War

[Montuno]

I'd love to hear from the Spanish archives when they went into the interior of that rainforest and that jungle in Central and South America they're kind of giant Beast they ran into here in America we don't get access to the real documentation at least not where I live we don't I'd love to see that

A good introduction with a contemporary essay that reads almost like a fascinating historical novel, but rigorous in its data, is "THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO : The encounter of 2 worlds; the clash of 2 empires", by the British Hugh Thomas, on the conquests of Hernán Cortés.

A more generic view of the entire Spanish Empire, from all points of view, is "Empire" by Henry Kamen.

This other overview by Hugh Thomas, reads more like an adventure novel, focusing more on explorations and conquests than on economics, society, etc:

These three books are in English in the original version of the writers.

If you would like to know the original chronicles of the Spanish conquistadors on any particular conquest/area, let me know and I will give you titles and editions in English.

 

[Montuno]

I'd love to hear from the Spanish archives when they went into the interior of that rainforest and that jungle in Central and South America they're kind of giant Beast they ran into here in America we don't get access to the real documentation at least not where I live we don't I'd love to see that

Likewise, if you are interested, there are also indigenous chronicles about the Spanish Conquest, both of the defeated and conquered peoples, as well as of the allies of the Spaniards.
The Mexica (""Aztec") vision of the Conquest is beautifully reflected in "La visión de los vencidos", by Miguel León Portilla.
Some of the poems about the tragic fall of Tenochtitlan are on a par with Homer (if you are interested, I can translate some of the most beautiful and distressing ones).

 

[Petrochemical]

I'm a sponge for that stuff after growing up in the Northeast and New England and being lied to throughout my younger schooling itd be nice for me to be able to be later in life being able to appreciate what I'm reading because I'm it's fun to me to learn about history from an appropriate stance on History that's got accuracy behind it

 

[Montuno]

Likewise, if you are interested, there are also indigenous chronicles about the Spanish Conquest, both of the defeated and conquered peoples, as well as of the allies of the Spaniards.
The Mexica (""Aztec") vision of the Conquest is beautifully reflected in "La visión de los vencidos", by Miguel León Portilla.
Some of the poems about the tragic fall of Tenochtitlan are on a par with Homer (if you are interested, I can translate some of the most beautiful and distressing ones).

The Last Days of the Siege of Tenochtitlan


And all this happened with us.
We saw it,
we admired it.
With this lamentable and sad fate
We saw us in anguish.

On the roads lie broken darts,
the hairs are scattered.
Roofless are the houses,
reddened are their walls.

Worms swarm in the streets and squares,
and brains are splattered on the walls.
Red are the waters, they are as if dyed,
and when we drink them,
it's as if we were drinking saltpetre water.

We beat, meanwhile, the adobe walls,
and our inheritance was a network of holes.
With shields was its shelter, but not with shields can it be
not even with shields can their solitude be sustained.

We have eaten sticks of bunting,
we have chewed salty grass,
adobe stones, lizards,
mice, powdered earth, worms . . . .
We barely ate the meat,
it was placed on the fire.
When the meat was cooked,
they took it from there,
in the fire itself, they ate it.

A price was put on us.
Price of the young man, of the priest,
the child and the maiden.

Enough: the price of a poor man was
only two handfuls of corn,
only ten cakes of musk;
only twenty cakes of salt grass was our price.

Gold, jades, rich blankets,
quetzal plumage,
all that which is precious,
was valued at nothing. . . .

 

[Montuno]

5 poems of those defeated in the conquest of America

These few 5 poems express the sorrow and infinite despair that invaded the hearts of the inhabitants of America when the world they knew was destroyed in a few months at the hands of 400 Spanish soldiers, 15 horses and thousands of allies.
By
Hispanic LA-

10/12/2020

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1 The last days of the siege of Tenochtitlan (Anonymous)1.1 This first poem, one of the best known, dates from 1528, and "describes with extraordinary drama the situation of the besieged during the siege of Mexico-Tenochtitlan", between May 26 and August 13, 1521.


2 The ruin of tenochcas and tlatelolcas2.1 This 1528 poem describes the situation of the besieged during the siege of Mexico-Tenochtitlan.


3 The Mexica people have been lost3.1 This elegy from 1523 belongs to the “Mexican Songs” collection. Describes the ruin and death of the Mexica people during the siege of Tenochtitlan.


4 We only came to dream4.1 Attributed to Tochihuitzin Coyolchiuhqui, who lived between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. He was governor of Teotlatzinco, a contemporary of Nezahualcóyotl. He was the son of Itzcóatl, governor of Tenochtitlán.


5 singing5.1 Attributed to Cacamatzin or Cacama who lived between 1483 and 1520. He ruled in Texcoco. He is the son of Nezahualpilli and Chalchiuhnenetzin, sister of Moctezuma.
5.2 Related


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The conquest of America and in particular of Mexico has been narrated by the Spanish and repeated throughout the centuries. Some of the versions take pity on the vanquished and their tragic fate. Others ignore it and glorify Hernán Cortés, the Crown, the new deities. They use terms such as deeds, civilization, conversion, evangelization... In them the defeated do not speak: they remain silent as dead. Because they are.

These few 5 poems express the vision of the vanquished, the sorrow and infinite despair that invaded the hearts of the inhabitants of Mesoamerica when the world they knew was destroyed in a few months at the hands of 400 Spanish soldiers, 15 horses and thousands of allies.

Read also: Pre-Columbian literature: Aztecs, Mayans, Incas

We know that the crushing defeat was the result of at least three factors.

First, the military and supply aid to the Spanish by the Tlaxcalan nation and other native peoples. Thousands of them fought shoulder to shoulder with the Spanish, believing that they were helping them in a war of liberation of the Mexican peoples from Aztec rule.

Second, the technological superiority of Spanish weapons and the impact of their horses. Third and fundamental, the crisis already existing in Tenochtitlan and the weak resistance presented by Moctezuma, explained by the eight premonitions that according to legend he received announcing the arrival of the invaders. The conquest of America was then a unique tragedy in human history.

The vast majority of poetic and literary works prior to the conquest of America were destroyed at the hands of the conquerors. Few remained, stamped in some surviving codex, pieced together from memory. We collect them from various sources.

This is the vision of the vanquished, in 5 heartbreaking poems.

TenochtitlanThe last days of the siege of Tenochtitlan (Anonymous)

This first poem, one of the best known, dates from 1528, and "describes with extraordinary drama the situation of the besieged during the siege of Mexico-Tenochtitlan ", between May 26 and August 13, 1521.

… All this happened with us. We saw it,
we admire it.
With unfortunate luck we were distressed.
Broken darts lie on the paths,
hairs are scattered.
Roofless are the houses,
reddened are their walls.
Worms swarm the streets and squares,
and the walls are dotted with brains.
The waters are red, they are dyed,
and when we drink them, it is as if we had drunk salt
water.
Meanwhile, we hit the adobe walls,
and our network of holes was our inheritance.
In the shields was his protection:
but not even with shields can his loneliness be sustained!
We have eaten erythrin sticks,
we have chewed salt grass,
adobe stones, mice, powdered earth, worms.
All this happened to us.



The ruin of tenochcas and tlatelolcas

This 1528 poem describes the situation of the besieged during the siege of Mexico-Tenochtitlan.

Get busy, fight, oh Tlacaltéccatl Temilotzin!:
the men of Castile and those of the chinampas are already leaving their ships.
Tenochca is surrounded by war;
Tlatelolca is surrounded by war!
The gunsmith Coyohuehuetzin is coming to block the way;
The Acolhua has already left the great path of Tepeyac.
Tenochca is surrounded by war;
Tlatelolca is surrounded by war!
The fire is already blackened;
burning bursts the shot,
the mist has already spread:
They have apprehended Cuauhtémoc!
An armful of Mexican princes extends!
Tenochca
is surrounded by war, Tlatelolca is surrounded by war!

The Mexica people have been lost

This elegy from 1523 belongs to the "Mexican Songs" collection. Describes the ruin and death of the Mexica people during the siege of Tenochtitlan.

The crying spreads, the tears drip there in Tlatelolco.
The Mexicans left for water;
they look like women; the escape is general
Where are we going, oh friends! Then was it true?
They are already leaving Mexico City:
the smoke is rising; the mist is spreading...
With tears they greet the Huiznahuácatl Motelhuihtzin.
the Tlailotlácatl Tlacotzin,
the Tlacatecuhtli Oquihtzin. . .
Cry, my friends,
understand that with these events
we have lost the nation.
The water has turned sour, the food has soured!
This is what the Giver of Life has done in Tlatelolco.

Without modesty, Motelhuihtzin and Tlacotzin are taken away.
With songs they encouraged each other in Acachinanco,
oh, when they went to be put to the test there in Coyoacan

We only came to dream

Attributed to Tochihuitzin Coyolchiuhqui , who lived between the 15th and 16th centuries. He was governor of Teotlatzinco, a contemporary of Nezahualcóyotl. He was the son of Itzcóatl, governor of Tenochtitlán.

This is how Tochihuitzin left it said,
this is how Coyolchiuhqui left it said:
Suddenly we came out of the dream,
we only came to dream,
it is not true, it is not true
that we came to live on earth.
Like grass in spring
it is our being.
Our heart gives birth,
flowers germinate from our flesh.
Some open their corollas,
then dry up.
This is how Tochihuitzin left it said



Singing

Attributed to Cacamatzin or Cacama who lived between 1483 and 1520. He ruled in Texcoco. He is the son of Nezahualpilli and Chalchiuhnenetzin, sister of Moctezuma.

