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202 results for “alatalo”
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Here's my latest Saturday morning project where I generated 100 fantasy characters in minutes using OpenAI's generative AI APIs 🧙♀️🔮
Plus, I used Nuxt 3 as the framework to bring it all together into a simple webapp.
If you're interested in trying it out yourself, there's GitHub link in the article.
Read more at https://medium.com/@ville.alatalo/how-i-generated-100-fantasy-characters-in-minutes-a5b7e6690193
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Here's my latest Saturday morning project where I generated 100 fantasy characters in minutes using OpenAI's generative AI APIs 🧙♀️🔮
Plus, I used Nuxt 3 as the framework to bring it all together into a simple webapp.
If you're interested in trying it out yourself, there's GitHub link in the article.
Read more at https://medium.com/@ville.alatalo/how-i-generated-100-fantasy-characters-in-minutes-a5b7e6690193
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Here's my latest Saturday morning project where I generated 100 fantasy characters in minutes using OpenAI's generative AI APIs 🧙♀️🔮
Plus, I used Nuxt 3 as the framework to bring it all together into a simple webapp.
If you're interested in trying it out yourself, there's GitHub link in the article.
Read more at https://medium.com/@ville.alatalo/how-i-generated-100-fantasy-characters-in-minutes-a5b7e6690193
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https://www.europesays.com/fi/235705/ Mikko Alatalo muistelee hurjaa nuoruuttaan ja myöntää sen hinnan #75Vuotta #Entertainment #FI #Finland #Finnish #kansanedustaja #kansantaiteilija #MikkoAlatalo #Muusikko #Suomi #TvKasvo #viihde
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Professor Seyed Marandi to Americans: “I Hope Sincerely that Cooler Heads Prevail.”
Posted by Jerry Alatalo | April 29, 2026
[Editor’s note: What follows is a partial transcript, followed by the video of Iranian Professor Seyed Marandi’s full powerful, timely public statement. Please share this information far and wide, and, – most especially, if you reside in the United States, share this important information with your fellow Americans. Feel free to share your thoughts and/or responses in the comments. Thank you very much. Peace.]
***
TRANSCRIPT
I want to say something about the human cost here because I think it is important not to lose sight of this in the geopolitical analysis. Over 3,300 Iranians were killed in this conflict.
Among them were 168 young girls.
Scientists were killed alongside their families. Military commanders were killed alongside their families. The Americans and the Israelis struck civilian infrastructure. They struck populated areas. They used a kind of firepower that is designed to maximize destruction. Now look at the other side.
Iran fired thousands of missiles and drones at the military and energy infrastructure of these Gulf states that facilitated the attacks on Iran. And the total number of civilian casualties in Kuwait, the Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar combined is fewer than 20 people. Fewer than 20. You can go and verify this yourself. This is not Iranian television telling you this.
Look it up on any search engine. The disparity in civilian casualties tells you something very important about how these two sides are conducting this conflict. Now, I need to talk about what comes next because this is why this matters to everyone watching this video, not just to people in the region.
Trump has said he may restart military operations within days. His stated intention, if the conflict resumes, is to strike Iranian electrical power generation facilities. I want you to think carefully about what that means. If the Americans strike Iranian power plants, Iran will strike the power plants of the countries that provided their territory and airspace for these attacks.
I am talking about the Gulf States. These are desert countries. They have almost no natural fresh water. They have no agriculture of any significance. Their populations survive because of electricity. Electricity runs their desalination plants. Electricity runs their air conditioning.
In a few weeks, the summer heat in the Persian Gulf will be extreme. We are talking about temperatures that are genuinely life, threatening without climate control. If the power goes out, these countries cannot function. People will have to leave. These states will effectively collapse.
Iran is in a very different situation. Iran has the Albors mountain range running east to west across the north of the country. It has the Zagros mountain range running north to south along the west. Iran has forests. Iran has lakes. Iran has agriculture that covers roughly 90% of domestic food needs. Iran has borders with Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkmanistan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Turkey, and Iraq. It has access to the Caspian Sea, which connects it to Russia and Central Asia.
[Editor: Alborz Mountains, major mountain range in northern Iran, 560 miles (900 km) long, which serves as a defining landmark both geographically and in Iranian culture. (Britannica.com) The Zagros Mountains are a major mountain range in West Asia, extending approximately 1,600 kilometers across Iran, northern Iraq, and southeastern Turkey. They are known for their geological significance, rich biodiversity, and as a natural barrier that has historically protected various cultures.(Wikipedia)]
Iran has lived under sanctions for decades. It knows how to survive under pressure. The Gulf States do not have this experience. They cannot survive the same level of disruption. And this brings me back to the fundamental question of who can outlast whom.
This is a war of survival for Iran. Every Iranian understands what is at stake. When your country is under attack, when your people are being killed, when your cities are being bombed, you fight. You endure. You find ways to survive that an outside observer might not expect.
For the United States, this is a war of choice. [Editor: Bold added) A war being fought thousands of miles from American territory for reasons that most ordinary Americans do not fully understand at a cost in weapons and money and international reputation that is already becoming very significant.
Iran has not started a war in over 300 years. Since the revolution, three wars have been imposed on Iran. The 8-year war with Iraq, where Saddam Hussein was encouraged, armed, and financed by the West and by these very same Gulf states.
I personally survived two chemical weapons attacks during that war. Those chemical weapons were supplied by Western companies. They were funded by Gulf money. And then this war, Iran did not start any of these conflicts. But Iran survived all of them. So here’s where we are. Trump has a decision to make within days. He can restart military operations. If he does, the Iranians are ready. They have been preparing since the ceasefire began.
They know that Trump has violated agreements before. They are not going to be caught off guard. The underground bases that were never used during the first round of fighting will begin to be used. Production facilities that have been running throughout the ceasefire will provide a continuous supply of munitions and the straight of hormones will remain closed to the countries that facilitated this war.
Or Trump can honor the ceasefire he agreed to. He can lift the siege. He can give Iran what was promised under the agreement and then genuine negotiations can begin on a comprehensive deal that addresses the nuclear question, addresses regional security and gives everyone an off ramp from a crisis that is already beginning to destabilize the global economy in ways that will affect ordinary people everywhere.
The second option was available to Trump several times already. After the ceasefire, when Iran announced it was opening the Strait, that was his off ramp. He could have said, “I lifted the siege. Iran opened the straight. I won. This is a great deal. The best deal anyone has ever made.” He could have said this and walked away with something he could present as a victory. Instead, he escalated. He maintained the siege. And the crisis deepened.
I am not optimistic that he will make the right choice this time. Not because I think Trump is irrational in the way people sometimes say, but because the people around him are feeding him a version of reality that does not match what is actually on the ground. They told him Iran would collapse under military pressure. It did not. They told him the Iranian military would be quickly degraded. It was not. They are now telling him that a few more days of pressure will bring Iran to the table on American terms. I do not believe this is correct.
The Iranians are not going to negotiate under the threat of renewed bombardment. They are not going to make concessions that compromise their national security and their sovereignty because someone in Washington sets a deadline. This is not how Iran works. This is not how any country with real institutional depth and genuine popular support for its resistance works.
What I hope is that there are people in the American system, in the State Department, perhaps in the military establishment, perhaps even in the White House who understand the real situation on the ground and who are telling the president this path does not lead where you think it leads.
Because the alternative to diplomacy here is not a quick military victory. The alternative is a longer conflict with unpredictable escalation, a global energy crisis that will hit the American economy hard and a strategic realignment in the Persian Gulf that will take a generation to undo.
The world is watching. The people of Iran are watching. The people of the region are watching. And they are all wondering whether the United States is capable of making a rational decision when the pressure is on. I genuinely do not know the answer to that question, but I know that the next few days will tell us a great deal about where this situation is heading.
And I hope sincerely that cooler heads prevail because the alternative is something that nobody who has seen war up close, nobody who has survived a chemical attack, nobody who has watched families buried under rubble, would ever wish for anyone.
https://youtu.be/LjDWHtCKH3M?si=RMeEoWYLZI_4yra1
#DonaldTrump #Economics #GlobalEnergyMarkets #History #IranGeography #IranMountains #MasoudPezeshkian -
Professor Seyed Marandi to Americans: “I Hope Sincerely that Cooler Heads Prevail.”
Posted by Jerry Alatalo | April 29, 2026
[Editor’s note: What follows is a partial transcript, followed by the video of Iranian Professor Seyed Marandi’s full powerful, timely public statement. Please share this information far and wide, and, – most especially, if you reside in the United States, share this important information with your fellow Americans. Feel free to share your thoughts and/or responses in the comments. Thank you very much. Peace.]
***
TRANSCRIPT
I want to say something about the human cost here because I think it is important not to lose sight of this in the geopolitical analysis. Over 3,300 Iranians were killed in this conflict.
Among them were 168 young girls.
Scientists were killed alongside their families. Military commanders were killed alongside their families. The Americans and the Israelis struck civilian infrastructure. They struck populated areas. They used a kind of firepower that is designed to maximize destruction. Now look at the other side.
Iran fired thousands of missiles and drones at the military and energy infrastructure of these Gulf states that facilitated the attacks on Iran. And the total number of civilian casualties in Kuwait, the Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar combined is fewer than 20 people. Fewer than 20. You can go and verify this yourself. This is not Iranian television telling you this.
Look it up on any search engine. The disparity in civilian casualties tells you something very important about how these two sides are conducting this conflict. Now, I need to talk about what comes next because this is why this matters to everyone watching this video, not just to people in the region.
Trump has said he may restart military operations within days. His stated intention, if the conflict resumes, is to strike Iranian electrical power generation facilities. I want you to think carefully about what that means. If the Americans strike Iranian power plants, Iran will strike the power plants of the countries that provided their territory and airspace for these attacks.
I am talking about the Gulf States. These are desert countries. They have almost no natural fresh water. They have no agriculture of any significance. Their populations survive because of electricity. Electricity runs their desalination plants. Electricity runs their air conditioning.
In a few weeks, the summer heat in the Persian Gulf will be extreme. We are talking about temperatures that are genuinely life, threatening without climate control. If the power goes out, these countries cannot function. People will have to leave. These states will effectively collapse.
Iran is in a very different situation. Iran has the Albors mountain range running east to west across the north of the country. It has the Zagros mountain range running north to south along the west. Iran has forests. Iran has lakes. Iran has agriculture that covers roughly 90% of domestic food needs. Iran has borders with Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkmanistan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Turkey, and Iraq. It has access to the Caspian Sea, which connects it to Russia and Central Asia.
[Editor: Alborz Mountains, major mountain range in northern Iran, 560 miles (900 km) long, which serves as a defining landmark both geographically and in Iranian culture. (Britannica.com) The Zagros Mountains are a major mountain range in West Asia, extending approximately 1,600 kilometers across Iran, northern Iraq, and southeastern Turkey. They are known for their geological significance, rich biodiversity, and as a natural barrier that has historically protected various cultures.(Wikipedia)]
Iran has lived under sanctions for decades. It knows how to survive under pressure. The Gulf States do not have this experience. They cannot survive the same level of disruption. And this brings me back to the fundamental question of who can outlast whom.
This is a war of survival for Iran. Every Iranian understands what is at stake. When your country is under attack, when your people are being killed, when your cities are being bombed, you fight. You endure. You find ways to survive that an outside observer might not expect.
For the United States, this is a war of choice. [Editor: Bold added) A war being fought thousands of miles from American territory for reasons that most ordinary Americans do not fully understand at a cost in weapons and money and international reputation that is already becoming very significant.
Iran has not started a war in over 300 years. Since the revolution, three wars have been imposed on Iran. The 8-year war with Iraq, where Saddam Hussein was encouraged, armed, and financed by the West and by these very same Gulf states.
I personally survived two chemical weapons attacks during that war. Those chemical weapons were supplied by Western companies. They were funded by Gulf money. And then this war, Iran did not start any of these conflicts. But Iran survived all of them. So here’s where we are. Trump has a decision to make within days. He can restart military operations. If he does, the Iranians are ready. They have been preparing since the ceasefire began.
They know that Trump has violated agreements before. They are not going to be caught off guard. The underground bases that were never used during the first round of fighting will begin to be used. Production facilities that have been running throughout the ceasefire will provide a continuous supply of munitions and the straight of hormones will remain closed to the countries that facilitated this war.
Or Trump can honor the ceasefire he agreed to. He can lift the siege. He can give Iran what was promised under the agreement and then genuine negotiations can begin on a comprehensive deal that addresses the nuclear question, addresses regional security and gives everyone an off ramp from a crisis that is already beginning to destabilize the global economy in ways that will affect ordinary people everywhere.
The second option was available to Trump several times already. After the ceasefire, when Iran announced it was opening the Strait, that was his off ramp. He could have said, “I lifted the siege. Iran opened the straight. I won. This is a great deal. The best deal anyone has ever made.” He could have said this and walked away with something he could present as a victory. Instead, he escalated. He maintained the siege. And the crisis deepened.
I am not optimistic that he will make the right choice this time. Not because I think Trump is irrational in the way people sometimes say, but because the people around him are feeding him a version of reality that does not match what is actually on the ground. They told him Iran would collapse under military pressure. It did not. They told him the Iranian military would be quickly degraded. It was not. They are now telling him that a few more days of pressure will bring Iran to the table on American terms. I do not believe this is correct.
The Iranians are not going to negotiate under the threat of renewed bombardment. They are not going to make concessions that compromise their national security and their sovereignty because someone in Washington sets a deadline. This is not how Iran works. This is not how any country with real institutional depth and genuine popular support for its resistance works.
What I hope is that there are people in the American system, in the State Department, perhaps in the military establishment, perhaps even in the White House who understand the real situation on the ground and who are telling the president this path does not lead where you think it leads.
Because the alternative to diplomacy here is not a quick military victory. The alternative is a longer conflict with unpredictable escalation, a global energy crisis that will hit the American economy hard and a strategic realignment in the Persian Gulf that will take a generation to undo.
The world is watching. The people of Iran are watching. The people of the region are watching. And they are all wondering whether the United States is capable of making a rational decision when the pressure is on. I genuinely do not know the answer to that question, but I know that the next few days will tell us a great deal about where this situation is heading.
And I hope sincerely that cooler heads prevail because the alternative is something that nobody who has seen war up close, nobody who has survived a chemical attack, nobody who has watched families buried under rubble, would ever wish for anyone.
https://youtu.be/LjDWHtCKH3M?si=RMeEoWYLZI_4yra1
#DonaldTrump #Economics #GlobalEnergyMarkets #History #IranGeography #IranMountains #MasoudPezeshkian -
Professor Seyed Marandi to Americans: “I Hope Sincerely that Cooler Heads Prevail.”
Posted by Jerry Alatalo | April 29, 2026
[Editor’s note: What follows is a partial transcript, followed by the video of Iranian Professor Seyed Marandi’s full powerful, timely public statement. Please share this information far and wide, and, – most especially, if you reside in the United States, share this important information with your fellow Americans. Feel free to share your thoughts and/or responses in the comments. Thank you very much. Peace.]
***
TRANSCRIPT
I want to say something about the human cost here because I think it is important not to lose sight of this in the geopolitical analysis. Over 3,300 Iranians were killed in this conflict.
Among them were 168 young girls.
Scientists were killed alongside their families. Military commanders were killed alongside their families. The Americans and the Israelis struck civilian infrastructure. They struck populated areas. They used a kind of firepower that is designed to maximize destruction. Now look at the other side.
Iran fired thousands of missiles and drones at the military and energy infrastructure of these Gulf states that facilitated the attacks on Iran. And the total number of civilian casualties in Kuwait, the Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar combined is fewer than 20 people. Fewer than 20. You can go and verify this yourself. This is not Iranian television telling you this.
Look it up on any search engine. The disparity in civilian casualties tells you something very important about how these two sides are conducting this conflict. Now, I need to talk about what comes next because this is why this matters to everyone watching this video, not just to people in the region.
Trump has said he may restart military operations within days. His stated intention, if the conflict resumes, is to strike Iranian electrical power generation facilities. I want you to think carefully about what that means. If the Americans strike Iranian power plants, Iran will strike the power plants of the countries that provided their territory and airspace for these attacks.
I am talking about the Gulf States. These are desert countries. They have almost no natural fresh water. They have no agriculture of any significance. Their populations survive because of electricity. Electricity runs their desalination plants. Electricity runs their air conditioning.
In a few weeks, the summer heat in the Persian Gulf will be extreme. We are talking about temperatures that are genuinely life, threatening without climate control. If the power goes out, these countries cannot function. People will have to leave. These states will effectively collapse.
Iran is in a very different situation. Iran has the Albors mountain range running east to west across the north of the country. It has the Zagros mountain range running north to south along the west. Iran has forests. Iran has lakes. Iran has agriculture that covers roughly 90% of domestic food needs. Iran has borders with Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkmanistan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Turkey, and Iraq. It has access to the Caspian Sea, which connects it to Russia and Central Asia.
[Editor: Alborz Mountains, major mountain range in northern Iran, 560 miles (900 km) long, which serves as a defining landmark both geographically and in Iranian culture. (Britannica.com) The Zagros Mountains are a major mountain range in West Asia, extending approximately 1,600 kilometers across Iran, northern Iraq, and southeastern Turkey. They are known for their geological significance, rich biodiversity, and as a natural barrier that has historically protected various cultures.(Wikipedia)]
Iran has lived under sanctions for decades. It knows how to survive under pressure. The Gulf States do not have this experience. They cannot survive the same level of disruption. And this brings me back to the fundamental question of who can outlast whom.
This is a war of survival for Iran. Every Iranian understands what is at stake. When your country is under attack, when your people are being killed, when your cities are being bombed, you fight. You endure. You find ways to survive that an outside observer might not expect.
For the United States, this is a war of choice. [Editor: Bold added) A war being fought thousands of miles from American territory for reasons that most ordinary Americans do not fully understand at a cost in weapons and money and international reputation that is already becoming very significant.
Iran has not started a war in over 300 years. Since the revolution, three wars have been imposed on Iran. The 8-year war with Iraq, where Saddam Hussein was encouraged, armed, and financed by the West and by these very same Gulf states.
I personally survived two chemical weapons attacks during that war. Those chemical weapons were supplied by Western companies. They were funded by Gulf money. And then this war, Iran did not start any of these conflicts. But Iran survived all of them. So here’s where we are. Trump has a decision to make within days. He can restart military operations. If he does, the Iranians are ready. They have been preparing since the ceasefire began.
They know that Trump has violated agreements before. They are not going to be caught off guard. The underground bases that were never used during the first round of fighting will begin to be used. Production facilities that have been running throughout the ceasefire will provide a continuous supply of munitions and the straight of hormones will remain closed to the countries that facilitated this war.
Or Trump can honor the ceasefire he agreed to. He can lift the siege. He can give Iran what was promised under the agreement and then genuine negotiations can begin on a comprehensive deal that addresses the nuclear question, addresses regional security and gives everyone an off ramp from a crisis that is already beginning to destabilize the global economy in ways that will affect ordinary people everywhere.
The second option was available to Trump several times already. After the ceasefire, when Iran announced it was opening the Strait, that was his off ramp. He could have said, “I lifted the siege. Iran opened the straight. I won. This is a great deal. The best deal anyone has ever made.” He could have said this and walked away with something he could present as a victory. Instead, he escalated. He maintained the siege. And the crisis deepened.
I am not optimistic that he will make the right choice this time. Not because I think Trump is irrational in the way people sometimes say, but because the people around him are feeding him a version of reality that does not match what is actually on the ground. They told him Iran would collapse under military pressure. It did not. They told him the Iranian military would be quickly degraded. It was not. They are now telling him that a few more days of pressure will bring Iran to the table on American terms. I do not believe this is correct.
The Iranians are not going to negotiate under the threat of renewed bombardment. They are not going to make concessions that compromise their national security and their sovereignty because someone in Washington sets a deadline. This is not how Iran works. This is not how any country with real institutional depth and genuine popular support for its resistance works.
What I hope is that there are people in the American system, in the State Department, perhaps in the military establishment, perhaps even in the White House who understand the real situation on the ground and who are telling the president this path does not lead where you think it leads.
