Lone Candle
Champion of Truth
”
More than six months after Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre, Israel is still fighting the militants in Gaza.
The IDF has managed to kill some of Hamas’ top commanders, but it continues to hunt down others.
These individuals are likely hiding underground, a top White House official said last month.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/israel-struggling-kill-top-hamas-114502763.html
“China has surged sales to Russia of machine tools, microelectronics and other technology that Moscow in turn is using to produce missiles, tanks, aircraft and other weaponry for use in its war against Ukraine, according to a U.S. assessment.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-intelligence-finding-shows-china-183204749.html
“Iran since 2019 has engaged in a series of ship seizures and attacks on vessels have been attributed to it amid ongoing tensions with the West over its rapidly advancing nuclear program.
Since November, Iran had dialed back its ship attacks as the Houthis targeted ships in the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea. Houthi attacks have slowed in recent weeks as the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan ended and the rebels have faced months of U.S.-led airstrikes targeting them.
In previous seizures, Iran has offered initial explanations about their operations to make it seem like the attacks had nothing to do with the wider geopolitical tensions — though later acknowledging as much. In Saturday’s attack, however, Iran telling offered no explanation for the seizure other than to say the MSC Aries had links to Israel.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/british-military-warns-possible-vessel-081956588.html
”
More than six months after Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre, Israel is still fighting the militants in Gaza.
The IDF has managed to kill some of Hamas’ top commanders, but it continues to hunt down others.
These individuals are likely hiding underground, a top White House official said last month.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/israel-struggling-kill-top-hamas-114502763.html
“The need for such defenses is all too clear for residents of Kyiv. Just an hour before Kuleba sat down with POLITICO at the foreign ministry on Monday, in broad, mid-morning daylight, the Ukrainian capital came under attack from Russian ballistic missiles.
A couple of loud blasts rang out just moments after air raid sirens blared across the city. Kuleba was in the city’s botanical gardens to make a video for an upcoming trip at the time.
The missiles were intercepted by Patriot air defenses. But nine people, including a teenage girl, were still injured from falling debris, including in the district near to where Kuleba was filming.
The foreign minister’s demand comes at a fraught moment for Ukraine in its attempt to repel Vladimir Putin’s invading forces. Western support, strong at the start of the invasion two years ago, has weakened in recent months, with a major new U.S. aid package held up by partisan divisions in Congress.
European allies have struggled to plug the gap in the supply of funding and arms that Kyiv so badly needs. Ukraine’s war of self-preservation is precariously placed. Russia is making advances on the battlefield and Putin, fresh from a distorted election victory, is leaping on every opportunity to intensify the Russian assault.”
https://www.politico.eu/article/give-us-the-damn-patriots-ukraine-needs-air-defenses-now-minister-says/
Israel-Palestine Debate: Finkelstein, Destiny, M. Rabbani & Benny Morris | Lex Fridman Podcast #418
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1X_KdkoGxSs
General Ryan: This Is What A War With China Will Look Like | Ep. 14 General Mick Ryan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYAE2jmD-bE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TErz-kjESjM
“In September 2023, the Azerbaijani military stormed the Armenian-majority territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, driving out almost the entire population, an act that many outside observers have called ethnic cleansing or even genocide. It was the ugly coda to a long, brutal conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
During the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh had attempted to declare their independence from Azerbaijan, leading to a war that involved atrocities and mass displacement on both sides. (The territory is also called Artsakh in Armenian.) The conflict froze in the mid-1990s and restarted with an Azerbaijani offensive in September 2020.
“If they do not leave our lands of their own free will, we will chase them away like dogs and we are doing that,” Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said in an October 2020 speech. Aliyev also stated that he would welcome Nagorno-Karabakh’s Armenians as fellow citizens, a claim that Armenians were inclined to disbelieve after Azerbaijani troops beheaded two elderly Armenian men on camera.
Azerbaijan’s wars have been funded, in part, by the American taxpayer. Congress initially tried to stay out of the conflict, banning military aid to Azerbaijan in 1992. A decade later, the U.S. government reversed course, hoping to gain a new strategic ally, because Azerbaijan is located between Iran and Russia and along key air routes to Afghanistan.”
…
“U.S. military aid, which mostly focuses on border security, is not a make-or-break issue for the Azerbaijani army. Between 2010 and 2020, the majority of Azerbaijan’s weapons came from Russia, with smaller contributions from Israel, Belarus, and Turkey. Russia also supplied nearly all of Armenia’s weapons in the same period.
In addition to selling weapons to both sides, Russia has had peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh since November 2020. Those troops have largely not acted to protect the local population.
However small U.S. aid was in the grand scheme of things, Hamparian believes that the very existence of that aid was “morally emboldening” to Azerbaijani leaders, who thought they had an American green light.”
https://reason.com/2024/02/29/the-armenian-azerbaijani-conflict-comes-to-michigan/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXQlmpdydPY