Judge Napolitano Interviews Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergey Lavrov – Part One

Judge Napolitano Interviews Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergey Lavrov – Part Two

Mr Lavrov is pretty much my most favoured diplomat.. So, in my view, these are absolutely worth listening to!

A North American trade pact — negotiated by President Donald Trump during his first term — means that most American products enter Canada duty-free. Rankings of the world’s most open economies usually put Canada near the top.

But when Trump looks at Canada, he says, he sees a predator out to cheat the United States and strangle its industries.
America has been “ripped off for 50 years by Canada,” the president declared Saturday when asked if he was considering pulling out of the three-way agreement he signed with the leaders of Canada and Mexico in late 2018.

Landing on the list of nations with allegedly unfair trade policies is a jarring turn of events for Canada, a country that built its economy around international commerce. Canada’s trade is equal to 64% of its economic output, the World Bank says, versus 25% for America.

There’s time for a deal to end the standoff

The neighboring countries need each other economically. Canada sends about 70% of its exports to the United States. U.S. refineries need Alberta’s oil. American farmers need Canadian potash fertilizer. Communities on the northern U.S. border rely on electricity generated in Canada.

The conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington ranked Canada No. 14 (out of 184 economies) on its Index of Economic Freedom; the United States landed eight spots lower at No. 22.

The libertarian Fraser Institute in Vancouver likewise ranked Canada No. 11 (out of 165 countries and territories) on its Economic Freedom of the World report.

Before the latest blowup, Canada’s effective tariff rate on U.S. imports was about 2.4%, less than half the 5% that the United States imposed on Canada, according to calculations by Oxford Economics. Most U.S. exports enter Canada duty-free under the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement that took effect on July 1, 2020.

Canada Protects it’s Dairy Industry, but..

So, does the US. The US protects and subsidizes their dairy industry

The 588-page study by Grey, Clark, Shih and Associates — commissioned by Dairy Farmers of Canada (DFC) — says the American government contributed around $22.2 billion in direct and indirect subsidies to the dairy sector in 2015.

Lead author Peter Clark shared the numbers at DFC’s annual policy conference in Ottawa this week.

“The support is completely ignored,” he said. “When it comes to farm support, the U.S. has the deepest pockets; deeper even than the European Union. Our study provides detail nationally, and on a state basis, the losses to U.S. dairy farmers. USDA data reveals that for more than a decade, U.S. farm gate prices for milk fail to cover costs of production.”

But, but, that’s a Canadian source- See below an American source

https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/animal-products/dairy/policy

The program is administered by USDA, Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS). Classified pricing and The revenue pooling are two key elements of FMMO regulations. FMMOs set minimum prices paid by milk processors for milk from dairy farmers according to how the processor utilizes the milk.

Dairy Forward Pricing Program

However, the forward contracts cannot cover Class I fluid milk. Handlers entering these agreements will pay farmers the contract price instead of the FMMO calculated minimum blend price. However, handlers must continue to account to the Federal Order revenue pool for all milk they receive at the respective order’s minimum class prices

Dairy Margin Coverage

DMC is a voluntary program that protects dairy producers when the difference between the U.S. all-milk price and a national average feed cost (as calculated by a formula) falls below a certain dollar amount selected by the dairy farmer

Dairy Indemnity Payment

The program provides payments to dairy producers when a public regulatory agency directs them to remove their raw milk from the commercial market because it has been contaminated by pesticides and other residues

Dairy Revenue Protection

The Dairy Revenue Protection program insures against unexpected declines in each participating operation’s quarterly revenue from milk sales relative to a guaranteed coverage level.

Check the link yourself– The US government subsidizes the US dairy industry in many ways..

Back to Fortune..

Canada shields its dairy producers through a convoluted system that imposes tariffs of more than 200% on most dairy products — nearly 300% on some items, such as butter — once they’ve exceeded a quota, according to Leonard Polzin, a specialist in dairy markets at the University of Wisconsin.

Polzin said the Canadians have a strong incentive to protect their politically sensitive dairy industry from competition with America.

Wisconsin alone produces more milk than all of Canada. American dairy producers are so adept at producing large quantities of low-cost milk, Polzin said, that if Canada opened its market completely “we would dump so much product there’s no way they could remain as a viable industry.’’

Trump claimed falsely on social media Tuesday that “Canada doesn’t let our Great Dairy Farmers sell into the Canadian Market.’’

In fact, the United States agreed in the USMCA to allow Canada to continue the supply management system in return for giving American dairy farmers more access to the Canadian market. And American dairy producers have made headway: U.S. dairy exports to Canada rose more than 11% last year on top of an 8% increase in 2024, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The United States already runs a hefty trade surplus in dairy with its northern neighbor, exporting $1.3 billion worth of dairy products to Canada last year while importing just $585 million, according to the USDA.

