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Thursday, October 22, 2026
[Salon] The Suffocation of Academic Freedom and Freedom of Speech in Norway Guest Post by Glenn Diesen
Date: Thu, Oct 22, 2026
Subject: Statement by Glenn Diesen
The very public execution of my professorship and reputation continues in Norway. Today’s media article about me makes three claims that are misleading and/or false.
1) The article dismisses my claim that my research is being criminalized as the journalists merely cite the dismissive comments from the university - no arguments are apparently required. It is not possible for an academic anymore to analyse the policies of rival powers by assessing their security concerns, as it will be smeared by the government, the government’s NGOs and the media as “legitimizing” the enemy and supporting their narratives. The current Defence Minister singled me out with the accusation of spreading propaganda and criticised two podcasters for even speaking with me (as I have already been cancelled by the media in Norway). How was this accusation by the Defence Minister substantiated? I had argued that NATO expansion triggered the war in Ukraine, which the Defence Minister denounce as dangerous “Russian propaganda”, with no need to substantiate his vile accusation. I can cite a sea of evidence and also refer to statements by American and European political leaders, ambassadors, intelligence chiefs, and others to make my case. However, the purpose is not to engage in debate, but to smear, censor, and cancel. By going after an individual academic for challenging official truths, the government has already claimed a monopoly on the truth. Academics should have their arguments scrutinised and criticised, but these are severe personal attacks from the government without the possibility of even defending myself. How is this not criminalising the research of an academic?
I cannot even speak at any events in Norway without the event being cancelled. The last event I agreed to speak at was because I shared the stage with the former CIA officer John Kiriakou. A newspaper had the event at a church cancelled, and when the backup location did not also cancel, the journalist simply printed in the paper that it had been cancelled so people would not show up. Is this normal? I must use my allotted holiday days to attend conferences because any event I attend can be presented as “controversial,” and then the NGOs and journalists will go after the reputation of the university. Is this normal? Every newspaper article about me merely refers to me as “controversial” or “pro-Russian” without ever assigning meaning to these labels or presenting my argument.
I have argued, much like former CIA director Burns, that if the West attempts to pull Ukraine into the NATO orbit, then there would be war and Ukraine would be destroyed. This is considered a “pro-Russian” argument. Arguing that we should respect the will of most Ukrainians who want negotiations to end the war is also considered a “pro-Russian” argument, while in contrast, boycotting diplomacy, deporting Ukrainian refugees, and calling for the conscription of Ukrainian women is “pro-Ukrainian”.
2) To avoid addressing any of my arguments, the journalists go on to uncritically cite personal attacks against me, pointing out that I have been called a propagandist by the Norwegian Helsinki Committee. This is a “non-governmental organisation” financed by the government and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which was set up by Reagan and the CIA director in 1983 to manipulate the civil society of other states. The Norwegian Helsinki Committee has been relentless in its smears on social media to have me fired, writing hit pieces in the media, pushing to cancel my speaking events, writing a letter to my university, and even posting a picture of my house on social media. This is a governmental "human rights organisation" that cites human rights concerns to build the case for war.
3) Lastly, to further avoid addressing my actual arguments, they simply cite the fact that arguments I made at a debate last year have been “wholly or partially debunked” by a fact-check. The state-run media (NRK) invited the state-run military defence institute (FFI) to fact-check three of my claims. What claims did they "debunk"?
My first claim was that only 20% of Ukrainians wanted NATO membership between 1991 and the regime change in February 2014. The fact-checker argued that the number went up by the middle of 2014 (after Russia responded by seizing Crimea), which is a completely meaningless comment intended to muddy the waters, as my argument was about the previous era.
My second claim was that Zelensky had argued in an interview with The Economist in March 2022 that there were some Western countries that would like a long war with Russia to weaken a strategic rival, even if it would result in the destruction of Ukraine. The fact-checker argued that not all Western countries wanted a long war and that it was not an official policy. I never claimed it was an official policy, as it was primarily the US and UK pushing for a long war.
My third claim was that the US and UK sabotaged the Istanbul peace agreement in April 2022. The fact-checker claimed this was incorrect and suggested that it could only be based on one statement by David Arakhamia. The fact-checker did not want to mention that both mediators also confirmed it: Turkey’s foreign minister and the former Israeli prime minister both said that Russia and Ukraine were close to a deal, but the US and UK saw an opportunity to weaken Russia by fighting with Ukrainians. Zelensky’s former adviser Arestovych confirmed it, and the Ukrainian ambassador Chaly, who participated in the negotiations, confirmed that Putin was willing to do almost anything to end the war. The former head of the German armed forces confirmed that Boris Johnson sabotaged it, and Boris Johnson himself wrote articles warning about a “bad peace” and arguing for “strategic patience.” I am being fact-checked by war propagandists.
Unfortunately, none of my arguments matter because in Norway there is no debate and no interest in any arguments. Reality means nothing anymore as war narratives must be defended against inconvenient truths. I used to be naïve and think that the endless smears were caused by misunderstanding, as I had simply not been able to convey my arguments properly. However, the endless articles with smears and labels are deliberate lies and deceptions.
