#united states strategic services

[communist-ojou-sama]

I feel like a lot of people are confused by both the reckless actions of the Zionist Entity on the world stage and the US's continued support of it, even n seeming violation if its (long-term) interests. This kind of surprises me because it seems pretty obvious to me, but I want to take an effort to explain what's going on here.

First, I want you to accept a very general theory of the rise and fall of states. It is a Vastly oversimplified theory meant to be applied very broadly, and it goes like this: When a state is founded and on the rise, it is generally run by people who are amoral but intelligent and competent. Generally these early rulers and administrators found their way to the top of society from a state of chaos and fierce competition of all sorts; as a result, the people who end up on top, even if not the best of the best, are competent and shrewd and, above all, know that their positions are not promised and that they could be overthrown and killed at any time if they do too bad of a job governing. Moreover, this first generation tends to be highly diverse and represent people from all over the social spectrum of the society that preceded it, and above all competence and vigilence is prized.

This sense of internal vigilance and drive tends to be quite strictly impressed upon the first few generations of any given state, and as the state is on the rise, its ruling class, both for the purpose of growing their own wealth and to make government easier, develop a governing ideology and a legitimating narrative to justify to the common people their position at the top of the hierarchy. Crucially, in this initial stage of state formation and growth, the people in charge are pragmatists who understand that their governing ideology is a thing to be used to justify actions the ruling class deems necessary both for their short- and long-term interests, and are to be bent and violated at will if they threaten to get in the way of their true purpose.

Now, while there are all sorts of contingencies to how a state declines over time, I will put forward that the main dynamic that drives decline is the foreclosure of upward mobility and the increasingly jealous guarding of privileges by an increasingly insular ruling class, which is ruled by its governing ideology, to which they subscribe totally and completely. There's more but, let's leave it there for now.

Now, what all does this have to do with the Zionist Entity? Well surely you can see this coming, but what is the legitimation narrative of the Zionist Entity? It is first and foremost settler supremacy and it leads to the top positions in the Entity's military apparatus being occupied by demons like Itamar Ben-Gvir and Yoav Gallant who, drunk on cruelty and a false sense of superiority, have little more capacity for geopolitical reasoning than a wild animal. The reason why the Zionist entity isn't acting rationally in the service of the United States is because the people in power are not rational people, and they will not be for whatever the remaining history of the Zionist Entity is. They won't make rational choices to preserve the future of the Zionist settler edifice because they are uncapable of it; to do so would necessitate understanding Arabs as their equals, and they are incapable of that. As evil as Theodore Herzl and David ben-Gurion were, these demons lack their talents.

So why, then, is Genocide Joe and the democratic party supporting the Zionist holocaust upon Gaza, despite the fact that it is having an utterly apocalyptic effect on the long-term strategic interests and security of the United States? It is for the exact same reason. Genocide Joe doesn't support the Zionist Entity out of some rational calculation, he supports it as a function of his own hubris. Out of the long-term emotional investment he's developed in its wretched existence after many decades of safeguarding it from accountability and facing criticism for it. It really is that simple. The entire US elite, drunk on a fantasy of Western cultural supremacy, is stuck in a state of crackpot realism. I need you to understand that they have no concept that the possiblity of their defeat and the eventual collapse of the United States is a real possibility. And to the extent that they cannot engage with reality, their ability to appraise reality is also blinkered. They can't even see how severe the damage they're doing to the US's standing in the world really is because they are totally oblivious to the reality that in the coming decades the US and Europe will be surpassed in wealth and influence by Global South countries who all opposed the Zionist slaughter, literally no different from the white supremacist "rationalists" on tumblr who try to paint Operation al-Aqsa Flood as some sort of strategic blunder on the part of the Resistance.

The reason why the US is unable to bring the Zionists to heel despite the the whole purpose of the Zionist Entity's existence being as an attack dog for the western powers is because both the Zionists and the USians, having utterly abandoned rational statecraft, have basically forgotten that that's what their relationship is supposed to be. It's that simple.

[usafphantom2]

There is nothing that amuses me more than a secret inside of a secret.

Here’s an article that I wrote that my friend Dario Leone owner of Aviation Geek Club shared about the YF 12 and the secret SR 71 tail number 951.

Most people when they think of the YF 12 think of it as an experimental airplane that never really flew, but that is wrong. It did fly for many years. The last flight was in 1979 when it was flown to the Air Force Museum near Dayton, Ohio you can find it next to the XB-70.

The so-called YF-12C was really the SR-71A 61-7951, modified with a bogus tail number 06937 belonging to an A-12.

Taken in 1975, the interesting photos in this post show NASA Blackbirds carrying the ” Cold wall” heat transfer pod on a pylon beneath the forward fuselage.

The Blackbirds portrayed in these photos are usually referred to as YF-12s, but actually one of them was an SR-71 as Linda Sheffield Miller (Col Richard (Butch) Sheffield’s daughter, Col. Sheffield was an SR-71 Reconnaissance Systems Officer), who runs Born into the Wild Blue Yonder Habubrats Facebook page, told to The Aviation Geek Club: ‘In case anybody asked the pictures with the two NASA Blackbirds the one on the top is a YF-12 but the one on the bottom is an SR-71!

‘Another interesting thing about those pictures is that NASA was not allowed to have an SR-71 but they did and they passed it off as a YF-12!

In fact, the “YF-12C” was a then-secret SR-71A (serial no. 64-17951, the second production SR-71A) given the NASA tail no. 60-6937. The reason for this bit of subterfuge lay in the fact that NASA while flying the YF-12A interceptor version of the aircraft, was not allowed to possess the strategic reconnaissance version for some time. The bogus tail number actually belonged to a Lockheed A-12 (serial no. 60-6937), but the existence of the A-12 remained classified until 1982. The tail number 06937 was selected because it followed the sequence of tail numbers assigned to the three existing YF-12A aircraft: 06934, 06935, and 06936. Isn’t that amazing?’

The Coldwell project, supported by Langley Research Center, consisted of a stainless steel tube equipped with thermocouples and pressure sensors. A special insulating coating covered the tube, which was chilled with liquid nitrogen.

Given that the US Air Force (USAF) needed technical assistance to get the latest reconnaissance version of the A-12 family, the SR-71A, fully operational, the service offered NASA the use of two YF-12A aircraft, 60-6935 and 60-6936.

Eventually, with 146 flights between Dec. 11, 1969, and Nov. 7, 1979, 935 became the workhorse of the program while the second YF-12A, 936, made 62 flights. Given that this aircraft was lost in a non-fatal crash on Jun. 24, 1971, it was replaced by the so-called YF-12C SR-71A 61-7951, modified with YF-12A inlets and engines and a bogus tail number 06937.

The SR-71 differed from the YF-12A in that the YF-12A had a round nose while the SR-71 had its chine carried forward to the nose of the airplane. The SR-71 was longer, nearly 8 feet longer as it had an extra fuel tank that the YF 12 didn’t have. There were other differences in internal and external configuration, but the two aircraft shared common inlet designs, structural concepts, and subsystems. Also of note the SR 71C is really a combination of a static display of the SR 71 for the front half and the back half is the crashed YF-12!

In my study of all the Blackbirds, I have found other secrets inside of secrets. Such as the test SR-71 plane the 955. Everyone was told often that this airplane never left the United States, but that is not true.

When it comes to reconnaissance airplanes and War, even if it was a Cold War, Rearranging the facts is fair.

There will always be mystery in the SR 71 program.

Don’t believe that all of the secrets have been told.

I know that is not true.

Linda Sheffield, Daughter of a Habu

@Habubrats71 via X

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[zvaigzdelasas]

"The first session of the 118th Congress was one of the least productive in the body’s history. Only 22 bills were signed into law this year by the president — by far the lowest total since at least 1993, the first year for which the National Archives have data. (For comparison, the next least productive year during this timespan was in 2013, when 72 bills became law.) Despite the slow year, members nonetheless found time to introduce an abundance of bills relating to the threat of China, which was the focus of hearings in committees ranging from Financial Services to the Judiciary committee, and of legislation concerning everything from fentanyl distribution to TikTok. In 2023, members introduced 616 pieces of legislation that contain a variation of the word “China” — more than 3.5 for every day that Congress was in session on average. That’s already more than any two-year congressional session, except for the 117th Congress (2021-2022; 860 bills) and the 116th (2019-2020; 620 bills), according to a search of the congressional record. One of the few “accomplishments” in Congress this year was the formation of the Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party — which was almost instantly dubbed the “tough on China committee” — in January."[...]

Members of Congress introduced at least nine bills aimed at restricting foreign ownership of agricultural land in the United States. As RS has explained, these efforts are not always logical, even if there are some legitimate national security concerns over China or other nations buying up farmland.[...]

Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) and five co-sponsors introduced the “Defund China’s Allies Act” to “prohibit the availability of foreign assistance to certain countries that do not recognize the sovereignty of Taiwan,” aimed at 21 countries in Central America and the Caribbean. The bill argues that the “United States efforts to condemn these countries’ willing diplomatic shift toward a genocidal government is undermined by an incomprehensible adherence to the so-called ‘One China’ policy, on terms dictated by the Chinese Communist Party,” implicitly calling for an end to the policy that has maintained peace in the Taiwan Strait for decades.[...]

bills introduced by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Reps. John Curtis (R-Utah), and Chris Pappas (D-N.H.) [...] would have renamed the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO) in Washington, D.C. to the Taiwan Representative Office, because it “better reflects its status as Taiwan’s de facto diplomatic mission to the United States.” That was only one of many bills that were purely symbolic and antagonizing, including one that demanded that Beijing “must be held financially liable for $16,000,000,000,000,” because of its responsibility in the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic and a resolution that declared China to be the biggest threat to freedom in the world. “Whereas it is the opinion of Congress that the Chinese Communist Party is the greatest threat to freedom and to the free world,” reads the text, introduced by Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.). “Be it Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That Congress agrees that the Chinese Communist Party is the greatest threat to freedom and to the free world.” That’s the entire resolution.

27 Dec 23

[mariacallous]

On a sunny April afternoon in 2006, thousands of people flocked to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., for a rally with celebrities, Olympic athletes, and rising political stars. Their cause: garner international support to halt a genocide in Sudan’s Darfur region.

“If we care, the world will care. If we act, then the world will follow,” Barack Obama, then the junior Illinois senator, told the crowd, speaking alongside future House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. That same week, then-Sen. Joe Biden introduced a bill in Congress calling on NATO to intervene to halt the genocide in Sudan. “We need to take action on both a military and diplomatic front to end the conflict,” he said.

Flash-forward 18 years, and the prospect of genocide again looms in Sudan amid an explosive new civil war. But this time, there are no rallies, no A-list celebrities, no calls for outside military intervention. Few world leaders pay anything more than lip service to condemning the atrocities.

Fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the rival Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced some 9 million since the conflict began in April 2023. The United States accused both sides of committing war crimes and atrocities and concluded that the RSF and its allied militias have committed ethnic cleansing.

