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Tuesday, July 21, 2026
Pope: Should humanity continue to inhabit the Earth? - Guest Post
Pope: Should humanity continue to inhabit the Earth?
In a new preface, Pope Leo XIV warns of the dangers of a third world war fought piecemeal, nuclear weapons, and the deadly threat of global rearmament.
Anna Kurian
“Must the human species continue to inhabit the Earth?” Pope Leo XIV posed this radical question in a new preface released on Tuesday, July 21. In the text, he takes a hard look at the convergence of the “cyber domain and global rearmament.” The text features unusual references for a papal document, including citations of American musician Bob Dylan and Russian officer Stanislav Petrov.
On Tuesday, the Vatican Publishing House released an Italian anthology of Pope Leo XIV’s addresses on peace. Titled Disarmed and Disarming: Peace Is a Gift, the book features an original preface by the Pope. He laments a world in which “a good 103 States are involved in some way, in a war on Earth.”
Referencing singers and future saints
The Pope hopes the truth will “push through” in the face of warmongering logic, affirming that “it is not atomic weapons that generate peace, but disarmament.” Faced with an arms race that “frightens and terrifies,” he quotes singer-songwriter Bob Dylan; in his 1963 song “Go Away You Bomb,” Dylan addressed the atomic weapon, writing, “I hate you cause yer man-made and man-owned an’ man-handled.”
Speaking on behalf of the Church, Pope Leo XIV then asks an uncompromising question: “Must the human species continue to inhabit the Earth?” He adds, “The combination of the cyber domain and global rearmament impels one to seriously ask this question.”
However, quoting Pope Pius XI, the American-Peruvian Pontiff notes that amidst these “present problems,” it “is no longer permitted to anyone to be mediocre.” The Holy Father holds up several role models, including Blessed Floribert Bwana Chui, a Congolese man killed in 2007 for resisting corruption; the former mayor of Florence, Servant of God Giorgio La Pira; and the American Catholic activist Servant of God Dorothy Day. For the Pope, peace is also embodied by “‘little-known protagonists’ who followed their own conscience.”
The human conscience of Stanislav Petrov
On this subject, the Successor of Peter refers to the story of Soviet officer Stanislav Petrov (1939–2017), who on September 26, 1983, “contributed to avoiding a possible global atomic war.” Petrov was on duty at a bunker near Moscow when the satellites he was monitoring sounded an alert: they had detected the launch of five intercontinental ballistic missiles from the United States toward the Soviet Union. However, the officer “disobeyed orders and chose not to signal the presumed attack.”
“It was a decision that was made with the conscience of someone who knew that that simple gesture could have caused millions of deaths,” the Pope notes.
History proved Petrov right, as it was actually an “error of the Soviet satellite detection system,” Pope Leo XIV recalls. He denounces the specter of a “truly frightening” world in which machines “decide to bomb defenceless people.” In contrast, the Pontiff affirms that “the conscience of a single person can be worth the entire world.”
Urging the faithful to resist the “temptation to despair,” the Pope encourages everyone to “make peace his or her life’s cause.” Indeed, “peace is a responsibility” that falls to each and every one of us. It’s tempting to accuse others, he points out, but “peace instead, begins with me,” he insists.
“We cannot ask the powerful people in the world for peace if we do not begin to live it out ourselves,” he explains. This doesn’t require grand gestures; instead, it starts in “our daily relationships” with the people around us. “Peace is built with small daily gestures,” he notes: “the gift of a smile, an injury pardoned, a kind word.”
[Salon] The slide toward a regional cataclysm - ArabDigest.org Guest Post
The slide toward a regional cataclysm
Summary: following the killings of US service members in Jordan and Iraq, a major military escalation between the United States and Iran has collapsed their previous ceasefire agreement, threatening to spark a comprehensive, multi-front war that could devastatingly target civilian infrastructure and choke global energy supplies.
The Middle East stands on the precipice of a comprehensive, region-wide war as the fragile remnants of diplomacy dissolve into ever widening open conflict. A dangerous new uptick in hostilities between the United States and Iran has shattered previous de-escalation frameworks, drawing regional powers and critical global energy corridors into a highly volatile spiral and threatening to ignite a confrontation of unprecedented scale.
