Loading...
Loading...

Support the show: Antiwar.com/donate
Phone bank for Defend the Guard: https://defendtheguard.us/phonebank
Sign up for our newsletter: https://www.antiwar.com/newsletter/
Hey, this is Dave DeCamp from antiwar.com and welcome to antiwar news. It's about 930 on Monday night
here in the east coast of the United States. As we're getting started, lots of insanity to go through
as usual. It feels like it should be Thursday or Friday, like with all the stuff I've read and
written about already this week. There's just so much happening. So the first story at the
top of antiwar.com today, Trump says the US has not won enough in Iran. So President Trump
said on Monday that he believes his war with Iran could end soon while Iranian officials are
vowing that they're ready for a long fight. So Trump is kind of all over the place on Monday.
You know, it's kind of difficult to cover exactly what he's saying because he's
contradicting himself and just saying all sorts of stuff. But I kind of wrote this kind of
to contrast what he is saying with what the Iranians are saying. So Trump told CBS News at one
point on Monday, quote, I think the war is very complete pretty much. They have no navy, no
communications. They've got no air force. And quote, so that quote from President Trump that the
war is very complete, kind of went all over the place. And we covered yesterday that the price
of oil really spiked on Sunday night. It started to go down on Monday. And then after Trump said
that and it was reported everywhere, it went down even further much quicker. But Trump contradicted
himself like maybe an hour later. And he said he was at some event speaking to the press and he
said that the US has not won enough yet in Iran. And then he wanted to do more to achieve victory.
He said, quote, we've already won in many ways, but we haven't won enough. We go forward more
determined than ever to achieve ultimate victory that will end this long running danger once and
for all. And quote, and around the same time that Trump said that the war was just complete or
almost complete, his Pentagon said in a post on X that the war had just begun. And then he was
asked about this mixed messaging coming from his administration and asked is the war ending soon
or is it just getting started? And Trump said, quote, you could say both. It's the beginning of
building a new country. We could call it a tremendous success or we could go further. And quote,
so maybe there's some indication there maybe that he's considering this idea of declaring victory
and trying to find an off ramp here because this is clearly not going in the direction of the
Iranian government collapsing or anything like that. But what are the Iranians saying? Both
government and military officials, their message has been that they're not looking for a ceasefire
with the US because they believe if they do reach a ceasefire, then they're just going to be attacked
again in six months or so. And a senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps official said on Monday
that Iran was ready to fight for an entire decade, if necessary. This is Brigadier General
Ibrahim Jabari again, a senior IRGC official. He said, quote, we have been fighting the enemy
for several days. Their strikes hit us, but ours were more powerful and deadly. Our intelligence
has monitored the enemy for years, preparing for an attack, even if the timing was unknown. We
are prepared for a long war, possibly lasting up to 10 years. Our armed forces operate according
to pre-planned scenarios and will continue until the US is expelled from the region and forced
to retreat. The Iranian general said that Iran has enough missiles to continue the war,
and that Tehran's demands to end the war include a guarantee that another conflict won't break out
in the future. He said, quote, we say clearly that the United States must leave the region completely
and permanently. This is the demand of our people. We will continue the war until full calm
returns to the region. And decisive guarantees are provided that no war will be launched again,
again, Saran or the region, and quote. And in his comments earlier in the day, Trump said that he
was considering taking over the strait of Hormuz, which has effectively been closed by the IRGC,
and Jabari said that the Iranian military was ready to strike US warships if they attempted
to enter the strait. He's essentially saying, you know, bring it on, try to come in there.
