2026-02-28 Iran War - Israel and USA strikes Iran - "Preemptive Strike"

[B_B_C]

North Korea Rejects Trump’s Drills-Cut Overture as an Empty Gesture
Pyongyang sees no significance to an early end of joint Seoul-Washington military drills, but calls Trump-Kim ties excellent

SEOUL—North Korea gave an icy response to President Trump’s decision to end joint Washington-Seoul military exercises early, calling it an ineffectual goodwill gesture toward the Kim Jong Un regime.

https://www.wsj.com/world/asia/after-trump-decree-u-s-south-korea-pare-back-drills-that-angered-kim-jong-un-149e3350?mod=hp_lead_pos6

















https://www.wsj.com/world/asia/trump-pushes-for-kim-jong-un-meeting-this-year-2a9f9ae0?mod=hp_lead_pos1
WASHINGTON—President Trump is pushing aides for a meeting as soon as this fall with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, U.S. officials said, seeking to revive a dramatic diplomatic quest from his first term to convince Kim to abandon his country’s nuclear weapons program.

[LurkerNoMore]

Did we win the war again this week?

[Rambone]

4D Chess, are you tired of winning, etc…..

[chaos]

4D Chess, are you tired of winning, etc…..

Yes, we totally should have voted the black indian chick with a southern accent as our president. We'd all be singing her praises and living debt and inflation free!!!

[Rambone]

Yes, we totally should have voted the black indian chick with a southern accent as our president. We'd all be singing her praises and living debt and inflation free!!!

You know you can criticize a sitting president without having to bring a liberal retard into it, right?

[chaos]

You know you can criticize a sitting president without having to bring a liberal retard into it, right?

Of course. And of course we can always throw the "what if" in there to make ourselves feel better, right?

[Grape Ape]

You know you can criticize a sitting president without having to bring a liberal retard into it, right?

No.

The left has taught us that any critique of anyone on the left is/has to be countered with something Trump did.

So the reverse has to be true for consistency purposes.

[Rambone]

No.

The left has taught us that any critique of anyone on the left is/has to be countered with something Trump did.

So the reverse has to be true for consistency purposes.

You’re right. Chaos was acting like a crazed liberal back there!

[Van_Bilderass]

Speaking of North Korea, from NYT

"Stopped reading at 'NYT'" - Coach

How a Top Secret SEAL Team 6 Mission Into North Korea Fell Apart

The 2019 operation, greenlit by President Trump, sought a strategic edge. It left unarmed North Koreans dead.

By Dave Philipps, Matthew Cole

A group of Navy SEALs emerged from the ink-black ocean on a winter night in early 2019 and crept to a rocky shore in North Korea. They were on a top secret mission so complex and consequential that everything had to go exactly right.

The objective was to plant an electronic device that would let the United States intercept the communications of North Korea’s reclusive leader, Kim Jong-un, amid high-level nuclear talks with President Trump.

The mission had the potential to provide the United States with a stream of valuable intelligence. But it meant putting American commandos on North Korean soil — a move that, if detected, not only could sink negotiations but also could lead to a hostage crisis or an escalating conflict with a nuclear-armed foe.

It was so risky that it required the president’s direct approval.

For the operation, the military chose SEAL Team 6’s Red Squadron — the same unit that killed Osama bin Laden. The SEALs rehearsed for months, aware that every move needed to be perfect. But when they reached what they thought was a deserted shore that night, wearing black wet suits and night-vision goggles, the mission swiftly unraveled.

A North Korean boat appeared out of the dark. Flashlights from the bow swept over the water. Fearing that they had been spotted, the SEALs opened fire. Within seconds, everyone on the North Korean boat was dead.

The SEALs retreated into the sea without planting the listening device.

The 2019 operation has never been publicly acknowledged, or even hinted at, by the United States or North Korea. The details remain classified and are being reported here for the first time. The Trump administration did not notify key members of Congress who oversee intelligence operations, before or after the mission. The lack of notification may have violated the law.

The White House declined to comment.