The current crisis reached a boiling point following a devastating military exchange in Jordan. According to reports from the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, an Iranian ballistic missile and drone attack targeted the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, killing two U.S. service members, wounding several others, and leaving a third missing. These represent the first American military deaths from hostile fire since a short-lived ceasefire was declared in early April. The attack also successfully struck manned and unmanned aircraft on the base, exposing vulnerabilities in local air defences.
In immediate retaliation, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) launched its eighth consecutive night of intensive airstrikes on what it said were Iranian military targets. The Pentagon has deployed stealth F-35 fighter jets from the United Kingdom, F-16 squadrons from Germany, and aerial refuelling tankers to reinforce the Gulf region. While Washington asserted these strikes were aimed at degrading Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) drone and missile capabilities, Iranian state media confirmed that civilian networks bore the brunt of the damage in southern Iran. Notably, a U.S. attack struck a critical water desalination plant in the coastal city of Jask, leaving approximately 10,000 residents facing severe water shortages. Under international law, targeting critical civilian infrastructure necessary for human survival is a war crime.
Iran has retaliated by launching drone and missile attacks on U.S. facilities in Kuwait, damaging a Kuwaiti oil facility and striking a second power and water treatment plant. It had already hit several desalination plants in the Gulf. The mid-June Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), which was designed to reopen the vital Strait of Hormuz to global shipping, has completely collapsed. Iran’s Foreign Ministry formally withdrew from the agreement, reinstating its total blockade on the waterway through which a fifth of the world’s oil flows and driving global energy prices sharply higher. On Saturday another American servicemember died in northern Iraq during a controlled detonation of a downed Iranian attack drone, adding to what has been one of the deadliest weeks for U.S. forces in the Iran war.
The 'Gates of Hell' open both ways: Washington weighs total humiliation against a full-scale invasion, as its troops face the deadly reality of a tit-for-tat war.
Geopolitical analyst Vali Nasr argues the collapse of the MoU was inevitable. While the US initially sought regime change or complete submission regarding Iran’s nuclear programme and regional influence, Iran secured a major strategic victory by seizing control of the Strait of Hormuz, forcing Washington to negotiate the accord. However, Tehran remained deeply suspicious of American intentions, viewing the MoU as a temporary tactical retreat to replenish US oil reserves and ease economic pressures without offering genuine sanctions relief. These suspicions were confirmed as Washington continued freezing Iranian assets, deployed more military hardware to the Persian Gulf, and attempted to divert commercial shipping away from Iranian channels toward the Omani shoreline.
Emboldened by a massive show of domestic backing during the funeral of the late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the IRGC leadership concluded that restraint would only invite further American aggression. For Iran, controlling the Strait of Hormuz is not a bargaining chip, but the ultimate “sword of Damocles” hanging over the global economy and its leverage to force Washington into serious diplomacy. Believing it has no economic benefits left to lose, Tehran has made an existential bet: it will absorb US military strikes while using its asymmetric capabilities to choke global trade, gambling that Washington will blink first.
The conflict has now reached a critical fork in the road. On the one hand, President Donald Trump could abruptly change course and announce a sudden peace agreement, either directly or leaked via media outlets like Axios, as he has done in the past. On the other hand, the region may be on the verge of a full-scale, catastrophic war.
Many military analysts view the second option as far more likely because the United States has trapped itself in a rigid binary choice: Washington must either endure a visible, deeply humiliating strategic defeat by allowing Iran to establish regional hegemony, or it must launch a massive, full-scale invasion. Following the deaths of the U.S. service members in Jordan and Iraq, significant American escalation is virtually guaranteed. US officials speaking to NPR have confirmed that Trump has ordered CENTCOM to open "the gates of hell" upon Iran.
Such American outrage is deeply ironic given that the US government and Israel initially launched this war of aggression by assassinating Iran’s leader alongside most of his family and slaughtering some 160 schoolgirls. The deaths of US service members during Iranian retaliatory strikes, individuals who volunteered as professional soldiers in an army of aggression, should hardly be framed as an unexpected outrage justifying the total destruction of a sovereign nation, yet Washington continues to use these casualties to justify the devastating “punishment” of civilian infrastructure.
