Tag: perpetual war

HAITI HELL: US and Panama Push for Stronger ‘Gang Suppression Force’ to Claim Back Territory Occupied by Criminal Rebels and Stabilize the Chaotic Country

New ‘Gang Suppression Force’ will take the fight to the heavily armed rebel criminals.

It’s a point of contention whether the US as the Western Hemisphere superpower must deal with the Haiti chaos.

If for a moral imperative or geopolitical considerations, is it worthy of consideration to tackle a situation in a very poor country where the rebel criminal gangs have control of 90% of the Capital Port-au-Prince?

Apparently, the Donald J. Trump administration has decided it wants to – or has to – take the lead in the international effort to stabilize the ‘hell hole’.

Earlier, on Thursday (28), the US announced that it is seeking UN authorization for a new ‘Gang Suppression Force’ to help tackle the spiraling violence in Haiti, as it arises that the heavily-armed criminal groups are expanding their attacks to the countryside.

Associated Press reported:

“Acting U.S. Ambassador Dorothy Shea made the announcement at a U.N. Security Council meeting, but it was unclear how it would differ from the Kenya-led Multinational Security Support force now deployed in the violence-torn Caribbean nation trying to help police curb gang violence. Shea thanked Kenya for answering Haiti’s call ‘at a critical moment’ and leading a multinational force for more than a year, saying without it ‘the gangs would have been even more emboldened in their ambitions and brazen atrocities against civilians in Haiti’.”

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Houthis Confirm Prime Minister & Top Officials Killed In Massive Israeli Strike

Yemen’s Houthi government has belatedly confirmed that an Israeli attack launched days ago killed its prime minister, Ahmed al-Rahawi, who was the most senior Houthi official to have been slain in the ongoing conflict thus far.

The official Houthi statement further acknowledged that several al-Rahawi’s colleagues were also killed and wounded, but did not disclose their identities. 

Israel had intentionally targeted a significant gathering of top civilian and military leadership in the capital of Sanaa with huge daytime strikes Thursday afternoon. Israel’s military had soon after announced that it “precisely struck a Houthi terrorist regime military target in the area of Sanaa in Yemen.”

“Al-Rahawi, who served as prime minister to the Houthi-led government since August 2024, was targeted along with other members of his Houthi-controlled government during a routine workshop held by the government to evaluate its activities and performance over the past year, the rebels’ statement said,” according to reports.

And according to Israeli media citing anonymous security sources, intelligence indicated that ten senior Houthi officials, including the group’s defense minister, had gathered near Sanaa to attend a speech by Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi – although whether the defense minister has been killed has not been confirmed.

The IDF believes it killed the entire Houthi cabinet. Below is how the Houthi statement disclosed it, without revealing the full extent of the casualties or names or positions:

“We announce the martyrdom of the fighter Ahmed Ghaleb Nasser Al-Rahawi… along with several of his ministerial colleagues, as they were targeted by the treacherous Israeli criminal enemy.”

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Russia Launches Mass Drone and Missile Strike on Southern Ukraine

Russia launched a mass attack on southern Ukraine, local officials said, two days after a rare airstrike on central Kyiv killed 23 and damaged European Union diplomatic offices as U.S.-led efforts to end Moscow’s three-year war on its neighbor staggered.

The assault overnight into Saturday killed at least one civilian and wounded 28 people, including children, in the Zaporizhzhia region, Gov. Ivan Fedorov reported, where a five-storey residential building was struck.

Russia launched 537 strike drones and decoys, as well as 45 missiles, according to Ukraine’s Air Force. Ukrainian forces shot down or neutralized 510 drones and decoys, and 38 missiles, the force reported.

The Kremlin on Thursday said Russia remained interested in continuing peace talks, despite the air attack on Kyiv that day that was one of the largest and deadliest since Moscow’s full-scale invasion in 2022.

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IDF: Gaza City declared as ‘dangerous combat zone,’ bodies of 2 hostages recovered

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have announced that Gaza City has been declared a “dangerous combat zone.”

On Friday, the IDF said that the pauses in fighting, previously implemented in certain parts of Gaza to allow humanitarian aid distribution, would no longer apply inside Gaza City as the offensive there has moved up.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed that the body of Ilan Weiss, one of the 251 people kidnapped during Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, had been recovered within Gaza City.

Netanyahu added that the remains of a second hostage were also recovered from Gaza and are undergoing identification by forensic experts.

The IDF stressed that it will continue to facilitate humanitarian assistance throughout most of the enclave, but not in Gaza City, while simultaneously pressing forward with “offensive operations against terror groups in Gaza to protect Israeli civilians.”

The IDF once again urged civilians in Gaza City to evacuate southward.

Also on Friday, the IDF reported that soldiers operating in the Zeitoun district of Gaza City spotted “a group of terrorists hiding in a military compound about 100 meters away.”

According to the statement, Israeli forces “called in an Air Force aircraft, which struck the building and killed the terrorists.” 

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The Disaster That Was George W. Bush

In a recent New York Times column, David French in one of his usual anti-Trump screeds, created a hagiographic picture of the presidency of George W. Bush, comparing him to Donald Trump’s current term of office. Wrote French:

Bush was interventionist; Trump is far more isolationist. Bush expanded the social safety net with Medicare Part D; Trump cut Medicaid. Bush implemented PEPFAR, the successful program to combat AIDS in Africa that has saved more than 20 million lives; Trump has gutted PEPFAR. While both men nominated pro-life judges (a Bush appointee, Justice Samuel Alito, wrote the Dobbs decision), Trump ran on a watered-down platform that removed traditional Republican support for a “human life amendment” to the Constitution that would effectively outlaw abortion.

Bush is a devout Christian. Those words, to put it mildly, are not how one would describe Trump.

Indeed, the Trump presidency has so unnerved his opposition to the point where many of his former opponents have praised him, contrasting his so-called unifying presidency as opposed to the Trump White House, which has created division:

Bush’s video was part of “The Call to Unite,” a 24-hour livestream featuring Oprah Winfrey, Sean Combs, Bill Clinton, and a host of other celebrities. Clinton’s message struck similar notes: “We need each other, and we do better when we work together,” he said. “That’s never been more clear to me as I have seen the courage and dignity of the first responders, the health care workers, all the people who are helping them to provide our food, our transportation, our basic services to the other essential workers.”

The message is clear: whether one agrees with everything about the Bush presidency, at least Bush is a decent, Christian guy (not like Trump) and is a humanitarian to boot. Although the political rhetoric from Democrats during the administration of POTUS 43 was anything but unifying, it seems that all is forgiven as Democrats and Never-Trump Republicans join to fight Trump.

Although some may be nostalgic for Bush, perhaps we should be reminded of his disastrous record as president, a record that still is creating negative dividends to this very day. Forget the rhetoric about how “this guy is decent.” The term “decent” is no way to describe Bush’s two terms in office.

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$312 Billion in Chinese Money Laundering Networks Is Driving the Drug Crisis and Human Trafficking in the US

The Treasury Department has confirmed a national security and public safety disaster: Chinese money-laundering networks have pushed more than $312 billion in illicit transactions through U.S. financial institutions in recent years. 

That money financed Mexican drug cartels, enabled human traffickers, and supported organized criminal networks that have left tens of thousands of Americans dead from fentanyl overdoses and other cartel-driven violence.

According to FINCEN.gov, financial institutions filed 1,675 BSA reports in the dataset indicating suspicious activity potentially involving human trafficking or human smuggling.

FINCEN.gov also discovered funds potentially associated with healthcare fraud, elder abuse, and suspicious gaming activity.

What makes these Chinese Money Laundering Networks (CMLNs) especially dangerous is their coordination with Mexico’s most violent cartels, including the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation organizations. 

