Tag: perpetual war

U.S. Plan To Disarm Hezbollah Is a Diplomatic Dead End

The United States has given Lebanon until the end of the year to disarm Hezbollah in exchange for ending Israeli military operations there. This proposal, delivered to President Joseph Aoun, offers incremental Israeli withdrawals over the next few months in return for Hezbollah’s gradual dissolution—an outcome that’s nearly impossible in practice and already rejected by the group. Washington’s attempt to link Israeli withdrawals to Hezbollah’s disarmament ignores military and political realities. Disarming the terrorist group is not a matter of transactional diplomacy, but a near-impossible task that risks wasting diplomatic capital while the greater Middle East sinks deeper into instability.

Deputy Special Envoy to the Middle East Morgan Ortagus and U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack delivered the offer, which outlines an Israeli concession of five border points in cooperation with the Lebanese military. Ideal as it sounds, the Iran-backed group has had its teeth sunk into Lebanese civil, political, and even military sectors for decades, and it is the first watershed moment for the legitimacy of Aoun’s new administration. A former army chief, Aoun countered with a point-for-point trade that Israel has since rejected, given the terrorist group’s outright refusal to disarm.

The Lebanese Army still presented the disarmament plan, which won cabinet approval in early September despite Shiite ministers walking out in protest—but it still sidesteps the core problem: Disarmament cannot be bargained with a terrorist organization that’s already embedded in the political and military state. 

In fact, the same Shiite cabinet members who walked out during the discussion were members of Hezbollah’s Loyalty to the Resistance Bloc party, the allied Shiite Amal party, and one independent Shiite minister. Simultaneously a foreign terrorist organization and a political party, Hezbollah is a “state within a state,” with deep-seated influence in the Lebanese government that has blocked legislative business and influenced elections. 

Two possible outcomes could have resulted from the deal: Aoun could attempt to disarm Hezbollah and risk another civil war, or the government could stall and prompt Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to intervene militarily. 

Given Israel’s strike in Qatar against Hamas leadership earlier this week, the latter was more probable. Any hope for the former was lost last week when Ortagus visited Lebanon alongside U.S. Army commanders, indicating clearly that the U.S. is lending strategic expertise to help the Lebanese Army execute the plan. Israel has already begun its campaign against Hezbollah sites in northeast Lebanon. Additionally, Israel recently refocused its military personnel and hardware to their two-pronged effort in Gaza and Lebanon, backed by American shipments of military aid as well.

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SpaceX Starlink satellite photobombs orbital view of secret Chinese air base

One of SpaceX’s broadband-beaming Starlink satellites has been captured overflying a top-secret airbase in China that was photographed by a private American Earth-observation satellite.

The unexpected satellite alignment above Dingxin Airbase in the Gobi Desert of western China took place on Aug. 21 and created a range of unusual effects in the high-resolution image. Dingxin Airbase, which provided a backdrop for the orbital encounter, is one of the most secretive military locations in China, known for conducting complex fighter jet drills and bomber exercises, and supporting development of new military drones.

The visible-light photo, taken by one of Maxar Technologies’ WorldView Legion satellites orbiting at an altitude of 312 miles (518 kilometers), shows what appears to be a fleet of fighter jets resting on the ramp adjacent to the runway surrounded by brown, arid soil. In the upper-left corner of the image, a ghostly oblong shadow appears in the picture with a silver-colored middle section and two darker-colored arms stretching to the sides.

The photobomber is a satellite — specifically, one of SpaceX‘s Starlink internet satellites, which Maxar identified as spacecraft number 33828. The mirror effect comes from a trio of rainbow-colored reflections of the satellite, which enliven the drab desert surface below.

Susanne Hake, Maxar’s general manager for U.S. government, who posted the image on LinkedIn, described the colorful reflections as a “pan-sharpening spectral artifact,” caused by the extremely high speeds — around 5 miles (8 kilometers) per second — at which the two satellites passed each other.

“Essentially, our imaging system was merging high-resolution black & white data with color data while the Starlink zipped past at orbital velocity,” Hake wrote in the post. “Physics turned a technical imaging challenge into accidental art.”

Hake added that, although the orbital encounter underscores how crowded near-Earth space has become, the incident was more of a spectacular rarity than a concern for safety or image quality.

