Texac is Missing. Russell Bentley’s whereabouts unknown after 5 days of fruitless searches
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Russell Bentley, quickly nicknamed "Texac" after he first touched Slavonic ground, has always. been a highly improbable character. A native son of Texas, and a self-declared Communist, gifted with more than his share of valor and audacity, and above all a man of action, he didn't have to meditate too long to figure what he needed to do when he heard about the US coup in Kiev in 2014, and the ensuing war by the new neo-Nazi regime on the rebel republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. Echoing the International Brigades, he simply packed his things and made his way at his own expense to the Donbas, via Russia. Bentley decided to fight for the Donetsk People's Republic after being moved by the actions of the Ukrainian regime forces. He expressed a strong commitment to what he perceived as a "battle against fascism", driven by the desire to take a stand against what he saw as "injustices in Ukraine". Once there, to the surprise of many (in his 50s, he was certainly not exactly in his prime), the US Army vet offered his services as a frontline soldier and in the ensuing years was involved in several (by now) almost legendary battles in the first war between the young but tough little republics and the much larger but apparently tactically deficient (though still vicious) NATO-supported Ukrop army. Russell was a member of the Vostok battalion.
Russell honoring comrades
A few years later, having won the love and trust of the Donetsk people, he began to serve the young republic (now formally part of Russia) as an information officer. This was a natural transition, as Russell is also a gifted writer and the author of many articles describing his war experiences, (1) not to mention the fact the Donbas rebels needed a voice that could speak eloquent English to the rest of the world. At the more personal level, Russell also met a woman who became his loyal companion, Lyudmila. It is she who is now seeking the authorities' help to locate her husband. Fact is, as the war began again in 2022, Russell and his wife —with typical defiance—decided to remain in their home, a spot dangerously close to the Ukrainian lines and easily within the reach of shells and other nastiness the Ukies have been regaling the Donetsk population with for over a decade.
Given Russell's well-deserved fame, and the morale blow it could signify to Donetsk if he were to suddenly go missing, it is not unthinkable that he might have been the subject of a special op to kidnap him or outright kill him. After all, assassination ops are one of Kiev's specialities. That seems to be the logic behind his disappearance. Yes, the odds are not good, but I just hope I am proven completely wrong about this. No matter what his detractors may say, Russell was a hero. Something of a rarity in a culture that doesn't produce too many of his kind any more.
Russell (left) with kin, during a visit back home.
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Russia, China, and Iran have now formed a de facto military and economic alliance — what they prefer to call a “partnership”.
In the case of Russia and China, a comprehensive full-spectrum partnership has emerged: military, economic, and monetary.
Trade between Russia and China has exploded both quantitatively and qualitatively.
Importantly, trade settlement is overwhelmingly denominated in rubles and renminbi. Use of the dollar and its international mechanisms is being aggressively deprecated.
Russia and China now conduct regular joint naval and air patrols of the western Pacific, from Alaska to the South China Sea.
Russia, China, and Iran conduct regular joint exercises in the Arabian Sea. Those exercises have increased in both scope and frequency in recent years.
Both Russia and China are investing vast sums of capital in Iran, much of it in the energy sector and in ambitious transportation projects aiming to construct fast and efficient trade corridors linking China, Iran, and Russia as primary nodes of Eurasian commerce.
Arms and technology transfers between the three countries have reached unprecedented levels.
Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov just concluded several days of talks with Chinese leaders, including both Wang Yi and Xi Jinping. In its report of the talks, the Chinese government’s flagship media organ, Global Times, summarized (in the words of prominent CPC commentator Li Haidong) the current state of the Russia/China relationship:
"China and Russia will not target any third party, but if hegemonic forces threaten China and Russia, or threaten world peace, China and Russia will stand together and fight to protect their own interests and safeguard world peace together.”
It is increasingly evident that Russia, China, and Iran recognize that an attack against any one of them would constitute an existential threat to them all. The strategic interests of all three countries are now inextricably intertwined.
Most importantly, they are united in a single overriding strategic objective: to dismantle the dominion of the long-reigning Anglo-American empire.
