Insanity. This president is sucking the country dry, financially and morally. No amount of tariffs will cover the naval deployments, the "ballroom," the gifts to South American leaders, the presidential jets (2 at Boeing, under construction and years late, and that grift plane that will doubtless be turned over to him.), etc. At what cost are we enabling him?
Venezuela and other South American countries must each have sizable militaries equal in size to that of Russia to deserve a U.S. Naval, Marine Corps, and Air Force build up like this. Not buying it. Actually, if I were to believe and buy into the recent NSS, where the U.S. gets the western hemisphere, Russia gets Europe, and China gets Asia and the Pacific, I’d see little use for an American military nearly the size of what we have now, given we’ll be letting Russia run free over the EU, China over the Pacific nations, and Central and South American countries have tiny or no military. No need for that pesky military-industrial complex.
It's the last time we may be able use a force structured this way. Future armed forces wiil consist of much smaller, faster assets, especially on land, but at sea, too. Drone tech is where the future is, not tanks and massive naval ships. One of these days, a drone will take out one of our aircraft carriers, and the public will be all outraged and shocked.
That force does look impressive on paper, makes for a nice presentation poster. But to what end? A conventional on the ground troops with air support would be more of a disaster than Vietnam. If all the malministration wants is a regime change, the CIA has decades of experience with coups and assassinations. If there were already friendly back country gorilla insurgents, which I don’t believe there are, our Special Operations Forces are excellent working with them. If it’s all about oil, run a naval blockade, pull a coup regime change, and put U.S. friendly Big Oil in charge of drilling, extraction, and exporting.
But none of that is the real reason, just like stirring the pot in Nigeria, which already has American and European oil companies in place. If turmoil and war creates a major disruption in Venezuelan and Nigerian oil, world oil prices skyrocket, and the beneficiaries are the other major supplying countries - Middle East, Russia, and the U.S., all to the benefit of tRump’s buddies in the Gulf and Kremlin.
Holy crap, can you imagine the nightmare if they tried an invasion of Venezuela? Every citizen in the country would grab a gun. Also, the people there have traditionally liked us. It would be devastatingly stupid.
I saw the graphic you shared, "Operation Deflect (From Epstein)," and I have to disagree strongly with the framing that this is only about a deflection from the Epstein scandal. I’m a German watching this as an outsider, and I believe Americans, and perhaps you, are letting one obsession blind them to a massive reality: This is a mobilization for war, plain and simple.
Look at the graphic again, Charles. It is a detailed plan for the deployment of a Carrier Strike Group—the USS Gerald R. Ford—along with a Marine Expeditionary Package, an enormous Tomahawk strike package, and a full complement of Navy, Marine, and Air Force assets. This isn't a distraction; it's a blueprint for an extremely significant military operation.
• Are Americans so conditioned to an omnipresent military that they no longer recognize a war mobilization for what it is?
• The level of detail shown here—the specific ships, aircraft (like the VAG 132 Growlers in Puerto Rico), and thousands of service members being moved to the U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) area of operations—is not something undertaken lightly.
Has the American memory become so short that everyone has already forgotten the threats made by President-elect Trump just last year? The threats against Panama regarding the Canal, which he openly mused about taking back by military force, and his expansionist comments about Greenland and Canada were global news!
• The U.S. is deploying these assets directly to the Caribbean and Gulf of Venezuela, which is right next to Panama's critical waterway.
• To dismiss this immense, strategic movement of American military power as nothing more than a PR stunt to bury an old news cycle is to ignore the clear, stated geopolitical ambitions and threats made by the incoming administration.
I haven’t forgotten the threats, and I do not believe for one second that "Operation Deflect" is primarily or entirely about Epstein. It looks like a classic military buildup to secure—or seize—strategic interests, just as the President-elect promised.
Charles, they are build on distraction. The less people are able to follow their whirlwind of EOs the better for them and the more damage they achieve. Yet I don’t see think Epstein has much to do with it. People are usually not so interested what happens outside their region. I see it either way the war in the Ukraine. It’s just a war somewhere here. Nothing to talk about. That it’s just 1200 miles, yet who cares? People are now interested in the holidays. Having fun, spending money, pleasing people, avoiding conflict. Have you seen the drop in engagement this weekend? People are not paying attention — not to Epstein and not to the war brewing on their front porch. The regime seems to be using the holidays as deflection. That’s my read from the other side of the ocean.
EVERYTHING Trump does needs to be framed within the necessity of distraction from the Epstein files.
He has known about the Epstein files a lot longer than we have. He has known that he’d need a significant distraction for that same period of time.
He knew his come to papa moment would arrive.
A huge, earth-shaking distraction will always be at the top of his mind until he is able to implement something, be it war, or something else to knock Epstein off the media’s list of topics.
