This editorial against the US/Israeli War on Iran offers an important broader perspective on the implications of Trump's war aims.
In an editorial from a year ago W-O warned:
“Trump’s “expansionist saber-rattling, attempts at resource grabbing reminiscent of the colonial era, and aggressive protectionism could lead to new wars and possibly another world conflagration. This is more likely in an increasingly unstable world in which ultra-rightist forces have already ascended to power, or are knocking on its doors, in a rising number of ‘first-world,’ or more accurately imperialist, countries.”
Today W-O warns:
“And, just as in Venezuela, U.S. imperialism seeks to gain an advantage vis-à-vis China. Before the U.S. attacks, Beijing was buying more than 80% of the oil shipped from Iran, as well as having been the buyer of more than half of Venezuela’s oil exports. Together, this oil accounts for about 17% of Chinese petroleum imports, a significant share of its total needs….the underlying competition between the United States and China threatens a much broader and more devastating military conflict down the road.”
…..
“Trump and his ilk will never install a government anywhere that represents the interests of the vast majority — working people. Simultaneously with his call on the Iranian people “to seize [their] destiny,” Trump told the New York Times he had “three very good choices” to lead the country for them. Once again, the White House is preparing to call the shots.”
……
“Now is the time to broaden protests that sprang up after the first bombing raids. United front actions — educating and drawing in broad layers of the population — are needed. These can center on the growing demands to immediately end the bombing of Iran.”
“The U.S. military should immediately get out of the Middle East!”
Vicious exploitative economic colonialism overthrown and succeeded by vicious repressive theocracy. It is such a common path - revolution rarely leads to anything good, just more misery from another source.
Even in a democracy we are evidently at the mercy of gangsters and thugs once they get their hands on the levers of power. Humanity? Last on the list of things evolution seems to produce.
Donald Trump is breaking the Law again. Trump is not a KING or a dictator. Trump is a rapist, a convicted criminal on 34 counts, and a Russia Putin lover.
In a shocking discovery that should raise serious concerns across the country, a new report shows that the Trump administration approved a deadly military strike using an airplane that was intentionally made to look like a regular civilian plane — something legal experts say might be a war crime.
According to officials who were told about the operation, the Pentagon used a secret plane that had no military markings to attack a boat suspected of smuggling drugs last September.
This attack killed 11 people. The plane even hid its weapons inside its body, making it look just like a regular passenger plane to anyone on the ground.
Why does that matter?
Because under the rules of war, pretending to be a civilian to attack people is illegal. This is called perfidy — and it is clearly against the law.
Witnesses who saw the surveillance footage say the plane flew so low that the people on the boat could see it.
The boat turned around, probably thinking it was not under any military threat. Moments later, missiles hit. Two survivors later waved at the plane from the wreckage — not knowing it was a military plane — before being killed in another strike.
Retired military lawyers and experts on the laws of war are warning that disguising a military plane as a civilian to gain an advantage is crossing a major legal line.
Even if the plane sent out a military radio signal, the people being attacked had no way to know about it.
This comes as the Trump administration claims it is allowed to kill people suspected of smuggling because Donald Trump declared a so-called “armed conflict” with drug cartels.
Experts disagree, pointing out that suspected criminals are not actual combatants and cannot be killed from the sky.
Even worse, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reportedly ignored military lawyers — the very people who are supposed to stop illegal killings — while approving these attacks.
Since Trump’s orders, U.S. forces have carried out 35 attacks on boats, killing at least 123 people.
Legal experts say many of these deaths might be illegal killings — not acts of war, but crimes.
The Pentagon is not giving much information.
The White House won’t talk about it. And Congress was only told about it in secret, because the plane is still classified.
Pledge your support
But now, the truth is out.
A plane that looked like a civilian.
Secret missiles. Survivors were killed while waving for help.
This isn’t about law and order.
It’s a terrible abuse of power — and it needs to be held accountable.
We kill our protesters but say we want to defend Iranian protesters. Reminds me of Reagan breaking up the air traffic controllers union while supporting Solidarity unions in Poland.
How many of those killed were killed by rioters? How many rioters were not driven by legitimate grievances (of which there are many) but by the command or pay of insidious actors like the Moosad or CIA? It seems, at least for now, that order has been restored to Iran and that the riots are over. What do you think of the hundreds of thousands, by some counts millions, of the Iranians who came out today across the country in support of the current political system?
The empire can't/won't even provide human rights for its own people, so expecting it to bother at all with respecting human rights of outsiders is extremely naive.
