“It’s not that there aren’t a lot of good people still in this nation, but most of them, especially the Christian churches have bought into the idea that we have to support government no matter what they do. Only people like pastor Chuck Baldwin have the courage to stand up and say ‘no,’ that you have to fight against this establishment system. You don’t have to obey government to be obeying God.”
Category: Joel Skousen Page 8 of 19
World Affairs Brief, April 6, 2018 Commentary and Insights on a Troubled World.
Copyright Joel Skousen. Partial quotations with attribution permitted. Cite source as Joel Skousen’s World Affairs Brief (http://www.worldaffairsbrief.com).
[…]
“Q” THE PRETENDED INSIDER
I often get asked my opinion of Qnon or Q who claims to be an insider. But as I’ve read his cryptic and unclear messages, I get the feeling he is just playing with conservatives, and laughing at them for believing him. His worst claim, which never fails to entice conservatives, is that Trump is preparing something really big, in combination with some good guys inside the government to kill the Deep State. This is akin to what another phony “insider,” Steve Pieczenick has claimed, and it’s always false.
Joel Skousen on Trump:
“He values having a deal, rather than standing on principle.”
Transcribed by Jeff Fenske from The Jeff Rense Show 3/14/18
“So how do you protect schools against government black operations? You see, there is no defense against that. Taking the guns away from innocent civilians isn’t going to help that. And of course, this is the incremental approach.”
“This is a fools paradise to think that gun control [will solve] this issue.”
– Joel Skousen
Transcribed by Jeff Fenske from The Jeff Rense Show 3/14/18
World Affairs Brief, March 2, 2018 Commentary and Insights on a Troubled World.
Copyright Joel Skousen. Partial quotations with attribution permitted. Cite source as Joel Skousen’s World Affairs Brief (http://www.world affairsbrief.com).
[…]
RUSSIA CLAIMS NEW MILITARY CAPABILITIES
In a major speech that has both domestic and international ramifications for Vladimir Putin, who will seek a fourth term in the upcoming controlled election, the Russian president outlined the latest Russian offensive weapons that are directly aimed at countering US claims of military superiority. The UK Guardian had this summary:
Speaking in a nationally televised address to the country’s political elite weeks before a presidential election, the president showed video and animations of ICBMs, nuclear-powered cruise missiles, underwater drones and other weapons that he said Russia had developed as a result of the US pulling out of the 1972 anti-ballistic missile treaty signed with the Soviet Union.
Leave it to the Russians, who have cheated on every disarmament treaty, to bring up the ABM treaty—which was a major mistake for the US when it was signed. Only the Soviets had significant ABMs at the time and they didn’t want the US developing new ones. The US did develop sophisticated anti-ballistic missiles after backing out of the treaty, but they were woefully flawed by design, having no explosive warheads, and being few in number. The US uses “kinetic” kill vehicles—large pointed hunks of depleted Uranium—that must make physical contact with an incoming warhead. This is nearly impossible with the new class of maneuvering hypersonic warheads and missiles Russia and China are developing.
Putin issued a message of defiance. “I would like to tell those who have been trying to escalate the arms race for the past 15 years, to gain unilateral advantages over Russia, and to impose restrictions and sanctions … The attempt at curbing Russia has failed,” he said.
Yes, it has, but, in fact, Russian rearmament and modernization has been going on for over a decade and no one in the media has given it any notice until Russia came to the aid of Syria and blocked US intervention there. Russian advancements in weaponry have always been aided and abetted by globalists going back to the Wilson, FDR and Truman administrations, which gave aid to the Russian Revolution (in gold), transferred nuclear weapons plans to Russia and even gave them their first load of enriched uranium to facilitate Russia’s first atomic weapon. Here’s the current evidence of recent technology transfers to the Russians by Hillary Clinton donors that may have contributed to the development of these hypersonic weapons.
World Affairs Brief, February 9, 2018 Commentary and Insights on a Troubled World.
Copyright Joel Skousen. Partial quotations with attribution permitted. Cite source as Joel Skousen’s World Affairs Brief (http://www.worldaffairsbrief.com).
CHINA MILITARIZATION OF SOUTH CHINA SEA REEFS ALMOST COMPLETE
Trump is turning out to be all talk and no action when it comes to China’s aggressive policy of building military facilities on a series of coral reefs in territory claimed by the Philippines. All of the larger islands are already claimed and so to advance China’s “String of Pearls” policy of establishing naval and air bases surrounding Chinese waters, China has taken to expanding unwanted reefs and barely visible sea mounts in order to expand its military bases without directly taking land in use by others.
It’s an insidious and devious tactic that allows China maximum leverage without directly challenging existing land claims. While the Philippines do claim the area, they’ve never done anything with these heretofore “useless” mini-islands. In an in-depth report, complete with extensive photographs, the Inquirer.net documents that China has almost finished transforming seven reefs claimed by the Philippines in the Spratly archipelago into island fortresses, “in a bid to dominate the heavily disputed South China Sea.” I’ll summarize the main points, but encourage everyone to go to the article to see the pictures.
World Affairs Brief, February 9, 2018 Commentary and Insights on a Troubled World.
Copyright Joel Skousen. Partial quotations with attribution permitted. Cite source as Joel Skousen’s World Affairs Brief (http://www.worldaffairsbrief.com).
[…]
Trump Meets With Kissinger Again: Trump tweeted Thursday that he was meeting with globalist Henry Kissinger (again) to discuss North Korea, China, and the Middle East. That can’t be good, especially since Trump is susceptible to his points of view. Surprisingly, on North Korea, Kissinger is suggesting what appears to be a tough line:
Kissinger has been vocal in recent days about various world issues. Last month, he said if North Korea is allowed to keep its nuclear weapons, other nations will seek them too as a way “for achieving international prominence and the upper hand.”
World Affairs Brief, February 9, 2018 Commentary and Insights on a Troubled World.
Copyright Joel Skousen. Partial quotations with attribution permitted. Cite source as Joel Skousen’s World Affairs Brief (http://www.worldaffairsbrief.com).
[…]
FDA War on Homeopathics: Not only has Trump NOT drained the swamp, but he has placed people in power that are actually making many things worse. He appointed Scott Gottlieb to be the Commissioner of the FDA. Gottlieb is deep into the medical establishment through his career and government service, consulting with and serving on many boards of Pharmaceutical companies. He’s a big promoter of an increased federal role in the opioid addiction and overdose problem, while not restricting access.
Thus it is little wonder that he unveiled a policy recently to declare homeopathic medicine as “drugs,” and declare them a danger to health. This is patently false, especially compared to approved pharmaceutical drugs authorized by the FDA—many of which have lethal side effects for some people. Joe Jarvis of the Daily Bell had an excellent essay on Homeopathics vs. drugs and the FDA.
World Affairs Brief, February 9, 2018 Commentary and Insights on a Troubled World.
Copyright Joel Skousen. Partial quotations with attribution permitted. Cite source as Joel Skousen’s World Affairs Brief (http://www.worldaffairsbrief.com).
REPUBLICANS CAVE ON BUDGET DEAL
The Republican leadership finally gave up any pretense of fiscal responsibility Thursday after RINO Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell forged a budget deal with Democrat Chuck Schumer that abandons all of the previous spending caps that have partially limited government spending for the past two years. President Trump thinks it is “wonderful” and House Speaker Paul Ryan pushed through this new spending bill in the House that will raise the deficit by almost a trillion dollars over the next two years. This follows in the footsteps of back-to-back Obama Administration trillion dollar deficits that Republicans loudly condemned. A fully predictable consequence of this unwise compromise is that it will help Democrats blame the growing deficit on the Trump tax cut rather than their own participation in this increased spending bill. In the House, among Republicans, only the Freedom Caucus block of 30 conservatives opposed the bill and pointed out the obvious—that this only accelerates the road to national insolvency, when in the future, all US revenues will be needed just to pay the interest on the national debt.
Here’s what’s in the Senate deal….
The Senate was expected to pass this vote on Thursday, but Sen. Rand Paul, who is vehemently opposed to this removal of the current spending caps refused to allow a vote. Under Senate rules, all 100 senators must agree to hold a vote, if it violates mandatory time limits for consideration of a bill. Without unanimous consent, the vote could only occur on Friday at 1 a.m. Senators excoriated Paul for standing on principle, saying he was just wasting their time in forcing them to wait until after the midnight deadline. Paul responded that he was elected to stop this kind of spending and that he wouldn’t add his name to the yes list under any circumstances. Bravo! …
World Affairs Brief, February 2, 2018 Commentary and Insights on a Troubled World.
Copyright Joel Skousen. Partial quotations with attribution permitted. Cite source as Joel Skousen’s World Affairs Brief (http://www.worldaffairsbrief.com).
[…]
LAS VEGAS SHOOTING COVER-UP CONTINUES
Several stories emerged this week as the official version blaming Stephen Paddock for the mass shooting continues to unravel. The first shows how Paddock was manipulated into that particular wing where Dark Side agents would do some of the shooting, and set him up as the patsy.
The Intelhub reported that Stephen Paddock requested a Vista Suite located on a non-specified floor in the southeast wing of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino before he was internally reassigned, later placed into room 32-135 against his initial request. The 235 Vista Suite he originally requested is located in the southeast wing of the hotel which would have given the accused shooter virtually no tactical view of the festival and simply defies all logic. If Paddock had gone to the hotel with the intent to shoot at the festival he would have requested the wing they eventually assigned him to, but he did not, which proves he didn’t come with the intent to kill.
The Intelhub also reports that sources have divulged that the FBI was present on the 32nd-floor prior to the shooting in the room next to where Paddock was assigned. They ask, “Was [this] room the room occupied at the time of the shooting and if so was the occupant or occupants struck by gunfire? These are all important questions to ask.”
As a more important issue of non-transparency and cover-up, the Clark County Coroner’s report has finally been released, and predictably it tells us nothing about the bullets that were found in the bodies—neither the number nor caliber. That’s telling because a shooting autopsy will always have that information. Police usually follow up with a trace of the bullet to match the weapon used. These glaring omissions are meant to hide the fact that different bullet calibers were found and that none of the bullets probably would match the weapons found in Paddock’s room. There were only a handful of spent cartridges in his room, so he couldn’t have been the only shooter even if he was involved.
According to Zerohedge.com, The Coroner’s office also told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that the autopsy report of Stephen Paddock wouldn’t be released until it was “finalized.” “The coroner’s office has fought to keep autopsy reports confidential,” according to the the Review-Journal. It’s difficult to imagine what component of the autopsy could, at this point, be left unfinished; after all, Paddock’s body was destroyed weeks ago [unless they were trying to cover something up].
World Affairs Brief, December 22, 2017 Commentary and Insights on a Troubled World.
Copyright Joel Skousen. Partial quotations with attribution permitted. Cite source as Joel Skousen’s World Affairs Brief (http://www.worldaffairsbrief.com).
Beware of Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies:
One has to wonder why the US government has seized and destroyed every private gold backed currency that has tried to give citizens honest money. And yet when a purely fiat digital currency emerges, they leave it untouched. In fact, it has long been known that the NSA had a role in developing the theory behind them, as Natural News points out. I don’t agree with all Mike Adam’s hyped up conclusions, but whatever the Deep State helps create (Google, Facebook, etc.) you can bet there’s a surveillance aspect to it.
NSA mathematicians detailed “digital cash” two decades ago… First, take a look at this document entitled, “How to make a mint: The cryptography of anonymous electronic cash.” This document, released in 1997 — yes, twenty years ago — detailed the overall structure and function of Bitcoin cryptocurrency.
Who authored the document? Try not to be shocked when you learn it was authored by “mathematical cryptographers at the National Security Agency’s Office of Information Security Research and Technology.”
The NSA, in other words, detailed key elements of Bitcoin long before Bitcoin ever came into existence. Much of the Bitcoin protocol is detailed in this document, including signature authentication techniques, eliminating cryptocoin counterfeits through transaction authentication and several features that support anonymity and untraceability of transactions. The document even outlines the heightened risk of money laundering that’s easily accomplished with cryptocurrencies. It also describes “secure hashing” to be “both one-way and collision-free.”
Although Bitcoin adds mining and a shared, peer-to-peer blockchain transaction authentication system to this structure, it’s clear that the NSA was researching cryptocurrencies long before everyday users had ever heard of the term. Note, too, that the name of the person credited with founding Bitcoin is Satoshi Nakamoto, who is reputed to have reserved one million Bitcoins for himself. Millions of posts and online threads discuss the possible identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, and some posts even claim the NSA has identified Satoshi. However, another likely explanation is that Satoshi Nakamoto is the NSA, which means he is either working for the NSA [or] is a sock puppet character created by the NSA for the purpose of this whole grand experiment. The NSA also wrote the crypto hash used by Bitcoin to secure all transactions
People ignorantly have jumped on speculative bandwagons like these which make blockchain creators very wealthy, but they also lose their passwords. Some of the early investors have lost speculative fortunes that way. Most of the recent speculative rise in Bitcoin have come from Asians thinking they are getting away from controlled fiat home currencies, but cryptocurrencies are the mother of all fiat money and will eventually collapse. Today Bitcoin just lost over a third of its inflated value. Above all remember this warning: when the internet suddenly goes down in the next war, how will you retrieve your value and convert Bitcoins back to anything tangible?
No wonder classical music played today often feels revolting and disturbing. The Talmudic destruction of our culture!
Joel Skousen writes in World Affairs Brief, 12/8/17:
The Met’s James Levine Also Charged for Sexual Perversion.
Maestro Levine, the longest standing director of the Metropolitan Opera was also removed from all association with the Opera due to longstanding charges of pedophilia with young boys. The Met has been suffering from declining financial support for many years and this latest problem is bound to exacerbate future contributions—in large part because “everybody knew” about Levine’s “teen boy” proclivity and yet no one at the Met would dare confront it until now.
• • •
…now the Met — the nation’s largest performing arts organization and one of the world’s most prestigious opera houses — finds itself in the position that Hollywood studios, television networks and newsrooms have confronted in recent weeks, answering questions about what it knew about allegations of sexual misconduct against one of its stars, and what actions it did and did not take.
Met Opera Suspends James Levine After New Sexual Abuse Accusations
World Affairs Brief, October 6, 2017 Commentary and Insights on a Troubled World.
Copyright Joel Skousen. Partial quotations with attribution permitted. Cite source as Joel Skousen’s World Affairs Brief (http://www.worldaffairsbrief.com).
This Week’s Analysis:
Las Vegas Mass Shooting—Detailed Analysis
Trump Says Tillerson “Wasting Time” with North Korea
News Shorts:
Marseilles Terrorist had 7 Identities
Brexit in Turmoil
Secret Spy Towers in New York Put in Place by MTA
Trump Talks Debt Forgiveness for Puerto Rico
Preparedness Tip: Putting the Garden to Bed
LAS VEGAS MASS SHOOTING—DETAILED ANALYSIS
All of the modern high profile mass shootings of innocent people at schools, movie theaters or concerts have been engineered by government black operations, either using controlled terrorists, mercenaries or unstable youths under the influence of mood altering drugs and hypnosis. Even the most hardened criminals don’t use automatic weapons to shoot hundreds of people.
World Affairs Brief, September 15, 2017 Commentary and Insights on a Troubled World.
Copyright Joel Skousen. Partial quotations with attribution permitted. Cite source as Joel Skousen’s World Affairs Brief (http://www.worldaffairsbrief.com).
This Week’s Analysis:
9/11 Revisited—The Latest Analysis
Trump Sells Out on Immigration
China Warns Trump Against Preemptive Strike on NK
9/11 REVISITED–THE LATEST ANALYSIS
As another anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks passes, the official version continues to be drummed into the American psyche, even though it is almost totally untrue. The attack on 9/11 was a carefully planned government black operation, with a corresponding cover-up of the mountains of evidence that only point to government control and involvement throughout the attack. Fortunately, the 9/11 truth movement is now led intellectually by scientists and other professionals, as shown by the emergence of various organizations, including Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, Firefighters for 9/11 Truth, Pilots for 9/11 Truth, Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice (which includes scientists), Veterans for 9/11 Truth, and the Scientific Panel to Investigate 9/11. The movement also includes several former intelligence officers. Thanks to these professionals, the evidence that the official story is false is now overwhelming. The only problem is to get people to look at the evidence. Once they are willing to do this, they quickly see that the official story simply cannot be true. This week, I’ll review the latest evidence and analysis in the hopes that it will provide you with the means of convincing others about how powerful and dangerous the Deep State really is. Of course, the Deep State is still with us, despite having elected Donald Trump who promised to “drain the swamp,” so this isn’t some past or idle threat.
About 3340 people died in this attack, including 343 firefighters and police who were trapped in the buildings when they were demolished by explosives. Many firefighters are angry that Mayor Rudolph Giuliani knew the towers was going to collapse and didn’t warn those inside to get out. He claimed “no one can possible expect that airplanes would hit the towers,” which wasn’t true at all. The level of death was more than the 2400 that died at Pearl Harbor, another government-created attack, induced by a six point plan by the Roosevelt Administration to provoke Japan into attacking the US (see Robert Stinnett’s book: Day of Deceit).
The more you learn about the 9/11 attack, the more you will be astounded by the level of conspiracy and coordination it took to pull this off and silence witnesses and participants. None of these things could have been done by foreign terrorists, or anyone else except people with access to government power, including:
● Radio-controlled demolition charges loaded into the 3 WTC buildings in the months prior
● Military exercises planned to make sure fighter interceptors were not available and to confuse military radar operators with tens of simulated planes on their screens
● Planes were swapped for highly modified airline drones
● Radio transmissions by “hijackers” not on planes were created to confuse ATC
● Passenger and flight attendant cell phone calls were staged after planes landed.
● Photographic evidence of passengers boarding the planes were hidden and faked tapes created of terrorists going through security.
● Warnings were given to select insiders to avoid flying on that day.
● Certain insiders with advance knowledge shorted airline stocks.
● All private security camera footage of the Pentagon attack were confiscated within minutes and the Pentagon parking lot video was edited before being leaked.
● Passengers from the each flight were ultimately taken away and eliminated.
● All of the aircraft themselves continued to fly in the airline system after the attack.
● Black boxes were hidden away and replacements falsified to create false recordings data.
● No aircraft part or black box serial numbers were used to track provenance of crash parts
● Replacement photo I.D’s and passports of hijackers were planted at crash sites.
I love Ron Paul — having 900 Ron Paul posts here!! But Joel Skousen would completely disagree with what Ron says @ 12:02:
“The invasion by a foreign power to destroy our liberty is not going to come in our lifetime.”
Joel shows how Russia/China will be completely ready by about 2023, but they could do it sooner. They’ll probably EMP US, and nuke only the military bases, which are EMP hardened, according to Joel. Many have had dreams of Russia and/or China nuking US too.
Joel has been against all of our reverse-Christian wars. This time though, he actually believes we should take out North Korea’s ability to attack US while we still have the chance, before Russia and China can use North Korea as the “trigger” and excuse to then bomb, bomb, bomb America.
Amazingly, Joel has been saying for many years that North Korea will be the globalists’ trigger, the perfect excuse for Russia and China to then take US out, after we attack Korea.
I don’t like the idea of preemptive war myself. We do have anti-missile missiles that can take out North Korea’s. Couldn’t that be good enough to protect US?
Russia and China’s nukes are maneuverable though, so we cannot stop them. They have state-of-the art everything, while we’re sitting ducks doing almost nothing to defend US.
It seems to me that protecting our power grid from an EMP should be our top priority, which could postpone the coming invasion. The cost has been said to only be the price of one stealth bomber, about $2 billion, which is peanuts.
Even a strong magnetic storm on the sun could take out our power for about a year. 90% of all Americans would die, the experts predict.
The media ignores this, and hardly any of the truthers even talk about hardening the grid (including Joel, surprisingly), which is probably our #1 threat, and would be easy and inexpensive to fix.
How can Ron Paul say an invasion is not going to happen in our lifetime, perhaps because he’s 82? Ron is so awesome, but I don’t know how he can be so ignorant of Russia and China’s preparations to take US out so overwhelmingly, that we may not even respond at all — due to PDD 60 especially, which Trump could rescind with the stoke of his pen.
Power to the Peaceful!
‘Christians’ in America should have humbly hit the floor on their knees long ago, following the HOLY Spirit instead of FOX News, the war channel.
Instead, most evangelicals continue to support the Zionist neocon, power-over-others agenda without ever admitting they were wrong, helping to take out the countries that would oppose the one-world government, including US.
What we’ve been doing to others will happen to US!
We even nuked Japan while they were trying to surrender. FDR baited Japan to invade Pearl Harbor with the 8-step, covert plan, proven by James Perloff, who shows that virtually all of our wars were immoral, and have been false flag driven.
We can’t continue to be cold hearted and not suffer the consequences — as America falls into decadence. Only people of high moral character can keep a nation strong to survive.
Much of the world now sees the US as the bully, and will cheer when Russia and China take US out, sadly.
Jeff
– –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JagZ4CvxIyg
World Affairs Brief, September 1, 2017 Commentary and Insights on a Troubled World.
Copyright Joel Skousen. Partial quotations with attribution permitted. Cite source as Joel Skousen’s World Affairs Brief (http://www.worldaffairsbrief.com).
This Week’s Analysis:
US Arms Pipeline to Terrorists Uncovered
NK Continues to Provoke
Nevada Jury Refuses to Convict 4 Bundy Defendants
Hurricane Harvey and Government Bailouts
Judges Blocking Trump when Congress Can’t
Preparedness Tip: The Basics of Sprouting
US ARMS PIPELINE TO TERRORISTS UNCOVERED
I and others have long claimed that the US secretly armed ISIS along with other falsely labeled “moderates” in Syria and elsewhere. Now, we know how they do it. The Deep State took advantage of the phoney fall of the Soviet Union to make deals with former Soviet states to buy Soviet-era arms and ship them to terrorist organizations under Deep State control. The Russian arms made sure it wasn’t obvious that terrorists were being armed by the West. The dark side of the CIA bought weapons from Bulgaria and other former Soviet states and then shipped them to terrorist destinations using the little known national airline of Azerbaijan–Silk Way Airlines. To make sure the arms were not traceable, Azerbaijan agreed to put each flight under the cover of diplomatic immunity—a violation of international law. Now, due to the heroic efforts of one investigative journalist from Bulgaria, a woman, this complex scheme has been uncovered. For her efforts she has now been fired as a reporter.
Dilyana Gaytandzhieva was a Bulgarian investigative journalist working in Syria were she uncovered and filmed nine underground warehouses “full of heavy weapons with Bulgaria as their country of origin.” After investigating she was shocked to find they were transported under diplomatic cover. Not only were arms being shipped to Syria, but also Afghanistan, Pakistan (to arm the Taliban) and even African countries like the Congo.
The only other US-based news source that is covering this story besides the WAB is 21st CenturyWire. Now RT, and the Activist Post have also picked it up. 21stCentury Wire gave this introduction and they had a few interesting points to make:
To his credit, Trump is still willing to stand up against the destruction of Confederate monuments. Yesterday he said that he was ‘sad’ about the removal of ‘our beautiful statues.’ This, of course, led to even more outright attack pieces on Trump from the Washington Post and NY Times, who have lost all pretensions to neutrality. This ought to convince those few conservative pundits who continue to claim that Trump is a globalist plant within the movement. But it won’t, even though there is no longer a shred of evidence of that. I can tell you that they would never be treating one of their puppets like this—ever.
– Joel Skousen from Charlottesville Protests and the Obliteration of History, World Affairs Brief, August 18, 2017
World Affairs Brief, August 11, 2017 Commentary and Insights on a Troubled World.
Copyright Joel Skousen. Partial quotations with attribution permitted. Cite source as Joel Skousen’s World Affairs Brief (http://www.worldaffairsbrief.com).
This Week’s Analysis:
Trump’s Red Line on North Korea
Korean Military Forces: The Matchup
Will There be War with North Korea?
Trump Disappoints Congressional Republicans
The McMaster Controversy
Russian Hack was Physically Impossible over Internet
Preparedness Tip: Best Rechargeable Batteries
[…]
RUSSIAN HACK WAS PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE OVER INTERNET
There were two fascinating stories relative to the false intelligence about the Russians hacking into the DNC email server in order to meddle in the US election. First the very credible Veteran Intelligent Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) ran an in-depth article on “New forensic studies that challenge the claim of the key Jan. 6 assessment that Russia hacked Democratic emails last year.” The key finding is this:
July 5, 2016: In the early evening, Eastern Daylight Time, someone working in the EDT time zone with a computer directly connected to the DNC server or DNC Local Area Network, copied 1,976 MegaBytes of data in 87 seconds onto an external storage device. That speed is much faster than what is physically possible with a hack.
Read the executive summary and their letter to President Trump explaining their findings here.
In another blockbuster story spiked by the mainstream media, a Russian hacker in prison in Poland has revealed that the CIA tried to bribe him to admit that he hacked into the DNC. He refused and is still in prison for it. The Gateway Pundit has the story:
Russian hacker Yevgeny Nikulin claims the FBI offered him money and citizenship if he would accept responsibility for the Clinton email cyberattacks. Nikulin is currently being held at Prague’s Pankrac prison. He claims Comey’s FBI offered him citizenship and a free apartment for taking the fall over hacking Podesta’s emails. Ray Starrman has more details at US Defense Watch.
World Affairs Brief, August 11, 2017 Commentary and Insights on a Troubled World.
Copyright Joel Skousen. Partial quotations with attribution permitted. Cite source as Joel Skousen’s World Affairs Brief (http://www.worldaffairsbrief.com).
This Week’s Analysis:
Trump’s Red Line on North Korea
Korean Military Forces: The Matchup
Will There be War with North Korea?
Trump Disappoints Congressional Republicans
The McMaster Controversy
Russian Hack was Physically Impossible over Internet
Preparedness Tip: Best Rechargeable Batteries
[…]
KOREAN MILITARY FORCES: THE MATCH UP
In terms of ground troops, the United States has 28,500 troops in South Korea but only about 15,000 of those are combat troops. That’s not nearly enough to combat NK’s estimated 100,000 troops, 70% of which are stationed on or near the DMZ, housed in hardened bunker type living quarters. South Korea’s armed forces number approximately 50,000 personnel. SK has universal military service and is considered well trained. The US also has about 28,000 troops in South Korea and 39,000 combat troops in Okinawa, Japan—almost 14,000 of which are Marines.
However, the key to any military plan’s success lies in pre-emptively striking NK’s offensive capability first and then preparing to attack the men and equipment it will use in the expected retaliation. That can only be done quickly and effectively with air power and missiles.
A proper pre-emptive strike on NK would involve cruise missile attacks on NK’s 15 combat airfields, 11 of which are for fighter aircraft. NK has some obsolete Mig 15, 17 and 19 aircraft but the bulk of its fighter force is composed of 150 Mig-21’s which have limited combat capabilities against the hundreds of modern F-16, and F-15 fighters manned by South Korea. NK only has 40 modern Mig-29 aircraft which have long range missile combat capabilities.
The US also has two major air bases in South Korea, Osan where the 7th Air Force is located and Kunsan Airbase where the 8th fighter wing is located. The 7th AF has modern versions of the F-16 and the venerable A-10 attack aircraft—the best ground attack aircraft in the world. The Marines also have 8 F-35s in the country which are the most capable aircraft in the world at tracking and attacking multiple targets at long distances.
Even with all that modern capability, it would probably take a week or two of intensive aerial combat to gain air superiority over Korean skies because of the high number of NK aircraft. That time could be reduced significantly if enough destruction is aimed at NK airfields in the first pre-emptive strike. That would be accomplished first by a surprise wave of cruise missile strikes, and followed up by high altitude bombing by B-52, and B-1 bombers, which can carry much more total destructive power than cruise missiles. In the US attack on the Syrian air base, almost 20% of the Tomahawk missiles missed their target and the air base was back in operation within a week, so cruise missiles are a costly and not completely effective solution.
In order to counter NK’s significant retaliatory capability, the US and South Korea would have to intensively target and destroy NK’s artillery and rocket units, numbering some 20k tubes in total, plus a number of 240 and 300mm rocket launchers within range of the South Korean capital of Seoul. Having the nation’s capitol within range gives NK’s artillery a decided advantage since attack is almost instantaneous.
NK has an estimated 12,000 pieces of tube artillery and 2,300 pieces of multiple launch rocket artillery. The majority of tube artillery are 122mm, 130mm, 152mm and 170mm units, and their rocket launchers are either 240mm or 300mm units.
While many of those artillery pieces are relatively unprotected near the DMZ, a large number of the long-range self-propelled 122mm and 170mm pieces as well as rocket launchers are dug into the north side of the mountain ranges where they can emerge to shoot and then duck back into their tunnels for protection. The US can only counter this threat after air superiority is reached when they can keep constant combat patrols circling overhead ready to attack them when they emerge.
As for smaller and more numerous artillery batteries near the DMZ, there are simply too many targets for an effective pre-emptive strike, even with all the military capability of the USA, so the US and SK would have to rely on carpet bombing of artillery rich areas once they start firing, as well as counter-artillery batteries to take them out over time. Counter-artillery batteries have precise radar tracking technology that can pinpoint the origin of an artillery shell and take out the unit doing the firing—but it’s a slow, time-consuming process to eliminate thousands of units.
But it must be done. If allowed to fire uninhibited for even an hour or two, these artillery forces can reap a lot of destruction on Seoul, which is filled with glass commercial buildings in the central district.