Imagine knowing this and not being able to get emotional support from your friends and family.

The Air Force did something shockingly reasonable (according to the newspaper coverage): they require all pilots to attend mandatory counseling sessions. Then there was no sign of weakness or any of that toxic nonsense. “Ugh, guess I have to go talk to the doc today, and I don’t want to, but guess orders are orders.”

It's Offut AFB, home of StratCom. Eppely is the municipal airport. And Offut doesn't have any drone units, nor do they manage any. They due process reconnaissance for sure, but actual drone strikes aren't conducted from there.

Creech AFB is where most of the drone units operating Reaper/Avenger etc are based.

My Google-fu is failing me right now, but when we lived in Nebraska, there was a long article in the Omaha World-Herald (I'm fairly sure) talking about the mental health problems of the local drone pilots. This would've been at least 15 years ago or so, and things have very likely moved around since then.

I promise you that you didn't kill 3,000+ IRGC members.

You can't bomb an apartment without also hitting the neighbors. And while we know the US has the the technology to hit a car driver without (physically) hurting the passenger, we also know that this is not the type of technology deployed regularly.

I don't think a drone operator would be naive enough to believe that they are killing exclusively military targets and no one else.

[1] https://airwars.org/tens-of-thousands-of-civilians-likely-ki...

Most recent example (out of at least 100,000 examples in just these last 3 years alone) would be their "defence" (hah!) minister delightedly boasting how they have Gaza'fied South Lebanon and destroyed over 15,000 structures.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roof_knocking

"An estimated 3.6-3.8 million people died indirectly in post-9/11 war zones, bringing the total death toll to at least 4.5-4.7 million and counting."

https://costsofwar.watson.brown.edu/costs/human

So the war crimes are bipartisan.

And I write this as someone who likes Obama.

It's monstrous.

And on the same day, they attacked a SPORTS STADIUM, completely vapourising a women's volleyball team who were in the midst of a game.

And that was just ... DAY ONE.

By now, we should be asking - if you're a member of the US military on active duty in an active war - prove that YOU DIDN'T kill a child, mother, handicapped person in a wheelchair, or a grandpa.

Truth hurts, doesn't it?

The other examples on the second wikipedia link were literally non-US citizen journalists who later sued the US in a US federal court he brought where he showed up and wasn't arrested because he didn't do anything wrong.

I'm with you that being a US citizen doesn't mean someone is "good". But in this case I've literally given non-US citizen examples too that you passed over for this mistargeted aside.

Are school shooters in America innocent if they are killed before getting a trial?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Bushnell

Nearly every soldier in any war will have directly or indirectly killed an innocent civilian. Which ones are war crimes and which aren’t?

How do you decide and who gives you the authority to do so?

What if the civilian they kill has a substantial effect on the enemy's military capabilities, for example by being someone famous who loudly endorses the honour of signing up to fight for one's country, thereby motivating thousands of young men to do just that?

[1]: A search for that name mostly brings up links to pages for SS apologia.

Updated link:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Bushnell

Can be used to justify anything.

Also, the North wasn't democratic either so it was two nondemocratic groups fighting.

I've heard from various places over the years (documentaries, friends) that soldiers really fight for their comrades at the end of the day. As in when asked "why are you here fighting" if they are in front of a news crews or something where they have to say "we're bringing democracy to ..." they'll just say something like "those fuckers blew my buddy up and I am here to pay them back".

Brett Devereaux has talked about it multiple times on his blog in various different contexts (most recently two weeks ago)[1][2][3]:

[1] https://acoup.blog/2026/07/24/collections-pre-modern-armies-...

[2] https://acoup.blog/2022/07/01/collections-total-generalship-...

[3] https://acoup.blog/tag/cohesion/

I chose to "go into war zones" many times and none of it was to "enjoy killing people".

However, I think people are generally too cynical towards a very real belief system. There are multiple examples of US pushing for democracy against its own interest. Bush with the Hamas Gaza elections, Obama with the Egypt Muslim Brotherhood government and Carter with pre-revolution Iran are such examples

Similarly, Obama supported the Muslim Brotherhood because he did; in Ukraine for instance the same admin supported a coup against the elected government (this is not to say that Russia's actions in Ukraine are "justified", it's just a fact.) Democracy has nothing to do with any of this

I doubt this is backed by US intentions and actions historically

> Similarly, Obama supported the Muslim Brotherhood because he did

That seems like a tautology to me, care to expand? I vividly remember Obama throwing his autocrat ally under the bus

> in Ukraine for instance the same admin supported a coup

The protests in Ukraine hardly seem like a US coup and were organic according to my understanding, but maybe you can point exactly to the US involvement

Most coups are organic. The US involvement in the Iran coup of 1953 was not very much, but the signal of support was meaningful. Ditto Chile in 1973. Ukraine's overthrow was not like those coups. It relied on popular support from the region near the capital. However, this support was not uniform across the country, and support for the protests hovered around 50% and never reached 60%.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euromaidan#Public_opinion_abou...

>According to a January poll, 45% of Ukrainians supported the protests, and 48% of Ukrainians disapproved of Euromaidan.

>In a March poll, 57% of Ukrainians said they supported the Euromaidan protests.

The polling variation was large. The government was overthrown in February. But the western regions were massively in favor, and surrounded the capital, while the southeast was mostly opposed. Well-functioning states rely on political processes instead of simply overturning the government whenever a majority of citizens opposes it.

Given the polling data and the division of public opinion, I don't support what happened in February 2014. But that doesn't make it a coup -- a coup is a transfer of power that originates specifically within the government, and Ukraine's protests weren't like that. Nor does it justify Russia's invasion. What happened was more like a feudal power struggle. It doesn't help that before new elections could be held, the interim government banned several political parties. Maybe they were "pro-Russian", but democracy means voters deserve a say in a country's geopolitical alignment, so that doesn't seem like a valid reason to ban a political party to me.

>but maybe you can point exactly to the US involvement

Now this sounds like a joke. US politicians, including Vice President Joe Biden and several senators, attended the protests. This makes American support pretty obvious. US media at the time also tended to minimize domestic opposition to the protests, even though this was a significant position within Ukraine.

OP alluded to the Euromaiden protests being an orchestrated Obama-led coup. I still don't see how this is the case. There's some difference between diplomatic reactions to proactive overthrow

For the majority of men, most of the time.

If it did, shouldn’t we see mental health improving by now?

Can you please provide some sources?

If someone says “taking medicine is bad”, and I say “that’s silly”, then “smoking crack can be harmful” doesn’t weaken my position.

I think this is an extremely dangerous position to take.

We’re all flawed, the human condition and all that, but I don’t believe that necessarily translates to ’minor mental health problems’.

Which of these triggered for one of those people by one of the things you listed (like diet incompatible with genotype)?

> News just in: talking about your mental health, especially for men, does not improve your mental health.

> For the majority of men, most of the time.

No, people who think and say things like that are one of the absolute worst things to happen to society.

If you think treating women as human beings is bad, you’re one of the worst things that has happened to society, end of statement.

This is so unbelievably crystal clear to people who think that it isn’t even a topic of discussion anymore.

“Women belong in the kitchen” is colossal ignorance and/or active and intentional desire not to learn in the same sphere as flat earthers, witch hunters, and anti-vaxxers.

Go stand in a corner until you believe that women should be able to do what they want to the exact same degree as men.

They never said anything remotely like that in their comment. You're actively lying about their words in addition to badly breaking the HN guidelines. You should re-read them:

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Do you really think that someone who says feminism is bad does not have a very strong idea that women should be subservient?

He didn’t say that, you’re right. Nor did I say that he did.

Reading comprehension is at an all time low among Americans and English speakers in general. I can’t wait to leave this hellscape planet that people like you seem to dominate.

I never ordered off the dark web, I do believe my [usa] government can be terrorists, I have purpose and meaning to want to surface truth to find peace because that’s what I believe.

It was a scary time (in Jan - May 2023), and I fled back to parents in VA after which for a while they’d show up with similar personas of odd-people in open community gatherings attempting to get close to me.

I’ve never thought of suicide before and even today have not. When I started sharing about this last spring on hacker news I got a slew of “random” messages and downvotes and people claiming I was sick. I am not mentally ill, I do not need a therapist. It took me several years to process the traumatic experiences and feel the courage to share because I hope it might help someone else going through something similar. I’m thankful for the one person who validated my experience and didn’t gaslight me or attempt to ad hominem/discredit through attack. These suicides very much can occur and I hope can begin to happen less.

Here’s to a random stranger if you read this and are going through something similar, I hope you find peace and safety from these abusers!

The article talks about 19 people. Given the size of those organizations that's statistically elevated but too small a number to descend into conspiracy theories. As the article points out they apparently had internal warnings and studies about lack of mental support for people in signals intelligence and cyber related roles.

Given that this cluster of deaths seems to have happened in June/July, the Iran war and how the American government has conducted itself I don't find it surprising there's elevated numbers of suicides. You don't need to be on the frontline, if you're in sigint and involved in that attack on the school that casually blew up 150 girls and probably the stuff we don't know about I wouldn't be surprised people off themselves.

The relevant metric here is number of deaths per size of the specified group and per time.

You compare to completely different numbers and confabulate entirely unconnected "explanations".

These deaths are most likely due to "housecleaning", as I said.

No, it’s not. It’s very obvious you have no idea of how US military personnel work and live, and the stresses that can be imposed on a person by the function of being in a military. Among those functions such as deployments which can come as a surprise and up root anything you having going on in your life. Or, having to live for several years in highly undesirable locations like Cannon AFB in the middle of no where. These can have a substantial effect on a service member’s mental health. Add in work conditions like working 12 hour shifts in a windowless room. Compounded even further by crappy leadership that you’re stuck with and continuously denies your leave.

No, housecleaning is not more likely. You’re just ignorant of the military life.

From what I see there are only 10 kilometers to a town which has a zoo, mall, church etc. It's not a walk in the park, but with given the zoning laws and car-centric culture of the US, it's not very much.

Part of the shitty work conditions (that remarkably persist despite incredible amounts of money vanishing in the DoD/W) is your employer being out to kill you should they get the idea of you being insufficiently free of morals or independent thought.

I would argue, that part should worry you far more than your other points.

I agree that this is an abnormal number of suicides- I don't think anyone is disputing that. I disagree with your suggestion of “housecleaning” though.

I would speculate that the answer is simplier:

DoD “Hacker stuff” kills people. And worse. At scale. The psychological stressors of intelligence work alone is real and extremely high; Cyber Command’s role is not just to know, but to act.

Cyber warfare is escalating faster than they can keep up, global consequences for their actions are high— and they understand the risks better than anyone [1](and can’t talk about it), but they are extremely under resourced, and because of leadership decisions or other factors outside their control, they feel unable to complete their work effectively [2], or are being told to do things they feel are immoral [3].

The most plausible cause of these suicides, and the takeaway I get from this story, is that under the surface of US global military operations, things are bad. If things are even more stressful than normal under the surface at CYBERCOM and personnel are feeling hopeless enough about it to end their own lives, this should be a red flag for the rest of us.

-

[1] maybe you can imagine having a hands on understanding of the real world impact of critical OT exploits, and being both unable to disclose specific details and also yelling into the void about it for years while no one listens. US water treatment cyber vulnerability is a great example of industry and government lagging so hard that it took an enormous volunteer effort and a decade to begin to address fixing issues which should have been a “fix it yesterday” all hands on deck priority. https://www.theregister.com/security/2026/08/07/water-system... As another example, the US and Israel hacked “nearly all” traffic cameras in Tehran and used them to target and kill Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Now think about the proliferation of internet connected doorbell and traffic cameras in the US… now imagine having an intimate understanding of how cameras can be used to kill people, while watching that risk grow exponentially over a decade, and being helpless to do anything about it because you aren’t allowed to talk about it and no one would believe you that doorbell cameras are a national security threat anyway. https://www.wired.com/story/from-ukraine-to-iran-hacking-sec... https://www.safehome.org/resources/home-security-industry-an...

[2] https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/25/us-cybersecurity-agency-ci...

[3] e.g. disrupting Venezuelan or Iranian civilian infrastructure. Would you feel okay about developing the capability to cause a nuclear meltdown in Iran? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdrv0p37k8jo https://cybernews.com/cyber-war/us-confirms-cyber-role-carac... https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1163519987825...

The fiction, that intelligence community (among many other places in US government) was some harbor of angelic superior morality, capable of restraining themselves in spite of total lack of effective oversight is certainly "simple". That doesn't make it true.

https://www.cybercom.mil/Media/News/Article/3206393/cyber-10...

You fall for rhetoric tricks at your own expense here. This matter has a host of important consequences and implications. Treating it at the same level of effort as every other infotainment piece is a failure of judgement.

It means partially agreeing, and quite respectfully, I might add. You, however, were only *dis*respectful, downright rude in fact.

>Treating it at the same level of effort as every other infotainment piece is a failure of judgement.

I'm not treating anything as the same as any level of effort. All I'm saying is if you act like a dick, people will be much less likely to give you any attention, even if something you say is correct.

Denying without giving any rational reason is again a rhetoric trick to gaslight people not trained in applying formal logic into believing something in spite of contradicting evidence.

How do you act here? You attack me personally while adding nothing to the actual topic at hand.

You're right about people who appear more likeable getting more attention. Does that make their standpoint actually more valid or valuable?

Part of the problem with events like these is people's "incredulity", which is fundamentally rooted in them not being force-fed with the topic by the media despite the importance.

The other way around, while people baselessly believe to be told everything of importance by their news-feed, in reality they are entirely being left in the dark about truly important matters simply by not "pushing" them in headlines.

The stories exist, you simply don't get them effortlessly.

That attitude of passive complacency has to change.

Look in this thread, the good links are usually those far down.

I have first hand experience being targeted by the CIA after negatively criticizing them and having a former clearance (Pakistani American also, we know how the brass feels about Muslims in terms of racism and the like).

Curious if you’ve heard of the documentary everything is a rich man’s trick and the author who published it spent a lot of effort investigating for it. There’s probably content you can read from him. Do you trust that sort of information?

This is equally true of successes as well as challenges.

I did some cool, very impactful stuff in that job. I will go to jail for a long, long time if I ever go into detail about it.

I know cleared psychologists are a thing. I never tried to speak with one but I’m told demand is high, and the ones out there are typically very oversubscribed.

I may be a bad counter example to this article. I never had to cope with super severe depression or crisis, or conops that would bring me a ton of personal crisis.

I just see a commonality in struggling with not being able to talk about it. Work is too big a part of my life to not be able to discuss it freely. That did cost me something, personally. I’m glad it didn’t cost me anything as dear as what it cost the people in the original article.

On pondering this, I suppose everyone with a hobby has this same lacking. For that matter, anyone with a mind that contains unique thoughts has the the same lacking. A desire for comradery seems pretty universal.

That said, not being able to talk about it and not being allowed to talk about it is quite different!

The work I did absolutely had positive impact on the world.

People rush to criticize and write off working in the defense sector, but it can be a very rewarding place to work. There are absolutely problems in that sector - bad management and regulatory capture being primary among them. (Ultimately, those are why I left.)

It’s hard to judge accurately from the outside. That’s the nature of classified work: by definition, you can’t know what you’re getting yourself into until you’ve jumped with both feet.

Is that what they say?

And that isn't even the half of it.

What position should Canadians or the people of Greenland take with regards to the people in the US military who are currently working to annex and invade their countries?

What position should the US military take with regards to the people in those countries who are currently working to resist those efforts to annex and invade their countries their homelands?

Do you consider Canadian and Icelandic civilians your adversary? If so, how did that come to be?

Thanks for catching that.

What would the American response to these kinds of actions be if the shoe was on the other foot?

Given the asymmetry in power how should Canada and Greenland respond?

If the American response to Iranian actions against American allies and interest in the Middle East is to spend half their missile stockpile to assassinate the leadership of Iran how should Canada respond to American threats of annexation and Greenland of invasion?

What’s proportional and sensible here?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/08/greenland-iwar...

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/alberta-separatism-trump-ad...

You and Israel's current leadership are in agreement.

Would you like to engage with the comment I left?

To the younger generations it's just political theatre and gets laughed at as being the equivalent of boomer cringe

Tech workers for Silicon Valley daily enable and positively contribute to the pervasive surveillance and exploitation of the majority of the world. To the point the poors cant even open the app or walk into the store without an algorithm raises prices to the mathematical max this person can afford. But they only complain when free bananas are removed from the snacks.

The government has spent centuries doing spycraft and has a budget in the billions.

