Newsweek: "Secret Military Task Force Prepares to Secure the Capital" - Propaganda ?

[Ellipse]

There is this article in Newsweek: "U.S. - Exclusive: As Washington DC Faces Coronavirus Spike, Secret Military Task Force Prepares to Secure the Capital"

[...]
But a little-known military task force charged with evacuating Washington has already been activated, a task force charged with the most sensitive government mission of "securing" Washington in the face of attackers, foreign and domestic—and if necessary, moving White House and other key government offices to alternate locations.

Activated on March 16, Joint Task Force National Capital Region (JTF-NCR) is chartered to "defend" Washington on land, in the air, and even on its waterfronts. The special task force, the only one of its kind in the country, demonstrates how there are two sides of government preparedness. The public face, and even the day-to-day work of most men and women assigned to JTF-NCR, is the same as it is everywhere else in the country—medical support, delivering supplies, manning health-check stations.

But behind the scenes, JTF-NCR is responsible for what the military calls "homeland defense": what to do in the face of an armed attack on the United States, everything from guarding Washington's skies to preparing for the civil unrest that could occur if a nuclear weapon were detonated in the capital. But most immediate, JTF-NCR is charged with facilitating continuity of government, particularly moving civil and military leaders to secret locations were the order given to evacuate the city.

[...]

To augment the immediate response capabilities of the Special Reaction Team, JTF-NCR has more than 1,000 military police and civilian law enforcement officers under his command, including the largely civilian Pentagon Force Protection Agency. In "peacetime" the role of these various military police organizations is to guard the Pentagon and the various forts and bases dotted around the capital region as well as to provide the protective "details" of bodyguards for Defense officials. Under "wartime" orders, though, they too are tasked to actively help with the implementation of continuity of government. That includes most importantly military police who would accompany over 100 helicopters, vans and limousines that are earmarked to evacuate the designated survivors, each of those individuals now on alert to proceed to their marshalling point of embarkation should the "Continuity of Government Condition" (or COGCON) change.

On March 24, the Joint Chiefs of Staff issued "Modification 1" to the general coronavirus response order exempting any military personnel engaged in "presidential support duties" and other secret contingencies of JTF-NCR from complying with no-travel rules.

Two days later, all "Immediate Response Force" and "Contingency Response Force" units of the military were moved to a higher level of alert to preserve their special military readiness. That included quick reaction infantry units from the 82nd Airborne Division at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina, and the 101st Airborne Division from Ft. Campbell, Kentucky—units that would normally be rushed to the Middle East in some crisis. But tucked away in that same March 26 order were others assigned to JTF-NCR—including secret special operations units, the so-called "National Mission Force"—units that were directed to sequester in operational facilities and split up into multiple shifts, creating a primary and back-up group that would be available for immediate deployment. In theory the separate groups in theory could avoid infecting the other. JTF-NCR has now been operating for one month under these special orders.

Given how many denials the government has issued regarding these plans, Newsweek made repeated attempts to get official and on-the-record comment for this story. FEMA passed the requests for information about continuity of government conditions to the White House press office, which declined to provide additional information or answer questions, saying that Newsweek was getting into "matters of national security."

Do you think it's pure propaganda or their is something behind?

 

[angelburst29]

Do you think it's pure propaganda or their is something behind?

Thanks for Posting the article, Ellipse! It's a excellent find.

What the article describes is the different organizations and task forces, who's duty is to protect the National Capital and it's infrastructure during a heighten security event. A State of Emergency was designated due to the Coronavirus pandemic and our Borders were secured between Canada and Mexico. During the same time, the Pentagon activated "continuity of government" that was mentioned in another Thread (link below) in the Forum recently.

In a sense, these procedures are the protocols set up for a declared emergency by the President of the United States. What's uncertain at the moment, is the veil or true circumstances behind "the hype of the Coronavirus and calling it a pandemic" World-wide? Why the extra-ordinary conditions of closing Border's, shutting down public transit, including Airports, ordering quarantines and work stoppage?
Something - really serious - must be "in the air", so to speak, to disrupt normal every day activities? Are we facing the prospects of the Pentagon/NATO starting a Nuclear War and the Coronavirus has been blown up into the status of a pandemic - to give an excuse for Countries to close Borders and shut down air space - in preparation for any flashback? Last February 1, 2019, the U.S. suspend it's compliance with the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty with Russia. The new START Treaty is still in limbo and yet to be signed.

"Activated on March 16, (2020) Joint Task Force National Capital Region (JTF-NCR) is chartered to "defend" Washington on land, in the air, and even on its waterfronts. The special task force, the only one of its kind in the country, demonstrates how there are two sides of government preparedness. The public face, and even the day-to-day work of most men and women assigned to JTF-NCR, is the same as it is everywhere else in the country—medical support, delivering supplies, manning health-check stations.

But behind the scenes, JTF-NCR is responsible for what the military calls "homeland defense": what to do in the face of an armed attack on the United States, everything from guarding Washington's skies to preparing for the civil unrest that could occur if a nuclear weapon were detonated in the capital. But most immediate, JTF-NCR is charged with facilitating continuity of government, particularly moving civil and military leaders to secret locations were the order given to evacuate the city.

Ever since National Guards started to activate countrywide, Pentagon officials have insisted that men and women in uniform are not conducting secret missions and that they will not administer or enforce "stay at home" quarantines. The Pentagon has also rejected reports, including articles in Newsweek, about martial law or other extreme contingency plans, arguing that the Guard remains under strict control of state governors, while federal troops support civil agencies like FEMA.

And yet the activation of Joint Task Force National Capital Region, including almost 10,000 uniformed personnel to carry out its special orders, contradicts those assurances. JTF-NCR is not only real and operating, reporting directly to the Secretary of Defense for some of its mission, but some of its units are already on 24/7 alert, specially sequestered on military bases and kept out of coronavirus support duties to ensure their readiness.

In peacetime, the Joint Forces Headquarters is merely a coordinator, with each of the military services retaining control of their forces. But once the Joint Task Force is activated, as it has been now, operations and units shift to what the military calls "operational command." Maj. Gen. Jones is now in charge. He isn't some martial law commander who takes precedence over any civil authorities, nor is he out in public telling anyone outside his secretive task force what to do. But he is the military man who would be in charge in Washington if civil government broke down.

Gen. Jones' battlefield is defined in U.S. law as the "National Capital Region," which includes the District of Columbia; Prince Georges and Montgomery Counties in Maryland; Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun, and Prince William Counties in Virginia; and all cities and towns included within the outer boundaries of that area. The Pentagon plan for the Joint Task Force's operation says that the NCR houses all three branches of the Federal Government, over 270 federal departments and agencies, an inventory of over 880 government-owned and leased facilities and nearly 300,000 federal workers.

Coronavirus Pandemic: Apocalypse Now! Or exaggerated scare story?
U.S. Northern Command has dispersed essential command and control teams to multiple hardened locations, including the famous Cheyenne Mountain bunker complex in Colorado, as well as another unspecified site, and is keeping them in isolation. The command took these steps to help ensure these personnel can continue to watch around the clock for potential threats to the U.S. homeland as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to expand across the country and around the world, including within the U.S. military.

U.S. Air Force General Terrence O’Shaughnessy, head of Northern Command (NORTHCOM), who also serves as the commanding officer of the U.S.-Canadian North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), detailed the changes during a virtual town hall on Facebook on Mar. 24, 2020. Under normal circumstances, the watch teams, which support both NORTHCOM and NORAD missions, would take shifts staffing a central command center at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado.

One of Trump's most defining election promises was to get the United States out of the War Theater in the Middle East and start bringing our Soldiers - HOME. Unfortunately, the Pentagon does not share the same vision, nor it's side-kick - NATO. War activities have intensified in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya and Syria. The Pentagon is not about to reduce it's war efforts, which are driven in part, by "the Cold War" mentality. Most of that mindset centers around the Soviet Unions testing it's "first hydrogen bomb in 1953".