Western officials and aid workers working on Sudan say they are vexed, and horrified, by the lack of international attention and resources the conflict is receiving—particularly compared to the global response to the conflict in 2006, which was the progenitor of the current conflagration.

If this trend continues and there is no forceful international crisis response, they warn, Sudan will likely collapse into a failed state and could face full-fledged genocide once again.

“You can’t help but watch the level of focus on crises like Gaza and Ukraine and wonder what just 5 percent of that energy could have done in a context like Sudan and how many thousands, tens of thousands of lives it could’ve saved,” said Alan Boswell, an expert on the region at the International Crisis Group.

The top general of the SAF, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the head of the RSF, Mohamed Hamdan “Hemeti” Dagalo, jointly seized power from a transitional government in a coup in 2021. Tensions between the rival sides escalated and finally erupted into war in April 2023.

In the 13 months since, the RSF has entrenched its positions around the national capital of Khartoum, forcing the SAF to relocate its headquarters to the coastal city of Port Sudan. The RSF has made steady gains in seizing control of Darfur and advancing southward and eastward against SAF forces. The SAF still controls territories around Khartoum and up the Nile River, a vital strategic route to Egypt; along the Red Sea coast; and the eastern borders with Ethiopia and Eritrea.

The conflict has also expanded into a full-fledged regional proxy war. Egypt and Saudi Arabia, as well as Riyadh’s arch regional rival Iran, back the SAF, while the United Arab Emirates is reportedly funneling arms and military supplies to the RSF. The RSF also reportedly receives support from Chad and from Russia through its affiliated mercenary groups.

The focal point of the conflict now is on El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur and the center of fighting. The RSF has taken control of vast swaths of western and southern Sudan in its war against the SAF. El Fasher is the last SAF stronghold in Darfur, occupying a strategically important position for trade routes from neighboring Libya and Chad.

The RSF recently began its advance on El Fasher where an estimated 2 million to 2.8 million civilians have sought to take refuge from the fighting. (Precise figures are hard to come by.)

“The risk of genocide exists in Sudan. It is real, and it is growing every single day,” Alice Nderitu, the U.N. special advisor on the prevention of genocide, warned in a U.N. Security Council meeting last week.

A lengthy report from Human Rights Watch documented how the RSF and allied militias committed widespread atrocities, including mass rape, child murder, and massacres of civilians when it captured the Sudanese city of El Geneina last year. U.S. and U.N. officials and human rights experts warn that the same will likely happen if the RSF takes control of El Fasher, but on a much wider scale. The United States and aid groups have accused the SAF of blocking vital food aid from entering the country and RSF forces of looting humanitarian stocks, exacerbating the crisis and pushing regions of the country closer to famine.

“The potential fatality generation here is off the charts,” said Nathaniel Raymond, executive director of the Humanitarian Research Lab at Yale’s School of Public Health who runs a research project that monitors the conflict in Sudan. “What will happen when the RSF takes El Fasher? Exactly what is happening in every other place they control.”

“There is Hiroshima- and Nagasaki-level casualty potential,” he added, referring to the U.S. atomic bombs dropped on Japan in World War II that killed up to 225,000 people.

Aid organizations and officials who work on Sudan have long decried the relative inattention the conflict in Sudan gets compared to Ukraine or the war in Gaza. Some 20 million people—or 10 times the population of Gaza—are at risk of famine in various regions of Sudan. “Very few people who don’t work on Sudan know that Darfur is on the brink of famine,” Boswell said. “Obviously, everyone knows about the risk of famine in Gaza.”

U.S. President Joe Biden’s own social media posts about Gaza versus Sudan provide another, albeit imperfect, window into the attention each conflict receives. Biden tweeted about Israel or Gaza at least 107 times in the six months since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks that started the Israel-Hamas war. Since the war in Sudan began over a year ago, he has tweeted about Sudan four times—three of which were about the evacuation of the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum right after fighting broke out.

Aid groups are strained for resources to tackle the humanitarian crisis caused by the war. In February, Doctors Without Borders warned that in one refugee camp alone in North Darfur, one child was dying every two hours of malnutrition. In April, on the conflict’s first anniversary, aid groups said the international humanitarian response plan to aid the Sudanese was only 6 percent funded. At a donor conference that month in Paris, countries pledged $2 billion more—though that is still only about half of what aid groups estimate the country needs.

Biden appointed a special envoy for Sudan in February—Tom Perriello, a former U.S. representative from Virginia and State Department veteran. Most experts have cheered Perriello’s new push to hold cease-fire talks in the months since and engage U.S. lawmakers on Capitol Hill to bring more levers of U.S. power and financing to bear on Sudan, but they also fear his efforts may be too little, too late for the civilians trapped in El Fasher.

“It will be very hard to deescalate the situation, though everyone should try. But there is an aura of inevitability that this is all going to blow up,” Boswell said. “The degree of mobilization from all sides is hard to walk down.”

Diplomatic and aid officials working on Sudan have some theories on why the atrocities in Darfur and across the country are receiving such little attention now compared to the 2000s, but none gives a full answer.

In 2006, the United States was still reaching the heights of its post-9/11 “war on terror” campaign. Sudan, under former dictator Omar al-Bashir, had given safe haven to Osama bin Laden as he built up al Qaeda’s global terror network, and “bashing Bashir and his genocide in Darfur couched nicely with [counterterrorism] priorities” of the U.S. government at the time, said Nicole Widdersheim, a former senior National Security Council official now with Human Rights Watch.

The memories of failed and successful international interventions to halt genocide—Rwanda in 1994 and the Balkans later that decade, respectively—were still relatively fresh in the minds of policymakers. The costly Western campaigns in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya that later exposed the shortcomings and blowback of military interventions were still underway.

It also preceded the current era of great-power competition, where Washington is intensely focused on countering Russia and China. Sudan also competes with the ongoing wars in Gaza and Ukraine for international attention and humanitarian resources. Others suggested racism built into Western foreign policy played a part. “It’s seen as yet ‘another war in Africa like all the others,’” said one official dryly. Not one single factor can explain it all, experts concluded.

“Gaza is taking up the always limited American public interest and activism on a foreign crisis, but to be fair, there was nearly no public activism or engagement on the Sudan war before” the Israel-Hamas war, Widdersheim said.

Experts say the relative inattention Sudan has gotten from the top echelons of the White House and other Western powers that could have influence in pressuring the warring sides in Sudan to sit for peace talks has led to the current protracted state of the war.

Biden hosted Kenyan President William Ruto for a state visit this week, where the two called on “the warring parties in Sudan to facilitate unhindered humanitarian access and immediately commit to a ceasefire” toward the end of a lengthy joint statement but did not elaborate further. U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Samantha Power and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas Greenfield have also been outspoken about urging an end to the conflict in Sudan.

Successive cease-fire talks in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, over the past year, brokered by the United States and Saudi Arabia, failed to clinch any lasting deal. Those talks were led on the U.S. side not by a top White House official or Secretary of State Antony Blinken, but by the assistant secretary of state for African affairs, Molly Phee.

Behind-the-scenes efforts by some members of Congress in December 2023 to appoint a special presidential envoy on Sudan—one who would report directly to the White House, rather than an envoy reporting to the assistant secretary of state—were unsuccessful, multiple officials and congressional aides said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal administration dynamics. Perriello was appointed two months later.

Perriello in mid-April said that cease-fire talks would resume in Jeddah “within the next three weeks,” but so far those talks have yet to materialize. Several current and former officials familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity to speak candidly, said the talks in Jeddah could resume in June, by which point the RSF could have already captured El Fasher from the mostly cutoff SAF forces.

“The need to start formal peace talks in Jeddah is absolutely urgent, and the United States is working exhaustively with partners to make that happen,” said a State Department spokesperson. “But we are not waiting for formal talks to begin—rather, we have accelerated our diplomatic engagements to align international efforts to end this war, mitigate the humanitarian crisis, and prevent future atrocities.”

Cease-fire talks have worked in limited ways in the past, such as when the United States got both sides to briefly stop fighting in Khartoum so it could evacuate its embassy in April 2023. “When the right leverage is put on the table at the right time to get the RSF and SAF to stop fighting, it can be done,” said Kholood Khair, a Sudanese policy analyst and founding director of Confluence Advisory, a Sudan-focused think tank. “The international community has just chosen not to deploy that same leverage this time around.”

Khair added that the Jeddah talks format has failed before, and it will likely fail again. “The concern is that because of the laziness and complicity of the international community at this point, you don’t have any diplomats who are looking for a new way of doing things. Jeddah in many ways is blocking the start of any new diplomatic efforts or other good ideas that could be effective.”

“Diplomats are fixated on Jeddah now, simply because it’s already there,” Khair said.

As Perriello engaged in frenetic diplomacy, he has also publicly marveled at how little attention the scale of the conflict and death in Sudan is receiving on the international stage.

“One of the things that to me captures just how invisible and horrific this war is, is that we don’t have a credible death count,” Perriello said during a congressional hearing in front of the 21-member Senate Foreign Relations Committee this month. “We literally don’t know how many people have died—possibly to a factor of 10 or 15. The number was earlier 15,000 to 30,000. Some think it’s at 150,000,” he said. During the course of Perriello’s hearing, senators cycled out of the room due to scheduling conflicts, often leaving only one senator in the room and 20 empty seats.

[liebgottsjumpwings]

"The drum you stroke. Damn that beat so old. In the ground it grows there. To damn the sun. Gates of gold. In your head you hold, a kingdom molten. May the gods be on your side"

FAYE "FISH" FISCHER | MASTERS OF THE AIR

It made her squint, the way the sun reflected off the water in the stately looking pond across the street. It was early in the evening and the setting sun had been hanging low in the sky. Casting a golden glow onto the peaceful park she overlooked. Faye’s forehead was pressed against the sun-warmed glass. Her view of the park became blurry as the glass began to fog from Faye’s breathing. Rough shapes and colours were what remained of the scene across the street. Golden and green, sun, grass and trees. The same elements that made up the view from her childhood home back in Louisiana. It was also the last she had seen of the Alsatian town of Mulhouse as the train carried her westward. She had closed her eyes as it did, trying to keep the golden and green view in her mind for as long as possible. 

“Fischer? Are you even listening?” she heard the OSS officer in front of her ask. “Your cover was about to be blown, we couldn’t just let you keep working in Mulhouse, I’m sure you’re also happy you’re not in the middle of it anymore,” the officer continued. Faye just nodded. He would never know what it was like to be in the heart of it. To have to hide the core elements of your identity. To witness the atrocities. To have to stand and watch, unable to do anything because if you did, you would risk the same fate, while also jeopardizing the OSS’s operation. He would never know, or understand. So she just nodded, her thumb and index finger pressing into the small, silver Magen David that hung from her necklace. “Considering the Krauts are onto you now, we’ve transferred you to a different position. One that doesn’t require you to drop into occupied Europe.” The golden and green outside became even more blurred, and then they disappeared as Faye closed her eyes in anticipation. “The unit is moving you to Thorpe Abbotts, there’s an Air Force base there and they want you to capture and archive their missions-” Faye sat up, interrupting the officer; "why on earth do they need those recorded?” her eyebrows raised. “On paper, it’s something about morale, something they can show back home,” Morale. She huffed, if only they knew.