He has no grasp of the actual strategic ramifications of a war in the southern hemisphere. He can barely draw a clock during his mental acuity tests.
He doesn’t care about the Panama Canal. If he had any idea what he was doing, he’d know that the U.S. doesn’t need the headache. Does the U.S. really want a canal that is losing its fundamental functionality?
The canal has been struggling for years to maintain water levels high enough for big cargo ships. Other presidents, such as Kamala, would be happy to lend Panama a hand in making the structural changes needed for it, but she’d have no interest at all, none, in seizing the thing. We can be sure there have been war plans for doing so, but there are war plans for everything. There are war plans for invading Mexico, and probably every country south of Texas. That’s how the Pentagon operates.
Normal presidents say, “Great, good to know,” and move on to the fight for more jobs or less inflation.
Trump needs a massive distraction because the Epstein scandal is more than a scandal. It’s a world-changing event that has the potential to awaken the entire world to a horrific, unpublicized problem that he’s been at the center of for 20 years or more.
His world collapses if the full breadth of his involvement is finally revealed. He has been aware of this for a long, long time.
Your reaction to my post is exactly what I was aiming for. The graphic shows that this is not a few naval ships taking pot shots at innocent boaters. This is a massive buildup.
I saw and heard the Blackhawk helipcopters training overhead a few weeks ago. They flew 200 feet over the roof of my place. When pilots are training for urban warfare, we need to take notice.
But none of this has anything to do with strategic goals. If it were Reagan, I’d say, yes, sure, it’s about some imperialistic strategic end.
But this is Trump we are talking about. Drop everything you thought you knew about American imperialism and understand that he is about one thing: Evading a long prison term. It is the reason he sought a second term.
The strategic concerns normal humans like you are thinking about don’t come into play at all. He probably can’t find Caracas or Panama on a map, much less discuss intelligently why he wants to start a war.
His fear of accountability within the Epstein world is why he is so dangerous in this moment. That, and his almost stupefying ignorance about everything. Anything is on the table.
As I write this, there are probably herds of generals trying to figure out how to avoid doing what he wants to do. We’ll see soon if he’s been able to replace enough of them with his people to ignore them.
Insanity. This president is sucking the country dry, financially and morally. No amount of tariffs will cover the naval deployments, the "ballroom," the gifts to South American leaders, the presidential jets (2 at Boeing, under construction and years late, and that grift plane that will doubtless be turned over to him.), etc. At what cost are we enabling him?
It's madness, absolutely. The military does have a moral and legal obligation to decline the orders and return home.
Venezuela and other South American countries must each have sizable militaries equal in size to that of Russia to deserve a U.S. Naval, Marine Corps, and Air Force build up like this. Not buying it. Actually, if I were to believe and buy into the recent NSS, where the U.S. gets the western hemisphere, Russia gets Europe, and China gets Asia and the Pacific, I’d see little use for an American military nearly the size of what we have now, given we’ll be letting Russia run free over the EU, China over the Pacific nations, and Central and South American countries have tiny or no military. No need for that pesky military-industrial complex.
It's the last time we may be able use a force structured this way. Future armed forces wiil consist of much smaller, faster assets, especially on land, but at sea, too. Drone tech is where the future is, not tanks and massive naval ships. One of these days, a drone will take out one of our aircraft carriers, and the public will be all outraged and shocked.
That force does look impressive on paper, makes for a nice presentation poster. But to what end? A conventional on the ground troops with air support would be more of a disaster than Vietnam. If all the malministration wants is a regime change, the CIA has decades of experience with coups and assassinations. If there were already friendly back country gorilla insurgents, which I don’t believe there are, our Special Operations Forces are excellent working with them. If it’s all about oil, run a naval blockade, pull a coup regime change, and put U.S. friendly Big Oil in charge of drilling, extraction, and exporting.
But none of that is the real reason, just like stirring the pot in Nigeria, which already has American and European oil companies in place. If turmoil and war creates a major disruption in Venezuelan and Nigerian oil, world oil prices skyrocket, and the beneficiaries are the other major supplying countries - Middle East, Russia, and the U.S., all to the benefit of tRump’s buddies in the Gulf and Kremlin.
Holy crap, can you imagine the nightmare if they tried an invasion of Venezuela? Every citizen in the country would grab a gun. Also, the people there have traditionally liked us. It would be devastatingly stupid.
“It would be devastatingly stupid.” The hallmark of everything the tRumpf administration does. The course is now clear.
Hello Charles,
I saw the graphic you shared, "Operation Deflect (From Epstein)," and I have to disagree strongly with the framing that this is only about a deflection from the Epstein scandal. I’m a German watching this as an outsider, and I believe Americans, and perhaps you, are letting one obsession blind them to a massive reality: This is a mobilization for war, plain and simple.
Look at the graphic again, Charles. It is a detailed plan for the deployment of a Carrier Strike Group—the USS Gerald R. Ford—along with a Marine Expeditionary Package, an enormous Tomahawk strike package, and a full complement of Navy, Marine, and Air Force assets. This isn't a distraction; it's a blueprint for an extremely significant military operation.
• Are Americans so conditioned to an omnipresent military that they no longer recognize a war mobilization for what it is?
• The level of detail shown here—the specific ships, aircraft (like the VAG 132 Growlers in Puerto Rico), and thousands of service members being moved to the U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) area of operations—is not something undertaken lightly.
Has the American memory become so short that everyone has already forgotten the threats made by President-elect Trump just last year? The threats against Panama regarding the Canal, which he openly mused about taking back by military force, and his expansionist comments about Greenland and Canada were global news!
• The U.S. is deploying these assets directly to the Caribbean and Gulf of Venezuela, which is right next to Panama's critical waterway.
• To dismiss this immense, strategic movement of American military power as nothing more than a PR stunt to bury an old news cycle is to ignore the clear, stated geopolitical ambitions and threats made by the incoming administration.
I haven’t forgotten the threats, and I do not believe for one second that "Operation Deflect" is primarily or entirely about Epstein. It looks like a classic military buildup to secure—or seize—strategic interests, just as the President-elect promised.
I don't disagree that it's more than a PR stunt. In fact, that is the point of the post.
He's gearing up for war to distract the American public from Epstein. And it will work. For a time
Charles, they are build on distraction. The less people are able to follow their whirlwind of EOs the better for them and the more damage they achieve. Yet I don’t see think Epstein has much to do with it. People are usually not so interested what happens outside their region. I see it either way the war in the Ukraine. It’s just a war somewhere here. Nothing to talk about. That it’s just 1200 miles, yet who cares? People are now interested in the holidays. Having fun, spending money, pleasing people, avoiding conflict. Have you seen the drop in engagement this weekend? People are not paying attention — not to Epstein and not to the war brewing on their front porch. The regime seems to be using the holidays as deflection. That’s my read from the other side of the ocean.
EVERYTHING Trump does needs to be framed within the necessity of distraction from the Epstein files.
He has known about the Epstein files a lot longer than we have. He has known that he’d need a significant distraction for that same period of time.
He knew his come to papa moment would arrive.
A huge, earth-shaking distraction will always be at the top of his mind until he is able to implement something, be it war, or something else to knock Epstein off the media’s list of topics.
He has no grasp of the actual strategic ramifications of a war in the southern hemisphere. He can barely draw a clock during his mental acuity tests.
He doesn’t care about the Panama Canal. If he had any idea what he was doing, he’d know that the U.S. doesn’t need the headache. Does the U.S. really want a canal that is losing its fundamental functionality?
The canal has been struggling for years to maintain water levels high enough for big cargo ships. Other presidents, such as Kamala, would be happy to lend Panama a hand in making the structural changes needed for it, but she’d have no interest at all, none, in seizing the thing. We can be sure there have been war plans for doing so, but there are war plans for everything. There are war plans for invading Mexico, and probably every country south of Texas. That’s how the Pentagon operates.
Normal presidents say, “Great, good to know,” and move on to the fight for more jobs or less inflation.
Trump needs a massive distraction because the Epstein scandal is more than a scandal. It’s a world-changing event that has the potential to awaken the entire world to a horrific, unpublicized problem that he’s been at the center of for 20 years or more.
His world collapses if the full breadth of his involvement is finally revealed. He has been aware of this for a long, long time.
Your reaction to my post is exactly what I was aiming for. The graphic shows that this is not a few naval ships taking pot shots at innocent boaters. This is a massive buildup.
I saw and heard the Blackhawk helipcopters training overhead a few weeks ago. They flew 200 feet over the roof of my place. When pilots are training for urban warfare, we need to take notice.
But none of this has anything to do with strategic goals. If it were Reagan, I’d say, yes, sure, it’s about some imperialistic strategic end.
But this is Trump we are talking about. Drop everything you thought you knew about American imperialism and understand that he is about one thing: Evading a long prison term. It is the reason he sought a second term.
The strategic concerns normal humans like you are thinking about don’t come into play at all. He probably can’t find Caracas or Panama on a map, much less discuss intelligently why he wants to start a war.
His fear of accountability within the Epstein world is why he is so dangerous in this moment. That, and his almost stupefying ignorance about everything. Anything is on the table.
As I write this, there are probably herds of generals trying to figure out how to avoid doing what he wants to do. We’ll see soon if he’s been able to replace enough of them with his people to ignore them.