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" To wage a war for a purely moral reason is as absurd as to ravish a woman for a purely moral reason."

-- H. L. Mencken

News and Opinion

Fuck Everyone Who Made This War Possible

The US and Israel have launched their long-planned attack on Iran. President Trump said in a speech that the US military is engaged in “major combat operations” intended to cripple Iran’s military and topple the Iranian government. Iran has reportedly been retaliating with missile strikes on Israel and US military bases in the region.

This is going to get ugly, folks.

President Donald J. Trump on the United States military combat operations in Iran: pic.twitter.com/LimJmpLkgZ

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) February 28, 2026

I don’t even know what to write about this one, honestly.

What am I supposed to say? “Hey everybody, they’re lying to us about this war”? Everyone already knows that. Even the people who support this war know all the justifications for it are lies.

They know Iran isn’t building nukes.

They know Iran poses no threat to the United States.

They know all that bullshit about Iran cutting out women’s wombs and murdering tens of thousands of protesters was evidence-free atrocity propaganda.

Nobody needs me to tell them these things. Nobody needs me to tell them that this war is going to kill a whole lot of innocent people and inflict unfathomable amounts of suffering upon our species, both directly during these attacks and indirectly in the chaos and instability ensuing thereafter. Everyone already knows this.

Everyone already knows this, and it’s happening anyway. They’re just doing whatever evil things they want to do, without the slightest regard for public opinion or consent.

Explosions reported in Bahrain, Abu Dhabi and Qatar, which all host US military assets.

The Iranians are retaliating.

The U.S. has just ignited a totally unecessary regional war.

— Rania Khalek (@RaniaKhalek) February 28, 2026

They’re just going right ahead with a military operation to topple Tehran, after decades of inertia for fear of the horrific consequences it would unleash.

They’re just choking off Cuba using siege warfare, which previous presidents refused to do because it would be a monstrous act of war.

They just kidnapped the president of a sovereign nation, which previous administrations had refused to do because it’s plainly against international law.

They just helped Israel turn Gaza into a gravel parking lot and are now building a giant dystopian tech surveillance encampment to imprison the survivors.

They just designated an American company a “supply chain risk to national security” for the first time ever because the AI firm Anthropic refused to let the Pentagon use its technology to operate autonomous killing machines and surveil American citizens — an open admission that the Pentagon plans on using AI to run autonomous killing machines and surveil American citizens.

One of the most shamelessly fraudulent presidential campaigns in American history: https://t.co/yksugk3s6d

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) February 28, 2026

There’s an old Frank Zappa quote that’s been popping into my head more and more lately:

“The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it’s profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.”

We’re seeing a lot more bricks these days.

That’s all I can think to say about all this.

Fuck the USA.

Fuck Israel.

Fuck Trump.

Fuck Netanyahu.

Fuck Zionism.

Fuck Trump supporters.

Fuck the Republican Party.

Fuck the Democratic Party.

Fuck war.

Fuck everyone who helped make this war possible.

Fuck the western press.

Fuck warmongering think tanks.

Fuck the Israel lobby.

Fuck the military-industrial complex.

Fuck the western intelligence cartel.

Fuck the western empire.

I hate everyone who inflicted this nightmare upon my species. If you stand by this senseless US-Israeli act of depravity, then I consider you an enemy. And I will never stop reminding everyone of the psychotic agenda you supported.

You own this. This is on you. It’s on you forever.

Daniel Davis: U.S. Miscalculation - War Not Going as Planned

Trump promised no wars. Now he’s a Bush-style regime change president

It turns out that Donald Trump, the self-proclaimed “candidate of peace”, is just as eager to start new wars. Throughout the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump pitched himself as the antithesis of his Democratic opponents Joe Biden, and later, Kamala Harris. Trump insisted he would use his deal-making skills to end multiple global conflicts that started under the Biden administration, including Israel’s war on Gaza and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In his election night victory speech in November 2024, Trump told his supporters: “I’m not going to start a war. I’m going to stop wars.” Two months later, in his inaugural address, he went even further in trying to establish himself as a global peacemaker. “We will measure our success not only by the battles we win but also by the wars that we end – and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into,” he said. ...