And so, as I said, the oil price is, you know, I think this could have some to do with why
Trump is throwing this out there saying that the war could end soon, but so many people pick up
on it and say, oh, I guess that's it. I guess it's going to be over. You know, everybody panicked
for no reason, which is just it's just kind of amazing that people are just taking Trump at his
word when he's saying, you know, he's always been like this where he speaks out of both sides
of his mouth, but now more so than ever. And also in these, one of these briefings or wherever
he was, he claimed, you know, he was asked about the strike on the elementary school that killed
over 100 children. And he claimed, you know, because the evidence looks like it was a Tomahawk
missile. There's a video of a Tomahawk missile landing near the school. And Trump claimed that,
oh, all sorts of countries have Tomahawk missiles and that Iran has Tomahawk missiles just to
completely, I mean, Israel doesn't have them just completely made up, completely absurd. And then
he was pressed about it by another reporter and he said, oh, I really just don't know, you know,
so he essentially admitted that he was just making it up that, you know, he didn't know what he was
talking about at all because all evidence indicates that it was a US strike. And we do have
us another story about that. So the next one here, Trump says that ending the Iran war will be a
mutual decision with Netanyahu. So another thing that Trump said, this was actually on Sunday,
he said that any decision to end the war with Iran would be a mutual one with Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu. The president made the comments in a phone call with the Times of Israel where
he claimed that the US and Israel have destroyed Iran. He said, quote, Iran was going to destroy
Israel and everything else around it. We've worked together. We've destroyed a country that wanted
to destroy Israel. And quote, so he was asked if he alone would make the decision of when the
war is over, or if it would be with Netanyahu, he said that he thinks it would be mutual, a mutual
decision. And so again, into some of the numbers here, more than 1200 civilians killed so far in
the US Israeli bombing campaign. And also as Trump was suggesting that the war might end soon,
it looked like the US and Israel were increasing the bombing in Tehran. And then Trump issued a
new threat on true social, saying that if Iran disrupts the traffic in the state of Hormuz,
we're going to bomb them 20 times harder, unleash fire and fury. They're never going to be able to
rebuild as a nation. So another big threat from Trump, which honestly to me makes him look weak,
the fact that he's making those types of threats after they have been really bombing.
You know, Iran at a very, very heavy, heavy rate. It's been an extremely heavy bombing campaign.
So the next one here, early Iran strikes cost $5.6 billion in munitions according to Pentagon
estimates. So this article is from the Washington Post. So the Pentagon burned through $5.6 billion
dollars worth of munitions during the first two days of its military assault on Iran, according
to three US officials, a figure that underscores the deepening alarm, some on Capitol Hill,
among some on Capitol Hill over the speed at which US forces have eaten into the scarce supply
of America's most advanced weaponry. The estimate shared with Congress on Monday raises new questions
about the Trump administration's broad dismissal of lawmakers' concerns that the Iran operation
is quickly eroding the military's readiness. So $5.6 billion in just the first two days.
That is a huge number. And the Pentagon, another estimate that they said was that,
oh, it would be about a billion dollars. The war is going to cost about a billion dollars a day.
So it's clear that that is, you know, that estimate is way low because this is just the cost of
munitions, you know, not to mention the cost of operating all of the military equipment and
everything. And then the cost of equipment that's being destroyed at US bases in the Middle East.
So we're up in, you know, well over $10 billion with this war has cost so far.
So the next one here, conscientious objector groups says the phone is ringing off the hook
amid Iran war. So this article is from zero hedge. So an 80 year old nonprofit that advises conscientious
objectors says its phone is ringing off the hook as American service members who object
to the US and Israel initiated war on Iran or seeking guidance on how to avoid being part of it.
ominously the groups executive director says the breadth of force mobilization is much like the
run up to the ground invasion of Iraq. So this is Mike Prysner who he is the new executive director
of this group center on conscious and war. And I'm sure a lot of you know him. He works,
he's Abby Martins partner. He's worked on the empire files and her great documentary Gaza fights
for freedom. When did that come out like 2021? It was about the protests at the at the fence.
Anyway, so this is what Prysner said he said quote phone has been ringing off the hook.
A lot more units have just been activated for the deployment than the public knows about and quote.
So that's a bad sign that we're seeing a lot more units being activated more deployments to the
Middle East as they're talking about putting boots on the ground in Iran conducting raids in the
country. In a post on the groups account, the center said that it received a call from someone
who was on deployment orders and who reports widespread opposition to the Iran war within their unit.
In particular, they conveyed disgust at the U.S. massacre of the girl school as well as the
attack on the Iranian frigate and international waters. The U.S. military is reportedly responsible
for killing some 150 school girls in Manab. Also boys were killed as well in that strike.
