The Castle Report

Darrell Castle talks about the war in which Europe currently finds itself as well as the seemingly inevitable war against Iran and its affiliates.

Transcription / Notes

WAR LASTS FOREVER

Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. This is Friday the 25th day of April in the year of our Lord 2025. I talk of war today as we are about two weeks away from May 8th which is the 80th anniversary of the German surrender in WWll or what became known as victory in Europe Day. I speak today not of the German surrender but of the war in which Europe still finds itself as well as the seemingly inevitable war against Iran and its affiliates.

It is very easy to get into a war and so very hard to get out of one. The efforts to resolve the conflict between Ukraine and Russia have become more difficult because neither side has been defeated. They have killed each other and invented new technological methods of warfare but neither is in a position of absolute defeat. Many seem disappointed that the war might end and they look for ways to make it continue. The only way it can continue is if the United States and Europe remain committed by supplying the money and hardware the Ukrainians need to continue the struggle.

Even if the U.S. decided to continue the supply chain the Ukrainians are running out of bodies. Even U.S. money and weapons might not be enough and so some are urging the use of U.S. and European troops to continue the fight against Russia. France seems to be seriously considering the idea. I have read that the usual argument in favor of U.S. commitment is that China is supplying Russia and some Chinese officers have been captured inside Ukraine where they were apparently learning about the incredible drone warfare campaign Ukraine has developed. I guess you don’t need so many bodies if you can fight each other with robots.

The situation in Ukraine reminds me of the U.S. efforts to extricate itself from Vietnam. Once again it’s easy to get into but hard to get out of. The U.S. was never defeated militarily and U.S. troops were not defeated on the battlefield but neither did the U.S. win and so by not winning it lost. History is filled with examples of committed guerilla forces fighting and winning against technologically superior forces. The American colonists against the British Empire for example. The more powerful force, usually with long supply lines, grows ever more exhausted and the war appears unwinnable so they simply look for a way to quit, but sometimes the guerillas will not allow them to quit and keep their dignity.

President Trump now finds himself in the position of fulfilling his promise of ending the war but the war is a lot more important to Ukraine and Russia than it is to the United States. The stated reasons for U.S. involvement, i.e. to weaken Russia have failed and it appears Russia is more resilient than previously thought. It appears to be the same situation the U.S. found itself in as it tried to leave Vietnam. The Viet Cong achieved their goals of uniting their country under their rule and the U.S. finally decided to accept that and just go.

The Ukrainian situation has similarities because Russia occupies Crimea and several provinces in the Eastern border region of Ukraine proper, while Ukraine still occupies some positions inside Russia although not many. Ironically, this Kursk frontier is the exact same region where the Russians fought invading Nazis during WWll. Not much changes except technology because human nature never changes.

Vice President Vance conveyed the President’s thoughts about efforts to end the struggle in that if his final offer is rejected the U.S. might simply abandon the process. If the U.S. went away and took its bombs and bullets with it then Zelensky and Putin could resolve matters on their own. The U.S. negotiating team seems to be growing weary as Secretary of State Rubio has stepped back from it, according to J.D. Vance.

“We’ve issued a very explicit proposal to both the Russians and Ukrainians and its time for them to either say yes or for the U.S. to walk away from this process. We’ve engaged in an extraordinary amount of diplomacy.”

Trump expects Ukraine to agree to U.S. recognition of Crimea as part of Russia but apparently not the Eastern Provinces which are in Russian hands after 3 years of war.  Ukraine would be barred from joining NATO but could join the European Union. All sanctions imposed on Russia since 2014 would be lifted and the U.S. and Russia would pursue greater economic cooperation. Ukraine would receive a “robust security agreement” from Europe but the details of that agreement were sketchy. Ukraine would receive money to help rebuild but again the details were unclear. I raise an eyebrow at that but again the costs of peace are cheaper than war. A summit was scheduled in London yesterday to hopefully reach an agreement, but the summit has already failed because Zelensky rejected Trump’s “final offer.”

Meantime, the U.S. is involved in another war currently raging in the Middle East. What we are seeing now could be a precursor to an even bigger war coming soon or maybe not, if sanity prevails. President Trump has made many statements toward the Houthi tribes in Yemen as well as the Mullahs in Iran. For example, last month he told the Houthis that “hell would rain down on them” if they did not stop their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea. The attacks have not stopped and in fact have intensified. Hell has been raining down now for several weeks.

The U.S. has deployed another Carrier Battle Group to the area to support the continuous air strikes. The logistics of constantly supplying ammunition, bombs, food, and fuel to so many ships so many miles away has to be taking its toll on the navy. Why do it at all. Does it make any sense at all for the U.S. Navy to accept responsibility for keeping sea lanes open for others. Very little of the shipping passing through those lanes benefits the U.S. with most of the cargo going to Europe. Once again, the U.S. has gotten into something that is hard to get out of. History could reveal to the President that air power alone is rarely decisive against a determined foe. The bottom line is that a full-scale ground assault will be necessary to completely destroy the Houthis ability to cause trouble and I doubt if even that will work.

There is another reason for doing it, of course, besides keeping shipping lanes open. The real reason is to degrade all of Iran’s proxies in the Middle East and thereby deprive Iran of allies. Since the attacks of October 7th by Hamas against Israel the Israelis have been at war in Gaza. Dennis Kucinich tells us that in an area the size of Detroit, the Israelis have dropped over 100,000 tons of bombs. Most of those bombs are U.S. made by the way. The point is that Hamas, another Iranian proxy, has been degraded to the point that it is no longer much of a threat or of much help to Iran.

Israeli air attacks in Syria and the overthrow of the Syrian regime of Bandar Assad has destroyed or severely damaged Hezbollah the other Iranian proxy terrorist group. The fall of Assad deprived Iran of the ability to resupply Hezbollah and left them without many obvious allies in the area. The Iranians apparently recognized their predicament and have publicly abandoned the Houthis. Trump seems to want peace instead of war, but it is difficult when the one who wants war is Israel.

Apparently, during Netanyahu’s second trip to Washington he told Trump that he was going to attack Iran with or without U.S. participation. To me, if I had that decision to make it would be one of the easier ones. I would just say that I hope you don’t do that because if you do it will involve the immediate end of all U.S. military and monetary aid to Israel. Trump didn’t take my approach but he did say that he wanted to resolve the matter diplomatically if possible. When asked about Israel’s postponement of its attack he replied, “I wouldn’t say that I postponed it, but I’m not in a rush to do it.”

Trump has a Middle East trip coming up and one of the stops will be in Turkey to meet with Erdogan. The Turkish newspapers are full of stories about the upcoming meeting and how it can help resolve the Iran matter peacefully. By the way, folks Google has given us access to newspapers all over the world. If you want to read inside information from Turkey or Israel, it used to be difficult because of language but now you just click English and the articles are automatically translated.

Well, Turkish newspapers tell us that Trump gave Netanyahu what they termed a historic reprimand by telling him “You should be reasonable too.” Trump, himself, confirmed that Netanyahu went to the White House with a plan to attack Iran. The Turkish paper suggests that Trumps decision to negotiate instead of fight did not please Netanyahu but since it was the President of the United States he had no choice but to accept the decision.

Trump and the people he has assembled understand that his real fight is with China and it’s a fight for leadership of the world. That’s why he wants the Russia-Ukraine War to end and he wants the U.S.- Israeli war against Iran not to start. The talks are coming along nicely according to Turkey and involve supervision of Iran’s nuclear activities and lifting of sanctions against Iran. Both are fiercely opposed by Israel and that’s a problem.

In conclusion, involving your country in foreign military adventures is insane. The U.S. doesn’t have to do what it has been doing for the past 85 years. It should instead rethink its place in the world because fortress America sounds a lot more sensible than wasting blood and treasure on foreign battlefields when there is no national interest involved.

Finally, folks, in addition to the military aid provided to Israel during times of crises such as now, the U.S....

Darrell Castle discusses the Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community just issued and signed off on by the office of the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard.

Transcription / Notes

THREAT ASSESSMENT

Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. This is Good Friday on the 18th day of April 2025. I will be talking about the Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community just issued and signed off on by the office of the Director of National Intelligence who at this moment is Tulsi Gabbard. This report gives the assessment of threats the U.S. faces from each country in the world where a threat is perceived to exist and is the combined assessment of the 17 intelligence agencies that are under the authority of the national director.

This report, which is published annually, is hot off the presses, but I don’t recommend that you read all 33 pages as I have unless you have a high tolerance for being terrified. Yes, once you have read this report you will wonder how the people who deal with this information every day manage to sleep at night. I will take this opportunity to share the highlights of the threat assessment as determined by U.S, Intelligence with you so you don’t have to read it and risk being terrorized.

The forward to the report introduces us to what is about to be presented. Terrorist and transnational criminal organizations, and I suppose that means drug cartels and their national supporters directly threaten our citizens and are directly responsible for more than 55,000 U.S. deaths from synthetic opioids in the last year, a 33% increase over the previous year.. It is amazing to me just how destructive the scourge of drugs has been to America. Those who are addicted seem to have an uncontrollable desire for the drug which enslaves them. I suppose the drugs at first, promise a good time or relief from bad times, but deliver, instead, misery and death.