And yet in his first year back in office, Trump bombed seven countries: Yemen, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia and Venezuela. Early on Saturday, Trump launched his most extensive, and dangerous, military campaign so far: a war against Iran, which could spiral into a regional conflagration, especially as the Iranian regime sees this joint US-Israeli attack as a fight for its survival. ...

Over the past six weeks, as Trump ordered the largest US military build-up in the Middle East since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, he made virtually no effort to explain to the American people or to Congress whether Iran poses a threat to US interests that would justify the risks of an open-ended war. Trump also largely ignored recent opinion polls which found that 70% of Americans oppose military action in Iran, including segments of his own Maga movement, who latched onto his repeated promises to end America’s legacy of forever wars. ...

US intelligence officials say Iran has not tried to rebuild its main nuclear sites since the US attack in June, and many experts argue Tehran would have had significant difficulty accessing its stockpiles of enriched uranium, which were buried deep under rubble after the US airstrikes. The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, has also said his agency found no evidence that Iran resumed enriching uranium since June. ...

It’s hard not to see parallels between Trump’s deceitful case for waging war against Iran, and the lies and manipulated intelligence that George W Bush used to drag the US into invading Iraq in 2003. ... Every major assumption made by the architects of the Iraq war proved wrong. It triggered a decades-long conflict that shattered Iraqi society, reshaped the Middle East, and cost the US massive blood and treasure. ... Donald Trump spent years ranting against the regime change wars started by his predecessors – and the damage they inflicted on Americans. On Saturday, he launched his own war in the Middle East, with little hint of how it might end.

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs : Did Trump Just Start WWIII ?

Trump open to talks with Iran as conflict deepens in Middle East

Donald Trump said on Sunday he was prepared to talk to what was left of the Iranian leadership in the wake of the killing of the country’s supreme leader by US-Israeli air strikes aimed at overthrowing the regime. Trump was speaking as a second day of intense bombing of Iranian cities and Tehran’s missile counter-attacks sent tremors across the region and through the global economy.

Oil prices jumped 10% to $80 a barrel for Brent crude, amid predictions that the continuing war could soon drive it to $100, after attacks on two ships largely choked off tanker traffic through the strait of Hormuz out of the Gulf.

Amir-Saeid Iravani, the Iranian ambassador to the UN, told an emergency security council meeting on Saturday that hundreds of civilians had been killed or injured in the US-Israeli strikes. He said they had deliberately targeted civilian neighbourhoods in multiple cities. The death toll is expected to climb after a second day of bombing. Iranian state media said that 165 people had been confirmed dead in a bomb attack on a girls’ primary school in the southern city of Minab on Saturday.

Among the dead was the country’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, who had ruled since 1989 and was the primary target of an initial Israeli strike on Saturday morning. According to several US reports, the CIA had been tracking Khamenei for months. The New York Times reported the CIA tipped off Israel when the leader convened a meeting of top defence aides at his compound in Tehran, triggering a decision to strike.

Nine Israelis have so far died in Iranian missile counter-strikes, and US forces confirmed their first casualties of the war: three dead and five injured by shrapnel. The official announcement did not give details on where and how the casualties occurred. Iran has also targeted Gulf countries that host US military bases. Airports in Kuwait, Abu Dhabi and Dubai were damaged by missiles and remained shut on Sunday, causing one of global aviation’s most severe disruptions in years.

Larry Johnson : The Dangerous Fallout of Khamenei’s murder

US military says three of its service members killed in Iran operation

Three US service members have been killed in action as part of US military operations against Iran, the US Central Command said in a statement on Sunday. These are the first confirmed deaths since the US began launching strikes against Iran on Saturday. Five additional personnel have been reported seriously wounded as part of Operation Epic Fury, the US military said. Authorities have not yet publicly identified the three soldiers who were killed.

