We begin another week, and predictably, it seems likely to get worse. Before we discuss anything, I think we should take a moment to extend our condolences to the innocent who have lost their lives as a result of the strikes on Iran. At the time of writing this, four US service members have been killed, and a further four are described as having been ‘seriously injured’. Military casualties are, unfortunately, a consequence of any offensive operation, but that will be of little comfort to the families and loved ones of those killed and injured, who are forced to face the deadly and heartbreaking consequences.
In war, it is all too often innocent civilians who pay the highest price, as became the crushing reality for the families of the Iranian schoolgirls who attended the Shajarah Tayyebeh girls’ elementary school in the southern city of Minab. They went to learn and never made it home as their school was struck. The death toll has risen to 165, with a further 96 people injured.
This is the worst mass casualty event of the US-Israeli-led bombing campaign. As reported by Tess McClure in The Guardian :
The Nobel peace prize laureate and girls’ education advocate Malala Yousafzai said in a statement: “They were girls who went to school to learn, with hopes and dreams for their future. Today, their lives were brutally cut short.
“Justice and accountability must follow. All states and parties must uphold their obligations under international law to protect civilians and safeguard schools.”
It’s worthy of note that Malala Yousafzai, is a REAL Nobel Prize winner.
As noted in a piece by Shannon Bosch, Associate Professor (Law), Edith Cowan University, in The Conversation:
The principle of distinction requires parties to an armed conflict to always distinguish between civilian objects and military objects.
Attacks may only be directed against combatants and military objects. Civilians and civilian objects, such as schools, hospitals and public transport, are protected and may not be directly targeted.
If there is any doubt about whether a target is military or civilian in nature, it must be presumed to be civilian.
The rules are pretty unambiguous, so this does raise the question of whether this was a war crime, not that such acts of barbarity seem to matter to men like Trump and Netanyahu. They just sent out a boilerplate response:
We are aware of reports concerning civilian harm resulting from ongoing military operations. We take these reports seriously and are looking into them. The protection of civilians is of utmost importance, and we will continue to take all precautions available to minimize the risk of unintended harm.
As ever in war, civilians pay the highest price of all, and I’m afraid nobody can have any faith in statements by aggressors that so commonly have demonstrated a total disregard for human life, and are unashamedly prepared to lie in order to cover up their crimes. What can you expect from a convicted criminal and an indicted war criminal, both of whom are pathological liars?
There is little doubt that these strikes represent an illegal act of aggression against a sovereign nation that presented no imminent threat to American or Israeli forces. This point is reinforced further by claims months ago by Trump that, in a joint operation with Israel, they had obliterated Iran’s nuclear capability. This appears to have been just another lie, in a long line of disinformation and misdirection from the Prime Minister of Israel and his pet President of the United States?
This was a unilateral action taken by a president who failed to seek Congressional approval, with objectives that remain unclear as he oscillates between contradictory justifications. Might I be so bold as to suggest that there is little need for an evaluation of his decision? It’s a simple matter that recent military adventures have merely served to reassert his God complex. He gets a dopamine rush from knowing he holds the power of life and death over anyone he chooses, and if that doesn’t terrify Americans, I don’t know what will.
If you want evidence of his mindset in this moment, you need to look no further than his RECORDED statements posted on social media over the weekend. There is no way he could do these live to camera because his indifference would have shone through even more than in the recordings. I would urge you above all listen to the tone of his voice when it came to announcing the deaths of the then three fallen military personnel who were killed in the opening engagement. He was totally void of emotion, as if he were merely going through the motions. It was almost as if their deaths somehow made him look bad, and he didn’t want to be associated with what he felt was their failure, which made him look bad.
With no sense of regret, he added, “And sadly, there will likely be more. Before it ends, that's the way it is.” A chilling echo of his statement during COVID, when he said to Jonathan Swan from Axios, of the thousands of daily deaths of Americans, ‘It is what it is.” In short, he really doesn’t care as long as the focus remains on him and the news cycle is not dominated by the things he wants nobody to focus on.
Right-wing talking heads, as you would expect, are painting this as an act of liberation and freedom for the Iranian people, while in the same breath, their great leader has presided over the most profound limiting of the rights of the American people. His own Republican guard is roaming the country executing American citizens in broad daylight while terrorising and detaining anyone caught in possession of a brown or black face, while storing the identities of anyone who has the audacity to object or show signs of dissent for later targeting.
He is not liberating the Iranian people; he’s merely providing a permissive environment to incubate another repressive regime. History teaches us that time and again, Middle East military interventions led by the US result in long-term instability, which ultimately leads to a threat to Western interests. I hate to keep banging on about it, but the US has a catastrophic inability to understand culture, which is surprising given that Republicans and MAGA in particular weaponise sectarian politics every day.
Trump’s Secretary of War today simply trotted out a macho manifesto for geopolitical blunt force trauma. In which he stated that the US will answer to nobody regardless of its actions. That there are no rules of engagement in his new dog-eat-world of warfare. No accountability and a license to kill is the new mantra for US military engagement. He should be very careful what he wishes for because he will be the first to play the victim when a suicide bomber blows themself up in a public place.
