Americans Worship War, Peace Has Never Had A Chance

[There is no DUTY to fight wars for the empire!]

America’s Perpetual War

Who are the Beneficiaries of American wars?

By Prof. Joseph H. Chung
Global Research

 

Introduction

Former American President Jimmy Carter said in 2018 that in America, there were 226 years of wars since its independence which took place 242 years ago thus leaving only 16 years of peace.

Since WWII, there were 32 American military conflicts involving dozens of countries. Some of these military conflicts have lasted for over twenty years and some others are still continuing.

In other words, the U.S. is a country of perpetual war. War is terribly destructive human activity. Millions of human beings have been sacrificed. Tens of trillions of dollars worth of housing, school, factories, hospitals and other infrastructure facilities have been destroyed in the countries which have been the target of American military attacks.

The perpetual war has destroyed the very foundation of freedom and democracy; it has prevented healthy and equitable economic development of the world; it has led to the violation of human rights; it has ruined traditional values of many countries and, above all, it has caused lasting human suffering.

America’s multi-trillion dollar perpetual war has denied and deprived millions of Americans of decent income, adequate housing, needed foods, necessary health care, safety on the street, reliable infrastructure facilities, essential education and other goods and services needed for descent living.

Before I go any further, I would like to quote the historical statement of President Dwight Eisenhower.

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone, it is spending the sweat of its labourers, the genius of its scientists, the hope of children. (President Dwight Eisenhower address to the North American Society of News editors, April 16, 1953)

In this paper, I am asking the following six questions:

• How many wars has the U.S. undertaken since WWII?
• How are the American wars organized?
• What is the purpose of the American wars?
• Who are the beneficiaries of the American wars?
• What are the negative impacts of the American wars?
• Will the American wars continue?

How many wars has the U.S. undertaken since WWII?

There are undoubtedly several ways of defining war. In this paper, I define war in terms of American military interventions. Defined thus, I have counted 32 wars undertaken by the U.S. since WWII.

I have classified these wars in terms of the following categories:

• invasion (23 cases),
• “civil war” (7 cases), and
• multi-target war (2),

which gives 32 wars that took place since the WWII, in the course of the so-called “post war era”.

There are reasons to believe that there are still many undeclared military interventions conducted by war contractors and Special Operation Forces units spread in 1,000 bases in 191 countries. The following shows the list of American wars.

Invasions,

• Korean War (1950-1953),
• Vietnam War (1955-1975);
• Cuban,Bay of Pigs (1961),
• Lebanon (1982-1984),
• Grenada (1983),
• Libya bombing (1984),
• Tanker War-Persian Gulf  (1984-1987),
• Panama (1989-1990),
• Gulf War (1989-1991),
• Iraq War (1991-1993),
• Bosnia War (1992-1995),
• Haiti (1994-1999),
• Kosovo (1998-1999),
• Afghanistan (2001-2021),
• Yemen (2002-present),
• Iraq (2003-2011),
• Pakistan (2004-2018),
• Somalia (2007-present)
• Libya (2011),
• Niger (2013-present)
• Iraq (2014-2021),
• Syria (2014-present),
• Libya (2015-2019).
• [Ukraine, yet to be categorized]

Civil Wars:

Indo-China (1959-1975),

Indonesia (1958-1961)

Lebanon (1958),

Dominican Republic (1968-1966),

Korea DMZ (1966-1969),

Cambodia (1967-1975)

Somalia (1991-present).

Multi-target wars:

Operation Ocean Shield: location, Indian- Ocean (2008-2016), Operation Observant Compass: location, Uganda and Central Africa (2011-20

How are the American Wars Organized?

To understand the nature and the implication of the perpetual war in the U.S., it is necessary to introduce the concept of American Pro-War Community (APWC).

In literature and media, we use the notion of military-industrial complex (MIC) to describe the vast system of perpetual U.S. wars. But, actually, the system of perpetual war involves many more individuals and organizations than in the MIC.

The APWC is a tightly knit community promoting its interests at the expense of the wellbeing of ordinary Americans and the interests of the people of the target countries. It is so well organized and so well rooted and so powerful that it is quasi impossible to dissolve it.

The AWPC’s core group comprises the war corporations and the federal government led by the Pentagon, the Congress, the Senate and other government agencies.

There are two supporting groups comprising all sorts of institutions and organizations.

There is the group supporting the supply of war goods and services.

Then, there is the group supporting the creation of demand for war goods and services.

The efficiency of the whole system of producing and selling war goods and services depends on how the core group and the supporting groups can work in harmony together to attain the objectives of wars, namely, the maximization of profit and the intra-APWC sharing of the profit.

Supply of War Goods and Services

The supply of war goods and services is assured by war corporations which produce weapons, building contractors which build all sorts of buildings and manage them, catering services companies that provide foods and drinks for the GIs, information firms which offer information needed for wars and even the academics that offers ideas and technologies.

In the U.S. 40 major war corporations have annual sales of almost $ 600 billion.

The following table shows the importance of the five leading war corporations in U.S.

Table 1. Five major War Corporations: Annual Sales ($ billion) 2022 and Growth (recent years: %)

Note: LM (Lockheed Martin), NG (Northrop Grumman); GD (General Dynamics) Source

The combined annual sale of the five leading firms in 2022 was as much as $ 241.8 billion of which $183.3 billon was for the sale of military goods and services, or 75.8% of the total sale.

The supply of war goods and services relies on the extensive production chain involving foreign and domestic providers of raw materials and intermediary products. In addition, the academics and information firms offer information, technology and other services needed for the production of weapons.

The following is a list of the well known universities which are deeply involved in American wars. Each one of these universities produces, for the war industry, a variety of war products and services.

In this paper, for each academic institution, just one typical product or service is mentioned.

