Tag: perpetual war

America’s Middle East Bases: An Imperial Burden

By all conventional measures, America is losing the war with Iran. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has survived the U.S.-Israeli regime change effort, and it seems as though the hardline factions in Iran have been empowered. They also maintain their stockpiles of drones and missiles, while the U.S. is running dangerously low on crucial munitions.

Perhaps the most tangible sign of strategic defeat for the U.S. comes in the form of destroyed bases. Throughout the conflict, Iran has dealt severe blows to U.S. bases across the region, resulting in 18 troops having been killed and over 600 sustaining injuries.

A predictable outcome

Iran’s ability to touch American bases across the Middle East was not surprising to many of those advocating against this war. In fact, it was one of the foremost reasons to show restraint. In August 2025, Dr. Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, warned that in the case of a renewed conflict, Iran would likely act with much less restraint than they did during the 12-day War.

“It’s not going to be like last time,” Dr. Parsi explained, “the Iranians may this time around strike at U.S. bases in a manner that they didn’t last time. Last time, as one Pentagon official said, it was a polite response because it was all about ending the war. This time around, it’s likely going to be much worse.”

Dr. Parsi also expressed concern about American defensive systems, saying “we know now that the Iranians have missile capabilities that can penetrate all layers of Israeli and American air defense systems and can lead to a large number of American deaths. So we will once again have Americans coming home from the Middle East in coffins.”

Tragically, these predictions have proven entirely correct.

From the early days of this war, the damage became apparent. The New York Times reported in late March that many American bases in the region had been rendered “all but uninhabitable.” The Iranians attacks have been effective at knocking out key defensive and communications infrastructure as well. All of this information has been intentionally underdiscussed by the Trump administration, in the hopes that Americans will buy their narrative that an easy U.S. victory has occurred.

Despite their decision to not inform the public of this troubling data, the risks are very real for troops still positioned in the region. Since the collapse of the Memorandum of Understanding, four U.S. soldiers have been killed, and roughly 100 have been injured by Iranian attacks.

Many of America’s bases in the Middle East simply weren’t prepared to face Iranian retaliation at the scale we’ve witnessed. During the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the fighting occurred predominantly within the borders of the respective countries, so many U.S. military facilities weren’t designed to withstand extensive enemy fire.

Iran, however, is a much different story.

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US Expands Strategic Foothold On Somalia’s Coast As Yemen Conflict Simmers

A US military delegation visited the local government in Somalia’s northeastern Puntland region on Sunday and signed a deal to expand the US military presence in Bosaso, a port city on the Gulf of Aden, according to the Puntland government.

Saeed Abdullahi Deni, the president of Puntland State, held talks with a delegation led by Maj. Gen. Claude Tudor, the commander of US Special Operations Command Africa.

“Puntland and the United States also signed a new agreement to expand their cooperation. Under the agreement, the United States will expand its military base in Bosaso to improve operations against terrorism and to help protect maritime security,” the Puntland government said in a statement on the meeting.

The US has been operating from a UAE-built airbase in Bosaso, which the UAE has reportedly used to arm the RSF in Sudan.

An expanded US military presence in Bosaso could be used as a launchpad for operations against Yemen’s Ansar Allah, also known as the Houthis, and the deal comes as Ansar Allah is enforcing a new maritime blockade on Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea ports, which began after Saudi strikes on Yemen’s Sanaa International Airpoirt, attacks that reignited the conflict that was in a state of ceasefire since 2022.

Tudor visited Puntland a day after meeting with officials in Somaliland, a de facto independent state within Somalia’s internationally recognized borders.

It’s unclear if any deals were signed in that meeting, but Israel recently became the first country to recognize Somaliland as an independent country and is seeking to establish a military and intelligence presence for operations against Yemen.

According to the Somali Guardian, the US-Puntland deal bypassed the US-backed federal government in Mogadishu, which has been at odds with Puntland amid a political crisis sparked by changes to the constitution made by Somali President Hassan Sheik Mohamud. Puntland withdrew from the federal system in 2024, and this year clashes have occurred between forces loyal to the federal government and Puntland security forces.