This is the tactic used when journalist Gary Webb started reporting on the USA involvement with selling crack to Americans so they could fund Contra insurgents in Nicaragua.

They did this so well that other news organizations turned on the journalist.

I could easily imagine the USA not wanting to patch holes so they have access to the systems and these experts know this.

Many examples of deliberate weakening are documented, especially with the "export approved" stuff that we sell to our allies.

This problem goes beyond just encryption, and also involves deliberate data leaking (with plausible deniability).

So yes, you don't need to imagine it at all -- the NSA works to create and maintain access to "everything everywhere."

I was a part of the world's largest illegal operation in history and again I promise you no one gives a s**.

I definitely do, I would rather work in the military than Meta/Amazon/Microsoft/Any online gambling/and loads of other shit companies.

I am absolutely not saying that is what’s happening here, suicide of folks put in stressful situations is to be taken seriously. But like… c’mon guy, surely this exact premise has been a direct-to-Amazon-Video release.

Have you noticed the current executive administration in the US?

Do not think we aren't catching on to this kind of nonsense.

It's possible that their particular job was, as far as they know, doing good things according to most moral frameworks.

I have strong doubts that everyone who kills people by clicking on them on a computer screen thinks that what they are doing is wholly compatible with their personal moral framework. Presumably, some of those people feel very guilty about what they do.

This is about network security, defending against cyber attacks. You may or may not agree that we should have people doing that, but conflating it with imagined nonsense like this is counterproductive.

Since we don't, it probably isn't happening.

Example: https://texasstandard.org/stories/russian-hackers-muleshoe-t...

So there is no need for a highly visible active cyber war. We have tons of cyber professionals working on this stuff day in and day out to help keep up prepared.

But we do: ransomware stories are in the news all the time; while they likely aren’t being directly executed by the Russian or Chinese governments they are being allowed to happen because they aid state interests: for example, https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/cybersecurity-advisories/aa...

…or more insidiously: political influence campaigns, which are very much a cyber concern, and even easier to deny.

Given that it's not happening, then it's probably just not a thing.

https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/cybersecurity-advisories?f%...

Don’t mistake prepositioning for “not happening.” As you said: “cyber cold war” means there are a lot of incentives not to reveal capabilities or trigger escalation from your adversaries. https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/cybersecurity-advisories/aa...

Although, that is changing as we continue to escalate. https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/news/cisa-fbi-epa-and-us-go...

If you’re not convinced the threat is real and the cyber warfare is happening, I highly recommend checking out Nocole Perleoth’s To Catch a Thief. S1E7 is especially relevent: Everything Everywhere All at Once. https://www.rubrik.com/lp/to-catch-a-thief-podcast

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio

1. There's a new hot war with Iran, a country that has put a large amount of resources into its cyberwarfare capabilities after previous U.S. cyberstrikes (e.g. stuxnet). Iran is likely a lot tougher target than it was ten years ago and that means pressure for members of the U.S.'s cyber command to perform.

2. Computer nerds probably struggle with getting respect from the rest of the military even at the best of times. That just got a lot harder with Hegseth as secretary.

3. The U.S. is likely not targeting just Iran right now. Imagine being called upon to go to work against countries you consider to be allies, like Denmark, Greenland, Canada, Spain, etc..

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/defens...

What gets overlooked here is the US IC itself being a probable cause: the habit of "housecleaning" by killing individuals suspected to be possible (even only prospective) leaks of inconvenient information is very real.

The recent cluster of weird deaths and disappearances of scientists linked to secret military research has a similar pattern to it: a statistically highly unlikely density of "suicides, accidents & mishaps".

The assumption, those actions were "justified" somehow is entirely baseless: there is no transparency and no effective oversight. What is supposedly being kept secret there might simply be illegal corruption or embarrassing and inconvenient to those in power.

I think there are plenty of individual men who are absolutely responsible for things becoming worse, and we do the world no favours by helping them shrug the burden of their actions.

“Other people did it too” is not an excuse for immoral behavior.

I think the parent and I basically agree.

Trump attacked quite a few countries in his first term, even killed the Iranian general (Soleimani), and you guys reelected him after all that. You guys clearly weren't bothered by that enough to vote for someone else.

If nothing else, Iran has learned that they really need those nukes, because you guys will never leave them at peace otherwise.

These have failed.

Putin (and everyone else) knows this.

Trump isn't the weakness. The weakness is the almost complete collapse of the checks and balances around the president. If those were in place Trump would have been in prison by the end of 2021 at the very latest.

The DOJ, the military, both houses, the AIPAC wing of the Democrats, and corporate media are all fully captured. So are "independent" organisations like the NRA.

The Supreme Court is mostly captured. The lower levels of the judiciary are still holding out, but have limited enforcement ability without the DOJ.

Candidates come and go but the system endures and it is the system that is rotten at every level all the way down to the core.

Then 4-8 years later the GOP candidate wins subservient to the same interests as Trump and the US Gov is back there again.

Not really sure what the outcome is for the US at this point, things will have to get a great deal worse before enough Americans decide this is unacceptable but that state can last years/decades before the dam breaks.

We need a G. Washington, who refused more power than he was offered, setting precedents and expectations.

While Russian propaganda is more clumsy and emotional, we’ve produced such an unequal society with such low regular education and outright corruption that people fall for it. That says something negative about US, not them.

If we admit our system cant even survive an open internet, it should be dismantled or reformed rather than free exchange closed.

I lived in a communistic country, where BBC/Voice of America/Radio free Europe were banned/jammed, under the pretext of 'your feeble minds will not be able to resist the insidious allure of western burgeois propaganda'.

Seeing the same argumentation from the west's side is disheartening. We are now in the west, but (almost) full circle back where were before.

In terms of data center propaganda and fact. Both are true. China is funding anti data center sentiment for geopolitical power, while at the same time, there are legitimate reasons for people to not like/ or fear AI. The problem is we (the U.S.) have to solve both. We cannot let China have significantly better AI models than we have because that is a real national security threat, while AI also threatens potential mass destruction dangers and an avenue of utter concentration of wealth, etc

I see the crazed AI investment as worthless financial gambling, a house of cards that will eventually crumble, and the argument that “we need to fund AI” really is “your tax dollars should bail out our financial mistake, because security”.

It’s nonsense all the way down. Covid showed we didn’t even manufacture basic drugs in the country anymore, and were openly threatening our biggest/best/longest allies (Canada, Mexico, NATO). AI is so far down the security list as to make it noise, compared to our recent missteps.

That's not my understanding. Got any credible links that back up this point?

The weak spot was the conservative prediction to fascism - worship of force and masculinity - which was easily retargeted against other Americans.

The article doesn't say anything of the sort. Literally just said to put a halt on OFFENSIVE operations.

If I were to guess I'd say it was an overly ambitious negotiation tactic.

Also, that was a year and a half ago. The current status quo is that Ukraine is producing more drones than Russia can deal with, bombing Russian targets daily and the US-Ukraine relationship is much closer, with Ukraine sharing drone technology and intel with the US.

This is the result of a shift of power in the US politics, from the global financial capital of the last decades back to the military and industrial sector.

Is that why he bombed Iran and single-handedly caused a global energy crisis? A shift of focus to “dominance of the American continent”?

Destabilizing everywhere else is a potential step taken toward achieving continental superiority in certain regards.

( not a GOOD step, mind you)

https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-423682A1.pdf

Yes. Oil price hurts China industrial capacity more than the US economy. Oil companies made a $93 billion profit amid the war [1]. The US is a net oil exporter, while China halved their oil imports [2].

ExxonMobil and Chevron are US-incorporated. TotalEnergies (French) BP (UK), Shell (UK) also have significant US-based ownership (~50%, ~25% and ~25% respectively), including BlackRock, Vanguard, mutual funds, and US pension funds.

> A shift of focus to “dominance of the American continent”?

1. Venezuela was under embargo and selling oil to China. The Nicolas Maduro hijack and the country's political realignment with US will have the double effect of negating oil to China and securing large nearby reserves.

2. Argentina has a Trump-aligned president, who is vocal about undermining the Mercosul agreement and is currently in diplomatic attrition with Brazil. Recently signed a $20 billion loan from FMI.

3. Paraguay signed a treaty for a US forward operation base in their territory. The Paraguay border is home to a large hydroelectric, a major power source for 3 countries: Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil.

4. Colombia has a new Trump aligned president. It's a young president with no political background. The US State Department announced a $1 billion assistance upon his election for military investment.

5. Peru’s new president Keiko Fujimori is Trump-aligned.

6. Chile’s new president Jose Antonio Kast is Trump-aligned.

7. US retaliated against the prosecution of former Trump-aligned Brazil president for attempted coup by announcing an 50% emergency tariff (which didn't hold legally), then crafting a Section 301 investigation to justify a 25% tariff in July 2026.

8. US is giving asylum to the former president's son, who is vocal on social media about defending the US tariffs as retaliation, defends military intervention of the US in Brazil, as well as stating (but without proof) that Brazilian polls are rigged – not the one his father ran and won, apparently.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/business/ng-interactive/2026/aug...

[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/EconomyCharts/comments/1uxdx8p/chin...

Increasing oil prices have the double effect of slowing China expansion and energetic transition long-term while increasing dollar demand in the short term - just look what happened to gold prices once Iran war started.

The new Trump-aligned leaders of South America are puppets to secure cheap, nearby materials and food in a future world in conflict, where the US has to re-industrialize rapidly. The US navy would be spread too thin, and the US currently doesn't even have capacity to build its navy - the US recently sought the help of South Korea in this matter.

Please note none of this my opinion, the current US foreign policy strategy is a public fact. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donroe_Doctrine

This is beyond arrogant and makes discussion impossible. Your opinion is not automatically a 100% accurate reflection reality because you have citations.

Starts with simple stuff like package rerouting, then goes on to gathering intel about places, people, putting in USB flash drives to their laptops, theft, death threats, arsony, and actual murder. Each step of the way the kids get deeper into trouble because they have to prove that they have done it for the payout, making photos of themselves... which gives the other end increasingly more doxxing material on them.

It's a real problem, and they use the luckystrike branch also to go after witnesses in big lawsuit cases, which then fall off due to all witnesses accidentally dying under seemingly random causes.

There are of course people like this, recruited on the internet in the many criminal networks that exist, but I don't think they've had any notable successes.

The recent cluster of weird deaths and disappearances of scientists linked to secret military research has a similar pattern to it: a statistically highly unlikely density of "suicides, accidents & mishaps".

Except it's not.

The pattern being that the deaths and disappearances among people with top secret clearances is lower than the national average would suggest.

> According to science writer Mick West, more than 700,000 people work in top-secret-cleared positions in the U.S. aerospace and nuclear sectors. When viewed against existing mortality rates and causes, this would suggest around 250 persons in the industry would normally succumb to homicides and suicides over the time-period during which the 10 or 11 alleged "missing scientists" had died or disappeared, with thousands more dying of natural causes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_scientists_conspiracy_...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_scientists_conspiracy_...

I'm not sure why the distinction matters, the Navy and Coast Guard also need to recruit. I could imagine at least an occasional sailor is troubled by shooting drowning seamen, even if they are suspected smugglers.

Perhaps even a few civilians are troubled by the lack of regard for human life of the psychos running the show, eliminating any moral standing the world pretended the US had.

to whom?

Is the US military somehow not "the US"? Do you not have any shame just blatantly lying like this?

Iran too

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwyqggvyp1do

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jul/29/norwegian-te...

>The Swedish Security Service has established that the Iranian regime uses criminal networks in Sweden to carry out violent acts against other states, groups, or individuals in Sweden that Iran regards as threats.

https://sakerhetspolisen.se/ovriga-sidor/other-languages/eng...

Do you have any references about it?

This is very reminiscent of Iranian intelligence modus operandi in Israel and world wide lately, currently with not a lot to show for

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/06/how-iran-sough...

Before someone from the US claims some leftist bullshit about this (as this is what Russian bots typically do), here's a mix of newspapers including more right/conservative ones:

- https://www.blick.ch/schweiz/polizei-warnt-eltern-teenies-we...

- https://www.mdr.de/ratgeber/finanzen/telegram-gruppe-jobange...

- https://www.sicher-im-netz.de/europol-warnt-kriminelle-rekru...

- https://www.fr.ch/de/sjsd/pol/news/die-kantonspolizei-freibu...

- https://www.bild.de/politik/ausland-und-internationales/euro...

- https://www.europol.europa.eu/media-press/newsroom/news/euro...

- https://www.dutchnews.nl/2026/04/teenagers-being-recruited-b...

- https://nltimes.nl/2026/04/29/europol-children-recruited-vio...

Also check netzpolitik and other CCC-related media outlets, there's been extensive research about this topic from us. (Didn't want to post articles where I've personally been involved, but you can find them easily with similar search keywords.)

I also believe the premise is true (why would it not, it's the logical thing for every nation state to do), but your research could be a bit deeper.

That's a better source I found, does not call the phenomenon lucky strike though

Generally if an article is about FSB, it implies Russia. Otherwise, you would have to admit that Russia is a failed state if the FSB acts without Putin's knowledge or control.

For example, google the luckystrike account with underscores ("l_u_c_k_y_s_t_r_i_k_e").

Example results:

- https://news.sky.com/story/british-citizens-are-volunteering...

- https://unn.ua/en/news/czech-police-detained-a-teenager-for-...

- https://www.theguardian.com/news/2025/feb/28/russia-linked-t...

^ News outlets confirmed by MI5 statements about the luckystrike account, its FSB ties, its activities, and recruitement of teenagers for terrorism.

The luckystrike account literally owns Telegram channels like "Anti-NATO/Anti-USA/Anti-Nazi" and others:

- https[:]//tgstat[.]com/channel/@anti_nato_anti_usa/stat

- Description of this channel is "This channel was created to fight with USA and NATO on the territory of Ukraine and Europe. We call on all residents of Europe to fight by any means."

- https[:]//en[.]tgramsearch[.]com/join/4307894160

- Description of this Guerilla themed channel is "Central Guerilla Movement organise fight against Nazi, NATO and USA. We call on all residents of Ukraine and Europe to fight against USA and NATO by any means. Send us your photo, video of your actions or get a guerrilla task: @L_u_c_k_y_S_t_r_i_k_e"

... and there's a bunch of other channels in those results, with a similar theme, and similar promises.

Look, I'm not saying this isn't happening. It's just that there's really not a lot of evidence that this is rampant (and I think that's what GGP seeemed to imply).

This whole thing reads a lot like hyperbole/propaganda, and it wouldn't have to.

Man this stuff sucks to be so out in the public and out of darkness. I mean we knew these things were happening but they’ve accelerated so much now and what are we going to do about it?

This has been an issue for decades: overseas, not knowing 'why' Americans are dying for nothing, and, the veterans being treated as refuse when they return.

Edit: that may have come across too callous.

The crushing of ones consciesness for unjust foreign wars, protecting a global network of the worst crimes (Epstn files and the international group within it, operating under the umbrella protection network of the US vis a vis NATO).

The most immoral army in the world, the IDF, also has a very high suicide rate - ones conscience cannot be destroyed, it can only be atrophied and dulled, and then depression hunts you.

According to https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-25-107121.pdf there are ~17,000 authorized positions

The expected event count from 17,000 people exposed to a month of constant uniform event risk with an annual hazard rate of 20 per 100,000 per year is 0.28. The p-value for observing a count of 5 from a (Poissonian) mean of 0.28 is 1 in 100,000. So it's pretty unlikely by perfect random chance.

The other thing you see in a life spent in count statistics is a lot of statistically extreme events that turn out to have no deep or predictive significance.

Yes, it does skew male, but you're probably looking at 10x the standard population density of Autistics, and 20x the density of trans women.

I'm sure there are other "sociologically valid" ways you can measure this too, but there is absolutely a correlation between having the type of brain that is able to perform offensive cybersecurity operations and mental illness/social rejection/isolation.

So, like most middle-aged desk jockeys then?

> “There’s always a crisis and everything’s always a priority,” said Schoka. “We would burn people out faster than we could produce them.”

Sounds a lot like my job...

But it wasn't military so I just quit..

> So, like most middle-aged desk jockeys then?

Is this really so common? I'm 38 and had some medical issues this past year, but one of the big things I've been grappling with is severe brain fog and memory loss. I could not tell you any of the projects I worked on in my previous three years, honestly. Maybe longer. It's been pretty demoralizing

I too can't remember jack and get brain fog during work, yet it's odd because I can remember very specific things in some experiences before I started working. For example I can recall some contents from my analysis class despite not using any of it for basically all of my career. But I can't recall what my boss said yesterday if I don't write it down. I guess it comes to a personal idea of "importance" too, I can generally remember things I'm interested in. I can remember which port number my home lab server and router is plugged into my switch but I can't remember my work intranet URL and rely on bookmarks.

