Castle Report

The Castle Report

• Threat Assessment
  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 an...
• Resetting the Order
  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.
• Peace with Russia – War with Iran
  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 ment...