The demented warmongering is so anxious to bomb everyone & anyone. He'd better be careful that someone does not bomb us. Leave Iran the hell alone! I think Iranians know what they are fighting - oh, and since when did Mr Demento care about Iranians?
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Send an email to your senators demanding they restore healthcare subsidies NOW. Last week, the House voted to restore the Affordable Care Act subsidies that Trump made lapse last year, leading to skyrocketing healthcare premiums for millions of Americans. Now the Senate must do the same.
Keep demanding your senators vote to stop Trump’s war on Venezuela. Last week, the Senate advanced a War Powers Resolution to pump the brakes on Trump’s war with Venezuela. Soon that resolution will come up for a final vote in the Senate. Let’s make sure it passes.
Next, send an email to all your Members of Congress demanding action to stop Trump’s war of aggression. We have to make sure our opposition to Trump's global gangsterism is loud, constant, and everywhere. After placing calls to your senators, please also use our tools to send emails to all of your Members of Congress, in the Senate and in the House (where they'll have another War Powers vote soon).
What this gets right is the refusal to fall for the oldest scam in geopolitics: pretending that bombs are a form of concern.
You can condemn repression in Iran without pretending that the same powers who broke the region, sanctioned civilians into poverty, and shrugged at genocide suddenly discovered a conscience. Justice isn’t loud, cinematic, or delivered by airstrike. It’s boring, legal, persistent, and centered on the people who actually live there.
Anyone beating the war drum while claiming moral urgency is telling on themselves.
thank you for writing this. It's important that reasonable voices come out, not only against what the brutal regime is doing to the Iranian People, but what Trump/Netanyahu and the rest of the cronies, plan on doing to Iran and the rest of the world.
The stock market plunged on Monday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling 400 points at the opening bell, as economists and investors alike fear that the Federal Reserve Bank's independence is in doubt.
The stock market slide came the day after Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome Powell issued a rare and forceful video statement accusing Trump of opening a criminal investigation into him in order to pressure Powell into lowering interest rates.
"This new threat is not about my testimony last June or about the renovation of the Federal Reserve buildings. It is not about Congress's oversight role; the Fed through testimony and other public disclosures made every effort to keep Congress informed about the renovation project. Those are pretexts. The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the President," Powell said. "This is about whether the Fed will be able to continue to set interest rates based on evidence and economic conditions—or whether instead monetary policy will be directed by political pressure or intimidation."
President Donald Trump has publicly chastised Powell numerous times for not lowering interest rates, a move that would make borrowing money for Americans cheaper but likely would spike inflation even further.
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Trump has even threatened Powell with removal, though he backed off those threats after U.S. markets revolted.
Now, however, he is trying to coerce Powell to step down by opening a criminal investigation into Powell's congressional testimony about renovations to the Fed's buildings. Powell leaving early would allow Trump to install his own chair, whom he would be able to direct to bend to his will on monetary policy.
But the threats have clearly not worked on Powell, who instead of acquiescing to Trump's demands instead forcefully criticized the president.
And even typically sycophantic GOP senators are revolting against Trump's attempt to use lawfare to force Powell out.
Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) said that while he thinks Powell is a bad Federal Reserve chair, he is not a criminal. “I hope this criminal investigation can be put to rest quickly along with the remainder of Jerome Powell’s term,” Cramer said in a statement. “We need to restore confidence in the Fed.”
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) went a step further, saying he would put a hold on any future Federal Reserve nominees until the investigation ceases.
“If there were any remaining doubt whether advisers within the Trump Administration are actively pushing to end the independence of the Federal Reserve, there should now be none. It is now the independence and credibility of the Department of Justice that are in question,” Tillis said in a statement. “I will oppose the confirmation of any nominee for the Fed—including the upcoming Fed Chair vacancy—until this legal matter is fully resolved,” he added.
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Economists and investors fear a politicized Federal Reserve because chaotic monetary policy would hurt the economy and leave investors weary about putting their money into U.S. assets, which according to the Council on Foreign Relations would “cause long-term economic harm."
CFR also said that, "independence enhances the Fed’s credibility and fosters market confidence in its decisions. Crucially, it also empowers the Federal Reserve to take difficult but necessary actions, even when they are unpopular."
Indeed, countries with despotic leaders do not have independent banks like the Federal Reserve, which has caused their countries economic harm.