Our friends,
listen to him:
let no one live with the presumption of royalty.
The furor, the disputes
be forgotten,
disappear
in good time on earth.
Also to me alone,
recently they told me,
those who were in the ball game,
said, murmured:
Is it possible to act humanely?
Is it possible to act discreetly?
I only know myself.
Everybody said that,
but nobody says the truth on earth.
The mist spreads,
the snails resound,
above me and the whole earth.
Flowers rain, they intertwine, they make turns,
they come to give joy on earth.

It is truly, perhaps as
our father works in his house,
perhaps as the plumage of a quetzal in time of greenery
with flowers is nuanced,
here on earth is the Giver of life.
In the place where the precious drums sound,
where the beautiful flutes
of the precious god, of the owner of the sky, are heard,
necklaces of red feathers
tremble on earth.
The mist envelops the edges of the shield,
rain of darts falls on the earth,
with them the color of all the flowers is darkened,
there is thunder in the sky.
With shields of gold
there is the dance.
I just say,
I, Cacamatzin,
now I only remember
Mr. Nezahualpilli.
Do they see each other there, do they
dialogue there
he and Nezahualcóyotl
in the place of the drums?
I remember them now.
Who really will not have to go there?
If it's jade, if it's gold,
won't he have to go there?
Am I perhaps a turquoise shield,
once again like a mosaic I will be embedded again?
Will I come out on earth again?
With fine blankets will I be shrouded?
Still on the ground, near the place of the atabales,
I remember them.
***
Originally published on February 14, 2020.

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[Montuno]

As you can see, the miseries of war have always been very similar...

I leave you now a news about an archaeological find in my area, related to two different wars separated by more than a millennium.

The first one would be the Invasion of Carthage to the Iberian Spain, and the Battle of Helike, where the king of Oretania (the Iberian kingdom where my mountain would be then) achieved the Carthaginian defeat and the death of Almicar Barca (father of Hannibal, to whom Oretania posed a challenge that he did not think to find more than facing the other contemporary superpower of the Mediterranean, Rome... But just as the Spanish Civil War was to be the rehearsal and prelude to the Second World War, so too was the Spanish Civil War the prelude to the Second World War, this other war was the prelude yo the Second Púnic War:

(Wikipedia

The Battle of Helike or Battle of Ilice was a military confrontation that occurred during the Carthaginian conquest of the Iberian Peninsula . It took place in the year 228 a. C. The location of the exact place where the action took place is controversial, but it is known that it was in the surroundings of Elche (Valencian Community). In the course of the action, the Iberian troops were victorious and the Carthaginian general Amílcar Barca died during the battle in uncertain circumstances, but according to legend, an association of peoples defeated Amilcar's army by releasing bulls with burning branches on their heads. Amilcar is believed to have died from wounds sustained in that battle. [SUP][1 ] [/SUP][SUP]​[ 2[/SUP] ]

Part of the Carthaginian conquest of Hispania

228 BC c.

Helike (disputed location)

38°22′52″N 1°16′34″W / 38.381084 , -1.276081

Iberian victory

carthage Oretanos Contestanos Olcades Vetones

Hamilcar Barca † Orison , king of the Oretani

unknown unknown

[ edit data at Wikidata ]

DevelopingEditThe Carthaginian forces besieged the city of Helike, to whose aid Orison , king of the Oretani , came along with troops from other allied peoples. It is not known with certainty how the events unfolded, according to some versions Orison initially deceived the Carthaginians into believing that he came as his ally. When the confrontation began, he launched burning carts pulled by oxen against the enemy vanguard, which managed to break the Carthaginian lines and facilitated the victory of his troops.


The other war, more than a millennium later, is that of the Kingdom of Castile against the Empire of the Almohad Caliphate, and specifically the Almohad victory at the Battle of Alarcos:

(Wikipedia again


Battle of Alarcos


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Learn moreThis article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. (July 2020)

Battle of Alarcos (July 18, 1195),[SUP][4][/SUP] was a battle between the Almohads led by Abu Yusuf Ya'qub al-Mansur and King Alfonso VIII of Castile.[SUP][5][/SUP] It resulted in the defeat of the Castilian forces and their subsequent retreat to Toledo, whereas the Almohads reconquered Trujillo, Montánchez, and Talavera.[SUP][4][/SUP]

Part of the Reconquista
July 18, 1195 Alarcos, Ciudad Real province 38°57′10″N 4°0′0″W Decisive Almohad victory[SUP][1][/SUP]
Kingdom of Castile Order of Santiago Order of St. Benedict	Almohad Caliphate
Alfonso VIII of Castile Diego López de Haro	Abu Yusuf Ya'qub al-Mansur Pedro Fernández de Castro
Order of Évora Order of Santiago Undetermined ~ 10,000 knights in heavy armor [SUP][note 1][/SUP] Modern estimate: More than 25,000 [SUP][2][/SUP]	Marinid volunteers Zenata Archers Hintata Andalusian forces undetermined Modern estimate: 20,000-30,000 [SUP][3][/SUP]
significant, undetermined [SUP][note 2][/SUP]	undetermined

Battle location.BackgroundEditIn 1189 the Almohad caliph Yaqub al-Mansur returned from Marrakesh to fight the Portuguese who, with the help of a Christian alliance, had taken over Silves. He successfully recaptured the city and went back to his capital.

An armistice between the Almohads and the Christian kings of Castile and León ensued. At the expiration of the truce, and having received news that Yaqub was gravely ill in Marrakesh and that his brother Abu Yahya, the governor of Al-Andalus, had crossed the Mediterranean to declare himself king and take over Marrakesh, Alfonso VIII of Castile decided to attack the region of Seville in 1194.[SUP][6][/SUP] A strong host under the archbishop of Toledo (Martín López de Pisuerga), which included the military Order of Calatrava, ransacked the province. Having successfully crushed his brother's ambitions, Yaqub al-Mansur was left with no choice other than to lead an expedition against the Christians, who were now threatening the northern province of his empire.[SUP][6][/SUP]

On the first day of June, 1195, he landed at Tarifa. Passing through the province of Seville, the main Almohad army reached Cordova on June 30, reinforced by the few troops raised by the local governors and by a Christian cavalry contingent under Pedro Fernández de Castro, who held a personal feud against the Castilian king. On July 4 Ya'qub moved out of Cordova; his army crossed the pass of Muradal (Despeñaperros) and advanced through the plain of Salvatierra. A cavalry detachment of the Order of Calatrava, plus some knights from nearby castles, tried to gather news about the Almohad strength and its heading; they were surrounded by Muslim scouts and almost massacred,[SUP][citation needed][/SUP] but managed to provide information to the Castilian king.

Alfonso gathered his forces at Toledo and marched down to Alarcos (al-Arak, in Arabic), near the Guadiana River, a place which marked the Southern limit of his kingdom and where a fortress was under construction. He intended on barring the access to the rich Tagus valley, and did not wait for the reinforcements the Kings Alfonso IX of León and Sancho VII of Navarre were sending.[SUP][5][/SUP] When on July 16 the Almohad host came in view, Yaqub al-Mansur did not accept battle on this day or the day after, preferring to give rest to his forces; but early the day after that, Wednesday, July 18, the Almohad army formed for battle around a small hill called La Cabeza, two bow-shots from Alarcos.
BattleEditYusuf Ya'qub al-Mansur gave to his vizier, Abu Yahya ibn Abi Hafs, command of a very strong vanguard: on the first line the Bani Marin volunteers under Abu Jalil Mahyu ibn Abi Bakr, with a big body of archers and the Zenata Tribe; behind them, on the hill itself, the vizier with the Amir's banner and his personal guard, from the Hintata tribe; to the left the Arab host under Yarmun ibn Riyah; and to the right, the al-Andalus forces under the popular Caid Ibn Sanadid. Yusuf Ya'qub al-Mansur himself held command of the rearguard, which comprised the best Almohad forces commanded by Yabir ibn Yusuf, Abd al-Qawi, Tayliyun, Muhammad ibn Munqafad, and Abu Jazir Yajluf al-Awrabi and the black guard (of black Africans). It was a formidable army, whose strength Alfonso had badly underestimated. The Castilian king put most of his heavy cavalry in a compact body, about 8,000 strong, and gave its command to Diego López de Haro, lord of Vizcaya. The king himself would follow with the infantry and the Military Orders.

The Christian cavalry charge was somewhat disordered. The knights crashed against the Zanatas and Bani Marin and dispersed them; lured by the Amir's standard, they charged uphill: Vizier Abu Yahya was killed,[SUP][7][/SUP] and the Hintata fell almost to a man trying to protect themselves. Most of the knights turned to their left and after a fierce struggle they routed the al-Andalus forces of Ibn Sanadid. Three hours had passed; just afternoon, in the intense heat, the fatigue and the missiles which kept falling on them took their toll of armoured knights. The Arab right under Yarmun had been enveloping the Castilian flank and rear; at this point the best of the Almohad forces attacked, with the sultan himself clearly visible in the front ranks; and finally the knights were almost completely surrounded.

Alfonso advanced with all his remaining forces into the melee, only to find himself assaulted from all sides and under a rain of arrows. For some time he fought hand-to-hand, until removed from the action, almost by force, by his bodyguard; they fled towards Toledo. The Castilian infantry was destroyed, together with most of the Orders which had supported them; the Lord of Vizcaya tried to force his way through the ring of enemy forces, but finally had to seek refuge in the unfinished fortress of Alarcos with just a fraction of his knights. The castle was surrounded with some 3,000 people trapped inside, half of them women and children. The king's enemy, Pedro Fernández de Castro, who had taken little part in the action, was sent by the Amir to negotiate the surrender; López de Haro and the survivors were allowed to go, leaving 12 knights as hostages for the payment of a great ransom.