The US has continued to back the federal government with airstrikes against al-Shabaab, and it has also been engaged in an air campaign against an ISIS affiliate in Puntland, where it backs local Puntland forces.

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Kim Yo Jong Threatens Japan With ‘Additional Military Options’ — Calls Tokyo A ‘War Criminal State’ As North Korea Targets Tomahawk Tests And US Alliance

Kim Yo Jong, the most powerful figure in North Korea after her brother Kim Jong Un, issued a direct military threat against Japan on Wednesday, warning that Pyongyang would develop “additional military options” in response to Tokyo’s expanding defense posture — and explicitly accusing Washington of enabling what she called the revival of a “war criminal state.”

The statement, published by the Korean Central News Agency, was both specific in its grievances and deliberately vague in its threatened response. Kim cited Japan’s recent test-firing of Tomahawk long-range cruise missiles — American-supplied weapons that give Japan’s Self-Defense Forces their first real offensive reach — as well as Japan’s May participation in U.S.-led military exercises in the Philippines. She accused Tokyo of moving to “formulate the possession of the capability for preemptive attack” and said those actions were entering “the stage of actual act.” In a direct shot at Washington, she condemned the United States for using Japan and South Korea as a “shock brigade” in the Asia-Pacific, encroaching on the security interests of neighboring states.

“Japan, a war criminal state, is accelerating its transformation into a war state, taking advantage of the acute and variable trend of the present international situation,” Kim stated per KCNA. “We will never remain a passive onlooker to the military evolution of Japan, which may pose a grave threat to the security of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.” She concluded with a formal declaration: “I make it clear upon authorization that the armed forces of the DPRK and the military leadership will set up additional military options, which are obviously due to Japan’s transformation.”

Japan’s defense posture has shifted dramatically over the past two years. Under Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s legacy framework and continued by his successor, Japan has committed to doubling defense spending as a share of GDP — a structural break from the postwar pacifist constitution’s constraints that Tokyo spent eight decades trying to work around. Japan has deployed Type-12 surface-to-ship missiles and U.S.-supplied Tomahawk cruise missiles to its Southwestern Islands, the chain that runs between Kyushu and Taiwan, directly complicating any Chinese or North Korean calculus in the region. Tokyo’s defense minister stated as recently as Tuesday that Japan’s military needs to be expanded with a “sense of urgency and crisis,” per Channel News Asia, following a new government threat assessment that specifically named China, Russia, and North Korea as growing dangers requiring an immediate response.

The framing Kim Yo Jong deployed is worth unpacking, because Pyongyang’s propaganda rarely wastes specific language. By invoking Japan’s colonial-era record — a reference that carries enormous weight throughout East Asia — and then linking it to current military policy, she is positioning North Korea as the historical victim entitled to a security response. This narrative has more resonance in China and across Global South capitals than Western audiences typically appreciate. Beijing uses similar framing about Japanese militarism when it wants to create diplomatic space for opposing U.S.-Japan defense cooperation, and Pyongyang coordinates its messaging with Beijing more closely than most Western analysts acknowledge. The question is not whether Kim Yo Jong’s statement constitutes an existential threat on its own — it does not — but whether it signals an upcoming weapons test, a new missile deployment, or an acceleration of Pyongyang’s tactical nuclear force positioning toward Japan.

The timing is also notable in that Japan is watching Taiwan’s Han Kuang war games begin on the same day. Japan understands better than most Western nations that a Taiwan contingency is a Japan contingency — U.S. bases in Okinawa and on the main islands would be the immediate staging grounds for any American response to a Taiwan blockade or invasion. North Korea’s ability to threaten those bases with short-range missiles is real and has been since at least 2017. A Pyongyang that feels emboldened by China’s regional pressure campaign, or that calculates it can extract economic concessions by rattling sabers while Washington is distracted in the Middle East, has every structural incentive to escalate its rhetoric in exactly this direction.

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War With Iran: A Double-Edged Sword for the US Economy and Agriculture

The sharp swings in oil prices following the latest round of attacks and negotiations over safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz demonstrate that wars do not always reveal themselves first on the battlefield. Sometimes, their earliest signs appear on gas-station price boards, in transportation bills, and on the balance sheets of farmers standing thousands of miles from the front lines. Now that the confrontation between the United States and Iran has moved beyond pressure and deterrence and turned into direct military conflict, the issue is no longer limited to security calculations. It is about the real costs of war – costs increasingly borne by American farmers, truck drivers, and consumers.