This account is based on interviews with two dozen people, including civilian government officials, members of the first Trump administration and current and former military personnel with knowledge of the mission. All of them spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the mission’s classified status.

Several of those people said they were discussing details about the mission because they were concerned that Special Operations failures are often hidden by government secrecy. If the public and policymakers become aware only of high-profile successes, such as the raid that killed bin Laden in Pakistan, they may underestimate the extreme risks that American forces undertake.

The military operation on North Korean soil, close to American military bases in South Korea and the Pacific region, also risked setting off a broader conflict with a hostile, nuclear-armed and highly militarized adversary.

The New York Times proceeds cautiously when reporting on classified military operations. The Times has withheld some sensitive information on the North Korea mission that could affect future Special Operations and intelligence-gathering missions.

It is unclear how much North Korea was able to discover about the mission. But the SEAL operation is one chapter in a decades-long effort by U.S. administrations to engage North Korea and constrain its nuclear weapons programs. Almost nothing the United States has tried — neither promises of closer relations nor the pressure of sanctions — has worked.

In 2019, Mr. Trump was making a personalized overture to Mr. Kim, in search of a breakthrough that had eluded prior presidents. But those talks collapsed, and North Korea’s nuclear program accelerated. The U.S. government estimates that North Korea now has roughly 50 nuclear weapons and missiles that can reach the West Coast. Mr. Kim has pledged to keep expanding his nuclear program “exponentially” to deter what he calls U.S. provocations.

Blind Spots

The SEAL mission was intended to fix a strategic blind spot. For years, U.S. intelligence agencies had found it nearly impossible to recruit human sources and tap communications in North Korea’s insular authoritarian state.

Gaining insight into Mr. Kim’s thinking became a high priority when Mr. Trump first took office. The North Korean leader seemed increasingly unpredictable and dangerous, and his relationship with Mr. Trump had lurched erratically between letters of friendship and public threats of nuclear war.

In 2018, relations seemed to be moving toward peace. North Korea suspended nuclear and missile tests, and the two countries opened negotiations, but the United States still had little insight into Mr. Kim’s intentions.

Amid the uncertainty, U.S. intelligence agencies revealed to the White House that they had a fix for the intelligence problem: a newly developed electronic device that could intercept Mr. Kim’s communications.

The catch was that someone had to sneak in and plant it.

The job was given to SEAL Team 6 in 2018, military officials said.

Even for Team 6, the mission would be extraordinarily difficult. SEALs who were more used to quick raids in places like Afghanistan and Iraq would have to survive for hours in frigid seas, slip past security forces on land, perform a precise technical installation and then get out undetected.

Getting out undetected was vital. In Mr. Trump’s first term, top leaders in the Pentagon believed that even a small military action against North Korea could provoke catastrophic retaliation from an adversary with roughly 8,000 artillery pieces and rocket launchers aimed at the approximately 28,000 American troops in South Korea, and nuclear-capable missiles that could reach the United States.

But the SEALs believed they could pull off the mission because they had done something like it before.

In 2005, SEALs used a mini-sub to go ashore in North Korea and leave unnoticed, according to people familiar with the mission. The 2005 operation, carried out during the presidency of George W. Bush, has never before been reported publicly.

The SEALs were proposing to do it again. In the fall of 2018, while high-level talks with North Korea were underway, Joint Special Operations Command, which oversees Team 6, received approval from Mr. Trump to start preparing, military officials said. It is unclear whether Mr. Trump’s intent was to gain an immediate advantage during negotiations or if the focus was broader.

Joint Special Operations Command declined to comment.

The plan called for the Navy to sneak a nuclear-powered submarine, nearly two football fields long, into the waters off North Korea and then deploy a small team of SEALs in two mini-subs, each about the size of a killer whale, that would motor silently to the shore.

The mini-subs were wet subs, which meant the SEALs would ride immersed in 40-degree ocean water for about two hours to reach the shore, using scuba gear and heated suits to survive.

Near the beach, the mini-subs would release a group of about eight SEALs who would swim to the target, install the device and then slip back into the sea.

But the team faced a serious limitation: It would be going in almost blind.

Typically, Special Operations forces have drones overhead during a mission, streaming high-definition video of the target, which SEALs on the ground and senior leaders in far-off command centers can use to direct the strike in real time. Often, they can even listen in on enemy communications.

But in North Korea, any drone would be spotted. The mission would have to rely on satellites in orbit and high-altitude spy planes in international airspace miles away that could provide only relatively low-definition still images, officials said.

Those images would arrive not in real time, but after a delay of several minutes at best. Even then, they could not be relayed to the mini-subs because a single encrypted transmission might give the mission away. Everything had to be done under a near blackout of communications.

If anything awaited the SEALs on shore, they might not know until it was too late.

The Operation Unravels

SEAL Team 6 practiced for months in U.S. waters and continued preparations into the first weeks of 2019. That February, Mr. Trump announced that he would meet Mr. Kim for a nuclear summit in Vietnam at the end of the month.

For the mission, SEAL Team 6 partnered with the Navy’s premier underwater team, SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team 1, which had been doing mini-sub espionage for years. The SEALs boarded the nuclear-powered submarine and headed for North Korea. When the submarine was in the open ocean, and about to enter a communications blackout, Mr. Trump gave the final go-ahead.

It is unclear what factors Mr. Trump weighed when approving the SEAL mission. Two of his top national security officials at that time — his national security adviser, John Bolton, and the acting defense secretary, Patrick M. Shanahan — declined to comment for this article.

The submarine neared the North Korean coast and launched two mini-subs, which motored to a spot about 100 yards from shore, in clear shallow water.

Mission planners had tried to compensate for having no live overhead video by spending months watching how people came and went in the area. They studied fishing patterns and chose a time when boat traffic would be scant. The intelligence suggested that if SEALs arrived silently in the right location in the dead of night in winter, they would be unlikely to encounter anyone.

The night was still and the sea was calm. As the mini-subs glided toward the target, their sensors suggested that the intelligence was correct. The shore appeared to be empty.

The mini-subs reached the spot where they were supposed to park on the sea floor. There, the team made what may have been the first of three small mistakes that seemed inconsequential at the time but may have doomed the mission.

In the darkness, the first mini-sub settled on the sea floor as planned, but the second overshot the mark and had to do a U-turn, officials said.

The plan called for the mini-subs to park facing the same way, but after the second sub doubled back, they were pointing in opposite directions. Time was limited, so the group decided to release the shore team and correct the parking issue later.

Sliding doors on the subs opened, and the SEALs — all gripping untraceable weapons loaded with untraceable ammunition — swam silently underwater to shore with the listening device.

Every few yards, the SEALs peeked above the black water to scan their surroundings. Everything seemed clear.

That might have been a second mistake. Bobbing in the darkness was a small boat. On board was a crew of North Koreans who were easy to miss because the sensors in the SEALs’ night-vision goggles were designed in part to detect heat, and the wet suits the Koreans wore were chilled by the cold seawater.

The SEALs reached shore thinking they were alone, and started to remove their diving gear. The target was only a few hundred yards away.

Back at the mini-subs, the pilots repositioned the sub that was facing the wrong way. With the sliding cockpit doors open for visibility and communication, a pilot revved the electric motor and brought the sub around.

That was probably a third mistake. Some SEALs speculated afterward in briefings that the motor’s wake might have caught the attention of the North Korean boat. And if the boat crew heard a splash and turned to look, they might have seen light from the subs’ open cockpits glowing in the dark water.

The boat started moving toward the mini-subs. The North Koreans were shining flashlights and talking as if they had noticed something.

Some of the mini-sub pilots told officials in debriefings afterward that from their vantage point, looking up through the clear water, the boat still seemed to be a safe distance away and they had doubted that the mini-subs had been spotted. But the SEALs at the shore saw it differently. In the dark, featureless sea, the boat to them seemed to be practically on top of the mini-subs.


With communications blacked out, there was no way for the shore team to confer with the mini-subs. Lights from the boat swept over the water. The SEALs didn’t know if they were seeing a security patrol on the hunt for them or a simple fishing crew oblivious to the high-stakes mission unfolding around them.

