Friday, April 3, 2026
Wednesday, April 1, 2026
The War on Iran is a Local Issue
This war was begun for reasons privy only to certain individuals in the US and Israeli governments. Most readers know that there was an agreement with Iran to prevent that nation’s nuclear power program from building nuclear weapons; that agreement was torn up by the first Donald Trump administration. Although the more recent talks were moving along and—according to most reports—going Washington’s way, the militaries of Israel and the United States launched a bloody and violent attack on Tehran, killing its political and spiritual leader. Israel’s involvement is part of its stated desire to annex much of the region known as West Asia/Mideast into its expanding borders, creating a considerably larger Israel. Given that Israel is at best an ally of Washington and at worst a colony, a larger Israel would certainly benefit the designs Washington has (and has had) for the region.
Of course, just wishing for a giant Israeli garrison state is not the same as making one. That is where war and genocide come in. That is why Washington supports Israel’s ongoing attempts to destroy the idea of Palestine; it is also why Washington is intent on establishing military relations with the monarchies in West Asia. Once again, these endeavors cost a lot of public money and that money comes from taxes paid by US residents. So, when the Israeli-US alliance goes to war, against the Palestinian people, the Lebanese, or the nation of Iran, the amount of money taken from the US public’s money and transferred to the war industry and the military increases—a lot. The US military and security apparatus were budgeted over 1 trillion dollars for the current year. Now, after almost a month of war against Iran, the war hawks in Washington, Virginia and wherever else they lurk want another $200 billion. According to the US Census Bureau, 174 million US citizens were registered to vote, 73.6% of those eligible in 2024. If one divides the sum of $200 billion desired by the war hawks by 174 million, this would mean that each registered voter is being asked to give approximately $1150.00 more to this ill-begotten and incredibly foolish war. That amount is on top of the amount already being paid. Although $1150.00 doesn’t buy much on the arms market, it represents a few weeks of groceries for many Vermonters even at today’s prices (prices which will continue to go up, especially if this war continues to expand.
In the past few years, some Vermont towns have passed referendums or legislation calling for an end to some trading with Israel until it ends its illegal occupation of Palestinian lands. Those who oppose these referendums and legislation use an argument that says local governments—state and municipality—should not be legislating about matters of foreign policy because it’s not in their purview. This argument belittles each individual and each government struggling to make ends meet in the face of increasing expenditures on wars and occupation. If it isn’t our job as citizens of towns, cities, villages and indeed, the United States, to challenge those who profit from, clamor for and send troops to war, then whose role is it? If it isn’t our role as citizens to oppose our money being used to illegally and violently occupy another land, then whose job is it?
The people of Vermont could make a bold statement by demanding their legislature make it known via a resolution that the majority of the people of Vermont oppose the war in Iran. They could make an even bolder challenge to the war machine by demanding Vermont’s National Guard forces be removed from battle, whether the Guard agrees or not; it is supposed to be the people’s militia, not the war industry’s.
Saturday, March 28, 2026
The Folks Who Gamble Your Life Away
Capitalism in 2026 is a casino
https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/03/27/the-folks-who-gamble-your-life-away/
Saturday, March 21, 2026
Wednesday, March 18, 2026
Friday, March 13, 2026
Wednesday, March 4, 2026
Saturday, February 28, 2026
Sunday, February 22, 2026
The Demented Empire
Washington is out of control. It sanctions nations and people, ultimately intimidating the governments of most non-sanctioned nations afraid to raise its anger by ignoring those sanctions. These governments know US sanctions have no legal standing and that they are merely pronouncements by the US government that it doesn’t agree with another government’s existence or policies. Yet, they fear the economic repercussions from the United States should they break them. The fact that the western media makes it a point to mention that Washington has sanctioned this person, this oil tanker or this government when action is taken against them only means the media is providing cover—a cover that has no actual meaning outside of the Empire’s imagined reach.
People who ask how the US could have attacked Venezuela and kidnapped Maduro and his wife without someone on the inside forget that they were asking only a few months ago how Israel killed people with pagers. Of course, we don’t know the details of how the kidnapping of Maduro and Flores went, but it’s likely that Washington’s technology shut down early warning systems Venezuela had in place. Both the pager operation and potentially the kidnapping in Caracas reveal a technofascism that plants its electronics in every government, every shop, every corporation and everyone's pocket. The installation of these instruments is usually a standard commercial transaction. However, every manufacturer of tech hardware and software seems more than willing to share (usually at a price) the info it collects and manipulates with governments and their militaries. Like the Israeli slaughter in Gaza, the kidnapping was a high-tech version of plain old imperialism. In order to fight back, resistance must be asymmetrical and not dependent on the master's tools. Of course, the only dictatorship in Venezuela was/is the dictatorship of US capital and imperialism and, in case one forgets, Trump isn't the only US president who has cozied up to dictators. Every single one of them has throughout history. That being said, the current situation in Venezuela is difficult to gauge from here in the restive belly of the beast. Its revolutionary course is caught between a need to survive and provide for its people and a desire to dramatically reject US impositions, thereby risking a vicious and bloody occupation by the US military.
