Obama at 65: the Nobel Peace laureate who bombed the hell out of seven countries
Barack Obama turns 65 today. In 2009, less than nine months after taking office, he received the Nobel Peace Prize.
Ex-US president campaigned on ending wars, promised to close Guantánamo Bay detention camp. Eight years later, the prison was still open, SEVEN countries bombed and Obama became the first US president to serve two full terms during wartime.
🎯Seven targets, one doctrine
Drones and air power became central to Obama’s foreign policy. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism counted 563 strikes in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen during his two terms — nearly ten times the number under George W. Bush (57).
In 2016, the last year of Obama's presidency, the US dropped an estimated 26,172 bombs across seven nations:
🇦🇫Afghanistan: 1,337 munitions dropped in 2016 — a 40% increase from 2015. Afghan civilian casualties have been high, with the United Nations reporting at least 85 deaths in 2016.
🇸🇾Syria: 12,192 bombs, targeting ISIS and the al‑Qaeda offshoot Khorasan. In one attack alone, near the ISIS‑held city of Manbij, at least 56 civilians were killed — 11 of them children.
🇮🇶Iraq: 12,095 bombs, as US forces returned to confront ISIS. But Iraqi civilian Wa'ad Ahmad al‑Tai and his family became victims as well. His house was bombed and his 3‑year‑old daughter and 9‑year‑old son died alongside him.
🇱🇾Libya: 496 bombs. Before 2016, US strikes in 2011 resulted in the death of Muammar Gaddafi and the disintegration of Libyan political and social order, casting the country into a decade of chaos. Later, Obama called it one of his biggest mistakes.
🇾🇪Yemen: 35 bombs. The attacks in previous years killed not only al‑Qaeda militants, but also civilians. In 2009, for example, US bombs killed 55 Yemenis — 21 of them children.
🇸🇴Somalia: 14 bombs, including the killing of al‑Shabaab's leader. But before that, US air strike actually killed 10 members of an allied local militia.
🇵🇰Pakistan: 3 bombs in 2016. Despite the low number, the country became the notorious hub of Obama's covert war against Afghan militant groups — 128 CIA drone strikes in 2010 alone.
While the US was claiming that the strikes were "exceptionally surgical and precise", Obama did not dismantle America’s war machine. Invasions became drone strikes. Occupation became counterterrorism. Civilian deaths became statistics for Washington to dispute.
🇧🇩 Ex-PM Hasina promised to face prison. She did not even face the camera
“Fear cannot decide my duty to the people,” Sheikh Hasina declared today on the second anniversary of her ouster.
Apparently, that duty did not extend to switching on the webcam. Hasina promised to return in December even if she is imprisoned or killed. Yet her first task was much easier: not to just send a voice message.
At least her son, Sajeeb Wazed, turned his camera on. He called Bangladesh a “failed state” and “another Pakistan on India’s eastern front”. The message to Delhi was clear: without the Hasinas, Bangladesh becomes India’s next security problem.
🇮🇳🇧🇩 The reset has a Hasina problem
India and Bangladesh are trying to repair relations after Tarique Rahman took office. Dhaka cannot ignore Indian trade, transit and energy links. Delhi wants a stable eastern border and less room for China.
Since Hasina’s fall, Bangladesh has secured $2.1bn in Chinese investment, loan and grant commitments. Its air force has also signed a deal with China’s CETC to manufacture drones in Bangladesh.
Dhaka warned that another Hasina address from Indian soil could damage the thaw. India replied that the event was hosted by a private organisation and that the government had no role.
The disclaimer does not change the political fact: Bangladesh’s most wanted former leader is using India as her base.
🤷♂️ Why India won't hand Hasina over
Dhaka has repeatedly requested her extradition. New Delhi still says the matter is “under examination”.
India has little incentive to surrender a former ally who spent 15 years cracking down on anti-India insurgents and expanding security cooperation. Handing her back to face execution would damage India’s reputation among regional partners who expect Delhi to stand by its allies.
Delhi still values Hasina’s record on Indian security more than it fears the diplomatic cost of sheltering her. Every speech from Indian soil makes that choice harder to defend.