[Salon] Does Sisi go or does he stay past 2030? - ArabDigest.org Guest Post
Does Sisi go or does he stay past 2030?
Summary: President Sisi’s musings on what happens when his current term ends in 2030 reveal unease within the ranks of regime loyalists and concern that the economic crisis engendered by his government could produce a spontaneous explosion of popular anger.
We thank Hossam el-Hamalawy for today’s newsletter, an edited version of his Egypt Security Sector Report. Hossam is a journalist and scholar-activist currently based in Germany. He was involved in the Egyptian labour movement and was one of the organisers of the 2011 revolution. The Egypt Security Sector Report is available on 3Arabawy. Hossam is the author of Counterrevolution in Egypt: Sisi’s New Republic published by Verso. Follow his writings on Substack and X.
On 14 October, President Sisi insisted nobody would touch the constitution, apparently ruling out another extension of his presidency beyond 2030. Was he reassuring the public, or addressing growing unease within the ruling establishment?
The confusion was visible almost immediately. Several news websites deleted reports that quoted Sisi’s remarks regarding the constitution. This was roughly around 5 pm. They republished them only after the presidential spokesperson released his speech at 7 pm, roughly two hours before its television broadcast.
Further confusion emerged when the presidential spokesperson, within minutes of publishing a statement on 15 October, quietly deleted a reference to Sisi remaining in office until 2030, replacing it with the open-ended assurance that he would continue working until his last day in power. The original wording remains visible in the post’s edit history on Facebook.
Meanwhile, the MOI’s Homeland Security-backed Nation’s Future Party and the Military Intelligence-backed Homeland Defenders Party remained silent. The parties issued no statements on the constitutional remarks. Such hesitation hardly suggests a ruling establishment confidently following a settled succession strategy.
Mada Masr quoted an anonymous parliamentary source claiming Sisi had privately declared: “I won’t wait for the defense minister to tell me to go to Sharm el-Sheikh,” invoking Hosni Mubarak’s downfall in 2011. Meanwhile, regime loyalist Mortada Mansour interpreted Sisi’s constitutional remarks as a definitive commitment to leave office, while other supporters demanded he remain.
An apparently bogus campaign promoting Sisi’s son Mahmoud, which pro-regime presenter Ahmed Moussa blamed on the Muslim Brotherhood without substantiating the allegation, further muddied the waters.
The confusion continued on 17 October, when Sisi delivered an extraordinary speech at the Military Academy graduation ceremony. He revealed that pro-regime broadcasters Nashat al-Deehi and Mostafa Bakry had questioned him about what would happen after his current term. This time, he was explicit: “In 2030, my term as president will end, if I live that long. This is completely settled and will not be discussed.” He also disclosed that Bakry had urged him against discussing the succession question publicly.
The optics of fear: Egypt’s first democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi among the populace in 2012, contrasted with Sisi’s isolated motorcade on a deserted boulevard. As Sisi contemplates a military-vetted succession plan for 2030, his daily security measures reveal the paranoia of a regime fearing a sudden explosion of public discontent.
Sisi then outlined a proposed mechanism for preparing future leaders, including potential presidential candidates, under the supervision of the Egyptian Military Academy. With approximately 43 months remaining before 2030, he suggested selecting hundreds of candidates, principally holders of advanced university degrees, aged between 40 and 50, for a 30-month training program. The Speaker of Parliament, politicians and the Ministers of Higher Education and Justice would put together the selection mechanism. The armed forces would finance the training. Egyptians could subsequently elect their leaders from this pool of military-trained candidates, although Sisi said participation would not formally exclude others. The initiative would also produce future ministers, governors and senior officials.
The Military Academy has already become an instrument for militarising the civilian bureaucracy, screening recruits and subjecting teachers, diplomats, civil servants and other professionals to military training and ideological indoctrination. Sisi is now proposing to extend this model to the political leadership itself. He explicitly denied preparing a family member or relative to succeed him, rejecting suggestions of hereditary succession. He insisted that Egypt could produce leaders considerably better than himself, provided they underwent “appropriate preparation.”
More revealingly, Sisi invoked Article 200 of the constitution, assigning the armed forces responsibility for safeguarding the constitution, democracy and the state’s fundamental institutions. He claimed he had insisted on including this provision when the constitution was drafted in 2014, although the relevant language was actually introduced through amendments in 2019. Basically, this means a military institution is empowered to determine who is qualified to govern. “Not just anyone who can string two sentences together” should be allowed to lead the state, the president warned.
Such an arrangement is reminiscent of Türkiye’s pre-Erdoğan political order—where the military appointed itself guardian of the constitutional system and repeatedly intervened whenever civilian politics were deemed to have crossed certain red lines. Sisi appears to be contemplating a similar guardianship arrangement, with the Military Academy preparing an approved political elite and the armed forces retaining a decisive role in safeguarding the system.
Finally, Sisi made a striking overture to his Gulf sponsors. Recalling the financial and material assistance provided by Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait following the 2013 coup, he ordered troops participating in the ceremony to perform a military salute honouring those countries. He then declared that Egypt was prepared to take whatever measures were necessary to defend Saudi Arabia. He called for an emergency parliamentary session to authorise military action if such assistance were requested, stressing that any intervention would be defensive. No deployment was announced. Nevertheless, the demonstration of loyalty to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf monarchies is worth noting amid the ongoing uncertainty over Sisi’s future.