Compounding this crisis is the complete collapse of deterrence boundaries. Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei issued a strict written warning stating that the United States has repeatedly violated its commitments, rendering Trump’s signature “worthless and invalid.” He warned that the Iranian nation and the broader “resistance front” have prepared “unforgettable lessons” for the US military. Because each strike sets a higher baseline for deterrence, both sides are forced to match the other’s escalation, rapidly eliminating the guardrails that previously contained the conflict.
If this volatility escalates into a massive US ground invasion or a devastating aerial carpet-bombing campaign designed to obliterate Iran’s national infrastructure, neighbouring Arab Gulf states face catastrophic blowback. Traditional U.S. allies including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and the UAE are structurally defenceless in the event of an all-out war. Their coastlines and oil infrastructure in the Eastern Province are directly exposed to Iranian power projection. Saudi Arabia faces an added threat: a comprehensive war could trigger a “double insurgency” for the Saudis, as Iran deploys its regional proxies to squeeze the Kingdom from two fronts: Huthi forces launching a synchronised ground invasion from the southern border while Iraqi Shia militias (Al-Hashd al-Shaabi) push heavily through the north.
This vulnerability has been compounded by severe tactical blunders committed by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) in Yemen. His reckless decision to bomb the international airport in Sana’a has led the Kingdom into a trap: halting his airstrikes signals a humiliating Saudi defeat while Iranian weapons continue to flow to the Huthis, but continuing them invites a war he cannot manage. The Saudi regime’s public attempts to claim that these sophisticated airstrikes are being executed by the fractured, internationally recognised “Yemeni Legitimacy” government forces are risible. The public and the Huthis see entirely through this deception, knowing the fractured Yemeni government completely lacks the advanced aviation and rocketry required for such operations.
If the Huthis respond to Saudi pressure by completely closing the Bab al-Mandab strait, they will create an absolute bottleneck alongside Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. Because the world’s largest oil tankers cannot physically traverse the Suez Canal without passing through Bab al-Mandab, Saudi Arabia’s ability to export its oil would be completely strangled overnight, paralysing global energy supplies. Ominously on Monday the Huthis announced they were implementing a naval blockade on the Saudis in a move that raises the stakes considerably, immediately further threatening global energy supplies and international trade.
The window for diplomatic intervention has nearly closed. With no active negotiations and an entire theatre of war operating on a volatile tit-for-tat dynamic, the region once again finds itself on a dangerous precipice. The coming days will determine if the Middle East plunges into an unmanageable, multi-front war that will reshape the global geopolitical and economic order for decades to come.
Monday, July 20, 2026
[Salon] Are the Huthis on the warpath? - ArabDigest.org Guest Post
Are the Huthis on the warpath?
Summary: escalation in the war between the US and Iran is set against a developing and dangerous situation in Yemen with the outlook for a return to full scale war there a growing possibility.
We thank Helen Lackner for today’s article. An expert on Yemen, Helen also works as a freelance rural development consultant with a particular interest in water, among other environmental issues. SAQI Books has published the paperback edition with new material of her Yemen In Crisis, now subtitled Devastating Conflict, Fragile Hope. It is a seminal study of the war: what lies behind it and what needs to happen for it to finally end. Her latest book is Yemen: Poverty and Conflict published by Routledge. You can find Helen’s most recent Arab Digest podcast A black eye in Yemen for the UAE here.
Worrying developments are taking place in Yemen. With the renewal of the Strait of Hormuz Iran-US fighting and Iranian threats to also close the Bab al Mandab, the situation in Yemen is ominous, beyond the issue of the Huthis joining Iran by relaunching attacks in the Red Sea. Numerous tensions are worsening, suggesting that ‘no war no peace’ status prevailing since 2022 is no longer sustainable.
Military aspects
Following years of regular ongoing low-level clashes, in recent weeks both the internationally recognised government [IRG] and the Huthis have been mobilising forces far more aggressively than at any time since the 2022 truce, sending reinforcements to all fronts. Noticeably more serious clashes took place in the southern Tihama in the first week of July, causing dozens of casualties on both sides.
The Huthis have also created a new force modelled on the Iranian Basij militia, the ‘Mobilisation Forces, a parallel structure designed to organise recruitment and maintain combat readiness outside its conventional military formations’.