The economic effects of this war are being transmitted through channels that are highly sensitive for Washington politically: energy markets, inflation, supply chains, and, above all, agriculture. A war that Trump justifies in the language of national security and displays of strength could, in practice, become a self-inflicted shock to the U.S. economy. That is the central contradiction: the most direct pressure is falling on the very social and economic constituency Trump has repeatedly claimed to defend – the American farm belt.

The Energy Shock, From Hormuz to American Farms

The Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly 20 percent of global petroleum liquids consumption passes, now lies at the center of the conflict. Repeated surges and declines in oil prices show that even news of a temporary pause – or the possibility of renewed escalation – can shake the energy market. Higher fuel prices feed directly into transportation, production, and consumer-goods costs, adding to inflationary pressure. This also leaves monetary policymakers caught between controlling inflation and preventing a further slowdown in economic growth.

Market instability and direct military expenditures are rising as well. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan showed that the true cost of military conflict often extends far beyond initial estimates. Brown University’s Costs of War Project has placed the cost of the post-9/11 wars at approximately $8 trillion. A war with Iran, particularly if it becomes prolonged or expands geographically, could generate new and uncertain financial commitments. Yet one of its deepest and least visible consequences may be felt not on Wall Street, but on American farms.

Modern American agriculture is intensely dependent on energy. Diesel powers farm machinery; natural gas is a primary input in the production of nitrogen fertilizers; and gasoline and transportation fuels move crops from farms to markets. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has repeatedly shown that higher energy prices increase production costs and reduce farm income, ultimately affecting food prices.

The pressure is even more severe in the fertilizer market. The production of ammonia and urea is directly dependent on natural gas, while disruption in the Strait of Hormuz has constrained global supplies of raw materials and fertilizer. During the first weeks of the war, urea prices nearly doubled, leaving American farmers to confront fuel-price increases and supply shortages at the same time. Under such conditions, corn production, which requires more nitrogen fertilizer, becomes especially vulnerable. Farmers may be forced to choose among reducing planted acreage, switching crops, or accepting substantially higher costs.

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Terrifying Footage Shows Ukrainian Drone Striking Black Sea Beach Resort – 7 Dead, Including ‌3 Children, and 10 Injured

Kiev is making attacks on civilians a routine.

It speaks to how much the Western press is controlled by the Ukraine lobby the fact that there isn’t widespread condemnation of Kiev regime’s relentless attacks on civilians in this war.

Just yesterday (02), a Ukrainian drone strike killed one child and injured two others on Sunday in a playground in the ​Russian border region of Belgorod.

And one day after, horrifying footage emerges of a drone strike that killed four people, including ‌a child, and injured 10 at the​ Black Sea resort of Gelendzhik.

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Huge Uptick In Israeli Airstrikes On Gaza Since Trump Hailed ‘Historic’ Hamas Deal

Middle East regional media has reported a huge uptick in Israeli military attacks in the Gaza Strip since President Trump announced a “historic” agreement which Hamas finally signed on to. 

The agreement would result in a phased complete disarmament of Hamas and the handing over of governance to newly proposed National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) – a body designed to replace both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.

However, fighting has persisted, with Al Jazeera reporting that at least 19 Palestinians killed on Saturday in Israeli attacks and that the total deal toll from the weekend is now 26 people, including women and children.

Israel continues to express skepticism in the face of Washington’s recent optimism:

Despite Hamas agreeing to a phased disarmament, Israel’s government says it has “serious security concerns” about the plan, and there has been strong resistance from Israeli politicians to the deal.

The continued bombardment of Gaza, contributing to Israel’s continued breaches of October’s “ceasefire” agreement, will likely threaten Trump’s peace plan and exacerbate the already dire humanitarian situation for Palestinians in the enclave.

Reuters had on Sunday reported an entire day of fresh IDF bombardment on Gaza.

