Tag: perpetual war

Europe Turns on Turkey as the War Cycle Expands

I have warned that once geopolitical tensions ignite, they do not remain contained, and what we are now witnessing is the steady expansion of conflict lines as Turkey is being recast from a strategic NATO partner into a geopolitical threat by the very alliance it once helped anchor.

The European Union has now openly shifted its tone, with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen effectively grouping Turkey alongside Russia and China, stating that Europe must ensure it is not influenced by “Russia, Turkey or China,” which is an extraordinary statement when directed at a NATO member and signals a clear break in strategic trust, especially when such language aligns closely with broader geopolitical narratives emerging from the Middle East.

Not so coincidentally, tensions are escalating rapidly between Turkey and Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly warned that Israel faces a widening circle of adversaries and must prepare for emerging threats across the region. Turkish officials have responded by accusing Israel of deliberately seeking its “next enemy,” with Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan stating that Israel “cannot live without an enemy.” Bibi has remained in control by posturing Israel as on the defensive against external enemies, yet he has become the aggressor. It is Netanyahu, not Israel, who could not survive without an enemy to ward off.

When you step back and examine Turkey under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, this is a nation that has never accepted a subordinate role within Europe. Turkey has long viewed itself as a regional power with deep historical roots tied to the Ottoman Empire, and Erdoğan has made that posture explicit by declaring that no one can “threaten or bully Turkey,” reinforcing Ankara’s willingness to confront both Europe and its traditional allies when it perceives its sovereignty to be at risk.

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The Pope Is Right – The US-Israeli War With Iran Violates Just-War Theory

On April 10th, Pope Leo XIV posted on Twitter/X, “God does not bless any conflict. Anyone who is a disciple of Christ, the Prince of Peace, is never on the side of those who once wielded the sword and today drop bombs. Military action will not create space for freedom or times of #Peace, which comes only from the patient promotion of coexistence and dialogue among peoples.”

The Pope’s condemnation of war drew the ire of the self-proclaimed “Peace President” and his allies. On TruthSocial, President Trump described the Pope as “Weak on Crime, Weak on Nuclear Weapons” and “terrible for Foreign Policy.” At a Turning Point USA event, Vice President J.D. Vance remarked, “When the pope says that God is never on the side of people who wield the sword, there is more than a 1,000-year tradition of just war theory.” Speaker of the House Mike Johnson was likewise “taken a little bit aback.” He told reporters, “It’s a very well-settled matter of Christian theology. There’s something called the just war doctrine.”

Yet just war is precisely the Pope’s point. As Bishop James Massa, the chairman of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Doctrine, said in a statement:

“For over a thousand years, the Catholic Church has taught just war theory and it is that long tradition the Holy Father carefully references in his comments on war. A constant tenet of that thousand-year tradition is a nation can only legitimately take up the sword ‘in self-defense, once all peace efforts have failed’ (Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2308). That is, to be a just war it must be a defense against another who actively wages war, which is what the Holy Father actually said: ‘He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war.’

Ultimately, this appeal to Just War Theory by Vance and Johnson is a desperate retort from a historically sinful administration. To date, Trump has authorized military strikes in 10 countries: Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia, Libya, Syria, Venezuela, Nigeria, and Iran. Currently, the Pentagon is reportedly preparing for military action against Cuba – a nation that Trump has repeatedly threatened to “take.” This invasion would come months after the Trump administration imposed a total oil blockade that is causing widespread suffering and starvation there. No interpretation of Just War Theory would ever justify such rampant and senseless violence.

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Who Is General Dan Caine? The Man Who Allegedly Said ‘No’ to Trump’s Nuclear Codes During the Iran Crisis

Now, General Dan Caine — America’s highest-ranking military officer — is at the centre of one of the most explosive and widely-circulated claims of the US-Iran conflict: that he stood up in a White House meeting and told President Donald Trump ‘no’ when the president allegedly moved to invoke nuclear codes.

The allegation, which originated from retired CIA analyst Larry C Johnson on the ‘Judging Freedom‘ podcast on 20 April, has not been confirmed by any official source. A White House spokesperson told Newsweek the claim was false. Yet it has already accumulated nearly two million views on X — and placed Caine squarely in the public eye in a way his relatively quiet rise to the top of the US military never had.

A Fighter Pilot Nobody Saw Coming

John Daniel ‘Raizin‘ Caine was born on 10 August 1968 in Elmira, New York. His father, Steve Caine, is a retired United States Air Force fighter pilot. He followed that path, earning a bachelor’s degree in economics from Virginia Military Institute in 1990 before completing the Euro-NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training Programme and going on to fly F-16s.

