In New York City’s Union Square this Sunday, a group of American activists and Kurdish expats gathered together for a “Defend Rojava” rally. Speakers took turns talking about Rojava, the portion of northern Syria currently under control by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The Kurdish YPG and YPJ militias were the primary players in northern […]

With the release of season two of “The Punisher” just days away, I thought I would get a bit ahead of the power curve given the inevitable deluge of rival op-eds inbound—articles from major news outlets that will no doubt repeat the hoary old scare tactics that have long surrounded comic books, video games, and […]

In 2017, NEWSREP published an open letter titled “Careerism, Cronyism, and Malfeasance in SWCS: The End of SF Capability,” which had been sent out anonymously to nearly everyone on Special Operations Command’s internal email list. The letter outlined, in detail, with specific examples, how Special Forces training has been watered down for political reasons. The […]

Back in April, the U.S. military dropped its most powerful non-nuclear weapon on an ISIS tunnel complex in Afghanistan. Formally named the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB), it is more commonly called the Mother Of All Bombs. It is based on the Vietnam-era daisy cutter which was used to clear landing zones in the […]

“You have to understand that SEALs aren’t what they used to be, all the badassery really doesn’t exist anymore because of shit like this,” Treven, 18, wrote in a series of social media posts. “The new generation of SEALs aren’t like those you see who have movies about them.” Chief Edward “Eddie” Gallagher stands accused […]

In 2013 MSNBC host Rachel Maddow authored a book titled “Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power.”  The book explores America’s steady march towards perpetual war, one that has echoes of George Orwell’s famous novel 1984 in which propagandized citizens recite that, “we are war with Eurasia, we have always been at war with Eurasia.”  […]

Hilarity ensued this Christmas when President Donald Trump along with the first lady made a surprise visit to the troops in Iraq.  Proving that it is hard to keep anything a secret these days, watchful aviation enthusiasts noted Air Force One cutting across the Atlantic on Christmas night before veering towards the Middle East after […]

An Iraq war veteran named Brian Kolfage has started a campaign on popular crowdfunding website GoFundMe, with the goal or raising one billion dollars to erect a wall on America’s southern border. When I went to sleep last night it had raised ten million dollars and this morning it is almost at twelve million. Kolfage […]

The Japan Times has reported that children at a school in Okinawa, Japan have taken shelter in their school gymnasium 693 times over the last year. In America, school children may take emergency actions due to school shooters, fire drills, or extreme weather in some parts of the country but in Okinawa school children apparently […]

Speaking of heists (see my last article about real life bank heists and upcoming films about former SOF operators here), I just came across an article about a doozy of a case involving the Italian mafia forty years ago.  The crew made off with 5 million in cash as well as an additional 1 million […]

Netflix has dropped their trailer for the new Ben Affleck movie, Triple Frontier, a film that will explore what happens when former Special Forces soldiers utilize their skills to pull off a heist, in this case directed against a drug cartel in South America.  The premise is interesting, and timely.  17 years of combat in […]

In retrospect, one of the big take-aways from the fight against ISIS is the need to keep up some kind of continuous engagement with indigenous forces, rather than just wash our hands and walk away from the situation.  The Obama administration, having seen the invasion of Iraq as a profound mistake, made a campaign promise to […]