Naturally, the rapidly waning global hegemon is not inclined to relinquish its throne without a fight. What form that fight takes remains to be seen. But if the empire attempts to preserve its so-called “rules-based international order” via force of arms, it is essential to understand this incontrovertible reality:
In order for the United States to make war against any ONE of Russia, China, or Iran, it would be necessary to effectively vacate every major US base on the planet in order to concentrate enough military power to undertake the mission.
In a putative war between the United States and Iran, both Russia and China would actively support Iran. I'm not suggesting Russian or Chinese forces would fight alongside Iranians — although that could happen. But it would likely not be necessary. Iran would simply be supplemented with arms and other logistical necessities from both its partners — and quite possibly taken under their nuclear umbrella in an explicit act of deterrence.
Additionally, in consequence of the US weakening its force posture in Europe and the western Pacific in a bid to militarily subdue Iran, Russia and China would be enabled to apply immense pressure to western logistics, trade, and political influence in those regions. This is not to suggest that China would invade Taiwan or Russia would invade the Baltics or Poland. They would need only to exert their dominant influence in what were previously considered to be unassailable American imperial domains in east Asia and Europe.
The empire is stretched so thin and its potential for power projection is so diluted that undertaking even one Big War would be enough to bring the entire house of cards tumbling down.
This is the harsh reality the Masters of Empire are now facing, and no amount of mythologizing about the "limitless" power at their disposal can change it.
There is a vast difference between imagined power and the actual ability to project and sustain power against the adversaries the United States military must now face and defeat in order to prevent or even meaningfully delay the end of American global hegemony.
And, to the extent Russia, China, and Iran are determined to act all for one and one for all, they represent a combination of global military and economic power that cannot be defeated.
FYI: Over the life of this blog, a few generous people have pledged some money to support it. But I have never required a paid subscription to read my stuff. And I still won’t. However, I have now “enabled” subscriptions purely as a means by which, if people are so inclined, they may support me with whatever amount they so choose. I also include a “Tip Jar” link in every post, if you’d like to go that route. But you don’t have to if you don’t want to. It’s purely voluntary. Everyone will still be able to read everything I write.
For all of you who have previously pledged to support this blog, I express my genuine gratitude. I hope my writing has been informative in some small manner and aided you in your quest to understand our crazy world a little better.
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Looking Into the Abyss: Where Is the American Hegemon Really Going?
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Billy Bob's Blowback Roundtable THE WORLD THROUGH AN INDEPENDENT LEFT LENS
BILLY BOB
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Its DNA commands it. We are all adrift in structural chaos, American Imperialism's end-stage disease—
Meanwhile, is Israel Washington's pawn or an out of control autonomous agent?
Zionist Biden: "Ironclad guarantees." The worst and by far the most dangerous president in recent memory. Semi-demented, too.
So, the entirety of the Western Empire from the European vassals to the US itself, are urging Iran not to respond to the criminal provocation of Israel's attack on the Iranian embassy in Damascus. Several questions arise from this situation.
Has the ruling class achieved the successful culmination of a longstanding plan laid out in numerous think tank reports, such as the Brookings Institute's "Which Path to Persia", where they specifically call for a provocation against Iran in order to elicit an Iranian response which itself can be used as justification for initiating a wider war against Iran?
Or, is the US seriously hoping to avoid a direct conflict with Iran due to a correct understanding that there is no viable military strategy for defeating Iran and that the effort itself would be catastrophic for the global economy and to the US national interest?
I think the answer to these two questions lies in the observation that "it's complicated". If we recall that the ruling class is composed of a large number of factions and sub-factions that have overlapping as well as competing economic and political interests, the two questions above become much harder to answer. At any given time, especially in a crisis, the major factions may have clashing or competing strategic and tactical priorities.
Also, if we remember that the "official government" including the President, the State Department, the Intelligence Community, the Senate, and the House of Representatives, do not in and of themselves decide policy and instead are beholden to the innumerable special interest groups which compete with each other for influence over actual policy, it becomes clear that thinking in terms of liberal governance (where the national interest is solely determined by our elected representatives) is a foolish analytical paradigm to adopt.
Democrat megadonor and uber Zionist Haim Saban, part of the Hollywood billionaire mob.
