Army Secretary: Love the killer drone or be left behind

Army Secretary Dan Driscoll’s opening remarks at this year’s United States Army (AUSA) Annual Meeting & Exposition — that drones will “absolutely dominate warfare in the twenty-first century” — set the tone for a conference swarming with them.

Describing them as cheap, yet cutting-edge warfighting tools, Driscoll sold drones as a fundamental shift in how wars will be fought — and thus an essential asset to the Army of the future.

“If small arms defined the twentieth century, drones will define the twenty-first. They are the perfect convergence of artificial intelligence, advanced materials, batteries and propulsion systems, sensor fusion and much more,” Driscoll told attendees. “They will absolutely dominate warfare in the twenty-first century.”

Drones “are reshaping how humans inflict violence on each other at a pace never witnessed in human history. They are cheap, modular, precise, multi-role and scalable, and we will rapidly integrate them into our formations,” he said.

Driscoll’s words were music to industry’ ears at AUSA, where scores of tech-forward companies hungry for collaboration with the DoD promoted their state-of-the-art drones to these ends.

Of course the drones’s lethal capacities were at center stage. Elbit America’s display presented its Skystriker loitering munition as a “one-shot, one-kill system” and as a “high lethality warhead for a variety of targets.” A representative for DraganFly, meanwhile, stressed their drones’ ability to carry explosives. And General Atomics’ flyers depicted one of its models equipped and firing a laser weapon — the “High Energy Laser (HEL) Weapon System.”

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Israel Massacres 11 Members of Palestinian Family in Deadliest Gaza Ceasefire Violation

Israeli forces killed 11 members of a Palestinian family attempting to return to their home in the flattened Gaza Strip on Friday evening in what local officials said was the deadliest violation of the shaky weeklong ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

Gaza Civil Defense spokesman Mahmoud Basal said that Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops fired a tank shell at a bus transporting members of the Abu Shaaban family, who were trying to return to inspect their home in the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City. Among the 11 victims were three women and seven children ages 5-13.

The IDF claimed the “suspicious vehicle” crossed the so-called “yellow line,” beyond which Israeli forces withdrew in accordance with the ceasefire agreement, and that warning shots were fired at the bus before troops acted to “remove the threat.”

However, according to the Palestine Chronicle, Basal asserted that “the family could have been warned or dealt with in a way that did not lead to murder.”

“What happened confirms that the occupation remains thirsty for blood and determined to commit crimes against innocent civilians,” he added.

In the United States, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said in a statement:

The Israeli government’s massacre of a family traveling to assess the remains of their home is the latest deliberate and blatant violation of the ceasefire agreement. The Trump administration must demand that [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu stop using American taxpayer dollars and American weapons to sabotage the ceasefire agreement that America brokered so that he can restart the genocide in Gaza.

The State Department and the United Nations must also investigate horrific signs of torture and extrajudicial killing found on the bodies of returned Palestinian hostages. Torturing people to death after kidnapping them and holding them without charge is another example of [breaking] not only international law, but also US law related to foreign aid recipients.

Gaza’s Government Media Office said Saturday that Israeli forces have broken the truce 47 times, killing 38 people and wounding 143 others “in clear and blatant violation of the ceasefire decision and the principles of international humanitarian law.”

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Venezuela mobilises troops, militia amid US military buildup in Caribbean

Venezuela is deploying troops along the Caribbean coast and mobilising what President Nicolás Maduro claims is a militia numbering in the millions. The move signals defiance against the largest US military presence in the Caribbean since the 1980s, according to a Wall Street Journal report. 

State media has amplified Maduro’s message, portraying the US as a rapacious, Nazi-like power seeking control of Venezuela’s oil resources. Announcers on television, radio, and social media platforms have emphasised that the National Bolivarian Armed Forces are prepared to repel any invasion, WSJ reports.

Militia and armed forces on display

Footage shows Venezuelan militia members of varying ages navigating obstacle courses, firing rifles, and performing training exercises. The country’s regular armed forces, numbering around 125,000 on paper, were seen marching in formation, moving munitions, and mounting Russian-made jet fighters. 

“The people are ready for combat, ready for battle,” Maduro had told supporters earlier this month. The president has also encouraged recruitment from indigenous communities and called on civilian militias to prepare for possible confrontations with American forces.

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Trump-Zelensky Was Reportedly a ‘Tough’, ‘Bad’ Meeting That ‘Ended Abruptly’ – US Will NOT Provide Long-Range Tomahawk Missiles to Ukraine at This Point

Not the meeting Zelensky was dreaming of.

For the last few weeks, both Kiev regime leader Volodymyr Zelensky and the Mainstream Media were convinced that US President Donald J. Trump had a change of heart and was now fully supporting Ukraine’s war effort.

And what’s more, the wishful thinkers brushed past the fact that Trump was still not willing to spend another dollar in the conflict, and focused on the latest ‘wunderwaffe’: long-range Tomahawk missiles.

But yesterday (17), as Zelensky was headed to Washington, DC for the Trump meeting, his world came crashing down, as news circulated of the Trump call with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, and the upcoming meeting in Hungary.

