Ukraine conflict heats up.

 MOSCOW INFORMS WEST TO EVACUATE EMBASSIES

BOTH SIDES ESCALATE

In the last few weeks Ukraine has attacked inside Russia in an increasing escalation, Russia responded with massive drone and missile attacks all across Ukraine. A few days ago Ukraine attacked a school dormitory that killed 22 students and injured scores, now it appears Russia is planning a massive attack on Kiev. 

There have been much speculation that Putin is under increasing pressure to bring this conflict to a close by increasing the level of military action, this may now be what is about to happen. 

Ukraine with the assistance of NATO members has used large numbers of NATO supplied drones for most of these attacks, even using NATO airspace for attacks inside Russia. Leaders in Russia are advocating attacking the sources of these drones, which will be an attack on some NATO members, then they will have to decide if they are ready to go to war with Russia.

In the next few days we can expect some unprecedented attacks on the decision centers of Ukraine in Kiev as NATO countries have all been informed to evacuate their personnel from Kiev, what comes next is still not clear.

Zelensky asked Trump for more air defenses but it is doubtful that any more is available.

Russia has lots of weapons to use to escalate and lots of targets to expand the conflict. Does the West have resources and the will to match that escalation?

Day 88, Talk of Peace, just talk, no substance.

 KEEPING MARKETS CALM

NO TALK OF ADDRESSING ROOT CAUSES

We are subjected to the daily narrative that peace is at hand and much progress has been made. In realty, the ceasefire is at the same place it was over 6 weeks ago, still looking for a way to defeat Iran without crashing the global economy. This week we saw U.S. attacks on Iranian boats and infrastructure supposedly in self defense even though the boats were close to the Iran's shore. This and drone and other flynear attempts all seem to be just hoping to locate Iran's air and other defense positions to be targeted in a future attack. There really is no desire for a lasting peace treaty with Iran, Israel wants the country destroyed and Trump wants control of the oil. It is just that simple.

Now we hear Trump proposing that part of the peace deal is for all countries in the region join the Abraham accords and recognize and normalize relations with Israel. What is missing from all this talk of peace is any mention of the Palestinian question and what is still going on in Gaza and the west bank. The very question that started this whole war and the very question that has been ongoing for near 8 decades. Very interesting, that it is never part of any talk about a regional normalization of relations. 

If there really was a hope of a comprehensive change in the political climate in the region, yes all parties should be involved, and that would include some resolution of the Palestinian problem. 

I suspect the focus on an end to the Iran war and the hope of not destroying the global economy is in some way a distraction from any real effort of a lasting solution for peace in the region. It may be time for the international community to lay out the real borders of Judea and also to carve out some place for the Palestinian people, otherwise this will continue for another 8 decades or until it is ended by nuclear war.

Tulsi Gabbard resigns. 3rd resignation at National intelligence agency.

 BEING A FIGUREHEAD IS VERY FRUSTRATING

JOE KENT AND AMARYLLIS FOX KENNEDY LEFT EARLIER

Tulsi Gabbard has resigned from her position as Director of National Intelligence. It was clear from the beginning of this administration that she and U.S. intelligence was mostly sidelined from the decision making process. Early on, she testified that U.S. intelligence was confident that Iran was not in the process of making nuclear weapons and had abandoned that idea in 2003. Up until 2025 the IAEA who had inspectors on the ground backed up that analysis. Iran had publicly disclosed that they had enriched Uranium up to 60% after the U.S. pulled out of the nuclear agreement, mostly in an effort to renegotiate that agreement.

After those statements from Gabbard she was no longer visible in the administration and Trump publicly claimed he had better information, presumably from Israeli Intelligence.

In the last few weeks she also disclosed that she was investigating U.S. funded biological labs in Ukraine and other countries, one must wonder if that was the impetus for pressure for her resignation. We can expect we will never hear of that investigation again. 

Gabbard was sent out to investigate election interference in Georgia, hardly the role of the Director of National  Intelligence.

There have been reports of a raid on her office by the CIA, who she is supposed to oversee, that took records concerning the JFK files and the MKUltra program, a program that was supposedly discontinued concerning mind control with experimental drugs and methods.

Tulsi Gabbard was viewed by many as honest and sincere in her hope of foreign policy reform, we can expect she is an example for others who should entertain such ideas.

Flotilla members abused by Israel while in captivity.

 NATIONAL SECURITY MINISTER PARTICIPATES

ISRAEL DENIES IT IS GOVERNMENT POLICY

On May 19, a flotilla of 41 vessels, called the "Global Sumud Flotilla"  was approached and boarded, by Israel military forces about 167 miles off the the Gaza coast in international waters. 428 of the members were taken captive and taken to israel. This is not the first time and possibly not the last such incident, but what has raised condemnation worldwide is the treatment of the captives members of 40 countries. Videos have emerged that have shocked most of the international community with obvious abuse and humiliation methods used.

The captives, with hands bound, were forced to crawl across the floor, kiss the Israel flag and swear allegiance to Israel.  Some were beaten for resisting with numerous injuries and they were deprived of water for over 30 hours. 

The worst part is that video show Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel's National security Minister. participating in these practices. 

While there has been condemnation inside of Israel, claiming that his is not Israeli policy, I suspect that if any national leader of any country engaged in such practices, he would be immediately be removed from his position. 

No matter what one might think about the flotilla agenda, Israel has again just given their enemies another massive propaganda victory. The U.S. government responded by sanctioning the leaders of the flotilla, without any formal condemnation.

A almost unbelievable series of abuse incidents have been reported, including sexual abuse of prisoners,  without any accountability for those involved. When the National security minister is directly participating in these abuse, it is hard to deny that this not government policy.

Trump likes to play good cop, bad cop.

 TRUMP IS ALL IN ON WAR WITH IRAN

ACCESS TO IRAN OIL DEPENDS ON WINNING

We continually hear that Trump wants a negotiated end to the Iran conflict, this would be true, if Iran would surrender and hand over control of its oil resources. Of course, that would be the easy way, but since that is unlikely, any narrative about Trump seeking every way to avoid war and Bibi Netanyahu pushing for war is just so much theater. They are both all in on resuming this war when it is the deemed appropriate.

The same good cop and bad cop is being played out concerning Ukraine, there is no estrangement with the EU NATO members concerning the Ukraine conflict. When, and if, the oil of the Persian gulf is fully under control of the U.S., the pressure will resume by the U.S. on Russia. 

The goal is to control the world's energy supplies and demand submission and enforce the use of the U.S. dollar in world trade. It is a desperate gamble to maintain the US, and western control of world affairs. While its financial power is waning it is increasingly dependent on military power. The EU countries, in the same boat, are talking about building up their militaries to go to war with Russia by 2030, another desperate gamble.

The West has plans to dramatically increase military spending, even at the expense of domestic infrastructure and other domestic spending. Increasing debt in economies already experiencing massive, unsustainable debt, huge deficits, and a currency declining in buying power by the day. Engaging in wars that cause  the rise in inflation in food and energy to their citizens, all in the hope of being the dominant power in the world, without the sound bases at home for real power. It all appears to be an all or nothing gamble rather than a planned strategy to restore real wealth and political power by example.

Supporting a declining currency by force, rather than sound economic policy is a fools game.  As for the citizens, there will not be any winning, no matter the outcome, they will all pay for the gamble with declining living standards as the best outcome, but the worse outcome will be much more severe.

Sanctions and threats losing effectiveness.

 U.S. POLICY HAS UNITED ITS ADVERSARIES

RESULTS OFTEN COUNTER PRODUCTIVE

The United States now has sanctioned most of Asia with either primary or secondary sanctions. India has been a target, a country that sought neutrality from the global political conflicts, has refused to give up its nation's well being by honoring those sanctions. Sanctions that attempted to cut off Russia's sales of energy to India and raise the cost to India. China has recently forbade its refineries from obeying U.S. sanctions against Iranian and Russian oil. 

While India and China are the biggest countries not obeying sanctions and often costing them with trade with the U.S., they perceive that their countries best interest is to not get involved in these sanction schemes. The one principle for inclusion in the BRICS economic union is not engaging in sanctions on member countries. This represents over 50 % of global trade. 

While countries like Iran, Cuba and Venezuela have been under sanctions for over 50 years the Ukraine war and the attempts to isolate Russia led to sanctions exploding to all over the globe. After 4 years, Russia is still selling oil, even to the EU and Ukraine, while the diminished supply has devastated the economies of Europe. The incentives to buy oil from Russia has increased for India and China and has actually strengthened their relations in other ways.

Sanctions, while damaging those nations it targets, has become increasingly less effective, because nations resist damaging their own economies by enforcing sanctions. 

When santions become ineffective the next step is military action, enforcing embargo's,  capturing ships at sea or damaging nations oil infrastructure, all acts of war. Europe and Russia are now on the brink of war and we can expect either a cessation of these actions or war is inevitable.

While the U.S. has, so far, suffered little by imposing sanctions, we can expect that there are plenty of avenues for even nonmilitary retaliations. One that has been evident in the last few days is the large increase in yields of U.S. debt. This could be by BRICS nations no longer buying U.S. debt plus Gulf countries in need of cash to compensate for their lost oil revenues, caused by the Iran war. The yield on the 10 year is now 4.67% and on the 30 year 5.19% . This will dramatically increase the cost of servicing this debt and will increase the deficit of the U.S. budget. This may only be the first shot in retaliation in the economic warfare that has been underway for years.

Escalation before any peace seems inevitable.

 ESCALATION BOTH IN IRAN AND UKRAINE

GLOBAL ECONOMY GOING DOWN

Today it looks like escalation of the conflicts in Iran and Ukraine is on the menu. While Iran is taking up most of the news the more dangerous escalation is underway in the Ukraine conflict. Ukrainian drones, supplied by NATO countries, are increasingly targeting Russia and particularly Moscow. There are now also drones being launched by some Baltic countries into Russia and Lithuania is encouraging NATO to attack Kaliningrad the Russian territory in the Baltic. 

Pressure is building inside Russia to send a clear signal by some sort of retaliation to NATO, if the Baltic countries continue on their present path they may be the first to experience this message and it will probably be significant. This will bring about a dilemma in NATO, as they will then need to decide if they want to go to war with Russia for real, with the consequences.

There is no hope of any settlement in the Iran war. The U.S. demands essentially translate to disarmament of Iran which would leave them open to Israeli attacks and the inevitable end of their sovereignty. More attacks on Iran will very likely damage the global oil supply for possibly years, as Iran does have the capability to attack the oil infrastructure of the entire region. This would bring about a global economic crisis.

A negotiated settlement capable of ending this will signify a loss by the U.S., while possibly preserving the global economy, it would damage the political power of the U.S.. 

Wile the EU is searching for a possible negotiator to deal with Russia, a difficult undertaking, as it seems there is a dearth of real diplomats available. 

The same goes for the U.S., which seems beholding to numerous factions, all favoring more war, there are no real diplomatic negotiators on the horizon. The present U.S. negotiators have a poor record and now little respect or credibility with their counterparts both in Iran and Russia.