Connexion
This is a really good geopolitical overview and not only about Venezuela, but describing how Venezuela became the fulcrum of change to multipolarity and the start of the end of the Monroe doctrine.
I am not sure if Mearsheimer’s face should be on there, but the content is accurate until one gets to the end, where the video proposes that the US still has the opportunity to rectify its strategic mistakes. I don’t believe so, and so this video is for the good analysis of the process of the fall of empire in the first 3/4.
Venezuela just shattered the unwritten rules of the Western Hemisphere — and Russia made sure the world noticed. In this special geopolitical investigation, we unpack how Russian warships sailed into Venezuelan waters with calm precision — a symbolic strike at two centuries of U.S. dominance in the Caribbean. This wasn’t merely a naval visit. It was a challenge to the Monroe Doctrine itself — the old idea that Washington alone sets the boundaries of power in the Americas.
What the world witnessed wasn’t Russian aggression… It was Russian positioning — a strategic counter-move decades in the making. From NATO’s long eastward push to years of sanctions pressure on Venezuela, we trace how U.S. policies inadvertently drove Caracas deeper into Moscow’s orbit. The result: one of the most consequential geopolitical realignments in the Western Hemisphere since the Cold War.
Backed by verified research, foreign-policy scholarship, and historical context, this episode explores: • why Venezuela became a central arena of U.S. influence after the Cold War, • how sweeping American sanctions punished its economy — but failed to force political change, • how Russia built a slow, deliberate strategic lifeline to Caracas, • why the Caribbean can no longer be assumed to be an uncontested sphere of U.S. influence, • and why the quiet arrival of Russian destroyers signals a new era in hemispheric geopolitics. Told in the analytical spirit of John Mearsheimer, this long-form deep dive links realist theory to modern power struggles — revealing how the cracks in the unipolar world first appeared not in Europe… but in the Caribbean.
“… congressman Wilbur Mills, often called “the most powerful man in Washington,” was a married man from Arkansas. Unlike Clinton, he didn’t settle for Lewinsky or Trump. Sex and war is a permanent 69 in the American psyche…”
with gratitude to Linh Dinh at Postcards from the End.
(R): Washington DC, 7/27/17
Jewish Crusade! — Nov 28, 2025.
Besieged, Trump is momentarily saved by two West Virginians barely out of their teens. On duty in DC illegally since August, they were shot near Faragut West, the safest part of the capital. Just a block north is K Street, known for its lobbyists. Half a mile away is Mpire Gentlemen’s Club, DC’s classiest. Camelot, also on M Street, is long gone. I poked my head in there a few times. DC has always had the nation’s best strip bars, where everything is shown. Do you expect the most powerful and corrupt to stare at pasties? They have no patience for glimpses of bushes and gashes niggardly flashed every few minutes. They want everything yesterday.
When I first got to know DC around 1980, the sleazy 14th Street scene was still going strong. It’s not unlike NYC’s 42nd, best known to outsiders through Taxi Driver. Like M Street, 14th was also a short walk from the White House, the mayor’s office and, of course, K Street. Powerful lawyers and lobbyists needed dancing white flesh plus alcohol to relax a bit. Tentatively, I prowled 14th Street. Working at McDonald’s and just learning how to drink, I was too young, innocent and broke to know anything about the Silver Slipper on 13th Street, with its legendary Be Be Sweet, Gi Gi Lamour, Bubbles Seville and, of course, Fanne Foxe, “The Argentine Firecracker.” Caught with congressman Wilbur Mills right by the Jefferson Memorial in 1974, Foxe jumped into the water to save his reputation and her ass, so later became known as The Tidal Basin Bombshell. Sex and war is a permanent 69 in the American psyche.
Twenty-seven years older than Foxe, Mills was a married man from Arkansas. Unlike Clinton, he didn’t settle for Lewinsky or Trump. As drunk as Hegseth, Mills staggered onto the stage of Boston’s Pilgrim Theater as his Tidal Basin Bombshell was stripping. To the disappointment of all, Mills didn’t perform any Bangkok number. Just a month earlier, Mills had retained his seat with 60% of the votes. No gadfly, Mills served 19 terms [!!!] in congress and was often called “the most powerful man in Washington.”
What’s known is barely an icicle on the iceberg. DC has always been a cesspool of depravity. Two miles from Faragut West is the Georgetown Starbucks where 25-year-old Mary Mahoney was murdered. Though cops claimed robbery, not a dime of $10,000 sitting right there was taken. Just three days earlier, Newsweek announced a “former White House staffer,” believed to be Mahoney, was going to come out with stories of being sexually harassed by Bill Clinton.
Midway between Faragut West and Georgetown is Foggy Bottom. It’s a name both poetic and creepy. DC should really be called Foggy Bottoms. Counting presidents, senators, congressmen, military brass and an army of journalists, DC has more whores, each one certified kosher, than anywhere else on earth or in history.
Washington DC (L): 2/22/17 ; (R): 3/10/15
In mid-19th century, the capital’s best known whorehouse was run by one Mary Ann Hall. It had around 25 rooms with up to 17 “substitutes.” Young bodies substituted for aging wives. Some mulattos were always available. Then as now, rich, classy white men needed variety. On Maryland Avenue within sight of the US Capitol, this bawdy house lasted for +40 years!
DC’s power center is also its playground, so must be well protected. National Guards sent in by Trump are meant to be seen, it’s a PR stunt, for now, so they’re around the White House, Faragut West, the National Mall and Union Station, America’s best and safest train terminal. They’re not in ghettos since no tourists go there. To pass the time, uniformed soldiers pick up trash. Unlike ICE psychos, they’ve pretty much behaved very well, for they didn’t sign up to terrorize fellow citizens. Now that two of their own have been shot, at least some will behave like ICE assholes, so hope Trump, Hegseth and, above all, Stephen Miller.
As for the alleged shooter, 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal, he loved America enough to work for the CIA in his native Afghanistan. He believed Devious Samuel’s promises of freedom, democracy and the rule of law. Settled in Bellingham, Washington with a wife and five children, Lakanwal supposedly drove all the way to DC not to shoot Trump or any politician, but two National Guardsmen, though they can easily be found in nearby Portland, OR. Driving 10 hours daily, it would have taken Lakanwal four days just to reach DC, so he had plenty of time to rethink his rash decision, if that’s what it was.
Since the Jewish operation of 9/11, whites serving Jews have destroyed one Muslim nation after another, as well as themselves, by the way. The day before the DC incident, some whites even showed up in Dearborn, MI to taunt Arabs with a pig head on a spear. In another incident this month, the Koran was stomped on. Biden then Trump have enabled the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Hundreds of thousands have been murdered. With all these provocations, it’d be perfectly understandable for Muslims inside the US to retaliate. What Lakanwal supposedly did serves neither Muslims nor himself, however, but only Trump and MAGA.
Laura Loomer spoke for millions when she tweeted, “That’s it. I want a King.” MAGA morons have treated Trump like one all along. Paranoid or enraged soldiers will now flood into American cities.
(L): Saint Paul, 7/5/14 ; (R): Minneapolis, 7/4/14
Homeland Wrecking Globalists — Nov 29, 2025.
Pete Hegseth’s American Crusade begins with this quotation, “There is not room in the country for any fifty-fifty American, nor can there be but one loyalty—to the Stars and Stripes.—Theodore Roosevelt.” Immediately, I think of Jews First Jews, but not Hegseth, of course, or Trump. When you’ve gotten so many Christian children to rape and torture, you must be grateful to your Jewish benefactors.
Chapter five is “GLOBALISM: THE WORLD’S WORST CITIZENS.” Hegseth’s ghost writers and editors need some English tutorial from this fifty-fifty American, or you can just call me a 100% Vietnamese who speaks, with embarrassment and strains, some English. It should be, “GLOBALISTS: THE WORLD’S WORST CITIZENS.”
Since the most powerful globalists are Jews, as we all know, including dimwit Hegseth, this word must be sidestepped, but globalism is an ideology or mindset, so can’t be citizens of any kind. That makes as much sense as saying, “Capitalism: The World’s Worst Citizens,” or, “Judaism: The World’s Best People.”
In chapter 5 is “THE MOSQUES OF MINNESOTA.” There are mosques everywhere, and churches, too. What Hegseth is warning about, though, is his home state being swarmed by Muslim fanatics, “Instead of embracing Minnesota and American culture, most Somali Muslims have maintained a highly insular existence. As FOX News has reported—and as I saw for myself during multiple trips to Minneapolis for FOX & Friends—for Somali residents in large urban neighborhoods it’s possible to go about day-to-day business without ever interacting with a non-Somali.”
That was true of Poles, Irish, Italians and Jews, too, just a century ago. More recently, older Vietnamese, Cambodians, Laos and Hmongs, all refugees fleeing the aftermath of American “engagement” in their native lands, could function without much interaction with white Americans, but their children have only been too eager to become more white or Nordic than even Pete Hegseth.
Hegseth, “I walked the streets of ‘Little Mogadishu’ in Minneapolis for hours, encountering Somali Muslims, many of whom have lived in Minnesota for years and most of whom did not speak English. When I asked a local Somali teenager whether his Islamic school taught about American law and the US Constitution, he looked confused and said, ‘Actually, I have no idea about that one.’ When asked if it teaches Sharia law, he quickly said, ‘Yes, Sharia law.’”
Most white teens also have no idea about the US Constitution. They can name dozens of rappers and hundreds of athletes, few of whom are white. Who dominate the music industry, professional sports and the media, Hegseth? If a Somali teen is going to an Islamic school, of course he’s getting religious instructions, just as a white kid is half paying attention in Bible classes. With his earbud, he’s listening to Diddy diddled Justin Bieber or “Mutt” by Leon Thomas. On his phone is a cornucopia of coochies liberally dispensed by Jews. It’s an honored tradition and, by now, believed by billions to be heaven on earth. The Second, Third and Fourth Comings are here! Screw Magazine’s Al Goldstein, “The only reason that Jews are in pornography is that we think that Christ sucks. Catholicism sucks. We donʼt believe in authoritarianism.”
Hegseth’s arguments about mass immigration, woke culture and America’s social ills have been amplified by his child raping and cock sucking boss. Trump on 11/28/25, “This refugee burden is the leading cause of social dysfunction in America, something that did not exist after World War II (Failed schools, high crime, urban decay, overcrowded hospitals, housing shortages, and large deficits, etc.). As an example, hundreds of thousands of refugees from Somalia are completely taking over the once great State of Minnesota. Somalian gangs are roving the streets looking for ‘prey’ as our wonderful people stay locked in their apartments and houses hoping against hope that they will be left alone. The seriously retarded Governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, does nothing, either through fear, incompetence, or both, while the worst ‘Congressman/woman’ in our Country, Ilhan Omar, always wrapped in her swaddling hijab, and who probably came into the U.S.A. illegally in that you are not allowed to marry your brother, does nothing but hatefully complain about our Country, its Constitution, and how ‘badly’ she is treated, when her place of origin is a decadent, backward, and crime ridden nation, which is essentially not even a country for lack of Government, Military, Police, schools, etc…”
It’s hard to believe the incontinent moron could write all that, but he signed off on it.
Let’s get real here. The most powerful nation on earth hasn’t been ruined by backward Hmongs, Somalis, Afghans, Iraqis, Syrians, Libyans, Venezuelans and Cubans, etc., but by those who wrecked their homelands, then let them into the USA to 1) exploit their labor and 2) weaken the dominant white culture and cause, to whatever degrees, social chaos.
Could all American leaders going back at least half a century be this stupid? Of course, not. Most eagerly, they kissed Jewish asses and covered their own. It’s a win, win. Trump, Hegseth, MAGA Mike, Biden, the Clintons and Obama, etc., are doing just fine.
With a minimal Jewish presence, Oriental nations are more coherent and intact, so better equipped to move forward. Though many have suffered from Jewish Marxism and American bombs, they’ve retained or regained their identities, religious beliefs, age old habits and even superstitions. What’s useful from the West, they’ve absorbed and even improved upon, and I’m not just talking about Japanese cameras and Korean fried chicken. White worship is still too prevalent, however.
Since Jesse has just arrived at Ông Bầu, let’s ask him about being terrorized by roving Somalis, “Yo Jesse, were you locked inside all the time to not be killed?”
Inexplicably, the tall Minnesotan just laughs. Living among savages must have driven him mad. Calming down, Jesse remembers, “The first time I saw a Somali must have been 1994. There was a woman waiting at a bus stop. She was dressed in traditional clothing. They all do. They hold tight to their traditions. You rarely see them in jeans. I was with a friend. He had a 32-ounce Big Gulp. He just threw the whole thing at her!”
“You’re kidding me!”
“He’s very proud of it for the rest of the day.”
“Not for a whole week?”
“No, us Minnesotans have a guilt complex because we’re Lutherans!”
“What about Somali gangs, man? Have they taken over Minneapolis?”
“Hell, no! That’t so funny. Sometimes they take over a street corner. It’s usually in their area. They don’t go into white neighborhoods. They don’t even do donuts. They just play loud music. When a very rare fight breaks out, it’s Somalis against Somalis. There were a couple of shootings, but in the Somali shopping malls. I’ve never met anyone who’s been robbed by a Somali.”
“Every immigrant community had gangs, man. Jewish ones were among the worst! You don’t hear about that.”
“The Somalis were attacked by blacks, so they had to defend themselves. Most of them lived in these two buildings called the Crack Stacks. It’s this hideous brutalist architecture.”
“Like all projects.”
“Now, their neighborhoods are normal. They’re clean. They mow their lawns. I lived in West Bloomington. There were Somalis all over. They went to Normandale Community College. Somali kids sat at the public library, studying. They worked at the blood donation place. Many of the women got into nursing. They’re entrepreneurial. If you go into their malls, you see hundreds of stores, not just restaurants but travel agencies, jewelers, perfume shops, computer repair shops, clothing stores, whatever. Because of their link to Italy, they import Italian shoes. I heard two old guys speak Italian to each other. Djibouti was colonized by France, so some of those Somalis speak French. They brought Europe to Minnesota!”
“That’s hilarious.”
“My biggest problem with Somalis is their littering. They leave bottles on basketball courts. My mom even loves them. I even had a Somali girlfriend.”
“For how long?”
“Two years.”
“So it wasn’t a hit and run,” I laughed. “I had this and this, so let’s try this!”
“No, no.”
It’s OK, then, for Jewjerked Uncle Sam to generate millions of refugees yearly, just don’t let them into the greatest white Christian nation ever, with its soldier occupied streets, tent cities and citizens shivering in storage units. Even legal immigrants should be rejected. As for seditious citizens like the Democrat Six, why shouldn’t they be executed, as urged by Trump? Law and order must be maintained.
Despite Somalis “completely taking over the once great state of Minnesota,” Trump is in charge, so don’t you worry. He’ll fix everything in two weeks. Lining up at food banks for expired cans of baked beans and Chef Boyardee, Americans just don’t realize how rich they are. If George Washington and Abraham Lincoln came back from the dead to run as president and vice president, they’d just get their wrinkled, sagging asses handed to them by the greatest American ever.
About Linh Dinh (@linhdinh):
‘Before being canceled, I was an anthologized poet and fairly prolific author, with my last book Postcards from the End of America. Now, I write about our increasingly sick world for a tiny audience on SubStack. Drifting overly much, I’m in Cambodia.
Born in Saigon, Vietnam in 1963, I lived mostly in the US from 1975 until 2018, but have returned to Vietnam. I’ve also lived in Italy, England and Germany. I’m the author of a non-fiction book, Postcards from the End of America (2017), a novel, Love Like Hate (2010), two books of stories, Fake House (2000) and Blood and Soap (2004), and six collections of poems, with a Collected Poems cancelled by Chax Press from external pressure. I’ve been anthologized in Best American Poetry 2000, 2004, 2007, Great American Prose Poems from Poe to the Present, Postmodern American Poetry: a Norton Anthology (vol. 2) and Flash Fiction International: Very Short Stories From Around the World, etc. I’m also editor of Night, Again: Contemporary Fiction from Vietnam (1996) and The Deluge: New Vietnamese Poetry (2013). My writing has been translated into Japanese, Italian, Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Portuguese, Korean, Arabic, Icelandic, Serbian and Finnish, and I’ve been invited to read in Tokyo, London, Cambridge, Brighton, Paris, Berlin, Leipzig, Halle, Reykjavik, Toronto, Singapore and all over the US. I’ve also published widely in Vietnamese.’
AHH: Please support this wonderful writer on his Substack! Thanks
“People robbed of their past seem to make the most fervent picture takers, at home and abroad. “As humans, we’re born naked and will leave with nothing,” yet another monk speaks.”
with gratitude to Linh Dinh at Postcards from the End.
Vung Tau, 11/12/25
Bill Gates, Primo Levi and Max Beckmann in Vietnam — Nov 13, 2025.
Just before 5AM, I got a call from Sơn, the NaLi Beach security guard. Come out, he urged. Sơn was sitting at a newly opened café just five yards from the disappeared Coffee Seven. I sat there once and hated it. Maybe tomorrow, I told him.
On the way to Ông Bầu, I noticed an old white guy in a “Good Morning Vietnam” T-shirt. On Thủ Khoa Huân, there’s a bar, Black Sheep, meant for them. Most Vietnamese don’t care to sit on high stools. In Macau six years ago, I hung out with an international bunch. At the bar, though, there were just me, a Chinese-American and an Indian who had spent decades in the States. We were the Americans. Others sat at tables.
Though other businesses on Thủ Khoa Huân have English names, they’re still designed for Vietnamese. Their names are telling. There’s Củi Warehouse, The Góc, Nomad Café and NBNB Bakery. It’s ultra cool to mix English with Vietnamese. A block away is Salt Water, where all those dressed up girls are snapping selfies.
In this week’s Tuổi Trẻ Cuối Tuần, a magazine aimed at the young and cosmopolitan, there’s an article by Willow Dương Liễu. Four of the seven global news pieces focus on the USA. “Salaam New York!” one screams. There’s also one on Bill Gates and AI. Sipping my second cappucino, I’m browsing this pretentious rag. (Kabu, as it’s called here, is found all over, and is even more ubiquitous in Cambodian cities.) On the back cover is some freak with a chest tattoo. He wears something like a crusader hood crossed with a keffiyeh. Words fail me.
Most curiously, there’s a translation of Primo Levi’s “Cena in Piedi.” First published in La Stampa on 1/22/77, it’s about a kangaroo at a dinner party. Of course, this springy beast feels very out-of-place until some chick comes by to stroke and caress him. Unfortunately, her hands never reach his tails and thigh. Is this kangaroo a Jew about to be sent to Auschwitz? It’s bad enough to be a minority anywhere.
To help Vietnamese readers understand, here’s the beginning of Levi’s accompanying bio, “Primo Levi (1919-1987), an Italian chemist and writer of Jewish ancestry, survived the genocidal Holocaust. He became famous through works about his camp experience.”
There’s also a reproduction of Max Beckmann’s Die Nacht, perhaps his most famous canvas. Unforgivably, it’s not attributed. Worse, this scene of sexual sadistic torture with a capped man who looks very much like Lenin is meant to suggest Nazi horrors. Painted in 1918-1919, Die Nacht depicts a Jew dominated Germany. The Weimar Republic lasted from late 1918 to 1933.
a shot of that Beckmann illustrating a Levi story
In the sports section, Mahathir Mohamad is quoted, “It’s a real shame that non Malaysians are representing Malaysia. Though we crave victories, we should do it correctly, without resorting to cheating or fraud.” Sounds like Hitler! At one hundred years old, Mohamad is just senile. Vietnam’s star striker is Nguyễn Xuân Sơn, a Brazilian who was born as Rafaelson Bezerra Fernandes. He’s even less kosher than Stephen Miller. At least Miller speaks English.
With another world war looming, consider this Levi passage, “Most of them weren’t monsters, idiotic lechers, or perverted dandies: they were functionaries of the State, more pedantic than brutal, effectively indifferent to the daily horror in which they lived, and which they appeared to get used to quickly, partly because, in agreeing to oversee the Lagers, they avoided being sent to ‘cover themselves with glory’ on the Russian front. In short, they weren’t elegant, stylized beasts but vulgar, cowardly little men.” (That’s from his “Movies and Swastikas,” as translated by Alessandra Bastagli and Francesco Bastagli.)
Levi is describing SS men who would rather terrorize helpless women, children and the old. Beats being maimed or killed at the frontline. ICE agents are exactly like that. All you vulgar, cowardly little men better sign up with ICE before you’re sent to a real war. There’s no higher calling than serving the most vulgar, littlest man ever.
On the way to Ông Bầu, some woman on a bicycle said, “Happy birthday, uncle!” so words got out. Before encoutering the West, Vietnamese paid no attention to birthdays, only deathdays, ngày dỗ. Even years after a relative’s death, this is solemnly remembered. In Stung Treng, Cambodia, I met a woman who would rush back to Vietnam each year for her parents’ deathdays.
I’m all for the primacy of deathdays. Its only drawback is you can’t celebrate yours with those closest to you, if you had any.
As a 12-year-old retard in 1976, I saw my first Beckmanns in New Orleans. In 2002, I caught his retrospective at Paris’ Centre Pompidou. His canvases aren’t just brutal but contemplative. They also employ age-old techniques like glazing. He’s a better draftsman than Otto Dix, and his colors are better tuned than Kirchner’s. The latter was aiming for something else. It was a frightful, hysterical era, and unspeakably tragic. Somehow, it got even worse.
Vung Tau, 11/12/25
Give Us This Day Our Daily BeerLao! — Nov 13, 2025.
About two decades ago, Americans were introduced to customer service agents from India. Nearly all US companies adopted this cost saving solution. Calling your bank over some minor issue, you’d be greeted by “Rachel” or “Chase,” but with a distinctly Mumbai or Chennai accent. After ten minutes or so of frustration, many people simply gave up.
Now, there’s an AI anything to not help you out. They include doctors, psychiatrists, teachers, tutors and financial advisors. There must be AI priests. God, it’s proven, was the first Artificial Intelligence. Jesus being nailed to the cross was the first Deep Fake. It was a huge hit.
Living outside the US since 2018, I still have a US bank account. This is necessary for many practical reasons. Two days ago, I had to call Wells Fargo. Since its numbers for Vietnam didn’t work, I dialed the USA. As a cellphone adverse person, this was rather trying, but I managed to reach some guy who sounded reasonable enough. It was still a disaster.
Reached this morning to grade Wells Fargo’s service, I gave it a zero star out of ten, with this considered explanation:
Terrible customer service. Staying overseas, I was locked out of my account due to a wrong password entered. When I called the US to get this resolved, it couldn’t be done! The man online said his name was “Varney,” but would not give his last name. I doubt that’s his real name. He also gave me this as the number for my case, “k101192315.” He probably just made it up. That’s how much faith I have in Wells Fargo.
Soon as I get back to the States, I will cancel my account and switch to a more professional bank. I remember Wells Fargo being heavily fined a while back for fraud. Should have switched my bank then.
I actually signed up for Wachovia because it was in my Philly neighborhood. Wells Fargo bought it when it went bankrupt.
Before leaving for Kathmandu two weeks ago, I used Xoom, a PayPal linked service, to withdraw $1,400 from Wells Fargo. With a fee of $12.99, I paid $1,412.99. Though I had no problem receiving my money from a Vietnamese bank, I was alerted while in Kathmandu that Xoom never got $1,412.99 from Wells Fargo. Contacting PayPal immediately, I was told by an AI that everything was fine, but it wasn’t. Yesterday, I called Xoom to straighten this out, only to be told I needed to contact Wells Fargo. I’m not calling another Varney, man. Fuck it.
Given up on Xoom, I used Western Union to send money to myself. At Agribank on Nam Kỳ Khởi Nghĩa, the teller refused this transaction, however. Though I had my passport, Vietnam visa and Western Union’s code number, she said “LINH DINH” is not “LINH HOANG DINH,” as stated in my passport. Though everyone there could see she’s being preposterous, I had to walk away without losing my cool.
AI, Varneys and ditzy bank tellers are in our future. At least I’m not living in a land lorded over by moronic tyrants like Trump, Hegseth and Bessent.
At Ông Bầu, my BeerLao bottle from yesterday is displayed on a shelf. If only I could drink one or two a day for the rest of my life!
At the licker store yesterday, there was a poster for Budweiser. Buy many cans to possibly win one of ten grand prizes to next year’s World Cup. Nothing is said about securing a visa from Trump’s regime. It’s a time consuming and exasperating process for citizens of many countries. Once in, there’s no guarantee you won’t be harassed or even arrested by Trump’s goons. Knowing this, foreigners are increasingly shunning the USA. Worse than isolated, it’s becoming a pariah nation.
Bud is also dangling 200 consolation prizes. Free Bud for a year, it promises or, rather, threatens.
Eating much more sanely and walking barefoot on hard ground as much as possible have undoubtedly improved my liver and kidney. I don’t need doctors, real or AI, to tell me this. My body, especially my skin, says so. Having mostly abstained from alcohol over two years, I’m also ready to ease, ever so gently, back into BeerLao! Give us this day our daily BeerLao should be a universal prayer.
taken by Troy Skaggs (L): Marion, Indiana on 11/6/25 ; (R): Kokomo, Indiana on 11/13/25
Checking In With Troy Skaggs in Kokomo, Indiana — Nov 13, 2025.
In your group house, how many people are relying on government programs to get by? How many are working? In what jobs, for how much an hour?
-I’ve been in Kokomo since the beginning of August. After losing my VA pension while in South Bend, I couldn’t afford the room I was renting. I was in Kokomo last summer before returning to Michiana for tomato season and the winter. It’s a smaller, quieter place. No rainy day saver, I stayed a month in my folks’ basement before heading here.
I spent just over a month at the Kokomo Rescue Mission. It’s an evangelical Christian organization. I’ve been in a few others so knew what I was getting into. The Protestant work ethic goes hand in hand with salvation from sin. Six day work weeks in the kitchen and their warehouse weren’t conducive to seeking outside employment and services, but that’s how it works. I was there when Charlie Kirk was dubiously assassinated. The response at the Mission was to be expected. Prayers for Kirk, his family and this fallen life on Earth. A persecuted believers vs. the sick, sick world kind of vibe. It was hard to swallow. I always appreciate a warm meal, bunk and shower. They provided and I’m grateful for that.
I left the Mission on good terms with the understanding that the work schedule was just too much. I was accepted into the CAM (Coordinated Assistance Ministries) Center, a smaller men’s shelter. No prayers for Chuck or excessive work requirements, just guys playing video games and bullshitting all hours of the night. Patrick, a dorm mate, was a piece of work. He’d survived a drunken car/tree collision and had completed three back to back in-patient rehabs. When he asked if I was interested in smoking cocaine in the laundry room, his espoused philosophy of “radical acceptance” took on a new light. Birds of a feather flock together. I declined. Maybe that’s why he called me an asshole and a pussy on the day I moved out. Bill, in the bunk below me, just chuckled, “Hey, it’s Kokomo, man.” That made me smile.
I haven’t been able to attend to my health so the babesiosis I’d partially recovered from has returned. It’s a bitch and I’m running ragged.
I left the CAM center after signing a lease at Jackson Street Commons, a subsidized complex for military veterans. I was hesitant at first since requires some form of disability. Though I’ve had my go rounds with addiction, mental illness, physical sickness and existential uncertainty, I still like to consider myself an independent operator. Backing into the parking space Jackson Street Commons, my power steering blew.
Most of our residents are subsidized and aren’t working. Kokomo is doing better than some Indiana places thanks to Chrysler, but it’s still struggling. Most available jobs are in the service sector. That’s always a concern. We all know healthy economies don’t run on services alone. I’ve seen similar poverty in South Bend, but so far Kokomo’s a safer choice. Buttoned down factory towns can make for freak undercurrents. My buddy Steve calls it the 50-year-old wigger on a BMX phenomenon. I saw a dude a couple of blocks from here on a riding mower towing a trailer with two refrigerators and his wife on board. I always have to remember that there but for the grace of God go I. For all of my religious misgivings, I still believe that we’re all on Mr. Sky’s watch. It helps to keep that in mind. Part of me wants nothing more than to be a BMX dude. At this point, why not?
I’m in a one bedroom apartment on the third floor. The Veterans Service Officer got my pension reinstated, so I pay just over $400 a month, 30% of my pension. It’s a sliding scale, so no section eight. The unit is handicap accessible. From another resident, I learnt that at least one of my room’s previous occupants left in a body bag.
JSC houses a variety of veterans with a range of mental and physical issues. Of course, there have been many overdoses. Brandon next door has been here nearly a decade. He told me about two fatal OD’s within two weeks. That’s just the circle of life around here. I have some survivor’s guilt considering how I was able get housing in Kokomo within three months. Some of the guys at the Mission or CAM have been stuck there for months, even years.
I’m extremely fortunate. It’s a weird scene here, but it’s a scene. Time will tell. Just a few yards from my window is the flagpole. I can see the Stars and Bars, plus the POW/MIA flag right below it. A ways beyond is the Martin Luther King Memorial. I can just see the back of Doctor King’s concrete head.
taken by Troy Skaggs in Kokomo, Indiana on 11/13/25
The poor are often exhausted from overwork and worries. Still, they must socialize, so is there a bar nearby where you and those you know hang out? How much does it cost to drink there for a couple hours? In Kensington, a Philly neighborhood, I once sat next to an old woman who kept lifting an empty beer mug to her mouth. She couldn’t afford to buy another one. She did that regularly at Jack’s.
-I can’t really tell you about the bar scene here. I’m within walking distance of Tom Thumb Tavern, Elbow Room, The Hoosier Bar and The Handle Bar. I have seen a lot of activity at the Legion a few blocks away. I’m guessing these places are cheaper than in most American cities. Sadly, that isn’t saying much if alcohol prices have increased along with groceries and everything else. The Coterie, a downtown hipster place, does host some decent live music. On a summer night, you can sit anywhere downtown and listen to the bands. Most of these places are your basic, shabby working-class establishments. With plenty of bliss, torment and everything in between under the same roof, bars can be fascinating. I do like seeing folks coming and going. Due to my alcoholic history and present circumstances, I hesitate to enter bars by myself. I can have a pint or two of Guinness once or twice a year with a close friend who was born in Ireland, but that’s about the extent of it lately. My worst drinking days ended twelve years ago. I spent a lot of time in bars in my twenties. Some good times, but by the end of it all, I’d been to jail and accidentally set my car on fire outside Corby’s in South Bend. This was prior to the Army. I did a few rounds of bar hopping in Colorado Springs, but by then, I was a pretty solitary drinker.
I’m still in contact with Michelle from Philly. We got pretty close. She had some good bar stories. Miserable but tough, she’s still at the rooming house in South Bend. I think you have to be in places like Philadelphia, probably more so than the rural Midwest. Reading about the woman from Kensington says it all. It’s sad, but sometimes an empty mug is better than being alone.
taken by Troy Skaggs in Kokomo, Indiana on 11/13/25; (R): graffiti says “BOBBY KNIGHT IS A HONKY”
It’s too depressing to drink alone. It should be social, with much talking and laughing. I know of a Vietnamese nail salon guy who would sit at his kitchen table to down many Buds, fall asleep and, often enough, piss in his pants. That’s his social life, pretty much, in East St. Louis. It’s too dangerous to walk outside. Finally, is Kokomo still solidly MAGA? Is no one doubting the greatest American ever and infallible one?
-The kind of despair and isolation you mention is something I still struggle with daily. I’ve made inroads, but it’s still a problem. Budweiser was my beer of choice at the end. Much like your East St. Louis acquaintance, I’d sit in front of the TV and drink myself into a stupor. Pissing myself became a common occurrence. I was pushing the boundaries of late stage alcoholism. Towards the end of 2013, things got pretty hairy after I got discharged from the Army and booted from the oil fields for excessive drinking. Not being unable to walk safely in your own neighborhood is one of the worst aspects of living in today’s USA. I see it everywhere, in myself and others. It’s a feeling of defeat. I try to fight it because it plays into the hysteria and isolation playbook.
Again, I’m pretty lucky. There are places and situations where getting out is easier said than done. Marijuana is my surrogate crutch right now. Like many Americans, I find it difficult to function without a buzz. It is what it is. That’s the problem. Alternatives exist, but immediate gratification is the easiest option for the worn and overworked. It’s the option that many choose. A vicious cycle.
I’d place Kokomo in the MAGA camp by a margin. In the Mission’s defense, they didn’t push politics too hard besides their veneration of St. Kirk. Since Evangelicals are captured by the MAGA cult, they didn’t need to. One guy on an adjacent bunk was always on his phone talking to his girlfriend about Trump and how he needs to reinstate the Insurrection Act, to take care of business. The TV at the CAM center was usually tuned to FOX News. Vince, one of the guys there, calls it trailer park conservatism. A Stockholm syndrome of sorts. I think the desire for political salvation crosses the political divide. Like the controlled asset stripping of this country, it’s a bi-partisan affair disguised as politics.
We’re in Team Red phase. This freaking joke is on all of us. I remember reading your take on Trump in 2016. You got it right, Linh. Most didn’t. I got fooled the first time around myself. I’ve never voted. I can’t t endorse more war, more debt and less freedom each time around. Still, I had my hopes. Ten years later, it’s easier to see.
What really saddens me is that, as deluded and unhinged as MAGA has become, it’s an obvious reaction to the rhetorical and physical abuse that conservatives and traditional values took at the hands of the Woke crowd. It was nasty. I’d be pissed, too, and that’s why anger and fear are such wonderful tools for political control.
Controlled we are and controlled we will be, I’m afraid. Woke, MAGA, same monster. I’ve tried to point it out, but for my own sanity, I now leave it alone. When we outsource our minds, bodies and communities to transnational interests, why be surprised at the state of things?
Good intentions and bad habits are a toxic combo. I’m a walking example. I’m a fan of Sade, the smooth jazz chanteuse, not the perverted Frenchman, yet a smooth operator I am not. Time to smoke a bowl and think about it all.
taken by Troy Skaggs in Kokomo, Indiana on 11/13/25
Fearless — Nov 14, 2025.
Having told Sơn I would see him at his new spot, I went there just after 4AM to find it still closed. Across the street was one just opening up, so I’m there. It’s an entirely new universe. Tables and chairs are placed on the dark sidewalk. I’ve claimed someone’s regular seat, I’m sure. The guy sharing my tiny round table is listening to a Buddhist monk. Instructions on how to live is interspersed by a woman singing.
Tired of one monk, he switches to another. “Don’t be greedy, don’t steal, don’t lend money at exorbitant interest.” Then, “Get along with everybody, respect all religions.” Another woman, much older, sings.
The coffee here is not quite hot, and there are no frisky dogs. Coming from Bến Đình, Sơn on his motorbike will pass by, so should see me. At 4:22AM, that café is still closed. Now, my table mate is listening to a didactic woman. Religious or ethical instructions are his drug of choice. Five other men, all regulars and older than 50, must also be edified, if not enlightened. Nirvana is just a band whose lead singer shot himself in the head. The guy at the next table has suffered a stroke, it seems, for he has one of those three pronged canes I never saw half a century ago.
No one is talking.
This café’s owner is a squat woman with a dull face. She almost grunted when I showed up.
“As humans, we’re born naked and will leave with nothing,” yet another monk speaks.
At 4:35, I see light over there, so will head over. The owner’s daughter married an older Aussie. Let’s hear what she has to say.
That didn’t last long. After five minutes of sitting with Sơn plus another woman, Quý, we decided to vacate that joint. Its coffee wasn’t just bad, but dubious, and they refused to turn off the music. I’m at my third café, Anh Trần. Each cup here, very good, is served with a tin filter, and the tea is also fine. Across the street is a hotel, Hoàng Yến, built in the 70’s. Such buildings recall the Vũng Tàu of my childhood.
Vung Tau, 11/14/25
A white haired guy just praised a younger woman’s buttocks. “That’s like two chunks of silicone!”
“My ass is money!” she laughed back. Her cushy tushy looks real. Clearly, they know each other well enough.
A boastful man with a Hanoi accent, he’s lived in Germany and England, he tells me. He’s been all over. One hundred and seventy five countries, to be exact.
“How do you manage that?! There’s not enough time. Plus, there’s the paperwork.” A Vietnamese passport doesn’t open many doors.
Smirking, he adds, “I have two sons in the US, two in London and one in Australia. I see them whenever I want.”
“How can you afford to travel so much?”
“People give me money.”
“Who?”
“People.”
“What’s your business?”
“None. I have never worked. All my life, I’ve just enjoyed myself, and gotten into fights.”
Laughing, I turn to another man, “And he hasn’t been killed!”
“Now, I’ve hung up my sword. If I get pissed off, though, I will still fight.”
“Have you been jailed?”
“No.”
“You’re very lucky.”
“When I was 15, I survived bombs. My shelter was blown to bits. Other kids were killed. Chunks of flesh were dug out with bare hands. I survived.”
“In 1970?”
“72.” Executed with B-52’s, it’s Operation Linebacker. “Those bombs taught me to be fearless.”
Even now, not one out of a hundred Vietnamese knows what a linebacker is. The best Vietnamese-American athlete ever is Dat Nguyen, a middle linebacker for Texas A&M and Dallas Cowboys.
“You were lucky. You were spared.”
“I do whatever I want.”
“I just look.”
“I see your laptop. You’re filled with words, with knowledge. You think.”
“I just look. You do!”
“Everyone is different.” Turning to two other men, he remarks, “Look at his forehead. Flies would have trouble landing there!”
“I’ve done nothing. I only have my brain. The rest is paralyzed.” This drew laughs from the owner. She’s in her mid 60’s.
“Nearing that hole, I’ve slowed down,” continues the braggadocious. “Each man has three holes he must deal with. The hole from which he was born, his wife’s hole then the hole he’s tossed into.”
“Many people don’t even get that middle hole.”
“We’re not talking about freakish exceptions, but generally.”
Coming to Anh Trần, I didn’t expect any of this, obviously. Sơn and Quý left a while back. Since it opens at 4AM, this wouldn’t be a bad place to sit. Braggadocious has asked nothing about me. It’s fine.
He speaks Mandarin, Cantonese and English comfortably, he claims. He can do whatever and go anywhere. Vietnamese gangsters across Europe are terrified of him. Even top cops don’t dare to mess with Braggadocious. Saigon whores can’t empty his pockets.
“They’re like sharks and alligators,” I say.
“They can’t bite me. I bite them!”
Though living with any braggart must be hell, there are those who adore bombastic boasters. So sad this constant need to prove you’re not worthless.
Shut up already about all your awards, prizes, ribbons, medals, books published, contests won, pussies or dicks “conquered,” world records, championships, countries visited, weird dishes eaten or famous hands shaken. Every winner finishes last! How’s that toothache or cancer treating you? Just be thankful you weren’t slapped around, nuked or neutered decades earlier! Everyone or his grandma could have been a contender! You’re making me sick! There’s no weight division too low for you.
At 8:20AM, I finish this at Ông Bầu. Soon, I must go to Saigon to get a five-year visa, meant for overseas Vietnamese. There’s an agency that can arrange this, I think. With that, I will only need to leave every six months, instead of three.
Interviewing Troy Skaggs about small town Indiana made me want to go there, but that would mean flying into O’Hare, a state away. There are so many steps and miles before I can sit inside Handle Bar or Tom Thumb. Close enough to that hole, I should just take it easy.
There’s a desolation peculiar to the USA. It’s especially striking in rural areas and suburbs. Car culture isn’t solely responsible. No other population is as leery of mingling. More than macho DeKooning, Kline or Pollock, Edward Hopper is the most representative American artist, for he’s best at isolating this desolation. In movies and music videos, the opposite appears. That’s the American con.
Edward Hopper art
As for being fearless, I must mention Mo, Cà Phê Cà Pháo’s kitten. Yesterday, I saw him for the first time since returning from Kathmandu. There he was, sleeping on a cushioned chair.
“I’ve been away nearly a month, but he hasn’t gotten any bigger. He’s shrunk!”
This provoked much laughter, for it was a different cat. For a week, Mo disappeared. Whoever found him had replaced his collar, before Mo ran off again. Thanks to an online notice, he’s finally recovered on Nam Kỳ Khởi Nghĩa, a good mile away.
Back home, he didn’t even open his eyes when touched. Strange voices couldn’t disturb his sleep. In his brief life, he’s been lost twice, hit by a motorbike and gotten so sick, he had to spend a week at the vet. Even when half conscious, he fears nothing.
“Amazing,” I marveled. “It’s as if nothing happened.”
Like a proud parent, his owner smiled.
Such quiet assurance Braggadocious has never known. Lowered into that hole, he’ll still be terrified of ridicule. With rotting ears, he’ll hear mocking laughter. At least he doesn’t need to print his name on every piece of clothing, building or plate.
The weakest men must screw the smallest bodies. Virginal, they can’t compare him to any other. Even then, he’s still terrified.
(L): Kōji Yakusho in Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days ; (R): Hiroshi Sugimoto’s “U. A. Play House, New York,” 1978
Naked and Barefoot — Nov 18, 2025.
Three mornings at Anh Trần were enough. The Hanoian braggadocious wasn’t just tiresome but menacing. Bombastic boasters are often like that. People who admire them are like squirming worms, not necessarily with red hats. Though I have a high tolerance for all types, I must focus on my thoughts and writing. This morning, then, I began typing before 4AM while sitting outside Ông Bầu in the dark. From the house next door, a woman could be heard coughing several times.
Talking about Perfect Days, I forgot to mention Hirayama’s habit of never picking up his watch when leaving his flat. He only takes his keys and coins. Hirayama doesn’t just know exactly what he must do with his day, but how long each task should take. Neither impatient nor frantic, he’s serenely focused.
Eating lunch on the same park bench each day, Hirayama always takes photos of swaying leaves above him. Since it’s the same tree, Niko, his niece, asks, “Is that tree your friend?”
Though surprised by this question, Hirayama has to admit, “Yes, this is my tree friend.”
Hundreds of these leaf photos are kept in tin boxes. Those that don’t turn out well are thrown away. His film camera, an Olympus Stylus, is not just amateurish but old fashioned. It has no screen. Held so low, Hirayama can’t even look through its viewfinder. Only after each roll is developed does he know how many keepers there are.
Though Hirayama is admired for his zen like composure, there’s something neurotic about his picture taking, no? He takes hundreds of photos to not really look at them. Worse, he must document his enjoyment of komoberi. Defined at the end of the film as “the shimmering of light and shadows that is created by leaves swaying in the wind. It only exists once, at that moment.” All too human, Hirayama must capture and solidify such fleeting phenomena.
Like most of us, Hirayama is radically alone. Sure, he has a few friendly acquaintances at Asakusa Yakisoba Fukuchan, his noodle shop, and Beni no Akari Novu, an atmospheric old school bar whose owner can sing so soulfully, but he sleeps alone and has no deep conversations with anyone. Unable to confide his pains, fears and infinite sadness, Hirayama must stay calm. His most intimate and steadfast friend is a rustling tree.
Note that Hirayama always buys the same coffee drink from a vending machine just ouside his door. Why doesn’t he stock up on a bunch, thus save a few pennies? Always waking up alone, Hirayama needs this machine to give him, without fail, some sweetness before he’s thrust, again, towards an infinity of shitters. It’s also the only neighbor he has any meaningful intercourse with. We’re not introduced to any other.
(L): Hiroshi Sugimoto seascape ; (R): sketch by Hà Quang Đại
It’s no accident Wenders made this film in Tokyo. At the end of WWII, its destruction by the U.S. Air Force was greater than in Nagasaki and roughly equal to what happened in Hiroshima. Much of what America failed to raze, the Japanese did, in their rush towards progress and economic recovery. Even Donald Richie, who loved Japan deeply and spent 65 years there, had to admit Tokyo was “unusually ugly.” This is because much of its past is gone.
Regarding the past, photography and the Japanese, Susan Sontag has this to say, “People robbed of their past seem to make the most fervent picture takers, at home and abroad. Everyone who lives in an industrialized society is obliged gradually to give up the past, but in certain countries, such as the United States and Japan, the break with the past has been particularly traumatic.” Bombers and bombed share this unspeakable loss.
Robbed of family and community, Hirayama can only cling to images no one, not even him, cares to look at much, plus songs he can’t fully understand. Hirayama tearing up over Nina Simone is mostly fiction. Only you and I cry for real.
Before I slink off somewhere to bawl, wail and gnash my remaining teeth, I must point out Hirayama’s appreciation for tiny shifts in the mundane is very Japanese. Check out Hiroshi Sugimoto’s photos of oceans across the globe, for example, or his images of abandoned theaters. In these gorgeous temples to mass hallucinations, the big screens are still lit up, but nothing is shown. We’ve seen it all so many times, we see nothing.
Wenders’ inclusion of bathhouse scenes evokes Japan’s disappearing past. It’s striking, and exotic, to see naked men sitting on low stools to soap and wash, then soak together in a hot pool. Relaxing in a common room, Hirayama is even seen fanning a dozing old man, a beautiful touch. Most foreigners may not realize these bathhouses were, not even a century ago, unisex.
Consider this 1927 passage by Akugatawa, “He had previously been quite unperturbed about undressing in Kōno’s presence when he entered the bath located next to the kitchen. Recently, however, he had not allowed himself even once to appear to her in such a state. He was now undoubtedly ashamed of his body, which resembled that of a plucked rooster.” A pioneer writer during an unsettling era, Akugatawa killed himself just a year later.
Such inclusion and exposure are gone. Contemporary men must be screened off from each other, if not masked. His isolation ever increases. Listening to cassettes and reading complicated books in silence, Hirayama is a dinosaur, if not freak.
Sitting in Ông Bầu, I’m feet away from Mr. Đại, painting from life. He’s inserting me, though, walking barefoot past the altar to the Goddess by the banyan tree. While painting, he’s singing a Phạm Duy song from 1971. At age 50, that great song writer, a poet, really, recalled a girl he fell in love with as a teenager. Like so much else, those sweet, gentle sentiments are lost.
Vung Tau (L): 11/24/25 ; (R): 11/22/25
Westminster, Vietnam To Begin With — Nov 25, 2025.
This morning, I woke up Hùng around 5AM to get his phone number. He was sleeping in his cyclo cab, of course. “I have a Westerner who will probably hire you. He’ll call you today or tomorrow.” Groggy, Hùng looked older than his age. He’s a most gentle man, or perhaps just thoroughly defeated. Before something went terribly wrong internally, Hùng was a falling down drunk. He’ll die without ever seeing his parents, siblings or hometown of Da Lat again.
“How’s business?”
“Bad.”
“Yet you won’t make that sign!” I had urged Hùng to clearly list his price for ½ an hour and an hour. “You’re so stubborn!”
I then bought two toothbrushes from a Circle K. Since it was so early, I didn’t feel too self-conscious about walking in barefoot. With Ông Bầu not open for an hour, I decided to go to Mrs. Hạnh. She’s the one married to an impotent American for six years.
Riding past me was a woman in cycling tights and listening to a Buddhist chant on her Bluetooth. Nam mô a di đà phật, she had to hear over and over. The idea of Buddhist chanting is to empty your mind of bullshit, I think, but this chick has turned it into bicycling muzak. On that street is an ex drug addict who always sits alone before dawn to listen to Eminem. People who can’t stand silence are lost to themselves and, thus, understanding of anything, from the most trivial upward.
Since Mrs. Hạnh and her husband were still setting up, I headed to Front Beach, where hundreds of people were exercising or jogging. I sat by two young women who chattered, giggled and laughed as they loosened their joints and got their blood flowing. Doing a forward thrust, they joked about diving onto the jagged rocks below. Lights flickered along the shoreline. Some people rubbed their belly in a circular motion as they walked quickly. I used a fingernail to groove into my flesh around my ankles and soles.
Finally sitting down at Mrs. Hạnh’s, I asked if she enjoyed her eight-day Singapore vacation so many years ago.
“Of course! I also have dozens of relatives overseas.” In Bolsa and Canada. Bolsa is a Vietnamese area in Westminster, CA. Its mayor is Chi Charlie Nguyen. All three council members are Vietnamese-Americans.
Whatever happened to the annexation of Greenland and Canada becoming the 51st state? I, for one, think Westminster and Santa Ana must be ceded to Vietnam immediately, with an additional city added yearly until at least a third of California belongs to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Its residents of all races will enjoy more freedom, including economic, than under President Trump, J.D. Vance or Gavin Newsom, guaranteed.
Twice, I’ve seen a young woman helping out at Mrs. Hạnh’s. She’s not her daughter but a 34-year-old homeless woman who sleeps nightly at Trưng Sisters Park. Trưng Sisters were warriors who fought against the Chinese two thousand years ago. Think Boudica times two.
As a girl, she was taken in by a noodle soup seller at Old Market, now demolished. As a pretty young woman, she started sleeping with Westerners, so her adoptive father kicked her out. He still brings her food, and she’s paid nearly $2 daily by Mrs. Hạnh, who also feeds her. It’s charity, more or less, since Mrs. Hạnh and her husband can do everything themselves.
“Where’s your puppy?”
“He’s big!” her husband answered. “He’s at home.”
“Why don’t you bring him here?”
“He causes too much trouble,” he smiled.
There was a tiny kitten in the grass. I picked him up and caressed the beast. He started purring. When I put him down, this cat rubbed his head against my foot.
“You know,” I said to Mrs. Hạnh, “a woman sleeping alone in a park in the US would be raped in no time. Homeless people there often cluster together for protection. A woman like that cannot sleep alone outside.”
“I wish I could sleep alone,” Mrs. Hạnh joked as her husband stood by her side.
I laughed hardest. He only smiled.
Now at Ông Bầu, I just ordered a second cappuccino. Mr. Đại is painting a nude from some photo he got off the internet. It’s totally pointless, but whatever. Wouldn’t some aging whore, at least, be willing to pose for him for phở money? To be exposed and stared at for an hour might be too much.
Checking my email, I see one from Max, whom I met in Albania. In his rented car, we went to Montenegro. On his first visit to Vietnam, Max is in Da Nang. I’m pretty sure Max is Syrian. He spends most of his time in London. Go to Hội An and Huế, I just told Max. Even a side trip into Laos would be fantastic. If you decide to come down here, I’ll show you around.
Near death, I have less energy to take photos, but yesterday, I did catch two lovelies outside The Góc. One, with her butt cheeks just peeking out, was taking photos of her friend in a mini skirt. Nothing exists unless it’s photographed.
Maybe 15 years ago, a woman told me this joke in Philly, “What looks like shit and feels great?”
“I don’t know,” I replied.
“A pussy!”
Now, we must ask, What looks great and feels like shit?
Come on, man, give me the punchline!
About Linh Dinh (@linhdinh):
‘Before being canceled, I was an anthologized poet and fairly prolific author, with my last book Postcards from the End of America. Now, I write about our increasingly sick world for a tiny audience on SubStack. Drifting overly much, I’m in Cambodia.
Born in Saigon, Vietnam in 1963, I lived mostly in the US from 1975 until 2018, but have returned to Vietnam. I’ve also lived in Italy, England and Germany. I’m the author of a non-fiction book, Postcards from the End of America (2017), a novel, Love Like Hate (2010), two books of stories, Fake House (2000) and Blood and Soap (2004), and six collections of poems, with a Collected Poems cancelled by Chax Press from external pressure. I’ve been anthologized in Best American Poetry 2000, 2004, 2007, Great American Prose Poems from Poe to the Present, Postmodern American Poetry: a Norton Anthology (vol. 2) and Flash Fiction International: Very Short Stories From Around the World, etc. I’m also editor of Night, Again: Contemporary Fiction from Vietnam (1996) and The Deluge: New Vietnamese Poetry (2013). My writing has been translated into Japanese, Italian, Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Portuguese, Korean, Arabic, Icelandic, Serbian and Finnish, and I’ve been invited to read in Tokyo, London, Cambridge, Brighton, Paris, Berlin, Leipzig, Halle, Reykjavik, Toronto, Singapore and all over the US. I’ve also published widely in Vietnamese.’
AHH: Please support this wonderful writer on his Substack! Thanks
Verily, it is Victory or Martyrdom.
Venezuelans have a “true sense of belonging to a project worth saving.. This is a project of collective self-emancipation. .. Those who are committed to the Bolivarian revolution assume themselves as subjects of transformation, not as victims. And this is something to be reckoned with.”
Video Description:
“I’m joined by Cira Pasqual Marquina, author and educator at the Pluriversidad Patria Grande and co-host with Chris Gilbert of the Marxist education program and podcast Escuela de Cuadros.
I ask her:
≈≈≈
Cira Pascual Marquina interviews at Venezuelanalysis.
The Imperialist Offensive is Nothing New for the Bolivarian Revolution’: A Conversation with Ana Maldonado
A Chavista organizer examines the US militarization of the Caribbean and the Bolivarian Revolution’s enduring resistance to imperial aggression.
In recent months, Washington has stepped up its military presence in the Caribbean, sending warships, aircraft, and even a nuclear submarine to waters near Venezuela amid extrajudicial attacks on fishing vessels. For many, this new phase of aggression is all too familiar — part of a decades-long campaign of hybrid warfare designed to undermine Venezuela’s sovereignty.
In this context, Cira Pascual Marquina spoke with Ana Maldonado, a sociologist, international relations coordinator for the Francisco de Miranda Front—a national Chavista movement—and member of the Venezuelan chapter of ALBA Movements. In this interview, Maldonado offers her perspective on how Venezuelans are experiencing the latest imperialist escalation, reflects on the country’s long resistance to hybrid war, and situates the current threat within the broader struggle for sovereignty in Latin America and the Caribbean.
How are the Venezuelan people experiencing this new imperialist escalation?
President Nicolás Maduro has said that in this scenario of maximum pressure, our response must be maximum preparation. At the same time, he has called on us to combine vigilance with calm, to continue our daily lives, and to defend the peace with social justice that has cost us so much to build and preserve.
You can see this clearly in the fact that, even amid the current military escalation, the new school year began normally across the country. More than 20,000 educational institutions opened their doors without disruption, and over six million children and youth returned to class, as they do every year around this time.
While we are indeed facing a serious threat of war, people are also carrying on with their everyday lives and that, in itself, is a victory, since the enemy seeks precisely to disrupt our life.
People abroad are often surprised to learn that daily routines here continue undisturbed and that Venezuelans are not living in a state of panic. How do you explain this?
This is far from our first encounter with imperialist aggression. The tactics may shift, but the strategy remains unchanged: hybrid warfare. For years, US imperialism and its allies have waged a relentless campaign against Venezuela, beginning in earnest in April 2002 with the coup d’état and the people’s heroic counteroffensive that restored democracy. That was followed by the oil sabotage, mercenary incursions, and global media campaigns against our democracy.
After Comandante Chávez passed in 2013, a new and sustained period of aggression began. Initially, they bet that we would fail to hold peaceful elections or that President Maduro would never be elected. The dominant narrative was “Maduro is not Chávez.” With that simplistic argument, they sought to demoralize the Chavista social base, implying that the Bolivarian project would not withstand the loss of the Comandante. Yet we won the elections and, even as we mourned Chávez, the project continued.
But the US and their local agents were determined not to let us go on with our revolution. In 2014, the opposition launched a violent campaign called “La Salida” [The Exit], led by Voluntad Popular and María Corina Machado, the same factions now openly calling for foreign intervention. The following year, the United States took another war-like step: Obama’s 2015 executive order declaring Venezuela an “unusual and extraordinary threat.”
That decree was followed by the 2016 economic strangulation, marked by deliberate shortages aimed at making everyday life unbearable. Ten years later, we remain under a blockade that has killed tens of thousands.
In 2017, the most extreme factions of the opposition returned to the streets with fascist violence, committing atrocities such as the burning alive of a young Black man, Orlando Figuera, targeted simply for looking like a Chavista. More than 100 people were killed during this period of intensified fascist terror.
President Maduro responded by calling for a National Constituent Assembly, once again raising the banner of peace and democracy in the face of fascist violence. People from all sectors, including residents of middle-class neighborhoods whose polling centers had been attacked, were able to vote in peace at the Poliedro de Caracas.
Since then, we’ve lived through multiple phases of hybrid war: Juan Guaidó’s self-proclamation as “interim president” in 2019 and the “Battle of the Bridges,” when the opposition attempted to stage a false-flag operation on the Colombian border under the guise of a humanitarian aid effort. That was followed by massive blackouts that left the country in darkness for days and the 2020 Operation Gideon, recently further exposed in a Max Blumenthal interview with its US organizer, Jordan Goudreau, a former Green Beret.
None of these were isolated incidents: they are coordinated fronts in a sustained hybrid war combining political, psychological, economic, and military aggression.
Yet, in each of these moments, the government and the organized pueblo have responded effectively. During the 2019 electrical sabotage, for example, communities mobilized to ensure access to water and basic needs, while Operation Gideon was defeated by the same fisherfolk who are now being attacked in the Southern Caribbean.
So, to return to your original question: yes, people are alert because the threat is real, but we are also seasoned and organized. We know we are capable of defending the Revolution with unity and discipline. We are in a phase of maximum preparation, with millions voluntarily enrolling in the militia and preparing for the defense of the Patria [homeland].
Indeed, people are not only enlisting in the Bolivarian Militia but also preparing collectively. You’ve given us a historical account of the attacks faced by the Bolivarian Revolution over the past 25 years. But as we know, the current military buildup in the Caribbean is not only against Venezuela: it is an attack on the continent. How do you understand its broader implications?
The imperialist onslaught on the Caribbean is nothing new. Haiti, still punished today for its revolution more than two centuries ago, remains under siege. Now, armed gangs tied to the Dominican Republic are also involved. Puerto Rico continues to endure capitalist dispossession, with five million Puerto Ricans now living in the US while barely three million remain on the island. All the while, revolutionary Cuba has faced a brutal blockade for many decades.
However, the recent imperialist military buildup should deeply concern the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean, since it signals a shift in Washington’s military policy. Around 10,000 US troops are currently stationed in the Caribbean, mainly in Puerto Rico, to say nothing of the destroyers, nuclear submarine, and air force deployments.
They are not there only to threaten Venezuela; this is the revival of the Monroe Doctrine. As Trump once said, “Why pay for Venezuelan oil, if we can just take it?” That’s how they think about the resources of the continent.
When it comes to Venezuela, beyond seizing our resources, the US also aims to strip away our sovereignty and destroy the example that we represent. If our project succeeds, it will inspire the entire continent. From Canada to Patagonia, people are struggling for liberation, and the Bolivarian Revolution represents a living example of how that can be done.
Attacking Venezuela serves two purposes: to loot our resources and to extinguish the example of participatory democracy. Since 2021, Venezuela has experienced renewed economic growth and the strengthening of its communes and popular power.
That is precisely what Washington wants to halt: they fear that the peoples of Latin America, and even within the United States, will draw inspiration from our experience.
Why the military escalation at this particular moment?
