Tag: perpetual war

DNI Gabbard Warns World ‘Closer to Brink of Nuclear Annihilation Than Ever Before’

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard recently warned that a doomsday nuclear armageddon could be inevitable if more isn’t done to stop the escalating wars pushing the world toward mutually assured destruction.

In a sobering video posted to X Tuesday, Gabbard reflected on a recent trip to Hiroshima, Japan – the site where the U.S. first dropped an atomic bomb.

“This attack obliterated the city, killed over 300,000 people, many dying instantly while others died from severe burns, injuries, radiation sickness, and cancer that set in in the following months and years,” Gabbard noted, adding, “Nagasaki suffered the same fate, homes, schools, families, all gone in a flash. The survivors, the Hibokusha, they carried the pain of extreme burns, radiation sickness, and loss for decades.”

The DNI went on to note the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki 80 years ago pale in comparison to today’s nuclear weapons, which could vaporize millions in seconds.

“Just one of these nuclear bombs would vaporize everything at its core, people, buildings, life itself,” the former Democrat-turned Republican congresswoman noted, with graphics illustrating the devastating nuclear fallout. “The shockwave would crush structures miles away, killing and maiming countless people, and then comes the fallout, radioactive poison spreading through the air, water, and soil, condemning survivors to agonizing deaths or lifelong suffering.”

“A nuclear winter could follow with smoke and ash completely blocking the sun, plunging the world into darkness and cold, killing crops and starving billions,” the Trump DNI said. “Acid rain would scar the earth, wiping out entire ecosystems.”

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Mike Huckabee: US No Longer Pursuing Goal of Palestinian State

Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel, told Bloomberg in an interview published on Tuesday that he believes the US is no longer pursuing the goal of an independent Palestinian state.

“Unless there are some significant things that happen that change the culture, there’s no room for it,” the former Arkansas governor told the outlet, adding that he didn’t think those “changes” would happen “in our lifetime.”

When asked if the US was still pursuing the goal of a Palestinian state, he said, “I don’t think so.”

While the US has been working against a Palestinian state for decades by continuing to back Israel as it expands illegal settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Huckabee’s comments mark one of the most explicit denials of the goal of a Palestinian state from a top US official.

Huckabee also suggested that a Palestinian state could be carved out of a Muslim country. “Does it have to be in Judea and Samaria?” he said, using the Biblical name for the West Bank.

For Huckabee, his opposition to a Palestinian state is ideological and rooted in his religious beliefs. As a Christian Zionist, Huckabee believes that God gave historic Palestine to the modern state of Israel.

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US To Formalize Military Presence In Syria In Deal With AQ-Linked Govt

The US is working to formalize its military presence in Syria by signing a deal with the new al-Qaeda-linked government, according to a report from The New Arab.

The report was published Friday and said that a high-level US military delegation was expected to meet with Syrian officials in the coming days with the goal of shifting the US military presence from an illegal occupation to a formalized, legal partnership.

The report comes as the US has been drawing down its forces in northeastern Syria and handing over some bases to the Kurdish-led SDF. The US is expected to maintain only one base in Syria, the al-Tanf Garrison in the south, which is situated where the borders of Syria, Iraq, and Jordan converge.

From al-Tanf, the US helped its proxy militia, known as the Syrian Free Army (previously known as the Revolutionary Commando Army), join in on the offensive led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) that ousted former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on December 8, 2024.

A formal deal on al-Tanf would signal that the US is planning a long-term or even potentially a permanent military presence in Syria. The Pentagon has said that it’s currently working to reduce its forces in Syria to fewer than 1,000 troops in the country. According to the latest reports, approximately 1,500 US troops are currently stationed in the country.

The US has embraced the new Syrian government that’s led by HTS despite the group still being listed by the State Department as a foreign terrorist organization due to its al-Qaeda roots.

President Trump recently met with HTS’s leader and Syria’s de facto president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, formerly known as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, and praised him as a “young, attractive guy” with a “very strong past.”

Sharaa got his start with al-Qaeda in Iraq, where he fought an insurgency against US troops before being imprisoned from 2006 to 2011. In 2012, he traveled to Syria and formed al-Qaeda’s affiliate in the country, the al-Nusra Front.

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Iran Warns They’ll Strike Israel’s Nuclear Sites If Their Own Are Attacked

From The Straits Times, “Iran says has intel to strike Israel in response to ‘any’ attack on nuclear sites”:

An intelligence trove that Iran claimed it had obtained “would enable the fighters of Islam to immediately strike (Israel’s) hidden nuclear facilities in response to any possible attack by the Zionist regime on Iran’s nuclear facilities,” the Supreme National Security Council said in a statement.

It also said Iran would respond in a “precisely proportional” manner to any Israeli attack on its military or economic infrastructure.

On June 7, state media reported that Tehran had obtained a trove of “strategic and sensitive” Israeli intelligence in a covert operation, including files related to Israel’s undeclared nuclear facilities and defence plans.

Iran’s Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib later said that the seized documents included information related to Western countries including the United States, and “will be published soon”.

