Tag: perpetual war

OpenAI on Surveillance and Autonomous Killings: You’re Going to Have to Trust Us

OpenAI claims it has accomplished what Anthropic couldn’t: securing a Pentagon contract that won’t cross professed red lines against dragnet domestic spying and the use of artificial intelligence to order lethal military strikes. Just don’t expect any proof.

Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO, announced the company’s big win with the Defense Department in a post on X on February 27.

“Two of our most important safety principles are prohibitions on domestic mass surveillance and human responsibility for the use of force, including for autonomous weapon systems,” he wrote. The Pentagon “agrees with these principles, reflects them in law and policy, and we put them into our agreement.”

The deal came after the very public implosion of what was to be a similar contract between the U.S. military and Anthropic, one of OpenAI’s chief rivals. Anthropic had said negotiations collapsed because it could not enshrine prohibitions against killer robots and domestic spying in its contract. The company’s insistence on these two points earned it the wrath of the Pentagon and President Donald Trump, who ordered the government to phase out use of Anthropic’s tools within six months.

But if the government booted Anthropic for refusing mass surveillance and autonomous weapons, how could OpenAI take over the contract without having the same problem?

OpenAI has attempted to square this circle through a string of posts to X by company executives and researchers, including Katrina Mulligan, its national security chief, and a claim by Altman that the company negotiated stricter protections around domestic surveillance.

The company and the government, however, are not releasing the only proof that matters: the contract itself.

The Department of Defense did not respond to a request for comment.

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Trump and Rubio Give Final Offer to the Castros and Díaz-Canel: “Off-Ramp” to Cede Power Without Forced Exile or End Up Like Maduro in Prison

President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are pushing an economic agreement with the Cuban regime that includes an “off-ramp” —a negotiated exit— to allow the Castro family and President Miguel Díaz-Canel to cede power without forced exile, according to an exclusive report from The Telegraph.

The plan would allow these leaders to remain on the island in exchange for concessions in ports, energy, and tourism, with possible selective relief in sanctions.

The conversations involve Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, grandson of Raúl Castro, who maintains key influence. Rubio, son of Cuban immigrants, leads the high-level negotiations, as confirmed by Trump in public statements.

The president has said that “Cuba is in its final moment of life as it is” and that an agreement will be reached “very easily”.

This pressure intensified after the capture of Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores on January 3, 2026, in Caracas by U.S. forces.

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Will Washington Betray the Kurds Yet Again?

The Trump administration has enlisted the support of Kurdish activists in Syria, Iraq, and Iran to join the U.S.-led war to unseat Iran’s clerical regime.  CNN reports that the Central Intelligence Agency is already arming Iranian Kurds. CNN and other outlets also report that President Trump spoke with Kurdish leaders in Iraq on March 8, 2026, about having their forces join the fight.

Washington’s motives for this move are easy to discern. The Kurdish minority concentrated along Iran’s western border has long sought to break away from Tehran’s control.  U.S. and Israeli leaders understand that such disruptive secessionist efforts could further damage the incumbent government’s already weakened position.

There is a major problem with that strategy, however.  Secessionist-minded Iranian Kurds do not merely want to undermine their oppressors in Tehran; many of them want to join their equally restless ethnic brethren in Iraq, Syria, and Turkey to establish a new, independent Kurdish homeland.  The incumbent governments in those volatile countries feud about a wide array of issues.  One objective all these governments have in common, though, is a determination to prevent the emergence of an independent Kurdish nation state, since that development would threaten the internal unity – and perhaps the continued viability–of multiple neighbors.

Previous U.S. administrations have encouraged and even actively supported Kurdish clients when it advanced Washington’s short-term goals.  Such initiatives invariably have been followed by cynical betrayals of those clients when the U.S. government concluded that support for parochial Kurdish objectives endangered higher priority U.S. regional objectives.

This cycle of support and betrayal has occurred repeatedly.  Most recently, the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations used Syrian Kurds as armed proxies in a long campaign to seize oil-rich territory in northern Syria and help unseat Syria’s dictator, Bashar al-Assad.  A small contingent of U.S. ground troops deployed in northern Syria aided that effort. The Kurdish fighters were remarkably successful despite strong opposition from both Assad and Turkey.

But when anti-Assad insurgent forces dominated by Arab Sunni Islamists finally overthrew his secular government in December 2024, the usefulness to Washington of Kurdish fighters and Kurdish control over northern Syria evaporated quickly.  In late 2025, the Trump administration terminated its support for the Kurdish faction and warned Syrian Kurdish leaders to end their opposition to the new Islamist regime in Baghdad.

That latest move was at least the fourth example of a U.S. policy reversal and outright betrayal of the Kurds in less than three generations.  In 1973, President Richard Nixon made a secret agreement with the Shah of Iran to provide the covert financial and military support to the Kurdish minority in Iraq who had launched an insurgency against Iraq’s young dictator, Saddam Hussein. Those Kurdish insurgents were seeking to establish an independent Kurdistan in northern Iraq.  (Saddam had irritated U.S. leaders earlier that year by signing a Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation with Moscow.) Kurdish officials conducted planning sessions in Washington with the CIA, and CIA agents assisted Kurdish Peshmerga militia units to harass Saddam’s forces.

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US News Orgs Nearly Silent on Israel’s Violent Suppression of Journalism

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) recently published two meticulous reports that further expose Israel’s violent repression of journalism, in its ongoing genocide in Gaza and elsewhere.

CPJ published a report on February 19 titled ‘‘’We Returned From Hell’: Palestinian Journalists Recount Torture in Israeli Prisons.” CPJ collected 59 in-depth testimonies from Palestinian journalists released from Israeli custody since October 7, 2023.

The report goes into excruciating and painstaking detail about the experiences of 56 journalists, who told CPJ they were “repeatedly beaten inside prisons by authorities, as well as during arrest and transfer to the facilities.”

Less than a week later, CPJ published a report (2/25/26) that found “Israel was responsible for two-thirds of all journalist and media-worker killings in 2025”—86 of the 129 deaths CPJ recorded.

That was an uptick from 2024 (when Israel was responsible for 85 out of 124) and 2023 (78 of 99), CPJ revealed.

Taken together, these reports added more evidence of Israel’s illegal and shameless targeting of the journalists who cover its war crimes.

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Pete Hegseth’s Defense Department Blew $22M On Steak and Lobster in a Single Month, Watchdog Claims

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth‘s Defense Department allegedly blew through $22 million on lobsters and ribeye steak as part of a wild September 2025 end-of-year spree.

According to an analysis by nonprofit watchdog Open the Books, Hegseth’s DoD spent $93.4 billion on grants and contracts in Sept. 2025 alone — nearly 50 percent of which was expended in the last five business days of the month.

Open the Books, run by the American Transparency charity founded in 2011, collects and publishes government spending data, including expenditures down to the lobster tail.

Per the analysis by Open the Books, in September, the Pentagon spent $2 million on Alaskan king crab, $6.9 million on lobster tail, $15.1 million on ribeye steak, and $1 million on salmon. Dessert included 272 orders of doughnuts for $139,224 and ice cream machines for $124,000.

While the Pentagon does not technically have to spend all its congressionally allocated funds, “use-it-or-lose-it” policies often push it to do so. Any leftover funds could be removed from the budget the following year. So, extravagant sprees are not unusual at the end of a fiscal year.

For example, the group noted in its report, “Furniture is near the top of the military’s wish list at the end of every fiscal year. Since 2008, the DoD has spent an average of $257.6 million on furniture every September — a 564% increase above the norm. In months besides September, furniture costs the military only $38.8 million on average.”

Speaking to Open the Books, the CEO of Govly, an AI company that assists government contractors, compared Sept. 30 to “Amazon Prime Day” for the federal government.

Extravagant spending sprees are also not unusual for Hegseth’s DoD. The report noted that the department also spent more than $7.4 million on lobster throughout four months in 2025: March, May, June, and October.

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“Unprovoked act of aggression,” Russia claims Israel attacked its cultural center in Lebanon

Russia’s international humanitarian cooperation agency said on Monday that Israel attacked the partner Russian House in the Lebanese city of Nabatieh, calling it an “unprovoked act of aggression,” Anadolu reports.

In a statement on Telegram, head of the agency, Rossotrudnichestvo, Evgeny Primakov said the cultural center was strictly civilian.

“Israeli aviation struck the partner Russian House in the Lebanese city of Nabatieh. The director of the cultural center, Assaad Deia, is alive and safe. These are our good friends, there was no military activity in the cultural center. The strike was not provoked by anything,” he said.

He added that the agency’s official representative office, the Russian Center for Science and Culture in Lebanon’s capital Beirut, is in contact with colleagues from the Nabatieh office.

“We regard its destruction as an act of unprovoked aggression,” Rossotrudnichestvo said in an official statement published on Russian social media platform Max.

It also noted that the Soviet Cultural Center in Syria’s capital Damascus was destroyed by a direct hit from Israeli bombs on Oct. 10, 1973, during the Fourth Arab-Israeli War, killing two people.

Tension escalated across the region on Feb. 28, when the US and Israel launched large-scale attacks on Iran that have so far killed around 1,300 people, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Tehran has responded with drone and missile strikes targeting Israel, as well as Gulf countries that are home to US assets.

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Iranian TV Says Khamenei’s Son Mojtaba, Elected New Supreme Leader, Has Been Wounded by US-Israel Strikes

Like father, like son?

The late ayatollah Khamenei was killed during the airstrikes by the US-Israeli coalition, and now it arises that his son, Mojtaba, has been chosen to be the new ‘Supreme Leader’.

However, that is not the only report going around, as it’s been widely published that Mojtaba has been gravely wounded, also by coalition airstrikes.

The news was first reported by Iranian TV, but has been subsequently picked up by the UK’s Mirror and LBC, Times of Israel, The Western Journal, among others.

See how War Secretary Pete Hergseth declines to deny that he is injured.

The Daily Wire’s Mary Margaret Olohan: “There’s been reports that the new leader of Iran has been wounded. Do you know if this is true and what his condition is? And then another one, President Trump said he had a really good call with President Putin yesterday. Will Russia be… pic.twitter.com/bRkzOY9OC3

— RedWave Press (@RedWavePress) March 10, 2026

“The President, as I’ve said before, maintains strong relationships with world leaders, which creates opportunities and options for us in very dynamic ways… The new leader of Iran. He would be wise to heed the words of our President, which is to not pursue nuclear weapons, and come out and state as such. As far as his status, that’s not something I can comment on right now.”

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Could There Be a Military Draft? Trump Administration Says It’s ‘On Table’

As the United States continues to strike Iran roughly 10 days since ordered by President Donald Trump, questions about how long the war may last have been coupled with the prospect of a military draft that administration officials admit remains “on the table.”

Six U.S. soldiers have been killed in the war that Trump has continually defended on the backdrop of what he and other senior officials have attributed to “an imminent threat” posed by Iran towards the U.S., Israel and other Middle East nations. The potential length of this conflict has drawn many assumptions, as Trump has floated a “4-5 weeks” duration while Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has been more clandestine in presenting any particular timeframe due to not giving away U.S. military strategies.

That, in turn, has led to questions of whether U.S. troops could ultimately be on the ground in Iran due to airstrikes historically not providing enough military might over time for sustainability. 

On Sunday, Fox Business’ Sunday Morning Futures host Maria Bartiromo asked White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt about the prospect of Americans not enlisted in the U.S. military being forced to fight overseas.

“Mothers out there are worried that we’re going to have a draft, that they’re going to see their sons and daughters get involved in this,” Bartiromo said. “What do you want to say about the president’s plans for troops on the ground? As we know, it’s been largely an air campaign up until now.”

“It has been, and it will continue to be,” Leavitt said. “President Trump wisely does not remove options off of the table. I know a lot of politicians like to do that quickly, but the president as commander in chief wants to continue to assess the success of this military operation.”

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The Satanic Temple working to save Satanists in Ukraine

The Satanic Temple launched an effort to save fellow worshippers of Baphomet in war-torn Ukraine:

“As the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine continues unabated, The Satanic Temple is organizing its networks to ensure TST members trying to flee can reach safety,” the organization posted on its website. “By coordinating donations to pay for transport and accommodations, and strategically locating members who can physically aid refugees, we are doing what we can to assist our members who are caught in the conflict.”

The site called for Ukrainian Satanists to contact them.

Jack Matirko, formerly associated with the  Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and now an advocate for The Satanic Temple, covered the story for Only Sky Media.

“While it is taken for granted that larger religious organizations will be offering aid to members of their communities who need help, we rarely focus on the plights of members of severely marginalized religions, such as Satanism,” Matirko wrote.

Though it is unknown how many, or even if there are any Satanists in Ukraine, Russia has accused several members of the Ukrainian government of worshipping the devil. In 2014, Rossia 24, a state-owned Russian news channel, accused Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and parliament speaker Oleksandr Turchynov of allying with Satanists in a plot to destroy the Russian Orthodox Church. The report claimed that the group had received permission from local authorities to build a church, focusing on footage of a lamb that is apparently about to be slaughtered in a ritual sacrifice. As a Baptist, Turchynov drew suspicion. Yatsenyuk was even worse, accused of practicing Scientology, which the Russian government does not recognize.

It should be noted that there are Satanists on both sides of the conflict. The Satanic Church of Russia began operating in 2013 and received legal recognition on May 10, 2016 

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Saudi oil giant warns of ‘catastrophic consequences’ from Iran war as three commercial ships are ‘attacked’ in Strait of Hormuz and Tehran tries to strangle world’s energy supplies

Saudi Arabia‘s state oil company has warned of ‘catastrophic consequences’ for the world’s oil markets if the Middle East war continues to choke exports, as three commercial ships were attacked in the Strait of Hormuz. 

The waterway is a chokepoint in the global oil trade, where roughly 20 per cent of the world’s oil would ordinarily pass through daily. 

But as a result of the roiling war, oil shipments have been largely blocked from using the shipping artery. And Iran said on Tuesday it would not allow ‘one litre of oil’ to be shipped from the Middle East if US and Israeli attacks continue.

Amin Nasser, the CEO of Aramco, said: ‘While we have faced disruptions in the past, this one by far is the biggest crisis the region’s oil and gas industry has faced.’

He admitted that while his firm, the world’s single biggest exporter of oil, was meeting most of its customers’ needs for now, this was only possible by tapping into storage facilities outside the Gulf. 

Nasser said that these stores cannot be used for ‘an extended period of time, but for the time being, we are capitalising on it.’ 

The CEO said: ‘There would be catastrophic consequences for the world’s oil markets, and the longer the disruption goes on … the more drastic the consequences for the global economy.’ 

The stark warning comes after three commercial ships were attacked in the Strait of Hormuz.

An attack on the Thailand-flagged bulk carrier Mayuree Naree from an ‘unknown projectile’, which was reported at 4.35am GMT, happened 11 nautical miles north of Oman and resulted in a fire onboard the ship. 

Iran today confirmed it had attacked the Mayuree Naree, adding: ‘The American aggressors and their partners have no right to pass.’

Authorities are searching for three missing crew members from the Mayuree Naree after 20 were rescued by the Omani navy. 

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