Last weeks pagers exploded all over Lebanon. They were pagers bought by Hezbolah, but most of them were not used by military personnel or even by Hezbollah members, though many were.
The attacks were set up to be particularly nasty. Small ball bearings were embedded in the pagers. First the pager would buzz. The person would grab it, bring it up to their face so they could look at the screen, where they would see an error message.
Then the pager would explode. The most common injuries were maiming (the hand), terrible facial wounds, and eye-injuries. I don’t know what percentage caused permanent vision loss but I saw one interview with a surgeon who said he’d removed more eyes in the last day than he had in a career of over twenty years.
Civilians, women and children were hurt.
This attack had been set up a long time ago. Israel had, apparently, received reports that someone was suspicious and that it was a “use it or lose it” situation. They chose to use it. Presumably they had been saving it to use during the next ground war, but that was no longer an option.
There are obvious and in-obvious consequences to this. Hezbollah will retaliate, of course. They say that the current increased attacks, which are hitting as far South as Haifa and appear designed to blow a corridor to Tel Aviv so that becomes a viable target are not that retaliation, but are instead a reaction to Israeli attacks on Beirut. That’s a pretty serious escalation, especially if repeatedly hitting Tel Aviv is part of the plan. An even more serious escalation because of the pager attacks risks all-out war, though that’s not say it isn’t justified.
(To state the obvious, if the pager attacks weren’t terrorism, nothing is.)
But beyond the possibility of a serious war, there are downstream effects. The pagers were branded as made by Taiwan’s Gold Apollo, but were actually manufactured by Hungary’s BAC. Either BAC modified the pagers, or Israel intercepted them during shipment and made the necessary changes.
Hezbollah has reported ordered new pagers (they’re part of how they avoid electronic surveillance) with instructions that all manufacturing takes place in China. If I were them I’d have those pagers guarded from the second they leave the factory to the point of delivery in Lebanon.
But this is a real Pandora’s Box situation. There’s no reason this couldn’t be done to anyone’s devices and almost everyone carries a phone these days. Most of them can’t be fully opened and inspected. You have no way of knowing whether or not there’s a bomb. (Correction–hacking alone is not enough. My apologies.)
It is noticeable that the US and most European countries refused to condemn the attacks. If they won’t even say that this sort of thing is off the table, who will trust that they wouldn’t do this themselves?
There are a lot of countries, and a lot of people (dissidents and so on) which have good reason to know that the West is willing to engage in assassination, violence and coups against them. This isn’t remotely in question: the West and especially the US, France and Britain, have a record. And other Western countries usually cooperate or at least do what they’re told.
So consequence one is going to be a lot of people and organizations a lot less willing to buy Western equipment. Maybe Gold Apollo wasn’t involved. Maybe Hungary’s BAC wasn’t involved. I’m inclined to believe them, actually, especially Gold Apollo, because this is the sort of thing which destroys companies.
But maybe they were, and how can a company really stand up to and refuse strong governmental pressure? It can’t, not if the government is really serious and it’s a domestic firm. Even foreign governments can have a lot of clout if you do business in their country.
Another likely effect is the rise of transparent electronics, similar to technology used in prisons or the transparent phones of the early 2000s (which was just for aesthetic effect.)
In a lot of secure areas I would expect that people won’t be allowed to bring in their own phones. This is already the case in some very secure areas, but I expect it to spread. It may also change policies about phones and other small electric devices on planes.
This is another case of Israel and the West screwing themselves. It’s going to hurt economically and it’s going to lead to copycat attacks by others, including on the West.
And, of course, it was a monstrous action. Very on-brand for Israel and very normal for the US to fail to condemn it.
Even more than before I just don’t want to hear American officials condemning terrorism. Ever. If the word still means anything, they don’t what it is.
Flaser
One small, but important correction:
Hacking alone is insufficient to explode the standard batteries of our devices. There is no means to induce this from software as running the system hot will not produce the effect.
Yes, excessive heat can set it on fire, but in the majority of cases the results are fiery, not explosive. For the latter, the battery bulk of the battery must be physically breached, thus exposing all of its reactive alkali metal – like lithium – to the air and triggering a prompt reaction. The Isrealis implanted small explosive charges in the pagers and walkie-talkies for this purpose.
Mark Level
In some ways, this terrorist act raises more questions than answers can be found for, but I’d say the following, tentatively:
1. It was pretty shocking, I didn’t even know the former CIA head & ultimate war cabinet insider Leon Panetta was still alive, but he spoke up & said the obvious– this was a terrorist act. The indiscriminate nature of it makes it even worse, of course. If someone as deeply invested in the US MIC as Panetta is stepping away from “Israel has a right to defend itself” b.s., that doesn’t bode well for the Zionist entity.
2. The first person I saw who pointed out the international treaty against booby trap bombs was former barrister Alexander Mercouris of the Duran, who noted that Israel IS a signatory to that treaty, so there’s one more count against Israel if/when the US’s ability to grant them complete impunity from international law is stopped by RoW. (He also gave a little history of the use of such devices during wartime, mentioning that WW II Italy dropped what looked like (smoking) pipes into areas of Africa it was trying to claim that were small bombs to maim or kill those who picked them up. I seem to recall that the US did this along the Ho Chih Minh trail back in the day, in Cambodia, Laos, etc. as well, children’s toys the most popular item to kill with.
3. The Lebanese have no choice but to fight now, as Israeli aggression again escalates to their North, & the Izzys are trying to drag the US into a regional war. Which begs the real question I have–
4. Where are the Iranians? The murder of a Hamas negotiator in Iran happened probably 2 months ago, & “retaliation” was solemnly pledged. Apart from one very small demonstration of the size & power of their missile arrays which included hits on a couple of Israeli military bases (which the Israelis exulted had not one casualty) that was coordinated with the US, they have done nada, nothing, zip!! All hat, no cattle? It certainly looks that way. Around Oct. 10, 2023 I saw a clip of a Palestinian saying of the Saudis, if they do nothing (to help us, to blunt the genocide) they’d better know they are next. Why is Iran, despite all the US-Zionist screeching that they are “the center of mideast terrorism” & need to be liquidated, seemingly doing absolutely nothing, playing Antigonish’s “The Man Who Wasn’t There.” I don’t get it, frankly. Maybe others on this thread have an answer?
5. Not entirely OT– I see that only bits & pieces of the Collective West/ Axis of Evil/ Empire of Lies are accepting the writing on the wall that Ukraine Delenda Est. There is a shit ton of denial, bargaining, etc. Assuming the Zionists drag the moribund Biden administration into an escalating Western Asian war (“Dr. Jill” presided at the head of the table over the Biden cabinet’s first meeting in 11 months the other day– so I guess she or Jake Sullivan are the “real” President, or share the duties), won’t the US then be forced to dump the loss of eastern Ukraine’s 4 regions onto the heads of the Europeans? I guess somebody gets a silver lining while the US Empire starts its final Pyrrhic War at the behest of the holy Zionist mafia who run things.
______________________________________________________________________________
“Antigonish” by William Hughes Mearns
Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn’t there!
He wasn’t there again today,
I wish, I wish he’d go away!
When I came home last night at three,
The man was waiting there for me
But when I looked around the hall,
I couldn’t see him there at all!