Mexico’s strict limits on U.S. dollar deposits force cartels to look abroad, while China’s own capital controls make moving money out of the country nearly impossible through legal channels. 

Criminals found the perfect solution: CMLNs convert cartel drug profits in dollars into Chinese renminbi and then cycle those funds back into the U.S. banking system. 

The cartels get clean money. China’s elites get access to American assets. And Americans pay the price in drug overdoses, gang violence, and financial corruption.

Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) documented 137,153 suspicious activity reports between 2020 and 2024 linked directly to CMLNs. 

These reports describe methods ranging from mirror transactions and trade-based laundering to the use of so-called “money mules.” 

Students, retirees, and homemakers with little or no income were recruited to make large deposits that far exceeded their financial profiles. This layering of ordinary citizens into billion-dollar schemes makes detection more difficult and gives cartels longer lifelines.

FinCEN also found $53.7 billion in suspicious real estate transactions, much of it in major cities where foreign buyers already distort housing markets. 

Another $766 million was tied to adult day-care centers in New York, which investigators believe could be linked to healthcare fraud, elder abuse, and even human trafficking. 

More than 1,600 cases pointed to human smuggling and trafficking operations, while another 108 cases were tied directly to elder abuse and Medicare fraud. 

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U.S. generals ran cover for Taliban, despite violent attacks during bungled withdrawal

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley and CENTCOM Commander Frank McKenzie repeatedly ran cover for the Taliban’s behavior in 2021, denying that the Taliban had carried out attacks against U.S. and NATO bases during the withdrawal and defending the Taliban’s behavior during the evacuation.

In the weeks after the fall of Kabul, U.S. military brass such as Milley and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin would repeatedly testify that the Taliban had broken every provision of the Doha Agreement but one — its vow not to attack U.S. and NATO forces.

In fact, the Taliban had also violated that provision, because the Taliban attacked U.S. and NATO bases in Afghanistan multiple times, both before and after President Joe Biden’s “Go-to-Zero” order, including attacks on Bagram Air Base when U.S. troops were still there. The Taliban’s official spokespeople would often take credit for the attacks too.

The GOP-led House Foreign Affairs Committee (HFAC) final report from last year had a section about how “Taliban Attacks on U.S. Bases Continue[d]” during the U.S. military withdrawal in the spring and summer of 2021, but nowhere in that section nor anywhere else in the report did it include the key fact that Milley and McKenzie repeatedly and falsely claimed that these attacks hadn’t happened.

Multiple key Biden Administration officials also repeatedly praised the “businesslike” character of the Taliban during the non-combatant evacuation operation (NEO) at Hamid Karzai International Airport (HKIA), despite clear evidence that the Taliban was beating up some Americans and blocking some U.S. citizens from escaping Afghanistan, and in spite of overwhelming evidence that the Taliban was beating up and even executing some Afghans who wanted to flee Taliban rule. McKenzie played an especially key role in establishing this narrative, although Milley played his part too.

HFAC’s September report also made no mention of McKenzie’s insistence that the Taliban had been “very businesslike” and “very pragmatic” and made no mention of Milley’s claims that the Taliban was not interfering with the U.S. evacuation, nor did the report make any reference to other Biden Administration officials repeating this false “businesslike” mantra about the Taliban.

Biden issued a pardon to Milley on his last full day in office in January 2025. McKenzie and other military leaders were not pardoned. McKenzie is currently listed as the Executive Director for the Global and National Security Institute at the University of Southern Florida. 

McKenzie did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent to him through his email at the school. Nor did he respond to prior Just the News reporting about him.

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State Department Says It’s Denying Visas to Palestinian Officials Ahead of UN General Assembly

The Department of State denied visas to Palestinian leaders to attend the U.N. General Assembly in New York City next month and will revoke visas that were previously granted to those individuals.

A statement from a State Department spokesperson said that Secretary of State Marco Rubio is both denying and revoking visas from individuals who belong to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Palestinian Authority (PA) ahead of the U.N. meeting, which will be held between Sept. 9 and 28.

