As families risked their lives to access aid in Gaza this year, thousands of Palestinians were killed or injured at or close to food distribution centers. Tareq Abu Azzoum, a reporter for Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, discusses how starving civilians were used as “deathtraps” by GHF.
Published On 31 Dec 2025
According to German police, thieves allegedly stole up to $105 billion from safe-deposit boxes at a German retail bank in Gelsenkirchen over the Christmas holiday.
According to a report from the German news agency dpa, it may be one of the country’s biggest thefts ever.
According to the police, the thieves broke into a Sparkasse bank branch in Gelsenkirchen, in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, at some point during the Christmas holiday when the nearby parking garage was closed.
Gothic architecture and museums are found in the German state. Dusseldorf, the country’s capital, is renowned for its Rheinturm telecommunications tower and its shopping district.
The thieves gained access to an underground vault room by drilling a large drill through a thick concrete wall at the bank. Then, they duped into opening some 3, 000 safe deposit boxes, lobbing them with cash, jewelry, and gold.
According to the AFP news agency, a police spokesperson compared the break-in to Ocean’s Eleven and called it “very professionally executed.”
To plan and carry this out, the spokesperson told the agency, “a great deal of prior knowledge and/or a great deal of criminal energy must have been involved.”
More than 95 percent of the 3,250 customer safe deposit boxes, according to the bank, were allegedly accessed by unidentified thieves.
A fire alarm went off on Monday, but police have not yet confirmed the exact time the robbery occurred. Instead, they claim they were called to the scene.
According to police spokesman Thomas Nowaczyk, investigators estimate the total value of the stolen items to be anywhere between 10 and 90 million euros ($11,8 million and $105.7 million).
According to the police, each deposit box’s average insured value is more than 10,000 euros ($11,700). However, officers said that several victims claimed their boxes’ contents were significantly more expensive than the money they had been insured for.
The thieves are still at large, and there are no arrests yet.
A black Audi RS 6 sedan was captured on surveillance video leaving the bank’s parking lot early on Monday morning, with masked people inside.
The car’s license plate was allegedly stolen earlier in Hanover, which is located about 200 kilometers (124 miles) northeast of Gelsenkirchen, where the robbery occurred.
Infuriated customers gathered outside the bank branch on Tuesday to demand answers about the bank’s robbery.
After threats were made to bank employees, the police spokesperson informed AFP that the bank branch remained closed for security reasons.
According to the police spokesperson, “We’re still on site and keeping an eye on things,” adding that “the situation has significantly calmed down.”
The bank wants to make the robbery public to all of its customers. Additionally, it established a customer support hotline for the affected people.
It added that it is examining the manner in which compensation claims will be handled with insurers.
Frank Krallmann, a bank press spokesman, said, “We are shocked.” We rely on our customers to catch the criminals who abuse them.
In less than seven minutes, a gang of robbers robbed the Louvre Museum in Paris and robbed it of eight pieces of jewelry. Eight items dating back to the Napoleonic era were loaded with motorcycles, and the thieves stole a ninth on their way out.
It was estimated that the jewelry items had been stolen worth $ 102 million.
Eight suspects have been detained in France as of this writing due to the Louvre heist.
Three men, three women, three men, and three people were the first four suspects, who were then formally investigated and charged.
Two men from the Paris region, both 38 and 39, and two women from Paris, both 31 and 40, are the four suspects who have been taken into custody. They face possible complicity allegations. The suspects’ names have not been made public.
A 24-year-old Chinese woman was detained in Barcelona on suspicion of stealing six gold nuggets from Paris’ National Museum of Natural History on September 30. The gold nuggets had a $1.76 million ($1.75 million) market value of about 1.5 million euros ($1.7 million).
It is unclear how or why the woman was detained while attempting to dispose of melted gold. In a cyberattack, the museum’s alarms and security system were disabled, but it’s not clear whether the thieves were the ones who also carried out the cyberattack or whether the theft was opportunistic.
Over the Easter holiday, thieves stole at least $30 million in cash from a GardaWorld facility in Los Angeles.
A global security provider, GardaWorld offers services like facilities management, property management, and cash handling.
Thai forces who remain on the Cambodian side of the border have informed Al Jazeera that they are preventing them from returning to their homes. This exclusive report from Chouk Chey, which has been separated by rows of shipping containers, was sent by Assed Baig.