No less than 70% of university research projects are funded by the Pentagon:

• The Boston College helps the Air Force
• The University of Massachusetts Lowell develops mono-technology for the Army.
• Tufts University improves of soldiers cognitive and physical performance
• MIT is producing so many war goods ns services that it is known as a “war corporation.”
• Columbia University and Brown University develops, for DARPA (Defence Advanced Research Project Agency), the neural engineering system
• Princeton University produces hardware for design and verification of open-source integrated circuit
• Dartmouth University sells machine learning
• Pennsylvania University develops artificial intelligence.
• Stanford University develops technology for chemical warfare and so many other war goods and service that it is considered to be in partnership with war corporations
• Harvard University develops educational materials for the war and it is the main source providing human resources to the war industries. By the way, it produced the napalm bomb widely used in the Korean War, Vietnamese War and other wars
• John Hopkins University makes tools needed for the evaluation of alternative offensive capability needed for battles in air sea, cyberspace

The sad story is that American universities depend on war money so much that they are losing their original mission.

Christian Sorensen (Understanding the War Industry, Clarity Press 2022) has something to say about this problem. He seems to think that universities are neglecting their original mission of producing and diffusing truth.

“But its intricate ties to the War Department show the university’s true colour carrying more about government funding than the nobility of academia.” (Sorenson: p.221)

By the way, I have found many useful information, data and ideas in Sorensen’s book, which is surely a significant addition to the critical literature of perpetual wars. 

The information-technology corporations are also actively participating in the American wars. In fact, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google provide, for the military, clout computing which facilitates the reduction of human and material cost of wars.

Demand for War Products and Services

What distinguishes the war economy from the peace economy is the amazing fact that the supply generates the demand.

In the American war economy, the final demand for war goods and services is determined by the Pentagon (the Department of Defence) and some foreign countries.

However, the Pentagon does not have all the information needed to estimate the demand for war so that it relies on the information provided by the war corporations.

Therefore, the war corporations which are supplier of war goods and services have the amazing role of determining the demand.

In this way, in the market of war goods and services, the supply determines the demand.

This is the root of perpetual nature of American wars and the making of profit going to the APWC.

Now, to have war, one has to have enemies. But, the war corporations do not have the research capacity to find real enemies or produce fabricated enemies. The role of finding or fabricating enemies goes to the think tanks which are lavishly funded by the war corporations.

When the think tanks find or manufacture enemies, new wars or the continuation of old wars are justified.

Now, on the other hand, the pressure groups put pressure on law makers and policy makers to recognize the identities of enemies produced by the think tanks; this is done through lobbying (bribes giving). 

As for the media, they have the role of preparing the mind and the souls of Americans to accept the monstrous defence budget without being aware of the destructive consequences of the perpetual wars.

It goes without saying that both the pressure groups and the media are funded by the war corporations.

The demand for war goods and services created by these pro-war individuals and organizations is translated into the annual defence budget of the U.S amounting, in 2023, to as much as $886 billion.

Imagine this. Washington’s 2023 defence budget is 50% of South Korea’s 2023 GDP of $1.8 trillion. The American defence budget is 40 % of the global defence budget of $ 2.2 trillion.

The big five: Lockheed Martin, Raytheon Technologies, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics gets as much as $150 billion out of the defence budget.

Read the Whole Article

 

The Real Reason For Netanyahu's Secret Wartime Trip To UAE...Mohammad Dahlan

[Emirate royals and Mossad are all set to retry the loony "W" Bush policy, promoted by his favorite Little terror whore, Mohammad Dahlan, a policy which has already fallen flat multiple times...apparently Trump's foreign goons want Dahlan to carry-out his signature move of "false flag terrorism" in the war zone. His notoriety derives from his historical record of hiring of ISIS/Daesh terrorists for Israel with money from Gulf Royals to create false flag attacks to be pinned on Iran or its allies, for the purpose of justifying massive IDF/USAF counterattacks [SEE: The Gaza Bombshell--March 3, 2008]. 

Dahlan is an international terrorist, working for the empire of terrorists.--ed.]

Bush’s Pawn In Palestine and the Long Arm of the Law–Mohammad Dahlan Facing Murder Charges--July 29, 2011

Mohammed Dahlan, George Bush’s “Whore,” Now He’s Selling His Ass To the Saudis--March 25, 2014

Saudi/Israeli Moves Reveal Old Plan to Re-plant the US Hitman Dahlan Over Gaza--June 30, 2017

U.A.E., Mohammed Dahlan and Zionist Terrorist Conspiracies Called “DAESH”--January 16, 2018

W. Bush’s Evil Little Whore, Mohammed Dahlan, Implicated In Saudi Cover-Up of Khashoggi Murder--November 20, 2018

Shin Bet chief met with former Gaza strongman Mohammed Dahlan in UAE, report says

Dahlan, linked to terror attacks in Gaza during Second Intifada, seen as leading candidate to run post-Hamas Gaza; he lives in UAE exile, where he amassed a fortune brokering deals

 

Shin Bet chief David Zini, who visited the United Arab Emirates during the ceasefire with Iran, met there with Mohammed Dahlan, formerly one of the heads of preventive security in the Gaza Strip and long considered Mahmoud Abbas’ main rival and a candidate to lead Gaza after Hamas, regional and Israeli sources told public broadcaster Kan Bet.

 

The Shin Bet said in response: “We do not comment on the service chief’s schedule.”

The Shin Bet said in response: “We do not comment on the service chief’s schedule.”

 

Shin Bet head David Zini and Mohammed Dahlan

(Photos: Reuters, Shilo Shalom)

 

Two years ago, The Wall Street Journal reported that Dahlan’s name had come up as part of contacts for a comprehensive deal between Israel and Hamas, as someone who could be responsible, at least temporarily, for leading the Strip. According to that report, officials in Israel, the United States and the Arab mediating countries supported the idea, and Hamas signaled it would agree to accept Dahlan as an interim solution to end the war. The initiative did not materialize, and Dahlan has remained in the UAE.

 

Dahlan, 64, was among the founders of Fatah’s youth movement. In 1987, he was arrested over his role in the first intifada and deported to Jordan. In 1994, with the advancement of the Oslo Accords, he returned to Gaza and was later appointed head of the Preventive Security Service. He resigned from the post in 2002 and was later appointed, among other roles, interior minister and civil affairs minister, handling the disengagement portfolio.

