
Colleen Blick
10.7K posts




One day, Donald Trump will die, and his supporters will try to punish the people who say things like this.



JUST IN: The country that learned to shoot down Iranian drones over Kyiv is now teaching the Gulf to shoot them down over refineries. Nobody asked Trump. The Gulf asked Ukraine. President Zelensky confirmed at the UK Parliament on March 18 that 201 Ukrainian military specialists are already deployed across UAE, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, with teams en route to Kuwait and 34 more ready to go. These are active-duty government military personnel, not private contractors. They are sharing combat-proven expertise from three years of intercepting Iranian Shahed drones over Ukrainian cities, power grids, and civilian infrastructure. The Gulf states requested the assistance. Saudi Arabia explicitly approached Ukraine. The arrangement is reciprocal: Ukraine provides the expertise that no other country possesses at this depth of operational experience, and the Gulf provides what Ukraine needs most, funding, technology, and air defence systems. Zelensky specifically highlighted Patriot missiles as part of the exchange. The country that cannot get enough Patriots from the West is earning them from the Gulf by teaching drone interception. Trump did not request this deployment. No reporting in any outlet, from Reuters to Al Jazeera to the Kyiv Post, indicates American coordination or approval. The recent Trump-Zelensky tensions over aid disputes and public friction are well documented. This is not a Washington-orchestrated move. It is a bilateral arrangement between Ukraine and Gulf capitals that bypasses Washington entirely. Zelensky built a parallel channel to the Gulf that gives Ukraine what America has been reluctant to provide while giving the Gulf what America’s $23.5 billion arms surge does not include: the people who know how to fight Shaheds because they have been fighting them every night for three years. The expertise is specific and irreplaceable. Ukraine has intercepted thousands of Shahed-136 and Shahed-238 drones since 2022. It has developed detection protocols, jamming techniques, acoustic tracking, small-arms interception methods, and integrated air defence coordination that no training manual teaches. The Gulf states purchased Patriot batteries, THAAD radars, and anti-drone systems through the $23.5 billion arms package. The hardware is American. The operational knowledge of how to use it against the exact Iranian drone variants now striking Gulf refineries is Ukrainian. Israel views this positively. Anything that strengthens Gulf air defences against Iranian drones reduces the threat environment for every country in the region, including Israel. Ukrainian-Gulf cooperation reinforces the anti-Iran alignment that the Abraham Accords established. Israel and Ukraine share a common adversary’s weapons system: Iran builds the Shaheds, Russia deploys them against Ukraine, and the IRGC deploys them against the Gulf. The expertise flows in one direction. The threat originates from the same factory. The Putin dimension is real but secondary. Iran supplies Russia with Shahed drones for use against Ukraine. Ukraine now teaches Gulf states to destroy those same drones when Iran uses them directly. The feedback loop is elegant: every Ukrainian lesson learned from shooting down Russian-deployed Shaheds over Odesa is now applied to IRGC-deployed Shaheds over Ras Laffan. Putin’s Iranian drone supplier is being countered by the country Putin is fighting, on a battlefield 4,000 kilometres from the front line. The irony is structural. The aggravation is intentional. Two hundred and one experts. Government military, not contractors. Gulf-requested, not Trump-directed. Shahed-specific, not generic. And the country with the most relevant expertise on Earth got there before the $23.5 billion in hardware arrived. open.substack.com/pub/shanakaans…


If the last 10 Best Picture winners were all nominated in the same year, who would get your vote?





Children of Iran's regime leaders are educating America's students at colleges from New York to Los Angeles trib.al/f9YO44l



New: The legal attacks on transgender Americans are moving fast beyond questions of school sports and youth gender medicine. Democrats are getting caught flatfooted, as they're still debating how to respond to the wedge issues @voxdotcom gift link: vox.com/policy/482762/…



In an attempt to explain just why it is that some 77 million Americans voted for the dumbest man alive to be their president for a second time, I’m absolutely delighted to present you with the expanded list of US food that you cannot legally sell in Europe!🧵




Many Washington Post readers have been notified via email that their subscription rates are set to increase. Nestled at the bottom of these emails, you’ll find an asterisk and the following: “This price was set by an algorithm using your personal data.” washingtonian.com/2026/03/12/the…



Me too.






Maybe we wouldn't feel that way if five American Muslims in four states hadn't used three guns and two bombs while screaming one prayer: "Allah is the greatest." Just a thought.




Breaking News: The head of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Richard Grenell, who is a close ally of President Trump, is leaving the role after a tumultuous year. nyti.ms/4cM2rlW




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