By James Carden, The American Conservative, 9/26/24

On September 12, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell took to the upper chamber’s floor to praise the work of the bipartisan Commission on the National Defense Strategy, a congressionally appointed panel run out of the RAND Corporation. McConnell, summarizing the report’s findings, said,

Any of our colleagues who haven’t yet taken a close look at this report should. But I’d like to reiterate a few of its conclusions that I discussed last month as the Appropriations Committee finalized defense spending legislation for the coming year. This ought to grab our attention: 

From the report, quote, “the U.S. military lacks both the capabilities and the capacity required to be confident it can deter and prevail in combat.” 

A further quote, “the U.S. defense industrial base (DIB) is unable to meet the equipment, technology, and munitions needs of the United States and its allies and partners.”

And, quote, “the U.S. public are largely unaware of the dangers the United States faces or the costs (financial and otherwise) required to adequately prepare.”

Writing during the early months of the First World War, the journalist and grand strategist Walter Lippmann observed, “While it takes as much skill to make a sword as a ploughshare, it takes a critical understanding of human values to prefer the ploughshare.”  And, if anything, “human values” are conspicuous by their absence in the recommendations of the RAND Commission on the National Defense Strategy report, which, if implemented, would put the US on a permanent war footing likely to provoke—perhaps concurrently—wars in Asia, Europe, and the Greater Middle East.

Necessarily, then, the report relies heavily on euphemism and the misleadingly anodyne terminology of defense experts. In response to the threat posed by the new “no-limits” partnership between Russia and China, the report recommends what it calls a “Multiple Theater Force Construct” since, in the view of the report’s authors, neither the previous “bipolar Cold War constructs and the two-war construct designed afterward for separate wars against less capable rogue states… meets the dimensions of today’s threat or the wide variety of ways in which and places where conflict could erupt, grow and evolve.”

A combined defense and intelligence budget of roughly $1.4 trillion a year? Not enough! The “Multiple Theater Force Construct” is in reality a bid to create what far less euphemistically and more accurately might be called a “Global War Zone” where, as the report goes on to recommend, the U.S. “must engage globally with a presence—military, diplomatic and economic—to maintain stability and preserve influence worldwide.” 

Presence, not empire. Influence, not imperium.

The report also evinces a deep-seated confusion between the level of defense expenditures and, well, results. The report claims that current defense expenditure of 3 percent of GDP is dangerously low—noting,

During the Cold War, including the Korean War and Vietnam War, DoD spending ranged from 4.9 percent to 16.9 percent of GDP. The comparison to that period is apt in terms of the magnitude of the threat, risks of strategic instability and escalation and need for US global presence.

Yet given the examples (U.S. and allied forces lost roughly 170,000 men in Korea and 280,000 in Vietnam) there is surely a case to be made that might be an inverse relationship between expenditure and security.

The RAND commission speaks of the imperative to further “integrate” with our allies. At multiple points the report insists on the “indispensability” of our allies with whom we must deepen our cooperation. The U.S. “must continue to invest in strengthening its allies and integrating its military (and economic, diplomatic, and industrial) efforts with theirs.” Yet, as we have seen in the case with the now decade-long effort to wrangle Ukraine into NATO’s orbit, the search for endless allies is also a search for endless trouble.

The report is very much a product of the former Democratic Representative Jane Harman, who served as the RAND Commission’s chair.

Readers may recall that in 2006 Harman was picked up on a wiretap promising an Israeli spy she would lobby federal prosecutors to go easy on two officials from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC. In return for that assistance, the Israeli agent offered to lobby then-Democratic House Leader Nancy Pelosi to name Harman as chair of the House Intelligence Committee.

In a normal country, Harman’s offer to undermine a federal case to benefit a foreign power, as a sitting member of Congress no less, would have landed her in prison. At the very least, she’d be treated as persona non grata among the great and good of Washington. But instead Harman, wife of a California billionaire who later became the owner of Newsweek, was appointed to the CIA’s External Advisory Board only a couple of years after her quid pro quo was caught on tape. Still more, the commission was rife with conflicts of interest, as a report by the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft pointed out last year.