Published On 31 Dec 2025
More than 30 aid organizations’ permits will be suspended by Israel because they allegedly failed to comply with new requirements for operating in Gaza’s already devasted state, which is likely to worsen already dire conditions for Palestinians there.
Organisations facing bans as of January 1, 2026 have failed to meet new requirements for sharing detailed information about their staff, funding and operations, Israeli authorities said on Tuesday.
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The Israeli Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli said that while humanitarian assistance was welcome, “exploitation of humanitarian frameworks for terrorism” was not.
A coalition of foreign ministers from nations like the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Japan, and the Nordic nations demanded that Israel ensure nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) could deliver “sustained and predictable” aid, while also expressing serious concerns about the Strip’s humanitarian situation.
What will happen to Palestinians in Gaza if Israel suspends these aid organizations?
The decision to “strengthen and update” the regulations governing the activities of international NGOs in the Palestinian territory’s war-torn setting was described as a result of Israel’s decision.
The statement read, “Humanitarian organizations that do not comply with security and transparency requirements will have their licenses suspended.”
The ministry added that groups which had “failed to cooperate and refused to submit a list of their Palestinian employees in order to rule out any links to terrorism” had been formally notified that their licences would be revoked from January 1.
The aid organizations were given ten months to provide the requested information, the report claimed.
Among the banned organisations is medical charity Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, which the ministry accused of employing two individuals with alleged links to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, respectively, without providing any evidence for its claims.
The statement continued, “Despite repeated requests, the organization failed to fully disclose these individuals’ identities and responsibilities.”
In a statement to the AFP news agency, MSF claimed it would never “knowingly employ people engaged in military activity because they would “present a risk to our staff and our patients.”
The charity further stated that it “continues to engage and discuss with Israeli authorities”, and that it has “not yet received a decision on re-registration”.
More than 100 aid organizations criticized Israel earlier this year for preventing life-saving aid from reaching Gaza and demanded that it stop its “weaponization of aid” after it refused to let aid trucks enter the devastated area.
The 37 organisations or their divisions facing suspension or loss of licences to operate in Gaza include several major international aid agencies:
These organizations provide a variety of services, including psychological support, food distribution, shelter, water and sanitation, and healthcare.
This is not the first time that Israel has taken steps to suspend or ban the operations of international humanitarian agencies providing support to Palestinians.
The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA)’s (IRW) presence in Israel was prohibited by the Israeli parliament in 2024, citing claims that some of its local staff members had participated in the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on October 7, 2023.   ,
UNRWA – the principal provider of aid, education, health and social services to Palestinian refugees across Gaza, the occupied West Bank and neighbouring countries for decades – strongly denied these allegations. UNRWA’s operations in the Palestinian territory were halted by the ban because Israel has access to Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
Israel’s accusations against UNRWA were disproven by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in October.
Nevertheless, Israel’s claims prompted the United States, historically UNRWA’s largest donor, to end funding. Many Western countries have since reinstated the organization’s funding, but many have also suspended it.
The bans and restrictions on international and UN aid agencies are pillars of what Israel’s critics say are broader efforts by the country to make life in Gaza next to impossible for the Palestinian territory’s more than two million people, by destroying all elements of what any functional society needs.
Israel’s blockade of Gaza has stifled the movement of people and goods to the territory’s social and economic infrastructure for nearly 20 years. Despite the odds, the genocidal war between Israel and Palestine has destroyed what Palestinians there have laboriously built.
According to the latest United Nations data, Israel has killed 579 aid workers – including nearly 400 from UNRWA – since October 7, 2023. More than 1,700 health professionals, 140 civil defense personnel, and 256 journalists have been killed as a result. More than 71, 000 people have been killed overall in Gaza as a result of Israel’s genocidal war.
More than 80% of all buildings have been damaged or destroyed, including the 18 hospitals in Gaza, which have been hit by Israel, and the 93 percent of all school buildings and more than 63 university buildings. More than 77% of Gaza’s population is plagued by severe food shortages.
The UN has accused Israel of intentionally striking Gaza’s medical infrastructure and killing health workers in an effort to dismantle the enclave’s healthcare system.
The cost of clean water is prohibitive, and desalination facilities and sewage systems are severely affected, increasing the risk of disease.
Prior to Israel’s two-year genocidal war, Gaza’s water infrastructure was already in crisis, and ground battles with Israeli bombardment and ground incursions had already harmed more than 80% of the territory’s water infrastructure.
Against that backdrop of war, some aid organisations have said their Palestinian employees worry that if their details are shared with Israel, they might be targeted.
The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates “strongly” condemned Israel’s decision to introduce new registration requirements for relief organizations, warning that the new registration requirements could stop Gaza’s hundreds of thousands of people from receiving life-saving aid.
The ministry claimed that Israel has no legal authority over the occupied Palestinian territories, including Jerusalem, while mentioning that Palestinians are pleased with the humanitarian organizations’ efforts.
The European Union warned that suspension of aid groups in Gaza would block “life-saving” assistance from reaching the population.
In a post on X, EU humanitarian chief Hadja Lahbib declared, “The EU has been clear: the NGO registration law cannot be implemented in its current form.
There is no room for doubt that aid must be delivered to those in need under IHL (international humanitarian law).
Oxfam stated to Al Jazeera that it hoped to be allowed to work there as a permanent resident.
According to Matt Grainger, head of media at Oxfam International, “we are aware of the potential risk of Israel refusing registration to a number of NGOs, including Oxfam.” “We understand that any final decision would only follow a formal letter from Israel and thereafter an appeal process. Our main priority is always to carry out our humanitarian work in Gaza.
As the humanitarian crisis gets worse, MSF claimed to the Reuters news agency that if it were barred from operating, it would be devastating.
“If MSF is prevented from working in Gaza, it will deprive hundreds of thousands of people from accessing medical care”, the group said, highlighting the stakes for civilians already struggling to access health services.
Shaina Low, spokesperson for the Norwegian Refugee Council, told Reuters that “at a time when needs in Gaza far exceed the available aid and services, Israel has and will continue to block life-saving aid from entering.”
The British Foreign Office and France and Canada both issued statements on Tuesday calling for Israel to support NGOs’ continued and predictable employment in Israel.
They said deregistration of the organisations would have a “severe impact on access to essential services, including healthcare”.
The US’s first military action against Venezuelan soil since it began targeting Venezuelan shipping in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific in September 2025 was confirmed by US President Donald Trump this week.
Speaking to reporters as he met in Florida with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump said there had been “an explosion in Venezuela”, at a facility where boats the US believes to be carrying drugs usually “load up”.
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He claimed that there was a “major explosion” in the dock area where drugs were being loaded up the boats. “They load the boats up with drugs, so we hit all the boats, and now we hit the area. The implementation area is it. That’s where they implement. And that has vanished.
Trump did not reveal more details about the strikes.
Trump’s Venezuela strike was just the latest in a string of his administration’s military attacks since its inauguration in January, despite portraying himself as the “president of peace” deserving of a Nobel Peace Prize, he claims.
Armed Conflict Location &, Event Data or ACLED, the nonpartisan conflict monitor, told Al Jazeera that the US had carried out – or been a partner to – 622 overseas bombings in all, using drones or aircraft, since January 20, 2025, when Trump took office.
His campaign promises to end US involvement in international conflicts are met with opposition from the attacks.
In total, the US launched military operations in 2025 against seven nations.
As part of the Trump administration’s growing war against ships it claims are smuggling drugs from the country to the US, the US confirmed one strike this week on a docking facility on Venezuelan territory.
No details about where the strike took place have been released.
That came after the US Navy seized two oil tankers off the Venezuelan coast earlier in December, allegedly as a blow to Maduro’s main economic ally. Washington claims the vessels are part of a “shadow fleet” of tankers smuggling sanctioned oil.
The US has accumulated the largest military presence in the Caribbean Sea since August, alarming both the US and the countries concerned. The Trump administration claims this is warranted because the trafficking of drugs to the US constitutes a national emergency, but multiple reports have shown that Venezuela is not a major source of drugs , being transported across borders.
The US began striking small boats in the Caribbean on September 2 under the guise of drug trafficking. It is thought it has struck more than 30 vessels since then. The Tren de Aragua group and the Colombian National Liberation Army are “terrorist” organizations operating the vessels, according to the Trump administration. However, it has provided no evidence for this.
Human Rights Watch accused Washington of “extrajudicial killings” on December 16 by revealing that at least 95 people had died as a result of the boat strikes.
In early December, US lawmakers from both Republican and Democratic sides urged the Pentagon to release full footage of the first strike on September 2, which has proved even more controversial following revelations that the vessel was subject to a “double tap” attack – two survivors of the first attack clinging to debris in the water following a first strike were killed in a follow-up strike.