 

During the second intifada, intelligence officials linked Dahlan to several terror attacks in Gaza, including the 2000 attack on a children’s bus in which two residents of Kfar Darom were murdered.

 

When Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip in 2007, Dahlan and his forces were defeated, and he left Gaza with many of his supporters. In 2011, Dahlan was expelled from Fatah following claims that he had worked with a group of senior organization officials to oust Abbas. He went into exile in the UAE, where he became close to Abu Dhabi ruler and UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed, eventually becoming his adviser.

 

Dahlan has since amassed tens of millions of dollars from brokering deals, at least some of which, according to past claims, involved Israeli security officials. In January 2024, he criticized Hamas’ October 7 terror attack, saying it had brought total destruction to the Strip.

 

“It may lead to hope for coexistence between the two peoples or open the gate to a new hell and a spiral of violence and revenge,” he said at the time, urging Israel to extend a hand for peace rather than revenge.

The Wall Street Journal described him then as a “rare” Palestinian leader who operates independently of both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority — in a way that could theoretically allow Israel to cooperate with him. According to the 2024 report, in the first months after the war began, Dahlan shuttled between the UAE and Egypt, advising the leaders of both countries.

 

 

 

AIPAC-Owned Senators Introduce Bill To Criminalize Criticism of Israel or Jewish Power

Prominent Jewish Americans Sign Statement Denouncing AIPAC’s Electoral Influence

S.4576 - A bill to strengthen Federal efforts to counter antisemitism in the United States and protect the Jewish community.

[The bill has so far, only been introduced in the Senate, but no details of the legislation are offered to the public.  the following text comes from the highly toxic JEWISH ANTI-DEFAMATION COMMITTEE.]

The bipartisan legislation responds to the growing threat that antisemitism poses not only to the Jewish community, but also to the core values of American democracy.

• • Bolsters protections for Jewish students by:
    • establishing a dedicated antisemitism coordinator within the U.S. Department of Education – ensuring students know their rights and schools their responsibilities under Title VI,
    • improving Title VI enforcement and processing of discrimination complaints, and
    • creating an online “clearinghouse” for school safety and civil rights best practices.
  • Requires federally funded K‑12 schools and colleges to address antisemitism and other forms of discrimination by:
    • designating Title VI coordinators,
    • maintaining clear, well-publicized nondiscrimination policies and grievance procedures to investigate and resolve complaints, and
    • providing support for those who report discrimination.
  • Expands and reforms the Nonprofit Security Grant Program by:
    • increasing authorized funding to $1 billion annually,
    • improving grant administration and support for applicants,
    • broadening allowable uses to support a wider range of security needs, and
    • strengthening congressional oversight to improve transparency, accountability, and fair distribution of funds.
  • Strengthens federal monitoring of antisemitic extremism by requiring annual coordinated assessments – on both domestic and transnational antisemitic violent extremist threats – from the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and National Counterterrorism Center.
  • Increases transparency and accountability for online platforms by requiring large social media platforms to regularly report on:
    • content moderation practices,
    • the sharing and amplification of antisemitic content,
    • inauthentic user accounts, and
    • real-world impact of online hate speech on the U.S. Jewish community

 

Cool Headed Gulf Royal Impedes Trump's Zionist Steamroller

 

Iran War Puts Saudi Arabia at Odds With Growing Israel-UAE Axis

This is how Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman succeeded

 

Prince Turki Al-Faisal

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman did not allow Iran to divide the brotherly Gulf states. (SPA)

Since the US-Israeli war on Iran erupted on Feb. 28, discordant voices in our region and in Western media have grown louder, questioning Saudi Arabia’s position on a conflict the Kingdom had initially worked hard to prevent, and then made intensive efforts to stop and resolve diplomatically.

It did so without noise, theatrics, grandstanding, or bluster, seeking instead to pull the region out of this bloody conflict.

This has been the hallmark of the Kingdom’s leadership since the late King Abdulaziz founded the state. The leadership has long embraced the principle that actions matter more than words. While the flies of social media buzzed and shouted, the Kingdom was measured, patient, and active. While the cheerleaders beat their drums, the Kingdom managed affairs carefully and weighed its options. The evidence is before us.

When Iran and others tried to drag the Kingdom into the furnace of destruction, our leadership chose to endure the pains caused by a neighbor in order to protect the lives and property of its citizens. Had the Kingdom wanted, and it is capable of doing so, to respond in kind to Iran by destroying Iranian facilities and interests, the outcome could have been the destruction of Saudi oil facilities and desalination plants along the Arabian Gulf coast, and even deep inside the Kingdom.

Had the Israeli plan to ignite war between us and Iran succeeded, the region would have been plunged into ruin and destruction. Thousands of our sons and daughters would have been lost in a battle in which we had no stake. Israel would have succeeded in imposing its will on the region and remained the only actor in our surroundings.

Through the wisdom and foresight of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the Kingdom avoided the horrors of war and its devastating repercussions. Indeed, together with Pakistan, it is now extinguishing the fire of fighting, helping prevent escalation, and giving advocates of peace hope that they can feel reassured about the lives of their loved ones and the safety of their interests.

When Iran and others tried to drag the Kingdom into the furnace of destruction, our leadership chose to endure the pains caused by a neighbor in order to protect the lives and property of its citizens.

Prince Turki Al-Faisal

As for the advocates of war, they continue in their arrogance and cawing, perhaps unaware that the rug has been pulled from under their feet.

The crown prince did not allow Iran to divide the brotherly Gulf states. He supported and stood in solidarity with all Gulf leaders, and placed the Kingdom’s trade and financing routes, through its roads, airports and ports, at the service of them and their peoples.

He also affirmed to all that their security is the Kingdom’s security, and that the Kingdom will support every step they take to preserve their security and stability.

The Kingdom will always remain true to its pact with its brothers.

This is how affairs are managed, and this is how foresight works. With Allah’s blessing, our caravan moves forward. Let the dogs bark at the top of their voices, and let our enemies bite their fingers in rage.

As the late Prince Badr bin Abdul Mohsen said: And if the envious speak of you, we never paid heed to the noise of their envy.

