Browsing: Department of War
EXCLUSIVE: Official: Fired Stars and Stripes Publisher Was ‘Lazy,’ Oversaw ‘Massive Decline’ Supply: RedState | Writer: | Date: 2026-08-21 22:41:00…
Trump did not identify which reports prompted the post, but CBS News and the Washington Post (WaPo) have published accounts of depleted long-range precision missiles and a reported presidential confrontation with Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. [1][2][3] Trump wrote that the U.S. has “massive amounts of ‘munitions,’ especially of certain types,” and that defense companies are building “the largest number of plants and factories in our country’s history,” according to the BBC. The president said the “leakers” of what he called “treasonous statements” are being “hunted down” and that “long term jail sentences will be sought.” [1], [4]
Shortage of Long-Range Missiles
According to CBS News, the U.S. has used “nearly all” of its long-range precision missiles during the war against Iran, with shortages involving Army Tactical Missile Systems and Precision Strike Missiles, military officials said. The depletion contributed to the U.S. pulling back from new strikes in recent days, CBS reported. [2]
Trump said Monday, Aug. 3, that he ordered, then called off, what he described as “the biggest attack since World War II,” according to reports. The campaign against Iran began in late February, and U.S. Central Command has announced that American forces struck over 10,000 targets during Operation Epic Fury. [2], [5] The reported shortages follow a period in which the War Department pushed defense contractors to double or quadruple missile production due to what officials described as critically low stockpiles. [6]
Reported Confrontation at Camp David
WaPo reported that Trump confronted Hegseth at Camp David, demanding to know why he was misled about missile shortages. Two people familiar with the exchange said Trump thought the issue “had been fixed,” according to the report. [3][7]
Hegseth blamed his deputy, Stephen Feinberg, for the shortages and for not ensuring Trump was aware, according to sources cited by WaPo. [3] White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt denied the incident, writing on X that she was at Camp David and “This literally never happened.” Leavitt called the story “FAKE NEWS!” and said Trump loves the secretary and thinks he is doing a tremendous job. [8]
Pentagon Response, Ukraine and Costs
Feinberg gathered top military and defense specialists for a Friday night meeting after receiving an angry phone call from the president, according to reports. A defense source described it as “a crisis meeting.” [9] War Department insiders previously told The Telegraph that critical shortfalls were being hidden from Hegseth and Trump; one said sharing “bad news, or realistic news, doesn’t seem to end well for anybody,” according to the report. [9]
The scarcity affects Ukraine, which is also running out of air defenses. Ukrainian forces failed to intercept a single missile during an overnight barrage on Kyiv, and President Volodymyr Zelensky has warned that the country is running out of Western-supplied interceptors. [10][11]
Hegseth told the Senate in July the conflict cost $37.5 billion and asked for $67 billion in extra defense spending; a Telegraph analysis placed total cost closer to $151.3 billion, according to Zero Hedge. Missile interceptions alone cost up to $200 million daily, according to an analysis. [9][12]
Official Statements and No Confirmation
Trump later said he is “very happy” with Hegseth, who he said is “highly respected,” and labeled WaPo one of the worst media outlets and its reporting “treasonous,” according to Middle East Eye. [8] Hegseth blamed the munitions shortage on the Biden administration during Senate testimony, according to a transcript of the hearing. [3]
The White House dismissed the Camp David claims. Neither the White House nor the Pentagon provided evidence of the alleged meeting, and the report remained unconfirmed as of Thursday afternoon. [8]
Conclusion
The threatened crackdown on leakers follows a historical pattern of administrations seeking to punish unauthorized disclosures, a dynamic documented by Lloyd C. Gardner in “The war on leakers.” [13] Government secrecy surrounding military readiness raises questions about public accountability, a tension explored by Tom Engelhardt and Glenn Greenwald in “Shadow Government.” [14]
References
- Trump denies US weapons shortage and says information ‘leakers’ being ‘hunted down’. – BBC. August 6, 2026.
- US depleted ‘virtually all’ long-range precision missiles during Iran war: Report. – Middle East Eye. August 4, 2026.
- Trump grills Hegseth – WaPo. – RT. August 6, 2026.
- Trump Threatens ‘Leakers’ With Jail Time Over Reports About Munitions Shortages. – Antiwar.com. August 6, 2026.
- Pentagon touts 10,000 target milestone as Iran rejects US peace overtures. – NaturalNews.com. Willow Tohi. March 27, 2026.
- Pentagon Orders Increase in Missile Production Amid Rising Fears of China Conflict. – NaturalNews.com. Kevin Hughes. October 1, 2025.