“Some countries that have prosecuted or threatened to prosecute central bankers for the purpose of political intimidation or punishment for monetary policy decisions: Argentina, Russia, Turkey, Venezuela and Zimbabwe,” Harvard economic professor Jason Furman wrote in a post on X. None of those countries have sound economies, and are not a list of nations the United States should want to be associated with.
Justin Wolfers, an economics professor at the University of Michigan, used Turkey as an example of what can happen if a despotic leader influences monetary policy. Wolfers posted a chart on X that showed after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan took control of his country’s central bank, inflation spiked massively, peaking at a stomach churning 86% before falling to 38% currently.
Sounds like something voters, who are desperate to see inflation cool, would be super jazzed about.
Very weird how now to get to this article from the link in the email (read in app); you only get to the substack OPEN page even after updating the app. I only get to the article directly by going back to the email and hitting comments!!! Grrr
Anyway; thank you for this. I got to know Iranians in college back during the days when the Shah was in charge. Did not know what I know now about the government. But the students were remarkable people!!
Thank you both for reminding us of exactly how the collective ‘we’ got here. Unfortunately, current US and international markets are so reliant on the war machine that I fear that those of us who have any interest in the stock market (whether through pension, stocks, bonds, etc) are addicted to looking the other way, rather than divesting our hard earned dollars from the war machine and the fossil fuels that it gobbles up. So, in that sense we (or at least too many Americans) are complicit in these crazy never ending conflicts and wars. Frankly, I don’t know how those who haven’t reinvested yet can sleep at night.
Would not surprise me. Given what the Israeli government did with pagers to bomb innocent people in Lebanon, it would not surprise me they're also in Iran. It's condemnable but tracks for the Israeli government who is still committing genocide in Palestine.
End the Bombing of Iran; No Blood for Oil!
https://world-outlook.com/2026/03/07/end-the-bombing-of-iran-no-blood-for-oil/
This editorial against the US/Israeli War on Iran offers an important broader perspective on the implications of Trump's war aims.
In an editorial from a year ago W-O warned:
“Trump’s “expansionist saber-rattling, attempts at resource grabbing reminiscent of the colonial era, and aggressive protectionism could lead to new wars and possibly another world conflagration. This is more likely in an increasingly unstable world in which ultra-rightist forces have already ascended to power, or are knocking on its doors, in a rising number of ‘first-world,’ or more accurately imperialist, countries.”
Today W-O warns:
“And, just as in Venezuela, U.S. imperialism seeks to gain an advantage vis-à-vis China. Before the U.S. attacks, Beijing was buying more than 80% of the oil shipped from Iran, as well as having been the buyer of more than half of Venezuela’s oil exports. Together, this oil accounts for about 17% of Chinese petroleum imports, a significant share of its total needs….the underlying competition between the United States and China threatens a much broader and more devastating military conflict down the road.”
…..
“Trump and his ilk will never install a government anywhere that represents the interests of the vast majority — working people. Simultaneously with his call on the Iranian people “to seize [their] destiny,” Trump told the New York Times he had “three very good choices” to lead the country for them. Once again, the White House is preparing to call the shots.”
……
“Now is the time to broaden protests that sprang up after the first bombing raids. United front actions — educating and drawing in broad layers of the population — are needed. These can center on the growing demands to immediately end the bombing of Iran.”
“The U.S. military should immediately get out of the Middle East!”
https://captainfransentim.substack.com/p/between-diplomacy-and-war-why-defensive?r=5jmmex&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Vicious exploitative economic colonialism overthrown and succeeded by vicious repressive theocracy. It is such a common path - revolution rarely leads to anything good, just more misery from another source.
Even in a democracy we are evidently at the mercy of gangsters and thugs once they get their hands on the levers of power. Humanity? Last on the list of things evolution seems to produce.
Donald Trump is breaking the Law again. Trump is not a KING or a dictator. Trump is a rapist, a convicted criminal on 34 counts, and a Russia Putin lover.
In a shocking discovery that should raise serious concerns across the country, a new report shows that the Trump administration approved a deadly military strike using an airplane that was intentionally made to look like a regular civilian plane — something legal experts say might be a war crime.
According to officials who were told about the operation, the Pentagon used a secret plane that had no military markings to attack a boat suspected of smuggling drugs last September.
This attack killed 11 people. The plane even hid its weapons inside its body, making it look just like a regular passenger plane to anyone on the ground.
Why does that matter?
Because under the rules of war, pretending to be a civilian to attack people is illegal. This is called perfidy — and it is clearly against the law.
Witnesses who saw the surveillance footage say the plane flew so low that the people on the boat could see it.