The footage won’t be made public, according to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Caracas accuses the US of using claims of drug trafficking as a cover for seeking a government change in Venezuela. Trump, on the other hand, has referred to Venezuela as a “narco state” and said Nicolas Maduro’s days “are numbered.”
On Christmas Day, the US launched the first of what Trump said would be “powerful and deadly” strikes against groups Washington claims are affiliated with ISIL (ISIS) in Northwest Nigeria’s Sokoto State.
It came after weeks of diplomatic pressure on the Nigerian government, which Trump and senior conservative Republicans, including Ted Cruz, have accused of facilitating a “Christian genocide” in a nation with a nearly equal share of Muslims and Christians.
Nigeria has been plagued by violence from armed groups linked to al-Qaeda or ISIL, operating in the predominantly Muslim northeast and northwest regions. Abuja disputes claims that the violence has harmed both Muslim and Christian communities.
Furthermore, alleged attacks on Christian farmers in Nigeria have taken place in a completely different part of the country. In October 2025, US Senator Ted Cruz first charged the country’s government with allowing a “massacre” against Christians, citing a rise in attacks  against the community in the country’s central Middle Belt, which is independent of the violence in the north.
Even though these two issues are separate, Abuja, under pressure, agreed to the US military operation in the north of the country on December 25.
Details of that strike are still being worked out. The US Africa Command said in a statement that “multiple ISIS terrorists were killed in the ISIS camps”, and Nigeria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the strike was “successful”.
It appeared to be aimed at the recently-released “Lakurawa” organization, which conflict monitors claim is made up of Mali and Nigeri armed fighters who might be affiliated with ISIL or al-Qaeda.
The group is known to operate in forested corridors between Sokoto and Kebbi states. Jabo town in Sokoto was hit by at least one US missile or piece of debris. The Nigerian military, speaking to local media, later confirmed strikes on armed group hideouts in Buani Forest, but did not reveal casualty numbers.
The US and Nigeria have collaborated on security for many years through training and sharing intelligence, but the West African nation’s Christmas strikes were the first time they had engaged in kinetic military action.
It was timed, analysts say, to appease Trump’s Christian supporters as Washington doubles down on a narrative of “saving” Nigerian Christians, although Nigerian authorities insist the strikes are not about any one religion.
Trump claimed additional strikes would follow.
The US has long trained Somali forces and carried out airstrikes against armed groups, including al-Shabab, a branch of al-Qaeda, which has launched numerous attacks in Somalia and neighboring Kenya. They also target an ISIL offshoot known as ISIS-Somalia.
In south-central Somalia, Al-Shabab, which has about 7, 000 fighters, controls large swathes of land, while ISIS-Somalia, which has about 1, 500 fighters, operates in Puntland, which is a province in northern Somalia’s mountainous regions. In the past year, 7, 289 people have been killed by armed group activity, according to the US-based Africa Center for Strategic Studies.
Most US troops left the country in his first term as president, but the Biden administration redistributed them in May 2022.
In Trump’s second term, the US has remained active in the country, at Somalia’s urging. The New America Foundation claims that since February, Washington has significantly increased its air attacks.
Overall, at least 111 strikes have been recorded this year, surpassing the number carried out under the George Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden administrations combined, monitors say.
In the attacks in Somalia, civilians have been killed. Investigative site Drop Site News revealed in December that at least 11 civilians, seven of them children, were killed in a strike in the Lower Juba region, in Somalia’s southwest, just last month.
The US won’t disclose how many people have died in Somalia as civilians.
US strikes on 70 ISIL-positions in Syria on December 19 were carried out in retaliation for a shooting in Palmyra which killed two US soldiers and a civilian interpreter a week earlier.
The shooting caused injuries to two members of Syria’s security forces and three other Americans. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but Trump placed the blame on ISIL.
A later statement from Syria’s Ministry of Interior revealed that a person who attacked US troops was a member of the state security service and was being fired for anti-religious sentiments.
The US retaliatory operation, dubbed “Hawkeye” in reference to Iowa, the “Hawkeye State” where both killed soldiers were from, damaged several ISIL weapons storage facilities in locations across Syria, an official told CNN.
Trump posted on Truth Social on December 19th, “I am hereby announcing that the United States is inflicting very serious retaliation, as I promised, on the murderous terrorists responsible.”
“We are striking very strongly against ISIS strongholds in Syria, a place soaked in blood which has many problems, but one that has a bright future if ISIS can be eradicated”, he added, warning against further attacks on US service members.