Trump’s slogan “Make America Great Again” is itself an admission of decline. The US is no longer what it once was, and its elites are desperate to recover lost ground. Yet even within those elites, fractures abound between the neoconservatives, the Zionist zealots, and the MAGA bloc. Their internal contradictions often produce erratic foreign policy decisions.
However, on one point they all agree: war is profitable. The military-industrial complex remains central to sustaining the US economy. So even amid domestic tensions, there is a bipartisan consensus around war as business.
Before the recent attacks on Venezuelan vessels, President Maduro warned that they might attempt to recreate a Gulf of Tonkin incident, because their hunger for war is insatiable. He was right: this aggression is ultimately driven by the economic imperative of feeding the war machine. In a post-Cold War world, it survives through perpetual “hot wars”—and what better front than Venezuela, which is rich in resources and defiant of imperial domination?
Let’s close with Chávez. He declared the Bolivarian Revolution anti-imperialist in 2004, but in truth, it always had a sovereign and anti-imperialist character. Could you reflect on Chávez’s anti-imperialism?
Indeed. The formal declaration came during a historic rally at the Botanical Garden in 2004, but the Revolution was Bolivarian from the start, and Bolívar himself was profoundly anti-imperialist. He warned that the United States seemed “destined by Providence to plague the Americas with misery in the name of liberty.” That same spirit lives in our revolution since day one.
Chávez revived Bolívar’s anti-imperialist legacy as early as 1977, when he created the People’s Army for the Liberation of Venezuela, whose founding document enshrined Bolivarianism and anti-imperialism as guiding principles. Later, in The Blue Book [1991], he outlined the vision of sovereignty and dignity that still guides us. President Maduro calls that text a “historical compass” pointing us steadfastly, no matter how much we have to maneuver, toward our strategic goal: the defense of sovereignty and the rejection of imperial domination.
For us, being anti-imperialist means not only refusing to surrender our resources, but also defending our identity, our dignity, and our very being. The empire’s elites belong nowhere; they want the world to belong to them. We, by contrast, define ourselves by belonging to a land, to a pueblo, and to a history.
That is why even symbolic aggressions, such as the attempt to erase “Bolivarian” from the Republic’s name during the 2002 coup, or mocking us as “venecos” in an attempt to erase our identity, are part of the war.
Bolivarianism and anti-imperialism are also deeply rooted in your organization, the Frente Francisco de Miranda. Can you tell us about it?
Indeed. In 2003, Fidel and Chávez founded the Frente Francisco de Miranda as a movement of Bolivarian, anti-imperialist social workers. However, anti-imperialism isn’t limited to my organization; it’s in the bloodstream of millions of Venezuelans who have resisted International Monetary Fund impositions since 1989 and continue defending the Bolivarian project today.
To be Chavista is to be anti-imperialist. Chávez was the first Latin American president to recognize Palestine, to support the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, and to speak of our historical debt to Haiti. His backing of these and other liberation struggles was not just a matter of words but also about material support. He also linked the defense of Haiti to a history that, for him, didn’t begin with Pétion and Dessalines, but with Hatuey, the first known hero of an anti-colonial Caribbean rebellion.
That is our Chávez—the anti-imperialist Chávez—whose legacy continues to guide us!
≈≈≈
Cira Pascual Marquina is a Political Science professor at the Universidad Bolivariana de Venezuela in Caracas. She is also co‐producer and co‐host (with Chris Gilbert) of the Marxist education program Escuela de Cuadros. She is actively engaged with grassroots organizations in Venezuela and abroad, and is dedicated, both as a militant and as an investigator, to communal initiatives.
Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov: The Anglo-Saxons resisted their creation. They wanted summary mass executions, not justice nor exploration of root causes.
≈≈≈
The fundamental root cause of conflict between the Anglo-American led West and the Rest of Humanity, especially the civilizational-states, is the hypocritical bifurcation in International Law, due to recent precedence of “rules-based order” imposed by the West. This was never agreed to by the others.
It was within artificially created spaces in international law (“one law for thee, one law for me”) that a singular supremacist civilization worked to rule all the others.
“Quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi” the Latin for “What is permissible for Jupiter is not permissible for a cow” is the fundamentally unjust hierarchy of the law of the jungle, intolerable to the civilized. It largely worked until recently as they used to hold the incontestible combination of a monopoly on war of scale and economies and wealth accumulation and set the standards and management criteria on which supranational organizations function. But we are at a moment when these fundamental accumulated imbalances are being corrected. A key mechanism involves the return to the letter and spirit of universally agreed tenets of International Law by all.
Of note, Russia led similar efforts at the fair universal application of one law on all. Just prior to WW1, Russian Tsar Nicholas II was instrumental in the creation of the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, establishing the first formal statements of the laws of war and war crimes in the body of secular international law. And it is not a coincidence, as just before 1914, that under the pressure of being coerced into comity and equal relations with Others, that yet again the western realm currently flees forward into more War in order to maintain their predatory way of life.
≈≈≈
Video description & excerpts:
Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said the Soviet Union was the driving force behind establishing the Nuremberg Tribunal, arguing that Western powers initially resisted the idea. He claimed the United States and Britain feared a full investigation would expose their pre-war dealings with Nazi Germany. Lavrov also said some Allied leaders preferred mass executions over legal trials, while Moscow pushed for a formal judicial process. He added that core Nuremberg principles remain under pressure in today’s geopolitical climate.
“Question: What do you consider the historical significance of the Nuremberg trials in the post-war years and how did they influence changes in the global order?
Answer: The Nuremberg Tribunal’s founding principles were first formulated during those trials and have become the foundation of modern international law.
They also largely take into account the achievements of Nuremberg in their work. The particular significance of the Nuremberg judgment lies in its establishment of no statute of limitations for crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes.
And to our great regret, this decree states that there is no statute of limitations for these crimes and that Nazi ideology, the Nazi party and Nazi structures such as the SS, SD, and others are forever banned. Regrettably, these parts of the decree are currently being seriously tested and are often simply violated.”
“No life is boring if properly recounted. His given name, Quyết Chiến, means Determined to Fight. Quyết Thắng means Determined to Win.”
with gratitude to Linh Dinh at Postcards from the End.
Vung Tau, 11/3/25
Nguyễn Quyết Chiến — Nov 05, 2025.
An extraordinary story imperfectly told is better than one simply ignored. I will now tell you about a Vietnamese-American in Oklahoma. If alive, he’d be at least 75. His given name, Quyết Chiến, means Determined to Fight.
In 1972, Chiến was tasked with diverting ARVN troops away from the main thrust of an NVA assault. Basically sacrificed, all men in his unit died, but Chiến was captured. Weirdly enough, the ARVN officer recognized Chiến’s Nghệ An accent. Not only that, they had attended the same school. Instead of turning Chiến over to an ARVN prison camp, where at least beatings awaited, he reported Chiến as a “Chiêu Hồi” defector.
Spared, Chiến made broadcasts for the South Vietnamese, then he became a spy. In groups of three, these elite commandos were airdropped into North Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, to collect information. Of course, many were detected and killed, but Chiến survived.
Just before the Fall of Saigon in 1975, Chiến was in Vũng Tàu. As everyone, including armed ARVN soldiers, scrambled to get onto anything that floated, Chiến noticed a hysterically sobbing boy. Grabbing this kid, Chiến was determined to take him along, but they didn’t manage to get onto any boat. Now, Chiến was stuck. Death seemed certain when he’d be caught by the North Vietnamese. He’d betrayed them, after all.
Chiến’s father had fought under General Võ Nguyên Giáp at Điện Biên Phủ, and his younger brother, Nguyễn Quyết Thắng, had died during the Vietnam War. Quyết Thắng means Determined to Win. Chiến had also betrayed his family.
Again not shot, Chiến was sent to a reeducation camp way up north. Even more miraculously, the warden took a liking to Chiến, so made him a barber. Though he barely ate like everybody else, Chiến wasn’t really beaten up or put into solitary confinement. After just over five years, Chiến was released. This, too, was a stroke of luck. ARVN soldiers jailed under five years weren’t allowed to emigrate to the US under the Humanitarian Operation program.
Before leaving, Chiến had another frightful encounter. His old man had come south to look for him. Instead of giving Chiến a sound beating, his dad was shocked at how thin and poor Chiến was, so all was forgiven.
“You don’t even have an extra bowl!”
To feed his father, Chiến had to borrow one from the house next door.
I have no idea how Chiến survived in Oklahoma, but he made enough money to revisit Vũng Tàu at least once.
Vung Tau, 11/5/25
Worst To Be Safest — Nov 05, 2025.
Two days ago, I told Mrs. Seven I was headed to my grocer to get some cucumbers. Immediately, she handed me 10K (38 cents) so I could buy her the same. Hating to go anywhere, that’s mostly how she shops. Another time, she asked me to get her mosquito repellent lotion. Years ago, she risked going to those five-story buildings where many Russians lived. Somebody there sold killer sausages, she’s told. On the way back, Mrs. Seven got seriously lost, so never again.
She’s “hai lúa,” or “two harvests.” That’s a slang for hicks. They don’t know anything beyond their two harvests. And yet, a much younger Mrs. Seven went as far north as Hanoi and crossed into Cambodia to dance. Once she had to perform outside a theater filled with corpses, freshly butchered by the Khmer Rouge. Many were decapitated. When Mrs. Seven was a star at the Palace Hotel, a Taiwanese and a Frenchman fell in love with her. Others, too.
Linh Dinh Part 1 by DW Shumway
Interview with the Vietnamese-American dissident, university lecturer and banned writer
Even lives not so eventful are filled with turmoil, perhaps more than usual. No life is boring if properly recounted. Though I’ve talked much shit about the painter at Ông Bầu, his story is astounding, so let me sketch Mr. Đại, as he did me today.
His father is from Cẩm Giang, a village in Bắc Ninh, a thousand miles north of Vũng Tàu. In 1883, they converted en masse to Catholicism. During the First Indochina War, it was occupied by the Việt Minh, however. From there, they shelled French troops around 1950, so Cẩm Giang was in danger of being wiped out by French bombs. Them Frogs had planes. Since Đại’s dad was about the only one who could speak some French, he was tasked with saving his village. Approaching them with a white flag, he shouted, “We’re all Catholics! We’re not Communists!”
When the Việt Minh occupied Cẩm Giang, they forced each house to display a portrait of Hồ Chí Minh. Now, those were put away. In their places were crucifixes and portraits of Mary, Joseph and Jesus. Seeing these, the French were satisfied these villagers were indeed Catholics, so they didn’t bomb, rape or steal. They paid for every chicken, duck or pig. Unfortunately, they couldn’t stay. When the Việt Minh returned, Đại’s dad was in deep shit, so he had to flee way south, alone. Left behind was his wife and oldest son. Dead, he would have been useless anyway.
Ending up in Huế, 430 miles south, he joined the army of Bảo Đại, Vietnam’s last emperor. With a steady salary, he decided to remarry, but suddenly, his wife and son showed up. Hearing this from Đại, I protested, “What’s the chance of that?! How did your mom end up in Huế? Plus, it’s a huge city, even then. What were the odds of her running into your dad?”
“But she did,” he shrugged. “They were still in debt to each other.” It’s a Vietnamese expression meaning intertwining fates haven’t finished their courses.
In Huế, then, a second son was born, then his parents came to Vũng Tàu. Here, Đại appeared. Except for a dozen years in a New Economic Zone, he’s never lived anywhere else. As a city dweller thrust into the jungles, Đại didn’t have an easy time, obviously.
“I had been in the Boy Scouts, so that helped. Plus, I was befriended by a peasant from Quảng Ngãi. He showed me what to do. I also got help from an ARVN who spent years in jungles.”
Most incredibly, Đại still had his art supplies. In the middle of nowhere, he kept drawing with charcoal and pastels. Though Đại had no idea when his ordeal would end, and he had no audience, art kept him going.
In the late 80’s when most Vietnamese were still abjectly poor, Đại somehow went to China. He’s also been to Cambodia.
(L): Vung Tau, 11/5/25 ; (R): Saigon, 10/30/25
Had Đại been exposed to oil masterpieces over decades, he would likely have become a much better painter. Even most Americans have never seen an actual Manet, Vermeer, Hopper or Lucian Freud, etc. In the entire USA, there’s just one Da Vinci. Though books could be had anywhere, few bother to read even the best their culture has produced. Belligerently, defiantly and gleefully savage, millions march towards their Golden Age.
Finishing this at Ông Bầu, I see Morose at her laptop. Two days ago, I told her about La Gi, a town just 60 miles north. She’d never heard of it. “Go to Bình Châu, have lunch, then head to La Gi. It’s fascinating!”
Everywhere, everyone and everything is, but you’re not going to catch much if you’re always glued to a screen, masked and earplugged. Landing in Saigon after a three-hour flight from Guangzhou six days ago, I photographed one such man. From Chicago, he’s always well protected. It’s worst to be safest.
Vung Tau. (L): 11/8/25 ; (R): $3.65 on 11/10/25
Cecil Hotel in LA? — Nov 10, 2025.
This morning, I bought four cucumbers, four tomatoes, ten brown eggs and three fistfuls of shiitake mushrooms. Charging me $3.65, my grocer was apologetic, “Produce prices have gone up. There have been all these storms and floods.” Days ago, the tomato crab soup lady, Mrs. Tím, also lamented about prices. As with nearly everywhere else, Vietnam is increasingly slammed by natural catastrophes, with Hội An, its best preserved historical city, deluged with a record 42 inches of rain in 24 hours just two weeks ago. Huế, a capital city in the 17th and 18th centuries, suffered the same. Most horrible are houses or boats destroyed. Many thousands of people simply lost everything.
Several climate engineering techniques were tested, refined or perfected during the Vietnam War. Chemical weapons, too. Agent Orange is still deforming babies and killing people here, plus in Laos and Cambodia. Though made in the USA, Uncle Sam has always denied any responsibility. That’s just how he is. Boastful, bombastic and gleefully genocidal, Trump is the perfect personification of Uncle Sam. Those who love Trump aren’t ignoring his worst traits. They admire and envy his sadism, selfishness, shamelessness, vulgarity and infantilism. They wish they were Trump. MAGA men who must lie nightly next to aging wives can only fantasize about grabbing underaged pussies. Life isn’t fair.
A barista at NaLi Beach has just died from complications of Agent Orange. Telling me this at Coffee Seven, Sơn said he was surprised to find out this man was 36-years-old. He was so stunted. As NaLi Beach’s security guard, Sơn saw him each day until two weeks ago. Even gravely sick, he couldn’t afford to quit. Since he served me just once, I can barely visualize this man.
Bet you’ve never heard of Agent Purple, Agent Blue, Agent Pink, Agent Green or Agent White? Only God knows what else Sam sprayed here so liberally. What cute names, almost like a child’s crayon set.
Typing this at Ông Bầu, I notice another customer, in her late 40’s, clipping her toenails. A feeble young man with slender, easily breakable fingers is texting. Đại the painter was here sketching. Two days ago, he brought his four-year-old granddaughter. Sitting very still, she drew birds, cats, the sun, a cloud and a tree.
When I complained about everyone staring at phones, Đại said his wife has a 20-year-old nephew who’s so addicted to the small screen, he barely eats and has no actual friends. Responding to TikTok challenges, he taped his face, then genitals. He’s now on medications.
Just now, a man in his 60’s walked in with a retarded girl of about nine. Like me, they’re sitting in Ông Bầu’s small courtyard. Their low table is just a circular board resting on two truck tires. It’s so sweet to see this old man so patient and gentle towards his granddaughter. She’s eating a pretty good looking bánh mì. On her back is a cartoon cat. Now that she’s settled and enjoying herself, he starts focusing on his cellphone.
Coffee Seven is no more! Mrs. Seven has just been evicted by her half sister. Let’s call her Lanh. Though Wikitionary only defines it as fast or quick, shiftiness is implied. Devious and ambitious, Lanh is at least 20 times richer than Mrs. Seven. When her mom and stepdad got old and messy, she maintained social distancing, all right. It was Mrs. Seven who had to wash their asses thousands of times. Instead of thanking or reimbursing Mrs. Seven, Lanh is showing her the door. In months, that property will be converted into another mini hotel. Vũng Tàu already has hundreds.
Knowing she was leaving, the neighborhood loanshark came by to embarrass Mrs. Seven. Like many people up and down this street, she still owes him some money. This 68-year-old with a pot belly exuded smugness. Speaking loudly so all could hear, Pot Belly smirkingly said Mrs. Seven wouldn’t be able to close her eyes at death. This ugliest curse, he repeated several times.
Finally, he turned to Liệt, the retired teacher, to talk about Trump. Without the Donald, China would have swallowed up Vietnam already, Pot Belly sneered. This idiot with a third grade education was only drafted into South Vietnam’s Regional Forces near the end of the war, so saw no fighting. He wasn’t reeducated in any prison camp.
His first break came when his daughter married an old Aussie, then his son wedded an ethnic Chinese with some means. From his kids, then, he got enough cash to become a loanshark.
With her two dogs, Nọng and Milk Cow, Mrs. Seven has moved into her older daughter’s house half a mile away. I kept urging her to set up a sidewalk café on Đồ Chiểu, but who knows if I will ever see her again. Sơn, too, must find a new morning spot.
Left behind is a tree her dad planted decades ago. It wasn’t even on his land, but across the street. “It’s still your tree,” I joked, “so cut it down to sell the lumber!” As a parting gift, I gave Mrs. Seven some Nepali green and black tea.
Seriously thinking about returning to the US to take care of some business, I’ve looked into hotel prices in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle and El Paso. I’ve even considered staying in Juarez, across a short bridge from El Paso. In LA, the only reasonable priced hotels are around Skid Row. Stay on Main where Melissa Lam was found dead in a rooftop watertank is now called Cecil. That’s affordable. For weeks, its water tasted funny. We still don’t know what happened to Melissa.
In that fabulous land, there are no truths, only fairy tales about Lincoln, Roosevelt, JFK, RFK, MLK, Malcolm X, Moon Landings and 9/11, etc. Nothing ever said about it is remotely true, except when uttered, tweeted or pontificated by that radiant and anointed being who’s always right about everything.
Trump, Miller, Schumer and Dinh — Nov 11, 2025.
The sadistic mastermind behind ICE is Stephen Miller, a Jew whose real name is Glosser. He’s greenlit masked thugs to attack even citizens in broad daylight. There’s no transparency about the thousands kidnapped. Many were plucked from inside courthouses as they obeyed American laws. Racial profiling is rampant. Trump and Miller creamed their pants Christening one concentration camp “Alligator Alcatraz.” Judeo Christianity rules! I’d not be surprised if many victims have been tortured or murdered. Not realizing they may be next, MAGA morons cheer. In the meantime, they’re just bankrupted or starved.
Trump’s Democratic opposition is led by Chuck Schumer, the highest ranking Jew ever in the US government. Though enjoying a surge of support due to revulsion to Degenerate Donald, Schumer’s Dems have given up fighting for affordable healthcare. Us vs. Dem in US politics is always smoke and mirror.
Trumpers, though, will laugh off street protests or online outrage.
Darth Shredder, “Dems literally had NO REASON to cave… They had the polls in their favor… huge election wins to solidify it and momentum on their side. Republicans were seen as the villains, trump was losing support and getting desperate by taking away SNAP. What was the frickin point of even shutting it down in the first place? They not only got nothing… they lost the narrative and shifted all the blame to them. I’m done.”
Love One Another, “Chuck Schumer orchestrated this Kabuki Theater. He’s a lying TRAITOR! WE WILL PRIMARY YOU, CHUCK. MAGA NOT DEMOCRAT. HOW DARE YOU! Chuck just killed over 50,000 of us each year, who can’t stay alive without medical care.”
SkyP1e, “I started dialysis this year the cost comes to about $80,000 annually. I’m on disability and my private insurance dropped me right after the dialysis started so I applied for Medicaid. I eventually got approved but it took about six weeks of constant attention from me to get there. Chuck might have just killed me tonight. Thanks a lot scumbag.”
Seriously, though, how can you take people who call themselves SkyP12, Love One Another or Darth Shredder seriously? They’re no more real than Catdompa, Gigolo Joe, Mister Charlie PhD, Trinity or Arbeit Macht Frei, etc. Passing impotent gas, pseudonymous commenting perpetuates tyranny.
Genocides and economic collapse must go on.
Trump’s lead negotiator in the Middle East is Steve Witkoff. This Jew misled the Iranians into thinking the US was negotiating in good faith, but Trump colluded with Jews to attack, before bombing them himself. Though holding no official position, Trump’s Jewish son-in-law Jared Kushner has just met with Netanyahu to sort out what to do with the remaining Palestinians in Gaza.
Israeli real estate firm Harey Zahav cheerfully chirps, “Wake up, a beach house is not a dream!” Jews are salivating at moving into a Gaza free of Arabs. Trump envisions his golden statue, hotel and casino lording over them. How many prepubescent shiksas will be imported? Pain is their ultimate aim. Trump’s fingers still work, at least. Dumpster diving MAGA morons can follow the action on Truth Social or TikTok. Since they can’t afford to fly an hour to see dying grandma, they won’t be anywhere near Trump Gaza. Jews don’t care to see such vulgar red caps or T-shirts anyway.
“JESUS IS MY SAVIOR. TRUMP IS MY PRESIDENT.” “GOD, GUNS AND TRUMP.” “Liberty Guns Beer Trump” for LGBT. “IT’S GONNA TAKE A FELON AND A HILLBILLY TO FIX THIS.” Show up with any of these in Tel Aviv to be spat on.
Speaking to the Republican Jewish Coalition on 10/31/25, Lindsey Graham proudly declared, “I feel good about the Republican Party and where we’re going as a nation. We’re killing all the right people and we’re cutting your taxes. Trump is my favorite president. We’ve run out of bombs. We didn’t run out of bombs in WWII.” Graham has been a senator for 22 years. Before that, he was a congressman for eight years. Though usually less crude, most US senior politicians have exactly the same posture, ass up, that is, towards Jews.
Last Sunday, Trump appeared at a Commanders vs. Lions game. Though he was loudly booed or given the finger by nearly everyone present, a White House video of this humiliating incident shows Epstein’s best buddy given a hero’s welcome. It begins with Air Force One flying slowly over Northwest Stadium. A football with “TRUMP—COMMANDER IN CHIEF” and a jersey with “TRUMP” are shown. The latter, framed, is presented to him by the team’s owner, Josh Harris. This Jew with a shady business history has had much dealing with Jared Kushner.
It’s a nation of scams, lies and spins. Still thinking about a brief visit back, I checked Las Vegas hotel prices. With delight, I discovered 14 nights at Excalibur, right on the Strip, was on sale for just $359.74. The normal cost is $1,269.33. In small print, though, there’s this easy to miss bit, “Not included in price (collected by the property): Resort Fee (Pay at property) USA 714.28.” How many foreign visitors only discover this when checking in? No other country tries to pull off such a stunt, but then, again, no other nation is ruled by Donald Trump, Stephen Miller, Jared Kushner and Bibi Netanyahu.
Yesterday, I also got this email:
Though a bit long-winded, it sounded exactly like Trump, so of course, I immediately sent all my savings to The Donald via PayPal.
Forget San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, El Paso or Las Vegas, I will fly straight from Saigon to Dulles Airport, then take a limousine to the White House. To its swarthy driver, I’ll bark, “Trump has me covered. I’m his Official White House Advisor, so step on the gas, motherfucker! Any delay and I’ll have you deported. Where are you from anyway? Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen? Go back to where you came from, dickhead. Crawl back into your Bin Laden cave!”
Since it’s nearly freezing in DC, I will need to buy a cashmere coat, for the occasion, you know. In this tropical climate, a Binori or Canali would be very tough to find. Plus, I just sent all my cash to Trump. Enthusiasm, fanaticism or just stupidity can even lead to suicide, or at least death by a thousand cuts.
Vung Tau, 11/12/25
22,630 Days — Nov 12, 2025.
On my 62nd birthday, I’ve allowed myself to go mad, or, rather, to revert to a madder, more irresponsible self. At 9:35AM, I’m on my second BeerLao, though the first was somewhat shared with Như. She hardly drank her iced glass. Now, I’m sitting outside a liquor store that has maybe 30 types of beer. Four feet from me is a masked crone no taller than 4’9”. Across the street is Mrs. Tím, the crab noodle soup lady. Under her conical hat, she’s cleaning up and putting her tables and chairs away.
Until a minute ago there was a recorded song from inside the licker joint. It’s played for the owner’s 21-month-old daughter. I first heard it nearly 60 years ago. It’s about some frog sobbing in a corner. Tagged on stanzas include a dog, monkey and other animals. There’s an obscene version of a girl pissing in a corner.
Come out here, what’s that sitting in the corner? Only her back is shown. Oh, it’s a girl! It’s a girl pissing, with only her back shown. Oh, she’s a bad girl!
That didn’t just leave a profound impression on me at age 8 or 9, it has defined my entire life, I’m sure. Without this ditty, I could have been a venture capitalist, five-star general or president of the United States of America. Now, I’m permanently traumatized.
A couple months ago, I challenged Như to finish her book in a year. It’s coming along. Two weeks ago, I said I’d give her a serious spanking if it’s not done on schedule. I was born to coach, mentor or just be an asshole.
This morning, I told Như about Raymond Carver and Harold Brodkey. Over decades, details may slip. Recently, I insisted to D.W. Shumway my Mariners lost to the A’s by identical score, 6-0, on consecutive days in 1976. Problem is D.W. was at the fuckin’ first game! I only heard it on the radio in Salem, Oregon. It was the Angels, and not A’s.
Me this morning, “Carver wrote about being in some Yakima laundromat and feeling rather sorry for himself. That really resonated with me. I was living in Grays Ferry, this shitty neighborhood in Philly. Though I didn’t know it at the time, Grays Ferry kids, these Irish, Catholic boys, were selling soiled underwear to this creep, Uncle Eddie. He lived in Center City’s best neighborhood, Rittenhouse Square. Just the name alone, you can tell. Though he was a UPenn graduate and had a wife, Uncle Eddie was a closet faggot, with a shit fetish. Lying under a glass table, he enjoyed staring at shit oozing from these boys’ assholes.”
I’m not sure Như wanted to hear all that around 7AM. I did have a point. Uncle Eddie had a vision, which he followed. He was more artist than most artists. If eating shit is intrinsic to who you are, don’t overmask it.
Me on Brodkey, “This guy was so heavily promoted, and he was excellent. His prose is much better than Carver’s. Brodkey has the most amazing passage about pussy licking, and it went on for four or five pages! He seemed so honest and candid, but it turned out Brodkey was a queer. He had to admit this because he got AIDS.”
Như, “Queers can be amazing at pussy licking because they don’t like penetration. They must focus on that!”
“You must write about that, too!”
Như said that as a child, she was always screaming inside her head. As a kid, all I wanted was to grow up as quickly as possible, so I could escape.
“We’re all helpless children,” I said. “You’re not really in your 30’s.”
“I feel like I’m 23.”
“Bullshit! You’re about 8-years-old, at most. I’m 4 or 5.”
Of course, writing is one way of dressing yourself up, to sound more intelligent and in control, you know, but if your baby, malformed or monkey self cannot seep out, you’re a waste of time, if not a criminal.
“We’re always dressed up.”
“Even when naked, we’re dressed up.” She’s trying to outdo me!
Not willing to concede defeat, I cited Andre Dworkin’s Intercourse, “She has some of the most amazing insights into being naked I’ve ever read.”
At age 70 or so, poet Stephen Berg pulled down his pants at a gathering of maybe six people. “Look at that,” he shouted. I wasn’t there, though. Versions of this story must be circulating around Philly, at least. “Why did he do that?” I asked Như. “What’s the symbolism of that?” Berg’s infant or beast got loose, and not for the first time. This time, he wanted to be caught.
Như talked about sabotaging every relationship. Having turned away from everyone, she felt a perplexing guilt.
“But you’re not going to change.”
“I’m not going to change.”
“You’re getting even.”
Like me, Như decided early on to never have children. We can’t justify passing on our despair, resentment and horrors. Unhappy children are most trapped.
Without that frog song, I could have been a Vince Lombardi or, at least, a Pete Carrol, but instead, I’m just a canceled, wrinkled toddler drinking a $1.50 large bottle of BeerLao in perfect weather. Imbibing nothing but perfectly content, at least in appearance, that masked mummy keeps turning her vigilant skull with its murky eyeballs back and forth, as if there’s much to look at on this drowsy, terribly boring street.
All week, I thought about returning briefly to the States, but my US banking and Vietnam residency issues have mostly been solved. A visit to Guam, the first US territory I entered way back in 1975, is still a possibility. As the native land of the Chamorros, all of the Marianas should be one nation, I’d think. Instead, Guam will likely be the first territory to be completely wiped out during the next nuclear war. The Chinese DF-26 missile is even nicknamed “Guam Express” or “Guam Killer.”
The rest of the Marianas would be uninhabitable, but that’s probably true of everywhere else, too.
About Linh Dinh (@linhdinh):
‘Before being canceled, I was an anthologized poet and fairly prolific author, with my last book Postcards from the End of America. Now, I write about our increasingly sick world for a tiny audience on SubStack. Drifting overly much, I’m in Cambodia.
Born in Saigon, Vietnam in 1963, I lived mostly in the US from 1975 until 2018, but have returned to Vietnam. I’ve also lived in Italy, England and Germany. I’m the author of a non-fiction book, Postcards from the End of America (2017), a novel, Love Like Hate (2010), two books of stories, Fake House (2000) and Blood and Soap (2004), and six collections of poems, with a Collected Poems cancelled by Chax Press from external pressure. I’ve been anthologized in Best American Poetry 2000, 2004, 2007, Great American Prose Poems from Poe to the Present, Postmodern American Poetry: a Norton Anthology (vol. 2) and Flash Fiction International: Very Short Stories From Around the World, etc. I’m also editor of Night, Again: Contemporary Fiction from Vietnam (1996) and The Deluge: New Vietnamese Poetry (2013). My writing has been translated into Japanese, Italian, Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Portuguese, Korean, Arabic, Icelandic, Serbian and Finnish, and I’ve been invited to read in Tokyo, London, Cambridge, Brighton, Paris, Berlin, Leipzig, Halle, Reykjavik, Toronto, Singapore and all over the US. I’ve also published widely in Vietnamese.’
AHH: Please support this wonderful writer on his Substack! Thanks
And Sharmine Arwani is back.
Trump expands his oil wars from Venezuela to Nigeria
“I walked past a McDonald’s, Starbucks, 7-11 and Kentucky Fried Chicken, all lined up, cheek to cheek. America’s icons will survive its collapse.”
with gratitude to Linh Dinh at Postcards from the End.
Kathmandu. (L): 10/29/25 ; (R): 10/28/25
Go There! — Oct 29, 2025.
Walking a couple miles, I got a last look at everything, that square with the serene stupa and Tibetan temple, KTM Burger, Fire Café, Bueno Burrito, the early morning chai place that made me feel so at home on my first morning, 4 Square with Sumitra mopping the steps, the Indian beggar in his NIKE knit cap, Saroj’s store, founded in 1943 by his grandad, where I bought more treats and yak cheese. I passed too many gorgeous neighborhood temples to count. I moved too fast for stray dogs to say goodbye or curse me for leaving them.
With plenty of time before my flight, I asked the taxi driver to leave me outside the airport’s gate. Thirty-seven years old, he’s been driving 15 years. Though his village is only 100 kilometers away, he doesn’t have to go there since his parents are dead. Only his 55-year-old brother remains.
“Does he want to come here? To work?”
“He was here.”
“No job!”
“No job.”
“At his age, it’s better he stays in the village. When you’re over 45 or so, no one will hire you for anything. They don’t want experience, only young, strong bodies.”
He chuckled in agreement.
“In Vietnam, too, it’s like that.”
“It’s like that everywhere.”
“For women, it’s even worse. They only want young, pretty women in the restaurants and cafés. Hey, how come your English is so good?”
“I practice.”
“No classes?”
“Four classes!” he chuckled.
That’s all he could afford, obviously. He pays 15,000 rupees ($106) a month for rent. His taxi costs 3,000 a day. That’s also the monthly tuition for his five-year-old-son. Since his other son is only 1 ½, his wife must stay home to take care of this baby. Food for four costs 20,000 per month.
“I have no savings,” he said. “Sometimes, I take out loans.”
“But the interests are so high!”
“There are no jobs.”
“Too many people from the villages, and not enough tourists. I’m very surprised.”
“They’re scared.”
Kathmandu, 10/21/25
“But that was what, six or seven weeks ago? It’s perfectly safe here. Even then, there was no danger. If you see a protest, you just walk the other way! Did you see anything?”
“No, just on the mobile,” he chuckled.
“The protests were in a tiny area. Tourists, though, are always nervous. In Kathmandu, they stay inside a tiny area, where they can eat burgers and pizzas!” I laughed. I didn’t confess to pigging out at Bueno Burrito several times. Vung Tau has no Tex-Mex.
Just now, a guy about 50 looked over my shoulder to see what I was typing. We smiled. I’m sitting outside a cheerful and perfectly skanky eatery with dirty dishes on the concrete floor. Waiting to explode, an old gas canister lies on its side. The young waitress looked very nervous when I said, “Chai,” or when I threw up an index finger, meaning one more. Smartly dressed in his school uniform of button-up shirt, neck tie, creased shorts and dress shoes, a boy of eight eyed me as he walked past. Ten feet away, blue and red plastic bags of food garbage lean against each other. All I smell, though, is the curry being cooked. Since I don’t feel like sweating in agony, I’m not going to order anything. Tall bottles of Gorkha are certainly tempting.
This time tomorrow, I’ll be on my last leg to Saigon. Suddenly, I’ll be in balmy weather again. Snow is expected across Nepal within 48 hours. “4,982 escapees are still on the run,” announces the Himalayan on its front page. Also, Cameroon has just elected a 92-year-old president. Since Trump is just 79, Americans should expect 15 more years, at least, of winning big, no inflation and having so much money, they won’t know what to do. Unlike Elvis, Trump won’t ever leave the building.
At 10:16AM, I’ve cleared immigration and security check. There was a long line to just enter the airport. With boarding still an hour away, I rewarded myself with a 500 ml can of Nepal Ice. With its licker content at 6.1%, I’ll be groovy on that plane. Maybe I’ll sing Elvis.
Already, I miss Shree Gha Vihar, but here’s a deep, original thought. You can’t be everywhere at once! I should have been a hash pushing guru. It’s never too late. That’s what they all say, even as they’re lowered into the ground.
That thought just now is but a limp riff on what my long lost buddy, Aziz Vargha, said. When I visited Aziz on the 8th floor of Pennsylvania Hospital, America’s oldest, he lamented, “You know what’s funny, man? You can’t just be somewhere, you must go there! That takes time.”
Born in Iran, Aziz was raised in Germany then the UK before ending up in the USA. He had “MADE IN USA” tattooed on his forehead, back when tatts anywhere was still rare. Sitting in McGlinchey’s among whites, Aziz shouted, “I’m white, man, just like you!” Soon after, he said to a table of blacks, “I’m black, just like you!”
One snowless Christmas, we headed to Kensington to get lots of the white stuff. Doing lines, we laughed so hard. If alive, Aziz would not being do well, I’m sorry to say. He was already a mess four decades ago.
Just sitting still takes time. That’s all we have. Even if it’s just a hundred yards, I’d rather go there.
After my laptop went dead, I rushed to a charging station. Seeing my heavy machine, a woman in her mid 50’s asked in a Germanic or Dutch accent, “Do you want to sit here?”
“No, no, I just need to charge my laptop. Thank you!’
Immediately I thought of an old woman on the Rome subway from 26 years ago. “Chi vuole scendered?” she said in the gentlest voice imaginable. She even smiled slightly.
Such sweetness or civility is what we live for. OK, must run now. Boarding time. I must go there!
Guangzhou, 10/29/25
Too Heavenly for Words — Oct 30, 2025.
If still in Nepal, I would have been in bed by the time I landed in China. Though exhausted, I was also elated at finally entering China, so I headed into town. Getting a transit visa was relatively painless and not too time consuming. After changing $100 into yuans, I found my way to the Metro. Though I had visited Macau and Hong Kong, and saw Chinese streets from across a thin river in Lào Cai, only now was I inside!
Having no Google Maps, I didn’t know which station to get off. One that connected to two other lines sounded like a transportation hub, so must be busy at street level? Outside, there were just vendors selling assorted sausages on sticks, mostly, taxis and motorbike taxis. No stores or cafes were within walking distance. This was Guangzhou at its grubbiest. The station, though, was well appointed. After ten minutes, I headed back in.
Guangzhou, 10/29/25
Since the ticket machine didn’t accept my 100 yuan bill, a uniformed employee went out of her way to get me change. She also suggested a more lively station. This young lady couldn’t have been nicer.
On the train, all but a very old, tiny woman were looking at phones. Whether in Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Thailand or China, Asian subways are new, safe, clean and on time. The squeaking horror shows that still chug along in NYC or Philly are certainly cinematic. Since DC’s Metro must serve swamp dwellers, lobbyists, lawyers and Pentagon staffers, it’s cleaner and safer, though still dark and almost spooky in its cavernous design. DC go-go bars have nicer dancers, too, and they show everything. No coquettish peekaboo. Powerful old creeps don’t have time for subtleties.
Of course I forgot the recommended station, so got off at another drab neighborhood, but this one had stores and restaurants. I walked past a McDonald’s, Starbucks, 7-11 and Kentucky Fried Chicken, all lined up, cheek to cheek. America’s icons will survive its collapse. 7-Eleven has long been owned by the Japanese. Sears, once a symbol of America’s abundance, is mostly dead at home. There are three in Mexico City. I ran into one.
Standing outside McDonald’s, I heard John Denver’s “Take Me Home,” though sung in Cantonese, with only bits of English. “Country roads take me home, to the place I belong. West Virginia, mountain momma. Take me home, country roads.” Arriving in the US in 1975, this was one of the first songs I could almost sing.
Further on was a local fried chicken joint where sat three Chinese and an African. I noticed two pizzarie and several convenience stores. At a bright stand selling lottery tickets, a young female employee slept with her head slumped on a table. I entered a lit up Cantonese restaurant with uncleared tables and beer cans on the floor. To compensate for my suffering, I ordered too much food. I was nearly comatose. Grabbing a takeaway container, I then exited to look for a taxi. Before leaving, I did notice adds for prostitutes inside the toilet. In London, they lined phone booths, with exotic chicks from Spain, Russia, Ukraine, Scandinavia and Brazil, etc., especially popular. Dom leather, water sports, pussy licking, uniforms, toys and spanking were all available.
At Kathmandu’s airport, there were about 30 English high school kids. I heard one say, “I’d be very sad if you were to die on the way back.” Deadpan Brit humor. My favorite is what an Englishman says to his wife after their very first night, “I sure hope you’re pregnant, dear, because I don’t want to go through all those ridiculous motions again.”
Reentering Guangzhou’s airport, I knew my can of Nepal Ice, saved for Sơn in Vũng Tàu, would likely be confiscated, but there’s no way I could drink it myself. I had a can of clam sauce taken in Philly, a bottle of wine snatched somewhere and a jar of confit nearly filched from me at Heathrow. Global madness amplified after 9/11, the Anthrax scare then the Shoe Bomber, all hoaxes. In case you haven’t figured it out, Covid was an American bio attack on China, then Iran. Already a totalitarian state, China didn’t need a fake virus to paralyze itself. It was real enough for them to way overreact. Trump’s economic war against China should also be seen in this context. Xi, and Putin, too, certainly knows who’s his main enemy.
Exhausted and irritated, I made a beeline for those sleeping pods I had seen two weeks earlier. At just 138 yuans ($19.44) for three hours, it was absurdly cheap. Inside, there was a comfy seat that could be reclined nearly flat, lights that could be dimmed, a quiet fan and a TV. I assumed when my three hours were up, some alarm would go off or there would be knocks on the locked door, but nothing happened. I slept two extra hours. This, I only realized after emerging outside. Last night’s employee was asleep at her counter.
Since it wasn’t quite 6AM, restaurants were just setting up. Arabica, though, was open. A latte was just what I needed. Even before my first sip, I took photos of this elegant café. Their baguette sandwiches seemed proper. Nearly all Asian and European airports are more comfortable, better organized and civilized than American ones. At Guangzhou’s, hot or cold water is available for free, and you can sleep well enough even outside those pods. There are also free shower stalls. Even today, you cannot take a train from JFK to Manhattan.
At Mi Cang, I ordered rice gruel with just bits of minced pork and century egg, a peasant breakfast much beloved by my buddy John, an ethnic Chinese in Malaysia. It’s his ultimate comfort food, what his mama must have made often. It’s akin to oatmeal for many Americans. In Macau, I met a Chinese-American transplant who was delighted to find a store selling oatmeal. He needed it to feel at home
At $5.92, Mi Cang’s rice gruel was much fancier, for it came with four Japanese fried dumplings. On the menu were also Vietnamese phở, Japanese ramen with tonkatsu and a burger combo that looked pretty good, but they all do in photos. Eating my grub, I thought of a Nam Cao story where a woman feeds slop meant for pigs to her kids. Her calling it chè, a sweet, cold soup eaten as snacks, doesn’t fool them.
Looking up, I noticed a line at my gate, earlier than expected. Joining it, I asked a young white man if this was for Ho Chi Minh City, but he didn’t answer. Overhearing me, a Chinese said, “Yes, Ho Chi Minh.” The other couldn’t hear because he had earbuds on. To block out the foreign, many tourists must listen to familiar songs and check, constantly, websites from home.
With Guangzhou’s airport so vast, you must often take a shuttle to your plane. Getting on, I immediately looked for Vietnamese faces, but there was none. I also strained to hear Vietnamese, without success. Two weeks earlier, the flight from Saigon to Guangzhou had few Vietnamese. It’s that human or animal instinct to identify your own. Forever, life and death could depend on it.
Guangzhou, 10/29 – 30/25
With more money, and many more people, Chinese are much more visible everywhere. With increasing economic and political might, Chinese tourists and immigrants will be even more ubiquitous. JD Vance’s characterization of them as peasants exposes his hickishness. In Canada and Australia, rich Chinese have made real estate prices in many cities unaffordable for native peasants, workers and even the middle class.
After failing repeatedly to log on to Yahoo! Mail or my SubStack, I realized they were blocked. Everything Yahoo! is inaccessible there. Same with Google, Wikipedia, New York Times and Washington Post, etc. China doesn’t want any American information or disinformation for its citizens.
Rejecting most American products, it’s also prepared to ditch the American consumer. That righteous and pushy slob has been buying on credit for decades, from China, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia and, literally, every country you can think of.
Landing in Saigon, I will leap immediately onto a mini bus for Vung Tau. Failing to bring Sơn a Nepalese beer, I thought of getting him a Chinese one, but busy writing, I never got round to it. Those remaining yuans I’ll use, hopefully, on a proper trip to China.
Cloudy paths, zap me home! To that place, I sorta belong! Ocean mamas, they’re singing and dancing, all right. It’s enough to steal glimpses of them every so often. Why should they sing to me?
On the Kathmandu to Guangzhou leg, two babies on my row screamed or cried often. Others elsewhere did the same. Now, I only hear the slurping of noodles from the guy two seats away. Since there’s no broth, I’m not sure how he does that. Behind me is a well masked American from Chicago. Risking death or long Covid, he did manage to take it off to eat.
I finish this at 6:58PM in Vung Tau. It’s as if I never left. This is Như’s last day at Ông Bầu Coffee, she just told me.
“Where will you go next?”
“I don’t know.”
I don’t either. At some point, I should return to the US to experience, at least for a couple weeks, its Golden Age. I must catch Honolulu, El Paso or San Francisco before it becomes too heavenly for words. As for Philly, I won’t even recognize it, I’m sure.
Guangzhou, 10/30/25
Shrinking Brains and Dwellings — Oct 31, 2025.
On 5/29/25, a garbage truck stopped a Kings Park, NY middle school to empty its dumpster. There, a school janitor saw an injured, garbage draped man trying to climb from the truck. After it emptied its load, another was discovered, but well dead. Since this happened at the back of the school, no student witnessed the horror. Learnt of it from television news, how many thought this could ever happen to them? Much more likely, they envisioned their future as a president, astronaut, NBA star, Hollywood actress, trophy wife, rapper or, at the very least, YouTube influencer. On that date, the low was only 55, so these unfortunates or human garbage had slept inside the dumpster not for warmth, but to be safe. This was conditional on them getting up before the arrival of the garbage truck.
In Santa Monica, bums, especially female ones, dwell inside locked toilets. Further north, you can rent a tent pitched on someone’s backyard. Storage units are more solid, but illegal. Still, thousands of Americans must be dwelling in them. So loaded, they don’t know what to do with their heaps of cash. Those who freeze outside in the winter must be alcoholics or drug addicts, according to conventional wisdom. Don’t say it’s too funny a word in Trumplandia.
Sleeping quite well in my tiny pod at Guangzhou’s airport, I thought these compact solutions should be scattered everywhere. Herding American peasants into cities, huge parks were built to give these factory slaves imitations of their lost landscapes. Thus, we have Central Park in NYC, Prospect Park in Brooklyn, Fairmount Park in Philly and Grant Park in Chicago, all built in the 19th century. Now, all these and more can be filled with sleeping pods, imported from China. Spinning in his grave, Frederick Law Olmsted will appreciate the exercise.
Convicted of any crime, the offender’s sleeping pod can just be locked. With bread sticks tossed in daily, he won’t starve. His shit and piss can be eased out through a hole. Capital punishment will be applied quickly and cheaply by denying him of bread sticks. After the stinking corpse is extracted, his sleeping pod will be sold at a slight discount, after a few sprays of disinfectant.
Just a few hours in China yielded so many solutions. Must be in the air.
In China, porn is banned. In the West, it’s freely available as the last bastion of free speech. Since jerking or stroking nearly nonstop is the best means of social control, it must be made mandatory. TVs inside sleeping pods must show only porn. Wouldn’t this lead to more rapes? Quite the opposite. Men who’ve shot their wad several times a day can only grab, at most. Most Americans are already fine with this, at least in principle. It’s also egalitarian. Why should bottom dwellers be denied some Trumpian perks? “When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.” MAGA chicks are turned on.
Guangzhou, 10/30/25
The last photo I took in Guangzhou was of a white enough man in a LAS VEGAS hoodie. Next to him was his exhausted wife. Bent over, she held her head. His or her wrinkled, white haired mom looked stunned. On 5/26/25, more than 8,800 flights were delayed in the USA alone. The next day, nearly 7,000.
Flying from Chicago to Frankfurt on 10/28/25, a 28-year-old Indian stabbed two sleeping American teens with a metal fork. He then slapped a woman and a crew member. One teen told investigators he had only exchanged pleasantries with the Indian. This non-immigrant had just finished his studies at Moody Theological Seminary.
Since 42 million Americans will lose food aid tomorrow, proactive cops across the USA have increased patrols around grocery stores, convenience stores and shopping centers. America’s Golden Age has just begun.
Yesterday at Saigon’s airport, I joked with the immigration officer, “Coming back, I’m just waiting to die!”
“You’re not that old, uncle,” she smiled slightly.
“I’m exhausted.”
On the minibus to Vung Tau, we passed a young man with this on his hoodie, “SMILE! IT WILL ONLY GET MUCH WORSE.” His helmet said, “WE WILL ROCK YOU!”
The young lady next to me wore a Covid mask and earbuds. When not dozing off, she stared at her cellphone. Born into universal madness, she’s well lost. After she dropped one earbud, we all helped her to find it. When it was discovered, there was universal jubilation inside that mini bus.
Ông Bầu Coffee’s evening barista just gave me a free glass of hot tea. In a minute, I will head home to eat some yak cheese with Nepali biscuits. This morning, I was too pooped to show up at Coffee Seven before 5AM. Tomorrow, then, I will see Mrs. Seven, Sơn, Liệt, Nọng and Milk Cow.
Vung Tau, 11/1/25
Fish in Teapots — Nov 01, 2025.
At Ông Bầu Coffee, one barista is a rather morose 20-year-old I first talked to only yesterday. It turned out she’s a third year student in logistics. With lots of shipping through Vũng Tàu, she’ll get a job easily, she believes. AI won’t bump her into any dumpster.
Though born after the Boat People crisis, Morose knows about corpses being washed up regularly on Vũng Tàu beaches. She also knows about Vietnamese trying to enter the US illegally during the Biden years. Someone approached her family to propose this. $70,000 per head was all it took, he said, and you’d make that back within two years, working in a nail salon, as if the US wasn’t oversaturated with these Vietnamese businesses. As a clumsy newbie whose English or Ebonics wasn’t good enough to interact with customers, who would hire you?
After eight years, you could return to Vietnam loaded with cash. He didn’t say anything about crossing seven countries before reaching the Promised Land. After entering Panama from Colombia, you would be an illegal for over 3,000 miles while being transported by criminals from various nations.
“What’s stopping them from robbing, raping or killing you?” I said. “People who could afford to fly to South America were rich! They sold everything here, thinking they’d never come back. Now, they’re being deported by Trump!”
Morose has never been outside Vietnam. She didn’t even know you could easily reach Cambodia by bus.
Village explainer, “You can go from Saigon to Bavet in just two hours! Cambodia opens all these casinos for Vietnamese. They want as many to come as possible, so go to Bavet, but without entering the casinos! You’ll just lose all your money! Phnom Penh is much more interesting, but it takes six hours to get there. Go to Bavet first, just to get a taste, then go to Phnom Penh later.”
Here three years, Morose started out making 18K, or 68 cents an hour. Now, she earns 23K. Working 200 hours a month, she takes home $129, though the shifty owner often deducts $27 for unexplained reasons.
Morose never protests. When business is slow, she just stares at her phone, like right now.
Morose lives with her parents just two doors down. At least her school is six miles away. She does visit occasionally a married sister in Saigon and has gone as far north as Nha Trang.
Fancying himself a painter, the owner has set up an easel right at the café. He’s so vapid and timid, you can’t talk to him about anything. It took me less than a minute to find out.
Before me, Như tried to mentor Morose, but it’s useless, she said. This girl is just incurious.
“She never had a chance!” I protested. To invigorate her, I will nudge and shove Morose some more, give her a few kicks in the ass.
Once, I overheard Như telling Morose about a new café that paid better. I’m not sure she applied. Begging for acceptance is always intimidating and dispiriting.
Ông Bầu Coffee has a new regular. A Siamese fighting fish is living, all alone, inside a teapot. Its diameter is four times the length of the fish’s body. There are pebbles at the bottom. Though it’s always lidded, I’ve been reassured there’s enough oxygen for this displaced creature. It could be much worse. Next to this teapot is a glazed ceramic planter with a cartoon cat and “cute” above its head. Taking frequent breaks, Morose would sit next to these exiled beasts.
In the next room, someone is strumming a guitar and singing. Surrounded by kitschy paintings, he and his listeners are soaked in an artistic environment.
Out collecting plastic bottles, that homeless Cambodian will return in the evening. He uses Ông Bầu’s bathroom and sleeps each night just feet from where I’m sitting. Lately, he’s refrained from disturbing that garish altar to the goddess beneath a banyan tree across the street. As long as he doesn’t go berserk, he belongs here at least as much as that fish.
Splotchy and discolored, he’s a piss poor representative of his species. With any residual self-respect, he should be deeply ashamed of himself, but I shouldn’t talk. My dorsal, pectoral, pelvic and anal fins are sad and feeble enough. Still, they’re sufficient to propel me home. After paying for my cappuccini, I’ll swiftly swim outta here.
That yak cheese is nearly gone. That cheerful, repetitive hymn to Ganesh I heard dozens of times daily so recently has faded. Soon enough, I’ll remember nothing.
(L): Vung Tau, 11/1/25 ; (R): Trump’s Golden Lincoln Bathroom
Bloodbaths and Bashes — Nov 02, 2025.
Too much excitement this morning at Ông Bầu. Using her thin jacket, a woman swatted at a bee in mid flight, then stepped on this buzzer after he had dropped to the floor. His squashed body now oozes whatever. His stiff, broken wings are stuck up. No one knows what he could have accomplished. He might have been a great bee poet. For this gratuitous display of unfathomable viciousness, she’ll be reincarnated as a bee, wasp, fly or mosquito, I’m sure. Placid, Morose inspected the fleeting carnage. As she walked by, I had to refrain from expressing my entirely justified indignation. I only thought, “What were the odds of the innocent, intelligent looking bee stinging that smug, still smiling broad in the fuckin’ twat?!” Oblivious, she’s yakking away. She does have a melodious voice.
Before Ông Bầu, I stopped at Mrs. Tím’s stand for a $1.52 bowl of crab noodle soup. As I slurped away, a security guard on a motorbike stopped to ask for a 95 cent bowl. After he left, I said, “You still make a profit with that, no?”
“No, but what was I supposed to do?”
“Does he come by often?”
“Only rarely.”
“A security guard’s salary isn’t too bad.”
“But he also has a wife and children. What was I supposed to do?” Mrs. Tím, then, makes nothing selling to this man. Her name means Purple, by the way. One of her two sons is nearly always in drug rehab. This widow has maybe four front teeth left.
Worst are those who stuff some change into their bra or up their long sleeve, then say Mrs. Tím has short changed them!
“They have so many tricks. When you sell stuff, you see everything.” She said this without rancor, only a touch of amusement.
Before Mrs. Tím’s food stand, I was at Coffee Seven. Today, Sơn told me more about his experiences in Cambodia. I had asked Sơn about soldiers who freaked out. Of course, that happened. Losing their minds, some even shot at their comrades.
On a lighter note, Sơn told me about Vietnamese troops visiting Cambodian whorehouses. They were dim and sordid, and the girls were so poor, their panties were pitifully or laughably threadbare. Worst were Viet soldiers who refused to pay after service. “They’d leave a hand grenade on the floor to chase the girls away.”
made in Thailand jeans and T-shirts
Even Viet officers barely had cash. Some sold used artillery shells, illegally, of course. With this profit, they could buy made in Thailand jeans or T-shirts. Both were highly prized back in Vietnam. Even in 1998, I had some rural guy touch my Levi’s with something like awe. They were called cow pants, quần bò, short for cowboy pants.
Underfed Viet soldiers stole chickens, ducks and pigs from Cambodian peasants. Like American, Australian or South Korean soldiers here, they raped. Unchecked aggression or rage is intrinsic to every war, as is wetting or soiling your pants from ungodly terror. Clean uniforms and impeccable discipline are only meant for parades, to fool civilians, draftees and recruits.
Last night, I finally bought a new phone. With a sim card, it cost me just $125. Don’t even know what brand it is. Last phone I bought before this was in Albania four years ago. I need this gadget to take care of some business.
Last night, I also went shopping at Lotte Mart, Vũng Tàu’s fanciest mall. Viets who can afford it treat it like an amusement park, almost. Better dressed kids run around screaming. With burgers, pizzas and fried chicken available in futuristic settings, they’re in the USA of their imagination. KFC Vietnam has a new dish, Migaxuxi. It’s slices of hotdog in an overly sweet red sauce on too soft spaghetti. On KFC’s wall was a nearly life-sized Colonel Sanders, with that first KFC in Harland, KY in the background. Most Viets think this America still exists.
When the entire White House is destroyed, replicas will appear across Asia, I’m sure. Even if all of the USA becomes like Gaza, its highlights will be preserved in the East. There’s nothing to worry about, man! Thousands of Statues of Liberty will sprout, just not in America.
In each Oriental burger, pizza or fried chicken joint, wholesome white families as wax figures will be installed to give yellow diners the impression they’re practically in Sacramento, Cincinnati or Youngstown. In fancier diners, waitresses with their hair already dyed blonde can wear white masks and speak in a cute, flirty English they’ve learnt from movies like American Pie or Grease.
For a while, Michael Bordenaro has done an excellent job of tracking America’s collapse. Three days ago, he said, “As of September, employers have announced over 1 million job cuts, which is the largest number that we’ve seen since the pandemic in 2020 […] So this job market collapse is getting real.” Walmart, Amazon, Ford, Microsoft, Target, Starbucks and McDonald’s, etc., are all firing thousands of workers this year.
When Bordenaro asked his viewers about how they’re coping with this new grim reality, they’re saying they’re buying less or inferior food, driving less, selling more to pawn shops, delaying or avoiding medical care, saving less or nothing, using less energy, including taking cold showers, not traveling or seeing distant relatives, not going to restaurants or movies and, perhaps, most depressingly, having to move back home after decades of living independently.
One man, “I’m 45 living in my parents’ basement again, not because I’m irresponsible, but because of the economy.” Over 57% of Americans between 18 and 24 are living with their folks. You’d have to go back decades to find a higher percentage. Millions of Americans are also side hustling. One, “I’m doing DoorDash after my full-time job just to keep up. I’m exhausted and still falling behind.”
Another, “I barely leave the house anymore because I can’t afford gas to drive to work and see my family.”
All these testimonies, though, must be fake news disseminated, or rather, jerked off, by far-left agitators.
As Trump cut off food aid to over 40 million Americans, he hosted a Great Gatsby themed Halloween bash at Mar-a-Lago called, “A little party never killed nobody.” So cute, the bad English. Shows his common touch.
Posting photos of his glitzed up shitter on 11/1/25, Trump crowed, “The Refurbished Lincoln Bathroom in the White House—Highly polished, Statuary marble!” Let them eat shit is right.
About Linh Dinh (@linhdinh):
‘Before being canceled, I was an anthologized poet and fairly prolific author, with my last book Postcards from the End of America. Now, I write about our increasingly sick world for a tiny audience on SubStack. Drifting overly much, I’m in Cambodia.
Born in Saigon, Vietnam in 1963, I lived mostly in the US from 1975 until 2018, but have returned to Vietnam. I’ve also lived in Italy, England and Germany. I’m the author of a non-fiction book, Postcards from the End of America (2017), a novel, Love Like Hate (2010), two books of stories, Fake House (2000) and Blood and Soap (2004), and six collections of poems, with a Collected Poems cancelled by Chax Press from external pressure. I’ve been anthologized in Best American Poetry 2000, 2004, 2007, Great American Prose Poems from Poe to the Present, Postmodern American Poetry: a Norton Anthology (vol. 2) and Flash Fiction International: Very Short Stories From Around the World, etc. I’m also editor of Night, Again: Contemporary Fiction from Vietnam (1996) and The Deluge: New Vietnamese Poetry (2013). My writing has been translated into Japanese, Italian, Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Portuguese, Korean, Arabic, Icelandic, Serbian and Finnish, and I’ve been invited to read in Tokyo, London, Cambridge, Brighton, Paris, Berlin, Leipzig, Halle, Reykjavik, Toronto, Singapore and all over the US. I’ve also published widely in Vietnamese.’
AHH: Please support this wonderful writer on his Substack! Thanks
From the archives: “U.S. game-plan to conquer Russia & China is clarified”
Posted on December 29, 2016 by Eric Zuesse.