The Pentagon's Plan To Build A Secret Super Command Bunker 3,500 Feet Under Washington D.C.

April 14, 2020 - Whatever the actual source of the DUCC plan was, it is clear that the driving factor was the increasing capabilities of Soviet nuclear weapons, especially with regards to their yields. The Soviet Union had tested its first hydrogen bomb in 1953, years earlier than U.S. intelligence agencies had expected and raising concerns about the vulnerability of existing alternate command and control centers.

In 1961, the U.S. military had already begun to implement the National Mission Command System (NMCS), which included two bunkers, a hardened National Military Command Center at the Pentagon and an Alternate National Military Command Center (ANMCC). The ANMCC would be an upgrade to the existing Alternate Joint Communications Center (AJCC), a facility technically part of Fort Ritchie in Maryland, but which was housed inside the Raven Rock Mountain Complex (RRMC), also referred to as Site R, across the border with Pennsylvania under the Appalachian Mountains near Blue Ridge Summit. The Department of Defense had finished building Raven Rock in 1953.

In the 1950s and the early 1960s, the U.S. government had built numerous other bunker complexes in addition to Raven Rock for continuity of government purposes, including the aforementioned Cheyenne Mountain facility, as well as the Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center in the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia. The White House and the Presidential retreat at Camp David both have underground bunkers and, until 1992, there was a bunker complex situated near the Greenbrier resort in West Virginia intended to house Congress. However, none of these were specifically associated with the NMCS infrastructure.

[...] It's worth noting that the most powerful nuclear weapon ever built, the Soviet Union's Tsar Bomba, of which it only ever built one, had a yield of 50 megatons. However, it's clear that senior U.S. officials, such as McNamara, feared that this weapon, which the Soviets tested in 1961, was a prelude to the widespread use of such high-yield designs.

Published on Oct 30, 2018 (3:23 min.)

Nuclear Test Ban Treaty: Background
Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty

Discussions between the United States and the Soviet Union concerning a ban on nuclear testing began in the mid-1950s. Officials from both nations came to believe that the nuclear arms race was reaching a dangerous level.

In October 1962, leaders of the United States and the Soviet Union engaged in a tense political and military standoff over the installation of nuclear-armed Soviet missiles on Cuba, just 90 miles from U.S. shores. In a TV address on October 22, 1962, President John Kennedy (1917-63) notified Americans about the presence of the missiles, explained his decision to enact a naval blockade around Cuba and made it clear the United States was prepared to use military force if necessary to neutralize this perceived threat to national security. Following this news, many people feared the world was on the brink of nuclear war. However, disaster was avoided when the United States agreed to Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev’s (1894-1971) offer to remove the Cuban missiles in exchange for America promising not to invade Cuba. Kennedy also secretly agreed to remove U.S. missiles from Turkey.

The Cuban Missile Crisis provided a major impetus for reinvigorating the test ban talks.

Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Signed: August 5, 1963

The signing of the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty on August 5, 1963, took place one day before the 18th anniversary of the dropping of an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, during World War II.

In June 1963, the test ban negotiations resumed, with compromises from all sides. On August 5, 1963, the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was signed in Moscow by U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk (1909-94), Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko (1909-89) and British Foreign Secretary Alec Douglas-Home (1903-95). France and China were asked to join the agreement but refused.

Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Adopted

In 1996, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, prohibiting “any nuclear weapon test explosion or any other nuclear explosion.” President Bill Clinton (1946-) was the first world leader to sign the treaty, which eventually was signed by more than 180 nations; however, the U.S. Senate rejected the treaty in 1999. (Those who objected argued that a ban on testing would damage the safety and reliability of America’s existing nuclear arsenal, and claimed it would be impossible to guarantee treaty compliance by all countries.) Other nations, including India, North Korea and Pakistan, have not ratified the treaty.

Trump administration withdraws from U.S.-Russia nuclear ...
Feb. 1, 2019 - The U.S. suspended compliance with the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, known as INF, on Feb. 2
and began a six-month formal withdrawal process, Pompeo said. That gives Moscow time to reverse course – even as the Trump administration begins to look at developing and deploying new intermediate-range missiles.

Russia Suspends Nuclear Missile Treaty With U.S. - Nation ...
Mar 04, 2019 - President Vladimir Putin formally ordered a suspension of Russia’s obligations under a Cold War-era nuclear treaty with the U.S., his office said Monday, a death knell for the pact that heightens the threat of a new arms race.

New START, last U.S.-Russia nuclear treaty, enters final ...
Feb 10, 2020 - The clock is ticking as the Trump administration weighs the fate of the last major nuclear arms treaty with Russia, as fears of a world without accountability between the world's two largest nuclear powers.

Pompeo tells Russia's Lavrov any new arms control talks must include China
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told his Russian counterpart on Friday that any future arms control talks must focus on an American proposal for a new arms control accord that includes Russia and China, the State Department said.

 

[goyacobol]

"continuity of government"

@angelburst29,

I can't tell you how many times I saw COG mentioned in the FEMA and PEMA (PA emergency management agency) documents while I was a PA Department of Public Welfare employee doing my own research.

near the Greenbrier resort

Well, I was born in WV so this is familiar to me and @JEEP a forum member also who knows what that now country club resort was previously designed for.

Thanks for Posting the article, Ellipse! It's a excellent find.

And thank you @angelburst29 for staying vigilant the way you were perhaps born to do and that is the extraordinary penchant you have for observing the not so obvious connections that happen around the world. I am now a Pennsylvanian too so that is kind of a weird connection too in a good way.

I also lived in Annandale, VA in my high school years and am familiar with the DC area. The precautions they are talking about should tell us something is up. This is not just an insignificant development if you ask me.

As for Pompeo tells Russia's Lavrov any new arms control talks must include China

Arms control experts, however, have described Trump’s proposal to include China in a new treaty as a “poison pill” strategy to kill New START and end restraints on U.S. nuclear arms deployments.

Ortagus said Pompeo also discussed with Lavrov bilateral issues, “including the detention of U.S. citizens”. She did not elaborate on the number or identity of Americans detained in Russia.

In my opinion, if the US only has interests in unlimited nuclear arms deployments we are up shits creek. May the Divine Cosmic Mind have mercy on those of us who see this for what it is, a continued illusion of the Empirialistic hubris by psychopaths.

If Trump has any ability to reverse the swamp monsters' psychopathic plans there is not much "time" left it seems. On the other hand, maybe all parties are content to spend less on the military and shore up their own countries' domestic tranquility.

Of course, tranquility is not much food for 3D or 4D STS since it is a bit too positive.

 

[goyacobol]

The Pentagon's Plan To Build A Secret Super Command Bunker 3,500 Feet Under Washington D.C.

April 14, 2020 - Whatever the actual source of the DUCC plan was, it is clear that the driving factor was the increasing capabilities of Soviet nuclear weapons, especially with regards to their yields. The Soviet Union had tested its first hydrogen bomb in 1953, years earlier than U.S. intelligence agencies had expected and raising concerns about the vulnerability of existing alternate command and control centers.

In 1961, the U.S. military had already begun to implement the National Mission Command System (NMCS), which included two bunkers, a hardened National Military Command Center at the Pentagon and an Alternate National Military Command Center (ANMCC). The ANMCC would be an upgrade to the existing Alternate Joint Communications Center (AJCC), a facility technically part of Fort Ritchie in Maryland, but which was housed inside the Raven Rock Mountain Complex (RRMC), also referred to as Site R, across the border with Pennsylvania under the Appalachian Mountains near Blue Ridge Summit. The Department of Defense had finished building Raven Rock in 1953.

In the 1950s and the early 1960s, the U.S. government had built numerous other bunker complexes in addition to Raven Rock for continuity of government purposes, including the aforementioned Cheyenne Mountain facility, as well as the Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center in the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia. The White House and the Presidential retreat at Camp David both have underground bunkers and, until 1992, there was a bunker complex situated near the Greenbrier resort in West Virginia intended to house Congress. However, none of these were specifically associated with the NMCS infrastructure.

The above group of installations close to the DC area reminds me of an early session. Patricia Z and her husband were working on government projects near that area and you could get the idea that strange goings-on was a commonplace occurrence for this couple although Patricia was very calm and nonchalant relating her memories.

Session 7 January 1996:

Q: (L) We have Pat with us tonight...

A: Hello Pat

Q: (L) Now, with all of us here, we would like to ask why the black, flying boomerangs showed up on the night Pat first came for hypnosis?

A: Examine issue carefully.

Q: (L) The first thing we thought about it was that this was a, if not necessarily rare, at least rarely observed type of craft, and the event itself was rare... is this correct?

A: It is rare.

Q: (L) If it is rare for it to occur in response to a hypnosis session, which person were the UFO's particularly interested in?

A: It was not a person, but information that is hidden in the subconscious memory of Patricia.

Q: (L) Were they wanting to get this information?

A: No. To monitor what would be revealed.

Q: (L) Does this mean that Pat has information programmed into her before birth that she needs to access?

A: No. Abductions.

Q: (L) They wanted to see if anything would be revealed about their abductions of her?

A: Yes.

Q: (L) Okay, since she is here, can we ask who abducted her?

A: Grays.

Q: (L) How many times has she been abducted?

A: 4. Snow scene was only 3rd density.

Q: (P) Does that mean that the snow scene was only in this realm?

A: No. Abduction which occurred there was strictly physical.

Q: (L) Okay, the abduction that occurred in the snow was a physical abduction. Perhaps the others were not. Were they physical also?

A: The others were 4th density. 3rd density abduction only occurs rarely, and is of great import.

Apparently the physical abduction is rare and is important for probably a good reason?

Session 7 January 1996:

Q: (L) Oh! When I was talking earlier about people who have someone working for the government, such people tend to be abducted more. And just because Pat was married to a scientist who worked at JPL doesn't mean she knew anything. Does she know something?

A: Not what she knew.

Q: (L) Was it because of where she lived?

A: Because of proximity to consortium activity.

Q: (P) Was that activity in the tunnel? {Pat is referring to the underground base where her husband worked on secret research.}

A: Implanted for possible future activation.

Q: (L) So, because of your proximity to the people you were living around and interacting with, you had an implant designed to control you if need be. (P) Was this related to what was going on under the mountain? (L) What mountain? What's under the mountain? (P) Just ask.

A: Not locator, personnel are factored.

Q: (L) Okay, it is not where you were so much as who you were in contact with.

A: Yes.

Q: (L) Was it her husband?

A: Perhaps.

Q: (L) Maybe that is why there is a higher rate of abduction among family members of government employees, so that they can be activated or controlled? (P) But my husband wasn't really working on anything secret.

A: He had access to sensitive facilities.

Apparently the facilities are "sensitive".

Session 7 January 1996:

Q: (P) The first thing unusual was the geographic location of our house. Directly West of us was the mountain that housed all the communications to be used in the event of nuclear war. We were 13 miles North of Camp David. And, while we lived there, many, many things took place at Camp David that were of global significance. And, we built a barn in 1982 and had bought the house in 1976, and never, in all the years that I lived there, did I ever notice these planes until we built the barn. If I had a stick in my hand, I could have touched them, that's how low they flew. Right over my barn. The same day every week. And there was always two of them, and they never had a single marking on them. And, they were propeller planes. And I wondered: what in the hell is this country doing flying planes, unmarked, propeller driven, and so low, over this area? This continued until we moved from that house. So, these planes came twice a week from 1982 until 1989. (L) What were these planes?

A: Search to learn.

Q: (L) Well, obviously we need to discuss this to develop our synapses. (P) Well, after the first couple of times, I sort of just said: "Well, there are the planes." So, what else is new?

A: Indifference.

Q: (P) I thought the planes had something to do with the mountain. Did they?

A: Maybe.

Q: (P) We knew they were flying under radar. Now, that I am thinking about this, nobody else ever talked about these planes. It was like we were the only people that ever saw them, or people who were at our house saw them too. My best friend who lived right up the road never saw them. I asked her: "Did you see the planes?" and she said "What planes?" I mean, she was seven acres away and nothing in between!

A: Unusual experiences mount!

Q: (P) Vic also noticed these things and he would always say - he was less indifferent than I was - he would say: "what in the hell are those planes and what are they doing?" (L) Why was P so indifferent? (P) Well, it didn't affect MY life, except that I was damn mad that it upset my horses. But then, the horses got used to them too, and they became indifferent! {laughter} Well, they came so often, twice a week - "it's Wednesday, the planes will be here!"

A: More... continue probing...

Q: (P) The planes came from East to West, and in the West was the mountain...

A: Catoctin.

Q: (P) That is the name of the mountain. (L) What is it? (P) The tunnel where all these facilities were... under Catoctin Mountain. Camp David is near, too.

A: And MUCH ELSE! Mount Weather, Virginia. And why did you live in area... helicopters?

Q: (P) Is it because of Fort Detrick?

A: What brought you to Maryland?

Q: (P) Fort Detrick. (L) What does Mount Weather mean? (P) The underground tunnel - everybody in town called it The Tunnel - but there was nothing around there to ever give anybody the slightest clue as to what it was. In fact, I lived there for quite a long time before I knew it existed. And, on top of the mountain there was a weather station... (L) But, what about Fort Detrick? (P) Vic was doing electron microscopy - cancer research.

A: REALLY?

Vic was at Fort Detrick just doing "cancer" research. 'REALLY?"

Session 7 January 1996:

Q: (L) Does it have anything to do with those antennae that are reported as being connected to that project, that alter space/time?

A: Helicopters, Pat? We are asking you!

Q: (P) Well, the helicopters in Frederick went over our house every time the president was at Camp David. But, that was our house in Walkersville not in Emmetsburg. When we first moved to Maryland. Sometimes the helicopters were unmarked...

A: You see, P is resistant due to experiences, things don't "phase" her easily, programming, etc.

Q: (L) So, all of these things happening around her, the planes, the mountain, the helicopters... (P) But the helicopters, I knew it was the President either going to or coming from Camp David.

A: Resistant, not resisting.

Q: (L) Is the term "resistant" a clue?

A: All is a clue here!

Q: (L) Since P has only been abducted 4 times, can this mean that she is resistant to that?

A: No.

Q: (P) Isn't that just my personality, that if it doesn't affect me I don't bother with it?

A: Yes.

I have been through that area so many times on my way south and I used to live near the DC area so these names and places get my attention but there does seem to be past projects that are being continued now it seems.

Session 7 January 1996:

Q: (P) Isn't that just my personality, that if it doesn't affect me I don't bother with it?

A: Yes.

Q: (P) I don't get bothered about things that...

A: Shoot somebody in front of P, and she says: "Oh well, that's life" so, to discover spectacular things, one must be patient and probe carefully, no hasty assumptions, please!! There is to be retrieved, revealed, studied.

Q: (P) Well, the helicopters went back and forth to Camp David. The President was supposed to be in them. And his entourage. There was only 3 helicopters. (L) Are these the helicopters referred to?

A: No. Let P digest it, and report back later.

Q: (L) At the time we had all those sightings around here on the night we did that session with P, why did so many other people see them?

A: Window was "blast."

It seems that once you get close to some "sensitive" information you are more likely to get "monitored".

 

[lilies]

Based on an idea, I did a lil' bit of an experiment with our dearest buddy Mike.
I just needed the latest, fresh video with his talking head visible.
We will see the results soon, if any.
[for reference, this post is]

 

[angelburst29]

Based on an idea, I did a lil' bit of an experiment with our dearest buddy Mike.
I just needed the latest, fresh video with his talking head visible.
We will see the results soon, if any.
[for reference, this post is]

Published on Apr 20, 2020 - The U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a statement on Guyana Tuesday morning said the U.S. government looks forward to working with the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) and the international observer community on the recount of votes cast on March 02, 2020. Pompeo made his statement as he also addressed the situation in Venezuela. "Time for Maduro to go!"