Hegseth claimed in a post on X the same day that the strikes were an “declaration of vengeance” against ISIL.
US troops have long been stationed in Syria to target ISIL, which once controlled large areas of land across Syria and Iraq in the mid-2010s.
Up until December 2024, the Pentagon reported that about 900 US troops were stationed in the nation as a result of the Bashar al-Assad government’s collapse. The US has carried out more than 80 operations aimed at neutralising armed operatives in Syria, according to the US military’s Central Command.
Trump, the president-elect, issued a warning against US interference at the time. He posted on Truth Social: “Syria is a mess, but is not our friend, &, THE UNITED STATES SHOULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. NOT OUR FIGHT IS THIS.
Fewer than 1, 000 troops remained in Syria by April, according to the Pentagon.
Amid short-lived hostilities which broke out between Iran and Israel earlier this year, the US intervened and struck three key nuclear sites in Iran on June 22. The US Air Force and Navy were involved in a highly sophisticated mission, according to analysts.
In a televised address, Trump justified the attacks on Iran’s Natanz, Isfahan, and Fordow nuclear sites, saying they would curtail the “nuclear threat” posed by Tehran.
The US claimed that enriched uranium had reached or was approaching “weapons grade” and was being produced or stored at the three sites.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi later confirmed that some of the sites had sustained extensive damage, and the Pentagon estimated the attack set back Iran’s nuclear program by about two years.
Iran struck a US airbase in Qatar the day after the US attacks, which was likely symbolic because no fatalities or injuries were reported.
On June 22, Trump declared a ceasefire between Iran and Israel, bringing the 12-day war to an end. During the live hostilities, more than 1,100 Iranians and 28 Israelis were killed.
But during his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week, Trump threatened to hit Iran again.
He said, “We’re going to have to knock them down,” referring to Iran’s nuclear program, as I’ve heard it’s trying to build up again. “We’ll knock the hell out of them”.
As a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1970, Iran is prohibited from developing nuclear weapons. In 2015, it also signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Western powers, including the US, agreeing to limit uranium enrichment levels in exchange for sanctions relief.
Trump withdrew the US from that pact in 2018 under his first administration as president, claiming it had been poorly negotiated.
Since January 12, 2024, the US has targeted Yemen’s Houthis, an Iran-aligned group that controls much of Yemen’s populous northwest, in a series of air and naval attacks.
In order to show solidarity with Gaza, the US claims that strikes were carried out in retaliation for Houthi attacks on Israeli-linked vessels passing through the Red Sea.
The strikes escalated to daily attacks in March 2025 under the new Trump administration, under a mission codenamed Operation Rough Rider.
In addition to killing thousands of people, the attacks severely damaged infrastructure in Sanaa and Hodeidah, including ports, airports, radar systems, air defenses, ballistic launch sites, and even migrant holding facilities.
The US strikes finally came to an end on May 6, following a truce brokered by Oman.
123 people, most of whom were civilians, had been killed by April, according to Yemen’s Houthi-run Ministry of Health, compared to the US’s claim of killing about 500 Houthis.
As many as 247 people, including many women and children, were injured, the ministry said.
A prominent ISIL member was killed by US airstrikes on Iraq’s al-Anbar province on March 13, according to Central Command of the US military.
The group’s second-in-command, Abdallah “Abu Khadijah” Malli Muslih al-Rifai, and another unnamed operative were reported to have been killed in the strikes.
Both men were alleged to be holding weapons and wearing unexploded “suicide vests” at the time of the strikes. The US also said the strikes were carried out jointly with Iraqi intelligence, and that both sides confirmed the deaths through DNA tests.
Trump praised the actions of US troops in a celebratory post on Truth Social the following day.
“Today, the fugitive leader of ISIS in Iraq was killed”, Trump wrote.
Our intrepid warfighters relentlessly pursued him. His miserable life was terminated, along with another member of ISIS, in coordination with the Iraqi Government and the Kurdish Regional Government. “PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH”
Iraq’s prime minister, in a statement on X, also on March 14, said “Adu Khadija” was known as ISIL’s “deputy caliph” overseeing operations in Iraq and Syria, and that he was “one of the most dangerous terrorists in Iraq and the world”.
In 2014, the Obama administration authorized strikes on ISIL locations in Iraq.
When Trump pledged during his first term as president to put “America First” and stop the US involvement in foreign conflicts, Trump won wide support from many Americans who were sick of their country’s costly involvement in the Middle East.
