FOREVER WARS

The Water Wars Are Here, And They're Not Woke The Iran War's latest horrifying component involves attacks on desalination facilities. A "not politically correct" conflict could render much of the region uninhabitable

"In the balance of a long war—again, waged by people on both sides who do not distinguish themselves by their commitments to the value of human life—is the potential to render large swaths of the region uninhabitable," writes @attackerman.bsky.social

When The War Goes AI, The Data Centers Will Be Targets (f/Engadget's Devindra Hardawar) We talk Anthropic, OpenAI, Iran and the mil-tech oligarchy. Children will be sent to protect data centers the way their fathers were sent to protect oil fields

Observations on the war from @attackerman.bsky.social and a new podcast appearance with @devindra.bsky.social

Interceptors Versus Missiles: The Iran War's Wrath of The Math A theory of Iranian strategy. PLUS: Me, Chris Hayes and Ayman Mohyeldin on the war's politics

Donald Trump said the thing.

Regime Change in Iran (Terms And Conditions Apply) The warmongers, once again, get the war they've sought for decades. Trump and Netanyahu leave the hard work to the people they're bombing

New from @attackerman.bsky.social on the long beginning of an illegal war:

America Doesn’t Make Oppenheimers Like We Used To What business did Dario Amodei think he was getting into when Anthropic signed on as a Pentagon contractor?

"When you take Doctor Doom's money to provide him a lathe to construct components for anthropomorphic robots, do you not understand that he is going to build Doombots?" writes @attackerman.bsky.social

But were you seeking to destroy the Islamic Republic, you would want to generate lots of targets, through extant surveillance and analysis of webs of association emanating outward from the regime and in particular the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. You would want to further be able to know where those targets are in pretty close to real time and when they are in undefended positions like their homes. You would want to generate a dynamic map of everyone who represents support lent to the regime, something that sounds to outsiders like "the senior ranks of decisionmakers" but in practice looks more like anyone who draws a government paycheck or provides the government with necessary services. In other words, you would want something like Israel's Lavender, Gospel and Where's Daddy AI programs, which were components of the decimation of Gaza.

The Pentagon wants to use Anthropic to go to war with Iran. Why? @attackerman.bsky.social thinks it is using the war on Gaza as a template: www.forever-wars.com/the-scent-of...

The Scent of Iranian Lavender The U.S. and Israel are gearing up for war with Iran while the Pentagon demands an AI company drop its "safeguards." Hmm. But yes: abuse the Defense Production Act!

"Surrendering Iran's missile fleet has nothing to do with American security and everything to do with making the Iranians either surrender their deterrent capability or provide the U.S. a pretext to attack," writes @attackerman.bsky.social

The Meaning of Marco Rubio's Munich Speech Is Found in The 'Board of Peace' A new institution is being born. In Munich, Marco Rubio outlined a certain purpose. When will the two join up?

“I doubt this man, this man who would tell foreign-policy elites in Munich that they belong to a heritage of superior beings, uses a bidet,” writes @attackerman.bsky.social

Ron Wyden Only Talks Like This When The Spies Do Something *Real* Bad No, I don't know what they did. But I have a lot of experience with the senator

Senator @wyden.senate.gov is trying to raise the alarm, writes @attackerman.bsky.social

I Guess We're All Just Supposed To Be OK With Bombing Iran Again Watching the buildup for regime change in Iran happily echo the buildup for regime change in Iraq. PLUS: The ghost of NSEERS returns to DHS

"Teheran is getting the surrender offer that Trump is said to have offered Nicolas Maduro ahead of the Jan. 3 Caracas raid," writes @attackerman.bsky.social

Your Leaders Were Lying. Now The People Are Driving The depravity of ICE, the enthusiasm of Republicans and the cowardice of Democrats is breaking through hypernormalization

"Someone in Minnesota is driving. It is not Walz or Frey. It is not Greg Bovino or Kristi Noem or Donald Trump. It is the people themselves: the outraged, galvanized, multiethnic working class, who see the imperial boomerang spinning toward their heads," writes @attackerman.bsky.social

Beware The "Trump Won't Use Force in Greenland" Headlines The transatlantic crisis is hardly over. Trump is so psychotic that Mark Carney is telling the truth about the 'rules-based international order.' PLUS: Three podcasts I guested on!

"The last 36 hours in Davos represent a signal moment in the decline and potential fall of the transatlantic alliance, which since 1945 has been a central pillar of American global hegemony," writes @attackerman.bsky.social

Martin Luther King Jr. Warned About The Anti-Abolish-ICE Democrat The heritage that valued order over justice during the civil rights movement animates the Democrat elected and consultant who wants to "retrain" a nativist death squad

"The timelessness of King's words resonates as an incipient death squad marches through Minnesota, prompting a certain strain of Democratic elected official and consultant to shake their head at the awfulness but refuse to redress its cause," writes @attackerman.bsky.social

Empire Building at Home and Abroad The American empire is collapsing as it expands. How could it do anything else?