I certainly believe that the U.S. government should consider as threats the nations enabling the cartels who do it for money and power. It’s a difficult problem indeed, for the cartels, thanks mostly to China, apparently control virtually all of Mexico and have made significant inroads into the governments of the various border states especially Arizona.

“Western Hemisphere based TCOs and terrorists involved in illicit drug production and trafficking bound for the United States endanger the health and safety of millions of Americans, contribute to regional instability.” Well, that’s a no brainer isn’t it so I wonder why no one in the government takes the time to explain to Mr. and Ms. Average American exactly what is happening and why such action against the cartels is necessary to save our lives. It is apparently profit for India, but for China they do it at cost because it’s a weapon to weaken and destroy the U.S. Mexico and its politicians are apparently so intimidated and terrified by the cartels and their multi billions in monetary assets that they do the cartels bidding.

In case you had any doubts about whether or not international terrorist groups are still active and still intent on doing harm not only to the U.S. Government but citizens as well you can now remove any doubt. “ISIS most aggressive branches, including ISIS-Khorasan (ISIS-K), and its entrepreneurial plotters will continue to seek to attack the West, including the United States, via online outreach and propaganda aimed at directing, enabling, or inspiring attacks, and could exploit vulnerable travel routes.”

Well, that’s encouraging isn’t it to know that ISIS seeks to exploit your travel routes. The Report tells us that the New Year’s Day attacker in New Orleans was influenced by ISIS propaganda, as well as the Afghan national who was arrested in October for planning an election day attack in the name of ISIS. The intent of the attacks was to demonstrate to us and the world that ISIS could attack inside the US at any time. There are other international criminal groups outlined in the Report but for time’s sake we move on to threats that involve entire nations.

When the report speaks of China it uses the abbreviation PRC for the Peoples Republic of China. The PRC maneuvers constantly for ways to shape its power and influence in the world and for ways to gain advantage over the West, particularly the U.S. It uses its military to project power over Taiwan as well as the various claims it asserts in the East and South China Seas. Have you ever wondered when there are infrastructure problems in the U.S. why so many things seem so dysfunctional. China just might be behind it because cyber-crime and cyber terrorism are two to China’s greatest weapons and this report makes it clear that all that potential damage is just sitting there, pre-positioned, and waiting to be used in any conflict with the U.S.

The bottom line for China as outlined in this report is this; “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat to U.S. national security.” China is using complex, whole-of-government campaigns featuring coercive military, economic, and influence operations short of war to assert its positions and strength against others, reserving their more destructive tools for full-scale conflict. So, China uses its influence buying, its bribery of U.S. officials, its fentanyl production, its cyber-attacks, its spying inside the U.S., its theft of intellectual property, its theft of actual property, its ownership of vast amounts of U.S. farmland and its control of the manufacture of life saving medication as a kind of soft power to gradually weaken the U.S. so that it is less and less capable over time.

“The PRC remains the most active and persistent cyber threat to U.S. government, private-sector, and critical infrastructure networks. The PRC’s campaign to preposition access on critical infrastructure for attacks during crises or conflict tracked publicly as Volt Typhoon…demonstrates the growing breadth and depth of the PRC’s capabilities to compromise U.S. infrastructure.” The report goes on to say that recent telecommunications compromises are PRC attacks. I could go on all day with more and more threats from China but there are others to talk about.

Russia views its ongoing war in Ukraine as a proxy conflict with the West and because it so views the conflict it carries increased risks of unintended escalation. “Regardless of how and when the war in Ukraine ends, Russia’s current geopolitical, economic, military, and domestic political trends underscore its resilience and enduring potential threat to U.S. power, presence, and global interests.” Despite enormous costs incurred in the war Russia has proven to be very adaptable and resilient.

That is in part at least, because of the expanded backing of China, Iran, and North Korea. President Putin appears to be resolved and determined to pay a very high price to prevail. It seems to me then, that U.S. actions have driven Russia into the hands of China with its surrogates Iran and North Korea as well as enabling Russia and Putin to become stronger rather than weaker. Even the sanctions have forced Russia to form and expand the BRICS economic alliance as a way of working around the sanctions. More and more nations are joining therefore more and more nations want to help Russia avoid the sanctions.

Russia has suffered substantial ground losses in the war without losing any strategic capability. In other words, the campaign to weaken Russia has been a complete failure and completely counterproductive. The war has afforded Moscow a wealth of lessons regarding combat against Western weapons and intelligence in large-scale war. More than likely that information and experience will involve challenges in future conflicts including other adversaries with whom Moscow shares the information. Once again the U.S. actions have made its enemies stronger and will probably involve future unnecessary casualties. The word that keeps coming to mind regarding U.S. policy is self-destructive and especially stupid unless U.S. planners want to make the world less safe.

Finally, for Russia, it has the largest and most diverse nuclear weapons stockpile that, along with its deployed ground, air, and sea-based delivery systems, could inflict catastrophic damage to the Homeland. In other words, nuclear conflict with Russia would most likely mean planetary annihilation and should be avoided at almost all costs. Flirting with nuclear war shows a very dangerous mind and is hard for any rational person to see as anything but insane. Once again I could go on all day with this Report’s assessment of Russia but there are other threats to consider.

In my view this is the most important paragraph in this entire Report and it renders current U.S. policy a little hard to understand. “We continue to assess Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and that Khamenei has not reauthorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003, though pressure has probably built on him to do so.” Did you get that folks, because when I read this it really mystified me. U.S. intelligence, the best that we have, says in writing, that it assesses that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon. In light of that statement how can the U.S. threaten Iran with “something really bad.” Why move strategic bombers with their 30,000-pound bunker buster bombs within striking distance because “Iran cannot be allowed to build nuclear weapons” if your own best intelligence assessment is that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon.

In conclusion, my own thoughts apart from this assessment is that the U.S. is in essence demanding that Iran demilitarize and I don’t see that happening. Iran is a theocracy but so is Israel and therein lies the rub. I see nothing good coming from the U. S. being involved in a religious war on the other side of the world and the last thing the U.S....

Darrell Castle endeavors to give his opinion on the subject of tariffs and what they mean for the United States.

Transcription / Notes

RESETTING THE ORDER

Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. This is Friday the 11th day of April in the year of our Lord 2025. It’s difficult to leave the subject of war and talk about tariffs but I have been waiting for the wars to pause long enough for me to do it. The wars haven’t cooperated, but I have to pause them for this week since the subject of tariffs can no longer be ignored.

I don’t claim to be an economist but I do know something about economic history so, I will, therefore, endeavor to give an opinion on the subject of tariffs and what they mean for us. I used to study the marketing theory of one of the great marketers in the world today, Dan Kennedy. People would pay handsomely for Dan’s advice and they would often ask him, so what should I do, this or that, and his answer was, yes. In other words, he would advise them to implement all those ideas at the same time. President Trump seems to have adopted that shotgun approach to how he deals with the US economy and its relationship with the world.

The tariff seems to be the base of Trump’s economic program and he has announced the implementation of 10% baseline tariffs on all imports but he has now temporarily paused them for 90 days. My understanding is that all reciprocal tariffs are paused except China which stands at 125%. He said that “yippy” globalists and “queasy” skeptics fueled his decision. I guess that means people were getting nervous and that made him nervous.

Tariffs are a tax on the importers of goods and the people who buy the finished products from the imported goods ultimately pay the tax. True, the buyer is free to not buy but in any event the tax money goes to the government and that explains the idea that tariffs will help reduce the deficit and therefore debt. The problem is that if we think about it the flaw in that reasoning is that increased revenue comes at the cost of decreased production thus offsetting any gains. Tariffs tend to slow down production wherever they are imposed. That is a concept proven time and again by history. The Chinese are a little uppity right now so their 125% tariff stays in place. The UN tells us that China now has 31% of world manufacturing and that is expected to increase to 45% by 2030. The idea then is to spur US manufacturing and that is a good thing but only if people have enough income to afford the products.

 Trump asserts that this tariff will correct decades of unfair trade practices that have disadvantaged American workers and industries. Quote from the president; “For too long, other nations have taken advantage of our open markets while imposing barriers to our products. Those days are over.” Think about it like this; a banana republic sells bananas to us and we sell them cars. We import twice as many bananas as that country does cars so there is a trade deficit and we put a 100% tariff on bananas so problem solved. The difficulty is that the banana republic now can’t afford nearly as many cars so it’s self-defeating.

 What he is attacking and threatening, then, is the order of the world that has existed since the end of WWll. It’s a globalist order in which the United States controls the world’s access to money with its reserve currency status while foreigners make stuff and exchange it for US debt and a promise to make interest payments on it.

The economic world order alters or changes from time to time as it did with the end of the gold standard in 1971. Things seemed to work well until the first really expensive war collided with the civil rights movement in which millions of additional Americans had to be included in the social fabric of America, its welfare, and its politics. President Johnson talked from time to time about how difficult it was to pay for both at the same time. His biography has many references to the predicament that he was in.

President Nixon found it impossible to do both and the triple blow was the promise of redeeming dollars with gold. His answer was to take the US off the gold standard thus reneging on that promise. Suddenly the dollar was free, almost literally, with no restraints which allowed the nation’s politicians to spend without limit. The debt grew and grew along with the deficits each year until now it is estimated that this fiscal year’s interest payment will be approximately 1.2 trillion.

