Previously:
Tag: military operations
How is the US Convincing the Philippines to Destroy Itself?
As China rises, Asia rises with it. The Southeast Asian state of the Philippines stood to rise alongside the rest of the region until relatively recently as the United States successfully convinces the Philippines to do otherwise.
How is the US Convincing the Philippines to Destroy Itself? (archived)
Related:
PH’s PressONE is funded by several US front organizations:
The Philippine Fact-Checker Incubator was established with the financial backing of Facebook, in collaboration with VERA Files and Rappler. The incubated organizations include ABS-CBN News & Current Affairs, Manila Broadcasting Company, MindaNews, Philstar.com, PressONE.ph, and Probe Productions. They are accredited by the International Fact-Checking Network. – PFCI, Poytner.
Poynter Institute has been funded by the Gates Foundation, the Koch Network, the National Endowment for Democracy, the Omidyar Network, and Open Society Foundations. Other sponsors are CNN, the Scripps Howard Foundations, Craig Newmark Philanthropies, the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation, TEGNA Foundation, etc..
The Postwar Vision That Sees Gaza Sliced Into Concentration Camps
The Postwar Vision That Sees Gaza Sliced Into Security Zones
A plan that is gaining currency in the government and military envisions creating geographical “islands” or “bubbles” where Palestinians who are unconnected to Hamas can live in temporary shelter while the Israeli military mops up remaining insurgents.
Other members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party are backing another, security-focused plan that seeks to slice up Gaza with two corridors running across its width and a fortified perimeter that would allow Israel’s military to mount raids when it deems them necessary.
The ideas come from informal groups of retired army and intelligence officers, think tanks, academics and politicians, as well as internal discussions inside the military. While Israel’s political leadership has said almost nothing about how the Gaza Strip will look and be governed after the heaviest fighting ends, these groups have been working on detailed plans that offer a glimpse of how Israel is thinking about what it calls the Day After.
The plans—whether or not they get adopted in full—reveal hard realities about the aftermath that rarely get voiced. Among them, that Palestinian civilians could be confined indefinitely to smaller areas of the Gaza Strip while fighting continues outside, and that Israel’s army could be forced to remain deeply involved in the enclave for years until Hamas is marginalized.
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According to people familiar with the effort, it aims to work with local Palestinians who are unaffiliated with Hamas to set up isolated zones in northern Gaza. Palestinians in areas where Israel believes Hamas no longer holds sway would distribute aid and take on civic duties. Eventually, a coalition of U.S. and Arab states would manage the process, these people said.
Ziv, who oversaw Israel’s exit from Gaza in 2005, proposes that Palestinians who are ready to denounce Hamas could register to live in fenced-off geographic islands located next to their neighborhoods and guarded by the Israeli military. This would entitle them to reconstruction of their homes.
The process would be gradual, and in the longer term, Ziv envisages bringing the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority back to Gaza as a political solution, with the whole process taking roughly five years as the military fights Hamas insurgents. Under his plan, Hamas could be part of Gaza’s administration, if it frees all the hostages held there and disarms, becoming purely a political movement.
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Northern Gaza, under the plan, would remain without reconstruction, and Palestinians there wouldn’t be allowed back to their homes until Hamas’s miles-long tunnel network was destroyed. Like the bubbles plan, it promotes the notion of de-escalation zones where aid can be delivered by the Israeli military or by international forces, but stops short of articulating an idea for governance.
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Another plan published by the Washington-based Wilson Center* also advocates a coalition-style approach to the conflict but refrains from calling for Israel to consider the adoption of a Palestinian state. It says the U.S. should establish an international police force to manage security in Gaza and over time hand the job to a yet-to-be-defined Palestinian administration.
Robert Silverman**, a former U.S. diplomat in Iraq who is a co-author, said his team discussed the plan with Israeli officials for months, even changing parts of the proposal to make it more agreeable to Israel’s war objectives and political dynamics, but it stalled with the prime minister’s office.
“He believes we finish the war first and then plan the postwar,” Silverman said of Netanyahu. “All the people who have done this before say that’s a huge mistake.”
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Another document, drafted by Israeli academics, that has made its way to the prime minister’s desk draws on historical precedents in rebuilding the war zones in Germany and Japan after World War II, and more recently in Iraq and Afghanistan. It considers how to tackle Hamas’s Islamist doctrine by learning from the defeat of ideologies such as Nazism and that of Islamic State.
Related:
The Strategic Hamlet Program (SHP; Vietnamese: Ấp Chiến lược) was a plan by the government of South Vietnam in conjunction with the US government and ARPA during the Vietnam War to combat the communist insurgency by pacifying the countryside and reducing the influence of the communists among the rural population through the creation of concentration camps.
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The Strategic Hamlet Program was unsuccessful, failing to stop the insurgency or gain support for the government from rural Vietnamese, it alienated many and helped contribute to the growth in influence of the Viet Cong. After President Ngo Dinh Diem was overthrown in a coup in November 1963, the program was cancelled. Peasants moved back into their old homes or sought refuge from the war in the cities. The failure of the Strategic Hamlet and other counterinsurgency and pacification programs were causes that led the United States to decide to intervene in South Vietnam with air strikes and ground troops.
The *Wilson Center plan isn’t much better. 👇🏻
Related:
Read More »Philippines: Expose and denounce the American warmonger Col. Raymond Powell
😹
Fight Back News Service is circulating the following statement from the Communist Party of the Philippines.
Former US air force colonel, Raymond M. Powell, is an active psywar operative, interventionist, war-monger and American agent-provocateur. From an obscure career in the US military, he has been receiving much air time from big Philippine media organizations since last year, touted as a “security analyst” and “expert on maritime issues.”