• Prince Turki Al-Faisal is the former director-general of Saudi Arabia’s intelligence agency and a former ambassador. He is also the founder and Trustee of the King Faisal Foundation and Chairman of the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies.

Announcing the End of THEREARENOSUNGLASSES

Wordpress caves to political pressure over last post on NYT Hasbara fight---

   "ISRAEL LOBBY Loses First Major Hasbara Battle, NYT Stands By Report On K9-Rape of Palestinian Prisoners" 

 

ISRAEL LOBBY Loses First Major Hasbara Battle, NYT Stands By Report On K9-Rape of Palestinian Prisoners

[The Telling of Terrible Truths IS NOT A "Blood Libel"] 

Pro-Israel Pressure Campaign Against NYT Crashes and Burns

If Americans Knew

 contact@ifamericansknew.org  May 18, 2026  Bari Weiss, Israeli control of US media, new york times, Nick Kristof, sexual violence

 

 

SCREENSHOT FROM AN ISRAELI CHANNEL 12 REPORT ON THE SEXUAL ASSAULT AND RAPE OF A PALESTINIAN PRISONER AT SDE TEIMAN PRISON. ((SCREENSHOT: CHANNEL 12))

Even with this story coming more than a year after a United Nations report called out Israel for “systematically” subjecting Palestinians to “sexualized torture,” it was met with apoplectic – though predictable – rage from the Israeli government and a bevy of prominent pro-Israel figures and writers.

By Justin Baragona, reposted from Zeteo, May 13, 2026

Something very interesting happened this week. A massive pro-Israel pressure campaign looking to shame the New York Times into retracting a well-sourced story critical of Israel’s violence against Palestinians, including sexual abuse, fell flat on its face.

Nick Kristof, a longtime and respected columnist for the Times, penned an absolutely harrowing account this week of Palestinians being subjected to unspeakably horrific sexual abuse and rape by Israeli soldiers, settlers, and prison guards, relying on the first-hand testimony of 14 victims – many of whom were on the record.

Kristof, who traveled to the occupied West Bank to interview his subjects, argued in the piece that “whatever our views of the Middle East conflict, we should be able to unite in condemning rape.” Noting that Israeli officials and American politicians decried the sexual violence allegedly committed by Hamas during the October 7 attacks, Kristof rightly pointed out that the abuse inflicted on Palestinian men and women by Israel “persists because of silence, indifference and the failure” of political leaders to condemn it.

Besides leaning on the personal stories of the victims he interviewed, many of which he corroborated with other witnesses and victims, Kristof also cited a number of surveys, reports, and studies on the sexual violence that has been inflicted on Palestinian prisoners during the Gaza war.

Still, even with this story coming more than a year after a United Nations report called out Israel for “systematically” subjecting Palestinians to “sexualized torture,” Kristof’s story was met with apoplectic – though predictable – rage from the Israeli government and a bevy of prominent pro-Israel figures and writers.

“Today, the @nytimes chose to publish one of the worst blood libels ever to appear in the modern press. In an unfathomable inversion of reality, and through an endless stream of baseless lies, propagandist Nicholas Kristof turns the victim into the accused,” the Israel Foreign Ministry tweeted.

Complaining that the story was “part of a false and well-orchestrated anti-Israel campaign,” the Foreign Ministry accused the Times of “deliberately” timing the publication of the piece to counter a new Israeli report detailing the “systematic” sexual violence during Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack. (The lead author of that report, which has not been independently verified, has seen her credibility challenged multiple times on previous investigations into claims of systematic sexual violence by Hamas on October 7.)

Other pro-Israeli accounts, meanwhile, tried to discredit the report by dismissing Kristof’s sources as “Hamas-linked,” “anti-Israel,” or “anti-Zionist.” And former US special envoy for combating antisemitism Deborah Lipstadt went so far as to echo calls for the Times editors to face Nuremberg-style punishment.

Conservative commentator Michelle Tandler, in a moment that was beyond parody, insisted that there wasn’t a “single shred of evidence” in the piece, “other than the testimonies of 14 people.” Peter Savodnik – a senior editor at Bari Weiss’s right-wing pro-Israel blog The Free Press – fumed that the story’s sources “hate Israel” and that the piece is a “well laundered bit of Hamas propaganda that Kristof and the Times will ultimately regret.”

Additionally, many specifically took aim at a claim made by a Gaza journalist to Kristof – who cited other public reports and accounts of similar incidents – that Israeli guards used a dog to rape him, stating it was not only physically impossible but that it was “antisemitic” and amounted to “libel” against Israel.

Kristof, for his part, pointed out on Tuesday that skeptics “who say that canine rape is impossible, despite the many Palestinians who have described it, I’d note that at least three different medical journal articles discuss rectal injuries in humans from anal penetration by dogs.”

Amid the outcry from the pro-Israeli crowd at the New York Times – the same paper, mind you, that published the highly disputed “Screams Without Words” investigative piece about Hamas “weaponizing” sexual violence on October 7 – former MSNBC anchor David Shuster jumped into the fray with a bombshell claim.

“Hearing from longtime friends @nytimes there are already discussions, including up the masthead, about retracting @NickKristof column. Issues with source credibility and lack of evidence. No indications the Kristof sourcing mistakes were deliberate. Still problematic,” he tweeted on Monday night.

Shuster, who has made wild allegations before that were later debunked, added that there were “other sourcing/credibility issues as well” but that the “bigger debate, I’m told, is whether an op-ed should be retracted given the nature of opinion writing v. news reporting.”

Several sources I spoke to at the New York Times, however, told me they were completely unaware of any conversations among top editors about whether to take action on Kristof’s column, including a possible retraction. “It’s giving ‘hipster coffee shop,’” one NYT reporter snarked to me.

Kristof, who also explained online why his deeply reported piece ran in the paper’s opinion section, responded to Shuster’s claims by flatly stating they were “completely untrue.” A short time later on Tuesday afternoon, NYT spokesperson Charlie Stadtlander issued a statement rebutting Shuster while fully backing Kristof.