 The US paid a price for being chosen to lead the world and impose our will on it, i.e. you do what we say or we are going to war and that means invasion and regime change. To stay leader in that game the US had to assume a role of uncontrolled military spending and to justify that, the masses had to be pacified. The US lost its way somewhere along that road and I think Trump is trying to find the way back. He might use a meat clever when a scalpel would work but I still think that is what he intends. If you read his book, the Art of the Deal, you can clearly see the tactics.

The rise of the computerized world powered by the internet brought the world together and allowed the oligarchs of the various nations to work together to accomplish globalization. The whole world was globalized and interconnected. US manufacturing was offshored meaning our capacity to make things went to foreign workers because US workers were just too expensive. Gradually, the middle-class jobs disappeared and all those factory jobs had to be replaced with something else. Do you know what the most common job in America is today, well its retail sales.

Those people who once worked in a steel mill as their fathers had done are now working at Walmart, carrying bags in hotels, or selling shoes. Their pay reduced from factory pay which included benefits and retirement, to minimum wage and the reality of constantly moving from job to job. People would be living in abject poverty except for the easy availability of credit because nobody can live on their income. This was a never-ending cycle because the easy credit which meant unlimited fuel for the economy drove prices up and made it even harder. Final result for each formerly middle-class American family was unpayable debt and bankruptcy, then the cycle would start over. Will tariffs bring back American manufacturing and reopen our shuttered rust belt factories, I sure hope they do.

Globalization, as the president sees it then, is other nations taking advantage of America and stealing America’s wealth but the reality is this. Foreigners shipped us cars, clothing, electronic gadgets, medicine, etc. and the US shipped them debt securities, blips on computer screens, and a promise that those blips could buy things. In other words, they made our goods and we gave them I.O.Us. as debt, which was a burden born by the hard-working American taxpayer. America lost its status as the world’s largest exporter and instead exported mostly debt. That debt has to be paid eventually by someone and that eventually is fast approaching.

Some of the things we import in great numbers are vital to the American people. The product I’m thinking of is antibiotics which is almost exclusively made in China now. The other things which are vital to the nation are not as vital to each person as being able to cure an infection in one’s body. Things such as computer chips and the all-important rare earth minerals without which the electronic gadgets could not work. Perhaps that is why Trump is trying so hard to secure Ukraine’s rare earth deposits for the US.

China’s economy is more dependent on the United States than the US economy is dependent on China but that doesn’t mean China will go away peacefully. One tactic is selling US treasuries thus making them worth less and driving up the cost of refinancing the roughly 9 trillion dollars of debt which must be refinanced very soon. China has also been able to reduce its total exports to the US to around 15%. It managed to do that by transshipping goods through Vietnam, Thailand, and other Southeast Asian countries. That’s probably why the Trump team told the Vietnamese that even reducing their tariffs to zero would not be enough.

The reciprocal tariff for Vietnam was 46% before the pause. I have a list here in front of me of every country in the world and only the big trading partners are being heavily taxed and the vast majority of countries are 10%. Even most of Europe is 10% but the Europeans are the enraged ones second only to China. I suspect that the real reason for the Chinese uncompromising attitude is that to just accept an equitable tariff with all this publicity would be an admission that the world order still puts them below the US and they are not willing to admit that to the world. The Europeans, on the other hand, just want things to continue as they are.

The Europeans talk about war and bluster with paranoia regarding Russia, but they expect the United States to pay for it.  The American people have made it clear that they want an end to these wars and that they can’t see any US purpose in fighting them. The administration said that some 70 countries have contacted US trade officials to negotiate reduced tariffs and most have offered to reduce their tariffs on American goods to zero. Would reducing tariffs worldwide to zero be a good thing for everybody.

 I’m not sure because it seems to me that it would further degrade US manufacturing thus driving down wages even further but zero tariffs are apparently not his intent. Would zero tariffs make for a more peaceful world. Maybe, and if so perhaps it would be worth it. I’m not sure how sustainable the US economy can be when it is based almost entirely on buying things that others make in exchange for ever increasing debt.

Trump also used the tariffs as a weapon to intimidate countries into doing what he demands....

Darrell Castle talks about efforts to end the war in Ukraine as well as the apparent military buildup in the Middle East for a coming US attack against Iran and its Nuclear Research Facilities.

Transcription / Notes

PEACE WITH RUSSIA—WAR WITH IRAN

Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. This is Friday the 4th day of April in the year of our Lord 2025. I will be talking about efforts to end the war in Ukraine as well as a recent New York Times article which attempts to explain the war against Russia. I will also talk a little about the apparent military buildup in the Middle East for a coming US attack against Iran and its Nuclear Research Facilities.

Last Sunday, March 30, 2025, the New York Times published an extensive article by investigative reporter Adam Entous entitled “The Partnership: The Secret History of the War in Ukraine.” Mr. Entous claims to have interviewed many sources in various countries while working on the report which he says took over a year to complete. His report provides some answers to the question of how Ukraine was able to effectively keep Russia at bay and on the defensive for over three years.

You know my position by now that the Times has become nothing more than a mouthpiece for the Democrat Party so this article which started a year before the presidential election is puzzling. I suppose the idea is that it can’t hurt Biden now so why not publish and reveal what many of us have suspected all along. I certainly suspected it but I admit that I didn’t suspect the extent of US involvement alleged by the Times article. Mr. Entous would have had to talk to and probably clear his article through some very high-ranking individuals and the Russians were certain to see it right at the time when negotiations with Putin are at a critical stage.

The article then, is an admission to Putin of America’s vast involvement in and orchestration of the war conducted by the United States directly against nuclear armed Russia. “The United States was woven into the killing of Russian soldiers on sovereign Russian soil.” The article alleges that the United Staes waged and is still waging an undeclared, unauthorized war against Russia. American officers, some deployed inside Ukraine, have been selecting targets for attack and authorizing individual strikes, making those officers in essence combatants.

The article presents a picture of the war in which the American military, entered into an informal partnership with the Ukrainian Government and the US planned everything Ukraine did. Everything from large scale troop movements to every long-range strike were planned by American officers who even directed Ukraine’s counter-offensives. The Americans decided what Russian troops and civilian targets to attack, transmitted targeting data and launch codes to the Ukrainians for the weapons provided by the taxpayers of the United States.

The intelligence gathering system was vast including satellite surveillance as well as people on the ground, and it allowed for everything from big picture battle strategy down to precise targeting information for individual soldiers on the field. The US command center in Wiesbaden, Germany oversaw and reviewed each long-range HIMARS missile strike against Russians and advised Ukrainians of how to position their launchers and how to most effectively time the strikes.

One European intelligence officer quoted in the article said that the US was so closely involved that it was effectively part of the “kill-chain.” The American effort was known as Task Force Dragon and was far more detailed and involved than I have time to review in this report. The last thing I will say is that the US provided information that allowed for the sinking of the Moskva, the flagship of the Russian Black Sea fleet and also the missile attack against Kerch bridge which runs from the Russian mainland to Crimea.

Well folks, this information and a lot more than I have mentioned including drone and missile attacks inside Russia were documented in the article but now the Russians also have this admission right at the time of peace negotiations. Why is the question and I think the answer is to admit to Putin what the US involvement is and to give him the opportunity to end the war on his terms, not the US terms. Every time the US negotiators stake out a position of agreeing to Russian demands, Zelensky says no, I want everything returned to 2014 positions. The Americans tell him that is not and cannot be our position so I think he is out of the picture now and the negotiations are between Trump and Putin.

One last very interesting thing about the article is that it is a direct contradiction of the New York Times information provided to the American people for over three years. The Times systematically lied to America and deliberately parroted Biden’s denials of American involvement in the war for three years. According to journalist Bob Woodward from his book” War” about the Biden Administration, Biden had to constantly reassure the American people that they would not be dragged into a war with Russia. The problem is that they were not dragged in but entered the war voluntarily and enthusiastically.

Having said all that it is my conclusion that the article is most likely a CIA plant but that doesn’t mean that every word of it is not true. The entry into the war on Ukrainian soil by America reminds one of the famous quote by Henry Kissinger, “it is dangerous to be an enemy of America, but it is fatal to be a friend of America.”

So, Trump and his negotiating team are working feverishly to bring the war to a conclusion as he promised he would. It is clear now that the terms will be Russian, not American, and certainly not Ukrainian. The Europeans, especially Starmer in the UK talk about staying at war and even committing their own troops but that is an obvious bluff. Trump asked Starmer directly, in public when he talked about committing troops, so you think you can defeat Russia by yourself. That is a pretty revealing statement of the American position on Ukraine, however, the American position on Iran is completely different. Part of the Trump-Putin 90-minute phone call back in February was apparently to discuss the idea that if the United States attacked Iran Russia would stay out of it. The massive military buildup of United States strategic forces in the Middle East seems headed toward a strike against Iran. We are constantly told that Iran can’t be allowed to have nuclear weapons but given the attitudes of China and Russia toward their ally, Iran, I would not be surprised if Iran already has nukes. The Iranians apparently believe that buying nukes from a legitimate power does not make you legitimate but being able to make your own does.