During the recent protests in Iran, Israeli Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu revealed that Israeli agents were active in the country. In an interview with Israel’s army radio, Eliyahu discussed Israeli operations in Iran over the past year and claimed that activities are ongoing, according to Israel Hayom newspaper. As has been the case for a while, many of the folks provoking the situation in Iran are Mossad and CIA assets/agents. Historically speaking, Israel and Washington have never ever hidden the fact that they are intimately involved in trying to make Iran a US puppet government again. The Iranian revolution was short-circuited in 1980-1982 when the US and Israel traded arms for hostages and quietly lent their support to the Khomeinists and the bazaar class during the struggle for power after the Shah was kicked out of the country. At the time, the revolutionary government was a coalition dominated by democratic socialists, some Islamic Marxists and various leftist workers councils. The socially reactionary Khomeinists made a power grab and killed and jailed thousands of people on the left. Then they started a war with Iraq, which provided the Khomeini government with the excuse they needed to clamp down even further on the Left. The current opposition supported (and partially funded by) the US includes those who want to bring the monarchy back under the Shah's son, the MEK (a one-time Islamic Marxist guerrilla organization that now gets much of fits funding from neocons, the CIA and Mossad, and a number of separatist groups who get funding from those sources and other governments. It is these outside funded groups that are most likely responsible for killing many cops and military during the recent protests.
As for any potential attack by Tel Aviv and/or Washington, if Iran learned anything from the last couple of years, they will not be sitting ducks and will not show much mercy to those who attack them. Barring the installment of a client regime in Iran, the aftermath will be a civil war, somewhat like after Washington attacked Iraq in 2003. This is the second choice of the imperial powers in the twenty-first century--if they can't take over a nation, then they'll help destroy it as a nation. The process is often called Balkanization, an approach that breaks larger societies into smaller and often conflicting groups—tribes if you will. Yugoslavia experienced this in the 1990s, with the various groups opposing the Yugoslav nation as constructed during socialism supported by outside governments; Washington supported those against Serbia while Russia (and others) lent their support to the Serbian government in Belgrade despite its weakened situation after the end of the USSR. Syria experienced a similar situation after the so-called Arab Spring protests broke out in civil war, with Washington, Tel Aviv, Ankara, the Saudis, and other Arab monarchies providing support to various mercenary and religious forces opposing the Damascus government of Assad.
In Europe, most NATO governments are talking about providing the martial law regime in Kyiv with fifteen billion dollars to help in its war with Russia. Meanwhile, Denmark is buying Hellfire missiles to protect Greenland. The US corporation Lockheed-Martin makes those missiles. As for that fifteen billion to Kyiv, one wonders where the weapons they’ll mostly be used for are coming from. Given that most of their systems are of US manufacture, it seems safe to assume that they will be US weapons and ammunition. According to the website of Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense, the system works like so:
“PURL (Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List) is an initiative launched by the United States and NATO to supply Ukraine with critically needed weapons by funding the delivery of U.S.-manufactured arms and equipment through NATO member states. The mechanism allows partner countries to finance the procurement of such weapons according to a prioritized list of requirements defined by Ukraine and agreed with the United States and NATO.”
The current expenses of this program run about one billion dollars a month. That’s around thirty-three million dollars a day, a considerable amount for WMD even after the merchants and government officials take their cuts (legal and otherwise). Meanwhile, the European nations funding these purchases are, in varying degrees, enforcing austerity measure on their populations.
Regarding Europe, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told its rulers at the Munich Security Conference—a meeting of most European rulers that’s sponsored primarily by the war industry—that it’s time to return to the days of colonialism and imperialism that existed before the end of World War Two. It was a speech that Mark Twain would have lampooned in an anti-imperialist tract if he were alive today; all of the ingredients were there—racism, the superiority of this thing called western civilization and a threat of force. Of course, he told his audience that it would be the United States that would lead the way in this endeavor. As the British leftist newspaper Morningstar UK wrote in a February 14, 2026 editorial:
“The United States is the enemy of freedom, sovereignty and people power worldwide. It is public enemy number one….”
This is where we are now.
Friday, February 20, 2026
Friday, February 13, 2026
Thursday, February 12, 2026
Friday, January 30, 2026
Board of Peace?
Counterpunch has three articles on the trumpist board of peace in this weekend's edition (and Jeffrey St. Clair titles his Roaming Charges Board of Peace, although it's about a lot more than that). Here's my piece:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/01/30/board-of-peace/