The Castilian field army had been destroyed. Those killed included three bishops (from Avila, Segovia, and Siguenza);[SUP][5][/SUP] Count Ordoño García de Roda and his brothers; Counts Pedro Ruiz de Guzmán and Rodrigo Sánchez; the Masters of the Order of Santiago, Sancho Fernández de Lemus, and of the Portuguese Order of St. Benedict, Gonçalo Viegas. Losses for the Muslims included the death of the vizier and Abi Bakr, commander of the Bani Marin volunteers, who died of his wounds in the following year.
AftermathEditThe outcome of the battle shook the stability of the Kingdom of Castile for several years. All nearby castles surrendered or were abandoned: Malagón, Benavente, Calatrava,[SUP][8][/SUP] Caracuel, and Torre de Guadalferza, and the way to Toledo was wide open. However, Abu Yusuf Yaqub al-Mansur moved back to Seville to make good his own considerable losses; there he took the title of al-Mansur Billah ('The one victorious by God').

For the next two years, al-Mansur's forces devastated Extremadura, the Tagus valley, La Mancha and even the area around Toledo; they moved in turn against Montánchez, Trujillo, Plasencia, Talavera, Escalona and Maqueda. Some of these expeditions were led by the renegade Pedro Fernández de Castro. Most significantly, however, these raids did not lead to any territorial gains for the caliph, although Almohad diplomacy did obtain an alliance with King Alfonso IX of León (who had been enraged when the Castilian king had not waited for him before the battle of Alarcos) and the neutrality of Navarre. These alliances proved to be temporary only.

But the caliph was losing interest in the affairs of the Iberian Peninsula; he was in poor health, his objective of retaining a hold over al-Andalus appeared to be a complete success, and in 1198 he returned to Africa. He died in February 1199.

However, the success of the battle proved to be short-lived. When the Almohad caliph Muhammad al-Nasir attempted to build on it 16 years later with a new Iberian offensive, he was defeated Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa. This battle was to mark a turning-point that led to the end of Moorish rule in the Iberian Peninsula. The Almohad Empire itself collapsed a few decades later.






Battle of Alarcos

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The Battle of Alarcos ( Arabic : معركة الأرك ma'rakat al-Arak) is a battle that was fought next to the Alarcos Castle ( Arabic : al-Arak الأرك), located on top of a hill next to the Guadiana River , near the current Spanish city of Ciudad Real , on July 19, 1195, between the Christian troops of Alfonso VIII of Castile and the Almohads of Abū Ya'qūb Yūsuf al-Mansūr (Yusuf II). The battle ended with the defeat of the Christian troops, which destabilized the Kingdom of Castile and slowed down the advance of the reconquesta few years, until the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa took place in 1212. [SUP][ 2[/SUP] ]

Reconquest Part of Reconquest

Miniature of Christian and Muslim troops from the 13th century

July 19 , 1195

Alarcos (Spain) 38°57′10″N 4°00′10″W / 38.95278 , -4.00278

38°57′10″N 4°00′00″W / 38.95277778 , -4

Almohad victory

Kingdom of Castile Almohad Empire

Alfonso VIII of Castile Diego II of Haro Gutierre Rodríguez Girón † Yusuf II Abū Yahya ibn Abi Hafs †

Undetermined ~10,000 knights in heavy armor [SUP][ a ][/SUP] Modern estimate More than 25,000 [SUP][ 1[/SUP] ] indeterminate. Modern estimate: 20,000-30,000 [SUP][ 1[/SUP] ]

Indeterminate [SUP][ b[/SUP] ] indeterminate

[ edit data at Wikidata ]

Battlefield of Alarcos. In the middle distance, the hill where the troops of Yusuf II lodged the camp of the Arab king.



BackgroundEditIn 1177 the Castilian monarch Alfonso VIII conquered Cuenca with the help of Aragon. Restless, the caliph Abū Yūsuf Ya'qūb al-Mansūr agreed to a period of peace in 1190 to stop the Castilian advance on al-Andalus . As the deal expired, he received news that riots had broken out in his North African holdings. Alfonso VIII had begun to build the city of Alarcos on an elevation above the Guadiana River , which had not finished its wall, nor had all its new settlers settled, when an expedition, led by the bellicose Archbishop of Toledo , Martín López de Pisuerga , penetrated the hearts ofJaén and Córdoba and sacked the vicinity of the Almohad capital ( Seville ). This defiance of the Castilian force greatly infuriated Ya'qub, who decided to send all his available forces to contain the Castilian monarch. The historian Vicente Silió (1892-1972) narrates what was the official pretext for the invasion: [SUP][ 3[/SUP] ]

In 1194, King Alfonso VIII committed the imprudence of challenging Yasub by sending him a message in an arrogant tone, by which he challenged him to send his troops to fight in Spain or provide him with ships so that the Christians could embark and defeat him in Africa. Yasub had ruled the Almohad Empire for thirty-one years. He replied to Castile with a few lines on the back of his message: "These are the words that Allah, the Almighty, has spoken: I will throw myself upon them, I will turn them to dust, using armies that they have never seen and whose strength they will not be able to destroy." get rid". He read Alfonso's challenge to his tribes and heard a great clamor in response, demanding vengeance. With a powerful army Yasub left for Algeciras.

Vicente Silio. [SUP][ 3[/SUP] ]​

On June 1, 1195, he landed his troops on the coastline between Alcazarseguir and Tarifa with his Almohad army. [SUP][ 4 ][/SUP] The Almohad emir reached Seville , where he managed to gather an army of thirty thousand men, including cavalry and pawns, made up of all kinds of mercenaries, regular troops, etc. He reached Córdoba on June 30, where the troops of Pedro Fernández de Castro "el Castellano" , lord of the House of Castro and the Infantado de León, who had broken his vassalage ties with his cousin King Alfonso VIII, were located . Pedro Fernández de Castro was the son ofFernando Rodríguez de Castro "el Castellano" , Lord of Trujillo , who, like his son did now, had fought alongside the Almohads in the past.
On July 4, Abū Yūsuf left Córdoba , crossing Despeñaperros and advancing on the esplanade where the castle of Salvatierra stood , opposite that of Calatrava . The hosts of the Order of Santiago were lodged there , with its third Master D. Sancho Fernández de Lemos at the head; and those of the nascent Order of San Julián del Pereiro , a subsidiary of Calatrava, which was later to be definitively called the Order of Alcántara . [SUP][ 5 ][/SUP] A detachment of the Order of Calatrava, along with some knights from nearby fortresses who tried to find the Almohad forces, ran into them but had the misfortune to find an army far superior to the detachment and were almost completely exterminated. Alfonso VIII was alarmed after what had happened and hurried to gather all possible troops in Toledo and march towards Alarcos . The Castilian monarch managed to attract the help of the kings of León , Navarra and Aragón , since the Almohad power threatened everyone equally. This fortress city was still under construction and was the end of Castile 's possessions.forming border with al-Andalus. It was decisive to prevent access to the fertile valley of the Tagus and, because he hastened to present battle, he did not wait for the reinforcements of Alfonso IX of León or those of Sancho VII of Navarra who were on the way. On July 16 the great Almohad army was sighted and it was so numerous that they did not know how many men it was made up of. Archbishop Rodrigo Ximénez de Rada recounts in his De rebus Hispaniae that:

He filled the fields with various languages, since his army was made up of Parthians, Arabs, Africans, Almohads... His army was innumerable and the crowd was like the sand of the sea. [SUP][ 6[/SUP] ]​

Even so, ill-suffering and impatient, Alfonso VIII decided to present battle without prudence the day after the troops finally arrived in the surroundings of Alarcos (July 17). Perhaps because he trusted in the strength of the cataphract or heavy Castilian cavalry, he did not decide to withdraw to Talavera , where the Leonese troops had already arrived, only a few days away. However, Abū Yūsuf did not agree to give battle on that day (July 18) and wisely preferred to wait for the rest of his forces. The next day, at dawn on July 19, the Almohad army formed up completely around the hill of "La Cabeza", at whose feet the Guadiana ran , andtwo arrow shots from Alarcos , according to Arab sources. [SUP][ citation needed ][/SUP]

development of the battleEdit East facade of the castle of Alarcos , with the remains of the pentagonal tower and the unfinished moat.


Probably Bishop Juan de Soria described the battle in the anonymous Latin Chronicle of the Kings of Castile /Chronica latina regum Castellae . [SUP][ 7 ][/SUP] Likewise, Archbishop Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada . [SUP][ 8 ][/SUP] Muslim historians also gave their testimony, especially Ibn Abdel Halim from Granada , compiler of the Rawd al-Qirtas , which hardly differs and was excerpted by the nineteenth-century Arabist José Antonio Conde :

The day was darkened by the dust and steam from those who were fighting, which seemed like night. The Kabyles of volunteer Arabs, algazaces and crossbowmen came with admirable constancy and surrounded the Christians with their crowd and enveloped them on all sides. Senanid, with its Andalusian Cenetes, Musamudes, Gomares and others advanced to the hill where Alfonso was, and there he defeated, broke and destroyed his infinite troops, which were more than three hundred thousand, between cavalry and pawns. The fight for the Christians was very bloody there and they carried out a horrible slaughter. There were among them about ten thousand iron-armed knights like the first who had attacked, who were the flower of Alfonso's cavalry and had made their Christian azala and sworn by their crosses that they would not flee from the fight until there was no man left. to life; and God wanted to fulfill and verify his promise in favor of his own. When the battle was very fierce, and locked against the infidels [Christians], seeing themselves already lost, they began to flee and take refuge in the hill where Alfonso was to take advantage of his protection and they found the Muslims there, that entered breaking and destroying and gave end of them. Then they turned bridle and retraced their steps, and fled in disorder towards their lands and wherever they could. The victors entered the fortress by force, burning its doors and killing those who defended them, seizing everything that was there and in the field of arms, wealth, maintenance, provisions, horses and cattle; They captivated many women and children and killed many enemies, who could not be counted, since their full number only God who created them knows. Twenty thousand captives were found in Alarcos, whom Amir Amuminin set free after having them in his power, something that displeased the Almohads and the other Muslims; and they all took it for one of the chivalrous extravagances of kings. ​

