JULY 13, 2023

Ordering the Selected Reserve and Certain Members of the Individual Ready Reserve of the Armed Forces to Active Duty

https://www.whitehouse.gov/bri...rces-to-active-duty/

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including sections 121 and 12304 of title 10, United States Code, I hereby determine that it is necessary to augment the active Armed Forces of the United States for the effective conduct of Operation Atlantic Resolve in and around the United States European Command’s area of responsibility. In furtherance of this operation, under the stated authority, I hereby authorize the Secretary of Defense, and the Secretary of Homeland Security with respect to the Coast Guard when it is not operating as a service in the Navy, under their respective jurisdictions, to order to active duty any units, and any individual members not assigned to a unit organized to serve as a unit of the Selected Reserve, or any member in the Individual Ready Reserve mobilization category and designated as essential under regulations prescribed by the Secretary concerned, not to exceed 3,000 total members at any one time, of whom not more than 450 may be members of the Individual Ready Reserve, as they deem necessary, and to terminate the service of those units and members ordered to active duty.

This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR.

quote:

Biden orders 3,000 reservists to be ready for Europe deployments
It’s not clear whether the troops will actually be deployed, but it suggests the U.S. military presence in Europe is under strain.

By LARA SELIGMAN and PAUL MCLEARY

07/13/2023 05:56 PM EDT

President Joe Biden has authorized the military to call up 3,000 reserve troops to support operations in Europe after tens of thousands were sent there last year after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a top general said Thursday.

Although it is not clear whether Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin plans to actually deploy these reservists anytime soon, the move suggests that the U.S. military’s training mission in Europe, along with the deployment of several new brigades after the invasion, has stretched active-duty forces.

“This reaffirms the unwavering support and commitment to the defense of NATO’s eastern flank in the wake of Russia’s illegal and unprovoked war on Ukraine,” Lt. Gen. Douglas Sims, the director of operations for the Joint Staff, told reporters on Thursday.

While the move gives the military’s European Command “greater flexibility” to defend the continent, it will not change the actual force levels in Europe, Capt. Bill Speaks, a spokesperson for U.S. European Command, said in a statement.

The president’s order also for the first time designates Operation Atlantic Resolve, the U.S. effort in Europe, as a contingency operation, which allows the Pentagon to call up reserve forces and implement sped-up acquisition authorities to supply those troops with equipment.

The designation not only allows the president to mobilize reservists, but also ensures they are paid and supported as active-duty troops. It also provides support for families and dependents of any reservists who might be deployed.

The U.S. rushed 20,000 more troops to Europe after Russia’s invasion, bringing the total to over 100,000 on the continent. That includes new rotations of 10,000 troops in Poland, which has emerged as a critical hub for supporting and supplying Ukraine.

The potential callups come on the heels of the NATO summit in Lithuania this week, where allies pledged to make 300,000 troops ready for rapid deployment within 30 days or less. It’s a tall order for the 31-member alliance whose individual members struggle with equipment and troop readiness after decades of skimping on military funding.

The news also comes as Ukraine continues to hammer away at Russia’s main defensive lines in the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions. Although senior Pentagon officials express hope that Kyiv’s forces will recapture more significant territory soon, they say progress has been slower than hoped.

New American cluster bombs have arrived in Ukraine, after the Pentagon announced the controversial decision to send them last week, Sims said on Thursday. Officials say they believe the new weapons will prove more effective on the battlefield against dug-in Russian positions and concentrations of troops and armored vehicles.

https://www.politico.com/news/...-deployment-00106271

And the neo-cons and their enablers are wetting themselves with glee.

Seems like we'll soon have an emphatic answer to this thread title.

The numbers and timelines of payments of American taxpayer dollars to various entities in Ukraine is mind-boggling. So, too, are the incestuous relationships between several current cabinet members and previous positions they held and the certainty that they will return to those same, or similar, positions when they leave government and become even more wealthy than they currently are.

Link

Biden - "We certainly cannot have my... I mean our nations interests in Ukraine hazarded by Russia. Let me be clear, my son's... I mean many job's are at risk with this ongoing war."

In an interview yesterday with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, Biden laid out a brand-new foreign policy related to Ukraine. Or at least, it would have been an announcement of a major new foreign policy, if this were any normal administration and if we had an honest media. But I couldn’t find any corporate media story reporting the shift; just various op-eds about whether the new policy would work or not.

https://twitter.com/NOELreport.../1677599710855528450

Zakaria asked Biden about the NATO conference and the fact that Zelenskyy was left eating a dirt sandwich. The Resident explained what can be described as a new, three-point plan:

1) Ukraine is almost but not quite ready for NATO membership. These things take time. The spin now is that it “always” takes time to join the defense alliance. But of course, nobody was saying that the day before the Vilnius conference.

2) The U.S. plans enter into a unilateral (one-way) defense agreement with Ukraine that is like to the agreement between the U.S. and Israel, which provides for sales of advanced weaponry but not troops. Pundits and op-ed authors are celebrating Joe’s brilliance and calling it “the Israel model.”

