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Asymmetric Warfare And Its Characteristics
Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirovic
At least from the very academic viewpoint, war is a condition of armed conflict between at least two sides (but, in fact, states). Historically, there are several types of warfare: conventional warfare, civil war, lightning war (blitzkrieg in German), total war, hegemonic war, liberation war, war on terrorism, etc. However, according to the used warfare technique, there is, for instance, little war (guerrilla war in Spanish) or according to the (counter)balance of warfare sides, there is asymmetric war as an example.
Asymmetric warfare exists in the case when two sides of combat forces (two states, two blocs, a state vs. one military bloc, etc.) are very or even extremely different regarding their military and other capacities to fight each other. They are also very different in terms of their areas of comparative strategic advantage, Therefore, the confrontation between such two different sides is coming to turn on one belligerent side’s ability/capacity to force the other side to fight on their terms and conditions.
Another feature of asymmetric warfare is that the strategies that the weaker side has consistently adopted against the stronger side (enemy) often involve targeting the enemy’s domestic political base as much as its forward military capabilities. Nevertheless, in essence, usually, such strategies involve inflicting pain over time without suffering unbearable retaliation in return.
Horrific new details revealed about Rachel Morin’s brutal rape and murder as suspect denied bail
American woman, Rachel Morin, mother of five.
Her half-sister, Erin Morin Layman, holds the
Biden administration accountable for her murder
Rachel Morin was strangled as well as savagely beaten, it was revealed Friday — as the illegal Salvadorian migrant accused of raping and killing the mom-of-five was denied bail.
Victor Antonio Martinez Hernandez, a 23-year-old suspected gangbanger, attended the Friday hearing via video link from the Harford County Detention Center dressed in a black and white striped jumpsuit with his hands cuffed behind his back.
The court heard that Morin, a 37-year-old mom, was brutally beaten to death and found partially naked after she was attacked on the Ma & Pa Heritage hiking trail in Bel Air, Maryland, on Aug. 4.
The Morin family’s attorney Randolph Rice told The Post after the hearing that the victim’s “badly beaten” body was located in a drainage tunnel the following day.
He said she had “10-15 head wounds and the manner of death was strangulation and blunt force injuries.”
“She was attacked on the trail during her workout and dragged through the woods to the tunnel where she was located,” he added, citing the argument presented by the State’s Attorney at the bail hearing.
Hernandez is charged with first- and second-degree murder, first- and second-degree rape and first- and second-degree assault.
Judge Kerwin A. Miller ruled Friday that Hernandez was a flight risk and a danger to society and noted that he has an ICE detainer and an Interpol Warrant. His bond was denied.
Hernandez declined the opportunity to make a statement as the heartbroken Morin family watched on.
Rice described it as an “emotionally challenging experience for them to see the Defendant on the video screen.”
Why Does the Government Borrow When It Can Print?
by Ellen Brown
In the first seven months of Fiscal Year (FY) 2024, net interest (payments minus income) on the federal debt reached $514 billion, exceeding spending on both national defense ($498 billion) and Medicare ($465 billion). The interest tab also exceeded all the money spent on veterans, education, and transportation combined. Spending on interest is now the second largest line item in the federal budget after Social Security and the fastest growing part of the budget, on track to reach $870 billion by the end of 2024.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, the federal budget deficit was $857 billion in the first seven months of fiscal year 2024. In effect, the government is borrowing at interest to pay the interest on its debt, compounding the debt. For the lender, it’s called “the miracle of compound interest” – interest on interest compounds exponentially. But for the debtor, it’s a curse, compounding like a cancer to the point of devouring assets while still growing the debt. As Daniel Amerman, a chartered financial analyst, writes in an article titled “Could A Compound Interest Wildfire Threaten U.S. Solvency?”:
Opposing Both Israeli and Hamas Killing Is a Model for All Wars
Opposing Both Israeli and Hamas Killing is a model for all Wars
By David Swanson
Of course, millions of people all over the world and in the United States support either Israeli or Hamas warmaking — warmaking which (one must point out the obvious because the very topic of warmaking renders so many people mentally dull) is on a very different scale and of a very different type, one from the other. At the moment, I’m not writing to any of those war supporters.
What interests me is that for a huge number of people, for several months now, it has been the required, proper politics both to oppose Israel’s ongoing genocide and to oppose incidents of mass murder by Hamas.
