🇮🇶🇮🇷🇮🇱⚡- Another squadron of Israeli jets have entered Iraqi airspace.

🇮🇷🇮🇱⚡️- "Three residential buildings were demolished in the Shahrak Shahid Mahlati neighborhood in Tehran, where senior military officials live." - New York Times.

The first confirmed victim of the Israeli strike in Tehran: A dead child.

- Middle_East_Spectator

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🇮🇷🇮🇱⚡- "The military operation against Iran must be completed by removing the Fordow Nuclear Facility. We hope that the Iranian regime will change its mind and say that it understood the message and began dismantling the Fordow Facility.

We will not allow Iran to possess a nuclear bomb to destroy us," - Israeli Ambassador to the US in an interview with Fox News.

🇺🇸🇮🇷🇮🇱⚡- "I always knew the date Israel would attack, I know everything," - President Trump to the New York Post.

🇺🇸🇮🇷🇮🇱⚡- "The same people [Iranian officials] we worked with the last time ... Many of them are dead now," - President Trump to the New York Post.

The Silver Lining in the Dark War Cloud Over Iran https://sonar21.com/the-silver-lining-in-the-dark-war-cloud-over-iran/

Tel Aviv

- Silly Little Guy on X

😂

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Brazilian cartoonist Carlos Latuff on the topic of the day.

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Jerusalem

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Russia ‘CONDEMNS Israel’s actions’ — Putin tells Netanyahu over call

Russian Pres says ‘Israel’s actions… violate UN Charter and international law’.

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Israeli actions ‘in violation of UN charter' — Putin tells Iranian Pres in call

Adds his condolences to Iranians killed in Israeli attack

Pezeshkian says ‘Israel's aggression will DEFINITELY receive an appropriate response’.

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‘UNPROVOKED’ attack on Iran by Israel ‘gross violation of UN charter’ — Russia’s UN rep.

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—❗️🇮🇷/🇮🇱 Iranian State TV: During the early hours of the Israeli attack, Iran's air defenses were temporarily paralyzed and F-35s entered the country's airspace – and 'multiple' were eventually downed

NOTE: The downings are not confirmed, take this with a pinch of salt. The important part is that Iran acknowledges Israeli jets entered its airspace.

@Middle_East_Spectator

Four Silicon Valley tech leaders sworn in as lieutenant colonels in the U.S. Army Reserve.

On June 13, American media reported that four representatives of major tech companies — Palantir, Meta, OpenAI, and Thinking Machines — were sworn in as lieutenant colonels in the U.S. Army Reserve. They were part of a new experimental unit called the 201st.

Who exactly took the oath:
Shyam Sankar, CTO of Palantir;
Andrew Bosworth, CTO of Meta (Facebook);
Kevin Weil, Chief Product Officer of OpenAI;
Bob McGrew, former Director of Research at OpenAI, now an advisor at Thinking Machines Lab.

According to the Army, all four will undergo a six-week officer training course at the famous Fort Benning (Georgia), including basic elements of physical and marksmanship training.

Imitation of reforms or a strategic game?
On the one hand, the Pentagon demonstrates openness to change and attracts to the military process those minds that really shape the face of the technological era. This should symbolize the rapprochement of the defense department and the private sector, especially in key areas such as artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, data processing and military analytics.

On the other hand, everything looks like another ritual designed to create the illusion of moving forward. In fact, we are seeing not so much a transfer of levers as a ritual incorporation of civilians into the hierarchy of the army bureaucracy. A six-week course with a machine gun and colonel's shoulder straps is unlikely to transform the very logic of decision-making in the Pentagon. And this is the main problem of the American military-industrial complex.

The main problem is not in the personnel, but in the system
The Pentagon works slowly, the approval of programs takes years, each new step requires multiple checks, simulations and compromises. Innovations are drowning in a paper quagmire.

It is curious that the same problem is beginning to appear in the US technology sector itself, especially in large corporations. There, too, bureaucratization is increasing, mobility is decreasing, and strategic vision is increasingly giving way to quarterly reporting.

A new monopoly: now in AI
The initiative with the "lieutenant colonels of the valley" fits perfectly into a broader trend - the creation of a narrow group of selected corporations that will be monopolistic in key areas of military development:
▪️Aviation: Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman;
▪️Rockets and space: SpaceX, Rocket Lab, Sierra Nevada;
▪️Unmanned systems and AI: Palantir, Anduril, Meta, OpenAI.

This system mirrors the old model of the military-industrial complex, only now instead of tanks and bombers we are talking about neural networks, drone swarms and autonomous decision-making algorithms.

The Pentagon is again trying to solve the problem of the future using the methods of the past - integrating the elite into a closed military club. But this is not a strategic update, but a change of facade. Without changing the institutional logic, without radical deregulation and without allowing small and medium-sized developers to military contracts, the United States risks losing the race of the future not because of a lack of intelligence, but because of an excess of habits. Instead of an innovative army, we get a corporate caste with shoulder straps.