A command pilot with more than 2,800 flight hours in the F-16, including over 150 combat hours, his career spans combat aviation, special operations, and senior interagency leadership across the Department of Defense, the White House, and the Intelligence Community. His last government post before becoming Chairman was as Associate Director for Military Affairs at the Central Intelligence Agency, a role he held from 2021 until his retirement in December 2024.

Trump’s Pick Over the Pentagon’s Own

Caine was not well known before his nomination in February 2025. Several officials on Capitol Hill and the Pentagon, granted anonymity as they were not authorised to speak publicly on the matter, said at the time that they had to Google his name.

He is the first chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who never served at the rank of four-star general or admiral before being nominated, the first to be nominated while in retirement, and the first to have been nominated as a member of a reserve component. Despite the unusual path, Trump backed him publicly. ‘He only knows one thing, how to WIN,’ Trump wrote of Caine in February.

Caine was confirmed on 11 April in a 60-25 vote and was promoted to a four-star general prior to the vote. He was sworn in just days before the Iran ceasefire deadline came into force.

The Claim That Went Viral

It was against this backdrop that Johnson made his allegation on the ‘Judging Freedom’ podcast. Johnson claimed that an emergency White House meeting took place on Saturday night amid escalating tensions with Iran, during which Trump allegedly moved to invoke nuclear codes, and Caine refused, with Johnson describing the exchange as ‘apparently quite a blowup.’

Johnson cited no named sources. Lead Stories searched Google News and Yahoo News for matching reports and found none, concluding that had such a confrontation actually happened and been verified by insiders, major outlets would have covered it heavily. North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis said, ‘I’d have to see a couple of source confirmations before I even dignify that question with an answer. I just can’t imagine that that was ever a serious consideration.’

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“An Occupied Nation”: Whistleblower Says Palantir Has Taken Over The US Government

A former Palantir executive recently confirmed what many have long suspected. In a public statement, the whistleblower said it plainly: Palantir intended to take over the US government, and many of his former colleagues are now installed inside the federal apparatus. He called it an occupied nation. He is not alone. Thirteen former Palantir employees—engineers, managers, and a member of the company’s own privacy team—signed a letter shared with NPR warning that guardrails meant to prevent discrimination, disinformation, and abuse of power have been violated and are being rapidly dismantled.

What Palantir represents is something unprecedented: the convergence of American imperialism, Zionism, technofascism, and surveillance capitalism into a single instrument of control. Understanding how we got here requires looking at the machine Palantir has built, who built it, and what they believe.

Palantir was founded in 2004 by Peter Thiel and Alex Karp. Its first major investor was In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture capital arm, which seeded the company with millions and opened the door to every major intelligence and defense agency. The logic was deliberate: The American ruling class recognized decades ago that the state’s coercive power—surveillance, targeting, data harvesting—could be run more effectively and more profitably through private contractors. When a government agency surveils its own citizens, there are hearings, FOIA requests, oversight committees. When a private company does it, it is a trade secret.

That strategy has paid off enormously. Palantir now holds contracts worth over $10 billion with the US Army alone. The Trump regime tapped Palantir to build a master database on American citizens. The Pentagon expanded its Maven Smart System contract by $795 million to deploy AI-powered battlefield intelligence across the empire. In June, the military swore in four tech executives as Army Reserve lieutenant colonels—including Palantir’s CTO—in a program that embeds Silicon Valley directly into military planning. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) signed a $30 million contract for Palantir’s ImmigrationOS platform, which provides near real-time tracking of people targeted for deportation. Thousands of American police departments use Palantir’s Gotham platform for domestic surveillance.

Abroad, the consequences are even more devastating. Palantir’s AI platforms have been deployed by Israel’s military to systematically prosecute the assault on Gaza. AI targeting systems built on Palantir’s architecture—known by names like Lavender, The Gospel, and Where’s Daddy—have enabled the kind of automated killing that produces mass civilian casualties at scale. Palantir’s own executives have been recorded discussing how bombing densely populated areas generates the movement data their algorithms need to train on. When people flee, make phone calls, search for loved ones, rush to hospitals that no longer exist—that movement becomes fuel for the machine. Palantir’s platforms were deployed in the illegal capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Israel’s terrorist pager attack against Lebanon, and the US carpet bombing of Iran at the behest of Israel—the same campaign that destroyed a girls’ elementary school in Minab.