The boat turned around, probably thinking it was not under any military threat. Moments later, missiles hit. Two survivors later waved at the plane from the wreckage — not knowing it was a military plane — before being killed in another strike.
Retired military lawyers and experts on the laws of war are warning that disguising a military plane as a civilian to gain an advantage is crossing a major legal line.
Even if the plane sent out a military radio signal, the people being attacked had no way to know about it.
This comes as the Trump administration claims it is allowed to kill people suspected of smuggling because Donald Trump declared a so-called “armed conflict” with drug cartels.
Experts disagree, pointing out that suspected criminals are not actual combatants and cannot be killed from the sky.
Even worse, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reportedly ignored military lawyers — the very people who are supposed to stop illegal killings — while approving these attacks.
Since Trump’s orders, U.S. forces have carried out 35 attacks on boats, killing at least 123 people.
Legal experts say many of these deaths might be illegal killings — not acts of war, but crimes.
The Pentagon is not giving much information.
The White House won’t talk about it. And Congress was only told about it in secret, because the plane is still classified.
Pledge your support
But now, the truth is out.
A plane that looked like a civilian.
Secret missiles. Survivors were killed while waving for help.
This isn’t about law and order.
It’s a terrible abuse of power — and it needs to be held accountable.
We kill our protesters but say we want to defend Iranian protesters. Reminds me of Reagan breaking up the air traffic controllers union while supporting Solidarity unions in Poland.
How many of those killed were killed by rioters? How many rioters were not driven by legitimate grievances (of which there are many) but by the command or pay of insidious actors like the Moosad or CIA? It seems, at least for now, that order has been restored to Iran and that the riots are over. What do you think of the hundreds of thousands, by some counts millions, of the Iranians who came out today across the country in support of the current political system?
The empire can't/won't even provide human rights for its own people, so expecting it to bother at all with respecting human rights of outsiders is extremely naive.
The demented warmongering is so anxious to bomb everyone & anyone. He'd better be careful that someone does not bomb us. Leave Iran the hell alone! I think Iranians know what they are fighting - oh, and since when did Mr Demento care about Iranians?
Your weekly to-dos
Tell your Senators: Rein in ICE NOW. The coalition behind ICE Out For Good is following our historic weekend of action by flooding Congress with calls demanding that they use the upcoming Homeland Security funding bill to rein in ICE. After calling your senators, use this link to call your representative.
Send an email to your senators demanding they restore healthcare subsidies NOW. Last week, the House voted to restore the Affordable Care Act subsidies that Trump made lapse last year, leading to skyrocketing healthcare premiums for millions of Americans. Now the Senate must do the same.
Keep demanding your senators vote to stop Trump’s war on Venezuela. Last week, the Senate advanced a War Powers Resolution to pump the brakes on Trump’s war with Venezuela. Soon that resolution will come up for a final vote in the Senate. Let’s make sure it passes.
Next, send an email to all your Members of Congress demanding action to stop Trump’s war of aggression. We have to make sure our opposition to Trump's global gangsterism is loud, constant, and everywhere. After placing calls to your senators, please also use our tools to send emails to all of your Members of Congress, in the Senate and in the House (where they'll have another War Powers vote soon).
What this gets right is the refusal to fall for the oldest scam in geopolitics: pretending that bombs are a form of concern.
You can condemn repression in Iran without pretending that the same powers who broke the region, sanctioned civilians into poverty, and shrugged at genocide suddenly discovered a conscience. Justice isn’t loud, cinematic, or delivered by airstrike. It’s boring, legal, persistent, and centered on the people who actually live there.
Anyone beating the war drum while claiming moral urgency is telling on themselves.
thank you for writing this. It's important that reasonable voices come out, not only against what the brutal regime is doing to the Iranian People, but what Trump/Netanyahu and the rest of the cronies, plan on doing to Iran and the rest of the world.
Trump is killing the world, and also the USA;
Trump's pettiness is now tanking the US economy
The stock market plunged on Monday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling 400 points at the opening bell, as economists and investors alike fear that the Federal Reserve Bank's independence is in doubt.
The stock market slide came the day after Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome Powell issued a rare and forceful video statement accusing Trump of opening a criminal investigation into him in order to pressure Powell into lowering interest rates.
"This new threat is not about my testimony last June or about the renovation of the Federal Reserve buildings. It is not about Congress's oversight role; the Fed through testimony and other public disclosures made every effort to keep Congress informed about the renovation project. Those are pretexts. The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the President," Powell said. "This is about whether the Fed will be able to continue to set interest rates based on evidence and economic conditions—or whether instead monetary policy will be directed by political pressure or intimidation."