Go away, go away, don’t you come back any more!
Go away, go away, and please don’t slam the door…
Last night I saw upon the stair,
A little man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
Oh, how I wish he’d go away….
Tempo
https://youtu.be/O3PfsndsihY
So future tech will resemble prison tech.
ZapMan
Ian,
If true, doesn’t look good for Apollo Gold’s denial:
https://x.com/NuryVittachi/status/1837682944611438847
Bill H.
Iran will do nothing for fear of being labelled “anti-semites.” A fate worse than death. Hizbelloh will not fight back for the same reason. Russia will remain on the sideline for the same reason. No one dares to raise the ire of the Israelis, because to do so means having the American government call them bad names.
Israel will not invade Lebanon on the ground because the last time they did that they were humiliated. They will bomb Hizbelloh out of existence in a massive aerial campaign, the same way we eliminated the North Vietnamese.
Willy
What if a pager been on a commercial air flight? Considering innocent bystanders to be acceptable casualties used to demonstrate great evil, and few would want to have more to do with the people associated. Not so much anymore it seems. It seems only a few media outfits are trying to trace the source of the explosives.
Hsu Ching-kuang is an accessory to murder. Saving a buck by ignoring quality control is a poor excuse. Yeah, just make exploding shit then put my company name on it. It’s amazing there isn’t an international organization tasked with sourcing state-sponsored terror shit, since without it, this type of thing will only get worse.
Mark Level
To Bill H– I think 85% of the world/ RoW sees thru that “anti-Semitic” bullshit. It is also counter-intuitive to me that while the Lebanese are being viciously attacked, they will cower & not fight back (esp. after the most recent atrocity!) But again, Iran sitting and doing nothing while anticipating Israel hitting them with nukes at some point is inexplicable with me. As humans, if it’s life or death for us, the majority have the tendency to at least fight back & not simply let ourselves be exterminated.
” . . . the same way we eliminated (?) the North Vietnamese.” Is that snark or a joke? You are aware of who won the Vietnam war, aren’t you?
Oh, as to the fact that the Ukraine war has already been lost, Col. Douglas McGregor speaking to political scientist Glenn Diesen is quite illuminating– https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1l_-BBzI3jo
I know Feral Finster differs with me on this, but I think the Fat Lady is singing soon in Russia & the Ukraine. (It will soon be a much diminished “The Border” than it is now.)
Tallifer
The pagers were bought by Hezbollah for the express purpose of distributing only to their operatives, because cell phones were too risky for communication. The pagers were for coordinating Hezbollah’s terrorism, not for civilian use. (NYT, Guardian, passim)
elkern
Yeah, there’s def something fishy about the arrangement between Apollo Gold and BAC.
Under “normal” conditions, any company that allows someone else to use their Logo would want to protect their Brand by making sure that the sub-contractor doesn’t make shoddy products. This would require (1) sharing design & process data with the sub-contractor and (2) having engineers inspect the sub-contractor’s factory and test a sample of the products.
I’d guess that Apollo Gold accepted the opaque arrangement with BAC only because they thought it was a CIA/USA operation. Of course, that could well have been the case with that original contract; the CIA could have done that as a favor for Mossad, or worse, Mossad might have hijacked the operation from there…)
In any case, Apollo Gold is [theoretically] responsible for any “damages” resulting from “normal use” of its products, though I presume that Taiwan’s legal system would protect the company from any such lawsuits.
Still, Apollo Gold will probably just fold up shop and sell their factories to some other Tech Mogul. Any personnel with detailed knowledge of the BAC deal will be quietly moved to a gated community in Arizona or such.
But there will be ramifications for [all?] other Taiwanese Tech companies; can *their* products be trusted? (No). Hezbollah will not be the only customer to switch their electronics purchases from Taiwan to China.
With this operation, Israel has burned Taiwan.
The upside, I suppose, is that it exposes a rift within US Foreign Policy circles, between the NeoCons (focused on keeping the US military involved in the Middle East) and the “grown-ups” who want to Pivot To Asia (to fight China).
Hmmm, bonus observation:
Israel must recognize that the USA won’t protect them forever, and that China will be the next Global Power, so Israel must be looking for ways to get China on their side. The methods that worked in the USA (and Britain?) – financial influence over politics and Media – won’t work in China. Perversely, the only thing of value Israel can offer China is influence in – and intel on – the USA.
Super-paranoid conjecture: burning Taiwan was an intentional (if secondary?) aspect of the Pager-Bomb project from the start?
Dan Kelly
Where did Hezbollah get its own fiber network with accompanying devices that the military wing uses (in addition to using non-tech comms)? Did it build it itself?
I ask because I don’t understand why they wouldn’t secure all their tech from reliable sources. The ‘civilian wing’ is just as important, and it’s not a hard divide anyway – some of the military wing were victims of this as well.
He also gave a little history of the use of such devices during wartime, mentioning that WW II Italy dropped what looked like (smoking) pipes into areas of Africa it was trying to claim that were small bombs to maim or kill those who picked them up. I seem to recall that the US did this along the Ho Chih Minh trail back in the day
The US also seeded rain clouds over the Ho Chi Minh trail to wipe out the supply route. It was called Operation Popeye:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Popeye
Cloud seeding and weather manipulation go back to WWII and before.
So, ‘they’ have been perfecting weather modification techniques for close to a centruy now. China currently has the world’s largest weather modification program:
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/articles/Beijing_Weather_Modification_Office
ZapMan posted a link to a story on Nury Vittachi’s twitter feed. There is also this:
https://x.com/NuryVittachi/status/1727851651900620813
It’s all hollywood. And finance.
Finance, war and image-narrative to induce belief.
Ian Welsh
Sigh.
“As of 22 September 2024, 42 people had died,[9][10] including at least 12 civilians.[11] The incident was described as Hezbollah’s biggest security breach since the start of the Israel–Hezbollah conflict in October 2023.[12]
The first wave of explosions occurred on 17 September, around 15:30 EEST, killing at least 12 people, including two Hezbollah members and two children,”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Lebanon_pager_explosions
They were not just used by Hezbollah members, though Hezbollah did use them.
Hezbollah is involved in less terrorism than Israel, by any reasonable definition of terrorism. It’s also not committing a genocide, but is trying to stop one.
If Leon Panetta, of all people says it’s terrorism, well… (admission against interest and history.)
Curt Kastens
The use it or lose it aspect of the story may also be disinformation. The purpose of spreading this part of the story would be to get Hezbollah members to have doubts about the organizations operational secrecy.
Mark Level
Thank you, Ian! Your editorial response seems to me to be to Tallifer. Some people just read straight propaganda & have zero critical thinking skills (or awareness of logical fallacies) to do any research on their own. They just parrot what the “authorities” tell them. (Which is a type of passive authoritarianism.)
Did we all forget how much the NYT hyped for months the Iraqi “Weapons of Mass Destruction” & also the “Saddam was helping with 9/11” lies?
The UK Guardian used to be somewhat “left”, but not for many years. When Russia launched the SMO in Feb. 2022, I was not totally well-versed in the history leading up to it, the Maidan Coup of 2014 and the installation of the Azov Neo-Nazis, etc. What immediately got my hackles up and made me start doing my own research was a false story in the Guardian, so dumb that the lies could not have been incompetence. When the Russians took the major city of Mariupol, there was a big contingent of the Azov folks hiding underneath the Azovstal plant for days, until hunger drove them out & they surrendered.