Because the alternative to diplomacy here is not a quick military victory. The alternative is a longer conflict with unpredictable escalation, a global energy crisis that will hit the American economy hard and a strategic realignment in the Persian Gulf that will take a generation to undo.
The world is watching. The people of Iran are watching. The people of the region are watching. And they are all wondering whether the United States is capable of making a rational decision when the pressure is on. I genuinely do not know the answer to that question, but I know that the next few days will tell us a great deal about where this situation is heading.
And I hope sincerely that cooler heads prevail because the alternative is something that nobody who has seen war up close, nobody who has survived a chemical attack, nobody who has watched families buried under rubble, would ever wish for anyone.
https://youtu.be/LjDWHtCKH3M?si=RMeEoWYLZI_4yra1
#DonaldTrump #Economics #GlobalEnergyMarkets #History #IranGeography #IranMountains #MasoudPezeshkian -
Professor Seyed Marandi to Americans: “I Hope Sincerely that Cooler Heads Prevail.”
Posted by Jerry Alatalo | April 29, 2026
[Editor’s note: What follows is a partial transcript, followed by the video of Iranian Professor Seyed Marandi’s full powerful, timely public statement. Please share this information far and wide, and, – most especially, if you reside in the United States, share this important information with your fellow Americans. Feel free to share your thoughts and/or responses in the comments. Thank you very much. Peace.]
***
TRANSCRIPT
I want to say something about the human cost here because I think it is important not to lose sight of this in the geopolitical analysis. Over 3,300 Iranians were killed in this conflict.
Among them were 168 young girls.
Scientists were killed alongside their families. Military commanders were killed alongside their families. The Americans and the Israelis struck civilian infrastructure. They struck populated areas. They used a kind of firepower that is designed to maximize destruction. Now look at the other side.
Iran fired thousands of missiles and drones at the military and energy infrastructure of these Gulf states that facilitated the attacks on Iran. And the total number of civilian casualties in Kuwait, the Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar combined is fewer than 20 people. Fewer than 20. You can go and verify this yourself. This is not Iranian television telling you this.
Look it up on any search engine. The disparity in civilian casualties tells you something very important about how these two sides are conducting this conflict. Now, I need to talk about what comes next because this is why this matters to everyone watching this video, not just to people in the region.
Trump has said he may restart military operations within days. His stated intention, if the conflict resumes, is to strike Iranian electrical power generation facilities. I want you to think carefully about what that means. If the Americans strike Iranian power plants, Iran will strike the power plants of the countries that provided their territory and airspace for these attacks.
I am talking about the Gulf States. These are desert countries. They have almost no natural fresh water. They have no agriculture of any significance. Their populations survive because of electricity. Electricity runs their desalination plants. Electricity runs their air conditioning.
In a few weeks, the summer heat in the Persian Gulf will be extreme. We are talking about temperatures that are genuinely life, threatening without climate control. If the power goes out, these countries cannot function. People will have to leave. These states will effectively collapse.
Iran is in a very different situation. Iran has the Albors mountain range running east to west across the north of the country. It has the Zagros mountain range running north to south along the west. Iran has forests. Iran has lakes. Iran has agriculture that covers roughly 90% of domestic food needs. Iran has borders with Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkmanistan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Turkey, and Iraq. It has access to the Caspian Sea, which connects it to Russia and Central Asia.
[Editor: Alborz Mountains, major mountain range in northern Iran, 560 miles (900 km) long, which serves as a defining landmark both geographically and in Iranian culture. (Britannica.com) The Zagros Mountains are a major mountain range in West Asia, extending approximately 1,600 kilometers across Iran, northern Iraq, and southeastern Turkey. They are known for their geological significance, rich biodiversity, and as a natural barrier that has historically protected various cultures.(Wikipedia)]
Iran has lived under sanctions for decades. It knows how to survive under pressure. The Gulf States do not have this experience. They cannot survive the same level of disruption. And this brings me back to the fundamental question of who can outlast whom.
This is a war of survival for Iran. Every Iranian understands what is at stake. When your country is under attack, when your people are being killed, when your cities are being bombed, you fight. You endure. You find ways to survive that an outside observer might not expect.
For the United States, this is a war of choice. [Editor: Bold added) A war being fought thousands of miles from American territory for reasons that most ordinary Americans do not fully understand at a cost in weapons and money and international reputation that is already becoming very significant.
Iran has not started a war in over 300 years. Since the revolution, three wars have been imposed on Iran. The 8-year war with Iraq, where Saddam Hussein was encouraged, armed, and financed by the West and by these very same Gulf states.
I personally survived two chemical weapons attacks during that war. Those chemical weapons were supplied by Western companies. They were funded by Gulf money. And then this war, Iran did not start any of these conflicts. But Iran survived all of them. So here’s where we are. Trump has a decision to make within days. He can restart military operations. If he does, the Iranians are ready. They have been preparing since the ceasefire began.
They know that Trump has violated agreements before. They are not going to be caught off guard. The underground bases that were never used during the first round of fighting will begin to be used. Production facilities that have been running throughout the ceasefire will provide a continuous supply of munitions and the straight of hormones will remain closed to the countries that facilitated this war.
Or Trump can honor the ceasefire he agreed to. He can lift the siege. He can give Iran what was promised under the agreement and then genuine negotiations can begin on a comprehensive deal that addresses the nuclear question, addresses regional security and gives everyone an off ramp from a crisis that is already beginning to destabilize the global economy in ways that will affect ordinary people everywhere.
The second option was available to Trump several times already. After the ceasefire, when Iran announced it was opening the Strait, that was his off ramp. He could have said, “I lifted the siege. Iran opened the straight. I won. This is a great deal. The best deal anyone has ever made.” He could have said this and walked away with something he could present as a victory. Instead, he escalated. He maintained the siege. And the crisis deepened.
I am not optimistic that he will make the right choice this time. Not because I think Trump is irrational in the way people sometimes say, but because the people around him are feeding him a version of reality that does not match what is actually on the ground. They told him Iran would collapse under military pressure. It did not. They told him the Iranian military would be quickly degraded. It was not. They are now telling him that a few more days of pressure will bring Iran to the table on American terms. I do not believe this is correct.
The Iranians are not going to negotiate under the threat of renewed bombardment. They are not going to make concessions that compromise their national security and their sovereignty because someone in Washington sets a deadline. This is not how Iran works. This is not how any country with real institutional depth and genuine popular support for its resistance works.
What I hope is that there are people in the American system, in the State Department, perhaps in the military establishment, perhaps even in the White House who understand the real situation on the ground and who are telling the president this path does not lead where you think it leads.
Because the alternative to diplomacy here is not a quick military victory. The alternative is a longer conflict with unpredictable escalation, a global energy crisis that will hit the American economy hard and a strategic realignment in the Persian Gulf that will take a generation to undo.
The world is watching. The people of Iran are watching. The people of the region are watching. And they are all wondering whether the United States is capable of making a rational decision when the pressure is on. I genuinely do not know the answer to that question, but I know that the next few days will tell us a great deal about where this situation is heading.
And I hope sincerely that cooler heads prevail because the alternative is something that nobody who has seen war up close, nobody who has survived a chemical attack, nobody who has watched families buried under rubble, would ever wish for anyone.
https://youtu.be/LjDWHtCKH3M?si=RMeEoWYLZI_4yra1
#DonaldTrump #Economics #GlobalEnergyMarkets #History #IranGeography #IranMountains #MasoudPezeshkian -
Professor Seyed Marandi to Americans: “I Hope Sincerely that Cooler Heads Prevail.”
Posted by Jerry Alatalo | April 29, 2026
[Editor’s note: What follows is a partial transcript, followed by the video of Iranian Professor Seyed Marandi’s full powerful, timely public statement. Please share this information far and wide, and, – most especially, if you reside in the United States, share this important information with your fellow Americans. Feel free to share your thoughts and/or responses in the comments. Thank you very much. Peace.]
***
TRANSCRIPT
I want to say something about the human cost here because I think it is important not to lose sight of this in the geopolitical analysis. Over 3,300 Iranians were killed in this conflict.
Among them were 168 young girls.
Scientists were killed alongside their families. Military commanders were killed alongside their families. The Americans and the Israelis struck civilian infrastructure. They struck populated areas. They used a kind of firepower that is designed to maximize destruction. Now look at the other side.
Iran fired thousands of missiles and drones at the military and energy infrastructure of these Gulf states that facilitated the attacks on Iran. And the total number of civilian casualties in Kuwait, the Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar combined is fewer than 20 people. Fewer than 20. You can go and verify this yourself. This is not Iranian television telling you this.
Look it up on any search engine. The disparity in civilian casualties tells you something very important about how these two sides are conducting this conflict. Now, I need to talk about what comes next because this is why this matters to everyone watching this video, not just to people in the region.
Trump has said he may restart military operations within days. His stated intention, if the conflict resumes, is to strike Iranian electrical power generation facilities. I want you to think carefully about what that means. If the Americans strike Iranian power plants, Iran will strike the power plants of the countries that provided their territory and airspace for these attacks.
I am talking about the Gulf States. These are desert countries. They have almost no natural fresh water. They have no agriculture of any significance. Their populations survive because of electricity. Electricity runs their desalination plants. Electricity runs their air conditioning.
In a few weeks, the summer heat in the Persian Gulf will be extreme. We are talking about temperatures that are genuinely life, threatening without climate control. If the power goes out, these countries cannot function. People will have to leave. These states will effectively collapse.
Iran is in a very different situation. Iran has the Albors mountain range running east to west across the north of the country. It has the Zagros mountain range running north to south along the west. Iran has forests. Iran has lakes. Iran has agriculture that covers roughly 90% of domestic food needs. Iran has borders with Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkmanistan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Turkey, and Iraq. It has access to the Caspian Sea, which connects it to Russia and Central Asia.
[Editor: Alborz Mountains, major mountain range in northern Iran, 560 miles (900 km) long, which serves as a defining landmark both geographically and in Iranian culture. (Britannica.com) The Zagros Mountains are a major mountain range in West Asia, extending approximately 1,600 kilometers across Iran, northern Iraq, and southeastern Turkey. They are known for their geological significance, rich biodiversity, and as a natural barrier that has historically protected various cultures.(Wikipedia)]
Iran has lived under sanctions for decades. It knows how to survive under pressure. The Gulf States do not have this experience. They cannot survive the same level of disruption. And this brings me back to the fundamental question of who can outlast whom.
This is a war of survival for Iran. Every Iranian understands what is at stake. When your country is under attack, when your people are being killed, when your cities are being bombed, you fight. You endure. You find ways to survive that an outside observer might not expect.
For the United States, this is a war of choice. [Editor: Bold added) A war being fought thousands of miles from American territory for reasons that most ordinary Americans do not fully understand at a cost in weapons and money and international reputation that is already becoming very significant.
Iran has not started a war in over 300 years. Since the revolution, three wars have been imposed on Iran. The 8-year war with Iraq, where Saddam Hussein was encouraged, armed, and financed by the West and by these very same Gulf states.
I personally survived two chemical weapons attacks during that war. Those chemical weapons were supplied by Western companies. They were funded by Gulf money. And then this war, Iran did not start any of these conflicts. But Iran survived all of them. So here’s where we are. Trump has a decision to make within days. He can restart military operations. If he does, the Iranians are ready. They have been preparing since the ceasefire began.
They know that Trump has violated agreements before. They are not going to be caught off guard. The underground bases that were never used during the first round of fighting will begin to be used. Production facilities that have been running throughout the ceasefire will provide a continuous supply of munitions and the straight of hormones will remain closed to the countries that facilitated this war.
Or Trump can honor the ceasefire he agreed to. He can lift the siege. He can give Iran what was promised under the agreement and then genuine negotiations can begin on a comprehensive deal that addresses the nuclear question, addresses regional security and gives everyone an off ramp from a crisis that is already beginning to destabilize the global economy in ways that will affect ordinary people everywhere.
The second option was available to Trump several times already. After the ceasefire, when Iran announced it was opening the Strait, that was his off ramp. He could have said, “I lifted the siege. Iran opened the straight. I won. This is a great deal. The best deal anyone has ever made.” He could have said this and walked away with something he could present as a victory. Instead, he escalated. He maintained the siege. And the crisis deepened.
I am not optimistic that he will make the right choice this time. Not because I think Trump is irrational in the way people sometimes say, but because the people around him are feeding him a version of reality that does not match what is actually on the ground. They told him Iran would collapse under military pressure. It did not. They told him the Iranian military would be quickly degraded. It was not. They are now telling him that a few more days of pressure will bring Iran to the table on American terms. I do not believe this is correct.
The Iranians are not going to negotiate under the threat of renewed bombardment. They are not going to make concessions that compromise their national security and their sovereignty because someone in Washington sets a deadline. This is not how Iran works. This is not how any country with real institutional depth and genuine popular support for its resistance works.
What I hope is that there are people in the American system, in the State Department, perhaps in the military establishment, perhaps even in the White House who understand the real situation on the ground and who are telling the president this path does not lead where you think it leads.
Because the alternative to diplomacy here is not a quick military victory. The alternative is a longer conflict with unpredictable escalation, a global energy crisis that will hit the American economy hard and a strategic realignment in the Persian Gulf that will take a generation to undo.
The world is watching. The people of Iran are watching. The people of the region are watching. And they are all wondering whether the United States is capable of making a rational decision when the pressure is on. I genuinely do not know the answer to that question, but I know that the next few days will tell us a great deal about where this situation is heading.
And I hope sincerely that cooler heads prevail because the alternative is something that nobody who has seen war up close, nobody who has survived a chemical attack, nobody who has watched families buried under rubble, would ever wish for anyone.
https://youtu.be/LjDWHtCKH3M?si=RMeEoWYLZI_4yra1
#DonaldTrump #Economics #GlobalEnergyMarkets #History #IranGeography #IranMountains #MasoudPezeshkian -
Douglas Macgregor: “Donald Trump Can’t Tell the Truth.”
Posted by Jerry Alatalo | April 22, 2026
[Editor’s note: Please share this timely information far and wide. Feel free to share your thoughts/responses in the comments. Thank you very much. Peace.]
*
No Peace, Only Escalation: The Push Toward Total War With Iran
April 22, 2026
As ceasefire talks collapse, retired Col. Douglas Macgregor warns that Washington is not negotiating—it’s preparing for a devastating, infrastructure-targeting war that could reshape the global order.
The language of peace still lingers in official statements—but on the ground, the machinery of war is accelerating.
In this stark and deeply unsettling conversation, retired U.S. Colonel Douglas Macgregor joins Glenn Diesen to dismantle the illusion of diplomacy surrounding the Iran conflict. What’s being sold as negotiation, he argues, is little more than theater—designed to calm markets, not stop bombs.
Behind the headlines, a far more dangerous reality is taking shape: a coordinated buildup for what Macgregor describes as a potential “total war” scenario, one that moves beyond military targets and toward the destruction of an entire state’s infrastructure.
If he’s right, the question is no longer whether the war will escalate—but how far it will go, and how much of the world it will drag with it.
A cause for major concern—one that cannot be repeated enough—is this warning from Macgregor:
“There was no real path to an agreeable solution—because there was no real negotiation. When the vice president steps out mid-meeting to take a call from Netanyahu, it tells you everything. These aren’t negotiations. It suggests that Netanyahu—not Trump—is effectively calling the shots on whether we go to war.”Highlights
- “There were no real negotiations.”
Macgregor argues the so-called peace talks were never genuine, describing them as political theater meant to project stability while preparing escalation. - Power behind the scenes:
He suggests decision-making is not fully in Washington’s hands, pointing to Israeli influence shaping U.S. military direction. - From war to state destruction:
The next phase, he warns, targets not just military assets—but bridges, power plants, oil infrastructure, and civilian systems—a shift toward dismantling Iran as a functioning state. - A global economic shockwave:
Disruptions in the Persian Gulf could trigger fuel shortages, fertilizer collapse, and famine risks across the Global South. - The limits of U.S. power:
Fighting thousands of miles from supply lines while Iran operates defensively at home creates what he calls a “home court advantage” that undermines U.S. strategy. - End of the old order:
Macgregor frames the conflict as part of a larger collapse of U.S. dominance—warning that the petrodollar system and global unipolarity may already be breaking down. - No clear path to victory:
Even with overwhelming force, he sees no realistic military outcome that delivers control—only deeper instability.
(Source: ScheerPost.com)
#DouglasMacgregor #GlennDiesen #Iran #Islamabad #Israel #Pakistan #Tehran #TelAviv #WashingtonDC - “There were no real negotiations.”
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Douglas Macgregor: “Donald Trump Can’t Tell the Truth.”
Posted by Jerry Alatalo | April 22, 2026
[Editor’s note: Please share this timely information far and wide. Feel free to share your thoughts/responses in the comments. Thank you very much. Peace.]
*
No Peace, Only Escalation: The Push Toward Total War With Iran
April 22, 2026
As ceasefire talks collapse, retired Col. Douglas Macgregor warns that Washington is not negotiating—it’s preparing for a devastating, infrastructure-targeting war that could reshape the global order.
The language of peace still lingers in official statements—but on the ground, the machinery of war is accelerating.
In this stark and deeply unsettling conversation, retired U.S. Colonel Douglas Macgregor joins Glenn Diesen to dismantle the illusion of diplomacy surrounding the Iran conflict. What’s being sold as negotiation, he argues, is little more than theater—designed to calm markets, not stop bombs.
Behind the headlines, a far more dangerous reality is taking shape: a coordinated buildup for what Macgregor describes as a potential “total war” scenario, one that moves beyond military targets and toward the destruction of an entire state’s infrastructure.
If he’s right, the question is no longer whether the war will escalate—but how far it will go, and how much of the world it will drag with it.
A cause for major concern—one that cannot be repeated enough—is this warning from Macgregor:
“There was no real path to an agreeable solution—because there was no real negotiation. When the vice president steps out mid-meeting to take a call from Netanyahu, it tells you everything. These aren’t negotiations. It suggests that Netanyahu—not Trump—is effectively calling the shots on whether we go to war.”Highlights
- “There were no real negotiations.”
Macgregor argues the so-called peace talks were never genuine, describing them as political theater meant to project stability while preparing escalation. - Power behind the scenes:
He suggests decision-making is not fully in Washington’s hands, pointing to Israeli influence shaping U.S. military direction. - From war to state destruction:
The next phase, he warns, targets not just military assets—but bridges, power plants, oil infrastructure, and civilian systems—a shift toward dismantling Iran as a functioning state. - A global economic shockwave:
Disruptions in the Persian Gulf could trigger fuel shortages, fertilizer collapse, and famine risks across the Global South. - The limits of U.S. power:
Fighting thousands of miles from supply lines while Iran operates defensively at home creates what he calls a “home court advantage” that undermines U.S. strategy. - End of the old order:
Macgregor frames the conflict as part of a larger collapse of U.S. dominance—warning that the petrodollar system and global unipolarity may already be breaking down. - No clear path to victory:
Even with overwhelming force, he sees no realistic military outcome that delivers control—only deeper instability.
(Source: ScheerPost.com)
#DouglasMacgregor #GlennDiesen #Iran #Islamabad #Israel #Pakistan #Tehran #TelAviv #WashingtonDC - “There were no real negotiations.”
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Douglas Macgregor: “Donald Trump Can’t Tell the Truth.”
Posted by Jerry Alatalo | April 22, 2026
[Editor’s note: Please share this timely information far and wide. Feel free to share your thoughts/responses in the comments. Thank you very much. Peace.]
*
No Peace, Only Escalation: The Push Toward Total War With Iran
April 22, 2026
As ceasefire talks collapse, retired Col. Douglas Macgregor warns that Washington is not negotiating—it’s preparing for a devastating, infrastructure-targeting war that could reshape the global order.
The language of peace still lingers in official statements—but on the ground, the machinery of war is accelerating.
In this stark and deeply unsettling conversation, retired U.S. Colonel Douglas Macgregor joins Glenn Diesen to dismantle the illusion of diplomacy surrounding the Iran conflict. What’s being sold as negotiation, he argues, is little more than theater—designed to calm markets, not stop bombs.
