Lebanon, Syria, Gaza: The Forever Occupation

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz reiterated on Wednesday his country will keep its troops in occupied areas of Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza indefinitely. 

“Our policy for defending the borders of the State of Israel... is clear”, Katz said, as quoted by the Jerusalem Post. “The IDF will not withdraw and will remain in the security zones in Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza for an unlimited period of time”. 

Katz also renewed an earlier warning to Iran, saying it would be struck with “full force” if it retaliated over Israel’s military campaign in Lebanon. 

The warning echoed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent pledge that Israel’s pursuit of “total victory” over Iran and its allied groups “never ends”. 

Tehran has made an end to Israeli military operations in Lebanon one of its key conditions in the ongoing peace talks with the US. 

If you must know, in recent months, the IDF have pushed deeper into southern Lebanon, establishing what Israeli officials describe as a security buffer zone. According to media reports, by June, Israeli forces controlled roughly 2,000 square kilometers of Lebanese territory – nearly one-fifth of the country.

Let me repeat here that Iran's decision to sign the MOU and pursue (indirect) "negotiations" is WRONG! 😡😡😡

UK Special Forces Resign En Masse Over War Crimes Probe

Soldiers from the UK’s elite SAS force are resigning in significant numbers over fears of prosecution following human rights investigations into alleged war crimes, British media reports. 

The probe largely focuses on British special forces operations in Afghanistan from 2010 to 2013, as well as missions in Syria and Northern Ireland. 

A public inquiry is examining claims that troops carried out extrajudicial killings during night raids, including the shooting of detainees and unarmed civilians, and whether evidence was falsified and senior officers failed to investigate or concealed wrongdoing. 

Members of 22 SAS, the British Army’s elite special forces unit, have applied for “premature voluntary release”, multiple outlets reported on Monday, citing insiders. The exact number of departures has not been disclosed, though at least two squadrons (D and G) are understood to have been affected. 

“Morale is s**t at the moment”, one insider was quoted as saying. Another source described “considerable disquiet” within the regiment. 

Lieutenant Colonel Richard Williams told LBC radio on Tuesday the growing number of departures from 22 SAS was driven by concerns among serving troops that actions during operations could later lead to investigations or potential arrest under human rights law. 

Last month, it was revealed that 242 special forces troops, including 120 serving personnel, were being pursued by lawyers as part of human rights inquiries, according to a memo shared with SAS and Special Reconnaissance Regiment associations. The investigation, which some within the regiment have labeled a “witch hunt”, examines UK secret operations, with troops facing legal sanctions if they fail to comply, the memo said. 

In 2022, a BBC Panorama investigation identified 54 people shot dead in suspicious circumstances by one SAS unit during a six-month tour of Helmand province, with unarmed Afghan men allegedly “routinely shot dead in cold blood” and weapons planted on them.

An inquiry heard in December that the director of UK Special Forces made a “conscious decision” to cover up potential war crimes in Afghanistan, according to the Morning Star. A UKSF officer identified as N1466 said the director “knew what was happening on the ground” and sought to “cover this up”. 

In one incident presented to the inquiry, special forces fired into a mosquito net until there was no movement, only to later find women and children, according to inquiry documents. The shooting was allegedly covered up and the soldier awarded. 

A review prepared for the inquiry found a Royal Military Police investigation into alleged unlawful killings was undermined by delays and poor resourcing, according to Action on Armed Violence. Operation Northmoor, the main investigation, began only in March 2014 despite concerns emerging as early as 2011, and was closed in July 2019 in what the review described as an “inappropriate and premature” decision, leaving key lines of inquiry unexamined.

The Global Hegemon That Is The Militaristic US

The United States is a global hegemon that proudly wears its hyper-militarism like a badge of honor. Best characterized as being bellicose, belligerent and brazenly confrontational. 

Indeed, the combative country has a hubristic history of military interventions and an indefatigable involvement in color revolutions and regime change, whether overtly or covertly. 

The same jingoistic country maintains a vast worldwide network of between 750 to 800 military base sites in at least 80 countries and territories to enable power projection and facilitate its military's global strategic objective of imperial and imperious domination. 

In this century alone, already ten countries have been at the receiving end of US aggression:

If you haven't already noticed, trigger-happy Donald Trump is involved in every one of them!

[Note: The above doesn't include the "proxy" war in Ukraine between the US and Russia – an admission made by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio himself to Fox News on March 05, 2025].

Among the roster of hawkish US presidents, one is a Nobel Peace Prize winner for 2009 (i.e., Barack Obama!) and another (Trump lah, who else!) who literally begged for the award in 2025! (He didn't get it though – but the "unfit" winner still presented it to him, even if it means breaking the rules).