Philippines: Expose and denounce the American warmonger Col. Raymond Powell
Previously:
How the Philippines ‘covertly’ reinforced the BRP Sierra Madre
China reveals Philippine Personnel secretly resupplying BRP Sierra Madre by posing as Fishermen
Personally, I think that these “Secret” Operations are being done by the Naval Special Operations Command (NAVSOCOM) of the Philippine Navy (PN) as this seems to fall under their Area of Responsibility.
Remember that the NAVSOCOM Troops were also the ones that were involved in an Altercation with the Chinese Coast Guard (CCG) earlier this Month.
PH NAVSOCOM trains with the U.S. Navy SEALs:
Taiwan Continues Toward US-Engineered “Ukraine-ization”
The Chinese Island province of Taiwan continues to be targeted by the US and its political proxies through efforts to further consolidate political control over it and transform it into a geopolitical “battering ram” against the rest of China.
Previously:
Containing China: US Using Taiwan as East Asian “Ukraine”
Report: US Military Advisors Deployed to Taiwan-Controlled Islands on China’s Coast
The US-backed NED candidate Willy Lie from the NED-backed party won
Defying Niger exit order leaves U.S. troops vulnerable, whistleblower says
Defying Niger exit order leaves U.S. troops vulnerable, whistleblower says
“We have Army soldiers right now in Niger who aren’t getting their troop rotations, who aren’t getting their medicine, who aren’t getting their supplies, who aren’t getting their mail and the two senior people in the United States Army are sitting before me and it’s like ‘hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil,’” said Gaetz.
Previously:
BBC: Niger’s Junta Revokes Military Agreement With US
He [Col Amadou Abdramane] also alleged that the US delegation had accused Niger of making a secret deal to supply uranium to Iran. Col Abdramane described the accusation as “cynical” and “reminiscent of the second Iraq war”.
Two Of The Fastest U.S. Sealift Ships Trapped By Baltimore Bridge Collapse
The blocked entrance to the Port of Baltimore has stranded a total of four cargo ships that are on call to support U.S. military operations.
Two Of The Fastest U.S. Sealift Ships Trapped By Baltimore Bridge Collapse
BBC: Niger’s Junta Revokes Military Agreement With US
Niger’s Junta Revokes Military Agreement With US
“The US presence on the territory of the Republic of Niger is illegal and violates all the constitutional and democratic rules which would require the sovereign people… to be consulted on the installation of a foreign army on its territory,” Niger’s military spokesperson Col Amadou Abdramane said in a damning statement on national television.
He also alleged that the US delegation had accused Niger of making a secret deal to supply uranium to Iran. Col Abdramane described the accusation as “cynical” and “reminiscent of the second Iraq war”.
And finally, he suggested that the US had raised objections about the allies that Niger had chosen. “The government of Niger therefore strongly denounces the condescending attitude combined with the threat of reprisals by the head of the American delegation against the government and the people of Niger,” Col Abdramane said.
The Gaza Maritime Route Was Netanyahu’s Idea, Maritime Aid Corridor Will Advance the Overthrow of Hamas, & When Will US boots be on the Ground in Gaza?
Diplomatic source to ‘Post’: Gaza maritime route was Netanyahu’s idea
According to the source, on October 22, two weeks following the war’s outbreak, Netanyahu discussed with President Biden the concept of “delivering humanitarian aid to Gaza via the sea, contingent on an Israeli inspection in Cyprus.”
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Years before the Gaza war, Israel Katz, now the Foreign Minister, had drawn up plans for a maritime route via Cyprus involving a floating island.
The project was never executed. But he revived it after the war began on October 7.
Related:
Gallant: Maritime Aid Corridor Will Advance Overthrow of Hamas
“The process is designed to facilitate aid directly to civilians and in this way, it advances [our goal] of overthrowing Hamas’ rule in Gaza,” the minister said.
“We will facilitate aid via the maritime route that is coordinated with the United States (security and humanitarian aspects), with the assistance of the United Arab Emirates on the civilian side,” he said. “It will include the appropriate inspections in Cyprus, and the goods will be brought by international organizations with American assistance.”
Air, sea, and land: When will US boots be on the ground in Gaza? Authored by Yonah Jeremy Bob*
Then suddenly, last Thursday, US President Joe Biden announced that the US would also supply maritime aid to Gaza, including building a makeshift artificial port off the coast.
This already imposes a long-term US military footprint in Israeli-Gaza territorial waters rather than a “mere” series of fly-throughs.
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How hard would it be for a small complement of US Marines accompanying the aid deliveries to travel a kilometer or so into Gaza and to place themselves squarely in the middle of where Israel
does notwant them?…
Moreover, US forces have been and are already on the ground.
US generals and counter-terror experts have been in and out of Israel since the start of the war, including visits to Gaza.
There are also a variety of US military personnel regularly in Israel on military and intelligence exchange programs.
US attempts to reform the PA
Speaking of intelligence, multiple times when a decision was made to try to improve and reform the Palestinian Authority security forces, it was the CIA and US special forces who came to the West Bank and Gaza to help train and prepare these forces.
It seems quite likely that the Jewish state, at some point, will ask Washington to perform the same service again in Gaza.
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A broader version could involve a US-led peacekeeping force handling internal Gaza security for an indefinite period until enough Gazan Palestinians disconnected from Hamas can be convinced that taking on this role will not lead to them being slaughtered later by a resurgent Hamas.
From this perspective, the question about US forces on the ground in Gaza seems less of an if than it does a when, how many, and under more or less coordinated circumstances with Israel.
*Yonah Jeremy Bob was raised in Baltimore and graduated from Columbia University and Boston University Law School, respectively. He previously worked for the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Israeli Military International Law Division, and the Israeli Justice Ministry. – Wikipedia
Ms. Cat’s Chronicles 
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