A man from the North Korean boat splashed into the sea.

If the shore team got into trouble, the nuclear-powered sub had a group of SEAL reinforcements standing by with inflatable speedboats. Farther offshore, stealth rotary aircraft were positioned on U.S. Navy ships with even more Special Operations troops, ready to sweep in if needed.

The SEALs faced a critical decision, but there was no way to discuss the next move. The mission commander was miles away on the big submarine. With no drones and a communications blackout, many of the technological advantages that the SEALs normally relied on had been stripped away, leaving a handful of men in wet neoprene, unsure of what to do.

As the shore team watched the North Korean in the water, the senior enlisted SEAL at the shore chose a course of action. He wordlessly centered his rifle and fired. The other SEALs instinctively did the same.

Compromise and Escape

If the SEALs were unsure whether the mission had been compromised before they fired, they had no doubt afterward. The plan required the SEALs to abort immediately if they encountered anyone. North Korean security forces could be coming. There was no time to plant the device.

The shore team swam to the boat to make sure that all of the North Koreans were dead. They found no guns or uniforms. Evidence suggested that the crew, which people briefed on the mission said numbered two or three people, had been civilians diving for shellfish. All were dead, including the man in the water.

Officials familiar with the mission said the SEALs pulled the bodies into the water to hide them from the North Korean authorities. One added that the SEALs punctured the boat crew’s lungs with knives to make sure their bodies would sink.

The SEALs swam back to the mini-subs and sent a distress signal. Believing the SEALs were in imminent danger of capture, the big nuclear submarine maneuvered into shallow water close to the shore, taking a significant risk to pick them up. It then sped toward the open ocean.

All the U.S. military personnel escaped unharmed.

Immediately afterward, U.S. spy satellites detected a surge of North Korean military activity in the area, U.S. officials said. North Korea did not make any public statements about the deaths, and U.S. officials said it was unclear whether the North Koreans ever pieced together what had happened and who was responsible.

The nuclear summit in Vietnam went ahead as planned at the end of February 2019, but the talks quickly ended with no deal.

By May, North Korea had resumed missile tests.

Mr. Trump and Mr. Kim met once more that June in the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea. It made for dramatic television, with Mr. Trump even stepping across into North Korea. But the brief meeting yielded little more than a handshake.

In the months that followed, North Korea fired more missiles than in any previous year, including some capable of reaching the United States. Since then, the United States estimates, North Korea has amassed 50 nuclear warheads and material to produce about 40 more.

Uneven Track Record

The aborted SEAL mission prompted a series of military reviews during Mr. Trump’s first term. They found that the killing of civilians was justified under the rules of engagement, and that the mission was undone by a collision of unfortunate occurrences that could not have been foreseen or avoided. The findings were classified.

The Trump administration never told leaders of key committees in Congress that oversee military and intelligence activities about the operation or the findings, government officials said. In doing so, the Trump administration may have violated federal law, said Matthew Waxman, a law professor at Columbia University who served in national security positions under former President George W. Bush.

Mr. Waxman said the law has gray areas that give presidents some leeway on what they tell Congress. But on more consequential missions, the burden leans more toward notification.

“The point is to ensure that Congress isn’t kept in the dark when major stuff is going on,” Mr. Waxman said. “This is exactly the kind of thing that would normally be briefed to the committees and something the committees would expect to be told about.”

Many of the people involved in the mission were later promoted.

But the episode worried some experienced military officials with knowledge of the mission, because the SEALs have an uneven track record that for decades has largely been concealed by secrecy.

Elite Special Operations units are regularly assigned some of the most difficult and dangerous tasks. Over the years, the SEALs have had a number of major successes, including hits on terrorist leaders, high-profile rescues of hostages and the takedown of bin Laden, that have built an almost superhuman public image.

But among some in the military who have worked with them, the SEALs have a reputation for devising overly bold and complex missions that go badly. Team 6’s debut mission, which was part of the U.S. invasion of Grenada in 1983, is a case in point.

