Showing posts with label Aviation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Aviation. Show all posts

07 July 2025

NATO Spending, Spanish Resistance, and Using Militarism to Enrich the Investor Class and Destroy Social Services

https://www.democracynow.org/2025/6/26/president_donald_trump_nato_iran

I was pleased to find this story touching on some larger questions that the mainstream media tends to downplay or ignore. The question of increased military budgets and militarism go hand in hand with the cutting of social services and tax cuts - some of the key economic planks of Trumpism.

23 June 2024

Boeing and its Place in the US Empire

https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2024/5/2/whistleblower-joshua-dean-ex-worker-at-boeing-supplier-dies

Boeing is too big to fail. As a member of the S&P100, the company constitutes a large and essential component within the stock market as well as the US security apparatus. Boeing builds commercial jets and does billions of dollars in military contracts. In fact it's the second biggest military contractor in the United States (and third in the world).

06 June 2023

A Ukraine Miscellany XVIII: A New Phase in the War?

It's clear that Kyiv is basically unable to mount the much vaunted spring offensive – at least not anything of significance within the spectrum of conventional artillery-infantry oriented combat expected by its Western sponsors. Spring is more or less over at this point and for months the NATO Establishment has debated its next set of moves. It was determined some time ago that a general escalation was in order. The question was not if but when and how. There will an offensive but it is likely to change the very character and scope of the war.

06 October 2022

Khan and US Drones in Pakistani Airspace

https://thediplomat.com/2021/06/dont-expect-pakistan-to-host-us-military-bases/

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/taliban-accuses-pakistan-allowing-us-drones-use-its-airspace-2022-08-28/

In some respects this is a small story and received little attention but it deserves a second look. The Taliban has protested regarding US drone strikes in Afghanistan and particularly the targeted killing of al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. They are of course upset with Washington but the real target of their accusations and perhaps their ire is Pakistan. The Taliban accuses Islamabad of hosting US drones or at the very least allowing them to strike from its airspace.

15 June 2022

Media Coverage of a Boeing Crash in China

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-61488976

This story sure caught my eye. I don't believe such a narrative would fly in Western coverage. Whether the story is true or not, the propaganda campaign against China has reached a point that any and every story that can be used or spun is posted – anything to cast a shadow over the character of the Chinese people and state.

09 March 2022

07 March 2022

A Ukraine Miscellany (III): MiG's to Ukraine?

The US wanted to send fighter aircraft to Ukraine but finally someone realised that Ukrainian pilots are trained on Soviet and Russian models – Sukhoi's and MiG's. And so sending them F-16's and the like will do little good. I'm sure they could fly them but they won't be proficient without training.

28 February 2022

A Ukraine Miscellany (I)

As the military campaign rages, the lies continue to multiply on all sides as do the dangers. It is evident that Ukraine presented no security threat to Moscow in itself. That's not why Russia invaded. This conflict is over Ukraine's use as a staging point and its symbolism in the larger NATO-Moscow struggle. For the unfortunate people of Ukraine, their land is once again a battlefield – it's been a recurring motif for the peoples of Belarus, Ukraine, Poland, and Western and Southern Russia throughout their histories – a region Timothy Snyder referred to as the Bloodlands.

16 January 2022

24 May 2021

A Shocking Act: Ryanair Flight #4978

So said the US government in regard to the RyanAir flight diverted by Belarus to Minsk. Ostensibly threatened by a bomb, all admit the move was made by Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko in order to seize an opposition journalist with Western ties.

11 January 2020

The Downed 737 in Tehran


The downing of a Ukrainian 737 over Tehran was a tragedy with well over one hundred lives lost. It took place amid the confusion and angst surrounding the assassination of Iranian general Suleimani and in particular the Iranian missile strike in which US bases in Iraq were hit as a form of retaliation.

07 December 2019

German Militarism and the Rise of Von der Leyen


I'm afraid the picture for this article caught my eye. I remember on a few occasions working with the German Budeswehr loading and unloading C-160's. They're like a miniaturised two-engine version of the Lockheed C-130. Our base normally hosted Spanish and British air units (F-18's and AWACS) but the Germans would show up on occasion in connection to some transport mission.

19 November 2019

Buying Czech Loyalty: Rewarding the V4


It is with veritable glee that the American and European publics mark the thirty year anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall. And yet military contractors perhaps find a greater reason to rejoice in marking the nearly 29 years since the Warsaw Pact collapsed. After almost three decades it can be safely said that most former Eastern Bloc hardware is becoming obsolete.

03 November 2019

Training the Satraps


Few realise just how common this sort of this is and what an important role it plays for the US empire.
Hidden behind euphemisms of partnership, friendship and alliance the reality is these nations are beholden to the United States.

19 September 2019

Tungsten, the A-10 and Vietnam


On one level this exemplifies how the military-industrial complex works. The military ends up stuck with programmes they don't want and wish to cancel. Congress argues they want to keep the A-10 because of its tactical importance. For those in the know it is the supreme tank-killer and has a stellar reputation as a tough almost indestructible killing machine. A strange plane, it's relatively slow and quiet and yet its sound is unique, its engines sound like nothing else. During my days of shame when I wore the uniform of the legions and participated in its murderous policies, I was around them on a daily basis. I knew it by sound as much as by sight.

14 July 2019

Terrorist Timing in Turkey and Sri Lanka


After weeks of tension the Erdogan government is going ahead and taking delivery of the Russian S-400 surface-to-air missile system. NATO and in particular the United States don't want to see this happen.
This will begin to detach Turkey from the NATO command structure and throw up barriers in terms of its larger strategies and even battlefield tactics.

23 June 2019

French Arms in the Era of Trump


Nervousness surrounding US commitments to NATO continue to drive the EU to look inward. From the Franco-German Aachen Treaty signed in January 2019, to talk of creating a European Army, many of the nations within Europe are re-thinking security and strategy.
France and Germany have an increased standing in light of Brexit and France which has long served as a Western 'alternative' when it comes to arms is profiting handsomely as a result.

26 April 2019

NATO, the Military-Industrial Complex and Trumpism


One aspect of the US push for an increase in military budgets on the part of its NATO partners is closely wed to the fact that such spending all but demands large purchases from US military contractors. The Europeans know this and yet they are torn.