The US has reportedly deployed 6 or 7 of its B-2 stealth bombers to Diego Garcia, a joint US-Britain Island air strip in the Indian Ocean. The island lies about 2400 miles due south of Iran so along with the B-2’s their refueling tankers have also been included for the roughly 5000-mile round trip to Iran. The question occurs to me, why can’t Israel fight its own war against Iran if it thinks it’s necessary. The answer we are given is that Israel has no heavy bombers and the only non-nuclear bomb that could penetrate Iran’s hardened nuclear research facilities is the US made 30,000-pound bomb designed to penetrate deep and then explode opening the way for less powerful munitions.

That explanation may not be accurate but it is the one given when that question is asked. Air and Space Forces Magazine has revealed that the US is deploying many assets besides the B-2’s. By the way the US only built 21 of the 150 approximately, that were planned. It is a very expensive airplane and two have already been lost in accidents so 19 are left and about 7 of those are currently in the middle of the Indian Ocean. The other deployed assets include A-10 ground attack aircraft from the Idaho National Guard along with the personnel necessary to operate these aircraft effectively.

Trump has repeatedly threatened the Iranians telling them they have 2 months to dismantle their nuclear facilities and permit inspection or “something very bad will happen to them.” A great deal of confidence is placed in the claim that Israel destroyed Iran’s anti-air defense batteries including the advanced S-300 and S-400 missiles provided by Russia. In response to Trump’s threats, the Iranians threatened a preemptive attack on the American base at Diego along with other US assets but that doesn’t worry me that much because I doubt they are that stupid. The US currently has about 10 minor bases or outposts in the Middle East manned by about 50,000 troops counting those at sea with the navy. Rather than a preemptive attack, Iran has appealed to the UN to intervene in light of Trump’s threat to them.

The Iranians reportedly have massed over 1000 long range missiles to attack US and Israeli positions. They say they will target Israeli nuclear sites first. The range of those missiles puts US bases and naval forces in the Gulf and the MED well within range. I have said many times that anti-air defenses can handle a few missiles as they have done repeatedly in response to Houthi attacks, but a swarming attack by hundreds or thousands of them, some hypersonic, are unstoppable. That all means a great many casualties on both sides along with a great deal of infrastructure destruction and possible radioactive contamination. Large numbers of American casualties will force the apparently lethargic American public to at least look at it.

In Conclusion, last Tuesday Benjamin Netanyahu announced the lifting of all tariffs Israel imposes on American goods. Did you know Israel placed tariffs on American goods because I didn’t. That makes our previous welfare to the nation of Israel even more egregious. America doesn’t seem to gain much from unconditionally

Darrell Castle talks about the recently released 80,000 files, so far, concerning the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the immense power of the deep state.

Transcription / Notes

JFK’s GRAVE

Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. This is Friday, the 28th day of March in the year of our Lord 2025. I will be talking about the recently declassified and released 80,000 files, so far, concerning the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Those files remind us of the immense power of the deep state and how its members tend to close ranks when threatened because they derive great wealth and power from their membership,

I remember that day quite clearly because I was 15 years old and at a high school track meet when the news told the world what supposedly happened. The coach told us the track meet was over and school was closed for the day. It was scary and a sobering time for a 15-year-old trying to make sense of the world anyway, but this Report is not a rehash of the assassination but instead it is a look at what it all means for the world and how its aftermath still resonates in the world today.

That day was an eye opener for some people but for most of us it has taken decades for our eyes to fully open. Polls taken throughout the 1950’s revealed that over 70% of Americans trusted the government and believed that it would do what is right “most of the time.” A follow up question showed that most of the time meant “just about always.” November 22, 1963, began a long decline in the public’s confidence that is greater today than at any other time in our history. That former trust in government is gone and today’s polls show only about 22% still trust in government.

Was the assassin an individual or group of individuals with some ideological difference of opinion that drove the action or was the murder simply an effort to grab the reigns of power. Which of the two explains JFK’s murder. Was Lee Harvey Oswald the assassin. If so, was he a solo actor or part of a greater conspiracy.

We have learned that the government can’t be trusted to tell us the truth about anything and it and its representatives seem quite often to have sinister motives. Those motives, whatever they may be, sometimes prove fatal for those little people, sometimes referred to as the masses. Those people are viewed by the government and its representatives as sheep to be sheared, or as fodder for the cannons of whatever stupid, senseless war government chooses for us the next time. So, if they know we no longer trust them what can they do to ensure support and loyalty from the masses.

Philosophers over the centuries have written of the formula governments use to keep us motivated and committed to their next scheme. The simplest part of the formula is to make sure there is always a sinister bad guy, or government of bad guys that threaten us and our way of life. If we don’t go abroad and fight the bad guys on their home turf we will have to fight them here on our own turf sooner or later. There is never enough time to analyze whether the bad guy is truly bad and truly means to do us harm before the bombing, or other means of war are launched. The end result is usually a lot of dead people and a lot of money added to our future as debt.

JFK’s death and the cover-up of the truth behind it explains what the government and its spokespeople have come to call conspiracy theories. There are few things as bad as wearing that label because it means you are not evil like a racist, just naïve and probably stupid because you don’t believe the government’s obvious lies.  I will admit that it is far easier to just accept whatever cockamamy explanation the government gives us for its crimes.

For example, resisting the government’s COVID policy was very difficult although healthier in the long run. The COVID pandemic was the worst government psyop in our history. Nobel laureates and scientists of the world lined up literally by the hundreds to tell us that this pandemic was extremely dangerous and there was no way to stop it except the vaccine. We know without any doubt now that it was all just a massive global psyop orchestrated by and conducted by the governments of the world and their sycophants in the various bureaucracies.

Even the New York Times, although a day late and a dollar short, now admits that denial of the lab leak theory was wrong and a lie from the beginning. Personally, it seems to me that the lab leak theory is also wrong because the evidence points to a purposeful plot to release the virus so the bioweapon often referred to as a vaccine could be forced on the world’s people.

We Can no longer rely on the decency of those in government when deciding whether or not to believe government because they usually have no decency. Their lack of decency and their utter lack of decorum are no longer shocks. Their foul language and lack of decorum on the very floor of the House and Senate have become commonplace. This is sometimes rather frightening as one stops to consider what kind of people voted to elect such people. I try not to dwell on it for long because when I do the future looks dark indeed.

Skepticism has its problems as well, however, and the costs of never fully buying in should be considered because it will put you at odds with the human tendency to take sides and to take comfort in the side you are on. If you talk to people in your social circle, friends, people at work, people at church, etc. you will find many people who have lost friends or family members because of political differences. When people are afraid they take sides because there is some reassurance of certainty and some comfort that the authority they follow is most likely the correct one, and any other view is just plainly evil.

Using independent analysis is forbidden in the political world because it makes you a denier and may place you outside the comfort zone of approved opinion. In addition, using research and analysis, though very possible in today’s internet world, is emotionally difficult and authority is very hostile to it. For example, the censorship of any dissenting opinion concerning COVID and the vaccine on social media is now admitted even by the social media company owners. Just keep people in the dark by censoring their search for the truth and they will be deprived of useful information. That would include potentially lifesaving information such as effective COVID treatments other than the accepted vaccine.

Let me illustrate my point with a quote from Richard Fernandez of the Belmont Club.

“ Was there really gold in Fort Knox, was Biden truly competent? Our heads started to spin. Dallas dug the grave. Wuhan filled it in. For better or worse, complete certainty is dead in the political domain. What we have now are expectations, probability distributions, and a posteriori Monday morning quarterbacking. We are back in the world before the canon. The good news is that we’ve been here before.

What died on the day JFK was shot in Dallas was the idea that the public could always rely on authority to tell them the truth. It’s a lonely feeling to stand by its graveside and realize that to a greater or lessor extent, we will have to figure it out by ourselves.”

I will once again assume a little poetic license and try to interpret Mr. Fernandez’s  comment. We can no longer rely on the government to tell us the truth about anything. In fact, trust in government was buried in JFK’s grave. Whenever the government or its spokespeople give us an explanation of whatever disaster the government has caused this time that narrows our search for truth a little bit because we know that whatever we have been told by government is a lie, therefore at least that explanation is eliminated.

The difficulty lies in the fact that never before in history have ordinary people had more access to more information than right now. We are told that there is more computing power in the small smartphone we hold in our hands than in the computers NASA used to send Apollo 11 to the moon. In other words, we all have the capability to find out for ourselves if we really want to know. The trouble is that smartphones have replaced education and they are enabling public education’s destruction. Has public education become nothing but government propaganda or even brainwashing for generations of children.

 I’m not talking about the pipeline that sends kids of a certain class to the Ivy Leagues, I’m talking about the untold millions whose kids go to public school and who want desperately for those kids to have a better life than their parents had and better than the life that is clearly visible ahead for them. When the Department of Education was started by President Carter it had the laudatory goals of funding education and making it available to all regardless of means. It has instead ruined education or at least contributed greatly to its downfall by placing it all in the hands of the federal government, which I just said could not be trusted to tell the truth about anything. All it has really accomplished is to act as a go between feeding money into the system to support teacher unions so they will vote for their own largesse and ignoring the needs of the kids.

For example, the average money spent on education per child per year in the United States is $17,000, the highest in the world. In some locations which have the most powerful politicians it is much higher. In New York City the figure is $33,000 per year. The money spent per child does not seem to be accomplishing anything for the kids. Nationwide, upon graduation 70% of our kids are not proficient in reading and more than 70% are not proficient in math. In other words, they are high school graduates but they can’t read or count or do basic math. The good news is that they have smart phones so they don’t have to know how to read or make change....