“It is in our national security interests to hold the PLO and PA accountable for not complying with their commitments, and for undermining the prospects for peace,” the statement reads.

The department said that before either “can be considered partners for peace, they must consistently repudiate terrorism,” and that includes the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel by Hamas that left more than 1,200 people dead and more than 250 hostages being taken into Gaza.

“The PA must also end its attempts to bypass negotiations through international lawfare campaigns” such as appealing to the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ), along with attempts to create the recognition of a Palestinian state, the statement added.

The State Department said those actions have “materially contributed to Hamas’s refusal to release its hostages, and to the breakdown of the Gaza ceasefire talks.”

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Senator Graham Calls For Disarming Hezbollah By Military Force

Hawkish Republican Senator Lindsey Graham has said “it’s time for Hezbollah to go” – and he’s willing to use military force to do it.

“They are trained by Iran, they are loyal to Iran, and we’re looking for military power in Lebanon to be loyal to the Lebanese people and a good partner to the region,” Graham, who is the Chair of the Senate Budget Committee, said at a press conference in Tel Aviv. 

He made the comments soon after meeting with both Lebanese and Israeli officials. The Trump administration has been heavily pressuring the Lebanese government to disarm Hezbollah, even after it was greatly weakened after Israel took out its top leadership, including the slain longtime Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah, last year.

Graham declared: “If we cannot reach a peaceful disarmament solution for Hezbollah, then we need to look at Plan B. Plan B is disarming Hezbollah by military force.”

“Also, there is a decision made to eliminate UNIFIL as a U.N. peace keeping organization in the next 15 months. Now that presents an opportunity for the Lebanese Armed Forces to replace a very ineffective UNIFIL and prove to not only the Lebanese people, but Israel and others, that Lebanon has a capability it did not possess before,” the US senator went on to say.

He didn’t specify whether he envisions that American troops could be involved in such a military intervention – and he likely has foremost in his mind the Israelis and Lebanese taking action – but he’s one who has never shied away from using American soldiers in overseas conflicts.

US envoy to the region Tom Barrack had led the American delegation that visited Beirut this week, and there was plenty of controversy unleashed by the visit, and specifically when he chastised the Lebanese over being ‘civilized’ and not ‘animalistic’…

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Even the media’s Gaza ‘investigations’ hide the real story of Israel’s atrocities

An investigation by CNN into Israel’s strike on the Nasser Hospital this week – an attack that killed more than 20 people, including emergency workers and five journalists – is a case study in how even well-intentioned journalism, ostensibly examining Israeli crimes, ends up concealing more than it reveals.

CNN’s detailed examination of footage of Monday’s strike on the hospital in Khan Younis found that Israel’s so-called “double-tap” actually involved three missiles.

The first strike hit a fourth-floor stairwell close to a hospital upper balcony. Then, 10 minutes later, as emergency crews and journalists scrambled to help the victims, a second and third strike hit precisely the same spot.

A munitions expert who examined the footage notes that the second and third missiles were almost certainly fired from two different tanks in very close succession.

As he and CNN conclude, that removes any last trace of doubt on whether the attack on the hospital was, as Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu claims, “a tragic mishap”. Rather, it was a highly coordinated precision strike.

CNN reiterates a further and important contextual point that should obliterate Israel’s subsequent justification for its attack, following what Israel terms an “initial investigation”.

Let us note in passing that the Israeli military is pretending to investigate itself only to dampen the rare furore that has erupted over the strike, chiefly because the new atrocity was caught on camera and killed journalists working for major western news organisations. Israel has abandoned almost all of its previous investigations as soon as the western media could be provided with a fresher atrocity to report on. And Israel seems to have an endless production line of atrocities with which to distract them.

All too predictably, Israel’s “initial investigation” found a “Hamas” excuse.

According to the Israeli military, it hit Nasser Hospital’s stairwell because it had identified a camera there supposedly being used by Hamas.

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