OMNI
ISRAEL AND US v. IRAN ANTHOLOGY #7
March 6, 2026
March 5 Publications
Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, Ecology,
and Democracy
#1 https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2025/06/omni-israel-and-iran-anthology-1-june.html
#2
https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2025/06/omni-israel-and-iran-anthology-2-6-20-25.html
#3 https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2025/06/omni-israel-and-iran-anthology-3-june.html
#4 https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2026/02/omni-israel-and-us-v-iran-anthology-4.html
#5 https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2026/03/omni-israel-and-us-v-iran-anthology-5.html
#6 https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2026/03/omni-israel-and-us-v-iran-anthology-6.html
Summary: There’s no
shortage of ethical, reasoned, evidence-based criticism of the war, but it does
not appear in the mainstream media. Yet according
to my google search, one poll shows “only a quarter of Americans support the
attacks,” and other polls suggest that the majority disapprove or that “59% are
against it.”
What’s at Stake: The utter degradation of the US. Hegseth said that in the attack on Iran,
which he has dubbed “Operation Epic Fury,” the U.S. military has “delivered
twice the air power of ‘Shock and Awe’ in 2003,” referring to the [unjustified,
unprovoked, untruthful, illegal, immoral, irrational, immensely brutal,
homicidal] massive bombing campaign that opened the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Sources #6 and #7
ABC;40/29News
Adalah Justice Project
Anti-war.com
Beyt Tikkun
CNBC Africa
Common Cause
Consortium News
Electronic Intifada
Global Dispatches
The Intercept
Jewish Voice for Peace JVP
Caitlin Johnstone
Mondoweiss
Move to Amend
OR Books
TomDispatch
Veterans for Peace VfP
War Resisters League WRL
Win Without War WWW
Stephen Zunes
CONTENTS #7
Joe Lauria. “DAY 5: ATTACK ON IRAN.”
US Military Assets in First 72 Hours
Nick Turse. Trump’s Board of Peace
Abusers.
Hooman Majd. Trump’s Regime Change Invasions.
Tomgram. Maha Hilel on Trump’s
Lawlessness.
Dave DeCamp. Hegseth’s Mass Killings.
Thomas Knapp. Increasing Presidential
Autocracy.
Caitlin Johnstone. “The US War Machine Is
run by Deranged Armageddon Cultists.”
Prof. Stepen Zunes’ Articles and Interviews.
TEXTS #7
MARCH 5
Joe Lauria. “DAY 5:
ATTACK ON IRAN.” Consortium News (3-5-26).
U.S.
sub sinks Iranian ship; C.I.A. arming Kurds for invasion of Iran and the U.S.
Senate fails to rein Trump in as the war ended its fifth day. Read here...
“Iran War: What military assets did the US employ in the
first 72 hours? ABC;40/29News.” https://www.4029tv.com/article/military-assets-first-72-hours/70610818
“LIVE
STARTING: Total war.”
The Electronic Intifada <info@electronicintifada.net> 3-5-26
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On 28 February, the United States and Israel launched a war of aggression
against Iran, murdering its leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and declaring that
their goal is to topple the country’s system of government.
In the first few days, the joint attack, including indiscriminate bombing of
civilians, has killed 1,000 Iranians and injured thousands more.
Iran is retaliating against US bases and assets across the Gulf region and
against Israel, killing two dozen people.
From Lebanon, Hizballah has joined the battle, targeting Israeli positions.
Israeli bombing has killed more than 50 people in Lebanon and displaced tens of
thousands more.
It’s total war.
We’ll hear the news from Palestine from Nora Barrows-Friedman and talk to
contributor Donya Abu Sitta in Gaza about the situation there as Israel
maintains its siege and continues its attacks.
Jon Elmer will cover the military aspects of the first five days of the US and
Israeli war against Iran.
Ali Abunimah will report on the political and economic fallout and the
historical background of Western hostility towards Iran.
Please join Nora, Jon, Ali, Tamara Nassar and Asa Winstanley for all this and
more.
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Nick Turse. “Trump’s
Orwellian Board of Peace Consists Entirely of Human Rights Abusers.” The Intercept (3-5-26).
An Intercept analysis
finds that every single Board of Peace member state has been rebuked for human
rights violations. Read More →
Hooman Majd . “The
Regime Change President Who Won’t (or Can’t) Actually Change Any Regimes.”
The Intercept
(3-5-26).
The
Iran war shows that Trump is loving his military interventions — but they are
never what he claims them to be.
Read More →
“Maha Hilal. The ‘Legality’ of Shooting Ships Out of the
Water.”
March
5, 2026. 
Count on this: a hospital ship isn't
the only thing Donald Trump wants to send to Greenland. In fact, from the Caribbean to Nigeria to Iran, he
seems ever more intent on (dis)organizing the world into a Trumpian nightmare.
And by the time he's done (whatever "done" might even mean on this
planet of ours at this moment), it's not going to be pretty.
Count on this as well: it's not just
in Iran, Greenland, Nigeria, and the world's seas and oceans that
Donald Trump is going to raise Cain and cause havoc (and mind you, I'm not even
thinking right now about what he's planning to do to heat this planet to the boiling point)! He's
going to do it in the United States of America, too, and, unbelievably enough,
he's not likely to stop for almost three more years. And count on one more
thing, it's not going to look pretty, legally speaking (and I'm not even
thinking about his urge to "nationalize"
this country's elections).
Worse yet, as TomDispatch regular Maha
Hilal makes all too grimly clear today, when it comes to the law, Donald Trump
and crew have the potential ability to, in their own fashion, use what passes
for "legality" in this country to undertake an almost unimaginable
set of anything but legal actions. And with that in mind, let Hilal take you
deep into Trump's lawless world, one legality at a time. Tom
“
Why the
Trump Administration Doesn't Just Break the Law
But
Uses Legality (in a Distinctly Lawless Fashion)” By Maha Hilal.
In response to his sentencing
following his conviction on 34 felonies in May 2024, President Trump stated that
he had “won the election in a massive landslide, and the people of this country
understand what's gone on. This has been a weaponization of government."
Despite his conviction, Judge Juan Merchan sentenced him to an unconditional
discharge with no consequences like prison, probation, or even fines. The
judge determined that
this was the “only lawful sentence” that avoided infringing on the authority of
the presidency. Had that been Donald Trump’s first encounter with the law
(which, of course, it wasn't), it would have been a stark lesson in impunity.
Click here to read more
of this dispatch.
RECENT POSTS from TomDispatch
Beverly Gologorsky, Power,
What Is It?
Engelhardt, The President
from Hell on One Hell of a Planet
Lipsyte, Robert Lipsyte Is
Waiting for ICE
Nick Turse, Donald Trump’s
Death Cards
John Feffer, Trump Goes
Rogue as a Globocop
William D. Hartung,
Trump's Doubling Down on Imperialism in Latin America Is a Formula for Decline
Dave DeCamp. Antiwar.com “Hegseth Brags of Mass
Killing in Iran.” Consortium News
(3-5-26).
With more than 1,000 civilian deaths in Iran, the U.S. secretary of war said
the U.S. has loosened the rules of military engagement. “We are punching them
while they’re down, which is exactly how it should be,” he said. Read
here...
Secretary of War Pete
Hegseth on Wednesday boasted of the “death and
destruction” the U.S. military can rain down on Iran, as reports say that U.S.
and Israeli airstrikes have killed over 1,000 Iranian civilians in just four
days.
Hegseth said at a press
briefing that the U.S. and Israel should soon have “complete control of Iranian
skies” and that it would mean “Iranian leaders looking up and seeing only U.S.
and Israeli airpower.”