That said, if the authors of the RAND report are cognizant of any risks in creating a Global War Zone, they keep it to themselves. Might a conventional military build up in the Indo-Pacific prompt China to achieve nuclear parity with the US? Is the establishment’s nonchalance with regard to the risks of provoking Russia a reasonable position in light of the recent admission by CIA Director William Burns that “there was a moment in the fall of 2022” when he thought “there was a genuine risk” of the potential use of tactical nuclear weapons by Russia? RAND is likewise silent as to whether there exist alternative grand strategies that might better suit the moment, such as retrenchment.

In the end, the RAND report leads one to a conclusion that can’t be avoided: The U.S. establishment is itself a threat to U.S. national security.

According to this update from Kit Klarenberg, Jeremy Loffredo has been charged with aiding and abetting the enemy in Israel and could face either life imprisonment in Israel’s prison system – which is notoriously rife with torture and rape – or the death penalty.

YouTube link here.

Israel Charges American Journalist With ‘Aiding The Enemy’ For Reporting On Iranian Missile Strikes

By Kevin Gosztola, The Dissenter, 10/10/24

The following article was made possible by paid subscribers of The Dissenter. Become a subscriber and support independent journalism on press freedom.

The Israeli government arrested, detained, and charged American journalist Jeremy Loffredo with “aiding the enemy during wartime and providing information to the enemy.”

According to Israeli news site Ynet, Loffredo was arrested by security forces on “suspicion of endangering national security after reporting on where missiles landed in the attack launched by Iran earlier this month including in the [Israeli military’s] Nevatim Air Base and an intelligence base in central Israel.”

Loffredo appeared in an Israeli Magistrate’s Court on October 10 after being detained for nearly a day and a half. He was taken to an Israeli military base along with at least four other journalists, who were later released. 

Defense attorney Leah Tsemel, who is representing Loffredo, told Ynet, “He published the information openly and fully, without attempting to hide anything. If this information constitutes aiding the enemy, many other journalists in Israel, including Israeli reporters, should also be arrested.”

“A spy would not have acted so publicly and transparently,” Tsemel added. 

The Seventh Eye, which describes itself as “Israel’s only independent and investigative magazine devoted entirely to journalism, the media, freedom of speech and transparency,” reported that Israeli authorities informed the court that Loffredo was arrested for publicizing the location of where missiles landed. He allegedly intended to bring this information to the attention of “the enemy” (Iran) to assist them in future attacks. 

Judge Zion Sahrai said that Loffredo had published “confidential information” which was prohibited by the Israeli military censor. However, the court was presented with evidence that an article from Ynet reporter Liran Tamari was published on Loffredo’s detention with the Grayzone report from Loffredo embedded. 

The Israeli military censor allegedly approved the publication of a Ynet report with details of Loffredo’s arrest and the publications that resulted in his detention. That led Saharai to grant bail to Loffredo until the police appealed and claimed that Ynet had published the article before obtaining approval from the censor. 

Evidence that Nick Schifrin, a foreign affairs and military correspondent for PBS “NewsHour,” had traveled to the area nearby the Mossad headquarters like Loffredo was also presented.

“This is the impact site for one of those Iranian ballistic missiles, and if you see the size of this crater, that’s about 30 feet deep and maybe 50 feet wide. You can see all the debris around here, and to give you a sense of the target for these strikes, that white building back there about 1500 feet behind me is the headquarters of the spy agency, the Mossad.” 

Israeli radio news presenter Eran Cicurel responded to Schifrin after he posted his report. “I think you are breaking the Israeli censorship rules.”

On October 5, The Grayzone posted a video report from Loffredo on Iran’s strikes. He went to the area around the Nevatim air base and interviewed locals from a nearby Bedouin village. He later traveled to the area around the Mossad headquarters. His goal was to see for himself where Iranian missiles had landed. 

“The arrest of Jeremy Loffredo is deeply troubling. Israel, with its killing and arrest of journalists, anti-democratic military censorship and shuttering of news outlets, has made itself the gravest governmental threat to press freedom,” declared Chip Gibbons, policy director for Defending Rights and Dissent.

Gibbons contended the U.S. State Department must “use its unique leverage over Israel” to secure the release of Loffredo.

Emphasizing that the Israeli government is “among the world’s leading jailers of journalists,” the Freedom of the Press Foundation condemned the detention of Loffredo. It also said President Joe Biden’s administration must demand that Israeli officials explain why Loffredo was detained and charged.