"They also want photographic evidence of their hit targets, so I guess you're also supposed to do that." the officer continued. This made her move up from her chair, both of her hands leaning onto the desk. "You're gonna make me go up in those planes?!"

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

Name: Faye Geneva Fischer

Age: 23 (as of September 1943)

Date of birth: November 10, 1920 at 20:08

Place of birth: Plaquemine, Iberville Parish, Louisiana, United States

Hometown: New Orleans, Orleans Parish, Louisiana, United States

Occupation:  OSS Combat Photographer

Affiliation: Office of Strategic Services; Photographic Unit & Eight Air Force; 100th Bombardment Group

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[mychoombatheroomba]

Hard Truths

Between the Bones (Leon x GN! Reader) - Chapter 37

The squad learns what they're up against, and Krauser gives Leon some brutal advice. As per usual.

(Cross-posted from Ao3)

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Chapter Index

There was no return to normalcy. No getting back into a comfortable cycle of pain and perseverance. How could there be, when the squad reported for First Call and you weren’t there? Leon had always felt galvanized in your presence. Your strength was his own. When he felt like he wasn’t sure he could go on, you’d been there, urging him forward. As morning drills began that first day, it wasn’t just his aching muscles and bruises that held him back. 

You can’t let yourself fall behind with me.  

His time in STRATCOM had taught him that he had a bit of a problem with authority, but he obeyed your words anyway. 

Even if it would mean moving past you. 

Even if it meant listening to the teachings of the men who did this to you, because true to his promise, Hellman was there to greet the squad for morning drills. Krauser looked just as angry as he had the day before. If the Major’s smile meant a world of hurt for the recruits of the US Strategic Command, then what did his scowl mean? 

Leon supposed he would be finding out soon. 

It was the final phase of training. That was what Krauser announced that first morning; that in eight weeks, if he and the others could pass the tests, they would graduate and be assigned into service. He would be an operative of STRATCOM. An agent of the United States. 

Not a soldier. 

Not what you or any of the others had been before this, but an agent, like Reed and Hellman. The two would indeed be assisting Krauser in training, offering lessons in the more shadowed of services. Secrets and broken locks and false names. The blacked-out text on a report. That was what he would become. 

That was what he would become without you. 

Six weeks until you recovered. 

Eight weeks remaining in training. 

The number was sobering. Staggering. The other recruits, the rest of his squad, didn’t know what that meant yet. They weren’t aware of what they were about to be facing down. 

They would learn soon enough, though. 

They would learn about Raccoon City, about the bioweapons created by Umbrella, and then they would graduate and be sent off to fight nightmares made flesh. They would be forced to see and fight and kill things that Leon had never imagined before that one night last September. 

Eight weeks before they were all sent to hell. 

And while he would be out there, fighting, you would be stuck here, trying to catch up for the time you lost. He tried not to let himself get lost in that thought too much as he pushed his injured body through Krauser’s ever-more difficult exercises - and Krauser’s still-sharp glares. The pain of it all was familiar enough now that he could endure it. He ran harder and faster, strained through the near-failing of his muscles as he carried the ammunition case across the obstacle course, not letting himself drop the added weight. He did all of that because he knew that, in eight weeks, his newfound strength and speed might be all that saved his life from some newfound horror. 

And, however he felt about them, he knew that whatever skills Reed and Hellman were here to teach might do the same. So, he swallowed his anger when he reported to the two agents with the rest of the squad later that day, gathered together in a room that reminded Leon of his time in the police academy, with desks and a projector. 

He didn’t bother to hide his sneer when Hellman began his speech. Even as he was reminded of who the real enemy was. 

“You were all chosen for STRATCOM based on exemplary performance or impressive feats,” Hellman began, and again, Leon was put off by just how different he sounded, now. How genuine. “Most of you have served with distinction, and I have no doubt that you would have had impressive careers - that you still will . . . but now that you are on this path, it isn’t glory that you’ll be getting. There won’t be medals or ceremonies. What would have brought you accolades before can never be spoken of, now. Your service will be hidden from the world, because you will be keeping that world safe from threats that it can never know are real.

“You will be the first line of defense against things the world has never seen. You may not receive glory for it, but your country will owe you a debt it can never repay.” 

The noble sacrifices. 

Leon tried not to scoff at Hellman’s wording, because he made it sound so heroic. Leon knew better. He knew that they wouldn’t be the unsung knights in shining armor. They would be the living shields for the world. Ones that would be cast aside when they broke at last, just as Andersen and the others already had been. 

But who else could it be? 

“And what exactly is it that we’re going to be fighting?” Valeria asked, not bothering to offer respect to the man who hadn’t earned it. “Who was so dangerous that you had to fucking torture us to test our strength?” 

Hellman didn’t react to her insubordination, but Leon tensed because Valeria very nearly hadn’t been allowed to be here. 

Just like him. 

We’ll need every soldier we can get.  

That and Krauser’s influence had been all that spared them. That knowledge that the fight they were preparing for was unlike anything the world had seen before, against an enemy unlike any other. 

“The Umbrella Corporation.” 

Confusion was the first thing that Leon felt in the room. “The pharmaceutical company?” Alejandro clarified with a raised brow. “We’re going to be taking down people in lab coats?” 

He didn’t know. None of them did. But Leon had reacted the same way, once. He’d not believed Ada when she’d told him that the company had created the horrors that now haunted his dreams and waking moments alike. Then he’d seen it firsthand. He owed a bullet-sculpted scar on his shoulder to one of those people in lab coats. And he owed months of restless nights to them too. 

“Not the scientists, necessarily,” Hellman shook his head, and Reed stepped forward. 

“Breathe a word of what you see in this room, and you will be tried for treason.” That was all the warning that was given before he reached forward. The agent flipped a switch on the projector to turn it on, and laid a semi-transparent image over the glass. There were murmurings of disgust. Surprise. Confusion. For Leon, though, it wasn’t some newfound terror. Even blurred and black and white, the image was one Leon recognized immediately. Rotting flesh falling away from bone and muscle. Teeth bared and darkened with viscera. A hand with bloodied nails reaching towards the camera.

Leon’s body reacted before his mind. Muscles tensing. Heart stuttering. He had to repress the urge to run. To aim his gun and fire desperately, even if he was sitting in a room miles and months away from Raccoon City. Even if he was just looking at an image taken from what had to have been that night or the days before it. 

It was good - or, perhaps, not so good - to know that his memory when it came to the zombies was clear. Crystal and cruel. 

“You’ll be fighting the bioweapons they create.” Hellman announced, letting the knowledge sink in. 

There it was. The truth that Leon had wanted the men and women around him to know. And now that it was there, he almost felt guilt for that, too. Guilt, because he wished he didn’t have the knowledge he possessed. 

No. Better they know. Better they’re prepared. 

“This image was taken during the Raccoon City outbreak, and is just one of many reported variants of bioweapons that were found in the city.” The energy in the room shifted, then, because even if they didn’t know the truth of the matter, everyone in the country had heard of Raccoon City. The strange disease that had broken out, and the city’s destruction to keep it from spreading. Not untrue, Leon supposed. Just omitting key details. Redacted information. Cover-ups. He supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised that this was the path his life would take, going from one ghost-story to another. And even now, it seemed there would be more lies of omission. “According to our intel, there was an accidental release of viral weaponry in Umbrella labs beneath Raccoon City. Reanimation of corpses as well as drastic, fast-acting mutations were characteristics of said viruses. They were transmitted through water contamination and, later, through bites or scratches. The viruses escaped into the city and reports of violent individuals started popping up in mid September. By September thirtieth, the situation was deemed uncontainable.” 

And then Raccoon City, along with the monsters in it and those people still trying to survive within it had been wiped off the map. Nevermind that this had happened because one doctor had offered the US that same viral weaponry in exchange for his safety. Nevermind that maybe none of this would have happened if they’d just taken the man into custody from the start. 

Leon supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised by the exclusion of that information, either. These men needed everyone in this room on their side. On the country’s side. 

“This is what the Major’s been training you for. Fighting against something that can wipe out a city in a week,” Hellman went on, clasping his hands behind his back. "We will endeavor to teach you how to avoid that fight. How to find the people responsible for the creation of these bioweapons before they can utilize them.” 

Tracking down Umbrella before another outbreak could happen, in other words. Cutting the head off the snake before it could bite anyone else. 

Too little, too late, Leon knew, because the cat was out of the bag, now. If the US knew, then other countries probably did too. Umbrella was a company. They would protect their interests, their assets. Viral weaponry that could “wipe out a city in a week” had to look good to someone out there. It had looked good to the US, after all. 

“The training we give you in the following weeks will never be complete,” Hellman warned, pale eyes sweeping the room of soldiers in front of him. “We could never give you full CIA-level instruction in time to send you after Umbrella. What we can give you are the tools we believe will help you to find and stop them.”

Not soldiers. Not CIA. Something else. New weapons for a new war. 

“They have facilities across the world,” Reed said, speaking in that usual cold timbre that made Leon’s hackles rise. “You’ll need to learn to adapt to new environments. Speak new languages. Pass where you’re not supposed to.” 

“And if we’re caught somewhere we’re not supposed to be?” Alenko asked from Leon’s side, picking up on what Reed was implying immediately. 

Leon already knew the answer before Hellman even spoke it. “The world can’t know about our operations any more than they can know about Umbrella’s research,” he said, adding to the gravity of the room. “But you were all chosen for your skill, and allowed to continue this training for the strength of your wills.” For holding out under interrogation. Leon didn’t miss how Reed’s eyes landed on him, then. He ignored that biting gaze, just as he’d been ignoring Krauser’s all day. 

“So if we get captured, if we die out there,” Alenko went on, his usual jovial tone gone, “then we shouldn’t expect anyone to come get us. That’s what you’re saying?” 

To his credit, the look Hellman gave in return actually looked understanding. Sympathetic, even. That didn’t change the fact that he was promising them unaided struggles and unmarked graves. “As I said, your work won’t bring you glory. But it will be more important than anything you’ve done in your lives.” 

Lives that could be turned into hollow shells. That could be warped and mutated into mindless violence. 

With or without the influence of a virus. 

But with nowhere to go but forward, Leon tried not to let those thoughts rule him. There were other things to think about. 

Things that the rest of the squad were thinking of too, by the time dinner rolled around.  

It had been quiet for so many reasons since the interrogations, but now there was an added layer of heaviness. Worry had carved creases across the foreheads of Leon’s squad, a sharp contrast to the exhausted but otherwise unburdened lower-level squads sitting at other tables. Young men and women who didn’t know yet what they would be facing. 