Following the attack on Iran, anti-war demonstrations took place across the US, including gatherings outside the White House and in New York’s Times Square, where protesters expressed opposition to American military involvement in the region.

Protest organizers released a statement saying: “Trump’s unprovoked, illegal attack on Iran is an act of war that threatens to cause unthinkable death and destruction. But the people of this country reject another endless war and will take to the streets now and make our voices heard.”

John Kiriakou : Iranian Retaliation Strikes the CIA

Trump allies defend US-Israel strikes on Iran as Democrats call it a ‘war of choice’

Donald Trump administration allies reinforced on Sunday the administration’s messaging on the Israel-US strikes on Iran, while Democrats decried it as a “war of choice” that required congressional approval.

On Sunday talk shows, Arkansas senator Tom Cotton, who serves on the Armed Services Committee, South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham and Texas senator Ted Cruz defended the strikes, while Virginia senator Mark Warner, vice-chairman of the Committee on Intelligence, and other Democrats welcomed the elimination of the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei but said the administration must now answer vital questions.

“I’m not going to shed any tears over the death of the Iranian leadership,” Warner told CNN’s State of the Union. “The question is why now? Why not make the case to the American public?” Warner said Trump had started “a war of choice”.

“There was no imminent threat to the United States,” he said. “It’s incumbent that the president comes before the American people and Congress to make the case on why he’s chosen to go to war.”

Warner has warned that the strikes risk pulling the US into another broad conflict in the Middle East. On Sunday, he went further, pointing to a lack of US intelligence visibility into the Iranian resistance to its theocratic leadership or who may replace Khamenei. “Will the president’s supporters still say this is a great move if the person who replaces the supreme leader is even further to the right and actually rushes forward on their nuclear program,” Warner said, pointing out that Khamenei maintained Iran’s nuclear enrichment program but did not approve moving to full weaponization.

The International Debate Society takes on the big issues of the day.

UN Security Council Debates Iran Attack

US military reportedly used Claude in Iran strikes despite Trump’s ban

The US military reportedly used Claude, Anthropic’s AI model, to inform its attack on Iran despite Donald Trump’s decision, announced hours earlier, to sever all ties with the company and its artificial intelligence tools.

The use of Claude during the massive joint US-Israel bombardment of Iran that began on Saturday was reported by the Wall Street Journal and Axios. It underlines the complexity of the US military withdrawing powerful AI tools from its missions when the technology is already intricately embedded in operations. According to the Journal, US military command used the tools for intelligence purposes, as well as to help select targets and carry out battlefield simulations.

On Friday, just hours before the Iran attack began, Trump ordered all federal agencies to stop using Claude immediately. He denounced Anthropic on Truth Social as a “Radical Left AI company run by people who have no idea what the real World is all about”.

The flaming row was triggered by the use of Claude by the US military in its raid to capture the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, in January. Anthropic objected, pointing to its terms of use which do not allow Claude to be applied for violent ends, to develop weapons, or for surveillance.

Since then relations between Trump, the Pentagon and the AI company have steadily worsened. In a lengthy post on X on Friday, the defense secretary Pete Hegseth accused Anthropic of “arrogance and betrayal”, adding that “America’s warfighters will never be held hostage by the ideological whims of Big Tech”. Hegseth demanded full and unrestricted access to all Anthropic’s AI models for every lawful purpose.

Alastair Crooke : Trump's Dangerous War of Choice

Before Khamenei Killing, CIA Assessed He Would Likely Be Replaced by More Hardline Elements of the IRGC

Before the US and Israel launched a war against Iran on Saturday morning and killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the CIA assessed that if the Iranian leader were killed, his rule would likely be replaced by “hardline” figures from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Reuters has reported. The report said that the assessment was produced over the past two weeks as the US was building up its forces in the region and preparing to launch the war.

