Tag: perpetual war

Chinese Student Charged With Lying To Border Agents Over Alleged Airport Photo Assignments From Beijing

A Chinese national studying at a Canadian university has been charged with lying to American officials to conceal that he took photographs at a Chicago airport cargo facility at the direction of a suspected Chinese official, according to a federal complaint filed in Detroit on Aug. 26.

Zeng Weiheng, born in 2004, is charged with making false statements in a matter under federal jurisdiction. An undergraduate student at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, Zeng was issued a B1/B2 visitor visa in October 2022 and has entered the United States 24 times since then, according to an affidavit filed with the complaint by an FBI agent.

He was arrested on Aug. 26.

Authorities stopped Zeng for an initial screening on Aug. 23 at the Ambassador Bridge border crossing in Detroit, after linking his vehicle to a security incident at a FedEx cargo facility at Chicago O’Hare International Airport on April 21.

That day, FedEx employees saw an Asian male spending roughly 20 minutes at the facility. Surveillance footage showed the man climbing onto a construction forklift to take photographs and attempting to open a parked delivery truck and shipping trailer before driving off in a minivan bearing an Ontario license plate.

Zeng underwent three interviews with U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials during secondary screening, during which his account of his April trip changed. according to court documents.

In his first interview, Zeng claimed that he had visited tourist sites during his April trip, and the photos of planes in his phone were “pictures of model aircraft being tracked for a flight radar website,” authorities said. When pressed in a second interview, Zeng allegedly admitted going to the FedEx facility to take photos of planes and revealed that he had also trespassed at a FedEx facility at Toronto Pierson Airport in 2025.

By the third interview, Zeng revealed that a contact in China had “assigned him specific planes and their tail numbers to photograph” and he was paid $20 to $30 per photograph, the court documents allege.

In his subsequent interview with the FBI, Zeng admitted that the aircraft photography was a cover story devised by his handler, and the “true task was to obtain interior photographs of the FedEx facility,” according to the affidavit.

His Chinese contact “was primarily interested in information on transportation and logistics in the United States” and “asked for information of flight freight logistics, bus routes, and trains routes and schedules,” the affidavit said.

Zeng also told the FBI that he suspected his Chinese contact was a Chinese regime official working for one of China’s security departments, in part because the contact had provided him with “videos of scenes that only security officials would have access to.”

For his communication with the Chinese contact, Zeng said he was mailed SIM cards from China’s state-run China Telecom, which allowed him to “by-pass Canadian cellular network and connect directly with the Chinese provider network” to send text messages, according to the affidavit.

Zeng was instructed to use the SIM cards only in a Huawei-made phone, swapping in a new card every few months and destroying the old one. He was also told never to bring the phone with him on trips to the United States.

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India’s Modi Presses Putin to Wrap Up Ukraine Invasion: ‘Move Away from Endless War’

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged Russian strongman Vladimir Putin to “move away from endless war” and find a resolution to his ongoing invasion of Ukraine during a meeting on Monday.

The two — along with the heads of state of several other neighboring countries, most prominently China and Iran — are in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, to attend a high-level summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). The China-led, Central Asia-based SCO is a loosely affiliated security and common interests group, sometimes described as an attempted counterweight to NATO but lacking the strict membership requirements and mutual defense responsibilities of that group. Modi, Putin, and Chinese dictator Xi Jinping are all expected to meet Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, to discuss that country’s war with the United States during the span of the SCO summit, but appear to have prioritized meeting with each other.

Both Indian and Russian media emphasized that Modi used his time with Putin to discourage him from continuing the Ukraine invasion. The comments were notably more pointed than past remarks by the Hindu nationalist leader, who has rejected attempts to sanction or otherwise economically isolate Russia in response to it belligerence and remains a key Russian oil partner.

“Every day spent in war sets humanity back, whereas every step taken towards peace fills humanity with new hope and enthusiasm. We must move away from endless war towards an end to the war. This is essential for the well-being of humanity,” Modi told Putin, according to India’s Economic Times.

“We have consistently discussed the issue of Ukraine. When we met previously, you briefed me in detail on all aspects of the matter. As you know, India supports all efforts towards peace and will continue to do so,” his comments continued.