The timing was also telling. Just a day before Sisi’s extravagant declarations of Gulf solidarity, Asharq Bloomberg reported that Cairo was negotiating with Riyadh to renew US$5.3 billion in Saudi deposits at the Central Bank, falling due in October.
In my book, Counterrevolution in Egypt, I argued that Sisi had unified the repressive apparatus for the first time since 1952. Yet this unprecedented unity was never guaranteed to last. The 2025 parliamentary elections already exposed tensions among security agencies, while the deepening economic crisis places the entire ruling coalition under increasing strain.
I find it hard to believe Sisi willingly intends to relinquish power. What seems less certain is how he can engineer another extension without destabilising the very coalition sustaining his rule. It is still unclear which forces, if any, within the state apparatus oppose his continuation. His frantic appeals for unity, though, and the conflicting signals from regime loyalists, suggest a rift or at least confusion about what lies ahead.
The present level of socio-political dissent remains insufficient to trigger a serious rupture at the top, despite the slow, incremental rise in industrial actions. Yet the security agencies monitoring public sentiment must surely recognise how deeply hated Sisi has become for a long list of reasons, most importantly the economic deterioration that his government has presided over. A spontaneous explosion of popular anger is not inconceivable.
Finally, what do Saudi Arabia and the UAE—the regime’s most important sponsors—think? Are they OK with Sisi remaining in office beyond 2030? The answer is still unclear, but Sisi can no longer take for granted the support Saudi Arabia and the UAE gave him during the 2013 coup and its aftermath.
Wednesday, October 21, 2026
Fr. Bob's Reflection for the Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time - Guest Post
If you visit the Manchester Museum in England, you will find an exhibit containing Roman coins from the time of Jesus. Among them is a small, silver coin called a denarius.
If you could hold that ancient coin in your hand and turn it over, you might find yourself transported back to the world of the Gospels. A coin very much like it appears at the center of today’s Gospel, when the Pharisees and the followers of Herod attempt to trap Jesus with a question about taxes.
On one side of the coin is the image of Tiberius Caesar, the Roman emperor who ruled during Jesus’ ministry. He is the same Caesar mentioned by Luke in connection with the time of John the Baptist’s preaching at the Jordan River. On the reverse side is Livia, Tiberius’ mother, seated and holding an olive branch.
The question posed to Jesus seems simple enough: “Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not?”
But there was nothing simple about the question.
Why did they ask it?
Jesus reveals their intentions when He responds, “Why are you putting Me to the test?” Those questioning Him were divided. The followers of Herod generally supported Rome and accepted its authority to collect taxes. The Pharisees, meanwhile, opposed the tax on religious and political grounds, although they paid it to avoid conflict with Rome.
It was a carefully constructed trap. No matter how Jesus answered, they believed He would offend one side or the other.
Then Jesus asks them to produce a coin.
The silver denarius, stamped with Caesar’s image, provides Jesus with the perfect way to answer. He asks them whose image appears on the coin. When they answer, “Caesar’s,” Jesus responds, “Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.”
In a sense, Jesus leads them to answer their own question. The coin bears Caesar’s image, so it belongs within the realm of Caesar.
But Jesus’ final words take us somewhere much deeper.
We, too, have a kind of dual citizenship. We are citizens of this world, but we are also citizens of Heaven. Most of the time, those two identities can peacefully coexist. But there are moments when the demands of this world conflict with the demands of God.
Consider the life of St. Thomas More, the English martyr.
King Henry VIII wanted his marriage annulled, but Rome refused. The king then took matters into his own hands and married again. He ordered his friends and officials to sign a document affirming that he had acted lawfully. Many agreed. Thomas More refused.
More understood that there was a limit to what he could give to an earthly king. When the demands of the world came into conflict with his conscience and his loyalty to God, he chose faithfulness to God – even at the cost of his life.
That is the deeper lesson of today’s Gospel.
Yes, the Roman coin may have been stamped with the image of Caesar. But we are stamped with the image of God.
And while we may have responsibilities to this world, our ultimate allegiance belongs to the One whose image is written upon our hearts.
Fr. Robert Warren, S.A. Headshot
Yours in Christ,
Fr. Robert Warren, S.A.
Spiritual Director
Tuesday, October 20, 2026
Monday, October 19, 2026
Sunday, October 18, 2026
Saturday, October 17, 2026
Friday, October 16, 2026
[Salon] "Stateless by decree: Kuwait’s mass denaturalisation campaign" - ArabDigest.org Guest Post
Stateless by decree: Kuwait’s mass denaturalisation campaign
Summary: Kuwait’s amir has ruthlessly pursued a policy of mass citizenship stripping with tens of thousands denaturalised and with a dissolved parliament and a climate of fear leaving no recourse for those affected.
We thank Andrew McIntosh for today’s newsletter. Andrew is the Director of Research at the NGO SALAM for Democracy and Human Rights. His specialty fields are media analysis, sectarianism and statelessness in Bahrain, Kuwait and Syria.