Behind the headlines, a far more dangerous reality is taking shape: a coordinated buildup for what Macgregor describes as a potential “total war” scenario, one that moves beyond military targets and toward the destruction of an entire state’s infrastructure.
If he’s right, the question is no longer whether the war will escalate—but how far it will go, and how much of the world it will drag with it.
A cause for major concern—one that cannot be repeated enough—is this warning from Macgregor:
“There was no real path to an agreeable solution—because there was no real negotiation. When the vice president steps out mid-meeting to take a call from Netanyahu, it tells you everything. These aren’t negotiations. It suggests that Netanyahu—not Trump—is effectively calling the shots on whether we go to war.”Highlights
- “There were no real negotiations.”
Macgregor argues the so-called peace talks were never genuine, describing them as political theater meant to project stability while preparing escalation. - Power behind the scenes:
He suggests decision-making is not fully in Washington’s hands, pointing to Israeli influence shaping U.S. military direction. - From war to state destruction:
The next phase, he warns, targets not just military assets—but bridges, power plants, oil infrastructure, and civilian systems—a shift toward dismantling Iran as a functioning state. - A global economic shockwave:
Disruptions in the Persian Gulf could trigger fuel shortages, fertilizer collapse, and famine risks across the Global South. - The limits of U.S. power:
Fighting thousands of miles from supply lines while Iran operates defensively at home creates what he calls a “home court advantage” that undermines U.S. strategy. - End of the old order:
Macgregor frames the conflict as part of a larger collapse of U.S. dominance—warning that the petrodollar system and global unipolarity may already be breaking down. - No clear path to victory:
Even with overwhelming force, he sees no realistic military outcome that delivers control—only deeper instability.
(Source: ScheerPost.com)
#DouglasMacgregor #GlennDiesen #Iran #Islamabad #Israel #Pakistan #Tehran #TelAviv #WashingtonDC - “There were no real negotiations.”
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Douglas Macgregor: “Donald Trump Can’t Tell the Truth.”
Posted by Jerry Alatalo | April 22, 2026
[Editor’s note: Please share this timely information far and wide. Feel free to share your thoughts/responses in the comments. Thank you very much. Peace.]
*
No Peace, Only Escalation: The Push Toward Total War With Iran
April 22, 2026
As ceasefire talks collapse, retired Col. Douglas Macgregor warns that Washington is not negotiating—it’s preparing for a devastating, infrastructure-targeting war that could reshape the global order.
The language of peace still lingers in official statements—but on the ground, the machinery of war is accelerating.
In this stark and deeply unsettling conversation, retired U.S. Colonel Douglas Macgregor joins Glenn Diesen to dismantle the illusion of diplomacy surrounding the Iran conflict. What’s being sold as negotiation, he argues, is little more than theater—designed to calm markets, not stop bombs.
Behind the headlines, a far more dangerous reality is taking shape: a coordinated buildup for what Macgregor describes as a potential “total war” scenario, one that moves beyond military targets and toward the destruction of an entire state’s infrastructure.
If he’s right, the question is no longer whether the war will escalate—but how far it will go, and how much of the world it will drag with it.
A cause for major concern—one that cannot be repeated enough—is this warning from Macgregor:
“There was no real path to an agreeable solution—because there was no real negotiation. When the vice president steps out mid-meeting to take a call from Netanyahu, it tells you everything. These aren’t negotiations. It suggests that Netanyahu—not Trump—is effectively calling the shots on whether we go to war.”Highlights
- “There were no real negotiations.”
Macgregor argues the so-called peace talks were never genuine, describing them as political theater meant to project stability while preparing escalation. - Power behind the scenes:
He suggests decision-making is not fully in Washington’s hands, pointing to Israeli influence shaping U.S. military direction. - From war to state destruction:
The next phase, he warns, targets not just military assets—but bridges, power plants, oil infrastructure, and civilian systems—a shift toward dismantling Iran as a functioning state. - A global economic shockwave:
Disruptions in the Persian Gulf could trigger fuel shortages, fertilizer collapse, and famine risks across the Global South. - The limits of U.S. power:
Fighting thousands of miles from supply lines while Iran operates defensively at home creates what he calls a “home court advantage” that undermines U.S. strategy. - End of the old order:
Macgregor frames the conflict as part of a larger collapse of U.S. dominance—warning that the petrodollar system and global unipolarity may already be breaking down. - No clear path to victory:
Even with overwhelming force, he sees no realistic military outcome that delivers control—only deeper instability.
(Source: ScheerPost.com)
#DouglasMacgregor #GlennDiesen #Iran #Islamabad #Israel #Pakistan #Tehran #TelAviv #WashingtonDC - “There were no real negotiations.”
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https://www.europesays.com/fi/201024/ Ronja Alatalo yhdistää joogan ja laulun – ainutlaatuiset joogatunnit hurmaavat #Celebrities #Entertainment #FI #Finland #Finnish #jooga #Julkkikset #laulu #näyttelijä #opiskelu #RonjaAlatalo #Suomi #viihde
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https://www.europesays.com/fi/87663/ Näyttelijä Tomi Alatalon menehtyi yllättäem – Pilvi Hämäläinen suree ystäväänsä #Entertainment #FI #Finland #Finnish #Kuolema #menetys #PilviHämäläinen #Suomi #suru #TomiAlatalo #viihde #ystävä
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Näin yöllä unta, että Mikko Alatalo oli ryhtynyt tekemään elektronista musiikkia artistinimellä Mike SubHouse. #uhka #mahdollisuus
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George Galloway in Top Form.
(Image of Heinrich Himmler – credit: Britannica.com)
Republished by Jerry Alatalo | May 27, 2026
Heinrich Himmler (born October 7, 1900, Munich, Germany—died May 23, 1945, Lüneburg, Germany) was a German Nazi politician, police administrator, and military commander who became the second most powerful man in the Third Reich. (Source: Britannica.com)
[Editor’s note: I always find it an encouraging sign when any particularly powerful George Galloway monologue feels strong enough and/or important enough to share with others. Please share Mr. Galloway’s public statement far and wide, and feel free to share your responses in the comments Thank you very much. Peace.]
Smotrich, does tomorrow belong to him, as the old marching song had it?
Spitting on Christians in Jerusalem.
Lying Trump, what else?
Tony Blair, back from the crypt, immeasurably richer.
Board of Peace bankrupt…
MONOLOGUE: The Himmler of our Times
https://rumble.com/embed/v78aarw/?pub=10w7jh
#BoardOfPeace #BritishEconomy #Economics #History #TonyBlair #Zionism -
What Do We Do Now?
Article republished by Jerry Alatalo | May 22, 2026
[Editor’s note: Karen Kwiatkowski writes:
“On paper, the House is the people’s representative body and overwhelmingly the American people oppose this latest Trump war. Except, as we saw in the unhinged Kentucky 4th District primary, the prime directive remains that no US representative may disobey the Israel lobby. It’s not what Americans want; it is what Netanyahu, Smotrich, and Ben Gvir want…”
Please share far and wide and share your thoughts/responses in the comments. Thank you very much. Peace.]
***
(Source: LewRockwell.com)
So What Do We Do Now?
May 22, 2026
Set the scene. A massive military presence halfway around the world. American soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines on a wartime footing under a social media lockdown. Old and angry, the US President publicly threatens to “end” things for another country, and then does it.
In the proud tradition of another baby killer, Trump believes, as Madeleine Albright told Colin Powell 35 years ago, “What’s the point of having this superb military you’re always talking about, if we can’t use it?”
Economic and military assaults on the integrity and sovereignty of other countries around the world is part of American history, and this has been normalized for most Americans. Boomers, born the two decades after World War II, grew up in an “inflation and war” period. It pumped their retirement portfolios with real assets paid off in depreciating dollars and “profitable” investments in state-subsidized military industries, technology and pharma. Obama, Trump 45, Biden, and Trump 47 each boasted the “highest stock market ever.”
Boomers in particular have been reluctant to examine the US government’s transformation into an opaque machine of billionaire elites and capital firms that pursue and shape US domestic and foreign policy.
Trump joked for ten years that he would “Make America Great Again.” He meant America, Inc., but it’s not all his fault. The imbalance between spending on what government requires (war, domestic surveillance, regulatory controls, and more of your paycheck) and what the people want and deserve (peace, privacy, liberty, and more of our earnings) has been growing for decades. Even 38% of the Boomers and the Silent generations recognize this – but the ruling class doesn’t want to hear from those who oppose the war/inflation/murder cult. Instead, our modern Goldfinger says to a strapped American population desperately trying to be represented, “[I don’t expect you to talk]…I expect you to die!”
The problem of empire is not its historic predictability, but its determinism. You cannot vote away an empire. What the empire does is controlled not by the people, or the law, but by an arthritic algorithm, a thousand times less flexible than the ones managing your social media feed. This algorithm produces command and control economies and deeply indebted governments in a world where every other country is increasingly more free, more innovative, and more fiscally sound. As the indebted, corrupt, centralized system begins to blow gaskets and seize up, it sees new enemies inside its borders as well, and works to end freedom of speech, movement, and association.
The ever-jealous state ridicules faithful prayer to a supernatural God, reminding citizens that submission and obedience to a political system is far wiser in the short term. Mark Twain’s “The War Prayer” was published over 120 years ago, very close to the 125th birthday of the Declaration of Independence. Facing our 250th, I wonder how many Americans are shocked as we devotedly cheer the “most moral army in the world” and our own.
The US Senate, after multiple attempts, finally discharged Senate Joint Resolution 185 from the Foreign Relations Committee to the full Senate. Is the US Senate suddenly thinking about America’s younger generations who want, and need, peace and liberty? Is it reflecting on Trump’s failed military and absent diplomatic strategy for long-term US power projection – or just peace – in the Persian Gulf? Did it discover that the emerging security architecture there doesn’t include the US? Is it asserting Article 1 constitutional powers because of concern about wasted taxpayer dollars, or were 53 Senators just tired of being left out of the profitable shorts made by executive suite cronies? Is the Senate somehow acting on behalf of our nation and the Constitution?
The answer is none of the above. The uni-party, and the unitary state, is incoherently attempting, probably at the request of the real owners of this country, to fashion Washington’s exit from a deep hole that Israel needed the US, and specifically Trump, to dig. Trump dug enthusiastically, burying billions in our military munitions and capability, as well as the last fragments of our global good will, furiously slinging dirt and debris. Flag officers and teenage soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines alike have been awestruck by the strategic and tactical disaster of this war. A nervous world waits and watches from the sidelines, in gas lines, and soon, in food lines.
We shall see if the House likewise considers this resolution to bring the troops home, much less if both houses approve it – only to face down a Trump veto delivered on Truth Social, a minute or two after it is provided to White House crony investors. On paper, the House is the people’s representative body and overwhelmingly the American people oppose this latest Trump war. Except, as we saw in the unhinged Kentucky 4th District primary, the prime directive remains that no US representative may disobey the Israel lobby. It’s not what Americans want; it is what Netanyahu, Smotrich, and Ben Gvir want, and in a few months, it will be what Naftali Bennett and his allies in the Knesset want. Which is to say, a tiny ethno-fascist empire halfway around the planet calls the literal shots in, and those fired by, the United States.
Central Command Dweeb In Chief Bradley Cooper, wormy-looking and wide-eyed, responded to a Congressional question about why he authorized the February 28th Tomahawk triple tap on a girls school in Minab. While struggling to locate his spine, he answered with the equivalent of “It’s complicated.”
Indeed it is. What isn’t complicated is the message the empire is sending not just to the world, but to Americans specifically. That message is STFU and suffer. When we hear this message from “our government,” there is only one acceptable response: “You first.”
I am reminded of a famous letter written by Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith. Smith had sent him a copy of the new Constitution. Jefferson was contemplating the new America, and this new constitution. He wrote, “There are very good articles in it: and very bad. I do not know which preponderate.” Wait, what? It wasn’t perfect?
He goes on: “Wonderful is the effect of impudent and persevering lying. The British ministry have so long hired their gazetteers to repeat and model into every form lies about our being in anarchy, that the world has at length believed them, the English nation has believed them, the ministers themselves have come to believe them, and what is more wonderful, we have believed them ourselves.” Wow! Trump wasn’t even a gleam in his great-great-great-great-grandfathers eye in 1787!
Jefferson then addresses the kerfluffle in Massachusetts. “The people can not be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty.”
The world is still burning. Let us resolve to be more honestly informed, and to conceive our facts more correctly. Let us be a little less quiet, as we clarify rightness and wrongness in our political arrangement. Let us embrace the Jeffersonian truth that liberty requires action. And just for fun, let us revel in the knowledge that our backbones are vastly more functional than those of our political and military leaders!
….
Karen Kwiatkowski, Ph.D. [send her mail], a retired USAF lieutenant colonel, farmer and aspiring anarcho-capitalist. She was a whistleblower prior to the second Iraq war in 2002, ran for Congress in Virginia’s 6th district in 2012, received the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence Award in 2018, is a Fellow at the Eisenhower Media Network, and an Associated Scholar of the Mises Institute. She also writes at karenkwiatkowski.substack.com
#AmericanHistory #DonaldTrump #EisenhowerMediaNetwork #History #Israel #Philosophy #PoliticalScience -
The Greater Israel Project for Dummies.
Article republished by Jerry Alatalo | May 19, 2026
[Editor’s note: Peter Hanseler writes/asks: “Under Roger Köppel, the Swiss weekly magazine “Weltwoche” has become a Zionist mouthpiece. Its justification of genocide and war crimes is not only appalling, but also mendacious. Is Köppel being controlled by Israel?”
Mr. Hanseler goes on to focus on and examine relevant historical facts which answer his own question in the affirmative, a journalistic exercise which could easily become applied in a similar manner with regard to a significant percentage of American media organizations, also reaching the same conclusion: the American media groups meet the criterion for categorization as “Zionist mouthpiece”.
The question which becomes begged from such a necessary journalistic exercise/effort, as Peter Hanseler courageously undertakes here, relates to legal accountability, and might go as follows: “Are media owners and managers subject to criminal prosecution when their publications – by publishing clearly dishonest, deceptive, intentional war propaganda – assist, support and/or advocate for war criminals’ actions, – in a very real sense manipulating public opinion toward a pro-war stance, for the sole purpose of allowing the committing of reckless, reprehensible, deplorable war crimes to persist?”
Please share this highly-suppressed, fundamental historical information far and wide. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments. Thank you very much. Peace.]
***
In the Service of Genocide and War Crimes—Switzerland’s “Weltwoche” Has Lost Its Way
18 May 2026 by Peter Hanseler
Under Roger Köppel, the Swiss weekly magazine “Weltwoche” has become a Zionist mouthpiece. Its justification of genocide and war crimes is not only appalling, but also mendacious. Is Köppel being controlled by Israel?
By Peter Hanseler via ForumGeopolitica.com
Roger Köppel – “Without Morals. Without Justice. For Israel.”Introduction
Since October 2023, “Die Weltwoche* has been taking a very strange course. The completely intellectually lazy portrayal of the events surrounding October 7, 2023, has resulted in Weltwoche, under the leadership of its owner, publisher, and editor-in-chief Roger Köppel, pursuing an increasingly uncritical pro-Israel stance. The narrative disseminated by Roger Köppel is riddled with “facts” that are none. Added to this are falsehoods and an underlying tenor that seems to derive from Israel’s Zionist script, readily adopted by a newspaper that claims to observe world events independently. The suspicion arises that Roger Köppel has degenerated into a puppet of Israeli agents of influence—the evidence for such entanglement is converging.
In this article, we analyze two pieces published by Roger Köppel on April 10 and 27, 2026, by comparing the author’s claims with verifiable facts. The results are shocking. Köppel exploits the history of the Jewish people to justify Israel’s Zionist policies in a manner that is historically and journalistically questionable.
Analysis
Genocide
On April 27, 2026, Köppel published the article “Sorry, Tucker. Sorry, Professor Mearsheimer. I agree with you on Russia. But not on Israel.” The title promises a serious and well-founded analysis of the arguments put forward by these two American titans: Professor Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago is, alongside Professor Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University in New York, a major heavyweight in American geopolitics. Tucker Carlson is the most prominent and courageous journalist in the United States.
Köppel’s analysis of these leading American intellectuals amounts to nothing more than describing Tucker Carlson as “courageous” and Professor Mearsheimer as ”smart. None of their arguments are seriously discussed. Why should they be? Köppel is more comfortable spreading pro-Israel propaganda and stays in intellectual waters that are shallow.
The ever-cheerful Swiss “feel-good” journalist denies that genocide is taking place in Gaza. Based on his own unique interpretation—offered without further explanation—he explicitly exonerates Israel of genocide. This is nothing new at “Weltwoche”. As early as December 2024, Köppel demanded: “Stop calling everything genocide.”
Köppel pays no heed to the definition of genocide under Article II of the Convention of December 9, 1948, on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. He glosses over the rulings of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) regarding genocide and the international arrest warrant against Netanyahu issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC). As early as last summer, the author drew malicious comparisons between Netanyahu and Putin in order to whitewash the former.
“It wasn’t Israel; it was Hamas that went too far with the massacre of October 7, 2023: 1,200 people murdered, raped, and abducted—including babies.” Köppel’s account of the events of October 7 finds no support even in the Israeli press, “Haaretz,” or the “New York Times”: According to Haaretz, there were 900 deaths, 508 of them Israeli soldiers. There is no evidence of rapes, no evidence of the killing or beheading of babies, as claimed by official Israel. More than half of the victims were killed by Israeli fire. “Haaretz” and “The Cradle” refer here to the application of the so-called “Hannibal Directive.” This obligates the Israeli military to prevent the taking of Israeli hostages, even by killing the hostages. “Haaretz” also found the following: The number of civilians killed by Hamas was less than 100. The fact that most of those shot were armed settlers once again exposes the aforementioned Western “reporting” for what it is: incitement in the name of an apparently predefined political goal, which is uncritically adopted by “Weltwoche.”
The Israelis had known about the planning of the Hamas operation on October 7, 2023, long before it took place. This was due, in part, to a tip from Egyptian intelligence. The Israeli leadership deliberately did not prevent this operation. What we did not know at the time is that Tel Aviv exploited this Hamas operation to justify the genocide that followed in Gaza and to officially implement the “Greater Israel” project—as a kick-off, so to speak. A fact that Köppel fails to mention.
Hamas’s operation was of a military nature: taking hostages in order to exchange them for the thousands of Palestinians (many of them children) being held in Israeli prisons without legal grounds. It should be noted that armed resistance against an occupying regime is supported by international law.
According to the UN, since October 7, 2023, Israeli forces have killed 72,619 Palestinians, injured 172,484, and killed 391 UN staff members; these are the official figures—the actual number of victims buried under the rubble is likely to be many times higher.
Israel
Köppel claims that the Jews did not immigrate from Europe, but are a people with a connection to Palestine dating back thousands of years. He argues that this renders the colonialism argument null and void.
Köppel uncritically and shamelessly adopts this dishonest line of reasoning.
This is an absurd claim, since it would mean that any Italian, as a descendant of Rome, could use the same reasoning to annex land and houses in Zurich, the former Roman city of “Turicum.” Most of Israel’s Jewish residents immigrated from Europe. In the wake of Hitler’s dictatorship and World War II, Israel was settled primarily by Holocaust refugees, initially from Eastern Europe. Later, many Jews came from the former Soviet Union, so that today there are 2 million people of Russian—or rather Soviet—origin living in Israel alone. The “people of Israel” has therefore not historically grown through its own efforts and thus has nothing to do with the people of Israel of the Old Testament.
Incidentally, all of Israel’s leading politicians changed their names to conceal their European origins, including Netanyahu, whose real name is “Mileikowski.” This, too, serves to convey an impression that has no basis in fact.
Köppel goes on to claim that “the State of Israel was not created by imperial decree, but by a UN resolution.” He is referring to UN Resolution 181 of November 29, 1947 (text here). This resolution provided for a two-state solution. Ben-Gurion preempted this solution, which was conducive to peace among nations, by proclaiming the State of Israel on May 14, 1948, thereby provoking a war that the Arab neighbors had announced they would wage in the event of a unilateral declaration of an Israeli state.