During previous confrontations with the US, including the 12-Day War in June 2025 and when President Trump assassinated Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the head of the IRGC’s Quds Force, Iran’s response to the US attacks was minimal and more symbolic, as it provided notice ahead of time. But now, Iran has targeted multiple US bases, and there’s no sign Tehran is interested in de-escalation.

According to an unconfirmed report from Israel’s Ynet, after killing Khamenei, President Trump sought a ceasefire, but the idea was rejected by Iran.

Douglas Macgregor: A New World Emerges: Iran Will Win & Israel May Not Survive

Trump Expects His Iran War To Last ‘Four Weeks or So’

President Trump said in an interview with the Daily Mail on Sunday that he expects his new war with Iran to last “four weeks or so” as US and Israeli strikes continue to pound Iran and Iranian missiles and drones continue to make an impact in Israel and target US bases in the region.

“It’s always been a four-week process. We figured it will be four weeks or so. It’s always been about a four-week process, so – as strong as it is, it’s a big country, it’ll take four weeks – or less,” the president said.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the US is racing to deplete Iran’s ability to fire missiles and drones before its stockpiles of interceptors run out. The US military used an enormous number of THAAD, Patriot, and SM-3 interceptors defending Israel and its base in Qatar during the 12-Day War, and is now using many more in the current war.

So far, the president has not delivered a lengthy address to the American people about the war and hasn’t held a press briefing. Senior Trump administration officials were also notably absent from Sunday news shows, as they are likely afraid to answer questions about the rationale for starting the war since they have made blatantly false or unproven claims to justify the attack.

Oil prices rise as Iran war threatens shipping through strait of Hormuz

Oil prices rose and stock markets came under pressure on Monday after intense US-Israeli strikes on Iran prompted fears of significant global economic disruption. Brent crude jumped by as much as 13% during early trading – to hit $82 per barrel, a 14-month high – as the effective closure of the strait of Hormuz, one of the most important arteries for global trade, intensified concerns over oil supplies.

In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 fell by nearly 2.4% as traders in Asia responded to the weekend’s developments. It later pulled back, to trade down 1.5%. Pre-market trading also put Wall Street on course to open lower on Monday. In Sydney the ASX 200 opened down sharply, before recovering, to trade about 0.4% lower. In Shanghai the CSI 300 fell 0.6%

Gold, often deemed a safe-haven asset by investors during times of crisis, rose 2.8% to $5,397.10 per ounce.

Did Iran Shoot Down Three U.S. Warplanes Over Kuwait?

How Will Trump’s Illegal, Unprovoked War on Iran End?

Now that President Trump has launched an illegal, unprovoked war of choice on Iran, the next question inevitably becomes: how does this end? Or, what are some off-ramps Trump can take to end it before the situation turns out of control?

There are three broad scenarios; the first and most likely is that Trump continues this until he gets some sort of regime implosion and then declares victory, while also washing his hands of whatever follows.

This has been very clear in internal conversations: no one wants to take responsibility for the aftermath. This is essentially the difference between regime change and regime collapse.

That’s why they didn’t want to do an Iraq War-style regime change where you are actively trying to install a new government. If you do that, its track record becomes your track record.

Indeed, if the US manages to kill a lot of the different leaders of the current system, there could be some sort of an implosion. Trump could declare victory even though you would likely have in that case severe instability, or potentially civil war.

Another scenario is that the Iranians continue to strike back and outlast Trump. The Iranian onslaught would start to become too costly for the United States with casualty rates increasing (possibly even on the American side), inflation worsens, and global markets become destabilized.

And then the pressure on Trump internationally, from the American public, and from his own base would start to become so strong that he would have to look for an exit.

At that point, he may actually take the deal that was on the table: a deal that is better than what Barack Obama managed to secure, and that Trump nevertheless rejected. He may take that and suddenly declare it a victory, saying: “Thanks to my bombing campaign, we achieved this.”