US runs a trade deficit with Canada because of oil

Overall, the United States runs a trade deficit with Canada — $27.3 billion last year — and Trump isn’t happy about it.

But the gap between what the U.S. sells to Canada and what it buys can be explained by one industry: oil. Canada exported more than $85 billion worth of crude oil to the United States in 2025.

Refineries in the U.S. Midwest need heavy sour crude oil from Alberta’s oil sands deposits.

“It’s the only oil they can use,” Appleton said. “They can’t use Texas crude. They can’t use Venezuelan crude. They’re not set up for it. It would take years and billions of dollars to shift over.’’

What’s more, the Canadian oil sells at a discount to the benchmark U.S. crude oil.

Repeating as I end this piece

What’s more, the Canadian oil sells at a discount to the benchmark U.S. crude oil.

Trump is good at one thing for sure, undeniable- misrepresenting to the point of outright lying

France24.com

Iran and the US on Wednesday traded their biggest wave of attacks on shipping since the war began, with Iran saying it struck 10 vessels near the Strait of Hormuz after US forces sank five Iranian oil tankers. Brent crude oil surged above $100 a barrel as fears grew over global energy supplies.

Iran said on Wednesday it had attacked 10 ships near the Strait of Hormuz after the US sank five Iranian oil tankers, in the biggest declared wave of tit-for-tat attacks on shipping by both sides since the start of the six-month-old war.

The attacks sent the price of oil surging, with benchmark Brent crude futures breaching $100 a barrel for the first time since July. At least one seafarer aboard a tanker was reported killed and another listed as missing.

Iran also said it had fired ballistic missiles at a base used by US forces in Jordan. Attacks by both sides since the end of August have shattered a month of relative calm, with the US and Iran hitting military, shipping and energy assets.

The Revolutionary Guards said they would sharply escalate their response to any further attacks, hitting 20 targets if the enemy struck two or three. Iran would soon release maps of a new, enlarged off-limits zone at sea that would extend as far as Chabahar on the far reaches of Iran’s coast near Pakistan, the Guards said.

Recent days have also seen an escalation in fighting between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis in Yemen, a second theatre of war that threatens global energy supplies from the Middle East.

Iranian tankers ablaze

The Americans said they destroyed five Iranian oil tankers overnight, releasing video of ships ablaze before they sank.

The US military’s Central Command called its attacks a response to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps targeting a US Navy warship twice with ballistic missiles over the previous two days. No Americans were harmed, the US said.

Washington has announced a new policy of attacking Iranian tankers in retaliation for fire that threatens its warships, and says it has hit 10 so far over the past week.

“Iran continues to try to hit US naval ships, and for every time they do that or try to do that, they’re going to lose tankers,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters during a visit to Colombia.

Iran said it fired on two US ships and eight tankers in response.

One seafarer was killed aboard the oil products tanker Hercules Star while at anchorage off Dubai and another crew member was missing, the vessel’s charterer, Peninsula, said. Maritime security sources said it may have been hit by a drone.

The British maritime security agency UKMTO described a vessel in the vicinity that was listing, possibly taking on water after being struck by a projectile. Reuters could not immediately determine whether this referred to the same ship.

Two Iraqi port officials said a tanker carrying 2 million barrels of fuel oil, the New Andros, had caught fire after being struck by a drone in Iraqi waters. There were no reports of casualties among the 22 crew.

The UKMTO said it had received reports of several merchant ships struck by disabling fire in the northern Gulf and Gulf of Oman, on either side of the strait.

Iran also threatened oil tankers in Kuwaiti and Bahraini ports, according to a statement carried by state media. A maritime security source reported a liquefied natural gas tanker was damaged in the Emirati port of Khor Fakkan.

Iran launches largest attack in five months as US interceptors run low

Iran has launched its largest missile salvo in five months as the conflict with the U.S. continues. The barrage comes amid growing concerns over America’s stockpile of critical missile interceptors, after a CNN report in August revealed that U.S. forces were rapidly depleting key air-defense systems.

Mokhber: US unmanned submarine could boost Iran’s autonomous systems
[Wed, 09 Sep 2026 23:03:15 +0300]

Iran captured an unmanned sub/drone the US was using for de- mining

Tehran – Saba:Mohammad Mokhber, adviser to Iran’s Leader, said Wednesday that the capture of an advanced US unmanned submarine by the IRGC Navy could spur a breakthrough in Iran’s autonomous systems.

According to Fars News Agency, Mokhber said Iran’s defense experts could turn the captured technology into strategic achievements, as they did with the US RQ-170 drone.

He said the submarine could provide a new opportunity to advance Iran’s autonomous systems.

Oil climbs past 100.00 a barrel

The global price of oil topped $100 a barrel on Wednesday for the first time since July, as continued tensions between Iran and the United States added to uncertainty over future supply.