In other words, there is no such thing as "the national interest". Rather, there are competing opinions and perspectives regarding what the national interest is. Some oligarchic factions and players (like Haim "I am a one issue guy and that issue is Israel" Saban) put Israel as their top priority and are happy to subordinate all other considerations of morality, justice, and the "national interest" to the protection and "defense" of Israel. There is a popular sect among Christian evangelicals that advocates the same thing.
Other influential factions, however, have no interest in risking or sacrificing US hegemony to further the interests of one particular vassal state. These folks would prefer (if they had the influence to do so) to force their vassal into a compromise that it would otherwise refuse to make.
What seems obvious however is that if there were any rational factions still existing within the ruling capitalist establishment, factions that would be OK with peaceful imperialist decline and a very difficult but necessary and rational transition from unipolarism to multipolarism, they are becoming increasingly marginalized and sidelined in favor of a growing demand for action and calls for violent resistance.
So, the chicken-hawks (who are always in fashion in some way, considering the US is after all a virulent empire) are once again empowered and seizing the initiative in response to the existential threats that reality is imposing on their class interests. It looks more and more likely that the establishment will end up choosing continued escalation and the proliferation of chaos instead of the painful compromises which they tell themselves can be avoided entirely if they play their cards right. But they have no winning cards to play. There is no political or military maneuver that they can pull off, no hidden trick which could slow down the trend towards multipolarism. In fact, the opposite is true. Their efforts will only hasten their own decline while unnecessarily causing death and destruction on a global scale.
The truth is that the ruling Western establishment is not agile enough. It is not organized well enough to manage, much less save, a crumbling empire. Sure, it can wreak havoc, it can sow destruction, it can reap misery, it can double down on failure, avoiding and projecting responsibility onto others for the humanitarian catastrophes that result from its own policies, but it can’t build anything worthwhile or develop and prosecute a plan that seeks to turn all the current losses into wins. They are too fractured, they are too incompetent, there is too much chaos, there are too many independent interests and centers of power that are too adamant (and selfish) in the violent pursuit of their own narrow interests, for any sensible or rational plan to congeal.
“The crux of the cruxes” wrote someone much smarter than myself (Paul A. Baran), is the contradiction between “the identity of the material interests and needs of a class with… REASON’S criticism of the existing irrationality.”
This contradiction must be appreciated when considering their lack of capacity for rational behavior. They have painted themselves into an ideological corner. Their propaganda ensures that honesty and openness regarding reality is not a viable option. They must operate inside the ideological bubble of their own creation even when doing so is literally genocidal (and indeed suicidal). It is easier to run off the proverbial cliff than it is to accept that one’s mental framework is nothing but a construct of convenient delusions that have heretofore enabled and vindicated the immoral and unjust pursuit of their own class interests.
After the failures in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Ukraine, and currently in Palestine, it ought to be obvious that the process and organization of the Western establishment is severely lacking in competence and judgement. I’m not talking about judgement in terms of justice and morality, as of course these principles are of no importance whatsoever to the empire. I’m talking about things like the judgement to choose policies of self-preservation and the competence to not initiate foolish bloody adventures that are only going to hasten one’s own decline.
The cynic in me thinks that the folks pushing for WWIII, who appear to be influencing policy the most, do so with antipathy regarding its outcome. They are probably correct in their assessment that they themselves will never suffer or be held responsible for the unconscionable, immoral, and genocidal result of their policies. In fact, they will probably see their own share of wealth and power increase even as the chaos multiplies, just as happened during all the previous military failures noted above. It is truly an irrational and cynical game played by charlatans and misleaders who have perfected the grift of “liberal democracy”. They pursue their class interests without any restraint, and they are never held accountable, nor do they ever suffer the fallout from their failures.
The axis of resistance for its part would much prefer a slow and *peaceful* decline of Western Imperialism. Unfortunately, it is looking less and less likely that this is possible. The West is signalling its intention to force the issue now and initiate a violent confrontation with reality in the vain hope that their control over the global information sphere, will allow them to continue to dictate reality and to martial the forces necessary to ensure Western global hegemony is maintained throughout the rest of the 21st century. Recognizing that Iran’s entirely moral and justifiable response to Israeli criminality may be the catalyst that ignites WWIII, ought to remind us of the irrationality of Empire and the need to replace the tyranny of oligarchy with a government of, for, and by the people and in solidarity with the peoples of all other nations.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR / SOURCE
Associate Editor Billy Bob is a dedicated anti-imperialist activist and blogger. He hosts the Blowback roundtable. You can reach him at his Facebook page HERE.