The Guardian flat lied & claimed that crew was being “evacuated” to safety!! Uhm, no, the Russians were figuring out who were the actual Nazis and who were not, & sending the former to higher security confinement to trade for Russian prisoners. I assume if there were area residents hiding down there, they may have been released. (That’s a guess; I can’t prove the hypothetical.) A great journalist on the site, Abraham Stein (I think his name might suggest why he had a stake on the issue) filmed prisoners removing their shirts and showing giant tattoos of the Black Sun, Herr mustache-man, swastikas & etc. etc. I don’t know if the Guardian ever issued a correction– probably not, my guess is that they just buried the story completely in order not to make The Narrative look bad.
But some people have no ability to see thru obvious (Iraqis took babies out of incubators to kill them for fun!) fabrications, however.
Mark Pontin
[1] Tallifer wrote: ‘The pagers were for coordinating Hezbollah’s terrorism, not for civilian use. (NYT, Guardian, passim)’
By insiders’ accounts, this is complete bull and *precisely the opposite is true* as during the 2010s Hezbollah’s military wing moved off pagers and such to fiber optic and direct face-to-face communication, while Hezbollah’s social services wing within Lebanon continued the use of these devices.
If so, it was *only civilians* that could be effectively targeted by this means.
[2] About electronics again, but off-topic. Still, I thought you’d be interested in this in the FT —
Hed: ‘Huawei laptop reveals China’s progress towards tech self-sufficiency:
A look inside the bestselling Qingyun L540 shows how the campaign to use locally made components is progressing’
As expected, they’re driving forward fast on all fronts. Decent reporting with specifics.
Archived: https://archive.ph/fvwjc
Original: https://www.ft.com/content/5511d73a-1ada-4884-a559-681502300e4f
If you can get behind the FT paywall, the original has some mobile graphics that don’t reproduce in the archived version.
mago
It’s obvious that had a similar action targeted Israel or any Western ally we’d hear terrorism and retaliation screamed non stop from every screen and media source.
But you know, since it’s brown skinned Islamic terrorists, shrug.
Actually, the reaction among the political class and their media enablers is inhumane. It’s all like wow, better than James Bond! Cool man! You go dudes! Wish I’d thought of that.
Eyes blown out, your balls shredded, screaming, tearing gaping wounds. Who cares? Ha ha. Just part of the game. Besides, they deserve it.
Yeah, it’s all Hollywood for these people who would whimper, moan and rush to the emergency room if they had blood spilling from some inconsequential wound.
It’s a sign of the times that these moral weaklings disdain empathy and compassion as emotions for losers, while cheerleading death and destruction.
I was 13 or so when Barry McGuire sang: . . . and you don’t believe we’re on the eve of destruction.
The prophesy is coming home.
Carborundum
The ball bearings thing sounds made up to me. One wouldn’t want to add material clearly visible on security screening (I would not be at all surprised to learn that Hezbollah had actually X-rayed these things) that’s so obviously not part of the design. Looking at the fragments that have been shown on various Twitter images, this looks like a small blast charge, call it a couple of grams of TNT equivalent (there is reporting indicating that the explosive used was PETN, which seems plausible). That would easily provide enough energy to drive circuit board and case fragments deep into tissue. Those fragments will actually be *worse* to deal with than steel because it’s harder to ensure that the debridement caught everything.
As to who got hit by these attacks, we really have no good idea. Given that the same folks currently condemning the collateral would be quick explain it away if the target vector were reversed (i.e., they would be quite alright with hitting Israeli non-combatants), I’m largely unmoved by their critique. Given IDF norms in this conflict, this is may be the worst action to focus on as a violation of the rules of warfare. They’ve repeatedly downed entire apartment buildings, killing tens of civilians at a time, to segment *suspected* tunnel systems. Giving oxygen to something that’s potentially defensible and having the debate about the legality of the measure turn attention away from clear, industrial scale violations of the rules of warfare does not strike me as a net benefit. While these devices clearly fall under established treaty law, how they’ve been employed is a lot greyer area than people think. Double tapping apartment buildings with Mk83s for zero military advantage is not grey at all.
In terms of Hezbollah strategy, I don’t have a clear understanding of what you mean by blowing a corridor to Tel Aviv, but if you mean movement of ground forces or enhancing the deployment of missiles, drones, etc., I’m afraid I don’t see it. Hezbollah’s not dumb enough to step off prepared ground and they haven’t hit anything that materially degrades Israeli ABM capabilities beyond the expenditure of finite interceptor supply. I suspect they *could* hit targets that would degrade Israeli ABM capability to some extent, but it would mean deploying systems they probably don’t want to expose.
As I see it, the key issues that they’re facing are calibrating response (I think this is steadily becoming less of an issue given that it really doesn’t seem like Israel wants a reset to pre-conflict norms) and the risk of exposing high value systems and/or having those systems not perform credibly. They don’t want this fight; they have little to gain and a lot to lose. Israel looks pretty clearly to be escalating to goad them into response. Hezbollah leadership is generally quite accomplished with strategic patience, but the pressure on them is unprecedented. The thing that’s got to figure prominently their mind is that this is not evolving like 2006 – they don’t have the strategic initiative and their adversary is not obligingly playing to their strengths (they may yet, IDF magical thinking can be pretty staggering to behold).
mago
OT to some degree, but it’s reported that Pennsylvania guvner Shapiro signed a bomb today in company with his good friend Z.
So glad our leaders are clean, good and upright as well as hypocrisy free while looking out for the welfare of others.
I’m trying to kick my life long habit of cynicism and sarcasm, but lord you know it ain’t easy.
Anon
Thermal runaway alone is not a plausible explanation for the explosions, given their apparent force and consistency. I saw musings that the (sealed) batteries of the devices were laced with an explosive compound, and this is far more likely. There is still significant logistical effort that goes into making something like this happen, they are not magicians. Whether you warrant such action against you, I cannot speak to; it seems you would have to ask the spooks.
Revelo
1) Hungary BAC was a front company with 1 director/employee, no real business activity. BAC didn’t manufacture anything, they just acted as intermediary, presumably cooperating with Israel. Sorry, don’t have the links but this info is all over the internet.
2) Iran is being patient. USA and Israel get weaker by the day. The longer Iran waits, the greater their chance of success in any war. If possible, they will wait until after Russia has clearly won in Ukraine and is thus in a position to threaten USA troops in Moldova, Finland, etc, and USA occupied in a war with China, so that USA can only allocate minimum resources to fighting Iran.
Carborundum
Spot reporting now indicating that Hezbollah has acknowledged firing a Qadr 1 at Tel Aviv. If accurate, that’s the biggest thing they’ve ever launched. Notably, at least the first stage of this is assessed as liquid fuelled (supposedly this is a Shahab 3a derivative), meaning that there should be an elevated signature while preparing for launch (though significantly reduced launch prep time was apparently a key feature of the improvements to baseline Shahab 3). Same reporting also indicating that David’s Sling (Israeli medium-range ABM system) successfully intercepted.