At the moment, I’d rather not change the subject to allegations of mass rape and exactly how false they were. I do think the obsession of the past century of war commentary with rape, torture, and anything other than killing is of interest in how it normalizes murder. But there isn’t any dispute that both Israel and Hamas have killed people, and for a great many there isn’t any dispute that killing by both sides should be opposed.
The 1823 Monroe Doctrine and its First Consequences for Global Politics: The Making of the U.S. to be a Global Empire
The Doctrine (1823)
James Monroe 5th US President
Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirovic
The doctrine was presented by the 5-th U.S. President James Monroe (1817−1825) in 1823 as an official warning to (West) European powers that any European policy of imperialistic expansionism on the ground of the Americas (North, Central, and South or Anglo- Francophone and Latin, i.e., Spanish & Portuguese) was going to be taken into account by Washington as a threat to the U.S. national interests. In fact, the doctrine proclaimed the Americas as the sole business of the U.S. without any involvement or/and interruption from the outside world. In other words, James Monroe proclaimed the exclusive U.S. economic, financial, and geopolitical rights to deal (exploit) with the Americas (including Canada as well). The doctrine was later extended with practical consequences by both 26-th U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt (1901−1909) and 28-th U. S. President Thomas Woodrow Wilson (1913−1921) who used it to formally justify American imperialistic policies in several countries from Latin America from Mexico to Colombia.
James Monroe (1758−1831) was the U.S. Democratic Republican statesman and the U.S. President. He is remembered for two reasons: 1) In 1803 being a minister to France under U.S. President Jefferson, he negotiated and finally ratified the so-called “Louisiana Purchase”, by which a large territory formally owned by (Napoleonic) France was sold to the USA (as Napoléon needed extra financial sources for his wars in Europe); 2) However, James Monroe is mainly remembered as the creator of the Monroe Doctrine which, in fact, drafted the U.S. imperialistic policy in the future.
The Greatest Sin
By Arthur
I, Arthur wasn't a bad man, not cruel, not malicious. I lived 60 years a quiet life worked married raised kids paid taxes went to church, a good man I thought. As I took my last breath a calmness enveloped me, I had lived well, heaven awaited. A warmth like morning sun greeted me, I opened my eyes. Before me stood a magnificent gate pearlescent, shimmering. A piece I'd never known filled me. This was it, this was home. A figure bathed in light approached, androgynous, powerful yet comforting. "Arthur", the being spoke voice like windchimes. I fell to my knees. "Have I lived a worthy life?" I whispered. Fear, a tiny tremor in my voice. The being smiled, not a blinding grin, but knowing, sad. My Heart stuttered.
The being opened a book, ancient leatherbound. "Arthur Son Of..." The Voice trailed off reading, then looked up. "We have watched you..." My confidence wavered. "Watched?" Why that tone? "I, I tried to be good", I stammered, the warmth around me chilling slightly. I felt a coldness grip my insides. What was happening? The being closed the book with a soft thud. You were kind Arthur, honest, loyal... I dared to breathe again, but the being continued, voice dropping. "You wasted your life." My blood ran cold. Wasted? "You had potential Arthur a gift to inspire to create to uplift." The being looked into my soul. "You chose comfort, ease, and in that choice you sinned." Sin? I have never stolen, never killed. My Mind raced. I had dreams once to write, to paint, but life got in the way, responsibility. Was that a sin not to chase a dream? I looked up pleading in my eyes.
The Rise of Bifurcation and Implosion in America and NATO
A complex web of covert activities that have shaped global politics
By Tracy Turner
NATO America Project Paperclip bifurcation control relations international influence dominance power global MKUltra hegemonism.
Bifurcated America after the Civil War was indeed reborn as FBI CoIntelPro and OSS/CIA Project Paperclip - both Programs were and still are America's dark, illegal, bifurcated underbelly. If you don't think CoIntelPro does not affect you today in 2024, go to your Pod Cast, Car Radio, Web News or Cable TV and get your daily dose of Pro and Contra LGBTQ+ divisive brainwashing. All media in and around America is intentionally designed to not just divide you from me and vice versa, but to divide you within from you. Your daily dose keeps you too divided and too confused to realize, the Department of the Navy, Office of Naval Intelligence has monitored all your keystrokes for the last 29 years. Your right-brain and left-brain hemispheres are bifurcated daily by FedGov.gov, using your tax dollars to do so. CoIntelPro, Mother Expletive!