On the IRG side, since the exclusion of the Southern Transitional Council [STC] from the Presidential Leadership Council [PLC] in January, and the formation of the new government, the IRG in association with Saudi military advisors has been involved in restructuring the military, appointing new leaderships, moving units around the country and holding meetings of senior military leaders. The IRG’s military chief of staff claimed in mid-July that 80 percent of the restructuring has been achieved. These moves alongside a series of government instructions ordering increased military readiness also suggest preparations for possible hostilities.
Fighting has not broken out in Marib, but a major tribal mobilisation in neighbouring Jawf is also cause for concern should this tribal assembly be supported by the Saudis and/or the IRG to support an offensive against the Huthis. However, regardless of these moves, IRG forces are still insufficiently coordinated and organised to be effective against the Huthis.
On the warpath: Yemen's uneasy truce is pushed to the brink as aggressive troop mobilisations ramp up on all sides.
Iranian civilian flights to Huthi controlled Yemen
For the first time in a decade, at least one Iranian plane landed in Sana’a airport, supposedly to evacuate medical cases though few were noticed. It did convey a large Huthi delegation to Tehran for the funeral of Supreme Leader Khamenei. The flight caused outrage in the IRG who denounced the “flagrant violation of the Yemeni republic’s sovereignty… undermining of international laws and United Nations Security Council resolutions… a dangerous threat to Yemeni and regional security.” Apparently Saudi air force planes attempted to prevent its landing leading to further threats from the Huthis. The IRG called for a meeting of the UNSC on Monday 13 July which condemned the flights and expressed support for the IRG. It took place within hours of the return flight which landed in Hodeida after the IRG used drones to make the runway at Sana’a airport inoperative. In response the Huthis launched drones and missiles against the southern Saudi airport of Abha; there has been no retaliation from Saudi Arabia to date.
Huthi discourse describes these flights as integral to ending the blockades on the areas under their control. A further Iranian flight on 18 July was forced to turn back after the IRG forbade its travel in Yemeni airspace. Focus on access to Sana’a airport is now a significant point of conflict. In a possible solution, welcomed by the UN Special envoy, Jordan announced an agreement to resume flights between Sana’a and Amman, a move supported by the Saudis and the international community.
Threatening Saudi Arabia
The Huthis have been making unusually aggressive threats against Saudi Arabia. While in Tehran, a senior leader, Mohammed al Bukhaiti revised the usual Huthi rhetoric which describes the IRG as Saudi mercenaries replacing it with overt threats of bringing the fight directly against the Saudis. He said they would not attack Yemeni forces provided they did not get involved. His suggestion that the STC might support the Huthis is confirmed by the STC statement that ‘the Southern Armed Forces Command categorically denies issuing any statement regarding participation in any military operations against the Houthi militia.’
In his 16 July weekly television address, Supreme Huthi leader Abdul Malik al Huthi’s hostility against Saudi Arabia was unprecedented. In addition to usual themes, e.g. US and Israeli aggression against Gaza, he emphasised Yemen’s independence, rejecting the Saudi blockade and its influence over Yemen, asserting that renewed military action would be responded with like for like: ‘The equation is airports for airports, ports for ports, and blockade for blockade… It has become clear that we will never accept the humiliation of our people, their enslavement, or the continuation of this suffering, injustice and oppression against our people.’
This rhetorical escalation reflects Huthi urgency. It has been clear for years that both the Huthis and the Saudi regime want to reach an agreement. However the intensification of the US-Israeli conflict with Iran has worsened the situation in two main ways: first the Saudis cannot reach an agreement with the explicitly Iran-aligned Huthis as this would effectively be interpreted as openly joining the conflict on the side of Iran. Second, the renewal of attacks in Hormuz has led to a recent Iranian threat to expand the conflict by getting the Huthis to close access to the Red Sea. It would be difficult for the Huthis to ignore such a request, despite their primary concern of reducing domestic economic difficulties through an agreement which would bring Saudi finance. The focus on Sana’a airport both addresses some social tensions and distracts from the disastrous humanitarian situation.
Among the current unlikely convergences and rivalries are both a Saudi-Huthi agreement and a STC/Emirati covert alliance with the Huthis. Both would demonstrate the rival Saudis and Emiratis aligning with Iran in the current war!