“Every minute of every day
until we decide it’s over, and Iran will be able to do nothing about it. B-2s,
B-52s, B1s, Predator drones, fighters controlling the skies, picking targets,
death and destruction from the sky all day long,” he added.
As the Pentagon is
reportedly seeking an additional $50 billion to
wage its unauthorized war on Iran] Hegseth said the war wasn’t meant to be a
“fair fight” and mentioned that the administration has loosened the rules of
engagement for the military.
“Our war fighters have
maximum authorities granted personally by the president and yours truly. Our
rules of engagement are bold, precise, and designed to unleash American power,
not shackle it. This was never meant to be a fair fight. And it is not a fair
fight. We are punching them while they’re down, which is exactly how it should
be,” he said.
Hegseth said that in the
attack on Iran, which he has dubbed “Operation Epic Fury,” the U.S. military
has “delivered twice the air power of ‘Shock and Awe’ in 2003,” referring to
the massive bombing campaign that opened the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine said at the conference that the U.S.
had hit over 2,000 targets inside Iran so far. . . .
Thomas Knapp. “On War Powers [rise of presidential power, decline of constitutional and congressional
power], Questions Aren’t a Working Substitute for Action.” Counterpunch (March 5, 2026).
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On
February 28, US President Donald Trump took the United States into a de
facto, but not de jure, state of war with Iran. That is, he ordered the US
armed forces to strike targets in Iran (the de facto part) without first
securing the constitutionally required declaration of war from Congress (the de
jure part).
Since
then, we’ve seen a lot of questions–and received conflicting and mutually
exclusive answers to those questions–from, among others, members of Congress.
Why
did he do it?
Oh,
there was an imminent threat to the US even though there clearly wasn’t.
Oh,
yeah, now I remember, it was to destroy the Iranian nuclear facilities Trump
already claimed had been destroyed months ago, and to put an end to the Iranian
nuclear weapons program that didn’t actually exist.
No,
wait! It was because the Iranian regime was violently suppressing protests that
had largely ended weeks ago! Yes, that must be it!
Or
maybe the weather wasn’t right for a round of golf, or someone really annoyed
him with a social media post, or Uber Eats messed up his hamberder order and
put him in a bad mood, or who knows?
Why
didn’t he go to Congress for that declaration of war as required by the
Constitution, or at least seek an unconstitutional substitute for the
declaration (a “War Powers Resolution” or perhaps an “Authorization for Use of
Military Force”), or even take the most minimal step, pre-briefing the entire
“Gang of Eight” congressional leadership as required by 50 USC § 3093?
That’s
an easy one: Because he didn’t have to.
When
it comes to foreign policy, American presidents have been ignoring Congress
at will and defying constitutional requirements for levying war, for
decades. Longer than that actually –Lincoln never sought or received a
declaration of war for the Late Unpleasantness – and especially since the end
of World War 2.
Occasionally,
a president bothered with an easily gotten “Authorization for Use of Military
Force,” but more often he just did whatever he happened to want to do, then
“reported” it to Congress per the War Powers Resolution’s requirements.
Even
that bare minimum has broken down over the last 15 years, starting with Barack
Obama’s war on Libya, which administration officials argued didn’t trigger
reporting requirements because “kinetic military action,” isn’t the same thing
as “hostilities.” Yes, really.
No
president has ever been held to account by, and punished by, Congress for
exceeding his powers and exercising its, not his, prerogative of declaring war
or not.
Why
would Trump consider himself an exception? And why wouldn’t he try to stretch
past administrations’ ridiculous “unitary executive” claims even further?
We’d
live in a much different world today if Harry Truman had been impeached
and removed from office over his surprise Korean “police action” instead of
receiving a retroactive congressional rubber stamp.
Tens
of thousands of American soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines, and millions
of enemy soldiers and civilian non-combatants, could have lived instead of
dying in American presidents’ illegal wars.
Trillions
of dollars could have been kept by taxpayers in the productive economy, or at
least spent on things other than ships, planes, tanks, ordnance, foreign
military expeditions and bases, salaries for bloated armed forces rosters, etc.
As to
the current situation, Congress shouldn’t be asking questions — it should be
taking action.
If we
lived in anything like a “constitutional” polity, the House would have already
delivered Articles of Impeachment and the Senate would be trying the matter of
Trump’s removal from office right now.
Can we
at least agree to stop pretending the Constitution matters anymore (if, indeed,
it ever did)?
Thomas
L. Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William
Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He
lives and works in north central Florida.
Caitlin Johnstone. “The US War Machine Is
Run By Deranged Armageddon Cultists.” March 5, 2026.
Secretary
of War Pete Hegseth gave one of his signature “I don’t have a small penis”
tirades at the Pentagon on
Wednesday, ranting and raving about the big, powerful, masculine war
machinery that’s currently raining death and destruction upon the people of
Iran.
“We
will fly all day, all night, day and night finding, fixing and finishing the
missiles and defense industrial base of the Iranian military, finding and
fixing their leaders and their military leaders, flying over Tehran, flying
over Iran, flying over their capital, flying over the IRGC, Iranian leaders
looking up and seeing only US and Israeli air power every minute of every day
until we decide it’s over,” Hegseth bloviated, saying there will be “B-2s,
B-52s, B-1s, Predator drones, fighters controlling the skies, picking targets,
death and destruction from the sky all day long.”
“This
was never meant to be a fair fight, and it is not a fair fight. We are punching
them while they’re down, which is exactly how it should be,” the War Secretary
spouted. 
https://x.com/ProudSocialist/status/2029217598450151861
This
would be the same Pete Hegseth who was mentioned in a recent article by
Jonathan Larsen titled “U.S. Troops Were Told
Iran War Is for ‘Armageddon,’ Return of Jesus”,
which reports that US military commanders are telling American soldiers that
they are on a mission from God to fulfill a biblical prophecy and bring about
the end of the world.
“Defense
Secretary Pete Hegseth has enshrined evangelical Christianity at the uppermost
levels of the U.S. military, airing monthly prayer meetings throughout the
Pentagon,” Larsen reports, saying that “Last year, the Pentagon confirmed to me
that Hegseth attends a weekly White House Bible study. It’s led by a preacher
who says God commands America to support Israel.”
Larsen
reports that the Military Religious Freedom Foundation has been inundated with
complaints from every branch of the US military that troops are being told by
their leaders that President Trump has been “anointed by Jesus to light the
signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth,” and
similar statements.
Then
you’ve got House Speaker Mike Johnson spouting religious war rhetoric, claiming
Iranians have been led to evil by a “misguided religion”.
“The
largest state sponsor of terrorism, Iran and its proxies, have killed more
Americans than any other terrorist regime on Earth,” said Johnson on
Wednesday. “They are dedicated to it. They have been, and they say the quiet
parts out loud. They wanted to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth, and
they’d like to take us out as well. We’re the great Satan in their analogy and
their misguided religion.”
So as
if we didn’t have enough problems to deal with, it turns out the world is ruled
by a nuclear-armed Armageddon cult.
The US
empire is the most evil, destructive and dangerous power structure on this
planet. It is operated by psychopaths and guided by demented religious
zealotry. These freaks wouldn’t be believable as villains in a children’s
cartoon show.
These
are the people claiming to have the moral authority to decide who should be the
leader of a sovereign nation on the other side of the planet. These are the
powerful individuals whose choices are determining the path our species will
take into the future.
They
are everything they accuse Iran of being. They are dangerous
religious fanatics. They cannot be trusted with nuclear
weapons. They are the tyrants. They are the
monsters.
This
is unsustainable. These guys gotta go. The US empire must fall. Humanity
depends on it.
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“ Action of the Week for Peace.” Beyt Tikkun (March 4, 2026),
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END ISRAEL/US v. IRAN ANTHOLOGY #7