Darrell Castle talks about the wars currently on-going in the world and how they are being used to form a new order of the world.

Transcription / Notes

THE U.S. AND RUSSIA HAVE COMMON INTERESTS

Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. This is Friday, the 21st day of March in the year of our Lord 2025. I will be talking about the subject I hate the most, and that is war which seems to be almost everywhere. The partial ceasefire in Ukraine, the open fire now in Gaza, and the U.S. war in the Red Sea/Gulf of Aden and Bab-el-Mandab against the Houthis.

War shapes the world order and I guess it always has. For example, the military defeat of Napoleon in 1814 led to the Congress of Vienna which cemented Great Britain as the leader of the new world order instead of France. I suppose since those countries controlled the world it would be OK to call that a world war resulting in the new order which existed until World War One or 1914. The victors in WW l set the order with the formation of the League of Nations which totally collapsed when Germany decided that it would be a better world leader than Britain. The victors in World War ll formed the new order with the United States as its leader and the United Nations to cement the order permanently.

The Soviet Union, which was one of the victors in WW ll didn’t accept the U.S. as world leader and that resulted in a 40 year long world order which became the cold war. The end of the cold war brought an end to the Soviet Union which dissolved into the Russian Federation. The global elite of the world had to find a way to continue the struggle to feed the eternal death machine so the conflict between NATO and Russia continued. We won’t move one inch closer to Russia Reagan told Gorbachev but later presidents reneged on that promise and the struggle continued.

NATO was formed out of the shared belief that the Soviet Union was a direct threat to Western Europe and so an alliance pledging together that if one were attacked it would be considered an attack against all. The colonial possessions of the members were to be excepted from that deal as the French possessed Vietnam or Indochina as it was known then. That agreement didn’t change much over the years and so the world order remained in a post-World War Two state of mind with the United States growing ever stronger militarily and Europe growing ever weaker.

Europe was fine with it because all those countries could let their militaries deteriorate since the U.S. had their backs. The Europeans did not even live up to the paltry, relatively speaking, of 5% on defense that the NATO agreement called for. The U.S. constantly urged them to spend more but why should they because the U.S, nuclear umbrella was there to cover them. Donald Trump appeared on the scene and started his America First rhetoric exposing the obvious that the NATO agreement and the way it was enforced was extremely unfair to the U.S.

The Europeans were stuck and have continued to be stuck in a 1939 mindset which told them the Russians are coming, but the Russians never came. They wanted to constantly poke the bear but they had nothing with which to defend themselves against the bear. The U.S. wanted a unipolar world with the U.S. at the head and the Europeans were fine with that as long as they could spend their tax revenue on their welfare and other social relief programs to pacify the masses. In the meantime, the U.S. and its people languished under the ever-increasing weight of 36 trillion of debt increasing by 2 trillion per year. The weight of constant wars and constantly increasing burdens of wounded veterans to care for, the people becoming ever more impoverished, the middle class driven into poverty and unpayable debt.

Now, I’m taking a little poetic license here folks and speaking for Donald Trump but I think it went something like this. Trump takes office having already looked at the world and seen the order of it. He said this is grossly unfair and must be changed because we are slowly dying. The new world he sought involved Russia and the U.S. exploring their common interests rather than fighting. The Soviet Union broke apart because the Soviets could no longer afford to maintain it. Their people were impoverished with a majority as hopeless alcoholics, and life expectancy plummeting. Reagan and Gorbachev worked it out and the rest you know as history, although many prefer to lie about what the agreement actually was, it was recorded. 

Trump insisted he could work with Russia to find common ground. Total war today, which has always reshaped and redefined world order, is unthinkable, because it would mean Armageddon for the world so something else has to be found to fight about and to jockey for leadership in the world. Trusting the world to fight wars and giving one the power to dictate economic terms works to a degree but only if China, Russia, the U.S., all NATO countries, all Middle East countries, have leadership that is sane and remains that way year after year. Are we willing to bet our lives and the lives of all our prodigy on that assumption.

Why not redefine the world order in economic terms instead. I think that is what Trump is hopeful of doing. I realize that I am not in the White House and so I can’t know fully what is happening outside of my research and study but having said that, I will also say that I disagree with the way the ceasefire negotiations were conducted.

The war is a proxy war between the U.S. and Russia with the U.S. trying to use Ukraine as a battleground to weaken and eventually break up Russia leaving the U.S. unchallenged in a unipolar world. It didn’t work and instead it had the opposite result with Russia growing much stronger and Putin modernizing his army and consolidating his rule.

This war would not and could not have been fought without the full commitment, at least economically, by the U.S., therefore the negotiations should be between the U.S. and Russia, and not between Trump and Zelensky. The Russians certainly see it as a war between them and the U.S. so why not acknowledge that, try to work it out so that Putin can go back to his people and say look at what we gained, all the sacrifice was worth it. The U.S. and its agent Zelensky can say look at what we gained and you will see that Russia got some formerly Ukrainian territory but not nearly as much as it wanted and tried to get, so we won.

This is very reminiscent of the position the United States was in with regard to South and North Vietnam. The end became a foregone conclusion and years of negotiating were conducted over prisoners and over how to explain the inevitable victory of the North. Everybody goes home a victor but out of all the death and destruction comes a new order for the world. It would be a tacit if not overt admission to say that the age of the unipolar world is over. The Project for a New American Century was a complete failure and only accomplished the slaughter of millions and the impoverishment of even more.

The new order of the world will apparently have the U.S., Russia, and China, as multi-polar countries in this world of massive egos and lunatic ambitions. Is there room in this world for all three. Time will tell I guess, but I pray that there is. Now let me mention some of the other wars that are at the disposal of Donald Trump in the second month of his administration.

The ceasefire between Israel and Hamas/Gaza is no more. It was obvious from the beginning that it would not work because neither side wanted it to work. My guess is that if you searched the world over you could not find a place with a higher population of insane lunatics than in the Middle East. Hamas could have allowed the ceasefire to continue by simply releasing the remaining hostages or their bodies. What good are the hostages to Hamas anymore because they obviously have not deterred Israel from its attacks.

So, the Israelis mobilized 400,000 troops and began another attack on the rubble that is now Gaza. Hundreds are already dead and once again most are women and children. To think those civilians in Gaza, deserve what they have gotten or that they have any way to control Hamas is foolish and heartless. Why are the Israelis still bombing Gaza and sending in more soldiers. It can’t be because of the Hostages because that makes no sense.  It must be because they are tired of the constant attacks by Hamas on their civilians and their infrastructure and they intend to put a stop to it once and for all. The other possibility is more sinister and that is the territorial expansion of Israel.

In the same region of the world and in a war based on the war against Gaza the Houthis in Yemen started their attacks against shipping trying to exit or enter the Red Sea. They explained to the world that the attacks were in retaliation for the Israeli attacks in Gaza and the blockade to prevent humanitarian relief efforts from reaching Gaza. They attacked the aircraft carrier Harry Truman and its battle group with 19 missiles and drones. The U.S. Navy swatted them aside with no problem at all, but then Trump ordered a bombing attack inside Yemen to teach them a lesson. Trump criticized Biden during the campaign for relying on bombing when “a telephone could be used more easily.” It’s easier, I guess when you have your own finger on the trigger. I am afraid that some of the neocon, war is the only answer, people have slipped into the foreign policy portion of the administration.

We haven’t exactly had successful foreign [policy people in place during say, the last 50 years and so perhaps we should try something different. Perhaps someone should start communicating with we the people honestly instead of spouting out the same propaganda that most of us have heard our entire lives. Maybe someone could come onboard who is willing to reexamine the foreign policy positions that have been in place no ma

Darrell talks about several things that taken together, in his opinion, represent an attempt by President Trump to reset the global order.

Transcription / Notes

RESETTING THE GLOBAL ORDER

Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. This is Friday the 14th day of March in the year of our Lord 2025. I will be talking about several things that taken together, in my opinion, represent an attempt by President Trump to reset the global order. Some of those things include a proposal for a ceasefire in Ukraine, along with the US and Europe’s special relationship and the attitude of the US toward Russia.

US national security advisor Mike Waltz and Secretary of State Marco Rubio went to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia for talks with Ukrainian officials about a proposal for ending the Ukraine/Russia war. It’s a very difficult thing to end a war unless you are able to raise your flag over the enemy capitol. Getting two warring sides to just stop fighting and stand in place is very difficult because one side or the other always has the advantage or momentum and wants to keep it.

This particular peace conference was apparently brokered by the Saudis who had several representatives in attendance. One important party missing from the meeting was Russia which will obviously have to be onboard if the ceasefire has any chance of working.

Ukraine agreed to the discussions and quickly agreed to the deal when Zelensky’s visit to the oval office didn’t go so well and Trump cut off aid and Intelligence information to Ukraine. Without that intelligence including targeting information, Ukraine could not prosecute the war so Zelensky swallowed his pride and accepted the deal. Now, it has to go to Russia for approval and that might be difficult because Russia seems to think it has the advantage. Several Russian missile attacks against Ukraine have occurred since the deal was made but that is probably just trying to appear dominant before Putin talks to Trump or whoever it turns out to be.