Another U.S. Coup in Venezuela has been simmering on the back burner for some time now. They might decide on a Military invasion in the next few days, but stop and think - why the grand pronouncements in front of media cameras? Why the BIG advertisement? What I sense Pompeo is doing - is setting up a decoy - Hey, look over here?

In the last 24 hours, I see this sudden development, ( compliments via CNN ) as another staged decoy? I also want to mention - when I see the words, "Coronavirus or pandemic", I view them as smoke screens covering up the main topic.

South Korea says North Korea's Kim is not seriously ill: Yonhap
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was not seriously ill, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said citing a government official on Tuesday,
contradicting a CNN report he was in "grave danger" after a surgery.

U.S. monitors reports of North Korean leader's illness; South Korea, China doubtful
China says it is aware of reports about North Korea leader's health
North Korean leader Kim not believed to be critically ill: Chinese party source
Japan to gather information following reports on North Korea leader's health
Factbox: Questions hang over North Korea succession amid reports on Kim health

And while all eyes are fixated on Venezuela or North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's health ... the real focus should be directed towards what is happening in and around Syria, (on the ground, air and sea) and Syria's Capital, Damascus. Attention needs to focus on Turkish Erdogan's military moves in Idlib, due to his NATO involvement, the increased Israeli activity in the Golan Heights and near the Lebanon Border into Syria, especially since "a Devil's Pack" has just been forged between Netanyahu and Gantz in a Unity Government. U.S. and NATO Troop movement from Afghanistan into Iraq and near the Syrian Border where the U,S. has established bases on both sides. Below is reports on other activity including a joint venture between the Penagon/U.S. Air Force and SpaceX Starlink satellites on April 8 that linked up with multiple armed forces systems in a “massive” live fire exercise.

April 21, 2020 - Exclusive: Venezuela Socialists, opposition leaders begin secret talks amid pandemic - sources
Allies of both Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his bitter foe, opposition leader Juan Guaido, have secretly begun exploratory talks as concerns grow about the possible impact of coronavirus, according to sources on both sides.

Exactly 18 Years After US Coup Against Venezuela, Pompeo and Abrams Warn Another is Coming
18 Years After Coup Against Venezuela, US Warns Another is Coming

Apr 13, 2020 - On the eighteenth anniversary of the U.S.-backed coup against the government of Venezuela, senior American officials announced that the people should prepare for another imminent push. “The goal is to replace [President Nicolas] Maduro’s illegitimate dictatorship with a legitimate transitional government that can hold free and fair elections to represent all Venezuelans. It is time for Maduro to go,” announced Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

On Saturday the eleventh, exactly 18 years after the U.S. supported a briefly successful coup against Hugo Chavez, American envoy for Venezuela and coup specialist Elliott Abrams warned that if Maduro resisted the implementation of said “transitional government” his departure would be far more “dangerous and abrupt,” effectively threatening him with another assassination attempt, like the one the U.S. tacitly supported in 2018.

The U.S. has recently upped its sanctions against Venezuela and sent warships to the region to enforce a blockade. The phrase “transitional government” has been used a great deal of late; the White House describing Bolivia’s Añez administration as such. Añez came to power in November thanks to a U.S.-supported coup against President Evo Morales. That “transitional government” has since massacred protestors, pulled Bolivia out of multiple international treaties and indefinitely suspended elections. Thus, it came as no surprise when Maduro rejected the same fate as his ally, Morales. “We will take care of Venezuela,” he replied, “Mr. Abrams, cool your jets.”

Maduro is well aware of the history of U.S. coups in his country, having been part of a counter-demonstration that successfully overturned the April 2002 putsch. Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show that coup leaders at the time traveled back and forth to Washington D.C. several times in the months leading up to the event, where they received counsel and training from American officials. NED and USAID funding for the groups who carried it out quadrupled in 2002 and then quadrupled again in 2003. The U.S. government incontrovertibly knew by at least April 6 that a coup carried out by those they were funding and training was about to occur. But instead of alerting the government, they immediately endorsed events, falsely claiming that President Chavez had massacred his own people and then resigned.

Since then, Washington has never stopped attempting to remove the United Socialist Party from power, refusing to accept the validity of widely-lauded presidential elections in 2013 and 2018, funding virtually the entire spectrum of the domestic opposition for two decades.

Abrams’ life’s work has been to use the power of the U.S. government – overtly and covertly – to overthrow sovereign states through coups, sanctions and genocides. On his first day as Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs under Ronald Reagan in 1981, he jumped into action, covering up the now-infamous El Mozote massacre in El Salvador, conducted by a death squad created, armed and trained by Washington. Since then he has been an architect of “dirty wars,” genocides and regime change in Guatemala, Nicaragua, Colombia and Panama, among others.

April 17th, 2020 - As US Shale Oil Plunges, Trump Admin Takes Aim at Venezuela
A confluence of factors suggests that such a Panama-style invasion of Venezuela is not only a possibility, but increasingly likely.

Apr 1, 2020 - This Venezuelan Patrol Ship Sunk Itself After Ramming A Cruise Liner With A Reinforced Hull
A Venezuelan Navy offshore patrol vessel recently sank after ramming a cruise liner in the Caribbean Sea. The cruise ship, which had no passengers on board at the time and has a reinforced hull to sail through ice-filled waters, suffered only minimal damage in what the operating company, Columbia Cruise Services, has called an "act of aggression ... in international waters."

The incident occurred in the early hours of Mar. 30, 2020, but Columbia Cruise Services only released an official statement on Apr. 1. The company, which is headquartered in Germany, said the RCGS Resolute was drifting just over 13 miles off the coast of Isla La Tortuga, a Venezuelan island situated some 60 miles off the country's northern coast, when ANBV Naiguatá, also known by its hull number GC-23, approached it. The Venezuelan Navy ship ordered the cruise ship to follow it to Puerto Moreno on Isla De Margarita, located to the east, accusing it of violating the country's territorial waters.

"While the Master was in contact with the head office [in Germany], gun shots were fired and, shortly thereafter, the navy vessel approached the starboard side at speed with an angle of 135° and purposely collided with the RCGS Resolute," the statement continued. "The navy vessel continued to ram the starboard bow in an apparent attempt to turn the ship’s head towards Venezuelan territorial waters."

The ship had been in Buenos Aires since November 2019 after it was blocked from leaving due to an apparent legal dispute over unpaid debts between One Ocean Expeditions, a Canadian cruise operator, and another company. As noted, the Germany-based Columbia Cruise Services was operating the ship at the time of the incident off Venezuela.

April 21, 2020 - Two U.S. warships in South China Sea amid China-Malaysia standoff
Two U.S. warships are operating in the South China Sea, the Navy said on Tuesday, with three regional security sources saying they were near an area of a standoff between China and Malaysia.

Apr 11, 2020 - Fire Breaks Out On China's Massive New Type 075 Amphibious Assault Ship
China's first big-deck amphibious assault ship, a huge vessel that was built in a miraculously short amount of time, caught fire on Saturday, April 11th, 2020. Photos and video showing the ship billowing larg clouds of black smoke hit Chinese social media earlier in the day. The warship, which is the first of the new Type 075 class, was resting alongside the pier at its birthplace, Hudong–Zhonghua Shipbuilding in Shanghai, when the blaze broke out.

It is unclear how much damage has been done to the amphibious assault ship at this time, although it appears the fire emanated from, or at least involved, its well deck. A well deck is a floodable garage-like space that is used on amphibious assault ships for launching and recovering ship-to-shore transport boats and hovercraft, as well as amphibious fighting vehicles.

The second ship in the Type 075 class is wrapping up construction in the drydocks next to where the first is tied up. Some speculate that it could be launched very soon.