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The Roots Of Trump’s Continued Wars On Terror Trace Back To 9/11

The U.S. military recently launched a plainly illegal strike on a small civilian Venezuelan boat that President Trump claims was a successful hit on “narcoterrorists.” Vice President JD Vance responded to allegations that the strike was a war crime by saying, “I don’t give a shit what you call it,” insisting this was the “highest and best use of the military.”

This is only the latest troubling development in the Trump administration’s attempt to repurpose “War on Terror” mechanisms to use the military against cartels and to expedite his much vaunted mass deportation campaign, which he says is necessary because of an “invasion” at the border.

Unfortunately, more than two decades of widely-accepted, bipartisan laws and norms first laid the groundwork for this to occur.

After 9/11, the Bush administration created the Specially Designated Global Terrorists list, and Congress expanded the pre-existing Foreign Terrorist Organization list. These lists allow the executive branch, at its sole discretion, to add and remove individuals and groups to standing lists of “terrorists,” a term that is defined broadly.

The Trump administration has exercised this authority to formally designate transnational cartels as “terrorists” due in part to their role in the flow of people and drugs across the southern border into the United States. They have leveraged this designation to justify a range of actions, including deploying troops to Los Angeles and deporting immigrants to a brutal Salvadorean prison without due process.

Another post-9/11 legal invention that paved the way to what the Trump administration is doing today was the USA PATRIOT Act’s updates to immigration law that allowed deportation of not just those involved in actual violent acts of terrorism, but also those loosely associated with designated “terrorist groups,” even if those associations were peaceful and law-abiding or involuntary and a result of duress. People who have previously been excluded from the United States by these provisions include Iraqi interpreters for U.S. troops, victims of forced labor by violent armed groups in El Salvador, and even Nelson Mandela. These provisions mean that not just alleged members of cartels, but also cartel victims could be denied entry into the United States or deported if already here.

These same post-9/11 immigration law amendments also allow for revoking or denying immigration benefits to foreign nationals who “endorse or espouse” “terrorist activity,” defined broadly. The Trump administration has already revoked the visas of several immigrant students and scholars solely for their nonviolent activities criticizing the U.S.-Israel genocide in Gaza, as part of what they call a “zero-tolerance” policy for terrorism. The administration has primarily leaned on an older and more obscure provision of immigration law to carry out these attacks on immigrants’ free speech rights. But if current efforts are blocked by courts, or they wish to go further, post-9/11 immigration law may give them the tools to justify doing so.

The original decision to treat the 9/11 attacks not as crime but as warfare, and to launch a literal “war on terror” in response, remains the primary post-9/11 legal innovation on which so many abuses are made possible. Under this global war paradigm, the Obama administration carried out ruthless drone killings, including one that targeted a U.S. citizen, and justified the strikes with a mish-mash of legal standards that applied rules of war outside of actual war zones, and expansively interpreted what constitutes an “imminent threat” and resulting “self-defense” powers.

Every post-9/11 president has claimed wide authority to use military force so long as it serves a vague “national interest.” We can see echoes of this in the Trump administration’s insistence that the small Venezuelan boat blown up by the U.S. military posed an “immediate threat to the United States,” that the strike complied with the laws of war, and was “in defense of vital U.S. national interests.”

Commentators are entirely correct to denounce these assertions of legal authority. But policymakers have spent more than two decades accepting a war paradigm against whomever presidents determine to be “terrorist,” making it politically and legally all the more difficult to push back against what the Trump administration is doing now.

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UN to Vote on Fantasy of ‘Democratic’ Palestinian State, as War Continues

The United Nations General Assembly is set to vote Friday on a controversial proposal to declare a Palestinian state that is “independent, sovereign and democratic,” even as Hamas continues to wage war.

The so-called “New York Declaration” would recognize a Palestinian state, even though Palestinians have made no commitment to democracy, have refused to negotiate key issues with Israel, and still hold hostages in flagrant violation of international law.

The text of the declaration reads like a wish list: a democratic state, elections within a year, and the release of hostages — as if Hamas would agree to these terms.

The declaration also asserts that the Palestinian state would include the West Bank and Gaza — bypassing negotiations with Israel — and leaves the key issues of Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees unresolved.

