A friend argued that Scott Ritter was perhaps not being fair to Israel's position in the current conflict. His natural position is from the religious right, which although corresponding to my familial background, is made complex by certain broadening of understanding of history and humanity. I offered an answer -

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The issue with Israel is a good bit more complex than most understand, and further complicated by the association of the state of Israel as synonymous with Judaism and with the notion of the tribe of Israel itself. The state was artificially created in large part due to a clandestine deal with Rothschild to establish its economic presence as part of bringing America into the world wars. The British, and later the British and America used the artificial partitioning of the Arab world for economic control, particularly regarding oil. The norm for these people is to control by maintaining conflict and occasionally war, which certainly had plenty of source material from the historic potential in the Mid-East religious and cultural mal-occlusion. Once Israel was incorporated, there has been a chronic mistreatment of Arab sections, particularly Gaza, by the Israelis. I remember being slightly puzzled with my first stepfather, who always lamented the way Israel was handling this, and this is despite his background from Seminary school and the common template that most Christians apply to Israel, as mentioned above, as I carried a slight prejudice from my background as well. It took a while to see beyond the cultural and racial biases of my own background, and the natural rationale to support the evident underdog, ultimately to see a very complex picture that is rendered opaque by the inevitable realities of chronic human conflict.

Ritter, who is in a position to know the details, understands not only the the intrinsic right of Israel to defend itself as a sanctioned state, but also the atrocities on both sides that always occur in such conflicts, and that Israel's handling of its affairs have persistently, along with the reality of U.S. and Western foreign policy, far exceeded their moral charter, noting in particular Gaza and other areas in terms of the Arabic neighborhoods. This notably includes as well the role and ultimate outcome played by the large Israeli nuclear arsenal and Dimona, and is also to be taken in perspective, for instance, with the general plan discussed by Gen. Wesley Clark, in which American policy in the Mid-East is cloaked behind false pretexts, including implicit religious ones. The natural right of a nation to defend itself, in this case Israel against an historically hostile environment, is not the principal issue despite its prima facie rationale, but rather the fact that Israel, in the abstract sense that includes the presence of the Jews in their historic place in the region, and made more severe by the implications of their moral position from the holocaust, is an ironic misapplication of that right, both in terms of its specific secular incorporation and in terms of its covert global excesses, including its local handling of sociology. This situation is blurred by the fact that the Arabic side has not been free of atrocities either, but the larger picture must be carefully taken in balance. The state of Israel, both historically and in terms of its hypocrisy by violation of humanity, is not, except by artificial doctrine or wishful thinking, a proper representation of the scriptural notions of Israel. Israel, as a Jewish vassal that enjoys a cultural bias in the West, has purchased considerable control of governments, particularly ours, to the point that it is a mammoth malignancy with both religious and financial sway - and within an increasingly simplistic public and corrupt government. And, importantly, what may have been somewhat ambiguous regarding this aspect of Israeli and Arabic affairs, has become a matter of severe extremism on the part of Israel's current administration, which threatens to pull America by the nose into a serious conflict, and exacerbating a huge amplification of its unpopular global position as a visible pariah. The religious notions are, and will continue to be a point of manipulation of the conservative side of the American public, fatally blighting America's global position and contributing to the ultimate fissioning of the country itself.

I believe that both the states of Ukraine and of Israel, as they currently exist, should be dissolved in favour of a new arrangement that brings a more suitable demographic equilibrium, as both states were formed out of secular operations out of step with their cultural and religious backgrounds. But there is a very powerful evil that maintains both the seats of conflict. The mass of terrible religious ironies, unenlightened by an unlikely paroxysm, will bring a crescendo of hatred and nuclear war instead of a more abstract and elegant disintegration and recalibration of the present state of the world, that is nonetheless still possible if the present dominant approaches to both scriptural interpretation and humanity itself were not still held hostage by base motives, and by the ecclesiastical oversimplifications and duplicities of the Dark Ages.

Celente is on fire again as well [1]. It is amazing how coordinated the suppression of reality is among the major media. Also notable is Gerry's point about bitcoin being a significant cause of PMs being short of their reasonable projections. The upshot of this is arguably that a significant portion of the current mentality does not assign money to commodity equity as used to be the general case. This is augmented by the predominance of digital formats in every facet of our lives, to become surrogate parent, teacher, spiritual advisor...... and inevitably..... financial vehicle. All is a shift to a world of bloodless illusions, including now even our food. What I believe is being missed by all but a few is the rising importance of conversion of even the gold and silver toward essential commodities necessary to preserve independence and even survival itself in the face of the coming days on this earth. A hapless, castrated society, drunken on escapism. Of course, our primary equity is our capacity to love one another, but, as we watch the world events prepare their siege outside America's Masada, that is becoming the most forsaken currency of our time.

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[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9SXkB2iVMg