The plan was to parachute into the sea, race to the coast in speedboats and plant beacons to guide assault forces to the island’s airport. But the SEALs’ plane took off late; they jumped at night and landed in stormy conditions, weighed down by heavy gear. Four SEALs drowned, and the rest swamped their speedboats.

The airfield was later seized by Army Rangers who parachuted directly onto the airfield.

U.S. troops monitoring the Point Salines airfield after the invasion of Grenada in 1983. SEAL Team 6’s debut mission, directed at the island’s main airport, went badly awry.
Credit...
Associated Press
Since then, SEALs have mounted other complex and daring missions that unraveled, in Panama, Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia. During a rescue mission in Afghanistan in 2010, Team 6 SEALs accidentally killed a hostage they were trying to rescue with a grenade and then misled superiors about how she had died.

In part because of this track record, President Barack Obama curtailed Special Operations missions late in his second term and increased oversight, reserving complex commando raids for extraordinary situations like hostage rescues.

The first Trump administration reversed many of those restrictions and cut the amount of high-level deliberation for sensitive missions. A few days after taking office in 2017, Mr. Trump skipped over much of the established deliberative process to greenlight a Team 6 raid on a village in Yemen. That mission left 30 villagers and a SEAL dead and destroyed a $75 million aircraft.

When President Joseph R. Biden Jr. succeeded Mr. Trump, the gravity of the North Korea mission attracted renewed scrutiny. Mr. Biden’s defense secretary, Lloyd J. Austin III, ordered an independent investigation, conducted by the lieutenant general in charge of the Army inspector general’s office.

In 2021, the Biden administration briefed key members of Congress on the findings, a former government official said.

Those findings remain classified.

Julian E. Barnes, Adam Entous and Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.

President Trump and the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, had an erratic relationship. They met on Sentosa Island in Singapore in 2018.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

By Dave Philipps and Matthew Cole

John Kiriakou and Jameson's Travels have some thoughts about the journalist. Perhaps an intelligence asset himself. They don't doubt the report, they worry about the sources, perhaps Seal Team 6 members.

[chaos]

Speaking of North Korea, from NYT

"Stopped reading at 'NYT'" - Coach

John Kiriakou and Jameson's Travels have some thoughts about the journalist. Perhaps an intelligence asset himself. They don't doubt the report, they worry about the sources, perhaps Seal Team 6 members.

LMFAO!! A whole article of fiction! They worry about the sources, don't worry they're all anonymous for their "protection".

[Coach is Back!]

Did we win the war again this week?

We won It in the first 3 weeks.

[Coach is Back!]

LMFAO!! A whole article of fiction! They worry about the sources, don't worry they're all anonymous for their "protection".

I seriously don’t even bother much with Van anymore

[Coach is Back!]

The answer is... Trump is a retard that obviously wants to be a dictator and is solely interested in his desires and wishes.

Oh for fucks sake. A “dictator”. You’re repeating talking point triggers by the left that you fall for every single time.

[Necrosis]

We won It in the first 3 weeks.

LOLOLOL

you objectively lost the war. You will try to get the strait back to where it was and be happy with that. I doubt that happens.

[Necrosis]

Oh for fucks sake. A “dictator”. You’re repeating talking point triggers by the left that you fall for every single time.

He wants to be one soooo bad. Holding little parades for himself, budding up with "strong" men, consolidating power from the branches of government, using agencies for his own benefit and surrounding himself with sycophants lol.

He is a narcissist, of course he wants to be a dictator, in his mind he is the most important person in the world!

[LurkerNoMore]

We won It in the first 3 weeks.

14 times.  And yet, here we are.  Not controlling the Strait.  No deal in place.  Iranians making Trumpy look like a bigger idiot than he usually come across as.

[Van_Bilderass]

LMFAO!! A whole article of fiction! They worry about the sources, don't worry they're all anonymous for their "protection".