There is also a third scenario, that is the least likely, in which after a couple of rounds of attacks, both sides may feel they can go back to the negotiating table.

They might even go back to the same agreement that was on the table during the most recent talks. And both sides could frame that as a win. Trump can claim he bombed Iran and was very successful. The Iranians can claim they struck back and were very successful. And then they come to some sort of agreement.

However that would be difficult because there’s now absolutely no trust between the US and Iran.

But even if they did come to some form of agreement, it would be extremely difficult to implement, it would likely not endure, and it wouldn’t be anything more than essentially a ceasefire with a pretense of having a deal beyond that.

Meanwhile, Israel’s interest is in pushing the narrative that the negotiations were a ruse from the outset, and that this attack was already planned — because that narrative destroys America’s credibility as a diplomatic force, as a negotiator.

And the more you push the narrative that diplomacy was a lie from the outset, the more easily you can avoid any future negotiations.

I’m not convinced it really was a ruse from the beginning. There were elements in the US government who were sincere about the diplomatic path, but ultimately Trump fell for the type of pressure that he has proven himself to be far too susceptible to.

None of that makes what happened forgivable. It doesn’t make it legal. It doesn’t make it strategic. But we do have to recognize this: nothing would serve Israeli interests more than to completely destroy America’s credibility as a negotiating partner.

US moving pregnant immigrant girls to Texas to avoid providing abortions

All unaccompanied immigrant children who are pregnant, many by rape, are being moved to a single facility in Texas in order to avoid providing abortion services in a significant human rights violation, critics say. As detainees are frequently moved across state lines quickly, often to red states like Texas, pregnant people are facing challenges accessing reproductive health care in detention centers.

Unaccompanied minors who lack immigration documentation are at high risk for trafficking and other forms of harm, so they fall under the care of the office of refugee resettlement (ORR), which previously had facilities across the country capable of caring for children under the age of 18 who are pregnant.

Since July, more than a dozen pregnant children have been moved to a single facility in the small town of San Benito, along the south Texas border. The children kept in Texas are as young as 13, and about half are pregnant because of rape, according to a joint investigation by the Texas Newsroom and the California Newsroom. In Texas, abortion is banned in nearly all circumstances, including rape and incest.

“It’s a choice to ensure zero abortions,” said Jonathan White, a former top official working with children’s programs in the ORR under the Obama and Trump administrations. When a pregnant child is moved to Texas, “as long as she is in Texas, she can’t access an abortion – without a federal official needing to deny her an abortion”, he said.

The move amplifies existing concerns about reproductive healthcare in immigration detention centers, including allegations over the lack of appropriate healthcare for pregnant people, separation of nursing parents and infants, and forced sterilization in immigration facilities.

Trump officials move to kill system that protects US from chemical disasters

The Trump administration is slowly dismantling the federal disaster management system that protects the nation from chemical catastrophes, such as fires and explosions at high-risk facilities. The US Environmental Protection Agency’s Response Management Program (RMP) requires more than 12,500 high-risk facilities to develop protocols to prevent catastrophes, or limit fallout, and was largely designed to protect workers, first responders, and fence-line communities.

In 2024, the Biden administration finalized a rule 12 years in the making that meaningfully strengthened protections. However, industry in early 2025 asked the incoming Donald Trump EPA to undo it because, chemical companies claim, its provisions are too expensive to implement.

The Trump EPA is now moving to kill most of the 2024 rules after it eliminated a public website that informs communities and first responders which chemicals are in use at facilities. The White House has also targeted the Chemical Safety Board, which reviews accidents and develops actions to avoid a repeat.

The US experienced a chemical accident that harmed humans or the environment every other day on average between 2004-2025. Among recent high-profile incidents are a Clairton, Pennsylvania steel plant explosion that injured 10, and a Roseland, Louisiana oil facility explosion that caused oil to splatter onto homes as far as 20 miles away.

