The Intercept — Feed Items
Primary tabs
The United States shot down more drones and missiles than Israel did on Saturday night during Iran’s attack, The Intercept can report.
More than half of Iran’s weapons were destroyed by U.S. aircraft and missiles before they ever reached Israel. In fact, by commanding a multinational air defense operation and scrambling American fighter jets, this was a U.S. military triumph.
Columbia University President Minouche Shafik heads to Washington, D.C., this week, to testify in front of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce — the same committee whose previous hearings on antisemitism helped force the presidents of Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania to resign.
The New York Times instructed journalists covering Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip to restrict the use of the terms “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” and to “avoid” using the phrase “occupied territory” when describing Palestinian land, according to a copy of an internal memo obtained by The Intercept.
No Labels abandoned its presidential primary bid last week after failing to recruit a centrist candidate to challenge President Joe Biden. Though it had been unable to recruit anyone, the group had already raised tens of millions of dollars — money that, despite its self-proclaimed centrism, ultimately would have gone toward trying to unseat a sitting Democratic president.
The regional war in the Middle East now involves at least 16 different countries and includes the first strikes from Iranian territory on Israel, but the United States continues to insist that there is no broader war, hiding the extent of American military involvement. And yet in response to Iran’s drone and missile attacks Saturday, the U.S. flew aircraft and launched air defense missiles from at least eight countries, while Iran and its proxies fired weapons from Iraq, Syria, and Yemen.
Units on alert, naval ships repositioning, bombers postured to fly, Marines ready to storm the beaches. These are all of the routines of a crisis that signals U.S. military readiness for war. But there’s another routine that often eludes Washington’s acknowledgment: the military’s own deployment schedule when it comes to units venturing out there into the real world. The schedule is sacrosanct. So while some might think the potential for war with Iran — right now — is high and the U.S. military is on high alert, the reality is that it’s business as usual.
“None of us benefit from a burning planet,” says activist and documentarian Astra Taylor on this week’s Deconstructed. Taylor and Leah Hunt-Hendrix join Ryan Grim to discuss their new book, “Solidarity: The Past, Present, And Future of a World-Changing Idea.” Delving into the philosophical depths of solidarity, they trace its origins back to ancient Rome and explore its relevance in today’s interconnected world.
Negative experiences during military service are the main drivers of extremist beliefs amongst veterans, a new study from the RAND Corporation concludes. While the Pentagon-funded think tank report cites former President Donald Trump and January 6 as radicalization catalysts, one or more negative experiences in the military was the most consistent attribute for those expressing right- or left-wing extremist views, the study found in a survey of 21 veterans.
The White House is worried that Iran might strike a U.S. target as part of a potential retaliation for Israel’s April 1 attack on its embassy in Damascus, Syria, according to notes from a meeting involving National Security Council officials earlier this week. Tehran has vowed that “Israel will be punished” for the Syria strike and the killing of Quds Force commander Mohammad Reza Zahedi.