(José Antonio Conde , History of the Domination of the Arabs in Spain, taken from various Arabic manuscripts and memoirs , 1820-1821).​

The Christians had two cavalry regiments: in the first line was the heavy cavalry (about 10,000 men) under the command of Don Diego López de Haro and his troops, followed later by the second line, where Alfonso VIII himself was with his cavalry and infantry. [SUP][ citation needed ][/SUP]
On the part of the Almohad troops , at the forefront were the militia of Benimerine , Arab , Algazace and crossbowmen volunteers , who were basic and highly maneuverable units. Immediately behind them were Abu Yahya ibn Abi Hafs (Abu Yahya) and the Henteta , the elite Almohad troop . On the flanks, his light cavalry equipped with bows and in the rear Al-Mansur himself with his personal guard. [SUP][ citation needed ][/SUP]
Ya'qub followed the advice of the Andalusian qā'id Abū 'abd Allāh ibn Sanadí and divided his large army, leaving the Andalusian ğund (soldiers from the militarized provinces) and the volunteer corps of the ğihād to suffer the onslaught of the Christian army and later, taking advantage of the superiority of the Almohad army , and the exhaustion of the Christian army , he would attack with the fresh troops he kept in reserve, the Black Guard and the Almohads. [SUP][ 9[/SUP] ]
The caliph gave his vizier, Abu Yahya Ibn Abi Hafs, command of the vanguard: in the front line of the Benimerin volunteers. Abu Jalil Mahyu ibn Abi Bakr, with a large body of archers and the Zeneta Kabyles ; behind them, on the aforementioned hill, Abu Yahya with the standard of the caliph and his personal guard, of the Henteta Kabyles; on the left, the Arabs under the command of Yarmun ibn Riyah, and on the right, the forces of al-Andalus commanded by the popular qā'id ibn Sanadid. The caliph himself was in command of the rearguard, which included the best Almohad forces (commanded by Jabir Ibn Yusuf, Abdel Qawi, Tayliyun, Mohammed ibn Munqafad and Abu Jazir Yajluf al Awrabi) and the black guard of the slaves. It was a formidable army, whose troops the kingAlfonso VIII had seriously underestimated. [SUP][ citation needed ][/SUP]
The Christian charge was immediate, it was somewhat disorderly but its momentum was formidable. The first charge was rejected by the zenetas and the benimerín, they went back and charged again to be repulsed again. Only on the third charge did the Christian cavalry manage to break the formation of the center of the Almohad vanguard , driving them back up the hill, where they had formed their groups before the battle, and causing numerous casualties among the Benimerin (volunteers), Zenetas (who tried to protect the vizier, Abu Yahya ) and the Henteta elite where the vizier was, who fell in combat. The Motavah and Henteta tribes suffered enormous casualties, so many that Granada historian Ibn Abdel Halim says thatAllah anticipated for them that day the delights of martyrdom . [SUP][ 10 ][/SUP] Despite the death of the vizier, the Almohad army did not hesitate and continued with the attack. The Christian cavalry maneuvered to the left to confront the al-Andalus troops under the command of ibn Sanadid, but the Castilian army had been cornered at the Alarcos pass, according to the Granada imam Ibn Abdel Halim . [SUP][ 10[/SUP] ]
Three hours had already passed since the beginning of the battle; It was then noon, but the dust that had risen made it difficult to see. The heat and accumulated fatigue in heavy armor began to weaken the Castilian heavy cavalry, who were already moving more slowly, fiercely diminished and with difficulty. Even after having suffered numerous casualties in the three attacks, the Muslims did not take long to regroup, completely closing the exit to the Christian cavalry at the hill of the Alarcos hill, and using their light cavalry under the command of Yarmun, they surpassed the troops. Christians on the flanks and began to attack them from their rear, which, together with the constant and concentrated rain of arrows from the archers, who took advantage of this stagnation, [SUP][ 11 ][/SUP]and the wear maneuvers, ended up shrinking the fence even more. It was then that Ya'qub decided to send the rest of his troops to him. The Castilian army was not prepared for this new tactic, and was finally forced to flee admitting defeat. Diego López de Haro , meanwhile, tried to break through at all costs and finally had to take refuge in the unfinished castle, which, after being surrounded by 5,000 Agarenos, had to surrender. Pedro Fernández "el Castellano" , whose forces had hardly fought in the battle, was sent by the caliph to negotiate the surrender. A few survivors, including López de Haro, were allowed to leave, but twelve knights were held hostage for ransom. [SUP][c ][/SUP] No one came to pay for it and these knights were beheaded.
Among the Castilians who died in the battle were Juan , bishop of Ávila and Gutierre , bishop of Segovia , [SUP][ 12 ][/SUP] as well as Pedro Rodríguez de Guzmán and his son-in-law, Rodrigo Sánchez, according to the Latin Chronicle of the Kings of Castile mentioning some of those who died in said battle, Petrus Roderici de Guzman et Rodericus Sancii, gener eius , [SUP][ 13 ][/SUP] Ordoño García de Roa , the masters of both the Order of Santiago ( Sancho Fernández de Lemus ) and the PortugueseOrder of Évora ( Gonçalo Viegas ). Losses were also high for the Muslims. Not only the vizier, Abu Yahya , but also Abi Bakr , commander of the Benimerin (volunteers), perished in battle, or as a result of injuries sustained. The news of such a great battle shocked all of Europe. [SUP][ citation needed ][/SUP]
Vicente Silió writes that «Yasub's troops were so superior as to induce the Christian monarch to refuse the fight», but Alfonso VIII was in the fullness of his life, with the vigor of his forty years, and he did not think for a moment retreat from the enemy. He would have preferred to die rather than contemplate the great catastrophe that lay ahead. And to faith that, if it had not been for the intervention of some nobles who very much against his will took him out of the castle through a postern , he would have succumbed. [SUP][ citation needed ][/SUP]


Aftermath of the battleEditAs a consequence, the Almohads took over the lands then controlled by the Order of Calatrava ; six months later the fortress of Calatrava la Nueva , then called Dueñas castle, fell , and they even reached the outskirts of Toledo , where the Christian combatants who had survived the battle had taken refuge. It destabilized the Kingdom of Castile for years. All the fortresses in the region fell into Almohad hands: Malagón , Benavente , Calatrava la Vieja , Caracuel , etc., and the road to Toledo was cleared. Fortunately forCastile , Abu Yusuf returned to Seville to restore his heavy casualties and took the title of al-Mansur Billah (the victorious by Allah). [SUP][ citation needed ][/SUP]
In the two years following the battle, al-Mansur's troops devastated Extremadura , the Tagus Valley , La Mancha and the entire area near Toledo , they marched against Montánchez , Trujillo , Plasencia , Talavera , Escalona and Maqueda , but were repulsed by Pedro Fernández de Castro "el Castellano" , who after the battle went on to serve King Alfonso IX of León , who named him his Majordomo mayor. These expeditions did not provide more land for the Caliphate. Although his diplomacy obtained an alliance with the kingAlfonso IX of León (who was enraged at the Castilian king for not having waited for him before the Battle of Alarcos) and the neutrality of Navarre , both temporary pacts. Abū Yūsuf abandoned his affairs in al-Andalus, returning ill to North Africa, where he would end up dying. [SUP][ citation needed ][/SUP]
In a daring coup by the Calatravian knights, only the castle of Salvatierra , next to Sierra Morena , could be recovered (1198) in the seventeen years in which the area was in Almohad power. It remained as an isolated Castilian position in Almohad territory, until it was taken by them in 1211. [SUP][ citation needed ][/SUP]
However, the consequences of the battle proved to be short-lived when the new Caliph Muhammed al-Nasir tried to stop the new Castillian advance on al-Andalus. [SUP][ d ][/SUP] Everything was decided at the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa, which marked a turning point in the Reconquest and would cause the Almohad Empire to lose control of the peninsula just a decade later. [SUP][ 14[/SUP] ]


The legend of the Jewish Raquel and King AlfonsoEditThe author of the Punishments of King Sancho IV , after 1292, recounts a legend created ad hoc to justify a posteriori such a great defeat by the King of Castile, that of the Jewish woman from Toledo Raquel or Rahel la Fermosa :

Other yes, for you, mine fixed, and therefore take, mine fixed, punishment for what King Alfonso of Castile answered, the one who won the battle of Úbeda . For seven years that he had a bad life with a Jewish woman from Toledo, God gave him a great wound and a great wound in the battle of Alarcos in which he was defeated and fled and he and all those of his kingdom were evil walking […]. And because the king later met God […] and he repented of such a bad sin like this one that he had done, for which sin by amendment he later made the monastery of Las Huelgas de Burgos de Monjas de Cistel and the Hospital. And God later gave him a good run against the Moors in the battle of Úbeda . [SUP][ 15[/SUP] ]​

The tomb of a prince and 24 Iberian warrior aristocrats found in Alarcos (Ciudad Real)

by Jose Luis Santos Fernandez
6 Aug 2019





Photo: Sepulcher of the Iberian prince found in Alarcos. CASTILLA-LA MANCHA UNIVERSITY

Overview of the Iberian Peninsula three centuries before Christ: a jumble of peoples (Celts, Celtiberians, Lusitanians, Iberians...) and two powers in a fight to the death (Rome and Carthage) just over the territory where those cultures inhabited. In 235 BC, the Carthaginian general Amílcar Barca invaded Iberia. He lays waste to the various Iberian towns that he finds in his way. Finally, they coalesce and face him in the battle of Helike (possibly Elche or Elche de la Sierra, Albacete). They kill him in 228.

