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US Troops Need To Start Disobeying Orders In Iran, And Other Notes

Caitlin Johnstone, Apr 06, 2026, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/us-troops-need-to-start-disobeying?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=193307504&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

The president of the United States has a bat shit crazy post on Truth Social once again threatening to blow up civilian infrastructure in Iran, saying, “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell — JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP.”

At this point if you’re in the US military you have a moral obligation to start refusing orders. Desert. Become a conscientious objector. Ideally, get everyone together and launch a full-scale military coup. We’re in “Mad King” territory. Someone’s gotta do what needs to be done.

Promoters of this war told the world it was about liberating the Iranian people from tyranny to bring them freedom and democracy. Now that they got their war it’s about bombing them “back to the Stone Age”, stealing their oil, and blowing up their bridges and power plants.

The only people dumber than Americans who bought into Trump’s “ending the wars” shtick are the Iranians who believed the United States was going to bring freedom to their country.

The Jerusalem Post just ran an opinion piece on Zohran Mamdani which includes the sentence, “It is time for the mayor of New York City to stand in solidarity with Muslim leaders who eschew antisemitic tropes, such as ‘genocide’ and ‘occupation,’ and are committed to a new and broader regional alignment in the Middle East.”

It’s been fun watching Israel apologists invent “antisemitic tropes” in real time. The words “genocide” and “occupation” are antisemitic tropes now, apparently. According to pro-Israel groups like the Anti-Defamation League and B’nai Brith, the phrases “Epstein class” and “Operation Epstein Fury” are also recent additions to the no-no list.

In reality these so-called “antisemitic tropes” are just effective talking points used to highlight facts that are inconvenient to Israel and its allies. Every relevant human rights group on earth agrees that Israel is an occupying force in the Palestinian territories. Every relevant human rights group on earth has accused Israel of genocide in Gaza. The phrase “Epstein class” makes the rich and powerful people who rule our society look as creepy and suspicious as they should look. “Operation Epstein Fury” highlights President Trump’s place in the Epstein Files, which a majority of Americans believe played a role in his decision to attack Iran.

We see this all the time. Effective pro-Palestine political slogans like “Globalize the intifada” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” are labeled antisemitic not because they express hatred toward Jews but because they are effective.

That’s all it ever is. Israel apologists see a phrase or slogan hurting Israeli information interests and go “Uh, okay so you can’t say those words anymore. Those words make Jewish people feel unsafe.”

And then the phrases get banned. Here in Australia we just saw the state of Queensland ban the phrase “from the river to the sea” on penalty of two years in prison. For no other reason than because it’s something people chant at pro-Palestine protests.

Antisemitism isn’t the target of these laws; the protests themselves are the target. They’re designed to shut down pro-Palestine demonstrations by making so many speech suppression laws that nobody would attend one without a lawyer present to advise them on what they may and may not say.

The very first time someone told me “from the river to the sea Palestine will be free” was a hateful genocidal chant I thought it was the most ridiculous thing I’d ever heard, and to this day I still feel that way. It’s a completely counter-intuitive claim that makes no sense on first hearing it. It is only by the constant repetition of the assertion that it’s an antisemitic slogan that people began accepting this transparently absurd idea. They just said it over and over again in an authoritative tone until people started to buy it.

Nobody actually believes these words and phrases are hateful toward Jews, they’re just pretending to believe that to promote the information interests of a genocidal apartheid state. That’s all we’re ever looking at with this nonsense.

This fuel crisis really looks like it’s going to hurt. From a big-picture perspective it’s probably a good thing for westerners to feel some sting from their empire’s wars, and for US allies to start re-evaluating their relationship with Washington. But from a selfish perspective, damn this is gonna suck.

I’m done trying to convince people not to use generative AI. You want to kill your critical thinking faculties? You want to lose the ability to write and create art? You want to make people like me look special and amazing because we can create things with our minds? Be my guest.