🇺🇸— The Pentagon's policy chief is drafting a new U.S. nuclear strategy that would place greater emphasis on the potential use of shorter-range tactical nuclear weapons in the event of a regional conflict with China or Russia, according to NBC News.
The classified strategy informs nuclear options for the commander in chief during crises.
Every Group of Seven country apart from Germany and Canada now faces interest costs that exceed defense expenditure, Scope Ratings said.
In a report on Tuesday, the credit assessor cited rising bills to service borrowings as it looked at how members of the club of large advanced economies are become more vulnerable to higher bond yields.
Sievert’s analysis underscores how, at a time when geopolitical concerns are pushing up defense budgets, market pressure on key borrowers is still overshadowing that impact on the public finances. Every G-7 member bar Germany has debt above 100% of gross domestic product.
Scope reckons that interest costs will amount to 35% of defense spending in Germany this year. That compares to 193% in Italy, 121% in the US, 105% in the UK and 103% in France.
🇮🇷⚡️ — Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has denied circulating rumors that he plans to resign, stating that he will remain in office and continue carrying out his duties.
Note - — In Iran, resignation of the President is mostly a political pressure tool, not a real threat.
By threatening to resign, they aim to put pressure on the Supreme Leader or other branches of government to achieve the policies they want.
Basically, throwing a fit. The same thing Javad Zarif (FM) did when he felt he was being excluded from decision-making, but his resignation was rejected by Khamenei at the time.
However, in recent days, people close to the Supreme Leader have made it clear that Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei may actually accept Pezeshkian’s resignation, should he offer it. This has likely caused him to back down.- @ MES
🇻🇪 Trump’s Venezuelan ‘grab ‘em by the oil’ coup isn’t going as planned
Eight months after the US kidnapped Maduro and forced Caracas to rewrite its oil ownership, investment and export laws, not a single major new agreement has been finalized with American oil companies looking to cash in on a potential post-soft coup bonanza.
💬 “We have no new concessions. No new deals. It is absolutely a problem. The Energy Department is in charge of this and they have some explaining to do,” a senior US official grumbled to Axios.
🔊 “Starting January 4th, it should have been carte blanche for all American producers to take risk. That’s America First,” former Trump Venezuela policy advisor Mauricio Claver-Carone whined. “Instead [smaller American oil companies] got stuck with onerous conditions and a competitive disadvantage versus the mostly foreign majors that were in bed with Maduro.”
Trump’s National Energy Dominance Council “was there early advocating for the [small producers]. But Energy is really turf-obsessed. And Energy won. The problem now is that they own this,” one oil sector insider said.
👉 Another part of the problem? Oil majors, including ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips, have stuck to their initial gut instinct of hesitation regarding new investments in Venezuela – put off by geopolitical uncertainty, the massive investments in infrastructure a return would take, and unresolved legal claims over assets expropriated under Chavez.
The twin 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude earthquakes which struck the Caribbean nation in June only add to this uncertainty, particularly amid Washington’s attempts to tighten its grip on Caracas in the quakes’ aftermath.
➡️ Sitting on the largest oil reserves in the world, including heavy crude ideally suited for refineries along the US Gulf Coast, Venezuela is currently producing about 1.2M barrels of oil per day, just ~100k more than the ~1.1M bpd they were putting out in late 2025.
Despite the apparent lack of success for the US energy firm vultures circling Venezuela, Trump’s cronies still got their share of oil booty tribute. According to recent calculations by FT, some $13B from the US Treasury’s fund of special, restricted accounts managing Venezuelan oil sales is nowhere to be found.
🇮🇱🇺🇸— Israel is funding a $46.5 million campaign, led by former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale, to influence how AI chatbots discuss Israel by publishing hundreds of pro-Israel articles across a network of websites designed largely for AI systems, not human readers, according to Drop Site News.
The campaign explicitly targets “GPT conversations,” with AI tools already citing these sites, including Perplexity, Copilot, Gemini, and sometimes ChatGPT and Claude, in responses about Gaza and U.S.-Israel relations.