Modi separately published an image on social media of his meeting with Putin in which he only vaguely suggested conversation linked to Ukraine and emphasized the bilateral relationship with India.

“Discussed the full range of the India-Russia Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership. It is gladdening to see significant progress across various sectors in recent years,” he wrote. “Focus areas for the India-Russia friendship remain energy, innovation, space, fertilisers and people-to-people linkages.”

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Trump Mulling New ‘Limited’ Strike Package, After Iranian Attack On Jordan Base

New reporting from Axios: “President Trump and his senior aides have been considering waging limited strikes in the Strait of Hormuz to prevent Iran from reconstituting its radar and missile capabilities to attack ships, according to three U.S. officials.”

This suggests that once again when US ‘bad options’ tighten related to Iran and the Hormuz crisis, there is still this (bad) idea among decision-makers that the Pentagon can just ‘bomb its way out’ of a crisis that’s of Washington’s own making. Such an assumption has already been tried and tested several times before, amid what is now six months into the war.

“The plan, which was developed over the past week by U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) and supported by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, had not been approved by Trump ahead of this weekend’s exchange of fire with Iran,” Axios continues. “But he could greenlight it after the new escalation.”

And still this reported new potential escalation is being presented by Axios as if it’s somehow the US fully in the driver’s seat, when in reality this continues to be a “bombing campaign in search of a strategy”. More from Axios:

  • One U.S. official said the idea behind the plan is to reduce the risk of Iranian attacks on oil tankers, U.S. Navy ships and Air Force aircraft — to “mow the lawn,” as this person put it.
  • A White House said: “The President retains all options at his disposal. The Iranians want to make a deal, but they are always a day late and a dollar short.”

This comes as some top generals have taken the ultra-rare action of leaking their views of this to the press. “Several U.S. military leaders have advised Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that prolonging large-scale operations against Iran is unsustainable and risks weakening their ability to confront threats elsewhere, including the U.S. homeland, according to people familiar with a recent assessment prepared for the Pentagon chief,” wrote the Washington Post on Sunday.

More latest from Trump (via Newsquawk):

US President Trump says Iran strikes will be limited; Strait of Hormuz is in extremely good shape; A lot of oil coming out of Hormuz; Ships came through Hormuz last night with Navy assist.

The Iranians meanwhile appear to be ready for the possibility of renewed dialogue, but they also certainly don’t appear to be “begging” – as Trump has maintained. “The US must return to its commitments and abide by the terms of the memorandum; only then can we exit this situation,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Telegram Monday.

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EU Commandos Board 6th Russian ‘Shadow Fleet’ Tanker After Putin Threatened Reverse Action

Another Russian ‘shadow fleet’ tanker has been boarded by European forces – and this time the provocative action took place in Mediterranean waters. In a Monday post on X, Kaja Kallas announced the action by troops under the EU’s Operation Irini. They boarded the MV Sun tanker for “flag verification,” following suspicions that the vessel was in violation of international law.

“Illegal oil sales from shadow fleet ships are a critical lifeline for Russia’s war in Ukraine, and we’ll continue to cut them off,” Kallas wrote of what marks the sixth shadow fleet ship to be boarded in recent months. Most of these have happened in northern European waters, with Mediterranean incidents being more rare.

It was specifically the Italian Defense Ministry that carried out the EU action, with Italian navy’s Thaon di Revel ship conducting the boarding which occurred to the west of the island of Pantelleria as the targeted vessel was progressing from the port of Cotonou in Benin to Istanbul.

Russian President Vladimir Putin just a little over two weeks ago threatened to do the same in reverse, after the past year saw several examples of EU intercept action, sometimes involving French or Swedish commandos descending onto a tanker’s deck from helicopters and arresting crew members. The seized vessels are then typically taken to nearby European ports.

The latest European Union sanctions package passed last month stipulates that EU members can sell the oil or any seized cargo obtained from these ‘shadow fleet’ vessels.

Putin has reiterated Kremlin outrage at this scheme, condemning it as “piracy and banditry”. This also after Sweden has lately declared its intent to hand seized Russian grain over to Ukraine.

“We will be forced to respond in kind,” Putin said in mid-August. Russian forces will act “wherever we ourselves deem necessary and appropriate — anywhere,” he added.