Köppel misleads his readers, as they assume that he is familiar with the resolution’s content and is presenting it accurately. The prevention of the establishment of the State of Palestine led to the 1948 war, during which the Israelis expelled or murdered 850,000 Palestinians through ethnic cleansing in order to seize their first piece of land. For the Palestinians, these events—known as the “Nakba” (Arabic for catastrophe or disaster)—went down in history as a national trauma, just as the Holocaust did in Jewish history.
Köppel thus distorts the entire history of Palestine in order to justify, downplay, and support the crimes that the Israelis have deliberately committed since the very first day of the State of Israel’s existence.
Democracy
The main argument behind Köppel’s stance on Israel is his portrayal of Israel as the only democracy in the region. In doing so, he demonstrates a remarkable ignorance of the realities on the ground in Israel.
Democracy consists of the following elements: free elections, recognition of fundamental and human rights as defined by the UN, separation of powers, the rule of law, and a free press. Israel does not meet the criteria for a democracy, as fundamental and human rights include equality before the law, regardless of religion, for example. However, different rules and legal standards apply to Jews and non-Jews in Israel—thereby manifesting a system of apartheid. Amnesty International noted this in February 2022. The rule of law, which requires that laws apply equally to all, is also not upheld, as the laws distinguish between Jews and non-Jews; for example, in the West Bank, military law applies to non-Jews and civil law to Jews. The most recent example of racism and apartheid is the Knesset’s introduction of the death penalty for terrorism exclusively for Palestinians just a few days ago.
There is documented evidence of torture and rape of Palestinian prisoners; the latter, incredibly, is also carried out by specially trained dogs. This abuse, which disregards all civilized norms, thus affects not only humans; animals, too, are forced to engage in behavior toward humans that defies nature, all in the name of Zionism. Reality in “democratic Israel.” If a Palestinian has the misfortune of living in the West Bank or Gaza, he is degraded as a human being in a manner consistent with the provisions of the General Plan East.
“What Speaks in Favor of Greater Israel?” asks Köppel
In his April 10, 2026, article titled “Greater Israel: Not the Worst Idea,” Köppel looks to the future and completely loses touch with legal and moral standards. He advocates for a “struggle for living space” that is in no way dissimilar to Adolf Hitler’s visions and practices during the war against the Soviet Union. Köppel writes with confidence:
“I believe—in fact, I’m almost convinced—that a greater Israel, that more of Israel in the Middle East, would mean more peace, more prosperity, and more democracy.”
Roger Köppel, Weltwoche, April 10, 2026
Ever since Israel declared itself a state in 1947 in defiance of UN Resolution 181, the Middle East has been in a state of constant war. Prosperity and democracy remain the exclusive preserve of Israel’s Jewish population, at the expense of the Arab population. More Israel therefore means more war, more misery, and certainly not democracy.
Köppel argues that the “Greater Israel” project is a consequence of aggression by Israel’s Arab neighbors and is necessary to establish freedom, peace, and democracy in the Middle East. This is a historically untenable and absurd claim, for “Greater Israel” has been a matter of national policy, in both planning and implementation, ever since the proclamation of the State of Israel: On May 21, 1948, Ben-Gurion wrote in his diary:
“The Achilles’ heel of the Arab coalition is the Lebanon. Muslim supremacy in this country is artificial and can easily be overthrown. A Christian state ought to be set up there with its southern frontier on the river Litani. We would sign a treaty of alliance with this state. Then, when we have broken the strength of the Arab legion, and bombed Amman, we would wipe out Transjordan; after that, Syria would fall. And if Egypt still dared to make war on us, we would bomb Port Said, Alexandria, and Cairo. We would thus end the war and would have settled the account with Egypt, Assyria, and Chaldea [South Iraq] on behalf of our ancestors.”
Source: David Ben-Gurion, May 21, 1948, to the General Staff. From Ben-Gurion: A Biography, by Michael Ben-Zohar, Delacorte, New York 1978, p. 130.
As a reminder: Greater Israel includes the following countries or parts thereof: Egypt, Jordan, the West Bank, Gaza, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and a large part of Saudi Arabia. This is Israel’s official policy today; every Israeli soldier now wears this map on his uniform. These countries, or parts thereof, are to be annexed by Israel and thus attacked. This strategy differs in no way from Nazi Germany’s bloody expansionist strategy.
Greater Israel is also the reason behind Israel’s attack on Iran, because this monstrous project—which has been underway for nearly 80 years—can only be realized if Iran is destroyed or at least neutralized.
Misusing a statement by Willy Brandt, who coined the slogan “Dare to have more democracy,” Köppel goes so far as to make the following statement under the slogan “Dare to have more Israel”:
“Anyone who takes the welfare of the civilian population as their yardstick—and one should do so in a debate that constantly invokes human rights—must acknowledge this: People are better off under Israel’s protection than under that of its neighboring states. A larger Israel would mean that more people would benefit from the rule of law, democracy, and economic participation. One might dismiss this as naive. But is the alternative—failed states, theocracies, civil wars—any more promising? Hardly.”
Roger Köppel, Weltwoche, April 10, 2026
In doing so, Köppel demeans people—indeed, entire nations. Lebanon, for example, was long regarded as “the Switzerland of the Middle East.” That was before Israel, in collusion with other Western powers, made normal life in the country impossible through constant warfare. As we saw above, this was already Ben-Gurion’s plan in 1948, as he confided in his diary. Currently, Israel is proceeding in Lebanon exactly as it did in Gaza: the occupied territories in Lebanon are being razed to the ground, and their inhabitants are being driven out or murdered.
What Defines Journalism?
Sensitive topics such as Israel and Palestine require a special degree of journalistic diligence. A casual attitude and the superficiality that comes with it are not acceptable.
Readers of an article published by a widely read, influential media outlet—especially one written by its editor-in-chief—have a right to expect thorough reporting and truthfulness. Most readers are unable to verify the facts; they simply do not have the time to do so. Consequently, they rely on the integrity and word of the journalist, particularly the word of an editor-in-chief, owner, and publisher of a publication in neutral Switzerland.
These are simple but fundamental rules that should underpin Roger Köppel’s work. The media coverage of Israel in “Die Weltwoche” runs diametrically counter to them. The dishonesty with which Köppel argues, and his deliberate distortion and misinterpretation of facts, are unworthy of a journalist trusted by many readers in the German-speaking world.
I rule out the possibility that Roger Köppel believes what he writes, because the dishonesty is so obvious that it would not stand up to even the most superficial scrutiny—especially editorial scrutiny. He must therefore be aware of his dishonesty. He is thus deliberately putting his reputation on the line.
What is interesting in this context is that while other media outlets, such as the “Neue Zürcher Zeitung” (NZZ), do indeed side with Israel, they refrain from such overt propaganda and exercise greater restraint.
Why is Köppel Doing This?
It is well known that Tel Aviv uses every means at its disposal to influence public opinion regarding Israel. In the US, this issue is omnipresent. In Western Europe, it is less so, though that does not mean that similar activities are not taking place. The last time I spoke with Roger Köppel, I asked him about his meeting with Netanyahu’s son—specifically, whether money had changed hands. He left that question unanswered.
The question arises as to whether Köppel is allowing himself to be used by Israeli authorities. According to rumors, Israeli representatives sought to speak with the “Weltwoche” editor-in-chief prior to the publication of the “Greater Israel” article on April 10, 2026. On May 14, I therefore contacted Roger Köppel by email and asked for clarification. This inquiry also went unanswered.
No answer is also an answer.
***
(Source: Sonar21.com)
#BenjaminNetanyahu #DonaldTrump #GazaGenocide #InternationalLaw #Iran #Islamophobia #Israel #UnitedNations #WarPropaganda -
Trump: The Deeply Disturbing Descent Into Megalomania.
Article republished by Jerry Alatalo | May 18, 2026
[Editor’s note: Lawrence S. Wittner (https://www.lawrenceswittner.com/ ) is Professor of History Emeritus at SUNY/Albany and the author of Confronting the Bomb (Stanford University Press). Please share the article far and wide. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments. Thank you very much. Peace.]
***
The Man Who Seeks to Rule the World
May 18, 2026
tags: authoritarianism, Board of Peace, international security, military spending, Trump, United Nations, war
The Trump-chaired “Board of Peace,” where he has veto power over all decisions, has been criticized as a corrupt enterprise and an attempt to sideline the United Nations. [White House photo]Although Donald Trump has never been modest about his abilities or reluctant to exercise personal power, during his second term in office he has shown clear signs of megalomania.
One sign, of course, is his blatant demand for the territory of other nations. Since January 2025 alone, he has suggested annexing or seizing control of Greenland, Canada, Mexico, the Panama Canal, Gaza, Venezuela, and Cuba. In addition, he has proclaimed the “Donroe Doctrine,” declaring that “American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again.”
Although the NATO alliance, a collective security pact, has been the cornerstone of U.S. defense policy for the past 77 years, Trump has become a bitter critic of NATO to such a degree that its other members, aghast at this turn of events, have begun exploring the reshaping of the Western alliance without the participation of the United States.
Other actions, too, have underscored Trump’s decision to “go it alone” in world affairs. Like the foremost military conquerors of the past, Trump has been busy building up his nation’s armed forces and their weaponry. The United States is already the world’s biggest military spender, with about three times the military spending of the number two nation (China).
Nevertheless, this April Trump proposed adoption of a record $1.5 trillion U.S. military budget, with the largest annual increase ever in Pentagon funding: 42 percent. This dramatic increase does not include an expected supplemental budget for the Iran war, which could cost an additional $200 billion.
Trump’s 2027 fiscal year military budget calls for $98 billion in nuclear weapons spending, most of it to build a new generation of U.S. nuclear weapons. Having unilaterally withdrawn the United States from previous nuclear arms control and disarmament treaties with Russia and recently let the last of them lapse, he now has fewer treaty constraints on his nuclear ambitions.
Accordingly, he recently announced that he has given orders for the resumption of U.S. nuclear testing, which has not been conducted since 1992.
Furthermore, like past U.S. presidents, Trump has assumed the power to launch a nuclear war totally on his own. And he has publicly and repeatedly threatened to do so.
Although the U.S. Constitution gives Congress―and not the President―the authority to declare war, Trump has shown no hesitation at sending U.S. armed forces into combat. In a little more than a year, without so much as consulting Congress, he ordered the obliteration bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities, the destruction of dozens of suspect boats and their crews, the bombing of Venezuela and the kidnapping of its president, a naval blockade of Cuba, and―jointly with Israel―a devasting war upon Iran.
The latter, which has already killed thousands and wounded tens of thousands of people, displaced 3.2 million Iranians, and thrown the global economy into turmoil, is widely unpopular and continues today. Queried in January 2026 about such international actions, Trump brushed aside international law and said that he relied solely on his own opinion, which was “the only thing that can stop me.”
Not surprisingly, Trump has no use for the United Nations and most other international organizations, and has worked zealously to cripple them. Since his second term began, he has had the U.S. government withdraw from such key UN agencies as the World Health Organization, the UN Human Rights Council, the UN Relief and Works Agency, and UNESCO. In addition, the Trump administration has imposed severe sanctions on the International Criminal Court and its top officials.
U.S. funding cuts for the United Nations have been severe. In July 2025, the Trump administration pushed rescissions legislation through the Republican-controlled Congress that pulled back $1 billion in funding previously allocated to the world organization, with devastating effects on a broad variety of programs, including UNICEF, the UN Environment Program, and the UN Fund for Victims of Torture.
Furthermore, the administration refused to make its mandated dues payments to the United Nations, running up a debt to it―by far the world’s largest―of nearly $4 billion. As a result, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned in February 2026 that the world body faced “imminent financial collapse.”
On September 23, 2025, Trump’s hostility toward the United Nations spilled over into what Le Monde called “a blistering speech” during his first UN General Assembly appearance since his re-election. In what the French newspaper termed a “full-frontal attack on the global organization,” Trump condemned it for “empty words,” failing to assist him in the seven wars that he claimed to have ended, and for “funding an assault” by refugees on Western nations. He also depicted climate change as “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world.”
Although it’s tempting to regard this behavior as reflecting an overheated nationalism, the remarkable degree to which Trump regards himself as the savior of the world suggests a more personal lust for supreme power.
The Trump-centered vision of the world is exemplified by his creation, soon thereafter, of an international “Board of Peace.” Although the Board’s initial activity was a peace project for Gaza, its charter called for “a more nimble and effective international peace-building body,” which―together with Trump’s remarks―has led disgruntled European officials to describe it as a substitute for the United Nations.
Trump, who appointed himself lifetime chair of the Board of Peace, would decide which nations could join the Board (with those paying $1 billion or more becoming permanent Board members) and which members could join the Executive Board (which would implement the decisions of the Board of Peace). The power to veto decisions of the Executive Board was granted by Trump . . . to Trump!
This descent into megalomania is deeply disturbing, for the dangers to the world, and even to human survival, are sharply enhanced by one-man rule, and even by one-nation rule.
How long will it take to recognize that international security requires the sharing of power by all people and nations in the human community?
(Source: PeaceandHealthBlog.com)
#BoardOfPeace #DonaldTrump #DonroeDoctrine #History #MentalHealth #NuclearDisarmament #Philosophy #Psychology #UnitedNations -
Trump: The Deeply Disturbing Descent Into Megalomania.
Article republished by Jerry Alatalo | May 18, 2026
[Editor’s note: Lawrence S. Wittner (https://www.lawrenceswittner.com/ ) is Professor of History Emeritus at SUNY/Albany and the author of Confronting the Bomb (Stanford University Press). Please share the article far and wide. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments. Thank you very much. Peace.]
***
The Man Who Seeks to Rule the World
May 18, 2026
tags: authoritarianism, Board of Peace, international security, military spending, Trump, United Nations, war
The Trump-chaired “Board of Peace,” where he has veto power over all decisions, has been criticized as a corrupt enterprise and an attempt to sideline the United Nations. [White House photo]Although Donald Trump has never been modest about his abilities or reluctant to exercise personal power, during his second term in office he has shown clear signs of megalomania.
One sign, of course, is his blatant demand for the territory of other nations. Since January 2025 alone, he has suggested annexing or seizing control of Greenland, Canada, Mexico, the Panama Canal, Gaza, Venezuela, and Cuba. In addition, he has proclaimed the “Donroe Doctrine,” declaring that “American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again.”
Although the NATO alliance, a collective security pact, has been the cornerstone of U.S. defense policy for the past 77 years, Trump has become a bitter critic of NATO to such a degree that its other members, aghast at this turn of events, have begun exploring the reshaping of the Western alliance without the participation of the United States.
Other actions, too, have underscored Trump’s decision to “go it alone” in world affairs. Like the foremost military conquerors of the past, Trump has been busy building up his nation’s armed forces and their weaponry. The United States is already the world’s biggest military spender, with about three times the military spending of the number two nation (China).
Nevertheless, this April Trump proposed adoption of a record $1.5 trillion U.S. military budget, with the largest annual increase ever in Pentagon funding: 42 percent. This dramatic increase does not include an expected supplemental budget for the Iran war, which could cost an additional $200 billion.
Trump’s 2027 fiscal year military budget calls for $98 billion in nuclear weapons spending, most of it to build a new generation of U.S. nuclear weapons. Having unilaterally withdrawn the United States from previous nuclear arms control and disarmament treaties with Russia and recently let the last of them lapse, he now has fewer treaty constraints on his nuclear ambitions.
Accordingly, he recently announced that he has given orders for the resumption of U.S. nuclear testing, which has not been conducted since 1992.
Furthermore, like past U.S. presidents, Trump has assumed the power to launch a nuclear war totally on his own. And he has publicly and repeatedly threatened to do so.
Although the U.S. Constitution gives Congress―and not the President―the authority to declare war, Trump has shown no hesitation at sending U.S. armed forces into combat. In a little more than a year, without so much as consulting Congress, he ordered the obliteration bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities, the destruction of dozens of suspect boats and their crews, the bombing of Venezuela and the kidnapping of its president, a naval blockade of Cuba, and―jointly with Israel―a devasting war upon Iran.
The latter, which has already killed thousands and wounded tens of thousands of people, displaced 3.2 million Iranians, and thrown the global economy into turmoil, is widely unpopular and continues today. Queried in January 2026 about such international actions, Trump brushed aside international law and said that he relied solely on his own opinion, which was “the only thing that can stop me.”
Not surprisingly, Trump has no use for the United Nations and most other international organizations, and has worked zealously to cripple them. Since his second term began, he has had the U.S. government withdraw from such key UN agencies as the World Health Organization, the UN Human Rights Council, the UN Relief and Works Agency, and UNESCO. In addition, the Trump administration has imposed severe sanctions on the International Criminal Court and its top officials.
U.S. funding cuts for the United Nations have been severe. In July 2025, the Trump administration pushed rescissions legislation through the Republican-controlled Congress that pulled back $1 billion in funding previously allocated to the world organization, with devastating effects on a broad variety of programs, including UNICEF, the UN Environment Program, and the UN Fund for Victims of Torture.
Furthermore, the administration refused to make its mandated dues payments to the United Nations, running up a debt to it―by far the world’s largest―of nearly $4 billion. As a result, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned in February 2026 that the world body faced “imminent financial collapse.”
On September 23, 2025, Trump’s hostility toward the United Nations spilled over into what Le Monde called “a blistering speech” during his first UN General Assembly appearance since his re-election. In what the French newspaper termed a “full-frontal attack on the global organization,” Trump condemned it for “empty words,” failing to assist him in the seven wars that he claimed to have ended, and for “funding an assault” by refugees on Western nations. He also depicted climate change as “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world.”
Although it’s tempting to regard this behavior as reflecting an overheated nationalism, the remarkable degree to which Trump regards himself as the savior of the world suggests a more personal lust for supreme power.
The Trump-centered vision of the world is exemplified by his creation, soon thereafter, of an international “Board of Peace.” Although the Board’s initial activity was a peace project for Gaza, its charter called for “a more nimble and effective international peace-building body,” which―together with Trump’s remarks―has led disgruntled European officials to describe it as a substitute for the United Nations.
Trump, who appointed himself lifetime chair of the Board of Peace, would decide which nations could join the Board (with those paying $1 billion or more becoming permanent Board members) and which members could join the Executive Board (which would implement the decisions of the Board of Peace). The power to veto decisions of the Executive Board was granted by Trump . . . to Trump!
This descent into megalomania is deeply disturbing, for the dangers to the world, and even to human survival, are sharply enhanced by one-man rule, and even by one-nation rule.
How long will it take to recognize that international security requires the sharing of power by all people and nations in the human community?
(Source: PeaceandHealthBlog.com)
#BoardOfPeace #DonaldTrump #DonroeDoctrine #History #MentalHealth #NuclearDisarmament #Philosophy #Psychology #UnitedNations -
Trump: The Deeply Disturbing Descent Into Megalomania.
Article republished by Jerry Alatalo | May 18, 2026
[Editor’s note: Lawrence S. Wittner (https://www.lawrenceswittner.com/ ) is Professor of History Emeritus at SUNY/Albany and the author of Confronting the Bomb (Stanford University Press). Please share the article far and wide. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments. Thank you very much. Peace.]
***
The Man Who Seeks to Rule the World
May 18, 2026
tags: authoritarianism, Board of Peace, international security, military spending, Trump, United Nations, war
The Trump-chaired “Board of Peace,” where he has veto power over all decisions, has been criticized as a corrupt enterprise and an attempt to sideline the United Nations. [White House photo]Although Donald Trump has never been modest about his abilities or reluctant to exercise personal power, during his second term in office he has shown clear signs of megalomania.
One sign, of course, is his blatant demand for the territory of other nations. Since January 2025 alone, he has suggested annexing or seizing control of Greenland, Canada, Mexico, the Panama Canal, Gaza, Venezuela, and Cuba. In addition, he has proclaimed the “Donroe Doctrine,” declaring that “American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again.”