The Trump EPA is stacked with former industry lobbyists, and its attempt to dismantle the RMP is a case study in the administration “putting industry profits ahead of public safety”, said Marc Boom, a former EPA policy advisor and senior director with the Environmental Protection Network. “These standards exist because catastrophic explosions and toxic releases are not theoretical risks – they are real events that devastate communities,” Boom said. About 180 million people live within several miles of a plant covered by the rules, and dozens have been killed in recent years.

Winter getting shorter in 80% of major US cities

For the millions of people across the United States who have spent the last month digging themselves out of above-average levels of snow and ice, this winter has felt especially long and harsh. But the typical winter is actually getting shorter in 80% of major US cities scrutinized by researchers, according to new data released by Climate Central, an independent climate science and communication group.

Researchers found that across 195 US cities, winters are on average nine days shorter today than they were from 1970 to 1997, as the climate crisis progresses. For the purposes of the study, analysts defined winter as the coldest 90 consecutive days of the year during the past period, 1970-1997, and then compared the frequency of winter-like temperatures during the most recent 28-year period, 1998-2025. Across the country, they found that winter-defining temperatures are arriving later and ending earlier than in the 20th century.

Cities across the US south-east, north-east, upper midwest and south have experienced the largest average decrease in winter days, according to the research. Juneau and Anchorage in Alaska have seen winters shrink the most, by 62 and 49 days, respectively. Approximately 15% of the 295 cities analyzed saw winters lengthen, particularly along the California coast and in the Ohio valley.

Ironically, the new data coincides with one of the most brutal winters in recent memory, including this week’s historic nor’easter blizzard, which meteorologists have said is the strongest storm in a decade. More than 2ft (61cm) of snow was recorded in parts of the north-eastern US, with more than 3ft (91cm) falling in Rhode Island – surpassing totals from the north-east’s historic blizzard of 1978.

“A shorter winter doesn’t mean no winter,” Mathew Barlow, professor of climate science at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, said on Friday. “Another important piece of [research] is that we expect greater precipitation intensity as the climate warms.” ... January’s storm was likely caused by the stretching of the polar vortex, a vast circular ribbon of planetary wind. Research published last year found that the stretching of the polar vortex in this way is contributing to extreme weather in the US and that global heating, counterintuitively, could be playing a role in accelerating this process.

Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

‘The Behavior of Rogue States’: Global Revulsion as US and Israel Launch War on Iran

Donald Trump, Warmonger-in-Chief

Experts Pillory Trump Case for War on Iran: ‘Flimsiest Excuse for Initiating a Major Attack’ in Decades

RIP Ali Khamenei

Israel Pounds Lebanese Capital After Hezbollah Takes Credit for Rocket Fire at Haifa

The Simple Math Of the Iran War

Iran War: Quick Early Updates

UPDATES ON ISRAEL & US AGGRESSION AGAINST IRAN

Democratic Leaders Face Backlash Over Cowardly Responses to Trump War on Iran

Trump appears to link Iran attack to his 2020 election loss

ICE has detained this high schooler for 10 months. Here’s what he and his classmates want you to know

BLOWBACK: Austin Terror, Crowds ATTACK US Embassies

US Triggers Global Economic COLLAPSE, China Blasts Washington, Stock Market PANIC Crash

A Little Night Music

Oscar "Buddy" Woods - Bear Cat Mama from Horner's Corner

Oscar "Buddy" Woods - Low Life Blues

Oscar "Buddy" Woods - Lone Wolf Blues

Eddie & Oscar - Flying Crow Blues

Oscar "Buddy" Woods - Evil Hearted Woman Blues

Oscar "Buddy" Woods w/ the Wampus Cats - Token Blues

Oscar "Buddy" Woods - Muscat Hill Blues

Oscar "Buddy" Woods - Davis's Salty Dog

Oscar "Buddy" Woods - Come On Over To My House Baby