"There is no 'late capitalism,' there is no 'late empire;' the expansion and the collapse are the same thing," writes @samthielman.com. "There's just us. If we want to put an end to that cycle, we have work to do."

Reign of Terror w/ Spencer Ackerman | Blood Work Get more from Blood Work on Patreon

BLOOD WORK / EPISODE 15

REIGN OF TERROR w/ SPENCER ACKERMAN
/ @attackerman.bsky.social

Gregk speaks to Spencer about the long shadow of the GWoT, how America’s response to 9/11 laid the ground for its current condition, the media’s role in justifying & legitimating state violence, and much more.

Either ICE Is Abolished or It Will Kill Many More Renee Goods Minnesota is just the beginning of ICE's transformation into a right-wing death squad. But it can be the end

"There is no reforming this," writes @attackerman.bsky.social.

Venezuela and Beyond (ft/ Chris Hayes, Paola Ramos, Zach Stafford & Saeed Jones) Here's a cable-news appearance and a podcast appearance of mine.

Here's @attackerman.bsky.social speaking with @chrislhayes.bsky.social and @paoramos.bsky.social about the abduction of Nicolas Maduro:

'This Big Truck Is Coming': Iran After The Maduro Kidnapping The distinguished journalist Tara Kangarlou sees a U.S. attack on Iran as all but certain now

Iran expert Tara Kangarlou speaks to FOREVER WARS about the inevitability of further US intervention in Iran in the wake of the Maduro abduction.

A Criminal Empire The United States launches a conquest and occupation of Venezuela to extract its oil wealth. The neocon dream is the America First dream

"After a very long period of pretense, there is clearly no distinction between America First and neoconservatism," writes @attackerman.bsky.social

Watching Bari Weiss Murder Investigative Journalism at CBS Notes from someone who's withstood White House demands to delay an accurate story—and who once even had a 60 Minutes piece spiked

"These are take-merchants and mouthpieces who publish what powerful people tell them over text and DM as if it's a transgressive secret and not a comms strategy," writes @attackerman.bsky.social

The Largest and Bloodiest U.S. Battlefield in 2025? Somalia At least 87 drone strikes, raids and other U.S. military engagements have hit Somalia this year, by far the most ever. And it's likely an undercount

The US's bloodiest battlefield in 2025 wasn't Venezuela. It was Somalia, writes @attackerman.bsky.social

The Time The FBI Tried To Get Meir Kahane's Jewish Fascists To Murder Black Panthers Picture it: New York City, 1969. COINTELPRO is in full swing. And the special agent in charge of the New York field office has an idea

"Picture it," writes @attackerman.bsky.social: "New York City, 1969. COINTELPRO is in full swing. And the special agent in charge of the New York field office has an idea."

FOREVER WARS A newsletter tracking the continuities, departures and permutations of the War on Terror.

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Torture Techniques from CIA Black Sites Were Used at Alligator Alcatraz Amnesty International, interviewing migrant detainees, identifies use of the confinement box. There can be no denying it is a torture prison

Today @attackerman.bsky.social writes about the use of the CIA’s “dog box” on prisoners at the Trump administration’s new torture prison, Alligator Alcatraz.

He Killed for The CIA. Trump Blames Afghan Culture Instead of Langley's (Director's Cut) But first: the Pentagon debuts its line about the Sept. 2 boat-strike murder to its docile press corps

FOREVER WARS watched the first "press" conference for loyalty pledge signatories including Matt Gaetz. If you're a subscriber, read @attackerman.bsky.social's new Zeteo column at the same link.

Pete Hegseth And Adm. Mitch Bradley Belong In Prison The South American boat strikes are plainly murders. Now we have the names of the murderers. Do we have the political will to lock them up?

"Unless Hegseth and Bradley face criminal penalties for their illegal order," writes @attackerman.bsky.social, "the bottom will drop out of military ethics."

How To Expropriate An Artificial Intelligence Oligarchy An industry whose bubble is set to burst is crucial to U.S. national security, you say?

Today, @attackerman.bsky.social proposes a solution to the looming AI crisis: nationalization.

Sarah Hurwitz Profanes the Holocaust Holocaust education has worked too well for the Obama speechwriter, since when she rationalizes Israel's genocide, "I sound obscene." Maybe sit with that, Sarah

“What Hurwitz objects to,” writes @attackerman.bsky.social, “is that Holocaust education works.”

Mamdani's NYC Can't Afford NYPD Commissioner Tisch With ICE on its way, how can we expect an ICE collaborator to protect New Yorkers? Here's a compromise: make Tisch sanitation commissioner again

Make Jessica Tisch Sanitation Commissioner again.

ICE Caged This Man For His Instagram Posts And Likes New details about Yaa'kub Ira Vijandre's detention show his posts supporting Palestine and the wrongfully convicted representing, in Homeland Security's eyes, support for terrorism

Scoop: FOREVER WARS obtained a habeas corpus petition filed by a journalist in ICE detention. The evidence against him? His Instagram likes. @attackerman.bsky.social reports: