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weapon of choice is a free friendly one...

Throughout recent history, the perceived weapon of choice for a terrorist (or freedom fighter, depending on one’s perspective) has been an AK-47 assault rifle. Today, in the aftermath of the so-called post-9/11 “global war on terror,” it’s not uncommon to see such fighters with a Glock 9mm pistol, or a Colt M4 carbine.

These are weapons paid-for by the US taxpayer and ostensibly provided to forces joined in the cause of defeating terrorists and/or freedom fighters (again, depending on the political beliefs of the observer), but that end up in the hands of the latter instead. Obviously, that is never the outcome Washington intends. And yet, somehow, these weapons end up arming the very forces the US and its allies are trying to defeat.

 

Scott Ritter: Are Hamas fighters using American weapons meant for Ukraine?When it comes to weapons supplies, the US is its friends’ worst enemy

 

The most recent example of this phenomenon appears to involve Hamas and the attacks perpetrated by militants affiliated with that organization on military and civilian targets in southern Israel. A video, the authenticity of which has yet to be verified, purports to show a Hamas fighter thanking Ukraine for the provision of small arms, ammunition, and hand grenades. More videos, taken during the actual assaults, show the Hamas fighters armed with a plethora of US-made weapons.

These videos have alarmed some US lawmakers, such as Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia’s 14th District, who, in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas attack, Tweeted/Xeeted “We need to work with Israel to track serial numbers on any US weapons used by Hamas against Israel. Did they come from Afghanistan?” the Congresswoman asks. “Did they come from Ukraine? Highly likely the answer is both.”

Any attempt to answer Marjorie Taylor Greene’s questions will more than likely turn up information that should make the US government very uncomfortable. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been saying since June of this year that US-made anti-tank weapons intended for Ukraine were turning up on the Israeli border. Left unsaid by Netanyahu was how this had come to be – corruption is rampant inside Ukraine, and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh has reported on hundreds of millions of dollars of aid being diverted into the hands of parties it was not originally intended for. By my calculations based on conversations with numerous informed sources, the amount diverted could be as high as six out of every ten dollars of assistance sent to Ukraine. It’s one thing if this involves money; it’s another thing altogether if this involves weapons.

The wide availability of US-made weapons on the global black market used by terrorists/freedom fighters to arm themselves is reflective of the lax approach the US takes when it comes to providing military assistance to parties involved in active combat. The US appears to be more interested in reinforcing the political messaging attached to such deliveries–that the US is actively supporting friends in need. The actual security-related aspects of this effort, however, seem to escape most senior US policy makers.

This became evident in May 2022, when Rand Paul, a Republican Senator from Kentucky, tried to have an inspector general put in place to monitor and account for some $40 billion in military assistance to Ukraine requested by President Joe Biden. Senator Paul’s motion was overwhelmingly defeated by a Congress which appeared to be happy to assume a “hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil” posture when it came to the issue of Ukraine and corruption.

The issue of US weapons falling into the hands of persons not only for whom the weapons were not intended, but –more critically– into the hands of people the weapons were intended to fight against, who then use them against American allies, is not a new one. Back in 2007, Turkish police started recovering weapons from killed Kurdistan Workers Party (or PKK) fighters inside Türkiye containing serial numbers affiliated with weapons shipments made by the US to Iraqi forces. The PKK is listed as a terrorist organization by the US State Department, while Türkiye is a member of NATO.

US weapons provided to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates for the purpose of fighting Yemen’s Houthi rebels were being seized by the Houthi on the battlefield and being turned against the original owners. Moreover, some of these weapons found their way into the hands of Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon. Weapons provided by the US to the former Afghan Army turned up in Kashmir, recovered from the bodies of pro-Pakistani Islamist terrorists/freedom fighters who had, prior to being killed in Kashmir, fought alongside the Afghan Taliban against the US and its Afghan allies. Other US weapons from Ukraine began showing up in Africa, in the Lake Chad region, in the hands of Boko Haram insurgents fighting against US-armed soldiers from Chad, Niger, and Nigeria.

The reality is that the US has become one of the major sources of weapons for terrorists/freedom fighters around the world. While Marjorie Taylor Greene is correct to demand answers when it comes to the issue of the security of Israel, a long-time American ally, the same questions can be asked about virtually every security assistance program instituted by the US in the post-9/11 era. It appears that America’s approach to fighting the global war on terror has ended up making those whom it calls terrorists more capable of carrying out the acts of violence US policy portends to be trying to stop. The sad truth is that America, in its rush to arm the world, in many ways ends up being its friends' worst enemy.

https://www.rt.com/news/584413-hamas-fighters-us-weapons/

 

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end of it.....

 

BY SCOTT RITTER

 

In an appearance at the plenary session of the Valdai Discussion Club on October 5, 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Russia had successfully tested the Burevestnik “nuclear-powered global-range cruise missile."