This ceasefire proposal is set to last for 30 days as a way to start negotiations to end the war. Again, it’s difficult because both sides think they have won or at least should win and winners expect to dictate terms not to negotiate. Trump’s attitude has been to let Zelensky know that the US billions were going to stop flowing and it is in his best interest to make the best deal possible. That deal will not include NATO membership or a US guarantee of security for Ukraine, hopefully. Why couldn’t Europe just admit Ukraine to NATO on its own? No, it can’t because admitting new members has to be unanimous.

Rubio was quoted as saying that Ukraine has to be ready to do difficult things and Russia would also have to make difficult decisions. When asked what difficult decisions he said that both sides would have to conclude that the conflict could not be resolved by military means. Rubio said that the President wants the war to end and Ukraine has accepted that premise and we hope the Russians will accept it as well. My interpretation of that diplomat speak is that Ukraine will have to permanently concede the eastern Russian speaking provinces along with Crimea to Russia. Who will maintain this proposed ceasefire line, I’m not sure but I hope it’s not the USA just as it does in Korea. No, that would be very unacceptable and I hope that Trump would not go along.

Yesterday, in advance of any US—Russia meeting Putin rejected the ceasefire as proposed without “substantial changes.” He said he wanted the root cause of the conflict eliminated but he did not say what he thinks the root cause is. He wants guarantees that the Ukrainians will not mobilize, train soldiers or receive weapons during the ceasefire. These proposals seem reasonable assuming that Putin would also agree to abide by them although his announcement did not say that he would. He made the announcement just as the American envoy, Steve Witkoff was arriving in Moscow so perhaps Mr. Putin thinks Trump’s eagerness to stop the war and his impatience with Zelensky gives him, Putin that is, an advantage so we wait to see what happens.

In my opinion, Trump wants the war to end as part of resetting the US relationship with Russia. He wants a future relationship based on commerce and business rather than who has the most missiles. This, in effect, is a new world order in the making. The new world, as Trump apparently sees it, includes the US, Russia, and China as equal partners, or in other words a multipolar world. The Ukraine war and war in general, and I presume that includes the Middle East, are the things preventing Trump from doing want he intends and that is to reverse what the World Economic Forum calls the Great Reset.

So, what is the Great Reset or world order that he wants to reverse? The world envisioned by the WEF and certain divisions of the UN is a world without religion except ultimately the worship of the new world government. It is a world without nation, without race, and without even gender. It is a world where we, the inhabitants of planet earth, are just an amorphous blob with no identity and loyal to nothing because nothing matters enough to be loyal. It is a world where we eat what the new overlords allow and we will live on the tiny 15-minute city plot to which we are confined. We will not dislike our new lives because everything our overlords think we need will be provided. We will own nothing and we will like it. We will always feel safe and secure because we do have the safety and security of the slave.

The average person in the US and in Europe might not see the new world exactly as I do but they do see it and they have developed a seething rage at what has been done to them and their world. You could call this new energy MAGA or whatever you want but on both continents a determination to root out and change or destroy the enemies of all that’s honorable and decent is growing in intensity. The elite don’t see it, they don’t get it, and so they continually double down on their policies. They continue to tell us that yes, men can get pregnant, and a man can become a woman just by thinking about it.

All over the world, Mr. and Ms. Average understand that globalist efforts to steer us into their global prison are terrifying but obvious so they are turning to leaders who share their opinions and are not afraid of being hated. The other side, and in America that’s the Democrat side, doesn’t seem to see the change that is coming. If you are an alcoholic or drug addict, you probably know that your actions are going to kill you eventually but you can’t or won’t stop. I guess that analogy makes sense when the woke policies are obviously nonsensical but continue anyway even when rejected by a majority.

In Europe 27 countries pledged to continue the Ukraine war by pouring more money and equipment into the struggle. I suppose they will continue until the last Ukrainian is dead. They say they want Ukraine to continue the war but that country has few men of fighting age left and is now recruiting the older and younger generations to pour into the meat grinder. A tiny few Europeans resist the urge to kill their way into the great reset. Victor Orban of Hungary says no I will not help you kill more people because Trump is right about this struggle. “Strong men make peace and weak men make war.”

Here in America the counter revolution continues. It insists on reciprocal tariffs with friendly nations and hostile nations as well, but those who have imposed tariffs on American manufacturers for many years such as Mexico, Europe and especially Canada are starting to understand that the old ways whereby they can impose tariffs on the US but the US cannot reciprocate are changing.

The counter revolution requires a leader who is not afraid of controversy and Trump seems to embrace controversy rather than run from it. He apparently sees what he is trying to do in the world as similar to building a tower in New York against all the odds. Financing has to be found, incidentally in New York prosecutors try to put you in jail for that, deals have to be made, opponents must be overcome, and eventually a beautiful and superior product is delivered to the public. That’s the business model he has used throughout his career.

Fortunately for President Trump his Democrat opposition is the greatest weapon he has. Sane people would look at the results of the election and the way the world is changing and reflect on what that means for them but these people are not sane. They apparently love war in theory at least. I doubt that any of them would want to fight the wars they favor but nevertheless they seem to like it for others. When asked if they want this to continue for another five years they applaud wildly.

They are foul-mouthed to the point that they can’t separate the floor of the House and Senate from their den or some bar. The F word, once reserved to illustrate very important points and always to indicate you reject all forms of conventional morality is now the first word out of the mouths of Democrat lawmakers. They talk of American exceptionalism and yet their conception of it is vile and profane. They are embarrassingly infantile and exhibitionist, and they don’t seem to understand why others don’t appreciate their juvenile antics. They are so completely out of touch with the American people that Trump’s counterrevolution seems perfectly normal.

The same thing is happening in Europe as the European people try to escape from the great reset. Europe doesn’t have our inconvenient Constitution so they simply disenfranchise their political opponents as they recently did again in Romania. They deprive the people of a voice in who governs them just as they did in ancient times. The European elite try very hard to make their countries a blend of all things on earth by rejecting historic Christianity in favor of Islam and anything that promises to

Darrell Castle talks about Europe, Zelensky, and the war in Ukraine as well as the President's speech to Congress and the Democrat reaction to it.

JEFFERSON WAS RIGHT ABOUT EUROPE

Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. This is Friday the 7th day of March in the year of our Lord 2025. I will be talking about Europe, Zelensky, and the war in Ukraine as well as the President’s speech to Congress and the Democrat reaction to it.

I will start today’s Report with a disclaimer. When I talk about Democrats and say nasty but always truthful things about them, when I refer to them in some disparaging terms I am talking about the politicians and their useful idiots in the media and not about individual Americans who identify as Democrats many of whom are dear friends or even relatives. So, I have no apology to offer for anything I have said or will say today about Democrat politicians because if I did not believe my position to be true I would certainly change it. In addition, there are some Republican politicians almost as bad as Democrats, almost but not quite because they know better but are simply reacting as the self-serving political hypocrites that they are.

The title of this Castle Report is taken from a quote by Thomas Jefferson offered more than 200 years ago but just as true today as it was then.

“I have deemed it fundamental for the United States never to take active part in the quarrels of Europe. Their political interests are entirely distinct from ours. Their mutual jealousies, their balance of power, their complicated alliances, their forms and principles of government, are all foreign toys. They are nations of eternal war.”

Yes, they are nations of eternal war and since the end of World War II we, the United States, have been as well because we have served as the military enforcement arm of European nations, especially NATO members. Some events have recently come to pass that give me reason to hope that situation might be at least starting to change. One of those events was the meltdown in the Oval Office by President Zelensky of Ukraine.

Why would a man with almost no cards in his hand at least no winning ones make such a defiant spectacle of himself in the office of the President of the United States. The New York Post has the answer for us:

“Before meeting Trump, Zelensky met with anti-Trump Democrats who advised him to reject the terms of the mineral deal the president was offering, according to Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn). Just finished a meeting with President Zelensky here in Washington. He confirmed that the Ukrainian people will not support a fake peace agreement where Putin gets everything he wants and there are no security arrangements for Ukraine. He attached a picture of Zelensky at a conference table, with Murphy seated on the opposite side..”

Some people have said that by listening to the democrats Zelensky betrayed his country and its people, but my question is what about the Democrats. Who or what did they betray. They betrayed the American people and hindered the President’s ability to end a war that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives. That could be a violation of the Logan act regarding foreign policy, but it is at least dangerous and reckless uncaring behavior.

Trump offered Zelensky a deal whereby he could express his gratitude to America by ceding the mineral rights to the very valuable rare earth minerals under the Ukrainian soil. You can hear my Castle Report called Ukraine is a Gold Mine by going to the index and finding 6-14-24. In that podcast I explain that neocon Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, tells us that we have to stay in the Ukraine war because it has a lot of valuable minerals under its soil.

Trump knows about the valuable minerals and he therefore proposed that Zelensky sign an agreement ceding the rights to those resources to the US in return for continued military and other economic support. The deal also would expect Zelensky to show gratitude and humility for the roughly $200 billion already provided to Ukraine. Zelensky was not humble and he was not grateful. He was, instead, arrogant and demanding, just as the Democrats advised him to be.

The Democrats, it seems, misread this room just as they misread the election. The American people gave their opinion that they wanted peace and Trump was the only one promising it. Here, with what amounts to an adversary, the Democrats intentionally sabotaged the President’s efforts to end the war, a truly despicable act potentially causing many deaths for partisan political purposes. It comes very close to a political crime resulting potentially in mass loss of life.