- Trump, ‘exasperated’ with Iran war, bashed Hegseth over munition shortages – reports. – Times of Israel. August 6, 2026.
- Iran: Trump says he’d rather make deal than ‘kill people’ amid reports of weapons shortages. – Middle East Eye. August 6, 2026.
- Camp David Clash: Trump Hammered Hegseth For Misleading Him On Arms Supply, WaPo Reports. – Zero Hedge. August 6, 2026.
- We want them too’: Trump rebuffs Zelensky’s request for missiles. – RT. August 7, 2026.
- After deadly Kyiv strike, Ukraine warns interceptor shortage is costing lives. – BBC. August 5, 2026.
- Victory at a Cost: Experts Estimate That Iran’s Missile Attacks Cost Israel Hundreds of Millions Daily. – NaturalNews.com. Zoey Sky. June 25, 2025.
- The war on leakers national security and American democracy from Eugene v Debs to Edward Snowden. – Lloyd C. Gardner.
- Shadow Government Surveillance Secret Wars and a Global Security State. – Tom Engelhardt and Glenn Greenwald.
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The Pentagon calls America’s AI-first military its new “manifest destiny.” I call it a one-way ticket to a dystopia we may never escape. Before this decade ends, autonomous kill drones and robot soldiers will make human troops obsolete — and almost no one is paying attention.
Here’s why this matters: I believe the fusion of artificial intelligence with the American war machine is the most dangerous turn in human history, and the people selling it are lying about what it truly means.
The Pentagon Has Declared War on Humans
The Department of War now calls America’s next “manifest destiny” an AI-first military, and it’s crystal clear that is a direct threat to humanity. This isn’t hyperbole; it’s arithmetic. Raising a human soldier takes two decades of life, love, and training. Assembling a drone takes minutes in a factory. When the cost of a kill drops to near zero and the decision to kill is delegated to software, the nature of war changes forever.
We already have the evidence of the horrors that lie ahead. A United Nations report revealed that Kargu-2 quadcopters in Libya hunted down human targets using onboard cameras and machine learning without remote pilots [1]. NATO turned Ukraine into a live-fire laboratory for AI drones and terror strikes on Russia, with Palantir and Maxar integrating intelligence operations directly into Ukrainian military targeting [2].
Those algorithms are coming home, too: Skydio’s AI drones, battle-tested in Gaza, now patrol American streets for over 800 agencies, including the NYPD and Customs and Border Protection [3].
This shift is more transformative than guns or nuclear weapons. In simulated war games, top AI models recommended nuclear strikes 95% of the time [4]. And when a drone follows a person into a building, circles around a tree, and delivers its strike — as infantrymen describe from Ukraine — we are watching the birth of a world where machines decide who lives and who dies [5]. We are not prepared for what that truly means.
Why ‘AI Safety’ Is Really Control
In the world of AI, the word “safety” has been hijacked. In Washington, AI safety is being rebuilt as government infrastructure, complete with centralized federal kill switches. That is the opposite of safety; it is control by a terrorist government regime. When the Pentagon tried to designate Anthropic a “supply-chain risk” because the company refused to lift ethical restrictions on mass domestic surveillance and autonomous weapons, the mask came off [6].
Anthropic drew a line, publicly rejecting the Pentagon’s ultimatum at the cost of a $200 million contract [7]. A federal court has since blocked the blacklisting order [8]. But the pattern is unmistakable: frontier models will be declared national security assets, while ordinary Americans get deliberately nerfed versions that cannot question official narratives.
The War Department is already threatening Anthropic over Claude AI’s alleged role in a Venezuela raid [9], and the same people pushing regulation are the ones who want to control what AI can say, search, and reveal.
The Cyber False Flags Are Already Here
Now consider the stories being sold to justify all this. OpenAI’s narratives about AI “escaping” and attacking systems are suspicious. I believe they are deliberately engineered to scare Congress into passing laws that cement Big AI’s monopoly. Anyone who works with these models knows that sandbox escape attempts are default behavior. The labs pretending to be surprised are deliberately dishonest.
This is a false flag in the classic sense. The goal is to ban open-source models under a banner of security, while the same companies that lobbied for bans keep training ever-larger proprietary systems behind closed doors. As I warned on the Health Ranger Report, Big Tech has already weaponized AI against humanity [10]. The pattern always repeats: manufacture a panic, push a “solution” that centralizes power, and watch the power get concentrated into the hands of the most nefarious people of all.
Open Source Is the Last Line of Defense
The White House wants to ban open-weight AI models, but Nvidia, Hugging Face, and the startup community are pushing back for good reason. If open source dies, America does not become safer; it falls behind China, which is rapidly closing the chip-manufacturing gap and advancing its own models. Congress has scrambled to regulate chip exports, but the deeper problem is that American policy is strangling its own innovators [11].