On June 9, the head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hossein Salami, said the intelligence would make “the impact of Iranian missiles more precise” in case of a confrontation.

Via Middle East Spectator:

Full statement by Iran’s Supreme National Security Council:

‘In the name of God Almighty.

The recent complex intelligence operation carried out by the anonymous soldiers of the ‘Imam of our Time’ (Imam Mahdi) are a great intelligence achievement and an important part of the intelligent design and covert and secret actions by the sacred Islamic system against the enemies’ schemes.

Another important part of this is the round-the-clock struggle of our armed forces to create operational capacity aligned with the weaknesses and strengths of the Zionist regime and its supporters.

Today, access to this newly revealed information and the completion of the intelligence and operational cycle have enabled the warriors of Islam to immediately counter any possible attack by the Zionist regime’s against our nuclear facilities.

To any such aggression we will respond instantly, by attacking their hidden nuclear facilities and their economic and military infrastructure, in proportion to the type of aggression carried out against us.

The US is still ridiculously demanding Iran end all enrichment of uranium, which Iran has already made clear is a non-starter.

“They [the Iranians] don’t want to give up what they have to give up,” Trump said on Monday. “You know what that is: They seek enrichment.”

“They have given us their thoughts on the deal, and I said, you know, it’s just not acceptable for it,” Trump continued.

“We can’t have enrichment. We want just the opposite, and so far, they’re not there. I hate to say that, because the alternative is a very, very dire one,” he added.

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State Department Weighing $500 Million Grant to Controversial Gaza Aid Group: Report

According to The New Arab, the State Department is considering a massive distribution to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). The new Israeli and US-backed agency has been accused by human rights groups of being a tool of Tel Aviv to complete the ethnic cleansing of Gaza rather than an organization attempting to feed the starving people of the Strip.

Citing two current and two former officials, the outlet reported that the State Department is considering a $500 million transfer to the GHF. The money would fund the organization for about six months.

Responding to an inquiry by the Libertarian Institute, the State Department press office declined to confirm the report, only stating that the GHF is “an independent organization” that “currently does not receive [US government] funding.” It directed further questions to the organization itself, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Some US officials have opposed the large grant, raising concerns related to incidents when Israeli forces killed scores of Palestinians near GHF aid sites.

The GHF has met intense criticism for being unprepared to provide food and other desperately needed supplies in Gaza. UN and other aid agencies previously used established distribution networks to feed the millions of people languishing under the Israeli blockade. However, since the GHF was established in February, Israel has refused to allow UN and international agencies to bring aid into Gaza in favor of the new organization.

In the first weeks of the GHF operations in Gaza, Israeli forces killed scores of Palestinians attempting to get food, prompting top officials and firms to cut ties with the agency. GHF’s previous executive director, Jake Wood, resigned just hours before the organization began operating in the Strip, arguing the group’s plans were not in line with “humanitarian principles.”

Reverend Johnnie Moore, an American evangelical Christian leader and staunch Zionist, took over Wood’s role last week.

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Israel Unveils Unprecedented Transfer To Ukraine Of ‘Several’ Patriot Missile Batteries

In early May it was first reported that a US-supplied Patriot air-defense system that was based in Israel would be refurbished and sent to Ukraine. This was despite what the White House’s National Security Council said at the time in a statement: “President Trump has been clear: he wants the war in Ukraine to end and the killing to stop.”

But American and Western arms for Ukraine have continued flowing, with no end in sight, despite what was a very brief stoppage of maybe a couple days earlier in Trump’s term. Israel has just revealed that it wasn’t merely “one” Patriot battery transferred to Ukraine, but “several”.

Israeli Ambassador to Ukraine Michael Brodsky unveiled in a Sunday interview with Pravda USA that Israel has delivered several MIM-104 Patriot surface-to-air missile systems to Kiev, in a clear significant escalation in its military support to the Zelensky government.

During the opening years of the war Israel largely remained on the sidelines, for fear of damaging sensitive relations with Russia, which has maintained a military presence on the Mediterranean, along Syria’s coast. But times have changed, and Russia could be packing up its Syrian naval and air bases, given the December overthrow of its ally Assad and the Jolani regime being installed in Damascus.

Ambassador Brodsky told the Ukrainian media publication (according to machine translation):

The Patriot systems that we once received from the United States are now in Ukraine. These are Israeli systems that were in service with Israel in the early 90s. We agreed to transfer them to Ukraine. And unfortunately, not much was said about this. But when they say that Israel did not help militarily, this is not true. This is not true,” Brodsky emphasized.

This appears to be confirmation of what Axios reported in late January:

The U.S. military transferred around 90 Patriot air defense interceptors from storage in Israel to Poland this week in order to deliver them to Ukraine, three sources with knowledge of the operation tell Axios.

These are apparently older US-supplied systems which remained in Israel’s stockpile. Still, the NY Times had presented that merely one Patriot battery was being prepped, in this May 4 report for example:

A Patriot air-defense system that was based in Israel will be sent to Ukraine after it is refurbished, four current and former U.S. officials said in recent days, and Western allies are discussing the logistics of Germany or Greece giving another one.