Having said all that, I don’t like the deal Trump offered Zelensky and here is why. I don’t think Zelensky should be grateful but neither do I think he should be insulting. It was Zelensky with Democrat encouragement, who wanted this Oval Office meeting. Secretary of State Marco Rubio explained that they wanted to handle the negotiations diplomatically but Zelensky insisted on the meeting. He, with Democrat encouragement, wanted this staged show for the world to embarrass Trump while the war continues.

He, Zelensky, insisted on a US guarantee of security for Ukraine and continued to press for NATO membership, both unobtainable dreams. The reason I don’t think he owes the US gratitude is that the US is at least partially responsible for this war through its actions toward Russia going back to 1990 and especially its involvement in the Ukrainian coup of 2014. Additionally, in the early stages of the war Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin explained to us that the real purpose of US involvement in the war was to weaken Russia. Lindsey Graham helped by telling us how valuable Ukraine was in terms of its natural resources.

In other words, it was about the US and its own political or imperialistic desires and not about Ukraine and its people. The proposal for Ukraine’s rare earth minerals, so valuable in today’s world, I don’t like either, in fact, I completely disagree with it. It is not much different from the European colonial period where the Nations of Britain, France, Germany, and Portugal went about the world acquiring colonies by military conquest. The US had to come along and in a sometimes-vain effort, clean up the mess as we tried to do in Vietnam. So no, I don’t like it at all and I hope the President will take a different approach.

What approach would I recommend to President Trump. I would tell him to understand what has happened so far and why. Ukraine should be free to negotiate deals with private companies of it’s choosing for the minerals it is incapable of mining on its own. We should advise Zelensky that he should make some accommodation with Russia because unless he wants our help in the negotiations we are out immediately. If he does accept our help then we will help him with negotiations with Russia and then we are out because we have decided to finally listen to Mr. Jefferson and follow his advice. I would tell the Europeans that NATO was formed as a defensive alliance but all it has done is provoke war and now it has us on the brink of a nuclear confrontation.

The United States is, therefore withdrawing from NATO and if you Europeans want to continue your destruction of Ukraine you are on your own. If you get yourself involved in a kinetic war with Russia please keep it on your side of the Atlantic and don’t come crying to us as you have so many times before. Zelensky’s demands on their face are absurd, unobtainable, and a waste of breath. The only purpose I can see in them is political show for Trump’s Democrat enemies at home and his European enemies abroad.

Make a deal with Russia, make a deal with China, and start the process by talking to them. Talk to everybody and be a friend of liberty everywhere but guarantee only our own. Ask all those Democrat Senators if they would be willing to send their own sons and daughters into the Ukrainian meat grinder to ensure the independence from Russia of the Russian speaking provinces of Eastern Ukraine and Crimea.

There is so much in this political world that is just for show and simply jostling for power. Unfortunately, that gamesmanship costs lives and in the case of this war hundreds of thousands of lives. Stop all this war and colonial exploitation, come home, mind your own business, and start paying attention to problems here.

We have people here without medical insurance or any way to get medical treatment when they need it. People in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee have no homes due to the hurricane. People in California are the same due to wildfires. Infrastructure is crumbling and needs maintenance in virtually the entire country. I like the instructions to drill baby drill although it sounds trite there are hundreds of thousands perhaps millions of jobs in that industry. Let’s put people back to work actually doing something and not hire them to make our fake numbers look a little better.

No more stimulus and no more giveaways because that just fuels inflation and costs everybody in the long run. It is always a net loss for everyone except the power-seeking politicians. Bill Bonner again:

“The feds hold no bake sales. They sell no cookies, door to door, nor engage in charitable fundraising. They produce few goods and offer few services that people would willingly pay for. When they want money they just take it.

So, it was last year that they took $4.9 trillion in tax revenue. But they spent $6.7 trillion. Whence cometh the difference? From other forms of taxation—inflation, primarily and tariffs.”

If I could accomplish one thing only from these Castle Reports it would be to show people that unless we do something to quickly balance the budget and reduce debt we are headed for disaster. Trump is at least trying to stem the flow of waste and fraud. People,...

Darrell Castle talks about taking on or contending with the deep state or permanent Washington and how that relates to money, debt, credit and taxes.

Transcription / Notes

THE THEATER OF TAX AND SPEND

Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. This is Friday the 28th day of February in the year of our Lord 2025. I will be talking about taking on or contending with the deep state or permanent Washington and how that relates to money, debt, credit and taxes. Many taxpayers feel as if they have been and are being robbed by government officials and bureaucrats and that just might be because they are.

If you are like me then you know a lot of people who live on the edge barely making ends meet from week to week. I meet people literally everyday in my law practice who tell me they are one missed paycheck from the street. It is very distressing for those people when they find that much of the money taken from them as taxes was stolen by some invisible blob operating out of Washington D.C.

We are told during each presidential administration that the country has cast itself into penury by ceaseless efforts to care for its population as well as maintain a global security network to keep them safe and free. That statement is the opposite of truth as is normal for Washington. The recent theft, estimated at 4.7 trillion as is known so far, represents about two thirds of the annual national budget, but it disappears and is apparently impossible to trace. Nobody who should know does know and even fewer care where it goes.

People are starting to wonder how someone comes to Washington with modest net worth and makes a salary of $170,000 per year for say 10 years and suddenly has a net worth of over $100 million. For example, Samatha Power, former head of USAID in four years her net worth went from $6.4 million to $30 million on a salary of $180,000. That net worth represents approximately 100 times her salary so I wonder how she achieved such a miracle. Just a smart lady I guess. I would certainly advise anyone who has a desire to get rich in the stock market to look at the portfolios of Samantha Power and Nancy Pelosi and follow their trades because they are indeed stock picking geniuses.

 The answers to some of those puzzling questions are starting to be found through the efforts of Doge so the next question becomes what can we do about the theft of our labor. Speaking for myself I dread April 15th this year as I have never dreaded it before. I never look forward to Tax Day but my wife and I manage each year to find the money they demand from us and pay it with a good-natured shrug of our shoulders.

 That was before we knew for certain that we were being robbed each year. I have been working and paying federal taxes for about 60 years so that is a lot of money. I normally don’t agree with or support the useless and unconstitutional wars that Washington seems to constantly find its way into but now I know that the Pentagon has an enormous black hole where trillions disappear and remain unaccounted for.

This is how I think people are starting to view the government, its employees and the economy in general. People are skeptical and always have been but now they are turning from just skepticism to downright mistrust and dislike. I know many people are thinking this way because I talk to different people each day primarily about their finances as we try together to find their way out of a debt morass. It appears there are two parallel economies at work. One is for those people slaving away at a real job while trying to make ends meet and feed their families despite being bled dry by the IRS. It’s amazing how closely the debt load of working people matches the money taken from them by the IRS. That doesn’t even include the state income taxes of most states, sales taxes, and most importantly property taxes. The other economy is for those who benefit from and conduct the theft of the labor of normal people.

Here's something that most people probably don’t know. I conclude that most people don’t understand they are being robbed because I talk to them every day. They are starting to wake up, however, thanks to the work of Doge and despite the best efforts of permanent Washington to keep them in the dark about its theft and enforced debt slavery. Here’s what I mean; the Constitution was ratified in 1789 and most people would say that is when the nation began although the Declaration of Independence from Great Britain was issued and signed in 1774. A war had to be fought and then the politicians had to have their meetings to finally get the nation started. The United States government managed to survive and pay its bills until 1913 when the bankers told us we couldn’t survive another minute without an income tax and that authority over money had to be ceded to an all-powerful central bank.

The tax was small at first and affected mostly extremely high wealth individuals, but the bankers were smart and they played the long game. They tilted the mechanisms of the economy downward toward them so that little by little all money flowed into the banks. Now, those of us who pay taxes on our income and on our real property are slaves in the classic definition of the word. The tax makes the government the owner of part of your labor and that part is whatever the government through its tax code says it is. The property tax establishes ownership of your home by the government. You have government permission to live there only as long as you pay the tax. If you own your home free and clear of the bank you really don’t own it because if you stop paying the government, will take your home and sell it.

The classic and historic definition of a free person is someone who owns his own labor. He is free to earn and profit from his own labor. I find myself in historic debate and discussion about such subjects quite often both in person and online. When I am talking to a person about slavery in the pre-civil war south the person sometimes argues that it wasn’t as bad as it seems because the slaves were not owned, it was their labor that was owned. Well, you can see that as the stupid argument that it is, and easy to refute, but it’s slavery either way because it fits the very definition of the word.

If Trump were able to replace the income tax with a tariff-based economy he would be one of the greatest Americans to live since the founders. To even mention it demonstrates that he recognizes the problem and wants to set the American people free or at least loosen the chains a little bit. The level of theft is now becoming apparent to any of us not living off the spoils of theft and I think that is still most of us.

The revealed theft is simply the icing on the government cake. It has been revealed to any of us who cares to look at the absolute depths of depravity to which our rulers have sunk. They just forced their science on us and deprived many of us of the little we had and that includes for many, their lives. They took away our jobs and businesses, locked us in our homes, forced their death vaccine on us and worse on our unsuspecting children and now we know that if that were not enough they stole what little we managed to keep from the grasp of the bankers.

To close out this tariff section of my report I want to quote my favorite economist Dr. Paul Craig Roberts.