This is stuff that we've been talking about here, but so a lot of opposition from within the
military about this this deployment here and this organization tries to help the soldiers who
want to object to taking part in this war. All right, so the next one here,
Iranians hold huge rally to support new leader. So a massive rally was held in Tehran on Monday
in support of Iran's new supreme leader. Ayatollah, Moshtabah, Khamenei, sorry Khamenei,
sometimes pronounce it like Khamenei, but it's Khamenei. Or anyway, so he's the son of course of
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who was killed by an Israeli air strike in the opening attacks of the U.S.
Israeli war against the Islamic Republic. So as we covered yesterday, he has been chosen
to be the successor of his father and all signs are that he is considered more, you know,
hard line than his father. He's said to have ties with the IRGC, close ties with the IRGC,
and his family, his whole family was killed. His father, his mother, his sister, his wife.
There's reports that said some of his children were killed. I haven't seen that confirmed, but either
way it's, you know, you have a new guy taking power here who just lost most of his immediate family
members. You see this picture here. I mean, these are massive rallies that are happening in Tehran
and according to Iranian state media, these similar rallies occurred in major cities across
Iran. And you know that the U.S. and Israel are not happy to see this happening here.
And maybe it could be why they decided to escalate the strikes on Tehran on one day night.
So most of this stuff we covered yesterday, but just another point here that there was an
intelligence report prepared by the U.S. a week before this war started that said it was unlikely
that a massive attack on Iran would result in regime change. And there's nothing
close to that at the moment. That was the younger common a going to make a public appearances.
I doubt it at the moment because Israel and Trump has made, you know, threats against him.
So I doubt we're going to see him, you know, out on the streets giving speeches,
but he is the leader now. All right. So the next one here, the U.S. military will not endorse
Trump claim that Iran bomb school. So this article is from Nick Terce at the Intercept.
President Trump claimed that Iran, not the U.S. struck an elementary school in the Southern
Iranian town of Manab, the attack with the highest civilian death toll in Trump's second
Iran war. Three current and former defense officials, however, pushed back on his claim.
Even Trump's own Pentagon chief, Pete Hegseth, refused to back him up.
U.S. Central Command appeared to suggest that Trump's comments were inappropriate.
A U.S. government official who reviewed satellite images of the school that was hit said, quote,
this is another instance of Trump lying and just talking out of his ass.
This clearly was not a failed rocket from the IRGC base. And, quote,
and that's the thing, all evidence. There's just no evidence, no indication that this was
a failed IRGC rocket that hit this school. And I do think, you know, these officials are saying
that they're still investigating, you know, if it was the U.S., but what they are saying is that
it's clear that it was not Iran. And I also think that the U.S. military knows that they've
known for a while now that it was them. Because according to their, you know, Hegseth and
Kane, they put up a map of U.S. strike zones in Iran and the school was right in the middle of
one of them. And this is apparently an area where the U.S. has been bombing and not Israel.
But again, so Trump just lying here and, you know, when he was pressed on it further on
Monday, he basically said, Oh, yeah, I don't know. They're still investigating.
And the sent-com spokesperson said that it would be inappropriate to comment
because the incident is under investigation. So suggesting that what Trump said was inappropriate.
All right. So the next one here, video captures apparent U.S. Israeli strike and you're a
boy's school in Iran. So this is another
U.S. or Israeli strike on a school in Iran. This article is from the New York Times. So at the
Imam Resah Elementary School for Boys in Abyek, a small city in the Kha'z-Vin province, West
of Tehran, security camera footage from February 28th. The first day of the war shows scenes from an
ordinary morning. Some 40 boys play on the playground. A few wander around. Others linger by the
soccer goal and a large group gather in a circle. That was just hours after the first joint
Israeli and U.S. strikes on Iran. According to Iranian state media, schools were open. Then the
footage shows a large explosion at the top of the screen where a communications tower stands on a
hill. The blast rips through the area, damaging the school. The footage shows window shattering
children run with hands over their ears. A child falls to the ground by a soccer goal post seemingly
hit by a piece of debris. Tasnim, a semi-official Iranian news agency, identified the child as my
yard sang, sang a nay and said that he had not survived. So at least one child, one little boy
was killed in this strike on this communications tower right next to an elementary school. I believe
at least four schools have been damaged in the bombing campaign so far. That was as of a few days
ago. The numbers are probably higher by now. All right, so the next one here, Iran war live update.