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PIMCO Privately Lends Over $10 Billion To Dollar-Strapped Gulf States

Just days after the UAE hinted at a growing dollar shortage in the Gulf nation by requesting swap lines with the Fed, Bloomberg reports that as Iran’s struggling neighbors scramble to build cash buffers to deal with any potential economic fallout from the Iran war, one large buyer has stepped in: the world’s largest bond manager, Pacific Investment Management Co.

Since the start of the Iran war, Pimco has lent more than $10 billion to state-backed and government borrowers in the Gulf via so-called private placements. The $2.27 trillion asset manager has been a significant buyer of privately placed bonds issued by the governments of Abu Dhabi, Qatar and Kuwait, as well as by Qatar National Bank. Pimco also participated alongside other investors in several placements that boosted the size of existing Abu Dhabi bonds by a combined $2.5 billion. 

In total, regional borrowers raised $13.8 billion from Feb. 28 to April 23, in privately placed bonds denominated in hard currency, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, with Pimco accounting for a majority of that lending.

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Has Iran Learned the North Korea Lesson: Nukes Are Essential To Deter the US?

Arms control advocates contend that by attacking Iran in the name of preventing the emergence of a “rogue” nuclear state, the United States may have “taken a sledgehammer” to the entire nuclear nonproliferation regime.  Iran could be one of the first technologically capable powers to confirm that fear.  The clerical regime has indicated that the country may withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.  Such a move would eliminate any official monitoring of Tehran’s nuclear research and nuclear fuel enrichment.  North Korea took a similar step in 2003, and the move clearly facilitated the growth of Pyongyang’s embryonic nuclear-weapons program.

Foreign policy experts and members of the news media also note that Washington’s responses to the nuclear threat that North Korea, on the one hand, and Iran, on the other, allegedly pose to regional and world peace are diverging more sharply than ever before. The United States and its Israeli ally are now waging a major air war against Iran – supposedly to prevent that country from weaponizing its nuclear program.  Their stance toward North Korea is far more subdued.  Although U.S. leaders continue to officially demand that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) commit to adopting a non-nuclear status and relinquish the weapons that it has already built, that demand is widely regarded throughout the international system as ineffectual posturing.  Even more significant, neither the United States nor an ally is taking any military action against the DPRK.

The contrast between Washington’s caution in dealing with a nuclear-armed North Korea and the flagrant U.S. coercion of Iran, which possesses no such weapons, could hardly be more striking. It has not gone unnoticed.  Pyongyang’s successful defiance of the United States regarding the nuclear issue could well produce an important lesson for Iran’s leaders.  Pyongyang has covertly built a small arsenal of approximately 50 nuclear warheads and an increasingly sophisticated fleet of ballistic missiles to deliver them.  U.S. and other leaders now treat North Korea with caution and restraint, however grudgingly.  Conversely, an Iran without nuclear weapons is being pounded severely.  Iranian leaders would be obtuse not to at least try to acquire (through construction or purchase) a modest deterrent similar to North Korea’s.

Until President Donald Trump’s first administration, Washington sought to prevent through diplomacy either Pyongyang or Tehran from pursuing a nuclear weapons program.  That approach apparently achieved some success with respect to Iran in 2015 when the clerical regime signed a multilateral agreement, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which placed restrictions on its nuclear program to ensure that it remained peaceful.  The document also contained provisions for frequent and intrusive UN inspections.  Trump, however, rescinded U.S. approval of that agreement in May 2018, dismissing it as “a bad deal.”  Thereafter, Israeli officials and their American supporters have repeatedly warned that Tehran was just months or perhaps even weeks away from building a nuclear arsenal.  There has never been compelling evidence supporting those allegations, but such warnings had become ever-present during the months leading up to the current war.

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The Dollar Lifeline in War – Currency Swaps

I have said for years that people misunderstand the global monetary system. It is not driven by trade balances. It is driven by capital flows and access to dollar liquidity. The discussion of a currency swap between the United States and the United Arab Emirates shows how the system actually works under stress.

The United States is now considering a currency swap with the UAE as tensions around Iran rise. This is not about trade policy. It is about liquidity. When uncertainty increases, capital begins to move. Countries need dollars to stabilize their financial systems and maintain confidence.

Currency swaps are often presented as technical tools. In reality, they are lifelines. They allow a foreign central bank to access U.S. dollars directly. This bypasses stressed markets and helps prevent a liquidity crisis that could trigger capital flight.

This is exactly what happens during geopolitical conflict. The Iran situation has raised concerns about the Strait of Hormuz. That region is critical for global energy flows. When energy is threatened, markets react immediately. Currency volatility rises and capital seeks safety.