“Israeli airstrikes hit Gaza for a second straight day on Sunday, killing at least 18 Palestinians, medics said, ​despite U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement of a breakthrough in efforts to implement last year’s ceasefire agreement,” Reuters wrote.

“From dawn, Israeli warplanes hit Gaza City in the north, the central city of Deir ‌al-Balah and the southern area of Khan Younis, causing the biggest daily death toll in weeks, according to Palestinian health officials,” it added. 

Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen issued the Netanyahu government’s view on Sunday: “In the deal we signed with the United States, our stance is that Hamas must be dismantled. This is the first thing ⁠that must happen.” 

Cohen expressed that Israeli is “very skeptical” that Hamas would actually disarm. And PM Netanyahu’s office said: “The most important concern for Israel is that nothing can happen ​before Hamas completely and truly disarms.”c

So while the US and regional leaders are busy celebrating and hailing the plan, the proverbial devil will be in the details and in the process – and needless to say a lot could go wrong.

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Fuming Mamdani blocked from speaking at fallen NYC soldier’s funeral despite writing speech: ‘He was never called’

They gave him the Zo-ld shoulder.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani was snubbed from eulogizing Army Sgt. Angel Sarah Rampersad at the fallen soldier’s Queens funeral Friday — and the embarrassing scene unfolded in real time as he fumed while waiting in vain to give his speech, sources revealed.

Mamdani, who was relegated to the fourth row in the Ozone Park church, appeared to be reviewing his planned remarks on an iPad while Gov. Kathy Hochul and other dignitaries, including Queens Borough President Donovan Richards, were called to speak, a source in attendance said.

“They kept calling names and then he was never called,” the source said.

“Then he looked over at his staff, frustrated and seemed angry that he didn’t speak. When he realized his name wasn’t being called, he looked at his staff angrily and then eventually put his tablet away.”

City Hall ignored multiple requests for comment over the humiliating turn of events.

The diss came as Mamdani — an avowed democratic socialist who’s harshly critical of Israel and the US war against Iran — remains a divisive political figure both within New York City and across the nation.

Another source involved with the funeral’s planning said Rampersad’s family is pro-President Trump and didn’t want Mamdani to speak.

Yet another insider confirmed that Mamdani’s outspoken lefty politics ultimately led him to lose his customary mayoral role as a speaker during a hometown soldier’s funeral.

“The family is more conservative and wanted to limit any political distractions,” the insider said.

Rampersad, 28, was among three US soldiers killed July 17 during an Iranian missile attack on Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan. Rampersad grew up in an Ozone Park family, graduated from John Jay College of Criminal Justice and joined the Army, following in the footsteps of her uncle.

It’s unclear whether the young mayor visited Rampersad’s kin in the days following her death as is customary for Big Apple leaders to do. Nothing about a visit prior to Friday’s funeral appeared on his official public schedule or his indefatigable social media accounts.

Hizzoner did, however, fill his past week “siteseeing” in double-decker bus as part of a housing press stunt and sat for a few interviews with national publications in an attempt to further raise his public profile.

Mamdani — who in recent days has been slammed for ignoring everyday New Yorker’s problems, including the seven residents who’ve died from Legionnaire’s disease — also found time to tout his far-off city-run grocery stores, even fundraising off the efforts.

In lieu of actually speaking at Rampersad’s funeral, Mamdani’s press team blasted out his planned speech, identifying it as “remarks as prepared.”

“It is often said that our fallen ‘gave their tomorrows for our today,’” Mamdani planned to say. “Sergeant Rampersad had tomorrows waiting for her: birthdays, ordinary mornings, evenings spent with her loved ones. But she gave every one of them up so that we could have ours — so that we could stand here today, safe and protected.”

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Denmark Begins Extended Conscription as It Prepares for ‘Russian Threat’ and US Designs on Greenland – 19-Year-Old Danish Princess Begins Military Service

Copenhagen means to take on Moscow and Washington?

We have been reporting here on TGP about how Europe is re-arming at a frantic pace, to defend themselves from the ‘Russian threat’, that while existent, is much inflated by Globalists needing an outside enemy to distract from their ruinous public policies.

In the case of Denmark, the Scandinavian kingdom has a secondary reason for beefing up their military forces: the interest by Donald J. Trump on controlling the Arctic island of Greenland.