It says something about the effectiveness of Israeli ISTAR and the effectiveness of Hezbollah masking that they’ve been able to pull this off – I would *not* be lingering at the launch point… Assuming that they did launch this as a singleton, I would tend to assess this as a message; if they wanted to do serious damage they’d have salvoed multiple vehicles to try and overwhelm ABM defences.
somecomputerguy
The traditional test of whether something is terrorism; how is it different in it’s essentials from the firebombing of Dresden?
I have never heard anyone give a definition of terrorism that would exclude Dresden. If that attack is a legitimate military action, anything is.
We call something terrorism based on who does it, not what they do.
Now imagine someone at the NSA looking at this and asking the question; wouldn’t it be cool if….?
It is well demonstrated that if you aren’t PedophilTerroristDrugdealer, you have nothing fear from the police using torture, seizing all your assets on a whim, or the latest innovation in the war on terror; controlled detonation cell-phone recycling.
You already should have no objection to the police accessing your phone, any way they need to, at any time. This, is just a minor expansion of that.
Everyone has to do their part.
Carborundum
Reporting indicating a large scale IAF attack in Southern Beirut, described by the Israelis as an attack on Hezbollah headquarters. Oblique imagery captured multiple impacts consistent with Mk84 (~2000 lb nominal) class weapons. Multiple apartment buildings pancaked – looks to be even greater destruction than the strike in Southern Beirut back towards the end of the 2006 conflict. Speculation is that this was an attempt to kill Hassan Nasrallah – Netanyahu is reported to have prematurely ended his trip to New York and is returning to Israel, lending credence to this interpretation.
If they’ve been successful, Israel should be mindful of the classic dangers of the decapitation strategy – short term, not having counterpart decision makers who can turn the opposing military force off; longer term, seeing surviving remnants mutate into something even more dangerous.
Ian Welsh
When they killed the Hamas leader, he was replaced by a hardliner. I’d lay odds of Nasrallah winds up dead, it’ll be the same in Hezbollah.
Also he’s seriously worshiped by Hezbollah, so the likelihood of some nasty revenge attacks is high.
I don’t know why the US and Israel think leadership attacks make any real difference. Sometimes taking out a key scientist is important, though.
Carborundum
This is more than just taking out a few leaders – they’ve taken something on the order of a dozen or so key leadership personalities off the board in pretty short order. Overall, they look to be waging counter-network warfare, backed by shaping operations that require significant lead time. This has clearly been a major focus of Unit 8200 since the last go round in 2006.
I suspect that the most likely succession scenario wouldn’t be so much ending up with a hardliner, in the sense that the Salafist movements trended ever more head chopping whacko, as leadership that is more firmly under the control of the Iranians. Nasrallah has been very accomplished at carving out a reasonably independent path; this has been predicated on a pretty particular set of historical occurrences and personal relationships that I doubt many others share.
If they’ve taken him off the board, retaliatory attacks aren’t just a possibility but a certainty. I would bet that Netanyahu is going wheels up back to Israel not as much because of the potential reprisals from Lebanon as reprisals from more distant actors like Iran (also important for him to get out of New York asap after having pissed so obviously all over the administration’s shoes). Given that they’ve kicked a hornet’s nest that the US wasn’t so keen on them kicking, I suspect the other actors are wondering how much daylight there is between them and the West and whether Western forces will repeat their role of so significantly attriting mass missile attacks.
different clue
One more reason not to have a cell phone. ( Up to now, the reason I gave people is: cell phones cause cancer. Wait twenty years and you won’t be laughing.) After all, how hard is it for someone to turn a cell-phone into a cell-bomb? If you are an effective opponent of Old Growth clear cutting, why wouldn’t a timber executive try turning your cell-phone into a cell-bomb if he could reach it? If a few such cell-bombs go off in America, it may lead to a reduction in cell-phone use and a revival of land-line use where land lines still exist.
I suspect that Taiwanese cell-phone makers do so little of their business in Israel that Israel threatening the Taiwanese cell-phone maker with loss of business would not scare the Taiwanese cell-phone maker into turning their cell-phones into cell-bombs. And they wouldn’t do it on their own for fear of spoiling their brand’s good name and hence their future business. So either a government far more powerful than Israel threatened them into doing it or numbers of these phones were intercepted after initial shipment from Taiwan without Taiwan’s knowledge and then turned into cell-bombs.
Panetta would never admit something against interest. If Panetta was permitted to admit this, he was permitted by people who decided such an admission was “in their interest”. Or Panetta decided on his own that such admission was “in our interest”.
And he is enough of a group-thinker that he wouldn’t suddenly wander his thoughts off the reservation all on his own. So applying the old discipline of “kremlinology” to the DC PermaGov Establishment, it looks some some of the upper level political ice floes are grinding around into new configurations.
Dan Kelly
I ask because I don’t understand why they wouldn’t secure all their tech from reliable sources.
It is Friday, September 27, 2024 at 8:51 PM. As I write, Beirut is being destroyed.
It looks like Russia didn’t really care about Hizbollah or Lebanon, and if I were Iranian I’d seriously wonder how committed Russia is to my country’s well-being.
If Russia did care, it would have given Iran/Hiz better arms and intel capability.
We always hear that Russia first and foremost protects its own interests, and that Iran is a huge part of that, both militarily and economically. We are told that Iran then largely supplies Hizbollah.
Both Hamas and Hizbollah are being systemically eliminated.
Hizbollah was set up by both sides. Russia is still largely controlled by billioanires and their minions – and Chabad Lubavitch. The oligarch’s money wasn’t broken up and returned to the Russian people!
BRICS emerged from Goldman Sachs and if you want to know who runs those countries simply search right now for the people and families who own and are the largest investors in the country’s raw mineral resources, real estate and land generally, ag, media-tech, and bio (big pharma). Many of these are conglomerated together.
Go do it right now. Say, for South Africa. Spend an hour or two just following the money and relationships.
They are not all Jewish Zionist for sure. Many are old ‘Anglicans’ and the pipeline right back to the good old Brit empire is quite evident. A few are even black. Imagine that!They all have intermingling psycopathic economic relationships with each other, and with much of the rest of Africa (where more psycopathic black wealth enters the overall milieu of insanity) – and the world.
I wonder how many people will die as they are lifted out of poverty by these obviously well-intentioned global hopscotching trend-setting pseudo-reality makers.
Where is China in all this? I’m sure they’ll make some angry statements. And the wanton wholesale destruction of Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon will continue.
If I were Iran and the ‘Axis of Resistance’ playing the game of RISK it would be obvious by now that I am being squeezed by the other players.
Eh, global warming and/or nuclear holocausat are going to kill us all anyway, right?
Stay Tuned, Don’t Think, and Stay Defeated.
—————–
‘My primary goal was to make a case for changing the framework for global economic governance…
‘We defined this potential using the standard methodology for macroeconomics, in which real economic growth is determined by two variables: the size of a nation’s workforce and the economy’s productivity.’ – Baron O’Neill of Gatley
So, the entire world must develop a productive work ethic because this is the ‘standard methodology for macroeconomics’ which is simply a net cast over the world in the interest of slicing, dicing, measuring and controlling everything – itself in the interest of maintaining scarcity and control over the masses. All for the already pscyopathically wealthy elite.
https://archive.ph/kKAxD#selection-1615.135-1615.182
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_O'Neill,_Baron_O'Neill_of_Gatley
Dan Kelly
It’s now 9:30. Netanyahu ordered the war crime on Beirut and Lebanon immediately before giving his speech at the UN.
