Trump’s ‘drug boat’ attacks mirror controversial Obama-era tactic – NYT
RT | November 28, 2025
US airstrikes on suspected drug smugglers in the Caribbean ordered by President Donald Trump bear similarities to the controversial ‘signature strikes’ on purported terrorists under former President Barack Obama, the New York Times has argued.
The Obama-era operations conducted primarily in Pakistan and Yemen relied on detecting patterns of behavior that US intelligence agencies claimed indicated terrorist activity, rather than identifying wrongdoing by specific individuals. Critics condemned the approach for its vague criteria – sometimes as broad as ‘military-age male’ in an area prone to militancy – and for resulting in civilian casualties.
Pentagon officials have acknowledged in closed-door briefings that they often do not know the identities of the people killed in what the White House calls a campaign against “narcoterrorism” in the Caribbean, the NYT reported on Thursday. Despite this, US officials insist that the comparison does not apply, arguing that the strikes are aimed at narcotics rather than individuals.
“They told us it is not a signature strike, because it’s not just about pattern of life, but it’s also not like they know every individual person on the boats,” Representative Sara Jacobs, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, told the outlet.
The Obama administration’s killings of low-level militants and people merely assumed to be militants was criticized as counterproductive and fueling further radicalization. Trump officials reportedly argued that attacking boats at sea reduces the risk of collateral damage.
Some US allies, including the UK, have reportedly declined to assist with the ‘drug boat’ strikes, warning that they could violate international law. The campaign has already resulted in more than 80 deaths.
Analysts increasingly suspect that the operations could be laying the groundwork for a regime-change effort in Venezuela, whose president, Nicolas Maduro, the US accuses of leading a criminal cartel.
Taliban unveil five-year plan to help Afghan farmers replace poppy crops
The Cradle | November 3, 2025
The Ministry of Agriculture of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan announced on 3 November the approval of a five-year plan to provide alternatives to growing poppies for the country’s farmers.
Afghanistan has traditionally been a hub for growing poppies, which are used to produce heroin, a highly addictive and deadly drug, for consumption in Europe and elsewhere.
After taking power in 2021 following a chaotic US military withdrawal, the Taliban banned the cultivation of the plant.
Poppy cultivation flourished during the 20-year US occupation of the country, with many drug lords connected to the CIA receiving top positions in the Afghan government in Kabul.
According to the Agriculture Ministry, the five-year program will benefit some 149,900 farmers and involve $71 million in funding.
“This plan is designed to provide legal and sustainable economic opportunities for farmers in the sectors of agriculture, livestock, natural resources, and irrigation,” stated Sher Mohammad Hatami, spokesperson for the ministry.
The plan includes projects focused on orchard development, grain production, livestock growth, irrigation system improvements, the establishment of greenhouses, and training centers for farmers.
The ministry stated that other crops, including saffron, asafoetida (hing), cotton, and wheat, will be promoted as alternatives for farmers.
Meanwhile, several farmers told Tolo News that the ban on poppy cultivation had created serious economic challenges for them and called on Afghan authorities to provide help in transitioning to an alternative.
“We were forced to grow this crop, and now the government doesn’t help us even once a year,” said Barat, a farmer from Badakhshan.
Azim, another farmer from Badakhshan, said, “We want support in finding alternatives to drug cultivation, because farmers in this province are in need.”
A June 2023 report published by Alcis, a British-based geographic information services firm, revealed that the Taliban government had largely eliminated opium cultivation in the country, wiping out the base ingredient needed to produce heroin.
This outcome mirrored a similar move by the Taliban in 2000 when they were in power the first time.
Under the guise of the “War on Terror,” the 2001 US and UK invasion of the country was driven in part by the desire to restore the heroin trade, which the Taliban had abruptly terminated after taking power for the first time in 1996.
The western powers sought to re-establish the lucrative flow of billions of dollars that the heroin trade provided to their financial systems.
Imran Khan wasn’t overthrown — Pakistan was
Former Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan [ARIF ALI/AFP via Getty Images]
By Junaid S. Ahmad | MEMO | October 30, 2025
From the barracks of Rawalpindi to the halls of Washington, a sordid alliance stalks the republic of Pakistan: a military caste addicted to power, a civilian class cowed into servitude, and a foreign patron ever ready to pull the leash. What unfolds is less a grand strategy than a tragicomedy: generals trading sovereignty for sinecures, soldiers harbouring contempt for their officers, and a once-promising democratic movement crushed under the twin weights of imperial ambition and martial tutelage.
At the summit of Pakistan’s national hierarchy sits the uniformed elite—high-command officers whose benefit resides not in defending the people, but in ensuring their own station remains unchallenged. The vast majority of junior officers and ordinary soldiers know the drill: they march at a command, live off state hand-outs, yet watch in silence as their rulers gamble everything in Islamabad’s corridors of power. Beneath their boots pulses a latent contempt: not for the institution of soldiering, but for the generals who confuse war-games with governance, who mistake subservience for sovereignty. They know the charade: a military that catalogues enemies abroad yet fails its citizens at home; a top brass more at ease with arms deals and alliances than with schools or clinics.
