Global

I sit here at my desk, looking out the window – and see someone walking through the parking lot. This is the most ordinary of moments. I shrug quietly. Life goes on.

My impulse is to stop writing the column here. That’s it. Nothing more to say. Life is totally fine and civilized and I’m here in the middle of it, growing old but giving no thought whatsoever to the darkness that lurks at humanity’s margins. Sure, the news covers that stuff, but what do I care? Things are fine where I live.

But the darkness tugs. I read the news. I know that hell consumes parts of the planet and certain lives have no safety – no value – whatsoever. Here’s a recent New York Times headline, as ordinary as the fact that someone was walking through the parking lot outside my window:

“U.S. Military Kills Another 6 People in 5th Caribbean Strike, Trump Says.”

Well, so what? They were transporting drugs. “The military has now killed 27 people as if they were enemy soldiers in a war zone and not criminal suspects. . . .”

Are American's seeing the images of ICE attacking people? It would seem that the entire population would revolt. There are a brave few protesting but not enough to change the behavior. Unless enough American's take to the streets or revolt in other ways, we will see this government to continue to commit crimes against innocent American citizens, for at least 3 more years.  In a Democracy, public opinion alone would be enough to stop this.  

Here are just a few links of ICE running wild in America.  I urge everyone to have access to TwitterX/ TicTok and/or Bluesky.  This is just a small sample of the horrors being inflicted.

Illinois State Police confronted a group of aggressive anti-ICE protesters,

WATCH: Law enforcement officers clash with anti-ICE demonstrators 

The history of Zionism is fundamentally one of deception. This assertion is critically relevant today, as it contextualizes the so-called 'Trump Gaza proposal,' which appears to be little more than a veiled strategy to defeat the Palestinians and facilitate the ethnic cleansing of a significant portion of Gaza's population.

If we are to speak of a Palestinian victory in Gaza, it is a resounding triumph for the Palestinian people, their indomitable spirit, and their deeply rooted resistance that transcends faction, ideology, and politics.

For decades, the prevailing notion was that the 'solution' to the Israeli occupation of Palestine lay in a strictly negotiated process. “Only dialogue can achieve peace” has been the relentlessly peddled mantra in political circles, academic platforms, media forums, and the like.

A colossal industry burgeoned around that idea, expanding dramatically in the lead-up to, and for years after, the signing of the Oslo Accords between Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Israeli government.

The Unmaking of 'Peace'

On Friday morning I jumped out of bed just before 5 am Eastern US time full of fear that President Donald Trump might have become the declared recipient of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, following in the footsteps of noted warmonger President Barack Obama, who is fondly remembered for also institutionalizing the killing the American citizens overseas whom he targeted in weekly White House staff meetings. Trump has undoubtedly decided to follow the Obama model in his bombing of Iran and his apparent intention to overthrow Venezuela rather than Libya, but has expanded on that with his killing of Venezuelans on fishing boats in international waters without any evidence that criminal activity is intended. In both cases, as well as in that of their predecessor George W. Bush, the argument inevitably used has been that “terrorism” was involved, justifying instant death for the potential perps before they could actually act.

On Friday, October 10, 2025, the ceasefire took effect. After 735 days, tens of thousands of the two million displaced Palestinians began the painful walk home—some to rubble, others to houses barely standing. After two full years of relentless bombardment, more than ten percent of Gaza’s population was either killed or injured.

Over 81,000 were reported killed, including 67,000 confirmed dead and 14,000 missing and presumed dead. Among them: 20,000 children, 22,000 women, and 22,000 fathers. At least 1,000 infants under one year old perished—one Palestinian child every hour for two years.

The medical sector was systematically targeted: 1,670 medics and 140 civil defense workers killed, 125 health facilities destroyed, and 34 hospitals reduced to ruins. Gaza’s health system, once fragile, was deliberately annihilated.

Starvation became a weapon of war. At least 459 people, including 154 children, died of hunger. In their search for food aid, 2,600 more were killed and 19,000 injured. To silence witnesses, 254 journalists were targeted and killed.

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Less than two months after President Donald Trump convinced U.S.-backed Thailand and China-assisted Cambodia to sign a peace agreement stopping their deadly border war, the two Buddhist-majority neighbors have exchanged hostile rocket and gunfire for the first time.

"If President Trump can help persuade Cambodia to comply with these [peace agreement] terms, that would be welcome, it would ensure Thailand faces no further encroachments," Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said on Wednesday (Oct. 8).

On Monday (Oct. 6), the border feud spread from the battlefield to the economy when Cambodia's de facto leader Senate President Hun Sen told his countrymen to boycott Thailand's goods and currency, use Cambodian currency or U.S. dollars, or else "you may face heavy losses."

Mr. Hun Sen ended his X post saying: "I would like to attach a video in which a Thai national displayed my photo to shoot at, in order to win prizes."

The video showed a uniformed man shooting at a carnival contest's targets, all of which displayed Mr. Hun Sen's face, life-sized, already shot in the forehead by other players.

‘Victory has a thousand fathers. Defeat is an orphan’

Attributed to Count Ciano

How very true. Thunderous self-congratulations echo over the temporary ceasefire in Gaza that many hope will end two years of massacre, kidnappings and war crimes in this open-air prison camp.

President Donald Trump, hot in pursuit of the Nobel Peace prize, claims authorship of the just concluded ceasefire and prisoner release. His American supporters and legions of sycophants are heaping praise and accolades on him. Trump says he may shortly fly to the Mideast to ink an agreement.

I call this political kabuki. Like the so-called Abraham accords in Trump’s first term, the Gaza agreement is a sweetheart deal between US allies and satraps. Its primary object is to deflect the worldwide outcry against the genocide in Gaza fueled by US money, arms and diplomatic cover.

• for RawStory
• October 9, 2025

Pay attention to this professional liar:

“I’m the only president in modern history who left office with a smaller national debt than when I came into office.”

That’s quite a whopper. Fact check: “During Trump’s presidency, the national debt actually increased by $7.8 trillion, nearly 40 percent and more than any president in history.”

The fact check is courtesy of Thom Hartmann. Indeed, Hartmann’s new book, The Last American President: A Broken Man, a Corrupt Party and a World on the Brink, is one giant fact check on the Whopper-in-Chief, and much more — a disturbing dive into the roiling miasma of self-aggrandizing, self-deluding, psychologically shattered, wailing man-child who is Commander-in-Chief.

Don’t read Hartmann’s book twice, as I have. It’s not just the nightmares it induces; it’s the fact that you’ll wake up to the nightmare that is our new reality.