In summary, escalation and a return to full scale fighting in Yemen is more likely today than it has been since the 2022 truce. However there are good reasons to believe that it might not happen. On the IRG side, military restructuring and consolidation are not yet likely to ensure victory in a full-scale confrontation against the Huthis. Saudi Arabia must take many aspects in consideration [see our posting of 21 May], not least possible Huthi attacks on its Red Sea ports, oil and other economic facilities. The fact that Iran has only rarely attacked Saudi Arabia is notable. For the Huthis, returning to full scale fighting and attacks on the Red Sea would almost certainly lead to US and Saudi air strikes, worsening the political and economic crisis suffered by the people under their rule. Although close to Iran, retaining an agreement with Saudi Arabia is probably more important for the Huthis, given the immediate and direct benefits it would produce.
Sunday, July 19, 2026
A Modest Proposal for the Strait Dispute: A Shared Pact Among Gulf States - The New York Times
A Modest Proposal for the Strait Dispute: A Shared Pact Among Gulf States - The New York Times
FM: John Whitbeck
At a time when humanity is being held hostage by the diametrically opposed positions of Iran and the United States regarding "control" of the Strait of Hormuz, transmitted below is a report on a proposal currently being floated that offers a potentially viable alternative to a global depression and/or a nuclear-bomb-generated "win" for Donald Trump.
Of course, Israel would be fiercely opposed to any peace settlement which permitted not only Iran's survival but also correct and cooperative relations between Iran and Gulf states which Israel has been seeking, with some success, to coopt into subservience to its regional hegemony, and it would be astonishing if Donald Trump were ever to choose to put the interests of the American people and the world ahead of Israeli desires.
Nevertheless, this proposal, which would require the leaders of Gulf countries to ignore the wishes of Israel and the United States in favor of the interests of their own countries and people, does offer a glimmer of hope.
NOTE: I hope that I am not alone in finding it remarkable that the U.S. government, which launched its latest criminal war of aggression by assassinating Iran's leader and most of his family and slaughtering some 160 schoolgirls, deems the deaths during Iranian retaliation against its latest war crimes of two of its "service members", who, after all, have volunteered to serve as professional killers in an army of aggression, as an outrage justifying further "punishment" of Iran.
The deaths of soldiers in wars, even justified wars, used to be deemed an inevitable and acceptable aspect of wars.
Saturday, July 18, 2026
[Salon] The US ran Democratization Programs; Does it need one Itself? - Guest Post by Alex Poppe
The US ran Democratization Programs; Does it need one Itself?
Alex Poppe 07/18/2026
Tulsa, OK (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Former USAID Administrator Samantha Power established the Democracy Delivers Initiative to support emerging democracies. When a reformer was elected to office, Democracy Delivers surged attention, support, and resources to that reformer so he/she could deliver economic and social benefits to voters. When voters experienced how their lives were better under a democratic system, the hope was they would continue to vote for reformers as the difficult process of political and economic reform took place.
I served as the strategic communications advisor for this initiative. The inaugural cohort contained nine countries, grouped geographically: Armenia, Moldova, Maldives, Nepal, Tanzania, Zambia, Malawi, Ecuador, and the Dominican Republic. During my tenure, Fiji and Guatemala joined the initiative while Tanzania was stripped of its Democracy Delivers designation. Although I did not set the criteria or adjudicate which countries were included, I did participate in the decision-making to remove Tanzania from the initiative due to its repression of human rights and government-sponsored violent crackdown on political opposition before elections.
Fiji was invited to join the Democracy Delivers Initiative due to its historic peaceful transition of power following its national elections. I used to mentally compare Fiji’s transition of power to the January 6th attacks on the US Capitol and wonder if the United States would qualify as a Democracy Delivers country if it were under consideration. Almost 18 months into President Trump’s second term, a term characterized by corruption, attacks on the free press, and moves to limit free and fair elections, I doubt the United States would be a Democracy Delivers contender.
Much of the corruption characterizing the present administration centers in the executive branch. Senator Chris Murphy detailed President Trump’s corruption on the Senate floor in June 2026. His examples illustrate how the president, his family, and members of his administration have used their positions of power to enrich themselves and do favor for the wealthy friends. The president’s dealings in crypto currency, from which he made $1.4 billiondollars during his first year in office, are illustrative. His acting Attorney General Todd Blanche terminated several DOJ investigations (started under the previous administration) into crypto companies. Then the acting AG got rid of the entire DOJ enforcement team working to root out crypto-related fraud and money-laundering schemes. Acting AG Blanche is a major investor in crypto companies, and his boss, the president, is a major player in the industry, owning several crypto companies. One company the president and his family own issues several crypto coins with no transparency about who buys them. Rather, the president promotes them and invites people to events to purchase them. As of September 2025, the president made $57 million selling crypto tokens to entities with ties to North Korea, Iran, and Russia. One month later, the president pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, who helped the president set up his crypto business.