Since 2024, Kuwait has undergone an unprecedented political and social transformation. The appointment of the new Amir, Sheikh Mishal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, was followed by the suspension of the Parliament. During Al-Sabah’s consolidation of power, he has placed the state under his sole direction and stripped an estimated 40,000-70,000, most of them women and children, of their citizenship, with up to 300,000 people affected, including descendants and dependants. SALAM DHR together with seven other human rights organisations has released “Stateless by Decree: End Kuwait’s Citizenship Stripping Crisis” a report documenting the country’s grim milestone: overseeing the largest mass denaturalisation of the 21st century, with critics abroad and international students now being caught up in the Al-Sabah campaign.
In 2026, the denaturalisation has accelerated now targeting Kuwaitis abroad, sometimes without explanation. These acts of public shaming, detentions, deportations and civic death have gutted civil society and silenced dissent, with most afraid to speak out, lest they share the fate of those targeted.
Kuwait has stood, along with Bahrain, as one of the only nominally functional democracies in the Gulf. However, Kuwait’s representative politics have always been limited by the Amir’s ability to dissolve parliament. After ascending to the throne in December 2023, Al-Sabah instrumentalised denaturalisation and the dissolution of parliament to purge potential rivals and to further autocratise the state.
A pickup truck crowded with Bidoon families travels toward Jahra and Salmi - the historic epicentre of Kuwait’s long-standing stateless community, whose disenfranchisement is now mirrored by tens of thousands of newly denaturalised citizens.
In May 2024, citing political gridlock, the Amir announced via a televised speech that he was dissolving parliament and seven articles of the Kuwait Constitution for up to four years. During this extraordinary period, the Amir and his hand-picked Council of Ministers have assumed all legislative and executive powers. The Bidoon, those without nationality in Kuwait, have since the country’s independence in 1961 been a simmering and unresolved issue. However Al-Sabah has used his unchecked authority to accelerate a hyper-nationalist campaign of mass revocations that are designed, in his words, to achieve “national purification” of a country “hijacked” by other nationalities that he accused of obtaining Kuwaiti citizenship by marriage or by fraud.
The result has been that between 2024 and 2026, tens of thousands of Kuwaitis have been denaturalised on the grounds that they are: women formerly married to Kuwaitis; deemed to have multiple citizenships; deemed a “security risk” or “undesirable.” Even those granted citizenship for services to Kuwait – such as serving in the military or being exceptional artists have had their citizenship removed. However, most of those affected are experiencing collective punishment, that is their citizenships retroactively cancelled because their fathers or grandfathers were stripped of nationality, even if they are no longer alive. Others, such as the influential Islamic scholar Tareq al-Suwaidan, were provided no official reason.
From 2024 through 2025, the government published vast lists of newly denaturalised people on social media and in state-controlled newspapers, without directly informing those targeted. On 16 February 2025, more than 9,000 people were denaturalised in a single day. During these public mass citizenship strippings, the Kuwaiti government took measures to suppress civil society. Talk shows are now banned. Diwaniyas—Kuwait’s historic democratic discussion forums—have been shuttered. Restrictions on the media currently extend to WhatsApp groups of three or more. Municipal elections, and even student elections at universities, have been cancelled.
Although Kuwaiti authorities claim that they target criminals such as those who acquired citizenship through fraud, forgery or misrepresentation, in practice the campaign overlaps with measures meant to restrict freedom of expression and opinion, with Article 13 of Kuwait’s revised Nationality Law stating that citizens can be denaturalised where the “supreme interest of the State or its external security so requires”. In Kuwait, matters on nationality have no court oversight, and under the newly passed Decree Law 158/2024, revocation decisions are “not subject to appeal under any circumstances”, leaving those affected with no legal remedy.
Targeted by royal decrees or “administrative decisions” that Kuwaiti courts cannot challenge, those affected have little to no recourse. Regardless of the official reasoning, the effects are devastating for those targeted. Deprived of their Kuwaiti nationality, individuals lose their right to attend public schools, access free state health care, work for the government or at all or receive their state pension. In addition, they can no longer own property, hold a valid driving licence or hold a Kuwaiti bank account, credit cards are cancelled, making a normal life in the country impossible. Given that holding multiple nationalities is already illegal in Kuwait, most of these people have been rendered stateless and left to their own devices on how to acquire another nationality.
Newly stateless Kuwaitis who have tried to draw attention to the lack of oversight in these decisions and the hardships occasioned have been subjected to harassment, arrest and deportation by Kuwaiti authorities. One individual interviewed claimed that after posting about her citizenship revocation on social media, she was assailed by anonymous accounts. Shortly afterwards, she was summoned to the local police station, where she was strip-searched, accused of “challenging the state” by authorities and threatened to be hung by her legs. She was later deported to Egypt without a valid passport and without her children.
Public fear of being denaturalised or facing further abuse from authorities has left victims isolated, even those who have been targeted outside Kuwait. In September 2026, numerous Kuwaiti international students were stripped of their citizenship and scholarships by the Kuwaiti government. Although the full impact of this decision remains unclear, the campaign appears to be wide-reaching, affecting Kuwaiti students across the world. Many have had little choice but to suspend their studies and request asylum.
