Tag: perpetual war

War, What Is It Good For?

I was almost six years old when the Korean War began and Korea was a mere 7,000 or so miles from Washington, D.C. I’m now 82 years old and my country is at war with Iran, whose capital, Tehran, is — phew! — only about 6,300 miles from Washington, D.C. What a relief!

By the time I’m 110, there’s a dim possibility that, should that be a pattern (and don’t forget Vietnam, a mere 9,000 miles from Washington; Afghanistan, a mere 7,000 miles away; or Iraq, a mere 6,000-odd miles offshore of the United States, all of which suggest that distance has indeed been a significant — and significantly unnerving — part of American imperial warmaking since 1945), the U.S. might be warring with a country merely 5,000-odd miles from our capital. And by the time I’m 126, the war of that moment might, for all I know, be right next door. (Of course, if Donald Trump, who would then be 124 years old, is still president, it might even be in Canada, “our cherished Fifty First State.”)

I should, in truth, be more used to my country’s distant wars by now. After all, I can still remember my opposition to the Vietnam War, a moment when I actually took to the streets and turned in my draft card in public protest — yes, back then, the military wasn’t an all-volunteer outfit — and also learned how to be a draft counselor to help potential draftees like me, who were against that all too literal war from hell.

Almost 60 years later, I find it strange that my country is once again fighting a distant war for reasons that, at best, make no sense whatsoever to me, and at worst are simply horrific and repetitive beyond belief. It’s a war that, as the New York Times reported, was essentially sold to the president by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as a “near-certain victory” against a weak Iranian regime that would prove incapable (no question about it!) of blockading the Strait of Hormuz, could do little harm to America’s allies in the Middle East, and “could foster the conditions for the Iranian opposition to overthrow the regime.”

Yes, it’s true that my country may indeed have been the most imperial — in the sense of influencing so much of the world — country in history with a truly global reach. Of course, there were also the other two great powers of the last half century. There was the Soviet Union — now, Vladimir Putin’s Russia, which, to give him credit of an unnerving sort, is at least fighting his nightmarish war against Ukraine right at or near its own border rather than in Asia, Africa, or Latin America. And then there is China, which has so far proven itself a remarkable imperial force by having but a single military base anywhere else on the planet — unlike the 750 American ones scattered around the globe — and not fighting a war anywhere other than not particularly successfully against Vietnam in 1979 and border skirmishes with India in 2020 and 2021 (which, historically speaking on this planet of ours, is almost the imperial equivalent of pacifism).

No such luck for the United States of Donald J. Trump, of course. “Our” latest president has continued a tradition now more than 75 years old of launching distant wars that simply never succeed. Never.

You would think, of course, that there might be some extremely modest learning curve when it came to such conflicts, but if so, you would think wrong. Logical as that might appear, it’s proven to be anything but the reality of our world. And after so many failed wars globally, that’s once again our reality in relation to Iran, despite the fact that “our” president in his first term in office offered this description of himself: “They said: ‘He will start a war.’ I’m not going to start a war. I’m going to stop wars.”

And curiously enough, with the exception of an ongoing conflict in Syria, he stuck to his… oh, sorry, but it is the phrase… guns then. No such luck recently, of course. And Iran is turning into a disaster first class, while the harm to that country is, as with all such wars (remember the millions killed in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia), or at least should be considered, unbearable. And mind you, while “our” president was turning our world into an ever greater mess at home and abroad, he was still planning to extend his renaming frenzy from the Gulf of Mexico (oh, sorry, the Gulf of America) and Lake Ontario (oh, sorry, again, Lake America) to the Strait of Hormuz, which he was hoping, believe it or not, could be renamed the “Trump Strait.” As he wrote at his Truth Social account, “Now that we have it under U.S.A. control, should we change the name Hormuz Strait to TRUMP STRAIT??? Like America itself, it would be ‘hotter’ than ever before! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP.”

Imagine that, will you — not that the Strait of Whatever You Want to Call It was, in fact, faintly under American control.

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Don’t Look Away

After spending millions of dollars redecorating the White House and transforming D.C. monuments, President Trump approved, on September 15, 2026, an additional 2.8 billion dollar sale of heavy bombs to Israel, including 40,000 one-ton bombs, 20,000 of the 2,000 lb. bombs, and 20,000 bunker-busting penetrator warheads. Israel has used these bombs to destroy homes, families and crucial infrastructure in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon.

This latest U.S. weapons package will replenish Israel’s stockpile of bombs that human rights groups have condemned after documenting their use over the past two and a half years to kill, maim, bereave, and forcibly displace Palestinians. Survivors whose homes have been reduced to rubble now live in makeshift shelters, including flimsy tents, while Israel continues to restrict deliveries of supplies that could protect Gazans from harsh weather, disease, rodent and insect infestations, and other hardships of displacement.

In June of 2026, the Norwegian Refugee Council estimated that 170,000 households in Gaza, equivalent to nearly one million people, were living in tents. “Another 5,000 households sleep outdoors,” they reported, “while 52,000 households live in overcrowded shelters.” As Gazans enter the rainy and cold months of winter, they still lack emergency shelter items. They need plastic sheeting, plywood, and rope. Genocidal war and siege drive the crisis they face as the Israelis continue destroying Gazan homes and shelters and imposing restrictions which block desperately needed relief.

Over the past two years, members of the Global Solidarity for Peace in Palestine coalition have held weekly online meetings with Palestinians living in the West Bank. They update our coordinating committee about their experiences amidst ongoing, U.S. provisioned Israeli genocide against Palestinians. They speak with anguish about people in the West Bank and Gaza enduring persecution, travel restrictions, hunger, inadequate medical care, land theft, contamination, and an alarming rise in pogrom-style attacks by illegal settlers who are often assisted by Israeli military and police forces.

Our Palestinian coalition members living in the West Bank long to extend a helping hand to people trapped in Gaza. They recently raised the dilemma of Gazan children who have already lost years of education. Many live in wretched tent encampments, lack adequate food and medicine, and struggle with psycho-social traumas because of having lost their loved ones.

A Palestinian NGO, PYALARA, (Palestinian Youth Association for Leadership and Rights) suggested that our coalition could assist with practical measures to assist Gazan children who are eager to learn but who lack basic school supplies. The children are bereft of paper, pencils, pens, books, desks, and bookbags.

Recently, for UN News, an interviewer spoke with Julia Dicon, the Director of Education for UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Association). Dicon described what education means for Palestine refugee children and why sustained support is critical. She expressed deep respect for the many ways that Palestinians maintain capacities to educate their children, even in these dire times.

The interviewer asked her to tell a story about Palestinian young people who represent courage in the face of unspeakable adversity as they continue efforts to learn and teach.

Dicon talked about two Gazan sisters, 17-year-old Tala Mousa and her 15-year-old sister, Farah Mousa, who were recently named winners of the 2026 Middle East Earth Prize. The young women regularly looked at rubble surrounding their home which Israel had bombed. Unlike President Trump who is undertaking expensive and unnecessary renovations, they longed to rebuild homes which Israelis decimated, using U.S. manufactured bombs.  Fala and Farah puzzled over how they and their neighbors could begin creating the indispensable equipment to reconstruct housing: bricks. Together, using their scientific knowledge, they developed a practical way to transform rubble into reusable blocks for garden beds, pavement, and partitions.

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Biden’s Counterterrorism Director During Disastrous Afghanistan Withdrawal Running for NY House Seat

A national security expert is calling on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez-endorsed Democrat congressional candidate Cait Conley to account for her record in the Biden administration when Iranian support for Hamas increased, terrorism intensified in the Middle East, and antisemitic incidents reached record levels in the United States.

Conley, the Democrat challenging Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) in New York’s 17th Congressional District, served as the Director for Counterterrorism at the National Security Council (NSC) from April 2021 to March 2023. Conley states that it was her job to “counter Middle East terrorism, and non-state actor threats.” She was also responsible for countering the “domestic and global use of emerging technologies.”

Her tenure at the NSC also coincided with the Biden administration’s August 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan. Fox News reported that the administration’s evacuation plan “has been faulted for failing to anticipate the swift collapse of Afghanistan’s government” and for “not ensuring adequate security precautions for U.S. service members and citizens against terror threats.”

The withdrawal culminated in a terrorist attack outside Kabul airport that killed 13 U.S. service members and more than 160 Afghans. Fox News also reported that Conley has not commented publicly on the withdrawal since launching her congressional campaign. That silence mirrors Biden’s own omission of the 13 fallen service members from his 2022 State of the Union address.

During Conley’s time at the NSC, Iranian financial support for Hamas increased.

Iran’s cash flows to Hamas spiked following the May 2021 conflict, which occurred during Conley’s tenure at the National Security Council. In early 2022, Hamas’s leader said Iran had provided the group with $70 million to develop missiles and defense systems, while Israeli sources said Iran increased its overall funding to Hamas from $100 million to $350 million per year in 2022.

