Tag: perpetual war

The Masked And The Protected – How Anonymity And Institutional Power Destroy Reputations

A reputation can now be destroyed by someone whose face you will never see.

Sometimes it begins with an anonymous account on X. Sometimes with a whisper inside a private veterans’ group. Sometimes with a sentence buried in an administrative file few people outside the institution will ever read.

The methods differ. The result rarely does. A person’s career begins to close around him. Friends become quiet. Professional opportunities disappear. People who have never examined the evidence begin speaking with certainty because repetition has replaced proof.

Modern reputational destruction no longer requires a courtroom, a newspaper, or a formal charge. It only requires enough people willing to repeat a narrative and enough institutions willing to preserve it.

No one earns immunity from accountability because he has a platform.
No one gets impunity because he once wore rank.
And no one gets moral authority because he can gather a mob faster than the man he is trying to bury.

Across military, veteran, and professional spaces, the pattern is plain. At one end, it looks like anonymous pile-ons, burner accounts, private groups, and back-channel chats. At the other end, protected insiders, administrative operators, retired power brokers, and credentialed voices shape narratives from institutions that rarely answer for the damage.

Whether the attack begins with an anonymous profile or an official memorandum, the underlying dynamic is remarkably similar: accusations spread faster than evidence, and consequences often arrive long before accountability.

This is not justice. It is ruination by impression, rumor, and administrative maneuver.

The Cheap Warfare of Anonymous Spaces

The anonymous version of this behavior is cowardly because it is easy.

On X, veterans using pseudonyms to criticize policy or leadership have faced doxxing and coordinated exposure campaigns. What begins as disagreement over reforms quickly shifts to revealing real identities and inviting harassment. The target is left defending against shadows while the attackers remain hidden.

None of this denies that anonymity can protect legitimate whistleblowers or that real misconduct deserves exposure. The corruption occurs when untested claims and personal grudges weaponize these tools.

A whisper campaign can be dressed up as “community concern.” Accusations attach quickly and outlive facts.

The person being targeted is pushed into a rigged environment. He cannot confront all accusers, cross-examine a rumor, or restore his reputation in a venue that rewards speed, outrage, and group loyalty over truth.

Outsiders may dismiss this as internet drama. For the person targeted, it is public humiliation with real consequences. Friends, family, and former teammates see it. Invitations stop coming. No court has convicted him. No open process has tested the claim. But socially, he has been branded guilty anyway.

I know what that silence feels like. I have watched people hide behind false names while attacking me online and repeating accusations they would never make with their names attached. If those same claims had been made where evidence mattered and names were attached, some might have found themselves in court. But anonymity gives cowards a place to act brave.

Opportunists Who Feed on the Wounded

Whenever someone is under sustained attack, people appear eager to use his vulnerability. They bring grudges, third-party rumors, old scores, and “helpful” information they want someone else to publish. They do not want accountability. They want deniability.

So they look for a proxy.

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Exhausted Troops, Supply Routes Under Constant Fire: French Reporters from Le Monde, on the Ground in Slavyansk-Kramatorsk, Experience the Ukrainian Collapse in the Donbas

In the last Ukrainian bastion in the Donetsk region, the ‘amazing’ victories on the MSM are nowhere to be found.

While there’s no denying that the recent Ukrainian drone and missile strikes are taking a toll on the Russian war effort, especially in the Crimean peninsula, the most salient feature of the war on the ground is going mostly unreported.

The siege on Konstantinovka is about to bear fruit for the conquering Russian forces.

Meanwhile, the two last Ukrainian-controlled strongholds in Donetsk are already under major stress, as Slavyansk and Kramatorsk are under heavy drone strikes, with civilians and soldiers fearing the bombings ‘will intensify’.

French newspaper Le Monde reported from the ground:

“Of all the roads leading to Sloviansk, only one remains relatively safe from Russian drones: The one that runs from Barvinkove, a west-east route lined with sad, dusty villages. Just like several other areas near the front lines, the road is covered with nets stretched between poles, forming an endless tunnel that ripples in the wind. The nets are designed to intercept explosive-laden Russian drones that dive onto vehicles, and the makeshift defenses they form have become one of the most visible symbols of how the war between Kiev and Moscow has changed.”

All the other routes are heavily targeted by enemy artillery and drones.

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The Illusions of Western Virtue: Ursula von der Leyen and Europe’s Moral Bankruptcy

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has every right to condition European relations with any other country or bloc on respect for human rights. That, of course, would hold true if she genuinely cared about such values herself.

In response to the June 19 signing of the memorandum of understanding between the United States and Iran – intended to bring an end to a destructive war – von der Leyen declared that the European Union does not intend to lift its sanctions on Tehran.

Speaking on June 15, ahead of the G7 summit, she firmly conditioned any diplomatic thawing on domestic changes within the Islamic Republic.

“The principle of sanctions is that we need real change on the ground before we can think about lifting them,” she stated, adding: “As long as there is no behavioral change, you cannot lift the sanctions because of human rights violations.”

Viewed in isolation, the European position might appear principled, even commendable. In its broader geopolitical context, however, it exposes a staggering level of hypocrisy.

On that very same day, the European Union’s duplicity was laid bare. During a Foreign Affairs Council meeting in Luxembourg, Europe effectively refused to take a unified stand on imposing trade sanctions on Israel, despite its ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip and unchecked colonial violence and expansionist policies in the occupied West Bank.

The discussion itself would not have taken place had it not been for the persistent efforts of Spain and Ireland, which have repeatedly urged the bloc to suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement over Israel’s flagrant violations of international law. The initiative failed because the EU remains deeply divided, constrained by the requirement of unanimity on foreign policy and repeatedly blocked by pro-Israel governments.

While Europe continues to engage Israel – providing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his extremist coalition with desperately needed political and economic lifelines – the European public has increasingly moved in the opposite direction.

Recent polling across numerous countries has revealed growing opposition to Israel’s war and genocide in Gaza and increasing support for Palestinian rights. Across Europe, mass demonstrations, consumer boycotts, campus mobilizations, and divestment campaigns have reflected a widening gap between public opinion and official policy.

This reality appears entirely irrelevant to von der Leyen, who remains preoccupied with the human rights records of states viewed as Western adversaries. Such concern is not motivated by solidarity with victims, but by the desire to maintain political leverage that can be invoked when convenient and ignored when necessary.

Lest we forget, von der Leyen was among the first Western leaders to visit Israel following the events of October 7, arriving in Tel Aviv on October 13, 2023. Standing alongside Israeli leaders, she offered unconditional backing, declaring that “Europe stands with Israel.” She did so as Palestinians in Gaza were already being subjected to a devastating military assault that would soon claim tens of thousands of lives.

Although her rhetoric became somewhat more cautious as international legal institutions began investigating Israel for genocide and pursuing war crimes cases against its leaders, her fundamental political alignment never truly changed.

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China Eyes Iran’s Postwar Reconstruction In Bid To Lock Up Future Oil Supplies

Beijing is positioning itself to lead the post-war reconstruction effort in Tehran – a move analysts suggest could secure China long-term access to critical Iranian oil reserves.

The diplomatic groundwork was laid during a recent meeting in New Delhi between Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and the deputy secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, according to Nikkei Asia. The talks underscore China’s broader strategy to expand its economic and diplomatic footprint in the Middle East amid the vacuum left in the wake of one failed US regime change and occupation war after another.

According to the report, Wang signaled Beijing’s long-term commitment to the Islamic Republic in the wake of prior weeks of heavy US-Israeli bombing, stating that: “China will continue to provide assistance to Iran while supporting reconstruction and peacebuilding efforts in the region.”

To date, China’s official involvement has largely centered on humanitarian logistics – at least according to its public-facing narrative.

This includes an upcoming deployment of emergency medical supplies to Lebanon, following recent Israeli military strikes in the country. However, observers note that the transition from humanitarian relief to large-scale infrastructure development is a key mechanism for Beijing to solidify energy security.

Nikkei Asia has issued the following commentary on China’s long-term plans in the Middle East:

Some observers argue that the U.S.-Iran war has strengthened Beijing’s presence in the Middle East. Rumi Aoyama, a professor at Japan’s Waseda University specializing in Chinese diplomacy, called China a “central hub where information on the situation in the Middle East was concentrated.”