 

 

Shuster responded to a request for comment by sharing two tweets he sent on Tuesday evening that largely focused on the dog rape claims in the piece while sidestepping his allegations that editors had discussed retracting the story.

What really stands out more than anything, though, is the lack of impact the over-the-top cries of “blood libel” from the Israeli government and its acolytes is having on the NYT – the same paper which repeatedly stood by the highly problematic “Screams Without Words” piece, which Zeteo’s Fatima Bhutto called a “piece of unbridled Israeli propaganda.” More than 50 journalism professors raised several concerns over the “Screams Without Words” piece in a letter at the time and called on the paper to “immediately commission a group of journalism experts to conduct a thorough and full independent review of the reporting, editing and publishing processes for this story and release a report of the findings.”

Could we finally be seeing a shift in the legacy media landscape, where Israel doesn’t automatically get deferential treatment, and outlets don’t immediately shirk in the face of groundless accusations of antisemitism?

It’s likely too soon to tell with the Times, which has repeatedly dehumanized Palestinians, shown deferential treatment to Israeli sources and officials, and whitewashed Israeli crimes against Palestinian civilians. But the paper’s reaction to this latest outrage cycle is at least a good start.

---

Justin Baragona is Zeteo’s media columnist. He is a former senior media reporter for The Daily Beast & a correspondent for Mediaite.

Netanyahu's Apparent Domination of American Govt Confirms That Jewish "Money Power" Is No Myth

Trump and most of Congress are openly and obviously subservient to Israel and its Jewish billionaire lobbyists.  Beginning with the open defense of genocide in Palestine, Israeli apologists have exposed the depth of  Israel's war on American anti-Zionism, in a multi-front campaign to limit free speech, censor any criticism of the Zionist state, even going so far as to pass laws against it.  Israel-friendly Jewish billionaires have embarked on a campaign to buy major American media, even many Internet news sources. 

Open Israeli/Jewish efforts to control US society seem to validate "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" as fact, not fiction. Jewish "Hasbara" policy, which is also US Hasbara policy, has strove for decades to paint every anti-Zionist American as "anti-Semitic", for daring to point-out the truth about the coercive power of "Jewish Money" upon our electoral system (as demonstrated by the "Israeli Lobby").  To point-out the obvious truth about the power of Jewish lobbists to dominate the efforts of both Congressmen and Presidents is described as a "blood libel" and dismissed as a  "CANARD."

canard: a false or unfounded report or story

At the dawn of the 20th century, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion took hold of the Western imagination, codifying generations of stereotypes and canards about Jews controlling global events and packaging them in easy-to-read pamphlets. —Mike Rothschild, Big Think, 31 Mar. 2026

This canard has been repeatedly debunked by historians and repeatedly invoked by Owens. —Yair Rosenberg, The Atlantic, 13 Feb. 2026

The US Continues to Grovel to Israel, Doesn’t That Demolish the “Canard” About Jewish/Israeli Domination?

NY Times Fails To Debunk “Canard” of Jewish Money Dominating Congress, Because It Is the Cold Truth

MOSSAD Caught Trying To Overthrow Yet Another Government! I Know, Another “Canard.”

“Jewish Power” In the US Is Very Real, But To Say So Is “Anti-Semitic”

[The ongoing revelations about the "Epstein Files" should convince anyone of the validity of ant-Zionist efforts to expose and remove Mossad tampering with our electoral process.  Epstein and his Mossad-linked "honeypot" network for blackmailing tainted US officials, was a tool to force compliance with the will of Netanyahu and co., an effort to enforce the Protocols.]

The Protocols Of Zion

Goyim (cattle) are mentally inferior to Jews and can't run their nations properly. For their sake and ours, we need to abolish their governments and replace them with a single government. This will take a long time and involve much bloodshed, but it's for a good cause. Here's what we'll need to do: * Place our agents and helpers everywhere * Take control of the media and use it in propaganda for our plans * Start fights between different races, classes and religions * Use bribery, threats and blackmail to get our way * Use Freemasonic Lodges to attract potential public officials * Appeal to successful people's egos * Appoint puppet leaders who can be controlled by blackmail * Replace royal rule with socialist rule, then communism, then despotism * Abolish all rights and freedoms, except the right of force by us * Sacrifice people (including Jews sometimes) when necessary * Eliminate religion; replace it with science and materialism * Control the education system to spread deception and destroy intellect * Rewrite history to our benefit * Create entertaining distractions * Corrupt minds with filth and perversion * Encourage people to spy on one another * Keep the masses in poverty and perpetual labor * Take possession of all wealth, property and (especially) gold * Use gold to manipulate the markets, cause depressions etc. * Introduce a progressive tax on wealth * Replace sound investment with speculation * Make long-term interest-bearing loans to governments * Give bad advice to governments and everyone else

 

Rubio Admits American Surrender To, and Backing Of, Netanyahu Plan To Force Iranian Retaliation Against US Interests

SECRETARY RUBIO:

There absolutely was an imminent threat, and the imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked – and we believe they would be attacked – that they would immediately come after us, and we were not going to sit there and absorb a blow before we responded because the Department of War assessed that if we did that, if we waited for them to hit us first after they were attacked – and by someone else, Israel attacked them, they hit us first, and we waited for them to hit us – we would suffer more casualties and more deaths.  We went proactively in a defensive way to prevent them from inflicting higher damage.  Had we not done so, there would have been hearings on Capitol Hill about how we knew that this was going to happen and we didn’t act preemptively to prevent more casualties and more loss of life.

Operation Epic Fury and International Law

Reed D. Rubinstein, Legal Adviser
Office of the Legal Adviser

 

On February 28, the United States Armed Forces launched Operation Epic Fury with a set of clear objectives: to “[d]estroy Iranian offensive missiles, destroy Iranian missile production, destroy [Iran’s] navy and other security infrastructure,” and, finally, ensure that Iran “will never have nuclear weapons.”

Epic Fury is only the latest round of an ongoing international armed conflict with Iran. As the United States has explained in multiple letters to the U.N. Security Council, including most recently on March 10, the United States is engaged in this conflict at the request of and in the collective self-defense of its Israeli ally, as well as in the exercise of the United States’ own inherent right of self-defense.