Refresh your memory here

Central banks have sold Treasurys for weeks since the conflict began

The virtuous loop that has seen America underwrite stability in the Middle East in exchange for Gulf states recycling their dollar revenues into U.S. Treasurys has been broken.

The understanding traces back to 1974, when Henry Kissinger struck one of the most consequential financial deals in modern history. Saudi Arabia would price its oil in dollars and park the surpluses in U.S. assets — Treasurys above all. Other Gulf states followed. In exchange, America provided security guarantees and a stable global order.

The arrangement was elegant in its circularity: Oil consumers paid dollars for energy, those dollars flowed to Riyadh and Abu Dhabi and from there back into Washington’s debt. For 50 years, this petrodollar loop quietly subsidized American borrowing costs and cemented the greenback’s role as the world’s reserve currency.

The U.S.-Israeli war with Iran has fractured this arrangement — at both ends.

**Start with the importing side. Following the strike on Iran on Feb. 28, foreign central banks were net sellers of Treasurys for consecutive weeks. Holdings at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York dropped by roughly $82 billion recently to $2.7 trillion, which was the lowest level since 2012.

The 10-year Treasury yield, rather than falling on safe-haven demand as it has in every major recent crisis, climbed from 3.9% at the end of February to above 4.4% within weeks. The rates desk at Bank of America offered a dry summary: “Foreign official sectors are selling U.S. Treasury bonds.”

The mechanism is straightforward. Turkey, India, Thailand and other oil-importing nations are caught in a brutal arithmetic: Oil priced in dollars surged past $100 a barrel at one point while their currencies weakened against the greenback. To limit depreciation — which would push domestic oil prices even higher, forcing either fiscal subsidies or household pain — central banks intervene in currency markets. That requires dollars. The most liquid dollar asset any central bank holds is Treasurys. So they sell.

This is not without precedent. Foreign central banks sold a record $109 billion in Treasurys during the COVID-19 panic of March 2020. But that episode resolved quickly. The Fed deployed dollar swap lines, calm returned and the money flowed back within weeks. The flight-to-quality instinct was temporarily scrambled but structurally intact.

***Now consider the exporting side — and why the Iran war is categorically different from all those episodes.

In a normal oil shock, rising prices generate rising revenues for Gulf producers. Petrodollars flow back into dollar-denominated assets, including Treasurys. High oil prices have historically been, paradoxically, supportive of the Treasury market. The shock creates the surplus that generates demand for the bonds.

This time, Gulf producers can’t get their oil out. The Strait of Hormuz closure has stranded their barrels along with everyone else’s.

Gulf states including Kuwait, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the UAE collectively cut production by at least 10 million barrels per day in March. Saudi Arabia and the UAE can export reduced volumes through alternative pipelines. But those routes handle only about a quarter of normal Strait throughput at full capacity and they are under active Iranian drone and missile threat. Qatar declared force majeure on exports of liquefied natural gas after strikes on its Ras Laffan facility. The Gulf Cooperation Council’s economic model — export hydrocarbons, recycle into global assets — has effectively seized up.

The petrodollar loop requires two moving parts: dollars earned and dollars invested. Both have stopped.

The numbers on the exporting side make this concrete. Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the UAE had a combined holding of about $300 billion in Treasurys as of January. These countries are now simultaneously earning less oil revenue, spending heavily on air defense and reviewing the investment pledges they made to Washington just months ago.

A Gulf official told the Financial Times that several of the region’s largest economies are examining whether force majeure clauses apply to existing investment commitments, including to the U.S. Gulf sovereign wealth funds, which are big investors in U.S. assets. The direction of travel is now uncertain in a way it has not been in decades.

There is a longer structural story that the war is accelerating rather than creating. The share of Treasurys held by foreign investors had already fallen to around 32%, down from half in the early 2010s. Central banks became net sellers in early 2025. For the first time since 1996, global central banks now hold more gold in aggregate than U.S. government bonds. These were slow-moving trends, easy to dismiss as noise. The Iran war is making them look like signal.

The standard reassurance is that there is no alternative to Treasurys — no other market offers the depth, liquidity and legal infrastructure that central banks require. This remains true. Foreign central banks will not abandon Treasurys wholesale. But “no realistic alternative” and “unquestioned safe haven” are not the same thing — and the Iran war is clarifying the difference.

The flight-to-quality trade has always rested on a political premise: That in a global crisis, the United States is a stabilizer or bystander, not a combatant. But the calculus changes when the U.S. itself is the belligerent; when the conflict is partly America’s war, driving the oil shock, straining Gulf relationships and generating the fiscal pressure that has bond investors worried about U.S. budget deficits. Not completely. Not permanently. But enough.