Reuters reported:

“Around ‌1,600 Danish military recruits on Monday began the country’s new extended conscription, embarking on an 11-month service period as Denmark accelerates its defense build-up driven by Arctic security pressures and the war in Ukraine.”

The standard service time has increased to 11 months, 7,500 conscripts trained annually by 2033 (up from ​5,000).

“The new intake arrives as Denmark prepares to deploy conscripts to Greenland for the first ​time later this month, with a company of more than 100 soldiers set to serve for one month taking over operational tasks from professional troops.

The deployment carries added political weight as U.S. President Donald ​Trump has repeatedly sought to annex the semi-autonomous Danish territory, citing national security, a demand firmly rejected ​by the governments of Greenland and Denmark.”

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CCP Bans Sale Of Retired Military Equipment, Citing Security Risks

The Chinese regime’s military and public security authorities have jointly issued an order banning the sale, assembly, and marketing of retired military equipment, citing “security risks to military secrets.”

The Notice on Prohibiting Sales Activities Involving Retired or Scrapped Military Equipment was issued on July 28 by the Chinese regime’s six central governmental departments, including the top defense command and decision-making body of the Chinese military – Central Military Commission’s Logistics Support Department, Equipment Development Department, and Political and Legal Affairs Commission, along with the Ministry of Public Security, the State Administration for Market Regulation, and the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense.

The notice acknowledges that, in recent years, some vendors have openly sold – both online and offline – retired or scrapped military equipment containing sensitive information, resulting in “adverse effects” and creating “security risks.” It also said one of the purposes of the ban is “to uphold the positive image of the people’s military.”

The notice stipulates that no entity or individual may sell retired or scrapped military equipment. Such equipment – as defined by the military – encompasses various types of hardware, ammunition, devices, related components, and materials that have been officially retired from service and designated for disposal as scrap.

The notice also prohibits any unit or individual from using dismantled parts of decommissioned equipment to produce, modify, and re-assemble them, and then sell them as imitations of military equipment that the public might believe was real. Commercial marketing and promotion of decommissioned and scrapped equipment and related imitations are also prohibited.

The official notice did not disclose the types, quantities, or sources of decommissioned equipment currently on the market, nor did it state whether any military information had been leaked.

Li Yuansong, a Chinese military equipment and memorabilia collector, told The Epoch Times that Chinese military-issued gear has long been collected by enthusiasts.

“Much of the Chinese weaponry is derived from technology dating back to the former Soviet era [1922-91]. While a small number of firearms produced after the ‘Reform and Opening-up’ incorporated Western technology, the majority remain updated versions of Soviet-based hardware,” he said. “The craftsmanship is crude and hardly advanced. If Western weapons experts were to dismantle and analyze them, they would likely laugh about them.

“The real fear isn’t so much about leaking secrets, but rather that foreigners might discover just how backward China’s conventional weaponry actually is,” Li said of the new ban.

Li Xiangyang, a Chinese military scholar who used a pseudonym out of fear of reprisal, told The Epoch Times that in recent years, individuals have been reselling military equipment online.

“Some components bear serial numbers, model designations, and signs of use. In the eyes of the authorities, these could reveal information regarding production batches, maintenance standards, and quality,” Li said.

“Regulations dictate that many decommissioned items must be destroyed, with metal materials collected and melted down. This notice is primarily aimed at enforcing the Anti-Espionage Law, as the authorities do not want foreign entities to gain insight into the Chinese regime’s military-industrial technology.”

Su Pei, a China-based military scholar who used a pseudonym out of fear of reprisal, told The Epoch Times that the mention of upholding “the positive image of the people’s military” in the ban notice shows that the Chinese regime is concerned about more than just so-called secret leaks, but also about hiding the backwardness of the Chinese weaponry.

“It also worries that individuals within the military might sell used military equipment through underground channels – goods that could ultimately be resold to foreign adversaries. Such incidents have already occurred in coastal regions,” he said.