“If the theory is that reporters illegally provide enemies with information whenever enemies read the news, that could criminalize a whole lot of journalism,” the press freedom organization further stated.

The Iranian military launched 200 ballistic missiles on October 1 that targeted Israeli military and intelligence sites. A number of the missiles hit Nevatim air base in the Negev Desert as well as an area near the headquarters for Mossad, Israel’s spy agency.

There is no doubt that the extent of the damage done by Iranian missiles was newsworthy. The Israeli military immediately claimed that no aircraft or critical infrastructure was harmed. 

The Telegraph, based in the U.K., published an article on October 3 under the headline, “Pictured: Israeli air base hit in Iranian missile strike.” 

“Nevatim is reported to be home to the Israeli Air Force’s most advanced aircraft, including US-produced F-35 Lightning II stealth fighter jets,” reported Paul Nuki, the media outlet’s global health security editor in Tel Aviv.

Nuki further noted, “The image shows serious damage to the roof of an aircraft hangar, with a hole torn through it. Another impact appears to have hit a road on the base.”

CNN, which is known to allow the Israeli military forces to censor their coverage, published a live update on October 1 under the headline, “The areas targeted in Iran’s missile strike on Israel.”

The update featured “CNN analysis of geolocated videos of the attack” that clearly stated that Iran’s military had targeted “the headquarters of Mossad, Nevatim Air Base and Tel Nof Air Base.” It mentioned videos that showed “at least two missiles falling near the Mossad HQ in Tel Aviv’s Glilot neighborhood, a densely populated area with a number of residential and commercial buildings.”

“In southern Israel’s Negev desert, videos show a significant number of Iranian rockets hitting the Nevatim base,” the update added. 

Another report from the Washington Post, “Iranian missiles hit Israeli military sites, visuals show,” featured satellite imagery that showed “what appears to be at least one destroyed building at Nevatim,” and “a large hole in the roof of an aircraft hangar and several impact craters.” 

Loffredo’s journalism did not “aid” Iran any more than CNN, the Telegraph, the Washington Post, or any other media organization did when they analyzed satellite images and video footage to confirm where Iranian missiles landed. (Or Schifrin who traveled to an impact site near the Mossad for PBS “NewsHour.”)

But the reason why Israeli authorities arrested and charged Loffredo instead of Schifrin—or any other American journalists who published sensitive information on Iran’s strikes—may have something to do with a disinformation or smear campaign that was previously attempted in June against The Grayzone.

A network of current and former officials and journalists in the U.S. and Israel falsely claimed—through a story later retracted by the Washington Post—that The Grayzone had received payments from Iranian state media. 

In 2023, the Russian government’s Federal Security Service accused Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich of collecting “state secrets” about “Russia’s military-industrial complex” to further the U.S. government’s objectives in the war in Ukraine. He was reportedly investigating the Wagner paramilitary group and Russia charged him with espionage.

Israeli authorities charging Loffredo is no different, and in Gershkovich’s case, there was worldwide pressure on the Russian government to release him immediately. 

As Gibbons declared, “Press freedom cannot be based on selective solidarity. All journalists under attack by all governments deserve our unconditional support for their freedom.”

YouTube link here.

Film description from Center for Citizen Initiatives:

“John F. Kennedy contended with the fear of nuclear war with Russia and fought what that fear might lead to forcefully.  He also confronted the grave responsibility held by a free press in keeping Americans informed of what their government was doing to face that danger.  Do we not live in similar times?

The documentary…explains eloquently President Kennedy’s efforts to improve US-Russia relations that led to the peaceful resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and to the nuclear test ban treaty. It also explains the resistance that President Kennedy faced from those in his own administration who were opposed to such efforts.”

YouTube link here.

Below is an interview of Aaron Mate by Judge Napolitano that discusses this issue as well.

YouTube link here.

By Gordon Hahn, Website, 9/22/24

A river runs through Russian and, more recently, Ukrainian history. Ironically enough, the Dnieper River that unites Russia and Ukraine in this and other ways – the river rises in the Valdai Hills of Smolensk, Russia and runs through Belarus and Ukraine – is now the focus of the greatest schism in the history of Russian-Ukrainian relations. Russian forces appear impossible to stop and will arrive at the Dnieper at some point along its snaking length no later than next year, with Russian troops perhaps controlling the river’s and the country’s Left Bank by then. Russia – as well as the West and whatever remains of Ukraine‘s Maidan regime will then face some serious decisions.