Despite being left stateless and stranded in their country of study, most fear criticising the Kuwaiti government, claiming they won’t be believed or will be shunned. One recently denaturalised student reflected on the irony that: “We had our ambassador at the UN saying Kuwait rejects all forms of racism. [Yet Kuwaiti] people still view [citizenship stripping] as fair, and the government is very firm.” With authorities publicly claiming that they are “Continuing to Purge Impurities from Citizenship Records”, speaking out remains dangerous.
Both within Kuwait and abroad, those stripped of their citizenship have expressed shock and despair, both at the removal of everything that made their lives stable and at the silence of the international community. Within Kuwait, stateless individuals who cannot pay their bills face prosecution and possible imprisonment under Decree-Law No. 59 of 2025, also known as the Debtor’s Law. Unable to access their bank accounts and with their properties forfeited, most face the dilemma of relying on friends and family while either making themselves invisible in Kuwaiti society or taking a nationality in countries they barely know. “I was a business owner. I’ve lost everything. Now they want to prosecute me for debts I’m not allowed to pay. All because I was born in Lebanon and moved to Kuwait when I was one year old.”
For those made stateless outside Kuwait, there is the thought that their situation can give them a new life and the possibility to advocate for others like them, both in Kuwait and in exile. There is hope too that Kuwait’s allies in the West will take up their cause. “Obviously there’s no going back. It’s a massive change…. There is no room to breathe… .We will not feel fully supported until we have everyone’s attention.”
Thursday, October 15, 2026
Wednesday, October 14, 2026
[Salon] "Tower of Cower . . . THE EBBING OF U.S. POWER" (10/14/26) Guest Post
ci=08525d76-3cc7-f111-bf5b-000d3a4fbe83&emdi=bb7ba371-bec7-f111-bf5b-000d3a4fbe83&ceid=201249
The Bunker 600"THE EBBING OF U.S. POWER.
Because bullying never works in the long run."
For close to a century, the U.S. military has been the globe’s mightiest armed force. But ever since President Donald Trump invaded Iran over seven months ago, it has slid from an undisputed power into a retreating cower.
It’s pretty much all self-inflicted.
Like a flustered flock of ring-necked pheasants flushed from fallowing fields, a dozen U.S. B-1 bombers rushed back to the U.S. October 4 from their base in England. They had been launching bombing runs against Iran from the U.K., and intelligence reports suggested local Iranians might launch inexpensive drones to destroy the planes and kill their crews.
This embarrassment highlights how the U.S.-Iran war is changing military conflict. “A war that was intended to demonstrate the reach of American power has now done the opposite,” the New York Times noted. “It is a lesson in unintended consequences.” The same kind of cheap weaponry has driven U.S. troops from bases in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, weakening the U.S. role in the region.
Changes in warfare — used against the U.S. — and changes in foreign relations — imposed by the U.S. — are conspiring to shrink the value of the U.S. investment in the Pentagon. U.S.-launched trade wars, the resulting tariffs, and threats to seize territory have the world viewing China more positively than the U.S. Some see the U.S. engaged in a “puzzling strategic retreat” from East Asia.
Trump’s repeated criticism of NATO nations — for not spending enough on their militaries, or failing to help the U.S. fight Iran after he began the war without consulting them — has left Europe leery of U.S. support, the keystone of the most powerful and successful military alliance in world history. The Trump administration has pulled out of dozens of international organizations, chilling civilian cooperation on issues ranging from health to the environment to population.
As the anti-Dale Carnegie might have said: This is no way to win friends and influence people. And that has translated into a diminished standing for the U.S. on the global stage. No matter how many trillions the nation pumps into its Department of Defense.
Military might means little when it is frittered away by angering long-friendly nations and launching wars with ill-defined objectives and no end in sight. The U.S. has spent decades tending to the care and feeding of its allies. Yes, sometimes that meant — especially among NATO members — that they didn’t fully share the burden of their own defense. But it represented a geographic Golden Dome, buffering the U.S., along with two oceans, from the troubles of the Olde World.
For too long, too many Americans have viewed national security and military spending as the same thing. In actuality, military strength is a vital part of national security — but only a part. Diplomacy and deference also play key roles in determining deterrence.
Now plans are underway for Trump’s Golden Dome aerial shield, which, if ever built, will offer only the illusion of invulnerability the president promises. Meanwhile, thanks to the explosion in drone technology, literal and otherwise, the protections once afforded by the Atlantic and Pacific are shrinking down to puddles.
But reluctance to relinquish the American Way of War® has sparked widespread discussion about protecting the Pentagon’s favorite kinds of weapons rather than retooling a 20th Century war machine for the new century, already a quarter gone. After all, if the Ukrainians can destroy Russian warplanes deep inside Russia, and the Iranians can drive U.S. warplanes out of Britain without firing a shot, why should we think U.S. warplanes — and U.S. warships, too, for that matter — at U.S. locations are any more secure?