As such, the fire couldn't have come at a worse time and it could end up being an embarrassing setback for one of the People's Liberation Army Navy's banner shipbuilding programs, but just how big of a setback is still yet to be seen.

April 21, 2020 - Netanyahu and rival Gantz clinch Israel power-sharing deal
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his centrist election rival Benny Gantz signed a deal on Monday to form a national emergency government, ending a year of unprecedented political deadlock.

Apr 1, 2020 - Army Apache Attack Helicopters Deploy To The Navy's Giant Sea Base In The Arabian Gulf
The Navy's new hulking Expeditionary Sea Bases, also referred to as Afloat Forward Staging Bases, are amazingly versatile motherships that can rapidly set up shop in the most troubled of neighborhoods. Their big flight-decks can be used by any helicopter in the Pentagon's inventory. Although their primary mission is to support lumbering MH-53E Sea Dragon mine-hunting helicopters, they also regularly play host to submarine hunting and utility helicopters, and even attack choppers. Case in point, late last March, U.S. Army AH-64E Apache Guardians flew out to USS Lewis B. Puller (ESB-3) in the Arabian Gulf to work on clearing the waters of enemy small boat swarms with the help of other assets forward-deployed to the region.

Mar 26, 2020 - Nukes Drive Germany's Plan To Replace Tornados With Typhoons, Super Hornets, and Growlers
Germany is reportedly getting close to settling on split purchase of Eurofighter Typhoons and Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornets and EA-18G Growlers to replace its aging fleet of Panavia Tornado swing-wing combat jets. A key driving factor behind the compromise proposal is the need for the German Air Force to have an aircraft that could deliver American nuclear gravity bombs
under a NATO agreement. It has become increasingly clear that the process for getting the Super Hornets certified to carry these weapons is significantly less complex than doing the same for the Typhoon.

Mar 20, 2020 - The Army And Navy Have Conducted The First Joint Test Of Their New Hypersonic Weapon
The U.S. Army and the U.S. Navy, in cooperation with the Missile Defense Agency, have conducted their first joint test launch of a new hypersonic warhead in the Pacific. The two services plan to eventually deploy this common hypersonic boost-glide vehicle on top of land-based and submarine-launched missiles, respectively.

A launch took place at the Pacific Missile Range Facility in Kauai, Hawaii at approximately 10:30 PM local time on Mar. 19. A ground-launched rocket booster propelled the Common Hypersonic Glide Body vehicle, or C-HGB, to the desired speed and altitude, after which it "flew at hypersonic speed to a designated impact point," according to a Pentagon statement. The announcement did not say how fast the vehicle flew or how far, but hypersonic speed is defined as being above Mach 5 and the Pentagon said that the new weapons could enable the Army and the Navy to quickly "strike targets hundreds and even thousands of miles away."

Mar 16, 2020 - Warning To Iran: AC-130W Gunship Practices Slaying Boats With U.S. Navy In The Persian Gulf
A U.S. Air Force AC-130W Stinger II gunship recently conducted a first-of-its-kind training exercise in the Persian Gulf with U.S. Navy P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol planes and Cyclone class patrol boats. These assets working together could provide a formidable means of defeating swarms of small boats, such as the ones that Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps operates in significant numbers. The exercise came just days before Iranian-backed militias killed two U.S. troops and a British service member, and wounded more, in a rocket attack that has led to retaliatory American airstrikes and a spike in tensions in the region.

The exercise took place between Mar. 8 and 9, 2020, but the Navy's top command in the Middle East only publicly announced that it had occurred on Mar. 15. It's not clear how many AC-130Ws, P-8As, and Cyclones took part in total, but video and images Naval Forces Central Command (NAVCENT) subsequently released show at least one Stinger II gunship and three of the patrol boats, including the USS Monsoon.

Mar 13, 2020 - Space Force Just Received Its First New Offensive Weapon
U.S. Space Force has begun operating a new offensive weapon system, an upgraded version of a ground-based satellite communications jamming system, for the first time in its short history. The first iteration of the Counter Communications System entered U.S. Air Force service in 2004 and the program has now gotten transferred to the newest branch of the American military. The Space Force declared it had reached initial operational capability with the Counter Communications System Block 10.2, or CCS B10.2, on Mar. 9.

Mar 13, 2020 - https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/32574/heres-everything-we-know-about-america-airstrikes-on-iranian-related-targets-in-Iraq

Mar 11, 2020 - Navy Filmed Russian Maritime Patrol Planes Buzzing Their Arctic Submarine Base Camp
The U.S.-Canadian North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, has released a video, which U.S. Navy personnel down below captured, showing a pair of Russian Tu-142 Bear maritime patrol aircraft flying at relatively low altitude over a site off the coast of northwest Alaska being used to support the latest iteration of the Navy's ICEX submarine exercise. The U.S. military says that the Tu-142s loitered over the area for some time as part of a 12-hour-long patrol earlier this week.

U.S. Air Force General Terrence O’Shaughnessy, head of U.S. Northern Command, offered the additional details about the Tu-142s and their activities during a hearing before Congress on Mar. 10, 2020. The actual Russian patrol had taken place the day before. Air Force F-22 Raptor stealth fighters and Royal Canadian Air Force CF-18 Hornets escorted the maritime patrol planes while they flew through the Alaskan Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ). Russian aerial patrols near Alaska are not uncommon and routinely end without incident.

Mar 6, 2020 - The Navy's Arleigh Burke Class Destroyers To Be Armed With Hypersonic Weapon Interceptors
The U.S. military is developing an interceptor intended to knock down hypersonic boost-glide vehicles specifically for deployment on U.S. Navy Arleigh Burke class destroyers equipped with the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense system. This comes as that service says it expects to soon send two more of those destroyers to Spain, where they would join four other ships of that class that are forward-deployed there to, among other things, provide regional missile defense coverage.

U.S. Navy Vice Admiral Jon Hill, head of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA), offered the new details on what is formally known as the Regional Glide Phase Weapon System (RGPWS) program at the annual McAleese Defense Programs Conference in Washington, D.C. on Mar. 4, 2020. U.S. Navy Admiral Michael Gilday, the Chief of Naval Operations, the service's top officer, discussed plans for the additional forward-deployed Arleigh Burkes while testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Mar. 5.

Mar 5, 2020 - Marines Set To Be The First To Bring Back Land-Based Tomahawk Missiles Post-INF Treaty
The U.S. Marine Corps is on track to be the first branch of the U.S. military to re-introduce a ground-launched version of the Tomahawk cruise missile following the collapse of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, or INF, with Russia last year. Though this weapon is most often associated with strikes against targets on land, the Marines plan to primarily employ them as land-based anti-ship weapons.

U.S. Marine Corps Commandant General David Berger offered details on his service's anti-ship missile plans while testifying before Congress on Mar. 5, 2020. The Pentagon's budget proposal for the upcoming 2021 Fiscal Year revealed that the service had requested $125 million to purchase 48 Tomahawks, but details about the exact purpose of the acquisition were kept classified initially, according to official budget documents and a report from Task and Purpose.

Feb 25, 2020 - The Air Force And SpaceX Are Teaming Up For A 'Massive' Live Fire Exercise
Just last week, Air Force acquisition chief William Roper told reporters at the Pentagon that the Air Force and SpaceX will conduct an event on April 8, together with other branches of the U.S. military, that will see SpaceX Starlink satellites link up with multiple armed forces systems in a “massive” live fire exercise.

The demonstration will reportedly involve shooting down a drone and a cruise missile and will take place at several different sites including Marine Corps Air Station Yuma in Arizona to Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. The massive tests will also include ground forces, submarines, ships, and a variety of space-based assets.

SpaceX's potentially game-changing Starlink concept involves launching large volumes of satellites – dozens at a time – that circle the earth providing broadband data-connectivity.

The live fire exercise will be part of a larger test of the Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS), a new communications ecosystem
designed to enable Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2), allowing U.S. forces and allies to coordinate military operations in real-time across all domains, such as sea, land, air, space and cyber operations.

Published on Jun 15, 2019 (15:40 min.)

 

[goyacobol]

Feb 25, 2020 - The Air Force And SpaceX Are Teaming Up For A 'Massive' Live Fire Exercise

@angelburst,

I don't know how you stay sane gathering all this information. I am thankful you do though.

My head is spinning thinking about ugly satellites creating a net above us and being used by the US military while being touted by Musk as bringing the internet to poor villages around the globe.

And then I see the strange "unity" deal with Netanyahu and Gantz sharing "the throne". It's just "bizarre" if you ask me.

Two devils occupying the same throne - no different then - two Pope's in Rome?

Explainer: Netanyahu hangs on in unity government in deal after inconclusive Israeli elections

And then all the while the US keeps devouring other countries that won't fall in line with giving their oil as collateral for loans from the IMF and attempting another coup in Venezuela.

April 21, 2020 - Exclusive: Venezuela Socialists, opposition leaders begin secret talks amid pandemic - sources

It also looks like Syria and Iran are being surrounded by US troops for another round of turmoil.

Meanwhile, the US economy and economies around the world are being devastated using the COVID-19 virus to lock down and control the populations.

I am really starting to feel like we are being surrounded by lies, lies everywhere there are lies.

I think it is because I am like you @Angelburst that I will look and look searching for what else "the truth".

I was going to try and find a relevant session to quote but just had a difficult time finding something at least useful (I was just getting depressed with all these developments).

I then eventually found something that seems to describe our plight and it came from a question that Ark asked:

Session 28 August 1999:

Q: (A) I have such a problem: we have this book by Osho. I was reading this, and this piece tells the following: you should not look at what others are doing, whether they are lying or whatever, because you should concentrate on yourself, and the things you should do. Watching your neighbors just takes your attention from what you should be doing. So, I don't know. (A) Maybe my urge to do this is a distraction?

A: True. Truth exposes lies for those who need to learn.

Q: I guess it is better to just talk about what is good and right and true, and spend less time pointing out what others are doing that are lies. Those who are ready to receive it, will get it. Those who want to believe Hoagland and Bearden, will do so no matter what you say because they want to believe lies.

A: Right!

Q: (A) I don't know what the truth is....

A: But you will!

Q: (A) Okay, we are done. (L) And final words, consolation, advice... I mean, you kind of left us hanging here!

A: Enjoy upcoming events. Good night.

Maybe you do not know exactly what the truth is yet "But you will!"

 

[angelburst29]

Maybe you do not know exactly what the truth is yet "But you will!"

Along with Truth - comes Transparency. One County, Russia, has openly exercised that quality. It's meant to foster - unity and equality in a multi-polar World. To safe guard it's own sovereignty and equitable rights, Russia recently made some changes in it's governing body. It has no desire or interest to be assimilated into a "One-World-Government" ruled by an unelected elite Dictatorship, who's only prime ambition is it's own interests.

The Federal Assembly Speech; Putin vows to rein in capitalism and shore up sovereignty

A New World Is Being Born: What Will It Be?

 

[angelburst29]

In the last 24 hours, I see this sudden development, ( compliments via CNN ) as another staged decoy? I also want to mention - when I see the words, "Coronavirus or pandemic", I view them as smoke screens covering up the main topic.

U.S. monitors reports of North Korean leader's illness; South Korea, China doubtful

CNN’s report from a single unnamed US government source that the North Korean leader “is in grave danger after undergoing a previous surgery” isn’t all that credible, but the very fact that it’s being pushed so strongly at this particular moment says a lot about the intentions of the network’s “deep state” patrons.

Spinning Rumors of Regime Change in North Korea: Deciphering the Deep State's Latest Kim Jong-un Conspiracy - Global Research

April 22, 2020 - The Root Of The Rumor - Speculation is swirling all across the world about the possibility of an unexpected regime change in North Korea following CNN’s report from a single unnamed US government source that Kim Jong-un “is in grave danger after undergoing a previous surgery”, with some outlets even going as far as to predict that his sister Kim Yo-Jong might soon take his place. China and South Korea played down the reports about his supposedly serious health crisis, but questions still remain about why hasn’t he been seen in public for over 10 days after failing to appear at a celebration commemorating his grandfather’s birthday on 15 April (his last public appearance was several days prior to that). CNN’s original report also said that “A second source familiar with the intelligence told CNN that the US has been closely monitoring reports on Kim’s health”, though that doesn’t in and of itself mean that his life is in danger, just that someone allegedly confirmed that the US intelligence community is performing one of its most basic duties monitoring reports about the health of a rival leader.

Exactly 18 Years After US Coup Against Venezuela, Pompeo and Abrams Warn Another is Coming
18 Years After Coup Against Venezuela, US Warns Another is Coming

Venezuela has close ties and a good working relationship with Cuba, which it also supplies with Crude Oil. Additional sanctions have been placed on Cuba, for doing business with Venezuela. Apparently, both Countries are not adhering to the "Golden Rule of Social Distancing" and have been marked for regime change by the U.S. I wonder, if the greedy elites have given any thought lately, to the Natural Law of "cause and effect" and the repercussions of "spreading oneself too thin" in the War effort? Just tiny details, nothing too "mental" or stressful! On the other hand, when the missiles start passing over our heads, those of us on American soil would like to have a clearer idea - what Country(s) is paying us a courtesy call? I guess, that brings us back to the "cause and effect" deal? There's so many Countries to choose from? We are so exceptional and privileged!

Is the CIA Preparing a Color Revolution in Cuba? - Global Research

April 22, 2020 - Thus, Mike Pence announced the implementation of new measures against two companies that transport Venezuelan crude oil to Cuba, as well as against the 34 ships that PDVSA uses for this purpose with the avowed objective of causing the “energy suffocation of Cuba” through the amputation of the umbilical cord that unite Venezuela and Cuba following the Kentian theory of “stick and carrot” exposed by Sherman Kent in his book “Strategic Intelligence for North American World Policy” (1949). In this book, Kent states that “war is not always conventional: indeed, a large part of the war, from the remote and the closest, has always been carried out with unconventional weapons: […] weapons [. ..] political and economic. The kind of war in which […] (they are) the political war and the economic war. ”

Continuing with the repressive escalation, the US Treasury Department has recently imposed sanctions on the Cuban state company Cubametales for “its continued importation of Venezuelan crude and support for the Government of the President of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro.” As a consequence of this measure, the assets that the company may have under US jurisdiction are frozen and financial transactions with US entities are prohibited since Cubametales would be according to the US Government. “Responsible for guaranteeing total fuel imports and exports to and from Cuba.”

All this will mean that the Island is bound to suffocate with unpredictable results after the collapse of tourism caused by the emergence of the coronavirus pandemic.

Feb 25, 2020 - The Air Force And SpaceX Are Teaming Up For A 'Massive' Live Fire Exercise
Just last week, Air Force acquisition chief William Roper told reporters at the Pentagon that the Air Force and SpaceX will conduct an event on April 8, together with other branches of the U.S. military, that will see SpaceX Starlink satellites link up with multiple armed forces systems in a “massive” live fire exercise.

Iran says it puts first military satellite into orbit, triggers U.S. condemnation
Iran said on Wednesday it successfully launched the country's first military satellite into orbit, triggering protests from the United States and stoking already high tensions over Tehran's nuclear and missile programs.

Pompeo says Iran military satellite launch violated U.N. resolution
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday called for Iran to be held accountable for the launch of a military satellite, adding that he thinks the action violated a United Nations Security Council resolution.

Trump tells Navy to destroy Iranian gunboats if they 'harass' American ships

President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he had instructed the U.S. Navy to fire on any Iranian ships that harass it at sea, a week after 11 vessels from Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN) came dangerously close to American ships in the Gulf.

Pentagon officials say Trump's comment Iran a warning, will maintain self-defense
Senior Pentagon officials said on Wednesday that President Donald Trump's comments on Iran were meant as a warning to Tehran, but suggested that the U.S. military would continue to abide by their existing right to self defense instead of any changes to their rules.

