We know what’s coming and we are prepared.
🇺🇸❌🇹🇷 Author for the Washington D.C. think tank, Middle East Forum (MEF), Michael Rubin:
The United States Needs to Prepare to Kill Turks in Syria
Turkey’s Actions Already Cross the Rubicon and Place American Forces and Interests in Jeopardy
The celebrations that ended the more than half-century of Assad family tyranny in Syria are over. In the short term, Russia and Iran are losers; Turkey is the winner. After all, Turkey was the prime backer of the Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham rebel group that swept through Syria.
Many defense professionals still embrace Turkey because of Turkey’s role in NATO. It was one of only two NATO countries to border the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and it has the second largest military of any NATO country. Troop numbers, however, are a meaningless metric; what matters more is the potential to utilize them for NATO missions.
While the strategic importance of Incirlik Air Base has declined with the openings of alternatives in Greece and Romania, as well as more advanced amphibious assault vessels capable of transporting F-35s nearly anywhere in the world, the bureaucratic dynamic remains in the Pentagon loath to forfeit any base access. In effect, like Qatar with the al-Udeid Air Base, Turkey leverages the Incirlik as a get-out-of-jail-free card to avoid accountability for any number of malign behaviors. Defense professionals argue that Turkey’s early warning radar station at Malatya is essential to detect any launch of a potential Iranian nuclear weapon.
It may be diplomatically impolitic to say directly, but if Turkish-backed forces encourage terrorism and continue to pose threats to American forces countering the Islamic State in the region, it behooves the United States to begin a conversation about whether it may be necessary to target Turkish terror sponsors in the region. Turkey is a NATO member, but striking at its forces outside Turkey’s boundaries would not trigger NATO self-defense clauses. Nor should there be outrage at such discussion.
If Turkey is willing to kill Americans operating in pursuit of official American policy inside Syria, then the United States should adopt the same policy and be willing to kill Turks outside Turkey’s own borders.
📝: No. The situation calls for a withdrawal of US forces from Syria. Pres. Trump has a golden opportunity to open a new page w/Turkey by negotiating an orderly departure of troops. The US interest is not served by a prolonged troop presence.
🔗 https://www.meforum.org/mef-observer/the-united-states-needs-to-prepare-to-kill-turks-in-syria
Ukrainian forces have begun training and testing exoskeletons for battlefield use. Soldiers from the 147th Separate Artillery Brigade are using them in the Pokrovsk sector for both logistics and frontline operations. The goal is to reduce physical strain, especially when loading heavy artillery shells into howitzers without automatic loaders. Artillery crews can handle up to 1200 kg of ammunition per day, and early tests show that exoskeletons help them work faster and with less fatigue Above all, by improving the conditions for those soldiers on the front lines who handle such heavy loads, plus the stress of work. Seeking to reduce overall fatigue in the troops
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🇮🇷🇮🇱 - 14 wounded in Iranian missile strike in central Israel, according to Israeli media.
🇬🇧🇮🇶 - A drone struck British Castrol oil warehouses in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan, causing extensive damage.
🇮🇷🇮🇱 - Iran launched 9 missiles towards Israel this morning alone, with at least 3 of them being cluster missiles.
🇱🇧🇮🇱 - Over the past 12 hours, Hezbollah launched counterattacks in Khiam and Qantara, in the Nabatieh direction, southeast Lebanon. Hezbollah recaptured northern Khiam, with fighting ongoing for the south of the town. Hezbollah units also re-entered Qantara; frontline sources reported clashes in the center of the town last night.
🇱🇧🇮🇱 - 48 IDF soldiers have been wounded in clashes with Hezbollah over the last 24 hours in southern Lebanon, according to the Israeli Army.
🇱🇧🇮🇱 - "The Israeli army is barely catching its breath in southern Lebanon, and its resources are less than in the previous round of fighting," - Haaretz....
🇺🇸 Blue Owl Capital just disclosed that investors tried to pull 40.7% of one fund and 21.9% of another in a single quarter, and both funds gave the same answer, you can only have 5% back, and everyone else waits in line.
This is a bank run, not a normal withdrawal.
Wall Street spent the last decade selling millions of investors on something called semi-liquid private credit, higher yields, steady income and the promise you could get your money back every quarter if you needed it. What they buried in the fine print was what happens when too many people try to leave at the same time.
Analysts who have covered private credit for decades say nothing on this scale has ever been reported before at any major private credit manager.
These funds do not hold stocks you can sell on a Tuesday afternoon, they hold private loans to mid sized companies that cannot be liquidated quickly without destroying the price for every investor still trapped inside.
This product was originally designed for ...
🇺🇸 President Trump wants to switch to war economy in 2027 with massive increase in military spending and massive cuts to healthcare and other domestic agencies
Once a deficit hawk — he said in 2016 that he thought he could balance the budget in five years — Trump ended his first term with $7.8 trillion in added debt. His 2027 proposal is expected to give an update on 10-year deficit projections currently estimated at around $16 trillion.
The GOP's message for the Midterms will be focused on the "need" for a massive defense build up while the Democrats' message will be focused on affordability.
The fiscal 2027 budget will be the first time Trump puts his second-term governing agenda into one comprehensive document — with the numbers to back it up. The budget he released last year lacked detailed line-by-line spending targets and the economic assumptions necessary to project the long-term cost of his proposals.
Investors in US Treasuries will be looking to see if the debt and ...