“The information from Doge of the enormous fraud, abuse, and self-dealing that the US budget contains as a slush fund for insiders and for bribing foreign politicians and overthrowing foreign governments indicates that sufficient reductions are possible to establish a tariff at a reasonable rate. To rescue Americans from the slavery of an income tax would be one of the greatest achievements in history. Let’s achieve it.”

The knowledge of the atrocities visited on us by the government is becoming clear to more and more people, for example. A recent article published by the Ron Paul Institute titled “The Most Dramatic Narrative Shift in Modern History was written by Jeffrey A. Tucker. He argues that this dramatic shift he describes was Covid. “Government was not what we thought. It is something else. It does not serve the public. It serves its own interests.” I will add a comment of my own to Mr. Tucker’s words and that is that it virtually never tells us the truth about what its interests actually are.

The governments of the world are made of fallen, corrupt people and the founders understood that, and so they designed a system of checks and balances so meticulous that nothing ever seemed to work efficiently. The men who wrote the Constitution and who designed and debated and ultimately ratified it for all of us and our posterity didn’t even trust each other to run governments. Jefferson and Adams in particular, fought verbally throughout the process. They didn’t resolve their dispute until Adams was on his deathbed. Vice President Burr killed Treasury Secretary Hamilton in a pistol duel. Madison and Hamiliton wrote of these things and explained them in the Federalist Papers. The idea is that no one who seeks political power can be trusted with it, therefore they sought to “bind them with the chains of the Constitution.”

Trump doesn’t seem to understand much political, economic, or military history but I hope he studies some Russian history before he meets face to face with Vladimir Putin. It seems to me that it would be difficult to deal adequately or accurately with Russians unless you understand something of how Russia has spent say the last 1200 years. There are some early but very hopeful signs, however, including his announced 90-minute telephone call with Putin.

“I just had a lengthy and highly productive phone call with President Vladimir Putin of Russia. We discussed Ukraine, the Middle East, Energy, Artificial Intelligence, the power of the dollar, and various other subjects....

Darrell Castle talks about the remarks of Vice President Vance at the annual Munich Security Conference and the European response to those remarks. In addition he discusses DOGE and its examination of the Military Industrial Complex.

Transcription / Notes

RUDE AMERICAN OFFERS EUROPEAN INDEPENDENCE

Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. This is Friday the 21st day of February in the year of our Lord 2025. I will be talking about the remarks of Vice President Vance at the annual Munich Security Conference as well as the European response to those remarks. In addition, I will talk a little about DOGE and its examination of the Military Industrial Complex (MIC).

Yes, J.D. Vance spoke to Europeans about their relationship with the U.S. at the annual Munich Security Conference which had as its main emphasis the U.S. role as the guarantor of European Security and the European and American roles in Ukraine. He called the Europeans out for censoring their people and for allowing third world migrants to destroy their communities. He seemed to indicate that these policies were not in the best interest of the European people and they also hinder our fellowship with them. I will point out that those have also been the policies of the United States for at least the past 4 years and in part for all the years since 9/11, but the European elite bought what the Biden administration was selling to them hook, line, and sinker.

I suppose he was telling Europe that that the new sheriff in the U.S. believes in free speech and in preserving the quality of life for the American people. The subjects that Vance discussed in his speech were, in my view, an admission that the empire is in trouble and changes have to be made right now to save a free republic for our children. The debt faced by the country will lead to ultimate collapse and chaos and something must be done to change or at least slow the process of that looming disaster. The content of his speech acknowledged that reality without really saying it out loud.

Taking all the bloated and wasteful departments and all the wasteful people who are supposed to be working for the federal government into account the MIC stands out and presents itself head and shoulders above all the others. It fails every audit and purports to tell us that we don’t even have a right to ask where all the money goes because it’s just none of our business. It spends trillions and has trillions that it admits to having no knowledge of. The federal government with more than 36 trillion as debt seems to have no other choice but to keep feeding the monster. Vance was trying to tell our European allies that this administration understands the problem and is not afraid to confront it.

The money is real isn’t it, and those who receive it know where it comes from and where it goes don’t they. They have used it to buy almost every member of the House and Senate. Once again, they use our money in a never-ending cycle to generate more revenue from the people who create it. The American people, with their labor extracted from them by these corrupt people and organizations, are forced to keep feeding this monster so the cycle continues. It all is apparently just a giant, terrible scam and always has been but we are constantly brainwashed or at least propagandized to accept it as real and necessary.

It’s a myth, but a sacred myth held close to the heart of Americans. U.S. troops, our sons and daughters, are stationed all over the world manning bases in some 700 places around the world but the number is just an approximate guess because nobody seems to know for certain how many there are. They involve themselves in almost every conflict that comes along many of which the federal government creates either deliberately or through stupidity and bumbling. These power brokers, bought and paid for, play the grand game on the grand chessboard at a cost to the American people of an admitted 1 trillion per year. Trillions more go unaccounted for as I previously mentioned.

We are told constantly that it all makes us safe and free and so often the opposite is true. When I was a Marine Corps officer more than 50 years ago we young officers were told in classrooms that we were the enforcement arm of American foreign policy which was determined by our civilian leadership. Ours was not to question orders but to follow them to the letter and carry out the foreign policy decisions of leadership. The troops, on the other hand, were told nothing, but they were expected to fight hard for freedom and for the safety of their loved ones. They were comforted by the knowledge that their sacrifice made the safety and freedom of their parents, wives, girlfriends, possible. It was all a scam created by horrible people who remain insulated from the sacrifice of the battlefield and the carnage they created.

Maybe, just maybe, this administration has seen and understands what has been happening and has decided to put the ravenous beast on a diet. The firepower industry, the MIC seems to be under attack by this new administration. The Doge team has been given the Pentagon, the holy ground of the MIC, as a place to audit and review. In other words, sacred cows are now on the altar if the people can just get past party bickering and the propaganda and support the examination wherever it leads.. The Pentagon has been directed to turn over a list of probationary employees with an expectation that many could be laid off. In case you don’t know probationary employees are those with only one year or less on the job. In other words, they know when hired that they are on probation for a year and could be kept or let go at any time.

Here is a quote from old friend Bill Bonner which illustrates what Musk might say to the Pentagon brass.

“We’re here to root out waste. No useless aircraft? No easily sunk ships? Close unnecessary bases? Stop useless weapons development? Fire some of the 3 million people who get our paychecks?  Tighten our belts? Cancel our beach-house plans? Yeah, that’s right. What about our enemies? What enemies? You know perfectly well that there is no country on earth capable of crossing the ocean with a viable armada. They’d be wiped out by missiles and bombers before even leaving port. Uh, what about Russia, China, terrorists? Are you kidding? Russia has a tiny economy. China’s economy depends on selling stuff to Americans not attacking them. And terrorists have never been anything more than a fake enemy.”

O.K. that might happen but it’s one thing to cut spending by USAID but when you start cutting spending for the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force, that’s a whole different level of resistance. Folks, I wonder if you know the last time the Pentagon had its budget cut. Well, it was after WWll or about 80 years ago. When the troops came home they were demobilized. General Eisenhower, who I will argue knew more about war and the military in general than any president since cut 30% off the Department of Defense.

That was before the MIC took over the country and became its symbol, its very definition and gained control of both political parties. I wonder if any of this will work out well enough to head off the coming disaster. The president seems to understand the problem and has taken steps to lighten the nation’s burden of political operatives known as 4-star officers. Those generals and admirals gained 4-star rank, in many cases, by playing the game well and feeding the beast who in turn fed them.

So, Vance called the Europeans out for censoring their people and for abandoning their people to criminal migrants. He was right to do so despite the screaming. Things are so bad in Europe regarding its migrant population that its only a slight exaggeration to say that in Sweden not only is the rape of thousands of young Swedish girls by migrants not a crime, but the reporting of rape, and the complaining about rape are considered to be worse crimes than the rapes. I suppose the censoring of speech about reporting and complaining was at least part of Vance’s agenda, at least I hope it was.

The European politicians in attendance stated to reporters after the speech that they now see America as an adversary. So, listening to your own people, the ones you are elected or appointed to serve, instead of censoring their complaints is somehow seen and treated as a threat to democracy. Once again, that is the opposite of the truth and by its very nature, democracy or the will of the people is hindered or extinguished. One reporter said that “a prominent German politician” told him that the speech was a direct attack on European democracy. A senior diplomat told the same reporter “It’s very clear now Europe is alone.”

This is just me folks, but I suspect the European Democracy they are so afraid of criticizing is, in reality, unelected bureaucrats in Brussels. Vance himself when talking later about the speech and the reaction to it said, “The transatlantic elite have created so many institutions to silence their own people and to delegitimize the beliefs of the public. Of course, the Biden administration was the worst offender.”

Yes, Mr. Vice President, I was waiting for you to acknowledge that we in America have done essentially the same thing you are criticizing the Europeans for. I suppose the difference is that the administration you serve has pledged to change that policy. The Munich speech created a firestorm of a different variety. The German Defense Minister can be seen on the video after the speech visibly crying at the podium. The Minister’s name is Boris Pistorius and he quickly let the U.S. know that he was not happy. “This democracy was just called into question by the U.S. Vice President, not just German democracy but that of Europe as a whole. If I understand him correctly he compares the condition of Europe with what prevails in some authoritarian regimes,...