The ‘Israel model’ implies two things. First, the conflict is going to last a long time, maybe forever. Second, there will be a long-standing dispute over borders, multiple map versions, and a permanent low-intensity conflict all along the disputed border.

3) The U.S. anticipates the Proxy War will be resolved with Russia by a peace agreement cum cease-fire that allows Russia to keep the Ukrainian territory it has secured, for now, but does not officially recognize the pilfered property as part of Russia, even if they did vote to join the Russian Federation.

Given that the Ukrainians couldn’t manage to make any material progress with the “Counteroffensive,” this actually is not a bad fall-back position going into the negotiations. The prospect of having an Israel-type situation in Ukraine should not be attractive to Russia. In that sense, it’s a message to Russia: you’ll be fighting this war forever, at some level. Or, you can make a better deal now.

Of course, all of this is a fantasy, smoke and mirrors; Biden has no Congressional approval to fund an “Israel model” in Ukraine, and the situation in Eastern Europe is completely different from the situation in the Middle East.

In other words, it’s another half-baked Biden idea.

Here’s how Biden mangled explaining the new policy:

“I don’t think it’s ready for membership in NATO … Ukraine is not ready for NATO membership in the middle of a war … In the meantime though… the United States would be ready to provide, while the process is going on, and its going to take a while, while the process is going on, to provide security, a la, security we provide for Uk-, for Israel. Providing the weaponry, the need, the capacity to defend themselves. If there is an agreement, if there is a cease-fire, if there is a peace agreement.”

That’s not all! Also yesterday, Biden signed an executive order activating U.S. military reserves and calling up an initial 3,000 reservists for deployment “in Europe.” Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) tweeted, correctly, that he thinks it was intended to provoke Russia:

https://twitter.com/BasedMikeL.../1679696054554427392

It’s not completely novel; Biden signed a similar order in 2022 before Russia invaded Ukraine. (These types of executive orders can only last 365 days.) But the timing is very suggestive. We know from prior reporting that the glorious Ukrainian Counteroffensive™, with all those Leopard tanks, was intended to put Zelenskyy in a good negotiating position for a cease fire.

But now that Ukraine’s Celebrated Counteroffensive™ is looking more like counter service at a shabby deli, it appears that Team Biden is using the power of the United States presidential pen to try to create negotiating leverage to end the conflict favorably.

Just within the last few days:

1) Biden overrode Congress’ ban and authorized cluster bombs to Ukraine.

2) Biden announced a new “Israel model” strategy.

3) Biden ordered up a potentially vast reserve army.

Note that all this news came directly from the Oval Office.

It’s all reckless brinksmanship, of course, but the Russians have — so far — seemed to be playing conservatively and not taking the bait. So that’s good. Remember, Team Biden is thinking about the 2024 election campaign (and so are potential Biden replacement candidates), so I would take all these developments as a Big Push™ to set the table for a conclusion.

According to most sane pundits, Team Biden has five months to wrap up the Proxy War before it becomes a major 2024 campaign “quagmire” issue.

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com...ack&utm_medium=email

Is it really wise to let the world know you are building a tank factory inside of Ukraine? Blown to bits in 3-2-1.


Rheinmetall will build and repair tanks in Ukraine, says CEO

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/0...y-ukraine/index.html


Rheinmetall will open an armored vehicle plant in Ukraine within the next 12 weeks, shrugging off concerns other Western defense companies reportedly have about building a presence in the country while it is at war with Russia.

Germany’s biggest arms maker will also train Ukrainians to maintain the tanks and other armored vehicles made in the factory, which will be located in the western part of the country, CEO Armin Papperger told CNN in an exclusive interview on Thursday.

“[Ukrainians] have to help themselves — if they always have to wait [for] Europeans or Americans [to] help them over the next 10 or 20 years… that is not possible,” he said.

The company told the Rheinische Post newspaper earlier this year that it hoped to open a €200 million ($218 million) battle tank factory on Ukrainian soil, capable of producing about 400 tanks a year.

Papperger said on Thursday that factory workers would build and repair Rheinmetall’s Fuchs armored personnel carrier — named after the German word for fox — under license in the facility.

Rheinmetall (RNMBF) will operate the plant in partnership with Ukroboronprom, a Ukrainian state-owned defense group, which will also own the facility. In May, the companies announced an agreement to boost Ukraine’s “defense technology capacities.”

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, a close ally of current President Vladimir Putin, has said Russia would retaliate by hitting any facility Rheinmetall set up in Ukraine, Reuters has reported.

Papperger said that the factory could be protected from a Russian attack.

“There are a lot of factories at the moment which are producing military goods [in Ukraine]. It is just another one — and we can protect that also,” he said.

Ukrainian forces have struggled to make major gains in their counteroffensive launched a month ago, in part, because of the Russian army’s air superiority.

For now, Papperger said, sourcing more ammunition was a bigger priority than building more tanks.