Critics have argued that the United States’s combat operations are inconsistent with the UN Charter. In truth, the United States is acting well within the recognized contours of international law relating to the use of force and self-defense. This legal assessment is grounded in facts demonstrating Iran’s malign aggression over decades, particularly in Iran’s escalatory attacks against the United States, Israel, and others in the region for years, which precipitated an international armed conflict that predated U.S. combat operations on February 28 and that continues to this day.

I. Iran’s Attacks on the United States, Israel, and Others

Any serious legal assessment of U.S. combat activities must be anchored in the relevant material facts. Beginning with its founding in 1979, the Islamic Republic of Iran has regularly attacked the United States, its interests, and its allies, including but not limited to Israel, directly and through proxies. The regime’s “revolutionary” Islamic ideology has been the justification for its decades-long pattern and practice of international terrorism and military adventurism, as well as its multibillion-dollar investments in developing the “Axis of Resistance” and ballistic missile, drone, and nuclear capabilities.

First, Iran is responsible for countless armed attacks against the United States, both through its own military and through its partners and proxies. As context, Iran’s hostility toward the United States began with the 1979 Revolution, subsequent sacking of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, and the abuse and torture of American hostages for 444 days. It continued throughout the years that followed—from the bombing of the U.S. Marines in Lebanon in 1983, which killed 241 U.S. service members; to the Khobar Towers assault in 1996, in which 19 U.S. service members were killed and 500 other individuals were wounded; to the direction of IED attacks against U.S. soldiers in Iraq, which killed at least 600 Americans over a period of eight years.

Iranian-sponsored attacks against the United States intensified in 2019. Kata’ib Hezbollah (KH) and other Iran-aligned militias receiving support from and sometimes acting under the direction of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) fired rockets at bases in Iraq where U.S. personnel were located, including in an attack that killed a U.S. contractor and injured Iraqi military officers in December 2019. KH also organized a 2019 attack, approved by the IRGC, against the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad that inflicted significant damage, and senior U.S. government officials concluded at that time that the IRGC was actively developing plans for further attacks against U.S. military personnel and diplomats in Iraq and throughout the region. The United States responded in self-defense with a targeted strike that killed IRGC Commander Qasem Soleimani, but Iranian armed attacks continued. Between 2021 and 2024, there were well over 100 attacks against U.S. personnel and facilities in Iraq and Syria by the IRGC and its partners and proxies. All the while, Iran continued to publicly reiterate and privately pursue its lethal plotting operations against both U.S. officials and private citizens.

Second, the regime has for decades maintained a clear and public position that Israel must be annihilated.[1] To that end, the Islamic Republic has devoted massive human and financial resources in pursuit of this goal. The regime has organized, funded, and supported terrorist attacks against Jews, Israel, and Israeli interests worldwide. Following October 7^th attacks against Israel by the Islamic Republic-funded, trained, armed, and supported terrorist organization Hamas,[2] Iran attacked Israel directly, launching historically massive direct and indiscriminate ballistic missile strikes and drone swarms in April and October 2024.

The armed conflict between Israel and Iran has been ongoing since at least that point, and likely years earlier, as Israel underscored in its March 10, 2026, letter to the Security Council. Adding to the threat posed by these direct assaults on Israel, Iran has developed an illicit nuclear program that, if it led to the production of a nuclear weapon, would pose an immediate and present danger to the very existence of the State of Israel when coupled with Iran’s massive and expanding ballistic missile delivery capabilities.[3]

Third, Iran’s extensive, long-term support of Hizballah, Hamas, the Houthis, and various Iran‑aligned militia groups in Iraq and Syria has enabled those terrorist organizations to carry out destabilizing attacks against Israel, the United States, Argentina, and others, including countries seeking to freely exercise transit rights through the Strait of Hormuz. While the regime has, at times, concealed its role in certain attacks of this nature, the United States has established Iranian direction, control, and even active participation as a co-belligerent in some of the operations of those groups, as the United States explained in a February 5, 2024 letter to the Security Council. Furthermore, the Islamic Republic’s financial, equipment, training, and operational support for these terrorist organizations has intentionally empowered these groups to sow chaos in the region.

In late 2024, President Trump was again elected. During the early months of the second Trump Administration, the United States initiated negotiations in an intensive effort to resolve the underlying root causes of the ongoing conflict: the longstanding threat posed by Iran to U.S. interests in the region, including its continued proxy attacks on U.S. personnel and facilities and its illicit nuclear and ballistic missile programs. By June of 2025, however, it was clear that these efforts were fruitless.

II. An Analysis of the U.S. Response

Over many years, the Iranian regime engaged in a clear pattern of unprovoked aggression and direct and proxy attacks against Israel and the United States, while concurrently spending billions of dollars to operationalize its promise to destroy the former and continuously calling for “death” to the latter. That conduct established the factual basis and operative context for Operation Midnight Hammer, the U.S. military action that supported Israel in efforts to obliterate Iran’s nuclear program in June 2025. As indicated in its June 27 letter to the Security Council, the United States decided to act against the regime in collective self-defense of Israel, which, as described above, was undeniably already exercising its right of self-defense in response to an ongoing international armed conflict with the Islamic Republic. The June 27 letter built upon nine previous letters transmitted by the United States to the Security Council since 2021, including on February 27, 2021; June 29, 2021; August 26, 2022; March 27, 2023; October 30, 2023; November 14, 2023; November 28, 2023; December 29, 2023; January 26, 2024; and February 5, 2024.

Accordingly, the United States had an independent legal justification as a matter of jus ad bellum principles to enter into the conflict. But, as noted above, defensive U.S. actions could equally have been considered part of an ongoing international armed conflict between Iran and the United States itself, in which the United States was exercising its own, individual right of self-defense.