So we just run on the live updates from Al Jazeera because there was a lot of indications that
that the air strikes were getting heavier, but there's no solid reports on it yet. So I just
wanted to run this from Al Jazeera. And they're just getting into some more of Trump's, some of the
stuff Trump said. Again, he's just all over the place here. Let's see if there's any updates about
the strikes. Air strikes, target pro-Iranian paramilitary group near Iraq's Kirkuk. We'll actually
get into that. We have a story about the air strikes in Iraq. Saudi Arabia is intercepting drones.
Lebanese priests was killed. We'll get into that as well. So nothing, no updates on the
US or Israeli strikes that are happening now on Iran. So the next one here, Israeli escalation
displaces 700,000 in Lebanon. So this article is from Jason Ditz. So as the Israeli war continues
to escalate, the Lebanese parliament has voted 76 to 41 to extend their term in office by additional
two years. Elections were meant to be held in May, but the soaring number of displaced civilians
would make holding a vote exceedingly difficult, even assuming the war itself ends by then.
The number of displaced was reported around 30,000 this time last week, and the latest figures from
UNICEF suggests that it's closer to 700,000 displaced, including some 200,000 children. And the
number continues to rise as evacuation orders are imposed across Lebanon. Israel's defense minister
said he heard that over a million had been displaced in Lebanon. And Israel has been carrying out
daily attacks. Well, near daily attacks on Lebanon for over a year, despite the ceasefire deal,
and Hezbollah didn't never responded to any of those strikes. And then two days into the
Iran war, Hezbollah fired some rockets, and then Israel used that as an excuse to massively
escalate. And since last Monday, at least 486 Lebanese people have been killed. So nearly 500
killed in just a week in Lebanon. And I know the number when it was in the 300s, it was at least 83
children were killed. So just a huge number of kids being killed, civilians being killed.
In these airstrikes and human rights watch issued a report on Israeli war crimes committed
in the past week, detailing that the IDF had fired white phosphorus artillery munitions
against residential areas in southern Lebanon. So the next one here, Lebanon seeks peace talks,
but Israel says troops will remain. So this is another one from Jason. So Lebanese officials
have reportedly proposed direct peace talks with Israel as a way to end the ongoing Israeli invasion
and sought help from the US in brokering such discussions. But we're apparently rebuffed with
US envoy Tom Barrick saying that there is nothing to discuss. Israel has been attacking Lebanon
on a virtually daily basis since 2024, but they escalated as we just covered. So Barrick,
who's the US ambassador to Turkey, he's also a special envoy to Syria and has been involved in
talks with Lebanon. He's been threatening Lebanon with an Israeli invasion.
But they've been also pressuring the government to disarm Hezbollah and he said that they're
arming Lebanon to fight their own people. But he's saying that there's no point that there's no
point in holding direct talks at this time. I guess they're just all in on backing. This is
really renewed Israeli invasion and bombing campaign in Lebanon. And the next one here,
Lebanese Maronite Catholic priest killed by Israeli tank fire. So this article is from the
national Catholic register. Lebanese Maronite Catholic priest has been killed in southern Lebanon when
in Israeli artillery tank fired on a house on March 9th. Catholic officials and media said a
report set of since been confirmed by OSV news. It's actually an article from OSV news reprinted
here. So father Pierre Al-Rahi, also known by his French name Pierre Al-Rai. I don't know how to
say that in French. But he had earlier refused along with other priests to obey an order by the
Israeli military to evacuate the Christian village of Klaia, a Maronite village of some 8,000
inhabitants in the Marja Union district, a few miles from the Israeli border. So remember they
ordered the full evacuation of everybody south of the Latani river. And I believe I said that
the Christians in this priest were saying that they're they're not going to leave. The Israeli
military is carried out an intensive bombing campaign on suspected Hezbollah strongholds. Hezbollah
militants have been known to hide in Christian and other villages in the south. Some news reports
stated that armed militants had entered the area. But there's other reports saying that there
was no presence of Hezbollah at the time of the strike here. But this is what the priest who was
just killed by Israel said before after the evacuation orders. He said, quote, we are forced to say
despite the danger when we defend our land and we do so peacefully. None of us carries weapons.