The text also equates the Hamas terror attack of October 7, 2023, with supposed “attacks by Israel against civilians in Gaza.” Israel does not target civilians; Hamas deliberately places military infrastructure in schools and hospitals to maximize civilian casualties, as well as to maximize international criticism of Israel.

Several western states — including the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia — have committed to joining the New York Declaration.

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By bombing Doha, Israel once again undermined America’s credibility and standing

President Donald Trump told reporters outside a Washington restaurant this evening that he is deeply displeased with Israel’s bombardment of Qatar, a close U.S. partner in the Persian Gulf that, at Washington’s request, has hosted Hamas’s political leadership since 2012.

“I am not thrilled about it. I am not thrilled about the whole situation,” Trump said, denying that Israel had given him advance notice. “I was very unhappy about it, very unhappy about every aspect of it,” he continued. “We’ve got to get the hostages back. But I was very unhappy with the way that went down.”

Trump may indeed be upset, but the Israeli Prime Minister is casting him in the same light as Biden: issuing indignant statements over Israeli actions that blatantly undermine U.S. interests, actions that almost certainly could not have occurred without Washington’s tacit consent, while offering no hint that Israel will face consequences for allegedly defying the United States.

To make matters worse, Qatar’s foreign minister revealed that Washington’s so-called warning came not before the Israeli strike, but only after Doha was already under fire.

“The attack happened at 3:46,” Sheikh Mohammed bin Jassim Al Thani said. “The first call we had from an American official was at 3:56 — which is 10 minutes after the attack.”

Whether Washington knew of Israel’s war plans, colluded in them, or whether Trump is truthful in claiming ignorance, the outcome is the same: Israel has dealt a severe blow to American credibility.

What value does an American security umbrella—or even the hosting of a U.S. base—hold if the United States either conspires in an attack against you, or proves unwilling or unable to prevent one?

That is the question now confronting every U.S. partner in the Persian Gulf, all of whom have staked their survival on American protection. Given how Washington has stripped away every meaningful constraint on Israel since October 7, 2023, their leaders should have known this day was inevitable.

Personally, I do not believe the United States should extend security guarantees—implicit or explicit—to any state in the Middle East. The region is no longer vital to U.S. interests, and America is already dangerously overextended. Existing commitments should be reassessed and, where necessary, rolled back. But this must be done deliberately and on Washington’s terms—not sabotaged by Israel—because the point of the exercise goal is to strengthen the credibility of America’s essential commitments, not to erode U.S. credibility across the board.

Adding insult to injury, Israel has undercut not only the credibility of America’s security guarantees but also its diplomatic standing. This marks the second time this year that Israel has exploited the cover of U.S.-led diplomacy to launch unlawful military action—the first being its strike on Iran in the midst of nuclear talks in June.

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Two Incendiary Bombs Dropped on Gaza Flotilla Ships in Past Two Days

For the past two nights around 11:30pm Tunisia time, Israeli forces have dropped incendiary bombs from quadcopter drones on boats of the Global Sumud Flotilla in the waters near Tunis, Tunisia. On the night of September 8, 2025, the first incendiary bomb hit the deck of the lead ship of the flotilla, the “Familia,” causing a fire.

A crew member onboard “Familia” told me that he saw the quadcopter hovering about 20 feet above the ship and then going higher and moving to the bow of the ship. The quadcopter then dropped the incendiary device.

The second incendiary bomb dropped from a quadcopter drone hit the “Alma” ship in the night of September 9, 2025 and again caused a fire to break out.

The Global Sumud Flotilla will not Stop the Mission

The Global Sumud Flotilla issued a statement that the flotilla will not be deterred by the incendiary bombs:

“The Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF) confirms that on September 9, another boat in our fleet – the “Alma” – was attacked by a drone as it was docked in Tunisian waters. The boat, sailing under the British flag, sustained fire damage on its top deck. The fire has since been extinguished, and all passengers and crew are safe. An investigation is currently underway and when more information is available it will be released immediately. This marks the second such attack in two days.

These repeat attacks come during intensified Israeli aggression on Palestinians in Gaza, and are an orchestrated attempt to distract and derail our mission. The Global Sumud Flotilla continues undeterred. Our peaceful voyage to break Israel’s illegal siege on Gaza and stand in unwavering solidarity with its people presses forward with determination and resolve.”