Although the NATO alliance, a collective security pact, has been the cornerstone of U.S. defense policy for the past 77 years, Trump has become a bitter critic of NATO to such a degree that its other members, aghast at this turn of events, have begun exploring the reshaping of the Western alliance without the participation of the United States.
Other actions, too, have underscored Trump’s decision to “go it alone” in world affairs. Like the foremost military conquerors of the past, Trump has been busy building up his nation’s armed forces and their weaponry. The United States is already the world’s biggest military spender, with about three times the military spending of the number two nation (China).
Nevertheless, this April Trump proposed adoption of a record $1.5 trillion U.S. military budget, with the largest annual increase ever in Pentagon funding: 42 percent. This dramatic increase does not include an expected supplemental budget for the Iran war, which could cost an additional $200 billion.
Trump’s 2027 fiscal year military budget calls for $98 billion in nuclear weapons spending, most of it to build a new generation of U.S. nuclear weapons. Having unilaterally withdrawn the United States from previous nuclear arms control and disarmament treaties with Russia and recently let the last of them lapse, he now has fewer treaty constraints on his nuclear ambitions.
Accordingly, he recently announced that he has given orders for the resumption of U.S. nuclear testing, which has not been conducted since 1992.
Furthermore, like past U.S. presidents, Trump has assumed the power to launch a nuclear war totally on his own. And he has publicly and repeatedly threatened to do so.
Although the U.S. Constitution gives Congress―and not the President―the authority to declare war, Trump has shown no hesitation at sending U.S. armed forces into combat. In a little more than a year, without so much as consulting Congress, he ordered the obliteration bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities, the destruction of dozens of suspect boats and their crews, the bombing of Venezuela and the kidnapping of its president, a naval blockade of Cuba, and―jointly with Israel―a devasting war upon Iran.
The latter, which has already killed thousands and wounded tens of thousands of people, displaced 3.2 million Iranians, and thrown the global economy into turmoil, is widely unpopular and continues today. Queried in January 2026 about such international actions, Trump brushed aside international law and said that he relied solely on his own opinion, which was “the only thing that can stop me.”
Not surprisingly, Trump has no use for the United Nations and most other international organizations, and has worked zealously to cripple them. Since his second term began, he has had the U.S. government withdraw from such key UN agencies as the World Health Organization, the UN Human Rights Council, the UN Relief and Works Agency, and UNESCO. In addition, the Trump administration has imposed severe sanctions on the International Criminal Court and its top officials.
U.S. funding cuts for the United Nations have been severe. In July 2025, the Trump administration pushed rescissions legislation through the Republican-controlled Congress that pulled back $1 billion in funding previously allocated to the world organization, with devastating effects on a broad variety of programs, including UNICEF, the UN Environment Program, and the UN Fund for Victims of Torture.
Furthermore, the administration refused to make its mandated dues payments to the United Nations, running up a debt to it―by far the world’s largest―of nearly $4 billion. As a result, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned in February 2026 that the world body faced “imminent financial collapse.”
On September 23, 2025, Trump’s hostility toward the United Nations spilled over into what Le Monde called “a blistering speech” during his first UN General Assembly appearance since his re-election. In what the French newspaper termed a “full-frontal attack on the global organization,” Trump condemned it for “empty words,” failing to assist him in the seven wars that he claimed to have ended, and for “funding an assault” by refugees on Western nations. He also depicted climate change as “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world.”
Although it’s tempting to regard this behavior as reflecting an overheated nationalism, the remarkable degree to which Trump regards himself as the savior of the world suggests a more personal lust for supreme power.
The Trump-centered vision of the world is exemplified by his creation, soon thereafter, of an international “Board of Peace.” Although the Board’s initial activity was a peace project for Gaza, its charter called for “a more nimble and effective international peace-building body,” which―together with Trump’s remarks―has led disgruntled European officials to describe it as a substitute for the United Nations.
Trump, who appointed himself lifetime chair of the Board of Peace, would decide which nations could join the Board (with those paying $1 billion or more becoming permanent Board members) and which members could join the Executive Board (which would implement the decisions of the Board of Peace). The power to veto decisions of the Executive Board was granted by Trump . . . to Trump!
This descent into megalomania is deeply disturbing, for the dangers to the world, and even to human survival, are sharply enhanced by one-man rule, and even by one-nation rule.
How long will it take to recognize that international security requires the sharing of power by all people and nations in the human community?
(Source: PeaceandHealthBlog.com)
#BoardOfPeace #DonaldTrump #DonroeDoctrine #History #MentalHealth #NuclearDisarmament #Philosophy #Psychology #UnitedNations -
Trump: The Deeply Disturbing Descent Into Megalomania.
Article republished by Jerry Alatalo | May 18, 2026
[Editor’s note: Lawrence S. Wittner (https://www.lawrenceswittner.com/ ) is Professor of History Emeritus at SUNY/Albany and the author of Confronting the Bomb (Stanford University Press). Please share the article far and wide. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments. Thank you very much. Peace.]
***
The Man Who Seeks to Rule the World
May 18, 2026
tags: authoritarianism, Board of Peace, international security, military spending, Trump, United Nations, war
The Trump-chaired “Board of Peace,” where he has veto power over all decisions, has been criticized as a corrupt enterprise and an attempt to sideline the United Nations. [White House photo]Although Donald Trump has never been modest about his abilities or reluctant to exercise personal power, during his second term in office he has shown clear signs of megalomania.
One sign, of course, is his blatant demand for the territory of other nations. Since January 2025 alone, he has suggested annexing or seizing control of Greenland, Canada, Mexico, the Panama Canal, Gaza, Venezuela, and Cuba. In addition, he has proclaimed the “Donroe Doctrine,” declaring that “American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again.”
Although the NATO alliance, a collective security pact, has been the cornerstone of U.S. defense policy for the past 77 years, Trump has become a bitter critic of NATO to such a degree that its other members, aghast at this turn of events, have begun exploring the reshaping of the Western alliance without the participation of the United States.
Other actions, too, have underscored Trump’s decision to “go it alone” in world affairs. Like the foremost military conquerors of the past, Trump has been busy building up his nation’s armed forces and their weaponry. The United States is already the world’s biggest military spender, with about three times the military spending of the number two nation (China).
Nevertheless, this April Trump proposed adoption of a record $1.5 trillion U.S. military budget, with the largest annual increase ever in Pentagon funding: 42 percent. This dramatic increase does not include an expected supplemental budget for the Iran war, which could cost an additional $200 billion.
Trump’s 2027 fiscal year military budget calls for $98 billion in nuclear weapons spending, most of it to build a new generation of U.S. nuclear weapons. Having unilaterally withdrawn the United States from previous nuclear arms control and disarmament treaties with Russia and recently let the last of them lapse, he now has fewer treaty constraints on his nuclear ambitions.
Accordingly, he recently announced that he has given orders for the resumption of U.S. nuclear testing, which has not been conducted since 1992.
Furthermore, like past U.S. presidents, Trump has assumed the power to launch a nuclear war totally on his own. And he has publicly and repeatedly threatened to do so.
Although the U.S. Constitution gives Congress―and not the President―the authority to declare war, Trump has shown no hesitation at sending U.S. armed forces into combat. In a little more than a year, without so much as consulting Congress, he ordered the obliteration bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities, the destruction of dozens of suspect boats and their crews, the bombing of Venezuela and the kidnapping of its president, a naval blockade of Cuba, and―jointly with Israel―a devasting war upon Iran.
The latter, which has already killed thousands and wounded tens of thousands of people, displaced 3.2 million Iranians, and thrown the global economy into turmoil, is widely unpopular and continues today. Queried in January 2026 about such international actions, Trump brushed aside international law and said that he relied solely on his own opinion, which was “the only thing that can stop me.”
Not surprisingly, Trump has no use for the United Nations and most other international organizations, and has worked zealously to cripple them. Since his second term began, he has had the U.S. government withdraw from such key UN agencies as the World Health Organization, the UN Human Rights Council, the UN Relief and Works Agency, and UNESCO. In addition, the Trump administration has imposed severe sanctions on the International Criminal Court and its top officials.
U.S. funding cuts for the United Nations have been severe. In July 2025, the Trump administration pushed rescissions legislation through the Republican-controlled Congress that pulled back $1 billion in funding previously allocated to the world organization, with devastating effects on a broad variety of programs, including UNICEF, the UN Environment Program, and the UN Fund for Victims of Torture.
Furthermore, the administration refused to make its mandated dues payments to the United Nations, running up a debt to it―by far the world’s largest―of nearly $4 billion. As a result, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned in February 2026 that the world body faced “imminent financial collapse.”
On September 23, 2025, Trump’s hostility toward the United Nations spilled over into what Le Monde called “a blistering speech” during his first UN General Assembly appearance since his re-election. In what the French newspaper termed a “full-frontal attack on the global organization,” Trump condemned it for “empty words,” failing to assist him in the seven wars that he claimed to have ended, and for “funding an assault” by refugees on Western nations. He also depicted climate change as “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world.”
Although it’s tempting to regard this behavior as reflecting an overheated nationalism, the remarkable degree to which Trump regards himself as the savior of the world suggests a more personal lust for supreme power.
The Trump-centered vision of the world is exemplified by his creation, soon thereafter, of an international “Board of Peace.” Although the Board’s initial activity was a peace project for Gaza, its charter called for “a more nimble and effective international peace-building body,” which―together with Trump’s remarks―has led disgruntled European officials to describe it as a substitute for the United Nations.
Trump, who appointed himself lifetime chair of the Board of Peace, would decide which nations could join the Board (with those paying $1 billion or more becoming permanent Board members) and which members could join the Executive Board (which would implement the decisions of the Board of Peace). The power to veto decisions of the Executive Board was granted by Trump . . . to Trump!
This descent into megalomania is deeply disturbing, for the dangers to the world, and even to human survival, are sharply enhanced by one-man rule, and even by one-nation rule.
How long will it take to recognize that international security requires the sharing of power by all people and nations in the human community?
(Source: PeaceandHealthBlog.com)
#BoardOfPeace #DonaldTrump #DonroeDoctrine #History #MentalHealth #NuclearDisarmament #Philosophy #Psychology #UnitedNations -
Trump: The Deeply Disturbing Descent Into Megalomania.
Article republished by Jerry Alatalo | May 18, 2026
[Editor’s note: Lawrence S. Wittner (https://www.lawrenceswittner.com/ ) is Professor of History Emeritus at SUNY/Albany and the author of Confronting the Bomb (Stanford University Press). Please share the article far and wide. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments. Thank you very much. Peace.]
***
The Man Who Seeks to Rule the World
May 18, 2026
tags: authoritarianism, Board of Peace, international security, military spending, Trump, United Nations, war
The Trump-chaired “Board of Peace,” where he has veto power over all decisions, has been criticized as a corrupt enterprise and an attempt to sideline the United Nations. [White House photo]Although Donald Trump has never been modest about his abilities or reluctant to exercise personal power, during his second term in office he has shown clear signs of megalomania.
One sign, of course, is his blatant demand for the territory of other nations. Since January 2025 alone, he has suggested annexing or seizing control of Greenland, Canada, Mexico, the Panama Canal, Gaza, Venezuela, and Cuba. In addition, he has proclaimed the “Donroe Doctrine,” declaring that “American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again.”
Although the NATO alliance, a collective security pact, has been the cornerstone of U.S. defense policy for the past 77 years, Trump has become a bitter critic of NATO to such a degree that its other members, aghast at this turn of events, have begun exploring the reshaping of the Western alliance without the participation of the United States.
Other actions, too, have underscored Trump’s decision to “go it alone” in world affairs. Like the foremost military conquerors of the past, Trump has been busy building up his nation’s armed forces and their weaponry. The United States is already the world’s biggest military spender, with about three times the military spending of the number two nation (China).
Nevertheless, this April Trump proposed adoption of a record $1.5 trillion U.S. military budget, with the largest annual increase ever in Pentagon funding: 42 percent. This dramatic increase does not include an expected supplemental budget for the Iran war, which could cost an additional $200 billion.
Trump’s 2027 fiscal year military budget calls for $98 billion in nuclear weapons spending, most of it to build a new generation of U.S. nuclear weapons. Having unilaterally withdrawn the United States from previous nuclear arms control and disarmament treaties with Russia and recently let the last of them lapse, he now has fewer treaty constraints on his nuclear ambitions.
Accordingly, he recently announced that he has given orders for the resumption of U.S. nuclear testing, which has not been conducted since 1992.
Furthermore, like past U.S. presidents, Trump has assumed the power to launch a nuclear war totally on his own. And he has publicly and repeatedly threatened to do so.
Although the U.S. Constitution gives Congress―and not the President―the authority to declare war, Trump has shown no hesitation at sending U.S. armed forces into combat. In a little more than a year, without so much as consulting Congress, he ordered the obliteration bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities, the destruction of dozens of suspect boats and their crews, the bombing of Venezuela and the kidnapping of its president, a naval blockade of Cuba, and―jointly with Israel―a devasting war upon Iran.
The latter, which has already killed thousands and wounded tens of thousands of people, displaced 3.2 million Iranians, and thrown the global economy into turmoil, is widely unpopular and continues today. Queried in January 2026 about such international actions, Trump brushed aside international law and said that he relied solely on his own opinion, which was “the only thing that can stop me.”
Not surprisingly, Trump has no use for the United Nations and most other international organizations, and has worked zealously to cripple them. Since his second term began, he has had the U.S. government withdraw from such key UN agencies as the World Health Organization, the UN Human Rights Council, the UN Relief and Works Agency, and UNESCO. In addition, the Trump administration has imposed severe sanctions on the International Criminal Court and its top officials.
U.S. funding cuts for the United Nations have been severe. In July 2025, the Trump administration pushed rescissions legislation through the Republican-controlled Congress that pulled back $1 billion in funding previously allocated to the world organization, with devastating effects on a broad variety of programs, including UNICEF, the UN Environment Program, and the UN Fund for Victims of Torture.
Furthermore, the administration refused to make its mandated dues payments to the United Nations, running up a debt to it―by far the world’s largest―of nearly $4 billion. As a result, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned in February 2026 that the world body faced “imminent financial collapse.”
On September 23, 2025, Trump’s hostility toward the United Nations spilled over into what Le Monde called “a blistering speech” during his first UN General Assembly appearance since his re-election. In what the French newspaper termed a “full-frontal attack on the global organization,” Trump condemned it for “empty words,” failing to assist him in the seven wars that he claimed to have ended, and for “funding an assault” by refugees on Western nations. He also depicted climate change as “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world.”
Although it’s tempting to regard this behavior as reflecting an overheated nationalism, the remarkable degree to which Trump regards himself as the savior of the world suggests a more personal lust for supreme power.
The Trump-centered vision of the world is exemplified by his creation, soon thereafter, of an international “Board of Peace.” Although the Board’s initial activity was a peace project for Gaza, its charter called for “a more nimble and effective international peace-building body,” which―together with Trump’s remarks―has led disgruntled European officials to describe it as a substitute for the United Nations.
Trump, who appointed himself lifetime chair of the Board of Peace, would decide which nations could join the Board (with those paying $1 billion or more becoming permanent Board members) and which members could join the Executive Board (which would implement the decisions of the Board of Peace). The power to veto decisions of the Executive Board was granted by Trump . . . to Trump!
This descent into megalomania is deeply disturbing, for the dangers to the world, and even to human survival, are sharply enhanced by one-man rule, and even by one-nation rule.
How long will it take to recognize that international security requires the sharing of power by all people and nations in the human community?
(Source: PeaceandHealthBlog.com)
#BoardOfPeace #DonaldTrump #DonroeDoctrine #History #MentalHealth #NuclearDisarmament #Philosophy #Psychology #UnitedNations -
American Veterans Challenge Militarism and Rising Authoritarianism.
Article republished by Jerry Alatalo | (Source: PopularResistance.org) | May 17, 2026
[Editor’s note: Clare Bayard has organized in anti-militarist movements for almost 30 years, connecting domestic work for racial and economic justice with international movements against war and colonialism. Clare comes from a family of several generations of military veterans and co-coordinates the National Network to Dismantle the Military-Industrial Complex. Please share this article far and wide, and feel free to share your thoughts in the comments. Thank you very much. Peace.]
***
From ICE To Iran, Veterans Are Challenging US Militarism
- By Clare Bayard, Waging Nonviolence.
- May 15, 2026
- Strategize!
Above photo: Leigh Vogel/Getty Images Entertainment.
Antiwar veterans are leveraging their unique credibility to oppose the war in Iran, stop ICE and support active duty resisters.
One hundred fifty people holding tulips stand in formation on the marble floor of the Cannon House Office Building, until Capitol Police arrest over a third of them and remove them in cuffs.
Maybe you saw an image of these veterans with their flowers — the red tulips that are an Iranian national symbol honoring martyrs. Perhaps you saw a photo of a disabled veteran’s wrists being handcuffed while leaning on a cane. You may have caught a video where a mother or a partner of a deployed soldier spoke about wanting their loved one back from this unconscionable war.
When 66 protesters from a coalition of veteran and military family organizations were arrested on April 20, these images went viral worldwide. This attests to not only the specific weight given to veterans who speak out against wars, but also the deep hunger to see any kind of tangible action against the United States and Israel’s profoundly unpopular war with Iran.
One of those arrested was Katie Chorbak, president of 50501 Veterans, which organizes more than 2,000 members into policy fights, nonviolent direct action and sustained advocacy. Chorbak, a fifth-generation combat veteran, chose to bring her concerns directly to lawmakers out of the belief that veterans have a “responsibility to speak plainly” when the country is moving toward war without transparency or congressional debate.
“Veterans showing up in that space matters because we understand the realities of war beyond headlines and talking points,” Chorbak said.
Despite decades of demonization of Iran by U.S. politicians, amplified by mainstream media, Trump’s war on Iran was met with immediate disfavor in March (a Reuters poll found that only 27 percent of voters approved of the initial strikes). Still, there has been little substantive resistance in Congress and relative quiet in the streets of cities that saw record-breaking protests against President George W. Bush’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the 2000s.
Yet, over these last 20 years, veterans never stopped organizing against U.S. wars and militarism. The organizers of the April 20 action — About Face Veterans Against War, Veterans for Peace, 50501 Veterans, the Center on Conscience and War, Military Families Speak Out and others — are building antiwar veteran and service member leadership, offering a vision of how we could end this country’s marriage to reckless, crushing militarism.
Where did this come from?
GI resistance is the tradition, dating back to the Revolutionary War, of American soldiers choosing to stand on their conscience and withdraw their consent to carry out the orders of commanding officers. The spectrum of resistance has encompassed the Vietnam War era’s more visible draft dodging and widespread disobedience in the ranks, and the quiet, mostly unseen refusal of soldiers in the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars to execute civilians, load their guns, carry out missions, report for duty or even to deploy.
Now, military resistance to the war on Iran is beginning to take publicly visible forms. Hundreds of complaints were filed by troops in every branch of the military when Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, a Christian nationalist, directed his commanders to inform their units that the Iran War is a holy war anointed by Jesus. And in the theater of war, service members whose labor enables the war machine can always find ways to clog the gears (sometimes literally). Rumors abounded of sailors clogging toilets and starting a fire on the Gerald Ford aircraft carrier, which had to retreat for repairs in March.
Public acts of refusal are vital to building a movement. Many soldiers can’t imagine refusing orders or deployment until they see someone else doing it. But courage is contagious, and an opportunity to join a collective action can offer the necessary bridge to take that risk.
Antiwar groups offer two core ingredients to transform spontaneous individual acts of refusal into a movement: visibility and access to support. Kelly Dougherty, who co-founded About Face in 2004 after returning from a year in Iraq in the Army National Guard, now serves as the counseling director for the Center on Conscience and War, or CCW, supporting service members seeking separation from the military, information about their rights or conscientious objector status. Dougherty says that while the Iran War has prompted a recent surge in calls to CCW’s hotline, “most service members I speak to have been questioning the system of war and whether or not they can morally participate in it for months or years.”