April 9, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Religion and ethics, USA | 1 Comment

Trump’s Divine War: How Christian Nationalists Are Running U.S. Policy in Iran and at Home

April 3, 2026 , ScheerPost Staff, https://scheerpost.com/2026/04/03/trumps-divine-war-how-christian-nationalists-are-running-u-s-policy-in-iran-and-at-home/

As the Trump administration deepens U.S. military involvement in Iran alongside Israel, a new The Intercept briefing examines a dimension of the conflict often overlooked in mainstream war coverage: the growing influence of Christian nationalist ideology inside American foreign policy. In this episode, investigative journalist Sarah Posner joins host Jessica Washington to unpack how apocalyptic theology, evangelical political networks, and religious-right power structures are shaping decisions from the Pentagon to the campaign trail.

At the center of the discussion is Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, whose public prayers for “overwhelming violence” and rhetoric about divine mission reveal how sections of the modern Christian right increasingly frame military conflict not simply as geopolitics, but as spiritual warfare. Posner argues that this worldview goes beyond symbolic religious language: it reflects a deeper ideological belief that biblical authority supersedes international law, civilian protections, and traditional diplomatic constraints.The conversation also traces the role of influential evangelical figures such as John Hagee, whose decades-long advocacy for confrontation with Iran ties directly into end-times prophecy and Christian Zionist doctrine. Far from fringe theology, these ideas continue to shape large sections of Trump’s political base, reinforcing a foreign policy culture where war, prophecy, and domestic nationalism increasingly intersect.

Beyond Iran, the episode links these religious currents to broader domestic agendas—from anti-LGBTQ legislation to voting restrictions and immigration policy—showing how the same ideological infrastructure behind foreign intervention is also driving a wider effort to redefine American law, citizenship, and family life. The result is a portrait of a political movement that sees no separation between spiritual destiny, military power, and state authority.

What began as another presidential justification for war has rapidly opened a broader debate about the forces driving American power abroad. In its latest briefing, The Intercept turns attention away from battlefield headlines and toward a political current that has long operated beneath the surface of U.S. foreign policy: the growing fusion of Christian nationalist ideology, apocalyptic belief, and state power inside the second Donald Trump administration.

The episode arrives as Washington’s military partnership with Israel in its confrontation with Iran enters a more dangerous phase, with rising oil instability, domestic political backlash, and widening fractures inside both major parties. Yet the discussion presented by host Jessica Washington and investigative journalist Sarah Posner argues that strategic calculations alone do not explain the intensity of current rhetoric coming from senior U.S. officials. Instead, they suggest that parts of the administration increasingly frame war through a theological lens—one in which military action is not only justified politically, but sanctified spiritually.

That argument becomes most visible in the conduct of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, whose recent public prayer at the Pentagon asking for “overwhelming violence” against enemies drew renewed scrutiny. For Posner, the significance lies not merely in religious language but in the specific worldview behind it. Hegseth’s association with the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches reflects a current of Christian Reconstructionism that views biblical authority as the supreme legal framework governing both personal and public life. Under that framework, war can become more than a strategic instrument—it becomes part of a divine obligation to defend and expand what adherents see as a Christian nation.

The discussion carefully distinguishes this ideological current from more familiar evangelical support for Israel. Figures such as John Hagee, founder of Christians United for Israel, have spent decades promoting confrontation with Iran through a different theological narrative: one rooted in end-times prophecy, biblical signs, and the expectation that conflict in the Middle East may accelerate events leading to the return of Jesus. While Hegseth’s rhetoric reflects dominionist ideas about establishing God’s authority through state power, Hagee’s message speaks to a broader evangelical audience that sees Israel’s wars through prophetic fulfillment.

What makes the moment politically significant is that these belief systems are no longer confined to pulpits, television ministries, or religious conferences. According to Posner, they now intersect directly with executive power, military messaging, and legislative agendas. Trump’s long alliance with white evangelical leadership has often been described by mainstream media as transactional—religious conservatives deliver votes, and Trump delivers judges. But the interview argues that the relationship has matured into something far deeper: an ideological partnership in which both sides reinforce one another’s vision of national restoration, civilizational conflict, and cultural authority.

That framework also helps explain why debates over Iran cannot be separated from domestic policy. The same religious infrastructure influencing foreign policy is also deeply involved in campaigns against abortion rights, transgender rights, immigration protections, and secular legal norms. Posner points to new policy blueprints emerging from The Heritage Foundation, where “natural family” doctrine and anti-LGBTQ language form part of a broader project to reorder public life according to conservative Christian definitions of family, gender, and citizenship.