Israel targeted and killed Zainab Nasrallah, the daugher of Hizbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah. No one knows where Hassan Nasrallah is at the moment. There are reports of other high-ranking Hizbollah military leaders being killed.
We have heard that Hizbollah (and Hamas) are not really defeatable because they are configured assymetrically and their is always another trained leader ready to step in if someone is killed – martyred in their venacular. We have also been told that the more martyrs, the more the overall population is ennobled.
We’ll see.
‘Following the strike on Beirut on Friday, IDF Spokesperson R.-Adm. Daniel Hagari announced that they were still investigating the status of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and would update as soon as possible.
“We used a highly precise strike to target Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was hiding in civilian buildings in the Dahiya neighborhood of Beirut.”
He also announced that the IDF would soon strike Hezbollah infrastructure built under civilian buildings in Dahiya.’
It is the same old story. Israel is producing pictures of alleged weapons depots under the buildings they demolished. They have taken over the Lebanese airspace entirely now and they do not intend on leaving.
This Daniel Hagari made another smug, audacious, god-like pronouncement that:
‘IAF jets are now patrolling the area of Beirut’s airport. Until now, the State of Lebanon acted responsibly and did not allow the transfer of weapons through the civilian airport. We announce – we will not allow weapons to land at the airport in Beirut.”
“We will not allow militarized planes to use a civilian airport. This is a civilian airport for civilian use, and it must be protected as such.”
“I will update you throughout the night and tomorrow whenever necessary,” he said before signing off.
https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/2024-09-28/live-updates-822145
————————-
No one at NakedCapitalism even seems aware of this. That place has become such a silly, pathetic joke. They had a ‘piece’ today on global warming as genocide, What a convenient way to lessen the meaning of the word.
Ian Welsh
Waiting to find out if Nasrallah really was killed. Of course this is what Israel would do when they turned their attention to Lebanon. This is who and what they are, but I’m not counting Hezbollah out this early in the game, and it is still early.
Dan Kelly
I hope you are right Ian.
Even if Hizbollah prevails this time, does anyone forsee Nurmeberg-type trials for Netanyahu et al?
Walter Lippman was quite clear on what needs to happen to change Israeli/Zionist behavior. This is also how you change a prevailing ‘international’ zeitgeist or, if not entirely international, then largely so.
Lippman was a master propagandist and manipulator who was both lead editor of New York World and a leading correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune.
Walter Lippman was also a prominent advisor to Woodrow Wilson. Wilson’s presidency included such regressive measures as entry into WWI after adamant election promises not to, and the establishment of both an income tax and, most regrettably of all: The Federal Reserve.
Woodrow Wilson was branded and promoted as a progressive democrat.
Here is Walter Lippman on how wars (politics by other means) achieve their ultimate objectives:
‘A war is only lost when one’s own territory is occupied by the enemy, the leading class of the defeated people is convicted in war trials and the defeated are subject to a re-education process. An obvious means of that is to implant the victor’s view into the minds of the defeated. It’s of decisive importance to transfer the ‘moral categories’ of the victor’s wartime propaganda into the consciousness of the defeated. Only when wartime propagada has found its way into the history books and is believed by succeeding generations – only then the re-education can be seen as successful.’
So, I ask: Who is going to conduct war crimes trials on Israel and Zionists and submit their people to a very necessary re-education process?
Ian Welsh
Yes, I agree with you and Lippman and that is the problem. I believe Israel can be defeated conventionally, the problem is their nukes. This is why, I suspect, the Resistance is using a strategy of constant pressure. There are hundreds of thousands of internal refugees, the economy is in trouble and so on.
shagggz
@Dan Kelly,
“They had a ‘piece’ today on global warming as genocide, What a convenient way to lessen the meaning of the word.” – This was reblogged from Neuberger, and Yves prefaced it by emphasizing her strong disagreement with the main argument.
different clue
” Where is China in all this?”
Tending to its own longest-range goal of becoming the whole world’s “Metropole” and reducing the whole world to being China’s “Hinterland”. Tending to its own longest-range goal of becoming the new ” Workshop of the World” and exterminating every last trace of any type of industry or even any thingmaking at all beyond the borders of China.
shagggz
@different clue,
Your point struck me as cogent until the extermination bit. Seems to be projecting Western/imperial values of domination, as opposed to Eastern ones of interdependence. Where have you seen evidence of this?
different clue
@shagggz,
The draining of industry from America to China, for one. (With the active leadership and sponsorship of the American ruling class elites, who felt that the way to exterminate industrial unions in America was to exterminate their unionised industries. That’s what Forcey-FreeTrade is about. That’s part of why Clinton supported NAFTA . . . in order to exterminate the unionised industries whose unionized workers broke Clinton’s young heart by supporting Nixon over McGovern in 1972. Part of Clinton’s motivation for NAFTA was to ruin the lives of unionised workers who made him cry in 1972 when they voted for Nixon).
Ultra-lowpriced Chinese imports into Africa have been exterminating folk and artisanal production of various things, especially tradtional textiles , in different parts of Africa. Here is an article bearing on that. I am sure other articles exist.
https://www.polity.org.za/article/cheap-chinese-imports-in-africa-implications-and-remedies-2014-03-06
The effects of ultra-lowpriced Chinese imports into other Third World places deserves to be studied.
” Eastern values of interdependence”? Really? What “Eastern values of interdependence” is China showing with its ongoing ” Indian Wars ” against Uiguristan and especially Tibet? Here is an article about the recent ChinaGov impostion of Residential Schooling against the children of Tibet, with the exact same goal in mind of cultural and linguistic extermination against Tibetan culture which motivated the creation of Boarding Schools in America and Residential Schools in Canada to achieve the cultural and linguistic extermination of the Native Nations of those two countries.
The article is titled: ” China’s Residential Schools Separate a Million Tibetan Children From Their Families, U.N. Says” and here is the link:
https://time.com/6253481/china-tibet-million-children-separated-residential-schools/
As an American, I know an Indian War when I smell one. If I were merely projecting my own Western imperial values of domination, why would I referrence something from my country’s own history against Native Nations as being a bad thing when we did it and an equally bad thing when China does it?
What Eastern values of interdependence does the ChinaGov show in its relentless drive to conquer the entirety of the China Sea and keep it conquered long enough to strip every last drop of oil and puff of gas out from under the seabed, and strip mine every last fish from out of the water? What “Eastern values of interdependence” are being shown here?
Projecting my own values of Western/imperial domination? I don’t think so. But you could be right and I am just a blind squirrel in this regard. But even a blind squirrel sometimes finds an acorn. And this is the acorn which blind-squirrel-me has found.
I am 67 years old. If you are under 40 years old, you will live long enough to see how right or wrong my analysis turns out to have been.
different clue
( And it occurs to me that my ClintoNAFTA example is technically irrelevant to the issue of China in that the point of ClintoNAFTA was to move industry from America to Mexico.