Kissinger’s 1974 deal held through the Cold War, the Gulf Wars, the financial crisis and a pandemic. It has not survived this. The petrodollar loop was always a political arrangement dressed in financial clothing. Now that the politics have changed, the finance is following.

More on the US treasury buying up double the bonds it normally does

The U.S. Treasury is planning to buy back at least double the long-dated government bonds it usually does. Will the plan pit the Treasury secretary against both the bond markets and the Fed?

Next week, the U.S. Treasury plans to buy back at least double the number of 10-, 20- and 30-year government bonds it normally does. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says it’s to help markets run smoothly, but many investors are skeptical.

MA: Those are some of the reasons yields on Treasurys are high at the moment. The 30-year is at over 5%. This is a problem for the administration because the government’s debt just hit $40 trillion. The U.S. has a huge pile of debt, and high yields on Treasurys means higher borrowing costs.

WONG: High yields can also be a problem for you and me and really anyone who wants to borrow money. Because Treasurys are considered risk-free, their yields are the base for other interest rates in the economy. Take the 30-year mortgage. The interest rate for that is based on the 10-year Treasury.

MA: So these high yields pose a dilemma for Scott Bessent. What’s the Treasury secretary to do?

WONG: Well, now it is time to talk about this plan that the Treasury Department unveiled. Starting next week, it plans to at least double the size of its buyback program for longer-dated U.S. government bonds. When the Treasury Department buys back, say, 20- and 30-year bonds, it’s basically acting as an eager customer. It pumps up demand for these bonds, and that causes prices to go up and yields to come down.

MA: The problem with the Treasury Department’s plan is that Scott Bessent is not talking about lowering yields. He told CNBC that his department is doing this to improve liquidity for longer-dated bonds.

WONG: Right. So nothing to do with lowering yields and interest rates.

MA: That is what the Treasury secretary is saying. But the market’s chilly, even hostile, reaction to this buyback announcement, could be a signal that they’re not buying it.

Lastly

Saudi Aramco oil facilities hit in new strikes

Saudi Aramco’s oil facilities in the Saudi Arabian city of Jizan have been attacked only a month after a separate strike temporarily knocked out some production at its refinery.

The company’s oil infrastructure was hit on Monday and the damage was being assessed, said two people with knowledge of the matter.

Jizan is the kingdom’s closest industrial city to the Yemeni border and has been attacked by the Houthis on several occasions in the past.

Jizan is home to a 400,000-barrel-per-day oil refinery, which is among the country’s largest, along with associated plants and energy infrastructure.

Saudi Aramco’s chief executive Amin Nasser said last month that the attacks had caused some interruptions to the company’s oil production but that this had no material operational or financial impact.

The latest attack was similar in scale to last month’s strike, said one of the people.

Saudi Aramco did not immediately respond to a request for information.

Oil prices climbed on Monday, with Brent crude up 1.2 per cent at $97.40 a barrel.

More refined oil products than usual were shipped from Jizan in the first few months of the US-Iran war as the conflict crimped Saudi exports from the Gulf, but volumes dropped dramatically after the Houthis restarted their attacks. No oil products were shipped from Jizan in August, according to data compiled by Kpler.

“We are back to full-time war in Yemen,” said Farea al-Muslimi, a research fellow at Chatham House. “It’s on land, in the air and on the sea . . . The Saudis are doing everything possible to avoid a direct confrontation, but they are preparing for it.”

More problems on the supply side… means more problems for the petro dollar and US Treasury Bonds

It’s weird that so called first world Canadians would fall for the same methods of operation (modus operandi ) that have taken place in country after country in which the US interfered. Iraq, Libya, Syria as just a few examples. Aren’t Canadians supposed to be all progressive, savvy and educated? That’s the claim, but, here we are and my conclusion has been made.

After writing extensively about Syria as it was destabilized in real time, it has become undeniable that what has been and is occurring in Canada was the same type of propaganda/ perception managing campaign that had played out so many times before.

Social media played a huge role in Syria’s destruction. In fact the entire “Arab spring” was promoted through social media, though internet connectivity was low in the region at that time. I can talk about how that happened, but, it’s not necessary at this time.

Of course, assets and natural resources were plundered and each country was left in worse shape then when the US campaigns started. Libya’s gold was stolen as was it’s oil. Same with Iraq and Syria. Canada, has natural resources too. The US certainly has designs on natural resources. Obvious in Trump’s Greenland moves. The location is beneficial for the US to maintain global hegemony as well. Canada has geostrategic value as well

Right now were looking at the economic & diplomatic pressure methodology of destabilizing– This would be most obvious in the outrageous demands made by the Trump administration during the most recent trade negotiations. And the endless tariff war initiated by Trump against Canada and other nations.

As well as election interference, that the US would never tolerate.