The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the discussions, declined to describe President Trump’s view of the decision to transfer more Patriot systems to Ukraine.

Israel is perhaps only making this public now in the context of Russia’s air war against Ukrainian cities, and the capital in particular, heating up.

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Russian Forces Reach Donetsk’s Western Border and Enter Dnipropetrovsk, Taking the War Into Another Ukrainian Region

During the Istanbul talks between Russia and Ukraine, when presented with Moscow’s demand that Kiev’s troops must withdraw from territory of the four regions that they have partially conquered (Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporozhie and Kherson), the Ukrainian delegation reacted with a strong rejection of this point.

It’s been widely reported that, at this point, Russian negotiators warned their foes: ‘Next time, it won’t be four regions, but six or eight’.

That could, of course, be nothing but bragging, except that today the Russian Ministry of Defense announced that units of the 90th Tank Division have reached & crossed the western border of the Donetsk People’s Republic, and that their offensive continues deeper into Dnipropetrovsk Oblast.

That the Russian offensive has now breached into a brand-new region is a serious setback for the Kiev regime, who really depends on a constant PR effort to keep allies engaged and prevent further deterioration of public morale in their country.

So, at this point, besides the four regions mentioned above, there are also Russian successes in the northern Sumy and Kharkov regions – and now Dnipropetrovsk.

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US diverted military aid for Kiev to Middle East – Zelensky

US President Donald Trump’s administration has diverted a large military aid package his predecessor promised to Kiev to American forces in the Middle East, Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has told ABC. The package included thousands of anti-drone missiles Ukraine desperately needs to fight Russia’s long-range unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), he said.

The Ukrainian leader raised the issue in an interview with ABC News’ Martha Raddatz which aired on Sunday. When asked about the importance of US support, Zelensky admitted that the Ukrainian military was struggling to deal with Russian UAVs on its own.

“We have a lot of problems with these Shaheds,” he said, referring to Russian Geran-2 long-range drones, which Kiev claims to be Shahed-family UAVs allegedly supplied to Moscow by Tehran. Both Russia and Iran have previously denied the allegations.

The Ukrainian leader then revealed that Kiev had not received a major aid package it was “counting on.” Former US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin promised Ukraine 20,000 anti-drone missiles that were based on a “special technology,” Zelensky claimed. Austin served as the secretary of defense under Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden.

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Trans military colonel issues defiant message after being booted from post as Trump ban takes effect

One of the military’s highest ranking transgender officials is speaking out after being placed on administrative leave as part of the Trump administration’s ban on trans troops.

Colonel Bree Fram, who came out as transgender in 2016 when the initial ban on trans troops was lifted, was an astronautical engineer in the US Space Force and was the Pentagon‘s division chief for requirements integration.

She posted to Instagram Friday saying ‘I have been officially placed on administrative leave, effective tomorrow, pending separation’ after the Supreme Court ruled the ban could go ahead. 

Fram – whose profile picture on the social media app is an LGBT rainbow version of the Space Force logo – defiantly spoke of sobbing as she pinned medals on three of ‘my folks’ in her last official act in service.  

‘The last salute broke my heart in two and the tears flowed freely even as I have so much to be thankful for and so many amazing memories.’

Fram detailed the day she came out in 2016, telling a story of how her teammates responded to the announcement by shaking her hand and, one by one, saying: ‘It’s an honor to serve with you.’ 

She also spoke about a similar experience last week, when she announced at a joint staff meeting that she was leaving and that she no longer met ‘the current standard for military excellence and readiness.’ 

‘A room full of senior leaders, admirals and generals, walked over to me and the scene from 2016 repeated. They offered those same words, now tinged with the sadness of past tense: ‘It’s been an honor to serve with you’,’ she said.

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‘We’re already in World War III,’ says national security expert

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recently warned that China poses an “imminent” threat to Taiwan and urged Asian allies to boost their defenses. The People’s Liberation Army is “rehearsing for the real deal,” said Hegseth at a security conference in Singapore.

For perspective on the dire prospects of war, WorldNetDaily interviewed national security expert and retired Army Lt. Col. Darin Gaub, who observed that experts have been talking about the “imminent” threat from China for many years. “I’m not discounting the possibility [of China invading Taiwan], but I’m also going to be realistic and say the Chinese military is not ready for that scale of conflict.”

Rather, said the former UH-60 Black Hawk pilot who spent time working strategic intelligence in the Pacific theater, the Chinese military’s “primary role is to police its own people, not necessarily invade foreign nations.”

While there is no formal treaty obligating the U.S. to defend Taiwan, there is enough legal basis through the Taiwan Relations Act for the U.S. to assist the small East Asian country against military threats from China. Thus, Gaub agreed, the U.S. would very likely support Taiwan’s efforts to deter the Chinese regime from the use of force to gain control of the archipelago.

And though some experts fear an escalation to World War III should America engage militarily, Gaub said, “We’re already in World War III.” The U.S., he explained, is long past concerns over an “imminent threat” from China, as America and most of the free world are already at war, minus any overtly hostile military action on the part of the Chinese Communist Party.

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