But the wider point stands in that Clinton’s further moving of America into WTO and his seeking and getting of MFN Status for China and Chinese membership into WTO were designed to drain industry from America to China. I remember reading somewhere that
Clinton was a little surprised that the industry drained to China instead of Mexico because the point of ClintoNAFTA was to drain the industry to Mexico specifically.
I would like to see all of America’s solid waste gathered into one place and made into a mountain the size of Mount Rushmore. We could call it Mount Trashmore. We could carve it into Rushmore-sized portraits of President Wilson and President Clinton who are tied for being America’s most Evil Twentieth Century Presidents).
Dan Kelly
This was reblogged from Neuberger, and Yves prefaced it by emphasizing her strong disagreement with the main argument.
As she is wont to do. I get the idea that we all better read things thoroughly, and they want to make sure we indeed have…OR ELSE.
In this particular case, I simply allowed some previous knowledge coupled with speculative banter from the esteemd commentariat to produce a misreading of my skim of another of Thomas Neuberger’s ceaseless opines.
I have to imagine Yves et al would understand, no?:
https://archive.ph/KV9hy#selection-2427.31-2427.246
You see, I was in quite a mood that day. Beirut was being bombed to smithereens. NakedCapitalism’s vaunted commentariat wasn’t aware of major events going on on the world stage for hours until after they had occurred.
Mind you, I am not talking about getting an article up. I am simply talking about the regulars knowing what’s going on. But many over there seem to depend on Yves and Lambert to provide clarity on issues, and Yves and Lambert derive much of their personal identity from that.
That is sad and pathetic on all counts. it is also very dangerous.
For it’s all info, NakedCapitalism is infantilizing if allowed to be.
Thomas Neuberger’s article never should have been entertained in the first place. Since it was, it should have been immediately and firmly denounced without further ado.
This was the entire point of creating the ‘global warming’ bogeyman in the first place.
This is why Aurelio Peccei, Alexander King and David Rockefeller formed the Club of Rome, out of which emerged ‘Global Warming’ which has been ‘global cooling’ and ‘climate change’ caused entirely by humans, thus ‘the real enemy is humanity itself.’
So, we’re enemies of ourselves! Great. That feels good. I can really operate from this zeitgeist. I feel free…and I want to dance!
If Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Miriam Adelson and Eyal Offer, Aliko Dangote, Zong Shanshan, Mukesh Ambani, Bernard Arnaut, and Vladimir Lisin all formed a group today out of which it was declared that all of humanity is its own worst enemy, would you take them even remotely seriously?
THEY are our enemies.
‘The best way to control the opposition is to lead it.’
shagggz
@different clue,
I don’t see how you can lay American plutocrats’ decision to deindustrialize America and sell out labor at China’s feet. China’s cheap exports crowding out artisanal African goods is not evidence of that being China’s goal. Uighurs in Xinjiang and Tibetans are within China’s historical sphere of influence and will be assimilated accordingly. Same for the China Sea, though I understand these are contested waters. The comparison to American residential schools only goes so far because those were the remnants of an outwardly expanding genocidal frontier ultimately aimed at world domination, but China has never had such goals. In rejecting them, it embraces reciprocity and interdependence with the outside world, while the Western Imperium is ideologically incapable of understanding itself as on an equal footing with it. Hence the permanent state of warfare.
shagggz
@Dan Kelly,
Yes, Yves has a fearsomely high bar for the level of discourse she allows on her commentariat, and I tread lightly accordingly. Your expectation that she/Lambert be immediately aware of hours-old world events does not strike me as fair or reasonable, especially considering the preternatural work ethic they seem to exhibit in their constant output.
I suppose the peril of being infantilized is everpresent when one puts a high level of trust in a source to the preponderant exclusion of others, but I feel it’s a worthwhile tradeoff. There’s only so much time in the day, and I want to radically reduce the amount of shit for me to sift through. That’s why only NC and IW are in that league for me, and I donate accordingly. If I ever find I’ve been led astray I’ll adjust my behavior, but that does not seem to be the case.
Seeing how they continue to publish every bit of output of Neuberger’s including ones sharply criticized, it makes me wonder why our gracious host was previously published there but no longer. If a falling out had taken place?
As for “THEM” being our enemies, I understand the emotionally satisfying appeal of drawing such an imaginary boundary but intellectually I cannot take it too seriously. Sure, expanding the scope to “all of humanity” is absurd in the other direction, but I find it more illuminating to consider the systemic connections between these figureheads, which are more interchangeable than not.
Ian Welsh
Climate change as genocide is an entirely reasonable argument, imo. Neuberger is an author I like, though he’s also a friend, so perhaps I’m biased.
I was never published there, but many years ago they used to link to me fairly often and at one time Lambert and I were on good terms (especially back when he ran Corrente.) We disagree on some issues, however, and they are often unwilling to allow dissenting views and seem to take is somewhat personally. (That’s their perogative, and I’m not criticizing.)
shagggz
@Ian,
Genocide vis a vis climate change strikes me as more of a side effect than the intended one. The scale of death resembles genocide, but the class (operative word) of person does not. Perhaps a neologism is in order. Untercide?
I appreciate the response, but it only deepens my curiosity! What could be such an intense disagreement that it could take you from being on good terms? But I understand if you’d rather just let it be… *shrinks meekly*
Ian Welsh
Nothing intense. It doesn’t seem to take much. And they still link sometimes. We’re not on bad terms, we’re just no longer on good ones, as best I can tell. It’s not important, anyway, it never drove a lot of traffic and we were never friends, as such.
Back in the old days of blogging, everyone in the wider progressive blogosphere sort of knew everyone else. That’s gone now, it’s not a community any more.
shagggz
I’m sure it was relatively insignificant in the grand scheme. Yeah, the headwinds against organic human content online have been quite intense, and only seem to be accelerating. With the advent of AI, platforms and censorship, I find myself in a state of pre-mourning for oases of sanity such as here and NC.
Dan Kelly
Yves has a fearsomely high bar for the level of discourse she allows on her commentariat, and I tread lightly accordingly.
You missed the point entirely. She breaks all her own rules. I gave one very recent example. You’d have to open an entire server farm to store all the instances of her doing that. It happens regularly.
I mean, we all make mistakes, we all have our blind spots, but this is legendary.
They have also flat-out erased things that Yves has written. I noticed a few things in particular when they were up for that award? or maybe entrance into some historical register or something? I forget.
Your expectation that she/Lambert be immediately aware of hours-old world events does not strike me as fair or reasonable, especially considering the preternatural work ethic they seem to exhibit in their constant output.
shaggz, I didn’t bother to read the rest of your comment after this because it’s as if you didn’t read, or didn’t comprhend, my comment that you yourself have decided to reply to.
Please read more carefully. I do not have time as a commenter to go back over everything I’ve already written in order to walk you through it. This is your second strike, shaggz. You may have to go into quarantine for a period of time if you don’t shape up.
Now, that was just a little satire in honor of Yves, but the point remains that you clearly didn’t read or understand my remark. Here it is again:
‘You see, I was in quite a mood that day. Beirut was being bombed to smithereens. NakedCapitalism’s vaunted commentariat wasn’t aware of major events going on on the world stage for hours until after they had occurred.
