PETER HITCHENS: Don't celebrate this ultra-violence. Trump's broken all the rules and plunged us into a forever war
It is about time one of these high explosive interventions in the Near East turned out well. Just because everything went wrong in Suez, Baghdad, Kabul, Damascus and Tripoli, there's no reason to be sure it won't work this time. Operation 'Midnight Hammer' may have hit the nail on the head. But there is good reason to be cautious.
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The Independent
6 days ago
- The Independent
After taking back land in Colombia, Indigenous prepare their youth to safeguard it
Indigenous Nasa children are gently splashed with water using a leafy branch — a ritual meant to protect them and symbolically 'open the path' — before setting off with wooden signs they had painted with messages like 'We were born to protect the environment' and 'Peace, please.' Wearing protective gloves, the children nail their signs to trees lining a dirt road still used at times by armed groups for drug trafficking, as they collect trash from land their families reclaimed from vast industrial sugarcane plantations in Colombia's conflict-scarred southwest. This is no ordinary schoolyard activity. It's a quiet act of defiance — and a hands-on lesson in protecting land and culture. Just beyond the reclaimed land of the Indigenous López Adentro reserve, near the town of Caloto, a spray-painted warning on a wall orders drivers to keep their windows rolled down or risk being shot. It's to allow armed groups to see inside. Roadside banners declare support for dissident factions of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the leftist guerrilla group that signed a peace agreement with the government almost a decade ago. Violence in Cauca — and many other regions — has intensified since the 2016 peace deal, as criminal groups and FARC breakaway factions fight for territory and control over lucrative drug trafficking routes once held by the demobilized rebels. The children's 'semillero' — a weekend school where Indigenous youth are nurtured like seeds — prepares the next generation to protect their ancestral land. More than a classroom, it's a space for learning resistance, environmental care and cultural pride. Their work echoes a broader community effort to restore damaged territory and preserve identity in a region still marked by conflict. Daniela Secue, a 26-year-old coordinator and leader of the semillero, said such training is essential as young people face so many challenges in their homeland. 'Without alternatives, some end up drawn to armed groups. But here, we teach them to protect the land through respect and care — not conflict,' Secue said. 'We want them to learn our history and know they have a role in defending our territory. This is their inheritance.' Reclaiming ancestral land In 2019, dozens of Nasa families forcibly reclaimed nearly 350 hectares (about 865 acres) of land in northern Cauca that had been planted with sugarcane for years. The industrial monoculture had exhausted the soil and polluted water supplies with agrochemicals. The families' removal of sugarcane marked a turning point — transforming degraded fields into plots for corn, rice, cassava, beans and plantains, alongside areas for forest regeneration and small-scale livestock raising. The children wrapped up their sign-posting near an old finca, a rural estate once owned by a powerful sugarcane landlord. Faded FARC graffiti still marks the outer walls, a remnant of years of armed conflict. But today, a flag bearing the red and green of the Nasa people flies near it. The building, now crumbling and abandoned, is a dilapidated testament to the violence this land has endured. Children play on old sandbags left behind by the military during a recent occupation meant to repress the community's efforts to reclaim the territory. The families' 2019 takeover of the territory saw them arriving with machetes and cutting down the vast sugarcane crops, which are used to produce sugar, ethanol and panela — a traditional unrefined cane sugar often sold in solid blocks and widely consumed across Colombia. Colombia has taken steps to empower Indigenous groups. But land takeovers like the one in López Adentro have sparked controversy, with critics — especially from agribusiness and government sectors — arguing that such occupations violate property rights and risk fueling further conflict. While Indigenous communities describe the actions as a legitimate reclamation of ancestral land, the national government has warned that land reform must follow legal channels and condemned unauthorized occupations. Ecological changes after sugarcane Members of the Indigenous guard say birds and other wildlife have returned to the area that was once only sugarcane. Yet the struggle is far from over. The community has endured forced evictions, military occupation, and threats from paramilitary groups. One resident, Carmelina Camayo, 49, remembers when the soldiers occupied the old finca for three years. Though the military withdrew in 2024, the threat of eviction looms once more, with the landowner preparing new legal action. 'We didn't survive all this to give up now,' Camayo said. 'We have to continue resisting.' The semillero's work embodies that resistance. Secue said it's not only about healing the land but reclaiming identity. Many former semillero members have grown to become leaders within the Indigenous Guard, protecting both people and territory. 'In a region where youth are vulnerable to violence and recruitment, we offer a different path — one of responsibility, belonging and connection to our ancestors,' Secue said. For families like Secue's and Camayo's, hope rests on the next generation. 'We recover land so our children can eat from it and live on it,' Camayo says. 'Even when we are gone, they will know what they belong to.' ___ The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at