The conversation also highlights an important tension emerging inside Trump’s own coalition. While evangelical support for Israel remains strong, some Catholic and nationalist figures on the populist right have begun openly questioning Israeli influence in American politics and criticizing the war with Iran. Yet even this fracture is unstable. Posner notes that some of the loudest anti-war voices on the far right often blend legitimate foreign policy criticism with conspiratorial or openly antisemitic narratives, creating a volatile ideological split rather than a coherent anti-interventionist bloc.

Underlying all of this is a warning about infrastructure. The Christian right’s political power, Posner argues, was not built overnight and does not operate election to election. Over decades, it developed legal institutions, media ecosystems, activist training networks, educational pipelines, and political organizations capable of shaping courts, legislation, and public discourse across generations. From judicial appointments to school boards to foreign policy framing, the movement works through a layered system designed for permanence rather than short-term victory.

In that sense, the Iran war becomes more than a foreign crisis. It becomes another window into how religious nationalism increasingly shapes the language of American power—where military force, prophecy, electoral politics, and cultural conflict are no longer separate debates but parts of a single ideological project.

For more from the Intercept Trump’s Holy War Abroad and at Home

Journalist Sarah Posner on how the Christian right’s end times views are shaping U.S. foreign and domestic policies.

or listen to the full interview

April 6, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Religion and ethics, USA | Leave a comment

Kucinich Statement on President Trump’s Address on Iran

“The President’s address to the nation was a tone-deaf sale pitch for more war, delivered on the first night of Passover.” — Dennis J. Kucinich

Dennis Kucinich, Apr 02, 2026, https://kucinichreport.substack.com/p/kucinich-statement-on-president-trumps?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1441588&post_id=192938298&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=4ds0bd&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

Former Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich (1997 to 2013) challenged three administrations, Clinton (Serbia), Bush (Iraq), and Obama (Libya), over unauthorized military action under the War Powers Resolution, led Congressional opposition to the Iraq War, and delivered 155 speeches in Congress warning against war with Iran.

“The President’s address to the nation was a tone-deaf sale pitch for more war, delivered on the first night of Passover.

Civilian and military casualties are mounting across the region. Lives are being extinguished while triumphalist and violent rhetoric is offered as justification. War is being escalated in the name of peace, a contradiction that demands moral clarity, not political acceptance.

Each life lost carries equal value. No nation’s suffering is expendable. No people exist as collateral.

Iran is not an abstraction, nor just a target on a map. It is one of the great cradles of civilization, a society whose cultural and intellectual contributions long predate the rise of the modern West. To speak casually of bombing such a nation ‘back to the Stone Age’ reveals a colonial mindset that dehumanizes others and diminishes our own humanity in the process.

The extensive bombing of Iran by the United States and Israel, along with Iran’s counterstrikes, is already taking innocent lives. The global economy is destabilizing as a result.

Energy markets are being disrupted. Oil and gas production is constrained. Fertilizer supply chains are impaired. Critical materials are being cut off.

These consequences will be felt worldwide. Yet the deeper crisis is not economic, it is moral.

We have seen this before. The repeated invocation of a nuclear threat echoes the false claims of ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’ used to justify the invasion of Iraq. That war cost thousands of American lives, the lives of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, and trillions of dollars, while leaving a legacy of instability and grief that endures to this day.

If the President truly sought to prevent a nuclear Iran, he would not have abandoned the JCPOA, an agreement that placed verifiable limits on Iran’s nuclear program. Instead, we are presented with a cycle of escalation that defies logic and invites catastrophe.

Political rhetoric is becoming increasingly radical and dangerous. This is not a question of partisan politics. It is a question of conscience with very real global and domestic consequences.

The American people are not called to accept this. They are called to stand against it.

Members of Congress must have the courage to exercise their constitutional authority and rein this in.

War framed as strength is destruction. Violence presented as necessity is gratuitous violence, with consequences already accelerating destabilizing shifts in the global order.

Congress must act. The Constitution vests in Congress the authority to bring this, and any war, to an end through the power of the purse.

The American people must immediately contact their representatives and demand a NO vote on any supplemental funding that would continue this war. Congress must VOTE NO.”

April 6, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Religion and ethics, USA | Leave a comment