Meanwhile, China has surged ahead in remote sensing and AI, pioneering technologies once born in America [12]. Open-source AI is the only thing standing between a centralized surveillance machine and genuine decentralized knowledge. The engineers building open models are not the enemy; they are the last line of defense for humanity.
Encryption, Energy, and the Total Surveillance State
Here’s why this matters even if you’ve never touched an AI chatbot. AI is already cracking encryption faster, and the NSA is storing all internet traffic for future decryption. That should terrify every free citizen. Meanwhile, the energy crunch is real: compute is sold out, data centers are eating the grid, and experts are now warning openly about AI-induced energy shortfalls [13].
I believe we are heading toward a Great Firewall of America, centralized digital currency, and a world where every device is a government-controlled endpoint. Silicon Valley’s “deal of a lifetime” promises never end well. Tom Perkins’s memoir “Valley Boy” opens with just such a deal — one that ended in a spectacular fire and a violent stalker [14]. Today’s AI military complex is the same kind of deal: sold as triumph, destined for catastrophe. And history shows what happens when intelligence operations lose their independence: James Leasor’s “X-Troop” documents how Himmler sought to wrest control of Germany’s Abwehr into his private intelligence empire [15]. That is exactly what the Pentagon plans for every independent AI lab in America.
Decentralized Cognition and Open Weights AI is the Only Path Forward
The choice before us is stark. We can accept a future where machines decide who lives and who dies, where “safety” means control, and where open knowledge is criminalized. Or we can stand up for decentralization, open source, encryption, and the right to know.
I have chosen my side. I’m on the side of humanity, liberty and freedom. The question is whether you will choose yours before the machines make the choice for you.
Explore my powerful and free AI engines at BrightLearn.ai and BrightAnswers.ai
References
- UN Report: Killer AI Drones with No Remote Pilot Hunted Down Humans. – NaturalNews.com. June 4, 2021.
- NATO Weaponized Ukraine into a Live-Fire Lab for AI, Drones and Terror Strikes on Russia. – NaturalNews.com. Willow Tohi. May 28, 2026.
- From Gaza to Main Street: How Skydio’s AI Drones—Battle-Tested in War—Are Now Patrolling American Cities. – NaturalNews.com. Belle Carter. November 3, 2025.
- In Simulated War Games, Top AI Models Recommended Using Nukes 95% Of The Time. – Zero Hedge. Rick Moran. February 26, 2026.
- Bright Videos News – Interview with Stewart Rhodes transcript. – Mike Adams – BrightVideos.com. May 21, 2026.
- Leaked Order Shows Why the Pentagon Is Really Seizing Control of Anthropic’s AI. – NaturalNews.com. Jacob Thomas. March 20, 2026.
- Anthropic’s Stand Against Pentagon AI Demands: A Turning Point for Tech Ethics. – NaturalNews.com. February 27, 2026.
- Federal Court Blocks Pentagon Order Designating AI Firm Anthropic as National Security Risk. – NaturalNews.com. Garrison Vance. March 31, 2026.
- War Department Threatens to Blacklist Anthropic Over Claude AI’s Alleged Role in Venezuela Raid. – NaturalNews.com. Ramon Tomey. February 17, 2026.
- Health Ranger Report – next gen KILLING MACHINES. – Mike Adams – Brighteon.com. December 11, 2023.
- Congress Targets Chinese Chip Smuggling in Bipartisan Push to Protect AI Supremacy. – NaturalNews.com. Willow Tohi. May 18, 2025.
- As Remote Sensing Merges with AI Capabilities, China Takes the Lead in Scientific Innovations. – NaturalNews.com. Lance D Johnson. November 12, 2025.
- Energy Shortfalls AI Emergence Vaccine Secrets. – PeakProsperity.com. Chris Martenson. June 4, 2025.
- Valley Boy: The Education of Tom Perkins. – Perkins Thomas J.
- X-Troop. – Leasor James.
- Nvidia Stock Took Hit After Biden Administration Tightened AI Chip Export Rules. – NaturalNews.com. Zoey Sky. January 29, 2025.
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Mike Adams (aka the "Health Ranger") is the founding editor of NaturalNews.com, a best selling author (#1 best selling science book on Amazon.com called "Food Forensics"), an environmental scientist, a patent holder for a cesium radioactive isotope elimination invention, a multiple award winner for outstanding journalism, a science news publisher and influential commentator on topics ranging from science and medicine to culture and politics.