“For me and many others, the Iraq War of 2003 was a life-altering lesson in humility. In the wake of 9/11, with trauma warping my frontal cortex, I backed a pre-meditated, pre-emptive war for regime change in the Middle East — something stupid and immoral I soon realized, however well intentioned. It changed me. But at least in those tense, polarized months of 2002 and 2003, we had hashed out the case for war thoroughly beforehand, as democracies do. … Come with me a little further back in time to the Persian Gulf War of 1991. That was a war started by Saddam Hussein, not us. How did we go about a new war in the Middle East back then? Well, we had another big public debate, another trip to the UN, and then another vote in the Congress. It was closer than we remember: just 52-47 in the Senate (with one abstention). … Seems like another planet, doesn’t it?” (03/06/26)
“We live in a great Age of Conspiracy Theories. I’m not quite on board. As the Internet grew up, with it came all the condemnations of conspiracy theories, run rampant. The Internet, we were told, was problematic in that not only was information readier at hand than ever before, but so was it easier to share and nurture all these goofy conspiracy theories. You know: JFK was killed by someone other than Oswald, or also by others, in addition to Oswald. Or … UFOs are real, and the government is covering it up. Or the Rothschilds are behind it all. You know the kind of thing I’m talking about. Ick. Yet: The government now admits that UFOs are real …. Further: As we uncover the grotesquerie in the Epstein Files, we learn that he proudly served Rothschild banking interests! So let’s not get started on the JFK assassination.” (03/06/26)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“The US soldiers who are getting killed in the war with Iran were not heroes. They did not die defending their country. They did not die fighting to protect Americans. They died advancing the geostrategic agendas of oligarchs and empire managers which benefit ordinary Americans in no way. It’s important not to valorize these people for two reasons. Firstly, it assists US military recruitment by falsely portraying these imperial stormtrooper careers as noble and heroic. Secondly, it falsely frames the war they died in as a righteous cause which is making the world a better place, rather than as a war of aggression against a nation that posed literally zero threat to their homeland. These are not harmless little white lies. They are extremely destructive propaganda narratives which facilitate acts of mass military slaughter on real human beings. Don’t assist the warmongers in circulating these lies.” (03/07/26)
“U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Department of Justice have been openly violating a federal law for two and a half months to shield President Donald Trump from transparency in the metastasizing ‘Epstein files’ scandal. And now Bondi will get a second chance at explaining herself in Congress. But based on her last performance before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee in February, expect only more pathetic theatrics and zero acceptance of accountability. Still, something has shifted …. It looks like Bondi will finally face some tough questions from members of her own political party about how she has botched the release of the Epstein files. And that’s long overdue.” (03/08/26)
“President Trump is reportedly considering an order requiring financial institutions to check customers’ citizenship, a curious departure from the administration’s professed concerns about the burden of bureaucracy and debanking. … Customers unnerved by the order might move their money from chartered depository institutions to informal family, religious, and community-based financial networks. … Federal statutes forbid financial service companies from alerting customers when surveillance reports are sent to authorities. But being asked to prove citizenship on everyday occasions is an intrusion people are sure to notice.” [editor’s note: Singleton’s wording implies that she MAY think moving money from state-surveilled institutions “to informal family, religious, and community-based financial networks” is a bad thing. I disagree. I consider it an essential precursor to restoring economic freedom, even though I also oppose the prospective “order” – TLK] (03/07/26)
“A very old type of information warfare – spreading false narratives to rattle an enemy’s population during a conflict – now has a new and vital adversary: fact-checkers. On March 3, for example, a video went viral showing Israel’s second-largest city, Tel Aviv, in flames from multiple strikes by Iranian missiles, four days after the first Israeli and American attacks on Iran. It attracted more than 14 million views. ‘The video is AI-generated, and features multiple errors consistent with AI clips,’ posted BBC Verify senior journalist Shayan Sardarizadeh. ‘It’s not real.’ After spotting many similar fake images, Mr. Sardarizadeh concluded: ‘This war might have already broken the record for the highest number of AI-generated videos and images that have gone viral during a conflict…. Welcome to our brave new world of AI misinformation.'” (03/06/26)
“Who keeps insisting that no one look too deeply into their claims? It’s the Southern Baptist Convention, who covered up their rape crisis for decades. It’s the leadership of the rape cult that is Evangelical Christianity. It’s the Catholic Church. If sexual shame and stigma kept vulnerable people safe from rapists we’d have gotten rid of rape by now. Instead, where sexuality is most repressed, you see the highest rates of sexual abuse. This. Is. Not. A. Coincidence.” (03/06/26)
“Land acknowledgements have become de rigueur at commencement ceremonies, film and music award events, and other programs. Something like this: ‘We acknowledge that the land on which we gather is the stolen and occupied territory of the Indigenous First Nation People who stewarded the land through many generations before White European colonialists seized it.’ Many take these acknowledgements quite seriously. Indeed, professors and employees have been disciplined for mocking them, because employers find mockery ‘offensive’ and ‘disruptive’ – unlike their reactions to ‘mostly peaceful’ Antifa, BLM and pro-Palestinian harassment and riots. When accepting her Grammy, singer-songwriter Billie Eilish used her onstage opportunity to criticize Trump’s immigration policies, saying ‘no one is illegal on stolen land’. Unless, of course, someone tried to enter her gated community and assert ownership over or enjoy a sandwich in her million-dollar mansion.” (03/07/26)
“OpenAI says Americans shouldn’t worry about the ethics of its new Pentagon contract. You’ll have to take their word for it (and Pete Hegseth’s).” (03/08/26)
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Ryan McMaken
“Historians have long noted that demands for unconditional surrender have worked to prolong conflicts rather than shorten them, leading to needless death on both sides. After all, Trump is essentially saying that the Iranians should put themselves in a position of accepting whatever terms the United States seeks to unilaterally impose, including the total dissolution of the Iranian state, plus sanctions, punishments, occupations and other humiliations. What government would accede to this? Very few would, which is why only very weak, small, and relatively unarmed regimes can be forced into accepting unconditional surrender after anything less than a protracted war. Iran, however, is not weak, small, or relatively unarmed. And, geography is in its favor.” (03/06/26)