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Let’s End Military Integration, Support for US Foreign Policy

The world is better off for Carney walking away from the Trump trade negotiations. But we must demand far more from Ottawa in terms of distancing the country from Washington’s economic and military bullying.

Mark Carney was right to walk away from economic negotiations with the Trump administration. The US’ ever-growing list of demands, including controlling Canada’s ability to sign accords with other countries, reflects Washington’s bid to dominate in service of massive corporate interests. In other words, Trump is employing a sort of ‘Donroe Doctrine’ light towards Canada.

If Carney would have given Trump an easy win it would have further emboldened the bully. The successful kidnapping of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, for instance, clearly boosted Trump’s confidence to launch war on Iran.

So, the world — and Canada — benefits from Ottawa refusing to completely cower to Trump. To the extent a country can resist US pressure, it should.

Even if his words exaggerate Ottawa’s resistance, Canadians should celebrate US trade representative Jamieson Greer comparing Canada to China. A year ago, Beijing responded in kind to US economic pressure, effectively winning a trade war with Washington.

Now China is refusing to buckle to Trump’s recently declared “MOST CRUSHING ECONOMIC OPERATION EVER TAKEN AGAINST ANY COUNTRY” policy towards Iran. On Monday US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent announced, “an economic onslaught against Iran.” At the press conference announcing, “Operation Economic Outcast” Bessent also slammed Canada and the prime minister for walking away from the economic negotiations.

While the treasury secretary targets Iran and Canada at the same press conference, Ottawa continues to support US economic attacks against that country. A week ago, Canada introduced a new round of sanctions on Iran. As part of its pushback against Trump, Ottawa should declare its opposition to the US’ illegal economic war on Iran. Ottawa should begin rescinding its many sanctions on that country.

Canada should also follow China in defying Washington’s devastating oil and economic blockade on Cuba. The Chinese have given large numbers of solar panels, as well as foodstuff, to the Caribbean nation in response to Trump ratcheting up its economic strangulation of that country.

Ottawa has done the opposite. Dovetailing with Trump’s bid to squeeze the island, Ottawa introduced a travel advisory that led to flights being cancelled and dissuaded travel to the tourist-dependent economy. The loss of Canadian tourists has cost Cuba tens of millions, probably a hundred million dollars. Ottawa has even refused to defend Canadian corporate interests ensnared by the ‘Donroe Doctrine’ in Cuba and has sanctioned vessels associated with Russia considered defying Trump’s patently illegal oil embargo.

The most obvious break from Washington Ottawa must pursue is to lessen its integration with the US war machine. In a sign of the military’s ongoing deference towards a military led by an annexationist president, Canadian Captain Daniel Hrichishen just began the International Junior Officer Leadership Development Course (IJOLD) at Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts. According to its site, IJOLD gives foreign soldiers “exposure to the host nation’s military culture, history, decision-making, and learning methods, fostering a multicultural exchange that enhances professional military education and better prepares them for future joint operations.”

Hrichishen is among dozens of Canadian soldiers participating in similar exchanges, which should be immediately paused. Ottawa also needs to pause military overflights, training missions and some of its hundreds of military accords with the US military.

There’s no better time for leftists and internationalists to press to lessen Canadian support for the US empire. If we can’t weaken the bonds of empire while an annexationist president wages economic and political attacks against Canada when will be able to?

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Pete Hegseth: Militarism’s Ideologue

Reality doesn’t always line up with our wishes. For Pete Hegseth, this lesson has been learned the hard way. Six months into his war with Iran, top military officials are warning the Secretary of Defense that prolonged fighting would be “unsustainable,” according to new reporting from The Washington Post.

These officials are echoing sentiments that have been repeated for months within the administration. Gen. Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had advised the White House before the conflict that a large-scale military confrontation with Iran posed serious risks, particularly because of the U.S.’ depleted munitions stockpiles and a lack of support from regional partners.

Rather than heed these warnings, Washington foreign policy elites chose to proceed with a reckless disregard for the facts, guided by an ideological drive to reshape the world in our image – or, perhaps more accurately, Israel’s. Pete Hegseth is one such ideologue, as demonstrated by his rhetorical record throughout the conflict.