["Unfit" because she exhorted the US of A to attack her own country, i.e., Venezuela, so that she can be installed as president].

American foreign policy, after all, is engineered to maintain absolute global dominance, willingly triggering conflicts to ensure that both allies and adversaries recognize the US military as the undisputed numero uno!

The world will be in a better place if the US ceases to exist. Just saying.

US Soldiers Get Ready to Die for Israel

It is said that there are about 40,000 American troops scattered around at bases and on ships at any time around the Middle East region, including in Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and United Arab Emirates. 

But as Donald Trump escalates the war in Iran, that number has reached more than 50,000, according to a US military official, as reported by The New York Times on March 29, 2026.

It doesn't matter how many soldiers are being deployed to fight Iran because there will be a bloodbath. For sure, the ruby tide will rise on Iranian soil, where the fallen Americans turn the ground beneath them crimson in their final moments.

Here's the truth about the US involvement in Iran:

I betcha Temu have already received a massive order of body bags from the US Department of War. 😆😆😆

The 'Cancel ChatGPT' Trend

If you do not already know, the US and other militaries increasingly deploy AI as part of their arsenals. 

Israel’s military have used drones with autonomous capabilities in Gaza and have extensively used AI to fill their targeting bank in Gaza. The US military used AI targeting for strikes in Iraq and Syria in recent years. 

Claude, the AI model developed by Anthropic, was used by the US military during their operation to kidnap Nicolás Maduro and wife from Venezuela, the Wall Street Journal had revealed on February 14. The US raid on Venezuela involved bombing across the capital, Caracas, and the killing of 83 people, according to Venezuela’s defence ministry. 

Anthropic’s terms of use prohibit the use of Claude for violent ends, for the development of weapons or for conducting surveillance. 

AI companies have grappled with how their technologies should engage with the defence sector, with Anthropic’s CEO, Dario Amodei (right), calling for regulation to prevent harms from the deployment of AI. Amodei has also expressed wariness over the use of AI in autonomous lethal operations and surveillance in the US. 

This more cautious stance has apparently rankled the US defence department, with the secretary of war, Pete Hegseth, saying in January that the department wouldn’t “employ AI models that won’t allow you to fight wars”.

Anthropic wanted safeguards in place but the the Department of War weren't agreeable. 

Enter OpenAI: the company swooped in to sign a deal with the US military, claiming they have "more guardrails" than the one Anthropic rejected, including around mass surveillance and fully autonomous weapons, with "red lines" that OpenAI plan to enforce going forward. 

But ChatGPT users are far from happy about it. They aren't at all convinced – especially when it comes to the "all lawful purposes" language used in the deal, which was announced on February 27.

And a growing number of people are canceling their ChatGPT subscriptions and switching to other AI chatbots instead, including Claude. A quick browse of social media or Reddit is enough to see that there's an escalating backlash to the move. 

Some Redditors are posting guides to extracting yourself and your data from ChatGPT, while others are accusing OpenAI of having "no ethics at all" and "selling their soul" by agreeing to allow their AI models to be used by the US military complex. 

I reckon this is a debate that's going to run and run, but in the meantime, Anthropic's Claude overtook OpenAI's ChatGPT to hit No. 1 on the App Store. As per Business Insider on March 01, 2026.

US Kidnaps Venezuelan President And Wife

At 11:46 PM local time on Friday (03:46 GMT on Saturday), US President Donald Trump gave the green light to bomb Venezuela and kidnap President Nicolás Maduro (and his wife). 

Operation Absolute Resolve, carefully rehearsed for months, supposedly involved about 150 aircraft, taking off from 20 different airbases across the Western Hemisphere. US forces disabled Venezuela’s air defence systems, with Trump saying the “lights of Caracas were largely turned off due to a certain expertise that we have”, without elaborating. The Venezuelan government reported that US strikes hit Caracas as well as the states of Miranda, Aragua and La Guaira. 

US helicopters were said to have touched down at Maduro’s compound in the capital at 02:01 AM (06:01 GMT) on Saturday, and the president and his wife were forcibly taken. At 04:29 AM (08:29 GMT), just two and a half hours later, they were put on board the USS Iwo Jima, en route to New York. Trump later posted a photograph of the Venezuelan leader on his Truth Social social media platform, blindfolded, wearing a grey tracksuit.

While official casualty counts have yet to be released, a Venezuelan official told The New York Times newspaper on condition of anonymity that at least 40 people had been killed in the US attacks. 

Following Maduro's abduction, Trump says the US will run the country, including taking care of the country's oil infrastructure. 

[Note: It is unclear how Trump plans to oversee Venezuela. US forces have no control over the country itself, and Maduro's government appear not only to still be in charge but to have no appetite for cooperating with Washington].  