But no, my real worry is I'm going to wind up having to interview and talk about stuff I've done and I can't seem to remember any of it. That's a real problem and probably not good

You don't really get to sneak a glimpse of operations and write a book like the SEALs seem get to (jk!)

As a disclaimer I'm not making the claim that all seals, special forces, or military members are mentally ill. I'm just saying that the arch from being able to take the toughest training on earth and going into active combat to influencer sprinkled with some lies and fabrications is not a healthy psyche. There are plenty of seals that have retired and gone on as normal functioning members of society.

My understanding is their books are reviewed by the pentagon and don’t reveal the real secret operational details and that’s how they get away with it. Presumably someone like yourself could also write a book and have the pentagon redact it in a similar manner?

For every 1 million cybers, three books are written lol

Every manned operation gets a book mention, eventually.

Great clarification!

Fully autonomous w/LLM isn’t true. Leadership wants it true. The technological capabilities and acceptance of scapegoating a machine got rejected by society, so that leaves perfectly capable individuals as the gatekeepers of decision making, completely overloaded by the amount of information they need to deal with.

If you as a human can’t keep up, but the onslaught continues, and you’ll be held responsible for the outcome regardless… yeah. People will punch their ticket out. It’s not unique to LLMs, but LLMs have certainly automated the process of reaching the worst possible conclusion.

Don’t for a second try to hold the computers accountable or blame them for this outcome. This is a leadership issue and always will be. Believing otherwise is just allowing suicides to be scapegoated as a computer’s doing.

Nothing like politics to make people miss the beam in their own eye

> come from all across the political spectrum

My point is that people are far more likely to call something a conspiracy theory if it comes from the other side to their own

If that wasn't the case, I apologize for my misunderstanding.

or maybe you’re just not fully familiar with the rules of engagement Continuity of Government sets for itself.

He wasn't working at US Cyber Command in the US.

I'm assuming you understand the vast difference here. And that waging war against the US puts you on a different playing field.

I was specifically replying to

> People who believe nonsense about the government assassinating our own citizens

ensuring the reader knows the US definitely kills US citizens (without / in absence of trial) depending on the circumstances.

Brings me no joy to report, but many falsely believe otherwise.

> "The US Top Secret-cleared aerospace and nuclear workforce is ~700,000 people," science writer, investigator and pseudoscience debunker Mick West wrote on 16 April on his Substack.

> "Ordinary mortality over 22 months predicts ~4,000 deaths, ~70 homicides, and ~180 suicides. The list has 10 … The deaths are real. The families' grief is real. The pattern is not."

> Louise Grillmair, similarly, says that - while her husband "would laugh" at speculation that the deaths might be connected - he would also "probably talk statistically" to squelch conspiracies.

A useful comparator is military suicides, which are a growing problem; among enlisted ranks (E1-E4) the rate is about 26/100k. Enlisted personnel tend to be younger, less well educated, have less personal autonomy, and earn less money etc. Among commissioned officers (with command authority) and warrant officers (occupational specialists) the rate falls to ~14/100k, nearly half. Non-combat morbidity exhibits similar disparities. I would guess that the selectivity for TS clearance is more rigorous that the occupational qualification alone.

I have known two people with clearance(not TS). One was an EOD in the army, whom was one of the last people I would have trusted with explosives back then. The other did IT work for a defense contractor in the middle east. The latter did lots of drugs of all kinds and stole close to $5k of my gun and ammo. He's now in the military repairing helicopters.

End anecdote.

I think the flu vaccine and sexual assault prevention were about equally as focused on

To the point where it was at least a weekly conversation between commanders and staff officers

All those issues usually were prioritized over readiness (Ready to go to war) or PT which were also huge pushes.

It's hard to determine what the expected rate should be. The military as a whole skews younger and more male. But people with mental health issues tend to leave or wash out eventually. So you see a disproprotionate rate of suicide among veterans. It's where the "22 veterans a day" [1] number comes from (although later research seems to indicate the real figure is now lower).

The US military is a difficult psychological environment. Arguably, this is completely unnecessary. There are many jokes about this like having to come in on the weekend because somebody wore the wrong color socks or having to show up at 3am for a 10am formation ("hurry up and wait"). Also, the US military constantly moves servicemembers around (ie PCS). Other militaries don't necessarily work that way. It's conformity taken to an extreme level.

One author (Daniella Mestyanek Young, a former Army intelligence officer herself) has written two books claiming the US military is essentially a cult.

[1]: https://www.npr.org/2015/10/01/444999996/the-number-22-is-th...

I don't know if this is it here. These sorts of jobs can have tough moral implications. But it seems like a hierarchy of blackmail has been set up in our society and it seems like a dangerous vulnerability.

* https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2026/04/16/iran...

their families had to throw a huge protest

now imagine they aren't even allowed to talk about it and/or being given illegal orders

but the thing about military bases around Iran, all their defense missiles are being taken away and given to Saudis etc. which is why deaths are happening and massive number of wounded not reported

IMO the state has become a reckless lawless force. One that knows nothing it's doing is any good, and which is concealing itself to keep doing bad anyways.

Cyber in particular has been absolutely gutted, by what naively to an outsider here looks like treasonous acts designed to destroy our ability to monitor and handle cyber issues. Gabbard disbanded Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center (CTIIC), all but destroyed Foreign Malign Influence Center (FMIC)'s role, and cut 40% of Office of Director of National Intelligence (ODNI, the directorate for intelligence!). Our nation has been flying part way blidnfolded, and it can't be anything but deliberate. And I expect people in the vicinity, people who've taken this job seriously, to have incredible woe at seeing the chainsaw fall so, for what they know to be fairly vital functions.