China has dialogue channels with both Washington and Tehran, and it enjoys friendly ties with mediator Pakistan as an arms supplier. The Iranian and Pakistani foreign ministers frequently visited China during negotiations on ending the war to report on the situation.

The Iran war may also have worked to Beijing’s advantage in its dealings with Washington. With the U.S. prioritizing that conflict, it has been forced to ease up its pressure on China with regard to security and trade.

Yet Beijing has still welcomed the memorandum of understanding toward ending the war because stability in the Middle East is crucial for its energy security. Higher fuel and material prices caused by the war have dealt a blow to the Chinese economy.

Tehran, facing severe economic devastation and isolation from Western markets, has welcomed the Chinese overtures. High-level Iranian officials have made it clear they view Beijing not merely as an investor, but as a strategic anchor – akin to how defense ties with Russia have rapidly improved.

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War and Constitutional Indifference

Since its inception, the government of the United States has inexorably exceeded its powers under the Constitution. All three branches have been complicit in a consistent pattern of constitutional indifference.

Congress has regulated in areas of governance nowhere articulated in the Constitution. Its general regulatory powers were granted to address interstate commerce, but during the FDR years, the Supreme Court ruled that Congress can regulate events that affect interstate commerce. This has resulted in federal regulation of matters too infinitesimal to measure, that are not commercial and devoid of movement across interstate lines.

The most extreme of these is the regulation of a farmer’s small field of wheat, all of which was ground into flour and consumed as baked goods by the farmer’s family. Though this had no measurable effect on interstate commerce, the court ruled that if you add up all the similarly situated farmers who may do the same, the aggregate will affect interstate commerce. And, by growing their own wheat and baking their own bread, the farmer’s family was buying less bread from their local grocer and that — though truly infinitesimal — affected interstate commerce.

Once unleashed by this judicial frivolity, Congress recognized no real limits on its regulatory powers. When hosting a show on the Fox Business Network, I once invited nearly all my Fox Business colleagues on set and asked all on air if they could find anything in the studio that was not regulated by the feds.

The chairs on which we were seated? No, the feds regulate their leg length and the rollers on which the legs sit. The color of the walls? No, the feds regulate the pigment in the paint. The cameras used to video us? No, the feds regulate the lenses and the electricity used to power them.

To James Madison, who was the scrivener at the Constitutional Convention and who drafted the Commerce Clause, the word “regulate” in “to regulate Commerce… among the several States” meant “to keep regular.” Indeed, one of the main reasons for the elites’ displeasure with the old Articles of Confederation, and a significant impetus for the Constitution itself, was the effect on commerce of state tariffs and monopolies and their use to impede businesses from out of state.

This was the reason for granting Congress the power to keep commerce regular. But power corrupts, and keeping it regular led to regulating everything that affects it — the speed with which commercial goods moved, the ages and wages of those who worked to produce them, even the prices that could be charged. And the courts permitted all this, in defiance of the Constitution, which prohibits the feds from interfering with contracts without due process.

But all of this, as deleterious as it has been to personal liberty and limited government, takes a back seat to presidential extraconstitutional behavior. And that behavior is nowhere as manifest and harmful as war.

War is the health of the state because it induces fear among the people and thus their compliance, produces jingoistic patriotism and abject hatred of the persons in the country that is the object of war, facilitates vast borrowings in order to pay for the war, enriches elites, slaughters innocents and curtails the civil liberties — the natural rights — of those opposed to the war.

The object of war is, of course, to kill people in a foreign land. Hence the mandate of the Framers that this should not take place without a substantial nation-wide consensus in support of the killing. The Framers of the Constitution so feared wars on presidential whim that they made it clear that only Congress can declare war.

Yet, within months of taking office in 1797, President John Adams fought a war against France without a congressional declaration of war. This was unthinkable at the time, and in order to stifle domestic political dissent, he commenced a regrettable American tradition of silencing domestic opposition to foreign wars.

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Russian Media Reports Hackers Have Receipts Ukraine Has Lost 2.4 Million Dead In War

Ukraine has lost approximately 2.4 million soldiers since the start of Russia’s operation in Ukraine in 2022

Russian hackers PalachPro and the NoName057(16) group have breached databases belonging to the Ukrainian General Staff and Ukraines territorial recruitment centers (TCCs)

They also hacked Ukrainian medical institutions and morgues.