Along with the giant heaping, foul, steaming piles of obvious and blatant demonization of the targeted nation, Canada. Trump is relentless in portraying America as the “victim” of Canada. Or Canada as some overwhelming evil that needs to be redeemed/saved. It’s quite pathetic when one considers the reality.

Remember the Canada is a fentanyl providing nation threat to the US? Most notably promoted by Canadian con artist ( IMO) Sam Cooper- Or as I like to call him Scam Cooper- Prominent promoter of disinfo on X. Recall my very large, extensively linked post. Covering this gossipy pieces and reporting the fact he’s been brought to court for defamation.. Twice if my memory is correct. Give that older post a read for yourself!

Of course there is the domestic political interference aspect. Ongoing this time in Alberta.

There have been numerous reports on this very subject.

Link–Smith admits referendum facing foreign interference

“Malicious actors can reach into everybody’s life using social media,” he said Wednesday in an interview with the News.

X is full of these types of accounts, hailing from everywhere on the planet..

“What disinformation achieves is it basically poisons us against each other,” he said. “Like what we see in the States, where someone who’s a different political party is no longer like someone who has different policy ideas, but is seen as someone who’s like a traitor to their country, someone who’s not really human in some way. “It poisons us against each other, and then who can be believed?” According to the most recent report, the most common narratives foreign actors are promoting are about cost of living crisis, media corruption and U.S. statehood.

The true believers in Canada won’t accept they are being played, but, they are- I’ve seen these same ploys/tactics play out so many times, over too many years of covering geopolitical happenings

Since then, common narratives have avoided the referendum directly, instead aiming to stoke discord about specific political concerns and to undermine trust in government and media. This week, Premier Danielle Smith said she was concerned by Cipher’s findings, after previously denying any evidence suggested foreign actors were interfering in discourse surrounding the referendum. “What we do say is people just need to, before they believe everything they read on social media, they need to check the source and verify to make sure that they’re not sharing things and inadvertently amplifying a message that is being used to try to interfere in our contest,” said Smith in a statement. “I trust that Albertans are able to do that research.”

**Hattip over to Ms Cat’s Chronicles as she had covered the meeting of Trump administration officials and Alberta Separatists

Trump officials met group pushing Alberta independence from Canada + More

Leaders of the Alberta Prosperity Project, a group of far-right separatists who want the western province to become independent, met US state department officials in Washington three times since April last year, according to people familiar with the talks.

Meetings between US officials and Syrian destabilizers were frequent as well. They even had a mission in the US. 2014. Yes, 12 years ago..

This is a very common tactic in US destabilization campaigns- meeting with opposition figures. Not a surprise the US is meeting Canadian destabilizers/separatists.

**Dutch Youtube creators behind Alberta Separatist videos

Remember the whole absurd, blame Canada for smoke drifting from forest fires in our enormous boreal forest. Really pathetic, pointless stuff. Nonetheless the sycophantic targets gobbled it down. Demonization, ad hominem galore, but, nothing more

Trump claims to be subsidizing Canada because of the trade deficit? This is over the top bullshit. You have to be very naive or clueless to eat this up? Let’s talk about this..

Donald Trump is fond of repeating that the United States “subsidizes” Canada and other countries, alluding to the country’s trade deficits. Let’s be clear:

The United States isn’t handing money out to Canada or to any other nation. A trade deficit isn’t a subsidy. The United States is simply buying foreign products at market price.

The United States is simply buying foreign products at market price.

What is actually true is many other countries prop up the US through the use of the petro dollar- which requires other nations to hold US dollars for trade. Which allows the US to have an insane amout of debt.

This petro dollar dominance is looking to be coming apart and I will write more on this topic soon – I have, however, relinked a recent article immediately below. This may seem a digresion from the main subject, perhaps slightly, but not entirely. In fact, I’m going to suggest that because the US is tottering financially, the bond market is shaky, very shaky and use of the petro dollars is declining- the US has to resort, again, to plunder of other nations resources. Same as it always has. And this makes Canada an easy target. And that’s what is happening right now!

I’m not alone in this thinking. Sadly, there just aren’t that many of us that can see the forest for the trees. Or the destabilization campaign for what it really is? But there are others who see the reality, because they don’t have blinders over their eyes. And perception managed brains addling their understanding

Lastly, these absurd claims that Canada is going to join China. Or that Canada is going to join the EU and China- No legitimate information on Canada joining the EU or China that I can see.

Btw, The US trades substantially more with China than Canada does.

excerpts below- read at link

A recent classified assessment advised that prolonged large-scale operations in the Middle East risk weakening U.S. capabilities elsewhere.

Several U.S. military leaders have advised Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that prolonging large-scale operations against Iran is unsustainable and risks weakening their ability to confront threats elsewhere, including the U.S. homeland, according to people familiar with a recent assessment prepared for the Pentagon chief.

