The Wire Weekly Rollup - February 18-24, 2024

this is the wire weekly rollup for the week of February 18th to the 24th 20124 beginning with international events in the red seah Horn of Africa region this week marked significant escalations in the region following the most successful targeting of a commercial vessel by houthi forces so far during the Red Sea crisis Sunday night the merchant vessel rubar was struck with multiple projectiles forcing the crew to abandon ship originally The Vessel was reported as being sunk but several days after the strikes imery obtained by the BBC confirms that the vessel is still afloat albeit barely the imagery confirms that severe flooding has caused severe trim to stern so much so that her deck is a wash at the base of the accommodation superstructure additionally her bulbous bowel was almost completely above the waterline in the photo provided the rubar was allegedly towed into Port Djibouti where Salvage operations continue in response to the success of the strike the next day houie forces targeted several other commercial vessels including one which was delivering humanitarian Aid to Yemen the merchant vessel C Champion was struck with at least one anti-ship ballistic missile but was able to continue her Voyage to the yemeni port of Aiden where she offloaded her cargo of grain in the same engagement the merchant vessel Navas Fortuna and the USS laboon were also targeted with missiles the former successfully an American mq9 Reaper drone was also shot down by houthi forces during the escalation which marks the second drone downed by houthi forces since this conflict intensified in October 2023 throughout the week sycom forces have continued daily missile strikes against toothy targets in Yemen very few details of these now regular strikes have been made public on the home front in New York the revelation of a recent rule change has indicated that potentially tens of thousands of illegal immigrants have been allowed to receive substantial cash payments in addition to the monthly benefits already provided this follows the announcement of $53 million in prepaid cards being issued to illegal immigrants in New York City which includes payments of up to $10,000 per illegal immigrants without any accountability requirements or checking identity documents analyst comment quietly passed last year the New York governor's office changed the eligibility requirements for its safety net Assistance or sna program to include illegal immigrants though accountability is virtually non-existent City officials estimate that approximately 10% of illegals living in New York City around 177,000 are receiving benefits through this program in Texas the Border situation continues as before despite little independent media coverage of the truth On The Ground events in the vicinity of Eagle paths have largely developed into politics with Shelby Park mostly serving as a location for photo opportunity ities or press events due to the halting of illegal immigration in this very small area last week Texas announced a $130 million plan to build a forward operating base or fob near the southern US border fob Eagle base camp will be completed in September and will reportedly be a larger version of similar camps already in place throughout the region in Washington DC the Biden regime has announced the cancellation of an additional $1.2 billion of student debt for approximately 153,000 people to date various Federal entities have already cancelled or technically Al transferred to the American taxpayer over $138 billion of student loan debt from approximately 3.9 million individuals in the United States Thursday morning many cyber events were reported on a variety of platforms utilities and critical infrastructure the main cyber impacts were to AT&T cellular network with the majority of AT&T customers being without sell service for much of the day in a separate incident many pharmacies across the United States reported computer systems being offline allegedly due to a Cyber attack Wells Fargo brokerage users also reported problems accessing their accounts Thursday morning it is unclear as if this was related to any of the other cyber events reported throughout the day occurring nearly simultaneously with the initial cellular outage significant solar activity was observed throughout the day but it is unclear as to how much this impacted Telecom networks Friday afternoon Pentagon officials via CBS News disclosed the interception of an unidentified high altitude balloon flying at an altitude of 40,000 ft over the western United States the Pentagon released very little information regarding the object but directly quoting the initial CBS report quote one official said the balloon was over Colorado earlier in the day and was expected to be over Georgia by Friday night the official said the balloon appeared to be made of myar and had a small cube-shaped box about 2 fet long on each side hanging below it end quote analyst comments for this wire this week has exemplified the harsh lesson that Murphy's Law strikes at any time but usually makes an appearance when least desired likewise the desire to remain objective in the face of Homeland threats being ignored by defense officials is exceptionally challenging especially when every fiber of analytical being combined with the wealth of American defense policy and history itself overwhelmingly indicating that airspace violations are usually a clear and present danger to a populace at minimum these events if viewed through a purely wholesome coincidental and innocent lens are a fantastic lesson that whatever can go wrong will go wrong even if all of the Cyber events cellular outages systems failures unidentified aircraft and solar activity are all perfectly benign and unrelated to any sort of hostile act the compounding of these events is a constant reminder to remain Vigilant as very few details have been released regarding the High Altitude balloon theories abound as to its purpose none of which will likely be confirmed despite pentagon's statements this balloon is not likely to be of Civilian origin the construction and size of the balloon's payload the lack of airspace deconfliction the lack of required transponder data indicating the Craft's identity the fact that no hobbyist group or commercial company has claimed the balloon the flight level of over 40,000 ft and the ability to maintain M that altitude without ascending or descending as it Traverse the United States all strongly indicate that hobby use of this craft can be ruled out however though this does indicate both hostile intent and hostile action this does not necessarily point to foreign use on the one hand the presentation of this craft based on the information that has been made public clearly indicates that it may be a threat on the other hand this craft may also be American in origin a secret reconnaissance platform that got caught by norad's own defenses the United States is certain to have been developing lighter than air reconnaissance craft and extremely secret projects would not be disclosed to everyone that needed to know including Norad with this in mind understanding defensive capabilities with regards to these types of incidents is important thousands of unidentified aircraft are detected by noride each month almost all of which remain unidentified the fact that this particular craft was disclosed in such a way as to keep it quasi secret indicates that this craft was different having a myar construction as an indicator that it was not civilian in nature along with the deao admission by officials that the balloon was remaining at the same altitude as it traversed the United States the tacit implication that the balloon was not transmitting location data is another strong indicator of Nefarious intent as such the presentation of both a hostile act being Airborne without permission and hostile Intent no Communications or response to identification Friend or Foe interrogation methods confirms that this aircraft was indeed a clear and present danger to the American public despite what defense officials have stated however until Pentagon officials begin to tell the truth at press briefings the American public would be prudent to treat these events more cautiously though it is always desirable to have a balanced view of world events and avoid alarmist perspectives in the fog of War it is sometimes acceptable to adopt a more cautiously defensive posture and prepare for the more worst case scenarios in a dynamic situation overreacting to an unknown variable is preferable until more information can be obtained which more accurately outlines the threat and hopefully lets everyone rest easy red teaming the balloon event both for posterity and for future preparedness if the High Altitude object was hostile or foreign in nature this could represent a tactic utilized by national adversaries in a time of War though it is generally unwise to base so much theory on so little information we must consider all possibilities that are likely based on what little information has been released understanding and discussing the potential is necessary no matter how serious the implications may be though this is purely speculative Theory based on a hunch the still unidentified balloon could have been intended to take advantage of the cellular outage on Wednesday the timing would have been perfect if the intent was to disable disable a large number of cellular comms and surveil whatever signals remained the balloon itself almost certainly didn't cause the initial outage but conducting reconnaissance in the wake of a Cyber attack would have provided a wealth of Intelligence on the backup procedures and frequencies used by military or governmental agencies during an event such as a national Cyber attack having a bird's eyee view to collect radio signals during a Communications blackout would be extremely valuable for military planning likewise citizens should also be prepared for the contingency that foreign reconnaissance platforms may be launched from within the United States launching spy balloons from the hundreds of miles of terrain already owned by Chinese real estate syndicates would be a logical escalation of Chinese reconnaissance activity within the Homeland this concludes the wire weekly rollup for the week of February 18th to the 24th 2024