Citing leaked data, losses stood at 1.7 million by August 2025 and crossed 2 million by December. The first six months of 2026 alone reportedly cost Kiev around 400,000 men matching total losses for all of 2023. The heaviest casualties are concentrated on the Krasnoarmeysk (Pokrovsk) Konstantinovka Lyman Zaporozhye and Kupyansk axes averaging roughly 500 AFU losses per day on each.

Mash also reports that foreign mercenary deaths have stopped being logged as combat losses instead recorded as accidents. Per the leaked data around 5,000 foreign fighters serving with the AFU have been killed a number said to be rising as TCCs continue recruiting foreign nationals many of them Argentine and Brazilian nationals aged 20 to 23.

PalachPro and NoName057(16) are the same groups Mash credits with earlier deploying AI assisted facial recognition across roughly 50000 surveillance cameras in Ukraine and the EU.

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Moscow Oil Refinery Faces Six-Month Shutdown After Relentless Ukrainian Drone Attacks

Moscow’s largest oil refinery is expected to remain out of service for at least six months after suffering significant damage in a series of Ukrainian drone attacks this month, according to Reuters, citing sources familiar with the matter, after Zelensky earlier vowed to bring the war to Russian territory. Kiev and the West are flirty with massive Russian retaliation at this point, which is precisely what Putin has vowed.

The refinery is located on the southern outskirts of the Russian capital and a major fuel supplier to the whole region. It was struck at least twice before this month – as dramatic and intense eyewitness videos captured – forcing operations to halt. Meanwhile via Newsquawk: 

Russia has reportedly asked for 50k tonnes of gasoline from Kazakhstan to help ease domestic fuel shortages, according to sources.

“Repairs will take at least six months,” one source said, describing the extent of the damage at the Moscow Oil Refinery.

The Gazprom Neft operatd facility processed 11.6 million metric tons of crude oil in 2024 and produced roughly 2.9 million tons of gasoline and 3.2 million tons of diesel fuel, according to public data.

It comes at a sensitive moment Russia continues to grapple with fuel supply challenges. At the moment, the Crimean peninsula is witnessing unprecedented government restrictions on selling gas to civilians, as well as half the population suffering an electricity blackout due to major Ukrainian drones strikes on Kerch port, and in particular damage to the large thermal power plant there.

Also, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said this week that Moscow is considering a ban on diesel exports to stabilize domestic markets amid emerging shortages.

Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) previously claimed responsibility for a June 16 strike that reportedly damaged the refinery’s primary oil-processing unit, described by Ukrainian officials as the plant’s “heart.” That’s when the facility first reportedly suspended operations following the attack.

Two days later, Ukraine launched another large-scale drone assault on Moscow. Russian authorities reported hundreds of drones targeting the capital, resulting in fires at multiple locations.

Since international crude oil prices surged following the war in the Middle East centered on Iran, Russia has boosted its oil revenues as not only prices have jumped – but Russian oil was made desirable in India again – thanks to American waivers for sales of Russia’s crude already loaded on tankers in connection to easing the global crisis due to the Iran war.

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Congress Is Preparing To Surrender American Sovereignty on the Eve of America’s 250th Anniversary

The United States Congress, on the very eve of the 250th anniversary of our Declaration of Independence from Great Britain, is preparing to formally diminish American independence and sovereignty through a proposed merger and long-term integration of executive functions throughout the government, coordinated by the Department of Defense.

Treacherous provisions in the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) mandate that the U.S. State Department, the U.S. Commerce Department, and the heads of other relevant Federal departments and agencies cooperate with their Israeli counterparts for the purpose of consolidating U.S. and Israeli military activities in order to align efforts and avoid duplication.

The greatest threat to American sovereignty rarely arrives wearing the uniform of a foreign army. It often arrives through the complacency, expediency, or poor judgment of elected officials who fail to recognize the long-term consequences of the powers they surrender.

Whether motivated by political convenience, misplaced loyalty, or simple inattention, such actions can erode constitutional self-government just as surely as deliberate acts of betrayal.

