Well-worth viewing. Shows Trump has a plan and it looks good. I would add that Israel’s constant disruptions of the Middle East may also be coming to an end, and may also be part of Trump’s plan. He gave Bibi what Bibi wanted, or thought he wanted, but the result appears to be a degradation of Israel’s status and possibly the end of their Greater Israel fantasies. ABN
President Trump’s latest two messages via Truth Social present an interesting geopolitical approach with multiple enmeshed aspects.
First, some background context is needed. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and USTR Jamieson Greer are in Paris to meet with Chinese government officials ahead of a scheduled meeting between Chairman Xi Jinping and President Trump.
The main objective of the pre-summit assembly before President Trump goes to Beijing, is to hammer out the actionable agreement details that can be signed off by Xi and Trump. Bessent and Greer are looking to put a deal together with their Chinese counterparts so that Trump and Xi can announce mutually beneficial outcomes during their summit.
Second, President Trump has already indicated the March 31/April 1 meeting with Xi will be all business. The traditional pomp and splendor will not be present, and Trump will only be visiting Beijing – no sidelines.
Third, Secretary Rubio will be accompanying Trump on this trip to Beijing, which might seem ordinary were it not for the fact that in 2020 China sanctioned and banned Rubio from entering China for criticizing Xinjiang and Hong Kong.
Fourth, there are rumors that President Trump is going to announce a significant weapons deal with Taiwan at some point immediately following the trip. If those rumors are true, it would be a top priority for the Chinese advance team in Paris to stop that from happening.
Regardless of what happens in the next few weeks, President Trump will be meeting with Chairman Xi with full Eagle eye confrontation toward the returning dragon stare. There will be no panda mask on this trip whatsoever; this face to face is an apex predator showdown, while the world watches intently.Everything President Trump does between now and his arrival in Beijing, should be contemplated through this adversarial position. With strong moves in Venezuela and Iran President Trump has already pulled Chairman Xi into the jianshu1circle, showing the soul of his blade.
There’s a lot of talk about the Marines taking Kharg Island.
But the truth is the USS Tripoli, an America-class amphibious assault ship that carries the embarked 31st MEU, can’t get anywhere near the island—the Strait of Hormuz is closed.
To even try and enter the Persian Gulf is the kind of suicidal venture former Marine Commandant, General David Berger, warned about in his 2019 Commandants Planning Guidance, where he noted that “our Nation’s ability to project power and influence beyond its shores is increasingly challenged by long-range precision fires; expanding air, surface, and sub-surface threats; and the continued degradation of our amphibious and auxiliary ship readiness. The ability to project and maneuver from strategic distances will likely be detected and contested from the point of embarkation during a major contingency…it would be illogical to continue to concentrate our forces on a few large ships. The adversary will quickly recognize that striking while concentrated (aboard ship) is the preferred option.”
And yet here we are, seven years later, a prisoner of legacy doctrine and systems.
If Marines are to attempt to take Kharg Island, it will have to be an assault launched from ashore, not from the sea. Marines and their Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft will need to deploy to Kuwait or Bahrain, both of which are currently under attack from Iranian missiles and drones, and from their attempt an air assault.
If this sounds familiar, it’s because in May 1975, US Marines carried out a similar vertical envelopment on Koh Tang island in the Gulf of Thailand. Conceived as a rescue mission to free US merchant marine sailors taken prisoner by the Khmer Rouge, the Marines instead found no prisoners, but lots of dug in Khmer Rouge fighters who ended up shooting down three of the eleven helicopters used in the initial landing, and heavily damaging five others. In the end, 38 Marines and US Air Force personnel were killed, and another 50 killed before the Marines had to be extracted under heavy fire. In the confusion of the final evacuation, three Marines were left on the island, and were subsequently captured and executed by the Khmer Rouge.
Any attempt to land Marines on Kharg Island will end in a disaster that would make Koh Tang island look like child’s play.
General David Berger knew this.
I wonder what the current Commandant, General Eric Smith, has to say about this? Back in 1990 the Marine Corps Commandant, General Al Gray, formed an ad hoc planning cell to challenge the plans being put together by General Norman Schwarzkopf to liberate Kuwait.
Does General Smith (@CMC_MarineCorps) possess the kind of intelligence and courage that General Gray had in standing up to bad ideas, or will he stand by silently as history repeats itself in the Persian Gulf, where the 31st MEU may find itself in a repeat of the Koh Tang debacle so Donald Trump can falsely declare victory over Iran.
Donald Trump has deployed thousands of US Marines to the Strait of Hormuz amid mounting fears that America is set to put troops on the ground as the world’s oil supply is strangled.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth approved a request by US Central Command for the deployment of a Marine expeditionary unit, typically including several warships and 5,000 troops, three officials told the Wall Street Journal.
The Japan-based USS Tripoli, an amphibious assault ship, and its attached Marines are now headed for the Middle East, where they join other Marines already in the fight, the officials said.
The war spiraled on Friday as the US death toll climbed to 13 troops, domestic gas prices soared to $3.60 per gallon and Iran‘s security chief Ali Larijani defiantly taunted Trump on the streets of Tehran.
The bolstered deployment comes as the Trump administration weighs seizing Iran’s Kharg Island, around 16 miles off the mainland in the Persian Gulf, which handles 90 percent of the Islamic regime’s fuel exports.
Trump told Fox News Radio Friday about taking control of the island: ‘It’s not high on the list, but it’s one of so many different things, and I can change my mind in seconds.’
At about 18 min Col. Douglas Macgregor enters. As of today, there is a distinct paucity of facts about the actual missile strikes and damage caused, so commentators are resorting to theory and history. I have only watched about 20 min of Macgregor and it is interesting because he knows a great deal about war and about that region. ABN
UPDATE: Macgregor has a lot to say and all of it is worth hearing. He provides a good argument/ prediction why USA will definitely not use nuclear weapons but Netanyahu might. If Netanyahu does use nukes, Macgregor says Israel will be destroyed by nukes either made in Iran or brought into Iran from Pakistan. There is no upside to this war. The sooner it ends the better. ABN
If this is true, we can be sure the core of the Deep State is Jewish Supremist. I am a realist and pragmatist, so I believe we have to work with that. All along I have been hoping Trump would not go this far, but he has. He is still president, so we have to work with that. I worry about too many of us dropping out due to something like this. The Deep State uses narratives to fool us because they have to have us go along with their plans. Monkeypox failed because no one bought it. Our best option is to be wise enough to turn much more of their evil into monkeypox. ABN
He is reading this speech, so no doubt about what it means. Israel did a MIHOP on 10/7, which killed thousands of Israelis, thus setting up their Deep State to destroy Gaza. The attack on Iran looks like the same ploy: Assault Iran, incur large enough MIHOP losses to justify using nuclear weapons. Obliterate Iran, probably leading to its territory being remapped into several smaller satrapies. That is speculation but surely something to keep in mind. If that strategy fails because Iran hits back even harder, or uses nukes, Israelis will move to Ukraine, which is now their next ‘land without people’ since most Ukrainians have been killed or fled. USA seems to be playing the big brother with no brain, doing whatever it is told to do. I seriously hope I am wrong about this. ABN
…President Trump proactively secured the border, targeted narcotraffickers, confronted narcoterrorists, targeted Mexican drug cartel leadership, leveraged the DOJ to indict regional actors, pushed China out of control in the Panama Canal, took out Nicholas Maduro, took control of Venezuela oil production – both for the security of the U.S. and benefit of the Venezuelan people, removed the discounted oil benefit for China and reasserted stability in the Western hemisphere.
Then, with all that in place, he turned toward Iran…. but, proactively planned for a ‘Shield of the Americas Summit’ before the Iran operation began and scheduled it while Operation Epic Fury continues.
This is but a snippet from a longer article which is well-worth reading. I largely agree with the snippet above and with what Trump appears to be doing in the Western Hemisphere so far. The timing of Trump’s actions is also appropriate, but the author of this essay seems to agree with the attack on Iran. I respect the website this essay comes from and view it every day because it often has good insights into USA politics. At the same time, Jewish Supremacy and its roles in USA and US policy is never mentioned. This is unfortunate and could be due to habitual blinders or something else. In today’s world Jewish Supremacy and its terrible harms to USA and the world cannot reasonably be ignored. One could say that JS and its followers have the power and opportunity to conquer Iran and Russia, so let them do it. That is not an entirely irrational thing to say. I am not in that camp, but this is a Kill-Or-Be-Killed (KOBK) world at the top and that is how the world has always been. A KOBK analysis of what is happening is a deep and gruesome one, but KOBK is also the very nature of elite reality. JS and others going for world domination probably see themselves as Alexander the Great, which if they succeed would sort of be true. It’s always a good idea to see any event from all points of view, including the JS POV. ABN
American Buddhist Net 