The Trump administration used high-level diplomatic pressure, including a phone call from President Trump to the president of Kazakhstan, to help Vulcan Elements, now part of Kaz Resources, lock up access to an $80 billion tungsten deposit in Kazakhstan. Within weeks of that meeting, which was not publicly announced, President Trump’s two oldest sons became investors in the same company while the federal government was simultaneously preparing to put $1.6 billion behind the deal. Vulcan was worth $200 million before the deal. After Donald Trump Jr. became an investor, the Pentagon took a $50 million stake in Vulcan Elements and gave Vulcan Elements a $620 million taxpayer funded loan. After the deal, Vulcan Elements became worth $2 billion.
Contract awards are another area rife with corruption under the present administration. Steven Miller, who oversees ICE, owns up to a quarter of a million dollars in Palantir stock. Right before his holdings became public, the administration awarded Palantir a $30 million contract to provide real time surveillance information to ICE officers, but there had not been a competitive bidding process for that contract. Atlantic Industrial coatings won a $13.1 million no-bid contract, which later grew to $14.6 million, to renovate the reflecting pool. Atlantic Industrial Coatings had no prior experience in federal construction. Similarly, the administration secretly awarded a no-bid $500 million contract to Clark Construction for the East Wing ballroom project. Additionally, over half of the publicly-identified people who donated to the president’s White House ballroom project have received new or expanded federal contracts worth $50 billion in total.
The free press has suffered under President Trump’s administration. Recently, the DOJ issued subpoenas to New York Times reporters who reported on the new Air Force One’s security concerns. The government is trying to force reporters to disclose sources in an effort to intimidate news organizations and make sources more reluctant to report misconduct. Although the plane was a gift from the Qatar government, American tax payers have spent $400 million to retrofit and upgrade it. Addressing the security concerns reported by the New York Times could cost tax payers up to $1 billion.
In addition to the DOJ-issued subpoenas, the FBI raided the home of Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson, seizing all her devices during an investigation into leaked government documents. The administration has restricted press access to the Pentagon after some news organizations refused to sign a policy restricting reporters from gathering unauthorized information. According to Politico, the Pentagon press office is now considered classified and therefore off limits to reporters. The FCC has explored revoking broadcasting licenses for networks that aired programming critical of the president. Likewise, the administration pushed to strip federal funding from NPR and PBS, which some media outlets have declared as politically motivated.
From pardoning the January 6th rioters to having election deniers sworn in as the attorney general and the FBI director to threatening 2020 election officials with prosecution, President Trump has been trying to undermine free and fair elections since he returned to office. His tactics to influence the upcoming mid-term elections include increasing voting restrictions, pushing for redistricting mid-decade, gutting election security infrastructure, questioning previous election results to undermine public trust in the electoral process, punishing those who have combatted election denialism, and trying to nationalize elections. According to the US Constitution, Congress has the ability to pass federal election legislation while states control their elections.
Photo of Brussels sign by Francesco Tarini on Unsplash
The president is pressuring Congress pass the SAVE America Act, which would disenfranchise voters. According to the Brennan Center, the SAVE America Act would require people to show a passport or birth certificate to register to vote. Many people register to vote online, especially in rural areas. Others register to vote through voter drive campaigns or civic outreach when they don’t have their passport or birth certificate on them. Many Americans don’t have a passport, which is expensive to obtain, or easy access to their birth certificate. Married women who have taken their husband’s last name will face potential obstacles if their birth certificates and passports do not list their married names (an impossibility on a birth certificate). The SAVE America Act empowers local officials to decide if a person has done enough to prove citizenship if they do not have a specified document, but officials can face civil or criminal penalties if they fail to collect the necessary paperwork. The SAVE America Act also requires states to give their voter rolls to DHS. Finally, the SAVE America Act requires a photo ID to vote, but school IDs are not acceptable nor are tribal IDs unless they have an expiration date, which many do not contain.