Meanwhile, in Washington and its allied capitals, they observe the last great outsourcing of empire. The US sees Pakistan not as an independent partner, but as a subcontractor—an air-strip here, a drone base there, a pliant nuclear state with acceptable risks. When Imran Khan—in office—moved, albeit imperfectly, toward a new Pakistan: one marked by social justice, independent foreign policy, and friendship with all nations, he ran head-first into this alliance. He derailed the pat-scripts: refused US basing rights, challenged embassy diktats, and dared to recast Kashmir and Palestine not as trophies of patronage but as tests of principle. His mistake was not corruption—it was defiance. And the consequence was swift: a regime-change operation dressed in parliamentary garb, a military and intelligence complex that salivated at the smell of capitulation, and a Washington that nodded, funded and quietly applauded.
From here the narrative spirals into farce. Pakistan’s flag-waving elite collect defence pacts as one might souvenirs—each a badge of fidelity to the imperial order, each certifying that the country’s violent and unjust alignments will continue unimpeded. The generals embrace those pacts not because they secure Pakistan—they don’t—but because they secure the elite’s privilege: a share of the deals, a veneer of patriotism, a shield against accountability. And while their generals trade in hardware and geopolitics, the cries of the oppressed vanish into night: Pashtun civilians bombed under the guise of “counter-terror,” Afghan refugees reviled as villains by a state that once nurtured their tormentors.
Yes, nuclear-armed Pakistan could not muster a single bullet for Gaza. It did not send a protection force. It does not lobby the United Nations for justice, despite the occasional meaningless rhetoric. Instead, it signs on to the next big defence contract, brushes its hands of the Palestinian plight, and turns its back on the ideal of Muslim solidarity. What kind of state is this that boasts nuclear weapons yet lacks the moral will to send aid—or more than a token gesture—to fellow victims of aggression? A state that lectures others on terrorism while shelling its own Pashtun tribes. A state so short on legitimacy it must invoke the bogeyman of the Afghan refugee, call entire populations “terrorists,” then crush any dissent with tanks and tear-gas.
Speaking of dissent—when Imran Khan’s movement rose, the state responded with idylls of terror. Cadres of young activists, women, students, social justice advocates—whether Karachi or Khyber—found themselves in dungeons sanctioned by a military-political complex. The hearings were stacked, the charges manufactured, the message simple: move for justice and you move into our sights. The generals clapped their hands, Washington twisted the strings, and the civilian face of Pakistan trembled. The officer class may nominally obey the high command—but in quiet mess halls and among soldiers’ wives the whispers of outrage gather: “Why are we policing our own people? Why is Urdu-speaking Karachi the victim of our operations? Why do we trespass into forests and valleys and call them terror zones?”
In the borderlands the farce becomes terrifyingly concrete. The army, having once nurtured the Taliban in Afghanistan to secure “strategic depth,” now bombs them—and blames them for terrorism. In this brain-twist of national strategy, the creator is recast as the adversary, the patron transformed into the provoked. The Pashtun civilian watches as homes are razed near the Durand Line, as refugees arrive on Pakistani soil bearing the costs of wars Pakistan helped manufacture, and as the generals portray them as fifth-column terrorists. The irony would be comical were it not so brutal.
And what of Kashmir? In the so-called “free” Azad Kashmir of Pakistan, huge anti-government demonstrations rage. A region whose inhabitants yearn for dignity, not just slogans. Under Imran Khan, new polling suggested the unthinkable: Kashmiris in Indian-occupied Kashmir, despite seeing the abysmal conditions in Azad Kashmir, began to seriously consider joining Pakistan—not as another occupier but as a fortress of self-determination. The generals would rather you not notice that: they prefer the pre-scripted dispute, the perpetual conflict, the tortured rhetoric of “we stand with Kashmir” while the state stands with its own survival. The polls are telling: if Pakistan’s Kashmir policy is failing, the state itself is structurally unhealthy.
To be sure, the Pakistan military remains an institution of extraordinary capability. But capability is not legitimacy; nor is turf-control a foundation for national purpose. The generals continue to conflate war-power with nation-power, forgetting that true power is fostered by schools, by hospitals, by trust in institutions—and by consent, not coercion. And when a regime trades in foreign patronage—be it Washington’s dollars or Beijing’s infrastructure—but cannot deliver justice or dignity at home, the bargain has already been lost.
As the Iranian–Israeli conflict rages, as Gaza bleeds, and as the great-game intensifies in South Asia, Pakistan stands at a crossroads: obey its patrons, shrink its sovereignty, and reclaim the empire-client script—or reject the military’s primacy, embrace true independence, and build a republic that answers not to external powers but to its people. The generals will tell you that the choice is security; the civilians will whisper it is dignity.
Here is the truth the generals, the politicians, and the strategists don’t want you to admit: you cannot rule a nation by telling its people to be silent while you thunder abroad. You cannot build strategic depth on the graves of your own citizens. You cannot pretend to champion Palestine while allying with its oppressors. You cannot call yourself a sovereign state when your alliances define you more than your aspirations.
Pakistan’s military may still march on; its generals may still wield the levers of power; Washington may still fax orders and funnel funds. But the people—they are waking up. And once the echo of Imran Khan’s voice becomes a roar, no amount of bayonets, no arsenal of deals, no drums of war will silence it. The generals may hold the fortress of Rawalpindi, but they cannot hold the conscience of a nation. The struggle for that is already well underway—and the verdict will not wait.