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WE LIVE IN THE WORLD THAT TRUMAN MADE.
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Of humble beginnings, and a devout anticommunist, Missourian Harry Truman left his mark in history, for the worse, but, as usual, larger forces determined the nation's course.
President Roosevelt was far more of a strategic thinker than Truman was, and therefore was far less manipulable. In his 1 January 1945 Memorandum for the Secretary of State (Stenttinius, whom Truman viewed as being soft on communism and therefore Truman replaced him on 28 June 1945, even before deciding irrevocably to start a Cold War), FDR made clear that, “I still do not want to get mixed up in any Indochina decision. It is a matter for post-war.” And, “I made this very clear to Mr. Churchill. From both the military and civil point of view, action at this time is premature.” The aristocracies of both Britain and France were obsessed to continue their empires post-war. FDR held them off, but Truman was strongly inclined to yield to them whenever doing so would be “anti-communist.” He was simply manipulable. He never really understood what FDR’s vision was of the post-war world, nor cared. In fact, on 29 August 1945, in a conversation between Madam Chiang Kai-shek and Truman, “Madame Chiang recalled that President Roosevelt had spoken of a trusteeship for Indo China, whereupon the President stated that there had been no discussion of a trusteeship for Indo China as far as he was concerned.” This far, just a month, into the Cold War (supposedly against communism instead of for forming an all-inclusive global U.S. empire) that he now was committed to, he still had never even thought about what FDR’s vision for the post-WW2 world had been. To Truman, communists personified evil: to him, they were psychopaths and demons — end of story.
By contrast, here was the reason why FDR strongly favored for existing colonies to become taken over, after the War, by the U.N. (which FDR had, since August 1941, been planning to be quite different from what Truman made it), as trusteeships of the U.N., on the road quickly to independence (and Chiang knew at least something about this but Truman either didn’t, or else lied to say he didn’t):
FDR—Though a plutocrat by birth and acculturation, he was as decent and visionary as a bourgeois statesman can be.
January 24, 1944
I saw Halifax last week and told him quite frankly that it was perfectly true that I had, for over a year, expressed the opinion that Indo-China should not go back to France but that it should be administered by an international trusteeship. France has had the country — thirty million inhabitants — for nearly one hundred years, and the people are worse off than they were at the beginning. As a matter of interest, I am wholeheartedly supported in this view by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and by Marshal Stalin. I see no reason to play in with the British Foreign Office in this matter. The only reason they seem to oppose it is that they fear the effect it would have on their own possessions and those of the Dutch. They have never liked the idea of trusteeship because it is, in some instances, aimed at future independence. This is true in the case of Indo-China. Each case must, of course, stand on its own feet, but the case of Indo-China is perfectly clear. France has milked it for one hundred years. The people of Indo-China are entitled to something better than that. F[ranklin] D. R[oosevelt]]
Another sign of bad faith on the part of the United States against the Soviet Union — besides the Marshall Plan and Operation Gladio (both instituted by Truman) — seems to have been America’s public refusal to accept as being anything other than ‘communist tricks’ the repeated efforts by the Soviets to restore the U.S.-U.S.S.R. joint national-security cooperation that had existed prior to 25 July 1945. America’s responses to each of those Soviet initiatives were insults, instead of welcoming the Soviet proposals and working behind the scenes with them to obtain progress toward the type of world order that FDR had intended — a world order policed by the United Nations, not by the united imperialistic fascists. For example, on 19 September 1959 at the U.N. General Assembly, the Soviet Representative headlined “Declaration of the Soviet Government on General and Complete Disarmament” and presented a series of proposals including:
September 19, 1959