Times
27-06-2025
- Times
Inside the B-2 raid: Pick-up pills, 18 hours flying, then bombs away
It's a long haul racing the sun from Knob Noster, Missouri, to the mountains of Qom and the nuclear bunker buried deep at Fordow. At 37-hour haul, to be precise, there and back. Even before the pilots charged with flying their $2 billion B-2s to drop the world's largest non-nuclear bombs on Iran were in position, they would have already spent 18 hours in the air. Given the secrecy surrounding the B-2, a projection of military power that paradoxically exists never to be seen, little is known about who the men and women who flew the sorties that effectively forced the regime into a ceasefire with Israel. They were, the Pentagon said, as far from the macho shirt-off volleyball-playing fighter aces portrayed in Top Gun as you could care to imagine. It is, however, possible to piece together how the mission unfolded, beginning long before the planes took off from Whiteman Air Force Base, about an hour east of Kansas City, racing to strike as the Iranians slept. For the aviators and air crews from the US air force and the Missouri air national guard, ranked from captain to colonel, the raid felt like the Super Bowl, military chiefs said this week, with 'thousands of scientists, airmen and maintainers all coming together'. • How badly damaged are Iran's nuclear sites and missiles? In the previous weeks they would have flown to Fordow and back dozens of times in a state-of-the-art simulator at Whiteman base, near Knob Noster, which includes a replica of the B-2 cockpit, complete down to the cot where they can sleep and the toilet that is used by the pilots; only if they really must. In many ways, when President Trump gave the go-ahead, the real mission would have felt similar to the simulations. One former pilot said the big difference would be over Iran, where they would 'feel the clunk' of their weapons bay doors opening, then a lightening of the aircraft as it was relieved of its two massive ordnance penetrator (MOP) bombs, each weighing 30,000 pounds. There would have been a sharp turn as soon as 'bombs away' was called as the stealth bombers headed out of Iranian airspace. Then, one pilot on the mission said, there was the 'brightest explosion I have ever seen, it literally looked like daylight'. By that time, according to pilots, the two in the cockpit may already have felt the need to take two pills that have long been issued to those who fly long missions. The so-called 'pick-up pills' or 'go pills', which are likely to be amphetamine-based to keep aviators awake, have been issued to bomber pilots about to undertake missions through the night. • The Iran-Israel conflict in maps, video and satellite images If Melvin G Deaile, who flew the longest recorded B-2 mission at 44 hours to Afghanistan and back in 2001, knows whether the pilots needed the pills, he was not saying this week. Speaking to The Times, the retired air force colonel said the pilots would have been remarkable for being unremarkable. 'The B-2 is still a technological marvel,' said Deaile, 59, of the bomber that entered service in 1997. There were originally plans to build 132 B-2s, but the cost of each and the end of the Cold War brought an end to that. The 21st and last B-2 entered service in 2000. 'The amazing thing is, whether it's the pilots this past weekend or myself or anybody, they're just average Americans who signed up to do a mission and go out and do it.' The bomber has seen action in Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan, where Deaile flew in October 2001 after President Bush ordered strikes on the Taliban in response to the 9/11 attacks. Though perhaps not quite as fraught with risk as attacking Iran, which once had a proud air force and strong air defences, the mission to strike the Taliban was complicated by a late change of targets while they were in the air. For military planners at the Pentagon, however, Fordow has always been the main prize in Iran. Alongside Captain Brian Neal, Deaile piloted a B-2 named Spirit of America — poignant, given the raid took place in the months after 9/11. He admitted they had been given pills to keep them alert during the mission, which included multiple refuellings and spending two hours over Afghanistan. The mission was so long because after dropping 12 JDAMs — guided bombs — on Taliban forces, commanders asked them to go back over enemy territory and release four more explosives. Deaile and Neal finally touched down on the Diego Garcia military base after being in the air for 44 hours and 20 minutes. According to some reports, the pilots who completed the Iran mission had a microwave oven on board to provide warmed-up snacks for the trip. That is a luxury Deaile, who grew up on a farm in Fresno, was not afforded. While the army has 'meals, ready-to-eat' (MREs), Deaile said the air force equivalent was kinder to the digestive system and better adapted to long flights. He also brought sandwiches on board and was allowed a flask of coffee. But sometimes the snacks would go uneaten. • The Times view: Iran crisis is putting our special relationship to the test 'Most of the time we didn't really eat that much after a day and a half in the cockpit because we weren't really exercising,' he said. 'You don't really get hungry if you're not doing much.' Even if the work is not too physically demanding, the pilots must still sleep. Deaile used to have a cot behind the two seats so that an airman could sleep when not in 'critical phases of flight' — take-off, landing, mid-air refuelling and bombing. It was not a luxury bed, but good enough. 'It's the military; you learn to sleep wherever you can,' Deaile said. 'And we'll get the job done and if it means staying awake for 40 hours, we stay awake for 40 hours.'