Kabul hails regional powers’ rejection of foreign military bases in Afghanistan
MEMO | September 28, 2025
Afghanistan on Saturday welcomed a joint stance by China, Russia, Iran and Pakistan opposing any reestablishment of foreign military bases in the country, the Taliban administration said, Anadolu reports.
Hamdullah Fitrat, deputy spokesman of the interim government, issued the statement after foreign ministers of the four nations met on the sidelines of the 80th UN General Assembly in New York.
The four countries form a quadrilateral consultation mechanism created in 2017 to promote regional stability and coordinate efforts to counter terrorism, narcotics and extremism emanating from Afghan territory.
In a joint communique, they voiced support for Afghanistan’s sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity and said they “firmly” oppose any move by outside powers to set up military bases in Afghanistan or the wider region.
Fitrat said that Afghanistan’s territory would not be allowed to be used against any country and that no armed groups are permitted to operate inside the country.
“Afghanistan is taking serious steps against corruption, drugs and all kinds of undesirable issues and considers this process its responsibility,” he said, adding that Kabul seeks positive relations with all countries based on “mutual respect.”
It comes days after US President Donald Trump warned “bad things” would happen if the interim Taliban administration did not cede control of Bagram Air Base to the Pentagon.
The Taliban returned to power in August 2021 after the withdrawal of US-led forces ended a two-decade war.
Kabul has said it would not negotiate its territorial integrity and urged Trump to honor the 2020 Doha agreement.
Why the US has sanctioned the Chabahar Port in Iran
By Salman Rafi Sheikh – New Eastern Outlook – September 27, 2025
US sanctions on Iran’s Chabahar Port may look like just another chapter in Washington’s “maximum pressure” playbook, but they are far more ambitious and dangerous.
The move simultaneously aims to discipline India, ratchet up economic warfare against Tehran, and force Afghanistan into a position where ceding Bagram airbase seems unavoidable. In pursuing all three goals at once, the US may be setting the stage for strategic overreach.
US axe falls on Chabahar
On September 16, the US announced that it was reimposing sanctions on Iran’s Chabahar Port that it co-developed with India. Revoking “the sanctions exception issued in 2018 under the Iran Freedom and Counter-Proliferation Act (IFCA) for Afghanistan reconstruction assistance and economic development,” the announcement further said that any “persons who operate the Chabahar Port or engage in other activities described in IFCA may expose themselves to sanctions under IFCA”.
The reference to any “persons” operating the port is to India, which has invested millions of dollars in the port in the last few years. India began to develop this port in a certain geopolitical context. Back then, New Delhi, supported by Washington, used this port to counter China’s Gwadar port in Pakistan. Accordingly, the US granted this port an exemption from sanctions. That exemption has now been taken away. Another imperative at that time was to allow India to use the port to provide supplies to Kabul to support the Karzai and Ghani administrations. Bypassing Pakistan—which Washington understood was supporting the Taliban—the US co-opted India to support the US-backed civilian regime. That geopolitical context, as it stands, no longer exists. The US no longer needs to support avenues to support the regime in Kabul that is no longer a Washington ally. In fact, Washington now prefers using the Chabahar Port issue to equally punish Kabul.
The Geopolitics of Sanctions
By sanctioning Iran’s Chabahar Port, Washington is pursuing more than just another chapter in its “maximum pressure” campaign. It has three critical objectives in mind, the first of which is to punish India. The Trump administration’s ongoing trade war with New Delhi has already seen tariffs climb as high as 50 per cent on Indian exports to the US, dramatically undercutting India’s competitiveness. The withdrawal of the 2018 sanctions waiver on Chabahar effectively expands this economic conflict into the strategic realm. Not only are Indian goods 50 per cent more expensive in the US market, but now Indian exports to Central Asia through Chabahar are threatened by US sanctions as well. The message is blunt: New Delhi cannot expect privileged access to either American markets or regional transit corridors if it resists Washington’s terms.
Yet the dispute is not only about tariffs or trade balances. Chabahar has long symbolised a broader geopolitical opening—an India–Iran–Afghanistan transport corridor that could eventually link New Delhi to Russian and Central Asian energy markets. For India, the project promises a vital alternative to reliance on Persian Gulf suppliers or US-aligned routes. For Washington, this is precisely the problem. By crippling Chabahar, the US seeks to stymie the emergence of an energy corridor outside its sphere of influence and to foreclose India’s access to Iranian and Russian hydrocarbons. The ultimate goal is not simply to weaken Tehran but to pressure India into diverting its purchases toward US liquefied natural gas and crude exports.
The sanctions also reflect a deliberate attempt to recalibrate India’s relationship with Iran. If New Delhi is forced to retreat from Chabahar, Washington calculates, Iran’s isolation will deepen. The State Department’s September 16 statement left little ambiguity, identifying the “networks” that generate “millions for the Iranian military” as key targets of the new restrictions. Chabahar, as Iran’s flagship connectivity project with India and Afghanistan, sits squarely within those crosshairs. Unsurprisingly, the port will dominate the agenda when Ali Larijani, Tehran’s national security adviser and one of the most influential figures in the Iranian establishment, arrives in Delhi in the coming weeks.