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Russia Denies That It Launched Drones Into Poland

Poland said on Wednesday that NATO fighter jets shot down multiple Russian drones that entered its airspace, while Moscow is denying that its forces launched drones into the NATO country.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said that a total of 19 drones entered Poland’s airspace and that a large number of them came from Belarus, which also said it destroyed drones over its territory and suggested they were off course due to electronic jamming during an exchange of strikes between Russia and Ukraine.

In response, Tusk invoked NATO’s Article 4, which states that NATO members will “consult together whenever, in the opinion of any of them, the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the parties is threatened.”

According to CNN, Polish and Dutch jets intercepted the drones with assistance from Italian, German, and NATO’s multinational forces. Drones have previously entered Poland’s airspace, but Warsaw said this was the first time shots were fired by NATO jets to intercept them.

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Trump Calls His Drone Strike on an Alleged Drug Boat ‘Self-Defense.’ It Looks More Like Murder.

Last week, President Donald Trump ordered a drone strike that sank a speedboat in the Caribbean Sea, killing all 11 people on board. Trump described the targets as members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua who were “at sea in International waters transporting illegal narcotics, heading to the United States.” Although the men could have been intercepted and arrested, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters, the president decided their summary execution was appropriate as a deterrent to drug trafficking.

On Wednesday, The New York Times, citing unnamed “American officials familiar with the matter,” reported that the boat “appeared to have turned around before the attack started because the people onboard had apparently spotted a military aircraft stalking it.” That detail further complicates the already dubious legal and moral rationales for this unprecedented use of the U.S. military to kill criminal suspects.

The attack “crossed a fundamental line the Department of Defense has been resolutely committed to upholding for many decades—namely, that (except in rare and extreme circumstances not present here) the military must not use lethal force against civilians, even if they are alleged, or even known, to be violating the law,” Georgetown law professor Marty Lederman notes in a Just Security essay. Lederman adds that the September 2 drone strike “appears to have violated” the executive order prohibiting assassination and arguably qualifies as murder under federal law and the Uniform Code of Criminal Justice.

New York University law professor Ryan Goodman, a former Defense Department lawyer, agrees. “It’s difficult to imagine how any lawyers inside the Pentagon could have arrived at a conclusion that this was legal,” he told the Times last week, “rather than the very definition of murder under international law rules that the Defense Department has long accepted.”

As Trump told it, the attack was justified because Tren de Aragua is “a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, operating under the control of [Venezuelan President] Nicolas Maduro, responsible for mass murder, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, and acts of violence and terror across the United States and Western Hemisphere.” He said the strike was meant to “serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America.”

Drug cartels have “wrought devastating consequences on American communities for decades, causing the deaths of tens of thousands of United States citizens each year and threatening our national security and foreign policy interests both at home and abroad,” Trump said in a September 4 letter to Congress. “We have now reached a critical point where we must meet this threat to our citizens and our most vital national interests with United States military force in self-defense.”

U.S. forces therefore “struck a vessel” that “was assessed to be affiliated with a designated terrorist organization and to be engaged in illicit drug trafficking activities,” Trump explained. “I directed these actions consistent with my responsibility to protect Americans and United States interests abroad and in furtherance of United States national security and foreign policy interests, pursuant to my constitutional authority as Commander in Chief and Chief Executive to conduct United States foreign relations.”

Trump says the men whose deaths he ordered were “assessed” to be affiliated with Tren de Aragua. They also were “assessed” to be engaged in drug trafficking. Without knowing the basis for those assessments, we cannot say how accurate they were. Last week, Trump joked about the potential for deadly errors: “I think anybody that saw that is going to say, ‘I’ll take a pass.’ I don’t even know about fishermen. They may say, ‘I’m not getting on the boat. I’m not going to take a chance.'” Conveniently for Trump, summary execution avoids any need to present evidence, let alone meet the requirements of due process.

“Killing cartel members who poison our fellow citizens is the highest and best use of our military,” Vice President J.D. Vance declared in an X post on Saturday. When a commenter observed that “killing the citizens of another nation who are civilians without any due process is called a war crime,” Vance replied, “I don’t give a shit what you call it.”