This effectively brought to fruition a journey he had announced back in a speech delivered on March 1, 2018 when he unveiled a series of new Russian strategic weapons designed as a response to America’s continued nullification of arms control agreements regarding missile defense.

In his 2008 address, Putin outlined the efforts undertaken by Russia over the years to get the US to scale back missile defense programs Russia viewed as representing an existential threat to its survival. “You didn’t listen to our country then,” Putin concluded. “Listen to us now.”

Chief among Russia’s concerns was that continued US pursuit of missile defense capabilities, when coupled with an American nuclear posture that envisioned the possibility of pre-emptive nuclear war, could create the conditions in which US nuclear war planners could believe that an American first strike designed to neutralize Russia’s strategic nuclear capability, when combined with a missile defense shield the US believed could shoot down most, if not all, of any Russian missiles that might survive such an attack, might actually be viable.

 

In the audience at the Valdai Discussion Club was Sergei Karaganov, a well-known Russian political scientist who, in an article titled “A Difficult but Necessary Decision,” published on June 13, 2023, in the journal Russia in Global Affairs, articulated in favor of Russia moving away from a nuclear posture based upon assured nuclear retaliation to one that favored pre-emption. “We will have to make nuclear deterrence a convincing argument again,” Karaganov wrote, “by lowering the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons set unacceptably high, and by rapidly but prudently moving up the deterrence-escalation ladder.”

 

 

According to Karaganov, “If we correctly build a strategy of intimidation and deterrence and even use of nuclear weapons, the risk of a ‘retaliatory’ nuclear or any other strike on our territory can be reduced to an absolute minimum. Only a madman,” Karaganov argued, “who, above all, hates America, will have the guts to strike back in ‘defense’ of Europeans, thus putting his own country at risk and sacrificing conditional Boston for conditional Poznan.”

 

If such a madman did, in fact exist, then, Karaganov noted, “we will have to hit a bunch of targets in a number of countries in order to bring those who have lost their mind to reason. Morally, this is a terrible choice as we will use God’s weapon, thus dooming ourselves to grave spiritual losses. But if we do not do this, not only Russia can die, but most likely the entire human civilization will cease to exist.”

 

https://sputnikglobe.com/20231009/scott-ritter-russia-throws-down-the-nuclear-gauntlet-1114043712.html

 

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more guns.....

 US Scrambles to Get More Arms to Israel, Ukraine

The Pentagon is shipping weapons, asking the arms industry to expedite deliveries, and wants Congress to authorize more funding

 

by Dave DeCamp Posted on October 9, 2023

 

Categories NewsTags , , 

As Israel has declared a “complete siege” on Gaza in response to the Hamas attack on southern Israel, the US is scrambling to get more weapons in the hands of the Israelis.

According to The Washington Post, the Biden administration is considering combining its request for more spending on the war in Ukraine with new aid for Israel. The idea would be to “jam the far right,” referring to Republicans in Congress who oppose the proxy war in Ukraine but are staunch Israel supporters. No final decision has been made, and in the mean time, the US is already shipping new arms to Israel using existing authorities.

A Pentagon official told POLITICO on Monday that planes carrying new military aid for Israel have “already taken off.” The US is sending air defense and munitions. According to media reports, Israel has requested precision-guided munitions, small-diameter bombs, and interceptors for its Iron Dome missile defense system.

Israel receives $3.8 billion in military aid each year from the US, including $500 million to fund air defense development and $3.3 billion for Foreign Military Financing, which gives foreign governments money to buy US arms. Neither type of aid allows direct weapons shipments from US military stockpiles, but according to POLITICO, the US has $100 million available for the Presidential Drawdown Authority, which does.

The Pentagon is working to determine what arms in the US stockpile could be made available and is also pressing the arms industry to expedite deliveries of weapons Israel has already purchased. The effort comes as the US is expecting Israel to launch a ground invasion of Gaza, which will incur a huge amount of civilian casualties.

Israel could start to compete with Ukraine for the types of weapons it needs from the US. Right now, it’s focusing on pounding Gaza with airstrikes, which requires munitions Ukraine doesn’t use, but a ground assault would require 155mm artillery rounds, which are in short supply since the US has poured millions of shells into Ukraine.

US Army Secretary Christine Wormuth is calling on Congress to approve additional funding to ensure the US can sustain both wars. “One thing that is really important in terms of the munitions in particular and our ability to support both potentially the Israelis and the Ukrainians simultaneously is additional funding from Congress to be able to increase our capacity, in terms of our capacity to expand production and then to also pay for the munitions themselves,” she said.

Congress isn’t expected to authorize more spending on Ukraine or Israel until a new House speaker is elected, which will likely happen this week. According to The Messenger, House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) said Congress is discussing a massive military aid package for Ukraine and Israel that would also include funds for Taiwan. “There’s discussion about putting Israel funding, Ukraine funding, maybe Taiwan funding and finally border security,” he said.

https://news.antiwar.com/2023/10/09/us-scrambles-to-get-more-arms-to-israel/

 

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