Australia joins U.S. ships in South China Sea amid rising tension
An Australian frigate has joined three U.S. warships in the South China Sea near an area where a Chinese vessel is suspected to be exploring for oil, near waters also claimed by Vietnam and Malaysia, officials said on Wednesday.

 

[angelburst29]

There is this article in Newsweek: "U.S. - Exclusive: As Washington DC Faces Coronavirus Spike, Secret Military Task Force Prepares to Secure the Capital"

Do you think it's pure propaganda or their is something behind?

I think it's fair to state - that the Coronavirus is being used to serve several agenda's on the American side in Political and Military ambitions? As referenced in the first Post and article that started this thread, the Coronavirus threat of an invisible invader prompted extra measures to secure the U,S. Capital in Washington, D.C. The Pentagon even activated "continuity of government".

In the past few days, I have come across several articles like the one below but this one is a prime example of all the musings that the other's tried to portray - that the United States is Big Brother and the main Authority in the World, policing other Countries outside our Borders, for their own good. That's the basic theme, the other is that - the Coronavirus pandemic within the U.S. "has made it a target and vulnerable" to our adversaries. It requires the Pentagon and our Military Divisions outside our Borders, to heavily secure their positions with extra reinforcements. Technically, I have a problem with that type of reasoning but then again, I don't have a military background but ... BUT... if your home (land) and it's immediate infrastructure are in a vulnerable position - wouldn't it be wiser and more logical to reinforce your own domain FIRST? That would mean bringing the large Military Divisions back home and only leaving a skeleton crew outside our Borders? I guess, I'm too simple minded to understand?

USA TODAY: Coronavirus: US adversaries Iran, North Korea, Russia flex muscles

A rocket launches at an undisclosed location in North Korea on March 21, 2020.

‎April‎ ‎23‎, ‎2020‎ - A dozen Iranian speed boats brazenly swarm U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf. A Russian fighter jet buzzes a U.S. Navy surveillance plane flying over the Mediterranean Sea. North Korea fires a barrage of missiles launched from the air and ground.

All the incidents took place in mid-April. All were mounted by some of America's top adversaries. As coronavirus stalks the globe, sapping attention, budgets and government personnel at home and abroad, U.S. adversaries from Moscow to Pyongyang are flexing their muscles and testing U.S. resolve.

U.S. defense and national security officials said that although America remains on guard for potential threats as it works to overcome the coronavirus in a world of unpredictability, they have not detected extraordinary reasons to sound the alarm.

I had a good giggle over Trump's twitter message. I know he's under a lot of pressure and stress but how do you "shoot down" a gunboat in the water? Unless, they are Code words for something?

President Donald Trump sent out a warning Wednesday on Twitter: "I have instructed the United States Navy to shoot down and destroy any and all Iranian gunboats if they harass our ships at sea." He offered no additional context.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper told NBC's "Today" last week that "it's hard to say" whether the Iranian and Russian episodes reflected efforts to probe for U.S. vulnerability amid the COVID-19 pandemic that has sickened more than 826,000 Americans. The Defense Department, he said, considered "this a normal week."

The remainder of the article goes into incidents that the U.S. feels is "provocations" by it's adversaries. To a large degree, the article is nit-picking at events and putting a spin on them, to give the reader the impression that if an incident escalates into a direct fighting match - the U.S. is justified in attacking?

No Americans were killed or injured as a result of the Iranian, Russian and North Korean actions. National security analysts said that the timing of these incidents may not be coincidental but that there is little evidence that America's global opponents are capitalizing on conditions created by the pandemic.

America's enemies "aren't necessarily doing anything different or unusual because of coronavirus," said Joseph Cirincione, president of Ploughshares Fund, a Washington-based global security foundation. "And this thing cuts both ways: All militaries are concerned about others' perception of them during a time of crisis.

"Is the timing suspicious? Maybe. Internal dynamics can also explain these incidents." To be sure, provocations from U.S. foes and rivals are not new.

On April 15, when Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy boats darted past U.S. warships conducting exercises in international waters in the northern Persian Gulf it was the latest example of routine Iranian harassment toward U.S. vessels that has intensified since the Trump administration exited a nuclear deal with Tehran.

That same day, a Russian SU-35 fighter jet came within 25 feet of a U.S. Navy P-8A Poseidon surveillance plane flying in international airspace, putting the pilots and crew at risk, according to the U.S. Navy. Air Force Gen. Tod Wolters, NATO’s supreme allied commander in Europe, characterized the Russian pilot’s maneuver, including a pass in which he flew upside down, as unprofessional as opposed to incitement.

That, too, was just the most recent incident in a string of encounters between Russian and U.S. jets that raised concerns over the risk of midair collisions over European airspace. A report in 2014 from the European Leadership Network, a London-based think tank, found at least 40 examples that year of dangerous incidents involving Russian and Western militaries in "violations of national airspace, emergency scrambles, narrowly avoided mid-air collisions and close encounters at sea."

North Korea's salvo of suspected cruise missiles toward the Sea of Japan on April 14 was among the most high-profile missile tests Pyongyang has conducted since nuclear negotiations with the Trump administration stalled.

The tests came on the eve of a North Korean state anniversary and parliamentary elections in neighboring South Korea. Shea Cotton, a nuclear security expert at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, warned a week earlier in a column for Defense News that North Korea is "signaling this will be its busiest year of missile testing yet." Cotton noted that Kim Jong Un's regime conducted nine missile tests in March, the most in a single month recorded in his research institute's database.

Cirincione said he did not think the U.S. military was more at risk as the Pentagon responds domestically and overseas to the COVID-19 health crisis despite the idling of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier docked in Guam, that has been sidelined because hundreds of its sailors tested positive for the disease.

"We have such an overcapacity of military," he said. "Bases all over the world and an alliance system like no other. Is anybody pressing us at the minute? China or the Russians or even the Islamic State terror group? I just don't see it."

About 3,500 active-duty U.S. military personnel, out of approximately 1.3 million, have tested positive for coronavirus, according to the Defense Department.

A U.S. State Department report published this month said China might be secretly pushing ahead with low-level underground nuclear tests despite its claims that it strictly adheres to an international moratorium on all nuclear tests.

Although Cirincione said unproven allegations that Beijing carries out low-intensity nuclear tests have been "percolating" for many years and nothing indicates China is exploiting a period of U.S. weakness. China, after all, is still grappling with COVID-19 – albeit at a later stage.

Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a think tank in Washington, said that before coronavirus fully took hold in the USA, the Trump administration, not Iran, appeared to view the outbreak as an opportunity to gain advantage by "amplifying" its maximum pressure strategy – the view that crippling sanctions would force Tehran to choose between its own economic viability and its destabilizing activities around the region.

"Iran has all of these sanctions on it, and on top of it, you have an epidemic that makes it more likely Iran's regime will collapse. As a result, any sanctions relief would be counterproductive," Parsi said, summarizing how he said U.S. officials such as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo approached the Iran issue when Tehran was seeing hundreds of COVID-19 deaths a day and the USA had relatively few.
He said both sides viewed the outbreak as a potential battleground.

Parsi said the global spread of the virus could provide "an excuse and an opportunity for the Iranians to do something really drastic that may have less of a downside – I'm not saying there aren't risks – than under normal circumstances."

One example: In mid-March, the Pentagon launched airstrikes targeting an Iranian-backed Shiite militia group in Iraq suspected in a rocket attack that killed and wounded American and British troops stationed at a base north of Baghdad. At the time, the severity of the coronavirus outbreak was beginning to become clear to the Trump administration. It did not take the strike any further.

"The politics of the outbreak are churning against the backdrop of wider U.S.-Iran animosity that has grown steadily since Tehran decided in May 2019 to counter U.S. 'maximum pressure' with 'maximum resistance,' " the International Crisis Group, a Washington-based think tank, wrote in a research paper in early April.