All of us carry peace and goodness and love and quote. And you know, he also
there's a video of him saying that he welcomed the Lebanese government's attempts to
bring all controlled weapons under the control of the government, which is essentially the
the disarmament of Hezbollah. You know, he supported all that. But it didn't matter. He was still
killed. Lebanese news reports stated that in Israeli Marqavitank hit a house in this village
twice. The first strike wounded the owner and his wife, Al-Rahi the priest and other neighbors rushed
to the scene to help when the tank fired a second time. Al-Rahi was wounded from the strike and
later died from his injuries. Several other Lebanese civilians were also injured in the attack.
So house was hit. He showed up to help people and he was hit himself and died.
Seems to be a very common thing in these wars, these these double tap type attacks here.
All right. So the next one here is really strikes kill seven in Gaza over 24 hours.
So Gaza's health ministry said on Monday that Israeli forces killed at least seven Palestinians
and injured 17 over the previous 24-hour period, marking an escalation of IDF attacks in the
strip amid the U.S. Israeli war against Iran. So the CUD's news network reported that just after
midnight, an Israeli strike hit a tent in the news throughout refugee camp in central Gaza,
killing three people, two women, and the three people were two women and a 12-year-old girl,
and 10 other people, including some children, were injured in the attack. And I saw footage,
I didn't, I thought about putting it in the article, but I didn't. Footage from the hospital,
it was really horrific, showed the girl who was killed and injured children.
But we have a picture here of one of the victims of one of the women who was killed
and her family mourning her. And according to photos from the funeral, there's other photos that
showed one of the women who was described as a journalist and had a press vest placed on her at
her funeral. And that's what the caption says that one of them was a journalist. So that was just
one strike in central Gaza. One that we covered yesterday happened on Sunday night, and Israeli
strike killed three men, west of Gaza City. One of them was a paramedic. There was also an attack
on a group of civilians, southeast of Gaza City, according to Wafa, that killed one Palestinian.
So according to the health ministry, at least 648 Palestinians have been killed, and 1,728
wounded since the so-called ceasefire deal was signed in, what was it, early October.
All right, so the next one here, and there's just no coverage of this. I mean, just besides the
Palestinian news outlets, and you know, even Al Jazeera, I couldn't find anything on it on there.
You know, we have the Reuters account, and so we get a lot of pictures from news agencies,
you know, verified pictures and videos, and there's so much there. You know, that all the big
news outlets have access to, but there's just no coverage of it. The next one here talks to
advance Trump's Gaza plan as on hold since Iran war. So this is not a good sign here. Talks to
advance President Trump's peace plan for Gaza have been on hold since the start of the US's
Israeli war against Iran. Reuters reported on Monday, the US and Israel launched the war about
10 days after President Trump convened the first meeting of the so-called Board of Peace,
a body that he formed that's meant to oversee the ceasefire in Gaza, which Israel has constantly
violated with daily attacks on Palestinians. At this Board of Peace meeting, Trump said that
the US and other countries would provide billions of dollars in funds to rebuild Gaza, but there
was no real developments toward implementing this plan. The whole event was very bizarre.
Trump was just saying, oh, here we have the representatives from Pakistan and India. I helped
then that war. Why don't you guys stand up? Oh, here we have some people representing Azerbaijan
and Armenia. Why don't you stand up? It was very, very strange. I remember when JD Vance spoke,
you know, this is supposed, this is a place they're having this event, you know, about Gaza, a place
where people are still living in the blown out rubble, intense. People are still being killed.
And Trump's just like joking around and then JD Vance spoke and he starts talking about AOC and
is like making fun of her and laughing. It's just just really bizarre and shameful stuff here
from this administration. Just all this their behavior is just very very despicable in my opinion.
But anyway, where were we here? So just a few things, you know, when it comes to the Gaza plan
before the war, there's no sign really that it was being going to be implemented. A big part of
it is this international stabilization force that's meant to go in and replace the idea of troops
who are occupying Gaza, but that hasn't materialized. And there's Indonesia is now saying that they're
going to quit the board of peace. If there's no benefit to Palestinians, they were really the only
country that said that they were going to willing to send troops. Turkey said so as well, but
Israel has said no, you know, we can't have any Turkish presence there. And then of course,
the other thing is the disarmament of Hamas. That's the demand from the US and Israel. And they're
making that demand as Israel continues occupying Gaza and keeps killing people in Gaza. And Hamas has
shown potentially some flexibility on their position is that they're not going to disarm unless
there is movement toward a Palestinian state or some sort of Palestinian force that can replace
them. But they've said that they could agree to some sort of freezing or storing their weapons.
But Israel's demanding, you know, unconditional full disarmament. No sign that that's going to happen.
And now the talks aren't even happening. So it's just not not good here.
The situation in Gaza. All right. So the next one here, the US bombs in Iraqi PMF base as a
Ron war widened. So this article is from the cradle. So an air strike on March 9th struck a base
in northern Iraq belonging to the popular mobilization units or the PMU. I usually call them the
popular mobilization forces or the PMF. That's the abbreviation we usually use. But anyway,
this is a wing of the Iraqi armed forces. It's a group umbrella group of mostly Shia militias
that was formed in 2014 to fight ISIS. And then they've been at odds with the US in recent years.
And there have been drone attacks on US bases and assets in Iraq in recent days amid this war and
certain militia. You know, there's also the Islamic resistance in Iraq, which is another group of
Shia militias. And they have overlap with the PMF, but it's not like
there are different groups. So it's not not all the PMF militias are involved in the attacks,
but they bomb the PMF base. And there's been, I think there's been a lot of air strikes. These
aren't being claimed by the US. So it's possible, I guess, that they could be Israeli air strikes,
but I think it's most likely that these are US strikes. Iran's parliament, not Iran's parliament,
Iraq's parliament the other day, the lawmakers were chanting death to America. So there's a lot
of animosity against the US and Iraq people have been trying to storm the embassy and Baghdad. So
things are certainly heating up in Iraq. And we've seen a lot of US military aircraft going into
herbal, going into the Iraqi Kurdistan, potentially building up for some sort of operations across
the border into Iran. All right. So the last story here, US Southern command kills six and
latest boat strike. So US Southern command announced on Sunday that its forces blew up another
alleged drug running boat in the waters of Latin America and killed six people. So this is the
first known boat strike since the war with Iran started. And just you know typical stuff here,
no evidence to back up their claim that this boat that looks like it was just drifting.
There's no evidence that it was carrying drugs or anything, but they blew it up.
Executed six people and the total number of people who've been killed in this bombing campaign
in these extra judicial executions has reached 157. So that is it for the news. Please go check out
our viewpoints one from the Benjamin and Nicholas J.S. Davies, the war on Iran and Washington's
missing exit strategy. One from Ron Paul will the dollar be a casualty of the Iran war.
One from Jonathan Cook, Israel planned war on Iran for 40 years. Everything else is a smoke screen.
One from Mitchell Plitnik debunking the lies of the Iran war. One from Jennifer Kavanaugh.
War on Iran will squander the US military edge. One from Joseph Bouchard. How Maduro overthrew,
how Maduro overthrew was key node in US Israeli war on Iran. And our spotlights from James
Bovar, the story of the Beirut barracks bombing. Pete Hegseth will not tell you. So please go check
all that out. Read the lower part of our page. Check out the blog. Lots of stuff going on.
Lots of stuff to read even if you especially now with the viewpoints were running six viewpoints
a lot now lately. So go go do some reading even if you watched or listen to this show.
But please like, subscribe, comment, share the show, tell your friends about ANSIWOR.com,
follow us on social media. Things have just been pretty crazy for us trying to keep up with
with all the news. But I appreciate everyone. We've steadily had around 2,000 to 2,500 YouTube views
in 2,500 to 3,000 podcasts download. So it's a pretty sizable number of people who are listening
to this show every day. So I appreciate all of you out there. And as I said, I think maybe
yesterday, I know this is pretty demoralizing, but the truth is important. We're going to keep
bringing you the truth and shining a light on these things. But anyway, I will be back tomorrow
with some more news. Thanks for listening.

Antiwar News With Dave DeCamp

Antiwar News With Dave DeCamp

Antiwar News With Dave DeCamp