P. 14: The Soviet Government proposes that the programme of general and complete disarmament should be carried out within as short a time-limit as possible — within a period of four years. The following measures are proposed for the first stage: The reduction, under appropriate control, of the strength of the armed forces of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the United States of America and the People’s Republic of China to the level of 1.7 million men, and of the United Kingdom and France to the level of 650,000 men; The reduction of the armed forces of other states to levels to be agreed upon at a special session of the United Nations General Assembly or at a world conference on general and complete disarmament; The reduction of the armaments and military equipment at the disposal of the armed forces of States to the extent necessary to ensure that the remaining quantity of armaments corresponds to the level fixed for the armed forces. The following is proposed for the second stage: The completion of the disbandment of the armed forces retained by States; The elimination of all military bases in the territories of foreign States; troops and military personnel shall be withdrawn from the territories of foreign States to within their own national frontiers and shall be disbanded. The following is for the third stage: The destruction of all types of nuclear weapons and missiles; The destruction of air force equipment; The entry into force of the prohibition on the production, possession and storage of means of chemical and biological weapons in the possession of States shall be removed and destroyed under international supervision; Scientific research for military purposes and the development of weapons and military equipment shall be prohibited; War ministries, general staffs and all military and paramilitary establishments and organizations shall be abolished; All military courses and training shall be terminated. States shall prohibit by law the military education of young people. In accordance with their respective constitutional procedures, States shall enact legislation abolishing military service in all of its forms — compulsory, voluntary, by recruitment, and so forth. … (4) Conclusion of a non-aggression pact between the member States of NATO and the member States of the Warsaw Treaty
Editor's Note: Reflect for a moment on the above. Here is a bold proposal that could have significantly altered the course of human history, for the better, and it was being tendered by the much demonised Stalin and the communist Soviet Union. Such ideas never came from the sanctimonious and ever duplicitous West.
22 March 1960 Final Verbatim Record of the Sixth Meeting Held at the Palais des Nations, Geneva P. 36: Mr. Eaton (United States of America): I have no intention of entering into this discussion on foreign bases. I think the discussions that we have had here this morning have indicated that we shall run into political problems at the very earliest stage, problems on which earlier conferences have foundered. I would only say that the forces of my Government are only employed outside my own country and within my own country for the purpose of defending both ourselves and those of our allies who wish to be associated with us, who welcome our troops as a part of theirs and as a part of the allied defences, and for no other reason. Whenever the time comes when these troops need not be employed, for defensive purposes only, there need be no doubt in the mind of anyone here that those forces will be withdrawn. s3.amazonaws.com/unoda-web/documents/library/conf/TNCD-PV46.pdf “Conference of the Ten Nation Committee on Disarmament” 24 June 1960
Final Verbatim Record of the Forty-Sixth Meeting, Held at the Palais des Nations, Geneva, p. 4: Mr. Nosek (Czechoslovakia): What did Mr. Eaton propose? He proposed the introduction of control measures. … exclusively with measures of control, that is with the old and well-known requirement of the United States — the introduction of control over armaments. Apparently with a view to misleading world public opinion, which requires a concrete discussion of general and complete disarmament, the United States representatives are beginning to prefer — for tactical reasons — to call those measures not “partial measures” but “initial steps” on the road to general and complete disarmament under effective international control.
This [obfuscation and evasion by the U.S. (which on p. 16 was referred to as merely “proposals directed towards the establishment of control without disarmament”)] ultimately led [on 28 June 1960] to the USSR, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Romania not attending the 48th meeting of the Ten-Nation Committee, which signalled the end of these discussions in the Committee.
The U.S. Government refused to discuss the Soviet Union’s proposal for all war-weaponry to be placed under U.N. command, and decision-making only by the U.N., to enforce only U.N. laws — no longer under the command of individual nations (such as by the U.S. regime’s “international-rules-based [i.e., not international-law-based] order.”
Who benefited from America’s refusal even to discuss what had been U.S. President FDR’s aim for the post-WW-II world? The beneficiaries are what Eisenhower when leaving office called the “military industrial complex,” and are basically America’shundred largest military contractors, especially the owners of the largest weapons-manufacturing firms such as Lockheed. Ike had served them well, and then three days before leaving office warned the public about them so as not to be blamed (along with Truman) by historians, for having created it.
