Israeli commando units, supported by helicopters and about 15 airstrikes, carried out a daring raid on a military base just five miles south of downtown Damascus. This was in a Damascus suburb, practically in the Syrian capital itself.

 Syrian soldiers stationed at a former military facility in the town of Aliswah. The strikes softened up the site and cut off nearby roads to delay reinforcements. Then Israeli commandos hit the ground for what’s called “sensitive site exploitation” — essentially gathering intelligence, dismantling surveillance devices, and recovering equipment of value.

Reports indicate those devices had been placed there by Turkey, possibly more than a decade ago, giving Ankara a window into Israel’s activities. Removing them was a clear message: Israel will not tolerate hostile eyes watching its borders.

I’m convinced Israel’s greatest enemy may not be Hamas, Hezbollah, or even Iran. It’s the international press corps.

The Media Frontline

Every explosion, every casualty, every strike in Gaza is immediately weaponized in the media against Israel. And much of it is dishonest. The majority of people who become journalists lean left, which means they filter every story through that ideological lens.

Take the recent deaths of so-called “journalists” in Gaza. Critics like Scott Ritter claim Israel just “kills the messenger” because they don’t like what’s being reported. Ritter actually said Israel’s solution to bad press is to kill reporters.

That’s nonsense. Wearing a press vest or carrying a camera doesn’t make someone a legitimate journalist. And when someone uses that press vest as cover while aiding Hamas — whether by broadcasting IDF troop movements live, carrying an RPG, or even joining in the October 7th invasion — they’ve made themselves combatants.

I can tell you as a war correspondent: if I had filmed Taliban positions during a firefight and streamed it live, putting U.S. troops at risk, I’d have been treated as an enemy, not as a reporter. Israel operates under the same reality.

Meanwhile Hamas requires any journalist in Gaza to report from its perspective — and often forces them to delete footage or spin stories before publication. Many who wear “PRESS” vests there aren’t journalists at all; they’re Hamas operatives in disguise. That’s not freedom of the press. That’s propaganda.

We lose around 80,000 Americans every year to drug overdoses — down from 110,000 the year before, but still a staggering number. To put that into perspective:

• Vietnam War: ~58,000 Americans dead.

• World War II: ~438,000 Americans dead.

• Global War on Terror (2000–2020): fewer deaths than a single year of overdoses in the U.S.

Think about that. We now lose more Americans to overdoses every month than we lost in all of Iraq or Afghanistan.If another country were directly killing that many Americans, we would have mobilized our entire military long ago.

And yet, when it’s the cartels — fueled by foreign governments and driven by profit — we shrug and call it a “drug problem.”

The Mexican cartels operate like paramilitary insurgent groups.

• They use armored convoys, belt-fed machine guns, and weaponized drones.

• Hundreds of drone attacks have been recorded in Mexico this year alone.

• Cartels hold territory where Mexican government forces dare not go.

This is warfare — cheap, brutal, and aimed directly at the United States.

The Fentanyl Pipeline

The number one killer today is fentanyl. Cartels in Mexico manufacture it with chemicals supplied mostly by China and, to a lesser extent, India.

Do we really believe Beijing doesn’t know what those bulk chemical sales are being used for? Of course they know. That’s not business. That’s mass poisoning.

CBP seizures underline the scale: 27,000 pounds in 2023, 22,000 pounds in 2024, with nearly 20,000 pounds seized by August alone. Two milligrams — barely a sprinkle — can kill a person. That means what’s being smuggled in every year is enough to kill the U.S. population many times over.