Meanwhile, two days after the B-1s flew the Continent, the Air Force announced it is doubling down on plans to build more bombers, without knowing how to defend those it already has.
PECULIAR PENTAGON PUBLICITY
Airing an execution, but not a war
You can tell a lot about this nation’s leaders by how they play hide and seek. In February, they secretly launched the war with Iran, urged by Israel, and have kept it pretty much under wraps since then.
But occasionally news leaks out. An October 5 report from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service raised eyebrows because it said that 81 U.S. aircraft have been lost or damaged in the war, 93% more than the 42 it tallied (PDF) on May 12. (Twenty-one U.S. troops have died in the campaign.)
An apparent U.S. missile strike in the war’s opening hours killed more than 150 Iranians, most of them schoolchildren. It remains unexplained by the Pentagon. The families of the six U.S. troops killed in an Iranian drone strike on their Kuwait base on March 1 — more than seven months ago — have not yet received a briefing from the Defense Department on their deaths. In Bahrain, Iran devastated the U.S. Navy’s key base in the region, home to the service’s 5th Fleet, crippling resupply efforts.
A CBS News broadcast leaked videos October 7 showing the destruction Iran has inflicted on a major U.S. military installation in Kuwait. The following day, Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) told reporters he was denied access to a Qatari base, home to the biggest U.S. post in the Middle East, to hide the damage Tehran has inflicted. “They are using every tool they can, including withholding information [PDF] about damages, slow walking the pace of reports about casualties and denying us access to see the damage as part of a campaign of cover-up, so as to mask the true cost of the war,” said Murphy, a member of both the foreign relations and defense appropriations committees.
Contrast that with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s bloodlust boast that the U.S. military will publicly stream the firing-squad execution of Nidal Hasan (PDF). He is the U.S. Army major who in 2009 murdered 13 of his fellow soldiers at Texas’ Fort Hood.
Pentagon regulations used to require that “military executions will be by lethal injection.” But in 2019, the U.S. military removed that mandate, saying that the Army’s top civilian “designates the method of execution” without specifying how. The summary page simply noted that the revised regulation “removes the term ‘lethal injection’ (throughout).” Apparently, “lethal” isn’t Hegseth’s favorite word after all. He endorsed the death-by-firing-squad recommendation of Acting Army Secretary Adam Telle, which Trump then approved. The last time the U.S. military executed a service member by firing squad was for desertion during World War II.
Lest we lose sight of what’s important here, these are the people Hasan killed
Army contractor Michael Grant Cahill, Major L. Eduardo Caraveo, Staff Sergeant Justin M. DeCrow, Captain John P. Gaffaney, Specialist Frederick Greene, Specialist Jason Dean Hunt, Staff Sergeant Amy Krueger, Private First Class Aaron Thomas Nemelka, Private First Class Michael Pearson, Captain Russell Seager, Private Francheska Velez, Lieutenant Colonel Juanita Warman, and Private First Class Kham Xiong.
Trump was initially supportive of the streaming. But after widespread outrage, he has voiced doubts about serving as the execution producer of a state-sponsored snuff film. The Bunker bets he’ll yell “Cut!” to the cameras before “Fire!” is uttered to the carbines.
But regardless of Trump’s final decision, Hegseth has shown his true colors. In our name, he is befouling U.S. values, morality, and human decency. How dare you compound Hasan’s treachery by exposing my grandchildren to your perverted patriotism, Mr. Secretary.
“We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public, because people need to understand that there’s serious consequences for these types of things,” Hegseth said of the public execution.
Too bad the U.S. government isn’t taking the same approach to the war it launched secretly against Iran nearly eight months ago. You know, the one that Trump predicted would be over in “four to five weeks.”
THE COMMON DEFENSE
The 1%, 2.0
The roughly 1% of the U.S. adult population wearing U.S. military uniforms are Americans who represent this country. Some Pentagon leaders think this makes them better than the rest of us. On October 3, Hegseth told Air Force Academy cadets that he had worked out “with the best Americans on the planet” earlier that day at their Colorado school. He said he invited reporters to tag along “because we want to showcase you, the real 1%, the best of our country.” The U.S. military, he continued, has always “required the absolute best.” These “elites,” he added, have “a perspective that 99% of Americans do not have” because they don’t wear the nation’s uniform. Hegseth went on to talk of his initiatives to groom future officers at conservative colleges and to bring U.S. troops back to U.S. soil and house them in well-appointed new quarters.
His words upset Eliot A. Cohen, a one-time Army Reserve intelligence officer who has cycled in and out of the Pentagon and State Department for decades. As Cohen wrote in The Atlantic,
What Hegseth is saying amounts to this: You are better than 99 percent of your fellow Americans. You are better physically and morally. You are crusaders, and they — particularly the media and the intellectuals — are not only uncomprehending of your merits but ready to subvert you. They are traitors. We want to select you from a specific slice of society: We want socially conservative young men and (very few) women from Liberty University and Hillsdale, not from liberal research universities and colleges. We want you to be isolated on bases from the rest of this corrupt society, which we despise, as should you.