About Face has carried the banner of supporting GI resistance since its founding by Iraq War veterans with the support of seasoned organizers from Veterans for Peace. The group launched a Right to Refuse campaign after the 2024 election to bring renewed attention to the long tradition of refusal of illegal and immoral orders. To get the word out, Right to Refuse uses visibility efforts, direct actions, social media, on-the-ground outreach and word of mouth. An encrypted support form allows for anonymous inquiries. The campaign works in tandem with the GI Rights Hotline, which has fielded calls from active duty questioners and emerging conscientious objectors since 1994.
As mainstream media conglomerates continue to shift rightward, so grows the importance of direct actions that alert soldiers to their options, as well as pressuring elected officials. This is why the CCW chose to have its executive director Mike Prysner risk arrest in the April 20 action. “Most people in the military aren’t familiar with their right to seek discharge as a conscientious objector,” Dougherty said. “We wanted to let service members know that if they are experiencing a moral crisis because they cannot, in good conscience, participate in war, that they can file for conscientious objector status and there is an organization that will support them every step of the way.”
GI resistance has power because war requires obedient soldiers. But active duty service members’ opportunities to make direct impacts are shrinking as war becomes increasingly outsourced and automated. Remote-controlled weaponry is taking over from real humans (often referred to as “boots on the ground,” underlining the nature of using youngsters as cannon fodder). Perhaps the most concerning trajectory is the trend of replacing decision makers with AI that can deploy and direct weaponry, as seen with Israel pioneering a shocking rate of mass death in Gaza with their Lavender and Where’s Daddy programs. These trends make the launch of this war on Iran a critically important window for supporting GI resistance before complete control over mass killing is in the hands of the ruling class and their machines.
Work stoppage or interference by active duty military can slow or impair the war machine, but this alone may not end the war on Iran. There are more ways in which antiwar service members and veterans can leverage their social position not only as workers, but as symbols. Their voices on military matters have weight both with elected officials and the general public. They have the platform to challenge the myths of morality, necessity and infallibility in which the warhawks wrap their armies and wars. As they increase the unreliability of the armed forces, they can also decrease public confidence in how the troops are being used. Both resistance and public opposition are key toward ending not only a specific war, but tearing up the blank checks for endless wars at home and abroad.
Veterans rising to meet the moment
Founded as Iraq Veterans Against the War, About Face has expanded from opposing the war on Iraq to a deeper critique of militarism, as new members joined over the years who had participated in many different facets of the so-called Global War on Terror. Its opposition to the war on Iran is part of a broader recent effort to challenge the U.S.-Israeli wars for regional dominance, resource control and global positioning.
After Oct. 7, 2023, About Face welcomed hundreds of new members who were moved to organize with other veterans in solidarity with Palestine. To harness that energy, they immediately formed Veterans for Ceasefire, whose first of many direct actions was a sit-in on Nov. 9, 2023 in Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s office. Eight members participated in the 2025 Global Sumud Flotilla.
In addition to challenging U.S. aggression overseas, veterans have also become important voices for demilitarization of the homefront. In the summer of 2020, when troops were turned against U.S. civilians in the wake of George Floyd’s murder by police, About Face reached out to National Guard members, encouraging them “Stand Down for Black Lives” by refusing mobilization against racial justice protesters.
Challenging militarism at home — and connecting it to wars abroad — has become even more crucial in a time of rising authoritarianism. “Right to Refuse was definitely created with Project 2025 in mind and what was promised in that document about domestic use of the military to enforce their authoritarian agenda,” said Matt Howard, interim national organizing director of About Face.
Sure enough, ICE surges in 2025 saw the use of military forces to quell civil dissent and carry out race-based purges. The National Guard occupied cities, while the Department of Defense offered bases, staging areas and logistical support for mass detentions. Anti-ICE resistance also faced the kind of intensified surveillance and data collection tested in the killing fields of U.S.-Israeli wars abroad.
Tapping into the organic dissent in the ranks is a particular gift of the Right to Refuse campaign. Billboards facing the main gates of North Carolina’s biggest military installations appeared in September 2025 announcing a website titled NotWhatYouSignedUpFor.org (a joint visibility campaign of Win Without War and About Face). When thousands of active duty Airborne troops (a cold-weather division from Alaska) and military police were placed on standby for Department of Homeland Security support, including a 500-person brigade from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, a billboard at the main gate greeted them with, “Did you go Airborne just to pull security for ICE?” Marines entering Camp Lejeune saw “Not what you signed up for? You have options.”
In U.S. cities experiencing paramilitary occupation from DHS forces, U.S. military veterans found opportunities to demilitarize the skills they brought home and apply them to justice, protection and liberation. A delegation of About Face members traveled to Minneapolis in February to join local members and other community organizations in building a grassroots response to the escalation of ICE violence.
Additionally, About Face’s Monitoring and Analysis of Military and Border Operations, or MAMBO, project uses open source intelligence gathering to analyze and map domestic deployments of military and DHS forces, offering usable reports to community groups. Some members of About Face and its close partner Veterans For Peace provide security for local actions and community events, and train and mentor emerging movement security practitioners, both civilian and veteran. This is a radical revisioning of what security can be when seen through a lens of demilitarization — neighbors keeping each other safe.
Alongside the DHS and National Guard occupation of U.S. cities, the impacts of the war economy and continued cuts to social spending have provided many opportunities for action. Last Veterans’ Day, About Face organized a Vets Say No War on Our Cities march in major cities including those dealing with ICE occupation like Los Angeles, Chicago, Portland, Washington, D.C. and Memphis. The message they shared was: “We will not allow attacks on our neighbors, or military occupation of our cities and deadly cuts on vital services to be normalized.”
On March 19, the 23rd anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, About Face coordinated national visits to senators to push for a repeal of the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force that opened the door to the “forever wars,” and for a vote against further supplemental military spending. A couple days later, members joined the Nuestra América relief convoy to Cuba, bringing supplies and challenging Trump’s saber-rattling.
About Face has also been incubating Veterans Against Fascism, a politically diverse coalition of vets united behind the call for No ICE, No War, No Cuts. “Fascism is everywhere, spread throughout the entire government. We have a responsibility to make it grind to a halt,” explained Joseph Funk, a member of About Face and leader in Veterans Against Fascism. “That means we have to defeat it anywhere it wants to exercise its power. That might look like opposing war and international violence, and that might look like standing against federal goons hunting children. It will probably look like a lot of things in the future.”
Winning public opinion
The Trump regime is not attempting to manufacture approval or even consent for its wars, but they are fighting on the narrative and cultural fronts. Nonpartisan organizations like About Face, which has challenged U.S.-led wars under every administration for the last 20 years and is not scared of calling out Democratic leaders, are laying a critical foundation. Those of us who remember Obama’s presidential victory on a platform of ending Bush’s wars, and the subsequent abdication of the forces who might have pushed him to follow through, know we need an antimilitarist movement bigger than opposition to Trump’s caricatured shock and awe.
“Despite the fact that both parties have had a shitty track record on war and militarism, in the last 10 years MAGA has claimed to be the true antiwar standard-bearer,” Howard said. “We are in a moment where the betrayal of Trump’s base is really clear. They thought they voted in a peace time president and are finding out it was another empty talking point. For movements who have been committed to an antiwar politic, no matter who was in office, there is an opportunity to use our credibility to undermine authoritarianism and contest for people who are waking up.”
The good news: There is leadership and vision. Antiwar veterans are increasing their ranks, building collective power in campaigns and coalitions, and taking strategic aim at multiple pillars of the war machine.
“Veterans can help focus public energy into concrete demands,” said Katie Chorbak, from 50501 Veterans. “If opposition is going to be effective, it has to be organized, informed and sustained. Veterans can help anchor that effort. What is needed right now is seriousness, discipline and sustained engagement. Change rarely happens because people are upset for a week. It happens when people stay organized long enough to matter.”
#AboutFaceVeteransAgainstWar #ConscientiousObjectors #FreeSpeechInAmerica #History #Iran #MilitaryFamiliesSpeakOut #VeteransForPeace #WagingNonviolence -
American Veterans Challenge Militarism and Rising Authoritarianism.
Article republished by Jerry Alatalo | (Source: PopularResistance.org) | May 17, 2026
[Editor’s note: Clare Bayard has organized in anti-militarist movements for almost 30 years, connecting domestic work for racial and economic justice with international movements against war and colonialism. Clare comes from a family of several generations of military veterans and co-coordinates the National Network to Dismantle the Military-Industrial Complex. Please share this article far and wide, and feel free to share your thoughts in the comments. Thank you very much. Peace.]
***
From ICE To Iran, Veterans Are Challenging US Militarism
- By Clare Bayard, Waging Nonviolence.
- May 15, 2026
- Strategize!
Above photo: Leigh Vogel/Getty Images Entertainment.
Antiwar veterans are leveraging their unique credibility to oppose the war in Iran, stop ICE and support active duty resisters.
One hundred fifty people holding tulips stand in formation on the marble floor of the Cannon House Office Building, until Capitol Police arrest over a third of them and remove them in cuffs.
Maybe you saw an image of these veterans with their flowers — the red tulips that are an Iranian national symbol honoring martyrs. Perhaps you saw a photo of a disabled veteran’s wrists being handcuffed while leaning on a cane. You may have caught a video where a mother or a partner of a deployed soldier spoke about wanting their loved one back from this unconscionable war.
When 66 protesters from a coalition of veteran and military family organizations were arrested on April 20, these images went viral worldwide. This attests to not only the specific weight given to veterans who speak out against wars, but also the deep hunger to see any kind of tangible action against the United States and Israel’s profoundly unpopular war with Iran.
One of those arrested was Katie Chorbak, president of 50501 Veterans, which organizes more than 2,000 members into policy fights, nonviolent direct action and sustained advocacy. Chorbak, a fifth-generation combat veteran, chose to bring her concerns directly to lawmakers out of the belief that veterans have a “responsibility to speak plainly” when the country is moving toward war without transparency or congressional debate.
“Veterans showing up in that space matters because we understand the realities of war beyond headlines and talking points,” Chorbak said.
Despite decades of demonization of Iran by U.S. politicians, amplified by mainstream media, Trump’s war on Iran was met with immediate disfavor in March (a Reuters poll found that only 27 percent of voters approved of the initial strikes). Still, there has been little substantive resistance in Congress and relative quiet in the streets of cities that saw record-breaking protests against President George W. Bush’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the 2000s.
Yet, over these last 20 years, veterans never stopped organizing against U.S. wars and militarism. The organizers of the April 20 action — About Face Veterans Against War, Veterans for Peace, 50501 Veterans, the Center on Conscience and War, Military Families Speak Out and others — are building antiwar veteran and service member leadership, offering a vision of how we could end this country’s marriage to reckless, crushing militarism.
Where did this come from?
GI resistance is the tradition, dating back to the Revolutionary War, of American soldiers choosing to stand on their conscience and withdraw their consent to carry out the orders of commanding officers. The spectrum of resistance has encompassed the Vietnam War era’s more visible draft dodging and widespread disobedience in the ranks, and the quiet, mostly unseen refusal of soldiers in the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars to execute civilians, load their guns, carry out missions, report for duty or even to deploy.
Now, military resistance to the war on Iran is beginning to take publicly visible forms. Hundreds of complaints were filed by troops in every branch of the military when Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, a Christian nationalist, directed his commanders to inform their units that the Iran War is a holy war anointed by Jesus. And in the theater of war, service members whose labor enables the war machine can always find ways to clog the gears (sometimes literally). Rumors abounded of sailors clogging toilets and starting a fire on the Gerald Ford aircraft carrier, which had to retreat for repairs in March.
Public acts of refusal are vital to building a movement. Many soldiers can’t imagine refusing orders or deployment until they see someone else doing it. But courage is contagious, and an opportunity to join a collective action can offer the necessary bridge to take that risk.
Antiwar groups offer two core ingredients to transform spontaneous individual acts of refusal into a movement: visibility and access to support. Kelly Dougherty, who co-founded About Face in 2004 after returning from a year in Iraq in the Army National Guard, now serves as the counseling director for the Center on Conscience and War, or CCW, supporting service members seeking separation from the military, information about their rights or conscientious objector status. Dougherty says that while the Iran War has prompted a recent surge in calls to CCW’s hotline, “most service members I speak to have been questioning the system of war and whether or not they can morally participate in it for months or years.”
About Face has carried the banner of supporting GI resistance since its founding by Iraq War veterans with the support of seasoned organizers from Veterans for Peace. The group launched a Right to Refuse campaign after the 2024 election to bring renewed attention to the long tradition of refusal of illegal and immoral orders. To get the word out, Right to Refuse uses visibility efforts, direct actions, social media, on-the-ground outreach and word of mouth. An encrypted support form allows for anonymous inquiries. The campaign works in tandem with the GI Rights Hotline, which has fielded calls from active duty questioners and emerging conscientious objectors since 1994.
As mainstream media conglomerates continue to shift rightward, so grows the importance of direct actions that alert soldiers to their options, as well as pressuring elected officials. This is why the CCW chose to have its executive director Mike Prysner risk arrest in the April 20 action. “Most people in the military aren’t familiar with their right to seek discharge as a conscientious objector,” Dougherty said. “We wanted to let service members know that if they are experiencing a moral crisis because they cannot, in good conscience, participate in war, that they can file for conscientious objector status and there is an organization that will support them every step of the way.”
GI resistance has power because war requires obedient soldiers. But active duty service members’ opportunities to make direct impacts are shrinking as war becomes increasingly outsourced and automated. Remote-controlled weaponry is taking over from real humans (often referred to as “boots on the ground,” underlining the nature of using youngsters as cannon fodder). Perhaps the most concerning trajectory is the trend of replacing decision makers with AI that can deploy and direct weaponry, as seen with Israel pioneering a shocking rate of mass death in Gaza with their Lavender and Where’s Daddy programs. These trends make the launch of this war on Iran a critically important window for supporting GI resistance before complete control over mass killing is in the hands of the ruling class and their machines.
Work stoppage or interference by active duty military can slow or impair the war machine, but this alone may not end the war on Iran. There are more ways in which antiwar service members and veterans can leverage their social position not only as workers, but as symbols. Their voices on military matters have weight both with elected officials and the general public. They have the platform to challenge the myths of morality, necessity and infallibility in which the warhawks wrap their armies and wars. As they increase the unreliability of the armed forces, they can also decrease public confidence in how the troops are being used. Both resistance and public opposition are key toward ending not only a specific war, but tearing up the blank checks for endless wars at home and abroad.
Veterans rising to meet the moment
Founded as Iraq Veterans Against the War, About Face has expanded from opposing the war on Iraq to a deeper critique of militarism, as new members joined over the years who had participated in many different facets of the so-called Global War on Terror. Its opposition to the war on Iran is part of a broader recent effort to challenge the U.S.-Israeli wars for regional dominance, resource control and global positioning.
After Oct. 7, 2023, About Face welcomed hundreds of new members who were moved to organize with other veterans in solidarity with Palestine. To harness that energy, they immediately formed Veterans for Ceasefire, whose first of many direct actions was a sit-in on Nov. 9, 2023 in Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s office. Eight members participated in the 2025 Global Sumud Flotilla.
In addition to challenging U.S. aggression overseas, veterans have also become important voices for demilitarization of the homefront. In the summer of 2020, when troops were turned against U.S. civilians in the wake of George Floyd’s murder by police, About Face reached out to National Guard members, encouraging them “Stand Down for Black Lives” by refusing mobilization against racial justice protesters.
Challenging militarism at home — and connecting it to wars abroad — has become even more crucial in a time of rising authoritarianism. “Right to Refuse was definitely created with Project 2025 in mind and what was promised in that document about domestic use of the military to enforce their authoritarian agenda,” said Matt Howard, interim national organizing director of About Face.
Sure enough, ICE surges in 2025 saw the use of military forces to quell civil dissent and carry out race-based purges. The National Guard occupied cities, while the Department of Defense offered bases, staging areas and logistical support for mass detentions. Anti-ICE resistance also faced the kind of intensified surveillance and data collection tested in the killing fields of U.S.-Israeli wars abroad.
Tapping into the organic dissent in the ranks is a particular gift of the Right to Refuse campaign. Billboards facing the main gates of North Carolina’s biggest military installations appeared in September 2025 announcing a website titled NotWhatYouSignedUpFor.org (a joint visibility campaign of Win Without War and About Face). When thousands of active duty Airborne troops (a cold-weather division from Alaska) and military police were placed on standby for Department of Homeland Security support, including a 500-person brigade from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, a billboard at the main gate greeted them with, “Did you go Airborne just to pull security for ICE?” Marines entering Camp Lejeune saw “Not what you signed up for? You have options.”
In U.S. cities experiencing paramilitary occupation from DHS forces, U.S. military veterans found opportunities to demilitarize the skills they brought home and apply them to justice, protection and liberation. A delegation of About Face members traveled to Minneapolis in February to join local members and other community organizations in building a grassroots response to the escalation of ICE violence.
Additionally, About Face’s Monitoring and Analysis of Military and Border Operations, or MAMBO, project uses open source intelligence gathering to analyze and map domestic deployments of military and DHS forces, offering usable reports to community groups. Some members of About Face and its close partner Veterans For Peace provide security for local actions and community events, and train and mentor emerging movement security practitioners, both civilian and veteran. This is a radical revisioning of what security can be when seen through a lens of demilitarization — neighbors keeping each other safe.
Alongside the DHS and National Guard occupation of U.S. cities, the impacts of the war economy and continued cuts to social spending have provided many opportunities for action. Last Veterans’ Day, About Face organized a Vets Say No War on Our Cities march in major cities including those dealing with ICE occupation like Los Angeles, Chicago, Portland, Washington, D.C. and Memphis. The message they shared was: “We will not allow attacks on our neighbors, or military occupation of our cities and deadly cuts on vital services to be normalized.”
On March 19, the 23rd anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, About Face coordinated national visits to senators to push for a repeal of the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force that opened the door to the “forever wars,” and for a vote against further supplemental military spending. A couple days later, members joined the Nuestra América relief convoy to Cuba, bringing supplies and challenging Trump’s saber-rattling.
About Face has also been incubating Veterans Against Fascism, a politically diverse coalition of vets united behind the call for No ICE, No War, No Cuts. “Fascism is everywhere, spread throughout the entire government. We have a responsibility to make it grind to a halt,” explained Joseph Funk, a member of About Face and leader in Veterans Against Fascism. “That means we have to defeat it anywhere it wants to exercise its power. That might look like opposing war and international violence, and that might look like standing against federal goons hunting children. It will probably look like a lot of things in the future.”
Winning public opinion
The Trump regime is not attempting to manufacture approval or even consent for its wars, but they are fighting on the narrative and cultural fronts. Nonpartisan organizations like About Face, which has challenged U.S.-led wars under every administration for the last 20 years and is not scared of calling out Democratic leaders, are laying a critical foundation. Those of us who remember Obama’s presidential victory on a platform of ending Bush’s wars, and the subsequent abdication of the forces who might have pushed him to follow through, know we need an antimilitarist movement bigger than opposition to Trump’s caricatured shock and awe.
“Despite the fact that both parties have had a shitty track record on war and militarism, in the last 10 years MAGA has claimed to be the true antiwar standard-bearer,” Howard said. “We are in a moment where the betrayal of Trump’s base is really clear. They thought they voted in a peace time president and are finding out it was another empty talking point. For movements who have been committed to an antiwar politic, no matter who was in office, there is an opportunity to use our credibility to undermine authoritarianism and contest for people who are waking up.”
The good news: There is leadership and vision. Antiwar veterans are increasing their ranks, building collective power in campaigns and coalitions, and taking strategic aim at multiple pillars of the war machine.
“Veterans can help focus public energy into concrete demands,” said Katie Chorbak, from 50501 Veterans. “If opposition is going to be effective, it has to be organized, informed and sustained. Veterans can help anchor that effort. What is needed right now is seriousness, discipline and sustained engagement. Change rarely happens because people are upset for a week. It happens when people stay organized long enough to matter.”
#AboutFaceVeteransAgainstWar #ConscientiousObjectors #FreeSpeechInAmerica #History #Iran #MilitaryFamiliesSpeakOut #VeteransForPeace #WagingNonviolence -
American Veterans Challenge Militarism and Rising Authoritarianism.