Year 2018 after Christ, the archaeologists and historians María del Rosario García Huerta , Francisco Javier Morales Hervás and David Rodríguez González finish their research —after three years of excavations and two years in the laboratory— on the Iberian necropolis of Alarcos (Ciudad Real): They find 25 tombs of Iberian warrior aristocrats, including one that experts consider may correspond to a prince, excavated in the historical period in which Hamilcar died in battle.

"We do not know the specific role of these Iberians from Alarcos in the events of the time of the Second Punic War" , says David Rodríguez, professor of Prehistory at the University of Castilla-La Mancha, "but it is very tempting [although very unlikely ] imagine that they were with the Carthaginian or perhaps they fought alongside the Oretani king Orison or Orisos in Helike, a city besieged by Hamilcar to which various contingents of Oretani [Iberian people] went to liberate it from the Carthaginians. But it should not be a coincidence that most of the richest tombs in the Alarcos necropolis and assigned to warrior aristocracies are precisely from this period and later" , between the years 220 and 90 before our era.


Photo: Cerro de Alarcos. On the left, location of the Iberian site. CASTILLA-LA MANCHA UNIVERSITY

Of the 25 tombs —two of them correspond to women buried with weapons— three burials stand out for their richness, both for the quality and abundance of weapons (falcatas, shields, spears...), the evidence of having horses (horses), luxury goldsmiths (gold, silver, carnelian pendants) and for the sacrifices made after his death. One of the tombs kept 453 knucklebones (astragalus) of lamb, for which 222 animals had to be sacrificed, according to expert calculations. The bodies of the deceased were cremated and kept in vessels that the excavation has brought to light.


Another of the tombs could have belonged to a prince, since large stone blocks were used, staggered and well worked, although it was looted in ancient times for the valuable objects it contained. In the rest of the tombs, 327 objects have been found, of which 9% were made of gold. Another tomb has also been found, which is actually a cenotaph , which corresponds to a burial without a body, since the warrior would have died very far from the town and his remains could not be recovered. However, a tomb was opened for him with all the trousseau that corresponded to him as an aristocrat and warrior.


Photo: Several archaeologists work on the tombs found in Alarcos. CASTILLA-LA MANCHA UNIVERSITY

The analyzes have shown that there were notable differences between the tombs found —which have been classified into three groups: opulent, intermediate and simpler—, but all belonging to "a high status even compared to others of the same cultural scope" in different sites Iberians of the Peninsula. What draws the researchers' attention is that hardly any bodies from the "plain town" have been detected outside this necropolis. "We don't know what they did with the remains of these people, perhaps they used another type of funerary rite such as immersion, that is, they were thrown into the river or something like that. It's a mystery"Rodríguez explains, and even more so considering that the town where they lived could house more than a thousand people and the settlement lasted for almost five or six centuries.


The oppidum (hill) of Alarcos, a 33-hectare site, stands on a 100-meter-high hill and is surrounded by good natural defenses (Guadiana river), which allowed it to be an establishment suitable for a permanent habitat. "The Alarcos necropolis" , says David Rodríguez, "represents a notable qualitative leap in the knowledge of the Iberian funerary reality, by being able to present a set of tombs and materials in context that allow us to approach a better definition of the Iberian funerary ritual with more guarantees. in general and of orethane in particular".


Photo: Falcatas found in Alarcos, the feared Iberian swords. UNIVERSITY OF CASTILA-LA MANCHA


Whether these warriors killed Hamilcar will never be known for certain, but how Hamilcar died is known, according to the Roman historian Appian . "The Iberian kings [referring to the Oretano hosts of Orisos] killed him in the following way: they took carts loaded with logs to which they harnessed oxen and followed them armed with weapons. The Africans, seeing them, burst out laughing. But when they were very nearby, they set fire to the chariots and drove them against the enemy. The fire caused the confusion of the Africans. When the formation was broken, the Iberians, charging on the run, killed Hamilcar and a large number of those who were defending him " Perhaps, the prince of the tomb found in Alarcos was the one who designed the strategy.



ALARCOS, THE GREAT CHRISTIAN DEFEAT

The Iberian settlement to which the unearthed necropolis corresponds was located right where the ruins of the medieval castle of Alarcos (Poblete, Ciudad Real) now stand. The fortress is the witness of the battle between the troops of Alfonso VIII , on July 19, 1195, with the caliph Abu Yaqub al-Mansur . The Castilian defeat was complete, because the monarch did not wait for reinforcements from the rest of the Christian kings. He had to wait until 1212, in Las Navas de Tolosa , to take his revenge. On this occasion, he accepted the help of Aragon, Navarre and Frankish knights.

Source: Vicente G. Olaya | The Country , August 6, 2019

• ​
  
  William Case of the Cobos
  
  The secrets of the Iberian aristocracy that uncovers the discovery of 25 tombs in Ciudad Real
  
  
  
  One of the 25 burial mounds found on the Alarcos hill. Castile-La Mancha University
  
  The Alarcos hill , located on the left bank of the Guadiana river, is one of the most spectacular sites in Ciudad Real . Its 22 hectares make it a key point for learning about the past, from the Bronze Age to the Muslim invasions of the Iberian Peninsula.
  
  As a result of the first investigations in 1984, archaeologists have studied the different historical periods, such as the Middle Ages or the Roman and Visigoth vestiges . Currently, the excavators have recovered an ancient Iberian city dating from the end of the 6th century BC, which allows us to discover first-hand the habits of the Oretana tribe that lived on the surface of La Mancha.
  
  That was how in 2013, a team made up of archaeologists and historians, in which names such as María del Rosario García Huerta , Francisco Javier Morales Hervás and David Rodríguez González stood out , began an investigation in the Alarcos necropolis that did not end until five years later . years later. In this way, they have found a historical jewel of 25 tombs of Iberian warrior aristocrats .
  
  Tomb number eleven. Castile-La Mancha University
  
  
  
  Burials are divided hierarchically. Interestingly, apart from the tombs of the warriors, whose ritual required the sacrifice of up to 200 animals depending on the wealth of the deceased individual, the tombs of two women stand out.
  
  
  Carthaginian defeat
  
  The remains found show these women buried together with various weapons , which indicates that the role of the Iberian women was not as secondary as it could be in contemporary Mediterranean civilizations.
  
  According to archaeologist David Rodríguez , in conversation with EL ESPAÑOL, the female figure in the Iberian people has always had considerable relevance. "You only have to see the offering Lady of Cerro de los Santos or the Lady of Elche" , he comments. However, he declares that to speak of equality between men and women would be "to venture too much" .
  
  The presence of these weapons does not mean that the females would have fought on the battlefield, in situ . "All the people buried here belong to the elite. When these women are buried with those weapons, it means that they belong to that social group," says Rodríguez. Therefore, they are part of that status that accompanies other men in the same funeral space.
  
  These aristocrats might have fought in the battle that ended Hamilcar Barca 's life . This Carthaginian leader had besieged the city of Helike —located on the Iberian Peninsula despite the fact that the exact location is unknown— in the year 228 BC . war.
  
  Volunteers at the necropolis. Castile-La Mancha University
  
  
  Although the documents are inaccurate, historians defend the idea that the Iberian soldiers managed to generate chaos among the Carthaginian ranks using bulls with flaming horns . After the brilliant strategy of the Iberians, Hamilcar's men were defeated and his leader annihilated.
  
  Now, archaeologists seek to verify if the tombs found on the Alarcos hill could belong to those Iberian warriors who faced the Carthaginian people commanded by Amílcar Barca. "We don't have written sources that can confirm that this group was there ," answers the archaeologist. However, he firmly states that "they almost certainly had to participate in the events of their time" . The key would lie in the enormous wealth of this group of 25 Iberians.
  
  To verify the hypotheses that are being considered about the historic discovery, David Rodríguez is preparing new excavations at the site for the month of September, in which he will have volunteers from the History degree of the Castilla-La Mancha University. The main mission of these new investigations will be to analyze the social structures between the different bodies found.
  
  Source: elespañol.com | August 12, 2019

https://terraeantiqvae.com/m/blogpos...gPost%3A460959

 

[Microbeman]

Ukraine is about covering up crimes. Russia is cleaning it up for the world.

NATO blew it when they went to Afghanistan and should have been dissolved with the Soviet Union was.

They are nothing but a moistly US taxpayer paid for Globalist/EU army.

Reap it.

 

[armedoldhippy]

"cleaning it up for the world", LOL! getting their ass waxed like a new fucking car! NATO won't disband as long as there is an aggressive Russia. when they get used to not getting their damn way on everything & STFU and go sit in the corner...maybe. not until. why do you think NATO exists? the ignorance is STRONG in this one...

 

[member 505892]

"cleaning it up for the world", LOL! getting their ass waxed like a new fucking car! NATO won't disband as long as there is an aggressive Russia. when they get used to not getting their damn way on everything & STFU and go sit in the corner...maybe. not until. why do you think NATO exists? the ignorance is STRONG in this one...

Three Berries sighting?

 

[Creeperpark]

How come none of the pictures of the dead bodies have Maggots ?

Flies are not shy about laying their eggs.

They are still in the cold season. Flies only lay eggs when it's warm and eggs only hatch when it's warm. I don't have flies yet but will in the next month.

 

[Montuno]

War crimes in Ukraine: verification technologies


Technology has become essential to verify what is happening in Ukraine. With the Russian invasion, the OSINT community is being key.