Mind you, I am not talking about getting an article up. I am simply talking about the regulars knowing what’s going on.
I obviously didn’t expect an arrticle to necessarily be up. I’m not that much of a nut job, shaggz.
the preternatural work ethic they seem to exhibit in their constant output
Mass quantity doesn’t impress me. It leads to skims and errors.
And how can someone be an advocate for the natural world when they themselves approach and live life in, as your own words suggest, a quite unnatural (preternatural) manner?.
But, all that said, since they do choose to live life with such a ‘preternatural work ethic’ then yes, I do in fact expect that they’d have at least a mention of it. Get it out with a more to follow as the story develops line, or something.
That would in fact constitute your ‘constant output.’
Anyway, thank god for mikel. His simple truisms are always a breath of fresh air, and serve to maintain some semblance of sanity.
different clue
As long as Naked Capitalism is a sub-subject of a sub-thread in this thread, I have found an interesting sentence in a very recent NaCap post in support of my suspicion that NaCap stealth-supports Trump for president and badly wants Trump to win, and will eventually come right out and admit it.
And here that sentence is . . . ” This week’s crop of flag-of-convenience Democrat celebrities and generals didn’t turn the tide either. Despite the micturition and lamentation (very much including my own) about the Trump campaign dogging it when the election is theirs to win (see Gallup, “2024 Election Environment Favorable to GOP” on the issues) do note the steady deterioration in Kamala’s position in the (aggregated) top battlegrounds. ” This sentence is from Lambert Strether’s Water Cooler feature from 10/11 .
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/09/200pm-water-cooler-10-11-2024.html
Of course I am interpreting the sentence bit ” the Trump campaign dogging it” as meaning ‘ the Trump campaign losing or lagging behind’ the Harris campaign. If I am interpreting the words and the whole sentence wrong, hopefully someone will correct me.
If I am interpreting it correctly, then over the next couple of weeks the magasbara for Trump will get more overt at NaCap and then loud and then shrill. And if Harris gets elected by too hugely overwhelming a majority for the Trump side to be able to challenge it or obstruct Harris from taking office, NaCap will be plunged into a state of hysterical despair.
Hopefully they will keep doing their valuable-beyond-the-value-of-value work on COVID. As long as they keep doing that, then the rest is their business.
different clue
And the appearance of two good entries in that very same watercooler are a reminder to me that I go to certain blogs for information and interesting material, not for personal validation or support. Every blog . . . that one, this one, other ones . . . can have material I do not like or agree with. But since it is not the blogs’s job to validate my views or make me feel good, I grind my teeth and move on.
Here are the two good things which made me remember that basic principle of interacting with blogs . . .
https://x.com/PinellasGov/status/1840042408832045266?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1840042408832045266%7Ctwgr%5Ea5565d73413ca3f0225235a7503074f18709c366%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nakedcapitalism.com%2F2024%2F09%2F200pm-water-cooler-10-11-2024.html
and . . .
https://x.com/moorehn/status/1840258958595957050?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1840258958595957050%7Ctwgr%5Ea5565d73413ca3f0225235a7503074f18709c366%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nakedcapitalism.com%2F2024%2F09%2F200pm-water-cooler-10-11-2024.html
Those two items are live-action bits of news you can use as you decide to get an electric car or a smart house, or not.
different clue
Here is a random video I found on You Tube. It is about subjecting an antique American sledge hammer and a new Chinese sledgehammer and subjecting them both to a hydraulic press crush test to see how they do. Here is the link.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vnus2zLPJnA
Go in love, little sledgehammer.
shagggz
@Dan Kelly,
“Now, that was just a little satire in honor of Yves” – Haha that was a very good Yves impression, I recognized the register right away. I’m afraid I still don’t get your gripe, though. Some commenters were not immediately aware of hours-old events? They do do the “more updates as they develop” format, though less commonly. Why is that such a grave sin?
“Mass quantity doesn’t impress me. It leads to skims and errors.” – Usually, yes. Which is why I find the actual rate of errors and skims so impressively low in her case. If you have some serious examples of such, I’m all ears.
shagggz
@different clue,
If you had to go that deep in the weeds of a Water Cooler comment that you then had to overinterpret to such a torturous extent, doesn’t the term “magasbara” seem a bit much?
Yes, it’s not a blog’s job to pander to what makes you feel good, which is what I think their election (and other) coverage consciously tries to avoid. I’m no Trumper, but have been so thoroughly disgusted with what has become of the Dems that I can cheer for him out of some sort of gallows humor indulging abandon. I think there’s a bit of that with NC’s approach.
different clue
@shagggz,
I didn’t have to go deep into the weeds of that Water Cooler comment. It leaped off the screen and smacked me in the face. Did I overinterpret it to a torturous extent? I don’t think so. I didn’t even consciously “interpret” it at all. It leaped out at me as part of a recognizable pattern.
I have made a conditional if/then prediction about election comments at NaCap. If it looks like Harris/Walz are winning and/or will win, NaCap’s magasbara will get louder, shriller and more overt. The bigger the margin of Harris/Walz’s victory, if there is one, the more hysterical the despair at NaCap will be.
But of course if Trump/Vance are winning and especially if they win, then my conditional predictions in this regard will be mooted and not even judgeable. The accuracy of my conditional prediction can only be judged if Harris/Walz are winning and especially if they win. If that happens, then my prediction will be proved right or wrong.
Dan Kelly
Which is why I find the actual rate of errors and skims so impressively low in her case. If you have some serious examples of such, I’m all ears.
‘actual rate of errors and skims so impressively low in her case’
How do you know what she is and isn’t skimming?!
As I said, the error rate is legendary shaggz.
But NakedCapitalism isn’t interested in dealing with anything in a truly substantive manner. They deconstruct and report just enough to suit their own ends.
Anyway, and again as I said, my post wasn’t about errors per se, it was about Yves constantly breaking all her own rules. How this undeniable fact in any way constitutes having ‘a fearsomely high bar for the level of discourse she allows on her commentariat’ is beyond me. But those were the words you used.
Setting a really high bar and then breaking all the rules of said bar is not a good way to roll.
If you have some serious examples of such, I’m all ears
Easy enough, and I’m glad you asked. I already posted about this and I didn’t see a response from you.
In fact no one had anything to say about this.
This is much more egregious than one of the countless ‘skim errors’ that evidently go right over your head.
Yesterday Yves and Naked Capitalism linked to two sites that are obvious intel/military front sites. I debunked them rather easily.
I already wrote about this in a lengthy post or two in which I was intentionally being a wise ass by slowly and rather deliberately going through the motions of how one would seek and/or check the information given.
This is the quicker rundown: Yves’ fearsomely high bar led her to refer her readers to a site she claimed was the ‘the Azerbaijan state news agency.’
She linked to this site: https://en.apa.az/
This is the actual Azerbaijan State News Agency: https://azertag.az/en/
It had/has no articles claiming Iran hit Israel’s jets:
https://azertag.az/en/axtarish?search=iran
You can read the more in-depth analysis of Yves’
errorintentional misdirection here:https://archive.ph/pJy5j#selection-2371.0-2371.5
NakedCapitalism’s commentariat, as I imagine you well know, corrects things all the time. They are very big on what they consider to be truthful sources. This commentariat includes former ambassadors and diplomats and all manner of very important people.