Some have argued that whatever the nature of the conflict with Iran that existed in June 2025, that conflict ended following the close of Operation Midnight Hammer, and that any further use of force must be considered a “fresh” use of force and justified anew under the jus ad bellum principles. But those critics have largely failed to acknowledge the facts—the clear pattern of ongoing Iranian attacks against the United States, Israel, and others in the region described above; the massive expansion of the regime’s offensive drone and ballistic missile capabilities; and its accelerated nuclear development—or to squarely address the legal question concerning when a conflict, once commenced, ceases.

According to the Department of War’s Law of War Manual, hostilities end when “opposing parties decide to end hostilities and actually do so, i.e., when neither the intent-based nor act-based tests for when hostilities exist are met.”^[4] Similarly, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross, the legal test for whether an international armed conflict has ended is whether, based on an assessment of the facts on the ground, there has been a “general close of military operations” that has ended military movements of a bellicose nature “so that the likelihood of the resumption of hostilities can reasonably be discarded.”^[5] Any assessment of whether an armed conflict has ended must be fact-based, taking into account both the intentions and the actions of the parties to the conflict.

Under either articulation of the customary international law standard for determining when an armed conflict has ended, the facts clearly support the proposition that the international armed conflict involving Iran, Israel, and the United States that was the subject of the June 27 Article 51 letter is ongoing.

As a threshold matter, the intense but ultimately fruitless attempts at negotiations by the United States in the first few months of the Trump administration, and again in late 2025 and early 2026, did not bring about an end to the conflict brought about by Iran’s continuing pattern of attacks between at least 2019 and 2024. States that attempt in good faith to resolve their disputes by peaceful means do not have their legitimate right of self-defense against an adversary extinguished by genuine but unsuccessful attempts to end a conflict. It was only after multiple attempts at negotiation failed that the United States resumed operations in this conflict.

Further, there is no evidence that any of the parties—Iran, Israel, or the United States—intended or decided to end either of the armed conflicts described above after the June 2025 operations. The parties did not make unilateral declarations concerning an end to hostilities, nor did they conclude any agreement related to the end of hostilities. After the June 2025 strikes, the parties observed a ceasefire to allow diplomatic negotiations to address the Islamic Republic’s continuing threat to the United States, Israel, and the region, but those negotiations failed. As was widely reported in the media, all parties—including Iran—continued to actively plan for further military engagements if diplomacy failed. The pause in hostilities during this period thus lacked the “stability” and “permanence” that must, as a matter of international law, be present to indicate an end to hostilities.

This legal approach is not, as some may argue, a conflation of the jus ad bellum and the jus in bello. For one, for purposes of a jus ad bellum analysis, there is no legal significance to the fact that the United States sent both a new notification to Congress under the War Powers Resolution and an Article 51 letter to the UN Security Council after operations resumed on February 28. Indeed, it is longstanding U.S. practice to submit such communications to both Congress and to the Security Council in situations where it is taking actions within the context of an ongoing armed conflict, and there are many such examples of it doing so.

But more fundamentally, if a conflict has not ended, then it must be ongoing. As a matter of international law, there is no requirement to continually reassess the jus ad bellum principles of necessity and proportionality in the context of an ongoing armed conflict. As former State Department Legal Adviser Brian Egan stated, “once a State has lawfully resorted to force in self-defense against a particular armed group following an actual or imminent armed attack by that group, it is not necessary as a matter of international law to reassess whether an armed attack is imminent prior to every subsequent action taken against that group, provided that hostilities have not ended.”[6] That principle applies equally once the United States has acted in self-defense against another State.

Even assuming arguendo that there was a jus ad bellum requirement to continually assess necessity and proportionality, those customary international law principles are satisfied here because of the scale and continued nature of the threat posed to the security of the United States and Israel. As the United States has previously explained: “A proper assessment of the proportionality of defensive use of force would require looking not only at the immediately preceding armed attack, but also at whether it was part of an ongoing series of attacks, what steps were already taken to deter future attacks, and what force could reasonably be judged as needed to successfully deter future attacks.”^[7] Proportionality does not require that a State exercising its right of self-defense must use the same degree or type of force used by the attacking State in its most recent attack. Indeed, even if initial attacks are limited in scope but the attacking State continues to present a significant threat or to perpetrate further attacks specifically calibrated to avoid a larger response, the defending State may be justified in responding through an operation sufficient to decisively end the conflict.

Consistent with that understanding, the United States also noted in its communication to the Security Council that any assessment of the imminence, gravity, and scope of the threat posed by the Iranian regime would need to account for the decades of consistently malign foreign and domestic conduct and the dangerous and destabilizing risks of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles in Iran’s hands. While the United States does not rely on a theory of imminence to justify its actions in this case—as described above, the United States believes that it and Israel were already engaged in an ongoing armed conflict with Iran as a result of the latter’s attacks—these factors are critically important in providing context for ongoing military operations.

Indeed, any legal analysis or process for determining the imminence of an attack and the proportionality of a potential response should account for the immense destructive power of nuclear weapons, the danger posed by ballistic delivery systems, the conduct of the relevant State actor, and the likelihood of other opportunities to mitigate the threat in the future.[8] The fact that these weapons are often developed in secret magnifies the potential danger to other States, which may not have the relevant intelligence reporting or opportunity to take measures to protect themselves against the potential use of such weapons before they are deployed. In considering the “imminence” of a nuclear attack, policy makers may also weigh the duration and gravity of repeated, public threats to eradicate other States and associated conduct, as well as defiance of international safeguards and attempts to develop capabilities to deliver a nuclear device. These statements and actions repeated over decades are often assertions of foreign policy objectives, not mere political slogans.

III. Conclusion

The operations recommenced in late February were part of an armed conflict with Iran that has been ongoing for years and, at the very least, since June 2025. Under well-established rules of international law, it is reasonable to conclude that this conflict did not end in the interim. And in an ongoing conflict, it is not necessary as a matter of international law to reassess whether an armed attack is imminent prior to every subsequent action taken against an adversary. Nor it is necessary to re-apply jus ad bellum standards of necessity and proportionality, although the actions taken by the United States would satisfy those principles if reapplied.