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The Machine That Hunted Palestinians in the 1970s Is Hunting Their Allies Today

Locked up in a cell in Madrid since his arrest on July 10, 2026, the well-known left-wing philanthropist Fergie Chambers is waiting to learn whether Spain will hand him to Washington. According to a US indictment, his crime was moving $7.5 million – money he raised, his family says, after selling his stake in Cox Enterprises and walking away from a quarter-billion-dollar inheritance – some of which funded legal defense for activists and humanitarian aid for Palestinians in Gaza. He has been denied bail and, his supporters say, denied contact with the outside world. Stella Schnabel, his partner, has said he faces “political persecution,” telling the Irish Times: “Fergie is being jailed because he uses his wealth to support Palestine and those suffering genocide in Gaza.” Ghassan Abu-Sittah, the British-Palestinian surgeon who now serves as rector of the University of Glasgow, has said Chambers’ funding was vital to the care of wounded children in Gaza.

Six days later, on July 16, 2026, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio stood before representatives of more than 60 governments and gave the arrangement a name: a coordinated push against what he called “far-left political terrorism,” with intelligence sharing at its center, backed by border controls he defended as public safety and financial disruption dressed as counterterrorism.

This machinery, of course, is nothing new. In 1969, Switzerland, Britain, France and West Germany were among the founding members of a secret intelligence-liaison forum called the Club de Berne, joined eventually by the United States and Israel. By 1971 a daily communications channel had been set up between the member states, code-named Kilowatt. Aviva Guttmann’s research into declassified Swiss archives shows what became of this secret channel.

Mossad’s European Murder Spree

Mossad’s infamous campaign of assassinations began after the killing of 11 Israeli athletes and coaches at the 1972 Munich Olympics by the Palestinian Black September group. Teams of killers were sent across Europe after anyone linked, rightly or wrongly, to the attack. Zwaiter, Hamshari, and Boudia were among them.

Palestinian Wael Zwaiter had no proven link at all to the Munich attack when he was shot dead in the stairwell of his Rome apartment in October 1972 – indeed the PLO’s deputy chief at the time said that he was “energetically” against terrorism. Two months later, a bomb concealed inside Mahmoud Hamshari’s telephone blew up and killed him in his Paris apartment; the evidence for his personal involvement, historians now note, came almost entirely from Mossad’s own dubious assessments. The following June, Mohammed Boudia – an Algerian theater director whom Western intelligence cables described as an active militant – was blown up in his car, an assassination Le Monde reported the same day, June 29, 1973, while openly questioning what French authorities had known.

Whether the three men were guilty of wrongdoing or not – and it seems two of them were probably innocent – none were ever charged, tried, or given the chance to answer the allegations against them. They were killed on the strength of intelligence assessments that were, by the researchers’ own account, sometimes wrong and never tested in open court. These assassinations were state-sanctioned murder – and in each case, the assassins were aided and abetted directly by Western intelligence.

These three were not the only ones. Mossad’s Operation Wrath of God consisted of 10 missions in total, eight of them carried out in Europe, most using intelligence its Kilowatt partners supplied. None of the men killed were ever tried in a court. They were found, and then killed.

A continent turned into a hunting ground, with no right of appeal.

According to Aviva Guttmann, Kilowatt was set up to fix a gap: Mossad needed European intelligence to identify, track, and locate its targets in the first place. So in October 1971, Israel suggested opening a dedicated encrypted channel to share intelligence on Palestinian activity in Europe, and Western agencies agreed. The arrangement ran both ways. Mossad fed disinformation to its European partners about its own operations, leading French, Italian and other states to dismiss assassinations on their own soil as unsolved rather than face the reality of what an allied service had done in their backyards.

In a display of their political bias, Western agencies, however, continued to supply intelligence to Mossad long after press reporting had made clear exactly who was behind the killings. As Guttmann says, the assassination campaign would likely not have been possible without their continued cooperation.

Guttmann’s own research records that Golda Meir’s instruction remained that no innocent bystanders were to be hurt – the explosive charge for each hit calibrated carefully enough that a target could be killed while the blast stayed contained to his room. Compare that caution to Palestine today, where a single strike on Salah Shehade’s Gaza City home in 2002 killed at least 11 civilians alongside him, including eight children – a ratio of collateral death that would have been unthinkable in the 1970s, when the target was living on a street in Rome or Paris.

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