The warnings — detailed for Hegseth by the heads of the Army, Navy and Air Force and the four-star commanders overseeing U.S. operations throughout Europe, Asia and Latin America — appear in the Aug. 14 edition of the Secretary of Defense Orders Book (SDOB), these people said. They described the assessment to The Washington Post on the condition of anonymity because the document is classified.

As President Donald Trump has pressured Tehran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and accept several U.S. provisions for ending the stalemated conflict, he has been adamant that all options remain available to him — including further military action.

Consequently, U.S. Central Command, the headquarters responsible for prosecuting the Iran war, has kept a force of more than 50,000 troops on alert for months in case the president orders additional attacks.

The Aug. 14 orders book directs some troops deployed in the Middle East to remain there through September and some others into 2027, said those familiar with the document. The prospect of extending those forces further compelled military leaders to voice their concern, these people said.

Leaders of the U.S. European Command, the U.S. Pacific Command and the U.S. Southern Command, along with the Navy’s top admiral, responded with what is characterized in the SDOB as a “non-concur,” those familiar with the assessment said — meaning they disagree with the secretary’s order to extend their forces but will execute it nevertheless.

The geographic combatant commands overseeing U.S. operations in Europe, Asia and Latin America have had their ships, aircraft and other equipment pulled away to support the Iran conflict. This has limited their ability to conduct missions and ensure proper training, those familiar with the assessment said. The Navy, in particular, has had to stretch its capacity to keep

Army and Air Force leadership concurred with Hegseth’s desire to extend their deployed forces, but each emphasized that doing so would come with significant risk, these people said.
Overall, the tenor from the military leadership is that the ongoing Iran operation, having reached the six-month mark, has been “too much for too long,” said one person familiar with the assessment.

The military’s warning to Hegseth, which has not been previously reported, offers new insight into the administration’s dilemma as Trump seeks to end the conflict on terms favorable to the United States while Iran, cognizant of the war’s unpopularity with most Americans and its mounting toll on the U.S. arsenal, refuses to capitulate.

“Decisions regarding the scope and duration of specific force commitments to any Combatant Command are made based on the current threat assessment, strategic priorities established by the President, and the advice of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Combatant Commanders,” Sean Parnell, a spokesman for Hegseth, said in a statement to The Post.

The top military officials at European Command and Southern Command each cautioned Hegseth that lending their ships and surveillance aircraft to Central Command has degraded their ability to fulfill homeland-defense obligations, said those familiar with the assessment.

Adm. Samuel Paparo, the chief of Pacific Command, disagreed with the level of support he was ordered to continually provide, including an aircraft carrier strike group and naval destroyers, those familiar with the assessment said.

Adm. Daryl Caudle, the chief of Naval Operations, provided Hegseth with the dimmest picture, saying in the SDOB that the Navy cannot sustain its current level of support for the Iran conflict because there is no anticipated end date, those familiar with the assessment said.

Caudle conveyed to Hegseth that barely one-fourth of the Navy’s destroyer fleet is ready to deploy, a sharp decline from prewar levels, said those familiar with the assessment.
More broadly, the document says that the impact on ship maintenance, if demands imposed by the Iran operation continue unchanged, jeopardizes the fleet’s availability should other conflicts arise, people familiar with the assessment said.

The depletion of Patriot interceptors — as a result of the Iran war and previous donations to Ukraine — has limited the Trump administration’s ability to reescalate the war, as Tehran retains the ability to successfully target U.S. facilities throughout the Middle East

As The Post and others reported previously, Caine advised the White House before hostilities began that the U.S. lacked sufficient munitions — and support from allies — to conduct an extended large-scale campaign.

More recently, Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, the head of European Command, privately warned the Pentagon that he lacked adequate naval forces to shield Israel and the U.S. homeland from missile attacks, as The Post reported this month.

In the Pacific, key U.S. allies have raised alarm that the Pentagon’s depletion of missiles and air defense interceptors leave them vulnerable to China. The Navy’s only dedicated aircraft carrier in the Pacific, a linchpin of the military’s plan to deter Beijing, was sent to the Middle East to relieve another carrier that has been deployed for more than 300 days.

As mentioned, just excerpts, read entirely at the link provided

Interesting author as well

John Rapley is a contributing columnist for The Globe and Mail. He is an author and academic whose books include Why Empires Fall and Twilight of the Money Gods.

Donald Trump said he’d blow up Kharg Island. He may have blown up the bond market instead.

The market has been a tinderbox for months, if not years. Government debt has been rising for decades but blasted off after the 2008 financial crisis, then reached hyper-speed during the pandemic. In consequence, the total global stock of government debt has risen fivefold since the turn of the millennium, with Western governments and China accounting for most of the increase

As a result, global investors are being asked to buy ever more bonds by governments that show no desire to reduce their borrowing habits.

