Over 200 US Troops Wounded in Iran War, Relatives of Airman Killed in Iraq Criticize War, and More

Hey, this is Dave DeCamp from anti-war.com.

And welcome to anti-war news.

It's about 10.45 on Monday night here in Virginia.

We had a power outage here just for a few hours,

but that's why I am a little later than usual.

So I apologize to the people who usually watch at night,

that it's getting posted late.

But let's get into the news here.

The first story at the top of anti-war.com today,

the Trump administration targets the media

for negative war coverage.

So I covered some of this yesterday,

but I think it's pretty important thing to follow here.

So in recent days, senior Trump administration officials

have increased their criticism and complaints

about negative coverage of the US-Israeli war against Iran

with President Trump even suggesting

that certain media outlets could face charges for treason.

So Trump made the comments in a long post

on Truth Social put out on Sunday night,

where he claimed that Iran had been feeding false information

to the fake news media.

And he said that fake AI videos were being circulated.

He said that there is a fake video

that showed the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln on fire.

I did see there was some fake thing going around

on social media, but I didn't see any major media outlets

pick anything up like that.

But this is what Trump is saying on Truth Social.

He said, quote,

the story was knowingly fake.

And in a certain way,

you can say that those media outlets that generated it

should be brought up on charges for treason

for the dissemination of false information.

And quote, I mean, you talk about false information

that the stuff that he's been claiming about Iran

to justify this war of his.

So another thing in this post,

the only media outlet that he mentioned by name

was the Wall Street Journal.

He accused them of false reporting over a report

that said five US Air Force refueling tankers

were damaged by an Iranian missile strike in Saudi Arabia.

So he says it's totally fake, it's false.

But in the post on his true social post,

he also acknowledged that at least one tanker was damaged

and currently unable to fly while four were back in service.

So it seems to be like he is saying

there was some sort of damage to them.

And it doesn't refute the Wall Street Journal report

because the report said that they were damaged

not destroyed and that they were being repaired.

But anyway, so this is what he wrote, quote,

the five US refueling planes that were supposedly

struck down and badly damaged

according to the Wall Street Journal's false reporting

and others are all in service with the exception of one

which will soon be flying the skies.

And quote, so again, he's acknowledging

that there was some sort of attack on these planes.

And then he also pointed to comments from Brandon,

or Brandon Carr, the head of the FCC,

which I covered yesterday.

Carr said that he was threatening,

well, he threatened to revoke the licenses

of news broadcasters for their coverage of the war in Iran.

He said, quote, I am so thrilled to see Brandon Carr

looking at the licenses of some of these corrupt

and highly unpatriotic news organizations, end quote.

So US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth

has also complained that media outlets

have not been patriotic enough in their coverage.

This is what he said at his press conference on Friday,

quote, we will keep pushing, keep advancing

no quarter, no mercy for our enemies.

Yet some in this crew in the press just can't stop.

Allow me to make a few suggestions.

People look up at the TV and they see banners,

they see headlines.

I used to be in that business

and I know that everything is written intentionally.

For example, a banner or a headline says,

mid east war intensifies splashing on the screen

the last couple days.

Alongside visuals of civilian or energy targets

that Iran has hit, because that's what they do.

What should the banner read instead?

How about Iran increasingly desperate because they are?

They know it and so do you if it can be admitted and quote.

So he's saying that headlines that say

that the war is intensifying and he also said

that a headline that said the war is widening,

he called it fake.

Even though of course this war has spread across

the whole region and then he suggested that there could be,

they could run a real headlines,

what he called a real headline,

something that an actually patriotic press could report on.

This is again, this is Hegseth's language here.

He said, oh, you can say that Iran is shrinking

and going underground.

So he's just, he's like badgering the media.

And so you also have Hegseth, you know,

just besides what he's saying,

you also have these threats of real action here

from the FCC, from President Trump.

And the fact is that they've just been lying

through their teeth about this whole war.

So the nerve of them to go and complain

about the media coverage of it when they're clearly

trying to hide things from the American people.

And one thing that Hegseth said in this press conference,

he accused CNN of disseminating fake news

for reporting that the Trump administration

underestimated the Iran war's impact

on the straight of Hormuz and said that he was looking forward

to the network being taken over by David Ellison,

who along with his father Larry Ellison

recently acquired CBS news.

So of course, Larry Ellison, he's the CEO of Oracle.

I think he's a CEO.

I know he's a majority owner.

But he, you know, he's known as a Trump donor.

He's also known as a major supporter of Zionist

and Israeli causes.

He has given a lot of money to the Israeli military

to the friends of the IDF and an organization

that raises money for the IDF.

So this is who was taken over CBS news

and they're on their way to acquiring CNN.

And Hegseth says he cannot wait for that day.

All right, so the next one here,

Trump says that Israel would never use nuclear weapons

and considering how much Trump has been lying lately,

that is a concerning thing for him to say.

So President Trump said on Monday

that Israel would never use a nuclear weapon

when asked about comments from David Sachs,

the White House's AI and crypto czar,

who recently suggested that Israel might consider

the nuclear option if the war with Iran continues to escalate.

So this is interesting.

So Sachs is technically a member of the administration.

He is the White House, as I said here.

President Trump's AI and crypto czar,

crypto and AI advisor.

And this was in an episode of his all-in podcast

that came out on Friday.

And he was discussing potential things that could happen

if this war continues and if this war escalates.

And this is one of the things he said,

quote, Israel could get seriously destroyed.

And then you have to worry about Israel escalating the war

by contemplating using a nuclear weapon,

which would truly be catastrophic.

And quote, so these comments are significant

because he is an administration official.

And for many decades, both the US and Israeli governments

have maintained a policy of not acknowledging

the existence of Israel's nuclear arsenal.

Why do they do this?

Well, one reason is that it allows the US

to continue providing military aid to Israel

without worrying about the Simmington amendment,

which is a foreign assistance law that prohibits aid

to countries that traffic and nuclear enrichment,

equipment, or technology outside of international safeguards.

And that means outside of the non-proliferation treaty,

no inspections from the IAEA.

And Israel is not a signatory to the non-proliferation treaty.

They pretend that their nuclear weapons program doesn't exist.

And there was reporting last year from the AP

that showed satellite images, showed construction work

on a major new facility at Israel's nuclear site near Demona,

where, which is the location of its nuclear weapons program.

So there is signs that they are expanding.

They could be building more nuclear weapons.

We don't know.

So, but anyway, Trump was asked about SACS' comments,

and he said that Israel wouldn't do that,

that they would never use a nuclear weapon.

So again, it's kind of interesting that this is a conversation

that that's being had here.

And SACS' overall point in that podcast was that

the US should declare victory and end the war.

And I've seen a few other Republicans,

you know, I saw Senator Josh Hawley say a similar thing

that they should, that Trump should declare victory

and then call it a day.

But Iran is saying, is also now saying

that they don't want to cease fire.

And that they don't want to be in a position

where they agree to a cease fire,

and then are attacked again by the US and Israel

in six months or so.

So does Trump even have that ability

to do something like that at the moment?

I don't know.

It does not seem like it.

So the next one here, US allies decline.

Trump's requests to send ships to open Hormuz.

So several US allied nations have already publicly declined.

President Trump's requests for them to send warships

to the Middle East to help open the state of Hormuz,

which is now being tightly controlled by the Iranian military.

So this is the German defense minister.

He said, quote, what does Donald Trump expect?

A handful or two handfuls of European frigates

to do in the state of Hormuz

that the powerful US Navy cannot do?

This is not our war.

We have not started it.

And quote, and Japan,

Japan is heavily, extremely reliant on oil

that comes from the Gulf,

that comes through the state of Hormuz.

And Japan says that it has no plans

to deploy warships to the region.

Their defense minister said, quote,

what is most important is to put our efforts,

including our diplomatic efforts

into calming the situation.

And quote, and in his one of his posts

over the weekend, Trump specifically mentioned Japan,

China, France, the UK, and South Korea,

and others affected by the closure of the strait

to send ships.

And so far, there's been no takers.

There is reporting in the Wall Street Journal

that Trump was going to announce some coalition this week.

But I think this is all kind of,

they're putting that stuff out there

to keep the oil price around $100 per barrel,

which is where it's been hovering around.

But Iran is saying that it's going to go up to $200,

and Chris Wright, the energy secretary,

was asked about that, I think, on Sunday.

And he didn't say no, he didn't rule it out.

This idea that oil prices could get that high.

So things are not looking good for Trump's,

you know, when it comes to opening up the strait,

and some ships have gone through,

Iran has allowed some ships to go through,

but for the most part, traffic is all the way down.

And they're, you know, able to fire drones

and missiles, rockets, whatever,

at any ships that try to go through.

All right, so the next one here,

map shows how 16 days of attacks evolved

in US-Israel war on Iran.

So this isn't just an article like a visual thing

from Al Jazeera.

They put together the different locations of attacks

and all the places that have been hit

across the region, of course,

heavy concentration in Iran, in Iraq, in Israel,

lots of attacks and Kuwait.

It's just kind of gives you a visual idea

of how this where and how this war has spread.

All right, so the next one here,

over 200 US troops have been injured in Iran war.

So US Central Command set on Monday

that more than 200 US troops have been wounded

in the Middle East.

Since the US and Israel launched the war

on Iran on February 28th,

Sencom spokesman Captain Tim Hawkins told the Washington Post

that US troops have been wounded in seven countries,

including Bahrain, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia,

and the UAE, as Iranian missiles and drones

have hit targets across the region.

And Hawkins said that most injuries happened

in the opening days of the war,

and that some injuries had been reported in the past few days.

And last week, we saw them acknowledge

that at least 140 US troops were injured.

And they only acknowledged that after Reuters

reported a similar number before that,

they weren't disclosing all the injuries.

Now they're saying more than 200,

so significant US casualties.

And at least 13 US troops have been killed,

including six by an Iranian drone attack in Kuwait,

one by a Iranian attack in Saudi Arabia,

and six who died on a KC-135 that crashed in Iraq.

The US military is claiming it wasn't due to friendly fire,

it was an accident or something,

but 13 confirmed dead so far.

And then also one died according to the US military,

according to Sencom, of a medical emergency,

which they did not specify,

but it was in Kuwait during the war.

All right, so the next one here,

the US has lost about a dozen MQ-9 Reaper drones

in the Iran war.

So the US military has lost about a dozen MQ-9 Reaper drones

since the US and Israel launched the war against Iran,

the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.

The report said that the MQ-9s had been lost

both on the ground and in the air,

so on the ground at US bases that are being targeted

and also shot down over Iran.

Each MQ-9 Reaper drone costs at least $30 million

to produce, and that's the lowest,

you know, that's the floor.

I think they probably cost more,

but 30 million is kind of the lowest estimate that you get.

So taking that number, if they lost 12,

that means $360 million worth of drones have been destroyed.

And the US used these MQ-9 Reaper drones.

These were a staple of the terror wars of drone strikes.

They probably still used them a lot in Somalia,

but one thing about those drone campaigns is that

in the places they're bombing,

they never had to worry about air defenses and things like that.

And these drones are, they fly relatively low,

they're relatively slow, they're big

so they can get shot down easy.

And we saw that with the war in Yemen under Biden

and Trump during the US bombing campaigns in Yemen

against the Houthis, something like more than 20.

According to the numbers,

like around 20 MQ-9 Reaper drones were shot down

over or near Yemen during 2024 and 2025.

So they're able to take these things down.

And the journal reports said that there's been a lot

of these drones flying over Iran during the bombing campaign

and that they've been firing 250 pound small diameter bombs,

which have a longer range and the hellfire missiles

that the MQ-9s are usually equipped with.

All right, so the next one here,

relative of airmen killed in plane crash

calls the Iran war uncalled for.

So this article's from the Guardian.

So a relative of an Ohio airman who was recently killed

in a military airplane crash in Iraq

amid the US and Israel's war in nearby Iran

has said that the conflict is uncalled for.

So this is Stephen Douglas, who's a cousin

of Sergeant Tyler Simmons or Simons, it's probably Simmons.

He said, quote, this could have been prevented.

We didn't need to be in this war.

This is uncalled for and this is what we get.

And quote, and Simmons family urged US citizens

to register to vote as a means of advocating

for political change.

This is what his grandmother said, her name is Bernice Smith.

She said, quote, families are suffering right now.

Just to create a war because you want to create a war

is not right and quote.

So she's saying that they created a war

just because they wanted a war.

And this is, I'm sure a lot of, you know,

I mean, I know people with family deployed

in the Middle East who are going soon

and I know that it's a feeling among them

and again, we've seen, you know,

hundreds of US casualties, 13 confirmed dead,

but over 200 wounded at this point.

And I believe there's still some

in critical condition from that initial drone attack

in Kuwait.

All right, so the next one here,

US Israeli strikes in Iran,

kill 400 women and children.

So Iran's health ministry said on Sunday

that US Israeli strikes in the country

have killed at least 223 women and 202 children

since the US and Israel launched the war on February 28th.

The ministry said that the toll includes three pregnant women

and 12 children under the age of five.

And the majority of the children, of course,

were killed in the bombing of the elementary school in Manab

where more than 100 students were killed

in just a horrific massacre.

And the numbers from Iran's health ministry

align with figures from the human rights activist news agency,

which is a US-based rights group.

They've said at least 206 children out of 1,000,

that 206 children have been killed

out of the 1,330 civilians that they say have been killed.

They also increased their number of military personnel.

They said that have been killed.

They're now saying that at least 1,122 military personnel

have been killed.

So their overall death toll is now much higher

than what Iran has put out.

But Iran, they have been put out a overall death toll

in a few days, but they've been putting out numbers

about women and children and rescue workers

and health workers and things like that.

And US and Israeli strikes continue to cross Iran

on Monday, and according to Iranian state media,

more women and children were killed.

Iran's press TV reported that a strike hit a home

in central Israel, sorry, central Iran,

and killed a three-day old baby boy and a two-year-old girl

and their mother and grandmother.

So that was on Monday.

And the Iranian Red Crescent reported

that strikes hit residential areas in Tehran on Monday.

And you could see the pictures that they posted,

pretty significant damage in a residential area of Tehran.

So lots of civilians being killed, women and children.

So the next one here, US and Israeli strikes

kill six PMF fighters in Iraq.

So Iraq's popular mobilization forces, the PMF,

said Monday that six of its fighters were killed

by a Zionist bombing near the border with Syria

as fighting in Iraq amid the US-Israeli war.

Against Iran continues to rage.

The PMF, which I always explain who the PMF is

and these articles for people who might not know.

We've been talking about them a lot,

but they're a coalition of Shia groups

that are a part of Iraq's official security forces.

As they exist today, they were formed,

the group formed in 2014 to fight ISIS.

And so the US has launched multiple air strikes

against the group.

Their statement, they said it was a Zionist bombing.

So a lot of media outlets are taking that as an Israeli strike,

which I guess it could be an Israeli strike.

I think it would be more likely to be US,

but maybe they have some information.

Although at the same time a Zionist bombing

could also be a, I mean, there's plenty of Zionists

in the US running this government.

So also on Monday, Kateb Hezbollah,

one of the largest militias in the PMF

and the main Iran-aligned faction announced

that one of its senior officials had been killed,

but offered no details about his death.

According to AFP, a US air strike in Baghdad on Saturday

hit a house used by Kateb Hezbollah

and killed a senior PMF official.

So that could have been him who was killed on Saturday.

And this picture here is from Monday,

from a funeral for PMF fighters who were killed.

And you see people, there's people in the streets

near the US embassy in Baghdad protesting

and a lot of unrest and anger about the US continuing

to maintain a military presence in Iraq

while they're conducting this war against Iran.

And of course, Iraq is a majority-chia country.

And you have all these factions

that are very much aligned and allied with Iran.

And drone and rocket attacks continued on Monday.

There was reports of rockets being intercepted

near the US embassy in the green zone in Baghdad.

And also a drone struck a hotel within the green zone.

And drones also targeted oil fields in southern Iraq.

No casualties were reported, but the attacks continue.

All right, so the next one here,

Iran officials say that they've been ignoring

Witcoff's requests to talk.

So this article's from Jeremy Skahill at Dropsite News.

So president, so according to Iranian officials,

Steve Witcoff, President Trump's special envoy

personally sent messages to officials in Tehran,

including Foreign Minister Abbas Araqshi,

last week exploring possibilities

for resuming negotiations, and Iran has not replied

to Witcoff according to these Iranian officials.

The Iranian officials also said

that Iran has also received messages

from the White House via third countries.

So they're also trying to go through intermediaries.

A senior Iranian official said, quote,

because of decisions made by Iran's top authorities,

no response was sent to his messages.

The message here is clear.

Iran is once again closed the window

for any direct negotiations.

The authority to declare a ceasefire

rests solely with the country's supreme leader.

It's not something the foreign minister

or any other official or organization in Iran

would send messages about to a foreign party, end quote.

So in response to a request for comment,

this is what the White House said.

They said, quote, the radical left wing

Dropsite News is clearly carrying water

for the Iranian terrorist regime,

and reports like these are based on pure fiction

and citing unnamed anonymous sources

should be discarded immediately.

Iran feeds this fake news media outlet propaganda

and they publish it as fact, which is abhorrent.

America's last behavior, Operation Epic Fury

will continue unabated until President Trump,

as Commander-in-Chief,

determines that the goals of Operation Epic Fury,

including for Iran,

to no longer pose a military threat

have been fully realized, end quote.

So I mean, that's the talk, you know, this is,

it's just, you know, I don't know what to say

about this administration, as I said yesterday,

just increasingly disgusted by them,

but so they're saying it's a lie.

And then what was interesting is a few hours

after this Dropsite News article was,

was published Axios reported by Barack Revee,

the former IDF Intel officer reported

that there has been communication

and that this is a lie,

and that, so we'll see if the US releases any,

any information to back up that claim there.

But based on what we've seen from, you know,

the position of Iran and Iranian officials

and the fact that they were attacked

twice during negotiations,

I lean more toward them not responding

or not giving that the US much

if there has been outreach for talks.

So the next one here,

Israel launches ground invasion of Lebanon.

So this article is from Jason Ditz.

So while Israel never actually ended the occupation

that they launched in 2024,

they expanded their attacks in southern Lebanon today

to a point where they are declaring

a new limited ground invasion of Lebanon.

So airstrikes and ground clashes were reported

around the city of Qiyam and Israeli ground troops

have reportedly been expelling civilians

from more areas in the new theater of operations.

The IDF has a standing evacuation order

for the entire south of Lebanon,

south of the Latani River.

And that's a huge area.

And according to reports we've seen,

they intend to take it over essentially.

So they've really escalated things here.

And let's delay this death toll

as of Monday, at least 886 people have been killed

including 111 children since about two weeks ago now.

And it's just been absolutely horrific

in such a small country.

All right, so the next one here,

Rafa crossing closure leaves Gaza patients

without treatment.

So this article's from Al Jazeera.

This is a baby, a little girl who needs treatment

for a medical condition who is ready to leave Gaza

as part of a medical evacuation on February 28th.

But when the war started,

Israel closed all the crossings.

So not only is much less going into Gaza,

people who are trying to leave for medical treatment

are unable to.

And the only a very small amount of aid

has been able to enter Gaza as well.

It's starting to cause shortages

and increase in prices of goods in Gaza as supplies are running out.

And there's just such a little attention on Gaza

at the moment during this war.

You know, I don't know.

I'm just worried about where this could go

with this renewed blockade.

All right, so the next one here,

Cuba suffers blackout due to US oil embargo.

So this article is from Kyle Anselon

at the Libertarian Institute.

So President Trump is telling people

that he thinks something will happen with Cuba quickly.

He's claiming that there might be some kind of deal.

But at the same time, he said on Monday,

I might write a thing on this.

He said this later on Monday that he can do,

he might take Cuba, he might free Cuba,

he might do whatever he wants.

He said, I could do whatever I want with Cuba.

But on Monday, the situation for Cubans got much worse.

The electric grid failed and 10 million people

were left without power.

So there's a total blackout.

The Cuban Ministry of Energy and Minds

reported a complete disconnection.

And this comes after the tightened American embargo

and they cut off Cuba from oil,

specifically from Venezuela and oil.

And by launching that attack on Venezuela

and also Mexican oil by threatening Mexico with tariffs.

All right, so the last one here,

Air Wars report on the first civilian killed

in a US AI assisted strike.

So this is kind of a long investigation here

from Air Wars.

I'm not gonna read through the whole thing,

but I would recommend just go and check it out.

It's interesting and it's an investigation

that Air Wars did with the independent

and Air Wars does a lot of great work on Air Wars.

It's in the name, but things that I feel like

are just really, we're just really lacking.

I mean, I should do more stuff like this,

like some of these things I talk about like in Somalia,

they kill civilians in one specific strike

and then we kind of move on in the new cycle.

But I think it's important to go back

and investigate things and try to figure out what happened,

see if there could be any kind of accountability.

Of course, with this new war department,

I doubt that there will be any sort of accountability

but this is about a strike in February 2024

that killed a 20 year old student in Iraq,

a US strike and apparently it looked like

AI was used in the targeting

and the US accepted that this 20 year old

was killed unintentionally

and this was under the Biden administration.

Now the new, the Trump people are saying,

oh, we have no way of knowing, you know, this is their response.

We have no way of knowing if artificial intelligence

was used in conducting the specific airstrikes

but it's an interesting investigation that they did.

But that is it for the news for today.

Please go check out our viewpoints,

one from David Stockman.

Trump continues the 47 year war against Iran.

One from Ron Paul, just to get out now,

Ron Paul calls for an immediate end to the war with Iran

and I could not agree with that more.

One from Orleanoy, we are at war,

therefore we are.

One from Alfred W. McCoy,

how the past whispers to the present in Iran.

One from Jeffrey Sachs and Sible Faris.

Ending the Trump Netanyahu war in the Middle East.

One from Andrew Day, after Iran,

the world will never be the same.

That's at the American Conservative

and I agree with his assessment there

and then our spotlight is from Brandon Buck.

Trump's ill-fated attempt to copy Israel's

mowing the grass strategy.

So please go check all that out.

Lots of stuff to read.

I'm very tired.

I'm not used to doing work this late anymore.

I got very used to my new schedule already.

But anyway, that's it for me for today.

Like, subscribe, comment, help us out with a donation

if you can, anti-war.com slash donate.

Please tell me if you do so I can say thank you.

There will be, I'll be back tomorrow

but there's not gonna be a Wednesday show.

Right now I'm planning on doing a show on Thursday

but no show on Wednesday.

I'm gonna be out of town for the night.

But anyway, that is it for me.

I will be back tomorrow with some more news.

Thanks for listening.