It was only 15 years ago that another defense secretary pointed out the U.S. military’s true strength. Robert Gates didn’t care for an Army display along a Pentagon corridor that said the service embraces values like loyalty, respect, and honor that “distinguish American Soldiers from American society.” He spoke about it in 2011 while addressing other U.S. military cadets, at West Point, where future Army officers are forged. The Bunker wrote about it in a Time magazine cover story under the headline “The Other 1%.”
Gates said that “it is rather peculiar to suggest that attributes such as integrity, respect and courage are not valued in the United States of America writ large … It is off-putting to hear … comments that suggest that [the] military is to some degree separate and even superior from the society, the country, it is sworn to protect … There is a risk over time of developing a cadre of military leaders that politically, culturally and geographically have less and less in common with the majority of the people they have sworn to defend.”
He said, “Getting this relationship on a sound footing is so important because a civil-military divide can expose itself in an ugly way, especially during a protracted and frustrating war effort.”
Don’t look down now, but the “sound footing” that Gates wanted is crumbling beneath our feet.
Fr. Bob's Reflection for the Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Suppose your son is returning home after being out of the country for five years. He is scheduled to arrive sometime next week, but he isn’t sure whether he will be home Thursday or Friday. You call two of his closest friends and invite them to a welcome-home dinner.
You explain the situation and ask them to keep both Thursday and Friday open. They agree. Then you receive word that your son will arrive home on Friday. His friends call back and say, “Sorry. We have other plans that night.”
This is the kind of situation Jesus had in mind in today’s parable. His audience was the Jewish people. Years earlier, they had accepted God’s invitation to be His chosen people – to be special guests at the banquet in the Kingdom of God. But when Jesus announced that the banquet was ready, they turned down the invitation.
Now, they didn’t go off and indulge in evil ways. They simply decided they had other things to do. One went to work on his farm. Another tended to his business.
So, how does this parable apply to us today? What is the lesson for us?
We, too, have accepted God’s invitation. We said yes to Him at Baptism, through Holy Communion and Confirmation. We have accepted His invitation to be guests at His eternal banquet.
But saying “yes” to God is not a one-time commitment. It is an ongoing process that requires constant recommitment and renewal. It is easy to become distracted by the demands of daily life and lose sight of eternal life. We can fill ourselves with the junk food of this world and forget about the banquet that awaits us in the life to come.
Accepting God’s invitation is not a matter of saying yes once and then forgetting all about it. Rather, it is like saying “I do” at a wedding. Those words are not the end of a process, but the beginning of one. Our commitment to God must continue to grow, or it will begin to shrink, much like an unused muscle.
We can read the Bible as many times as possible. But what matters is not how many times we have been through the Bible – it is how many times the Bible has been through us.
My friends, today’s Gospel is an invitation to look deeply within ourselves. Ask yourself: Do I listen attentively to God’s Word? Am I putting that Word into practice in my life?
Or are we like the people in the parable, so caught up in the banquets and distractions of this life that we forget about the eternal banquet to come?
Think about those questions. How we answer them could make an eternal difference someday.
Yours in Christ,
Fr. Robert Warren, S.A.
Spiritual Director
Tuesday, October 13, 2026
[Salon] Saudi Arabia and the Yemen dilemma - Aab Digest.org Guest Post
Saudi Arabia and the Yemen dilemma
Summary: the Huthi offensive has heightened the challenge Saudi Arabia faces in its efforts to extricate the kingdom from the Yemen quagmire.
We thank James Spencer for today’s newsletter. James is a retired British infantry commander who specialised in low-intensity conflict. He is an independent analyst on political, security and economic issues of West Asia and North Africa and a specialist on Yemen.
The Saudis are on the horns of a dilemma: their conflict with the Huthis of Yemen has re-ignited, and their choices seem limited to continuing the war in pursuit of victory or buying off the Huthis. The problem with the former is that the Saudi-led Coalition has tried and failed while the problem with paying protection money is that the recipient almost always comes back for more.
It’s worth re-capping how and why the original situation arose: the UAE and Saudi Arabia intervened as part of their counter-Arab Spring strategy to prop up the late Abd Rabuh Mansur Hadi, the secular frontman they had installed. A twelve year-long war, pitting the Huthis against the anti-Huthi factions supported by Saudi and Emirati forces, saw heavy bombing resulting in the Huthis being pushed back to the mountains (apart from the Red Sea port of Hodeidah) while holding the capital Sana’a. The bombing campaign achieved little other than large numbers of civilian casualties and ruinous expense. (Reconstruction costs are estimated at US$ 20-25 billion.) The Huthis had also developed the strategy of firing UAVs and missiles at military and civilian targets in the UAE and and Saudi Arabia and using missiles, UAVs and naval drones against military and commercial ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.
After Hamas’ attack on Israeli in October 2023, the Huthis fired missiles and long-range UAVs at Israel, causing some casualties and damage. In response, the US initiated Operation Rough Rider, aided by Britain and Israel, a 1000 target bombing campaign which despite Trump’s claims accomplished little at a cumulative cost of more than US$1 billion, bringing Washington only a non-aggression pact with the Huthis.
Saudi Arabia's energy minister has vowed a "serious" response to the deadly attacks on the kingdom's airports and oil and gas facilities by Yemen's Ansar Allah (Huthi) movement.