No foreign nation, regardless of whether it is Israel, Britain, Canada, France, or Japan, should be integrated into permanent executive, military, technological, intelligence, and research structures in a manner that diminishes American sovereignty and democratic accountability.

The Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) recently identified Israel as a counterintelligence threat.

Under ordinary circumstances, such a finding would prompt heightened scrutiny, caution, and congressional oversight. Instead, Congress has continued advancing provisions in the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would deepen military, technological, and strategic integration between the United States and Israel.

The legislation specifies Israel-U.S. coordination with America’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Missile Defense Agency, including the Golden Dome initiative, the United States Space Command, directed energy programs, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and other critical technologies that will shape the future distribution of power.

Of all the areas mentioned, artificial intelligence and biotechnology may have the greatest long term implications. These technologies will shape privacy, surveillance, predictive policing, digital identity systems, biosecurity, human enhancement technologies, and information control.

The Founders could never have imagined artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, or biotechnology directed by algorithms. Yet they understood a timeless truth: power must remain accountable to the people. The danger of our age is not merely that authority may concentrate in governments, corporations, or military institutions. It is that decisions of profound consequence may increasingly be delegated to technological systems that operate beyond the understanding and oversight of those whom the Constitution entrusts with governing.

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NO PENSIONS, NO WARSHIPS: Broken Germany To Raise Retirement Age to 70, as Plans Are Scrapped for Its Frigate Program That Already Cost Taxpayers $2.6 Billion

Germany is down and out.

13 months into his Chancellorship, Friedrich Merz is polling as the most unpopular German head of government in modern times.

That apparently does nothing to tamp down his cocky self-confidence and sense of self-importance, which so annoy the public.

And things may be about to take a turn for the worse as the German financial reality is biting.

To begin with, Germany is considering raising its pension age from 67 to 70 – the kind of move that set France ablaze for months while Emmanuel Macron tried to pretend all was great.

Germany is Europe’s largest economy, but it is stagnant, and the public finances are collapsing, so a ‘government-appointed commission’ has recommended a ‘radical overhaul of the pension system’.

The Telegraph reported:

“The commission, whose proposals are set to be presented to Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor, on Tuesday, has suggested incremental increases to the pension age every decade according to ‌life ‌expectancy, rising to 70 by 2092 under its current calculations.

They propose a 2:1 ratio formula. For every additional year of statistical life expectancy gained by the population, eight months must be spent working and four months can be spent in retirement.”

Currently, Germany takes the contributions taken from current workers to fund the pensions of current retirees, but the former keeps shrinking, while the latter keeps growing.

“We want to reform our country in such a way that future generations, young generations, also have the opportunity to live in freedom, in peace and in prosperity,” said Mr Merz last week.

[…] The commission also wants to reduce the number of gold-plated civil servant pensioners who receive an average of more than €40,000 (£35,000) a year. A recent calculation by Welt newspaper found the annual cost of these pensions, which teachers in many states can access, to be €67bn (£58bn).”

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Ukrainian Eastern Front Is Collapsing, 12 Villages Ordered Evacuated Near Belarus Border – Will Zelenskiy Attack To The North?

Zelenskiy just issued this statement:

I have instructed our intelligence services and military to act preemptively against the facilities that the Russians are using to expand the scale of the war. 

Right now, the Russian leadership is pulling more air defense systems toward Moscow, Valdai, and Putin’s bridge across the Kerch Strait, at the expense of air defenses in other areas.

They have concentrated hundreds of launchers for S-400, S-500, and Pantsir systems in the Moscow region alone. 

They have moved nearly 90 air defense launchers to Valdai from other regions of Russia, and a special air defense division is also being formed there to protect the peace and security of the Russian leadership.

For comparison, in all other directions across Russia and around its other cities, there are now only a few launchers in each location. Those are their priorities. They are protecting their own power—they are protecting the source of this war.

More than 60 Russian regions are already experiencing fuel shortages. There has also been a sharp increase in gasoline and diesel prices, assuming those fuels are even available. 

Russian security services are reportedly even proposing to postpone or completely cancel the ritual of selecting candidates from the ruling party, United Russia, for the State Duma. Their next imitation of an election was scheduled for September, and according to intelligence reports, we now see that Russia is uncertain about how things will develop by then.

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