The Independent
23-06-2025
- The Independent
B-2 bomber pilots had microwave, snacks and toilets on the 37-hour flight to demolish Iranian nuclear plants
B-2 bomber pilots were equipped with microwaves, snacks and even a toilet during a grueling 37-hour round-trip mission from Missouri to Iran to strike a trio of nuclear facilities. U.S. Air Force bombers took off from Whiteman Air Force Base near Kansas City on Friday, flying more than 18 hours each way to target Iran's Fordow nuclear plant. The mission, known as Operation Midnight Hammer, required multiple midair refuelings and was carried out with near-total radio silence, according to officials speaking to The Telegraph. To survive such long and intense missions, the cockpit of the B-2 Spirit has been outfitted with key comforts, including a mini fridge, a microwave, and a toilet. The aircraft also has enough space for one pilot to lie down and rest while the other flies. Each B-2 costs more than $2 billion and were designed during the Cold War to carry nuclear weapons. First introduced in 1997, the Northrop aircraft is known for its batwing design and stealth capabilities. The United States currently has 19 B-2 bombers in service, following the loss of one in a 2008 crash. With only two pilots on board, the plane relies heavily on automation to manage long missions. Past crews have brought along cots or sleeping pads to make the journey more manageable, The Atlantic reported. The mission to Iran was the longest B-2 operation since the initial U.S. strikes in Afghanistan after September 11 attacks. While the bombers flew the majority of the mission alone, they were joined by fighter jets and support aircraft near Iranian airspace. 'The B-2s linked up with escort and support aircraft in a complex, tightly timed maneuver requiring exact synchronization across multiple platforms in a narrow piece of airspace,' said Lt. Gen. Daniel Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The actual bombing began at 6:40 p.m. ET on Saturday, lasting just 25 minutes. The lead bomber dropped two GBU-57 'bunker buster' bombs — each weighing 15 tons — on targets at the Fordow site. Those bombings marked the first time the United States had used the GBU-57 in combat. Remaining bombers dropped 14 'massive ordnance penetrators,' or MOPs, on two other targets, according to Caine. 'There is not another military in the world that could have done this,' President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social announcing the strike. The president had boasted that the nuclear facilities were 'completely and totally obliterated' in the attack, though the extent of damage is unclear, and satellite images in the wake of the attack suggest the damage is not as great as the administration initially claimed. 'The biggest damage took place far below ground level,' Trump claimed. 'Bullseye!!!' On Monday, Iran launched missile strikes on a U.S. Air Force base in Qatar in what Iran's Tasnim news agency called the 'annunciation of victory' after Tehran vowed to retaliate in the aftermath of the bombing campaign. The attack comes after the White House scrambled to say the president was 'simply raising a question' after Trump appeared to entertain the idea of a regime change in Tehran, following the president's claim he had taken a nuclear bomb 'right out of Iran's hands.' Strikes between Iran and Israel have continued as world leaders demand de-escalation or risk a broader crisis across the Middle East and internationally.