“So,” Williams finally said, trying to break the silence with hushed humor, “I guess we’ll all be able to put ‘monster hunter’ on our resumes after this. Not that anyone will ever see those resumes.” 

Leon wanted to smile at that, but all he could think of was dead hands and rotting breath and gnashing teeth. 

No one else laughed, either, their thoughts no doubt stuck on the images they’d seen earlier. The agents hadn’t told them everything yet. They’d have a hard time doing that in one day. Today was about fear, Leon knew that. Scaring everyone shitless so they’d respect the reality of the situation, like at Fort Benning when Cortez explained how a wrong move in a tank could earn you crushed limbs. With tanks, though, there was a field manual to understand; a list of knowns. With bioweapons . . . “How the hell are we supposed to fight those things?” Alenko asked, keeping his voice down so those cadets who didn’t know what awaited them couldn’t hear. 

And Leon knew then that he could help. That he could give his friends an edge before even the CIA did. So, he answered quietly, trying to adopt the easy authority you used when giving corrections in sparring. “The zombies, you shoot in the head,” he said, and all attention at the table turned to him. “Higher-caliber rounds work best. The more of the brain you can destroy, the better.” 

His squad looked at Leon like they were seeing him in a brand new light, realization slowly dawning across their faces. 

“There are other things, though. Different weak spots. None of them go down easy.” Because even once you knew where to shoot, where to place those bullets, it all came down to whether there was actually an opportunity to do so. Whether one had the ammunition required, or the moment needed to aim. “You have to be smart,” he warned, letting memory weigh down his words, “and you have to know when to run.” 

There was a beat of silence as Alejandro leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table. “Sounds like you’re speaking from experience, brother.” 

All sorts of secrets coming out lately, Leon thought as he nodded once.  

“I am. I was there. In Raccoon City.” 

He knew how he’d been thought of when he first arrived. He wasn’t blind to the judgmental stares when he’d struggled. The whispers that that kid’s gonna get himself killed. It was strange to be seen by everyone as you’d seen him so early on. 

“Son of a bitch,” Alejandro muttered, in disbelief. 

“How the hell did you make it out of there?” Alenko asked, and Leon wished he had a better answer. 

“Luck.” 

That was what it had come down to. His skill with a gun, his ability to think on his feet, they’d helped, but it had been luck that he’d been near those who could save him when skill alone failed him. Luck that had given him the tools he needed to survive. Skill, certainly, but luck was the reason he was still alive. 

He couldn’t change luck, though. 

So, he would focus on the two of those things that he could control. 

⧫⧫⧫

The Major didn’t look happy to see him. Not that it surprised Leon at all. 

He’d held out for a few days. He’d been focused in that time on throwing himself into the new lessons Reed and Hellman led. Languages, communication, codes, hell, even some hacking and lock-picking. All skills that may save Leon’s life, but not the ones he’d need if he ever came up against another monster that could fold a helicopter in two. Not that a knife would do much against such power either, he supposed. Still, he wanted to be ready. Had to be. For a while, he thought that he could get away with only sparring with Williams, Valeria and Alenko. Alejandro had joined them, and every so often so would the other members of the squad. Sparring while Leon told them of the hard-earned wisdom he had collected that night in Raccoon City. They were good, there was no denying that. But they weren’t you. They lacked your speed. Your instinct. Your gift for violence, earned not because you were a violent person but because you’d had such unspeakable violence done to you. You’d been a whetstone for his skill, and if all he had was eight weeks, then he needed them to be sharper than ever. 

So, he took your advice because you were right. Krauser was the best fighter on base. If you couldn’t spar, then Leon had to find other ways to become better. Even as Major Krauser scowled at him as he approached and all Leon could think of was the fact that he knew. 

He knew, and he wasn’t saying anything. 

Why wasn’t he saying anything? 

How long had he known?

What had he seen?

Another set of thoughts to be set aside. If Krauser wasn’t going to make trouble for you and Leon, then it was a situation that Leon could ignore. 

God, he really hoped he could ignore it.

It was a little difficult when the Major kept on looking at Leon like he wished he would cease to exist. Leon thought for certain that the man’s mood would brighten a touch when asked to spar. Beating the shit out of Leon had to be something he’d be interested in, right? 

“What? Your friends can’t be bothered?” Krauser grumbled. 

“My friends are taking the night off,” Leon shot back, because, frankly, he was tired of the angry glares. Tired of all the bullshit. His time here was ending, and it was Krauser’s job to make sure he survived after the fact. “I need a sparring partner.” 

What he got was an ass-kicking. Not that he’d expected otherwise. 

Still, Leon allowed himself to be proud of the fact that he actually put up a fight. He remembered sparring with Krauser all those months ago, how easily the Major had wiped the floor with him. It made each strike he earned against Krauser’s skin feel all the more vindicating. He’d gotten used to defeat thanks to you, and he’d always been able to get back up, even before that. A good thing, too, because Krauser was fighting like he had a score to settle. 

A kick with the force of a freight train hit Leon in the stomach, sending him falling backwards with a grunt. The Major didn’t waste any time, rushing to the ground with an overhead stab. Leon rolled out of the way just in time, hearing the scraping of metal against dirt. Dust washed over him, sent in a wave by the blade of Krauser’s knife, just enough getting into his eyes that his vision wavered. 

Unable to see, his heart rate spiked, trying to urge him to get up. To defend himself. He felt Krauser’s hand close around his wrist - the one whose hand held the knife. 

Leon acted quickly, bringing his other hand up, taking the knife. Slashing out almost blindly. Luck was on his side once again as he felt steel scrape against steel, parrying Krauser’s attack. The force of the blades meeting sent tremors through Leon’s arm, and it was through sheer will and memories of your words that he held onto the knife. 

His vision cleared and he was in a better position to attack, so he slashed at the Major’s wrist, freeing his own in the process. 

The two men got to their feet, putting some distance between each other. 

Krauser didn’t look impressed. “Thought with all that extra sparring you’d be better than this,” he said, and Leon wasn’t sure if it was a good sign that he was talking shit. Was it a return to form? Or just more anger? He might have gotten his answer when Krauser went on with words like a slap to the face. “Guess you weren’t really paying attention to the fights though, were you?” 

Leon knew it was bait. He could recognize that. Still, it was a shock to the system to hear Krauser imply it so openly. Even as a taunt, Leon hadn’t expected to hear it. It was just enough of a surprise that when Krauser rushed him, the younger man fumbled.

The feint was just fast enough for Leon to fall for it, and as he chased Krauser’s blade with his own - or where it would have slashed across his stomach - he nearly didn’t move fast enough to avoid the slash across his throat. You were fast, but Krauser? It was fighting you but dialed up to eleven, and it was too much for a fatigued and still-bruised Leon to handle. The blunted blade grazed his neck as he threw himself backwards. Off-balance, he nearly found himself losing his footing as Krauser pressed the attack, switching the knife to his left hand and thrusting it forward. Leon twisted his arm, getting his knife on the inside of the attack, his other hand going for the replacement . . . 

Too late, and he coughed and sputtered as Krauser swung his knife up and over Leon’s shoulder and sent it point-first into the side of his throat. Even if the Major was pulling the blow back, it landed hard enough that Leon knew he’d have a new bruise tomorrow. 

“Sloppy,” the Major shook his head as he pulled the blade away, stepping back. 

Leon retreated away, pressing a hand to the newly hurting spot on his neck. The pain was kindling for his anger - he’d moved past the frustrations of losing in these sparring matches, but he felt it now all the same. 

So he attacked first, this time. Hoping to catch the Major off-guard. 

He nearly had him, too, after a quick exchange. Nearly. Krauser twisted his knife inside Leon’s guard and switched hands again, kneeing the younger man in the gut and then running his blade up Leon’s arm in a move that would have filleted the flesh from his bones if it had been real. Then he pulled the knife away and drove it into Leon’s chest. Another bruise. 

“Where’s your focus?” Krauser snarled into Leon’s ear. “Your Sergeant isn’t here. Keep your head in the game.” 

Why the fuck was he pressing the issue? 

Leon shoved Krauser away - no small feat to make that mountain of a man move - and dropped into another ready stance. Resetting into another round, even as his muscles pleaded with him to stop. 

No. He wouldn’t be given a break out there. There would be no mercy. 

That was why you’d told him to do this, Leon knew. Krauser was as close to the real thing as he was going to get, if you were unable to fight. 

So, Leon charged again. Over and over, even if he ended up on the ground nearly every time. It was those first few weeks with you all over again. Near-victories followed by crushing defeats. All ushered in, Leon knew, by Krauser’s taunts. The Major was all too aware of that fact, as he swept Leon’s legs out from underneath him. His back hit the ground yet again, and this time Krauser didn’t even bother to go for a pin or a finishing move. 

“What did I tell you about being distracted?” the Major sneered, tossing his knife up and catching it in one smooth motion. “Because it’s the people who get distracted out there that end up dying.” 

“I’m not-”

“Don’t bullshit me. You have a weak spot and you’re letting me exploit it.” A weak spot. Leon had never once thought of you that way. You kept him going. You’d given him strength in the worst days at STRATCOM. Even during the days spent in those cells, the silent looks you would give him often felt like all that was keeping him sane. 

And then they’d beaten you in front of him, and Leon had broken. 

“You think I’m the only one who will figure it out?” The question was quiet, but cut straight to the bone. It was what you and Leon had talked about, all those nights ago. The last time in days that he’d seen you. And it was killing him. It hurt not to train with you. To get those reassuring looks when no one else was looking. 

You’d told him from the beginning that this life didn’t guarantee that the two of you would be together. 

He couldn’t let your absence drag him down. 

But he was frustrated and hurt, so he looked up at Krauser from the ground with a glare. “Why not report it, then?” Leon challenged, because that question had been eating away at him. “Why not let Reed and Hellman kick me out like they wanted to?” 

Krauser’s eyes flashed, and Leon knew that he’d overplayed his hand, admitting that he’d heard that conversation. 

“Get up, rookie,” the Major ordered, “and focus, or maybe I’ll change my mind and let them send you home.” 

Leon wasn’t sure if Krauser was serious or not, at this point. 

Whatever the case, he pushed himself up with a groan anyway, part of him debating just walking away. No. He wouldn’t give in that easily. He never did. So he stood his ground, meeting that disapproving stare that had been fixed on him for the better part of a week. The Major wanted focus? He’d get it. He wanted to talk shit? Leon could give as good as he got. 

So the younger man raised his knife, still keeping his gaze locked on his opponent. “Maybe you’re the one who needs to focus. Sure are taking an interest in something that’s none of your business.” 