A Defense official characterized the Iranian and Russian incidents as "weird," noting that the Russians haven't made such a hazardous maneuver in some time and the exercises in the Persian Gulf had been underway for a week before the Iranians responded. Time will tell if the incidents are isolated or part of a pattern, said the defense official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about them.

Adding to the impression the U.S. is being challenged in some way amid the pandemic: On the same day that Moscow's fighter jet buzzed a U.S. Navy surveillance plane in the Mediterranean Sea, Russia's military tested a series of missiles that U.S. Space Command Gen. Jay Raymond said were capable of "destroying" U.S. satellites in low orbit. On April 22, Iran launched what it described as its first military satellite into orbit, a move that could support its long-range ballistic missile program. Tehran's missiles underpin part of the Trump administration's tensions with Iran because Washington is concerned they could carry nuclear weapons.

Gen. Hossein Salami, the head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, said its space program reflected Iran's membership of the "world's most powerful armies."

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced the Pentagon to shift its footing to remain ready to fight, and troop rotations and some routine logistical operations have been paused.

On April 14, Army Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said sailors aboard the USS Harry Truman saw their deployment extended to account for the USS Theodore Roosevelt's unscheduled sick time in Guam.

The U.S. Air Force flexed its muscles with an "Elephant Walk" in which B-52 bombers and other jets taxied on the runway at Guam's Andersen Air Force base.

The “Elephant Walk" on April 13 was conducted with joint assets across Guam to showcase U.S. military readiness and "the ability to generate combat airpower at a moment's notice to ensure regional stability throughout the Indo-Pacific," Air Force Lt. Col. Megan Schafer, a spokeswoman for Pacific Air Forces, said in an email. For various reasons, America's adversaries are also more potentially imperiled.

In North Korea, there are unconfirmed reports Kim Jong Un may be gravely ill after heart surgery. The North Korean leader's health has long been a focus of speculation. He's a heavy smoker and suffers from obesity. South Korea's government downplayed the reports. If Kim did die, it could put the nuclear-armed and isolated country in a fraught security posture with the United States as it dealt with a succession battle and perhaps COVID-19. North Korea has denied any infections.

More than 10% of Iran's lawmakers have fallen ill with coronavirus, far more than anywhere else. The disease has not spared top officials, including its senior vice president, Cabinet ministers, Revolutionary Guard members and Health Ministry officials. Several Iran lawmakers died from COVID-19.

One area where the COVID-19 field may be more level is terrorism, according to Colin Clarke, a security expert at the Soufan Center, a New York-based think tank.

Clarke said coronavirus led the United States, France and other countries to withdraw elite forces, mainly trainers, helping combat militant groups around the world, especially in West Africa. But "the militants themselves are also vulnerable. It's not like they can just continue life as usual while the security forces are hampered," he said. "They may use this period to be more reckless, but they are also going to get sick."

Clarke said the coronavirus outbreak highlighted that perhaps too much of America's military and security preoccupations have revolved around terrorism and more conventional military threats from well-known enemies.

"I teach a class where I ask my students to rank the five greatest threats to global security. Global pandemics is one of them. Every year it comes in at No. 5," he said.

In the line of "provocations", the U.S. is good at creating their own.

U.S. warship sails through Taiwan Strait, second time in a month
A U.S. warship has again sailed through the sensitive Taiwan Strait, Taiwan's Defence Ministry said on Friday, the second time in a month amid heighten tension between Taiwan and China and as a Chinese aircraft carrier passes near the island.

China says certain U.S. politicians trying to interfere in South China Sea issue
China's Foreign Ministry said on Thursday certain U.S. politicians are trying to interfere in the South China Sea issue and such attempts are doomed to fail.

Guards chief: U.S. warships will be destroyed if they threaten Iran in Gulf
Iran will destroy U.S. warships if its security is threatened in the Gulf, the head of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards told state TV on Thursday, a day after U.S. President Donald Trump warned Tehran over "harassment" of U.S. vessels.

Iran summons Swiss ambassador as U.S. representative in Tehran over Gulf tensions: IRIB
Iran has summoned the Swiss ambassador in Tehran, who represents U.S. interests in the country, over recent Gulf tensions, Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said on Thursday, according to the IRIB news agency.

Trump officials eye blocking uranium from Russia, China to help U.S. nuclear industry
Trump administration officials on Thursday recommended granting U.S. energy regulators the ability to block imports of nuclear fuel from Russia and China and detailed plans for setting up a government stockpile of uranium sourced from domestic miners.

US extends economic aid to Greenland to counter China, Russia in Arctic
The United States announced a $12.1 million economic aid package for Greenland on Thursday aimed at strengthening mutual ties and boosting a renewed U.S. push for a greater military presence in the Arctic.

 

[stellar]

The remainder of the article goes into incidents that the U.S. feels is "provocations" by it's adversaries. To a large degree, the article is nit-picking at events and putting a spin on them, to give the reader the impression that if an incident escalates into a direct fighting match - the U.S. is justified in attacking?

Just speculation on my part; is Trump ,consciously or not, facilitating the war Israel wants so much so they can get their arses kicked once and for all. Yes, much bloodshed but also a possible bitter sweet end to their BS.

 

[angelburst29]

Just speculation on my part; is Trump, consciously or not, facilitating the war Israel wants so much so they can get their arses kicked once and for all. Yes, much bloodshed but also a possible bitter sweet end to their BS.

Stellar, that's a very strong possibility! And Netanyahu isn't wasting any time of getting his plans in place. Israel has been using Lebanon airspace to fly planes and missiles into Syria. In a report published yesterday, Israeli Military were seen surveying an area in a border triangle (Lebanon-Syria-Palestine) checking a military road. I doubt it had anything to do with "a technical fence"? Israel could use air cover to protect it's troops, tanks and other military vehicles crossing through Lebanon and directly into Syria?

Israeli Infantry Unit Crosses Technical Fence on Lebanon Border off Adaisseh Town


A Zionist military force, composed of 29 officers and soldiers as well as engineers holding maps, crossed the technical fence off Adaisseh town on Lebanon’s border to check the military road and remained there for two hours.

The Israeli step comes in context of preparing for erecting a new technical fence in the area which links Al-Motella to Misgav Am settlements.

It is worth noting that the Israeli occupation army detected last Friday three holes in the technical fence on Lebanon’s border along 22 kilometers, describing them as a serious security violation.

Later on, 50 Israeli soldiers crossed the technical fence at the border triangle between Lebanon, Syria and Palestine, surveying the area near Al-Wazzani river and firing four sound bombs.

Pentagon Frets Moscow Possibly Testing US Air Defenses
April 23, 2020 - The head of North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) fretted on Tuesday that three air encounters between Russian and US aircraft could mean Moscow is testing US defenses. Meanwhile, dozens of foreign planes have been spotted near Russian borders.

Meanwhile, during this same period, the Russian military has recorded dozens of close approaches of Russian airspace by foreign aircraft, many of which are US spy aircraft. Over the last two weeks alone, roughly 46 foreign aircraft were spotted performing reconnaissance close to the Russian border, Sputnik reported, citing Russian Armed Forces paper Krasnaya Zvezda.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu noted last month that in 2019, NATO stepped up air reconnaissance missions near the Russian border by 20%, and that by March 20, the US-led alliance had conducted more than 80 such missions this year.

US Forces Provoking Iranian Sailors in PG: Zarif

American forces are provoking sailors of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the Persian Gulf. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif showed reaction to the recent statements of the US President Donald Trump regarding activities of IRGC’s gunboats in the Persian Gulf.

US forces have no business 7,000 miles away from home, provoking our sailors off our OWN Persian Gulf shores,” Zarif continued.

 

[Zzartemis]

Hey folks, thanks for all the work collecting geo-political news links and your thoughts. We're so overwhelmed with the CV news, it's easy to miss important happenings around the globe....I've been watching this thread with much interest.