Article republished by Jerry Alatalo | (Source: PopularResistance.org) | May 17, 2026
[Editor’s note: Clare Bayard has organized in anti-militarist movements for almost 30 years, connecting domestic work for racial and economic justice with international movements against war and colonialism. Clare comes from a family of several generations of military veterans and co-coordinates the National Network to Dismantle the Military-Industrial Complex. Please share this article far and wide, and feel free to share your thoughts in the comments. Thank you very much. Peace.]
***
From ICE To Iran, Veterans Are Challenging US Militarism
- By Clare Bayard, Waging Nonviolence.
- May 15, 2026
- Strategize!
Above photo: Leigh Vogel/Getty Images Entertainment.
Antiwar veterans are leveraging their unique credibility to oppose the war in Iran, stop ICE and support active duty resisters.
One hundred fifty people holding tulips stand in formation on the marble floor of the Cannon House Office Building, until Capitol Police arrest over a third of them and remove them in cuffs.
Maybe you saw an image of these veterans with their flowers — the red tulips that are an Iranian national symbol honoring martyrs. Perhaps you saw a photo of a disabled veteran’s wrists being handcuffed while leaning on a cane. You may have caught a video where a mother or a partner of a deployed soldier spoke about wanting their loved one back from this unconscionable war.
When 66 protesters from a coalition of veteran and military family organizations were arrested on April 20, these images went viral worldwide. This attests to not only the specific weight given to veterans who speak out against wars, but also the deep hunger to see any kind of tangible action against the United States and Israel’s profoundly unpopular war with Iran.
One of those arrested was Katie Chorbak, president of 50501 Veterans, which organizes more than 2,000 members into policy fights, nonviolent direct action and sustained advocacy. Chorbak, a fifth-generation combat veteran, chose to bring her concerns directly to lawmakers out of the belief that veterans have a “responsibility to speak plainly” when the country is moving toward war without transparency or congressional debate.
“Veterans showing up in that space matters because we understand the realities of war beyond headlines and talking points,” Chorbak said.
Despite decades of demonization of Iran by U.S. politicians, amplified by mainstream media, Trump’s war on Iran was met with immediate disfavor in March (a Reuters poll found that only 27 percent of voters approved of the initial strikes). Still, there has been little substantive resistance in Congress and relative quiet in the streets of cities that saw record-breaking protests against President George W. Bush’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the 2000s.
Yet, over these last 20 years, veterans never stopped organizing against U.S. wars and militarism. The organizers of the April 20 action — About Face Veterans Against War, Veterans for Peace, 50501 Veterans, the Center on Conscience and War, Military Families Speak Out and others — are building antiwar veteran and service member leadership, offering a vision of how we could end this country’s marriage to reckless, crushing militarism.
Where did this come from?
GI resistance is the tradition, dating back to the Revolutionary War, of American soldiers choosing to stand on their conscience and withdraw their consent to carry out the orders of commanding officers. The spectrum of resistance has encompassed the Vietnam War era’s more visible draft dodging and widespread disobedience in the ranks, and the quiet, mostly unseen refusal of soldiers in the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars to execute civilians, load their guns, carry out missions, report for duty or even to deploy.
Now, military resistance to the war on Iran is beginning to take publicly visible forms. Hundreds of complaints were filed by troops in every branch of the military when Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, a Christian nationalist, directed his commanders to inform their units that the Iran War is a holy war anointed by Jesus. And in the theater of war, service members whose labor enables the war machine can always find ways to clog the gears (sometimes literally). Rumors abounded of sailors clogging toilets and starting a fire on the Gerald Ford aircraft carrier, which had to retreat for repairs in March.
Public acts of refusal are vital to building a movement. Many soldiers can’t imagine refusing orders or deployment until they see someone else doing it. But courage is contagious, and an opportunity to join a collective action can offer the necessary bridge to take that risk.
Antiwar groups offer two core ingredients to transform spontaneous individual acts of refusal into a movement: visibility and access to support. Kelly Dougherty, who co-founded About Face in 2004 after returning from a year in Iraq in the Army National Guard, now serves as the counseling director for the Center on Conscience and War, or CCW, supporting service members seeking separation from the military, information about their rights or conscientious objector status. Dougherty says that while the Iran War has prompted a recent surge in calls to CCW’s hotline, “most service members I speak to have been questioning the system of war and whether or not they can morally participate in it for months or years.”
About Face has carried the banner of supporting GI resistance since its founding by Iraq War veterans with the support of seasoned organizers from Veterans for Peace. The group launched a Right to Refuse campaign after the 2024 election to bring renewed attention to the long tradition of refusal of illegal and immoral orders. To get the word out, Right to Refuse uses visibility efforts, direct actions, social media, on-the-ground outreach and word of mouth. An encrypted support form allows for anonymous inquiries. The campaign works in tandem with the GI Rights Hotline, which has fielded calls from active duty questioners and emerging conscientious objectors since 1994.
As mainstream media conglomerates continue to shift rightward, so grows the importance of direct actions that alert soldiers to their options, as well as pressuring elected officials. This is why the CCW chose to have its executive director Mike Prysner risk arrest in the April 20 action. “Most people in the military aren’t familiar with their right to seek discharge as a conscientious objector,” Dougherty said. “We wanted to let service members know that if they are experiencing a moral crisis because they cannot, in good conscience, participate in war, that they can file for conscientious objector status and there is an organization that will support them every step of the way.”
GI resistance has power because war requires obedient soldiers. But active duty service members’ opportunities to make direct impacts are shrinking as war becomes increasingly outsourced and automated. Remote-controlled weaponry is taking over from real humans (often referred to as “boots on the ground,” underlining the nature of using youngsters as cannon fodder). Perhaps the most concerning trajectory is the trend of replacing decision makers with AI that can deploy and direct weaponry, as seen with Israel pioneering a shocking rate of mass death in Gaza with their Lavender and Where’s Daddy programs. These trends make the launch of this war on Iran a critically important window for supporting GI resistance before complete control over mass killing is in the hands of the ruling class and their machines.
Work stoppage or interference by active duty military can slow or impair the war machine, but this alone may not end the war on Iran. There are more ways in which antiwar service members and veterans can leverage their social position not only as workers, but as symbols. Their voices on military matters have weight both with elected officials and the general public. They have the platform to challenge the myths of morality, necessity and infallibility in which the warhawks wrap their armies and wars. As they increase the unreliability of the armed forces, they can also decrease public confidence in how the troops are being used. Both resistance and public opposition are key toward ending not only a specific war, but tearing up the blank checks for endless wars at home and abroad.
Veterans rising to meet the moment
Founded as Iraq Veterans Against the War, About Face has expanded from opposing the war on Iraq to a deeper critique of militarism, as new members joined over the years who had participated in many different facets of the so-called Global War on Terror. Its opposition to the war on Iran is part of a broader recent effort to challenge the U.S.-Israeli wars for regional dominance, resource control and global positioning.
After Oct. 7, 2023, About Face welcomed hundreds of new members who were moved to organize with other veterans in solidarity with Palestine. To harness that energy, they immediately formed Veterans for Ceasefire, whose first of many direct actions was a sit-in on Nov. 9, 2023 in Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s office. Eight members participated in the 2025 Global Sumud Flotilla.
In addition to challenging U.S. aggression overseas, veterans have also become important voices for demilitarization of the homefront. In the summer of 2020, when troops were turned against U.S. civilians in the wake of George Floyd’s murder by police, About Face reached out to National Guard members, encouraging them “Stand Down for Black Lives” by refusing mobilization against racial justice protesters.
Challenging militarism at home — and connecting it to wars abroad — has become even more crucial in a time of rising authoritarianism. “Right to Refuse was definitely created with Project 2025 in mind and what was promised in that document about domestic use of the military to enforce their authoritarian agenda,” said Matt Howard, interim national organizing director of About Face.
Sure enough, ICE surges in 2025 saw the use of military forces to quell civil dissent and carry out race-based purges. The National Guard occupied cities, while the Department of Defense offered bases, staging areas and logistical support for mass detentions. Anti-ICE resistance also faced the kind of intensified surveillance and data collection tested in the killing fields of U.S.-Israeli wars abroad.
Tapping into the organic dissent in the ranks is a particular gift of the Right to Refuse campaign. Billboards facing the main gates of North Carolina’s biggest military installations appeared in September 2025 announcing a website titled NotWhatYouSignedUpFor.org (a joint visibility campaign of Win Without War and About Face). When thousands of active duty Airborne troops (a cold-weather division from Alaska) and military police were placed on standby for Department of Homeland Security support, including a 500-person brigade from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, a billboard at the main gate greeted them with, “Did you go Airborne just to pull security for ICE?” Marines entering Camp Lejeune saw “Not what you signed up for? You have options.”
In U.S. cities experiencing paramilitary occupation from DHS forces, U.S. military veterans found opportunities to demilitarize the skills they brought home and apply them to justice, protection and liberation. A delegation of About Face members traveled to Minneapolis in February to join local members and other community organizations in building a grassroots response to the escalation of ICE violence.
Additionally, About Face’s Monitoring and Analysis of Military and Border Operations, or MAMBO, project uses open source intelligence gathering to analyze and map domestic deployments of military and DHS forces, offering usable reports to community groups. Some members of About Face and its close partner Veterans For Peace provide security for local actions and community events, and train and mentor emerging movement security practitioners, both civilian and veteran. This is a radical revisioning of what security can be when seen through a lens of demilitarization — neighbors keeping each other safe.
Alongside the DHS and National Guard occupation of U.S. cities, the impacts of the war economy and continued cuts to social spending have provided many opportunities for action. Last Veterans’ Day, About Face organized a Vets Say No War on Our Cities march in major cities including those dealing with ICE occupation like Los Angeles, Chicago, Portland, Washington, D.C. and Memphis. The message they shared was: “We will not allow attacks on our neighbors, or military occupation of our cities and deadly cuts on vital services to be normalized.”
On March 19, the 23rd anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, About Face coordinated national visits to senators to push for a repeal of the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force that opened the door to the “forever wars,” and for a vote against further supplemental military spending. A couple days later, members joined the Nuestra América relief convoy to Cuba, bringing supplies and challenging Trump’s saber-rattling.
About Face has also been incubating Veterans Against Fascism, a politically diverse coalition of vets united behind the call for No ICE, No War, No Cuts. “Fascism is everywhere, spread throughout the entire government. We have a responsibility to make it grind to a halt,” explained Joseph Funk, a member of About Face and leader in Veterans Against Fascism. “That means we have to defeat it anywhere it wants to exercise its power. That might look like opposing war and international violence, and that might look like standing against federal goons hunting children. It will probably look like a lot of things in the future.”
Winning public opinion
The Trump regime is not attempting to manufacture approval or even consent for its wars, but they are fighting on the narrative and cultural fronts. Nonpartisan organizations like About Face, which has challenged U.S.-led wars under every administration for the last 20 years and is not scared of calling out Democratic leaders, are laying a critical foundation. Those of us who remember Obama’s presidential victory on a platform of ending Bush’s wars, and the subsequent abdication of the forces who might have pushed him to follow through, know we need an antimilitarist movement bigger than opposition to Trump’s caricatured shock and awe.
“Despite the fact that both parties have had a shitty track record on war and militarism, in the last 10 years MAGA has claimed to be the true antiwar standard-bearer,” Howard said. “We are in a moment where the betrayal of Trump’s base is really clear. They thought they voted in a peace time president and are finding out it was another empty talking point. For movements who have been committed to an antiwar politic, no matter who was in office, there is an opportunity to use our credibility to undermine authoritarianism and contest for people who are waking up.”
The good news: There is leadership and vision. Antiwar veterans are increasing their ranks, building collective power in campaigns and coalitions, and taking strategic aim at multiple pillars of the war machine.
“Veterans can help focus public energy into concrete demands,” said Katie Chorbak, from 50501 Veterans. “If opposition is going to be effective, it has to be organized, informed and sustained. Veterans can help anchor that effort. What is needed right now is seriousness, discipline and sustained engagement. Change rarely happens because people are upset for a week. It happens when people stay organized long enough to matter.”
#AboutFaceVeteransAgainstWar #ConscientiousObjectors #FreeSpeechInAmerica #History #Iran #MilitaryFamiliesSpeakOut #VeteransForPeace #WagingNonviolence -
American Veterans Challenge Militarism and Rising Authoritarianism.
Article republished by Jerry Alatalo | (Source: PopularResistance.org) | May 17, 2026
[Editor’s note: Clare Bayard has organized in anti-militarist movements for almost 30 years, connecting domestic work for racial and economic justice with international movements against war and colonialism. Clare comes from a family of several generations of military veterans and co-coordinates the National Network to Dismantle the Military-Industrial Complex. Please share this article far and wide, and feel free to share your thoughts in the comments. Thank you very much. Peace.]
***
From ICE To Iran, Veterans Are Challenging US Militarism
- By Clare Bayard, Waging Nonviolence.
- May 15, 2026
- Strategize!
Above photo: Leigh Vogel/Getty Images Entertainment.
Antiwar veterans are leveraging their unique credibility to oppose the war in Iran, stop ICE and support active duty resisters.
One hundred fifty people holding tulips stand in formation on the marble floor of the Cannon House Office Building, until Capitol Police arrest over a third of them and remove them in cuffs.
Maybe you saw an image of these veterans with their flowers — the red tulips that are an Iranian national symbol honoring martyrs. Perhaps you saw a photo of a disabled veteran’s wrists being handcuffed while leaning on a cane. You may have caught a video where a mother or a partner of a deployed soldier spoke about wanting their loved one back from this unconscionable war.
When 66 protesters from a coalition of veteran and military family organizations were arrested on April 20, these images went viral worldwide. This attests to not only the specific weight given to veterans who speak out against wars, but also the deep hunger to see any kind of tangible action against the United States and Israel’s profoundly unpopular war with Iran.
One of those arrested was Katie Chorbak, president of 50501 Veterans, which organizes more than 2,000 members into policy fights, nonviolent direct action and sustained advocacy. Chorbak, a fifth-generation combat veteran, chose to bring her concerns directly to lawmakers out of the belief that veterans have a “responsibility to speak plainly” when the country is moving toward war without transparency or congressional debate.
“Veterans showing up in that space matters because we understand the realities of war beyond headlines and talking points,” Chorbak said.
Despite decades of demonization of Iran by U.S. politicians, amplified by mainstream media, Trump’s war on Iran was met with immediate disfavor in March (a Reuters poll found that only 27 percent of voters approved of the initial strikes). Still, there has been little substantive resistance in Congress and relative quiet in the streets of cities that saw record-breaking protests against President George W. Bush’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the 2000s.
Yet, over these last 20 years, veterans never stopped organizing against U.S. wars and militarism. The organizers of the April 20 action — About Face Veterans Against War, Veterans for Peace, 50501 Veterans, the Center on Conscience and War, Military Families Speak Out and others — are building antiwar veteran and service member leadership, offering a vision of how we could end this country’s marriage to reckless, crushing militarism.
Where did this come from?
GI resistance is the tradition, dating back to the Revolutionary War, of American soldiers choosing to stand on their conscience and withdraw their consent to carry out the orders of commanding officers. The spectrum of resistance has encompassed the Vietnam War era’s more visible draft dodging and widespread disobedience in the ranks, and the quiet, mostly unseen refusal of soldiers in the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars to execute civilians, load their guns, carry out missions, report for duty or even to deploy.
Now, military resistance to the war on Iran is beginning to take publicly visible forms. Hundreds of complaints were filed by troops in every branch of the military when Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, a Christian nationalist, directed his commanders to inform their units that the Iran War is a holy war anointed by Jesus. And in the theater of war, service members whose labor enables the war machine can always find ways to clog the gears (sometimes literally). Rumors abounded of sailors clogging toilets and starting a fire on the Gerald Ford aircraft carrier, which had to retreat for repairs in March.
Public acts of refusal are vital to building a movement. Many soldiers can’t imagine refusing orders or deployment until they see someone else doing it. But courage is contagious, and an opportunity to join a collective action can offer the necessary bridge to take that risk.
Antiwar groups offer two core ingredients to transform spontaneous individual acts of refusal into a movement: visibility and access to support. Kelly Dougherty, who co-founded About Face in 2004 after returning from a year in Iraq in the Army National Guard, now serves as the counseling director for the Center on Conscience and War, or CCW, supporting service members seeking separation from the military, information about their rights or conscientious objector status. Dougherty says that while the Iran War has prompted a recent surge in calls to CCW’s hotline, “most service members I speak to have been questioning the system of war and whether or not they can morally participate in it for months or years.”
About Face has carried the banner of supporting GI resistance since its founding by Iraq War veterans with the support of seasoned organizers from Veterans for Peace. The group launched a Right to Refuse campaign after the 2024 election to bring renewed attention to the long tradition of refusal of illegal and immoral orders. To get the word out, Right to Refuse uses visibility efforts, direct actions, social media, on-the-ground outreach and word of mouth. An encrypted support form allows for anonymous inquiries. The campaign works in tandem with the GI Rights Hotline, which has fielded calls from active duty questioners and emerging conscientious objectors since 1994.
As mainstream media conglomerates continue to shift rightward, so grows the importance of direct actions that alert soldiers to their options, as well as pressuring elected officials. This is why the CCW chose to have its executive director Mike Prysner risk arrest in the April 20 action. “Most people in the military aren’t familiar with their right to seek discharge as a conscientious objector,” Dougherty said. “We wanted to let service members know that if they are experiencing a moral crisis because they cannot, in good conscience, participate in war, that they can file for conscientious objector status and there is an organization that will support them every step of the way.”
GI resistance has power because war requires obedient soldiers. But active duty service members’ opportunities to make direct impacts are shrinking as war becomes increasingly outsourced and automated. Remote-controlled weaponry is taking over from real humans (often referred to as “boots on the ground,” underlining the nature of using youngsters as cannon fodder). Perhaps the most concerning trajectory is the trend of replacing decision makers with AI that can deploy and direct weaponry, as seen with Israel pioneering a shocking rate of mass death in Gaza with their Lavender and Where’s Daddy programs. These trends make the launch of this war on Iran a critically important window for supporting GI resistance before complete control over mass killing is in the hands of the ruling class and their machines.
Work stoppage or interference by active duty military can slow or impair the war machine, but this alone may not end the war on Iran. There are more ways in which antiwar service members and veterans can leverage their social position not only as workers, but as symbols. Their voices on military matters have weight both with elected officials and the general public. They have the platform to challenge the myths of morality, necessity and infallibility in which the warhawks wrap their armies and wars. As they increase the unreliability of the armed forces, they can also decrease public confidence in how the troops are being used. Both resistance and public opposition are key toward ending not only a specific war, but tearing up the blank checks for endless wars at home and abroad.
Veterans rising to meet the moment
Founded as Iraq Veterans Against the War, About Face has expanded from opposing the war on Iraq to a deeper critique of militarism, as new members joined over the years who had participated in many different facets of the so-called Global War on Terror. Its opposition to the war on Iran is part of a broader recent effort to challenge the U.S.-Israeli wars for regional dominance, resource control and global positioning.
After Oct. 7, 2023, About Face welcomed hundreds of new members who were moved to organize with other veterans in solidarity with Palestine. To harness that energy, they immediately formed Veterans for Ceasefire, whose first of many direct actions was a sit-in on Nov. 9, 2023 in Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s office. Eight members participated in the 2025 Global Sumud Flotilla.
In addition to challenging U.S. aggression overseas, veterans have also become important voices for demilitarization of the homefront. In the summer of 2020, when troops were turned against U.S. civilians in the wake of George Floyd’s murder by police, About Face reached out to National Guard members, encouraging them “Stand Down for Black Lives” by refusing mobilization against racial justice protesters.
Challenging militarism at home — and connecting it to wars abroad — has become even more crucial in a time of rising authoritarianism. “Right to Refuse was definitely created with Project 2025 in mind and what was promised in that document about domestic use of the military to enforce their authoritarian agenda,” said Matt Howard, interim national organizing director of About Face.