[COLOR=rgba(31, 31, 31, 0.75)]By Emilio Doménech
Only in America

06 April 2022| 4 min read[/COLOR]

Satellite images of Bucha in which bodies are seen in the streets of the city as evidence of war crimes in Ukraine

[COLOR=rgba(31, 31, 31, 0.75)][COLOR=rgba(31, 31, 31, 0.75)]With a computer and an internet connection, users of what is known as the OSINT ( Open Source Intelligence ) community help these days to verify war crimes in Ukraine . Technology has facilitated a paradigm shift in information standards, unmasking in real time the propaganda hoaxes of Vladimir Putin's Russia.[/COLOR][/COLOR]


[COLOR=rgba(31, 31, 31, 0.75)]Over the last few days, the Bucha massacre has emerged as one of the starkest headlines of the war. And as the world saw the images of barbarism and heard the testimonies of those who had lived under Russian occupation in the Ukrainian town, the Kremlin launched accusations:[/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(31, 31, 31, 0.75)]« A provocation of the Kiev regime «.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(31, 31, 31, 0.75)]" An Attack of Forgeries ".[/COLOR]


Spain joins Germany or France and expels 27 Russian diplomats: this is the expulsion process


[COLOR=rgba(31, 31, 31, 0.75)]" A montage from Ukraine ".[/COLOR]


[COLOR=rgba(31, 31, 31, 0.75)]The Russian authorities and their related media have been touting alternative narratives for days to the one told by residents, journalists and local authorities on the ground. But they are changing versions that suspend any minimal scrutiny of the war crimes committed in Ukraine.[/COLOR]

• And it is technology, in addition to social networks and digital tools, that is making it possible to deny the Kremlin.

Tanned in the Middle East

[COLOR=rgba(31, 31, 31, 0.75)]The technology by which ordinary users can verify war crimes in real time from anywhere in the world has not been around long before Ukraine. Neither had a war conflict had the right characteristics for that to be possible:[/COLOR]


Zelensky, to Congress: "We are in April 2022 and it seems like April 1937"

• Civilians with cell phones that have a camera and an internet connection.
• Social networks where those same civilians can share images and videos accessible to all.
• Digital maps with satellite images accessible to all.
• Encyclopedic platforms and means of communication accessible to all.

[COLOR=rgba(31, 31, 31, 0.75)]These four factors came together in the Arab world more than ten years before the Bucha massacre in the Ukraine. First, during the Iranian Green Revolution of 2009; and later, during the Arab Spring of 2011. The last one was the trigger for the Syrian War.[/COLOR]

• In subsequent years, the chaos of that conflict worsened with the arrival of the Islamic State and then the entry of foreign powers such as the United States and Russia.
• The presence of these two countries also translated into interest in the war on the part of the millions of users of both nations, the third and sixth powers in terms of the number of internet users on the entire planet, respectively.

[COLOR=rgba(31, 31, 31, 0.75)]During all that time, thousands of users gained experience covering armed conflicts from Asia to Europe. And that includes intelligence analysis on troop movements and investigations into war crimes committed in Ukraine. And not now, but in 2014.[/COLOR]


First war crimes in Ukraine

[COLOR=rgba(31, 31, 31, 0.75)]In 2014, during the Donbas War, the Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17) passenger plane was shot down while passing through Ukrainian airspace. Specifically, by an area controlled by pro-Russian separatist forces that at that time were battling the Ukrainian government in kyiv.[/COLOR]

• Three days earlier, British blogger Eliot Higgins had founded an investigative journalism website specializing in Open Source Intelligence, or OSINT.
• In general terms, OSINT is how the concept and the community of users like Higgins are known, who make use of tools available to everyone to carry out intelligence analysis.
• That is, using technology to analyze the advances against the Islamic State in Syria or war crimes in Ukraine, such as MH17.

[COLOR=rgba(31, 31, 31, 0.75)]In the case of MH17, Bellingcat concluded in 2015 that the plane was shot down by a Russian Buk missile system operated by pro-Russian separatist forces. And that they did it from the territory they controlled at the time of the Dombas War. And that was important for two reasons:[/COLOR]

• It tested the possibility of verifying war crimes in Ukraine through open source tools such as videos on social networks or Google Earth maps.
• It tested the possibility of disproving Russian propaganda through the evidence collected with these tools.

[COLOR=rgba(31, 31, 31, 0.75)]Years later, an official Dutch investigation determined in an independent report that the Bellingcat researchers were correct.[/COLOR]
OSINT Maturity

[COLOR=rgba(31, 31, 31, 0.75)]With the Russo-Ukrainian war, the OSINT community has achieved greater significance. Hundreds of users determine every day advances of troops, locations of bombings and war crimes committed in Ukraine. The importance of this juncture is best explained with an example:[/COLOR]

• A Ukrainian civilian posts a video on Twitter showing shelling near his home. Alongside the video, he writes: "The Russian army is shelling residential buildings in Mykolaiv."
• An OSINT user sees that video on his Twitter timeline and enters Google Maps. He begins to compare the shape of the buildings and their roofs to geolocate the video.
• That user confirms that the video is taken in Mykolaiv. The city has been under Ukrainian control since the beginning of the conflict, so the bombing would be carried out by the Russian army.
• The advances of Russian troops detected in that region in the previous days help to determine that the capture of Mykolaiv is necessary for Russia. They need it to continue advancing towards the strategic port city of Odessa.
• Leaked Russian military maps and Western intelligence reports posted on social media and media confirm that premise .

How to decipher a massacre in the Ukraine

[COLOR=rgba(31, 31, 31, 0.75)]War crimes in Ukraine such as the indiscriminate bombing of civilian areas in Mykolaiv have been a constant in the current conflict. And anyone can participate if he invests the necessary time.[/COLOR]

• On Bendobrown's YouTube channel there are video tutorials to teach other users to geolocate videos with mountains as a reference. Also, to determine the time of day an image is taken using shadows or to learn to analyze satellite images.
• Eliot Higgins, the co-founder of Bellingcat, compiled the process for determining the use of cluster munitions against civilians in Ukraine. It is something that both Russians and Ukrainians have done since 2014 despite the fact that more than 100 countries have prohibited its use.
• Communities on Reddit and Discord have been coordinating for weeks to help unravel fake news around possible war crimes in Ukraine.
• And non-profit organizations such as the Center for Information Resilience are helped by this community work to compose the Russia-Ukraine Monitor Map . In it, attacks against civil infrastructure, use of cluster munitions or civilian victims are compiled.

[COLOR=rgba(31, 31, 31, 0.75)]In recent days, media such as The New York Times or Bellingcat itself have put their journalists and investigators to investigate the Bucha massacre. His way of working is not too far from what OSINT users have been doing for years: analyze videos, compare maps, establish timelines.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=rgba(31, 31, 31, 0.75)]That work helps debunk the falsehoods that the Kremlin broadcasts every day to avoid guilt. Because just like with flight MH17, like with the Mariupol hospital, like now with Bucha, the changing narratives of the Russian government do not hold up. And a community of hundreds of digital users is more than willing to debunk their lies in real time.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=rgba(31, 31, 31, 0.75)]Sources:[/COLOR]

• [COLOR=rgba(31, 31, 31, 0.75)]TIME Magazine[/COLOR]
• [COLOR=rgba(31, 31, 31, 0.75)]bellingcat[/COLOR]
• [COLOR=rgba(31, 31, 31, 0.75)]bellingcat[/COLOR]
• [COLOR=rgba(31, 31, 31, 0.75)]BBC[/COLOR]
• [COLOR=rgba(31, 31, 31, 0.75)]SkyNews[/COLOR]
• [COLOR=rgba(31, 31, 31, 0.75)]New York Times[/COLOR]
• [COLOR=rgba(31, 31, 31, 0.75)]CODA Story[/COLOR]
• [COLOR=rgba(31, 31, 31, 0.75)]nyc magazine[/COLOR]
• [COLOR=rgba(31, 31, 31, 0.75)]Center for Information Resilience[/COLOR]

https://www.newtral.es/crimenes-guerra-ucrania-tecnologia-verificacion/20220406/

 

[Montuno]

The European Commission promises Zelensky to speed up the EU accession process

• The president of the Community Executive, Ursula von der Leyen, affirms in kyiv: "We will give our opinion in weeks, not in years as usual"
• — The daughters of Putin, Kalashnikov, more banks and media related to the Kremlin: the new ones sanctioned by the EU

A photo provided by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Service shows EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen (left), Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (centre), and European diplomat Josep Borrell (right), in kyiv (Kyiv), Ukraine. April 08, 2022. EFE/EPA/UKRAINE PRESIDENTIAL PRESS SERVICE
Andrew Gil
Correspondent in Brussels —April 9, 2022 09:18 a.m.
Updated on 04/09/2022 10:47 a.m.12

FOLLOW THE AUTHOR



Full EU political support for Ukraine. The visit of the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the head of diplomacy, Josep Borrell, to kyiv, the capital of a country bombed by Russia, sends a clear message: they are the highest dignitaries who have entered in the invaded country to meet with its president, Volodymyr Zelensky. But also to witness the consequences of the Bucha massacre.


The President of the European Commission and Borrell, in front of the Bucha massacre
KNOW MORE
But political support has also become a promise. That of Von der Leyen before Zelenski during the joint press conference this Friday in kyiv: “We are on your side in your dream of Europe. Volodymyr, my message today is very clear. Ukraine belongs to the European family. We have heard your request loud and clear. And today we are here to give you a first positive answer. In this envelope, dear Vladimir, there is an important step towards joining the EU. The questionnaire that is here is the basis for our discussion in the coming weeks. It is where your path to Europe and the European Union begins. This questionnaire that I am giving you has to be answered because they are questions that later form the opinion of the European Union as a recommendation to the Council. We are ready 24 hours a day, seven days a week to help you complete. We know a lot about each other because we have been working together very intensively for the last few years. So it won't be, as usual, a matter of years to form this opinion, it will be a matter of weeks if we work closely together."


The 27 gave the transfer, also in days, the request for accession of Ukraine to the European Commission, in charge of carrying out the evaluation process. Once its evaluation is finished, the European Commission returns the file to the Council (the governments), so that they can finish making a decision. And this examination, that of the European Commission, is the one that Von ser Leyen has promised to speed up to “weeks”.


At the beginning of the process, the Council was divided between those calling for accelerated accession (Poland and Eastern countries); and among those who considered that the enlargement of the EU should not be used as a political element and were committed to respecting the times.


An example of how the usual times of enlargement are are the Balkan countries, which have been in the process for decades, which entails political, democratic and economic reforms to put the country on a par with the rest of the EU. Now, once the European Commission finishes its evaluation, it will be seen what position the 27 hold in this regard.
“I am deeply convinced that Ukraine will win this war”, said Von der Leyen: “Democracy will win this war. Freedom will win this war. And the right of each country to forge its own future. And we will work together with Ukraine to rebuild Ukraine, and that means investments and reforms, and that will forge its path to the European Union."

The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, delivers the questionnaire to the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, for EU accession. Christophe Licoppe / European CommissionVon der Leyen has visited Bucha with Borrell: “It was important to start my visit in Bucha today. Because in Bucha our humanity was shattered. It is only fair that the world has voted to suspend Russia from the UN Human Rights Council. This war is a challenge to the entire international community at a decisive moment. Will the appalling devastation win or will humanity prevail? Will the right to power or the rule of law prevail? Will there be constant conflicts and struggles or a future of common prosperity?


“It is very special for your visit to Bucha”, Zelensky said: “It is a very powerful signal that speaks to the world and tells him that Ukraine and the EU are united in this fight for justice, dignity and values. Human life is a value, let's work together. It is important for every Ukrainian, for all our children who can see their lives in the future in Ukraine."
Zelensky has insisted on his appeal to the EU: “It is where we belong. The goal is to be in the EU. The most important thing is that we share the values ​​and we have shown it because we fight with all our strength for those values, for the right of our people to choose the world in which they can live, with the hope of a free country.”
“As the president of a liberal and peaceful state,” Zelensky said, “I don't like to talk about weapons, but we have to protect our freedom, our lives, our territorial integrity and, most importantly, all our people. It is our treasure, our unity, our strength. I would like to thank Ursula von der Leyen personally for the fifth package of sanctions, but it is not enough because they have taken a lot from us, the territories, the people. And we are going to recover the territories, but we cannot bring those people back to life, unfortunately. This is a great responsibility, keep helping us with the sanctions. It is the only way because Russia can only understand this kind of language.”


https://www.eldiario.es/internaciona...1_8903650.html

 

[Montuno]

From Bucha to Mariupol: the map of the massacre of civilians in the Russian invasion of Ukraine

• The withdrawal of Russian troops from the kyiv region and other areas of northeastern Ukraine is revealing the extent of the destruction and the suffering of the civilian population after more than 40 days of offensive
• — What Russia officially says about the Bucha massacre and what the verified images show

Iciar Gutierrez / Mariangela Paone
April 7, 2022 11:35 p.m.
Updated on 04/08/2022 1:30 p.m.32



The withdrawal of Russian troops from the kyiv region and other areas of northeastern Ukraine is revealing the extent of the destruction and the suffering of the civilian population after 43 days of offensive. The Russian occupation has left a trail of executions, violence and intimidation documented by international media and organizations, which have denounced possible war crimes that Moscow denies.


Survivors of the Russian occupation on a street in Bucha: "Why have they done this to us?"
KNOW MORE
Rape, arbitrary arrest, indiscriminate weapon attacks, bombing of civilian infrastructure, siege tactics and looting of goods such as food and clothing have been documented. The United Nations has confirmed the deaths of at least 1,611 civilians, mainly from heavy artillery shelling and missile and air strikes, but the true figure is widely assumed to be much higher. The UN data covers all of Ukraine, including the Donbas, Donetsk and Luhansk regions to the east. Of those more than 1,600 civilians, 67 died in the territory controlled by the self-proclaimed pro-Russian republics. Since the start of the offensive, seven journalists have also been killed in Ukraine .

​

In the following map, we locate some of the main attacks that have affected civilians since the beginning of the Russian invasion. You can check the details in the text.

Russian civilian attacks in Ukraine _ _

Borodianka

Gostomel

Bucha

Vorzel

Brovary

Irpin

KYIV

Belarus

Chernigov

Russia

Sumy

Poland

Lutsk

Kyiv

Trostianets

Okhtirka

Kharkiv

Lviv

dnieper river

Izium

Dnipro

Mykolayiv

Romania

Mariupol

Odessa

SEA OF AZOV

Kherson

Areas under Russian control

BLACK SEA

Russian Army advance areas

Areas in which Ukraine

regained control

SOURCE : I S W _ _ _



1. Buck


Bucha, which is 37 kilometers northwest of kyiv, was under the occupation of Russian forces for more than a month after the invasion on February 24. After his release he has become the symbol of the horror of war.
After the Russian withdrawal, international media journalists have witnessed what remained after the soldiers' march: dozens of lifeless bodies in civilian clothes lying in the streets, many shot at close range and with their hands tied; Bodies piled up in a mass grave, corpses buried in the interior patios of houses. They have also collected testimonies about the horrors experienced under Russian occupation: bodies run over by tanks, soldiers gunning down elderly people and snipers shooting at people trying to escape. Ukraine claims that some people have been tortured. According to the mayor of this town, 320 civilians have been killed by Russian troops. In about 50 cases they had signs of having been executed.
Elderly and sick neighbors, who cannot go anywhere, are alone in their apartments, "without heating, without water, without electricity," according to the Red Cross. And also in Bucha, as in other recovered towns in the kyiv region, the authorities denounce the presence of mines and improvised explosive devices left by Russian troops.


2. Irpin
On March 6, Russian forces shelled for several hours a highway intersection used by hundreds of civilians to flee from the advancing Russian army. Human Rights Watch noted days later that the repeated nature of the attacks, which the mayor said killed eight people, “suggests that Russian forces violated their obligations under international humanitarian law not to carry out indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks that harm civilians, and did not take all possible measures to prevent civilian casualties.” Once he regained control of the city, the mayor said that half of Irpin was destroyed and that while the attacks lasted, the residents limited themselves to burying the dead in the patios and in the park.
3. Brovary


Brovary, about 20 kilometers east of kyiv, was recaptured by Ukrainian forces in early April. When announcing the liberation of the district, the local authorities had warned that in the territory, like that of Bucha or Vyshgorod, Russian troops had left mines and explosive devices. The head of Ukraine's state emergency service, Volodímír Demchuk, denounced that Russian troops have used improvised explosive devices camouflaged by everyday objects, such as toys, with the aim of hitting the civilian population in the cities of the occupied kyiv region. . Demchuk explained that there are about 500 explosive ordnance disposal specialists ready to work in these areas.
4. Gostomel
In Gostomel, located northwest of kyiv and which has a major airfield, the Russian troops withdrew after 35 days. There are at least 400 people missing, according to local authorities. The former Ukrainian Interior Minister, Arsen Avakov, reported last Wednesday that, after retaking the city, 11 bodies were found in a garage. "The neighbors say that the snipers shot people and then put the dead in the garage," Avakov said on his Facebook account, according to the Ukrainian newspaper Ukrayinska Pravda. Amnesty International has spoken to a man who, during the first days of the Russian occupation,He drove around distributing food and medicine to people hiding in shelters. On March 3, his vehicle, in which two other people and the city's mayor, Yuryi Prylypko, were traveling, was hit by gunfire coming from a building seized by Russian forces. The mayor and other men were killed.


5. Borodianka
Borodianka, another city recovered by Ukraine after intense hostilities, is now a landscape of charred and completely destroyed buildings. Hundreds of people are feared dead under the rubble. The mayor has spoken of at least 200 deaths.
Ukraine's Prosecutor General Irina Venediktova reported Thursday that 26 bodies have been recovered from just two apartment buildings.
Authorities and residents have said in recent days that they fear there are hundreds of victims in this city near the capital, retaken by Ukrainian forces and turned into a landscape of destroyed and charred buildings after the Russian occupation. "It is difficult to predict how many victims there will be at this time," Venediktova said. “The enemy insidiously attacked the housing infrastructure at night, when most people were at home. The objective was exclusively civilians: there are no military installations here”.
6. Vorzel
Amnesty International has documented testimonies of at least two civilians who were shot dead by Russian forces. Human Rights Watch reports that on March 6, Russian soldiers threw a smoke grenade into a basement and then shot a woman and a 14-year-old boy as they emerged from the basement where they had taken refuge.
7. Kyiv
In the capital, several residential buildings have been damaged by the attacks. The City Council estimates that 167 buildings of different types have been affected, as well as 44 schools. The Associated Press has documented attacks that affected up to four medical facilities and several attacks on civilian vehicles. Local authorities put the number of civilians killed in 40 days of Russian invasion at 89.
8. Mykolayiv
On April 4, a Médecins Sans Frontières team witnessed Russian forces shelling two health facilities in Mykolaiv, a pediatric hospital and a cancer center. Leaving the area, the MSF team saw injured people and at least one dead body. According to Human Rights Watch, Russian forces repeatedly fired cluster munitions at the city during separate attacks on March 7, 11 and 13. In a March 31 tally, local authorities reported that at least 134 people, including six children, had been killed since the offensive began. On March 22, a missile hit a psychiatric hospital.
9. Chernigov
On March 3, a small square in the town of Chernigov, some 144 kilometers north of Kiev, was hit by multiple bombs, causing heavy damage to buildings and killing civilians queuing for food in an attack . documented by Amnesty International . According to the regional administration, 47 people were killed in the attack.
According to humanitarian organizations, the neighbors were without water for weeks after the infrastructure for the supply was destroyed by the bombing. The mayor of the city Vladislav Atroshenko this Sunday that 70% of the city was destroyed after weeks of incessant attacks. At the end of March, local authorities reported that half of its 280,000 inhabitants had left the city and that at least 200 civilians had been killed. In one day alone, March 16, 53 people would have died.
10. Kharkiv
Russian bombardments hit the city center of Kharkiv, Ukraine's second largest city, turning symbolic places into rubble, such as the Soviet-era Central Administration building. Amnesty International has documented how Russian forces reached the northern outskirts of Kharkiv in the first days of the invasion, and quickly launched siege tactics, attempting to surround the city and firing inaccurate weapons into populated areas. The international organization has verified how three discharges from multiple rocket launcher systems reached the northern part of the city on February 28 and killed at least nine people, including minors. It has also confirmed that there was a cluster bomb attack on March 4.
The Associated Press has documented that on March 10, the Ukrainian Red Cross regional office was damaged during widespread shelling of the city. One photo shows a cluster rocket stuck in the ground outside the building. The city's mayor, Igor Terekhov, has said that more than 1,500 houses have been destroyed. Human Rights Watch has also documented the use of cluster munitions in the city and has collected the testimony of a woman who says that a Russian soldier repeatedly raped her, with blows and cuts to her face, in a school in the Kharkov region where she and her family had taken refuge on March 13. The next day, the woman fled to Kharkov.
11. Izium
Amnesty International, which has documented siege tactics in the city, denounced in mid-March that the civilian population was on the verge of a "humanitarian disaster." Local residents described the terror of the population, trapped in their cellars with little food or water and under constant attacks that have destroyed or damaged homes, schools, kindergartens, medical centers and grocery stores. Satellite images from March 12 examined by AI show craters and damage in the vicinity of places that Open Street Maps says were schools and hospitals.
12. Sumy
The Sumy region has been one of the hardest hit by the Russian offensive until the troops withdrew on April 4. On March 8, local authorities reported the death of at least 21 people, including two children, after a bombing on a residential street in the region's capital, in the northeast of the country.
13. Okhtirka
At least three people died in a bombardment in the town of Ojtirka, the same one in which Amnesty International documented that on February 25 a preschool center was hit with cluster munitions, while civilians were inside.
14. Trostianets
In Trostianets, 30 kilometers from the Russian border, where Russian tanks entered in the first hours of the invasion, the Guardian newspaper has found evidence of summary executions , torture and systematic looting during the month that the occupation lasted. The mayor, Yuriy Bova, has stated that it is too early to know the exact number of civilian deaths. “For sure, more than 50; but probably not hundreds.
15. Mariupol
Mariupol, a strategic port on the Sea of ​​Azov, has been the scene of the worst horrors of war under the Russian siege and constant bombing. On March 9, the images of the devastation of the maternal and child hospital went around the world. At least three people died and 17 were injured, according to local authorities. Among the deceased are a woman and her baby. A week later, a new Russian attack hit the Drama Theater in Mariupol, where more than 1,000 people had sheltered from heavy shelling. Authorities believe that up to 300 people died there.
There are images of corpses lying in the streets, mass graves have been dug to bury the dead, and residents have buried their own neighbors in backyards. The City Council says that more than 5,000 people have lost their lives in the attacks and that more than 90% of the city's infrastructure has been destroyed. These are figures that could not be verified. The battle for control of the city continues.
The testimonies of the citizens who have managed to leave the city speak of an apocalyptic situation. Ukrainian authorities accuse Russian forces of destroying supply and telecommunications lines and completely blockading the city. Tens of thousands of people have been stranded for several weeks without food, medicine, gas or electricity. There is no running water and many people have resorted to melting snow or using water from radiators. Civilians have only been able to leave by their own means, mainly by car or on foot. kyiv has accused Moscow of systematically preventing the evacuation and the arrival of humanitarian aid.
16. Kherson
In the city of Kherson, held by Russian forces, there have been reports of dispersed protests with gunfire. The Associated Press also reports how, in the first days of the invasion, an ambulance was hit, as well as the city's central market.

Sources: AP, Reuters, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, kyiv Independent, War Crimes Watch Ukraine.

If you care about the information about the war in Ukraine, support us
Our newsroom has been focused for weeks on covering the war and its consequences for all of Europe. We are making a special effort to report, explain and verify available information in difficult circumstances and have sent our reporters to Ukraine, Poland and Moldova, among other key locations. We tell you specific stories and try to give you an overview of the economic and political effects in the medium term, looking for the most expert voices to interview in Ukraine, Russia, the United States or China.

https://www.eldiario.es/internacion...-civiles-invasion-rusa-ucrania_1_8899749.html

 

[St. Phatty]

The new Airpower Summary data reveal that the United States has dropped another 3,246 bombs and missiles on Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria (2,068 under Trump and 1,178 under Biden) since the end of February 2020.

Perhaps that explains one of the more popular comments on RT today,

"Nuke Washington DC, before Washington DC nukes You."

The US is a Conscience-less Sh-thole, pretending to be an Angel.

 

[h.h.]

Perhaps that explains one of the more popular comments on RT today,

"Nuke Washington DC, before Washington DC nukes You."

The US is a Conscience-less Sh-thole, pretending to be an Angel.

And what are you? Where do you live? Fuck putin

 

[Three Berries]

Perhaps that explains one of the more popular comments on RT today,

"Nuke Washington DC, before Washington DC nukes You."

The US is a Conscience-less Sh-thole, pretending to be an Angel.

Ya Ya USA!

Escobar: Sit Back & Watch Europe Commit Suicide

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/escobar-sit-back-watch-europe-commit-suicide

The stunning spectacle of the EU committing slow motion hara-kiri is something for the ages... Like a cheap Kurosawa remake the movie is actually about the Empire of Lies-detonated demolition of the EU, complete with subsequent rerouting of some key Russian commodities exports to the US at the expense of the Europeans.

It helps to have a 5th columnist actress strategically placed, in this case astonishingly incompetent European Commission head Ursula von der Lugen, with a brand new vociferous announcement of an extra sanctions package: Russian ships banned from EU ports; road transportation companies from Russia and Belarus prohibited from entering the EU; no more coal imports (over 4.4 billion euros a year).

That translates in practice into the Empire of Lies shaking down its wealthiest – Western – clients/puppets. Russia of course is too powerful militarily. The Empire badly needs some of its key exports – especially minerals. Mission Accomplished in this case amounts to nudging the EU into imposing more and more sanctions and willfully collapsing their national economies, allowing the US to scoop everything up.

 

[armedoldhippy]

They are still in the cold season. Flies only lay eggs when it's warm and eggs only hatch when it's warm. I don't have flies yet but will in the next month.

and common sense rears its head yet once again! very good...

 

[Montuno]

Ya Ya USA!

Escobar: Sit Back & Watch Europe Commit Suicide

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitic...commit-suicide

The stunning spectacle of the EU committing slow motion hara-kiri is something for the ages... Like a cheap Kurosawa remake the movie is actually about the Empire of Lies-detonated demolition of the EU, complete with subsequent rerouting of some key Russian commodities exports to the US at the expense of the Europeans.

It helps to have a 5th columnist actress strategically placed, in this case astonishingly incompetent European Commission head Ursula von der Lugen, with a brand new vociferous announcement of an extra sanctions package: Russian ships banned from EU ports; road transportation companies from Russia and Belarus prohibited from entering the EU; no more coal imports (over 4.4 billion euros a year).

That translates in practice into the Empire of Lies shaking down its wealthiest – Western – clients/puppets. Russia of course is too powerful militarily. The Empire badly needs some of its key exports – especially minerals. Mission Accomplished in this case amounts to nudging the EU into imposing more and more sanctions and willfully collapsing their national economies, allowing the US to scoop everything up.

I think that Escobar in your article does not go deeper into the aspects that make his comments not as categorical as they sound in principle:
According to him, it is very difficult for the EU to develop the gas pipelines it needs in order not to depend on Russia, but very easy for Russia to shift its gas exports to China....: Since before the war I have been commenting and linking articles on the (key) subject of gas, and how there is already gas connection with Africa and that it crosses the Mediterranean by three points, 2 to Spain and 1 to Italy, and that Germany only needs to connect to this network (but until before the war, France was opposed so as not to give priority to Algeria in the conflict Morocco & Mauritania &France & USA VS Algeria & Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic &Spain). Italy has already reacted by increasing the use of this pipeline, and I also commented some time ago how the Spanish plan to supply the EU with this gas clashed with the interest of the USA to export to the EU the liquefied gas in ships to Spain (Spain does have the capacity to regasify for the whole EU). All analysts affirm that undoubtedly US pressures are behind the change of attitude of President Pedro Sanchez towards the Western Sahara War, over and above the Moroccan threats of new attempts of military invasion ( the "Little war of the Perejil Islet" wich I also mentioned, was a public humiliation for its people, which the Moroccan regime cannot allow) or to allow free entry of immigration or even terrorism.

As for the Mediterranean pipeline, at least the Spanish branch that I know of, is designed to reach Nigeria.

Finally, I think Escobar left his brain forgotten when he ends the article you linked, with this:

“The US and NATO are totally belligerent. This presents a real danger to Russia. The idea that nuclear war is unthinkable is a myth. If you look at the firebombing of Tokyo against Hiroshima and Nagasaki, more people died in Tokyo than Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These cities were rebuilt. The radiation go away and life can restart. The difference between firebombing and nuclear bombing is only efficiency. NATO provocations are so extreme Russia had to place their nuclear missiles on standby alert. This is a gravely serious matter. But the US ignored it.”

 

[Petrochemical]

Icmag deerticks lol

 

[Montuno]

RADIATION RULING THE NATIONS

https://youtu.be/0jhu90ERUoM