The third objective at play is Afghanistan. In recent months, President Trump has openly pressed Kabul to hand back the Bagram airbase to American control, a demand the Taliban leadership has flatly rejected. For the Taliban, acquiescence would be politically ruinous, signaling subservience to the very power they fought for two decades to expel. By sanctioning Chabahar, Washington is attempting to narrow Afghanistan’s options, undermining its role as a vital overland bridge that could connect India and other South Asian states—excluding Pakistan—to Central Asian markets. This is not a trivial calculation. With relations between Kabul and Islamabad deteriorating, the Taliban regime has been cautiously exploring new partnerships in the region, and India has emerged as an obvious candidate. Earlier this year, the Taliban went so far as to call India a “significant regional partner.” Washington’s sanctions strategy is designed precisely to choke this opening, shrinking the diplomatic and economic space available to Kabul as it manoeuvres for new allies.
The US risks a massive backfire
Yet Washington’s gambit carries the risk of a serious backlash. Kabul has little incentive to heed American preferences, particularly after the Biden administration’s refusal to release Afghanistan’s frozen financial assets. The Taliban leadership, already charting its course independently, is unlikely to view US sanctions as anything more than another act of hostility. More consequential, however, is the potential fallout with India. By undermining New Delhi’s flagship connectivity project, Washington risks inflicting lasting damage on a relationship it has spent years cultivating. Alienated, India may lean more heavily on alternative partnerships with Russia and even China, eroding the very strategic alignment the US has sought to build through the Indo-Pacific framework. And if New Delhi ultimately withdraws from Chabahar under sanctions pressure, Washington may not secure the energy dominance it envisions. Instead, the vacuum could invite Beijing to step in, transforming Chabahar into a Chinese-controlled gateway for Central Asian energy, a scenario that would decisively undercut American aims.
Salman Rafi Sheikh is a research analyst of International Relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs.
Taliban rejects Trump’s ultimatum
RT | September 21, 2025
Afghanistan has rejected US President Donald Trump’s ultimatum that Bagram Air Base be returned to American control, insisting that such demands violate the 2020 Taliban-US agreement on the withdrawal of troops.
On Sunday, Trump warned that if Afghanistan doesn’t give the facility back, unspecified “BAD THINGS ARE GOING TO HAPPEN!!!” The US leader had earlier lamented Washington’s loss of the base, noting its proximity to China.
Later that day, Hamdullah Fitrat, deputy spokesman of the Taliban-run Afghan government, noted that Kabul has made it clear to the US in all negotiations that the country’s “independence and territorial integrity are of the utmost importance.”
“It should be recalled that, under the Doha Agreement, the United States pledged that ‘it will not use or threaten force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Afghanistan, nor interfere in its internal affairs,’” he said, urging the US to honor its pledge.
“Rather than repeating past failed approaches, a policy of realism and rationality should be adopted,” Fitrat stressed.
Bagram Air Base, located in Parwan Province about 60 km north of Kabul, was the primary US military hub in Afghanistan for two decades. It served as a launching point for counterterrorism operations, including against al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. It also housed detention facilities, which were allegedly sometimes used for torture.
Under the 2020 Doha Agreement, the US essentially concluded peace with the Taliban and committed to gradually withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan, and to cease threatening the country’s political independence. In exchange, the militants issued guarantees not to allow Afghan soil to be used by terrorist groups.
However, while the US was implementing a phased troop withdrawal, the Afghan government and security forces crumbled under Taliban pressure, prompting the remaining US troops to scramble for a chaotic evacuation.
Taliban officials have since maintained they are open to cooperation with the US but “without the United States maintaining any military presence in any part of Afghanistan.”
US withdraws waiver for Iran’s Chabahar port, hitting India’s investment
Press TV – September 19, 2025
The United States has revoked the sanctions waiver for Iran’s Chabahar port, threatening India’s multi-million-dollar investment in the strategic project amid straining ties between Washington and New Delhi.
The White House announced on Thursday that the exemption, in place since 2018, will end on September 29.
The waiver had allowed India to develop the Shahid Beheshti terminal at Chabahar, seen as a key gateway to Afghanistan and Central Asia. With its withdrawal, entities involved in the project may now face penalties.
US State Department spokesperson Thomas Pigott said the decision was consistent with the Trump administration’s so-called “maximum pressure” policy. He said that the revocation means any person or company engaged in the port’s operation could be exposed to sanctions.
Located in Chabahar, the port gives India access to Afghanistan and beyond, while also feeding into larger connectivity schemes such as the International North-South Transport Corridor.
India has already provided equipment worth $25 million, shipped food supplies through the port, and, in May 2024, signed a 10-year agreement to operate it. Under that deal, India pledged $120 million in investment and offered an additional $250 million credit line for infrastructure upgrades.
The waiver was originally granted in recognition of the port’s importance for stabilizing Afghanistan and facilitating humanitarian shipments.
Iran, meanwhile, has long slammed Washington’s reliance on sanctions. Officials in Tehran describe the approach as an “addiction” that has persisted since the 1979 revolution, with various Iranian entities repeatedly targeted under shifting pretexts.
Meanwhile, the sanction comes as tensions between New Delhi and Washington have already been rising under the Trump administration. Earlier this year, the White House imposed 50 percent tariffs on Indian goods, doubling an earlier rate.
Trump justified the move by accusing India of indirectly financing Russia’s war in Ukraine through oil purchases. The tariffs, which came into force in August, now cover most Indian exports to the US.
The measures hit at a time when bilateral trade stood at more than $87 billion, making India one of America’s largest partners. Experts warn the duties could shrink India’s exports to the US to nearly half within two years.
New Delhi has condemned the tariffs as “unfair, unjustified, and unreasonable,” and signaled a stronger tilt toward Moscow and Beijing.
Top Kremlin official says NATO seeks to ‘re-establish military presence’ in Afghanistan
The Cradle | August 29, 2025
Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu on 29 August accused western intelligence of plotting to destabilize Afghanistan and rebuild NATO’s military infrastructure there.
Writing in state-owned Rossiyskaya Gazeta magazine, Shoigu said that Russia is seeking to expand cooperation with Afghanistan as it seeks to recover from two decades of US occupation that ended with the chaotic withdrawal of US troops in 2021.
Washington spent $2 trillion to invade and occupy Afghanistan starting in 2001, Shoigu noted, while facilitating the production of opium, much of which was used to make heroin for export to Russia.
Shoigu explained that opium production in the country skyrocketed during the 1980s when CIA-backed extremist groups, known as the mujahideen, sought to destabilize the Soviet-backed Afghan government and later to expel occupying Soviet troops.
When the Taliban first took power in 1996, they immediately cracked down on the opium trade, only for US-backed warlords to revive it after the 2001 US invasion in the wake of 9/11.
When the Taliban took power for a second time in 2021, they all but eliminated the heroin trade once again.
Shoyghu stated that some 20 international extremist groups continue to operate in Afghanistan, undermining stability within the country and posing a serious regional and global threat.
Of greatest concern is the Afghan wing of ISIS, which has training camps and support bases, mainly in the east, north, and northeast of the country.
Shoigu said militants are being moved from other countries by western intelligence to destabilize regions near Russia, China, and Iran.
“There is reason to believe that behind these actions are the special services of a number of western countries, which continue to hatch plans to destabilize the region, to create chronic centers of instability near Russia, China, and Iran by means of extremist groups hostile to the Taliban,” he wrote.
“It is also clear that the western powers, having lost their positions in the Afghan direction, are hatching plans to return NATO military infrastructure facilities to the region,” he added.
Shoigu stated that as a result, Moscow is ready to assist the Taliban in stabilizing the country, including by developing anti-terrorist and anti-drug cooperation with Kabul through law enforcement agencies.
“Smart War” and State Terrorism
By Laurie Calhoun | The Libertarian Institute | July 1, 2025
On June 16, 2025, President Donald Trump threatened the 10 million inhabitants of Tehran, Iran, with death, for their government’s alleged nuclear aspirations.
The message was posted to the president’s Truth Social account, shared on X/Twitter, and then picked up by all major mass media outlets, making it common knowledge to everyone on the planet that Trump was preparing to join Israel’s war on Iran.
On June 17, 2025, President Trump directly threatened Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei with assassination.
Sometimes crazy people issue vague threats which they have no power to follow through on. Such persons are best avoided and ignored. In order to be effective, death threats must be credible, otherwise there is no fear generated in the persons being addressed, for they recognize that they are dealing with no more and no less than a feckless buffoon. Whatever one may think of President Trump, his menacing social media posts are credible threats, given his official role as commander-in-chief with the power to unleash formidable military might on the people of the world. In case anyone did not already know this, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt reminded the press corps on June 20, 2025, that “Iran and the entire world should know that the United States military is the strongest and most lethal fighting force in the world, and we have capabilities that no other country on this planet possesses.”
Trump’s warning to the entire population of Tehran that they should all evacuate the city was a fortiori a credible threat, given the U.S. government’s wide-ranging “War on Terror,” during which both Afghanistan and Iraq were invaded and occupied. Several other countries were subjected to thousands of missile strikes “outside areas of active hostilities,” that is, where there were no U.S. troops present and thus no force-protection pretext for the use of state-inflicted homicide.
Verbal threats of the use of deadly force by a president often culminate in military action because the commander may be easily persuaded by his advisors to believe that he (and the nation) will lose credibility if he fails to follow through on his words, which, he is told, would be a sign of weakness. Predictably enough, then, on June 22, 2025, President Trump delivered on his threat to bomb Iran, although he claimed to have struck only three specific sites: Fordow, Isfahan, and Natanz. It was at these sites where nuclear enrichment and the development of nuclear arms were allegedly underway. The Trump administration’s Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard reported to members of congress in March 2025: “The [Intelligence Community] continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003.”
On June 17, 2025, when a journalist reminded Trump of Director Gabbard’s assessment, the president bluntly blurted out, “I don’t care what she said.” It has become increasingly obvious that Trump’s foreign policy in the Middle East is primarily informed not by his own cabinet but by the intelligence services of Israel, above all, Mossad.
For anyone unfamiliar with the modus operandi and general demeanor of Mossad, I recommend the films Munich (2005), The Gatekeepers (2012), and The Operative (2020).
That Trump has been decisively influenced by the government of Israel was further evidenced by his direct threat against Supreme Leader Khamenei and the fact that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been calling for regime change in Iran for decades.
On June 20, 2025, two days before Trump’s missile strikes on Iran, Director Gabbard did an about-face, insisting that her earlier testimony before congress had been misrepresented and ignored her finding that Iran had been enriching uranium:
Gabbard’s retraction, or creative reinterpretation, of her former testimony bears similarities to the case of Bush administration Secretary of State Colin Powell, who initially opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq and then for reasons which remain unclear suddenly became one of the mission’s most ardent supporters. In Powell’s case, he went even so far as to present the case for war to a less-than-enthusiastic United Nations Security Council. After a colorful Powerpoint presentation featuring an array of ersatz evidence—ranging from speculation about Iraq’s aluminum test tubes, to a receipt for “yellow cake” purchase, to photos of what were claimed to be mobile chemical labs—Powell recognized that he did not have the votes needed to secure U.N. approval and so abruptly withdrew the war resolution. The United States then proceeded to invade Iraq unimpeded, claiming, among other things, that the 2003 military intervention was legal because of previous U.N. resolutions violated by President Saddam Hussein. In other words, after having sought U.N. approval, the U.S. government suddenly denied that it needed such approval before invading Iraq anyway.
Unlike George W. Bush, when Donald Trump bombed Iran “at a time of his choosing,” as they say, he did not have the support of the U.S. congress. Presidents Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Trump all depended on the Bush-era AUMFs as they continued to lob missiles on several countries beyond Afghanistan and Iraq, including Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, et al. But the carte blanche AUMFs granted to Bush in 2001 and 2002 had nothing whatsoever to do with the conflict between Israel and Iran. Neocons naturally devise all manner of interpretive epicyclic curlicues to arrive at the conclusion that Iran is in fact “fair game” for bombing. As stated and ratified, however, the AUMFs granted by congress to George W. Bush were intended to facilitate the U.S. president’s quest to bring justice to the perpetrators of the September 11, 2001 crimes.
Lest anyone forget, President Trump was not unique among twenty-first century presidents in bombing countries whose residents had nothing to do with the shocking demolition of the World Trade Center. President Obama effected a regime change in Libya without securing the support of congress because, he claimed, it was not really a war, since he was not deploying any ground troops. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did her part to persuade Obama that “Gaddafi must go!” She later characterized the Libya intervention as a shining example of “smart power at its best,” even though a few U.S. State Department officials, including the ambassador to Libya, Christopher Steele, were killed in the post-bombing mêlée. Today, Libya is essentially a failed state. Obama himself has confessed that the biggest regret and worst mistake of his presidency (reported in The Guardian) was not having a plan for the aftermath of his supposedly “humanitarian” intervention, which he enlisted NATO to carry out.
In the immediate aftermath of the June 22, 2025 missile strikes, Trump officials followed the Obama administration’s Libya playbook in insisting that his attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities was not the beginning of a long, protracted engagement in Iran. This was meant to draw contrast with the unpopular multi-decade wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Ignoring Trump’s threat to the residents of Tehran, Vice President J.D. Vance and others recited the Obama administration refrain that the mission was “not a war” with Iran. As Vance explained, the limited missile strikes were carried out only in order to dismantle Iran’s nuclear facilities. According to the government of Iran, a total of 610 people were killed and thousands more injured by the bombs of the U.S. and Israeli governments. However, none of the persons who perished were Americans.
Availing himself of the Obama-era “smart war” trope, Vice President Vance also observed that Trump’s preemptive military strikes differed from those of his predecessors because, unlike Trump, the previous presidents were “dumb”. Oliver Stone produced a film, W (2008), which persuasively portrays Bush as a half-wit, but no one ever suggested that Vice President Dick Cheney or the cadre of other war profiteers and neocons who coaxed Bush into preemptively attacking Iraq were stupid.
In any case, by now, the U.S. government has directly massacred so many thousands of people (and millions indirectly) in so many different countries, often located outside areas of active hostility (war zones or lands under occupation), that the citizenry has become largely inured to it all. Tragically, over the course of the twenty-first century, we have witnessed an apparently permanent paradigm shift to the profligate state use of homicide to terrorize and kill anyone anywhere deemed dangerous or even suspicious by U.S. officials or their contracted analysts. This radical paradigm shift was made possible by a new technology: the weaponized drone, which began to be used by the Bush administration first under a pretext of force protection in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Bush team effectively initiated the Drone Age by firing a missile on a group of terrorist suspects driving down a road in Yemen on November 3, 2002.
As the Global War on Terror stretched on and angry jihadists began to proliferate and spread throughout the region, President Obama assumed the drone warrior mantel with alacrity, opting to kill rather than capture thousands of suspected terrorists outside areas of active hostilities. In his enthusiasm for drone killing, Obama went even so far as to intentionally and premeditatedly hunt down and kill U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki (located in Yemen at the time, in 2011), without indicting him, much less allowing him to stand trial, for his alleged crimes.
Following the Obama precedent, in 2015, U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron opted to execute British nationals Ruhul Amin and Reyaad Khan, who were suspected of complicity in terrorism, after they had fled from the U.K. to Syria, and despite the fact that the parliament had rejected Cameron’s call for war on Syria. Cameron’s missile strikes against British citizens located abroad was all the more surprising because capital punishment is illegal in the U.K. as well as the European Union, of which Britain was a member at that time.
One state-perpetrated assassination leads to another, and on January 3, 2020, President Trump authorized the targeted killing via drone strike of a top Iranian commander, Qassem Soleimani, who was in Baghdad on a diplomatic mission at the time. Trump openly proclaimed, and indeed bragged, that the homicide, which he authorized, was intentional and premeditated. According to the president, Soleimani was responsible for past and future attacks against both Israel and the United States. The summary execution of a specific, named individual would have been considered an illegal act of assassination in centuries past but today is accepted by many as an “act of war” for the sophomoric reason that it is carried out by a military strike rather than undercover spies armed with poisons or garrottes.