Sure enough, ICE surges in 2025 saw the use of military forces to quell civil dissent and carry out race-based purges. The National Guard occupied cities, while the Department of Defense offered bases, staging areas and logistical support for mass detentions. Anti-ICE resistance also faced the kind of intensified surveillance and data collection tested in the killing fields of U.S.-Israeli wars abroad.
Tapping into the organic dissent in the ranks is a particular gift of the Right to Refuse campaign. Billboards facing the main gates of North Carolina’s biggest military installations appeared in September 2025 announcing a website titled NotWhatYouSignedUpFor.org (a joint visibility campaign of Win Without War and About Face). When thousands of active duty Airborne troops (a cold-weather division from Alaska) and military police were placed on standby for Department of Homeland Security support, including a 500-person brigade from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, a billboard at the main gate greeted them with, “Did you go Airborne just to pull security for ICE?” Marines entering Camp Lejeune saw “Not what you signed up for? You have options.”
In U.S. cities experiencing paramilitary occupation from DHS forces, U.S. military veterans found opportunities to demilitarize the skills they brought home and apply them to justice, protection and liberation. A delegation of About Face members traveled to Minneapolis in February to join local members and other community organizations in building a grassroots response to the escalation of ICE violence.
Additionally, About Face’s Monitoring and Analysis of Military and Border Operations, or MAMBO, project uses open source intelligence gathering to analyze and map domestic deployments of military and DHS forces, offering usable reports to community groups. Some members of About Face and its close partner Veterans For Peace provide security for local actions and community events, and train and mentor emerging movement security practitioners, both civilian and veteran. This is a radical revisioning of what security can be when seen through a lens of demilitarization — neighbors keeping each other safe.
Alongside the DHS and National Guard occupation of U.S. cities, the impacts of the war economy and continued cuts to social spending have provided many opportunities for action. Last Veterans’ Day, About Face organized a Vets Say No War on Our Cities march in major cities including those dealing with ICE occupation like Los Angeles, Chicago, Portland, Washington, D.C. and Memphis. The message they shared was: “We will not allow attacks on our neighbors, or military occupation of our cities and deadly cuts on vital services to be normalized.”
On March 19, the 23rd anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, About Face coordinated national visits to senators to push for a repeal of the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force that opened the door to the “forever wars,” and for a vote against further supplemental military spending. A couple days later, members joined the Nuestra América relief convoy to Cuba, bringing supplies and challenging Trump’s saber-rattling.
About Face has also been incubating Veterans Against Fascism, a politically diverse coalition of vets united behind the call for No ICE, No War, No Cuts. “Fascism is everywhere, spread throughout the entire government. We have a responsibility to make it grind to a halt,” explained Joseph Funk, a member of About Face and leader in Veterans Against Fascism. “That means we have to defeat it anywhere it wants to exercise its power. That might look like opposing war and international violence, and that might look like standing against federal goons hunting children. It will probably look like a lot of things in the future.”
Winning public opinion
The Trump regime is not attempting to manufacture approval or even consent for its wars, but they are fighting on the narrative and cultural fronts. Nonpartisan organizations like About Face, which has challenged U.S.-led wars under every administration for the last 20 years and is not scared of calling out Democratic leaders, are laying a critical foundation. Those of us who remember Obama’s presidential victory on a platform of ending Bush’s wars, and the subsequent abdication of the forces who might have pushed him to follow through, know we need an antimilitarist movement bigger than opposition to Trump’s caricatured shock and awe.
“Despite the fact that both parties have had a shitty track record on war and militarism, in the last 10 years MAGA has claimed to be the true antiwar standard-bearer,” Howard said. “We are in a moment where the betrayal of Trump’s base is really clear. They thought they voted in a peace time president and are finding out it was another empty talking point. For movements who have been committed to an antiwar politic, no matter who was in office, there is an opportunity to use our credibility to undermine authoritarianism and contest for people who are waking up.”
The good news: There is leadership and vision. Antiwar veterans are increasing their ranks, building collective power in campaigns and coalitions, and taking strategic aim at multiple pillars of the war machine.
“Veterans can help focus public energy into concrete demands,” said Katie Chorbak, from 50501 Veterans. “If opposition is going to be effective, it has to be organized, informed and sustained. Veterans can help anchor that effort. What is needed right now is seriousness, discipline and sustained engagement. Change rarely happens because people are upset for a week. It happens when people stay organized long enough to matter.”
#AboutFaceVeteransAgainstWar #ConscientiousObjectors #FreeSpeechInAmerica #History #Iran #MilitaryFamiliesSpeakOut #VeteransForPeace #WagingNonviolence -
On Palestinians’ Growing Revolutionary Optimism.
Article republished by Jerry Alatalo | May 15, 2026
[Editor’s note: Jenin M (CodePink) writes:
“Israel believes it can continue what it has always done. It can embark on an outright genocide with the intent of wiping Palestinians off the map, then agree to multiple ceasefires only to break every single one of them. After all, you cannot cease a genocide while the genocidal entity still operates with impunity. The difference this time around is that people around the world actually know what’s going on. Israel, along with its benefactor, the U.S., has backed itself into a corner I doubt it will ever escape from.”
Please share this perceptive, thoughtful, timely and relevant article far and wide. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments. Thank you very much. Peace.]
***
The Fuel to My Revolutionary Optimism
Jenin M for Codepink
As a Palestinian born in the 21st century, I am the generational product of Nakba survivors and the trauma that came with it. As distant as it may seem, I am only two generations removed from the 1948 Catastrophe of Palestine, where over 750,000 Palestinians were displaced from their land, and thousands were massacred. Zionist militias backed by the British Empire razed Palestinian villages, killing, raping, displacing, and imprisoning anyone they could find, all to establish the brand new settler colonial project of Israel. This single day in Palestinian history would stain the soil with blood spilled and trauma gained for decades to come.
Both sets of my grandparents are older than the state of Israel, each born a few years before the Nakba. May 14th, 1948, was probably a rather normal day in my grandparents’ childhood. They would have been inside their homes with their families, or playing outside like any other day.The next day, everything changed. On May 15th, Zionist militias stormed their hometowns, slaughtered their neighbors, and destroyed entire villages. My grandparents’ childhoods were stripped away, and their entire lives uprooted.
After the Nakba, everything changed. The people of Palestine now live under the occupation of racists who despise and dehumanize them. These foreigners decided what rights they could and couldn’t have in their own homelands, and the threat of violence was always present. My great-grandfather was shot in the head by a settler. The Palestinian education system was dramatically defunded, leading my mother’s parents to leave for Europe for university. When they tried to come back home after the 1967 Naksa, foreign soldiers somehow had the authority to bar them from ever entering again. They had to move to Jordan and start a new life. They were only 2 hours away from their families, but they didn’t know if they’d ever be allowed to make the short trip back. My grandmother has only been to Palestine once since then, and my grandfather twice.
My other set of grandparents remained on the land, but now had to live a life of heavy restriction and limited movement. It’s hard for me to imagine what it was like to witness the plundering of our homeland by foreign invaders, but I can never truly understand the magnitude of seeing the gradual colonization that seemed to only get worse throughout the decades. I will never forget when my grandfather, who was a bus driver back in the day, told me that he was once able to drive to Beirut or Baghdad, and then return home on the same day. Now, such an idea is unfathomable.
Ever since I was old enough to comprehend things, I knew Palestine was my homeland and that it was being hurt by something called Israel. Israel was the reason my mom was born in Jordan instead of Palestine, the driving force that led my parents to move to the U.S. for better education and work. It is the thing that separates me from the rest of my extended family, preventing me from knowing them wholly and truly. Israel is why I only see my grandparents every few years, why I have to watch my younger cousins grow up through a phone screen. As a Palestinian who grew up in the States, I was immersed in Western culture and disconnected from my own, and Israel is the reason.
This was my norm, the reality I was born into. After a while, the daily reminders of being disenfranchised, the cruelty of it all, become something you just get used to. You begin to get settled with the unsettling feeling that this may be the fortune of a Palestinian in this world: a life of displacement and diaspora, with the occasional travesty, like the previous bombing campaigns of Gaza in 2008, 2012, and 2014. This process of desensitization is imprinted in my generational DNA; I was practically born already accustomed to the injustice of being Palestinian.
The brutal truth was that the Nakba never ended. We all instinctively knew this, but especially after the Oslo Accords’ normalization efforts, a sense of false comfort plagued the Palestinian community for the two decades following its signing. The reality before October 2023 was the occasional protest and the occasional outrage, only to be quelled by half-hearted statements of sympathetic apathy by politicians. I became involved in student organizing for Palestine in 2021, and although we were constantly working, the landscape back then was much quieter and smaller.
Then, two and a half years ago, the current stage of genocide in Gaza began. I don’t think I will ever experience life the way it happened that fall. I had gone to sleep on October 6th, where everything was relatively “normal”, then I woke up for my morning shift at 4:30 AM to my phone practically blowing up with notifications. I remember going to my barista job with headphones in the whole time, watching Al-Jazeera while I made coffee for people who had no idea what had just shifted in the world.
In the wake of October 7th, the protests became consistent, the outrage became something so eternal that you felt like it could consume you and burn you to ash. What was once a few hundred people in the streets became thousands, and in some places, millions would turn out.
It was the beginning of a period of exhaustion, having something so important to organize for every single day, to the point that my studies didn’t even matter anymore. It was tough, but what was happening to those in Gaza was far worse, and it became a matter of expending everything you have for those who have nothing. Millions felt the same all over the world, and this sparked the mass-education and mobilization of the Palestine solidarity movement we see today.
Since October 2023, the images out of Gaza resembling the Nakba have flooded our timelines. After nearly three years of the most inhumane, dehumanizing, genocidal campaign by the U.S. and Israel, one might assume that a sense of hopelessness would take hold, as it did after the 1948 Nakba. But I see this moment as the catalyst for the exact opposite to happen.
Israel believes it can continue what it has always done. It can embark on an outright genocide with the intent of wiping Palestinians off the map, then agree to multiple ceasefires only to break every single one of them. After all, you cannot cease a genocide while the genocidal entity still operates with impunity. The difference this time around is that people around the world actually know what’s going on. Israel, along with its benefactor, the U.S., has backed itself into a corner I doubt it will ever escape from.
And that’s the fuel to my revolutionary optimism. Sometimes, it’s hard to think liberation is near when faced with so much death and destruction. But it’s even harder to ignore the cracks in the facade of the U.S. and Israeli machine. They were both built on false foundations that were already rotten and cracked, and nothing built on the crushed livelihoods of millions will ever persevere. People are seeing the rot come up to the surface, and they are utterly disgusted with the state of our world that has perpetuated genocide, all held together by an ultra-wealthy ruling class, agonizing capitalism, and white supremacy.
When Israel was once known as the democracy of the Middle East, it’s now the stain, the villain that has reigned chaos, death, and destruction all over the region. When getting AIPAC money once meant you were a strong candidate, now it’s a sure death sentence in local American elections. When American institutions like the American Medical Association once deemed it acceptable to stay silent on Palestine, they are now condemned for it. When our media and news outlets operated as tools of Israeli propaganda, they are now seen as tools of war and oppression. It is our work and dedication as activists that have changed the perception of all these things that were once deemed normal.
In 1948, a time when news traveled slowly, Israel and the West believed they had conquered a territory forever. In 2026, that “forever” territory is still fighting back against years of occupation and genocide. That’s the difference: the struggle for Palestine was built on the sacrifice of our martyrs and revolutionaries, on principle, and on love for our land and people. It is a beautiful, rich foundation that can withstand whatever force attempts to tear it down.
Most of my family remains on the land, or near it in Jordan. I see this as a consistent win against the oppressor every day. As long as we keep our homes, livelihoods, and stories, the Palestinian identity will never die, and my family is fighting that battle every day. If desensitization has an imprint on my DNA, so does resilience and the steadfast faith that Palestine will be liberated soon.
Jenin is CODEPINK’s Palestine Campaigner. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Public Policy from the University of Illinois at Chicago in December of 2023. For over five years, Jenin has been a community organizer and dedicated individual focused on the Palestinian movement through advocacy, digital storytelling, and grassroots mobilization. She is a firm believer in intertwined struggle and liberation for all.
(Source: ScheerPost.com)
#CodePink #History #Illinois #Palestine #Philosophy #ScheerPostCom #UniversityOfIllinois #WhatIsTheNakba -
On Palestinians’ Growing Revolutionary Optimism.
Article republished by Jerry Alatalo | May 15, 2026
[Editor’s note: Jenin M (CodePink) writes:
“Israel believes it can continue what it has always done. It can embark on an outright genocide with the intent of wiping Palestinians off the map, then agree to multiple ceasefires only to break every single one of them. After all, you cannot cease a genocide while the genocidal entity still operates with impunity. The difference this time around is that people around the world actually know what’s going on. Israel, along with its benefactor, the U.S., has backed itself into a corner I doubt it will ever escape from.”
Please share this perceptive, thoughtful, timely and relevant article far and wide. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments. Thank you very much. Peace.]
***
The Fuel to My Revolutionary Optimism
Jenin M for Codepink
As a Palestinian born in the 21st century, I am the generational product of Nakba survivors and the trauma that came with it. As distant as it may seem, I am only two generations removed from the 1948 Catastrophe of Palestine, where over 750,000 Palestinians were displaced from their land, and thousands were massacred. Zionist militias backed by the British Empire razed Palestinian villages, killing, raping, displacing, and imprisoning anyone they could find, all to establish the brand new settler colonial project of Israel. This single day in Palestinian history would stain the soil with blood spilled and trauma gained for decades to come.
Both sets of my grandparents are older than the state of Israel, each born a few years before the Nakba. May 14th, 1948, was probably a rather normal day in my grandparents’ childhood. They would have been inside their homes with their families, or playing outside like any other day.The next day, everything changed. On May 15th, Zionist militias stormed their hometowns, slaughtered their neighbors, and destroyed entire villages. My grandparents’ childhoods were stripped away, and their entire lives uprooted.
After the Nakba, everything changed. The people of Palestine now live under the occupation of racists who despise and dehumanize them. These foreigners decided what rights they could and couldn’t have in their own homelands, and the threat of violence was always present. My great-grandfather was shot in the head by a settler. The Palestinian education system was dramatically defunded, leading my mother’s parents to leave for Europe for university. When they tried to come back home after the 1967 Naksa, foreign soldiers somehow had the authority to bar them from ever entering again. They had to move to Jordan and start a new life. They were only 2 hours away from their families, but they didn’t know if they’d ever be allowed to make the short trip back. My grandmother has only been to Palestine once since then, and my grandfather twice.
My other set of grandparents remained on the land, but now had to live a life of heavy restriction and limited movement. It’s hard for me to imagine what it was like to witness the plundering of our homeland by foreign invaders, but I can never truly understand the magnitude of seeing the gradual colonization that seemed to only get worse throughout the decades. I will never forget when my grandfather, who was a bus driver back in the day, told me that he was once able to drive to Beirut or Baghdad, and then return home on the same day. Now, such an idea is unfathomable.
Ever since I was old enough to comprehend things, I knew Palestine was my homeland and that it was being hurt by something called Israel. Israel was the reason my mom was born in Jordan instead of Palestine, the driving force that led my parents to move to the U.S. for better education and work. It is the thing that separates me from the rest of my extended family, preventing me from knowing them wholly and truly. Israel is why I only see my grandparents every few years, why I have to watch my younger cousins grow up through a phone screen. As a Palestinian who grew up in the States, I was immersed in Western culture and disconnected from my own, and Israel is the reason.
This was my norm, the reality I was born into. After a while, the daily reminders of being disenfranchised, the cruelty of it all, become something you just get used to. You begin to get settled with the unsettling feeling that this may be the fortune of a Palestinian in this world: a life of displacement and diaspora, with the occasional travesty, like the previous bombing campaigns of Gaza in 2008, 2012, and 2014. This process of desensitization is imprinted in my generational DNA; I was practically born already accustomed to the injustice of being Palestinian.
The brutal truth was that the Nakba never ended. We all instinctively knew this, but especially after the Oslo Accords’ normalization efforts, a sense of false comfort plagued the Palestinian community for the two decades following its signing. The reality before October 2023 was the occasional protest and the occasional outrage, only to be quelled by half-hearted statements of sympathetic apathy by politicians. I became involved in student organizing for Palestine in 2021, and although we were constantly working, the landscape back then was much quieter and smaller.
Then, two and a half years ago, the current stage of genocide in Gaza began. I don’t think I will ever experience life the way it happened that fall. I had gone to sleep on October 6th, where everything was relatively “normal”, then I woke up for my morning shift at 4:30 AM to my phone practically blowing up with notifications. I remember going to my barista job with headphones in the whole time, watching Al-Jazeera while I made coffee for people who had no idea what had just shifted in the world.
In the wake of October 7th, the protests became consistent, the outrage became something so eternal that you felt like it could consume you and burn you to ash. What was once a few hundred people in the streets became thousands, and in some places, millions would turn out.
It was the beginning of a period of exhaustion, having something so important to organize for every single day, to the point that my studies didn’t even matter anymore. It was tough, but what was happening to those in Gaza was far worse, and it became a matter of expending everything you have for those who have nothing. Millions felt the same all over the world, and this sparked the mass-education and mobilization of the Palestine solidarity movement we see today.
Since October 2023, the images out of Gaza resembling the Nakba have flooded our timelines. After nearly three years of the most inhumane, dehumanizing, genocidal campaign by the U.S. and Israel, one might assume that a sense of hopelessness would take hold, as it did after the 1948 Nakba. But I see this moment as the catalyst for the exact opposite to happen.
Israel believes it can continue what it has always done. It can embark on an outright genocide with the intent of wiping Palestinians off the map, then agree to multiple ceasefires only to break every single one of them. After all, you cannot cease a genocide while the genocidal entity still operates with impunity. The difference this time around is that people around the world actually know what’s going on. Israel, along with its benefactor, the U.S., has backed itself into a corner I doubt it will ever escape from.
And that’s the fuel to my revolutionary optimism. Sometimes, it’s hard to think liberation is near when faced with so much death and destruction. But it’s even harder to ignore the cracks in the facade of the U.S. and Israeli machine. They were both built on false foundations that were already rotten and cracked, and nothing built on the crushed livelihoods of millions will ever persevere. People are seeing the rot come up to the surface, and they are utterly disgusted with the state of our world that has perpetuated genocide, all held together by an ultra-wealthy ruling class, agonizing capitalism, and white supremacy.
When Israel was once known as the democracy of the Middle East, it’s now the stain, the villain that has reigned chaos, death, and destruction all over the region. When getting AIPAC money once meant you were a strong candidate, now it’s a sure death sentence in local American elections. When American institutions like the American Medical Association once deemed it acceptable to stay silent on Palestine, they are now condemned for it. When our media and news outlets operated as tools of Israeli propaganda, they are now seen as tools of war and oppression. It is our work and dedication as activists that have changed the perception of all these things that were once deemed normal.
In 1948, a time when news traveled slowly, Israel and the West believed they had conquered a territory forever. In 2026, that “forever” territory is still fighting back against years of occupation and genocide. That’s the difference: the struggle for Palestine was built on the sacrifice of our martyrs and revolutionaries, on principle, and on love for our land and people. It is a beautiful, rich foundation that can withstand whatever force attempts to tear it down.
Most of my family remains on the land, or near it in Jordan. I see this as a consistent win against the oppressor every day. As long as we keep our homes, livelihoods, and stories, the Palestinian identity will never die, and my family is fighting that battle every day. If desensitization has an imprint on my DNA, so does resilience and the steadfast faith that Palestine will be liberated soon.
Jenin is CODEPINK’s Palestine Campaigner. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Public Policy from the University of Illinois at Chicago in December of 2023. For over five years, Jenin has been a community organizer and dedicated individual focused on the Palestinian movement through advocacy, digital storytelling, and grassroots mobilization. She is a firm believer in intertwined struggle and liberation for all.
(Source: ScheerPost.com)
#CodePink #History #Illinois #Palestine #Philosophy #ScheerPostCom #UniversityOfIllinois #WhatIsTheNakba