The UAE is a strong economy, but it is still exposed. Its currency is pegged to the U.S. dollar, meaning it must maintain sufficient dollar reserves to function properly. When global stress increases, even strong economies seek direct dollar access. That is why a swap line becomes important.

There is also a geopolitical layer. Currency swaps are tools of influence. When the United States provides dollar liquidity, it reinforces alignment. If access is restricted, countries look for alternatives. That can include increasing use of other currencies like the Chinese yuan. The UAE has stated it would consider using the yuan if the U.S. denies them the opportunity to swap, but the issue has become polarizing.

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Genocide Doesn’t Happen Without Language to Incite It

How is information made legitimate, and when is it appropriate for journalists to introduce skepticism? What happens when only one side of a conflict is given the legitimate voice, always repeated and rarely questioned, even when those sources have proven many times to have promulgated lies?

Military studies scholars and analysts understand that there is always a long genesis of historical, political and economic factors that can eventually erupt into conflict. In many ways, US establishment media seemed unwilling or unable (but likely both) to narrate a more complex, historically accurate account of the war on Gaza.

The Intercept (4/15/24) reported that editorial directives at the New York Times and CNN, two of the most important news sources in the US, advised reporters to avoid certain “taboo” words, such as “genocide” and “massacre.” Yet between October 7 and November 24, 2023, the Times used the word “massacre” 53 times—referring to Israelis killed by Palestinians, but only once to refer to a Palestinian killed by Israel (Intercept, 1/9/24).

From November onward, as deaths in Gaza piled up, the Times habitually avoided using emotionally fraught terms for Palestinians. Another term, “ethnic cleansing,” was also barred from use, along with “refugee camps” and “occupied territories.”

As the Times source who leaked the directives said, “You are basically taking the occupation out of the coverage, which is the actual core of the conflict.”

US news outlets were crippled by these verbal restrictions, incapable of offering an accurate explanation of what was happening in Gaza by imposing such constraints on humanitarian language, and international principles and laws.

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Cells of Chinese nationals illegally in US use gift card fraud to fund CCP: ICE director

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director Todd Lyons revealed on Thursday that transnational gangs within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have been defrauding the United States via a massive gift card scheme aimed at enriching the Chinese military. The matter was revealed following a Homeland Security Investigation (HSI).

Testifying before Congress, Lyons explained that the US is funding its own adversaries through gift card fraud committed by Chinese illegal aliens who unlawfully entered the United States under the Biden administration. He told lawmakers that the CCP has deployed its transnational criminal organizations to “wreak havoc” on the US.

“HSI actually broke the largest gift card fraud case ever, and it was from transnational gangs within the CCP that were sending that money back to military units in China. And that all came from gift card fraud here in the United States,” the ICE director said.

Lyons contended that “it was military-aged Chinese males who entered under the last administration…that were able to [send the gift cards] back to the People’s Republic of China.”

HSI’s operation “Project Red Hook” revealed how Chinese organized crime groups exploit gift cards to launder money. According to HSI, “organized criminal elements in China acquire gift cards through multiple fraudulent means. For example, gift cards are obtained by hacking US companies and targeting US citizens through romance and elder fraud schemes. The criminal elements then send the gift card data to multiple cells of Chinese nationals operating in the United States through a Chinese-based messaging platform.”

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MoD splashes millions of your cash on luxuries – insulting taxpayer and failing on defence

Britain’s defence is becoming more exposed by the day. Global threats are rising, alliances are under strain, and the nature of warfare is evolving faster than ever. Yet instead of urgency, discipline and focus, but what we see from defence secretary and within the Ministry of Defence is complacency – and worse, a culture of indulgence. In recent days it was revealed that Ministry of Defence staff racked up £16.3 million on taxpayer-funded procurement cards in a single month.

These cards are meant for “low risk, low complexity” purchases – capped at £12,000. Yet dozens of transactions blew straight past that limit. One payment hit nearly £50,000. Another hotel bill came in at over £37,000. This is not an administrative oversight. It is a systemic failure and an insult to every taxpayer.

The details are staggering. Over £133,000 spent on restaurants and bars. Fourteen separate transactions at pubs and nightclubs. One evening alone costing nearly £4,000. Thousands more spent at a snooker hall, a cosmetics shop, even a florist.

And then there are the hotels. £1.4 million in a single month, spread across more than 700 transactions. The Ritz-Carlton. The Four Seasons. Hyatt. Hilton. Five-star luxury, all funded by the British taxpayer.

All of this within the month of March…

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