For American democracy to recover, we need to elect reformers to office at the local, state, and federal levels. Since there is no more Democracy Delivers, it is up to us to mobilize attention, support, and resources to the leaders who make decisions to better the country and its citizens instead of enriching themselves.
Friday, July 17, 2026
Thursday, July 16, 2026
Euro elites fiddling while Paris burns Finian Cunningham, July 14, 2026 Guest Post
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2026/07/14/euro-elites-fiddling-while-paris-burns/
Euro elites fiddling while Paris burns
Finian Cunningham, July 14, 2026
The ironic symbolism of this year’s Bastille Day military parade was as rich as a French gateau, although the taste was rancid.
On the day that France celebrates the 1789 revolution, overthrowing a despised monarch, French President Emmanuel Macron was joined by an array of deeply unpopular European leaders to view a military parade that was meant to symbolize “unity and strength” against Russia.
European support for Ukraine was billed as the main motif of this year’s Bastille Day. The Kiev regime’s unelected leader, Vladimir Zelensky, was sitting alongside Macron and 30 other European heads of state to watch Ukrainian troops march down the Champs-Élysées with French and other European soldiers.
This is the same Ukrainian military that honors World War Two Nazi leaders. Among the dignitaries in Paris this week was Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, whose country suffered genocide by Ukrainian Nazi collaborators. Tusk must have the moral spine of a jellyfish.
French media hailed Bastille Day as a “wartime parade.” Media pundits talked about European readiness for war with Russia. The event was reckoned to be the largest military display to mark July 14. What was particularly distinctive this year was the involvement of the militaries from across Europe. The optics and declarations of “power” and shared purpose were rife with chauvinism and provocation to Russia. Bastille Day has transmogrified into a war plan for Europe.
This is no longer about celebrating revolution, democracy, or liberation (it hasn’t been for decades). More than ever, it is a rallying call for fascist control of society and militarism to subjugate democracy for an unfolding war. If ever a real Bastille Day uprising was needed, it is now.
Overhead, fighter jets from 11 European countries flew in formation. Among the aerial displays were warplanes from Germany’s Luftwaffe. Eighty-six years ago, Nazi Germany goose-stepped down the same iconic French avenue to the Arc de Triomphe.
Meanwhile, a monster forest fire was raging south of Paris amid thousands of deaths in France and across Europe over recent weeks from blistering heatwaves. Talk about Nero fiddling while Rome burns.
Macron said the Bastille Day parade was to showcase European support for Ukraine in the nearly five-year NATO proxy war against Russia. The assembly of European leaders in Paris, including Britain’s outgoing Prime Minister Keir Starmer, was also a show of coherent strategic unity against Russia.
The so-called Coalition of the Willing led by France and Britain announced the creation of an “anti-ballistic missile defense system” for Ukraine and Europe. Among the participants are Denmark, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, and Sweden, as well as France, Britain, and Ukraine.
As part of this joint rearmament plan, Ukraine struck a deal this week to buy 16 French-made Rafale fighter jets. It intends to buy a total of 100 Rafales. At €100 million per aircraft, that works out at around €16 bn. A similar number has been signed for Swedish Gripen fighter jets.
The rearmament plan also includes supplying the Franco-Italian new-generation SAMP/T air defense batteries, as well as licenses for Ukraine and its European allies to manufacture Scalp cruise missiles and the U.S.-made Patriot air-defense system.
Britain is getting in on the act, with London announcing that it is going to contribute to the €90 bn loan that the European Union is providing Ukraine, most of which is for military purchases. That will mean sales deals for Britain’s BAE Systems and other companies. This is not a free loan supposedly to help defend Ukraine from Russia’s air strikes. It is primarily a gargantuan racket of European taxpayers funding the subsidies to the military-industrial complex.
Russia denounced the turbo-charged Coalition of the Willing as a coalition of warmongers whose purpose is to ensure the biggest war in Europe since the Second World War is set to continue for years to come.
The organizing slogan in Paris this week was “Determined to Act.” More accurately, it should have been “Determined to Agitate” for a full-scale war with Russia.