Meanwhile, the German industrialists (such asthis) who were likeliest to have been the individuals who had funded Hitler’s rise to power, were let off scot-free at the Nuremberg Tribunals after the war was over. Furthermore, as Bishnu Pathak documented in his 21 September 2020 “Nuremberg Tribunal: A Precedent for Victor’s Justice”, those Tribunals were, even at the time, widely condemned even by the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court and by the chief U.S. Prosecutor at the Tribunals, as being a “sanctimonious fraud,” a “high-grade lynching party” and nothing more than victors’ ‘justice’, instead of any respectable precedent-setter for the U.N., but Truman and the other leaders of the victor-powers simply did not care — and the U.N. became built upon that acceptance of victors’ ‘justice’: no improvement. One cannot say whether FDR would have caved to that if he had not died first, but certainly the U.S. that followed after him has been the type of tyranny that he had always been scheming to prevent both for the U.S. and for the world.
Nuremberg defendants—The trials seemed to mete out some harsh justice but in reality the Anglo-Americans and the French did their best to save and incorporate Nazis into the global anti-communist crusade, the first "Cold War". This pattern of high-handed hypocrisy continues to this day, with consequences that have put the world on the brink of a nuclear Armageddon.
Furthermore, the OECD or Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development was set up in 1948 nominally in order ‘to stimulate economic progress and world trade,’ but actually to administer the Marshall Plan. The OECD was just another anti-Soviet U.S. organization, but, since the cash that it was distributing was going to Europe, its initial membership was those countries and it was headquartered in Paris, so as not to seem to be an extension from the U.S. Government. The organization changed its name to OECD in 1961 so as to hide from historians that it had previously been called the OEEC, which was clearly traceable to the Cold War. The CIA-edited and written Wikipedia says that “In 1948, the OECD originated as the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (OEEC),[7] led by Robert Marjolin of France, to help administer the Marshall Plan (which was rejected by the Soviet Union and its satellite states).[8]” However, it wasn’t “rejected by” them, but instead rejected them — just like the Marshall Plan itself rejected them.
The 1989 masterpiece by Christopher Simpson, Blowback: The First Full Account of America's Recruitment of Nazis and Its Disastrous Effect on The cold war, Our Domestic and Foreign Policy, documented the U.S. regime’s comprehensive employment of ‘ex’-Nazis in order to assist its goal of conquering ‘communism’ but really Russia. Then, on 7April 2024, I headlined a supplementary account,“How & Why the UK, U.S., and Canada, Governments imported Nazis into Canada”, which I closed by saying: “And this is how it came to be that the pro-Nazi Ukrainians in Canada have been organized and effectively represented while the others (the non-Nazi Ukrainians) were suppressed; and, above all, how it came to be the case that America’s armaments-manufacturers and their NATO have thrived while coup-after-coup and invasion-after-invasion have continued to expand the U.S. empire up till the present moment.” All of this was an extension from Truman’s private decision on 25 July 1945, and its extension by Bush’s secret decision on 24 February 1990 to continue it even after communism in Russia would be ended in 1991. Furthermore, my 23 March 2024“How Germany Is Still Controlled by Nazis” documented yet further, that as regards the anti-Russian aspect of Hitler’s nazism, there was no real change in Germany when the U.S. regime took it over from Hitler (and the rest of it from Gorbachev), other than the necessary cosmetic changes in the new unified Germany, which, of course, required outlawing any public displays of anti-Semitism (as-if Hitler had hated only Jews — Jews were instead his main hatred, but he also hated — and aimed to enslave — all Russians, and, indeed, all Slavs).
I especially recommend reading Christopher Simpson’s masterpiece, because it’s the best book yet done on the then and continuing fraudulence of the U.S. regime’s allegations that the comprehensive denazification of Germany’s Government, which FDR had been intending, and which was central to his planning for the post-WW2 world — and which all three of the Allies, FDR, Stalin, and Churchill, had supported — was carried out, instead of effectively aborted, by Truman and by Eisenhower (with Churchill’s support of aborting it), and by all successive U.S. Presidents and European stooges since then. The inside-the-book excerpts at the Amazon site for Simpson’s masterpiece, give a fair indication of the book, including its “Series Introduction,” by Mark Crispin Miller, which says that, “For over half a century, America’s vast literary culture has been disparately policed, and imperceptibly contained, by state and corporate entities well placed and perfectly equipped to wipe out wayward writings,” including the history that this book documents.