Further kindling has been added through recent moves by AI ‘hyperscalers,’ which have burned through their cash reserves and so have started borrowing to fund their massive data-centre buildouts.

Thus, with the demand for global credit outstripping the supply, investors are in a position to demand better returns on their loans. With the pressure on interest rates consequently rising, all that is needed to ignite a credit fire would be a resurgence in inflation.

Enter Donald Trump. His war on Iran is starting to resemble one of those dark thrillers, when a supposedly carefree engagement enmeshes the main character in a toxic and destructive relationship from which there’s no escape.

Now, Mr. Trump is desperate to leave Iran; ( I disagree) but Iran has locked him in and refuses to give him the key.
On the face of it, the TACO trade – Trump Always Chickens Out – still operates: each time the President escalates U.S. actions, oil prices surge, and he backs down.

His problem is, the Iranians don’t reciprocate. The regime appears to have concluded (correctly) that negotiating with the U.S. is pointless, since Mr. Trump will break his word, (as he has on multiple occasions) and so it’s trying to establish facts on the ground to which Washington will have no choice but to accede

Specifically, Tehran is determined to control the Strait of Hormuz, where it has shown it can bring tanker traffic to a virtual standstill with the occasional drone strike. The U.S. has had some success escorting tankers out of the Strait, but the supply of oil from the region still falls short of global demand, causing prices to steadily rise.

This, in turn, is putting upward pressure on inflation. It’s not only gasoline prices that are rising but crucially, distillates such as diesel, which are critical to the transportation and farming sectors. Farmers have already seen costs increase because of the shortage of fertilizers (since so much of the world’s fertilizer supply is produced in the Gulf).

If the standoff continues without resolution, therefore, the risk is that inflation, already above target in most Western countries, will resume rising this autumn.

Rather than wait for the bad news to come, bond investors are starting to demand a higher rate of interest now, to compensate for the loss of their dollars’ buying power over time.

If next week’s inflation report comes in soft, bonds may get a breather. Nevertheless, for as long as the war continues, the paths of inflation and interest rates both look more likely to head uphill rather than down.

Although Iran has been devastated and its economy is in ruins, there is still little sign of the regime being anywhere near collapse. As a result, Mr. Trump is trapped between the Scylla of an inflation spike that could cause a recession and the Charybdis of a failure that would expose him to ridicule.

The world economy really needs this war to end. However, since Mr. Trump fears few things more than to be called a loser, don’t expect that to happen any time soon.

He’s already a loser IMO

David Pugliese is an award-winning journalist covering Canadian Forces and military issues in Canada

A judge has ordered the release of federal records on an American initiative to settle Nazi war criminals in Canada after ruling there is no evidence that making the files public would harm relations between the two nations.

The records involve a U.S. program set up after the Second World War to secretly settle large numbers of Nazi war criminals in Canada, often with the support of Canadian officials.

The federal government declined to release the documents under the Access to Information law, claiming the records would harm U.S.-Canada relations at a time of ongoing tension.

But Federal Court judge Simon Fothergill concluded that claim was unsupported by any evidence. “A bald statement of ongoing ‘tensions’ between Canada and the United States is not a sufficient basis to refuse disclosure of very specific information related to efforts by the United States to resettle suspected Nazis and Nazi collaborators in Canada following World War II,” he wrote in a Sept. 1 ruling.

The decision to withhold the information was unreasonable and the records must now be disclosed, Fothergill concluded.

Similar information had already been released years ago by the Central Intelligence Agency, which ran the Nazi resettlement program, as well as the U.S. government.

After the war, U.S. intelligence agencies recruited Nazis and Nazi collaborators, many from eastern Europe, for their covert operations against the Soviet Union.

Fothergill noted in his ruling that the study written for the Deschênes Commission concluded “inadequate security screening led to many perpetrators of Nazi war crimes entering Canada.” He also pointed out the study concluded Canada was reluctant to prosecute such war criminals.

That “inadequate security screening” was intentional- same as in the US.

Canada has long been seen as a haven for Nazis and their collaborators, including large numbers of Waffen SS soldiers. There are a number of monuments in Canada to the Waffen SS. In addition, the Department of Canadian Heritage had to remove the names of several hundred alleged Nazi collaborators it planned to engrave on the Victims of Communism Memorial in Ottawa.

Robertson said he is hopeful the public will get a better understanding why the government had agreed to the Nazi resettlement program after the war. “This is a victory for all Canadians,” he said. “This is information that all Canadians deserve to have made accessible.”

Much of the renewed debate around Nazi war criminals and collaborators in Canada was prompted by a September 2023 event in which MPs of all parties gave two standing ovations to Yaroslav Hunka, a resident of North Bay, ON. Hunka was described by then-House of Commons Speaker Anthony Rota as a hero and he was thanked for his military service.