Krauser didn’t take the bait, but Leon saw his expression shift. His brow creased further, his eyes glinting. He thought that maybe he'd hit a nerve, but that moment of emotion was gone quickly. “That the best you’ve got?” he asked, and then Leon was on the defensive again, blocking quick strike after quick strike. Their hands moved fast, and Leon’s mind never once wavered from the task in front of him. Right up until he ducked under a swing, his blade held parallel to the ground, and ran it straight across Krauser’s side. He followed the move through, ending up at the Major’s back, going for a killing blow to the spine. It didn’t quite land as Krauser whirled around, knocking Leon’s arm out of the way. Another side kick distanced them, but Krauser looked down at his side for a moment, looking at where Leon’s knife had connected. 

When he looked back up, he gave an almost reluctant nod of approval. “Not bad.” 

It wasn’t much assurance, but Krauser wasn’t you. Leon would take what he could get. 

Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

Chapter Index

A/N: Leon said "Why are you so up in my business?" and Krauser did not have a good answer to that question.

Speaking of Krauser . . . I did in fact cave and started writing his lil spin-off, it'll switch between Operation Javier and flashbacks of before, during and eventually after Between the Bones. Because I'm a hooligan. First chapter is out already! Even though I said I was gonna wait but I have no self control, oops. It is absolutely nonessential to the plot of this, and any references made to it will be fully explained in context but uhhhh I like the goofy beret man, so it exists now!

[voskhozhdeniye]

Former Israeli intelligence and security official Yuval Malka told Hebrew media on 25 July that Washington has greenlit a wider war on Lebanon.

“According to the information I received from the delegation and what I know, Netanyahu has received full legitimacy in the United States to wage a war in Lebanon,” Malka told Israel’s Channel 14.

“When he arrives in the country, he is expected to head to the ‘Al-Bur’ in Al-Kiryah, and from there he will start the war in Lebanon,” he added, referring to a military complex that houses the headquarters of the Israeli army’s different corps.

Netanyahu visited Washington this week for a speech in Congress and talks with officials.

The Israeli army has reportedly signaled to the government that the time is ripe for an expanded war against Lebanon, according to a defense analyst for Hebrew media. 

“The Israeli army is prepared for a major ground maneuver in Lebanon and warns: Any delay will be in Hezbollah’s favor when there is progress in the background in negotiations to release the hostages,” said Amir Bohbot, military editor and senior defense analyst for Israeli news site Walla, on 24 July.

“The Israeli army is sending a signal to the government – we are at the height of preparations for war in the north, and now is the right time,” he added. 

Citing sources, Bohbot says, “postponement for another year or two will lead to the rehabilitation and alignment of Hezbollah and all parties,” and that “the achievements of the Israeli army will be in vain … Hezbollah will have difficulty launching a campaign against Israel without the two division commanders [recently assassinated by Israel].” 

“The IDF confirms that the forces trained for the ground maneuver mission in Lebanon, including forces that have gained significant experience in the Gaza Strip, raise the IDF to a very high level of competence.”

Meanwhile, Hebrew newspaper Makan reported that the Israeli navy held a reception ceremony on Wednesday for two new US-made landing ships at a naval base in Haifa.

Combat systems will be installed on the two vessels before they enter service on “several fronts.” 

Despite Bohbot’s comments, Maariv newspaper reported on Wednesday that the Israeli army is losing its readiness to launch an all-out war against Lebanon and Hezbollah because its forces have been worn out from almost 300 days of fighting in Gaza. 

Hezbollah released the third episode of its “Hoopoe” series on 24 July, revealing recent drone footage of the sensitive and strategic Ramat David Airbase and several other important sites it is capable of striking in the event of all-out war with Israel.

The Lebanese resistance group has recently struck new Israeli settlements not previously targeted in response to assassinations and indiscriminate Israeli attacks on south Lebanon. 

Its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has warned Israel that it is prepared to fight “without limits, rules, or restraints” if a wide-scale war is waged against Lebanon. 

In a speech on 17 July, Nasrallah responded to increased Israeli threats against Lebanon and to a recent Hebrew media report that Tel Aviv faces a significant shortage of tanks due to losses in Gaza, saying, “If your tanks come to Lebanon and its south, you will not suffer a shortage of tanks because you will have no tanks left.”

[captain-price-unofficially]

Martin P6M SeaMaster, a 1950s strategic bomber flying boat for the United States Navy that almost entered service; production aircraft were built and Navy crews were undergoing operational training, with service entry expected in about six months, when the program was cancelled on 21 August 1959

[compacflt]

If you want, and only if you want to, could you explain about making Logistics a big part of Ice's career path? Not only did fit so well with your Ice's characterization, it was just so neat I've made it my HC for Ice's career path.

yes!

I got REALLy deep into the defense policy weeds in this post so I’m putting a cut to save people’s dashboards

1. when i was rewriting chapters 8 &9 last winter i did literally the bare minimum of research about the current set of high-level officers. the commander of the pacific fleet at the time had previously been the director of pacific fleet logistics ordnance & supply. So that was easy to yoink. a proven chain of succession.

2. but also: it fit ice’s (or his alter ego admiral Kazansky’s) neat, orderly, effective, collected, strategic characterization. And as professional tactics go, there would be no better promotion for a high-level officer looking to take over the fleet than DFLOS. understand the fleet by the numbers, you comprehensively understand the fleet.

3. In terms of secret-keeping logistics, ice is supposed to be kind of the best. like, because of his logistical thinking, he & maverick get away with it. Or that’s how I would’ve written it if I were a little smarter. Obviously in practice a bunch of people find out so it’s not great. but the navy AS A WHOLE doesn’t find out.

4. The field of military logistics is rigorously bureaucratic, boring, soulsucking, selfdefeating, notoriously corrupt, and yet entirely necessary for the military to succeed at any level (in the very first draft of WWGATTAI i included a famous US marine corps maxim that most people have heard at some point: “amateurs talk tactics. professionals talk logistics.” but that was literally the only good thing about the original chapter 6 which got entirely rewritten a month after i published it). So logistics as a field of specialization fit in perfectly with my secondary character thesis that rising through the boring bureaucratic ranks of the Navy sucked all the humanity & will to live out of ice one day at a time.

a couple related interesting things that I’ve never talked about on this blog & might never get the chance to again:

a) ice canonically joins the navy as a fighter pilot & ends his career as a glorified bureaucrat. that sucks. obviously the struggle to rise in the ranks is a notoriously cutthroat, political, sleazy business (you do not get to the top of the United States Navy by being nice to people), but i would also not be the first person to say that—for exemplary officers—leadership is an EXPECTATION that can counterbalance someone’s natural drive to excel, if that makes sense. You get promoted because you’re good at something (flying), but you get promoted away from the thing you were good at. There is an extent to which you have to fight for a promotion—but there is also an extent to which commanders above you pick you for the job, suck you up along the pipeline. Loss of agency—a major major component of joining the military—does still apply to upper-level officers.

B) to that end, i am reminded of one quote from Todd Schmidt’s 2023 book “Silent Coup of the Guardians: US Military Elite Influence on National Security.” This is an Army training & doctrine commander speaking: “the military has a lot of two- and three-star senior leaders that were confident, charismatic commanders at the O-6 level. But that’s the end of the story. One in fifty, maybe one in a hundred, truly have what it takes to operate successfully at the strategic level and make a real difference for their service. The problem is that they all tend to think that, since they have stars on their shoulders, they’re the one.” —I’ve been writing ice as “The Chosen One,” the officer unicorn, for two reasons: one, it provides him cover for his illegal relationship (and also asks an interesting chicken-egg question: does he get away with his rlnship because he’s so good, or is he so good JUST to get away with his relationship?); and two, he’s “the chosen one” in canon, i.e. he already has four stars in canon: canonically he is not a mediocre officer. But most officers (cough cough maverick) are not cut out for high-level leadership.

C.) in Thomas E. Ricks’ book “The Generals,” Ricks argues that (at least in the Army) mediocrity in the general/flag officer ranks is unfortunately by design. In WWII, if you were a mediocre officer, you got relieved! You got fired! It’s part of why we won: merciless culling of the general officer ranks! But between WWII and Korea, officer relief began to be associated with shame & wasted resources. Mediocre officers got promoted anyways. The military elite pipeline sucks mediocrity up the chain of command. Ricks blames this issue for (at least the Army’s) shit leadership in every post-WWII war, including but most especially Iraq and Afghanistan. There’s no penalty for mediocrity. That in turn reflects on military strategy (mediocre strategists at the helm) & the outcome of every military foray (mediocre outcomes).

D) additionally. There’s a whole neverending debate in the field of civil-military relations (an extremely interesting field of study btw) about the corporatization of the military—lots of high-level talk over the years of “running the military like a business.” If you get kinda into defense policy like me (am i still antimilitary? Idk! but i CAN easily tell you i am against the navy’s littoral combat ship program! It sucks!) then you will know that the navy is struggling right now on a lot of different fronts (procurement [shipbuilding esp. is a disaster—ford-class carriers are under budget though 👍🏽], recruitment, theatre prioritization, general preparedness, readiness against major adversaries [China in particular]). Simply, the navy is pretty mediocre at the minute. I talk a big game about ice being COMPACFLT & SECNAV, but if those are true, & if he “exists” in our current timeline, or even canon timeline (COMPACFLT in 2020), then he’s complicit in a lot of why the navy is sucking ass right now. He didn’t do his job very well. LOL. So, because I love (especially my version of) ice too much to see his legacy suffer, I am stating for the record that my timeline is a different timeline where ice saves the navy from itself and fixes all its issues & solves all its problems & makes it the pride of the armed forces & the tip of the spear of American defense :) because I said so

E.) unrelated but important. It sounds obvious but it must be said. Ice dies on the job in TGM canon. To the extent that in earlier drafts of the script, not-his-sister-Sarah even points out to maverick that ice is still active duty, in the same breath as she tells him ice is sick again. (A wise move to remove that line.) ice does not resign his commission. Ice does not retire to spend time with his family at the end of his life. Ice dies as commander of the pacific fleet. He dies on the job; he dies FOR the job, bureaucratic as it is. If you were wondering why I wrote ice so dormantly suicidal, it’s because canon (i argue) has made it clear that—since the second ice signed up to be a fighter pilot during the Cold War to the second he died active duty—ice has ALWAYS been ready and willing to die for his honorable Navy career.

[gothhabiba]

Israeli Agriculture. Development of a Resource in Service of an Ideology

Israel’s agricultural system is characterized by an intensive system of production employing the latest engineering techniques and biotechnology. It contributed 3% to GDP and employed 2% of the population in 2006. Agricultural output in 2008 was worth about $5.5 billion, of which 20 percent was exported (Statistical Abstract of Israel, 2008). Israel’s agricultural system has evolved in large measure due to political and historical factors that extend back beyond the establishment of the state of Israel. In Israel, endogenous drivers of agricultural policy, including religion, culture, socioeconomics and demographics, take on monumental importance. Foremost among these is the role of Zionism in shaping agricultural and water policy. Agriculture was integral to the realization of the Zionist project since its inception. The settlers were led by a pioneering spirit and a back to the earth ethos, which aimed to wed the people to the land. This agrarian vision had two branches – conquering the land through its transformation and redemption, and simultaneously the creation of a new Jewish man. «In exile, the story goes, the Jewish people have been separated from nature, forbidden to work the soil and forced to be urban. The Jewish people will go back to the land, and they will be rebuilt by the land. In their return Jews will again tend to the earth and draw strength from their renewed biological rootedness» (Schoenfeld, 2004: 6)[.]

