Advertisement

BANGKOK, Thailand -- The loudest cheers of victory in the brief India-Pakistan war are congratulating the Pakistani pilots who flew Chinese-built jets firing impressive PL-15 missiles, purportedly enabling them to shoot down six of India's French and Russian warplanes.

China is sharing Pakistan's military success.

Since the mid-20th century China has been arming, investing in, and helping to construct Pakistan which is a crucial nation in Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and a non-NATO ally of the U.S.

Pakistan is China's only overland access to the Arabian Sea which opens onto the Indian Ocean and the Middle East's vital petroleum shipping lanes.

"The confirmed kill of a sixth Indian Air Force jet, a Mirage 2000 near Pampore on the night of May 6-7, once again demonstrates the superior combat performance of the Pakistan Air Force and the unwavering resolve of our armed forces to defend the motherland at any cost,” Pakistani Prime Minister Sharif said on May 16 while visiting a PAF base.

It has been an interesting few days with the United States renaming the Gulf of Mexico and Persian Gulf while also doubling down on spying directed against Greenland in expectations that it will be acquired as a US territory sometime soon. Meanwhile, some of us who have been watching developments in what has been described as Donald Trump’s “peace initiative” trip to the Middle East, which might also have included a stop in Istanbul to sit in with Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky, are now examining the pluses and minuses as the travel has ended. In my mind, high grades should be awarded for two aspects of the trip.

Putin

Below we suggest three options for getting out of the Russia-Ukraine stalemate and in the process review briefly the relevant history. It’s time to up the ante. We write this exploration in the form of a hypothetical letter President Donald Trump might send to President Vladimir Putin.

_________________________________________

Dear Vladimir,
            Russia continues to resist entering into peace talks with Ukraine or even to consider a ceasefire and, instead, insists on continuing hostilities, aimed primarily at civilians. This was yet again evident from your absence at direct talks with President Zelensky (and me) in Istambul, Turkey, last Thursday (5/15/25), even though you yourself called for these face-to-face negotiations. This was also evident from your massive drone attack ahead of our today's (5/19/25) telephone call on ending the war.

Details about event

A key first step in restoring the executive branch of the U.S. government to what was supposed to be a branch of government for executing the will of Congress would be to abolish an agency that, unlike various agencies recently abolished or cut back, does only evil.

ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) kidnaps people off the street with no warrants, and no identification, and ships them to a foreign prison. In recent days, ICE smashed a couple's car window and dragged them out of the car, snatched people from a courthouse, burst into a house in the middle of the night and forced the inhabitants outside while confiscating their possessions, snatched a man from a gas station and left his children behind in his truck, and held a young girl's face to the ground as she screamed.

Click here to tell Congress to abolish ICE.

The Case Against ICE

•          ICE was created in 2003 as part of a shameful and disastrous "war on terror," at which time warrantless spying, arrests, and "renditions" were widely deemed outrageous and shocking.

Two years ago this month, the US State Department did the unthinkable. It has fired Devin Brooks, a security specialist who worked as an armed protection officer at the State Department. The reason? He grew a beard in compliance with his Islamic faith. His supervisors disregarded his Islamic beliefs and ordered him to shave. After he was left with no choice, he was forced to shave his beard. Subsequently, Brooks was fired. That is preposterous! Brooks then contacted the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) for help. CAIR sued the State Department on his behalf.

In the spring of 2025, central Illinois was swallowed by a wall of dust so dense it erased the horizon—and lives along with it. Vehicles collided in a deadly chain reaction on Interstate 55, as visibility vanished and the dust became a visible cry from the land, a desperate signal of the devastation being wrought upon it. This was not a natural disaster. It was the consequence of decades of extractive farming practices that leave the land bare, lifeless, and vulnerable. It was a warning that when we abuse the soil, we unravel the systems that protect our safety, our health, and our future.

The dust storm that caused the deadly multi-vehicle pileup on Interstate 55 in Illinois was not an anomaly—it is part of a disturbing trend.

Triggered by 35 to 45 mph winds lifting bare, degraded soil from recently tilled farmland, the storm reduced visibility to near zero and resulted in the deaths of at least eight people.

Pages

Subscribe to Freepress.org RSS