The part of the meeting that was open to the press proceeded reasonably well, but reports say that after the press left, it became a tense meeting, in which Trump told Zelensky that he doesn’t intend to provide long-range Tomahawk missiles.

Zelensky was led to hope for commitments around new weapons, but Trump was ‘in a totally different state of mind’.

The US President stated that his priority now is diplomacy, and sending Tomahawk missiles could undermine it.

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Who are the US Army’s elite ‘Night Stalkers’? Trump deploys special ops forces near Venezuela

An elite Army unit capable of inserting some of the American military’s most deadly special operations forces into a fight has been deployed to the Caribbean as President Trump exerts an increasing show of force in Venezuela.

The 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, known as the vaunted “Night Stalkers,” operates attack helicopters like the Army’s MH-60 Black Hawks and small transport helicopters into the most perilous situations. 

Video surfaced earlier this month showing Army Black Hawks and smaller ‘Little Birds” undergoing training in Trinidad, located about 500 miles east of the capital city of Caracas, giving the first hint of the rotary-wing power being readied.

The “Night Stalkers” are able to deposit highly trained fighters, including Navy SEALs, Army Green Berets, or Delta Force personnel, into battle zones. 

Training with such aircraft indicated practice for potential missions battling drug cartels — or even the regime itself — said defense expert Mark Cancian, a retired Marine Colonel now with the Center for Strategic International Studies in DC.

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Gaza officials formally accuse Israel of organ theft, demand international probe

Gaza’s Government Media Office formally accused Israel on 17 October of stealing organs from Palestinians after Israel returned 120 mutilated bodies following the recent ceasefire, including some who had been tortured to death.

“We formally accuse the Israeli army of stealing organs from the martyrs,” stated Dr. Ismail al-Thawabta, Director General of the Media Office, while demanding an international investigation into Israel’s “torture, mutilation, and organ theft.”

The 120 bodies “arrived in extremely poor and distressing condition,” including blindfolded, bound, crushed under tanks, and missing corneas, livers, and limbs, Thawabta stated.

“The Israeli occupation executed many of them in cold blood. A large number were found blindfolded, with their hands and feet bound, and others showed signs of hanging or close-range gunfire,” he added.

“We also found bodies showing clear evidence of severe torture until death.”

Thawabta explained that Israeli authorities refused to provide the names of the victims, making it extremely difficult for authorities in Gaza to identify them.

After the release of the bodies, families of missing Palestinians rushed to hospitals—especially Nasser Hospital—trying to see if their relatives were among them. But many remain unidentified and will have to be buried anonymously.

“The health system in Gaza is almost completely collapsed. We lack the equipment for DNA testing and forensic analysis. Some families could only identify their loved ones from personal belongings or clothing. If we cannot identify the rest, we will be forced, sadly, to document and bury them anonymously, to preserve human dignity,” Thawabta added.

According to the Media Office’s data, 9,500 Palestinians remain missing, most of them trapped under the rubble of destroyed buildings.

“Entire families—father, mother, children—remain buried for nearly two years,” the Media Office director stated.

The bodies are difficult to locate due to the sheer amount of destruction Israeli bombing has caused, and because Israel has destroyed almost all of Gaza’s heavy machinery, bulldozers, and excavators, preventing rescue operations.

“Even now, despite the ceasefire, all crossings remain closed, and Israel blocks the entry of rescue machinery. This is a humanitarian catastrophe unprecedented in modern history—over 3,000 families completely wiped out, another 6,000 families killed with only one survivor,” Thawabta added.

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‘Catastrophic’ attack as Russians hack files on EIGHT MoD bases and post them on the dark web

Russian hackers have stolen hundreds of sensitive military documents containing details of eight RAF and Royal Navy bases as well as Ministry of Defence staff names and emails – and posted them on the dark web, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

In what has been described as a ‘catastrophic’ security breach, cybercriminals accessed the cache of files by hacking a maintenance and construction contractor used by the MoD.

The ‘gateway’ attack – which targeted third party the Dodd Group – allowed cyber gangsters to circumvent the almost impenetrable cyber defences used by the Armed Forces.  

The MoD said it was investigating the enormous data and security breach, believed to have been carried out by Russian group Lynx.

Leaked documents seen by the MoS disclose information about a number of sensitive RAF and Navy bases, including RAF Lakenheath, in Suffolk, where the US Air Force’s F-35 stealth jets are based and their nuclear bombs are believed to be housed.

Other bases include RAF Portreath – a top-secret radar station that forms part of Nato‘s air defence network – and RAF Predannack, now home to the UK’s National Drone Hub.

Details of contractors’ names, car registrations and mobile numbers, as well as MoD personnel’s names and email addresses, have also been uploaded. Some documents are marked ‘Controlled’ or ‘Official Sensitive’.

The disclosure follows a warning from the National Cyber Security Centre last week that the number of significant hacking attacks in the UK have reached a record high, with 204 taking place in the year to September.

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Venezuela regime change means invasion, chaos, and heavy losses

Maximum pressure has long been President Donald Trump’s stance towards the government of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela — he slapped crippling sanctions on the country during his first term — but in recent days the administration has pushed the stakes even higher.