The central goal of Zionism was to create a geographical Jewish presence in Israel/Palestine. Collective agricultural settlement of the land was seen as an integral part of this process due to its role in population dispersal, securing peripheral areas and nurturing a bond between the Jews and their homeland. The other important goal for agriculture was self-sufficiency, in light of Israel’s inability to trade with her neighbours. For these reasons, Israeli is one example of a country pursuing agriculture despite its unprofitability, not to mention the unsuitability of the ecological environment to the agricultural activity (Da’na, 2000: 419)[.] This can be most clearly evidenced through Israel’s policy of water development. As Lipchin remarks (2003: 69): «In a country with naturally scarce water resources it is astonishing to see that Israel’s water policy does not reflect this natural scarcity». For example, for a long time much of Israel’s land mass was used to grow cotton, a water and pesticide hungry plant, rather than food (Richter & Safi, 1997: 211).

[...] Zionist ideology [...] interfaces with agricultural policy in numerous other ways, contributing to the unique character of the Israeli agricultural system. These include: the establishment of collective farms, including kibbutzim and moshavim, to defend against attackers in the early years; large capital inflows from the Jewish Diaspora, the United States and German reparations, permitting modern technologies; a preference for expensive Hebrew labour, including prohibitions against Arab labour; and large subsidies to the agricultural sector of inputs such as water, due to their strategic importance in laying claim to the land. Along with the agrarian vision, the Jews brought with them a European modernizing initiative, which saw the need to redeem the landscape and shape it to the settlers´ will. This implied a series of sweeping changes in agricultural production methods and land use patterns, which would transform the country.

– 2009. Leah Temper, “Creating Facts on the Ground: Agriculture in Israel and Palestine (1882-2000),” Historia Agraria 48, pp. 75-110.

[usafphantom2]

Where are the SR 71’s today?

They are all on display in America with one exception. #962 is at Duxford, Great Britain. this SR-71 was the one that was the most frequently stationed in Great Britain It’s a permanent loan from the United States to Great Britain with our thanks.

Arizona

#17951 flew on March 5, 1965, and served as a test bird throughout its career. It is currently displayed at the Pima Air Museum, Tucson, AZ.

California

California is home to more SR-71 aircraft than any other state. It houses six of them, listed below:

•SR-71A #17955 - AFFTC Museum, Edwards AFB, CA.

•SR-71A #17960 - Castle Air Museum near Atwater, CA.

•SR-71A #17963 - Beale AFB, CA.

•SR-71A #17973 - Blackbird Airpark, Palmdale, CA.

•SR-71A #17975 - March Field Museum, March AFB, CA.

•SR-71A #17980 - NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center as #844.

Florida

In Florida, specifically at the USAF Armament Museum, Eglin AFB, FL, the SR-71A #61-7959, also known as the "Big Tail," is on display. This nickname dates to 1975, when it was chosen as the platform for a new series of sensors placed in an extension towards the rear of the aircraft . The last flight of this aircraft took place on October 29, 1976

Georgia

At the Museum of Aviation, Robins AFB, GA, the Blackbird SR-71A #17958 is on display. According to various records, on July 28, 1976, this example facilitated a human being (pilot captain Eldon W. Joersz and major RSO George T. Morgan Jr.) to reach the highest speed ever aboard an aircraft.

Kansas

SR-71A #17961 accumulated 1601 flight hours until February 2, 1977, the date of its last flight. It is currently on display between a Northrop T-38 Talon advanced trainer and a life-size replica of the Space Shuttle at the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center, Hutchinson, KS

Louisiana

At the 8th Air Force Museum, Barksdale AFB, LA, the SR-71A #17967 is on display, one of two examples reactivated in 1995 for USAF service before the program was canceled in 1998. Over the years, this aircraft accumulated more than 2700 flight hours.

Texas

At the USAF History and Traditions Museum, Lackland AFB, TX, is SR-71A #17979, which was used as a reconnaissance aircraft during Operation Giant Reach in the Egyptian-Israeli war.

Michigan

Two trainer variants were built, denoted SR-71Bs. One crashed on approach to Beale AFB on January 11, 1968, while the other, SR-71B #17956, is displayed at the Kalamazoo Aviation History Museum in Kalamazoo, MI. This SR-71 has more flight hours than any other Blackbird, nearly 4000, and is believed to have been photographed more times than any other.

Nebraska

At the Strategic Air and Space Museum near Ashland, NE, SR-71A #17964 is on display. Its first flight took place in 1966, and the last in 1990, when it was delivered to Offutt AFB, NE, to be permanently exhibited

Ohio

The first operational ( Jerry O’Malley and Ed Payne) mission of an SR-71 was carried out by SR-71A #17976 before concluding its career with about 3000 flight hours. It is among the first SR-71s to be permanently exhibited and best preserved. It is displayed at the National Museum of the United States Air Force, Wright-Patterson AFB, OH.

Oregon

Below the right wing of Howard Hughes' H-4 Hercules at the Evergreen Aviation Museum in McMinnville, OR, is the most complete and accurate SR-71, SR-71A #17971, which has accumulated over 3500 flight hours.

Utah

As mentioned, after January 11, 1968, when half of the SR-71 trainer fleet was lost due to the crash of #17957, a replacement trainer was built, designated SR-71C #17981. This aircraft is currently on display at the Hill Aerospace Museum, Hill AFB, UT. Irregular maintenance procedures and aftermarket construction caused constant yaw of the aircraft; therefore, the SR-71C was used on a limited basis between 1969-1976.

Virginia

The state of Virginia hosts two SR-71s:

•SR-71A #17968 is displayed at the Science Museum in Richmond, VA. 2. The #972 at Udvar-Hazy

Chantilly,

Linda Sheffield

@Habubrats71 via X

[scotianostra]

On June 6th 1944 Allied forces stormed the beaches of Northern France on what became known as D-Day.

There were no doubt many acts of bravery on that day when the tide started to turn against the Nazi regime that ultimately ended World War Two. I shall concentrate on one, but will also tell you about a German sniper that day and a wee tenuous brave Canadian.

‘Piper’ Bill Milllin landed on Sword Beach on the Coast of Normandy as part of the 1st Special Service Brigade in the second wave of the operation.

Pipers were banned from being on the frontline during the Second World War because of the number of casualties seen during the First World War. The enemy figured out that the piper helped boost morale to the Allied troops, and they were slaughtered because of this. This led the War Office to restrict their presence in camps as well as on the frontline.

Millin pointed this out to his Commanding Officer  Brigadier Lord "Shimi" Lovat  Fraser, hereditary chief of the Clan Fraser, who was a law unto himself. “Ah, but that’s the English War Office, Millin,” Lovat told him. “You and I are both Scottish so that doesn’t apply.”

As Bill Millin embarked from the landing craft and waded through chest high water making his way toward dry land, high above his head he carried his pipes, the only weapon he would need that day. Around him bullets flew, mortar shells exploded Bill_Millin1and his friends, comrades and countrymen died, but Bill carried onward.

It was what came next that made Bill Millin a legend! Lord Lovat, the Chief of Clan Fraser and Brigadier of the 2,500 commandos, instructed the 21 year old Bill Millin to fire up his pipes and play a tune to inspire the men. And with the five words ‘Give us “Highland Laddie” man!’, the Legend of ‘Piper’ Bill was born.

Amid the carnage and destruction Bill Millin played as he had never played before. While marching up and down the beach of Normandy, Millin played the tunes ‘Hielan’ Laddie’, ‘The Road to the Isles’ and ‘Blue Bonnets over the Border’, and at one point added ‘The Nut Brown Maiden’ for a redheaded French girl who had strayed out of her home.

The day would see Millin and his unit march four miles inland to a point known as Pegasus Bridge, which was a strategically vital point for the German 21st Panzer Division. D-Day was the turning point in the Allies’ battle against Hitler and ‘Piper’ Bill Millin stands a reminder of the bravery and sacrifice made by ordinary people in extraordinary times.

Facing the soldiers coming ashore that day was Horst Hrubesh, German machine gunner, he too can be seen as a hero of sorts, if you read the poem he penned, I will let you decide;

Scottish soldier play your pipes

Even though your in my sights

Just like me you have a wife

I aim above your head

For full five minutes i fire up high

Keep my bullets up in the sky

No mad piper, you will not die

I will not lay you dead.

Now at my Nazi captains call

He wonders why you do not fall

They drag me from my post in haste

Another gunner i am replaced

In a cell now i await

Whats sure to be a bloody fate

Jack boots stamp across the yard

By my cell with windows barred

Soldier friends i stood beside

Now gather in a long straight line

Blindfold no i did decline

To see their faces full of guilt

As they take my life for i shalt not kill.

Horst Hrubesh was German , but not a nazi, he paid the price for his act on D Day.

The third person to get a mention today is James M. Doohan who landed ashore at Juno beach. Later that day se would be shot 6 times, survive and go on to become Scotty on Star Trek.

Doohan was a commissioned lieutenant with the 14th Field Artillery Regiment of the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division, and was tasked with invading an area of Normandy code-named Juno Beach. As the meme states, Doohan successfully led his men across the beach littered with anti-tank mines, and also managed to take out two German snipers:

Lieutenant Doohan was however not shot by a German sniper. He had been shot by a nervous, trigger-happy Canadian sentry.

Doohan said. "We landed safely, thank God, through those Y-shaped steel barriers you see in the film, tracer bullets, all that, none of our men hurt, and dashed 75 yards to the 7-foot tall dunes," Doohan said. 

"Crossed a minefield, found out about it later: It was meant to blow up tanks, and we weren't heavy enough. Moved up through a down - hardly a town just a village - called Graye Sur Mer, saw a church tower that was a machine-gun post, firing off to our left. 

Doohan took out the machine-gun post with a couple of shots. "I don't know if they were killed or wounded, but it shut them up," he said.  The Canadian soldier later said he didn't notice the gunshot wounds in his legs until he got to the medic who told him;

'You also have four bullets in your left knee.' I said: 'Well, I walked here.'"

[mariacallous]

The Athenian historian Thucydides once remarked that Sparta was so lacking in impressive temples or monuments that future generations who found the place deserted would struggle to believe it had ever been a great power. But even without physical monuments, the memory of Sparta is very much alive in the modern United States. In popular culture, Spartans star in film and feature as the protagonists of several of the largest video game franchises. The Spartan brand is used to promote obstacle races, fitness equipment, and firearms. Sparta has also become a political rallying cry, including by members of the extreme right who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Sparta is gone, but the glorification of Sparta—Spartaganda, as it were—is alive and well.