Real funny haha You just assume it's fiction without a second thought. Time and time again the MSM has broken stories later verified to be true. You can go back to Vietnam era, Nixon, etc, etc. The admin has just subpoenaed journalists for leaking sensitive information. The WH has staff monitoring the rest of the staff LOL, taking their cell phones to find leakers. A big paper like the NYT also tries to cover their own ass so they fact check and it goes through lawyers first. You never think

You really think they thought up this elaborate story out of thin air? I'm not saying trust anything off hand, but...

I seriously don’t even bother much with Van anymore

When did you actually bother? You typically just hurl insults. In case you haven't noticed, I'm overly and probably inappropriately serious on here, I don't troll or insult first

"Van is stupid" is no argument

We won It in the first 3 weeks.

How come your neocon heroes say this is the biggest strategic loss in American history if the U.S. leaves now? The end of an empire. This is not leftists saying it. It's MAGA Jews like Mark Levin, Ben Shapiro, Laura Loomer and old neocon warhawk generals you typically see on Fox News. No one seems to agree with you, on any side.

Oh for fucks sake. A “dictator”. You’re repeating talking point triggers by the left that you fall for every single time.

I don't necessarily see "dictator" as a pejorative term. Hitler was a dictator (someone Trump admires, he admires all strongmen, he always praises people he likes as "strong" and "powerful").
As if you can't see Trump openly all the time saying he should have the power to do anything he wants with zero interference. I could list a dozen such quotes.

AI:

"Donald Trump endorsed a social media post comparing his global influence to historical conquerors and authoritarian figures—including Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun, Napoleon, Hitler, Mao, and Stalin. The text argued that Trump is the most powerful person in history due to modern technology and military reach, to which Trump responded, "Sounds good to me!""


Stalin and Hitler, hell yes, sounds real good!

Trump would like to put boots on the ground in Iran but he thinks Americans "don't have the stomach for it," meaning sacrificing some American soldiers. But you're a man's man Coach so I'm sure you have the stomach for it. Decisive victory, no matter the cost!

[chaos]

Real funny haha You just assume it's fiction without a second thought. Time and time again the MSM has broken stories later verified to be true. You can go back to Vietnam era, Nixon, etc, etc. The admin has just subpoenaed journalists for leaking sensitive information. The WH has staff monitoring the rest of the staff LOL, taking their cell phones to find leakers. A big paper like the NYT also tries to cover their own ass so they fact check and it goes through lawyers first. You never think

Big difference between us, I choose not to believe shit until it's proven or I see enough evidence to sway my opinion. You choose to believe anything negative written about the US and Trump, Van_Mohammed.

[IroNat]

US quietly guides millions of barrels of oil through Strait of Hormuz in stealth operation

https://nypost.com/2026/08/19/world-news/us-guides-millions-of-barrels-of-oil-through-strait-of-hormuz-in-stealth-operation/

[chaos]

US quietly guides millions of barrels of oil through Strait of Hormuz in stealth operation

https://nypost.com/2026/08/19/world-news/us-guides-millions-of-barrels-of-oil-through-strait-of-hormuz-in-stealth-operation/

How the hell do you stealthily guide massive tankers filled with oil through the United Straight of America?

[Humble Narcissist]

How the hell do you stealthily guide massive tankers filled with oil through the United Straight of America?

They are probably paying the toll but don't want Americans to know.

[chaos]

They are probably paying the toll but don't want Americans to know.

Eeron or some liberal rag would have told the world that by now.

[Van_Bilderass]

They are probably paying the toll but don't want Americans to know.

Or America quietly and indirectly pays to avoid an economic meltdown. Just a theory. The numbers could also be part fiction. Now it's all about economic war Trump says. Iran feels a kinetic war is in their best interest now so I think they will do their "offensive-defensive" thing and start bombing more and more to force the U.S.'s hand. They know the war comes after the mid-terms anyway, better to have it now to max the political damage to Trump. Besides, they don't want the give them the chance to restock weapons.

[Rambone]

How the hell do you stealthily guide massive tankers filled with oil through the United Straight of America?

Invisible cloaks?

Wizardry?

[chaos]

Invisible cloaks?

Wizardry?

Submarines!!!!