America’s Secret Planned Conquest of Russia
The U.S. government’s plan to conquer Russia is based upon a belief in, and the fundamental plan to establish, “Nuclear Primacy” against Russia — an American ability to win a nuclear war against, and so conquer, Russia.
This concept became respectable in U.S. academic and governmental policymaking circles when virtually simultaneously in 2006 a short-form and a long-form version of an article endorsing the concept, which the article’s two co-authors there named “nuclear primacy,” were published respectively in the world’s two most influential journals of international affairs, Foreign Affairs from the Council on Foreign Relations, and International Security from Harvard. (CFR got the more popular short version, titled “The Rise of U.S. Nuclear Primacy”, and Harvard got the more scholarly long version, which was titled “The End of MAD?”.)
This article claimed that the central geostrategic concept during the Cold War with the Soviet Union, Mutually Assured Destruction or “MAD” — in which there is no such thing as the U.S. or the U.S.S.R. conquering the other, because the first of the two to attack will itself also be destroyed by the surviving nuclear forces of the one responding to that attack — will soon be merely past history (like the Soviet Union itself already is); and, so, as the short form of the article said, “nuclear primacy remains a goal of the United States”; and, as the long form said, “the United States now stands on the cusp of nuclear primacy.” In other words: arms-control or no, the U.S. should, and soon will, be able to grab Russia (the largest land-mass of any country, and also the one richest in natural resources).
Neither version of this article mentioned the key reason why nuclear victory is exceedingly dangerous even under the most favorable conditions, which reason is the concept (and the likely reality in the event of nuclear war between the two superpowers) “nuclear winter” — the scientific studies showing that a resulting sudden sharp cooling of the atmosphere after all those enormous explosions would produce a global die-off. America’s aristocracy and its vassal-aristocracies controlling the U.S.-allied nations (billionaires, centi-millionaires, and their top agents in both the public and private sectors) are buying and building deep-underground nuclear shelters for themselves, but they wouldn’t be able to stay underground and survive on stored feedstuffs forever. (As for everybody else, those other people are not involved in geostrategic decision-making, and so are being ignored.) However, many of America’s (and associated) elite are paying those bomb-shelter expenses, but none of the West’s elite are condemning the path toward nuclear war that their governments are on. So: buying or building nuclear-war shelters is more acceptable to them than is stopping America’s planned conquest of Russia. The higher priority is to conquer Russia.
A far less influential scholarly journal, China Policy, published later in 2006 a critical article arguing against nuclear supremacy, but that article has had no impact upon policymaking. Its title was “The Fallacy of Nuclear Primacy” and it argued that, “American nuclear supremacy removes the root source of stability from the nuclear equation: mutual vulnerability.” It presented a moral argument: “U.S. leaders might try to exploit its nuclear superiority … by actually launching a cold-blooded nuclear attack against its nuclear rival in the midst of an intense crisis. The professors discount significantly the power of the nuclear taboo to restrain U.S. leaders from crossing the fateful threshold. If crisis circumstances grow dire enough, the temptation to try to disarm their nuclear adversaries through a nuclear first-strike may be too strong to resist, they argue.” The concept of “nuclear winter” wasn’t even so much as just mentioned (much less dealt with) in this article, just as it was ignored in the two that it was arguing against.
The co-authors of (both versions of) the article that had proposed and endorsed nuclear primacy, then published in 2007 (this one also in International Security), a response to that critical article. This reply’s title was “U.S. Nuclear Primacy and the Future of the Chinese Deterrent”. But it had no more impact than did the obscure article it was arguing against.
Thus, nuclear primacy has become U.S. policy, and MAD no longer is U.S. policy (though it remains Russian policy). The U.S. government is planning to take over Russia (basically, to install a puppet-regime there). That’s the reality.
Central to the nuclear-primacy concept is that of what’s variously called a “Ballistic Missile Defense” (BMD) or “Anti Ballistic Missile” (ABM) system: a system to disable or knock out Russia’s retaliatory nuclear weapons so that a U.S. blitz nuclear attack won’t be able to be met by any nuclear counter-attack.
As “The End of MAD?” put it: “Russia has approximately 3,500 strategic nuclear warheads today, but if the United States struck before Russian forces were alerted, Russia would be lucky if a half-dozen warheads survived.”
In other words: America’s aristocracy aren’t necessarily hoping to protect all of the U.S. population from a counter-attack, but are willing to sacrifice perhaps a few million Americans here and there, in order to achieve the intended result: conquest of Russia.
That article then says that a BMD-ABM system wouldn’t necessarily indicate America’s determination to pursue nuclear primacy against Russia, because it could instead be intended purely and authentically defensively, to protect against nuclear attack from Iran, North Korea or some other country. However: “Other U.S. nuclear programs are hard to explain with any mission other than a nuclear first strike on a major power adversary. For example, the decision to upgrade the fuse of many SLBM warheads (the W76s) to permit ground bursts makes sense only if the mission is destroying hundreds of hardened silos. One might argue that ground bursts could be useful for a variety of other missions, such as destroying North Korean WMD bunkers or remote cave complexes housing terrorist leaders. The United States, however, already has a large number of highly accurate, similar-yield warheads that would be ideal for these purposes.” The article even notes that: “Other analysts have noted that the current U.S. nuclear force looks surprisingly like an arsenal designed for a nuclear first strike against Russia or China.” And, “A group of RAND analysts agrees: ‘What the planned force appears best suited to provide beyond the needs of traditional deterrence is a preemptive counterforce capability against Russia and China. Otherwise, the numbers and the operating procedures simply do not add up.’” So: the co-authors here are claiming to be merely giving a name, “nuclear primacy,” to America’s existing strategic military policy — not to be inventing or creating it. They are, above all, saying that this is the reality now in U.S. policy-making circles; that MAD no longer is.
And their article has, indeed, described the guiding strategic-planning objective not only of the George W. Bush Administration, but also of Barack Obama’s — as will now be documented.
U.S. President Obama has always been saying that the reason why America is installing anti-ballistic missiles (“ABM”s, otherwise known as ballistic-missile defense or “BMD”) in Romania, Poland, and other nations that border (or are near to) Russia, is in order to protect Europe against Iranian missiles that might be aimed against Europe. He says that this is purely defensive, not aggressive, and that what it’s defending from is Iran, not Russia — so, Russia has no reason for complaint about it.
But then, Obama reached his nuclear deal with Iran; and this deal ended, for at least ten years, any realistic possibility that Iran would develop any nuclear-weapons capability — Obama himself emphasized that this was the case; he wasn’t denying it.
So: Obama’s claimed reason for installing ABMs in Europe was now, quite simply, gone. (Not that it had been credible anyway, since Iran didn’t have any nuclear weapons. It was merely a pretext, not honestly a reason.)
Here is how Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin, stated the matter, at that time, during the meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club, on 22 October 2015:
“The use of the threat of a nuclear missile attack from Iran as an excuse, as we know, has destroyed the fundamental basis of modern international security – the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. The United States has unilaterally seceded from the treaty. Incidentally, today we have resolved the Iranian issue and there is no threat from Iran and never has been, just as we said.
The thing that seemed to have led our American partners to build an anti-missile defence system is gone. It would be reasonable to expect work to develop the US anti-missile defence system to come to an end as well. [But] What is actually happening? Nothing of the kind, or actually the opposite – everything continues.
Recently the United States conducted the first test of the anti-missile defence system in Europe. What does this mean? It means we were right when we argued with our American partners. They were simply trying yet again to mislead us and the whole world. To put it plainly, they were lying. It was not about the hypothetical Iranian threat, which never existed. It was about an attempt to destroy the strategic balance, to change the balance of forces in their favour not only to dominate, but to have the opportunity to dictate their will to all: to their geopolitical competition and, I believe, to their allies as well. This is a very dangerous scenario, harmful to all, including, in my opinion, to the United States.
The nuclear deterrent lost its value. Some probably even had the illusion that victory of one party in a world conflict was again possible – without irreversible, unacceptable, as experts say, consequences for the winner, if there ever is one”
He called Obama there a “liar,” and that’s a blatantly truthful characterization of the situation. But Putin missed there saying what’s even more basic for an understanding of what Obama was doing in this matter — and which makes that “lie” from Obama particularly heinous: Putin missed saying that an anti-missile system can be at least as important as an aggressive weapon as it is as a defensive one, because if a first-strike attacker wants to eliminate the defender’s ability to strike back from the attacker’s first-strike attack, then an anti-missile system is the weapon to do that, by eliminating the defender’s missiles before those strike-back missiles can reach their targets. It nullifies the other side’s defense — and to do this is enormously aggressive; it strips the victim’s retaliation. The whole distinction between offensive and defensive can thus be pure propaganda, nothing having to do actually with aggressive and defensive. Whether the use will be defensive, or instead offensive, won’t be known until the system is in actual battlefield use. Only the propaganda is clear; the weapon’s use is not.
So, Putin understated the heinousness, and the danger to Russians, that was actually involved in Obama’s tricks. All that Putin did was to vaguely suggest an aggressive possibility: “It was about an attempt to destroy the strategic balance, to change the balance of forces in their favour not only to dominate, but to have the opportunity to dictate their will to all.” Most people don’t relate to such abstractions as “strategic balance.”
Obama and other agents of the U.S. aristocracy know that their public have been trained for decades, to hate, fear, and despise, Russians, and especially the Russian government, as if it were the Soviet Union, and as if its Warsaw Pact and communism still existed and Russia hadn’t ended its hostility to the U.S. in 1991 (though the U.S. continued its hostility to Russia — that rump remaining country from the former communist empire — and during Obama’s second term the hostility soared). So, for example, at the conservative website Breitbart, when that statement quoted here from Putin was posted as part of an honestly written and presented article titled “Vladimir Putin: U.S. Missile Defense System Threatens Russia”, almost none of the reader-comments indicated any ability or inclination of the readers to sympathize with the plight for Russians that Putin had just expressed. Instead, to the extent that the comments there were relevant, they were generally hostile, such as:
“Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday he has concerns that the U.S. ballistic missile defense system threatens Russia’s nuclear capability.”
Vlad, its supposed to, its called defense. The only way it could harm your nukes is if they were shot down…………….after you launched them!
and
How can a defense system threaten anything? Like Obama would attack Russia. That is laughable.
Most people’s minds are straightjacketed in bigotries of various sorts, preconceptions such as that a “missile defense” system, and a “Defense” Department, can’t be aggressive — even extremely aggressive and war-mongering. The first thought that comes to mind about anything that’s ‘defensive’ is that something else must be ‘aggressive’ or ‘offensive’, and that whatever is ‘defensive’ (such as an ABM) is therefore good and even necessary. That’s thinking, and receiving the term “defense,” like thinking just one move ahead in a chess-game, but this is the mental limit for most people, and every propagandist (such as the people who professionally design propaganda or PR slogans and campaigns) do precisely what Obama and the rest of the aristocracy and their agents do in order to deceive their gulls: they phrase things for one-move-ahead-limit thinkers, like that. The cardinal rule in the deception-professions is therefore, first, to find people with the desired prejudices, and then to play them as that, with one-move-ahead-limit sales-pitches, which are directed to precisely those prejudices. This report at the Breitbart site was instead presenting a high-quality news-report, to a low-quality audience, and so the reader-comments it generated were few, and generally hostile.
Obama is a master at deception. Another good example of this was 26 March 2012, during Obama’s campaign for re-election, when he confidentially told Dmitry Medvedev, “On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this can be solved, but it’s important for him [the incoming President Putin] to give me space. … This is my last election. After my election, I have more flexibility.” Obama was privately communicating to Putin (through Medvedev) that Obama was pushing the ABM installations only so as not to be politically vulnerable to charges from the knee-jerk Russia-haters, Republicans, and that Obama’s fakery regarding the supposed ABM-target’s being Iran was only in order to appeal to yet another Republican bigotry (against Iran), and so Obama was intending to back away from supporting the ABM system during his second term.
But actually, Obama had had Russia in his gunsights even prior to his coming into office. Two specific objects in focus were Moscow-friendly leaders of nations: Assad of Syria, and Yanukovych of Ukraine. America’s strategy, ever since 24 February 1990, has been to strip Russia of allies and friends — to leave Russia increasingly isolated and surrounded by enemies. When Obama entered the White House on 20 January 2009, there already was a plea in the pipeline from the Syrian government for urgently needed food-aid to address the all-time-record drought there, which had decimated Syrian agriculture. Obama’s Administration never even answered it. Well before the Arab Spring demonstrations in 2011, Obama was hoping for turmoil in Syria and the overthrow of Assad — lots of starving Syrians would be just the thing.
Moreover, the planning for the February 2014 coup to overthrow the Moscow-friendly democratically elected President of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, started in the U.S. State Department by no later than 2011.
So: when Obama told Medvedev and Putin, on 26 March 2012, not to worry about Obama’s intentions toward Russia, he was lying. He wanted his intended victim to be off-guard, unprepared for what was soon to come.
On Obama’s way out the door, he did two things that significantly advanced America’s ABM-BMD threat against Russia.
On 10 December 2016, ‘Defense’ Secretary Ashton Carter stated, burying it in a speech he gave in Bahrain — site of a major U.S. military base — “just this week, we reached an agreement for Qatar to purchase a 5,000-kilometer early-warning radar to enhance its missile defenses,” and he said nothing more about it, as if this announcement weren’t the bombshell it actually was. Alex Gorka headlined about that at Strategic Culture, “US-Qatar Deal Threatens Russia: Reading News Between the Lines” and he explained that this system “is designed to be used as an early warning system against strategic offensive assets – something Iran does not possess.” Near the start of Carter’s speech, Carter had said that he would be talking about “checking Iranian aggression and malign influence, and helping defend our friends and allies,” including Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, and Saudi Arabia. Gorka noted, “The announced range of 5,000km (3,100mi) by far exceeds the requirement to counter a missile threat coming from Iran,” and, “There is no other reasonable explanation for the choice, except the fact that the AN/FPS-132 can monitor large chunks of Russian territory,” the objective being “to surround the Russian Federation with BMD sites and neutralize its capability to deliver a retaliatory strike if attacked.”
One of Obama’s last actions as the U.S. President was to sign into law a bill that had been quietly passed in Congress, which included a key change in U.S. law that would enable the government to spend unlimited funds on realizing former President Ronald Reagan’s dream of a space-based ABM system, “Star Wars.” On December 22nd, David Willman of the Los Angeles Times, headlined “Congress scrapped this one word from the law, opening the door to a space arms race”, and he reported that the eliminated word was “limited.” Willman explained that, “The nation’s homeland missile defense system is designed to thwart a small-scale, or ‘limited,’ attack by the likes of North Korea or Iran. As for the threat of a large-scale strike by China or Russia, the prospect of massive U.S. retaliation is supposed to deter both from ever launching missiles.” He noted: “The bill awaits action by President Obama. The White House has not said what he will do.” Willman also noted that on an earlier occasion, “the Obama administration criticized the changes in the Senate bill, saying it ‘strongly objects’ to removing ‘limited’ and to placing anti-missile weaponry in space. The statement stopped short of threatening a veto.” But then, the next day, on December 23rd, Willman bannered, “President Obama signs defense bill that could spur new space-based arms race”. Whereas Obama’s public rhetoric portrayed himself as being the type of person who had deserved to win the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, almost all of his actual decisions in office were the exact opposite — and here was a superb example of that.
Whether Obama’s successor, Donald Trump, will continue with that longstanding (ever since 24 February 1990) plan to conquer Russia, or instead finally end the Cold War on the U.S. side (as it already had ended in 1991 on the U.S.S.R.’s), isn’t yet clear.
This is what happens when what President Eisenhower called “the military-industrial complex” takes over the country, and everything (including the ‘news’ media) serves it, rather than the military-industrial complex’s serving the public.
It fits in with the massive data which indicates that the U.S. government is run by an aristocracy or “oligarchy”, instead of run by people who represent the public — a “democracy.” Obama as President fit right in.
Additional details “Summing Up Russia’s Real Nuclear Fears” were provided by a superb article from Jonathan Marshall, on December 28th.
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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.
… Essentially, we need to do what the West is doing to us.
By Rostislav Ishchenko at Ukraine.ru.
(machine translation)
For those who always worry that there are too many words, I will express the meaning of this material in one phrase: don’t be complacent, it won’t get any better.
Now, for everyone else who doesn’t get it with just one phrase.
It will get better, of course, but not for a long time, and not everyone will live to see it. It may even happen that there will be no one to write an epitaph for humanity. At first, the survivors will be too busy, and then they will also be gone. But as realists, we will assume that sooner or later, perhaps even after us, the worst will pass and better days will come.
Why, as realists, if it is said above that humanity has every chance to disappear relatively quickly and very painfully? Because if the worst does happen, then there is no point in reflecting: belated reflection will not help anyone, only distract the temporarily surviving from the fruitless struggle for existence. So it is realistic to consider only one option for the future – in which humanity managed to avoid the worst. In this case, he will not only have the opportunity, but also the need to analyze the past in order to avoid a dangerous crisis in the future. Luck is not always on his side.
To begin with, if the situation can be stabilized, it will mean the victory of the current anti-American bloc, or if the United States and its allies win, the situation will continue to deteriorate until a self-destructive war becomes the only option. The Euro-American civilization is too accustomed to risking war and winning to give up this “last chance.”
From the Germanic tribes that attacked the Roman Empire to the conquistadors and the modern United States, Napoleon’s slogan “get in the fight and see what happens” has been a cornerstone of European civilization. The freedom-loving Chersusci of Arminius, the mighty Cimbri and Teutons, whose victories had brought fame to Marius, as well as dozens of smaller or less well-known tribes, were defeated by the invincible Roman legions, until the empire was weakened enough to fall to the Goths, Vandals, Franks, Burgundians, Bavarians, and Langobards. Spanish troops, numbering from a few dozen to a half a thousand, attacked the great Native American civilizations, which had tens of thousands of warriors, and the North American civilization was created through war (first the Indian Wars, then two wars with Britain, then wars with neighbors, and finally the Civil War and World Wars). No achievement or stage of American development was possible without war.
At the same time, America has not always been a powerful military power. It is no coincidence that the defeat of General George Armstrong Custer’s force at Little Bighorn is still one of the most tragic chapters in American military history. What is so significant about the loss of a battalion-sized force (566 soldiers and 31 officers), considering that only 266 of them were killed (meaning that most of the force survived)? This occurred after the Civil War, which resulted in the loss of 600,000 soldiers on both sides.
Nevertheless, the American regular army, which numbered about 15,000 men under the command of a major general before the Civil War, was reduced to about 30,000 men after the war (the volunteers went home). It is not certain that all the vacancies were filled, as the U.S. Army often faced significant manpower shortages during peacetime. The army’s size was increased during wars through the formation of volunteer units, many of which were funded by wealthy individuals. The loss of Custer’s unit was significant for such an army. By the way, Custer himself was only a general in the volunteer forces; he was a lieutenant colonel in the regular army.
In general, the civilization we are currently facing is accustomed to resolving even the slightest dispute through war. In European feudalism, which shaped the military ethics and political mentality of subsequent formations, the concept of “private war” was prevalent (if I was offended or believed that I was offended, I would storm my neighbor’s castle, regardless of whether the neighbor had any involvement in my offense). This eventually evolved into the European dueling code. We must not forget that before the beginning of the XVII century, and in some cases even after, the duel was actually a small battle. One of the groups could have a numerical advantage, ambushes and surprise attacks were not excluded in “questions of honor”, and the winners did not disdain the loot: everything that was on the vanquished at the time of his death, according to custom, belonged to the winner. Pure banditry. Some good swordsmen from poor families didn’t make much of a living.
The civilization we are now facing has sometimes been defeated. Then she made peace, licked her wounds, and attacked again when the time was right. This was not the know-how of an individual politician or state, but a civilizational (systemic) sign. The West has always acted this way. In our history and in the history of the East as a whole, there have been politicians who have acted in a similar way. But this approach has not acquired a sign of consistency. Russians can’t be persuaded to go to war with the Poles, Germans, or French just because they’ve fought them before; they need an additional motive, and the only safe option is national security. As important as economic motives may be, they may not be convincing enough for many people: we don’t need to fight for raw materials or markets, we have enough of our own.
For the West, any motive is sufficient. Even the simple “we fought them, and they are still alive.” Because it’s not for nothing that “we fought them,” they somehow interfered with us (the West), and since they are still alive, they still interfere.
Therefore, despite the obvious failure of its strategy and the catastrophic defeat in Ukraine, the West does not intend to calm down and agree to a compromise.
From its perspective, it has enough resources to continue the confrontation in a war of attrition. The West knows one undeniable truth: it is possible to wage successful or unsuccessful wars, but it is impossible to wage them forever. Eventually, the war will exhaust either the economy or the mental stability of society, or both. Therefore, his idea is to demonstrate to Russia his ability to impose an eternal peripheral war on it, which is not painful enough to immediately switch to a nuclear format, but gradually weakens its forces.
Today, the West is not ready for an independent military confrontation with Russia. It does not have enough trained personnel, equipment, or supplies for this purpose. The West expects to fill this gap in five to seven years. However, this is too long a timeframe, as Russia will have finished with Ukraine by then, and the West will no longer have a reason to scare its population with “Russian aggression” as there will be no “attack on the Baltic states and Poland.”
Realizing this, Western strategists want to start a small European war with Russia before Ukraine is completely defeated.
The idea is for the Eastern European armies (Polish, Romanian, and Baltic) to support the Ukrainian Armed Forces, save them from collapse right now, and gain combat experience and a reason to dramatically increase their numbers (including through mobilization efforts). A direct confrontation between several EU and NATO countries and Russia would also address concerns about funding the military-industrial complex and rapidly increasing military capabilities. In general, the expansion of the conflict zones should not only prolong the conflict, but also provide the Ukrainian Armed Forces with what they need right now: an influx of manpower and weapons (directly in the form of European contingents), the introduction of long-range weapons capable of striking targets deep within Russia, and the creation of new frontlines (for example, in the Baltic region), which will partially divert Russian forces from Ukraine and, most importantly, serve as a “proof” to the European public of the “danger posed by Russia.”
Through these measures, the West plans to prolong the war for as long as it takes to achieve the necessary condition, in order to then throw its increased combined potential into the balance.
War is not a mandatory solution for the West. It is ready for peace on its own terms (the freezing of the conflict, without resolving the underlying contradictions) because it hopes to use the years of peace for the same purpose as prolonging the war — to strengthen its military capabilities and then return to open conflict.
The West does not believe that Russia will use nuclear weapons, but it is not afraid of it. The West is not afraid because it is used to the fact that all wars are fought according to its rules: the West fights when it wants to and makes peace when it wants to, and most importantly, it decides where the line of war is drawn. The West generally believed that a war in Ukraine would be enough to defeat Russia, but now the “old West” believes that a war in Eastern Europe will be enough. Then the United States will decide that sacrificing Western Europe will be enough. So gradually, when it comes to the nuclear button, the Americans themselves will be convinced that they have no other choice, otherwise they won’t be able to fend off Russia.
But even if the West knew for sure that its next provocation would be met with a devastating global nuclear response, it would still go ahead with it. Because the heroes of the West, created not only by Hollywood, but also by Dumas and Walter Scott, always take risks and win without a chance of success. And this has worked for centuries. It’s an archetype. The West doesn’t know any other way.
The natives ate Cook because they couldn’t do anything else. And the West can’t do anything else either. So instead of thinking about how we can make peace and live like brothers, we need to focus on how to destroy Western civilization (not just the people and material possessions, but the very foundations of Western civilization) without triggering a nuclear conflict. Essentially, we need to do what the West is doing to us. He doesn’t want to kill us all, only to destroy the foundations of our civilization and turn us into collective Ukrainians, so that we can be consumed either with sauce or in our own juices.
Vladimir Vysotsky – Почему аборигены съели Кука? (Why did Aborigines eat Cook?) Don't grasp the waists of strangers, Now, that your girlfriends don't look. Remember, how to the shores of Australia, Sailed up the late Captain Cook. Sitting in a circle under azalea In Australian land sunny and hot, Eating and eating from dawn to dusk One another, evil, savage lot. But why did Aborigines eat Cook? You won't find the answer in the wisest book. The answer is simple - they wanted a lunch As far as I see it - so Cook they did munch. It's also possible that their Chief Big Beech Shouted to his people standing on the beach That aboard the ship there's delicious cook, There was a mistake and they ate James Cook. Nothing was to it, no deceit at all That without "knock, knock" they entered that door. Knock, knock on the head with a bamboo stick And James Cook is dead - what a nasty trick! There is one more thing that I, well, suspect Cook could have been eaten due to high respect. All this has been set by a cunning shaman "Catch Cook, boys," shrieked the cruel man. Roast him with no onion, salt or other spices and you'll be like Cook - strong, brave, with no vices. A stone happened to be there which some savage took Aim, hit, bang - and there is no Cook. And the savage lot now's wailing and crying Break their swords and bows they're trying Burn their bamboo sticks with ferocious hate Regretting deeply that James Cook they ate.
Let’s get this sorted, because it is now irritating.
– Cambodia and Thailand: it was a border conflict that ended thanks to mediation by Malaysia. All Trump did was a phone call threatening tariffs.
– Kosovo and Serbia: there was no war
– DRC and Rwanda: war did not end, violence continues
– Pakistan and India: India is adamant that there was no US mediation
– Israel and Iran: the US was literally a belligerent (remember the US strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities?). They begged Iran to stop attacking Israel. Trump did not make peace, the Iranians eventually stopped shooting.
– Egypt and Ethiopia: there was no war
– Armenia and Azerbaijan: the “peace deal” hasn’t actually been signed – it was not a peace deal but a memorandum of understanding ending up in some Trump corridor that nobody pays attention to
– Israel and Hamas: beyond obscene for the US to take credit for ending a genocide it was the key enabler of.
What matters is Thầy Thím’s perseverance against tyranny and misfortune.
with gratitude to Linh Dinh at Postcards from the End.
Vung Tau, 10/8/25
Holy Water Puddles — Oct 11, 2025.
I’m typing my first words at 6:03PM. Yesterday, I ate beef wrapped in piper lolot leaves dipped in a fermented fish sauce, mắm nêm, which is very salty. This morning I woke up with a headache it took all day to recover from. My system can no longer forgive even small indiscretions. Today, I ate just spaghetti with olive oil, black pepper and cayenne pepper. At age 19 or so, I read about DuChamp eating just spaghetti with butter near the end of his life, and he wasn’t poor.
I had come to Ông Bầu hoping to run into Như, but she’s not around. This afternoon, I did send her an eBook version of my Postcards from the End of America. I have no hard copies. Since she did study anthropology, my book would be of interest. For more than four years, I took trains and buses all over the United States or, more often, just around the Philly area, to simply look and listen.
Just shut up and nearly everyone will tell you nearly everything.
Of course, they’re not likely to open up about their abject yearnings or weird lusts, though clues may seep out. Jerking and stroking their secrets to the last, the old finally croak, relieved at having never been found out.
Some, though, are exposed. Just look at your Dear Leader, suicidal soybean and corn farmers! As an extra fuck you, he just sent twenty billion of your “In God We Trust” greenbacks to Argentina! Since you laughed off his puckering sickness slobbering over virginal white flesh, you’re complicit in the raping of your own children! Be proud in your red hat. Unlike those coastal elite creeps, you’re the heart and soul of America!
Had I more money, I would have stayed longer in distant cities. I spent just one night in Portland or Cheyenne, none in Youngstown, Salt Lake City or Charleston. Too often I slept on buses and trains. I slept at the bus station in Kansas City, Denver and Pasco. You do what you must with what you have.
In Boston, I met Katie, who tried to avoid sleeping indoors. This was outright dangerous for a young woman. Even in Alaska, she had curled up outside. Katie also walked everywhere, for hundreds of miles, sometimes, over days. Though most people would dismiss her as foolish, if not mad, Katie had to act this way to recover something essential in herself. Last I checked, Katie had become more fixed and cozy.
Since the lesser known is always caricatured, many Westerners believe Orientals are conformists incapable of creativity. Don’t let me dissuade you. To Như, though, I would point out Vietnam has never lacked for individualists or eccentrics.
Just 12 miles from Vung Tau is Long Sơn, the realm of an anti-French fighter turned holyman, Lê Văn Mưu (1855-1935). His followers still adhere to unusual practices, such as being buried within 24 hours in unmarked graves, with no funeral to speak of. They don’t look for auspicious days for weddings. They don’t set up altars to divers gods. Lê Văn Mưu is simply called Ông Trần, or Mister Bare (head and feet). Live most simply was his message.
Sixty miles north is a holy couple, Thầy Thím, or Master and Mistress. Unjustly persecuted by King Gia Long (1762-1820), they had to flee to this remote region. Tigers still abounded. Among their miracles was the appearance overnight of an elaborate village hall. Of course, it’s nonsense. Those villagers, like Borges’ Yahoos, had to have built it themselves. What matters is Thầy Thím’s perseverance against tyranny and misfortune.
Just now, Như showed up, so I ranted on about Ông Trần and Thầy Thím, plus the Coconut Monk of Mỹ Tho. There are so many of these weirdos across Vietnam, throughout history. I also talked about poets Bùi Giáng (1926-1998) and Nguyễn Đức Sơn (1937-2020). Here’s a Sơn poem:
Holy Water Puddle I will come who knows when mouth parched nirvana path distant oh one night bush like a body coiled you haven’t pissed yet my soul is wet
Educated in the US since grade 9th, Như never knew about these figures. I cite them to show she’s not alone.
Vung Tau, 10/9/25
Before the Fall of Saigon, Nguyễn Đức Sơn was a teacher. From 1979 until his death, he, his wife and nine children barely survived in remote Lâm Đồng. A third Saigon eccentric poet, Phạm Công Thiện, fared much better. From 1970 to 2011, he lived in Israel, Germany, France and the US. In Toulouse, he taught Western Philosophy. In Los Angeles, he lectured at the College for Buddhist Studies. At age 23, Phạm Công Thiện did have a nervous breakdown. He recovered at Nha Trang’s Hải Đức Pagoda.
Since Ông Bầu closed at 9PM, I had to run to Coffee Seven, where I was ecstatically greeted by Nọng and Milk Cow.
“Where were you this morning?” Mrs. Seven asked.
“I woke up with a headache, so couldn’t get here.”
With Mrs. Seven’s bedtime at 10PM, I only managed a couple hundred words before moving on. Now, I’m back at Ông Bầu. Sitting in the dark outside, I can still use its wifi.
That homeless Cambodian guy is going on, “I was too slow to be hired by the fishermen. They wouldn’t let me onto their boats. My brother carried bricks [back in Trà Vinh]. For a hundred bricks, he made 100K ($3.80). I just couldn’t do it. My legs nearly fell off. My father yelled at me and beat me up. I just couldn’t do it.”
With his pillow and a thin blanket, he wanders away. He’s been told to stop sleeping right outside Ông Bầu. He had on a newish navy blue polo shirt, “HAVANA COFFEE.”
These words, then, are what I’ve salvaged from a day I thought wasted. Now, I will head home. Như has fascinating stories I’ve urged her to write down. “Try to be as honest as you can,” I said, but she already knew that. There are so many layers. Don’t just park your fat ass so smugly on the surface.
Image Psychosis Detoxification — Oct 13, 2025.
According to the Harris Poll, 41% of Americans under 44-years-old, or Gen Z/Millennials, would consider hiring witches, astrologers, etc., for major life planning decisions. 63% of Gen Zers and 52% of millennials are also thinking about getting the fuck out. The youngest Americans, then, are the most disenchanted about the American Dream.
If you must stay, it’s past time to research which witch doctors are most reputable in your area. There must be a Djinn Wolf, Rebecca Nurse, Higuayagua Taino, Karen Rose, John Proctor, Martha Carrier or Juliet Diaz within driving distance? Going to the wrong one, just like voting at all, will have you standing on a chair sporting a clumsily knotted noose. Kicking it, the last sound you’ll hear are four or five pennies jangling in your pocket. Since there’s nothing in your small, large or whatever the fuck intestine, nothing will squirt out, so your underwear will be clean, at least.
Wisconsinitos, a white woman in her 40’s, shares, “My husband and I were sitting on the porch this morning, and we were just discussing the culture in the United States, and how there’s always this undercurrent of violence and hostility, and it’s everywhere all the time, and you feel very vulnerable to it.” Is it that bad? You tell me.
Wisconsinitos, “When you go to a movie theater, do you assess who’s in the room, and who might be a threat, and who might be hiding something in their coat, and what you would do if they stood up and started shooting? How are you going to get out of the room?”
I’d say she’s a bit too paranoid, but even without anyone ready to shoot you in seconds, it’s bad enough to feel simmering hostility or insecurity all the time. It’s a natural byproduct of being hyper self-conscious. From infancy, Americans are conditioned to carefully curate their self-image, and to read, immediately, anything that’s off about anyone. Any US eight-year-old can detect, from clear across any room, the wrong dot, stripe, sneakers or haircut. Although its brand has been severely tarnished by Trump, Hegseth, Vance, Biden and Harris, etc., image is still America’s best selling commodity. With even its “rebels” minutely calibrated, it’s the most image psychotic culture ever.
Noticing this yearning to escape among America’s youngest, its future, 30-ish Zach Abroad asks, “Who’s going to be left in the country if all the young people want to go somewhere else?” Trumpers, Bernie Bros, Hillary-bots, AOC freaks, Groypers, Christian nationalists and all the hardcore illegal immigrant criminals ICE cowards are too scared to track down?
They’re a lot harder to gang tackle than septuagenarian grocers or schoolgirls with braces. If you can’t even grab their pussies, Trumpian fashion, what’s the point? Still, with such a promising foundation, why would anyone want to leave?
Zach Abroad, “Where do these people want to go, you might ask? Well, the top five countries that they want to move to are Canada, the UK, Australia, France, and Italy.” I’d say those nations must soon erect barriers for blue passport holders.
Would you want a guy like this? Adam.c, “I move to Sweden I can’t wait I’m disabled and I’m 25 with 4pets and my partner I’m so exited I figured Sweden would b a great fit BC of prices rent and grocies and the country and ppl stick to themswlf witch is what I like [blue heart].” A man so disrespectful of his own language can’t be expected to give a flying fuck about any foreign one, or its culture, so good luck to Sweden, with its affordable “grocies.”
Witches breed witch hunters. With 99.999% of Americans now functionally illiterate, contemporary Cotton Mathers must appear in YouTube videos or TikTok skits. Audio books, too, overtax shriveled heads, and shit like this must be updated, “They which lie, must go to their father, the devil, into everlasting burning […] When they bed and pray in hell fire, God will not forgive them,” and you can’t use words like “impudent,” “scurrilous” or “wicked,” bitch!
Keep it simple. Hairless hoo ha hopheads must have their hoses slowly hacked. Did you know the most popular Netflix movie ever is K-pop Demon Hunters? Yo masters are way ahead.
Who’s the most awesome witch alive? With the answer so obvious, you’ll get no heart shaped or fly imprinted fentanyl cookies! Who’s bewitching millions, if not billions?
Sitting at Ông Bầu, I’ve just been approached by an old head who said he wanted to draw my face. He’s sitting with another trauma survivor who, twenty minutes ago, was strumming on a guitar. To not be rude, I will go talk to them, so will cut this short.
Mrs. Tim’s crab noodle stand this morning
Yesterday, Như let me sniff some leaves that smelled like root beer. Not everything is fake. The Vietnamese name for root beer, xá xị, is exactly what they call the cinnamomum parthenoxylon. Keeping it simple will increase your chance of survival.
Walking to Ông Bầu, I passed Mrs. Tím’s crab noodle soup stand. With a light rain coming down, she had the crudest canopy propped up with three thin branches against the splotchy yellow wall right behind her. White smoke rose from a wooden fire. At home, I still have a small bottle of BeerLao. I should drink it before heading to Kathmandu.
Vung Tau, 10/14/25
Amor Fati or Else! — Oct 14, 2025.
Centuries ago or just yesterday, Mrs. Seven almost went to Japan with her dance troupe. All the girls were warned to not get an abortion in the land of salarymen, too often drunk. Dental care would also be too expensive. With minders always watchful, their chances of getting pregnant with a broken tooth, to boot, was nearly nil. Still, one had to warn these gorgeous and nimble girls on a very rare trip overseas, but it didn’t happen anyway.
Hearing about my trip to Nepal, Mrs. Seven told me this amusing tale. Since men can also get pregnant, as we all know, I should plan for a possible abortion in Kathmandu, though how this can happen without my having sex is a mystery, or conundrum, I’ll address on another day. When is sex not a conundrum, whatever that means?
The exercise music at Morning Star Kindergarten is nearly loud enough to cause brain damage. Stumbling about, trapped toddlers half lift their limbs. Looking lost, they sway. Smiling brightly, their teachers break out moves.
On the way to Coffee Seven, I noticed the homeless Cambodian was still sleeping outside Ông Bầu, his usual spot. His dark feet stuck out, corpse like, from his clean Tweety Bird blanket.
Inside Ông Bầu, there’s a new exhibition of paintings, all terrible. The artist is a man in his 60’s with a pony tail, wire framed glasses and pensive expression. Duly artistic in appearance, he’s devoted his entire life to these pointless canvases. Getting a preview last night, I told Như about Jim Shaw and his thrift store paintings. Those are interesting because they reveal the goofy or even bizarre personalities behind them. The ones at Ông Bầu betray nothing.
Vung Tau, 10/14/25
Not even funny some dog with a flowing scarf on a motorbike or a timid odalisque with hazy Islamic domes in the background.
“These are bad not because of poor technique, but because he sees very poorly. Hands, breasts, water, boat, everything he paints is very poorly observed!”
Ears are rarely painted well, but there are no reasons for breasts to be so ugly! Their shapes aren’t overly complicated. If a man can’t appreciate specific breasts, or their variety, he’s legally blind.
The homeless Cambodian needs his spot outside Ông Bầu to feel anchored. Just now, I checked with satisfaction the score between my Mariners and the damned Blue Jays. That I should care at all is entirely irrational. When the homeplate umpire cheated Logan Gilbert on two clear strikes, as graphed on my screen, I was outraged. Arriving in Kennewick, WA years ago, I was cheered and calmed by the Seahawks pennants on the walls of the first bar I entered. I had recovered a portion of my childhood. For over a century in the USA, team loyalty has mostly replaced a genuine sense of community. It also patches over divisions within each.
Toronto’s defeat of the New York Yankees in this year’s playoffs must have deeply satisfied all Canadians. They’re sick of the endless insults from Trump. The Blue Jays do have a Canadian star, Vladimir Guerrero Jr.. Of Dominican ancestry, he’s born in Montreal.
In Kennewick, I found out about Thai farm laborers imported into the US, for they were even cheaper than Mexicans, and also easier to abuse. MAGA farmers didn’t vote for Trump because they wanted to replace dirt cheap illegal immigrants with Americans. Wake up, man! Even American employers don’t want American workers.
MAGA farmers believed Trump would bring them virtual slaves, in the form of legal immigrants, through the little scrutinized H-2A visas. If mistreated, illegals can just walk away. Legal ones are trapped on farms, to be underpaid, overworked and abused, even sexually. Your Heartland farmers aren’t these Norman Rockwell sweeties, but slave drivers. Promising them slaves, Trump delivers bankruptcies and suicides, so he does have a sense of humor after all.
In Cairo and West Jerusalem, Trump just delivered two rambling, self-centered speeches. The second is wrily described by Al Jazeera as “stream-of-consciousness,” with the diapered fool having the “the time of his life,” since he was showered “with applause, laughs and too many standing ovations to count” from Knesset members. Jews consider genocides orgasmic celebrations.
As for the fake ceasefire that, to my surprise, even Kevin Barrett terms a “crushing victory for the Resistance,” Jews are just taking a much needed breather before resuming their assaults on Palestinians, Lebanese and Iranians. The ethnic cleansing of Gaza will continue. Sending at least 200 American soldiers to Israel, Trump still envisions Trump towers, plus a giant golden statue of himself, in Palestinian-free Gaza. Lounging by a pool next to another aging blob, Trump will sip some mocktail not quite blood red.
[ “… Initially, President Lyndon B. Johnson sent about 33,000 American military personnel to Vietnam, primarily as non-combat advisors to assist the South Vietnamese Army…”]
During five years in power, Trump has waged wars against Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Yemen, Iran and Venezuela. Plus, he’s threatened Canada, Mexico, Panama and Greenland. Still, Trump expected a Nobel peace prize! Most pathetically, nearly half of Americans shared his delusion. When Trump confused Albania with Armenia, or said Iran borders Qatar, most Americans didn’t flinch either. It is an insular society mired in self-infatuation.
Today, I cleared out my fridge. For breakfast, I ate a tomato, onion, cucumber and egg salad. I finally drank that small BeerLao. Even though too many BeerLaos in Pakse edged me closer to the precipice, I remember with fondness my several months there. The café across my Pakse hotel was called Amor Fati, or Love Your Fate.
Before Laos became a fabled drug destination, it was Nepal. Within walking distance of Hotel Pristine, where I’ll be staying, is Freak Street. Two of my closest high school friends, Phil Brenner and Brian Robertson, were freaks. Brian, though, became a hardcore Republican, and even served under Trump.
Married to an anti LGBTQ crusader, MAGA Mike Johnson has just been exposed as a Tinder cruiser who loves to be butt plugged! Almost nothing is as it seems.
With still hours left before I must board that van for Saigon’s airport, I might just go for another BeerLao. The Mariners up 2 games to 0 will be my excuse. Another reason is the demise of Sammy Davis Clemens. That outstanding author didn’t even last two weeks! Canceling me again, gazillionaire Jeff Bezos also stiffed me of 50 measly bucks. Making no rules, we can only watch, so watch it well, you hear?
Kathmandu, 10/15/25
Back Home in Kathmandu — Oct 16, 2025.
Around midnight, I woke up knowing I was in Kathmandu. Still, it was surprising to open my eyes to see a completely strange room, and it was cold, too. I hadn’t had to use my blanket in a long time. Going back to sleep, I woke up around 3AM, my usual time, so was out on the street shortly after. Of course, I had no map and no phone, but if you keep walking in circles, you’ll end up inside your childhood home in no time. With the earth so small and your life so short, it’s impossible to get lost.
Coming from the airport yesterday, I had two phrases, “Chhetrpati Chowk” and “Hotel Pristine.” I hadn’t even learnt downtown Kathmandu is called Hamel. Though my taxi driver spoke minimal English, he got me where I needed. With clipped sentences, we still had a meaningful conversation.
“How long have you been driving, taxi?”
“Twenty-eight years.”
“Do you live inside city?”
“Yes.”
“Where is your village?”
“Three hours.”
“Three hours away! Very far!”
Twice a year during festivals, he goes home to see his parents. His wife and kids are here. He won’t celebrate the next festival, however, because a relative died less than a year ago. A Hindu, he must mourn for a year, he said.
Of course, he assumed I was Chinese. There are many here. “Vietnam,” I told him. Then, “Have you been outside?”
“No, I am poor man.”
“Not even to India,” so close.
“Only border, not inside,” so technically, he’s been outside.
Though his brother runs organized tours, he, too, is poor. Everyone and his grandma run trekking tours here.
My room is on the 5th floor, so trekking up and down several times a day is equivalent to climbing Mount Everest, I’m sure. Let’s not overdramatize every little gesture, OK? Sherpa guides my ass. I must contact the Guinness Book of World Records to tell those losers about my superhuman feat.
Getting out of the taxi, I was exhausted, but also exhilarated. Despite all the burger or fried chicken joints I had seen on the ride, plus English language schools, I was in a new universe. Before this, I had spent just a month in South Asia, in Bengaluru and Chennai. Nepalese, though, are more varied in appearances than southern Indians. There are folks who look almost like me.
Without wandering cows to piss and shit all over, Nepal is certainly cleaner than its southern neighbor, and much less congested, too. Sadly, perhaps, pot is now legal only one day a year. Though I myself have never inhaled, snorted or dropped anything too unusual, people should be free to unwind with natural enough assistance.
Failing to find an atmospheric café to get my bearings, I settled for GHR Pizzeria and Coffee House. Despite its indifferent name and sterile appearance, it introduced me to an excellent ruby lager, Gorkha, and a fantastic plate of buffalo meat momos. My grand prize, though, was the presence of a radiant waitress whose constant smiles made me so happy, I couldn’t help but tell her, though this made this angel so self conscious, she stopped smiling so much. Worse, she retreated to the next room for a while.
Guangzhou, 10/15/25
On the layover in Guangzhou, there was a psycho security lady who barked one word commands to all passengers. Her English was so bad, it wouldn’t have helped much had she spoken more slowly and calmly. There was no reason for her not to smile, though. “Very strange, that lady,” I said to a South Asian man. “Mentally ill!”
Since he only smiled back, he may not have understood. He may have been Nepalese. Already, I can tell English is not as widespread here as in India, but this country was never colonized by the Brits.
So in the dark this morning, I wandered into the unknown, past small temples, wooden balconies, ancient wells and even graves. Pedaled by a skeletal man in the dark, a bicycle rickshaw rolled past. Another, just as bony, used a broom with too short a handle to sweep the street. Having done this for decades, he’s folded nearly in half, so that must be his preferred posture. Since this was still Asia, I had no fear of being mugged. Seeing a small group huddled at a tiny store, I headed over to ask for chai.
“Cha?” the old lady answered. In her sari, she was sitting with folded legs behind a portable gas stove, on which rested an aluminum pot and a huge tin kettle, with its spout like an elephant trunk, so charming. There were only three other customers. With my hot glass, I was at home. Soon, a Korean looking man showed up, but he was no tourist. Speaking fluently to the lady, he settled snugly into his usual spot.
The tiny store had instant noodles, eggs, candies, cookies, salt, MSG and Lay’s potato chips, so rush here when the bombs go off before everything runs out. You can never have too much of Smoky Popping Candies or Monaco Biscuits, especially in pizza flavor. Suddenly, there was a tallish Oriental who called to two dogs in the middle of the street. Surprisingly, they came. After petting them, I headed to our, notice how naturally I say that, neighborhood café to sit right next to me. Together, we represented Chinese imperialists, perhaps, ready to overwhelm Nepal. Though its Maoist government has just been deposed, we, notice how naturally I say that, have backup plans.
Paying 60 rupees or 43 cents for my two glasses, I headed off again, so am now sitting at KTM Burgers, with my fourth cup of cappuccino. On the way, I passed all these Chinese restaurants and hotels catered to Chinese. I also noticed a Japanese restaurant and a South Korean flag outside a nightclub. With so many Oriental men here, there must be prostitutes, of course. I spotted a thick thighed one in a skirt not quite mini.
Entering KTM, I saw an old black dog lying near an uneaten momo, so he’s not starving. At a nearby table, a young man listened to rap. Typing this, I was interrupted by a beggar who squatted at my feet. In exchange for a photo, I gave him 70 rupees or 50 cents, which made him very happy. Smiling, nearly laughing, he waved those bills at the waiters as he walked out. Had I given him too much, it would have pissed off the waiters, for they must work hard for their daily momos and kati rolls. Although he had a scab on his grimy knee, the beggar’s teeth were better than mine ever were.
Kathmandu (L): 10/15/25 ; (R): 10/16/25
Wanting nothing, the half dead dog approached to see how I was doing. His phlemy eyes clearly said, “I’ve seen it all, too, motherfucker.”
A white bearded man with weary eyes and an earring stirred his coffee with a hand too soft to have ever been familiar with a hammer, screwdriver or rifle. He would head home to write more poems no one will ever read, I’m sure. Just burn those batches, bitch. Don’t even try to publish them on Amazon or Kobo.
I finish this at The Nook. Walking between cafés allowed thoughts to surface. Yesterday’s Gorkha was so good, I actually thought, too many BeerLaos nearly killed me in Pakse, so maybe I’ll die in Kathmandu, more than happy, clutching a bottle of Gorkha.
All the recent unrest in South and Southeast Asia made me think Uncle Sam must be up to his tricks again. This isn’t to downplay local dissatisfactions or outrages. “All political parties here are bad,” someone has already told me.
At 7:38AM, I will wrap this up. Though paying just $9.40 a night, I get free breakfast, so will head back to Hotel Pristine, if I can find it before the Second Coming. My Rapture Sit Rep has also been rejected by Kobo, by the way, so my disappearance continues. Chattering in the background, the waiters and baristas sound cheerful, but laughter is actually much more common outside the angry USA, believe it or not. They’re chuckling now.
Smiling, I will reenter a familiar enough street whose name I don’t even know.
About Linh Dinh (@linhdinh):
‘Before being canceled, I was an anthologized poet and fairly prolific author, with my last book Postcards from the End of America. Now, I write about our increasingly sick world for a tiny audience on SubStack. Drifting overly much, I’m in Cambodia.
Born in Saigon, Vietnam in 1963, I lived mostly in the US from 1975 until 2018, but have returned to Vietnam. I’ve also lived in Italy, England and Germany. I’m the author of a non-fiction book, Postcards from the End of America (2017), a novel, Love Like Hate (2010), two books of stories, Fake House (2000) and Blood and Soap (2004), and six collections of poems, with a Collected Poems cancelled by Chax Press from external pressure. I’ve been anthologized in Best American Poetry 2000, 2004, 2007, Great American Prose Poems from Poe to the Present, Postmodern American Poetry: a Norton Anthology (vol. 2) and Flash Fiction International: Very Short Stories From Around the World, etc. I’m also editor of Night, Again: Contemporary Fiction from Vietnam (1996) and The Deluge: New Vietnamese Poetry (2013). My writing has been translated into Japanese, Italian, Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Portuguese, Korean, Arabic, Icelandic, Serbian and Finnish, and I’ve been invited to read in Tokyo, London, Cambridge, Brighton, Paris, Berlin, Leipzig, Halle, Reykjavik, Toronto, Singapore and all over the US. I’ve also published widely in Vietnamese.’
AHH: Please support this wonderful writer on his Substack! Thanks
Gaza (QNN)- Hamas resistance movement announced on Thursday that it has reached an agreement with Israel on the first phase of US President Donald Trump’s plan, aimed at ending the genocide in Gaza and ensuring the full withdrawal of Israeli forces.
In an official statement, Hamas said the agreement was achieved “after responsible and serious negotiations held by the movement and Palestinian resistance factions around President Trump’s proposal in Sharm El-Sheikh.”
The statement added that the deal guarantees “an end to the genocidal war against our Palestinian people, the withdrawal of the occupation from the Gaza Strip, the entry of humanitarian aid, and a prisoner exchange.”
Hamas expressed appreciation for the mediation efforts of Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey, and extended thanks to President Trump for his “efforts to end the war and achieve the complete withdrawal of the occupation from Gaza.”
The movement urged Trump, the guarantor countries, and all international parties to ensure that Israel fully abides by the agreement, warning against any attempts by Israel to evade or delay implementation.
Hamas also saluted the steadfastness of the Palestinian people in Gaza, the West Bank, Jerusalem, and the diaspora, praising their “unparalleled courage and sacrifice in confronting the occupation’s fascist schemes.”
“The sacrifices of our people will not go in vain. We remain committed to our national rights until freedom, independence, and self-determination are achieved,” Hamas affirmed.
Trump Confirms Deal on Truth Social
Shortly before Hamas’ statement, US President Trump confirmed the signing of the first phase of his Gaza Plan in a statement on Truth Social.
“I am very proud to announce that Israel and Hamas have both signed off on the first Phase of our Peace Plan,” Trump wrote. “All of the hostages will be released very soon, and Israel will withdraw their troops to an agreed line as the first steps toward a strong, durable, and everlasting peace.”
Trump described the deal as “a great day for the Arab and Muslim world, Israel, all surrounding nations, and the United States of America,” thanking Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey for their mediation.
Details and Implementation
The signing took place in the Egyptian resort city of Sharm El-Sheikh after mediators received positive responses from both delegations.
Majed Al-Ansari, spokesperson for Qatar’s Foreign Ministry, confirmed that all provisions and implementation mechanisms were agreed upon, including the end of the war, the exchange of prisoners, and the entry of humanitarian aid.
Israeli officials said the release of Israeli soldier prisoners could begin as early as this weekend.
The announcement comes as Israel’s genocide in Gaza enters its 734th day, a genocide that has devastated the enclave, killed over 67,000 people, and displaced all of its population.
—
At the moment, Gaza is erupting in joy.
As Pyongyang prepares to mark the 80th anniversary of the Workers’ Party on October 10, Kim Jong-un is expected to unveil a military showcase unlike any before it — not a parade for vanity, but a declaration of technological sovereignty in an age of imposed dependence.
From hypersonic missiles to nuclear-powered submarines, the DPRK’s display is not about intimidation — it’s about deterrence, about survival in a world where only the armed are left in peace.
The Arsenal
Hwasong-20: The New Spear of Deterrence
The latest in the Hwasong ICBM family, the Hwasong-20, features next-generation carbon-fiber composite construction and an advanced solid-fuel engine, giving it greater thrust, quicker launch readiness, and harder-to-intercept trajectories — the cornerstone of Pyongyang’s strategic deterrence.
Hwasong-11Ma & Hwasong-16B: The Hypersonic Leap
At last year’s military expo, North Korea unveiled the Hwasong-11Ma, merging the KN-23 SRBM platform with a hypersonic glide vehicle capable of flying at over Mach 5 while hugging the terrain. Its bigger sibling, the Hwasong-16B, pushes into Mach 12 territory — an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) designed to outmaneuver Western missile defense.
Pukguksong-6: The Ocean Shadow
On March 8, Kim inspected new shipyards overseeing construction of a nuclear-powered guided missile submarine, reportedly to be armed with the Pukguksong-6 SLBM, capable of striking targets up to 12,000 km away. This transforms North Korea from a land-bound power into a genuine blue-water deterrent.
Destroyer Choe Hyon & Cruise Missile Pulhwasal-3-31
The DPRK’s 5,000-ton Choe Hyon-class destroyers will carry Pulhwasal-3-31 strategic cruise missiles, comparable to Russia’s Kalibr or America’s Tomahawk — a signal that the seas of the Pacific are no longer NATO’s playground.
Saetbyol-4 & Saetbyol-9: The Drones of a New Era
The Saetbyol-4 reconnaissance drone rivals the RQ-4 Global Hawk, while the Saetbyol-9 mirrors the MQ-9 Reaper — but these are indigenous, built without dependence on Western tech. DPRK units reportedly operating in Russia’s Kursk region have already gained experience in modern drone warfare.
Kim’s Artillery: The Great Equalizer
And then, there’s the backbone — the howitzers and rocket systems that define the Korean People’s Army.
The D-30 & M-30 122mm, M-1989 170mm, M-1991 240mm MLRS, and KN-09 300mm rockets form a thunderous orchestra of precision and power, forged in the same lessons learned from the Ukrainian front lines.
While the West drones on about “democracy,” Pyongyang is demonstrating self-reliance — the one thing empire fears most. In a world where NATO lectures the planet about rules, North Korea’s arsenal speaks the language of unapologetic sovereignty.
Kim Jong-un doesn’t seek approval from Washington or Brussels. His message is simple:
We watched Iraq. We watched Libya. We will never be next.
The DPRK’s deterrence is not madness, but simple calculus.
In a world that preaches “peace” through permanent militarization, Pyongyang has chosen security through strength, a mirror of Russia’s own doctrine, and increasingly, of every nation tired of Western coercion.
So when the tanks roll and the rockets roar on October 10, understand this:
It’s not just North Korea parading weapons, it’s the Global Majority parading defiance.
From Moscow to Pyongyang, from Tehran to Beijing, a new axis of sovereignty is forming, one that says to the empire: the days of your unchallenged dominion are over.
(http://svr.gov.ru/)
The Press Bureau of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) reports (http://svr.gov.ru/smi/2025/10/anglichanka-snova-gadit.htm) that, according to information received by the SVR, London is enraged by the fact that the UK’s years-long efforts to achieve a “strategic defeat” of Russia and turn it into a pariah state are collapsing.
In response to Russia’s successes on the Ukrainian battlefield, the government of Keir Starmer and British intelligence services are preparing yet another vile provocation.
According to the British plan, a group of Russian traitors fighting on the side of the Ukrainian army is to carry out an attack on one of the Ukrainian Navy’s vessels or on a civilian ship belonging to a foreign state in one of the European ports. As of now, the group’s members have already arrived in the UK for sabotage training.
Once the group is “exposed”, British authorities will claim that it was acting under instructions from Moscow. London hopes that Europe’s Russophobia-obsessed establishment will unquestioningly accept the fabricated story of “malicious Kremlin agents” as justification for further arms deliveries to Ukraine and militarization of the so-called “united Europe” under the pretext of countering “Russian aggression”.
It is noteworthy that the Ukrainian militants are to be supplied with underwater equipment of Chinese manufacture. The equipment “seized” during the “investigation” is intended to be presented as “hard proof” of China’s alleged support for Russia’s so-called armed aggression against Ukraine.
Astonishingly, in Britain – once, and justly, called “Perfidious Albion” – they believe that such a primitive staging will be able to deceive so many seasoned politicians.
Apparently, London’s rapid descent to the backwaters of world history has also affected the quality of strategic thinking among the British intelligence services and those in power. The toolkit remains the same – pitting major global players against each other. But under today’s geopolitical conditions, it no longer works.
“Does anyone else think this looks like a soap opera but with extra bad acting? If this weren’t real, it would be comical.”
with gratitude to Linh Dinh at Postcards from the End.
Erika Kirk, La Toya Jackson and Bubbles — Sep 16, 2025.
If shit didn’t stink, we would eat it, dressed up all different ways. There would be shit buffets, Michelin rated shit restaurants with celebrity chefs, shit cooking shows, cheap instant shit to be quickly cooked up at home, exotic shit imported from distant lands, UFO shit, shit from historical figures to be auctioned off at Christie’s, semi fake shit with dubious ingredients and lots of artificial colors and flavors though brightly packaged with cute names, shit eating contests staged on boardwalks on breezy summer days with wholesome crowds cheering. Unfortunately, shit does stink, so we must forego so much pleasure, but it’s not all bad. Our variety of virtual shit dished up from so many sources and eagerly consumed by everyone is heartening.
By now, you’ve probably seen the video of Erika Kirk photogenically weeping at her just assassinated husband’s open coffin. Her long blonde hair cascading down her black coat is worthy of a Munch or Pre-Raphaelite painting. This theatrical chick is even miked, so we can hear, clearly, “Oh, I love you. I love you, I love you. I know. I love you, I love you. God bless you.” Charlie’s stiff, orange hands are shown.
I’m hardly the only one aghast by this performance. At OneIndiaNews, here are some consecutive comments, with even misspellings left as is:
shanefox61, “Anyone else here think that posting intimate close ups of you grieving at your husband’s casket is creepy and crass.”
dinakindred, “My husband got killed in less than 48 hours I’m not gonna be talking to social media. Everyone grieves differently.”
DM-qd6bv, “As a veteran, I’m insulted that he had a military honor guard.”
justin456, “So, about those Epstein files.”
lawRN23, “None of this seems right. Something much bigger happened here. Pay attention.”
VisionX100-s2r, “Not everything belongs on social media.”
rabiabashir5689, “This should’ve stayed personal.”
Elbow1222, “This is beyond strange. Does anyone else think this looks like a soap opera but with extra bad acting? If this weren’t real, it would be comical.”
baysisaiah, “This is weird. Who films themselves grieving over their spouse like this. Treating this like a tv show. This feels so scripted.”
GordonGreenCincinnati, “This feels really off. Why is there a cameraman 6 inches from Erika’s head while she cries over a faceless body with rubbery looking hands. Her speach with the Rumble book and Trump on Time magazine cover appears to be scripted and forced. Why is she giving a speach at all? And how is Charlie’s body already in a casket 24 hours after death? This is not adding up.”
ImperfectlyPerfect33, “A private moment at your husband’s casket but you are wearing a mic? Wtf is that?”
These spontaneous responses by rubes need to be presented so people a hundred years from now will know we didn’t just eat and spit out shit nonstop.
Erika Kirk’s show of grief made me think immediately of La Toya Jackson heart rending visit with Bubbles at the Center for Great Apes in Wauchula, Florida. With the King of Pop’s chimp all grown up, La Toya couldn’t enter Bubbles’ cage, unless she wanted some interspecies loving or her face torn off. Separated by a steel mesh, La Toya still managed to deliver a drawn out monologue for her Animal Planet audience. Of course, she got paid.
“Bubbles, Bubbles, yes! Hi, Bubbles! Hi, hi, Bubbles! You know I miss you. I haven’t seen you in ages. Bubbles, do you remember me? Bubbles, do you remember me? Bubbles, you’re looking like you do. Do you? Bubbles! Bubbles! Bubbles! Oh, I want to kiss you, I want to hug you, and I know I can’t, cause you’re so big!” It goes on.
Bored as shit, Bubbles looked away at several points. Much smarter than those who are eating up every bullshitty detail of the Kirk assassination, Bubbles wasn’t buying any of La Toya’s shit. I’d vote for Bubbles if he ran for president. The USA would improve immediately.
(L): Erika Kirk ; (R): Russian roulette, The Deer Hunter
Now, we know the lethal bullet didn’t enter but exited Kirk’s neck, and Tyler Robinson was 100% not his killer. This doesn’t invalidate our noticing the symbolism of such a neck shot, or the fingering of a MAGA deerhunting lover of trans sex as Kirk’s murderer. Presented with so much shit, we must dissect it while others eat.
For nearly two years, I used self-publishing on Amazon as extra motivation, but that’s over. Moving forward, I will compile my essays into eBooks, to be sold on Kobo, perhaps. If nothing else, I can at least have them printed in Vietnam.
Vietnamese poet and novelist Trần Dần couldn’t publish at all from 1956 to 1988. Worse, as a political liability he was shunned by most acquaintances. Despite all this, Trần Dần never stopped writing. His poems written in complete isolation were some of the best of that era. Those who pander or are cowed can only dish up shit.
@AmurakaHidden: Erika (Frantzve) Kirk won Miss Arizona 2012, a Trump Owned Pageant. She, then, became Casting Director and started Multiple Nonprofits (Orphanages) including Romanian Angels which was embedded in claims of Trafficking of Children and Organ Trafficking to the UK, Israel and “Undisclosed Islands”. Her Father worked for the Department of Defense AND chaired RAYTHEON’s Israeli Division. Both her parents are prominent Zionists. At this point, it’s clear, (at the very least) she acted as HONEYPOT. Charlie’s Political Machine is now transferred to a Controlled Asset (Erika).
Edifying Rituals For Morons — Sep 17, 2025.
Before going to bed last night, I thought perhaps my Amazon canceling was a just a technical glitch, that its AI screener was triggered by my description, “Of course, it’s hopeless, but don’t kill yourself yet, not before reading my takes on incontinent cartoons, big beautiful faces in DC and Hanoi, child rape privilege, Anus River in Vegas, Nation of United Races, global cultural collapse, selling Raymond Carver with frontal nudity, Charlie Kirk assassination and Trumpocalypse Now! Book ends with a fascinating and informative interview with a 73-year-old American internal exile, Douglas Larsen.”
Since all YouTube videos with “suicide” in their title are immediately blocked, I figured the same had happened to me at Amazon, so I changed “kill yourself” to “rub yourself out.” I also changed the title from “Stragglers in the Night” to “Trumpocalypse Now!” With two more articles, I resubmitted my book, confident it would sneak through, so business as usual. This morning, though, I woke up to the same rejection, “During our review process, we found that your book(s) are resulting in a disappointing customer experience.”
“Child rape privilege,” “frontal nudity” and even “Charlie Kirk assassination” might also be red flags, and that’s just in the description. The book itself is landmined with hundreds of no-nos.
Long dead in the USA, free speech’s corpse is now defecated on even more openly. CNN, “Dozens of social media posts and messages about the murder of Charlie Kirk, including some that celebrated his death, are being spotlighted by conservative activists, Republican elected officials and a doxxing website as part of an online campaign to punish the posters behind the messages.” NBC, “In the days since the assassination of conservative figure Charlie Kirk, institutions from airlines to schools have moved quickly to discipline employees accused of celebrating or mocking his death, a reflection of the charged atmosphere surrounding the killing.” Mocking is too inclusive or vague a verb.
Plus, what’s wrong with mocking? In Thailand, you’ll get jailed for disrespecting anyone in the royal family. In Germany, the same will happen if you question even the tiniest detail about the Holocaust fairy tale. In Vietnam, the Communist Party is untouchable. In the USA, you can now be fired for smirking or laughing over an internet influencer murdered by the government itself! It will get much worse.
The world is noticing. Times of India, “Following Charlie Kirk’s assassination, universities nationwide have faced intense scrutiny over faculty and staff’s online remarks, leading to disciplinary actions and firings. This has ignited a debate over free speech, academic freedom, and political influence on higher education.”
Announcing charges against patsy Tyler Robinson, Utah County Attorney Jeff Gray speechified, “Charlie Kirk was murdered while engaging in one of our most sacred and cherished American rights, the bedrock of our democratic republic, the free exchange of ideas in a search for truth, understanding a more perfect union.” Am I mocking Gray? No, that fragrant weasel is mocking himself, plus the general level of American intelligence. Sorry for the oxymoron.
Not mocking nobody, Kevin Barrett yesterday stuck most stickily to verifiable facts, with the driest, most rigid wording possible, in “Charlie Kirk’s Resurrection Scheduled for Next Sunday.” Wanting to quote it just now, I searched “Kevin Substack,” “Kevin’s Newsletter” and even “Kevin Barrett Substack,” but his SubStack didn’t turn up, incredibly. Instead, I was steered to Kevin Bracker, Kevin Lynagh, Kevan Lee, Kevin Wheeler, Kevin Powell and St Kevin’s Primary School, etc. This has never happened before.
Obviously, they don’t want you to read, “Ben Shapiro, the newly-appointed Pope of the Church of Charlie Kirk, has announced that Kirk’s resurrection will take place at 1 pm Eastern time next Sunday afternoon. All churches will be closed and NFL games have been rescheduled for Saturday or Monday so Americans will not be distracted while witnessing the Charlie Kirk Singularity, which promises to be an awesome, millennium-inaugurating spectacle, after which nobody will be allowed to criticize Charlie Kirk, Benjamin Netanyahu, or Donald Trump ever again.” Kevin Barrett is a top-notch scholar who taught at the University of Wisconsin. Hearing him lecture at a Nation of Islam gathering in Detroit in 2017 blew me away. Since only self-censoring cowards or outright morons are tolerated in American academia, Barrett has been chased all the way to Morocco.
Not a moron, certainly, is Kash Patel. With a straight face, albeit with crossed eyes, the FBI director announced Kirk’s killer did write a manifesto. Somehow, this has been lost, but with its contents scrupulously preserved, to be used as evidence.
In 2010, 19-year-old Mohamed Osman Mohamud was convicted of attempting to set off a bomb at a Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland, OR. This Somalian-American supposedly tried to blow up the cutest, blondest Christian children during Christendom’s most sacred holiday, in short. The key evidence against Mohammud was provided by an FBI agent, who claimed he had said, “I want whoever is attending that event to leave, to leave either dead or injured.” Most absurdly, that agent’s recording device malfunctioned just then. Still, we must believe the FBI, CIA, White House or Pentagon.
Vung Tau: (L): 9/15/25 ; (R): 9/12/25
Today in Vung Tau is most beautiful. Though sunny, it’s not too hot. Sitting at Cóc Cóc writing this, I saw, just now, Matthew Rossman riding by. This dawn at Coffee Seven, I teased Mrs. Seven about missing Sơn, the security guard. He’s in Long Xuyên for some undisclosed business. Although many Vietnamese leave Christmas trees up year round, I don’t think Sơn wants to blow one up, but who knows?
“Brother Sơn has been gone three days,” I said.
“Four days!” she retorted.
“You missed him so much, you added a day!”
Without Sơn, I spent more time chatting with that retired high school teacher, Vũ. He, too, sees through much of the Charlie Kirk bullshit. People are sacrificed all the time. Vũ mentioned an exceptional ARVN general, Đỗ Cao Trí, who died when his helicopter exploded without being hit by enemy fire in 1971. I told Vũ about Gary Webb. For exposing the US government’s complicity in drug trafficking, Webb was fired from the San Jose Mercury News, then suicided in 2004. I also recounted the death of Deborah Jeane Palfrey, the “DC Madame,” who was killed in 2008.
“Her brothel served all these big shots, congressmen and senators, so they had to kill her. When you’re such a high profile prisoner, they put you on suicide watch, so you’re naked, with not even a toilet to shit in, just a hole. There’s nothing to kill yourself with, not even toilet water to dunk your face. Plus, there are all these cameras. Knowing what’s up, she told friends, ‘If I die in prison, I definitely didn’t commit suicide,” but they killed her anyway. They didn’t give a shit. No one remembers.”
There are so many cases. What made Kirk’s execution exceptional was how spectacular it was, but these are the same people who pulled off 9/11, man! They specialize in special effects. What’s also astounding, or perhaps just amusing, is his widow’s histrionic participation. She had to act immediately before this story fades. Its deadly consequences will linger for decades, or until this Jewjerked American Empire disappears.
Walking home for lunch, I noticed at Triangle Park people setting up stalls to sell mooncakes for the Mid-Autumn Festival. For two days, I’ve also been cheered by my Mariners being in first place so late in the season. I still remember the scores of their first two games ever. They lost 6-0 twice to the Athletics. I heard both contests on the radio in Salem, OR. As we’re preoccupied with soothing, stupid, harmless or beautiful rituals, they conduct Satanic ones, but not primarily for themselves. They do it mostly to imprint into our shallow, stinking minds the real nature of our existence. Instead of mocking or complaining, we must get on our knees to thank them. Nearly all your neighbors are already doing it, daily.
Killed by Jews, a Jewish Tool Becomes Greatest Christian Saint — Sep 21, 2025.
With that, I was kicked back to earth. Was that a dream? Hell, no! I ran into God last night. Behind him stood Charlie Kirk, Christianity’s greatest saint, until Donald Trump dies, that is. It should happen any second now. Is that “should” a threat? Would I recognize a Mauser M 98 even if it wasn’t wrapped in a towel, but labeled with black magic marker on a placard?
On YouTube, there are many similar testimonies. Kirk’s made-for-social-media assassination has sucked many souls straight into heaven, at least for one night.
One begins, “My name is Sarah. I am 47 years old. I never thought my life would take such a dramatic turn that I would find myself standing here trembling, speaking words that feel too weighty for me to carry.
“Yet on the night of 9/12/25, I had an experience that changed me forever.” What triggered it, no less, was a “moment in history [that] carried eternal significance.” Despite getting even hoakier, it has gotten nearly 74,000 views after eight days. The lurid accompanying images show Jesus even when Kirk is described or swooned over, so Christ and Charlie Kirk are conflated.
Another man who merely dreamt of Kirk testifies, “He was a light for Jesus in these dark campuses, these dark colleges and universities where darkness has prevailed, where doctrines of demons and just lies have prevailed for generations now, since these universities and these colleges have been hijacked by communism, socialism and the woke agenda, which is the manifestation of demons.” Sounds like the Frankfurt School! Jewish funded Charlie Kirk was fighting leftist fanaticism or idiocy as pushed by Jews! Whites are hopelessly trapped in the Jewish funhouse.
Whigger rapper Tyson James, “We are Charlie! We are Charlie! We are Charlie! […] Listen, the devil ain’t playing, he trying to take us down. Are you willing to speak the truth and take a round? […] Charlie died but through his life, many come to know the Christ […] You took out a man, but you can never kill a vision […] A real Christian got assassinated, but I can see an army activated. I know you demons agitated, cuz you didn’t kill a man. He only graduated.”
All these fringe or freakish voices are reinforced by America’s leaders. The White House on 9/21/25, “Today, hundreds of thousands of Americans unite to honor Charlie Kirk—his vision, his mission, his impact, and his deep love for this nation.
“Charlie Kirk was one of one. A life devoted to faith, freedom, and America.”
Donald Trump on 9/21/25, “Perhaps it should be no surprise that Charlie, who spent his life speaking with the critics of these traditions ultimately became convinced that we needed not just a political re-alignment, but also a spiritual reawakening.”
Jews made Charlie Kirk a pseudo celebrity and millionaire. With young whites, Kirk’s primary audience, increasingly antagonistic towards Jews, due mostly to the Gaza genocide and the Jeffrey Epstein child rape ring, Kirk started to break from Jews because, just 31-years-old, he’s charismatic and smart enough, he thought, to be, who knows, president one day? His gummy grin was certainly more fetching than J.D. Vance’s brightest smile. Though knowing he was playing with fire, Kirk took this risk, but with one pop, it’s over!
On 9/11/25, I already wrote, “Alive, the frankly obnoxious Kirk hurt Trump even more than he helped. Dead, he’s become a saint while giving the Donald fresh ammunition to go after ‘the radical left.’”
You can’t take money from Satanists then betray them. Worse, Kirk knew how these Satanists operate, so of course they had to shut him up. Though they could have done it with a plane crash or car bomb, it had to be done most publicly, as Kirk was speaking. He’s punished mid-transgression. On 9/11/25, I also wrote, “Congratulations to that professional sniper,” for it was executed perfectly.
Congratulations must also be extended to that entire theatrical crew. Though they took down the set immediately, that performance is still going on, with Erika Kirk a newborn star. She’s amazing.
Dead, Kirk is loved so fuckin’ hard by his killers and abusers. They’ll love you a long, long time, buddy.
Vung Tau, 9/23/25
Rapture Sit Rep — Sep 23, 2025.
Though I knew Lamont Steptoe for about 30 years, I saw him rarely. We never had a beer together. As director of poetry programming at the Painted Bride, Lamont scheduled me for a reading when I was just 22-years-old, so I’m grateful. Of all Lamont said to me, I remember just three statements. 1) Lamont claimed a collection of his poems was on James Baldwin’s night table when he died 2) As a gay black man who also fought in Vietnam, Lamont had so much going for him as a poet, careerwise 3) A huge UFO was going to pick up Lamont sometime in 2000. It’s his version of the Rapture.
I thought of Lamont this morning because thousands of people, not just Americans, are convinced the Rapture will occur between September 22nd and 24th. Here in Vũng Tàu, it’s already the 23rd, so I have another day to babble and sell a few books. Though my Kindle Direct account is suspended, my self-published volumes are still available on Amazon.
Just now, I had to stop to scratch Nọng, but that bitch will only have to worry about her itchiness for a few more hours. Shouldn’t blameless dogs go to heaven?
I was tipped off to this latest Rapture frenzy by Angela Baker of Parkrose Permaculture. With corporate and even much of dissident media so misleading when not toxic, one must seek out the most obscure independent voices to figure out anything. People like Polly St. George of Amazing Polly, Christian Westbrook of Ice Age Farmer and Max Igan of The Crowhouse have taught me much. Only Igan is still broadcasting. Before they killed him, Gonzalo Lira was very informative, too. There’s this tendency to isolate mistakes to dismiss someone entirely, but that’s childish and not very useful.
The latest Rapture hysteria shouldn’t be seen as some fringe lunacy. Checking online postings of the Rapture ready, Angela Baker finds plenty of Trump worship and “big memorial posts to Charlie Kirk.” “MAGA is a death cult,” she concludes.
With their saintly hero shot, Christian children massacred, Jewish women raped, Jewish babies decapitated, Americans drugged by Chinese made Fentanyl entering through Mexico and Canada, and Uncle Sam cheated by every country on earth through unfair trade practices, this evil world can’t end soon enough. The Rapture is MAGA’s death wish disguised as religious euphoria. Beam me up, Jesus!
You don’t have to be Trump or J.D. Vance to wear makeup just to step outside. Even a midnight run to Seven Eleven requires you looking somewhat presentable, like zipping up your fly and rubbing away eye boogers. Being lifted to heaven, then, shouldn’t be taken lightly. Sonj779, “I recommend you go out and buy a couple fresh packs of undies to wear for the next month. Throw all the old underwear away. Imagine after you’ve been harpazoed. Your clothes float back down. You don’t want someone’s last impression of you to be your old underwear.” Though it is satire, most viewers couldn’t be sure. It’s getting harder to tell.
With its blinking lights, sparklers, booming music and a creepy Trump swaying and singing next to a brightly smiling Erika Kirk, the memorial service to “prophet” Charlie had no gravitas. It was just a mega MAGA rally, executed with the worst taste, but what do you expect from a regime that’s planning a cage fighting extravaganza at the White House? Centuries-old trees have also been felled to clear space for a ballroom to make Liberace’s ghost all hot and bothered.
Though videos prove otherwise, Frank Turek still said of the moment right after Kirk was shot, “His face was looking at mine but he wasn’t looking at me. He was looking past me, right into eternity.” Sniped from behind, Kirk seized up, so wasn’t looking at anybody. With his severed jugular gushing blood, Kirk was dead before he even hit the ground. Though complicit in his murder then cover up, Trump called Kirk “our greatest evangelist for American liberty” and “a martyr now for American freedom.”
After murdering Martin Luther King, the US government erected a huge statue of him on the Washington Mall. If King looks sort of Chinese, it’s because he’s carved by a Chinese, Lei Yixin. An American sculptor would have charged much more for a crappier job. After popping off JFK, gracious Uncle Sam named New York’s airport and Washington DC’s performing art center after the man. Shouldn’t a major American city be rechristened Charlie Kirk? I propose Seattle. Instead of some Godless Injun, it should evoke this great white man who’s also a lion-hearted friend of Israel. Calling Seattle Charlie Kirk City will also chase away all those woke Antifa assholes.
With hours or just minutes left before the Rapture, I won’t waste one second. Though exhausted, I won’t take a nap. In DC HomeStay’s swimming pool I will soak for maybe an hour, then go from there. Should any sort of apocalypse come while I’m in the water, it will be less painful, I’d think. With my hair singed and my entire face burnt off, the rest of me should be fine. In that water not yet boiling, I will still wiggle for another moment or two.
About Linh Dinh (@linhdinh):
‘Before being canceled, I was an anthologized poet and fairly prolific author, with my last book Postcards from the End of America. Now, I write about our increasingly sick world for a tiny audience on SubStack. Drifting overly much, I’m in Cambodia.
Born in Saigon, Vietnam in 1963, I lived mostly in the US from 1975 until 2018, but have returned to Vietnam. I’ve also lived in Italy, England and Germany. I’m the author of a non-fiction book, Postcards from the End of America (2017), a novel, Love Like Hate (2010), two books of stories, Fake House (2000) and Blood and Soap (2004), and six collections of poems, with a Collected Poems cancelled by Chax Press from external pressure. I’ve been anthologized in Best American Poetry 2000, 2004, 2007, Great American Prose Poems from Poe to the Present, Postmodern American Poetry: a Norton Anthology (vol. 2) and Flash Fiction International: Very Short Stories From Around the World, etc. I’m also editor of Night, Again: Contemporary Fiction from Vietnam (1996) and The Deluge: New Vietnamese Poetry (2013). My writing has been translated into Japanese, Italian, Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Portuguese, Korean, Arabic, Icelandic, Serbian and Finnish, and I’ve been invited to read in Tokyo, London, Cambridge, Brighton, Paris, Berlin, Leipzig, Halle, Reykjavik, Toronto, Singapore and all over the US. I’ve also published widely in Vietnamese.’
AHH: Please support this wonderful writer on his Substack! Thanks
In September 2023, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger came together to form the Sahel States Alliance (AES). For the three nations, it was a response to common challenges: fighting terrorism, resisting external pressure, and charting an independent path of development.
In just two years, the AES has become a symbol of a “New Africa” — one that prioritizes sovereignty, security, regional integration, and mutually beneficial international partnerships, including with Russia.
Key milestones:
• September 2023 — signing of the Alliance charter
• July 2024 — proclamation of the Confederation of Sahel States, paving the way for deeper integration and supranational institutions
• January 2025 — formal withdrawal from ECOWAS
• January 2025 — formation of joint AES armed forces underway
• April 2025 — first AES–Russia diplomatic consultations in Moscow
• May 2025 — official visit of Burkina Faso’s transitional president Ibrahim Traoré to Moscow
• June 2025 — visit of Mali’s transitional president Assimi Goïta to Moscow
• July 2025 — Russian government delegation visits AES states for high-level talks: the civilian bloc led by Energy Minister Sergey Tsivilev, the military bloc led by Deputy Defense Minister Yunus-Bek Yevkurov and Lt. Gen. Andrei Averyanov
Unlike ECOWAS, with whom relations have sharply deteriorated, the AES presents itself as a union that reflects the will of its own people and rejects external dictates.
The mission of the AES is clear:
defend sovereignty, develop economies and infrastructure, and strengthen the multipolar world.
musings on the ritual sacrifice of Captain Kirk … “.. rest now, Brother. We have the Watch and I’ll see you in Valhalla.”
with gratitude to Linh Dinh at Postcards from the End.
Busan, South Korea, 3/30/20
World Leader in Political Violence — Sep 11, 2025.
On 9/5/25, so six days before he was shot, Charlie Kirk was the star speaker at Build Up Korea 2025. To a “USA! USA!” chanting crowd, Kirk boasted of having “brought Trump to victory.”
Then, “The phenomenon of young people, especially men, turning conservative is occurring simultaneously across multiple continents. It is not unique to the U.S., which is why it deserves more attention. That is why I chose South Korea as my first Asian destination.”
One day before, Trump’s masked goons arrested more than 300 South Koreans in Georgia, although none of them, as we’ve found out, were in the USA illegally. They came to bring jobs to Americans. Despite this outrage, Trump never apologized.
Eleven days before, the South Korean president was at the White House. By saying he looked forward to a Trump Tower in North Korea, he pleased the American moron immensely. Without irony, Lee Jae Myung also promised to help the USA build ships, in a program called “Make America Shipbuilding Great Again.” Let that sink in.
On 9/9/25 in Long Beach, more than 60 shipping containers fell off a cargo ship, Mississippi, into the ocean, for no apparent reasons. Even when American ships ain’t moving, shit happens.
Busan, SK: (L): 3/30/20 ; (R): 7/29/20
What they’re still proficient at is killing foreign fishermen. After the US Navy zapped 11 Venezuelans on 9/3/25, J.D. Vance tweeted, “Killing cartel members who poison our fellow citizens is the highest and best use of our military.” When Brian Krassenstein countered that “killing the citizens of another nation who are civilians without any due process is called a war crime,” Vance snapped, “I don’t give a shit what you call it.” That has become the American political discourse at the highest level. Bitchy Trump leads the way. Gay men who act like that usually do so in jest. Trump is too stupid for camp.
Just hours after Kirk was assassinated, Trump delivered a four-minute speech. Though short enough, it was interrupted by several commercials at Trump’s Truth Social. Donald never wastes a chance to make a few extra bucks.
Trump calls Kirk “a martyr for truth and freedom and there’s never been anyone who was so respected by youth.” Never been, mind you! Any half-educated man should be able to write down at least a hundred names within four or five minutes without checking the internet.
Trump, “It’s long past time for all Americans and the media to confront the fact that violence and murder are the tragic consequence of demonizing those with whom you disagree, day after day, year after year, in the most hateful and despicable way possible.” Such a self-portrait approaches Van Gogh’s!
Plus, America has long been a world leader in political violence. Under Trump, it’s unleashed on Palestinians, Lebanese and Iranians, most obviously, but also Ukranians and Russians. Despite his peace pose, Trump is still arming Zelensky. Unctuous, cosplaying grifters understand each other only too well.
After citing that fishy incident in Butler that sanctified him to MAGA morons, Trump mentioned “attacks on ICE agents, to the vicious murder of a health care executive in the streets of New York, to the shooting of House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and three others, radical left political violence has hurt too many innocent people and taken too many lives.” Pointedly left out is an incident, just three months ago, that killed a Democratic legislator and her husband in Minnesota.
Shaky videos of what happened in Orem, Utah show the crowd scattering in panic. Interestingly, that didn’t happen in Butler. Instead, we have a video of photographers being ushered, or stage managed, to make sure everyone got great photos of the Jesus saved Trump.
(L): Belgrade, Serbia, 8/5/20 ; (R): Amman, Jordan, 7/15/25
As of this writing 18 hours later, no one has been caught or shot by FBI agents, and no ID has been dropped on the ground. Usually, the shooter or terrorist’s photos and bio are provided to the public within hours. His clear motive is then dissected by talking heads on every news program.
Alive, the frankly obnoxious Kirk hurt Trump even more than he helped. Dead, he’s become a saint while giving the Donald fresh ammunition to go after “the radical left,” which, in this child rapist’s mind, is anyone who opposes his anti-Constitution, anti-American, anti-humanity, anti-God and Jew sucking way.
Good job, Charlie Kirk, and congratulations to that professional sniper. One shot, one kill is still inferior to that Jewish slogan or practice, “One shot, two kills!”
Visiting the White House in 2023, South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol sucked up to Biden and all Americans by singing “American Pie.” He’s now in jail for illegally imposing martial law. He may be put to death.
With a weaker democracy, dumber populace and even more corrupt establishment, Trump shows no fear.
Right now in Seoul, sane Koreans are protesting outside the US embassy. Only Trump sucking ones are still chanting, “USA! USA!”
(L): Pattaya, Thailand, 1/18/23 ; (R): Manila, Philippines, 4/18/25
Nasty Old Men — Sep 12, 2025.
Ông Tây, literally Mr. Westerner, can be applied to any foreigner, of whatever color. I myself have been called ông Tây, but not recently. In Hà Tiên, a remote city on the border of Cambodia, I was called thằng Tây just eight months ago, but only once in four days. Thinking I couldn’t understand her, the owner of a phở joint used that term, which is very rude, actually. Thằng is not mister.
This morning, I heard Mrs. Seven talk about a long-disappeared ông Tây. After watching her dance at the Palace Hotel, he invited her, through an interpreter, to dinner. Knowing what he was after, she showed up with two friends, including a male one. As the Westerner enjoyed steak frites, the Vietnamese went to town on an elaborate seafood hot pot and young chow fried rice. Though this Frenchman spoke English well, only one of the Vietnamese, the male one, could manage a few mangled phrases. Mrs. Seven just grinned, giggled and ate.
Amazingly, it wasn’t a one shot deal. This ông Tây invited her out again, and, again, she showed up with two friends. This patient ông Tây endured four such dinner dates. One afternoon, he showed up on a cyclo right outside her house. Mrs. Seven did wave and her dad did invite him inside. Awkward small talk ensued. That’s as close as this dude ever got inside her billowing pants.
Other ông Tây merely gazed at her, with a few asking for a souvenir photo. One handsome dude made sure she knew he was a pilot.
“What’s his nationality?”
“I think he’s American.” Her old face didn’t look convinced. I can’t imagine any US pilot hanging out in Vung Tau in the mid 90’s.
With mirth, Mrs. Seven told me about one mysterious Taiwanese.
“After a show, a Vietnamese asked four girls to come out again. ‘My boss would like to see you,’ he said, so we came out. One after another, the other three girls were sent away. The Taiwanese didn’t like them.”
“What was he like? Was he old?”
“There was a whole table of Taiwanese. I couldn’t really see.”
“But one guy chose?! That’s amazing.”
“He asked me to sing a song, but I wasn’t a singer. I said if he would come on stage, I’d dance with him.”
I had to laugh. “So did you dance?”
“No, he wouldn’t come on stage, so I danced with the interpreter!” The Taiwanese did tip well.
“He’s probably too old to dance! So you never saw his face?”
“No. Later, he offered me money to come to Saigon, but I said no. I told the interpreter I still had my parents here. The Taiwanese said it wasn’t a problem. He would take care of them, too.”
“Did he give you a figure?”
“Yes, thousands of dollars.”
“Just to lure you to Saigon! No one would have seen you again! You lucked out saying no. If he had to hide, something was seriously wrong. He wasn’t just old. This Taiwanese was probably missing an arm, a leg and half blind.”
“As long as he wasn’t blind down there.”
I’d never heard anyone put it that way. “I’m sure he was blind down there, too.” Then, “You know, I’ve been to Taiwan. Marrying a Taiwanese, these girls think they’ll live in some dazzling city, but many end up on the 6th or 7th floor of a dreary apartment building, in some depressing town, and they’re not just stuck with an old husband, but his parents, too. Suddenly, they end up taking care of three old people!”
Mrs. Seven told me about another ông Tây, this one married to a neighbor. “She didn’t go anywhere. He bought her a house, then she got another house on Trương Công Định.”
“He gave her enough money for two houses?!”
“Apparently. This second house she’s renting out. She has a son with him, but this boy looks entirely Vietnamese.”
“So that’s not his son!”
As a fan of Michael Jackson, Mrs. Seven isn’t sure about this. If a black man can have blonde haired, blue eyed children, why shouldn’t this ông Tây have a Vietnamese son?
“He loves this boy. He told his wife he’ll leave him a lot of money.”
“That’s fine, but that’s not his son.”
“She did have all these boyfriends, Vietnamese ones, and handsome, too.”
“So she wasn’t happy with this ông Tây.”
“Maybe his thing didn’t work.”
“He’s also the dumbest man ever. Are they still together?”
“I haven’t seen him in years.”
“Maybe she dumped him. She had extracted enough. How old is she?”
“She was born in 1979, so…”
As she fumbled with the calculator on her cellphone, I said, “She’s 46, so she’s getting up there. No more handsome boyfriends!”
In 2019, I met a 75-year-old Australian at Ned Kelly, an expat hangout by Front Beach. He had two children with a Vietnamese wife, whom he had met at a bar on his 10th day here. At his house lived a man he claimed was his brother-in-law. What this man did for a living, the Aussie had no idea. What he was doing at home as we were talking, he also had no idea.
In Hemingway’s “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place,” one waiter says to another, “And you? You have no fear of going home before your usual hour?” Impatient to get rid of an old drunk, the latter has said, “An old man is a nasty thing.” Reading those lines before I was 20, I was more amused than startled.
Before leaving Coffee Seven, I also talked to the retired highschool teacher. Like me, he thought every last detail about the Charlie Kirk assassination absurd. Same with Trump’s ear nick incident. Though only an ARVN reservist before 1975, he knows enough about rifles.
We laughed hard over all the bullshit. “You can’t get too upset,” he said. “There’s just so much bullshit.”
“There’s almost nothing but bullshit.”
Next time, I’ll show the ex-teacher that video of Trump tackling Vince McMahon. As an actor, he’s differently gifted from Obama, but both are outstanding.
Only $49.99 for a Charlie Kirk Yarmulke! — Sep 13, 2025.
Mass media began with the printing press, then came the telegraph, telephone, radio, television and internet. Information for exhausted, groggy and barely educated chumps delivered instantly across vast spaces has culminated, most gloriously, with Donald Trump’s Truth Social. It don’t get no better.
With each invention, there’s the promise, or hope, that the common man can, finally, arrive at knowledge directly, thus bypassing brainwashing from the Vatican, London or Washington, etc. The most powerful, though, will always deploy each tool or weapon more efficiently, deviously and ruthlessly than you.
After provoking and baiting Japan into attacking Pearl Harbor, which FDR had full foreknowledge of, this genial president declared on a 12/9/41 Fireside Chat:
My Fellow Americans:
The sudden criminal attacks perpetrated by the Japanese in the Pacific provide the climax of a decade of international immorality.
Powerful and resourceful gangsters have banded together to make war upon the whole human race. Their challenge has now been flung at the United States of America. The Japanese have treacherously violated the longstanding peace between us. Many American soldiers and sailors have been killed by enemy action. American ships have been sunk; American airplanes have been destroyed.
[…]
I can say with utmost confidence that no Americans today or a thousand years hence, need feel anything but pride in our patience and in our efforts through all the years toward achieving a peace in the Pacific which would be fair and honorable to every nation, large or small.
Even now, most Americans believe in the sneak attack and unprovoked fairy tale, as they do the six million Jews gassed for no reason by a diabolic Hitler, 9/11, the Bin Laden assassination, Putin as the new Hitler and Israel as a peaceful nation constantly hounded by deranged, terroristic Muslims.
FDR calling the Japanese “powerful and resourceful gangsters” is no different from Trump branding the Venezuelan President as head of a drug cartel, with even a $50 million reward for info leading to his arrest. Who’s the gangster here? FDR calling the Japanese “resourceful” after imposing an oil embargo on them is also ironic, but, as noted by Oscar Wilde, such shit always flies way above dumbshits’ heads.
After pointing out, just hours after his assassination, that Charlie Kirk serves Trump better in death than in life, and his assassin is almost certainly a pro, I received this email from one “Charles Burgess”:
I used to enjoy your humor and your frank descriptions of life in America. I guess we part ways now. Please stay in Vietnam. By the way, the Navy did not kill any Venezuelan “fishermen.” I worked in counter-narcotics in Latin America for years. The boat that was destroyed was filled with cocaine and piloted by Venezuelan narco scumbags. Clear as day. Fishing boats don’t have four high power Merc outboards, douchebag. One thing about Americans, we don’t lose too much sleep over such things.
Your despicable words about Charlies Kirk (I myself never paid much attention to him) turn my stomach. God how your fellow Vietnamese must hate you, such a total asshole. Fuck off.
You can’t sink a boat then claim it’s filled with cocaine and piloted by narco scumbags, or that it’s outfitted with powerful outboards, as if that proves anything. It’s clear as day, though, to this Charles Burgess.
Since there’s no evidence of anything, that boat might have carried condoms for Hamas or sex change kits for kindergarteners. It’s captained by a bulldyke mermaid with labia minora piercings and Michelle Obama’s Becoming in her back pocket.
Burgess’ email is just more proof of how idiotic and gullible Americans have become. There are millions like him who believe, in full, whatever bullshit they’re fed.
If this doofus was really a drug agent in Latin America for years, Uncle Sam had a recruiting problem. This has gotten much worse under Trump. The Donald is determined to hire only the dumbest and most incompetent for every government agency. He’s not just purposely destroying the American economy.
As Trump, his minions and Israel politically exploit the Kirk hit to the fullest, wise analyses are barely heard. Again, mass media serves powerful assholes best.
Though Kevin Barrett’s masterful “Charlie Kirk and the Cult of Human Sacrifice” will only be seen by a few, its existence is invaluable for future generations. Even if humanity continues on its trajectory towards ever more ghastly idiocy, there will be a few in a hundred years, we must hope, who can appreciate this passage:
It’s suggestively mythic, though perhaps coincidental, that Kirk was felled by a shot to the throat. JFK, too, was initially struck in the throat, shortly before his brains were blown out the back of his head. Ritual sacrifice victims are commonly killed by throat-cuts, which sometimes extend into complete beheadings. Symbolically, cutting the victim’s throat can send a message about silencing the victim—as, for example, when freemasons ritually slash the throat of a moser who has spilled unspeakable secrets.
I used to give Barrett shit for always saying Zionists instead of Jews. With Jewish crimes and genocidal mindset ever more naked, Barrett is no longer so Jew shy:
They have been conjuring up false or exaggerated images of outsiders (goyim) supposedly plotting to kill Jews, as an excuse for Jews to rise and kill the goyim first, for millennia. As I tire of repeating: The old joke that every Jewish holiday is the same—“they tried to kill us, we killed them first, let’s eat”—suggests that the “they tried to kill us” part is highly dubious. Pharaoh’s plot to kill every Jewish firstborn, Haman’s plot to kill all the Jews of Persia, Amalek’s nebulous designs on killing Jews, Hitler’s plot to throw all the Jews in gas chambers, the Kazakhstanis’ plot to throw the Jew down the well (recounted in The Book of Borat) and of course the Palestinians’ alleged effort to throw the Jews in the sea all fail to pass the smell test.
Just read it in full, man, and Laurent Guyenot’s “Who killed Charlie Kirk?”
Kirk went from a rabid defender of Jews to a doubter of some Jewish bullshit. To prevent Kirk from probing further, he had to be shot. Pat Tillman gave up a NFL career to fight in Afghanistan. When Tillman started to doubt 9/11 and the War on Terror, he, too, was shot. As an outspoken American in Ukraine who called total bullshit on the official narrative, Gonzalo Lira was tortured then killed.
As a barely heard voice in Morocco, Barrett is safe. That’s one benefit of being chased from the USA. There are so many others. I, too, know them well.
For occult reasons, I’ve sometimes been accused by psychotic Jews and others of being an anti Shemite. This can’t be true, for I’m wearing, right this second, a $49.99 Charlie Kirk Memorial Kippah.
Keep in mind an excellent lunch can be had in Vietnam for less than two bucks, but one shouldn’t fret over shekles when supporting genocidal Israel. You, too, must buy several of these humanistic hats. The Forward on 9/12/25:
Charlie Kirk’s face now adorns a yarmulke.
Almost immediately after the news that the conservative activist was shot during an event in Utah, pro-Israel voices prayed for him. Now, some are mourning him as a champion of Israel and, in the words of one Chabad rabbi, “the Abraham of our time.”
Joining the chorus is the clothing brand JDRIP, which is now taking preorders for a Charlie Kirk Memorial Kippah, selling at $49.99. The company says all the proceeds will be donated to “Jewish or pro-Israel causes, or those promoting free speech and debate in the United States.”
Just as with Jewjabs, they can’t resist making money from your destruction or even death.
Artistically Staged and Perfectly Executed — Sep 15, 2025.
Trump must be the greatest genius ever, with his most transcendent masterpiece, so far, the Charlie Kirk assassination. The timing is perfect. On the eve of 9/11, another Jewish hit on America, Trump’s most charismatic and best-looking supporter had to be shot right in the neck, a symbolic warning to those who dare to use their voice box to fling any shit in Israel’s direction. That it may have been a ricochet is even more spectacular. You know how hard it is to aim at Kirk’s body armor to have the bullet bounce right into his neck? One shot, one kill, there was neither hesitation nor doubt. Done, that geeky assassin just sashayed away most calmly.
How many MAGA deer hunting dorks are having transgender sex nightly in Mormon Utah, do you think? I’d say there might be just one in the entire world, and yet Trump, even senile and with a constantly loaded diaper, was able to locate Tyler Robinson! They must slither in the same circle, perhaps at some Salt Lake City MAGA crossdressing bar known only to initiates. Trump’s sexual taste would freak out the most drugged up Burner. A genital connoisseur, Trump appreciates Arnold Palmer’s impressive prick no less than prepubescent vaginas. He’s just artistic.
Conspiracy theorists are puzzling over Charlie Kirk’s father’s role in building Trump Tower, which is just three feet short of being 666 feet tall! I say we should look much closer at where Kirk was shot. From the air, those grassy tiers clearly formed a menorah, with Kirk sitting right where the Star of David would be. Such a configuration is rare enough. To have this “lion-hearted friend of Israel,” to quote Netanyahu, sacrificed so publicly right on it, on that exact day, no less, and by a MAGA lover of transgender sex, required almost supernatural coordination.
Robinson’s MAGA deer hunting background is red meat to liberals, progressives and Commies. His sexual dysphoria proves to conservatives leftists are just psychos at war with apple pies, Cracker Barrel and white grandmas rocking gently on porches hundreds of miles from murderers and rapists of color. Even there, though, they may not be safe, thanks to traitors like Tyler Robinson. Only a historical genius like Trump can dish up an assassin to enrage and satisfy everyone across the political spectrum.
Nutcases have pointed out that all photos of Robinson, purportedly going to or from his shooting position, show no rifle, yet one was found in the woods. Something that long couldn’t have been stuffed into his pants, and there was no time to disassemble it, only to assemble it again for Kash Patel’s FBI to find. Could photos of me or you just wandering around, minding our own business, last week or last year, be proof of our having shot anybody?
Let’s not sweat the details. Trump, “I am very proud of the FBI. Kash—and everyone else—they have done a great job.” Poetically inspired, Patel addressed Kirk, “I’ll see you in Valhalla!” Who says either one can squeeze sideways though some backdoor into any kind or heaven, but if child-raping Trump can make it, they certainly have a chance.
Delivering a televised speech about her husband’s death, Erika Kirk didn’t have one but two white baseball caps with 47 in gold displayed on a desk. What a way to thank a man who had, at the very least, exploited to the fullest Charlie’s assassination.
Trump doesn’t want people talking about Charlie Kirk. He wants them talking about HIM and his new Ballroom where people can watch him dance via TV and social media like they watch him play golf. Haven’t you noticed?
Life is all about HIM!— The White Lady (@NephilimWatcher) September 12, 2025
Two days later, Trump was asked by a reporter, “Condolences on loss of your friend Charlie. How are you holding up?”
Trump, “I think very good. And by the way, right there you see all the trucks. They just started construction of the new ballroom for the White House, which is something they’ve been trying to get for about 150 years. And it’s gonna be a beauty. It’ll be an absolutely magnificent structure.” That night, he was seen dancing with his hands at Yankee Stadium. The next day, he golfed, of course. With Kirk’s assassination so flawlessly executed, why not celebrate? When Trump won in 2024, Charlie Kirk sobbed.
It’s 7:23PM in Vung Tau. Today didn’t start out well. Waking up, I got a notice that my next self-published book at Amazon has been blocked, because of “a disappointing customer experience” after “a review of [my] catalog.” Makes no sense. Except for two dishonest reviews from “western lands,” a MAGA sexpat living in Chiang Mai, Thailand, I’ve gotten a bunch of five star reviews, plus one four star one.
Without warnings or recourses, Kevin Barrett was demonetized at SubStack a while back, so people like him, me and a bunch of others can be crippled or disappeared at any time. Whatever, man.
My Vietnamese books, though, are definitely coming out. Though congested Saigon drives me nuts, it will be good to see some friendly, appreciative faces when I head down that way for a reading. Haven’t done that in a long time. Used to be paid to do so across the USA, plus Toronto, Paris, Berlin, Reykjavík, Tokyo and Singapore. The reading in London, I did for free.
About Linh Dinh (@linhdinh):
‘Before being canceled, I was an anthologized poet and fairly prolific author, with my last book Postcards from the End of America. Now, I write about our increasingly sick world for a tiny audience on SubStack. Drifting overly much, I’m in Cambodia.
Born in Saigon, Vietnam in 1963, I lived mostly in the US from 1975 until 2018, but have returned to Vietnam. I’ve also lived in Italy, England and Germany. I’m the author of a non-fiction book, Postcards from the End of America (2017), a novel, Love Like Hate (2010), two books of stories, Fake House (2000) and Blood and Soap (2004), and six collections of poems, with a Collected Poems cancelled by Chax Press from external pressure. I’ve been anthologized in Best American Poetry 2000, 2004, 2007, Great American Prose Poems from Poe to the Present, Postmodern American Poetry: a Norton Anthology (vol. 2) and Flash Fiction International: Very Short Stories From Around the World, etc. I’m also editor of Night, Again: Contemporary Fiction from Vietnam (1996) and The Deluge: New Vietnamese Poetry (2013). My writing has been translated into Japanese, Italian, Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Portuguese, Korean, Arabic, Icelandic, Serbian and Finnish, and I’ve been invited to read in Tokyo, London, Cambridge, Brighton, Paris, Berlin, Leipzig, Halle, Reykjavik, Toronto, Singapore and all over the US. I’ve also published widely in Vietnamese.’
AHH: Please support this wonderful writer on his Substack! Thanks
‘Long live the Bolivian people! Rather than live as slaves, we would die!’ President Arce said.
Bolivia is celebrating its 200th anniversary of independence on Wednesday with a series of ceremonial events that began at 8 a.m. in Plaza 25 de Mayo in the city of Sucre. President Luis Arce led the ceremony, accompanied by national authorities, international delegations and special guests.
“Today we mark 200 years of history since that August of 1825, when the united provinces of Upper Peru freely decided in Chuquisaca to form an independent republic. After more than 15 years of struggle against Spanish colonial rule and hundreds of years of Indigenous resistance, Bolivia was born as a full affirmation of freedom in the face of oppression. Our history is filled with heroic deeds in which the Bolivian people were the true fighters and victors,” Arce said on social media.
“One of the victories the people achieved through their struggle was the founding of the Plurinational State, a new organization of the state that includes everyone. Bolivia has come a long way, and it is now up to all of us to preserve what has been accomplished.”
“Nothing and no one is above the conquests of our people. From anti-colonial struggles to the present day, we are a people of victors who know how to rise in the face of adversity! For centuries we have walked, dreaming, resisting, fighting and winning! Long live Bolivia’s Bicentennial! Long live the Bolivian people! Rather than live as slaves, we would die!” the Bolivian president emphasized.
The opening ceremony included the raising of the national flag and the singing of the national anthem in front of the House of Liberty, the starting point of the Bicentennial program.
Following the solemn ceremony, the president received official greetings from heads of state, vice presidents and foreign ministers from Latin American countries who took part in the commemorative events.
Festivities continued with a welcome for international delegations joining in the celebration of two centuries of the nation’s independent life. In the afternoon, the program included a performance by an artistic troupe from India and a musical show by renowned Bolivian charango player Alfredo Coca.
The day’s events will conclude with a special concert by the Venezuelan Youth Symphony Orchestra at Gran Mariscal Theater at 8 p.m. Celebrations will wrap up Thursday with the Grand Military Parade, the final official act marking Bolivia’s 200 years of independence.
(These are not the actual pieces played as the ceremony is still on the go, but they are my selection, having been in love with the Venezuelan Youth Symphony Orchestra for years, since they had to make their own instruments because of sanctions. If Symphony is not your favorite, listen to one piece only where Gustavo Dudamel has the kids in his hands and they respond beautifully to make magnificent music. It starts at just after 5.14 and is called Danzon Number 2).
They have all shoehorned themselves into the system, each immersed in an ecology with clear, unspoken rules, taboos, heroes and villains. To be evicted from all that has forced me, daily, to encounter a much larger world, and to be freer than ever.
with gratitude to Linh Dinh at Postcards from the End.
Pairing me with Hung Cao, that Unzian wit was juxtaposing an abject loser who had clearly lost his way against an objectively handsome, steely eyed American hero, me, of course, who had risked everything to defend freedom, democracy and the American way. I do feel bad for the Under Secretary of the Navy. Even in a fringe website edited by some cranky Jewjab denier, he shouldn’t be subjected to this humiliation. Should I ever run into my fellow Virginian at the Eden Center, in this life or the next, I’ll buy him a few Bia 33’s to make up for this wound.
(L): Hung Cao and Donald Trump in 2024 ; (R): Brian Robertson
When mentioning my high school buddies from Thomas Jefferson High School in Northern Virginia, I left out the most illustrious, the formidable Brian Robertson. He was, by far, the smartest and most well-read kid I knew. Since I lived across the street from Brian, we spent a lot of time together. We also went to DC to hear Charlie Rouse, Wynton Marsalis, Benny Goodman, Art Pepper and the Modern Jazz Quartet, etc. We went to a Bob Dylan concert in Maryland. We spent days listening to Dylan and Thelonious Monk. We scrutinized paintings at the National Gallery, the Hirshhorn and the Corcoran.
In 1986, I even went to Florida with Brian’s family. By then, our lives had changed radically. As I got drunker and, frankly, crazier, Brian found Jesus. Even before that, he had shifted from left to right. In high school, Brian was already a great admirer of William Buckley, then he started to talk often about Malcolm Muggeridge and Hilaire Belloc. When I moved to Philadelphia, Brian gave me a National Review subscription. On a visit to Philly, Brian must have been appalled to find me sitting on top of my fridge with a girlfriend, both of us fucked up. I still don’t know why we did that. Picking me up at Union Station, Brian refused my offer of Southern Comfort in a paper bag. Since I had swigged that baby on the Amtrak, there couldn’t have been much left anyway.
When Brian told me he had joined Opus Dei, a lay order, I was sober enough to retort, “No, Brian, it’s a no-lay order.” Perhaps it was just the Southern Comfort speaking.
One of the last things Brian said to me was, “What is your relationship to God?” I probably just leered.
Linh Dinh today in Vung Tau, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 8/3/25
With our paths so divergent, we lost touch. For years, though, I did try to find out how Brian was doing, but searches for “Brian Robertson Thomas Jefferson High School” and “Brian Robertson Opus Dei” turned up nothing. Since Brian did publish a book about the harms of daycare, I tried again this morning, with phrases about that topic, so bingo! Brian C Robertson is the author of Day Care Deception: What the Child Care Establishment Isn’t Telling Us and There’s No Place Like Work: How Business, Government, and Our Obsession with Work Have Driven Parents from Home. Reading their synopses at Amazon, I find nothing to disagree with. The removal of babies and toddlers from their parents has caused tremendous societal harms. My own mother was a daycare worker. Since she could barely raise her own kids, to be blunt, she had no business taking care of anyone else’s.
At LinkedIn and elsewhere, I found out Brian has done quite a bit. He founded a literary agency, Crispin, and is Executive Director of Americans for Transparency and Accountability. Under Trump’s first term, Brian served as a Senior Policy Advisor and Speechwriter at the State Department and Department of Health and Human Services, and he was a Senior Policy Advisor in the Joint Economic Committee of the US Senate. He was also the Policy Director for Republican Sam Brownback and Republican Ed Gillespie during their Senate campaigns. Married with three children, Brian has also extricated himself from that no-lay order.
Having tracked down my high school best friend, shouldn’t I contact Brian immediately? Send him an invitation to visit me in Vietnam? Next time, I won’t be perched on any electrical appliance with anybody, I promise!
(L): Nguyễn Quí Đức an old friend who died suddenly at age 65 in 2023; (R): Phong Bui
Two weeks ago, I also rediscovered another old friend, Phong Bui. In a clownish outfit, Phong was attached to an email, with this message, “Maybe you should start dressing like your old bro to get uncanceled.” In Philly, Phong used to sleep on my floor because he didn’t have an apartment. Before Phong left for New York, his friends treated him to a dinner with belly dancers at Jimmy Tayoun’s Middle East Restaurant. (Locked up for 40 months for racketeering, Tayoun would write an excellent book on how to prepare for prison.) In New York, Phong somehow became friends with Meyer Shapiro, Willem de Kooning and so many other big shots. In a Brooklyn bar, Phong introduced me to Dan Simon, thus launching my career as an author. The longer Phong stayed in New York, the more unrecognizable he became, however, but he’d undoubtedly say the same about me, as I drifted further and further away from the American cultural scene, or just America, period. Though Phong’s Vietnamese was better than mine when we were in Philly, I seriously doubt he can manage a conversation now. In 2010, Phong did a limited edition lithograph of Obama. As with everybody else in Phong’s circle, that man is his hero.
In their own ways, Hung Cao, Brian Robertson and Phong Bui have all shoehorned themselves into the system, but who can doubt their sincerity? Each is immersed in an ecology with clear, unspoken rules, taboos, heroes and villains. Since freaks who transgress must be immediately canceled, there’s no point of me getting in touch with Brian, Phong, Hai-Dang Phan or dozens of others.
Speaking to Kevin Barrett last week, I recounted my few days in Bengaluru in 2022. Suddenly surrounded by literary friends again, I was positively giddy, I must say, but pathetically so. To be evicted from all that has forced me, daily, to encounter a much larger world, and to be freer than ever. It’s hard enough to say exactly what you think, know or mean. It’s impossible when you’re not even trying.
About Linh Dinh (@linhdinh):
‘Before being canceled, I was an anthologized poet and fairly prolific author, with my last book Postcards from the End of America. Now, I write about our increasingly sick world for a tiny audience on SubStack. Drifting overly much, I’m in Cambodia.
Born in Saigon, Vietnam in 1963, I lived mostly in the US from 1975 until 2018, but have returned to Vietnam. I’ve also lived in Italy, England and Germany. I’m the author of a non-fiction book, Postcards from the End of America (2017), a novel, Love Like Hate (2010), two books of stories, Fake House (2000) and Blood and Soap (2004), and six collections of poems, with a Collected Poems cancelled by Chax Press from external pressure. I’ve been anthologized in Best American Poetry 2000, 2004, 2007, Great American Prose Poems from Poe to the Present, Postmodern American Poetry: a Norton Anthology (vol. 2) and Flash Fiction International: Very Short Stories From Around the World, etc. I’m also editor of Night, Again: Contemporary Fiction from Vietnam (1996) and The Deluge: New Vietnamese Poetry (2013). My writing has been translated into Japanese, Italian, Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Portuguese, Korean, Arabic, Icelandic, Serbian and Finnish, and I’ve been invited to read in Tokyo, London, Cambridge, Brighton, Paris, Berlin, Leipzig, Halle, Reykjavik, Toronto, Singapore and all over the US. I’ve also published widely in Vietnamese.’
AHH: Please support this wonderful writer on his Substack! Thanks
≈≈≈
… When an Asian says the American dream is dead, you know we are in deep trouble.
with gratitude to Linh Dinh at Postcards from the End.
Six months into the Golden Age of America, manufacturing jobs are down, inflation and unemployment are up, despite fudged numbers, foreign tourists have mostly stayed away, and there are no real trade deals, only hyperbolic nonsense posted by an increasingly deranged Trump on his Truth Social. More enterprising Americans have gotten out, or are trying to. Stuck and impotent, the rest must wait for the next presidential election, when they can pretend to vote for another corrupt, sold out front man for the Jewjerked American empire.
After firing thousands of government workers, many essential, and stealing data from all Americans, Musk exited without reducing the federal deficit. That was never their intention. Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill increased the Grand Fecal Swamp’s debt ceiling by $5 trillion!!! Trump solves all problems by gaslighting even more aggressively.
Vung Tau, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 8/1/25
During the Biden era, hundreds of thousands of Orientals flew to Colombia to pursue their American dream. Risking death, they passed through a dozen countries before reaching the Rio Grande. Such a complicated trip could only be afforded by richer Orientals. Thinking they would be gone forever, they sold their houses and businesses. Now, many are being booted right back to China and Vietnam, where they have nothing. Many readers must be thinking, That’s what you get for being illegal immigrants, dumbshits!
The US doing so well has spawned hundreds if not thousands of YouTube videos by Americans saying they can’t afford to buy grocery, have given up looking for a job, are too depressed to get up in the morning, or are worn out by living in a freezing or sweltering car that must be moved from spot to spot. Just taking a dump has become a major problem, often unsolvable. Thousands regret taking on life wrecking debts for a useless college degree, and we ain’t just talking about lesbian lovemaking, breeding and child rearing strategies PhD, but nursing, computer science, business administration and IT ones.
One video by a 26-year-old American born Oriental states that just about everyone he knows is struggling, that rent and nearly everything else are way too costly, so millions who are well into adulthood must live with their parents, thus postponing marriage, perhaps forever. Though concluding the American dream is dead, he’s still lucky to be exactly where he is, “I’m fortunate to be born in America. You know, I could be born in China. China! I could be born in China and my life could be not that great. I mean, I don’t know what life is like in China, but you get what I mean. To be born in America, that’s top 1% in the human, in the human race, you know, and I don’t have to go through what my parents went through.” His folks emigrated from Southeast Asia.
A telling comment, “When I hear people say ‘being born in American is the top 1%,’ I know they haven’t lived outside the US.” Another, “Highly recommend that you travel outside the country. That will teach you more about life than any job or education.” And, “When an Asian says the American dream is dead, you know we are in deep trouble. I am really scared for my grandchildren [weeping emoji].”
Vung Tau, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 8/1/25
A few years ago, someone at Unz saw fit to juxtapose a photo of me, sitting alone in a Lao hotel room, with one of Hung Cao, a US Navy captain who had served in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia. After losing bids to become a congressman then senator, Cao is now Trump’s Under Secretary of the Navy. Cao in June of 2024, “With Trump back in the White House, we will Make America Great Again!”
Every so often, I post a self portrait to show how I’m doing. My few readers could see, for example, how bloated and unhealthy I looked in April of 2022. I had just returned to Vietnam after 2 1/2 years of Covid induced wandering. In Cape Town, I became too fond of Arnold’s mixed grill breakfast of two eggs, two hash browns, two thick slices of bacon, three pork chipolatas, two hunks of fried tomato, six chunks of eland steak and six chunks of ostrich steak.
Since my highschool days in Northern Virginia, I had used booze to ease the flow of thoughts, spoken words and, often enough, even writing, so I merrily went on like this through the Covid hysteria. All this changed when I got terribly sick in Ubon Ratchathani, so that photo in Vientiane was me at my lowest, when I was still in so much pain, it was impossible to sleep soundly for even an hour, when it took at least 15 minutes just to put on my pants. Despite all this, I would not have switched places with Captain Hung Cao, with his nice suburban house, social status, handsome family and proximity to power. His having fought in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia only proves he’s a willing mercenary who didn’t shy from committing war crimes to serve a nakedly Satanic empire. There’s a bunch of YouTube videos celebrating clueless or immoral pawns of all ethnicities. A Vietnamese American, 27-year-old Andy Huynh, even went to Ukraine to fight for Zelensky, Jews in general, NATO and Uncle Sam.
After his capture by Russia, Voice of America criticized Vietnam for not interceding on his behalf. Vietnamese media responded, “Andy Huỳnh is an American mercenary. After fighting many years in the American military, he only went to Ukraine as a mercenary because of his American “idealism,” so after his capture, the American government should have spoken up on his behalf, not Vietnam.”
Vung Tau, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 8/1/25
To be a mercenary, then, has become the American ideal. Aiming for the American dream, most Americans are more than willing to go along with any lie, war or genocide, even if it costs them a limb or two, their life or even the systematic destruction of their nation. Just give me those front and back yards, please, plus constant access to Fox News or CNN, and an occasional Happy Meal for my chillun. If told to head to Gaza to clear out some Injuns for Jews and Trump Gaza, I will most certainly holler, Yessa, massa!
Here in Vung Tau, Mrs. Seven has more urgent concerns. For three days, there’s been an unseen animal inside her house making unfathomable noises. “It’s too loud to be a rat, and it’s not a kitten.” This morning, one of her dogs also vomited.
When Cambodia was still fighting Thailand, I also teased her about war refugees flooding over. “You better learn how to curse in Khmer,” I advised.
“If they say anything to me, I’ll just say, ‘Fuck you!’” I had no idea this old widow living with two dogs was so fluent in English.
Sitting alone in the dark each dawn, BlueTooth is still immersed in Eminem. Fully recovered from his injury, Cà Phê Cà Pháo’s kitten is as insolent and cocky as ever. Glaring at me, he struts. Since returning from Jordan two weeks ago, I haven’t seen that hobbling black dog that daily roamed all over downtown. I hope he’s still alive. As for Andy Huynh, he appears to have been flushed away, just like Tyler Zeigel and so many others. This world has never lacked for tools, pawns and mercenaries. After each use, they flush, of course, without even one glance backward.
About Linh Dinh (@linhdinh):
‘Before being canceled, I was an anthologized poet and fairly prolific author, with my last book Postcards from the End of America. Now, I write about our increasingly sick world for a tiny audience on SubStack. Drifting overly much, I’m in Cambodia.’
AHH: Please support this wonderful writer on his Substack! Thanks
Sweating and farting bodies are comforted and reassured by metallic extensions. Admiring a car or watch, we imagine ourselves to be just as clean and immortal.
with gratitude to Linh Dinh at Postcards from the End.
In 2018, a Vietnamese in Phnom Penh told me about a miraculous rescue. After being knocked over by a car, he was thrashed by its driver until another Vietnamese showed up. His savior didn’t just speak fluent Khmer but was a Cambodian general! From 1979 onward, Vietnam embedded Viet officers into the army of its client state, the People’s Republic of Kampuchea. Some of these crypto Viets must still be around.
Phnom Penh, Cambodia: (L): Vietnam Cambodia Friendship Monument, 3/4/18 ; (R): Covid vaccinated Hun Sen wearing a 2.7 million dollar Patek Philippe Grandmaster Chime watch in 2021
Hun Sen’s military has plenty of room for suspect officers. With 125,000 soldiers, Cambodia has well over 3,000 generals. With 2.86 million grunts, the US has just 900. Granting titles and salaries to clowns is Hun Sen’s way of buying loyalty. Others can pay him to dress up like a generalissimo.
Kristie Noem would fit right into Phnom Penh high society. Seconds after arrival, she could be anointed as goddess, empress or legendary chauteuse, for a negligible fee in American dollars.
With so many phony Pattons, Cambodia has no air force to speak of, and no air defense system. That’s why it’s being knocked around by Thailand. One real general, 67-year-old Luong Samneang, has already been killed, with another rumored dead.
Phnom Penh, Cambodia: 73-year-old Hun Sen keeping abreast of something, 7/27/25
Seventy-two-year-old Hun Sen, meanwhile, has released photos of himself looking through a magnifying glass at a military map, or maybe it’s just the menu of Le Langka, where an Australian Black Angus ribeye steak, truffled purée and salad can be had for just $34, barely a penny, so to speak, to this tycoon.
Though his official salary is just 2,500 piddly bucks a month, Hun Sen can afford a 2.7 million dollar Patek Philippe Grandmaster Chime watch, which he obscenely flaunted on his naked arm, after being Covid “vaccinated” in 2021. This modest dude has also been caught with a Vacheron Constantin Les Cabinotiers Grand Complication Phoenix, an Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore Grand Complication 26582CE, a Richard Mille RM57-05 Tourbillon Eagle and a Richard Mille RM57-03 Tourbillon Sapphire Dragon, etc. His wife, too, ain’t walking around with no $9.99 IBSO piece of shit.
Sweating and farting bodies are comforted and reassured by metallic extensions. Admiring a car or watch, we imagine ourselves to be just as clean and immortal.
Promoting every busboy to general and shopping for watches, Hun Sen has neglected basic duties of state. Crisscrossing Cambodia, I couldn’t help but notice all its bridges were built by China, Japan or Vietnam. Once Southeast Asia’s greatest builders, Cambodians have become its worst. With his nation’s economy steadily improving, Hun Sen must have felt he’d done enough, however. On each visit to Phnom Penh, I saw new highrises, shops and restaurants, including super elegant ones. Costing 1.5 billion bucks, the Chinese constructed Techo Airport would have been opened had this war with Thailand not erupted. It will make DC’s Dulles look like some bloated Greyhound Station. Though there’s abject poverty even in the capital, it’s easy enough to ignore, just like they do in LA, San Francisco, Chicago and New York.
In a faraway land, there’s another leader who’s as superficial and vain. As his subjects work two or three jobs to pay off student loan, car loan and credit card debts, while clipping coupons late into the night to save pennies on eggs, onions and reconstituted chicken hot dogs, he’s fussing over golden cherubs, eagles, medallions, mirrors and even TV remote controls. He spent an entire morning gushing over two steel poles that must be stiffer and longer than any in human history. Erect, he admires their erection in full view of all chesty chicks strolling by, and cute little girls, too, with their made-in-China dolls. He’s never neglected such angels.
Despite its recent genocide and current misrule, Cambodia will outlast that distant empire, for they still know who they are, and they haven’t lost their souls. If you’re fine with your leader screwing pubescent girls or funding blatant Satanists who enjoy shooting teen boys in the testicles, you’re beyond fucked. So numb yet angry, you can only feel half alive with serial sadism.
Two funerals: (L): General Duong Samneang in Phnom Penh, 7/28/25 ; (R): The Golden Age, 8/01/2025
The US has gained much from this Southeast Asian conflict. Don’t rule out the possibility it may have prodded both sides. Chilling, it can now gloat over a Chinese ally humiliated, China appearing weak and the economies of Southeast Asia disrupted, with billions of dollars already lost. Southeast Asia is a bigger trading partner with China than the European Union. Just as in Europe, the US must block or sabotage all relationships that threatens to leave it out in the cold.
Having ruled for 38 years, Hun Sen is certainly a dictator, but whatever his flaws and miscalculations, he’s never served hidden masters to wreck his country. Further, he and his family have properly maintained their public personae. They’re dignified, even regal. Trump, on the other hand, is a social engineering monster. His belligerent crassness, arrested development, shameless mendacity and joyful sadism have set the tone for his mess of a nation.
As regressive and inverted Americans emulate Trump, the rest of the world is simply appalled. They see videos of masked thugs manhandling not just illegal immigrants, but citizens and even members of congress, with each arrest excessively brutal. ICE goons mirror the Donald, except Trump would have a hard time tackling a Rosie O’Donnell standee. Only his slimy tongue is half virile.
As for China, it can use Cambodia’s setback to increase Phnom Penh’s reliance on Beijing. You will need more Chinese weapons and troops, permanently installed, to prevent future disasters. The US having won this skirmish is the perfect pretext to move Chinese soldiers into Southeast Asia. Like Putin, Xi knows he’s already at war with the USA. Visiting Darwin on 7/27/25, UK Defense Secretary John Healey said his nation was ready to fight alongside Australia to defend Taiwan! That’s like me saying I’m ready to join the Armenian Army to fight Azerbaijan!
At 61 years old, I’m also qualified to defend Zelensky’s bank account. Most magnanimously, that pantless clown is now allowing creaking, limping old skulls like me to dive headfirst into his meat grinder.
About Linh Dinh (@linhdinh):
‘Before being canceled, I was an anthologized poet and fairly prolific author, with my last book Postcards from the End of America. Now, I write about our increasingly sick world for a tiny audience on SubStack. Drifting overly much, I’m in Cambodia.’
AHH: Please support this wonderful writer on his Substack! Thanks
… Hun Sen must be disappointed, at least, at the Middle Kingdom’s relative silence through all this, but who knows what Xi Jinping is up to. Sun Tzu’s ghost must be giving Xi an endless stream of great advices.
with gratitude to Linh Dinh at Postcards from the End.
Consider this astounding statement, “She is not only misleading the public but deceiving herself—trapped in the very illusion she has fabricated. Her actions go beyond misinformation; they represent a deliberate attempt to construct a false reality to obscure her side’s misconduct and evade accountability […] The international community must not allow such ‘verbal illusions’ to obscure the truth.”
I have only replaced her name with “she.” Otherwise, it’s an exact quote, so who is this she? Anyone with a correct answer will receive four Melania meme coins (worth 88 cents), a made-in-China “MAKE AMERICANS GREAT AGAIN” hat, complete with the official emblem of the Chinese Communist Party, a Depend “Long Lasting Dryness” diaper with an exact likeness of President Trump strategically placed over what’s left of your disabled schlong (in honor of the Donald), plus your name entered into a most exclusive drawing for a possible tête-à-tête with JD Vance at the Dairy Queen of his choice. Only one quarter pounder cheese Grillburger, please, and no Coke Zero refill.
With all these clues, undoubtedly you’re screaming she must be Karoline fuckin’ Leavitt! Or at least Baghdad Bob in a thrift store dress and blonde wig! Sadly, those above prizes won’t be yours. You must pay for your own Melania meme coins. She, drumroll please, is Lieutenant General Maly Socheata, a spokesperson for Cambodia. Just ten hours after their ceasefire, Thailand accused Cambodia of breaking it, while Socheata insisted everything was fine. No one was shooting at anybody.
Somebody is lying. Since even truthful statements leave out key details, nothing ever said paints the full picture, but still, many people don’t even try to be honest, even if it’s just at the dinner table while talking to their children, or in bed while bullshitting with their habitually deceived spouse.
Thep Nimit, Thailand, 3/24/18
Knowing all this, even flawed accounts are telling and, often enough, even entertaining, if only in a macabre manner. This morning, Sơn, my buddy at Coffee Seven, told me another fascinating story about his time in Cambodia.
Drafted at age 18 to fight the Khmer Rouge, Sơn was never told explicitly he was headed to Cambodia, so he, along with all the other soldiers, didn’t know they would soon experience ungodly fear, privation and horror until they were packed onto over 100 American leftover trucks. With roads so bad, it took them three days just to reach the border.
“We were so young. Most of us hadn’t even dared to touch a girl’s hand.”
With 40 soldiers on each truck, this convoy had over 4,000 fresh recruits, all unarmed. As southerners, most had relatives in the just defeated South Vietnamese Army. Hanoi couldn’t risk giving assault rifles and hand grenades to boys whose dads were in reeducation camps. Among them were also ethnic Khmers. They’re all over the Mekong Delta. It’s their land not long ago.
Knowing they might not see their families again, these boys wrote letters which they tossed at passersby and street vendors, in the hope these strangers would send them to their folks. Many of these desperate missives landed in ditches or mud.
Inside Cambodia, their panic increased. Suddenly, there were no more Vietnamese signs or faces that were definitely Vietnamese. The proliferation of palmyra palms made the landscape itself alien. With each mile, home thus normality became more unreachable, so many tried to jump off. Knowing this, drivers were instructed to step on the gas. Dangling from the backs of trucks, boys waited until there appeared a softer patch.
“But how could they walk home?” I asked.
“They were scared.”
“Seeing someone trying to escape, the other soldiers didn’t do anything?”
“No, we loved each other more than brothers.”
After one truck hit a mine, the next one, traveling too fast, hit that crater, so both tumbled down the ravine. Just like that, 80 soldiers were gone.
Sơn, “They were scattered all over. Looking down, we couldn’t even recognize their faces. There was nothing to do. We drove on.”
Sơn himself crawled over a mine soon after. Released from the hospital, he was given guard duty, a relatively soft job. It was still terrifying. The Khmer Rouge were seemingly just beyond sight, and he was surrounded by Cambodians.
“We had a curfew at 7. After that, anything that moved could be shot. Mostly, we just shot cows and water buffaloes. It was completely dark. Some soldiers on guard climbed onto trees just to be safe.”
Vung Tau, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam on 7/28/25: (L): woman selling cold soymilk for 38 cents a bottle, 7/28/25 ; (R): “RUSSIAN DONUTS”
A while back, an elderly ditz said this when complaining about war refugees flooding into Europe, “When there’s a war, the men should stay and fight, and women should stay to help them.” Whenever there’s a war, cushy lady, people flee in terror, and you would too, with your panties worn backward and at least dewy. Just ask your silver spooned Trump with his chimeric bone spur.
Checking the Bangkok Post just now, I see that Thailand is still accusing Cambodia of violating their ceasefire. Sitting in sunny Vung Tau next to an avocado smoothie, I can’t even speculate what’s going on, but consider these facts.
From mid to late May, China and Cambodia conducted its 7th Golden Dragon joint military exercise. This involved not just ground but air and naval troops. This cooperation between their militaries must have given Hun Sen the confidence to mess with Thailand.
The first Cambodian casino on the Thai border was opened in 1999. Since then, dozens have sprung up, with the ones in Poi Pet luring thousands of Thais daily. In this miniature Las Vegas, they could lose their savings or become enslaved in scam centers. Such a naked hub of criminality had to enrich Hun Sen himself. Why else would he tolerate it?
Similar crime centers exist across Thailand’s border with Myanmar. Embroiled in civil war, it’s even more lawless than Cambodia. This January, a well-known Chinese actor, Wang Xing, was lured to Thailand for filming, only to be kidnapped then taken to Myanmar. Frightened by this, millions of Chinese tourists stopped coming to the Land of Smiles. Finally, Thailand had to act. Its war against Cambodia, then, is an attack on Hun Sen himself, for he has allowed so many Thais to be robbed, kidnapped and enslaved, right on Thailand’s border.
Vung Tau, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam: (L): 7/29/25 ; (R): lunch chez moi, 7/28/25
Though the US couldn’t care less about Thais, Cambodians or whoever, it was delighted to see Thailand zap a Chinese ally. Don’t think for one second Bangkok has failed to get a green light from Washington.
Having just performed his martial dance with China, Hun Sen must be disappointed, at least, at the Middle Kingdom’s relative silence through all this, but who knows what Xi Jinping is up to. Sun Tzu’s ghost must be giving Xi an endless stream of great advices.
Here’s another twist: Hun Sen’s son, Hun Manet, studied at West Point! If Cambodia must pivot from China to the USA, Hun Manet seems ideal, but that’s assuming daddy and son will survive.
As for casinos as crime hubs, it should be obvious to any non retard over 12 years old. Promising you instant riches, casinos rob you blind while keeping you somewhat entertained with garish settings, cartoon figures, color lights, jingling noises, flashes of titties and booze. Casino owners, then, are expert at manipulating infantile fools.
As legalized criminals, they hobnob with all types of crooks, including pimps. Gaudy whores swarm tacky casino. In the USA, the construction industry also teems with Mafiosi types.
As a tireless purveyor of wars, coups, assassinations and weapons of mass destruction, the US government has been labeled the world’s largest criminal gang. It’s only fitting, then, that it’s fronted by a seasoned casino hustler, construction magnate, sexual trafficker, child rapist and mother of all carnival barkers. Everything Trump hawks must be the biggest and best in history, but only to fools who don’t know any.
About Linh Dinh (@linhdinh):
‘Before being canceled, I was an anthologized poet and fairly prolific author, with my last book Postcards from the End of America. Now, I write about our increasingly sick world for a tiny audience on SubStack. Drifting overly much, I’m in Cambodia.’
AHH: Please support this wonderful writer on his Substack! Thanks
With that, everything was solved, at least this morning in this drowsy city by the ocean, where corpses are no longer washed back onto shores.
with gratitude to Linh Dinh at Postcards from the End.
We’ll see if this ceasefire between Cambodia and Thailand holds. If I hadn’t just returned from Jordan, I would take a bus to Phnom Penh, then go westward, most likely to Siem Reap. There, I’d sit in Best Mom because that lady is so sweet and lovely, and she makes the most comforting food, whether Khmer or Western. Every morning, her serene daughter in a blue school uniform cleans each plastic covered menu with a wet rag. There can’t be a sweeter emblem of Cambodia at peace. Mom used to rent out the cheapest room to Max, an American expat. She even fed him if he was broke, which was often. I imagine Max has finally managed to secure his Social Security payments. If so, Max can afford to sip Angkor Beer with his meals. It’s telling Max would rather be destitute in Cambodia than return to Iowa.
Bavet, Cambodia, 12/26/24
Talking to Alexander Wolfheze yesterday, I tried to explain why poorer, more backward societies are actually saner, and I’m making this assertion without romanticizing poverty. Civilization is a progression towards isolation. With each invention, you’re further removed from nature, community, God and even yourself. Air conditioning, recorded music, television, the automobile, shoes and the cellphone all do this. Looking up at me, Coffee Seven’s white bitch clearly agrees. Every few minutes, she drops by to make sure I haven’t lost my mind.
With Wolfheze in the Hague and me in Vũng Tàu, we conversed via Zoom, so 6,000 miles of separation were, just like that, gloriously erased, thanks to progress. Next time, we’ll talk from Saturn and Mars.
Before he left just now, Nali Beach’s security guard, Sơn, recounted his time in Siem Reap. He was there in 1979 as a half starved soldier. The Khmer Rouge weren’t content to shoot you in the head, he said. They had to chop your head off. This they did quite expertly with one clean hack of a machete. Like all invading armies, the Vietnamese also committed atrocities against civilians, of course.
With so many people freshly killed by all sides, ghosts were everywhere. “I’d be choked during sleep,” Sơn remembered. “An arm would reach in through an open window.” Waking up terrified, he’d run outside.
“This happened repeatedly?”
“Yes, so I’d sleep clutching my AK and a hand grenade.”
“Why would ghosts be afraid of guns or hand grenades?”
“But they were.” Whatever works, man. I wasn’t there.
Being in Siem Reap allowed Sơn to visit Angkor Wat. Four decades later, he still remembers one large statue of Aspara. She’s a Hindu spirit of clouds and water. Since Sơn brings up Cambodia often, his time there must have been most vivid, instructive and meaningful. Stripped of all comforts and constantly threatened by both the living and the dead, Sơn couldn’t forget his animal self while still insisting, at each moment, why he was still a man. He was the furthest away from any braindead, glazed eyed zombie not even laughing at some asinine TikTok skit. There’s one right in front of me.
Coffee Seven is two miles from Sơn’s home in Bến Đình. His going so out of the way made his wife suspicious, so she showed up one morning to check out Mrs. Seven. That lithe dancer with an angelic face is now withered, wrinkled and even slightly stooped. For his part, Sơn wouldn’t know if she’s screwing some plumber or housepainter from down the street.
“He says chicken, she says duck” is one saying. Then there’s, “He eats pork roll, she eats fermented pork roll.” People don’t just disagree but have divergent needs, too often incompatible. Perhaps Sơn can’t unclog his wife’s plumbing?
Stuffing exactly what we need into our insatiable mouths, we pass each other as shadows, if not ghosts. Sometimes, though, we do manage to reach through half open windows to throttle or caress a beloved’s neck.
Cambodia: (L): Phnom Krom, 1/31/23. (R): Preaek Prasab, 10/14/23
Before reaching Coffee Seven, I paused to chat with BlueTooth. Again, he was sitting alone in the dark to listen to Eminem, without understanding one word. This 42-year-old was also reassured by his usual LA baseball cap.
He knows what he needs, and so do I. “As long as we don’t starve!” I philosophized.
“No one starves!” he blurted.
“Of course, people starve.”
“The body knows what it needs. I know this one woman. Lying in bed for two weeks, she didn’t eat, but only drank water. Her landlord thought she had died, but she didn’t die.”
“So what happened?”
“She was returned to her family.”
“She would have died if she didn’t have her family.”
“There’s no would have. She didn’t die.”
Our mental flaws and physical deformities are our artistic signatures. Bluetooth is as delighted with mine, most likely. That’s why we talk.
Yesterday with Wolfheze, I did ramble a bit. Perhaps the most important theme we discussed was demographics. I’ve said the Philippines, despite four centuries of Western colonialism, is paradoxically more intact than nearly all Western countries. Though Pinoys have lost their names and native religions, they’re more socially coherent than Spaniards or Americans, their former masters. Yesterday, I also cited the example of Albania. The isolation it suffered under the harshest Communism actually preserved its true character. With Communism gone, Albanians are more themselves than the Germans, Dutch, French or English. I have the fondest memories of Albania, where I spent six months. Such lovely people.
Ubon, Ratchathani, Thailand: (L): 6/24/23. (R): 6/22/23
Europe’s methodical destruction continues. In Scotland, Ursula von de Leyen could only look sheepish and dejected as that bloviating child rapist boasted of how Europe will have to buy hundreds of billions of dollars of American weapons and natural gas, with cash it doesn’t have. Even if the US hadn’t blown up the Nord Stream pipelines that delivered cheap Russian gas to her continent, Europe wouldn’t buy it anyway, since Putin is so evil, you see. When von de Leyen and Kaja Kallas of Estonia traveled to China to chastise it for supporting Russia, the Chinese were so contemptuous of these girlish clowns, they sent a bus to pick them up at the airport. At least it wasn’t a DiDi Chuxing Scion iQ as driven by some retired garbageman. Scheduled to stay three days, this ditzy pair escaped Beijing after one. Having piously and coolly committed so many massacres against the rest of the world over centuries, Judeo Christian Satanists are still posing as peace loving respecters of human rights.
In Southeast Asia, too, Trump got his deal. Losing badly, Cambodia had to beg for peace. Having grabbed some land and taught their foe a lesson, Thailand agreed to cease bombarding helpless Khmers with Israeli made Spike missiles and American bombs delivered from F-16’s. Most importantly, the American backed Thais had managed to humiliate a Chinese ally without engaging China.
Mere spectators, we must wait to see what happens next. Often enough, we can’t even choose what to eat.
After Coffee Seven, I walked home for a spaghetti lunch, then wandered over to Pato’s Bingsu. Three middle aged ladies were already there. Their chattering, only half caught, was most amusing.
“My husband won’t fly. He’s afraid of dying.”
Second woman, “We all must go. My husband is convinced he’ll go long before me. He says, ‘You will take care of everything.’” She giggled.
Third, “Mine says, ‘Just throw me into a river.’ Not even the ocean, just any river!”
First, “You know what we should do now? We should go to that store and look at dresses.”
Second, “We can’t. If we don’t buy, she’ll curse at us!”
Third, “That’s just how she is.”
First, “It’s fine! It’s fine! We’ll buy!”
With that, everything was solved, at least this morning for three middle aged women, in this drowsy city by the ocean, where corpses are no longer washed back onto shores, where each morning, you can hear cocks and crickets, if not a fog horn from some unseen ship, with only its lights glimmering through darkness and mist.
About Linh Dinh (@linhdinh):
‘Before being canceled, I was an anthologized poet and fairly prolific author, with my last book Postcards from the End of America. Now, I write about our increasingly sick world for a tiny audience on SubStack. Drifting overly much, I’m in Cambodia.’
AHH: Please support this wonderful writer on his Substack! Thanks
what toxic confluence of factors has crystallized into a hot war in the heart of Southeast Asia? It starts with a family feud – involving the Thai Shinawatra and the Cambodian Hun Sen clans
By Pepe Escobar at Sputnik.
Fog of war rules. A crack Thai analyst worries about the intersection of so many vectors not making sense: “There’s something so odd about this war. It feels like someone is pushing both sides to escalate.”
Escalation, so far, also rules. Even with Tariff Temper Tantrum Trump (T4) now repositioned as Peacemaker and touting his own Art of Ceasefire “deal”.
Yet this Monday, it’s actually Malaysia – currently the chair of ASEAN – that de facto mediates, with Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim hosting ceasefire talks in Putrajaya. As previously confirmed by Foreign Minister Mohamed Hasan, “this is an ASEAN matter, and as chair, we should lead.”
Malaysia, in the end, did lead. Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim personally broke a ceasefire between the belligerents.
And that brings us to the inevitable question: what toxic confluence of factors has crystallized into a hot war in the heart of Southeast Asia?
It starts with a family feud – as stated by a top Thai intel source, involving the Thai Shinawatra and the Cambodian Hun Sen clans. Thaksin Shinawatra, from Chiang Mai in the north, billionaire, former prime minister, recently pardoned by King Maha Vajiralongkorn, is the perennial strongman of Thai politics. One of his daughters, Paetongtarn, is the current Thai Prime Minister.
Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge soldier — he defected in 1977 — former Prime Minister in two stints (1985-1983 and 1998-2023), currently President of the Senate, is the perennial strongman in Cambodia.
The Shinawatra-Hun Sen clans used to be very close, but they recently had an “irreconcilable” falling out, partly due to Thaksin’s daughter Yingluck’s new husband — by the way, she is also a former Prime Minister — planning to open a large casino in the tourist paradise Phuket, something directly connected to the relaxation of Thai gambling laws.
The new venture will heavily affect Hun Sen’s enormous profits from his casinos located in Poi Pet, along the Thai border.
It gets way more complex when we factor what lies behind the long unresolved border dispute, now flaring up again because of — what else — Pipelineistan: it’s all about oil and gas exploration.
The current Thai-Cambodian border is demarcated mostly along the watershed of the Dangrek mountain range. Hun Sen is eager to gain even tiny pieces of land on the Thai side of the watershed, using ancient Khmer temples as an excuse. The whole area was once part of the mighty Khmer empire.
Hun Sen’s gamble is to set up a legal precedent for the border to be adjusted at the coastline. That of course would affect the maritime borders in the Gulf of Thailand, and who controls how much of the oil and gas fields. Currently multiple Western companies — including Chevron — hold drilling rights on the Thai side of the maritime border, hence the Western ‘support’ for Thailand.
Enter China. Beijing has a very significant trading relationship with Thailand: a $135 billion turnover. Compare it to a mere $12 billion when it comes to China-Cambodia. The Chinese and Thai militaries are very close. In terms of strategic interest, as much as China may be investing a lot in Cambodia modernization, including a mega new business hub outside of Phnom Penh, Beijing will not support Hun Sen’s — now backfiring — gamble.
Now we enter the most sensitive part of the equation. Thaksin was essentially brought back to the Thai political chessboard by the King’s close advisors in order to keep the liberal “menace” at bay. But now the optics are that Thaksin has messed up. And the echoes coming from the monarchy circles is that the King is extremely angry — and has taken the conflict with Cambodia personally.
There are several factions in the Thai military — an extremely complex environment. The commanders currently in control of the situation at the border are known as the ‘King’s men’.
So what next? For quite a while, insiders of the highly volatile Thai political environment have been stressing that the Kingdom has once again played a complex balancing act, in many aspects getting both the US and China on its side.
So there is a strong possibility the Thai military would push deeper into Cambodia, fulfilling irredentist demands coming from deeply nationalist quarters. In parallel, that might turn out to be a priceless opportunity to correct the colonial borders drawn by the France-Siam treaty of 1907.
To make it even more intractable, the moves overlap with powerful comprador elites in Bangkok abhorring — and bribed into blocking — increased Global South cooperation.
Yes, this is also part of the war on BRICS
Now for the Big Picture. Both Thailand and Cambodia, important nodes of the 10-member ASEAN, are deeply China-connected – from geography to geoeconomics. Ergo, imperial divide and rule applies – in spades, and subordinated to the maximum imperative, as in Mackinder and Mahan revisited: burning down the Rimland all around the Heartland.
That’s the current thrust, on steroids, by the Empire of Chaos. We ain’t seen nothin’ yet. And never forget: Thailand is also a BRICS partner. Chaos simultaneously destabilizes both ASEAN and BRICS.
The 6,000 km Pan-Asian Railway, transforming Southeast Asia.
Now for blood on the tracks — literally. A key New Silk Road project is the 6,000 km plus high-speed rail line that will eventually connect Kunming, capital of Yunnan province, to Southeast Asia all the way to Singapore.
Kunming-Vientiane in Laos is already up and running; a roaring success. The Thai extension all the way to Nong Khai – plagued by immense corruption problems – may finally be up and running by 2030. A Vietnam-Cambodia extension will link Ho Chi Minh city and Phnom Penh to Bangkok.
The current war broke out exactly at the Thai-Cambodia border. The Desperation Row playbook is as predictable as ever: blow up ASEAN’s new connectivity corridors from the inside, with a tariff war coupled with a possible regional war.
Globalsouth.co has been providing invaluable analysis, even suggesting a roll call of Highways to Hell promoted by the Empire of Chaos. So here’s a not exhaustive list of divide and rule instances encircling China, Iran and Russia, what I call the revamped “RIC” Primakov triangle.
It all starts with Gaza – and Palestine, on the forefront of the War on the Axis of Resistance.
Then there’s the ongoing disintegration of Syria via rehabilitated Salafi-jihadis; the projected carve up of Lebanon; Sultan Erdogan’s perennial double/triple game; and most of all the Zionist Axis to-be-renewed attack on Iran.
Russia will have to deal non-stop with several new fronts beyond the collapsing proxy war in Ukraine: the new Iron Curtain in the Baltics, and the dream of turning it into a ‘NATO lake’; terror in the Black Sea — the supreme MI6 obsession; instrumentalization of Moldova and the planning of an attack on Transnistria; MI6’s inroads among budding jihadis across Central Asia; and Azerbaijan’s mafioso game spearheaded by Aliyev.
Ali Akbar Velayati, senior adviser to Ayatollah Khamenei, is warning that the proposed US take over of the strategic Zangezur corridor is a geopolitical gamble by “the US, Israel, NATO and pan-Turkist movements” to “weaken the Resistance Axis, sever Iran’s link with the Caucasus, and impose a land blockade on Iran and Russia in the region’s south.”
Moving to South Asia, East Asia and Southeast Asia, we have on-and-off chaos to be imposed on India-Pakistan relations (both SCO members); every possible attempt in the book and off the book to destabilize the South China Sea – all the way to forcing Taiwan into a final provocation against China; renewed shenanigans on China-Japan via the Diaoyutai/Senkaku islands; and attempts at fostering a regional war between Thailand and Cambodia coupled with possible color revolutions — Myanmar all over again.
All of the above does not even feature the Africa front — from Somalia to Nigeria, a BRICs partner, all the way to the Alliance of Sahel States and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). And in South America, the target of choice is of course Brazil, especially after the success of the BRICS summit in Rio; Brasilia, regarded as a BRICS weak link in DC, is now under relentless trade and geo-economic attack by Trump 2.0.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry, unfailingly polite, has at least summarized the pulse of the Global South: “The United States has lost its legitimacy to lead the world in the eyes of nations. It is no longer morally qualified to speak of values or peace while supporting genocide in Gaza.”
That means virtually no takers across all Asian latitudes to become a Ukraine 2.0 subordinated to CIA/MI6/NATO plans to manufacture a war on China. That’s exactly what Malaysia’s rotating presidency of ASEAN will be imparting today on both Bangkok and Phnom Penh. The ASEAN annual summit will take place in Malaysia next November. [01][02]
So what should BRICS do in the short run, as incandescence prevails? Move with discretion and cunning, and take the long view, for instance privileging “ASEAN centrality”. In the end the US may turn out to be the swing state after all, as the core divide and rule power centers of the West remain Tel Aviv and London.
…any division within ASEAN benefits the USA, and Uncle Sam loves nothing better than any ally of China to be roughed up.
with gratitude to Linh Dinh at Postcards from the End.
On 7/24/25, just hours after conflict erupted between Cambodia and Thailand, a 24-year-old was assaulted in Chanthaburi, 300 miles from the actual fighting. Employed at a slaughterhouse, he was just returning from work when two strangers jumped out of a car to ask if he was Cambodian? When he said yes, they jumped him.
Since Cambodians are generally darker than Thais, they could identify him. Notice how it took two assholes to beat up one unsuspecting dude, but that’s how it usually is. Most men are cowards. The bravest drop bombs on old ladies and babies from 50,000 feet. With its bloody, stinking and exhausting work requiring the strength and stamina of athletes, American slaughterhouses, too, are filled with immigrants.
going from Pong Nam Ron, Thailand towards the Cambodian border on 3/24/18
In 2013, I was stuck at Kansas City’s Greyhound Station due to a snowstorm. Having not bathed for days, I went outside to gently scrub my balls with snow. Back inside, I met a Vietnamese with white GI blood who was returning to his job in Minnesota.
My note from 4/6/13, “Tùng, 43, had been in the US 11 years, and was working as a boner at a pork processing plant in Greenbush, MN, making $16 an hour, for $400 net a week. He had been employed at a beef plant in Sioux City, Iowa, but that place only paid $300 per week. Greenbush is near the Canadian border, and the region is almost entirely white, but 80% of the workers at this pork plant are non-white, with many Africans, Mexicans and Asians, with the Burmese so adept at this grueling work, they’re allowed to chew betel leaves on the job, with trash cans nearby to catch their spittle. Saving what he could from his modest pay, Tùng had returned to Vietnam eight times, with six months his longest stay. Back in tropical Can Tho in the Mekong Delta, he would eat and drink well, and idle his time away, but that too would get tiresome, and his dollars would evaporate, so back to frozen Minnesota he would fly. Recently he passed out at the slaughterhouse and woke up in an emergency room, but since it happened just before he clocked in, it wasn’t considered a work place incident. Tùng spoke wistfully of a fellow Vietnamese who had gotten clipped by a forklift. The lucky man broke his chin, so thereafter was assigned the easiest tasks, on top of his medical compensation.”
A version of this is already in my Postcards from the End of America, but hey, I’m allowed to cannibalize myself. Plus, Dan Simon hasn’t sent me a royalty check in years. Jewish accounting can be most creative. One of Dan’s writers once barged into his office to grab him by the neck.
looking at Kamrieng, Cambodia from Thep Nimit, Thailand on 3/24/18
Back to Southeast Asia! With borders between Thailand and Cambodia closed, that roughed up Cambodian can’t go home anyway. Thousands are actually trying. Half a million Cambodians are working or studying in Thailand. A million Thais are ethnic Cambodians. Fifty thousand Thais live in Cambodia. Demographic realities are always messier than maps, with their clean, often straight borders and countries separated by colors. Green Poland abuts orange Ukraine abuts blue Romania.
The most visible minority in Chanthaburi are not Cambodians but Vietnamese, with their magnificent Catholic church. Though Wikipedia English claims it was built by the French, how many Frenchmen, let me ask you, ever lived there? Red and gold in its altar already proves it was erected by Vietnamese, and surrounding it are nothing but Viet businesses. By 1707, there were already Vietnamese Catholics in Chanthaburi. Visiting this parish in 2018, I heard people praying in a language that was neither Thai nor Vietnamese. Having been there so long, they could no longer speak or even pronounce a single Vietnamese word. Still, they thought they were praying in Vietnamese. Their ethnic solidarity is reinforced by a common religion.
Cambodians in Thep Nimit, Thailand on 3/24/18
Through an interpreter, I asked an old man who would he fight for should war between Thailand and Vietnam break out? Looking alarmed, my interpreter refused to translate.
During the Mexican-American War, hundreds of Irish immigrants defected from the US Army to fight for Mexico. Seventy one died in battle or were hanged, after capture. In the Mexico City suburb of San Angel, there’s a plaque honoring these San Patricios, also known as “Los Colorados” for their red hair. Many were actually Germans, Canadians, English, French, Italians, Poles, Scots, Spaniards, Swiss and even a few black ex slaves.
The more multicultural a nation, the more fragmented its citizens’ loyalties. Would Mexican Americans fight against Mexico? Would Chinese Americans cheer an American attack on China? What about Chinese majority Singapore? Despite the European Union, there are still only Frenchmen, Spaniards and Poles, etc., with each group further divided by regions. A Milanese is not a Napolitano. Bavarians can’t stand Prussians.
Poi Pet, Cambodia on 11/22/22, among travelers about to cross into Thailand
Everything is cool, though, until someone like you bleeds.
On 7/24/25, the FaceBook page of Warin Chamrap, a Thai district of 163,000, posted this letter, “I’m a Cambodian studying at the University of Ubon Ratchathani for nearly a year. Honestly, everything here is fantastic. I can feel the kindness and generosity of Thai people. Each day, everyone encourages and assists me everywhere I go, to help me learn Thai and absorb Thai culture. But ever since conflict broke out, my heart has sunk. I’ve never been so depressed. Each day, I worry about the future, about how people see me, and I’ve started to ask myself if Thai people will hate me just because I’m a Cambodian? To think this way is very painful because I’ve stopped seeing Thailand as a foreign country, but my second homeland, from my very first day here. I’ve never had any bad intention. My only goal is to learn and respect everything about Thailand while living here. With this current tension, I feel like an isolated Cambodian, but despite my fear and constant worries, I still believe in peace, and in the goodness of man. I wish with all my heart both sides will choose dialog instead of prolonging this conflict.”
Earlier this year, there was a 17-day mini war between India and Pakistan, both nuclear powers. After it cooled off, Trump claimed credit despite strong, indignant protest from India. The American buffoon had nothing with this ceasefire.
Now, Trump is again pretending to be a peacemaker, but let’s be clear here: any division within ASEAN benefits the USA, and Uncle Sam loves nothing better than any ally of China to be roughed up. Thailand is using American planes and Israeli drones to punish Cambodia while accusing China of supplying Phnom Penh with new, more advanced missiles.
departure gate in Poi Pet, Cambodia, right on the border with Thailand, on 11/22/22
As I finish this at 8:01PM on 7/27/25, Bangkok and Phnom Penh time, this war continues. For years, the world has expected the USA to use Taiwan to attack China. Though that will, most likely, still happen, we have another front opened by the Empire of Chaos. When you manufacture nothing but missiles, bombs and bullshit, it’s all you can do. For Uncle Sam, mass death isn’t just a motto but survival tool.
About Linh Dinh (@linhdinh):
‘Before being canceled, I was an anthologized poet and fairly prolific author, with my last book Postcards from the End of America. Now, I write about our increasingly sick world for a tiny audience on SubStack. Drifting overly much, I’m in Cambodia.’
AHH: Please support this wonderful writer on his Substack! Thanks
As always, us fleas are squashed when geopolitical mammoths collide.
with gratitude to Linh Dinh at Postcards from the End.
This flareup between Cambodia and Thailand deserves a much closer scrutiny. Before you go to Brian Berletic, Danny Haiphong or, God forbid, Scott Ritter, it’s best you pay the utmost attention to every syllable, pause and mispronunciation tumbling from my tea washed mouth, as I perch most pompously on this concrete bench at Coffee Seven at dawn on 7/26/25, with a white bitch at my feet.
Phnom Penh, Cambodia, 10/28/23
In 1970, an 18-year-old Hun Sen joined the Khmer Rouge. In 1977, he defected to Vietnam with most of his battalion. In 1978, Hun Sen was a part of the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia. Having helped to dislodge his ex comrades, Hun Sen was installed as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of a new, pro Vietnamese government. By 1985, Hun Sen had become Cambodia’s top dog. He still is. His son, Hun Manet, is Prime Minister.
Though Cambodia’s democracy is as corrupt and fraudulent as the USA’s, at least their young men aren’t sent all over the world to die for bullshitty reasons. Like Trump, Hun Sen has used his office to enrich himself, but unlike that grotesque self lover, he’s doing what he thinks is best for his nation. He’s not cynically discrediting and bankrupting it to global laughter and mockery.
Phnom Penh, Cambodia, 11/13/22
Having installed Hun Sen, Vietnam saw him drift towards China. On 7/26/16, the ten members of ASEAN couldn’t release a joint statement about its beef with China in the South China Sea, which the Vietnamese label the East Sea, by the way. This statement was blocked by Cambodia, China’s favorite Southeast Asian tagalong buddy. (I didn’t want to say eunuch or courtesan.)
From 2022 to 2025, China overhauled Cambodia’s Ream Naval Base. In 1974, this pitiful installation near Sihanoukville had just 20 Swift Boats and 4 River Patrol Boats, plus, possibly, a tin tub large enough for a tiny general and his mistress to bathe in. After ousting the Khmer Rouge, Vietnam improved this base, but it’s China’s now, though warships from the USA, Canada and Japan have visited. This is China’s closest port to the critical Strait of Malacca, where most of its Middle East oil must pass. [01][02]
In August of 2024, China began constructing the Funan Techo Canal. When finished, it will allow Cambodian container traffic to bypass, almost entirely, Vietnamese ports, most notably Vũng Tàu’s Cái Mép. Regarding concerns this canal will also dry up Vietnamese agricultural land downstream, Cambodia says it will actually reduce floods, so shut up already! [03][04][05]
Kolab, Cambodia, 10/23/23
Under Hun Sen, Chinese gangs have operated vast cyber scam centers in Cambodia. These enslave thousands of Thais, Vietnamese, Laos, Filipinos, Indonesians, Malaysians, Singaporeans and Burmese, so citizens of all ASEAN states except tiny Brunei. They are forced to scam their compatriots, to enrich Chinese bosses, with Hun Sen taking a nice cut, undoubtedly. When these slaves resist or fail to perform, they’re tortured or even killed. Some have jumped from upper floor windows to their death.
With China backing him, Hun Sen got cocky enough to leak a phone call between him and Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra. Just 37-years-old, she was elected only because of her dad. Speaking to the 72-year-old Hun Sen, Shinawatra was too deferential, perhaps. This outraged ordinary Thais. The key takeaway from this scandal, though, is Hun Sen’s break of protocol. Who would want to discuss anything with this clown? Are you taping me?!
On 7/5/25, Vietnamese General Phan Văn Giang welcomed Thai General Songwit Noonpackdee to Hanoi on an official visit, then on 7/14/25, Royal Thai Navy Commander-in-Chief Jirapol Wongwit landed in Hai Phong with his sizable delegation.
With the entire ASEAN bloc irked or infuriated with Hun Sen’s Cambodia, Thailand can give it a nice slap, at least. This also pleases Uncle Sam enormously. Beforehand, the Thais had to make sure Hanoi wouldn’t intervene to protect its ex protégé. If the Thais go too far, though, China has the perfect excuse to sail warships towards that port it already paid for.
As always, us fleas are squashed when geopolitical mammoths collide. Cambodian rockets hitting that Thai 7-11 killed 11 civilians. At least some were likely Cambodians. They’re all over Si Sa Ket and Suri. Their Thai citizenship is only an accident of history.
Kolab, Cambodia, 10/23/23
Another subtext is Cambodia’s bitterness at having fallen so far. Until 600 years ago, it towered over all of Southeast Asia. If not for the French, it would have lost even Angkor to the Thais. Luckily, Americans will be spared such anguish. Six centuries from now, there won’t be enough left to contest what remains of the Obama or Trump Presidential Library. Here and there, MAGA hats as heirlooms will still be treasured by select morons.
“To honor the Donald, our great great great great grandpa joined a pedophile cult. Wearing a Trump mask, he got to fuck so many beautiful women on the younger side. So what if all of these were just miniature sex dolls? It was still America’s Golden Age! We had no fake news, libtards, tourists or manufactured goods, it is claimed. There was no inflation because no one had cash. Trumpian heretics did beg Canada or Greenland for annexation, but nothing came of it.”
About Linh Dinh (@linhdinh):
‘Before being canceled, I was an anthologized poet and fairly prolific author, with my last book Postcards from the End of America. Now, I write about our increasingly sick world for a tiny audience on SubStack. Drifting overly much, I’m in Cambodia.’
AHH: Please support this wonderful writer on his Substack! Thanks
A soulful globe-trotter reports from Vietnam, traveling from Cambodia, of life and timeless imperial pyrotechnics
Linh Dinh at Postcards from the End.
Since I’ve shown an interest in her past, Mrs. Seven, a 63-year-old widow living with two dogs, keeps telling me more. In Hai Phong 40 years ago as part of a performance troupe, she was told to never go out alone. Seeing a young southern woman wandering around looking lost, local savages would just grab her breasts. During the Vietnam War, southerners ate much better, so there’s more to grab, that’s true.
My only visit to Hai Phong was in 1995. As North Vietnam’s major seaport, it was most heavily bombed by the USA. Domestically, it’s known for a soup of red pasta with fresh water crab, bánh đa cua. Just two days ago, Typhoon Wipha slammed into it, to cause considerable damage to properties, but no reported death. Houses were wrecked, cars were crushed from falling trees and crops spanning hundreds of miles were destroyed. Extreme weather everywhere has become more common. If you haven’t, look into climate engineering as the key factor. Six decades ago, the USA used Vietnam and Vietnamese to test various techniques, along with the effects of novel weapons.
Vung Tau, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 7/24/25
Napalm is lovingly described as sticking “like shit to a blanket.” In Vietnam Inc., Philip Jones Griffith quotes a US pilot, “We sure are pleased with those backroom boys at Dow. The original product wasn’t so hot—if the gooks were quick they could scrape it off. So the boys started adding polystyrene — now it sticks like shit to a blanket. But then if the gooks jumped under water it stopped burning, so they started adding Willie Peter (WP – white phosphorous) so’s to make it burn better. It’ll even burn under water now. And just one drop is enough, it’ll keep on burning right down to the bone so they die anyway from phosphorous poisoning.”
Can you believe it, it’s already the next day! Do check to see if it’s still 2025. Though a nightmare year, it’s only a prelude. Having arrived at Coffee Seven too early, I’m sitting just outside in the dark. In minutes, Mrs. Seven’s two dogs will appear. They’re sleeping on her bedroom floor. With junkies needing quick cash roaming the night, they can’t be let outside too early. Now I hear her rubber flip flops, then her lock jiggling. Suddenly, there’s light! Happy to see me, the white bitch comes running, with that stub of a tail half wagging.
Coming here, I passed Bluetooth listening to old school rap, when lyrics still had social messages, and not just I’m gonna to wet yo nigga ass and shag yo ho. Next to him was a woman of at least 70 doing exercises while sitting on a plastic chair. Any joint that could still be swiveled, she rotated.
Vung Tau, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 7/24/25
Presently, the security guard, Sơn, will show up on his motorbike. Yesterday, he was listening to all these songs of homesick soldiers, composed in South Vietnam before 1975. The North’s heroic compositions, as demanded by the state, have mostly disappeared. We talked a bit about the absence of music about Vietnam’s wars against Cambodia and China. State control of culture was still in force.
I can’t think of one song reflecting the ordeals of being an American grunt in Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan. Those still capable of reading should check out Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried and Bruce Weigle’s Song of Napalm. Nearly all my books are in New Jersey. Before leaving the US in 2018, I gave hundreds to my buddy, Ian Keenan. Though super erudite, Ian’s a conformist liberal, so has stopped talking to me. Via Megabus, we traveled together to Buffalo, New Orleans, Raleigh and New Orleans.
Sơn means mountain. The absurdity of being maimed or killed just as your life is beginning is a profound tragedy worth meditating or brooding on. At 4:37AM, he’s two chairs from me. Those songs of lives suspended, menaced or about to be smashed I expect to hear, again, any second now.
When I left Amman just a week ago, Israel had just attacked Syria. Having helped to prop up Ahmed al-Sharaa, Jews are already done with this ex terrorist. Their goal has always been to grab more land from Syria, so they’ve opened a new front in their never ending war against Arabs. They’re still fighting Hamas and the Houthis. Of course, it’s confusing. Like Uncle Sam, Jews are always plotting or fighting against so many people.
In Southeast Asia, another war has broken out. In recent years, Cambodia has gotten very close to China. In that nation, I’ve traveled on Chinese built highways and visited Sihanoukville, a fishing village transformed into a city filled with Chinese casinos. In Phnom Penh, I checked out NagaWorld. At this luxurious Chinese gambling mecca, I noticed with amusement a forlorn blonde Russian tinkling on a piano for bored Chinese patrons, lounging nearby. NagaCorp is building a casino/resort in Vladivostok, so there, too, classically trained Russian musicians will perform for yawning Chinese.
Has pissed Uncle Sam prodded Thailand to war against its supposedly weaker neighbor? Don’t underestimate the ferocity of the Khmers, however.
Vung Tau, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 7/24/25
At 6:32AM, I’m at Trung Nguyen, a Vietnamese chain. Even with many books, it has little character. There’s no anchored mind behind any of this. Right outside on a bench are two fat boys with dull faces. Each has an iPhone and bulging belly. Closing his eyes from virtual reality overload, the older boy still clutches his orbitofrontal cortex masturbator. Ten yards away is an old broad, sitting alone yet masked. We’ve been conditioned to trust nothing unmediated, so why not oxygen? This deranged crone feels safer breathing air through chemically treated polypropylene.
Vung Tau, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 7/24/25
All these phenomena are actually linked, Bluetooth listening to American rap, a war veteran still figuring out what the hell happened, phone hooked children alienated from their environment and more wars caused hidden hands not just indifferent, but glorying in how many lives they can pulverize. We’re but deracinated fleas blown every which way.
In the USA, millions of brokeassed chumps still think a billionaire child rapist is their savior. Those outside the Judeo Christian world can see more clearly than ever who these monsters really are. They’re so casual, if not cheerful, about their serial crimes. Even the most degenerate Orientals, Arabs and Black Africans don’t try to excuse away such prolific and protean Satanism.
It’s smeared on them like crap on a Christmas sweater or homey comforter. Shit, man, with a dark night of the soul so insistent and marathon, Jeezus must appear before peeping dawn. Maybe it won’t ever again. Meanwhile, they have their flaming Donald. Towering over their smudged out faces, America’s greatest president glows like white phosphorus. Barely basking in his flickering orangeness, they crack hellish grins.
It’s 8:24AM at Pato’s Bingsu. In the next room is a 27-year-old South African I’ve just met. Teaching English at three schools, he’s also learning Vietnamese. We joked about South African linguistic idiosyncrasies like “lekker” and “robot.” Drop me off at the next robot, brah! Like me, he was nearly mugged in Cape Town. Sitting in a car’s passenger seat, he managed to kick the guy off. I commended him for not freezing.
Wolfheze. As a Dutchman living in Budapest, Wolfheze is one, too. Even if you’ve never stepped outside your hometown, you’re also waiting in a departure lounge, hoping, if only half consciously, to not be left behind or swatted like an annoying insect. In three days, Wolfheze and I will chatter about this and more.
Linh Dinh (@linhdinh):
Before being canceled, I was an anthologized poet and fairly prolific author, with my last book Postcards from the End of America. Now, I write about our increasingly sick world for a tiny audience on SubStack. Drifting overly much, I’m in Cambodia.
AHH: Please support this wonderful writer on his Substack! Thanks
Exploring the dystopian technofeudalism at heart of the western A.I. race
The unnamed book EMPIRE OF AI is mine, based on 300+ interviews, 7 yrs covering AI, & my time as the first reporter who got extensive access to OpenAI. I sought OpenAI’s perspective throughout. For months they said it was coming. It never did. Pre-order: https://t.co/i5rNJ45fNo. https://t.co/Drr8Gzv7vW pic.twitter.com/0aJpF9P26U
— Karen Hao (@_KarenHao) April 4, 2025
The A.I. Religious Cult: “Just like empires of the past were competing against one another, so are these tech giants. There was this aggressive race of we, the French Empire, are better than the British Empire. We, the British Empire, are better than the Dutch Empire.
And we need to continue to relentlessly race and be number one because we’re the ones that have the right civilizing mission to bring modernity and progress to all of humanity.
And where their missions might have once been about scientific exploration and transparency, they are now about profit, which has resulted in a landscape where they are just scaling at all costs.”
this is about controlling “the civilizational transformation” of the “one global village.” “Our collective attention is their Manifest Destiny.” From Maggie’s “there is no society” to now, “Culture is just what is Next on your phone — and that is A.I.”
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
What’s emerging in America is not a retreat from hegemony, but a reformatting of it.
By Artyom Lukin on Russia in Global Affairs.
[Ed.: this is a machine translation]
For half a thousand years, the West has been the dominant civilization in the world. Recently, this dominance has weakened, but has not completely disappeared. The West – and above all the United States of America as its core – is still the most powerful subject in world politics and economy. The colossal power of the West can be both a creative force and a source of existential threats to the rest of the world.
Today, in the West, primarily in the United States, a new ideology is being built, under certain circumstances no less dangerous than fascism and Nazism a hundred years ago. The second term of President Donald Trump could be a turning point when America will be under the control of ambiguous people and ideas.
The emerging ideology of the “new America” is still heterogeneous and represented by at least four key groups. The first is Trump himself and those his entourage, who professes views borrowed from the era of classical great-power imperialism and economic nationalism of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The second is politicians and media figures, which can be attributed to right-wing populists. The third is Silicon Valley, committed to libertarian hypercapitalism and the cult of technology. Fourth, intellectuals who generate and promote the ideas of the “dark Enlightenment.”
If the views of the first two groups are not new to the American political landscape, then the last two are the phenomenon of the 21st century.
[1] Good old imperialism?
Trump’s ideology is in many ways a classic inconclusive imperialism on the “right of the strong.” Already in his inaugural speech, he openly declared the desire for territorial acquisitions: “The United States will again become a growing nation – increasing its wealth, expanding its territory, building its cities…”[1] Here, Trump speaks of America as an “exceptional nation” and “the greatest civilization in the history of mankind.” America’s geopolitical ambitions and exclusivity will be backed up by “the most powerful military force ever seen by the world.”
Claims to exclusivity, the desire for territorial expansion, military-force domination are essential signs of imperialism.
It is no coincidence that in the same inaugural speech, Trump approvingly mentions William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt, presidents who have introduced the United States to the club of imperialist powers.
[2] Right-Populist Conservatism
This ideological faction includes figures such as Vice-President JD Vance, political strategist Steve Bannon and journalist Tucker Carlson. Their main slogan is America First. They act from the standpoint of the cultural and value traditionalism of the deep American people and the hostility to the liberal-cosmopolitan elite, which concentrates on the east and west coasts, position themselves as defenders of the working class, advocate tough economic protectionism for the revival of American industry, and in the sphere of foreign policy gravitate towards isolationism.
[3] Libertarian Techno-Capitalism
This trend of the new American ideology is represented by technillionaires – mainly immigrants from Silicon Valley. The most famous, of course, is Elon Musk, who from January to May 2025 served as head of the Department of Efficiency of the Government [DOGE] in the Trump administration. However, the level of publicity does not always correspond to the degree of political influence. The notorious venture capitalist Marc Andreessen (the creator of the first mass Internet browser Netscape) may have had an influence on the White House initially, being an unofficial adviser and helping Trump recruit to key posts. [2] Until recently, Andreessen was a supporter of the Democratic Party, but in 2024 he supported Trump – in part because Andreessen did not arrange the Biden administration’s course of tighter regulation of the crypto industry and artificial intelligence.
Andreessen, like Musk, advocates maximum freedom of business activity and minimize state interference in private business.
In 2023. Andreessen has published the Techno-optimistic Manifesto. The main idea is simple: scientific and technological progress is the greatest benefit and the key to solving the problems of mankind, but only free markets, coupled with the elimination of burdensome restrictions and barriers, will ensure the development of a high-tech economy. Andreessen advocates for “accelerationism” – the spurring of technological development, which should accelerate progress to unprecedented speeds. This is the literal way of the word “undisper” acceleration will be achieved through the synthesis of technological innovation and the capitalist economy (techno – capital machine), the term that Andreessen borrowed from the British philosopher Nick Land. Artificial Intelligence: “We believe that artificial intelligence is our alchemy, our Philosopher’s Stone… We believe that artificial intelligence should be approached as a universal solution to problems. [3]
However, in the optimistic picture drawn by Andreessen there are semantic nuances. With a clear reference to Frederick Nietzsche, whose name is mentioned in the manifesto in the list of the most respected Andreessen thinkers, the techno-billionaire sings the upcoming “technological supermen”: “We are not victims, we are the conquerors… We are the strongest predator on top of the food chain (apex predator).”
When Andreessen, talking about “technological superhumans”, uses a predator metaphor, is it not a typical Freud clause? At the top of the food chain, by definition, there can be only a few, the strongest predators, while the rest of the creatures have a different role. The Andreessen Manifesto contains a response to who is supposed to be the main predator: “We believe that America and its allies should be strong, not weak. We believe that the national power of liberal democracies is derived from their economic power (financial force), cultural power (soft power) and military power (hard force). Economic, cultural and military power stem from technological. Technologically powerful America is the power of good in a dangerous world. Technologically powerful liberal democracies guarantee freedom and peace. Technologically, weak liberal democracies are losing to their authoritarian rivals.
In the extensive list of “sacraments-patrons of techno-optimism” and Andreessen are Filippo Marinetti, the founder of futurism and one of the ideologues of Italian fascism. The last act of Marinetti was a voyage as part of the Italian expeditionary corps to the Eastern Front, where he was wounded near Stalingrad.
The most politically influential techno-billionaire is apparently the founder of Paypal Peter Thiel. It is probably not a mistake to call it the second most important ideologist of the “new America” after Trump himself. Although Thiel has never held official political posts, he is the key figure that unites Silicon Valley, intellectual right conservatism and Trump populism.
Thiel became the first of the most authoritative figures of Silicon Valley who openly supported Trump and became a donor to his presidential campaign back in 2016. However, Thiel’s most successful political investment was not Trump, but the current vice president (and, quite likely, the future president) J. D. Vance, for whom Thiel became a mentor and employer (Vance was at one time an employee of the Thiel Mithril Capital Investment Fund). Subsequently, Thiel donated $15 million to Vance’s election campaign in the U.S. Senate from Ohio and presented a young promising politician to Trump.
As befits a businessman, Thiel diversifies political investment. Simultaneously with Vance, he sponsored another young and promising politician (also his student and former employee) – Blake Masters, who was given $20 million for the Senate elections from Arizona (unlike Vance, Masters lost the election).
Thiel calls himself a Christian and often quotes the Bible, although he is an open homosexual (in 2017 he married in Vienna with his partner Matt Dunzesen, an investment banker). The techno-billionaire is known as a philosopher and thinker, being very widely read and himself being a prolific author of books and essays. Unlike Musk and Andreessen, who give away the expositions and memes designed for the public, Thiel’s target audience is an educated elite. He categorically quotes such difficult political philosophers as Carl Schmitt and Leo Strauss, is a fan of the ideas of anthropologist René Girard. Thiel positions himself as a libertarian, but does not hide that he has long believed in liberal democracy, as well as in democracy at all: “I no longer think that freedom is compatible with democracy”. [4]
It is significant that Thiel compares today’s America with Germany on the eve of Hitler’s arrival:
“There are undoubted parallels between the United States of the 2020’s and Germany of the 1920’s in the sense that liberalism has exhausted itself. It can be argued that democracy … has exhausted itself and we will have to ask ourselves a number of questions that go very far beyond the window of Overton. [5]
Thiel’s Libertarianism did not prevent him from founding Palantir Technologies, which is engaged in developments in the field of artificial intelligence in the interests of the Pentagon and intelligence services. He also acts as a major investor in young billionaire Palmer Lucky Anduril Industries, who creates drones and other autonomous weapons systems.
Thiel believes that in recent decades, America has plunged into the abyss of degradation and stagnation. We need a leap to new heights and great goals. Like his billionaire counterparts from the valley, Thiel is convinced that the formulation and achievement of ambitious scientific and technological goals should be the main priority of society and the state. His personal favorite is transhumanism technologies associated with the improvement of the human body, the prolongation of life and, potentially, the achievement of immortality. One of Thiel’s current projects is the organization of the alternative “Enhanced Games”, where doping control will be weakened and athletes will allow the use of biohacking methods. One of the co-organizers of Enhanced Games is the son of President Donald Trump Jr.
Of all the billionaire libertarians close to the current government, it is Thiel who has the most articulated views on foreign policy. Its geopolitical concept is quite simple and boils down to the fact that the main external threat to the United States is China.
Unlike a friend and former business partner Elon Musk, who is considered a Pro-Chinese figure, Thiel is a supporter on Beijing’s firm deterrence policy, including by forming a broad anti-Chinese coalition led by Washington. The US should go for an economic divorce from China and put pressure on other countries so that they also minimize ties with Beijing. Thiel believes that the Trump supertariffs on Chinese goods are a step in the right direction. Back in November 2022, he declared: “I believe in free trade, I am not a supporter of tariffs, but I would make an exception for our major geopolitical and ideological rival.”[8] Thiel is one of the most synophobic figures in the highest echelon of the current ruling elite. He calls China “semi-fascist, semi-communist gerontocracy,” accusing Beijing of “nationalism,” “racism,” and “xenophobia. [9]
Thiel treats Russia without sympathy, but much more calmly – he does not see it as dangerous as China as a geopolitical adversary, but perhaps also because Russia is racially and culturally much closer to the West. Thiel believes that the West should not push Moscow into Beijing’s embrace.
Thiel has repeatedly spoken out in support of Israel, and Palantir Technologies supplies AI technology to the Israeli military. Chance or not, the Trump administration’s foreign policy is still almost identical with Thiel’s views.
[4] Theorists of the “Dark Enlightenment”
Finally, the fourth group of representatives of the new American ideology is the intellectual provocateurs that create narratives of the Dark Enlightenment. Also called the “neo-reactionary movement” (NRx), it is an intellectual and philosophical current that denies many ideals of classical Enlightenment, was formed in the late 2000’s – early 2010’s, mainly in the countries of the Anglosphere.
One of the fathers of the “dark Enlightenment” and the author of the term itself is the British philosopher and writer Nick Land, now living in Shanghai, mentioned in Andreessen. At the beginning of the academic career in the 1990s, Land, who then taught at the University of Warwick, held leftist views, but then swung sharply to the right. [10] Land believes in the onset of a singularity – a moment when artificial intelligence and other technologies will surpass a person and get out of control, which will mark the beginning of a “post-human” era. Land draws inspiration from the aesthetics of cyberpunk, predicting the arrival of hyper-capitalist techno-authoritarian systems that are controlled by technology and markets, not traditional politics. Such systems, in his view, are much more effective than classical liberalism and democracy. In the spirit of Techno-Social Darwinism, Land predicts the emergence of post-human beings, which, thanks to the merger with super-technologies, will dominate the new world.
Land rejects anthropocentrism, arguing that human values and morality are insignificant in the face of much larger and impersonal forces such as capital and technology. In his philosophy, humanity is nothing more than a temporary stage in a more significant evolutionary process that is driven by machine and economic systems.
Another intellectual father of the Dark Enlightenment is the American programmer and blogger Curtis Yarvin, also known under the pseudonym Mencius Moldbug. Unlike Land, Yarvin is directly involved in the political process. He is friends with Thiel and is well acquainted with a number of politicians and officials from the Trump entourage. Yarvin is in favor of replacing a more effective political system in the form of an autocratic monarchy or a business corporation where the sole governing body has absolute powers. One idea is the creation of a system of numerous corporate-controlled sovereign entities (Patchwork), within which it will be possible to freely experiment with laws, rules and technologies.
Like most of the ideologues of the “new America”, in the sphere of foreign policy, Yarvin advocated the dismantling of the “liberal international order” that developed after 1945, where the United States played the role of a world police officer and a guarantor of security. Yarvin advocates the withdrawal of the United States even from Europe, although it is stipulated that Great Britain, being an Anglo-Saxon country, should remain under the protection of America.[11] Yarvin will have nothing against if, for example, Turkey and Greece begin to fight each other. This is exclusively their business, not America’s problem. Unlike his billionaire friend Thiel, Yarvin calmly and even with restrained admiration speaks of modern China.
Yarvin, whose Jewish ancestors emigrated from Odessa during the Russian Empire, holds an unorthodox view of World War II. In his opinion, Hitler did not thirst for world domination. He wanted “only” to recognize his domination in continental Europe by using European Jews as hostages for negotiations with the US and Britain. If Roosevelt had agreed to a deal with Hitler, the World War and the Holocaust, it might have been possible to avoid. [12]
Land, Yarvin and other “dark Enlightenment” intellectuals can, at first glance, seem much less significant figures compared to billionaires Musk and Thiel. But one of the main capitalists of Germany, Gustav Krupp, who supported Hitler, or the brilliant political philosopher and subsequently the chief lawyer of the Third Reich, Karl Schmitt (by the way, like to quote Yarvin and Thiel), who developed the theory of the “exceptional case” and later, by the way, by which in 1933 the Reichstag was adopted?
American hegemony – end or reformatting?
The emerging ideology of the “new America” is heterogeneous and it has different scenarios. It is not necessary that it materializes into something malignant, reminiscent of the Third Reich or the “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere”. But in the ideas and meanings circulating today in America and other countries of the English sphere, there are many things that can not but alarm.
This is the desire for the cultivation of either “technological superhumans”, or “super-predators”, or “post-human beings” and rationalization proposals to delegate absolute power to the “single executive body”.
Although the ideologues of the “new America” are contemptuous of the liberal international order “rules” that for many years has been considered the sacred cow’s global hegemony of United States, this does not mean that they want to see America only one of the sovereign subjects of the multipolar world. American legions can be withdrawn from Europe, the Middle East or South Korea, but there will be more sophisticated and “technological” ways to control and dominate the bodies and souls. The main concept permeating the writings of Curtis Yarvin is “power”. Peter Thiel’s favorite book, a man who wants to live forever, is The Lord of the Rings.
Author: Artem Lukin, Professor of the Department of International Relations of the Eastern Institute of the Far Eastern Federal University.
[this is the RT (A.I.-abbreviated) version]
The superhumans are coming – and so is the danger
By Artyom Lukin, an associate professor of international relations at Far Eastern Federal University in Vladivostok, Russia
For the past 500 years, the West has reigned as the world’s dominant civilization. Though its grip has loosened in recent years, the West – especially the United States – remains the most powerful force in global politics and the international economy. This power, while capable of building plenty, also carries the potential to destroy a lot.
Today, a new ideology is taking shape in the West, particularly in the US. Under the right conditions, it could prove as dangerous to humanity as fascism and Nazism were in the last century. The reelection of Donald Trump may mark a decisive turning point, transferring power to people and ideas that are, at best, deeply ambiguous.
This ‘New America’ is not driven by a single worldview, but rather by a convergence of four ideological factions.
[1] The Imperial Restorationists
At the center stands Trump himself and his allies – throwbacks to the era of great-power imperialism. Trump’s inaugural speech to launch his second term left little doubt: He called for territorial expansion, industrial growth, and a resurgent military. America, he declared, is “the greatest civilization in the history of mankind.” He spoke approvingly of President William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt, both architects of American imperialism.
The vision is unmistakable: American exceptionalism, enforced by military might and driven by the logic of conquest. It is the language of empire.
[2] The Nationalist Conservatives
Then there are the right-wing populists – figures like Vice President J.D. Vance, strategist Steve Bannon, and journalist Tucker Carlson. Their rallying cry is ‘America First’. They champion traditional values, claim to speak for the working class, and disdain the liberal elite concentrated in coastal cities.
They oppose globalism, support trade protectionism, and promote isolationism in foreign policy. This faction is not particularly new in American politics, but its influence has deepened, especially under Trump’s patronage.
Vice President JD Vance visits Los Angeles after unrest over ICE raids © Getty Images / Getty Images
[3-A] The Techno-Libertarian Billionaires
A newer – and perhaps more unsettling – element of America’s emerging ideology is represented by Silicon Valley billionaires. Elon Musk is the most visible figure, briefly heading Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency in early 2025. But the more influential actor may be Marc Andreessen, the venture capitalist and early internet pioneer who became an informal adviser to Trump.
Andreessen’s political turn followed his frustration with Biden-era regulations on crypto and artificial intelligence. In 2023, he published a manifesto called ‘The Techno-Optimist’, a document that preaches unrestrained technological acceleration. In his view, scientific innovation and free markets can solve all of humanity’s problems – if only government gets out of the way.
Andreessen quotes Nietzsche and invokes the image of the ‘apex predator’ – a new breed of technological superman who sits atop the food chain. He writes, “We are not victims, we are conquerors… the strongest predator at the top of the food chain.”
Such language might seem metaphorical, but it is revealing. Andreessen’s list of intellectual inspirations includes Filippo Marinetti, the Futurist who helped lay the aesthetic groundwork for Italian fascism and died fighting the Red Army at Stalingrad.
Marc Andreessen © Getty Images / Getty Images
[3-B] The Philosopher-Kingmaker
The most intellectually developed thinker of the techno-libertarian camp is Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal and the data surveillance firm Palantir Technologies. Thiel is no longer a marginal figure – he is now arguably the second most important ideologue of the New America, after Trump himself.
Thiel is also a master strategist. He personally mentored and funded Vance, now vice president and possibly Trump’s heir apparent. At the same time, he backed Blake Masters in Arizona, although that bet didn’t pay off. Thiel reads the Bible, quotes Carl Schmitt and Leo Strauss, and speaks openly about the limits of democracy. “Freedom is no longer compatible with democracy,” he has said.
He has compared modern America to Weimar Germany, arguing that liberalism is exhausted, and a new system must rise. Despite his libertarian leanings, Thiel’s companies develop AI tools for the Pentagon and fund next-generation weapons systems through firms like Anduril.
Thiel believes that America has entered a long decline – and that radical technological leaps are needed to reverse it. One of his pet projects is the ‘Enhanced Games’, a competition where doping and biohacking are allowed. Co-organized with Donald Trump Jr., the event reflects Thiel’s obsession with transhumanism and human enhancement.
In foreign policy, Thiel views China as America’s primary enemy. He has called it a “semi-fascist, semi-communist gerontocracy” and pushed for complete economic decoupling. Interestingly, Thiel is far less hostile to Russia, which he sees as culturally closer to the West. In his view, pushing Moscow into Beijing’s arms is a strategic mistake.
Peter Thiel © Getty Images / Getty Images
[4] The Dark Enlightenment
The final group behind the New America are the theorists of the ‘Dark Enlightenment’, or neo-reactionary movement. These intellectual provocateurs reject the Enlightenment values that once defined the West.
Nick Land, a British philosopher living in Shanghai, is among the founding thinkers of this school. He predicts the end of humanity as we know it and the rise of posthuman, techno-authoritarian systems governed by capital and machines. For Land, morality is irrelevant; what matters is efficiency, evolution, and raw power.
Curtis Yarvin (aka Mencius Moldbug), an American programmer, is another central figure. A friend of Thiel and an insider in Trump’s intellectual circle, Yarvin advocates replacing democracy with a corporate-style monarchy. He imagines a future of sovereign city-states run like companies, where experimentation with laws and technologies is unrestricted.
Yarvin is clear in his rejection of American global leadership. He believes the US should withdraw from Europe and let regional powers settle their own disputes. He speaks warmly of China, and his views on World War II are unorthodox to say the least – suggesting Hitler was motivated by strategic calculation rather than genocidal ambition.
Curtis Yarvin
What comes next?
Many of these ideas may seem fringe. But fringe ideas have power – especially when they echo through the corridors of political and technological influence. Carl Schmitt’s legal theories enabled Hitler to seize dictatorial powers in 1933. Today, the intellectual allies of Trump and Thiel are crafting their own narratives of ‘emergency’, ‘decadence’, and ‘reawakening’.
What’s emerging in America is not a retreat from hegemony, but a reformatting of it. The liberal international order is no longer seen as sacred – even by the country that built it. The new American elite may be withdrawing troops from Europe, the Middle East, and Korea, but their ambitions have not shrunk. They are turning instead to subtler methods of control: AI, cyber dominance, ideological warfare, and technological superiority.
Their goal is not a multipolar world, but a redesigned unipolar one – run not by diplomats and treaties, but by algorithms, monopolies, and machines.
The threat to the world is not just political anymore. It is civilizational. The superhumans are on the march.
This article was first published by Russia in Global Affairs, translated and edited by the RT team
“War does not determine who is right — only who is left.”
— Bertrand Russell
During the time of presidents angling for Nobel Peace Prizes, and daily news of ceasefires, this is where we stand. I’ve done a study of war or conflict using two points:
the end of January 2025, and
the current date, in other words, two snapshots separated by more or less six months.
Then I realized I lost the intermediate shorter conflicts and listed those separately. I was not searching for PhD-level accuracy, but for the states of war and conflict in our world, and wanted to determine whether it is on the rise. It is on the rise, and more conflicts have a perpetual nature. Currently, we have 18 conflicts raging. At the end of January, we had 16. During the period, nine short-term intermediate conflicts raged. Some of these you may recognize, and some may be new to you, but they fit the definitions.
This does not include economic war.
Afghanistan 45+ years
Somalia 34+ years
Palestine 76+ years
Eastern DRC 30+ years
But it demands courage beyond ceasefires: addressing stolen resources, healing trauma, and dismantling the machinery of hate.
As of July 11, 2025, there are numerous active armed conflicts worldwide. Defining a “war” precisely is complex (often requiring 1,000+ battle-related deaths/year), but here is a comprehensive list of major ongoing armed conflicts and wars causing significant violence, based on data from organizations like the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP), Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), and major international news sources.
Fluidity: Conflict intensity and front lines change rapidly. A “ceasefire” today could break down tomorrow.
Definitions: This list focuses on conflicts with sustained, organized armed violence causing significant casualties (often >100 or >1000 battle deaths/year). It includes interstate wars, civil wars, and major insurgencies, lower-level violence, and criminal conflicts.
“Frozen” Conflicts: Areas like Eastern Ukraine (pre-2022), Nagorno-Karabakh (post-2023 ceasefire), and Transnistria (Moldova) remain tense with unresolved political issues and military deployments, but large-scale active fighting is currently paused.
Casualty Thresholds: Many organizations (like UCDP) distinguish between:
War: >= 1,000 battle-related deaths per year.
Armed Conflict: >= 25 battle-related deaths per year.
This list includes conflicts meeting the “war” threshold recently and significant ones near it.
Information Challenges: Data from active war zones is often incomplete, delayed, or biased.
The deadliest and most widespread conflicts currently are generally considered to be: Russia-Ukraine, Israel-Hamas/Gaza, Sudan, Myanmar, and the Sahel Insurgencies (Mali/Burkina Faso).
Databases searched:
What we would consider western-style information from these databases was not necessarily removed. Israel was missing everywhere, and I added that entity, which is clearly running four wars, depending on how you count.
1. Russia-Ukraine War: Full-scale invasion ongoing since February 2022. Front lines remain active, heavy casualties continue.
2. Israel’s genocide: Intense conflict – major Israeli military operation in Gaza continues, with significant spillover violence on Israel’s northern border with Hezbollah (Lebanon) and exchanges with Houthis (Yemen). A severe humanitarian crisis persists.
3. Sudan Civil War: War between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) since April 2023. Widespread fighting across the country, ethnic violence, massive displacement, and famine conditions.
4. Myanmar Civil War: Intensified nationwide conflict since the February 2021 military coup. Numerous Ethnic Armed Organizations (EAOs) and People’s Defense Forces (PDFs) are fighting the military junta (Tatmadaw). Control of significant territory is contested.
5. Sahel Insurgencies (Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger): Intense Islamist insurgencies (linked to JNIM, IS-GS) against military governments and local forces. Extremist violence, ethnic massacres, and widespread instability dominate the region. Military coups have reshaped the landscape.
6. Syrian Civil War: Although reduced in scale, active conflict continues the Northwest (Idlib): Syrian government (+Russia) vs. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and Turkish-backed rebels, Northeast: Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) vs. Turkish forces & Turkish-backed rebels. Occasional ISIS resurgence, South: Sporadic clashes, ISIS cells.
7. Yemen Civil War: While the main front lines between Houthis and the internationally recognized government (+Saudi-led coalition) have been relatively quiet since the 2022 truce (not formally ended), violence persists. This includes Houthi attacks on shipping, US/UK strikes on Houthis, internal conflicts within anti-Houthi factions, and attacks by AQAP/ISIS branches.
8. Tigray War (Ethiopia) Aftermath: The November 2022 ceasefire largely ended large-scale combat between the Ethiopian government and Tigray forces. However, significant tensions remain, sporadic clashes occur in border areas (especially involving Amhara forces), and the situation is fragile. Other conflicts in Oromia and Amhara regions continue.
9. Somalia Conflict: Ongoing war between the Federal Government of Somalia (backed by AU Mission – ATMIS) and Al-Shabaab militants. Al-Shabaab controls significant rural areas and launches frequent attacks in urban centers.
10. Mexico Drug War: While often classified as criminal violence, the scale and intensity (30,000+ homicides annually for years) involving cartels vs. state forces and cartel vs. cartel warfare meets many definitions of an armed conflict, especially in specific regions.
11. Afghanistan Conflict: The Taliban government faces persistent insurgency from ISIS-Khorasan (ISIS-K), primarily targeting Taliban forces and minorities. Resistance groups (NRF) also engage in sporadic clashes.
Other Significant Armed Conflicts (Varying Intensity)
12. Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC): Multiple overlapping conflicts, primarily in the east. Key actors include M23 rebels (allegedly Rwanda-backed), numerous other armed groups (FDLR, CODECO, ADF – linked to ISIS), Congolese military (FARDC), and UN/east African forces. Violence is extreme, involving massacres of civilians.
13. Cameroon (Anglophone Crisis): Separatist militias in the English-speaking Northwest and Southwest regions fight government forces. Widespread human rights abuses by both sides.
|4 Pakistan Insurgency: Baloch separatist groups and the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) carry out frequent attacks against security forces, particularly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces.
15. Colombia Conflict: Despite the 2016 peace deal with FARC, conflict continues with remaining FARC dissidents (ELN, EMC), other guerrillas, paramilitaries, and cartels, particularly in rural areas.
16. Haiti Gang Violence: Powerful armed gangs control large parts of Port-au-Prince and other cities, engaging in brutal warfare against each other and state forces, causing a catastrophic humanitarian and political crisis. Often exceeds thresholds for “armed conflict.”
17. Central African Republic (CAR) Conflict: Despite peace deals, fighting continues between government forces (often backed by Russian Wagner Group mercenaries) and various rebel coalitions (CPC) controlling large rural areas.
18. Mozambique Insurgency (Cabo Delgado): ISIS-Mozambique continues its insurgency in the north, despite significant counter-offensives by government forces and regional allies (SADC, Rwanda).
High-Intensity Conflicts (1,000+ battle deaths/year)
1. Russia-Ukraine War
2. Israel-Hamas genocide
3. Sudan Civil War (SAF vs. RSF)
4. Myanmar Civil War
5. Sahel Insurgencies (Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger)
6. Yemen Civil War
7. Syrian Civil War
Significant Conflicts (25–1,000 battle deaths/year)
8. DRC (Eastern Congo)
9. Cameroon (Anglophone Crisis)
10. Pakistan Insurgencies
11. Colombia Conflict
12. Haiti Gang War
13. Central African Republic (CAR)
14. Mozambique (Cabo Delgado)
15. Nigeria (Banditry & Separatism)
16. Ethiopia (Oromia & Amhara)
*(Active political/military tension but low fighting in Jan 2025)*
1. Nagorno-Karabakh: No fighting since Azerbaijan’s Sept 2023 offensive; ~120K ethnic Armenians fled. Russian peacekeepers are present.
2. Tigray (Ethiopia): Nov 2022 ceasefire held, but Amhara-Tigray border disputes simmered.
3. Eastern Ukraine (Pre-2022 lines): Static trench warfare since 2015; minor skirmishes.
Important Context for January 2025
Gaza dominated headlines: Regional escalation risks (Lebanon/Yemen) were the top geopolitical concern.
Sudan’s collapse accelerated: Famine was declared in parts of Darfur by late January.
Sahel military regimes solidified power: France entirely withdrew; Russia filled the vacuum.
Myanmar’s junta was near collapse: China brokered a temporary Shan State truce.
Houthi Red Sea attacks disrupted global trade: 15% of shipping rerouted via Africa.
—-
1. India-Pakistan Border Clashes (Nov 2024)
Duration: 4 days (Nov 17–20, 2024)
Location: Jammu & Kashmir (Line of Control)
Trigger: Attack by suspected Jaish-e-Mohammed militants in Poonch (India) killing 5 soldiers → Indian retaliatory strikes across LoC.
Scale: Heavy mortar/artillery duels, drone incursions.
Casualties: ~35–50 killed (military + militants).
End: De-escalated after U.S./UN mediation; no territorial change.
Source: ACLED, Reuters.
2. Libya: Tripoli Factional Warfare (Jan 2025)
Duration: 12 days (Jan 8–20, 2025)
Factions:
Government of National Unity (GNU) (Tripoli-based)
Libyan National Army (LNA)-aligned militias (from Zawiya/Tarhouna)
Trigger: LNA groups attempted to seize Tripoli port after GNU delayed elections.
Scale: Urban combat, artillery, drones. Turkish-backed GNU forces held key areas.
Casualties: ~200+ killed, 40k displaced.
End: Ceasefire brokered by Egypt/Turkey (Jan 20).
Source: Al Jazeera, Libya Observer.
3. Armenia-Azerbaijan Border Skirmish (Oct 2024)
Duration: 3 days (Oct 4–6, 2024)
Location: Syunik Province (Armenia) / Nakhchivan border.
Trigger: Azerbaijani troops advanced toward Armenian positions near Vardenis.
Scale: Artillery, drone strikes, infantry clashes.
Casualties: ~24 soldiers killed (both sides).
End: Russian-brokered truce; Azerbaijan withdrew.
Source: Caucasus Watch, OC Media.
4. Chad-Sudan Proxy Border War (Dec 2024)
Duration: 2 weeks (Dec 1–14, 2024)
Factions:
Chadian rebels (FACT) backed by Sudan’s RSF
Chadian army backed by SAF remnants
Location: Adré (Chad-Sudan border)
Scale: RSF artillery supported FACT incursion → Chadian airstrikes in Sudan.
Casualties: ~180+ killed, 10k refugees fled into Chad.
End: Chad pushed back rebels; RSF redirected focus to Darfur.
Source: The New Humanitarian, France 24.
5. Ecuador Cartel Uprising (Jan 2025)
Duration: 5 days (Jan 8–12, 2025)
Trigger: Cartels (Los Choneros, Tiguerones) launched coordinated riots/jailbreaks after leader “Fito” transferred.
Scale: Prison riots, police assassinations, car bombs in Guayaquil/Quito.
State Response: Military deployed under “internal armed conflict” decree.
Casualties: 500+ killed (cartels/security forces/civilians).
End: Cartels retreated after military seized prisons.
Source: BBC, ACLED.
6. India-Pakistan: Short but high-risk (nuclear powers).
7. Libya: Part of ongoing power vacuum since 2011; elections still stalled.
8. Chad-Sudan: Spillover from Sudan’s civil war (RSF vs. SAF).
9. Ecuador: Classified as “non-state conflict” (cartels vs. state) but reached war-like intensity.
Short duration → Excluded from annual “ongoing war” datasets (e.g., UCDP thresholds require sustained violence).
Localized impact → Often overshadowed by larger wars (Gaza, Ukraine).
Fragmented Power – Non-state actors (warlords, militias, cartels) profit from chaos. No one can “win,” so violence becomes an economy (e.g., Eastern DRC, Libya).
Proxy Dynamics – External powers fuel conflicts to advance influence. (This is a highly risable statement, that came out of one of the databases searched. Israel and the US were omitted, but let’s add them and repeat the list: (Russia, Iran, Turkey, Gulf States, US, Israel)
Climate Collapse Multiplier –
Droughts → farmland loss → youth join militias (Sahel).
Floods → mass displacement → ethnic violence (South Sudan).
Tech-Enabled Insurgency
Drones ($500) can paralyze armies. So says the databases but I verified that with an expert only to receive a wonderful explanation of the part and function of drones in modern warfare. Drones are an organic development of yet another iteration of air power. In cases, they can act as the poor man’s substitution for massive artillery power. Drones cannot win wars.
I added this to the information from the databases: Gaslighting and major false media campaigns in other words hasbarra and intelligent propaganda. This was a glaring tech-enabled issue when Syria fell and it is continuing.
Social media recruits globally (ISIS, Al-Shabaab).
Ceasefires address symptoms (guns), not causes (injustice, resource theft).
Example: 13 peace deals in DRC since 1999 — all failed.
Consequence: Children who know only trauma → and develop into the next wave of fighters.
Rare bright spots:
Colombia’s 2016 deal cut homicide rates by 1/3 (though fragile).
Northern Ireland’s peace held 26+ years — proof hatred can be outlived.
Aceh, Indonesia — post-tsunami peace ended 30-year war.
Inclusion of women & youth in talks (research shows 35% more durable).
Economic alternatives to war economies (jobs > demobilization cash).
Local peacebuilders — unsung heroes rebuilding trust village by village.
This needs a much deeper discussion as clearly peacemaking fails.
Late entry now threatening but not quite at the shooting stage:
Thailand, Cambodia border dispute
Final Reflection – May we bear witness wisely as we in our world kill others faster than ever before.
Jamarl Thomas interviews KJ Noh on China’s hidden role in Iran’s new defense posture against US aggression, and the big view at the moment.
[machine transcript]
Jamarl Thomas: You look good. You look good. You look good. Let me bring him on. KJ. No. The man himself. KJ is a journalist, political analyst, writer, and teacher specializing in the geopolitics of the Asia Pacific region. He’s contributor to the book Capitalism on a Ventilator. Once censored by Amazon. It is now available at .org. You can also find him on Breakthrough News Network. Again, fantastic network with the China Report. KJ, welcome to the show, man. How you doing today? You doing all right?
KJ Noh: I’m doing well, thank you.
Jamarl Thomas: It is always a pleasure to have you, KJ, there is reporting out that Iran is purchasing jets from China. Now, China got a lot of publicity recently in the war between Pakistan and India. And India was running a lot of propaganda, very angry at China because the thought was that it was Chinese weapons that were knocking out Indian planes out of the sky. , and that those weapon systems that they got from China was extraordinarily effective, especially against Western equipment that didn’t seem to be up to snuff. And now it seems that Iran is purchasing, and this goes in two fronts.
One, Iran’s purchasing Chinese aircraft, top of the line for air defense, but also that they got rid of GPS and they the ethic is called by DU that they’ve been using China’s global system for their military campaigns, which is in part responsible for the accuracy of the weapon systems that we saw in their war against Israel. Let’s go to the first one first. And it sounds weird, but I’ll go with it. as are they purchasing these planes from China? And then I want to go to the GPS thing because the GPS thing is really interesting to me. But let’s go for the first one first.
KJ Noh: Yeah. So there are not official statements but there sources there statements from good journalists who have said that this is the case. So I think that certainly something is in the works. we know that the 10 ministers of the 10 defense ministers of the SCO met very recently with the Chinese defense minister. and so whatever is happening something big is happening and certainly it is related to defense and defense acquisitions regarding the Chinese jets. The thing to understand about arms in general and warfare in general is that all modern warfare is joint arms combined warfare. That is you’re using systems together.
So for example, you might be using Chinese jets along with you know for example you know other types of surveillance aircraft along groundbased radar with missile drones, missile interceptors, etc. And so it’s all combined arms warfare. Everything is joint and connected. And so you have to understand it. It’s not simply that if they do acquire the J10s, it’s not simply that they’re acquiring the J10, they they’re acquiring the entire system and in particular the tactical data networks that connect everything. You know, it’s like, you know, it’s not simply like you’re buying a cell phone, which is just you know, it’s just an expensive paper weight without a SIM card. So once you have the SIM card and once you have the various apps then it becomes a mini supercomputer in your pocket. And so we have to understand it that if Iran acquires Chinese J10s or other technology then it’s an entire defense ecosystem that is being built in for Iran. And then the other piece of it is that because this weaponry is so complex, involves ongoing support and maintenance and you kind of get the after service contract. So essentially it’s a form of relationship building. So interesting. So what we’re looking at here if it turns out to be true and I think that it most likely is based on the sources that I’ve read is that China is strengthening its defense cooperation. Iran is strengthening its defense cooperation with China along with the entire SCO block. So that’ll be very very interesting. So big moves of foot here.
Jamarl Thomas: Thank God. Thank God, man. Because Iran freaks me out. They freak me out. And they freaked me out because it seems like they were like, “We want to do this on our own. We want to, you know, we don’t want to buy equipment. We want to just build our own.” And obviously their equipment and the political structure was able to withstand the attack from internally and externally.
But from from my point of view and from many people’s point of view I think Sarah Bills will back me up on this too, the one from DDGeopolitics. Russia, China and Iran are a force of the new world. meaning and even though it’s frustrating to me, I understand why they go with this notion of international law. I would say there is no such thing, but they have been cidously with this notion of we’re going to stay within the bounds of law. And so even though the West has no red lines, we have red lines. We’re not going to go after civilians.
We’re not going to go after targets that are not military targets. we’re going to be very legalistic in the way that we talk about this stuff. And on some level, you kind of get it if indeed they see themselves as a fulcrum of a new world — that you want that new world to be based on law, not what came before it. So, I do get it. But it just felt like for the longest time they were flying on their own. So, I’m glad that they have now started this kind of military cooperation with and I’m saying cooperation in sense of getting equipment and relationship with China and even Russia in this front.
The other one is the satellites. From my understanding, they weren’t using GPS. They got rid of GPS. In fact, from my understanding, a lot of their equipment, especially from India, was infiltrated by Israeli agents. And so they seem to be getting a lot more equipment from China as opposed to from India, especially using Beidou as a satellite platform as opposed to GPS. Is that correct? Am I getting that right? I saw a reporting on this, but I wasn’t certain it was true.
KJ Noh: Yes, I think I think that is most certainly correct that they’re using the Chinese quote unquote you know positioning system it’s the Chinese version of GPS and of course that in doing so they’ve made themselves impervious to US interference because GPS can be cut off anytime the US sees fit.
So that’s another way in which they’ve created a kind of electronic sovereignty over their air territory which you know as you know Brian has been saying this but there key domains of sovereignty which are essential you know of course you want sovereignty over your land that’s the basis on which the whole notion of statehood is con you know is conceived but you also want sovereignty over your own airspace and then you want sovereignty over a certain portion of your naval territory and then you want and this is important because the US conceives of war fighting in multiple domains.
So you want sovereignty over the cyber domain what I refer to as digital sovereignty or what my colleagues sometimes refer to as digital vestalia. But you need digital sovereignty the sovereignty over the cyber domain or else you have nothing. and then you also want to have you know that includes sovereignty or you know your own control over your own devices and apps that are run inside you know the cyber domain.
Otherwise you are completely porous. You are you know a sieve, you’re a colander, you know, from which you can be undermined as we have seen. And so the fact that Iran is, you know, taking measures to ensure that that is the case is really important. So I think that we need we should pay attention to that and understand that these are actually strong defensive measures that are actually necessary.
Jamarl Thomas: I’m curious how does China view this? You know I spoke to Marandi I’ve spoken to Mark and I guess they would give you a perspective of in of Iran and a perspective of Russia. How does China view all of this? I mean, for all intents and purposes, you have an empire that is setting fires all across the globe with this notion of hegemonic control.
They went after Russia. It didn’t work. They went after Iran. They will keep going after Iran for right now. It didn’t work. And Iran is trying to deal with, let’s say, bolstering itself and solidifying itself. And for all intents and purposes, not just it didn’t work, it made Iran stronger, weirdly enough, because you have this youthful generation that didn’t understand that the West were monsters. They thought, well, the US is love and light. Look, they have Superman and pizza.
What what’s, you know, what’s your issue? Our economy would be better off if it wasn’t if we could work with the West. You guys are just not being cooperative. And then they see in their own mind was negotiating. People like me saying they should have, but they weren’t negotiating. They get attacked during negotiations. It’s clear as day that the West was behind it. It’s clear as day that the West backed it. And they could see with their own eyes what their government had been telling them was true. China for the most part has been on the outskirts and has only had to deal with that in an economic sense. Taiwan, yes, but not really in a direct military sense. China has to see these events unfold. What is it thinking from its own point of view after a 12- day war and after the attack on Russia?
KJ Noh: You know, I think they’re seeing things very clearly. I mean, the Chinese are not fools. They know that the US has been agitating, militating to war since 2009. Certainly, actually before that. But we know that the war plans were. I mean the war plans were printed developed in 2009 and then in 2011 we had the pivot to pivot to Asia really the pivot to encircle China in 2011 that was formally declared in Darwin in Australia and then they saw all the extraordinary undermining that was being taking place.
The entire approach was both regime change and military encirclement and a really a fullcourt press that has been ongoing since 2009. So we’re you know 16 years into this process. Well, what happened in 2009, 2008, the global capitalist financial system collapsed around its ears.
And remember, prior to that, of course, the west was engaging with China, but their theory was that we engage with China in order to regime change it. This was essentially the same process that they envisioned happening in the Soviet Union. China, it was a Potemkin state. Once they see our KFC and our hamburgers, you know, they will throw themselves at their knees and beg to be our vassels. That was the theory, you know, that was what they really believed.
And on the other hand, you had people like Hillary Clinton who said, you know, China is, you know, it’s on its last legs. You know, this Gordon Chang Hillary Clinton theory is that, you know, it’s it’s a paper tiger. It’s a Potemkin state. it’s ready to fall down and we just have to be ready to swoop in and sweep up all of its, you know .. its wealth. And this is how they think.
And then what happened in 2008 was the, you know, the financial collapse. And it showed that it wasn’t China that was about to collapse that was on its last legs. It’s actually the western capitalist world. The entire capitalist system collapsed. This is why Sarkozi, right-wing French president said “Laisez faire c’est finis”, you know, capitalism is finished.
You know, this is a right-wing French leader saying that we’ve seen the end of capitalism, and because of that, that’s when the daggers came out. The West decided that China was not going to collapse of its own accord from its own internal contradictions because rather the contradictions were with the western systems.
And therefore it needed a good shove down the stairs and so that’s when they built this doctrine of war called Air-Sea Battle and they also built up, they declared the Pivot to Asia Plan, encircling and choking China out. They were doing all kinds of dirty tricks as far as you know encouraging corruption, opening the doors wide so that foreign exchange could be extracted.
So there was all kinds of financial warfare going on. When China started to clamp down and they said oh you know Xi jinping is a dictator, but no they were just trying to prevent this you know kind of drainage of Chinese wealth overseas which you know is again another kind of precursor to creating collapse.
And then they also started to implement the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which is actually has a similarity to what’s going on right now with the tariffs, but the idea was to isolate China and exclude it from the entire Pacific zone as far as trading is concerned. That is you would have all the Pacific economies they would trade with each other but China would be excluded from it. They referred to this as an economic aircraft carrier.
So there was all kinds of dirty tricks and subkinetic warfare that was happening and the Chinese are not deceived by any of this. So they started to build out the belt and road. Remember the belt and road happened after this US initiative to take down China. So that’s a way of bypassing these naval choke points by creating overland routes or overland routes that bypass the immediate choke points such as the Straits through CMEC and CPEC — China Myanmar Economic corridor, China Pakistan Economic Corridor.
And then you can see how then the US was initiating different kinds of disruption in both Pakistan and Myanmar, in particular the supporting of terror activities against those construction projects infrastructure projects. It’s this kind of continuous game that you see escalating in different – it’s Go – it’s like a ladder happening. You see the continuing move and counter move happening.
But again there’s this concerted program of countering this US approach to choke it out which China has been building. And so again in the South China Sea they started to militarize some of the islands there because that is the cost for the US. The US shrieks and screams that China has, you know, overseas bases and they’ve militarized the entire South China Sea.
Absurd, because all five or all six of the claimants to the South China Sea have islands that they’ve militarized and five of them have air strips on them, but it’s only China which is being, you know
Jamarl Thomas: KJ just to point out the US has like 800 military bases around the globe. The notion that they are screaming that China, oh my god, China has two military bases, it’s outrageous.
KJ Noh: Yeah, it has one military base in Djibouti. It has one military base in Djibouti as part of a UN mandated antipiracy program which it does in collaboration with five or six other countries. Even Japan has a base in Djibouti and Japan is supposed to be a pacifist nation with no military. So that tells you how threatening you know or technically how, anyway!
So China does not have bases. The US has 8 – 900 bases. Nobody really knows, but we know that it has a military presence in at least 170 countries. And it’s not really the bases themselves that count. It is the basing agreements. That is to say, a lot of what the US does is it sets up a basing agreement with a country and then that allows the US to go in and use the bases in this almost eminent domain type of way. So whether you see troops or not, what you really have to look at is there some kind of basing agreement? Is there some kind of use agreement?
If that’s the case, then you know that that base, you know, is like a Uber or an Airbnb that can be immediately taken over for US military purposes. So even that 900 number is actually an undercount. It’s much more aggressive and you know threatening all than that.
So US has encircled China with bases. It’s essentially staging the entire Pacific and the entire Asian continent for war. And there’s no way the Chinese have not caught on to this. They’re very clear on what’s happening and they’re creating defensive counter measures. as I’ve pointed out.
Jamarl Thomas: is it fair to say that from the Chinese point of view, I would say probably even the Russians and maybe even the Iranians, that the more time that they get, the weaker the position of the West gets, which is the reason for the seemingly desperate fire setting.
I mean, if you look at Serbia, they attempted to take down Georgia. They’re going after Azerbaijan got involved into this at this point. Of course, Russia, Iran .. they tried to take down the South Korean government. All of these things bespeak of desperation. They failed in South Korea. They’re failing in Russia. They failed in Iran.
And so, yeah, they may have some of these government bases, but the previous prime minister of Japan just came out saying, “We need to have a Japan without US bases.” I think people are seeing them committed genocide and think to themselves, these people are monsters.
From the point of view of China, Iran, Russia, is it just we need more time? The more time that goes by, the weaker they get and the worse their plans become. Is that the thought that China has?
KJ Noh: I think that’s a large part of it. You know, we spoke about the fact that China has the time. As our friend Dr. Wilmer Leon says, “You have the watches, we have the time.” I think that the Chinese always think in terms of the long haul in terms of you know the strategic and long duration, you know they think ahead.
If you go to China what’s astounding is that you see civil engineering projects that have been built over 600 years that means that you know whatever they were doing, you know, they were planning experience. So, for example, some of the canals in China, that’s a 600-year project. So they think big and they also think long term.
So certainly vis-a-vis the United States, they know that if they can avoid getting pulled into a war, which the US wants, then they can essentially, you know, sports analogy, they can run the clock down because they are ahead.
Jamarl Thomas: Speaking of that, Donald Trump is saying that there is a deal between China and the United States. Is that true?
KJ Noh: Well, I’ll believe it when I see it. I’m sure there are all kinds of deals that are being proposed. Whatever it is, I don’t think that they are trustworthy. As Sergey Lavrov said, the US is not agreement capable. It has broken every single deal, agreement, treaty, that it has ever made with any country or entity that it considers an enemy or a vassal.
Just think of the what 360 (hundreds) of treaties signed with the indigenous peoples of the Americas. Every single one of them violated. Not a one, not a one, upheld, right? Ruth Bader Ginsburg, you know, this kind of darling of the liberal, you know, of the liberal class, she was the one who hammered into the Supreme Court decision, the doctrine of discovery; this colonial era, theory, that you can simply take what you want.
So no the US is not agreement capable and I think the counterparties are aware of that and so I think they may be negotiating, they may be discussing things certainly, it’s better to discuss than to go to war. But you know I’ll believe it when I see it.
Certainly even if the president negotiates something, first that assumes that the president actually is the driver of the car and secondly it assumes that it won’t be overturned the moment that there’s a new administration in there or the moment that you know the deep state decides it’s going to undermine it.
A good example of this is North Korea. They had an agreement and then you know the moment it was signed, it was already null and void — within two weeks it was null and void.
Think of the Korean war the ceasefire that was signed in 1953 was null and void the next day. The US literally came out and said we are not looking for a peace here.
So this is how you know the empire works. They pretend or they use diplomacy and negotiation as a part of their military toolkit. It’s simply one of the diversions or ruses or tactics that they use.
But ultimately what they believe in and what they assert is raw power, raw domination. and I think that other countries are certainly wise to this. Certainly I hope Iran is aware of this. I don’t think the Chinese are deceived. And then regarding your point around the desperation, you know, the US says that “China will go to war in 2025 or 2027”. I thought it was 27. Yeah, there were two dates, but they’ve been set up as a kind of a window now. So we know somewhere between this year and two years from now the US will go to war with China.
They’ve declared it. You know they’ve calendared the dates.
And of course they’re saying that China will start the war. Of course not. China is not starting any wars anywhere. It’s trying really really hard not to get pulled into a fight, but certainly the US is extremely anxious and desperate for a war, because it knows that if it doesn’t go to war it will essentially lose hegemony.
And for them losing hegemony is the end of the world. And they would rather end the world than see the end of their hegemony. So this is the really dangerous moment we’re in.
Jamarl Thomas: The US is a powerful country among other powerful countries. And the moment that a country has the ability to end all things, then hegemony is over with. Like meaning, if you are the only one with nukes, if I have a powerful military that I can effectively win every contest, okay, then I’m a hegemon, right? I can control all of these things because ultimately when it comes down to it, I can win a military contest.
But the moment that both of us have the capability of destroying the world, the hegemony is over. At that point, we’re just in a contest of, I’m threatening to use nukes and you’re threatening to use nukes and both of us are threatening to use nukes — basically threatening to end the world, in any negotiation that ultimately takes place.
Meaning any war that takes place between the United States and China or the United States and Russia is effectively a contest of “either you back off, I’m going to end the world.” “No, you back off or I’m going to end the world.” There’s no way to win that.
And I and I know they may have this thought of tactical nukes. A tactical nuke is still a nuke. It doesn’t, you know, the moment that you lower the threshold of using a nuclear weapon, you’ve lowered the threshold to use a nuclear weapon. There’s no way out that box. So, correct me if I’m wrong on this. Maybe I’m missing something.
KJ Noh: Well, I’ve said before — I don’t think I need to repeat it that, well, the people who are driving this are some of them are millenarian Christians who believe in the Apocalypse.
They think it’s their interest to have an Apocalypse because that’s what their faith tells them. I mean very recently saw Peter Thiel, you know, talking with Ross Douthat, [JT: Terrifying]. He’s a terrifying person. I mean he looks like, you know, death warmed over, right? I mean, this is the man who has certainly significant influence over policy. [02 – excerpt][03 – full]
Do you think that he cares about the future of humanity?
I mean, the man looks dead already. This is the corpse of Roy Cohn warmed over, right?
Jamarl Thomas: I think he looks like he touches himself to killing puppies. Yeah he looks terrifying.
KJ Noh: These are very very frightening people. And I believe at heart they are nihilists or they are Christian fundamentalists who have a belief in the Apocalypse, which is the ultimate conflict of interest as far as I’m concerned.
And then you have to look at the doctrine that has been built out over nuclear war. Traditionally, the doctrine of nuclear deterrence was called M.A.D., right? Mutually Assured Destruction. It’s a kind of Samson project. And the idea associated with this is what’s called countervalue strikes.
You strike our capital, we strike your capitals. We have, automated means of launching missiles that will — the dead man’s hand — that will launch even after you’ve hit us. So are you willing to trade Beijing for Washington? Are you willing to trade New York for Shanghai? This is the traditional countervalue theory which is based on ultimately rational leaders will pull back from mutual assured destruction.
Starting around the period of Carter, towards the end of his administration, the US started to postulate this thing called NUTS. Not MAD, but NUTS. So NUTS is shorthand for Nuclear Utilization Target Selection, which is just silly, you know, military jargon for the idea that we get in the sucker punch. [01]
We get the sucker punch in first, and then anything else that they launch against us, we just kind of clean the deck with missile defense systems. We get in the sucker punch and anything they try and launch after that, we just kind of clean up and our missiles will shoot that down.
It really is the notion that if we do a nuclear first strike, we win. That is the doctrine behind this. So this notion that with counterforce strikes that the US can prevail in a nuclear war is literally one of the underpinnings of this US escalation to global war, global domination.
They believe that if push comes to shove and conventional warfare is not working, then we escalate to tactical nukes. Right now, there’s a lot of policy papers saying that we have to rehearse this, we have to make this part of formal doctrine. We have to make the conventional and nuclear continuum seamless.
That’s seamless in execution, rehearsal and preparation. And then of course at the end of the day they have this N.U.T.S. doctrine, which is the idea then if that doesn’t go to plan we simply fire off the nukes first and we will win.
Of course what that doesn’t take to account is the fact that, first, those missile defense systems don’t work as we’ve seen very recently in the Iran-Israel war. The much vaunted THAAD system doesn’t work. And it’s expensive as hell, but essentially it is these things do not perform as they’re advertised.
It’s like those little stunt things where somebody catches a bullet with their teeth. That entire thing is a setup, right? I mean it requires a lot of skill but it’s a setup and it’s not going to happen. it’s not going to happen in real life and that’s what we’ve just seen.
So have the military planners noticed this? Have they realized that if Iranian missiles can penetrate five layers of the most sophisticated western defense systems — that is the British the American the Israeli (three four layer system), if Iran’s old antiquated missiles can punch through this, then what do you think will happen when you go to war with China which has more much much more advanced missiles. Have they taken that into consideration? I have no idea. I have no idea.
Jamarl Thomas: It’s just dystopian. It’s almost like it’s like “hey we need a new doctrine”. Oh I know. Let me just think one up. This is kind of the conversation I have with Brian Berletic. It’s one thing to write something down, reality is different.
And Yemen just fired a missile that that wasn’t taken down. One missile. It just missed. I’ve seen Iran fire missiles where helicopters were chasing it, and they still couldn’t get that thing down. This is a fool’s errand if they indeed go into a nuclear strike.
So KJ, we’ll see. KJ, you are always appreciated, man. Thank you for this. By the way, when is your next report coming out for China report?
KJ Noh: Probably next Tuesday. Just one more thing, Jamarl. The thing here we have to really make sure is that we don’t lapse into despair. You know, there’s nothing we can do, right? You know, “if they’re you going to use nukes, they’re going to use nukes”. There’s nothing we can do.
The fact is that we despair is not an option. We have to challenge this escalation to war.
And we were talking about domains of warfare. Of course there’s you know air, sea, land, cyber, there’s media, there’s information space.
And also your mind itself is a terrain of battle. Literally, the military planners see your mind as a terrain of contestation or terrain of battle. And the idea is to occupy and colonize your mind. And that is the work of propaganda, of mainstream media, of PsyOps, of everything that the Guardian and the New York Times and Amy Goodman does day in and day out. All of this is a way to occupy your mind, to colonize your mind, so that you acquiesce and you give up to the war mongers.
That’s where the resistance has to start — to degaussing your brain, degaussing your mind. Do not let your mind be taken over. Don’t become a bot or a propaganda repeating bot. And then resist that mental colonization. Then what you do is you start to share the facts, the truth. You degausse these influences and then you start to build anti-war coalitions that resist this insane drive and along the way you start to unpack and understand you know the reality of politics and history.
This is the task that every single person can do. In fact it’s what we have to do right now as well as all the other work that we should be doing in protesting you know the genocide, in protesting this mad escalation to war, to protesting the complete and total militarization of our society and the entire planet.
Jamarl Thomas: That’s why we’re here. That’s what we’re here. If it pushes the needle 0.1%, it pushes the needle 0.1%, it’s better than what it was prior. [KJ Noh: Every day counts]. Right.
KJ Noh. journalist, political analyst, writer, teacher, specializing in the geopolitics of the Asia-Pacific region, contributor to the book “Capitalism on a Ventilator”. One censored by Amazon. It is now available aicenter.org. [04] You can check them out on the China Report on BreakThrough News. [05] KJ man, always appreciate you. Thank you for this. You be safe, okay.
Links:
[01] Nuclear utilization target selection (NUTS) doctrine of the United States
[02] Excerpt of Peter Thiel interview with Ross Douthart
[03] Full Interview of Peter Thiel with Ross Douthart
[04] “Capitalism on a Ventilator”
[05] The China Report on BreakThrough News YouTube channel
“… the state of Israel … was created by fraud, deception, crime, terrorism and bloodshed and has lived that way since it was created.”
By Professor Dr. Syed Mujahid Kamran at VT Foreign Policy.
“Eran Elhaik, an Israeli geneticist, who served seven years in the Israeli Defense Force, and no critic of Israel, developed genome studies at John Hopkins University. In tracing the geographical positioning of a number of Ashkenazim Jews, he found that their ancestral origins were not from the Middle East or indeed the Mediterranean but from a region that is now north-east Turkey. This scientific evidence underscores the historical findings of Shlomo Sand and others that make nonsense of the claims of an ancestral homeland and the diaspora.”
Jim Macgregor and Gerry Docherty [1]
“Zionism’s founders had to lie about their real objective because to achieve it, Zionism had to commit a crime – that of ethnic cleansing.”
BBC correspondent Alan Hart [2]
“Israel was founded on lies. The lie that Palestinian land was unoccupied. The lie that 750,000 fled their homes and villages during their ethnic cleansing by Zionist militias in 1948 because they were told to do so by Arab leaders. The lie that it was Arab armies that started the 1948 war that saw Israel seize 78 percent of historic Palestine. The lie that Israel faced annihilation in 1967, forcing it to invade and occupy the remaining 22 percent of Palestine as well as land belonging to Egypt and Syria.
Israel is sustained by lies. The lie that it wants a just and equitable peace and will support a Palestinian state. The lie that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East. The lie that Israel is an ‘outpost of Western civilization in a sea of barbarism.’ The lie that Israel respects the rule of law and human rights.”
Chris Hedges[3]
Israel was created by violent and most brutal terroristic occupation of Palestinian territory by Russian and East European Ashkenazi Jews whose ancestors had never lived in Palestine. The original residents of Palestine, who had resided there for thousands of years, were literally expelled from their ancestral home in a bloody Talmudic exercise. Even today the overwhelming majority of Israeli Jews are Ashkenazi Jews.
Ashkenazis are descendants of the pagan Khazars who had tactically converted to Judaism around 740 AD, in an attempt to save the Khazar empire, from the onslaught of Russian Christians and Muslims[4]. The Khazar empire was primarily located north of the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea, far from Palestine and the Mediterranean. The Ashkenazi are thus non-Semitic converted Jews. These Jews, descendants of pagan Khazars, hold the Talmud as their book of guidance and pay only lip service to the Torah, the book revealed to prophet Moses. As such their claim to be Abrahamic is also suspect, to say the least. The Mongols destroyed the Khazar empire in the 13th century and Khazar or Ashkenazi Jews were scattered in Russia, East Europe and Germany.
How did Israel materialize and what were the powers that conceived of it and used their money and machinations to create a hostile and utterly illegal state in the heart of the Muslim world? What was the purpose behind its creation? These questions can only be answered properly by looking at books and writings that are not published by mainstream publishers or media, because the Zionist Jews have absolute control of Western media, particularly US media.
The first important thing to understand is that four events of the twentieth century viz., WWI and II, the Bolshevik Revolution, and the creation of Israel are intimately connected. On account of the Zionist control of the Anglo-American Establishment, standard history books deliberately avoid this profound connection[5]. These events involved persistent and ceaseless intrigue and machinations of the usurious international banking families under Rothschild leadership with politically active and violent Jewry as their most loyal arm. Further, both Zionism and Communism, were used by these families to take the Western world in their ruthless grip.
Zionism and Communism were nurtured by these “Judaic”, Freemasonic, Satanic banking families which were referred to as the High Cabal by Winston Churchill. The profound Douglas Reed wrote about the cause of the failing strength of the West and how the Western leaders had become “willing slaves” of the Judaic master-sect, a slavery that repeatedly manifests itself when Western leaders are compelled to protect apartheid Israel and Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity. These days, when even the Jews in America and elsewhere, including Israel, are speaking out passionately against Israeli brutality and savagery, Biden et al and other Western governments are shamelessly and spinelessly defending it!
Reed wrote: “The West has come to this dilemma through the pressure of two millstones, Communism and Zionism, the nation-destroying world revolution and the new, nation-creating ruling class. The one incited the mob; the other has gained mastery over the rulers.” The creators and organizers behind both philosophies are the same. Reed concludes: “Conspiracy bred Communism and Zionism, and these took hold of the West in a pincer-like clutch.”[6]
Moses (Moshe) Hess (1812-1875), one the earliest founders of Zionism, was the mentor of Karl Marx and introduced him to Friedrich Engels. Hess formulated the communist ideology and stressed the abolition of personal property and maintained that Judaism would evolve into a godless socialist ideology. Deanna Spingola writes in The Ruling Elite: The Zionist Seizure of World Power: “He felt that Rothschild’s red family banner should signal the struggle of the revolution or, as he implied elsewhere, the struggle of the Judaists… He said that the Jews’ function was to change mankind into a savage animal.”[7] Hess and his Jewish disciple Marx, who became a Freemason, advocated the abolition of personal property [for non-Jews] because the Talmud mandates that the riches of world will be controlled by the Jews. In 1961 Hess’s body was interred from Cologne to the Kinneret Cemetery in Israel.[8]
Another early Zionist Levi Baruch advocated that Jews should pretend to convert to Christianity to gain positions of influence. By occupying high administrative positions these crypto-Jews could enact laws prohibiting private property. Spingola writes: “According to Baruch, Jews would control the world, merge the races, abolish borders, eliminate the royal families, and establish the Zionist state.”[9]
On 17 May 1860 an Alliance Israelite Universelle was established in Paris. It was set up by a Jewish lawyer and diplomat named Adolphe I. Cremieux along with a group of people. Cremieux was funded by James Rothschild [James was Jacob “James” Mayer Rothschild (1792-1868), the youngest son of the founder of the Rothschild dynasty]. In 1862 this Alliance established a network of schools “in order to disseminate a multicultural, humanistic education” to over a million Jewish children. The students in these schools were taught about their Jewish heritage. Further, loyalty to Jewish tradition was inculcated in them, apart from imparting skills on how to engage in Jewish activism and how to build consensus. In the manifesto of the Alliance it is stated: “The union which we shall create will not be a French, English, Irish or German, but a Jewish World Union. Under no circumstances shall a Jew befriend a Christian or a Muslim; not before the moment comes when Judaism, the only true religion, shines over the entire World.”[10]
The Anglo-Jewish association with the Sassoons, Rothschilds, Goldsmids and Montefiores as its prominent members, initiated daily communication with the Alliance Israelite Universelle. A founder member of the Alliance Israelite Universelle and simultaneously a member of the dangerous Freemasonic Grand Orient Lodge, Jean Izoulet (1854-1929), wrote: “The meaning of the history of the last century has been that three hundred Jewish financiers, all masters of the chair, will rule the world.”[11] As early as 1861 his fellow founder of the Alliance, Adolphe Cremieux had written: “Nations must disappear. Religions must cease to exist. Israel alone will continue to exist, since its people have been chosen by God.”[12] Interestingly and most significantly, the disappearance of nations and religion as well as private property are common points between Communism, Illuminism and Zionism.
The first settlement of Jews in Palestine was organized by Hibbat Zion, Jewish pioneers, from Kharkov, Ukraine but was financed by Edmond de Rothschild (1845-1934), the youngest of the three sons of James Rothschild. This first settlement, Rishon LeZion, was founded on July 31, 1882. By 1884 there were seven Jewish settlements in Palestine and four of these were funded by Edmond de Rothschild. By 1887, on account of the heavy handed bureaucracy employed by Edmond de Rothschild, the Jewish settlers were in a state of mutiny against him. There was the Ekron mutiny (1888-1892) against Edmond de Rothschild. He finally ended it by declaring that he owned the settlement and would have the protesting settlers deported![13]
In the meantime, the Ottoman government had become wary of Jewish immigration and tried to stop it. It would only allow Jewish pilgrims to visit Palestine. But some of the pilgrims would stay on and never return. Further the Ottoman government imposed a ban on purchase of land in Palestine by foreigners. But there was no restriction on purchase of land by residents of Palestine. The local Jews simply bought land using the money of rich foreign Jews and had it registered in their own names! Finally, in 1892, the Ottoman government banned the sale of Palestinian land to all Jews, local or foreign.
In 1896 Theodore Herzl’s book Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State) was published. Its original title was Address to the Rothschilds![14] Herzl had studied law and was living in Vienna though he was born in Budapest. He argued for a socialist Jewish government on territory owned by the Jews. In the book, which was more of a pamphlet or a long essay, he wrote: “Palestine is our ever-memorable historic home. The very name of Palestine would attract our people with a force of marvelous potency. If His Majesty the Sultan were to give us Palestine, we could in return undertake to regulate the whole finances of Turkey. We should there form a portion of a rampart of Europe against Asia, an outpost of civilization as opposed to barbarism. We should as a neutral State remain in contact with all Europe, which would have to guarantee our existence.”[15]
Herzl sought to meet Sultan Abdul Hamid II through his contacts in Constantinople (Istanbul). In 1896 he visited Istanbul but the agent of the Sultan told him that a meeting with the Sultan was not possible because Herzl worked for a paper that had published negative reports against the Sultan’s treatment of the Armenians. Through Philip M. Newlinski, his hired diplomat in Constantinople, Herzl offered 20 million pounds to the Sultan in return for an issuance of a charter for Jewish colonization of Palestine.[16]
Newlisnki urged the Sultan to accept Herzl’s offer in view of the serious problems afflicting the Ottoman economy. “Without the help of the Zionists, the Turkish economy would not stand a chance of recovery”, he said. The reply of Sultan Abdul Hamid II reveals that he was not an ignorant sultan. He said: “If Herr Herzl is your friend as you are mine, advise him not to take another step in the matter. I cannot relinquish a square foot of land, for it does not belong to me, but to my people. My people have conquered and fortified this empire with their blood . . . The Jews should save their billions. When my empire is partitioned perhaps they will get Palestine for nothing. But only our dead body will be divided. (As long as we are alive) I will not permit a vivisection.”[17] Prophetic words indeed.
Herzl met Max Nordau, an influential Jew who joined hands with him in their quest for Eretz Israel. He visited London and met a well-known Jewish writer Israel Zangwill. It was Zangwill who introduced Herzl to influential individuals. He had a meeting with Sir Samuel Montagu who was a leading Jewish banker and a member of the British Parliament. In his book Herzl had written that the plan of setting up a Jewish state somewhere will be carried out by two organizations. “The plan simple in design, but complicated in execution, will be carried out by two agencies: The Society of Jews and the Jewish Company. The Society of Jews will do the preparatory work in the domains of science and politics, which the Jewish Company will afterwrds apply practically. The Jewish Company will be the liquidating agent of the business of the departing Jews, and will organize trade and commerce in the new country.”[18] In another chapter of the book he stated: “The Jewish Company is partly modelled on the lines of a great land acquisition company.”[19]
Herzl had told Sir Samuel Montagu that he would appeal to the Sultan for the award of 250,000 acres east of River Jordan. He was however unable to acquire the pounds 100 million he had set as a target for the said company. Lord Walter Rothschild was extremely reluctant at this stage to support him and did not meet him! Later on Walter Rothschild, who always suffered from ill health, was converted to Zionism by Chaim Weizmann, a Russian Jew. By 1899 Edmond de Rothschild withdrew from his direct involvement in the Palestinian settlements. In the words of Deanna Spingola: “Regardless of the continuing controversies, the settlements and Zionism would have totally collapsed without the assistance of Rothschild’s specialists, who helped to establish Israel’ agricultural economy. He transferred the stewardship of the settlements to the Jewish Colonization Association, which spawned the Palestine Jewish Colonization Association.”[20]
Herzl remained unsuccessful in many of his attempts to raise money for the Israel project. He managed to meet Sultan Abdul Hamid II on May 19, 1901 but could not mention his Zionist project because the Sultan was only interested in raising money, on acceptable terms, to meet the deficits of his budget, and also because Jerusalem was extremely sacred for the Sultan. The Sultan needed 1.5 million pounds immediately to meet that year’s deficit. He gave Herzl four weeks to arrange that money. Herzl sought the help of important bankers but they needed the permission of the Rothschilds to give that money. At this point the Rothschilds were opposed to the Zionist project even though they were settling Jews from Russia and East Europe in Palestine. This may have been due to fear of a backlash from the Ottomans.
The Turks offered Herzl “All the mines . . . gold and silver, coal and oil” to Herzl for development but Herzl rejected the restricted colonization offer that came with it. The Sultan had offered Mesopotamia, Syria and Anatolia to the Jews for settling and becoming Ottoman subjects. The Sultan was fully aware that the Zionists had plans for establishing their own government in Palestine. In the mean-time Chaim Weizmann had emerged on the scene and, by 1901, he began a campaign for founding of an institution of higher learning in Palestine. This led to the initiation, in 1912, for work on the Technion, now known as the Israel Institute of Technology. Weizmann first visited Palestine in 1907 and set up the Palestine Land Development Company that helped Jews to buy land. This establishment of Technion and the Company was partially what Herzl had desired.
Lord Jacob Rothschild wrote in the Jewish Chronicle on November 15, 2017: “Walter’s commitment to Zionism was fired by his very first meeting with Weizmann. He became convinced that the future of the Jews lay in Zionism and dedicated himself to the cause. After the [Balfour] Declaration Weizmann wrote to him: ‘May I offer you our heartiest thanks in making this possible — I am sure that when the history of this time will be written it will be justifiably said that the name of the greatest House in Jewry was associated with the granting of the Magna Carta of Jewish liberties….’.” [21]
Walter was the 2nd Baron Rothschild and was the eldest son of Baron “Natty” Rothschild. Weizmann thus managed to bring the most powerful and richest family on the planet to support Zionism, a support that they had hitherto been unwilling to lend. In an interview given to The Jewish Chronicle in 2019 he also mentioned James de Rothschild as a committed Zionist.[22] James de Rothschild was the son of Edmond de Rothschild of France and had, after the Dreyfuss affair, in which a Jew had been accused of spying against France, left France to settle in England.
According to Deanna Spingola, by 1908, the Jewish population in Palestine had reached 80,000, which was thrice their population in 1882. Further, the Jews owned 156 square miles of land in Palestine at that time[23]. The first world war was planned as early as 1890/91 by a small group involving Nathaniel “Natty” Rothschild. The innermost core of Zionists must have been aware of this planned conflagration. In his address to the 6th Zionist Conference held at Basle in 1903, Max Nordau made the following astonishing statement: “Let me tell you the following words as if I were showing you the rungs of a ladder leading upward and upward; Herzl, the Zionist congress; the English Uganda proposition, the future world war, the peace conference where with the help of England, a free Jewish Palestine will be created.” How could he know all this unless he was on the inside and it was all an intrigue planned by the secretive Rothschilds. At the same Congress Dr. Nahum Sokoloff completed Nordau’s sequence by stating, “Jerusalem will one day become capital of world peace.”[24]
One of the objects of World War I was the creation of Israel. This may not have been in the mind of the British leaders at the time but was in the mind of the Rothschilds and their Jewish banking brethren. Herbert H. Asquith, the prime minister of Britain from 1908 on till the mid of WWI, almost certainly did not have Israel as an objective in mind. In December 1916 he was quietly replaced by an asset of the planners of WWI, David Lloyd George. Why was the replacement needed right in the middle of WWI which had been going on for a little over two years? This is not the place to discuss the intrigue but it pertained to a demand to divert forces to Palestine.
Douglas Reed writes: “The motive offered to the masses was that Mr. Asquith was ineffective in prosecuting the war. The sincerity of the contention may be tested by what followed; the first act of his successors was to divert forces to Palestine and in the sequence to that Mr. Lloyd George nearly lost the war entirely.”[25] The outstanding General Sir William Robertson, who had resisted the diversion of forces to Palestine, was removed from his position as Chief of Imperial General Staff. Gen. Kitchener, who was also opposed to this diversion, was sent on a mission to Russia and the ship carrying was sunk by explosions on board. The media blamed a German submarine. That Gen. Kitchener was killed by insiders was established by Jim Macgregor and Gerry Docherty in Prolonging the Agony, published in 2018. Suspicion about his death was expressed by Douglas Reed in his book completed in 1956.
These events simply show the complete and secret grip of the Zionists, rather their patrons, the international bankers, on the British government. The entry of America saved Britain from defeat. But this shows, beyond doubt, that the Middle East was so important for the bankers that they not only effected a dangerous change of the British government right in the middle of a desperate war with Germany to achieve that, but also had the Chief of Imperial General removed, apart from assassinating Gen. Kitchener!
The entry of the US into the war had also been planned by the Zionist bankers. President Wilson was a puppet in the hands of four men, three of who were hard core Zionist Jews (Justice Louis Brandeis, Rabbi Stephen Wise, Bernard Baruch) and the fourth was a Rothschild agent, a banker named “Col.” Edward Mandell House. His victory was managed by the bankers who split the Republican vote by putting forward a third candidate “Teddy” Roosevelt, a thoroughly corrupt former U.S. president.[26]
Douglas Reed has made a very revealing observation. He writes: “The First World War began in 1914; long-memoried readers may recall that it appeared to be concerned with such matters as the rape of Belgium, ending Prussian militarism, and making the world safe for democracy. At its start Baron Edmond de Rothschild told Dr. Weizmann that it would spread to the Middle East, where things of great significance to Zionism would occur.”[27] It is quite clear from this that the Rothschilds had planned to take important steps towards the establishment of a Zionist state in the Middle East in consequence of WWI. How could Edmond de Rothschild know, right at the start of the war, that it would spread to the Middle East and work to the great advantage of the Zionist cause? He could know this only if it was planned that way and he was one of the leading planners.
Benjamin Freedman, an American Jewish businessman, who was part of the U.S. delegation at Versailles, made some startling revelations in a talk at Willard Hotel, Washington D.C. in 1961. He stated that the Jews were well off in Germany and because Germany was engaged in war against a coalition of Russia, Britain and France, the Jews in America, on account of their dislike of the Czar, supported Germany. He stated: “They were pro-German because many of them had come from Germany, and also they wanted to see Germany lick the Czar. The Jews didn’t like the Czar, and they didn’t want Russia to win this war. These German-Jew bankers, like Kuhn Loeb and the other big banking firms in the United States refused to finance France or England to the extent of one dollar. They stood aside and they said: ‘As long as France and England are tied up with Russia, not one cent!’ But they poured money into Germany, they fought beside Germany against Russia, trying to lick the Czarist regime.”[28]
Mr. Freedman described the change that took place once the Zionists had made a deal with the British regarding Palestine, in the following words: “Now those same Jews, when they saw the possibility of getting Palestine, went to England and they made this deal. At that time, everything changed, like a traffic light that changes from red to green. Where the newspapers had been all pro-German, where they’d been telling the people of the difficulties that Germany was having fighting Great Britain commercially and in other respects, all of a sudden the Germans were no good. They were villains. They were Huns. They were shooting Red Cross nurses. They were cutting off babies’ hands. They were no good. Shortly after that, Mr. Wilson declared war on Germany.”[29]
Winston Churchill confirmed the Zionist involvement in bringing America into war against Germany during a speech in the House of Commons on July 4, 1922: “Pledges and Promises were made during the War, and they were not made only on merits . . . They were made because it was considered they would be of value to us in our struggle to win the War. It was considered that the support the Jews would give us all over the world, and particularly in the United States, and also in Russia, would be a palpable advantage.”[30] In 1937 Churchill told the Royal Commission on Palestine: “We did not adopt Zionism entirely out of altruistic love of starting a Zionist colony. It was a matter of great importance to this country. It was a potent factor on public opinion in America and we were bound to honor …”[31] David Lloyd George, during whose tenure the Balfour Declaration was issued also told the same Commission that the promise of a Jewish homeland was the result of an understanding in which the Jews had promised to rally support for Britain throughout the world.[32]
The United States entered the war on April 6, 1917. The Bolshevik Revolution, a coup of the Russian Jewry against the Czar, intensified in October 1917 and it was clear that they were going to control Russia within days or weeks. Finally, the Bolsheviks assumed power on November 7, 1917. The Balfour Declaration, promising the Jews a “national home in Palestine”, was issued on November 2, 1917, at the time when it was quite clear that the Bolsheviks had taken control of Russia. Quite significantly, it was addressed by the Foreign Secretary Lord Arthur Balfour to Lord Walter Rothschild, the eldest son of Nathaniel (“Natty”) Rothschild who himself had passed away in 1915. It is quite clear that the Rothschilds had a central role in extracting the promise of a Jewish homeland in Palestine from the British government at a time when Palestine was a part of the Ottoman empire and Britain had no jurisdiction over it at all.
The Zionists were determined to dismantle the Ottoman empire so that they could get hold of Palestine. For this purpose, the Zionists sabotaged a peace move that could have saved the Ottoman empire. In May 1917, the U.S. Foreign Secretary Robert Lansing received a report that the Ottomans were tired of war and wanted a separate peace with Britain. Zionists got wind of it when President Wilson decided to appoint Henry Morgenthau, a former ambassador to Turkey, to contact the Ottomans. Morgenthau was himself Jewish and decided to take Justice Felix Frankfurter in confidence. Frankfurter was an avowed Zionist. Alison Weir writes: “Felix Frankfurter became part of the delegation and ultimately persuaded the delegation’s leader, former Ambassador Henry Morgenthau, to abandon the effort. U.S. State Department officials considered that Zionists had worked to scuttle this potentially peace-making mission and were unhappy about it. Zionists often construed such displeasure at their actions as evidence of American diplomats’ ‘anti-Semitism’.”[33] They betrayed the U.S. government and when officials expressed displeasure at this betrayal, they called them anti-Semitic. Typical behavior! This one Zionist move, against the interests of the U.S., ensured the end of the Ottoman empire. For as long as the Ottoman empire existed the Jewish home in Palestine could not be set up.
Leon Trotsky, a Russian Ashkenazi Jew, was in the vanguard of the Bolshevik Revolution. Douglas Reed quotes Mrs. Blanche Dugdale (emphasis in Reed): “Years before, in Geneva, Trotsky and Weizmann had night after night expounded from rival cafes in the university quarter their opposed political beliefs. Both of them were Russian born … they had swayed the crowds of Jewish students from one side of the street to the other; Leon Trotsky, apostle of Red revolution; Chaim Weizmann, apostle of a tradition unbroken for two thousand years. Now by a strange coincidence in the same week each of them accomplished the fulfilment of his dream.”[34]
Reed elaborates: “Thus Chaim Weizman’s youthful fellow conspirators from the Talmudic area of Russia triumphed in Russia at the very moment when he triumphed in London and Washington. The only difference between him and them, from the start, was that between ‘revolutionary-Zionism’ and ‘revolutionary-Communism’ …”[35] Reed writes: “In truth, the pincers in which the West was to be gripped had been forged, and each handle was held by one of two groups of revolutionaries ‘Russian-born’ (but not Russian).”[36]
Trotsky had been sent from New York, with $10,000 in cash in his pocket [which led to his arrest by Canadian authorities], by Rockefeller. It has been established by Antony Sutton and others that Wall Street bankers funded the Bolshevik Revolution[37]. The grandson of banker Jacob Schiff (the Schiff’s and Rothschilds shared the same house in Frankfurt in the earliest days) had stated that the “old man” had sunk $20 million in the Russian Revolution (over 554 million i.e. over half a billion dollars in 2023)[38]. Eustace Mullins writes that when the Bolsheviks were failing President Wilson sent “his personal emissary Elihu Root with one hundred million dollars from his Special Emergency War Fund to save the toppling Bolshevik regime.”[39] Elihu Root was J.P. Morgan’s lawyer and a member of the super-secret Pilgrim Society.
The success of the Bolshevik Revolution posed a problem for the Zionists. They had been campaigning for a Jewish homeland in order to save the Russian Jews from the Czarist regime. Through the Bolshevik Revolution the Jews had become absolute masters of entire Russia. The Bolshevik regime was a Jewish regime and “anti-Semitism” was a punishable offence. The Times reporter Robert Wilton reported on the Jewish nature of the regime in Moscow but the Zionists compelled the Times to stop such reporting, lest people in the English speaking world find out, what needed to be concealed in the interest of the Israel project.
In his 1946 book Rabbi Elmer Berger wrote (quoted by Reed – emphasis in Reed): “The Soviet government even privileged Jews as Jews … at a single stroke, the revolution emancipated those very Jews for whom, previously, no solution other than Zionism would be efficacious, according to Zionist spokesmen. Soviet Jews no longer had need of Palestine, or any other refuge. The lever of suffering of Russian Jewry, which Herzl had often used in attempts to prise a charter for Palestine from some power, was gone.”[40] However, after WWII the Russian revolutionary regime was to come to the aid of the Israel project in a different way.
At the end of WWI Britain had troops in Palestine. In June 1922 the US Congress (emphasis in original- Douglas Reed) “passed a joint resolution of both houses, the wording of which was almost identical with that of the Balfour Declaration of 1917.” [41] Reed observes: “[T]hereafter the Zionist halter was firmly reaffixed round the neck of American State policy, and though the American voter only realized this, it became immaterial to him which party prevailed.”[42] On July 24, 1922, the League [of Nations] Council awarded Britain the “mandate” to remain in Palestine. Lord Balfour had introduced the subject of ratification of the “Palestine Mandate”. However, the House of Lords voted for the repeal of the Balfour Declaration by a large majority. This led Arthur Balfour (later to become a Lord himself) to remark to Dr. Weizmann: “What does it matter if a few foolish lords pass a motion?” [43] Thus the Zionist policy as laid down in the Balfour Declaration became something which no Parliament or House could undo! Why? What forces were more powerful than the British Parliament to determine a policy which even the Parliament could not change?
For almost a decade after the Balfour Declaration the British government maintained the deception that the Jewish national home would just be a cultural center, with scientific institutes and farmlands! But the Arabs and the Palestinians were well aware of the Zionist designs. Douglas Reed has put it very well: “The Arabs were never beguiled; they saw that they were the objects of an attempt to reinforce, in the 20th century AD., the Law of violent dispossession set up by the Levites in the 5th century BC. They responded with riotous protest and warlike uprising which have never ceased, so that ‘the war to end war’ started warfare without end.”[44] That warfare continues to date, for a century, with no end in sight. The British “liberated” the Arabs from the Turks and handed them over to subjugation by alien Jews from Russia and East Europe, aided by Anglo-American power, with the Anglo-American leaders utterly subservient to the Zionists.
The subservience of the Western leaders to the Zionists, at whose back stood the High Cabal, the international banking families, led to a step by step and deception by deception advance towards the creation of Israel. President Wilson wrote a letter to Rabi Stephen Wise, one of his four handlers, on August 31, 1918, expressing the “satisfaction I have felt in the progress of the Zionist movement I the United States and in the Allied countries since the declaration by Mr. Balfour…” On July 4, 1918 Wilson had issued a direction regarding the territories of the former Ottoman empire: “The settlement of every question, whether of territory, of sovereignty, of economic arrangement, or of political relationship upon the basis of free acceptance of that settlement by the people immediately concerned and not upon the basis of the material interest or advantage of any nation or people which may desire a different settlement for the sake of its own exterior influence or mastery.”[45] Lofty principles which Mr. Wilson would never be able to implement. He had been a tool and once used was to be cast aside.
In 1919, Mr. Wilson appointed Dr. Henry Churchill King and Charles R. Crane to “record the wishes of the people in the former Ottoman territories regarding their desired form of government and the degree to which outside intervention would be accepted.” Both these individuals were approached by Zionists in America to produce a report favoring Zionism, King and Crane spent forty-two days in Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq (then Mesopotamia) and Asia Minor. They interviewed cultural, political and religious leaders of the region and drafted the King-Crane Report. The King-Crane Commission received 11 petitions, all from Jews, favoring the Zionist program and another 08 favoring a partial Zionist program with colonies in Palestine. But it received an astonishing 1,350 petitions rejecting the Zionist program. The population break up was as follows: Muslims 2.365 m, Christian 0.587m, Druses 0.28m, Jews 0.11m, others .045m. The total population was 3.3875 million. Thus 72.3% of the population opposed the Zionist program, while 0.59% favored the Zionist program and 0.40 percent favored a diluted Zionist program[46].
Naturally the King-Crane Commission Report reflected what the population felt. The Zionists wanted complete dispossession and displacement of non-Jewish residents by purchasing their land. Based on its interaction with leaders of Palestine and even Syria, the report stated that establishment of a Jewish state would lead to “the gravest trespass upon the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.”[47] The report also stated: “No British officer, consulted by the Commissioners, believed that the Zionist program could be carried out except by force of arms. The officers generally thought that a force of not less than 50,000 soldiers would be required even to initiate the program … Decisions requiring armies to carry out, are sometimes necessary. But they are surely not gratuitously to be taken in the interest of a serious injustice.”[48] The Zionist puppet government of the US suppressed this very comprehensive and fair report until 1922 when President Wilson ordered its release. The Zionists later on labeled King and Crane as Nazi sympathizers, even though Hitler was nowhere in sight when the report was submitted!
The King-Crane Commission was followed by several British commissions in view of the unrest that the Balfour Declaration and the veto of elections had produced in Palestine. Each of these teams that the British sent were in favor of Zionist position before they went to Palestine. There was the Haycraft Commission followed by the Shaw and Simpson Commissions. Members of each of these commissions were in favor of the Zionist project before they went to Palestine. But after meeting Palestinians their reports reflected the true picture on the ground. This was not to the liking of Mr. Weizmann at all. He remarked that it was “an almost universal rule” that those who were “favorably inclined” towards the Zionist project “turned against us in a few months.”[49] In 1922 Churchill had proposed that elections be held in Palestine. He was vetoed by Weizmann who knew that in view of the vast majority of Palestinians opposed to the Zionist project, election will produce a government that would kill the project.
In view of this, the strategy adopted by the Zionists was to acquire such control over the British and American leadership that they would not change the policy laid out in the Balfour Declaration, regardless of the actual situation in Palestine. This was ensured by the High Cabal. There was opposition to the Zionist project from the Jews in Britain and the US and that became a serious threat for Weizmann’s target. It became a threat because the Mandate required that any agency purporting to represent Jews must “secure the cooperation of all Jews” in establishing a Jewish homeland in Palestine. He coined the term non-Zionist and, in 1929, set up his “Enlarged Jewish Agency” claiming that it represented all Jews, Zionist as well as non-Zionist, a claim the British government accepted [50].
The Palestinians reacted strongly to the “Enlarged Jewish Agency” because they could foresee that it would become the government of the homeland the Jewish wished to set up in Palestine. This led the British government to suspend Jewish immigration to Palestine via the Passfield White Paper of 1930, and to limit the authority of the Enlarged Jewish Agency. Weizmann met the British PM Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, who not only revoked the White Paper but also asked Mr. Weizmann about his choice of the next High Commissioner in Palestine. Douglas Reed comments: “What these politicians feared, none can confidently say; their memoirs are uniformly silent on this central mystery and their capitulations are unique in history. Mr. MacDonald’s surrender re-established the principle that ‘policy’ in this matter was ‘set’ and immutable, and during the ensuing twenty years this became the paramount principle of all British and American state policy.” [51]
In the mean-time Jewish immigration to Palestine seemed to become sluggish. Jewish immigrants arrived in Palestine and immigrants also left Palestine. In 1927 the number of those immigrants who left Palestine exceeded those that arrived by three thousand. Till 1932 the number of annual departures was one third of the number arriving. In 1933 the assumption of power by Hitler in Germany, and of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) in the U.S., paved the way for the planned WWII and gave life to the dying Zionist cause. The decision to install Hitler in power was taken at a meeting held on January 4, 1933, at the townhouse of the Jewish banker Kurt von Schroder! [52]
Hitler had been brought to power with the connivance of international bankers. Antony Sutton established that he was funded by some Wall Street firms. Further, in a letter written to Churchill in 1937, Heinrich Bruening, the German Chancellor from 1929-1932, revealed that from October 1928 onwards, two largest regular contributors to the German Nazi party were managers of two major Berlin banks, “both of Jewish faith, and one of them was a leader of Zionism in Germany.” Bruening did not allow Churchill to include the letter in his memoirs on the grounds that it would be too embarrassing for the Jews! He also stopped Life magazine from publishing it in 1948. [53] Max Warburg of the Rothschild connected Jewish banking family, whose brother Paul Warburg had played a key role in the Federal Reserve conspiracy in the U.S., continued to advise Hitler on financial matters till the eve of WWII.
Hitler was used by the international banking families to revive the cause of Zionism. On August 7, 1933, Zionist leaders arrived at a pact with Hitler known as the Transfer Agreement. Under this agreement 60,000 Jews and $100 million ($2.368 trillion in 2023 value) were transferred to Palestine. The Transfer Agreement was kept out of history books and the media until 1983 when the partially Jewish Edwin Black revealed the story in his book The Transfer Agreement [54].
The Transfer Agreement resulted from a Jewish boycott of German goods initiated by Zionists at the end of March 1933, less than two months after Hitler assumed office. The German Jews protested against the boycott as it would, they felt, add to their difficulties. Rabi Stephen Wise has been quoted by Douglas Reed as having recorded that he and his fellow Zionists were not deterred by urgent protests and appeals from Jews in Germany. Wise stated: “… that our Jewish brothers in Germany might feel moved or compelled to accept a peace agreement or pact that might mean some slight amelioration or mitigation of their wrongs. . . that the Nazi regime might decide to prevent some of the evil consequences of its regime by such palliative treatment of Jews that would disarm worldwide Jewish protest.” [55] Thus, as noted by Reed, Rabi Wise preferred that Jews suffer in Germany at the hands of the Nazi regime.
Douglas Reed has devoted an entire chapter of his book to “The Strange Role of the Press”. He refers, in particular to the case of “Jewish persecution” in Hitler’s Germany. He mentions three stages of phases of this coverage. In the first phase the persecution of “political opponents and Jews” was reported. This was then “imperceptibly amended” to “Jews and political opponents”. In the final phase the press spoke only of the “persecution of Jews” [56]. Why was this done? Such partial reporting blotted out of the public mind the sufferings of the vast majority of non-Jews in concentration camps.
Douglas Reed had himself, at much risk to himself, visited concentration camps and talked to the victims. He found that almost 90% of those in concentration camps were non-Jews. “But the manner of reporting in the world’s press in time blocked-out the great suffering mass, leaving only the case of the Jews.” What deception and injustice! The world press was controlled by the Zionists with the backing of the international banking families. Reed observes: “The result showed in 1945, when on the one hand, the persecution of Jews was made the subject of a formal indictment at Nuremberg, and the other hand half of Europe was abandoned to the selfsame persecution, in which the Jews had shared in their small proportion in populations everywhere.” [57] The usurpation East Europe by Communist dictatorships with the willing acquiescence of the Zionist controlled Western leaders was a great treachery. These were invariably Jewish dictatorships that suppressed Christians because of the deep Jewish hatred for Christianity. Communism was just a cover for suppression of Christians by Jews masquerading as Communists.
The case for Israel was built on repeated and well thought out Zionist lies and deception developed and carried out with the collusion of international banking families, who controlled, not just the narrative, but also the U.S. President Roosevelt. In 1949 Rabi Wise wrote an untrue version of the events meant to justify the brutal and inhuman creation of Israel. Douglas Reed quotes (emphasis in Reed): “The measures against the Jews continued to outstrip in systematic cruelty and planned destruction the terror against other groups. On January 29,1933, Hitler was summoned to be chancellor… at once the reign of terror began with beatings and imprisonment of Jews …” [58] This was a lie, as reported by Douglas Reed, an eye witness to the events. And this was exactly the purpose of the false reporting. Rabi wrote: “We planned a protest march in New York on May 10, the day of the ordered burning of Jewish books in Germany … the brunt of the attacks was borne by Jews . . . concentration camps were established and filled with Jews.” [59]
Was this really so? Douglas Reed, a most impartial and objective eye witness to the events, writes (emphasis in original): “All these statements are false. The measures against Jews did not outstrip the terror against other groups; . . . The reign of terror did not begin on January 29, 1933, but on the night of the Reichstag fire, February 27. No ‘burning of Jewish books’ was ordered. I attended and reported that bonfire and have looked up my report published in The Times, to verify my recollection. A mass of ‘Marxist’ books was burned, including works of many German, English and other non-Jewish writers; . . . the bonfire included some Jewish books, the brunt of terror was not borne by Jews, nor were the concentration camps ‘filled with Jews’. The number of Jewish victims was in proportion to their ratio in the population.” [60]
While the persecution of the general German populace was transformed through deception into persecution of Jews by the Zionist controlled press, President Roosevelt in the United States was playing a key role in arming and empowering Zion in his own country. He created a new precedent – he had his cabinet sworn in by a Jew, Justice Cardozo, a committed Zionist. Immigration of Jews in massive numbers to the US was managed from behind the scenes – their population rose almost twenty-fold, from 230,000 in 1881 to 4,500,000 in 1926! Though small in number, the Jewry is organized and can tip the balance in an evenly matched election very easily. Further, members of active Jewry had always been involved in political assassinations.
FDR had been brought to power to involve the US into a planned world war. However, in 1935, FDR’s second election had become doubtful because of the emergence of a candidate from the South named Huey Long. Long could not have won the elections but his independent candidature would have split the Democratic vote to the extent that FDR’s re-election chance would have been fatally hurt. FDR’s reelection was ensured when he was shot dead in the Louisiana State Capitol by a young Jew named Dr. Carl Austin Weiss. Weiss himself was shot by the guard and the conspiracy was buried but, significantly, Mr. Long had forewarned of his possible assassination.
FDR had Jewish roots and was a believer in the New World Order. He surrounded himself by a very large number of Zionist and/or Communist Jewish advisors. Gentiles and non-Zionist Jews were not part of his advisory circle. He worked mostly through these “advisors” and many a time ignored those who had official responsibility to deal with a matter. He lied and deceived the American nation to drag it into war against Germany in the interests of Zionist Jews [61]. As Reed correctly assessed: “Historically purveyed, Mr. Roosevelt’s achievement may now be seen to be threefold and in each respect perilous to his country’s future: he helped to arm Zionism, he armed the revolution in the Moscow citadel, and he opened the doors of his American citadel to its agents.” [62] It was FDR who was instrumental in handing over half of Christian Europe to Communist Soviet Union at the end of WWII.
The Zionists had control over the British government which had a “Mandate” over Palestine. If the British government baulked FDR in Washington could bully them. The Zionists desired that the British government expel the Palestinians from their native land and make room for Jews from Russia. This is something that could not be easily done. British leadership had become subservient, not to its electorate, but to a secret and hidden party, which did not care for British interests but wanted to usurp Palestine at all costs through British help and influence. Since Weizmann had vetoed elections in Palestine the Palestinians rioted over the years and the British government, under Zionist pressure, was obliged to suppress these “rebels”.
The Palestinian pressures however put the British government in a difficult situation. On the suggestion of the Peel Commission, the fifth commission sent into Palestine by the British, the idea of a partition of Palestine was floated in 1938. In the bloodiest riots ever in that land 1500 Palestinians were killed [63]. In 1939 Chamberlain called a Palestine Conference in London in which the Arabs were represented for the first time. And that led to a highly important White Paper of March 1939 in which the British government expressed its intention for (emphasis in original) “the establishment within ten years of an independent Palestinian state.” The White Paper also called for “the termination of the Mandate”. [64] This would have led to a multi-religious Palestine with Muslims, Christians and Jews jointly running their land. It would have brought peace to the region.
The White Paper was a blow to the Zionists and any obstruction to the Zionist cause activates the hidden hands of the High Cabal. In December 1916 the Zionists ousted the prime minister Herbert Asquith because he did not wish to commit his troops for the conquest of Palestine. He was replaced by the Zionist agent David Lloyd George. Subsequent to the publication of the White Paper, the highly unpopular Winston Churchill (he had been given a bad press) seemed to come to the fore after being in the wilderness for a decade. From 1929-1939 he was not in the good books of the Zionists on account of his past utterances. In a White Paper of 1922 he had proposed a Legislative Council for Palestine with a majority of elected members [65]. This implied elections, and certainly elections were not what the Zionists wanted in Palestine. Even as s late as 1938 he had stated that the Arabs should be given a “solemn assurance” that the “annual quota of Jewish immigration should not exceed a certain figure for a period of at least ten years.”[66] This went contrary to the Zionist desire. The bad press that had led to his unpopularity had to do with this, it appears.
In his memoirs Weizmann mentions that he met Winston Churchill in October 1939 and Churchill told him that he will speak in the Parliament “against the White Paper” of March 1939. In effect Churchill reversed his earlier stand on being just towards the Arabs. This change of heart must have been promoted by background forces because Mr. Weizmann does not mention Churchill even once in his biography after the year 1922, till 1939 – a gap of seventeen years. According to Weizmann, he had lunch with Churchill on the day of the debate on the White Paper. Weizmann writes that Churchill “read out his speech to us” and asked Weizmann if he had any changes to suggest! Despite Churchill’s speech, the White Paper was approved with a majority of 268 to 179 but there were 110 abstentions indicating something was not right with Mr. Chamberlain’s party [67]. When WWII broke out Chamberlain was an obstruction for the Zionists and was soon ousted and replaced by their now willing agent Winston Churchill. With that, the highest offices in both the US and Britain, were occupied by men supporting the Zionist cause in Palestine.
Winston Churchill became prime minister on May 10, 1940. At that time France had been overrun by the Germans and the British stood alone. On May 23 he directed his Colonial Secretary Lord Lloyd to withdraw British forces from Palestine and instead arm the Jews so that they could “defend” themselves. The arming of Zion was so pressing and important for Mr. Churchill that within two weeks of assuming office he, amid the dire exigencies of war, issued such an instruction. He repeated his instructions twice in the next ten days and at a time when the Dunkirk evacuation was in process. Lord Lloyd saw the dangers in this and his resistance was not liked by Mr. Churchill who wished to arm the Jews. Those opposed to Zion in their own country’s interest, like Lord Kitchener in WWI, and many others, can die unexpectedly. Lord Lloyd died in 1941 at age 62! [68]
In view of the resistance that Weizmann faced in setting up armed brigade of Jews in Palestine he travelled, without difficulty, to the US during the war and, through Rabi Wise, who instructed FDR about helping Zionism, sent FDR a report. He wrote: “The British government ought to be made to understand how enormous would be the shock and how damaging its effect upon the democratic cause, if there should be a general slaughter because of failure adequately to arm the Jews as well as strengthen the defenses of Palestine with guns, tanks and planes.” FDR replied: “I can merely call to the attention of the British our deep interest in the defense of Palestine and our concern for the defense of the Jewish population there; and as best as I can, supply the British forces with the material means by which maximum protection to Palestine will be afforded.” [69] Rabi Stephen Wise was able to say that due to FDR’s intervention the business of parity had been dropped to a large extent.” Parity referred to the insistence of British administrators that if Jews were to be armed, then Arabs ought to equally armed too. Thus, while WWII was going on, the way was paved for arming Russian and other Jews to enter Palestine and kill and expel native Arabs from Palestine.
Men of conscience in Britain and the US however, in the interest of justice and their respective countries, continued to resist the disastrous policy of arming Russian Jews that Churchill, under Zionist influence, was foisting upon the two countries. Dr. Weizmann was to write: “our difficulties were not connected with the first-rank statesmen. These had, for by far the greatest part, always understood our aspirations, and their statements in favor of a Jewish national home really constitute a literature.” This meant that the first rank politicians had bowed completely to the Zionists, because they knew that behind the Zionists stood the High Cabal. Weizmann continues: “It was always behind the scenes, and on the lower levels, that we encountered an obstinate, devious and secretive opposition . . . All the information supplied from the Middle East to the authorities in Washington worked against us.” [70]
The Zionist control of the “first-rank statesmen” in Washington and in London was crucial to the success of the Zionist intrigue. That control was exercised by the invisible High Cabal, for whom the Zionists worked. The Zionists already had gotten Churchill to agree to arm the Jews because they could see that the British government was reluctant to use force against Arabs in Palestine with the object of expelling them to make way for Jews. WWII had been planned by the Zionists and they had expressed the intention of destroying Hitler. Weizmann has stated that Churchill had privately committed to the award of Jewish territory in Palestine but would not do so publicly. Weizmann wanted an amended Balfour Declaration in which, instead of the phrase “a national home” Jews, he desired the award of territory. Churchill delayed by saying that the war must first be finished.
After Yalta FDR met King Ibn e Saud on his ship, the Quincy, and asked him to admit more Jews in Palestine. King Saud said no to this and added that “there was a Palestine army of Jews all armed to the teeth and they did not seem to be fighting the Germans but were aiming at the Arabs.” FDR then agreed not to take any action hostile to the Arabs. FDR was aboard Quincy on February 11, 12, and 13, 1944 and returned to Washington on February 28. On April 5 FDR wrote, in reply to a letter from King Saud, that “no decision will be taken with regard to the basic situation of Palestine without full consultation of both Arabs and Jews.” [71] In writing this he had gone against Weizmann’s desire that “we could not rest the case on Arab consent.” On April 12 he suddenly died. He died at the estate of the influential High Cabal agent, the Jew Bernard Baruch, and there are serious suspicions that he was either assassinated or compelled to commit suicide (he was a 32nd degree Freemason). What was the sitting president of the United States doing at Bernard Baruch’s estate while the war had still not ended? [72]
Since Churchill had baulked at taking the final step of using force against the Palestinians, Zionist propaganda in the British press went full throttle against him and in favor of the Socialists led by Clement Attlee, who had stated: “Let the Arabs be encouraged to move out as the Jews move in”. The Jewish parliamentarians switched en bloc in favor of Attlee and defeated Churchill. This. According to Weizmann, “delighted all liberal elements’” Douglas Reed comments: “This was the requital for Mr. Churchill’s forty years of support for Zionism; he had not actually ordered British troops to clear Palestine of Arabs, and, for a while, was an enemy.”[73] Thus the Zionists instantly switched horses when they found one horse reluctant.
The office of the mysteriously deceased Colonial Secretary, Lord Lloyd, was inherited by a Mr. Hall. As soon as he took office he was visited by a delegation of the World Zionist Congress. What he wrote about the attitude of the Zionist delegation is worth reading. He stated: “I must say the attitude adopted by the members of the deputation was different from anything which I have ever experienced. It was not a request for the consideration by His Majesty’s Government of the decisions of the Zionist conference, but a demand that His Majesty’s Government should do what the Zionist Organization desired them to do.” [74] They must have known that those, on whose behalf, they were acting, owned the British government at the highest levels. The defeat of Hitler had further emboldened them. Weizmann observed that despite Churchill’s support “exactly four years were to pass before, in September 1944, the Jewish Brigade was officially formed.” [75] A most crucial step towards the arming of Zion for the capture of Palestine by those who had never lived there (nor had their ancestors), was thus taken.
By the start of WWI Zionists had already acquired the ability to destroy anyone who stood in their way. Ernest Bevin was a robust man, a labor leader and a politician. He was appointed Foreign Secretary by Attlee. Bevin was blunt with Weizmann and told him that he would not be pressured into doing anything beyond the undertakings of the British government. Weizmann represented the High Cabal and therefore had instant access and influence with the American and British leadership at the highest levels – he was not used to such treatment. The Zionists “fell on him [Bevin] like a pack of wolves”. As a result of Bevin’s courageous understanding of the explosive nature of the issue and of Zionist “intrigue” (he used this word) the Labor government declared that it was not in favor of driving Jews out of Europe and favored their living in European countries “without discrimination”. [76]
A worldwide campaign against Ernest Bevin was conducted by the Zionists for two years. The Zionists added a term “Bevinism’ to their vituperative vocabulary. Still, the steely Bevin stood his ground and would have succeeded in thwarting the Zionist goal in Palestine but for the intervention of President Truman of the United States. He demanded that a hundred thousand Jews be admitted into Palestine. This undid all efforts of Mr. Bevin to maintain justice and avoid a situation that could and did lead to perpetual war.
In the mean-time the World Zionist Congress of 1946 agreed to resume the method of terror and assassination in its quest for a land that belonged to others. The phrases used were “resistance”, “defense”, “activism”, etc. against the British authorities in Palestine. Weizmann explains that these words used by the Congress possessed that same meaning: “[O]ne feature was common to all of them: the conviction of the need for fighting against British authority in Palestine or anywhere else, for that matter.”
The Congress merely gave approval to ongoing terrorism that had always been used by the Talmudic Jews when needed. Lord Moyne, the British minister of state in the Middle East was assassinated by the Jewish terrorist organization Irgun in November 1944. In July 2012, when Yitzak Shamir died, Joanna Saidel wrote in the Times of Israel that in 1993 Shamir told her the following: “He was an anti-Semite, Lord Moyne. And he had a hand in the White Paper, in carrying out the White Paper policy. I don’t say that I would have, if I had to decide, that I would decide that he ought to be shot, but once he was shot there were good reasons for him being shot.” [77] Shamir was referring to the White Paper issued under Ernest Bevin. Irgun had been set up in 1931. In the Zionist vocabulary anyone who does not submit to the Zionist dictates is “anti-Semitic”. However, there is little doubt, despite the carefully crafted language of Yitzhak Shamir, reported by Saidel, that his organization, Irgun, assassinated Lord Moyne. Although Churchill was very unhappy about the assassination, there was little he could do about it because he had been brought to power by the Zionists.
A Colonial Secretary, Mr. Oliver Stanley, told the House of Commons that Zionist terrorism against Britain in the Middle East had impeded “the British war effort” i.e. it had prolonged the war. Two British sergeants were slowly killed in an orchard and their bodies were left hanging. Reed notes: “The choice of Levitical form of butchery (‘hanging on a tree’, the death ‘accursed of God’) signified that things were done under Judaic law.” [78] But the astonishing thing is the total inability of the British government come to the defense of its men. It was shackled by the Zionist controlled press in both Britain and the United States. One disillusioned British soldier wrote a letter to The Times: “What use has the army for the government’s sympathy? It does not avenge who are murdered, nor does it prevent any further killings. Are we no longer a nation with sufficient courage to enforce law and order where it is our responsibility to do so?” [79] The British and the American governments were Zionist captives and did nothing to contain Zionist terrorism.
In the words of Douglas Reed: “From 1946 terrorists took command. They set to work to drive the British from Palestine first, and knew they could not fail in the state of affairs which had been brought about during the Second War. If the British defended either themselves or the semitic Arabs the cry of ‘anti-semitism’ would rise until the politicians in Washington turned on the British; then when the British left the terrorists would drive out the Arabs.” [80] The British administrative offices dealing with the Palestine Mandate were housed in a wing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. On July 22, 1946 King David Hotel was blown by bombs planted by Irgun agent disguised as Arab workmen and waiters. A total of 91 people were killed in this incident. The reason for bombing had to destroy the documentary evidence implicating the Jewish Agency in acts of terrorism against the British. The British authorities had recovered documents implicating the Jewish Agency in a raid on June 29, 1946 on the offices this agency. The documents directly implicated the Jewish terrorist organization Haganah in acts of terrorism against the British authorities. [81]
Alan Hart had correctly pointed out that during the 26 years of British Mandate, the British set into motion three major conflicts: “One between the indigenous and betrayed Arabs of Palestine and the incoming (extraneous and alien) Zionist Jews; One between the Palestinian nationalists and the forces of occupying British; and One, eventually between the Zionist Jews in Palestine and the British.” [82] The British mandate was, from day one, fraudulent and mala-fide. Lord Islington stated in the House of Lords very clearly: “When one sees in its Article 22… that the well-being and development of such peoples should form a sacred trust of civilization, and when one takes that as the keynote of the Mandatory system, I think your Lordships will see that we are straying down a very far path then we are postponing self-government in Palestine until such time as the population is flooded with an alien race.” [83]
Finally, one may quote Douglas Reed on the Mandate: “The ‘mandates’ also bestowed on Britain in respect of Iraq and Transjordan, and to France in respect of Syria, were soon relinquished, these territories becoming independent states. Other countries received ‘mandates’ in respect of various colonies and oceanic territories, which in time and in fact became their possessions. These other ‘mandates’ were from the start fictitious and served in the office of chaperones to the dubious ones which needed respectable company. Of the entire bogus arrangement only Palestine ‘mandate’ continued until the Zionists being numerous enough and sufficiently supplied with arms, it was abandoned and the country left to the invaders then able to take and hold it by force.” [84]
In the year 1946 a British military officer, General Stanley Morgan, noticed that the UNRRA was being used, not to rehabilitate displaced persons, but as an umbrella and a cover for transportation of a huge number of East European and Russian Jews to Palestine. These Jews were not displaced persons. The Communist regimes protected Jews through severe laws against anti-Semitism. These Eastern Jews were not displaced from Germany. Their mass-movement to Palestine only had Zionist motives. They were being driven by their Talmudic mentors, the Rabbis, and the bankers behind the Rabbis, to a new land where they, or their ancestors, had never lived. In January and August of 1946 General Morgan stated that there existed “a secret organization to further a mass movement of Jews from Europe, a second Exodus.” [85] He was labelled anti-Semitic (which he was not) and then he was dismissed from his post by the new DG, who was a Zionist Jew from New York. In his place a Mr. Myer Cohen (obviously a Jewish name) was appointed. The British government retired Gen. Morgan to please her Zionist masters and falsely stated that he had been retired at his own request.
In November 1946 a Select Committee on Estimates formed by the British House of Commons reported that a “very large number of Jews, almost amounting to a second Exodus, have been migrating from Eastern Europe to the American zones of Germany and Austria with the intention in majority of cases of finally making their way to Palestine. It is clear that it is a highly organized movement with ample funds and great influence behind it, but the Subcommittee was unable to obtain any real evidence who are the real instigators.” [86] Similarly, a War Investigating Committee of the Senate of the United States concluded that “heavy migration of Jews from Eastern Europe into the American zone of Germany is part of a carefully organized plan financed by special groups in the United States.” [87] Both these reports confirmed the assessment of General Morgan. Further, the Zionists had been armed by communist countries, particularly Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union. And most of the Zionist armed group comprised Jews from East Europe and Russia.
Memorial Day Ceremonies at Arlington National Cemetery. President John F. Kennedy Visits Grave of Lieutenant James Forrestal. 30 May 1963
Thus the Zionists were able to either assassinate, or remove, any high official who stood for justice and truth. Lord Moyne was assassinated and General Morgan was dismissed. Earlier Herbert Asquith and Neville Chamberlain had been removed and replaced by agents of the High Cabal to implement the Zionist bidding. In the United States the Secretary for Defense James Forrestal resisted the Zionist onslaught, foreseeing President Truman’s capitulation, and was assassinated. [88] This kind of influence could be wielded only on account of the backing of the High Cabal, whose interests the Zionists represented.
One may ask as to why was Palestine so important for the Zionists or the international banking families which nurtured and backed them? An American Jewish lawyer Henry H. Klein, who struggled hard against the Zionists, wrote in his 1946 pamphlet (emphasis in original): “Hundreds of millions of dollars have been collected from Jews throughout the world for Palestine during the last fifty years. What has become of this vast sum? Some of it has been spent for land and construction there; some for overhead; some for private purposes; a large part of it for propaganda to keep the agitation alive and the golden stream flowing and some of it went into graft. ‘Back to Zion’ is a magic slogan among Jews and the Dead Sea in Palestine is the magic spot that will produce the Golconda of wealth that will further reinforce the efforts towards world rulership. The value of minerals and chemicals in the Dead Sea is estimated in trillions of dollars and some of it is already being extracted.” [89]
But the international banking families, who already own most the wealth of the world, are striving from a Satanic One World Government under their absolute control, a World Order in which traditional religions like Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc. will cease to exist and none other than these families and their cohorts will own private property. The deeper reason for the choice of Palestine for the Israel of the bankers was stated by Nahum Goldman, President World Jewish Congress, in Montreal in 1947. The reason is quoted in the following paragraph.
He stated (emphasis added): “The Jews might have had Uganda, Madagascar, and other places for the establishment of the Jewish Fatherland but they wanted absolutely nothing except Palestine, not because the Dead Sea water by evaporation can produce five trillion dollars of metalloids and powdered metals; not because the subsoil of Palestine contains twenty times more petroleum than the combined reserves of the two Americas; but because Palestine is at the crossroads of Europe, Asia and Africa, because Palestine constitutes the veritable center of world political power, the strategic center for world control.” [90] There you have the real reasons for the forcible, illegal, and criminal occupation of Palestine by Russian and East European Talmudic agents of the High Cabal at the expense of the local population.
As a result of the death of FDR in 1944, President Truman, the then vice president, had automatically assumed the office of president of the country. The next elections were to be held in November 1948 and Truman, a 33rd degree Freemason, desperately wanted to be elected. This allowed the Zionists to manipulate things to their advantage. The nomination contests occurred in June and July of 1948 and the Zionists offered re-election to Truman if he supported the invasion of Palestine by the Jews. In November 1947 the Zionists wanted partition of Palestine and in May 1948, as the nomination contest approached, they desired recognition of their invasion. Both sides in the elections were approached by Zionists. “Thus the election campaign took on the nature of an auction, each candidate being constantly under pressure to outbid the other in supporting the invasion of Palestine.” [91]
In 1947 the President Truman made a demand for the admission of 100,000 Jews to Palestine. In response the British government announced that it will withdraw its forces from Palestine if impartial administration was rendered impossible. Truman was then advised to up the ante and make a demand for the admission for 150,000 Jews to Palestine! This advice was proffered by Mr. Robert Hannegan, ex-chairman of the Democratic Party. The rationale for this advice was that it “would have a very great influence and great effect on the raising of funds for Democratic National Committee.” He pointed out that, depending on what Truman did with the Palestine issue “very large sums … from Jewish contributors” could either be given or withheld! [92]
The Deir Yassin horror of April 9, 1948, in which men, women and children were butchered mercilessly by Jewish terrorists of the Irgun and Stern gangs, could only be carried out by Eastern Jews drenched in Talmudic hatred. The unfortunate Deir Yassin was a village of about 600 residents on the outskirts of Jerusalem. Once the resistance of the village to the attackers ended, those who emerged from their houses were lined up and shot. Those who remained in the houses were “butchered.” One survivor, an eye witness narrated: “I saw a man shoot a bullet into the neck of my sister Salhiyeh, who was nine months pregnant. Then he cut her stomach open with a butcher’s knife.” [93]
Alan Hart has described the dastardly act in some detail. He writes that a Swiss IRC representative named Jacques de Reynier, was the first to arrive on the scene Hart writes: “He [Reyneir] and his German escort found 150 bodies thrown in a cistern. In all they counted 254 dead, including 145 women of whom 35 were pregnant… One of the Irgun attackers told his German escort that they were still ‘cleaning up’. Reyneir wrote: ‘The first thing I saw were people running everywhere, rushing in and out of houses, carrying Sten guns, rifles, pistols and long ornate knives … They seemed half mad.” [94] He saw a young woman stab and elderly couple cowering on the doorstep of their hut.
Douglas Reed’s insight into the Zionist mind may be gauged from the following lines: “The massacre at Deir Yassin was an act of ‘observance’ of the ancient ‘statutes and commandments’, including the relevant passage in Deuteronomy. ‘When the Lord thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and shall cast out … seven nations greater and mightier than thou … then thou shalt utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them’, and the related passage, ‘thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth, but thou shalt utterly destroy them.” [95]
Deir Yassin changed the equation. The savagery, the Talmudic brutality resulted in the Arab population fleeing their villages. The terrorist Menachim Begin, who subsequently became one of a line of terrorist prime ministers of Israel, wrote: “Panic overwhelmed the Arabs of Eretz Israel. Kolonia village, which had repulsed every attack of the Haganah, was evacuated overnight and fell without further fighting. Beit Iksa was also evacuated… In the rest of the country too Arabs began to flee in terror, even before they clashed with Jewish forces…” [96]
On May 14, 1948, within five weeks of the Deir Yassin massacre, Zionists marched into Tel Aviv carrying Czechoslovak rifles, and the state of Israel was proclaimed into existence. It was created by fraud, deception, crime, terrorism and bloodshed and has lived that way since it was created. Yitzhak Shamir, another terrorist turned prime minister of Israel had stated in 1943: “Neither Jewish morality nor Jewish tradition can be used to disallow terror as a means of war… We are very far from any moral hesitations when concerned with the national struggle.” [97]
In his memoirs, President Truman mentions the extreme pressures to which he was subjected by the Zionists. Reed quotes (emphasis in Reed): “The facts were that not only were pressure movements around the United Nations unlike anything that had been seen before, but that the White House, too, was subjected to a constant barrage, I do not think I ever had as much pressure and propaganda aimed at the White House as I had in this instance. The persistence of a few of the extreme Zionist leaders – actuated by political motives and engaging in political threats – disturbed me and annoyed me. Some were even suggesting that we pressure sovereign states into favorable votes in the General Assembly.” [98] If Mr. Truman was so annoyed why did he succumb?
Author Texe Marrs has pointed out why President Truman issued a declaration recognizing Israel as a new nation on May 14, 1948. He did so despite “virtually unanimous opposition within his own cabinet.” Why did he do so? One reason was that he desired Jewish support in the impending elections. But there was much more to it. Texe Marrs wrote in 2011: “All Zionists were ecstatic, but the Zionist elite knew months in advance that Truman would do this. As I explain and prove in my latest investigative report and in my book Conspiracy of the Six Pointed Star, a Zionist powerbroker, Abraham Feinberg, had, just months before, given the President a two-million dollar bribe – $100 bills packed in suitcases – to recognize Israel. This bribe to Truman, confirmed by recently released FBI archives, means that Israel is today and always has been an illegitimate state established on the basis of a criminal act.” [99]
References
[1] Jim Macgregor and Gerry Docherty: Prolonging the Agony: How the Anglo-American Establishment Deliberately Prolonged WWI by Three-and-a-Half Years, Trine Day 2018, p 394.
[2] Alan Hart: Zionism the Real Enemy of Jews, Vol 1, p 30
[3] Chris Hedges: Israel’s Culture of Deceit, The Unz Review, Oct 19, 2023 https://www.unz.com/article/israels-culture-of-deceit/
[4] Arthur Koestler: The Thirteenth Tribe, Gsg & Assoc, 1976
[5] See for instance: Benton L. Bradberry: The Myth of German Villainy, AuthorHouse, 2012; Antony C. Sutton: Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution, Bucaneer Books Inc., 1974; Antony C. Sutton: Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler, Clairview, 2010, first published 1976 by ’76 Press, California. Jim Marrs: Rule by Secrecy, Perennial, 2004
[6] Douglas Reed: The Controversy of Zion, Bridger House Publishing, 2012, p 134
[7] Deanna Spingola: The Ruling Elite: The Zionist Seizure of World Power, Trafford Publishing, 2012, p 23.
[8] Ibid, p 24
[9] Ibid, p 23
[10] Ibid, p 22
[11] Ibid, pp 22, 23
[12] Ibid, p 24
[13] Ibid, p 32
[14] Ibid, p 35
[15] Theodore Herzl: The Jewish State
[16] Deanna Spingola: op cit p 37
[17] Ibid, p 37
[18] Theodore Herzl: op cit
[19] Ibid
[20] Deanna Spingola: op cit, p 34
[21] Lord Rothschild: “A Family That Helped Build a Nation”, The Jewish Chronicle, November 15, 2017 https://www.thejc.com/author/lord-rothschild-lord.rothschild
[22] Nicola Loftus: “Lord Rothschild My Jewish Roots”, The Jewish Chronicle, June 20, 2019, https://www.thejc.com/life-and-culture/all/lord-rothschild-my-jewish-roots-1.485601
[23] Deanna Spingola: op cit, p 44
[24] Douglas Reed: op cit, p 207
[25] Ibid, p 250
[26] Eustace Mullins: The Secrets of the Federal Reserve, Bridger House Publishing, 1991, p 18
[27] Douglas Reed: Far and Wide, CPA Books, 1950, p 285
[28] Benjamin H. Freedman: An American Warns His Countrymen, 1961, posted on rense.com https://rense.com/general91/amd.htm
[29] Ibid
[30] Quoted in Laurent Guyenot: From Yahweh to Zion: Jealous God, Chosen People, Promised Land … Clash of Civilizations, translated from French and edited by Kevin J. Barrett, Sifting and Winnowing Publications, 2018, p 226
[31] Ibid p 226
[32] Ibid p 226
[33] Alison Weir: Against Our Better Judgement: The Hidden History of How the US was Used to Create Israel, self-published 2014, pp 21, 22
[34] Douglas Reed: The Controversy of Zion, p 281
[35] Ibid, p 281
[36] Ibid, p 281
[37] Antony C. Sutton: Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution, mentioned in [5]
[38] Gerard Menuhin: Tell the Truth and Shame the Devil, Castel Hill Publishers, 2016, pp 220, 221
[39] Eustace Mullins op cit, p 85
[40] Douglas Reed: Controversy of Zion, pp 281, 282
[41] Ibid, p 301
[42] Ibid, pp 301, 302
[43] Ibid, p 301
[44] Ibid p 303
[45] Deanna Spingola: op cit, p 696
[46] Ibid, p 698
[47] The King-Crane Report, World War I Document Archive, https://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/The_King-Crane_Report
[48] Ibid
[49] Douglas Reed: The Controversy of Zion, p 304
[50] Ibid, p 305
[51] Ibid, p 306
[52] Eustace Mullins: The World Order: Our Secret Rulers. Omni Veritas 1985 &1991, p 198
[53] David Irving: Hitler’s War and the Warpath, Parforce, UK, 2000, p xxv
[54] Edwin Black: The Transfer Agreement: The Dramatic Story of the Pact Between the Third Reich Jewish Palestine, Dialog Press 2009, p xxi (first self-published 1983)
[55] Douglas Reed: The Controversy of Zion, p 321
[56] Ibid, p 309
[57] Ibid, p 309
[58] Ibid, p 309
[59] Ibid, pp 309, 310
[60] Ibid, p 310
[61] See, for example, Mark Weber: President Roosevelt’s Campaign to Incite War in Europe: The Secret Polish Documents, The Journal of Historical Review, No 4, Vol 2, 1983; https://www.vho.org/GB/Journals/JHR/4/2/Weber135-172.html
Mark Weber: Collusion: Franklin Roosevelt, British Intelligence and the Secret Campaign to Push the U.S. Into War, Institute of Historical Review, February 2020, https://www.ihr.org/other/RooseveltBritishCollusion
[62] Douglas Reed: The Controversy of Zion, p 339
[63] Ibid, p 329
[64] Ibid, p 329
[65] Ibid, p 330
[66] Ibid, p 330
[67] Ibid, p 331
[68] Ibid, p 335
[69] Ibid, p 336
[70] Ibid, p 337
[71] Ibid, p 428
[72] It is difficult to locate articles related to the suspicious death of FDR – the search engines seem to repress such searches and websites posting such material seem not to survive for long. One may see
https://patriots4truth.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/did-fdr-commit-suicide-or-was-he-assassinated.pdf
or
https://drvenkatrsingh.blogspot.com/2011/08/did-fdr-commit-suicide-or-was-he.html
[73] Douglas Reed: The Controversy of Zion, p 430
[74] Ibid, p 430
[75] Ibid, p 335
[76] Ibid, pp 431, 432
[77] Joanna Saidel: Yitzhak Shamir: Why we killed Lord Moyne, Times of Israel, 5 July 2012, https://www.timesofisrael.com/yitzhak-shamir-why-we-killed-lord-moyne/
[78] Douglas Reed: op cit, p 436
[79] Ibid, p 436
[80] Ibid, p 301
[81] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_David_Hotel_bombing
[82] Alan Hart: op cit, p 150
[83] Ibid, pp 149, 150
[84] Douglas Reed: The Controversy of Zion, p 301
[85] Ibid, p 437
[86] Ibid, p 438
[87] Ibid, p 438
[88] For a quick review see https://en.dailypakistan.com.pk/13-Apr-2023/the-assassination-of-usdefensesecretary-jamesforrestal
[89] Henry H. Klein: “Sanhedrin Produced World Destruction”, pamphlet 1946, published by Liberty Bell Publications, p 9. In the same pamphlet he defines the Sanhedrin as “a body of self appointed and self anointed Jews who presume to run all Jewish affairs and control all Jews.”
[90] Quoted in Gerard Menuhin: Tell the Truth and Shame the Devil, Castle Hill Publishers, 2016, p 103
[91] Douglas Reed: The Controversy of Zion, p 439
[92] Ibid, p 438
[93] Alan Hart: op cit, p 228
[94] Ibid, p 228
[95] Douglas Reed: The Controversy of Zion, p 449
[96] Alan Hart: op cit, p 231
[97] Quoted in the Preface of Zahir Ebrahim: NAKBA 2020: World Order/Zionism, Palestinian-Goyim Studies, p xv https://tinyurl.com/Nakba
[98] Douglas Reed: The Controversy of Zion, p 451
[99] Texe Marrs: “President Harry S. Truman and the Jews”, For a thorough analysis of the assassination see David Martin: The Assassination of James Forrestal, David Martin/McCabe Publishing Co, 2019
https://www.texemarrs.com/092011/truman_and_the_jews_article.htm
Never interrupt your enemy when he is committing serial suicide.
By Pepe Escobar at the Strategic Culture Foundation.
Never interrupt your enemy when he is committing serial suicide (in reverse American gore-style, when the serial killer always resurrects). In the case of the EU kakistocracy, serial self-destruction is always a given, and always skyrocketing.
So the EUrocrats in Brussels have just adopted their 17th round of sanctions against Russia – the sky is the limit – targeting nearly 200 tankers of the so-called Russian shadow fleet. The package, endorsed by EU member states, includes proverbial scores of asset freezes and visa bans.
The EU + UK combo is also scheming how to tighten the oil price cap on Russia to $50 a barrel, aiming to “hurt” Russia’s energy revenue.
Cue to a monster pipeline of laughter from the whole Global South, especially India and China. As if they would impeach any vessels of the shadow fleet, or if OPEC+ would care about a puny unilateral EUrocrat oil price cap.
To qualify EU actions as self-destructive anti-intellectualism is actually benign. The IQ of people at the top in Brussels is at dismembered worm level, exemplified by the Estonian batshit crazy chick in theory representing the foreign policy of 450 million EU citizens. Brussels has been reduced to a pathetic Estonian propaganda snake pit with a whiff of British accent.
The SVR has noted how there is a groundswell of despair in Brussels for the “mistake” of appointing the imbecile Estonian, universally known for “absolute incompetence” and a cringing “inability to build bridges” with EU leaders. She has already been removed from EU strategic defense policy planning.
Still, the sanctions package dementia will keep rollin’ on – redacted by careerists with fat salaries who only care about their own retirement gold package.
The next, the 18th, is supposed to be the largest sanctions package in History, according to the Brussels rumor mill, not only accusing Russia of multiples stances of Hybrid War and alleged use of chemical weapons (when it’s actually the neo-nazis of country 404 who resort to it) but targeting several Russian defense sector companies plus companies and intermediaries from third countries supplying sanctioned products to Russia.
Add to it the German BlackRock chancellor actively lobbying for an EU ban on the Nord Stream pipeline – blocking any possibility of a U.S.-Russia business cooperation, already signaled by Trump. This ban will be part of the 18th package.
Cue to Grandmaster Sergey Lavrov, who recently felt the need to emphasize that political EUro-trash banning the return of NordStream are “either sick or suicidal.”
Stealing Russia blind: good luck with that
On the Baltic front, there’s more, of course – in a “Pirates of the Baltics” register: that’s the SIGINT-heavy Baltic Sentry mission, which aims to block Russian maritime activity. France is on it – which implies a non-regional NATO member directly involved, unlike, for instance, Norway.
The Russians are unfazed. A strong possibility is that they will escort Russian ships with multi-functional naval and aerial drones fully equipped with reconnaissance and combat gear.
Yet on the Orwellian front, nothing beats the anti-Russian “tribunal” announced on May 9 by EU foreign ministers in Lviv, together with Kiev, to “hold top representatives of the Russian leadership accountable.” That involves 30 partner countries, incuding UK and Australia. The U.S. is out.
The scam was minutely deconstructed by Thomas Roper, who is now viciously demonized and censored by the EU, even though he is a journalist and EU citizen of German nationality. Yes, Brussels now sanctions its own citizens capable of critical thinking, to the point of freezing their assets and forbidding them to visit their home country. And this is just the beginning.
The new EU kangaroo “court” will be set up by the Council of Europe – and will issue judgments even in absentia, via 15 judges elected for 9 years each, the whole thing costing the EUrocracy around 1 billion euros.
Needless to add that this kangaroo “court” has absolutely no basis in international law, as it’s not approved by the UN; instead, it’s a private club of the fragmented West. Follow the money to understand the rationale.
Few people today remember that last year the European Commission (EU) gave a $50 billion loan to Kiev; actually $35 billion by the EU and $15 billion by the G7. The problem is only Brussels is responsible for repaying this joint EU-G7 loan. And the loan is supposed to be paid from the annual revenues generated by Russian assets frozen – i.e. stolen – in the EU, which Brussels refuses to release before the next 45 years.
These are all official EU decisions, enshrined in Regulation 2024/277. Translation: no, I repeat, no European mainstream media has informed taxpaying citizens across the union that the EU has formally decided to be at war with Russia for at least the next 45 years.
Brussels has done everything trying to steal for good the “confiscated” Russian assets. The problem is the EC EUrocrats have not found a mechanism to bypass international law.
Enter the “court”. The EUrocracy will force the kangaroo “tribunal” to blame Russia for everything related to the war and the SMO; sentence Russian government members to long-term prison sentences – in absentia; and then decide that Russia has to pay reparations. Endgame: the kangaroo “court” decides to steal for good the frozen Russian assets.
Once again: under international law, this is a robbery. Key inevitable consequence: no one across the Global South will trust the euro and European financial centers anymore.
This Russian demonization EUro-dementia scenario is in play just as Trump 2.0 still bets on some sort of normalization with Russia via a solution for Ukraine. Yet the key factor here is the cowardly collective fear of the EU kakistocracy: if they don’t rob Russia blind, they have no means to repay that fateful $50 billion loan to the Kiev goons.
That should be the main factor explaining why this collection of political mutts needs, badly, to non-stop escalate what is a de facto Forever War against Russia.
So expect only dementia coming from Brussels in the foreseeable future. Like the brilliant idea of setting up a single military bank to alocate loans for weapons production, a replica of the World Bank with a HQ in London. Since they could not find 120 billion euros to come up with a single European military fund – the German economy, for instance, continues to collapse – their plan B is this bank.
For all that cornucopia of sound and fury, Russia remains, once again, unfazed. Putin top aide and former National Security Adviser Nikolai “Yoda” Patrushev has noted how NATO has been “conducting exercises at our borders at a scale unseen in decades. … They are training for conducting a broad offensive from Vilnius to Odessa, seizing Kaliningrad region, imposing a naval blockade in the Baltic and the Black Seas and executing preventive strikes on the staging locations of Russian nuclear deterrence forces.”
Good luck with that. Good luck with the military bank. And good luck with stealing Russia blind with no blowback.
The inexorable decline of the American Empire has arrived at an Imperial Paradox. It must either fight a war and die, or not fight a war and die.
By William Schryver at imetatronink.
The inexorable decline of the American Empire has arrived at an Imperial Paradox. It must either fight a war and die, or not fight a war and die.
Here are the options:
Neither South Korea nor Japan want anything to do with a war against China, leaving only the Philippines dumb enough to play along.
The US apparently pulled another brigade out of South Korea. They’ll pull out more in the future. They know damn well the North Koreans could easily conquer the entire peninsula if they chose to do so.
China and its local seas are a vast ocean away from America, and its capacity to defend its local seas is enormous and growing.
The Pentagon must understand it cannot sustain logistics in a war against China in the western Pacific. It simply cannot be done. Anyone who thinks otherwise must upgrade their proficiency in basic arithmetic.
In the context of a war against Iran, all the geography is against the US.
Iran is an exceedingly mountainous country that has, over the course of millennia, learned to use those mountains to defend itself against would-be conquerors.
They can field a satisfactorily well-equipped million-man army.
They have learned in the 21st century to burrow deep heavily fortified tunnels into their mountains.
Iran is also much more technologically advanced than most people understand. They have become impressively capable in terms of both offensive and defensive missiles. They pose a far greater challenge than the Yemeni have been over the past year and a half.
Indeed, they pose a “near-peer” challenge against US overseas power projection.
The US Navy could only operate at extreme risk in the southern Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, the Gulf of Oman, the Strait of Hormuz, and the Persian Gulf.
Every US base in the region is well within range of Iranian missile strikes.
The US Navy very demonstrably cannot secure seaborne logistics into the Persian Gulf. They lack both the sealift ships, and the ability to protect them.
They cannot even open the Bab-el-Mandeb!
From a geographic and logistical standpoint, the only remotely conceivable war is one in Ukraine against Russia.
The US at least has bases and forces already in place in the UK, Germany, Poland, Romania, Finland, and in Baltic chihuahua fantasy-land — and what has served until now as a reasonably secure logistics pathway into all those places.
Of course, whether or not such a condition persists long in a war scenario is another question altogether.
Because, you see, the Russians are now unquestionably the most formidable and battle-hardened military on the planet — at least in the context of a war fought on their doorstep.
So if you’re an empire that thinks it needs a war to reaffirm at least its short-term relevance and fading glory … well, these are your choices.
Sic transit gloria mundi.
There was a proverbial killing of a proverbial count Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Libya a few hours ago. They’ve erupted into a civil war.
Libyan state-funded powerful Stability Support Apparatus (SSA) militia leader Abdelghani al-Kikli was killed. There are huge clashes in Tripoli and citizens were ordered to stay at home. Forces from the 444th Brigade, which operates under the Ministry of Defense of the Government of National Unity in Tripoli are fighting the Stability Support Aparatus.
There is a Government of National Unity but it only lightly in power. The latest from the Ministry of Defense of the Government of National Unity is that:
Footage and videos show hard, heavy, brutal fighting and no quarter given.
From India and Pakistan we hear that India says they’ve stopped fighting but they will keep Pakistan fully responsible for any terrorist activity. Well, yes, that would not be the way to solve the problem. This type of rhetoric only inflames. There are also widespread discussions that the Trump Boyz did not really create the initial cease-fire but many countries, China, Russia, Iran that I know of at least, were involved in trying to bring sense and an end to these skirmishes. Likely, Washington aims to exploit the conflict either to justify deeper interference in Kashmir or to position itself—perhaps even militarily base—as a counterweight to China in the region. Time will tell.
These events are not simply coincidences.
We’ve had reports that NED for example has not been done away with as Musk and Doge promised. They’ve just gone underground and are operating out of the US State Department, doing their normal destabilization work across the world. The war of narratives existing between India and Pakistan may be a function of this or similar organizations.
The chaos principle as a policy of the hegemon is in full swing. They want to swoop up anything that falls out to pay for their own existence. Julani in Syria has just promised the building of a Trump building or hotel in Syria and all the oil that the US may desire, in exchange for sanctions relief. This is a violent terrorist leadership in Syria and killings continue around the countryside. Israel is grabbing whatever they can, under the guise of helping the Druze. This is simply a pretext as there are many Druze factions and only part of one faction is Israel friendly.
I wrote about the new strategy to use dwindling economic rights as a wedge for military insertion to expand the hegemonic stake. US reinforcements have just arrived in northeastern Syria, including Abrams tanks and field officers. Bear in mind it is probably around six weeks ago that Trump announced that he is withdrawing US forces from Syria.
As we watch the Tariff grab proceed, we now see these quick and violent wars quickly backstopped by promised trade agreements (India / Pakistan) and even quicker military backstops (Syria). Let’s watch how this rolls out in Libya. Do they have rare earth minerals and metals?
UPDATE: Just in … Over 100 killed in Burkina Faso after Al-Qaeda-linked militants stormed Djibo. Fighters hit military, admin buildings & a hospital — clashes raged 6+ hours. Burkina Faso’s forces put up fierce resistance as jihadists looted and seized weapons
How much is this mean and brutal empirical vampire costing our world? We cannot live with them in current form much longer but they will not walk gently into that good night and neither will they conform and cease their violent crusades.
Jeffrey Sachs with The Judge on what the first essential step is to call a halt to the chaos strategy.
From Ria Novosti
[Comment: This interview was much broader than what this set of key takeaways indicate. We will post it as soon as there is a translated and good copy available.]
Key takeaways from Russian President Vladimir Putin in a documentary “Russia. Kremlin. Putin. 25 Years”:
Russia had no need to use nuclear weapons during its military operation in Ukraine, and hopes that such a need will not arise in the future;
Russia has sufficient forces and resources to bring the special military operation in Ukraine to its logical conclusion;
Russia remains calm during the military operation despite attempts to provoke Moscow into making mistakes;
Reconciliation with Ukraine is imminent, it is just a matter of time.;
The West failed to respond appropriately to Moscow’s warnings at the 2007 Munich Conference, leading to tragic events in Ukraine;
Russia signed the Minsk agreements in hope that they would be respected, but was deceived by Western countries, who took a pause to rearm Ukraine;
Launching a military operation in 2014 in Ukraine was unrealistic as Russia was not prepared for a direct confrontation with the collective West at the time;
Russia treated the agreements with the western countries with cautious trust until 2022;
Russia had tried to communicate to the West that it had been supporting terrorists in the Chechen conflict, but the Western countries simply nodded their heads;
If Russia does not adhere to its traditional values, it will lose its identity and cease to exist.;
The future Russian president will be chosen by the Russian people, but several candidates who can gain the citizens’ trust need to emerge for that.
Thanks to Tariffs, China Ditching US Tech. Napolitano interviews geopolitician Pepe Escobar, April 30th, 2025.
“… in this wilderness of narrative mirrors, Trump should be perceived as all characters combined: the White Rabbit, Humpty Dumpty (“When I use a word, it means what I choose to mean, no more and no less”), the Mad Hatter, the Queen of Hearts (“Off with their heads!”)”
Welcome to “Ruler of the World” does Wonderland – to the sound of that hypnotic ‘Kashmir’ riff.
By Pepe Escobar at Strategic Culture Foundation.
Two overarching taboos reign on the – now shattered – collective West:
The taboos happen to be inextricably linked to the Forever Wars deployed non-stop by the Empire of Chaos/Zionist axis.
Lesser Hybrid Wars though – even carrying the horrifying prospect of turning nuclear – are allowed to come and go. Especially if they are part of the current war on BRICS, a sub-section of the war of factions of the West against the Global Majority.
So let’s go to Kashmir – to the sound of Jimmy Page’s hypnotic riff. Both India and Pakistan are escalating the war of decibels. Turkey is offering weapons – to Pakistan. Iran offered a mediator role: no takers.
The motive for the war is as dodgy as they come. An all-male tourist bus packing a bunch of merry tourists is roaming around Indian-held Kashmir. Passengers include a just married 26-year-old lieutenant of the Indian Navy – but without his wife (what kind of honeymoon is that?) Another passenger is Nepalese. The bus is attacked by shady splinter goons loosely affiliated with the Salafi-jihadi Lashkar-e-Taiba outfit.
The Empire has been all over the Indian front. The current US Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard was previously fully funded by Prime Minister Modi’s circles. Eyeliner-loaded VP J.D. Vance recently visited India – complete with family Taj Mahal photo op. Then Modi went to visit Saudi Arabia – invited by MbS. After the Kashmir bus terror attack, Hindutva fanatics went on a cyber-attack spree.
The crude tactics spell out classic Divide and Rule. Double whammy: revamped weaponization of India, and destabilization of a key Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) China front: the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). A thing of beauty: splitting BRICS from the inside.
None of that, of course, legitimizes the ghastly Pakistani military, which have thrown in jail, on spurious charges, the man who was trying to bring Pakistan to respectability: Imran Khan.
It’s up, once again, to the adults in the room, any room – Russia – to de-escalate. This could be ideally performed inside the SCO – where both India and Pakistan are members, side by side with Iran. Moscow chose to take the initiative, by itself.
Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko met with both India’s Ambassador to Russia, Vinay Kumar, and Pakistan’s Ambassador to Russia, Muhammad Khalid Jamali.
Russian terminology is essential: not only there was a call for both parties to “engage in constructive dialogue”. Moscow stressed, “we are ready to counter the global terrorist threat together.” The operative word is “global”. Delhi and Islamabad don’t seem to be getting the message – yet.
Kashmir as a volatile war lab
An infernal machine is predictably on. It’s as if the Anglo-Zionist axis is using Kashmir as a volatile lab for a series of live tests – including pushing nuclear powers to the brink of confrontation. And all that dealt with casual insouciance – practically as a sideshow.
Nothing coming from Sültan Erdogan and his intel apparatus could possibly be seen as trustworthy. In Syria, the MIT’s assets – the Headchopper Inc. congregated in Greater Idlibistan – ended up being installed in power in Damascus with their Zionist-friendly gang leader now posing as President.
The comprador Yankee junta in Islamabad, for its part, may be facing the abyss – which in itself qualifies as auspicious news. In parallel, suspense accrues on whether Modi will show up for the Victory Day parade on May 9 in Moscow – and what he will tell his Russian hosts.
BRICS members Russia and Iran want the International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC) running smoothly to India sooner rather than later. The game gets even more complex when we see that the Iranian investigation is finally starting to consider that the horrendous explosion at the Shahid Rajaee port may have been an act of sabotage or an FPV strike.
Extra pressure on China is a real motivator for setting up this war lab. Now Beijing not only needs to start worrying about an explosively renewed India-Pakistan front but also extra CIA/MI6 mischief pushing the Pak connection to Uighur Salafi-jihadis.
There’s no chance in hell Delhi will really understand Beijing’s geopolitical predicaments. A perfect scenario for the Hybrid War gang.
Meanwhile, at the BRICS front, at least there are some signs of rationality – coming, once again, from Grandmaster Lavrov.
Even before the BRICS Foreign Ministers meeting early this week in Rio, Lavrov cut to the chase on the financial and geoeconomic front. He stressed that BRICS are working hard on the 2024 Kazan summit-approved “Trans-Border Payment Initiative”; a “payment and clearing infrastructure”; “a re-insurance company”; and a new investment platform.
He had to once again explain to Western media – from the US to Brazil – that “it would be premature to discuss a transition to a single currency for BRICS. We are working together to create a payment and settlement infrastructure for carrying out cross-border settlements among BRICS countries. In particular, as I have already said, this includes increasing the share of national currencies in our transactions.”
A BRICS common currency – a specter hovering over Trump 2.0 – will only come back to the table “once the necessary financial and economic conditions are in place.” Until then, the war on BRICS, hybrid and otherwise, will be relentless.
Trumpty Dumpty
Switching from reality to fantasy, it was such a blast to find the connection between Kashmir and Alice in Wonderland… in a Chinese essay.
It takes supreme Chinese finesse – quite like subverting Taoist wisdom with a touch of post-modernism – to identify the “ruler of the world” (his own terminology) throwing everyone, virtually the whole planet, into the rabbit hole.
So in this wilderness of narrative mirrors, Trump should be perceived as all characters combined: the White Rabbit, Humpty Dumpty (“When I use a word, it means what I choose to mean, no more and no less”), the Mad Hatter, the Queen of Hearts (“Off with their heads!”)
That certainly illustrates the intersection of the trade war (launched by the “ruler of the world”) and the genocide war (fully legitimized by the “ruler of the world”). With an extra twist: reality has a knack to out-Carroll even Lewis Carroll himself.
Enter the curious case of the USS Truman, a giant aircraft carrier, being possessed by the spirit of Ayrton Senna and deciding to pull out an ultra-sharp curve as if it was a Maserati Gran Turismo Stradale in the middle of the Red Sea – just for a F-18E Super Hornet to protest about the maneuver plunging head on to the bottom of the ocean.
At least that was the narrative CENTCOM sold to global public opinion. Blame that damned Houthi missile fire!
Well, CENTCOM has been relentlessly humiliated by the Yemeni Armed Forces – 21 MQ9-Reapers smashed, and counting – as it has accomplished zero military objectives; the Pentagon has not subdued the Houthis; and has not secured “freedom of navigation” in the Red Sea for Israeli-bound ships. Their revenge: to bomb Yemeni civilian targets non-stop.
All that because the “ruler of the world” launched an illegal war – against people guided by moral and spiritual clarity – to protect the genocide perpetrated by his psychopathological regime buddies. Welcome to “Ruler of the World” does Wonderland – to the sound of that hypnotic ‘Kashmir’ riff.
Huawei chips are already the real deal for every Chinese company which is following the new Beijing-defined direction to reduce any reliance on American technology
By Pepe Escobar at Sputnik.
Late next month, Huawei will be testing its new powerful AI processor, the Ascend 910 D, even as by early May the previous 910C will start to be mass-delivered to scores of Chinese tech companies.
These serious breakthroughs are the next chapter of Huawei’s drive to counter Nvidia’s global monopoly in graphics processing units [GPUs]. The Ascend 910D is supposed to be more powerful than Nvidia’s extremely popular H100.
Huawei is pulling no punches in its race to manufacture a new generation of processors. Huawei has collaborated with SMIC – China’s largest semiconductor foundry – to apply Deep Ultraviolet Lithography (DUV) on what was previously only possible on EUV (Extreme Ultra-Violet technology). Once again, Huawei and SMIC defied the proverbial American “experts” with creative engineering solutions.
Huawei arrived at fabricating 5nm chips with DUV even as the process is more expensive than with EUV. If Huawei had access to EUV they would be already manufacturing 2-3nm chips. That will come, in short time, as both China and Russia, under permanent US high-tech blockade, must by all means develop their own EUV technology.
Shanghai geeks are convinced that Huawei will switch on 6G networks before the end of the decade. Their current breathless drive is not just aimed at the smartphone front – where Huawei is peerless; the new Huawei Mate 70 Pro + is by far the absolute top smartphone in the world, running on Harmony OS. Huawei is looking at cloud computing, AI and enterprise servers – and to become no less than the core player in the AI infrastructure race.
Ditching Any Reliance on American Technology
Earlier this month, Huawei introduced the CloudMatrix 384, a system connecting 384 Ascend 910C chips. The tech word in Shanghai is that this configuration, under certain conditions, and of course consuming much more power, already outperforms Nvidia’s flagship rack system – which is powered by 72 Blackwell chips.
Meanwhile, Huawei’s Kirin X chip is targeting the PC market, offering stiff competition to Apple, AMD, Intel and Qualcom while Harmony OS plus removes the necessity of using US software such as Microsoft and Android.
Shanghai geeks swear that China essentially doesn’t need to beat Nvidia or other US chips developers. After all, China already has the largest consumer market in the world – by volume and by value. If a parallel tech universe is the likely result of the Trump Tariff Tizzy (TTT), so be it. China already controls over 60% of the global gadget consumer market.
Kirin X may not – yet – match the power of Nvidia’s H100 GPUs. But Huawei chips are already the real deal for every Chinese company which is following the new Beijing-defined direction to reduce any reliance on American technology.
All of the above naturally brings us to the enormous AI elephant in the (digital) room: Nvidia.
A recent book, The Thinking Machine: Jensen Huang, Nvidia, and The World’s Most Coveted Microchip, is quite helpful to track not only the personal story of CEO superstar Huang, a Taiwanese who played the American Dream to the hilt and became a tech multi-billionaire, but Nvidia’s enviable tech accomplishments.
Huang does not interpret AI as emergent machine superintelligence, and firmly dismisses any direct analogy to biology. For this all-round pragmatist, AI is merely software – running on hardware that his company sells for a fortune.
Still, Nvidia has ventured into virgin territory way beyond the American biz-tech Valhalla, complete with holding the most valuable stock on the planet: arguably, when it comes to AI, Nvidia unveiled a new phase of evolution.
It’s crucial to understand how Huang sees China. It is indeed a key market for his AI chips – and he wants to keep selling them in droves. Trump’s tariffs though make sure that won’t happen.
And that’s what moved Huang to ditch his proverbial leather jackets and don a crisp business suit for a strategic visit to Beijing, where he affirmed the sacred importance of the Chinese market, whatever the new Trump-dictated gimmicks.
By 2022, the China market represented 26% of Nvidia’s business; this year, it has fallen to 13%, because of euphemistic “technology export controls”.
The problem is the US government, already by 2022, under the previous automatic pen administration, had blocked sales to China of advanced A100 and H100 chips. Nvidia started selling modified versions – and even after the ban chips continued to arrive in China. By June 2023, it was easy to find A100s for double their price in the black market in Shenzhen.
Huang is convinced that “no AI should be able to learn without a human in the loop” – even as he admitted, two years ago, that “reasoning capability is two or three years out”. Translation: according to Huang AI will start thinking for itself within the next few months.
Even as Nvidia prepares to invest billions of dollars to build AI supercomputers in Texas, the Chinese essentially are not losing any sleep on “thinking AI”: their focus is extremely practical, to conquer not only the Chinese market but also the supply chains of most of Eurasia.
The US National Security Council has concluded that it’s too dangerous for China to buy Nvidia’s high-end chips, even the H20 – designed for the Chinese market. Huawei, anyway, already produces chips somewhat comparable to the H20.
Huang is losing his sleep because, essentially, Nvidia is losing the immense Chinese market to Huawei – with Trump’s direct input. Nvidia has tens of thousands of H20s specially designed for China which they simply cannot sell. Each chip cost between $12,000 to $20,000.
How China Is Opening a Digital “Pandora’s Box”
Huawei’s new drive is yet another example of Chinese will capable of staring down any challenge – based on indigenous talent, tech expertise and national pride. The record, even before Trump 1.0 sanctions, shows that Huawei does eat massive uphill battles for breakfast. In fact Ascend in many aspects was ahead of Nvidia as early as in 2019 – and that’s why two different US administrations banned it.
China is already light years ahead of the US on chip research. Chinese universities amass most places in the global Top Ten for published papers on semiconductors and on citations – a distinction shared, among others, by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (number one), Tsinghua University (one of China’s top two universities), the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (number four), and Nanjing, Zhejiang and Pekin Universities.
Two weeks ago in Shanghai I first heard that Huawei would catch up with US semiconductor giants in maximum two years. Now, after the announcement of the Ascend 910D, the buzz shifted to only one year for China to overtake Nvidia and develop better lithography machines than the ones currently produced by ASML.
And the debate is fast switching to how far Huawei will be able to go within the next 2 to 3 years.
In several aspects we are already in the early stages of a US-China tech decoupling. For years Nvidia has dominated the AI hardware space. Their GPUs are the brains behind most contemporary advanced AI. The H100 chip is the gold/platinum standard for AI infrastructure worldwide. Nvidia’s chips had huge demand from Chinese tech giants – Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu, Bytedance.
Soon that may not be the case – and that goes way beyond Nvidia’s certified loss of market share in China. China is now all out focused on building a successful, self-sufficient AI hardware ecosystem. The coup de grace will be to restrict the export of all rare earth minerals to the US. Huaweii then will pull up in no time.
Everyone remembers how DeepSeek R1 wiped out over $1 trillion from Wall Street only three months ago. DeepSeek R2 will be released soon; training was a whopping 97% cheaper than OpenAI.
And training happened on Huawei’s Ascend. No Nvidia.
Quantum Bird, a world-class physicist formerly with the CERN in Geneva, puts everything in much needed context. He stresses how indigenous chip development by China – and in a near future, Russia and probably India – is “multi-faceted; what we are observing are the initial stages of a redefinition of the notion of recognizing patterns and machine learning, technologies that are popularly referred to as ‘AI’ by the media.”
Nvidia chips, Qantum Bird remarks, are indeed “computational beasts”, but they work better around “processing models and workloads typical of ‘AI’ models developed by Western scientists.” DeepSeek’s development, on the other hand, showed a transgression of established models: “The possibilities opened for performance leaps are huge, even using relatively modest hardware, with alternative approaches based on advanced math and different calculus flows.”
In a nutshell: “This is the Pandora’s box that Nvidia now fears the Chinese may have opened”. And that totally ties in with Huang’s red alert, prompting his visit to Beijing.
We may be heading indeed towards a serious tech decoupling. Or as Quantum Bird frames it: “A technological and scientific divergence medium and long-term. If the architectures that emerge from these developments are incompatible when it comes to their usage on specific ‘AI’ models, Nvidia will lose its global monopoly and will become just a company reduced to a corporate/scientific Western niche.”
Even as Huawei, from its privileged base in the Chinese market, will go on to win most markets across the Global Majority – from BRICS to BRI.
This thread only grows as we add regions to the line-up. Today we have to add India and Pakistan. Playing that old old Elvis song .. Suspicious Minds.
April 28
A US airstrike on a migrant detention centre in Yemen’s northern Sa’ada province has massacred and injured at least 115 African migrants, according to local reports. The centre, which housed refugees mainly from Ethiopia and other East African nations, was completely destroyed, with footage showing bodies pulled from the rubble and survivors desperately searching for loved ones. Yemeni officials accused Washington of deliberately targeting civilians under the guise of counterterrorism operations, escalating what they describe as a war of collective punishment.
The brutal massacre comes amid an intensification of US military aggression across Yemen following the collapse of the Gaza ceasefire. Witnesses at the site described scenes of horror, with charred bodies and scattered belongings strewn across the ruins. Yemeni authorities and humanitarian groups have condemned the attack as a blatant war crime, calling for immediate international investigation and accountability.
– So now the US is targeting migrant centers and ships with Russian staff.
The situation between India/Pakistan, after the terrorist attack on a bus full of tourists in Kashmir, is threatening to explode into another regional war. We hope for the best. What I observe is de-escalating talk from Pakistan and escalating talk from India. Yesterday there were reports of small arms fire along the line of control Iran offered help and mediation. The timing of this event is highly suspicious. It does seem that death and mayhem follows Smokey Eyed Eyeliner Enhanced Vance.
The Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif told Ria Novosti that the terrorist attack is unlikely to escalate to an exchange of nuclear strikes between India and Pakistan. They are already talking nuclear – two nuclear states are in a standoff position. NOT Good! WhoDun’It?
This may be a hint for you. In London protests yesterday, the Indians protested with Israeli flags and the Pakistanis with Palestinian flags.
WhoDun’It?
Do not forget Gaza. Each morning and evening, I take a look and cannot help but curl into myself first. Imagine a freshly caught shrimp turning its protected back to the world. For a while, I lose the ability to put words together. Then, smaller events, people-backed, appear, and I know that it is only our voices who can make a difference here. Don’t stop marching! Don’t stop shouting! Don’t stop throwing sabots into this industrial killing machine! In the US the people may see more Israeli product on the shelves as Chinese product disappears. Boycott!
Full solidarity with Morocco’s brave port workers, refusing to load @Maersk ship carrying parts of the planes for Israel’s genocide in Gaza. As Gvts & companies continue to profit off a genocide, I hope workers around the globe take inspiration from the Moroccan people. https://t.co/dX1Etb2J3T
— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) April 23, 2025
From Israel (take with salt): Channel 12: Over 36,000 Palestinians have left the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7, 2023, as Israel works to quietly facilitate President Trump’s plan for the coastal enclave. Most of the migrants have gone to Arab states or countries in Western Europe.
Ben Gvir recently visited the United States. From Max Blumenthal at The Grayzone:
Ben Gvir to promote Gaza starvation plan at private Brooklyn ‘welcoming’ brunch
Hezbollah keeps talking. Israel refuses to adhere to the truce unless Hezbollah gives up its weapons. It is the same story with Iran, and the same story with Hamas. “Give up your arms so that we can kill you with ease.” At least the Houthis do not fall for this, and they are indeed the bright spot in a dire situation that is soon becoming hopeless if there is no change.
The blast at Iran’s Shahid Rajaee port: This map may tell of secrets:
Russia immediately sent help to their ally: Putin has sent aircraft, 1st responders and aid to help tackle the port blaze.
Syria: The world is lauding a brutal terrorist, now reformed and in charge. There is no law left. A terrorist may reform, but a terrorist must also be lawfully taken to task for previous actions. Now it is the Trump figure pushing the Bibi’s chair in for him and the Jewlani (AI image) handing over a cup of tea. It’s not as if it is not crystal clear.
Guest: Shireen Al-Adeimi is a non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and assistant professor of language and literacy at Michigan State University’s College of Education.
More versions of the podcast at:
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An eloquent short historical profile of the Ansarullah movement by a fair critic from south Yemen. She is from Aden, the traditional rival of north Yemen of the last centuries, and the third most important global sea port in the 19th century.
She dispels Anglo-Zionist agitprop that Yemenis serve Iran, or that Ansarullah are a minority; they control 80-85% of the total population that lives bunched in the smaller but more secure highland north. Zaidi Islam is followed by 40% of all Yemenis and coexists peacefully with Sunni and Shia, being not of either, but a bridge respected by all except fringe salafi extremists imported from the GCC. She reminds us that ALL Yemenis have been devotees of Palestine and their liberation cause for over a century now, starting with the British occupation.
Ansarullah represent and merely discharge the will of at least 30-32 Million of the 40 M Yemenis.
The dragon has drawn a red line.
China just halted exports of key rare earths to the U.S., slapping export controls on seven categories of critical metals and magnets used in everything from EVs and smartphones to fighter jets, missiles, and drones, delivering a surgical strike to the spinal cord of America’s supply chain.
Welcome to the new trade war: geoeconomic strangulation, without firing a shot.
The message from Beijing is clear:
You want to slap 145% tariffs on our goods? Fine. But good luck assembling a single Javelin, F-35, or iPhone without our dysprosium, terbium, and neodymium.
China controls over 90% of global rare earth production. Washington just remembered that the hard way.
This isn’t just a tit-for-tat move. It’s strategic economic warfare, targeting the soft underbelly of U.S. dominance: the illusion that it can wage hybrid war without being vulnerable itself.
And now? The U.S. is scrambling:
• Talking about deep-sea mining.
• Rushing to build stockpiles.
• And begging Australia and Canada to step up. Canada eh?
Too little. Too late. You spent three decades offshoring everything, and now your empire can’t build a toaster, let alone a missile guidance system, without Beijing’s blessing. Ok maybe you can build a toaster, to be fair.
And let’s not forget: Every chip, every drone, every smart weapon in the Pentagon’s closet runs on components China can choke off in 48 hours.
Trump called it “Liberation Day.”
But Beijing just made it clear: You’re not the one in control anymore.
From the Islander
Current local time Jerusalem: https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/israel/jerusalem
Previous thread: https://globalsouth.co/2025/03/19/the-middle-east-west-asia-wars-are-escalating/
Apr 7
Israel burnt civilians alive…again.
This time it was a journalist.
There is an HD video of this act of terrorism…again.
Bombing a tent where journalist gathered.
The genocide continues.
His name is Ahmad Mansour.
He was a journalist for “Palestine Today” News Agency.
He was burnt alive by US-made weapons dropped by Zionist terrorists.
https://t.me/Eyeonpalestine2/11083
Bibi Netanyahu is visiting Trump today. Netanyahu arrived to a red carpet in Washington. Last week, Netanyahu vowed to step up attacks on Gaza in an effort to implement US President Donald Trump’s plan to evict Palestinians from the enclave.
Yemen is now being bombed around the clock. This is blind bombing. As we saw through the years, this is common for the western powers to bomb civilians. The US’s astronomically-expensive campaign of aerial aggression against Yemen’s Armed Forces has reportedly fallen far short of deterring the country that has now threatened to extend the scope of its retaliatory strikes.
We have many wars in our world: Here is but one of the raging wars in Africa. The US rushes for Congo’s minerals as the war continues to devastate the east.
As rebels close in on Goma, Washington moves fast. Lithium, cobalt, copper—vital for smartphones, electric cars, and the so-called green transition. In return, the US offers promises of security to a government losing control. Talks began in February, when Congolese officials approached Washington with a proposal: access to strategic minerals in exchange for increased security. Since then, the US has quietly expanded its presence, laying the groundwork for a deeper foothold in Congo’s mining sector.
KoBold Metals, backed by Gates, Bezos, and other Silicon Valley names, is already exploring a massive copper-cobalt site in the south. Meanwhile, more than 140 armed groups operate in the east, where villages are emptied, lives are lost, and displacement rises by the day.
Ukraine is our next prepared ISIS: Ukraine poses a security threat in Africa and is an irresponsible player, Malian Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop said in an interview with RIA Novosti.
Iran and the threats which will be under discussion in the White House today: Here is a video with some reality from Prof. Marandi. The US is conflating its non-productive bombing campaign on Yemen with Iran by continually reporting bombing runs on Iran-Backed Yemen. In the occupied areas the guilty one is of course Hamas, followed by Hezbollah, and now they have a new word – Houthis. Changing this rhetoric must make Americans happy, as they think they’re getting a 2 for 1 on the killing scale. That is what you can tell your friends and family – the US, Centcom is blind bombing a country and mostly striking little brown people discussing their own issues in their own enclaves, and standing in circles. We now have images of dead Yemenis in the flood of images from Gaza, the West Bank, Syria, Lebanon. This list is becoming long. The next perpetual war has started. You did not think that the US only wanted Greenland, Canada, the Panama Canal, minerals from Ukraine and Africa and the rest of the world’s money, did you? No, if you go back to Trump’s inauguration speech, he spelt it out – We are a hegemon, and we will become a bigger one. They want West Asia as well. We have the raging economic war now, but few add up war costs as the main reason that the US is plumb out of money.
“Unrestricted submarine warfare, unrestricted air bombing . . . this is total war. Time and the ocean and some guiding star and High Cabal have made us what we are.”
By Professor Dr. Syed Mujahid Kamran at Daily Pakistan.
The Korean War fought between Communist forces of North Korea, the U.S. puppet regime of the South and eventually involving the U.S. through the U.N. and the People’s Republic of China, was a brutal genocidal war, which has been consigned to well-thought-out oblivion by the Anglo-American Establishment. The Korean war broke out on the night of June 24 and 25, 1950 when the forces of Kim Il Sung attempted to unify Korea within one month. They almost succeeded. U.S. intervention, backed by the UN, eventually stopped and reversed the tide. The Chinese then entered the war against the advice of Stalin. The war ended on 27 July 1953 with an armistice. The South Koreans (ROK – Republic of Korea) never signed a treaty with the North Koreans (DPRK Democratic People’s Republic of Korea).
Were it not for the U.S. intelligence officer Col. L. Fletcher Prouty, nobody would have known that the Korean and Vietnam wars were planned during the dying days of WWII. It was Prouty who first wrote about Churchill’s extremely important statement regarding the High Cabal. Prouty narrates that at the height of WWII, Churchill, upon hearing of the bombing of Rotterdam, remarked: “Unrestricted submarine warfare, unrestricted air bombing . . . this is total war. Time and the ocean and some guiding star and High Cabal have made us what we are.” The High Cabal is a set of the wealthiest families on the planet that operate in complete and sinister secrecy and anonymity, and who have amassed their huge wealth through instigated wars and usurious lending to warring nations. Churchill knew of the High Cabal because he was their asset. It was the High Cabal that had planned the Korean and Vietnam wars in the dying days of WWII. The great bloodshed of WWII had not yet ended when they had begun planning the next one.
Despite enormous damage done to Japan by aerial bombardment, invasion of Japan was considered essential to secure “unconditional” surrender. Thus when the island of Okinawa became available as a launching pad for such an invasion, supplies and equipment for half a million men was piled up in Okinawa. The use of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki secured unconditional Japanese surrender rendering the piles of equipment on Okinawa Island redundant. Prouty happened to be on Okinawa Island on the date of the Japanese surrender. He narrates “Almost immediately, U.S. Navy transport vessels began to show up in Naha Harbor, Okinawa. This vast load of war material was reloaded onto those ships.”
During some business at the harbor, Prouty casually asked the harbormaster if the material was being loaded for return to the United States. He writes that he was surprised by the direct response of the harbormaster: “Hell, no! They ain’t never goin’ to see it again. One-half of this stuff, enough to equip and support at least a hundred and fifty thousand men, is going to Korea, and the other half is going to Indochina.” Prouty notes: “In 1945, none of us had any idea that the first battles of the Cold War were going to be fought by U.S. military units in these regions beginning in 1950 and 1965 – yet that is precisely what had been planned, and it is precisely what happened.” The natural question that arises is who decided that the equipment be sent to these regions? Prouty asks: “Who made that decision back in 1943-45? Who selected Syngman Rhee and Ho Chi Minh to be our new allies as early as mid-1945?” Referring to the High Cabal as the power elite Prouty writes: “This is another one of those windows that permits us to see that some decision had to have been made in some detail by the power elite, yet there is absolutely no record of who made the decisions and for what purpose.” The information provided by Col. Prouty must never be lost sight of when discussing the Korean and Vietnam wars and the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
The High Cabal considers the entire globe with all its resources as “real estate”, meant to be captured by force or otherwise, and to be put to use for their profits. The High Cabal also believes in a Malthusian philosophy. In the words of Col. Prouty: “The Malthusian theory thus provides a rationalization for the necessity of somehow getting rid of large numbers of people, any people, in any way – even genocide.” The High Cabal has an argument that runs as follows: “Earth will never be able to support the progeny of so many anyhow. From this point of view, genocide – then as now – is accepted as all but inevitable. Who cares and why be concerned?” Finally the High Cabal has a Darwinian mindset. Those who survive and dominate are the “fittest” and have the right to kill off all other races.
The Korean and Vietnam wars reflect the genocidal, Malthusian and Darwinian mindset of the High Cabal. The same is true of the post 9/11 wars in the Middle East.
On the day after the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Rockefeller agent John J. McCloy in the War Department held a meeting with Truman’s foreign policy advisor Dean Acheson and Charles Bonesteel of Pentagon to discuss the division of Korea which had been under Japanese occupation. They chose the 38th Parallel as the dividing line because it included the city of Seoul. The Soviet troops entered North Korea on August 8 and seem to have accepted the 38th Parallel as the dividing line. As a result Korean occupation by Japan was replaced by occupation by the U.S. and the Soviet Union. The U.S. forces entered South Korea on September 8, 1945 and soon occupied it south of the 38th Parallel.
The United States established a military government in South Korea. Its intelligence agents picked up several hundred Koreans, who had been Japanese collaborators, to aid the U.S. in running South Korea. The occupation of Korea by the Soviet Union and the United States was occupation of a country that was not a belligerent. Korea was not at war with the Allies or any other party. Thus the end of WWII resulted in the replacement of Japanese occupation of Korea by the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. It also resulted in a division of Korea along the 38th Parallel.
Bruce Cummings writes in his book The Korean War that within three weeks of the start of the war a Chinese military intelligence group arrived in Pyongyang. Further, as early as August 4, Chairman Mao decided that if the Americans were to invade the North, China must come to the aid of the North in the name of a volunteer army. When, in mid-September 1950, General MacArthur masterminded the Inchon amphibious landing employing 270 ships, a high level North Korean officer requested Chinese help. On October 1, 1950, Kim Il Sung met the Chinese ambassador to request that the 13th Army Corps of the PLA come to their aid by crossing the Yalu River. Stalin opposed a major Chinese involvement fearing wider war, but Mao went ahead, much to Stalin’s surprise, and sent twelve infantry divisions to help the North Koreans. Stalin, however, backed off from a promise of air cover and that paved the way for aerial genocide of Koreans by the USAF. Apparently the October 1, 1950 crossing of the 38th parallel by the Chinese caused Mao a sleepless night, but he went ahead and informed Stalin the next day. Mao’s decision to back Kim ll Sung was based upon Mao’s straightforward determination that if the Korean struggle faltered, China was bound to support the Korean Communists in view of their great sacrifices during the Chinese revolution and their resistance against the Japanese.
As early as October 1950, General George Stratemeyer of USAF sought permission to attack a provincial capital Sinuiju. The city of Sinuiju had a population of around 60,000 and Strtaemeyer wanted to bomb “over the widest area of the city, without warning, by burning and high explosive”.
Such was the inhuman and genocidal mindset of the American establishment.
Gen. MacArthur denied this request initially. However, on November 3, 1950, MacArthur agreed to a firebombing campaign, accepting Stratemeyer’s request to burn Kanggye: “Burn it if you so desire. Not only that, Strat, but burn and destroy as a lesson to any other of those towns that you consider of military value to the enemy.” The firebombing of Sinuiju was also approved on November 3, 1950. The instructions were noted in summary in Stratemeyer’s diary as follows: “Every installation, facility, and village in North Korea now becomes a military and tactical target.” Stratemeyer gave the following inhuman orders to his bombers: “[D]estroy every means of communications and every installation, factory, city, and village”. Two days later, on November 5, Stratemeyer ordered the destruction of “all other targets including all buildings capable of affording shelter.” On that day, 75% of the city of Kanggye was destroyed by USAF bombers! These massive war crimes against civilian populations of North Korea were committed by the U.S. with impunity. North Koreans have done well not to forget this inhumanity.
The Allied forces had discovered during WWII that it was easier to burn down a city than to blow it up. Thermite sticks bundled together in millions supplemented by mixtures of benzene, phosphorous and other things were employed to set cities on fire. The resulting firebombs could set cities ablze and incinerate them in minutes. On March 16, 1945, the city of Wurzburg was burnt in a mere seventeen minutes!
The development of firebombing represents perhaps the most painful, inhuman and sadistic development in aerial warfare.
When Dresden was firebombed one eye witness who survived described “young women carrying babies running up and down the streets, their dresses and hair on fire, screaming until they fell down, or collapsing buildings fell on top of them.” Firebombing was conceived and developed by the brutal and utterly inhuman Anglo-American alliance. It burns innocent civilians and is a war crime of the highest magnitude.
The American military leaders decided to repeat the firebombing of WWII in North Korea. Germans had an air force and effective anti-aircraft fire that caused significant losses to Allied forces. But North Korea did not have any air force and thus had no air cover. Under these circumstances the bombing and firebombing of North Korea was a one sided affair. Not only was it one sided, the Americans dropped more bombs on North Korea in less than three years than the bombs used in the Pacific theater during the entire WWII. In the Pacific theater the Allies dropped 503,000 tons of bombs during WWII. The U.S. dropped 635,000 tons of bombs on North Korea and an additional 32,557 tons of napalm! Please note that napalm burns at temperatures ranging from 800 to 1200 degree Centigrade. It burns longer than gasoline and adheres to its targets making death much more painful for the victims.
The USAF seemed to have a penchant for napalm bombs because they inflicted the greatest possible pain on their unfortunate victims. General Ridgeway wanted heavier and better napalm bombs. He desired thousand pound versions to be dropped on targets in 1951. The object was to “wipe out all life in tactical locality and save the life of our soldiers.” On one occasion when American soldiers fell victim to “friendly” fire of napalm, their suffering was described by a witness James Ransome. His men rolled in agony in the snow and begged him to shoot them because the burning of their skin by napalm was unbearable. Their skin burned and peeled back “like fried potato chips”. This was the wonder weapon of the USAF!
Gen. Curtis LeMay, who, in the humble opinion of this author was too trigger happy and brutal to be entrusted with serious responsibility, and who may have played a minor role in the Kennedy assassination, wanted to burn down the big cities of North Korea at the very beginning of the war. The Pentagon ruled that “it’s too horrible”. Yet, in an oral history record, LeMay stated that over a three year period “We burned down every town in North Korea, and South Korea too . . . Now over a three year period this is palatable, but to kill a few people to stop this from happening – a lot of people can’t stomach it.” Such was the nature of attacks on the cities and towns of Korea that no sane person can stomach it. On July 11, 1952 a total of 1,264 air sorties over Pyongyang were carried out by B 29 bombers during daytime, followed by 54 sorties at night. Imagine what the residents of this city went though. Imagine the inhumanity of the Anglo-American Establishment, the champions of human rights, democracy and all that crap. The attack on Pyongyang was to be followed by similar attacks on thirty other cities and industrial centers as part of operation “Pressure Pump”.
Col. Fletcher Prouty has noted: “There had been a Malthusian movement, concealed at all times from the public, to uproot and destroy the existing and traditional system of communal society in many parts of the world. The activists of this movement fear the strength of the peasant and the ways of peasant life. They much prefer a society of dependent consumers. Indochina and Korea were the prime targets during the post-World War II decades.” Bruce Cummings has noted: “Korea recapitulated the air force’s mantra from World War II, that firebombing would erode enemy morale and end the war sooner, but the interior intent was to destroy Korean society down to the individual constituents.”
In May 1952, the great Suiho Dam on Yalu river was attacked. It was second only to the Hoover dam in the entire world. However, for fear of provoking the Chinese and Russians it was not demolished. In order to deprive the North Korean population of the 250,000 tons of rice that was to be harvested the USAF targeted its dams. In May 1953, soon after rice had been planted, three dams were hit by the USAF bombers. These were the Tukson, Chasan and Kuwonga dams. These were major dams. On May 13, 1953 fifty-nine bombers were used to breach the high wall of Toksan dam. The first breach at Toksan “scooped clean twenty-seven miles of river valley, and sent water gushing into Pyongyang.” The breach in Toksan generated a flood of onrushing water that destroyed “six miles of railway, five bridges, two miles of high way and five square miles of rice paddies.” After the war it took “200,000 man-days of labor to reconstruct the reservoir.”
Gen. William F. Dean was the highest ranking military officer (Major Gen.) to be captured by the North Koreans. When he was released from captivity he narrated that “the town of Huichon amazed me. The city I’d seen before – two-storied buildings, a prominent main street – wasn’t there any more.” Gen. Dean described “unocuupied shells” of “town after town, and villages where rubble or ‘snowy open spaces’ were all that remained.” The destruction caused by US. Bombing was total and ubiquitous. The Hungarian writer Tibor Meray told a Thames TV team: “I saw destruction and horrible things committed by American forces.” As he said:”Everything that moved in North Korea was a military target, peasants in the fields were often machine gunned by pilots who, this was my impression, amused themselves to shoot the targets which moved.” Such was the scale and nature of inhumanity of the Americans.
In his book Bruce Cummings has cited Meray, who arrived in Korea in August 1951 to witness “a complete devastation between the Yalu River and the capital” {Pyongyang). Meray states that there were just “no more cities in North Korea.” Because of continual bombing their party was compelled to travel by night. Meray states: “We traveled in moonlight, so my impression was that I am traveling on the moon, because there was only devastation . . . every city was a collection of chimneys. I don’t know why houses collapsed and chimneys did not, but I went through a city of 200,000 inhabitants and I saw thousands of chimneys and that – that was all.”
The absolute and inhuman and criminal destruction of North Korean cities has been concealed from the world and the insouciant U.S. public.
Such was the scale of barbarity and brutality of the U.S. forces that eighteen out of twenty two major cities of North Korea were obliterated. A partial table has been provided by Cumings. The percentage of destruction of seven cities has been given as follows: Pyongyang 75%, Chongjin 65%, Hamhung 80%, Hungnam 85%, Sinanju 100%, Sariwon 95%, and Wonsan 80%. Cumings quotes an official American history source: “So, we killed civilians, friendly civilians, and bombed their homes, fired whole villages with the occupants – women and children, and ten times as many hidden Communist soldiers – under showers of napalm, and the pilots came back to their ships stinking of vomit twisted from their vitals by the shock of what they had to do.”
On March 10, 1951 Gen. Douglas MacArthur requested “’D’ Day atomic capability” to retain air superiority in the war. The request was made in view of intelligence information that the Soviet Union was ready to move its air divisions into Manchuria, in the vicinity of Korea, coupled with the massing of huge Chinese forces near the Korean border . These Soviet air divisions could strike, not just targets in Korea, but also U.S. bases in Okinawa. By the end of March 1951, atomic bomb loading capabilities an air base in Okinawa wee operational. Around this time Gen. MacArthur was removed and in the ensuing confusion, an April 6 order of President Truman, ordering use of atomic weapons against Korean and Chinese targets was never transmitted! Reviewing A.B. Abram’s 2024 book Surviving the Unipolar Era, Richard C. Cook writes: “During the war, U.S. commander Douglas MacArthur recommended nuclear strikes against 26 Korean and Chinese targets. These were deterred by the Soviet Union’s possession of a nuclear strike capability that could be used against American East Asian bases. The Korean War also led China to believe it needed a nuclear deterrent against the U.S.”
Operation Hudson Harbor sought to establish the capability of using nuclear weapons in the battlefield in Korea. As late as September and October 1951 B-29 bombers were sent over Korea simulating atomic bomb runs. These planes were loaded with dummy A bombs or heavy TNT bombs. Thus, in 1951, the possibility of use of nuclear weapons in Korea was serious. The project seemed to indicate that nuclear weapons might not be useful simpy because timely identification of large numbers of enemy troops was extremely rare.
Cummings notes: ”But one can imagine the steel nerves required of leaders in Pyongyang, observing a lone B-29 simulating the attack lines that had resulted in the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki just six years earlier, each time unsure whether the bomb was real or dummy.”
In 1950 the total population of Korea was around 31.1 million. Of this 20 million resided in South Korea and the remaining 11.1 million in North Korea. A B Abrams pointsout that “Altogether, three to four million North Koreans died in the war, a number declared by many observers to be genocidal.” Additionally about six million became homeless. Thus about one third of the Korean population was either killed or became homeless. This massive human tragedy was caused by a power drunk, Malthusian and inhuman U.S. Establishment. The Anglo-American Establishment, working for the international banking families, is the greatest criminal and genocidal force in the entire annals of human history. Their crimes by far surpass any crimes against humanity committed by any other force in history.
The North Koreans have never bowed before the United States. They have survived the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, followed by disasters, likely US manipulated, that brought it to the brink of starvation. It has been a at war with the US and its lackeys for 75 years now because there never was a peace treaty and a state of war persists. Faced by persistent U.S. attempts to destroy it North Korea has developed massive underground fortifications and a deterrent capability of dropping H bombs on U.S. mainland. It has thus forced the U.S. to back down in its attempt to attack North Korea. Hats off to the leadership and people of North Korea.
Prepared and published by Godfree Roberts, for his substack
The Buddhist Monastery on Wei Shan
Part 1: Mao’s Struggle for Learning, Farm boy buys freedom.
Part 2: He Hu-tzu’s House.
In the evening we arrived at Wei Shan. As we approached, the uniform green background gradually resolved into trees surrounding the great white Buddhist temple. Soon, we reached its base and started up the slope.
At the gate, two monks emerged to welcome us and usher us into the building. They likely assumed we had traveled a great distance to worship Buddha. To avoid any misunderstanding, we explained that we had come to beg. They assured us, “Worshiping Buddha and begging are the same thing.” We didn’t grasp their meaning but supposed it stemmed from some deep philosophy—perhaps a corollary to Buddha’s teaching that all men are equal. Without questioning them, we followed through a second door into the inner courtyard, where about a hundred monks paced slowly back and forth.
We were given a room and encouraged to leave our bundles and bathe, an offer we gratefully accepted. When we returned, the monks urged us to burn incense to Buddha, but we clarified that we hadn’t come to worship. We explained that our purpose was to meet the Fangzhang, the abbot. They eyed our ragged begging attire skeptically and remarked that the Fangzhang didn’t receive just anyone. They added that we might see him during one of his famous dissertations. Undeterred, we insisted that we not only wanted to see him but to speak with him that very night. Our determination visibly impressed them, though they hesitated to disturb him without prior acquaintance. Finally, we persuaded them to deliver a carefully written note, signed by both of us. Within ten minutes, they returned to say the Fangzhang would be pleased to meet us at once and invited us to follow them to his room.
He was a man of about fifty, with a kind, distinguished face. The four walls of his room were lined with books—Buddhist scriptures and commentaries alongside the classics of Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu. On a table in the center of the large room stood only a tall vase of flowers and a low vase of orchids, nothing more. Though we couldn’t discuss Buddhist studies with him, we engaged in a fascinating hour-long conversation about the classics. The Fangzhang was delighted and invited us to share supper with him. Afterward, we returned to the main hall, where a large group of monks had gathered once more. Seeing us emerge from the Fangzhang’s room, where we had dined, they assumed we were guests of importance and rose to greet us.
To be friends of the Fangzhang, they reasoned, we must be eminent scholars and first-class calligraphers. They asked us to inscribe words on their fans and scrolls as keepsakes, keeping us busy until nearly midnight. The next morning, as we spoke of leaving, the monks relayed that the Fangzhang wished us to stay a few days and visit him again that afternoon. In the meantime, they showed us the vegetable garden, the expansive kitchen, the refectory, and other parts of the monastery. Gardeners, cooks, water carriers—all the workers were monks.
When we returned to the Fangzhang’s room that afternoon, he received us warmly once more. This time, he seemed intent on discussing “business.” In a gentle manner, he extolled Buddhism’s virtues, aiming to spark our interest in religion. Though uninterested in religious debate, we listened politely, careful not to signal agreement or dissent. We let him speak. When he mentioned Confucius and Lao Tzu, we found familiar ground and shared our views. But our true curiosity lay not in Buddhism itself but in the Buddhist organization in China. We began asking questions.
“How many monks live here?” we inquired.
“About a hundred reside here permanently,” he replied. “But with visitors from distant regions, we often host three or four hundred at once. Visiting monks typically stay a few days before moving on. Years ago, we had as many as eight hundred—the record since the monastery’s founding, though that was before my time.”
“How is it,” Mao asked, “that monks from provinces thousands of kilometers away come here? What do they do?”
“They come to hear talks on the scriptures and receive religious instruction,” the Fangzhang explained. “The Fangzhangs of this monastery have long been renowned for their explanations and commentaries. We’re wealthy enough to provide travelers with board and lodging for days. Monks across China know this place. As you’re aware, monks are ‘people who have abandoned their homes,’ so all Buddhist temples and monasteries are their homes, visited in turn for instruction.”
“How many monks are there in China?” I asked.
“There are no exact statistics,” he continued. “Excluding Mongolia and Tibet, there must be at least ten thousand in China proper. Including those regions, where the ratio of monks is extremely high, there could be ten million or more.”
“And how many centers of instruction like Wei Shan exist in China?” I pressed.
“There must be at least a hundred like this,” he said, “and counting smaller ones, perhaps a thousand altogether.”
“Are Buddhist books published?” Mao asked.
“Yes, indeed, many—especially in centers like Shanghai, Nanjing, Hangzhou, and Xingto.”
“We’re considering visiting other major Buddhist monasteries,” I explained. “Could you write us letters of introduction?”
“That’s unnecessary,” he replied. “You’ll be welcomed everywhere just as you are here.”
We thanked him and mentioned our plan to leave the next day. He said it was our choice but wished to see us again before we departed. Since we wanted to start early, we thanked him once more and bid farewell. In the main hall, the monks stood to greet us again. Knowing we’d leave in the morning, they requested verses and inscriptions as mementos. Crowding around with their requests, we obliged as best we could. Some monks wrote beautifully formed characters themselves and were visibly surprised by Mao Tse-Tung’s coarse handwriting. We sat at two small writing tables, initially surrounded by monks, but soon they all drifted to me, leaving Mao without further customers.
Among them were five boys of about fourteen. One, Fa Yi, I remember fondly to this day. At fifteen, he had remarkable command of language for his age, and his calligraphy was exquisite. From our arrival, he seemed drawn to us, seizing every chance to talk. He couldn’t recall where he’d come from or his name before becoming a monk, only that he’d arrived at the monastery as a year-old baby. We guessed he was an illegitimate child raised by the monks—a common practice in China. Teasingly, I said I saw a resemblance to Mao Tse-Tung; he retorted that he undoubtedly had my features.
Fa Yi longed to study beyond Buddhist scriptures—Confucius, Tang Dynasty poems, and more. He could already recite several Tang poems. At first, we suggested he leave his secluded life for the wider world. Eager yet fearful, he knew no other home and owned nothing. “Why not live like us,” we asked, “traveling freely without money, with just one change of clothes?” This struck him, but as he wavered, we worried he might try to escape and follow us, risking the Fangzhang’s blame. So young, we shifted tack, urging him to study hard among the educated monks and stay put. That night, I wrote him several verses in my finest calligraphy as a keepsake.
At dawn, Mao and I left the monastery and descended the mountainside. Fa Yi accompanied us to the base, shedding bitter tears as we parted. Poor, delicate Fa Yi! Pitiful Fa Yi!
A masterful historical exposition – both geopolitical and eschatological, providing context to the ongoing holocaust of the Arabs, and anticipatory of the next events.
If you can, download as MP3 and speed up to 3.0x for Imran Hosein and 2.4x speed for Dr. Olsi. Highly recommended for both their two lecture parts, and the following interactive Q & As.
Imran Hosein starts after 40 min, discussing:
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