Even more concerning is the U.S. military’s love of all things Spartan. The U.S. Army, of course, has a Spartan Brigade (Motto: “Sparta Lives”) as well as a Task Force Spartan and Spartan Warrior exercises, while the Marine Corps conducts Spartan Trident littoral exercises—an odd choice given that the Spartans were famously very poor at littoral operations. Beyond this sort of official nomenclature, unofficial media regularly invites comparisons between U.S. service personnel and the Spartans as well.

Much of this tendency to imagine U.S. soldiers as Spartan warriors comes from Steven Pressfield’s historical fiction novel Gates of Fire, still regularly assigned in military reading lists. The book presents the Spartans as superior warriors from an ultra-militarized society bravely defending freedom (against an ethnically foreign “other,” a feature drawn out more explicitly in the comic and later film 300). Sparta in this vision is a radically egalitarian society predicated on the cultivation of manly martial virtues. Yet this image of Sparta is almost entirely wrong. Spartan society was singularly unworthy of emulation or praise, especially in a democratic society.

To start with, the Spartan reputation for military excellence turns out to be, on closer inspection, mostly a mirage. Despite Sparta’s reputation for superior fighting, Spartan armies were as likely to lose battles as to win them, especially against peer opponents such as other Greek city-states. Sparta defeated Athens in the Peloponnesian War—but only by accepting Persian money to do it, reopening the door to Persian influence in the Aegean, which Greek victories at Plataea and Salamis nearly a century early had closed. Famous Spartan victories at Plataea and Mantinea were matched by consequential defeats at Pylos, Arginusae, and ultimately Leuctra. That last defeat at Leuctra, delivered by Thebes a mere 33 years after Sparta’s triumph over Athens, broke the back of Spartan power permanently, reducing Sparta to the status of a second-class power from which it never recovered.

Sparta was one of the largest Greek city-states in the classical period, yet it struggled to achieve meaningful political objectives; the result of Spartan arms abroad was mostly failure. Sparta was particularly poor at logistics; while Athens could maintain armies across the Eastern Mediterranean, Sparta repeatedly struggled to keep an army in the field even within Greece. Indeed, Sparta spent the entirety of the initial phase of the Peloponnesian War, the Archidamian War (431-421 B.C.), failing to solve the basic logistical problem of operating long term in Attica, less than 150 miles overland from Sparta and just a few days on foot from the nearest friendly major port and market, Corinth.

The Spartans were at best tactically and strategically uncreative. Tactically, Sparta employed the phalanx, a close-order shield and spear formation. But while elements of the hoplite phalanx are often presented in popular culture as uniquely Spartan, the formation and its equipment were common among the Greeks from at least the early fifth century, if not earlier. And beyond the phalanx, the Spartans were not innovators, slow to experiment with new tactics, combined arms, and naval operations. Instead, Spartan leaders consistently tried to solve their military problems with pitched hoplite battles. Spartan efforts to compel friendship by hoplite battle were particularly unsuccessful, as with the failed Spartan efforts to compel Corinth to rejoin the Spartan-led Peloponnesian League by force during the Corinthian War.

Sparta’s military mediocrity seems inexplicable given the city-state’s popular reputation as a highly militarized society, but modern scholarship has shown that this, too, is mostly a mirage. The agoge, Sparta’s rearing system for citizen boys, frequently represented in popular culture as akin to an intense military bootcamp, in fact included no arms training or military drills and was primarily designed to instill obedience and conformity rather than skill at arms or tactics. In order to instill that obedience, the older boys were encouraged to police the younger boys with violence, with the result that even in adulthood Spartan citizens were liable to settle disputes with their fists, a tendency that predictably made them poor diplomats.

But while Sparta’s military performance was merely mediocre, no better or worse than its Greek neighbors, Spartan politics makes it an exceptionally bad example for citizens or soldiers in a modern free society. Modern scholars continue to debate the degree to which ancient Sparta exercised a unique tyranny of the state over the lives of individual Spartan citizens. However, the Spartan citizenry represented only a tiny minority of people in Sparta, likely never more than 15 percent, including women of citizen status (who could not vote or hold office). Instead, the vast majority of people in Sparta, between 65 and 85 percent, were enslaved helots. (The remainder of the population was confined to Sparta’s bewildering array of noncitizen underclasses.) The figure is staggering, far higher than any other ancient Mediterranean state or, for instance, the antebellum American South, rightly termed a slave society with a third of its people enslaved.

The ancient sources are effectively unanimous that the helots were the worst treated slaves in all of Greece; helotry was an institution that shocked the conscience of Athenian slaveholders. Critias, an Athenian collaborator with Sparta, was said to have quipped that it was in Sparta that “the free were most free and the slaves most a slave,” a staggering statement about a society that was mostly enslaved (and about Critias as a person that he thought this was praise). Plutarch reports the various ways that the Spartans humiliated and degraded the helots, while the Athenian orator Isocrates argued that it was a crime to murder enslaved people everywhere in Greece, except Sparta. Sparta, with both the most slaves per capita and the worst treated slaves, was likely the least free society in the whole of the ancient world.

Nor were the Spartans particularly good stewards of Greek freedom. While their place in popular culture, motivated by films such as 300, puts the Spartans at the head of efforts to defend Greek freedom from the expanding Persian Empire, Sparta was not always so averse to Persia. Unable to deal with the Athenian fleet itself, Sparta accepted Persian money during the Peloponnesian War to build its own, selling the Ionian Greeks back into Persian rule in exchange for humbling Athens. That war won the Spartans a brief hegemony in Greece, which they quickly squandered, ending up at war with their former allies in Corinth.

Unable to win that war either, Sparta again turned to Persia to enforce a peace, called the “King’s Peace,” which sold yet more Greek city-states to the Persian king in exchange for making Sparta into Persia’s local enforcer in Greece, tasked with preventing the emergence of larger Greek alliances that could challenge Persia. Far from being the defender of Greek independence, when given the chance the Spartans opened not only the windows but also the doors to Persian rule. They also refused to join in Alexander the Great’s expedition against Persia, for which Alexander mocked them by dedicating the spoils of his first victories “from all of the Greeks, except the Spartans.”

Instead of a society of freedom-defending super-warriors, Sparta is better understood as a place where the wealthiest class of landholder, the Spartans themselves, had succeeded in reducing the great majority of their poor compatriots to slavery and excluded the rest, called the perioikoi, from political participation or citizenship. The tiny minority of Spartan citizens derived their entire income from the labor of slaves, being legally barred from doing any productive work or engaging in commerce.

And rather than spending their time in ascetic military training, they spent their ample leisure time doing the full suite of expensive, aristocratic Greek pastimes: hunting (a pastime for the wealthy rather than a means of subsistence in the ancient world), eating amply, accumulating money, funding Olympic teams, breeding horses, and so on. Greek authors such as Xenophon and Plutarch continually insist that the golden age of Spartan austerity and egalitarianism existed in the distant past, but each author pushes that golden age further and further into that past, and in any event, archaeology tells us it was never so.

And that lavish lifestyle was clearly very important to the Spartans because they were willing to sacrifice all of their other ambitions on the altar to it. Beginning in the early 400s, the population of Spartan citizens, defined by being rich enough in land to make the mess contributions that were a key part of military and social lfie, began to decline as Spartan families used inheritance and marriage to consolidate holdings and increase their wealth, from 8,000 Spartan citizens in 480 B.C. to 3,500 in 418 to 2,500 in 394 to just 1,500 in 371. The collapse in the number of Spartans who qualified for citizenship had disastrous effects on the manpower available for the Spartan army, causing Sparta’s strategic ambitions to all crumble, one by one. Yet efforts by Agis IV (245-241 B.C.) and Cleomenes III (235-222 B.C.) to arrest the decline were foiled precisely because the Spartan political system denied any political voice to any but the leisured rich, who had little incentive to change.

Sparta is no inspiration for the leaders of a free state. Sparta was a prison in the guise of a state and added little to the sum of the human experience except suffering. No American, much less any U.S. soldier, should aspire to be like a Spartan.

[eretzyisrael]

Eitan Fischberger

Its recent series of targeted assassinations should send a stark warning to terrorist leaders worldwide: they are not safe. The moment they leave the safety of their underground bunkers—or their fancy accommodations in Qatar, in the case of Hamas leaders—they may find themselves in Israel’s crosshairs. To drive this message home even more powerfully, however, the international community, particularly the United States, should unequivocally express support for the strikes. Better yet, the U.S. should leverage its influence and pressure Qatar to expel the remaining Hamas officials enjoying safe haven in Doha.

Critics of the targeted assassinations will doubtless voice concern over potential escalatory responses from Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as other Iranian-backed proxies like the Houthis and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. But these critics forget that the escalation already occurred—on October 7, to be exact, when Hamas led thousands of terrorists in the most devastating mass slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust.

Others might worry that the assassination of Haniyeh will complicate a potential hostage deal for the Israeli (and American) hostages still held captive by Hamas in Gaza. The opposite is true. Perhaps for the first time since October 7, Hamas leaders and their Iranian overlords realize that they are not as bulletproof as they might have thought. Moreover, Israel has in the past exhibited a tendency to “over strategize” and allow concern about escalation and international pressure to stop it from enacting swift justice. This is no longer an acceptable standard for most Israelis. A society that fails to guarantee justice and security for its people by vanquishing those that threaten it is a society on course for collapse.

U.S. leaders should recognize that supporting a proactive Israel also safeguards American interests. Both Shakr and Haniyeh have American blood on their hands. Shakr, for his part, played a key role in the planning and execution of the 1983 attack on the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut that killed 241 American service personnel. And Haniyeh oversaw the October 7 massacre, in which dozens of American were murdered. Justice for these Americans has now been served, at least in part.

[darkmaga-retard]

While the United States is unable to go past the testing phase in the development of hypersonic missiles, Russia is zooming ahead with upgrades to already unrivaled weapon systems it has been fielding for decades at this point. In fact, even much smaller countries such as North Korea and Iran have surpassed the US in this regard, despite being under siege for decades. In line with this, many countries are changing their military doctrine, opting for long-range precision strike capabilities in order to deter NATO aggression. Expectedly, Moscow went furthest in this and is still the only military superpower on the planet with hypersonic weapons on a tactical, operational, strategic and doctrinal level. Namely, the Russian military has approximately two dozen various hypersonic weapons in service or about to be inducted. This stands in stark contrast to the entire political West, which fields exactly zero hypersonic weapons, despite running dozens of programs simultaneously.