The militarism across Europe by warmongering elites is throwing trillions of Euros to try to salvage their bankrupt economies with massive injections of capital into military industries and reordering the public infrastructure around military objectives. European civil society is being crushed by this out-of-control militarism, which is rationalized by scapegoating Russia as an existential threat. Diplomacy to resolve the crisis in Ukraine, with its historical roots in NATO expansionism, is non-existent because European elites are diseased with Russophobia and political bankruptcy.
Perhaps nothing speaks more graphically than the fires raging across Europe and tens of thousands of deaths from extreme heat, while elitist rulers choose to waste resources on a futile proxy war against Russia.
Macron, Britain’s Starmer, Germany’s Chancellor Merz, Italy’s PM Meloni, the unelected EU top bureaucrat Ursula von der Leyen, NATO’s Mark Rutte, and so on – they are all increasingly held in contempt by their citizens as effete elitists who are driving Europe to a conflagration with no democratic mandate. Is that not fascism? And to boot, they are aligned with a corrupt dictator in Kiev who refuses to hold elections and press-gangs civilians for slaughter.
With his typical puffed-up buffoonery, Macron declared that the Bastille Day parade is a show of unity and strength. There is no strength in Europe, only abject delusions of grandeur. That weakness, however, makes for extremely dangerous decisions.
The only “unity” on display in Paris was the closing of ranks by despicable elites who are tempting fate with war or revolution because they’re fiddling while Europe burns.
Wednesday, July 15, 2026
Fr. Bob's Reflection for the Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time - Guest Post
A Chicago novelist, John Powers, once wrote a book with the unusual title, “The Unoriginal Sinner and the Ice Cream God.” In the novel, a young man named Tim Conroy struggles with the challenge of growing up and living his faith. At one point, Tim says to a friend, “I come from a family of practicing Catholics. But the more I practice, the worse I get.”
Many of us can relate to that feeling. Perhaps we are not getting worse, but we sometimes wonder why we are not growing more than we are. Think about it: by the time most Catholics reach the age of 25, we have heard Scripture proclaimed and explained thousands of times. We have attended Mass, listened to homilies, prayed prayers, and received the sacraments. So why do we still struggle so much?
The answer may be found in today’s Gospel and the parable of the sower. The farmer is Jesus. The seed is the Word of God. The different kinds of soil represent the hearts of those who hear that Word.
What is striking is that only one group rejects the seed immediately. In the other cases, the seed is received with joy. The problem is not hearing God’s Word. The problem is allowing it to take root deeply enough to change us.
There are three steps to responding to God’s Word.
First, we must hear it. That means listening attentively to Scripture when it is proclaimed and explained.
Second, we must treasure it. Take time to reflect on it, allowing it to move from your ears into your hearts. Ask yourselves: “What is God saying to me through this passage?”
Third, we must put it into practice. Faith cannot remain only an idea or a feeling. It must shape the way we live, the way we speak, the way we forgive and the way we love.
A story about a man named Bill illustrates this beautifully. Bill was a contractor whose life slowly unraveled under pressure and addiction. Alcohol consumed him. His family broke apart, and eventually his business collapsed.
One day, while walking down the street, Bill noticed a bent, rusty nail lying on the ground. As he picked it up, he thought to himself, “That nail is just like me – bent out of shape, rusted over and thrown away.”
When he got home, he hammered the nail straight. Then he sanded away the rust until it looked new again. Holding it beside a brand-new nail, he could hardly tell the difference.
At that moment, something stirred within him. If a bent nail could be restored, perhaps his life could be restored, too.
That realization changed him. Slowly and painfully, Bill began rebuilding his life. He sought help, reunited with his family and eventually returned to work.
Bill’s story mirrors the three steps of discipleship. First, he recognized himself in the nail. Second, he reflected on what restoration could mean. Finally, he acted. He changed his life.
That is exactly what Jesus asks of us in today’s Gospel – not simply to hear the Word, but to let it change us. The seed of God’s Word is constantly being planted in our hearts. The question is whether we will allow it to bear fruit.
If we sometimes feel like Tim Conroy and wonder why we are not better disciples, perhaps it is not because we have failed to hear God’s Word, but because we have not fully embraced it in mind, heart and action.
Today, Jesus invites us to become good soil – to receive His Word, treasure it and put it into practice. For when we do, even hearts that feel bent or broken can be made new again.
Yours in Christ,
Fr. Robert Warren, S.A.
Spiritual Director
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