President Donald Trump has publicly chastised Powell numerous times for not lowering interest rates, a move that would make borrowing money for Americans cheaper but likely would spike inflation even further.
No sugar-coating it: Daily Kos needs your help. Can you chip in $5 today?
Donate $5
Trump has even threatened Powell with removal, though he backed off those threats after U.S. markets revolted.
Now, however, he is trying to coerce Powell to step down by opening a criminal investigation into Powell's congressional testimony about renovations to the Fed's buildings. Powell leaving early would allow Trump to install his own chair, whom he would be able to direct to bend to his will on monetary policy.
But the threats have clearly not worked on Powell, who instead of acquiescing to Trump's demands instead forcefully criticized the president.
And even typically sycophantic GOP senators are revolting against Trump's attempt to use lawfare to force Powell out.
Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) said that while he thinks Powell is a bad Federal Reserve chair, he is not a criminal. “I hope this criminal investigation can be put to rest quickly along with the remainder of Jerome Powell’s term,” Cramer said in a statement. “We need to restore confidence in the Fed.”
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) went a step further, saying he would put a hold on any future Federal Reserve nominees until the investigation ceases.
“If there were any remaining doubt whether advisers within the Trump Administration are actively pushing to end the independence of the Federal Reserve, there should now be none. It is now the independence and credibility of the Department of Justice that are in question,” Tillis said in a statement. “I will oppose the confirmation of any nominee for the Fed—including the upcoming Fed Chair vacancy—until this legal matter is fully resolved,” he added.
No billionaire backers, no paywalls. Daily Kos news exists because of YOU, our small-donor community. Now, we need your help. Please donate today.
Click here to donate
Economists and investors fear a politicized Federal Reserve because chaotic monetary policy would hurt the economy and leave investors weary about putting their money into U.S. assets, which according to the Council on Foreign Relations would “cause long-term economic harm."
CFR also said that, "independence enhances the Fed’s credibility and fosters market confidence in its decisions. Crucially, it also empowers the Federal Reserve to take difficult but necessary actions, even when they are unpopular."
Indeed, countries with despotic leaders do not have independent banks like the Federal Reserve, which has caused their countries economic harm.
“Some countries that have prosecuted or threatened to prosecute central bankers for the purpose of political intimidation or punishment for monetary policy decisions: Argentina, Russia, Turkey, Venezuela and Zimbabwe,” Harvard economic professor Jason Furman wrote in a post on X. None of those countries have sound economies, and are not a list of nations the United States should want to be associated with.
Justin Wolfers, an economics professor at the University of Michigan, used Turkey as an example of what can happen if a despotic leader influences monetary policy. Wolfers posted a chart on X that showed after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan took control of his country’s central bank, inflation spiked massively, peaking at a stomach churning 86% before falling to 38% currently.
Sounds like something voters, who are desperate to see inflation cool, would be super jazzed about.
And those bombs trump is so anxious to drop will only more innocent men women and children
Benefitting only colonialism and the arms trade.
Very weird how now to get to this article from the link in the email (read in app); you only get to the substack OPEN page even after updating the app. I only get to the article directly by going back to the email and hitting comments!!! Grrr
Anyway; thank you for this. I got to know Iranians in college back during the days when the Shah was in charge. Did not know what I know now about the government. But the students were remarkable people!!
Wow that's odd. Thanks for sharing.
And thanks for reading. I'm hopeful it's clarifying a lot of the misinformation out there.
It’s for ALL the substack accounts for which I receive emails
Thank you both for reminding us of exactly how the collective ‘we’ got here. Unfortunately, current US and international markets are so reliant on the war machine that I fear that those of us who have any interest in the stock market (whether through pension, stocks, bonds, etc) are addicted to looking the other way, rather than divesting our hard earned dollars from the war machine and the fossil fuels that it gobbles up. So, in that sense we (or at least too many Americans) are complicit in these crazy never ending conflicts and wars. Frankly, I don’t know how those who haven’t reinvested yet can sleep at night.
There are many reports of Mossad agents in Iran: instigating and fueling the riots. What do you say the that, Qasim?
Would not surprise me. Given what the Israeli government did with pagers to bomb innocent people in Lebanon, it would not surprise me they're also in Iran. It's condemnable but tracks for the Israeli government who is still committing genocide in Palestine.