The Caribbean is currently hosting an astonishing quantity of American naval and air assets, including four Arleigh Burke–class destroyers, a guided missile cruiser, an attack submarine, a Marine Amphibious Ready Group, and a flight of F-35 multirole fighters.

These are ostensibly deployed as part of an antinarcotic and drug interdiction operation, but the volume of firepower employed for what is normally a relatively sedate task has created broad suspicion at home and in Venezuela that a military intervention against the Bolivarian Republic is on tap. Maduro recently sent a letter to the United Nations stating that he expected an “armed attack” against his country in “a very short time.”

His concerns have probably not been assuaged by the formation of a new Joint Task Force last week (again ostensibly for anti-narcotics operations) in SOUTHCOM under the II Marine Expeditionary Force, precisely the kind of unit that would be deployed in a Venezuelan military intervention, still less by the recent New York Times report that Trump has authorized lethal covert operations by American intelligence agents within his borders.

The administration has made its interest in removing Maduro quite clear: it views him as the head of a narcoterrorist organization that is responsible for exporting crime, drugs, and illegal immigrants to the United States. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has declared that Maduro is not the legitimate president of the country, due to his government’s obvious falsification of results in the 2024 election, and the Justice Department doubled the bounty for his capture to $50 million.

But while Maduro is, without a doubt, a usurper of the presidential office and a tyrannical dictator, he is no less the president and head of state of Venezuela. Ideological harangues about the sanctity of democracy will no more remove him from power or render his government moot than American disapproval of the Chinese Communist Party could affect the democratization of Red China, something both sides are well aware of. Removing Maduro will require more than sanctions, threats, or pressure: it will require war, and that possibility looks increasingly likely with each passing day.

While ending Maduro’s dictatorship would certainly be a boon to the Venezuelan people, the intervention comes with a number of costs and risks American policymakers should bear in mind and carefully weigh against the potential benefits of intervention. There is no free lunch in geopolitics.

The most obvious costs are those of the initial invasion. The American invasion of Panama in 1989, to overthrow the government of General Manuel Noriega, was carried out by a force of some 27,000 U.S. troops, 23 of which were killed and hundreds more wounded. Venezuela is vastly larger than Panama, and while its military is very poorly equipped, it likewise dwarfs the forces that were available to Noriega. The Center for Strategic and International Studies estimates an invasion of Venezuela would require nearly 50,000 troops, some of which will not return home. Any American government should be extremely conscientious about the causes on which it spends the lives of American soldiers.

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Bipartisan senators to force vote blocking ‘unauthorized war’ in Venezuela

A group of bipartisan senators will force a vote on a War Powers Resolution to block the use of force by American troops within or against Venezuela after President Trump raised the possibility of attacks against Nicolás Maduro’s regime.

The measure is being led by Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) are co-sponsors. 

Trump said Wednesday he had authorized the CIA to carry out covert operations inside Venezuela, saying he was focused on “land” operations and raising the specter the president is looking to remove Maduro from power.  

“The American people do not want to be dragged into endless war with Venezuela without public debate or a vote. We ought to defend what the Constitution demands: deliberation before war,” Paul said in a statement. 

The effort marks the second time senators have sought to block Trump’s buildup of force in the Caribbean Sea. A vote on a War Powers Resolution last week failed 48-51, although it garnered support from Paul and one other Republican, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska).

“Americans don’t want to send their sons and daughters into more wars—especially wars that carry a serious risk of significant destabilization and massive new waves of migration in our hemisphere,” Kaine said in a statement. 

“If my colleagues disagree and think a war with Venezuela is a good idea, they need to meet their constitutional obligations by making their case to the American people and passing an Authorization for Use of Military Force. I urge every senator to join us in stopping this Administration from dragging our country into an unauthorized and escalating military conflict.”

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FDR’s “Four Policemen”: The Globalist Blueprint for Endless War and American Subjugation

It is time to expose the truth about Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s so-called Four Policemen plan — a sinister scheme concocted by the globalist cabal surrounding the 32nd president to permanently shackle the United States to a role of international enforcer in a world government order. Far from being a noble vision for peace, FDR’s “Four Policemen” was the original blueprint for what would become the United Nations — an unelected, unaccountable body of internationalists dedicated not to liberty, but to global control.

In the midst of the Second World War, even before the guns fell silent, Roosevelt and his cadre of globalist advisors — including Soviet sympathizers such as Alger Hiss — were laying the foundation for a postwar “New World Order.” The heart of this plan was what FDR euphemistically called the “Four Policemen”: the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and China. These four powers, according to Roosevelt, would act as the guardians of peace, responsible for policing the globe and suppressing any acts of aggression through military might.

Let that sink in: Roosevelt — hailed by modern progressives as a champion of democracy — openly proposed that a small clique of global superpowers should wield exclusive authority to intervene in the affairs of nations, impose sanctions, deploy military force, and determine which conflicts were worthy of attention. Sovereignty? An outdated relic. Consent of the governed? Irrelevant. In FDR’s globalist gospel, only the self-anointed “policemen” mattered.

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