The Dnieper River in Russian and Ukrainian History

The Dnieper River has played a major role in Russian and Ukrainian history and is now positioned to so again. The Dnieper drove the foundation of the first Russian city and state. The first Russian state of Kievan Rus rose from the city-state of Kiev, founded by Vikings as a result of the early small port town‘s location on the great north-south water route, the Amber Road, flowing between Scandinavia (the Swedish Viking Varangians) and Byzantian Constantinople. Thus, the Dnieper gave birth to ‚the mother of Russian cities‘ and connected Kievan Rus to what would become the source of much of Russian culure: Greek or Eastern Orthodoxy.

The Zaporozhian Cossacks, famous in Russia and Ukraine, as well as other Cossack formations, were located on the Dnieper, the Zaporozhians in the marshes and islands on the Lower Dniper near its Black Sea estuary. The Dnieper became the dividing line between Polish- and Russian-controlled ‚Ukrainian‘ lands, with the western side of what today is Ukraine called the ‚Right Bank Ukraine‘ and the eastern side known as ‚Left Bank Ukraine.‘ In the Soviet era, the Dniper’s six major hydroelectric stations and damns were symbols of communist modernization. One is featured near the end of Boris Pasternak’s famous novel Doctor Zhivago, as well as in the British film version of the novel.

The Dnieper was the focus of great battles during what Russians call the ‚Great Patriotic War‘ and what others call ‚World War II.‘ Following the largest tank battle in history at Kursk, the Battle for Dnieper was one of the largest operations of the war, involving four million troops, stretching over nearly 900 miles of front, and lasting over four months in 1943. It opened the way to the liberation of Kiev from the Nazi fascist army on 28 October 1944.

The Dnieper – more accurately one of its tributaries, the Pripyat – was the locus of the world’s first great nuclear disaster in 1986 at Chernobyl‘. The poetic Ukrainian name for the river, Slavutych or Slavuta, taken from an ancient Kievan Rus name for the river became the name of the town used to house displaced Chernobyl nuclear power plant workers.

Today, the Dnieper finds itself at the center of history once again.

Russia Marches to the Dnieper: What Then?

By the end of next year, if not earlier, Russian forces likely will reach the Dnieper and perhaps already be laying seige to Zaporozhe, Dnipro, Cherkassk, and, perhaps, Right Bank Kiev. This situation will demand key, pivotal decisions by the NATO-Russian Ukrainian War’s participants: NATO, Russia, and Ukraine.

For Russia, there will be at least three choices: (1) stop territorial advance at the Dnieper and offer peace talks with the threat to cross the Dnieper in lieu of an agreement that precludes NATO expansion to rump Ukraine and Moldova; (2) stop at the Dnieper without offering negotiations and warn the West that Russia will cross the Dnieper should NATO or NATO countries continue any activity or relations with Maidan Ukraine; (3) continue to Right Bank Kiev, the city’s center and country’s capitol, and then to the rest of Right Bank Ukraine without offering any negotiations, only conquest, capitulation, and survival of a Ukrainian or Galician state solely on lands not occupied by Russian troops before a capitulation act is signed by Maidan Ukraine, Washington, and Brussels.

The first option — halting Russian forces‘ territorial advance at the Dnieper while offering peace talks and threatening to cross the Dnieper in lieu of an agreement that precludes NATO expansion to rump Ukraine (and Moldova?) and any other NATO activity in Ukraine and meets other Russian demands – has advantages and weaknesses as do the other options. The obvious advantages are the end of NATO expansion to Ukraine and of the war or ‚special military operation‘ (SMO), assuming the West (and Russia) meet their obligations. The downside from Russia’s perspective is the possibility of the agreement collapsing or being violated by Ukraine and the West at some point in the future, necessitating another SMO or fully-declared war. Assuming Ukraine restores something resembling democracy, the presence of a democratic state on Russia’s border is not a threat to Russia, and is not by itself viewed by Russia as such. Such an assumption is based on the false and largely propagandistic notion that ‚Putin abhors democracy‘ and Russia is inherently antagonistic to democracies. This is false, as demonstrated by Putin’s recently warm visit to democratic Mongolia, located on Russia’s border like Ukraine.