In view of Trump’s unabashed, vaunted, assassination of Soleimani, and his full-throated support of Netanyahu, the threat to liquidate Supreme Leader Khamenei was just as credible as the “evacuation order” to the entire population of Tehran. Leaders today exult over their use of cutting-edge technology to eliminate specific, named individuals, as though summarily executing the victims were obviously permissible, given that targeted killing is now regarded by governments the world over as one of the military’s standard operating procedures. Such unlawful actions were fully normalized as a tool of “smart war” during the eight-year Obama presidency.
Shortly after Trump officials went out on the media circuit to insist that the bombing of Iran’s alleged nuclear production facilities was not the initiation of a U.S.-Iran war, Trump took to social media again, this time to suggest that his administration’s ultimate goal might really be regime change:
Less than one day later, the new official narrative became that Trump had masterfully brought the “twelve-day war” to a miraculous close, thanks to his superlative deal-making capabilities.
All of this would be risible, if not for the fact that many millions of persons in Iran continue to live under a persistent threat of death, given the wildly unpredictable comportment of President Trump, seemingly exacerbated by his longstanding commitment to stand by Israel, regardless of how outrageously Netanyahu behaves. The more and more daring acts of assassination perpetrated by the government of Israel clearly illustrate where state-perpetrated homicide and its attendant terrorist effects under a specious guise of “smart war” eventually lead.
Targeting named terrorist suspects allegedly responsible for previous crimes swiftly expanded to include signature strikes against groups of unarmed persons designated potentially dangerous and located anywhere in the world—in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, or anywhere else they please. The Israeli government has even deployed exploding cellphones and car bombs, the latter of which was once a tactic primarily deployed by dissident anti-government groups and crime syndicates. The repeated use by the Israeli government of car bombs to kill research scientists illuminates the slippery slope from missile strikes outside areas of active hostilities to what are empirically indistinguishable from Mafia hits. Car bombs have long been used by the Mafia and other nongovernmental organized crime groups, but the Israeli government openly perpetrates the very same acts under cover of “national self defense”.
Washington’s normalization of assassinations has emboldened leaders such as Netanyahu, who today conducts himself according to the principle “everything is permitted” in the name of the sacrosanct State. Witness what has been going on in Gaza since October 7, 2023: terrorism, torture, starvation, and summary execution. All of this is being condoned by every leader in the world who continues to voice support for, or even aids and abets, Netanyahu’s mass slaughter. This support for mass slaughter is provided ostensibly under the assumption that the perpetrators are doing no more and no less than defending the State of Israel.
Following the examples of U.S. Presidents Trump and Obama, and UK Prime Minister Cameron, all of whom publicly vaunted their assassination prowess, Prime Minister Netanyahu, having apparently recognized that the implement of homicide is in fact morally irrelevant, openly and brazenly executes persons determined by Mossad to be dangerous, with no concern for the thousands of innocent persons’ lives ruined along the way. In Operation Red Wedding, the Israeli government claimed to have dispatched, in a matter of minutes, thirty senior officials associated with the IRGC (Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps) including military chiefs and top commanders located throughout Iran at the opening of the June 2025 “Twelve-Day War.” The operation was praised by the pro-Israel media as featuring “bespoke” acts of targeted killing made possible by “pattern of life” intelligence.
Drone assassination, successfully marketed by the Obama team as “smart war,” smoothed the way to the uncritical acceptance by many citizens of the reprobate expansion of state killing to include acts historically committed by members of nongovernmental organized crime. Looking back, the rebranding by U.S. officials of political assassination as an act of war, provided only that the implement of death is a missile, was a slick and largely successful way of persuading U.S. citizens to believe that extrajudicial, state-inflicted homicide abroad is an acceptable means to conflict resolution. Even though it bypasses all of the republican procedures forged over millennia, including judicial means, for reconciling the rival claims of adversaries.
In the maelstrom of the twenty-first-century wars on Afghanistan and Iraq, assassination was labeled targeted killing and successfully sold to politicians as “smart war,” a surgically precise way to defeat the enemy without sacrificing combatant troops. Whichever label is used, assassination or targeted killing, acts of summary execution by governments involve the intentional, premeditated elimination of persons suspected to be possibly dangerous, a criterion so vague as to permit the targeting of virtually any able-bodied person who happens to be located in a place where terrorists are thought to reside.
There are three differences between “targeted killing” carried out by drone warriors and assassination. First, the weapon being used is a missile. Second, drone operators wear uniforms, while undercover assassins and hitmen do not. Third, far from being “surgically precise,” drone warfare increases the slaughter of innocent bystanders in their own civil societies, which is facilely dismissed as the “collateral damage” of war. In this way, the advent of lethal drones and their use outside areas of active hostility has served to terrorize entire populations forced to endure the hovering above their heads of machines which may—or may not—emit missiles at any given time on any given day.
Credible death threats to heads of state and evacuation orders issued to millions of people not only terrorize the persons being addressed, but also undermine the security of the citizens of the United States. The populace will bear the brunt of the blowback caused by such reckless behavior on the part of officials who operate with effective impunity and are ignorant of or oblivious to the nation’s republican origins. By launching preemptive missile strikes, the Pentagon does not protect but sabotages the interests and well-being of not only U.S. citizens but also the citizens of the world.