Rheinmetall would ramp up its annual production of artillery rounds from 100,000 to 600,000 next year, and much of that extra output would be earmarked for delivery to Ukraine, he said.

In theory, he added, Rheinmetall could provide 60% of the artillery ammunition Ukraine needs.

‘Game changer’
Germany said last week that it plans to spend 2% of gross domestic product on defense starting in 2024, in line with a target NATO has set for all member states. But Papperger said that didn’t go far enough to protect the alliance from a potential Russian attack.

At a minimum, he said, NATO should raise its target to 3% of GDP, adding that Europe would not be ready to defend itself properly in an armed conflict with Russia.

The region has “to invest more and we need some years to fill stocks [of ammunition] because, at the moment, the stocks are empty,” he said.

Last week, German lawmakers provisionally agreed to buy €6 billion ($6.5 billion) worth of ammunition from Rheinmetall, with some of that set aside for Ukraine, Papperger said,

And, whereas Rheinmetall could expect to spend two or three years thrashing out a deal with the government before the war in Ukraine, agreements are now tied up in as little as four months.

“It’s a game changer,” he said.

quote:

Is it really wise to let the world know you are building a tank factory inside of Ukraine? Blown to bits in 3-2-1.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I am sure the Russians already know if their intelligence network is running. There are very few secrets these days.

All is going to plan.

When was the last time the IRR was called up? Not stop loss or extension of current contract, but an actual recall of IRR members with a DD-214 in hand?

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:

According to most sane pundits, Team Biden has five months to wrap up the Proxy War before it becomes a major 2024 campaign “quagmire” issue.

I’m beginning to wonder if the people pulling the strings of this puppet Biden have him convinced that he can become a wartime President and coast to easy victory next year if he somehow gets us into war with Russia and is seen as this great wartime President. Of course no sane person would believe that this bumbling, senile fool would actually be able to pull that off.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
I’m beginning to wonder if the people pulling the strings of this puppet Biden have him convinced that he can become a wartime President and coast to easy victory next year if he somehow gets us into war with Russia and is seen as this great wartime President. Of course no sane person would believe that this bumbling, senile fool would actually be able to pull that off.

IF you believe our exit from AFG was a success, like many leftists do, then you could certainly make a case for believing he would be a good wartime president. There may be a fair number of people that actually believe that, but you'd have to be a hardcore lefty to buy that garbage... I have to believe there are not enough of them...

quote:

Originally posted by OcCurt:
When was the last time the IRR was called up? Not stop loss or extension of current contract, but an actual recall of IRR members with a DD-214 in hand?

Please? What does all that mean?

quote:

Originally posted by RichardC:

quote:

Originally posted by OcCurt:
When was the last time the IRR was called up? Not stop loss or extension of current contract, but an actual recall of IRR members with a DD-214 in hand?

Please? What does all that mean?

Link to answer both questions

I sincerely doubt that anyone from the IRR is going to be called up for this.

There are too many people in the reserves who could fill spots.

^^^Who knows how long this will go on, and/or what level of troop commitments will be authorized? It's hard to predict when the stated policy is 'As long as it takes, whatever it costs'!

I must confess, my outlook changed after I watched this propaganda video on Rumble.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqxq03izxrQ

False flag - yes. Nuclear war - no

quote:

Originally posted by wcb6092:
Is it really wise to let the world know you are building a tank factory inside of Ukraine? Blown to bits in 3-2-1.

Sure! Why not?

It just about as wise as informing your adversaries that you are running out of ammunition.

Ha! Pence, ya jackass.

Mike Pence Booed In Testy Exchange With Tucker Carlson Over Ex-Vice President’s Support For Ukraine

Pence said he believes “that it is in the interests of the United States of America to continue to give the Ukrainian military the resources they need” during an interview with the ex-Fox News host at the Family Leadership Summit in Iowa, prompting boos from the crowd.

The crowd cheered when Carlson challenged Pence’s stance, asking, “Where’s the concern for the United States in that?” and claiming, “Every city in the United States has become much worse in the last three years.”

Pence pushed back on the notion, telling Carlson: “Anybody that says that we can’t be the leader of the free world and solve our problems at home has a pretty small view of the greatest nation on earth.”

Pence reiterated his long-held belief that Russian dominance over Ukraine would empower President Vladimir Putin to “cross the border of a NATO country,” a scenario that would require the U.S. to launch a military defense of its NATO ally.

In addition to Pence, Carlson interviewed GOP presidential candidates Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson at the summit.

quote:

“Anybody that says that we can’t be the leader of the free world and solve our problems at home has a pretty small view of the greatest nation on earth.”

Oh, you Uniparty jackass. We're printing money like it's going out of style and depleting our munitions supply, while Ukraine is bragging about record levels of money in the bank! THIS DOES NOT HELP THE UNITED STATES, NOR ITS CITIZENS, ESPECIALLY THE TAXPAYERS. You're no different than the rest, Pence, maybe even a bit worse, since you pretend to be on our side, you fucking reptile.

This takes about 45 min but... you decide