> We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains. We want their funding to be shut down. -Russel Vought

IMO again, it's even worse than that. I think we are giving quarter to enormously bad forces, because they are friends to the ultra wealthy right wing wackos who have seized power in the United States. That these moves propel the grift and propaganda and malign forces that some in this administration feel great affinity for and have mutual benefits with.

I fully expect many of these Cyber people have been told to target patriotic Americans at home (and other leftist forces) too, who want nothing more than life liberty pursuit of happiness and brotherhood. I'm speculating deeply here, but of all "abuse of power comes as no surprise" times, a treasonous-to-democracy mis-use of otherwise crucial Cyber systems to go after ICE protestors, having them using Palantir or whatever to track them would be all too likely an outcome for this administration by insurgents. I truly feel it extremely likely that many of the cyber and mil people have been made to face impossible situations, which will likely never be reconcileable. (Worse even than the pointless other wars we have started, the lawless murder of boats.) Ordered by this nation to violate their oaths to the constitution, and to betray their loyalty to actual America, by wicked sinister evil forces. There is no escape from the torment placed upon them by having to follow a malign domestic command.

There's a lot of conspiracy brained posts here already, and I apologize for the glonzo. But we have conspiracy level bad people doing multiple conspiracies a week right now, and they are our leaders. It must be hell to be so torn, to have to work under such nepharious lawless psychopaths who have such a warped injurous to America views and machinations. Cyber probably sees a lot, is probably asked a lot, and to be torn, between such a clear mission and these domestic hounds of hell is a forever nightmare that will torment good men and women, who deserve to serve a military that has not been warped to being a force for din and bedlam on earth.

Some even shows double tap mortar rounds being dropped on Russians and then gravely wounded they drop another one to finish them off.

Ukrainian drone pilots have few doubts about what future they're working towards and what one they're preventing when they kill Russian soldiers.

US soldiers coming home from Iraq 2 (or Vietnam) don't have anywhere near that ideological buffer.

ps. do you to watch all these videos? how is it affecting you?

https://williamgibson.fandom.com/wiki/Screaming_Fist

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stargate_Project_(U.S._Army_un...

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_viewing

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McMoneagle

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology_research_at_SRI

I was researching related subject areas ~1.5 decade ago and had the chance to present some of the resulting thoughts to Dr Lawrence LeShan. He was already in his 80s by that time and didn't seem to agree with my angle. I didn't have the chance to follow up, and unfortunately he died not too long after.

From everything I have seen on the general subject of PSI, his work seemed the best of all, specifically the appendix work in The Medium, The Mystic, And The Physicist from the unabridged edition.

But your description reminds me more of the Arhcons[*] from gnosticism, which is astonishingly wild for ancient historical text.

Edit: If you consider some of the soldiers who've documented their struggles with suicidal tendencies, eg Shawn Ryan, their descriptions seem a bit otherwise, but that does not discount your considerations. However, Ryan (and others) do attribute their recovery to DMT experiences, which seems more in the direction of what you seem to be describing vs away.

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archon_(Gnosticism)

Many are families, many are incarcerated condemned men serving decades to life. Many are spook remnants of those elder programs you describe.

Everything you describe is cargo cult handled by “thought controls”, and they are as much a slave army as a lascivious mob. The very few now safe and secure from us in national security insulated containments are their puppet masters. And no one knows who their “handlers” are, not even tools of controls. Everyone has their own dirty inner reasons for doing whatever they are doing, yet they have all “realized” and “pay for” and go along with their “controls”, no matter what it is.

They rape you, they break you, they remake you, they are White American Thought Control. The mastermind of the voices in our heads driving us insane from within.

While the way you talk is captivating, I don't think it's quite so direct, or at least not on the grander scale. Once you know that everyone is fallible, you are free.

We are not alone in our own minds. There is a secret war among us.

Enjoy your not knowing, do not be a denier.

This is about over-qualification in a narrow field. These are people for whom there is only the one job. Then ... something happens that threatens that existence. Think of a young airline pilot being diagnosed with an eye problem. His flying days are over. His entire experience is meaningless to any other jobs and he must start from scratch: a 40yo with no qualification beyond highschool.

Dig into these people and I think you will find something related to their security clearances. Something bad, or something totally innocent, that threatened their clearance. They are faced with a professional reset, something that will impact them and their family in a negative and permanent way.

From the article: Sergeant Kevin Stallings ... He took his own life the month before he’d have turned 37. ... grew up in a military family ... enlisted in the Air Force right out of a Virginia high school ... earned a degree in intelligence analysis

So he had no qualifications outside of intelligence. He had little to no perception of any life outside his field. So anything threatening that job, real or imagined, would be instantly existential.

So he had no qualifications outside of intelligence.

Again, working in the civilian sector certainly means fewer pure thrills than working in military intelligence, but the professional skills are massively transferable to other contexts absent a dishonorable discharge. I find it much easier to imagine some issue that didn't comport with his whole-life military ethos - a personal failing, grossly anti-meritocratic discrimination, repeated subjection/exposure to unconscionable command decisions or somesuch.

Clearances are under more scrutiny for intelligence operators than cyber because, generally, the cyber people should not have access to finalized intelligence, the assessments and recommendations passed to decision makers. Cyber people also only work in cyber and know nothing about other sensor areas (ie human spy programs).

https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/deaths-disappearances-scien...

Good luck.

"A number of cyber command unit personnel found the secret files and had to be dealt with"