That was too much for Sen. Rand Paul (R–Ky.). “Did he ever read To Kill a Mockingbird?” Paul wondered. “Did he ever wonder what might happen if the accused were immediately executed without trial or representation? What a despicable and thoughtless sentiment it is to glorify killing someone without a trial.”

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Qatar Says It Reserves Right To Retaliate Against ‘Barbaric’ Netanyahu

Qatar has threatened retaliation after Israel’s strike on Doha Tuesday which killed five top Hamas officials. Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani in a fresh speech condemned the attack as “state terrorism” on the Gulf country’s capital and warned that payback is coming.

He said Qatar reserves the right to retaliate, saying, “We’ve reached a decisive moment; There should be retaliation from the whole region.”

Referencing Israel’s Netanyahu at one point in the address, Thani said that “barbaric actions that only reflects one thing: It reflects the barbarism of this person that is leading the region, unfortunately, to a point where we cannot address any situation and we cannot repair anything, and we cannot work within the frameworks of international laws.”

The Qatari leader continued of the Israeli prime minister, “He just violates all those international laws” – he said through the translator from the Arabic.

But for all the tough talk, the reality remains that Qatar has long been host to major US military and naval bases, especially Al-Udeid Air Base – the largest US installation in the Middle East, and is the operational regional HQ for US Central Command (CENTCOM).

And so it would not take drastic action against a close US military ally such as Israel, also given Qatar’s military capabilities are miniscule compared to Israel’s. The small oil and gas rich GCC nation also does significant lobbying on Capitol Hill.

Reflecting this reality, Thani quickly switched to a more restrained tone in his reaction speech at one point: “Mediation and Qatari diplomacy is part of its identity, and it will continue, and nothing will deter us from persisting in this role across the various issues around us in the region, in order to achieve the stability of the region and ultimately the stability of our peoples,” he said.

So we should expect that absolutely nothing will happen, at least on the military front, but a direct aerial attack on a Gulf state does put the prospect of expansion of the Abraham Accords at a greater distance.

Trump says he assured the Qataris that such an attack “will not happen again on their soil”.

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Poland Triggers Article 4 After NATO Jets Engaged Russian Drones In Allied Airspace

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said his country would formally request the invocation of NATO’s Article 4 after an overnight Russian aerial attack on Ukraine saw the alleged violation of Poland’s airspace by multiple Russian drones. He called it an “act of aggression”.

Tusk cited that 19 drones breached the country’s airspace throughout the incident, resulting in some of them being shot down. NATO’s Article 4 states: “The Parties will consult together whenever, in the opinion of any of them, the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the Parties is threatened.”

Article 4 consultations can lead to the alliance taking action if the consensus is reached. Notes from Poland says “It has previously been invoked seven times, including by Poland and seven other countries when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.”

“Triggering Article 4 launches a consultation process within NATO, which can then lead to the alliance taking action. In 2022, it resulted in NATO providing support to Ukraine and activating its own response force,” the analysis continues.

A Spokesperson for the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe has described of the overnight border breach of NATO’s ‘eastern flank’ member Poland that this was “the first time NATO aircraft had engaged potential threats in allied airspace.”

He further confirmed that German Patriots in Poland were “placed on alert and that an Italian airborne early warning aircraft and an aerial refueler from NATO’s Multinational Multi-Role Tanker Transport (MRTT) fleet were also launched,” as cited in Newsweek.

As for Tusk, he said in his address, “We are dealing with a large-scale provocation” and that “the situation is serious, and no one doubts that we must prepare for various scenarios.”

However, this certainly isn’t the first time errant drones have crossed into Poland, but in this instance they were reported to have ‘threatened’ a Polish city some 40 miles away from the border with Ukraine. The NY Times notes:

But the apparent scale of the incursion and the joint NATO response in the early hours of Wednesday was a startling reminder of the risk that the war in Ukraine could escalate into direct confrontation between Russia and NATO. It was not yet clear whether Russia intentionally sent its drones into Poland, which would represent a clear expansion of the conflict.

Kiev has been trying to hype this threat, and it is in its interest to do so, as it has long sought to get NATO more directly involved in the war with Russia.

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