The U.S. Government’s National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) had very reluctantly commissioned it, with an obligation to publish it, but then refused to publish the work because NARA’s top official refused to allow it. The team of investigators, headed by the work’s author, Simpson, finally found a publisher for the work, which was then, and since, suppressed. On 13 November 2010, Eric Lichtblau, whose chaotic anecdotal narrative book The Nazi Next Door was to be published in 2015, was the New York Times reporter headlining “Nazis Were Given ‘Safe Haven’ in U.S., Report Says”, and the newspaper introduced it by saying that, “An internal history of the United States government’s Nazi-hunting operation provides gripping new evidence about some of the most notorious Nazi cases of the last three decades. The Justice Department kept the 600-page report secret for the last four years, releasing a heavily redacted version last month to a private research group that sued to force its release. A complete version was obtained by The New York Times.” The 600-page complete unredacted secret report, titled “The Office of Special Investigations: Striving for Accountability in the Aftermath of the Holocaust”, by Judy Feigin from the U.S. Department of Justice, and dated December 2006, was linked-to in the online version of the article, and it stated, flat-out, on its page 33, that “Congress’ overriding concern at the time was in helping refugees escape communist rule.” In other words: the U.S. Government’s ‘anti-communist’ (actually pro-U.S.-empire) obsession, ever since Truman took over, included assisting Nazis and their supporters to become “refugees” in America and in its (after WW2) colonies (‘allies’). And this has continued, likewise secretly, ever since U.S. President GHW Bush on 24 February 1990 started telling America’s European stooges to secretly continue the ‘Cold War’.
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Help us expand our reach. Defeat appalling hypocrisy. Lies cost countless lives.
We must act together to smash the VILE Western disinformation machine.
This is the Lying Machine that protects the greatest evil humanity has ever seen.
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The Growing Weakness of Western Artillery Capabilities Journal NEO
After decades of waging war against impoverished nations with destitute armies, or no standing armies at all, the US has suddenly found itself in a rapidly changing world where peer and near-peer competitors are outpacing it in military capabilities. Many of these capabilities are showing up on the battlefield in places the US has until recently enjoyed relative military superiority.
One area the US has found itself particularly weak in is artillery. The conflict in Ukraine has revealed a variety of shortcomings regarding not only US artillery capabilities, but those of the collective West.
The recent cancellation of the US Army’s “Extended Range Cannon Artillery” (ERCA) prototype was just the most recent event among several reflecting Washington’s realization that it is falling far behind.
Defense News in a March 12, 2024 article titled, “US Army scraps Extended Range Cannon Artillery prototype effort,” would note:
The U.S. Army is changing its approach to acquiring a long-range artillery capability and scrapping its 58-caliber Extended Range Cannon Artillery prototyping effort, according to the service’s acquisition chief.
“We concluded the prototyping activity last fall,” Doug Bush told reporters at a March 8 briefing on the fiscal 2025 budget request. “Unfortunately, [it was] not successful enough to go straight into production.”
The new plan — following an “exhaustive” tactical fires study meant to revalidate elements of the extended-range cannon requirement led by Army Futures Command — is to evaluate existing options from industry this summer “to get a sense of the maturity of those systems.”
The prototypes began suffering from many of the problems Western artillery systems transferred to Ukraine have suffered from, “excessive wear on the gun tube after firing a relatively low number of rounds.”
Until relatively recently, Western artillery systems were only required to fire relatively low numbers of rounds as part of fire missions targeting irregular militant forces in support of infantry. These missions would take place from static fire bases, well, out of reach of the small arms used by militants. These fire bases existed at the end of well-developed logistical networks capable of supporting artillery crews, both in terms of ammunition and maintenance requirements.