The Kremlin has been using this massive advantage to great effect in the special military operation (SMO), wiping out thousands of illegally deployed NATO personnel in Ukraine. The 9-A-7660 “Kinzhal” missile systems armed with the 9-S-7760 air-launched hypersonic missiles have been able to destroy the most heavily fortified enemy targets, while the multirole 3M22 “Zircon” has proven its effectiveness against high-value targets all across Ukraine, whether it was the SBU/GUR personnel that took part in organizing terrorist attacks on hundreds of Russian civilians, or the CIA and other NATO intelligence services handlers who were aiding them. However, the “Iskander” missile system has been the most cost-effective and most common hypersonic weapon used by the Russian military. Just last month, it launched dozens of long-range strikes that have obliterated hundreds of the most valuable personnel and assets, including the overhyped NATO weapons.

As the world’s first land-based hypersonic missile platform, the 9K720 “Iskander” system has two variants. The first is the “Iskander-M”, armed with the advanced 9M723 quasi-ballistic/hypersonic missiles capable of massive speeds of up to Mach 8.7 and reaching a range of up to 500 km (due to INF Treaty limitations). Most Western sources classify it as an SRBM (short-range ballistic missile), albeit it’s far more advanced than a regular ballistic missile. The second is the “Iskander-K”, modified to launch cruise missiles such as the 9M728 (essentially the R-500, with a range of up to 500 km) and the Novator’s 9M729 (which Western sources claim has a staggering range of up to 5,500 km). It has a high degree of modularity, making it easy and affordable to upgrade the system, which gives it a plethora of strike options for various targets, be it large concentrations of infantry, heavy armor, parked aircraft, etc. Its accuracy also allows pinpoint precision strikes on high-priority targets.

[age-of-moonknight]

Helloo

If im not bothering you too much, may I ask what you know about the cia?

I know it may not be a question related to moon knight, or maybe it could be, but im kinda interested to know the basics at least and you seem to know a lot about it

Btw, i absolutely adore your blog

Hello!!! :D I'm so glad that you enjoy this blog and thanks for stopping by! Although, well,,,,hm,,,maybe it's just my rabid paranoia sinking its claws even deeper into me, but this is one of the more interesting asks I've gotten for this blog, that's for sure. 😅 For perhaps some context, I think anon might be referencing this post I made, gosh, close to two years ago now, where I got....maybe a little too excited talking about the history of the CIA and what Marc's time with The Company could mean for his character hahaha Accordingly, a full rundown on the agency's history, not to mention its many, many facets, is probably a bit outside the purview of this blog, but this is then a good time to state that if anyone ever wants to talk about anything and everything besides Moon Knight, my dms are always open and I'm happy to chat! However,,,I also have an affliction where I am an incorrigible pedant who jumps at the chance to write essays on things that interest me (and intelligence interests me very, very much, unfortunately). As such, while all my instincts are telling me this is absolutely glowing bait on a hook, if anyone wants to read a rambling wall of text about that agency Marc spent some time with, that will be waiting for you under the cut. Again, disclaimer, I'm just some person on the internet and thus can't really be considered a credible source on much of anything (except maybe how many times Moon Knight has teamed up with the Punisher hahaha). All the following info could easily be gathered from OSINT sources (and we're talking, like, Wikipedia, although this gave me the chance to pull out one of my favorite textbooks, Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy by Mark Lowenthal (vol. 7). If you're the textbook reading-type and interested in the topic, I'd suggest giving it a shot, particularly chapters 2 and 3 for the CIA and the U.S.' broader intelligence community). I tried to keep this incredibly surface level, as these are all topics that you could write monographs on, so if you want more sources/context, just hit me up! This also got,,,,unreasonably long (I didn't even know tumblr HAD a point where it would stop autosaving, but apparently trying to list all of the CIA's crimes against humanity will get you there), so I ended up having to split this across multiple posts.

Conception I discussed it in my previous post, but I'll give a brief rundown on how the Central Intelligence Agency came to be. So, the United States had intelligence organs pre-World War II, but they would typically only be spun up for however long a conflict lasted and then all of their assets would be reintegrated back into the military, da? But then with the end of WWII ushering in the atomic age and nuclear deterrence pushing out conventional conflict in favor of an espionage-fueled Cold War, the U.S. government deemed it prudent to have a permanent intelligence gathering service. There was just one hiccup, the question of what to do with the U.S.' WWII-era intelligence service, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Under the leadership of the very descriptively nicknamed Brigadier/Major General William "Wild Bill" Donovan, OSS officers had been running around conducting sabotage and espionage operations throughout Europe and Asia, doing wild things like working with an underground intelligence network of European Catholic priests and coordinating with the 20 July plot/Operation Valkyrie assassination attempt on Hitler. They were the very definition of irregular, British officials accused them of "playing cowboys," and the U.S.' massive post-war military organization was loathe to have to find some way to force OSS officers into the military's necessary uniformity, so in 1947, after a couple years of bureaucratic shuffling, the OSS apparatus got pasted onto this new intelligence agency that was so far,,,rather bookish and the CIA as we know it was born. This divide, between the incredibly Ivy League analysts and the more martial remnants of the OSS that got folded in was a contributor to the two major branches of the CIA (and their infamous intra-agency rivalry), so this perhaps a good segue into the CIA's different internal departments, its "directorates."

There are the two ogs, the Directorate of Operations and the Directorate of Analysis, and then the newer Directorates of Digital Innovation, Support, plus Science & Technology. (Note: this is as the agency stands now; there have been some fluctuations in structure and naming conventions over the years).

The Directorate of Operations (DO) needs little introduction, as it's the legacy of the OSS and what most people think of when they hear the word "espionage," the kind of work one individual once described to me as "fast cars, nice suits, and unlimited spending" (hope he's still out there and doing well). They're your politically deniable boots on the ground collecting HUMINT (human intelligence such as handling contacts and the like) and executing covert actions. It contains the ultimate sharp point of the spear, the Special Activity Center (SAC) with its Political Action Group (PAG), which spreads black propaganda, influences elections, and conducts other psychological operations, and the Covert Action Group (CAG), which draws operators from the military's special forces programs to form their own direct action, counter-intel/counter-terror, unconventional warfare, paramilitary group (they have a very diverse set of martial skills). Naturally, most recipients of the U.S. intelligence community's highest honors, the Intelligence Star and Distinguished Intelligence Cross are from the SAC. Most of the stars on the CIA HQ's Wall of Honor, which memorializes officers who died in service of the CIA, represent SAC officers too, however.

The Directorate of Analysis (DA), in contrast, doesn't get enough love, despite making up nearly half of the CIA for decades. Whereas the DO mainly collects the intelligence through various means, the DA has the people who take the raw intel and try to turn it into something digestible for policy makers (whether that means just translating the intel into basic English or proposing whole, wide-sweeping policy strategies has varied across the agency's history depending on its professionalism and the degree of government oversight at the time). They get so overshadowed despite being a key part of the intelligence cycle, it's almost not funny hahaha (I kid you not, the official CIA website not only has a "kids" section with an online coloring book that depicts the various directorates as heroes, but it even went so far as to depict the DO with a rather dashing hat and cape,,,,while they gave the representation of the DA glasses and a briefcase, I weep hahaha). However, if you've ever heard a stereotype of the CIA actually being made up of a bunch of incredibly Ivy League, smart but cliquey, uncomfortably cold (both in manner and strategy) eggheads, that would be because of the DA. That's a very disparaging stereotype,,,,but it got its start from somewhere. It's still the CIA after all, and there have been times in the institution's history where the only thing to distract the DA from its intra-agency pissing contest with the more domineering DO was to shield the CIA from any sort of external government or other agency encroachment on the CIA's "purview."

Probably the next most established division would be the Directorate of Science & Technology (DST). Whereas the DO is predominantly HUMINT and the DA works closest with policy makers, the DST is the one expanding the CIA's technological capacity to deal with CBRN threats (chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear), and collect SIGINT (signals intelligence over radio waves and the like), IMINT (image intelligence as from satellites), and GEOINT (geological intelligence monitoring seismographs to, for example, detect if a nation is doing underground nuclear tests). Intel collection is only as good as the tools used and naturally intelligence agencies all around the world are constantly trying to leapfrog each other in capabilities, circumvention, and denial (preventing adversarial interest's collection efforts, that is).

Similarly, the most recent division is the Directorate of Digital Innovation (DDI), which is similar to the DST, but the DDI is focused almost entirely on cyberwarfare/espionage. They also seem to be doing a lot with OSINT ("open-source" intelligence, AKA any information you can access without a security clearance). OSINT used to be a bit of a joke in the intelligence community ("so, it's just what you read in the paper this morning??? That puts it one step above LAVINT: intelligence collected by overhearing conversations in the lavatory"), but with the explosion of information made available by the modern internet landscape and social media, you can go far with OSINT. (If you too salivate over the potential OSINT, maybe checkout Bellingcat if you haven't already)

Lastly but not least, there's the Directorate of Support, who are all the people who keep The Company running smoothly, managing logistics, comms, security at CIA sites, and overseeing officer training.

So yeah, I've alluded to the DA's and DO's rivalry, so maybe I should talk about inter- and intra-agency competition and the hot water those things have got the CIA in over the years. Maintaining an effective intelligence community is a tricky thing, particularly in a nation trying its best to be democratic and at least nominally respect human rights. You want officers to be able to collect intelligence, but you can't let them have so much free rein they rough up the nation's own citizens with impunity (as that's a bad look and can lead to civilian push back that could not only hurt the regime but handicap intelligence gathering in the future) and you definitely don't want an intelligence agency getting so much power it feels like it can start dictating a nation's policy instead of just advising on it. (Plus, the absolute nightmare scenario of an agency that's gone completely off the rails and no longer bothers much with consulting on politics at all, but just operates completely independently). Thus, to prevent the intelligence community from getting too big for its own good, a little competition, a little checks-and-balances from within the intelligence community can be beneficial. The drive by one intel group to outperform another (and consequently get more recognition/funding/etc.) can lead to a mutual improvement of the products that end up on a policy maker's desk. Having said that, I hope I explained it in such a way where you might see the issue with the CIA being the U.S.' singular, domineering force in the federal intelligence community for decades. The DA and DO had their marked cultural divide, but the CIA had very little competition from other agencies and, for example, had their ultimate weapon: the President's Daily (intel) Brief. The CIA, due to its vast capabilities, for years had the privilege of providing the president with (what the CIA deemed to be) the most important intel topics of the day. Accordingly, particularly during the Cold War before government oversight of the CIA really kicked up, this allowed the CIA to sway the government towards some at best politically questionable and more critically ethically deplorable policy choices.

Yeah, having gotten this far, I don't think I've made it clear that, for as much as I am fascinated by and spent,,,,a lot of resources studying subjects such as intelligence and terrorism, I am fully cognizant and never quite cease to be outraged by the injustice that permeates those fields. The CIA for sure, with its vast resources and the outsized role the United States played in meddling in international affairs during the Cold War and on, is a chief and, now, well-documented offender. I'm sure CIA intelligence collection and guidance has prevented many attacks we'll never know about, but you can't talk about the CIA without discussing the actions that directly resulted in thousands dead. Let's go over some of their greatest hits, shall we? (And that takes me so long I have to put it in a whole other post).