It is important to keep in mind that obstacles to this option include Zelenskiy’s 2022 law forbidding negotiations with Moscow as long as Putin is in power and Putin’s post-Kursk incursion statement that talks with Zelenskiy and his Maidan regime were now excluded as an option. However, there are caveats to both of these. To the first, Kiev apparently was negotiating with Moscow through the Qatari Emir on an agreement – ultimately scuttled seemingly by the Kursk incursion – that two sides would not target each other’s energy-related facilities. To the second, Putin subsequently discussed the option of talks with Kiev as if they were still possible, unlikely albeit, in his view.

The second option – stopping Russian forces‘ advance at the Dnieper without offering negotiations and warning Kiev and the West that Russia will cross the Dnieper and seize all of western Ukraine if there is any continuation of military operations or should NATO or NATO countries continue any activity or relations with Maidan Ukraine – is likely a non-starter for Moscow. This option relies on trusting Kiev and the West far beyond what Moscow is now capable of. Without a binding treaty there remains the threat of a NATO-backed and in future NATO member Ukraine on Russia’s border, with the certainty that Washington and Brussels will re-arm Ukraine/Galicia for a future attack as well as support partisan guerilla and terrorist activity by Ukrainian special forces from western Ukraine and anti-Russian resistance fighters in eastern Ukraine. Putin and Russia would be faced with a long quagmire, draining resources and limiting Russia’s ability to defend itself in other places, where NATO or others may pose security threats. This option leaves open the possibility, indeed likelihood of an all-out NATO-Russia war.

One issue that has been raised by some observers is that Russia must „control“ much if not all of western Ukraine in order to ensure full control of the Dnieper River’s infrastructure such as dams, quality control mechanism, and navigation against western rump Ukraine. It is noted also that managing the river will be an expensive proposition (www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/09/russias-prosecution-of-the-war-in-ukraine-can-it-square-the-circle-of-probable-boundary-conditions.html). River control and management is perhaps one factor that may support any eventual decision to have Russian forces cross the Dnieper, but it is hardly the main one. Key will be the defense of the eastern bank and nearby territories from missile, artillery and drone attacks and from infiltration by sabotage and terrorist cells. Moreover, there are other ways of controlling the river’s west bank and adjacent land other than occupying it or all or most of western Ukraine. The Russians have their own missile, artillery, drone and covert infiltration capacities that can target western Ukraine and perhaps establish a cordone sanitaire within ten or more kilometers from the river. Any peace agreement will have to establish principles and procedures for ensuring the security of the river, broadly conceived, and that of any new Russian territory acquired by Moscow as a result of an agreement or Ukrainian capitulation and attendant consequences and sub-agreements.

The considerations above propose the third option: to cross the Dnieper in order to seize Right Bank Kiev, the city’s center and country’s capitol, and perhaps part or all of Right Bank Ukraine or Galicia without offering any negotiations, only conquest, capitulation, and survival of a Ukrainian or Galician state solely on lands not occupied by Russian troops before a capitulation act is signed by Maidan Ukraine, Washington, and Brussels. This option has the advantages of the first option only after expending more Russian blood and treasure. It has the disadvantages of the second in that it holds even greater risk of the rise of an anti-Russia resistance underground and quagmire, and this even after the great expenditure of blood and treasure seizing all of Ukraine would pose. This option offers a future of years of more war and prolongs the situation in which an all-out NATO-Russia war can begin, rendering that outcome more likely.

As I wrote earlier, it is possible that Moscow will consider and select one of these options but not in relation to crossing the Dnieper but in relation to whether or not to continue to advance after Russian forces have seized all of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts and all of Zaporozhe and Kherson Oblasts. Again, the three options would be similar: stop in these conquered territories and propose talks, stop but not propose talks, or continue hoping for capitulation before the Dnieper, where the same options will face Moscow.

There is no guarantee that any Russian negotiation offers will be accepted by the West and or Ukraine. In that event, the future is obvious: a long war to take western Ukraine, risking quagmire, and NATO intervention. Indeed, the present resistance to negotiations demonstrated by Kiev and, after Kursk, by Moscow as well argues in favour of the third and most tragic and dangerous option being the one most likely to be realised.