludwig von Drake said, ‘It hasn’t hit bottom yet.’ Finally, there was a huge explosion that completely filled the entire canyon, all from a tiny flake of U₂₃₅.

In high school, my science teacher said he’d worked on the bomb, centrifuging uranium fluoride to get pure U₂₃₅.

The Soviets were not fooled. It is extremely difficult to separate out almost pure U₂₃₅. The US eventually admitted one of the three nukes was a plutonium nuke, which is very easy to extract from the uranium pile after three years of a controlled chain reaction. Later it became two plutonium nukes and one U₂₃₅ nuke. Last I heard, many figure it was three plutonium nukes.

Iran has found about 10 tonnes of uranium. None of the nations with large amounts of uranium will sell to Iran.

The nations of the world are divided into two groups, those with lots of uranium, more than 60 tonnes of yellowcake, and those with very little uranium. The group with lots of uranium is further subdivided into two subgroups: those that want and have a nuke, and those who absolutely do not want a nuclear bomb, and sell the uranium that they do not need for their own nuclear power plants to countries of which they approve.

Needless to say, Iran is in the group with very little uranium and no one willing to sell or give them uranium. Israel is in the group of one nation that has very little uranium in mines in their own country, but who might have had a friend that gave them 100 tonnes of yellowcake that they used to build one of the world’s largest and somewhat ‘secret’ nuclear arsenals–Israel will neither confirm nor deny that they have nukes.

As everyone who has ever listened to President Netanyahu has heard him reiterate, ‘Iran is less than a month away from having a nuke,’ so the US must invade immediately or face a nuclear armed Iran that cannot be safely invaded. And Iran has been less than a month away for at least 30 years now.

But without those UN inspectors verifying that Iran aren’t hiding a secret nuke that they could deploy against the US, the US are reluctant to invade.

So Iran are very lucky that Hillary lost the election, or the JCPOA would have gotten them invaded and destroyed.