But news quickly emerged that Hunka had served in a Ukrainian Waffen SS unit which fought for the Nazis. Large numbers of soldiers from a Ukrainian Waffen SS division came to Canada after the war.

There are no allegations that Hunka took part in any war crimes.
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The Polish government and Jewish groups have denounced the Ukraine SS unit for its role in killing civilians and its involvement in massacres during the Second World War. The division was also used by the Nazis to crush a national uprising in Slovakia, again prompting allegations of war crimes.

But some Ukrainian nationalists see the SS soldiers as heroes because they fought against the Soviet Union. The Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Alberta in Edmonton continues to maintain eight endowments in the names of Ukrainian SS veterans.

U.S. Central Command launched a wave of strikes against Iran on Sept. 1, and President Donald Trump said forces are “prepared to do another one” as Iran launched retaliatory attacks Sept. 2.

Speaking in the Oval Office on Sept. 2, Trump said he ended the roughly month long pause in hostilities because of sea mines.

“They were trying to rebuild their radar systems and a missile system and … to build a rocket that drops mines,” ( Trump claims without evidence) Trump said at a White House event. “They were building it, it was almost finished, so we took it out. We saw that they were building it, we see everything that they’re doing.”

Iranian forces countered with ballistic missile attacks on U.S. forces in Jordan and on civilian ships transiting the Strait. A number of U.S. Air Force personnel and assets are stationed at the base in Jordan that has previously come under attack. (There are reports of US casualties- unconfirmed)

On Sept. 1, CENTCOM announced additional strikes on IRGC targets in retaliation for “attempted attacks by the IRGC against commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and against American service members deployed to the region.” (no actual attacks just claims of attempts) The command indicated its targets included “air defense sites, radar systems, maritime assets and facilities, mine-laying capabilities, and communications sites.”

Trump called the U.S. strikes “a very heavy attack” that “took out all of the new equipment that they tried to build along the Strait of Hormuz: some defensive, some offensive.”

Iranian state media outlets alleged the strikes also hit a wedding party in a coastal town, but those claims remain unconfirmed.

These are confirmed, there is footage accessible all over the place. The US is playing fast and loose with the truth, as usual, by not confirming.

Iranian forces launched their latest retaliatory strikes Sept. 2. Officials and media outlets in the Middle East reported attempted strikes in Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan, and Iraq. Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry also said Iran targeted a Saudi tanker in the Strait of Hormuz and killed members of its crew.

As of 4 p.m. Eastern time and 11 p.m. in much of the Middle East, CENTCOM had not announced additional strikes. Trump told reporters that the U.S. is “prepared to do another one anytime we want.”

The US struck first, as mentioned yesterday and Iran responded. Bottom line

Trump contemplates using nukes against Iran

The tactical-nuclear controversy did not arise in a vacuum. The Pentagon has acknowledged that it is reviewing US nuclear strategy and seeking a broader range of options for regional conflicts. Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby has spoken of providing more credible or “rational” nuclear choices. Adm Richard Correll, commander of US Strategic Command, has discussed an escalation spectrum that includes the possibility of a limited nuclear exchange.

US intelligence had not established that Tehran possessed a nuclear weapon or had made a final decision to build one.

Uranium enrichment, including Iran’s claimed right to peaceful enrichment under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, is not identical to manufacturing a bomb.

The danger is that Washington may now be considering nuclear means to accomplish objectives its conventional campaign failed to achieve. The term “tactical nuclear weapon” should not disguise that. “Tactical” describes an intended military role; it does not make the explosion humane, limited or reliably controllable. Such a weapon can still cause mass death, radiation exposure, environmental contamination and escalation beyond the region. Iran’s underground construction would then appear not as proof that war was necessary, but of why a weaker country believed concealment and hardening were essential to survival.

The first wartime nuclear detonation since Nagasaki would transform international security. It could erode the already fragile norm against nuclear use and encourage other nuclear-armed states to describe their weapons as practical instruments of conventional warfare.

I’m going to repeat those last two paragraphs below because that is some serious food for thought!!

The danger is that Washington may now be considering nuclear means to accomplish objectives its conventional campaign failed to achieve. The term “tactical nuclear weapon” should not disguise that. “Tactical” describes an intended military role; it does not make the explosion humane, limited or reliably controllable. Such a weapon can still cause mass death, radiation exposure, environmental contamination and escalation beyond the region. Iran’s underground construction would then appear not as proof that war was necessary, but of why a weaker country believed concealment and hardening were essential to survival.

The first wartime nuclear detonation since Nagasaki would transform international security. It could erode the already fragile norm against nuclear use and encourage other nuclear-armed states to describe their weapons as practical instruments of conventional warfare.