The latest episode has shown the US to brazenly disregard a country's sovereignty, blatantly dismiss international law, brashly violate the UN charter and boldly engage in “hegemonic acts”. This evil empire wreaks havoc around the world at will. And Trump is Sauron, the Dark Lord of Mordor! 

In fact, Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (or ACLED), the nonpartisan conflict monitor had asserted that the US carried out – or been a partner to – more than 622 overseas bombings in all, using drones or aircraft, since January 20, 2025, when Trump took office. The attacks contrast with his promise to voters to end US involvement in foreign conflicts. 

In 2025, the US had carried out military attacks against a total of seven countries, i.e., Nigeria, Somalia, Syria, Iran, Yemen, Iraq and of course, Venezuela.

A win against Fulham was Liverpool's sole objective yesterday. And they couldn't even manage that but instead, they produced a 2-2 draw and sharing the spoils in the Premier League. 

Former Liverpool man Harry Wilson fired Cottagers in front in the 17th minute. The Reds had to wait until the 57th minute before Florian Wirtz scored his second goal for the club from Conor Bradley‘s pass, despite looking offside. 

Liverpool thought they’d won it in stoppage time when Cody Gakpo netted at the back post, but Fulham rifled in an equaliser in the seventh minute of added time. 

Liverpool are now nine games unbeaten in all competitions, but they have not been convincing and the performances have been very uninspiring. During that run, the Reds have failed to beat Sunderland, Leeds (twice) and Fulham. 

Up next, a trip to the Emirates to face league leaders Arsenal on Thursday. If you must know, I don't have expectations.

From Department of Defense to Department of War

It is no surprise that the Trump administration are cultivating and promoting a "warrior ethos" within the Pentagon. The US is, after all, a warmongering nation. 

If you don't already know, the country has been involved in conflicts for most of its history, though not necessarily a "non-stop" war in the conventional sense; however, the period since the Vietnam War (1955–1975) has seen continuous US military engagements. Examples include the First Gulf War (1990–1991), the Somali Civil War (1992–present), the Kosovo War (1998-1999), the War in Afghanistan (2001–2021), and the Iraq War (2003–2011). Not to mention that the US is still presently waging a proxy war in Ukraine.

In this year itself, the US even joined Israel to go against Iran. In an operation called "Midnight Hammer", on June 22, the US deployed B-2 stealth bombers with the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), also known as a "bunker buster", to strike Iran's nuclear facilities. In fact, 125 aircraft were involved, including refueling and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance aircraft. 

Israel's strikes on Iran came against the backdrop of its ongoing war in Gaza and a broader escalation of its military actions across the region, including Israeli military activity in Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, and the occupied West Bank. And the US is complicit because it is a primary supplier of weaponry to the Zionist regime, much as it does for the [Z]elensky regime in Kiev.   

And so, on Friday, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order to rebrand the Department of Defense as the Department of War, reverting to the agency’s former namesake which came into being way back in 1789. 

I certainly agree with him because the name change is more “appropriate”, given the US propensity to wage war, whether overtly or covertly. 

The said order authorizes the Secretary of Defense, the Department of Defense and subordinate officials to use secondary titles such as “Secretary of War”, “Department of War”, and “Deputy Secretary of War” in official correspondence, public communications, ceremonial contexts, and non-statutory documents within the executive branch, according to a White House fact sheet. 

The order also instructs Pete Hegseth (now the "secretary of war") to propose both legislative and executive actions to make the name permanently US Department of War.

World No. 8 Sivasangari Subramaniam's bid to defend her London Squash Classic crown came to an end in the semi-finals after falling to Egypt's Amina Orfi. 

The Malaysian battled for 68 minutes before going down 11-7, 11-7, 7-11, 11-5 yesterday. It was the 26-year-old's fourth defeat in five meetings with 18-year-old Amina, a three-time world junior champion.

Powerful NATO

Mark Rutte, NATO's Secretary General is the kind of man who thinks very highly of himself. 

At a press conference ahead of the NATO Defense Ministers meeting in Brussels on Wednesday, he had boasted that the NATO "defensive alliance" are more powerful than both the Roman Empire and Napoleonic Empire. 

Of course, outside of the West, NATO are essentially the US, and a collection of vassal states that willingly submit to Washington’s hegemony. 

And don't forget that NATO destroyed Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yugoslavia. Also, we can add Ukraine to the list too. 

While Rutte (right) may be comical in overstating his own importance, when he is just a puppet that has to jump whenever Washington says, make no mistake, NATO are an aggressive, expansionist and hyper-militarist organisation.  

And the fact of the matter is, NATO aren't really about defense and they never were.