No one seems aware of this though. Or no one cares.
Fascinating.
Yves and NakedCapitalism then immediately cited another source that is run by a spook trained at the infamous Kings College London!
Read all about it here:
https://www.ianwelsh.net/iran-hammers-tel-aviv-israel/#comment-154572
Dan Kelly
Ian, I gather you’re not particularly interested in NakedCapitalism at this point but there clearly is an overlap between your site, NakedCapitalism and other sites.
There are many readers who are both reading this site and visiting NakedCapitalism.
What do you make of the fact that NakedCapitalism pointed to a faux State News Agency and to a western(?) spook-run site?
Ian Welsh
I think I really don’t want to be drawn into a discussion about NC, honestly. People vent here a lot about NC and I let it happen, but getting too involved myself isn’t in the cards. I very rarely read them and I think I’ve commented three times max (in response to things said about my articles.
Ain’t nobody I think is always right, or always does the right things, not even me.
Dan Kelly
Ian, I am not intending to belabor this. I just want to pursue the subject a little further, for my own edification and clarity.
This will be intentionally kept generic to respect your wishes vis-a-vis NC. As well. for the aforementioned elucidation-clarity.
No one real will be in any way ‘harmed’ because no one real is involved. This is simply a generic thought experiment that anyone of even ‘average IQ’ or intellect can understand and meaingfully participate in. One needn’t be familiar with the specifics per se.
The body of the text is somewhat long. The question at the end is rather concise.
Here goes. Remember, this is a thought experiment:
Imagine a website that is popular and generally respected among a sizable population of a given political-economic community that may be said to generally ‘lean hard/old left’ on most things poltiical-economic, and ‘social issues’ as well.
There are exceptions and variances, but the general trend is in this direction.
The website is in no way pre-eminent, but it is widely-read and features writers, academics, researchers, and people from all walks of life, from all around the world.
It also features a comments section that allows essentially anyone to participate so long as they provide an email and follow the rules. Many of the people who write articles also participate in the comments section and this even includes former ambassadors and diplomats.
In fact ,the comments section is integral to the entire operation and it features a wide variety of regular commenters ranging from homesteaders to small farmers to engineers to former military and war planners to people of little means who are often understandably angry.
Many of the writers it features are of various political flavors but, again, it ‘leans left’ on the whole, both political-economically and socially.
One of its most established regular contributors is himself a prominent figure in what is generically known as the ‘BRICS currency’ movement.
He has lectured both in China and around the globe about the benefits of the emerging BRICS financial system as a counterweigt to, at minimum, and a potential replacement for, the current dollar-based framework that most countries currently operate within. The dollar-based system they are working against is integral to the CIA-NATO alliance.
The site receives financial support from all over the globe, and every year the site has a fundraiser that is named after a famous entertainment figure who contributes, lends his name and ‘matches’ donations, as do many of the site’s more well-to-do supporters and commenters.
This website is referenced and shared widely, primarily among people on ‘the left’ but among other political persuasions as well.
Everyone involved is in some way, shape or form vehemently OPPOSED TO the CIA-NATO-western framework. Or so they say.
———————————————
You have just been presented with much information about this website. You may not remember the details, but that is no matter. You aren’t going to be queried on the details.
Right now, it is sufficient that you have a general idea of what the site is all about.
The most important thing that I would like you to remember and which is important to the question at the end is this: The website we have been talking about is adamant that the CIA and its ‘western NATO apparatus’ are the problem in the world. This includes Israel.
There is disagreement over whether or not the US-NATO alliance uses Israel, or if the nexus of control is vice versa. But even that major issue isn’t the point right now.
The only thing you have to remember is that there is no disagreement whatsosever on the US-NATO military-intel apparatus being the problem in the world. Period.
Despite all the other quite understandable disagreements due to the normal human range of experience and opinion, this one fact is absolutely ironclad across the board.
Put even more simply: The CIA-NATO alliance is persona non-grata here. It is only ever spoken about in a brutally negative light.
Now, it is important to understand that we are not here to defend the CIA-NATO any more than we are here to denigrate it. That is not the point of the exercise.
We will get to ‘the point’ – or actually it wil reveal itself as we proceed.
———————————————————-
It was recently discovered by an alert reader and independent researcher that this website presented its entire readership – which includes everyone in these circles whether they actively subscribe and participate or not, and as we have shown this is a very wide global audience.
This website presented its entire immediate and degree-of-separataion-adjacent audience with material that was rather easily traced to this same US-NATO-western alliance that it purports to be fighting.
More substantive examination revealed that this is in no way an isolated occurrence.
The website itself has not addressed this particular instance of the fake ‘source’ material they passed on to their readership. This undertstandably leads many rational actors to question things.
This is much stronger than a ‘signal’ in the health/medicine realm. This is a huge red flag. Obviously.
The site has so far chosen to ignore the issue entirely rather than address it head-on, leading rational actors to further question the site’s integrity…and its entire raison d’etre.
—————————————–
I am now going to ‘think out loud’ with a series of ‘questioning statements’ leading to the penultimate question.
Remember, this is a generic thought experiment:
If you yourself are a blog writer in this arena and this has been brought to your attention, how do you respond to this? You yourself have been linked by this site a few times, but you personally don’t read the site much at all.
You are however well aware of both the general tenor of the site and at least some of its day-to-day goings-on because many of your own readers read the site, and you take an active interest in your own blog.
You are also aware of its wide readership that is largely part and parcel of the same economic-political ANTI western-CIA-NATO-imperial dynamic that you and many of your own readers and supporters are in some way ‘a part of’ – ranging from full-bore involvement to mildly adjacent supporter. and everything inbetween.
Most importantly, the US-NATO-western axis is something you yourself know wholeheartedly needs to be destroyed in the interest of the earth and humanity.
The US-NATO axis is the imperial center of global control that is destroying us and the environment we inhabit. Our fertile mother is being destroyed by this entity.
You have practically dedicated your life to this.
How do you proceed here? I can’t imagine it’s in any way a moral quagmire. Your feelings are clear on this.
So how do you rationally proceed? You’re not going to just dismiss it in an offhand sort of way because you know how many of your own readers visit this prevalent website.
Further, this is something you personally believe in wholeheartedly and even though you have no particular ‘love’ for this site you are certainly smart enough to know how much it touches others who are allies, and potential allies, in this fight for our collective lives.
You have just witnessed a fellow blogger for the resistance dismiss this entire revealing episode with a belittling two-paragraph statment. She startingly came to the conclusion that this simply boils down to people doing ‘the right thing’ and, well, people don’t always do the right thing. Or something.
And she signed off with a subtle shout-out to her own strengths in this regard.
She’s smart alright.
So you are sitting here smart enough to know that this is very important to the people of Palestine and Lebanon and Syria and all those oppressed by the CIA-NATO imperium.
The mainstays of the resistance are casually dismissing the fact that a primary media/propaganda apparatus made up of and frequented by much of what is ‘the heart’ of said resistance’ is in fact regularly publishing sources from CIA-NATO outlets.
How do you proceed here?
I’m all ears.