The administration’s entire approach to this war has been stylistically Hegsethian. The tirades against the press, the administration’s unceasing – and undue – confidence, and the rigorous enforcement of a strict narrative are all hallmarks of Pete Hegseth’s brutish approach, rather than the calculated strategy one may expect to see from Marco Rubio or JD Vance.

Hegseth’s style plays to the instincts of an older generation of Republican voters, one which believes that to even question the military is to commit a grave offense. Older cohorts of conservatives – which tend to be the Republican Party’s most consistent base –  are fervently supportive of the war.

As soon as the first bombs were dropped, the narrative was enforced. The case for war was not an intellectually rigorous one, but this is a common feature of government propaganda. It primarily exists not to convince the American public to support a policy, but to emotionally manipulate them. To this end, the war’s initiators must act with a level of bravado and confidence capable of convincing the average person that “this person knows what he’s doing.” It doesn’t mean he does, however. This distortion has been perfectly embodied by the rocky past six months at Hegseth’s Pentagon.

Hegseth has built a reputation for his aggressive style. During press conferences in the Iran war’s early stage, he made a habit out of using emotionally charged language to evoke an “us vs. them” mentality within Americans. On March 2, Hegseth called this war “our retribution,” saying “the regime who chanted ‘death to America’ and ‘death to Israel’ was gifted death from America, and death from Israel.” In a press conference a few days later, Hegseth seemed to fetishize violence, describing the U.S. operation as “death and destruction from the sky, all day long.”

In a display of his grotesque lust for power, Hegseth also said “we are punching them while they’re down, which is exactly how it should be.”

There has been a severe shortage of seriousness from this administration in its messaging on this conflict. In a 60 Minutes appearance just days after the war was launched, Hegseth shrugged off concerns about the risks of this engagement, saying “nobody’s putting us in danger.” He followed this dismissive statement with an even more unsettling one, threatening that “the only ones that need to be worried right now are Iranians that think they’re going to live.”

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How To Cover Up A Genocide — Israel Destroys 10 Million Tons of Evidence

Could you imagine living in a time when erasing 10 million tons of evidence of genocide is barely even newsworthy? Somehow we’re now in such a repulsive era.

There have been a select few articles detailing Israel’s efforts to clear literally millions of tons of evidence of its genocidal acts. Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor recently reported on the carting away of 100 trucks per day of debris, pieces of destroyed lives, and human remains. Obviously, no small undertaking.

“This is occurring without any official record of the quantities removed or independent oversight, and before international and local investigative committees have had the chance to survey, examine, and document the sites.”

As Al Jazeera also reported this month,

“[The Euro-Med report] estimates that there are approximately 68 million tonnes of rubble across the Gaza Strip, much of it the result of Israel’s ongoing genocidal war on the enclave.”

This means that Israel has already removed/destroyed 15% of the evidence of its genocidal actions. Very exciting. Only 85% left to go.

Plus, they’ve already stolen 60 to 70% of Gaza. So there’s only 30 to 40% left to steal. Also very thrilling.

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Bezos-Owned Washington Post Publishes CLASSIFIED Pentagon Orders Book During Active Combat With Iran — Pentagon Calls It a Crime and a “Betrayal of the Force”

The far-left Washington Post just did what the legacy media always does when American troops are in harm’s way and a Republican is running the Pentagon.

They published material from a classified Secretary of Defense Orders Book, the document that maps warships, aircraft, weapons systems, and personnel worldwide, and dressed it up as a hit piece on Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.

The Washington Post reported Sunday that several senior military leaders warned War Secretary Pete Hegseth that maintaining a force of more than 50,000 American troops in the Middle East is unsustainable and could weaken the United States’ ability to respond to threats elsewhere.

The newspaper acknowledged that its reporting was based on information contained in the classified Aug. 14 edition of the Secretary of Defense Orders Book, or SDOB.

The classified orders book reportedly details the worldwide availability and allocation of American warships, aircraft, weapons systems, and military personnel. It also contains sensitive assessments submitted by America’s senior commanders.

According to the Post, some troops deployed to the Middle East were ordered to remain through September, while others could remain into 2027.