This is in stark contrast to the intense positional fighting seen in Ukraine along the line of contact where guns fire continuously day after day until barrels begin to deform, lose accuracy, and in some cases, fail during firing which includes explosions that can maim or kill gun crews. The intensity of counter-battery operations means that artillery crews cannot easily perform repairs near the line of contact without becoming targets.
Modern Western artillery pieces are simply not designed to meet this rate of fire or perform well in this type of combat environment, especially where well-protected logistical lines no longer exist.
Searching for Flawed Solutions…
Another Defense News article, “US Army readies new artillery strategy spurred by war in Ukraine,” would indicate the direction the US will attempt to move to address apparent deficiencies of Western artillery systems.
The article noted in particular advances in “propellant” to enable midrange guns to shoot as far as long-range guns. The article also discussed “robotics” in the form of autoloaders for munitions.
Both approaches, however, seem to be continuing in the same misguided direction the US and its NATO allies have moved since the Cold War, over-engineered systems attempting to leverage a technological edge over the quantities of Russian and Chinese arms and ammunition. The problem with this approach is that there no longer is a vast disparity between Western military technology and that of Russia or China.
Both nations are capable of producing high-quality weapon systems in large quantities.
Additionally, as seen in Ukraine, Russia has created long-range counter-battery capabilities like the Lancet kamikaze drone able to find and strike Western artillery systems far beyond the range of Russia’s own artillery systems. Having accurate, longer-range guns does not give the United States the advantage it thinks it will in any potential conflict with Russia or China.
It should be noted that both Russia and China are increasingly transferring these weapons to other nations around the globe, limiting the number of potential targets of Western military aggression.
America’s Fundamentally Flawed Mindset
Washington’s problems continue to stem from its private industry-dominated military industrial base, which favors profits over purpose and performance, preferring small numbers of expensive weapon systems over large volumes of simple but effective equipment.
After abandoning the US Army’s own ERCA prototype, it is now investigating existing systems like Israel’s Elbit Systems Autonomous Truck Mounted Ordnance System (ATMOS) Iron Sabre, as well as systems produced by the UK’s BAE, France’s Nexter, and others.
Israel’s ATMOS self-propelled artillery system, for example, is operated by nations around the globe, but in single and double-digit numbers.
The problem all of these systems share is the same dependence on over-engineered technology produced by a small supporting industrial capacity incapable of large-scale production. There is a similar deficiency in supplying the large quantities of ammunition required to meet the demands exhibited on the battlefield in Ukraine. CNN, for example, in a March 11, 2024 article would note that Russia alone is producing at least 3 times more artillery ammunition than the US and Europe combined.
No matter how capable any of these systems may be, including additional improvements made as part of the US Army’s ongoing program, if respective military industrial bases are incapable of replacing them faster than they are removed from a future battlefield as they are in Ukraine today, their capabilities will make little difference in any potential conflict’s ultimate outcome.
Modern warfare is shifting as technological disparity closes, meaning that a handful of highly-capable but high-maintenance systems will no longer offer the US and its allies an advantage on the battlefield. Even in the Middle East, local militants are using drones and precision-guided rockets to attrite US military hardware faster than the US can replace it. So far, these incidents have been few and far between. If a large-scale conflict broke out between the US and Iran and Iran’s many allies, US capabilities would quickly suffer attrition and create an operational crisis for US forces.
Despite this reality taking clear shape, US planners still cling to the myth of superior American innovation and the role private industry plays in lending the US this supposed advantage.
A recent US National Defense Industrial Strategy (NDIS) report noted the many shortcomings of the current US military industrial base, many of which the report admitted stemmed from private industry, but insisted that private industry was part of the solution rather than the source of the problem.
Because the US military industrial base is dominated by private industry whom Washington serves, industry profits, not actual capabilities, remains the top priority. As long as this equation persists, the US will continue attempting to solve emerging problems by applying the same flawed mindset that is creating these problems in the first place.
Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.
The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of The Greanville Post. However, we do think they are important enough to be transmitted to a wider audience.
Since the overpaid media shills will never risk their careers to report the truth, the world must rely on citizen journalists to provide the facts that explain reality.
Unfortunately, most people take this site for granted. DONATIONS HAVE ALMOST DRIED UP… PLEASE send what you can today! JUST USE THE BUTTON BELOW
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