Across the Middle East, there was also a “relatively steady increase in the number of incidents and fatalities” from October 2022 to October 2023, culminating with the October 7 attack which occurred shortly after Conley left her NSC post.

Antisemitic incidents in the United States also rose sharply while Conley was at the NSC.

The Anti-Defamation League recorded 3,697 antisemitic incidents in 2022, up 36 percent from 2,717 in 2021. At the time, it was the highest number recorded since the organization began tracking antisemitic incidents in 1979.

The number continued to rise in 2023 when the ADL recorded 8,873 incidents, a 140 percent increase from 2022.

Iran unveiled its Shahed-136 drone in December 2021 while Conley was serving at the NSC, where her responsibilities included countering the domestic and global use of emerging technologies.

The drone has since become a “fixture of modern warfare” and is “central to Iran’s retaliation strategy against the U.S. and its regional allies” including Israel. Despite the use of Patriot defense missiles against the drones, “many” of the Shahed drones “have still managed to hit their targets.”

The threat continued into March 2026, when Iran announced that their Shahed-136 drones destroyed a U.S. E-3 AWACS surveillance aircraft and damaged multiple refueling tankers, amounting to over $1.3 million in losses.

CNN military analyst and former U.S. Air Force Col. Cedric Leighton called the loss of the surveillance aircraft a “serious blow to [U.S.] surveillance capabilities.” A Center for a New American Security report described the AWACS as the “‘quarterback’ of the battlefield” and an “indispensable asset for U.S. military operations.”

Conley is also backed by J Street, which said following a House vote that there is “broad agreement” among Democrats that the United States should take a “fundamentally different American approach” to its relationship with Israel. J Street has expressed support for members who voted for an amendment that would cut off U.S. aid to Israel.

Rep. Pat Ryan (D-NY) and democratic socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) have endorsed Conley; both representatives had voted for the amendment to halt aid to Israel.

Conley has not said whether she would have joined Ryan and Ocasio-Cortez in voting for the measure.

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The Enemy the Alliance Needs

On the morning of August 6, near the coastal town of Furuvik, a Russian couple named Semyon Rusanov and Tatyana Milenina were declared a threat to the security of the Swedish state. They had lived in Spain for five years. They opposed the war in Ukraine. They had not set foot in Russia since 2022. They had a tent, fishing rods, and two tourist walkie-talkies, and they had camped within sight of the summer cottage used by the chief executive of an arms company. For this they were interrogated for seven hours, locked in a migration detention center, and ordered deported.

No espionage charge was filed. No charge of any kind was filed. Säpo, the Swedish security service, never took the case. The couple’s lawyer said they were never notified of any suspected crime. The evidence, entire, was that they spoke Russian, carried radios sold to hikers, and could not explain their choice of campsite to the satisfaction of a policeman. On that foundation the state moved against them.

An American reader might file this under European strangeness and move on. That would be a mistake. What happened at Furuvik is a small, clear demonstration of the machinery that Washington has spent three years installing across Europe – the machinery of the necessary enemy – and the wreckage at the center of the story lies at the bottom of the Baltic Sea, where it points not at Moscow, and not really at Stockholm, but at home.

The pipeline Washington promised to destroy

Begin with the pipeline, because everything else hangs from it.

On February 7, 2022 – seventeen days before Russian tanks crossed into Ukraine – President Joe Biden stood beside the German chancellor and made a promise about Nord Stream 2, the pipeline built to carry Russian gas to Germany. “If Russia invades,” Biden said, “there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.” A reporter asked how, given the project lay under German control. “I promise you,” the president answered, “we will be able to do it.”

Seven months later, someone did. On September 26, 2022, four explosions ruptured the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines beneath the Baltic. In February 2023, Seymour Hersh – the reporter who exposed the My Lai massacre and the CIA’s domestic spying — published an account, sourced to a person with direct knowledge of the planning, of how the United States did it: Navy divers from the Diving and Salvage Center in Panama City, Florida, planting remotely triggered charges under cover of the NATO exercise BALTOPS 22, detonated three months later by a sonar buoy dropped from a Norwegian aircraft. Hersh reported that the operation was routed through Navy divers precisely because, unlike Special Operations Command, they are not required to report to Congress – that when the national-security bureaucracy debated the plan, CIA director William Burns came back and said, “Do it.” The purpose, Hersh’s source told him, was to lock Europe into the war at a moment when allies were wavering: destroy the pipeline, and you destroy the temptation to make peace and buy Russian gas again.