At the British Open Squash 2025 yesterday, Sivasangari Subramaniam couldn't get past her quarter-final opponent Amina Orfi. The Egyptian beat her 3-1: 11-2, 4-11, 11-7, 11-9 in 59 minutes. 

It was world No. 5 Amina's fourth win over Sivasangari in five meetings

One Year On, Israel is Still Bombing and Killing in Gaza

For a full year – since October 07, 2023 – horrific scenes have come out of Gaza as Israel’s war on civilians in the besieged enclave continues. 

 

In one year, Israel has killed at least 41,870 people in Gaza, though the actual figure is presumed much higher. Thousands more are buried under the rubble of destroyed buildings or unaccounted for, and still thousands of others are likely to die from continuing bombing and conditions created by Israel’s war.

 

The images are unbearable. But they must be seen and shared. The world needs to know what the people of Gaza are enduring, and political leaders must bring this war to an end.

 

 

 

In fact, Israel has killed more women and children in Gaza over the past year than in any other conflict in the past two decades, Oxfam found last week.

 

"I have never in my humanitarian career seen this level of suffering, desperation and deprivation”, said Gemma Connell, OCHA (UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) team leader in Gaza.

 

Doctors Without Borders report: “Hospitals are flooded with patients, amputations and surgeries are being carried out without proper anaesthesia, and morgues are flooded with dead bodies”.

 

Entire families are being killed in aerial bombardments, and children are paying the heaviest price. UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund) spokesperson James Elder calls it “a war on children”. He explained: “Most crises impact children terribly, they have a casualty rate of children around 20 percent. But in Gaza, that rate is 40 percent".

 

“This is twice as lethal to children as conflicts we’ve seen in the last 20 years”, he added.

 

To account for the number of injured and maimed children who have no known surviving family member, doctors in Gaza have been compelled to coin a new and heartbreaking acronym: WCNSF – wounded child, no surviving family.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Despite being called out on its atrocities, Israel has widened its war, attacking Lebanon and bombing Syria and Yemen.

Finally, Iran Retaliates

On Saturday night, air raid alerts went off in Israel as Iran unleashed a massive retaliatory attack against the country. 

[FYI, the fierce blitz was to avenge for the deadly Israeli airstrike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria on April 01, 2024 that killed seven officers of the IRGC’s Quds Force, including two generals].

Over the weekend, more than 300 kamikaze drones and missiles (both cruise and ballistic) were launched from Iran as well as Iraq, Syria and Yemen. 

Israeli air defence systems went to work. And its allies kept themselves busy too. US forces began shooting down unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in the skies over Iraq and Syria. British fighter jets joined Israeli planes to stop Iranian drones over Jordan. And a CNN report today had mentioned France's involvement in blocking the Iranian attacks but no further info was given.

Israeli military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari boasted that 99% of the incoming projectiles were intercepted either outside Israeli airspace or over the country itself. Even US President Joe Biden trumpeted that US forces "helped Israel take down nearly all" drones and missiles. 

At the same time, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed that Tehran had managed to hit and destroy “important military targets”, without providing further details.

Hagari warns that Iran will pay for the consequences – and the threat of escalation is kicking it up a notch. 

Iran was right to punish Israel. And if there is to be war, so be it!

Israeli Hands Get More Blood-soaked As More Palestinians Are Butchered

The death toll surges, soars and spirals. 

 

At least 23,469 Palestinians have been killed and 59,604 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since October 07, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health. And about 7,000 people remain missing under the rubble and are presumed dead. 

 

In the most recent 24-hour reporting period, Israeli forces carried out 10 mass killings in the Gaza Strip, causing 112 deaths and 194 injuries, the ministry added.

 

Israeli hands get more blood-soaked as more Palestinians are butchered.

 

 

The killing of civilians in Gaza is at a scale unprecedented in recent history, as Israel continues to pound the besieged coastal enclave more than three months into the war. 

 

UK-based charity Oxfam said on Thursday that the daily death toll of Palestinians in Israel’s war on Gaza – claimed to be at an average rate of 250 people a day – surpasses that of any other major conflict in the twenty-first century, while survivors remain at high risk due to hunger, diseases and cold, as well as ongoing Israeli bombardments.

 

For comparison, the charity provided a list of average deaths per day in other conflicts since the turn of the century: 96.5 in Syria, 51.6 in Sudan, 50.8 in Iraq, 43.9 in Ukraine, 23.8 in Afghanistan, and 15.8 in Yemen. 

 

Oxfam said the crisis is further compounded by Israel’s restrictions on the entry of aid into Gaza, where only 10 percent of weekly food aid that is needed gets in. This poses a serious risk of starvation for those who survive the relentless bombardment, they said.