On 13 July this year, an Iranian flight tried to bring Huthi representatives attending Ayatollah Khamenei’s funeral back from Tehran to Sana’a. There were probably both Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps personnel and materiel on board as well. The Saudis bombed the runway to prevent the landing, although the plane landed safely in Hodeidah. Using this attack as an excuse, the Huthis declared a maritime blockade of Saudi Arabia and began to fire missiles at Saudi airfields and commercial targets. Subsequently, the Huthis stormed south along the Red Sea coast, routing the troops of the former president’s nephew (some of whom reputedly sold their weapons to the Huthis), and capturing first the port of Mokha then the island of Perim in the Bab al-Mandab straits, through which 12% of global trade passes.
While the West connects this to the US/Israeli conflict with Iran, the Huthis’ actions have a mostly domestic and economic purpose: the blockade is hurting them, as is the massive reduction in aid; opposition (and its repression) in Huthi areas has increased: an external enemy is always a politically useful distraction. They have taken advantage of schisms in the anti-Huthi coalition, the Riyadh - Abu Dhabi split and American and Saudi focus on Iran (and their greatly depleted stocks of interceptors) to gain territory in Yemen.
Like Afghanistan, Yemen is a graveyard of empires: the Romans lost an army there under Aelius Gallus in 24BC; an Ottoman governor remarked that he was "losing troops like salt dissolving in water"; the Sunni Wahhabis from what is now Saudi Arabia ran into trouble on several occasions; and the Egyptians still don't know exactly how many troops they lost there in the 1960s. That’s partly due to the the martial skills of the Huthi but also because geography is on the defenders’ side. The Coalition tried to invade the mountains (with a more powerful force than now), and the US heavily bombed Yemen, both in vain. Trump has recently rebuffed Saudi calls for help nor are the Pakistanis or Turks under the new Mecca Pact keen to get involved. History dictates that going down the kinetic road is unlikely to succeed. So the military option is probably not viable.
The Saudis’ suggested alternative option is to buy the Huthis off. While US$50m was reputedly the price after the 2009 campaign, the Huthis are in a far stronger position now and so the price will be vastly higher - at a time when Saudi coffers are less flush. And unless the problem is solved permanently the demand and threats of attack will return when the Huthis have spent whatever sum they manage to extract.
Therefore, the financial option is probably not viable either.
One stumbling block to addressing 'the Huthi problem' is that neither Saudi Arabia, the USA nor the Internationally Recognised Government has been prepared to accept a negotiated agreement, instead demanding an unconditional Huthi surrender and humiliating disarmament. Yet the IRG and their backers lack the military capability and/or the political will to defeat the Huthis and the financial cost of continuing the conflict keeps rising (particularly if the Huthis blockade Bab al-Mandab.) A negotiated agreement is unpalatable but probably necessary.
Do the initial drivers of the conflict remain or has the situation changed?
In 2015, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi’s main concern was to ensure the defeat of the Arab Spring was secure. In that they have succeeded and a battered Yemen is unlikely to see more uprisings until it is rehabilitated and its people can concentrate on more than survival. Saudi Arabia and the UAE are now more concerned with transforming their economies to a post-oil future (a future hastened by the closure of the Straits of Hormuz), and by the threat of Iran, which musters far larger armed forces than their Arab neighbours. They could probably accept an Arab-oriented, federal Yemen in which the Huthis have a role in government but do not rule outright.
The various factions of the IRG mostly wanted to continue Ali Abdullah Salih’s kleptocracy, differing mainly in who should rule. That originally involved keeping the Huthis from getting a share of the pie; but if the pie can be grown enough for all, the IRG can probably be persuaded to accept a deal.
That leaves the Huthis’ position. If the Saudis (and the Emiratis) undertake to stop interfering in Yemen, to allow a government in which the Huthis have meaningful participation and Riyadh agrees to pay reparations for the war damage, the Huthis can probably be persuaded to accept a peace in which they have international legitimacy.
The first step should be to reduce the leverage the Huthi have through their indirect fire capability: as seen in Ukraine, cheap air defence and counter-UAV systems provide at least some of the solution. Having evened the odds, a ceasefire, both domestically and internationally, would be easier to achieve. That should be followed by a conference involving all Yemeni factions, chaired by an impartial arbiter – perhaps Haitham, the Sultan of Oman. That should then be followed by general elections, with the government to be formed using the d’Hondt system, ensuring each faction gets influence but none dominates. The government’s first order of business should be distilling, developing and implementing the Outcomes of the National Dialogue Conference and the Peace and National Partnership Agreement. Simultaneously, there should be comprehensive security sector reform, a well-funded effort to rehabilitate Yemen under the aegis of the Aga Khan’s Development Network and an independent counter-corruption programme. Finally, a truth and reconciliation commission will be needed to gain closure, covering not just the recent conflict, but going back to the beginnings of the civil war era.
A tall order - and with the recent deadly attacks on Riyadh’s international airport reverberating one admittedly with only a thin hope of seeing the light of day - but that’s how Saudi Arabia escapes being further impaled on the horns of the Yemen dilemma.
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