Four senior commanders reportedly submitted formal “non-concurs” expressing disagreement with the proposed extensions:

  • Adm. Daryl Caudle, Chief of Naval Operations
  • Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, Commander of U.S. European Command
  • Gen. Francis L. Donovan, Commander of U.S. Southern Command
  • Adm. Samuel Paparo, Commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command

A “non-concur” does not mean that a commander is refusing to follow an order. It records a commander’s professional disagreement while acknowledging that the order will still be executed.

Washington Post military affairs reporter Dan Lamothe eagerly amplified the purported contents of the classified document.

“Four-stars all non-concurring with prolonging operations against Iran as they are into 2027, per this Washington Post exclusive,” Lamothe wrote, before listing the four commanders.

But DataRepublican, whose real name is Jennica Pounds and who began serving as a Special Government Employee at the Department of War in July, fired back with a brutal response.

DataRepublican argued that the commanders’ assessments were not the most alarming part of the story. The real scandal, she said, was that someone apparently handed information from one of the Pentagon’s most sensitive force-allocation documents to the Washington Post.

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Trump Says Iran’s Oil Hub Kharg Island Is Being Blown “TO SMITHEREENS”

President Trump issued a stunning message Sunday night indicating that Iran’s most important oil-export hub was under devastating attack.

“Kharg Island being blown to smithereens!!! President DJT,” Trump announced on Truth Social.

Trump’s post included a dramatic AI-generated video depicting explosions across the island.

Neither the White House nor the Department of War had publicly confirmed a new attack on Kharg Island’s oil facilities. Reuters reported that Iranian state media had also issued no immediate response.

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Netanyahu Admits He Spent ‘Close To 1,000 Hours’ On American Television To Bring The U.S. Into War With Iran

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu openly admitted in a recent Hebrew-language television interview that he spent close to 1,000 hours on American television over nearly four decades to build the political consensus in the United States that ultimately resulted in the U.S.-Israel war on Iran.

“It also took a long time to bring America to this understanding,” Netanyahu said in the interview, which aired on Israeli Channel 14 and was widely clipped and shared on social media with English subtitles. “I was able to do that because I had close to a thousand hours on American television.”

The admission is remarkable for a sitting head of government — an explicit acknowledgment that sustained, long-running foreign lobbying of American public opinion, conducted through U.S. broadcast and cable networks over four decades, was a deliberate strategy to shape U.S. foreign policy toward war with Iran.

Netanyahu framed the effort as a patient, decades-long project. He has appeared on virtually every major American television outlet since the 1980s — Fox News, CNN, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNBC, MSNBC — frequently warning of Iran’s nuclear ambitions, repeatedly describing Iran as being “minutes away” from a nuclear weapon, and pressing successive U.S. administrations to treat Tehran as an existential threat requiring direct military action.

The war Netanyahu spent decades lobbying for began on February 28, 2026, when U.S. and Israeli forces launched coordinated strikes that killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and multiple senior IRGC officials. According to a New York Times investigation, Netanyahu made a “hard sell” to President Trump in the White House Situation Room on February 11, arguing that Iran was ripe for regime change and that a joint U.S.-Israeli mission could bring an end to the Islamic Republic.

The CBS News 60 Minutes interview with Netanyahu in May 2026 — his first U.S. broadcast interview since the war began — offered additional texture. Netanyahu confirmed that Trump had told him “I want to go in there” regarding the removal of Iran’s highly enriched uranium stockpiles. When asked whether the war was over, Netanyahu said significant work remained: nuclear material still needed to be removed, enrichment sites dismantled, proxy networks dismantled.

The 1,000-hours claim, now viral across social media platforms, has drawn significant reaction. Critics describe it as a candid admission of systematic foreign influence over American foreign policy decision-making — influence conducted through the open megaphone of U.S. network television, in addition to scores of visits to American officials. The pattern Netanyahu describes — sustained narrative-building through American media over decades — is a textbook soft-power influence campaign, conducted in plain sight, aimed directly at shaping the conditions under which the United States would enter a war.

Analysts have noted the irony: while foreign influence in American politics is typically treated as a covert threat to be countered, Netanyahu’s approach operated entirely in the open, on American airwaves, with the enthusiastic cooperation of American broadcast networks that granted him access for decades.

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