The White House and Norway denied it. Hersh’s account rests on a single anonymous source and has not been independently confirmed. I set it beside you not as proven fact but as the account Washington has never had to answer under oath – because, as we will see, the one country positioned to force that answer chose instead to look away. And whatever one makes of Hersh’s source, the hard facts around it are not in dispute: the president publicly vowed to end the pipeline, the pipeline was destroyed, and the United States was, as even Russia’s critics conceded, the principal beneficiary of its destruction.

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Pentagon’s Iran war costs hit $38 billion in five months – budget office

The US war with Iran cost the Pentagon approximately $38 billion in its first five months, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). The bill could rise by another $2 billion to $3 billion for every additional month of fighting – and by more if hostilities intensify.

In a report released on Tuesday, the CBO estimated Defense Department expenses from the start of US combat operations on February 28 through August 1. The figure includes the estimated cost of replacing expended munitions and equipment lost in battle, as well as additional flying hours, military operations, and higher fuel costs.

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Netanyahu: I’ll introduce bill to revoke citizenship of those who slander IDF abroad

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that he will introduce two bills to punish those who slander IDF soldiers abroad.

The first bill will introduce the option of revoking their citizenship, and the second will increase the sum they can be sued for if found guilty, Netanyahu says in a video, explicitly referencing Democrats party chief Yair Golan, former military advocate-general Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi and the filmmakers behind the recent film “NAZA.”

“Their place isn’t here,” says Netanyahu, adding that he expects all Zionist parties to support the measures.

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The Compliance Layer: DEI, Readiness, And The Military’s Personnel Problem

The latest Pentagon outrage is aimed at the smallest part of the story. In late August 2026, The Washington Post reported that conservative military veterans with large online followings had received civilian roles the department would not clearly describe, near Anthony Tata’s Personnel and Readiness shop. The names included retired Col. Rob Maness, retired Col. Kurt Schlichter, and retired Col. Thomas Anderson, known online as “Cynical Publius.” They say the work involved reviewing senior service colleges — curriculum, interviews with commandants and faculty — not running a messaging shop.

The Pentagon still has not published the documents that would settle it.

Fine. Ask those questions. But do not pretend this is when politics first entered the building. The better question is whether the military had already been politicized before a few outside veterans received government email accounts.

The issue is not whether influencers now orbit the Pentagon; it is why influence only becomes scandalous when it challenges the last decade’s abysmal record, personnel doctrine, and culture-war assumptions.

The real power is not who gets a Pentagon email address. It is who writes the rules governing who may serve, what counts as fit, what officers are taught, what commanders may question, and who gets retained or removed.

They are not under fire for the policy argument. They are under fire for the name. The charge attaches to the name so no one has to answer the policy. It is still not the same as using government machinery to rewrite accessions, medical rules, fitness scoring, or careers.

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Pentagon reveals secret space weapons are already in orbit — but won’t say what they do

The U.S. has weapons orbiting Earth that can be used to defend American forces from attacks in space, the Air Force secretary revealed this week in a rare public acknowledgment of capabilities the Pentagon has largely kept secret.

Air Force Secretary Troy Meink said Monday that the Space Force now has “on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the joint force against hostile adversary action,” but declined to say what the weapons are, how they work or when they were deployed.

The carefully worded disclosure marks a shift in how openly the U.S. military talks about weapons in orbit as China and Russia develop their own capabilities to disrupt, disable or destroy satellites.

“Is there any question in the room, by anybody, about whether or not the Chinese or Russians have been developing these sorts of weapons?” Meink told reporters after his remarks at the Air & Space Forces Association’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference in National Harbor, Maryland — right outside of Washington, D.C.

“For over a decade, we’ve been talking about the fact, and we have expressed concern, that the Chinese and Russians were developing weapons for space,” he continued. “We need to focus on making sure we can protect ourselves operating in that environment.”

Exactly what the U.S. has put into orbit remains a mystery.

The U.S. has previously discussed placing weapons in space, including plans to deploy space-based interceptors capable of destroying incoming missiles as part of President Donald Trump’s Golden Dome missile defense system.

But Meink’s disclosure goes a step further: The Space Force already has weapons in orbit for “space control,” a mission aimed at protecting U.S. access to space and, if necessary, denying an adversary the ability to use it.

The Pentagon has historically revealed little about the weapons developed for that mission, with publicly known U.S. counter-space capabilities largely based on the ground.

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