The United States has acted well within its international law obligations with respect to its use of force since operations began in late February. Iran, by contrast, has acted as any reasonable observer would have expected—lashing out against its neighbors, targeting Israeli civilians, murdering its own people, unlawfully closing the Strait of Hormuz, and wreaking havoc throughout the region. The regime’s outrageous, albeit predictable behavior only further underscores the fundamental necessity, utility, reasonableness, and lawfulness of Operation Epic Fury’s mission and goals.

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[1] Prior to 1979, Iran and Israel maintained amicable relations. However, the Islamic revolution completely reversed this relationship. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, denounced Israel as an illegitimate “Zionist regime” and severed all diplomatic relations. He wrote: “If the rulers of the Muslim countries truly represented the believers and enacted God’s ordinances, they would set aside their petty differences, abandon their subversive and divisive activities, and join together like the fingers of one hand. Then a handful of wretched Jews (the agents of America, Britain, and other foreign powers) would never have been able to accomplish what they have, no matter how much support they enjoyed from America and Britain.” Since then, calls for Israel’s total destruction have been deeply embedded in official rhetoric, military programs, state-sponsored education, and symbolic events such as Quds Day.

[2] According to a West Point Center for the Study of Terrorism monograph, “there is little doubt that Iran’s financial aid, structuring of its proxies into more cohesive armed factions and then into umbrella organizations, and assistance through the supply of weapons increased the deadliness and extremism of its Palestinian proxies.” Without Iranian assistance and nurturing, these groups would not have been able to strike Israel as they did—armed capabilities supplied by Iran, such as a variety of UAV designs, rockets, demolition charges, and other munitions, were smuggled into Gaza and used to deadly effect. In summary, “Iranian assistance allowed its Palestinian proxies to amass the firepower, messaging know-how, and much of the hi-tech equipment necessary to carry out and propagandize the attack. Financial aid provided by Iran did more than keep Hamas operating as a governing body in Gaza; it was also directly piped into Hamas’ terror and military apparatus.”

[3] International law must acknowledge the uniquely destructive power of ballistic missiles with nuclear weapons. The inherent right to self-defense cannot rationally be construed to require a State to wait until a self-avowedly hostile actor has a nuclear warhead-tipped missile ready to launch before lawfully taking a disabling strike. Indeed, hesitation under these circumstances would render self-defense futile—practically speaking, the last effective opportunity to defend a civilian population from a nuclear attack by the Islamic Republic or other rogue regime would be before it obtains a nuclear weapon and the ability to attack with it. Any contrary rule would undermine deterrence and reward aggression.

[4] As further explained in the Law of War Manual, the usual indicators for a determination of termination include an agreement to end hostilities, usually in the form of a peace treaty; a unilateral declaration of one of the parties to end the war, provided the other party does not continue hostilities; the complete subjugation of an enemy State and its allies; or a simple cessation of hostilities. Law of War Manual, Sec. 3.8.1.

[5] See “Frequently Asked Questions: International Armed Conflict,” at https://www.icrc.org/en/article/faq-international-armed-conflict: “The declassification of conflicts must be based on the facts on the ground analyzed in light of the applicable IHL legal criterion. For the ICRC, this criterion is the general close of military operations. Hostilities must end with a degree of stability and permanence for the IAC to be considered terminated. A general close of military operations means not only the end of active hostilities, but also the end of military movements of a bellicose nature, including those that reform, reorganize or reconstitute, so that the likelihood of the resumption of hostilities can reasonably be discarded.”

[6] Brian Egan, International Law, Legal Diplomacy, and the Counter-ISIL Campaign, Speech at the American Society of International Law (April 1, 2016).

[7] William Taft, Self-Defense and the Oil Platforms Decision, 29 Yale Law International Journal 295 (2004).

[8] See Daniel Bethlehem, Principles Relevant to the Scope of a State’s Right of Self-Defense against an Imminent or Actual Armed Attack by Non-State Actors, 106 Am. J. Int’l L. 1 (2012).

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 [TRUMPENYAHU is making his/their signature "decapitation" move, bluffing/lying before a planned "suckerpunch" attack.  This appears to be "Plan B" to the apparently aborted attempt to kill Iran's latest negotiators on their trip out of Islamabad, looking for new negotiators who want to live.]  

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A Trap for Tehran: Trump Declares War Against Iran Over – Fox News

TOPCOR.RU

The entire White House administration is repeating the same thing: all the goals of the campaign in Iran have supposedly been achieved. But the key word still lies with the president: today, Donald Trump assured that the war with Iran is over.

US President Donald Trump declared that the military operation against Iran is over, Fox News journalist Maria Bartiromo reported on her social media account.

In particular, Bartiromo said in a video, while standing near the residence of the head of the White House, that she had just had a long conversation with Trump and he talked a lot about the economy, about the war with Iran, and also about NATO. According to her, in the conversation, he announced the end of the war against Iran.

I said to him, Mr. President, you keep talking about the war in the past – “was,” “was,” “was.” I asked Trump, “Is the war really over?” He replied, “Yes, it is.”

– the TV channel journalist said.

Bartiromo added that more details about the interview with the US President will be available later; the material is being processed.

Similar news These statements could have been a bombshell if Trump had been in any other president, someone who doesn't change their minds ten times a day and doesn't issue ultimatums only to later rescind them. The head of the White House may have told a Fox reporter that the war was over, but that doesn't mean he won't change his mind later that same evening, retracting his previous statement. This is always worth remembering when considering the president's position. Even sensitive and anxious markets are no longer trusting the planet's leading newsmaker.

Moreover, global media are pointing out that another trap for Tehran may be being set. The US Air Force is currently implementing a large-scale airlift to the Middle East, with the movement of aircraft and military cargo off the charts. The sheer scale of this operation, which is not typically carried out as part of routine logistics, indicates that preparations are underway for something significant and are in full swing.

Simply put, the White House hasn't abandoned the military component, but it's seen as a backup plan. And there are good reasons for this. The latest joint CBS News and YouGov poll shows that only 36% of Americans approve of the US president's handling of the war with Iran. Trump's approval rating is currently at 39%, the lowest level of his second term. So, Trump will likely think twice before making another mistake by resuming the war, but the situation may leave him no choice, as Iran is holding out too well.