In one presidential debate, Trump accused the former Bush administration of failing in its handling of the fallout of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York in September 2001, and said “the war in Iraq is a big fat mistake … We spent two trillion dollars, thousands of lives (lost)”.
Trump pledged to end ongoing global conflicts by beginning his second term in January 2025. His success, he said during his inaugural address, would be judged, “by the battles we win, but also by the wars that we end – and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into”.
While Trump undoubtedly contributed to some conflicts in the world this year, according to Sarang Shidore, head of Global South at the US-based Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, his efforts lack “the delicate, sustained, behind-the-scenes diplomacy typically required in global conflicts.”
Furthermore, in South America in particular, Trump appears to be reverting to the old days of the 20th century, when US intervention toppled multiple governments from Brazil to Bolivia.
The first quarter of the 21st century has come to an end, and so has the year 2025. It’s difficult to overstate the impact of the military excesses of the United States on the course of the last 25 years when comparing these two events.
The US launched the so-called “global war on terror” shortly after the start of the new century under the enlightened leadership of President George W. Bush, who made the professional call to arms following the 2001 attacks by 9/11: “We have our marching orders. Let’s roll, American people.
Bush claimed that the US had “engaged in a war to save civilisation itself,” leading to the destruction of numerous nations and the massacre of millions of people.
I was a junior at Columbia University in New York City, the site of the World Trade Center attacks, on September 11, 2001. However, I was actually in Austin, Texas, where my family then resided, because I was supposed to study in Italy that fall.
I watched apocalyptic replays of the incoming planes on a large projector screen set up by my colleagues specifically for that purpose during the day at the office where I had been working for the summer.
As the nation attempted to rank itself as the most perilous victim of terrorism in the world’s history, American flags started to appear on every surface, not to mention the quite literal terror the US had been inflicting on other countries for decades, from Vietnam and Laos to Nicaragua and Panama.
My boyfriend and I went over to see them that evening, and they were morosely urinating on the living room floor amid numerous buckets of Kentucky Fried Chicken, which they explained was meant as a “comfort food” to ease the suffering of a national tragedy.
Massive fast-food takeaway orders were generally not an option for the countless civilians who were soon to be hit by US bombs.
I flew from Austin to Rome via New York, where I watched on Italian television as my nation bombed Afghanistan’s daylights to “saving civilization itself.” By the time the Iraq War broke out in 2003, a country well aware of the phenomenon, it was estimated that half a million Iraqi children had perished as a result of US sanctions.
Bush would say, “You know, one of the hardest parts of my job is making a connection between Iraq and the war on terror,” in a rare and presumably unintended moment of clarity.
And while Bush, the president’s vice president and the recently deceased Dick Cheney, who were much more serious about producing threats to justify war forever, were on his side as well. He may have been better known for his grammatical incompetence than for his ability to instill existential fear in Americans.
Barack Obama, a premature Nobel Peace Prize winner, who managed to drop no fewer than 26, 172 bombs on seven different nations, succeeded Bush as the leader of the world superpower.
Yemen was one of these nations, where Obama’s illegal drone strikes had already claimed the lives of Yemeni weddinggoers. In the first 100 days of his presidency, Donald Trump changed the rules to allow the military to “authorize strikes without running them through the White House security bureaucracy first,” according to the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism.
Joe Biden, who previously served as president between the two Trump administrations, distinguished himself during his term in office by expanding Washington’s historically egregious support for the massacres of Palestinians to fund a total genocide in the Gaza Strip with the aid of US taxpayers’ billions.
Israel, which jumped on the “war on terror” bandwagon right away after 9/11, is now killing Palestinians in Gaza under the guise of a Trump-brokered ceasefire.
Trump’s resumption of control over world-wide “counterterror” operations has been underscored by even less restraint this time around, as his newly renamed Department of War deliberately bombs boats off Venezuelan waters and extrajudicially murders the people on board.
Trump can’t seem bothered to waste too much time creating a veneer of legality, preferring to fling about absurd claims of Venezuelan “narcoterrorism” and oil “theft,” as the US did in the old Bush-Cheney days.
A man’s spontaneous and haphazard bombing of Iran, Yemen, Syria, and other locations resembles his pathological stream-of-consciousness style of discourse, is now increasingly being used to control the US military might.
One cannot help but think of those unfortunate “marching orders” that sparked the beginning of the 21st century as we enter the second half of a country already defined by the disastrous legacy of US militarism: “My fellow Americans, let’s roll.”