It’s important to understand Iran in the context of Trump’s words:
America is now, again, the richest, most powerful nation in the world, by far. But the only reason we enjoy the quality of life that we do and the freedom and security as we have done things that others are unable to do. But it's because of warriors who are willing to lay down their lives to do battle with our enemies. And they do battle better than anybody.
An Iranian regime armed with long-range missiles and nuclear weapons would be a dire threat to every American. We cannot allow a nation that raises terrorist armies to possess such weapons -- would allow them to extort the world to their evil will. Not going to let it happen. We're not happening to us, and we're not gonna let it happen to others.
Historically, it’s worth pointing out that democracy in Iran was doing just fine. Under the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, who came to power in April 1951. Iran was a budding democratic, secular, and nationalist government. Mosaddegh was, without question, a much-loved, popular, progressive leader who leaned into social and economic reform. It was this which proved to be politically life-limiting, as he nationalised the Iranian oil industry, sound familiar? His aim was to deliver a more equitable society for the wider benefit of the Iranian people.
Unsurprisingly, this was against Anglo-American interests, given that Britain had controlled Iranian oil for decades through an entity called Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. No surprise, then, at what happened next. The UK and the US got together to sponsor a coup to restore power to Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran. It had nothing to do with the welfare of the Iranian people and everything to do with British and US oil interests. Nothing has changed.
As ever, all the US was interested in was a compliant puppet, and they had no problems with his rampant corruption and disregard for the welfare of the Iranian people. It was this self-serving attitude and corruption that led to the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Imperial greed had led to a geopolitical act of suicide by the Anglo-American partnership. It’s this act of stupidity that led to 45 years of being unable to put the genie back in the bottle and the rise of a terrorist state, a nation in which Islamic fundamentalism replaced a puppet gone rogue.
If you want a more detailed account of events, I would recommend a piece by Lawrence Wu and Michelle Lanz in NPR from February 2019 entitled:
How The CIA Overthrew Iran’s Democracy In 4 Days
It provides a summary overview, but includes some excellent further reading links at the foot of the piece. The takeaway is that it was the US and the British who destroyed democracy in Iran for economic gain. The Iranian people didn’t matter then, any more than they do today.
It is frankly absurd for Trump to state:
I call upon all Iranian patriots who yearn for freedom. to seize this moment, to be brave, be bold, be heroic, and take back your country. America is with you. I made a promise to you, and I fulfilled that promise. The rest will be up to you, but we'll be there to help.
With what dare I ask? We’ve dropped some bombs; now it’s up to you. It's beyond ridiculous but totally predictable. History tells us from Iraq and Afghanistan that even with boots on the ground, the US are incapable of effecting lasting regime change, that’s not hyperbole, it’s just a fact.
As a measure of Trump’s complete disconnection from reality, he believes that this intervention should be modelled on his Venezuela adventure, where the US military went in and threatened a perceived compliant regime with destruction unless they paid Trump billions into a Qatari account for him to pretend to use for the good of the Venezuelan people. It’s about shock and awe, followed by threats, then send in Batman and Robin (Witkoff and Kushner) to set up the self-enrichment operation.
This is the model Trump is keen to use for Iran and future engagements. There’s just one problem: 93.7 million Iranians live in a highly urbanised environment with a median age of around 35. Between 19% and 26% of the population identify as "Principlist" (hard-line Islamist). If you’d like some context, they are the Iranian equivalent of MAGA. The difference being that in the case of Islamist religious zealots, they are cult members for whom death for the Islamic cause is an honour.
You can’t drop a few bombs and expect to tame these zealots by asking them to lay down their arms and sing Kumbaya. They have an intimate understanding of insurgent warfare that they are more than happy to bring to the soil of their enemy, to kill as many of the infidels as possible. It’s these floodgates that Trump has chosen to open despite Iran representing no imminent threat to the US or its interests. To dress his actions up as a philanthropic act of liberation for the Iranian people is a deliberate misrepresentation of the facts. It’s just another treasure hunt for his self-enrichment.
The world is unquestionably a more dangerous place today because of this act of lunacy. Trump doesn’t care, as long as it keeps the spotlight firmly trained on him rather than on the growing problems of a failing economy and its crushing debt.
We should never forget the Republican Majority Congress failed at every level to stop this mad man from day one! This war atrocities cannot be blamed on one man, those who holds power has been looking away and condone this war crimes happen.
From Truth Matters
Americans CAN stop this anytime without being arrested or punished in any way for their actions. STOP SPENDING on all but essential items and shift as much of that essential spending to local businesses. No need to stop eating out, just eat in locally run family eateries (NOT corporate chains). It’s about strategic spending decisions. It’s all about common sense, but if you need more detail, click here for my broader thinking. Given the SCOTUS ruling on tariffs, you now have even more power
There is no case to be made for saying ‘there’s nothing we can do’ It really is very simple, and I would urge you to encourage everyone you know to become part of a sustained act of strategic economic disengagement, because I guarantee just by this most simple of actions, you can unlock the gate on the road back to real American values. A sustained 3-4% drop in consumer spending will occur if Americans have the collective and sustained patriotic determination to say ‘enough is enough’.