There has been a noticeable trend towards bifurcation within America and NATO in recent years. This phenomenon is characterized by a growing divide between different factions or groups within these entities, leading to increased polarization and discord.
The Coming Months of Crazy
By David Swanson
Whether or not Frank Zappa ever really said it, politics is indeed the entertainment division of the military industrial complex. It is the circenses of the panem et circenses, the circuses of the bread and circuses.
As we normalize genocide, increase the risk of nuclear war, lock in climate collapse, and accelerate the bioweapons tinkering that probably caused the covid pandemic, we are yet again presented with another most important election of our lifetime. Which geriatric sociopathic servant of the MICIMATT — the military industrial congressional intelligence media academia think tank complex — do you choose to identify with, deny all evidence against, and cheer for as a savior worthy of imperial powers no person should ever hold? Is it the guy who wants and has overseen massive increases in military spending, or the guy who wants and has overseen massive increases in military spending? Is it the guy who lied that he would end the war on Afghanistan or the guy who lied that there was some point evil enough at which he would end the war on Gaza? Is it the guy who badgers nations into buying more weapons or the guy who badgers nations into buying more weapons? Is it the guy who evicted Russian diplomats, sanctioned Russian officials, put missiles practically on Russia’s border, lobbied European nations to drop Russian energy deals, left the Iran agreement, tore up the INF Treaty, rejected Russia’s offers on banning weapons in space and banning cyberwar, expanded NATO eastward adding Montenegro as a member, added a NATO partner in Colombia, proposed adding Brazil, splurged on more nukes, bombed Russians in Syria, oversaw the largest war rehearsals in Europe in half a century (now outdone), condemned all proposals for a non-NATO European military, and insisted that Europe stick with NATO, or the guy who outdoes all of that, blocks peace deals for Ukraine, and claims the first guy is a servant of Russia?
“Once, there were forests . . .”
The state of the forests, deforestation, and what we can do about it
By Kersasp D. Shekhdar
Deforestation at warp speed
Up until about the Industrial Revolution, deforestation—if it could be called that—used to be a not unnatural consequence of man’s need for timber, the expansion of human settlements, and slash-and-burn agriculture which has been practised since the Neolithic Age and is still used by indigeous or nomadic peoples and settlers. Forests have been cleared “to make space for agriculture and animal grazing, and to obtain wood for fuel, manufacturing, and construction.” Further and other drivers of deforestation vary from one geographical region to another.
Fully a third of the planet’s forests, comprising two billion hectares, have been destroyed since the Great Ice Age but the pace of deforestation has not been even—far from it. The rate of deforestation has accelerated exponentially such that, according to the World Wildlife Fund, “the fastest rate of forest destruction has been in the past couple of centuries,” as “up to 15 billion trees are now being cut down every year.” While the first half of total deforestation took place over nearly 100 centuries (from 8,000 B.C. to 1900), the second half occurred in the blink of an eye within only the past one century, culminating in the 1980s with no let up (unless one is to fall for corporate-sponsored happy statistics).
U.S. Funds Ukrainian Organization That Creates List of U.S. Citizens Opposing Weapons to Ukraine
Roller Coaster
From Trumpists to Communists. The forces in the
U.S. impeding aid to Ukraine and how they do it
By David Swanson, World BEYOND War
Here’s a list produced by a Ukrainian group with limited knowledge of the United States, a group that is listed as an “Implementing Partner” of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)’s Transparency and Accountability in Public Administration and Services (TAPAS) Project.
I find it unfortunate to read my name on a list of supposed opponents of something good for Ukraine, because I wish everyone in Ukraine peace, safety, freedom, and prosperity. The sole criterion for the list is apparently opposing dumping more U.S. money into weapons for a war in Ukraine. It doesn’t matter if you oppose spending money on anything and everything and war is just one of those things, or if you oppose all sides of all wars and the Ukrainian side of a war is just one of those. This last category, the one I’m in, is presumably what the list makers mean by “peace activists” — which they presumably put into quotation marks to express the belief that the best path to peace is through war.
But this whole idea is odd for a number of reasons.