Nonetheless, many U.S. politicians and members of the populace, along with heads of state such as Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Australia Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, et al., having been thoroughly seduced by the “smart war” marketing line, appear to have no problem whatsoever with the tyrannical and arguably deranged death threats of the U.S. president. They have become altogether habituated to the assassination of persons now regarded as a standard operating procedure of war. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen effectively condoned Trump’s behavior by issuing this statement in the aftermath of the June 22, 2025 U.S. missile strikes against Iran: “Iran must never acquire the bomb.”
If terrorism is the arbitrary killing of or threat of death against innocent persons, then there can be no further doubt that the largest state sponsor and perpetrator of terrorism in the twenty-first century is in fact the U.S. government. President Trump inherited from President Obama and his mentor, drone-killing czar John Brennan (appointed by Obama as CIA director in 2013), the capacity to terrorize entire civilian populations and execute individuals at his caprice. No less than every drone strike launched in the vicinity of civilian populations beyond war zones, Trump’s completely unhinged threat to a group of people with nowhere to seek refuge, and no way of knowing whether the U.S. president is issuing a serious warning or simply bluffing, attempting some sort of perverse ploy to bring Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenei back to the negotiation table (where he was, before Israel began bombing Iran), was an act of terrorism.
It is not “smart” to terrorize millions of human beings in the name of preventing terrorism. It is a contradiction, pure and simple.
Laurie Calhoun is a Senior Fellow for The Libertarian Institute. She is the author of Questioning the COVID Company Line: Critical Thinking in Hysterical Times,We Kill Because We Can: From Soldiering to Assassination in the Drone Age, War and Delusion: A Critical Examination, Theodicy: A Metaphilosophical Investigation, You Can Leave, Laminated Souls, and Philosophy Unmasked: A Skeptic’s Critique. In 2015, she began traveling around the world while writing. In 2020, she returned to the United States, where she remained until 2023 as a result of the COVID-19 travel restrictions imposed by governments nearly everywhere.
Who Destroyed Four World Trade Center Buildings?
Tales of the American Empire | June 19, 2025
On September 11 2001, FOUR World Trade center buildings in New York were suddenly destroyed. We are told that no one could imagine that terrorists could knock down the two World Trade Center towers, even though Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu predicted this in his 1995 book. He warned the U.S. Congress this may happened unless the United States joined a war to expand Israel by destroying what he called terror states. Even before the smoke cleared on 9-11, the plotters blamed Osama bin Laden to block investigations into their weak official story.
Note: YouTube demonetized this video claiming “violence throughout”, even though there is no graphic violence, just some collapsing buildings often shown on television.
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“Bin Laden says he wasn’t behind attacks”; CNN; September 17, 2001; https://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/09/16…
Related Tale: “The Empire’s Fake War on Terror”; 
• The Empire’s Fake War on Terror
Related Tale: “Osama Bin Laden WAS NOT Responsible for 9/11”; • Osama Bin Laden WAS NOT Responsible for 9/11
“U.S. Military Knows Israel Did 9/11 – Dr. Alan Sabrosky”; Augustus Berg; Bitchute; June 30, 2023; https://www.bitchute.com/video/Vsf4v1…
“9/9 and 9/11, 20 Years Later”; Pepe Escobar; Unz.com; September 9, 2021; https://www.unz.com/pescobar/9-9-and-…
Related Tale: “The 1993 FBI Bombing in New York; • The 1993 FBI Bombing in New York
“9/11 Conspiracy Theory Explained in 5 Minutes”; James Corbett; 2022; • 9/11 Conspiracy Theory Explained in 5 Minutes
“”The 9/11 Commission Was A FRAUD” – Curt Weldon EXPOSES CIA Cover-Up, Able Danger & Deleted Evidence”; PBD Podcast; YouTube; May 14, 2025; • “The 9/11 Commission Was A FRAUD” – Curt W…
“Rep. Curt Weldon: It’s Time to Finally Tell the Truth About 9-11”; Tucker Carlson; YouTube; April 14, 2025; • Rep. Curt Weldon: It’s Time to Finally Tel…
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MMR (Measles, Mumps and Rubella) – Vaccine Risk Statement
MMR Vaccine (Measles, Mumps, and Rubella) Is It Safer Than Measles, Mumps and Rubella?
Physicians for Informed Consent | December 2024
… It has not been proven that the MMR vaccine is safer than measles, mumps, and rubella. The vaccine package insert raises questions about safety testing for cancer, genetic mutations, and impaired fertility. Although VAERS tracks some adverse events, it is too inaccurate to measure against the risk of measles, mumps, and rubella. Clinical trials do not have the ability to detect less common adverse reactions, and epidemiological studies are limited by the effects of chance and possible confounders. Safety studies of the MMR vaccine are particularly lacking in statistical power. A review of more than 60 MMR vaccine studies conducted for the Cochrane Library states, “The design and reporting of safety outcomes in MMR vaccine studies, both pre- and post-marketing, are largely inadequate.”19 Because permanent sequelae (aftereffects) from measles, mumps, and rubella are so rare (especially in children with normal levels of vitamin A and infected after birth),6,15-17 the level of accuracy of the research studies available is insufficient to rule out the possibility that the MMR vaccine causes greater death or permanent disability than measles, mumps, and rubella. – Read full article
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