Hegseth cool boss…allows Iran war service personnel to work remotely

Hegseth cool boss…allows Iran war service personnel to work remotely

Tho demonized by his antiwar critics as a deranged war monger, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is a caring, people oriented boss. He's allowing non-combatant service personnel in the region to work remotely instead of having to traipse into their base office. Some are as remote as Europe.

Oh wait…Hegseth is not allowing personnel to work remotely. He’s forcing them to because their work places on US bases are being decimated by Iranian missiles making them uninhabitable and too dangerous to occupy. They’re now working remotely from hotels and office buildings in the Gulf States

But risk of attack will follow them relentlessly. Iran is requesting local supporters to report where US military are holed up supporting Trump and Hegseth’s criminal war blowing up the Middle East and possibly the world economy. This will likely make their remote work sites subject to Iranian attack

So don’t expect Hegseth to tout his humane, nurturing treatment of his employees bogged down in his lost war on Iran. He knows that more will be needlessly injured or killed until the Gulf States push his military out of the region to stop Iranian attacks now engulfing them.

That day cannot come soon enough.

Walt Zlotow West Suburban Peace Coalition

Kustra commentary ignores US criminality in Iran war to promote renewed US involvement in lost Ukraine war

Kustra commentary ignores US criminality in Iran war to promote renewed US involvement in lost Ukraine war

 

Bob Kustra’s Chicago Tribune op ed ‘Donald Trump’s war on Iran masks his support of Vladimir Putin’ represents an astonishing pivot from addressing possibly the most catastrophic criminal war in US history to promoting renewed US involvement in the lost war in Ukraine

 

To Kustra, Trump’s war in Iran is not the supreme international crime, just a diversion initiated by Trump to deflect the media from the Ukraine war.

 

Kustra ignores 14 years of US provocations seeking to march NATO and its nukes up to Russia’s borders with Ukraine, to put all the blame for the current war on Russia. Then he suggests the US jump back into this lost war with “stronger action” a meaningless suggestion detached from reality. Trump has correctly abandoned the Ukraine war, letting European NATO members bankrupt themselves giving Ukraine weapons having no impact on Russia’s impending victory whatsoever.

 

Trump is a monstrous war criminal killing thousands bombing 7 countries and now likely crashing the world economy over Iran. But he was sensible enough to dump predecessor Biden’s colossal blundering into war destroying Ukraine, possibly and thankfully dissolving NATO 35 years after the Soviet Union went poof.

 

Kustra ends by lamenting the real lesson of Trump’s criminal war blowing up the Middle East is that it “suits Trump just fine as he avoids any responsibility for deserting Ukraine as it continues to fight off the war criminal Putin.”

 

Time for Bob Kustra to take a remedial course in Political Science 101.

 

Walt Zlotow  West Suburban Peace Coalition  Glen Ellyn IL

On lost Iran war Trump mimicking Hitler at end of WWII

 On lost Iran war Trump mimicking Hitler at end of WWII

Listening to President Trump on his Iran war achievements yesterday brought to mind the ravings of Hitler hunkered down in his Berlin bunker as the Soviets closed in. He demanded his generals move imaginary armies to crush the invaders to stave off defeat and achieve victory.

Trump lost his war on Iran in the first week when the 90 million Iranians did not overthrow their Islamic government in capitation to the US, Israeli attackers. Dropping thousands of bombs on them had the opposite effect…they coalesced around their leaders to support a ferocious counteroffensive. US bases in the region are being decimated along with Israel from an endless supply of missiles and drones stockpiled for years in preparation for inevitable criminal war from America and Israel.

Trump declared on war day 26 Tuesday "We've won this. This war has been won.” He also said Iranian leaders have given him "a very significant prize related to the Strait of Hormuz.” Speculation is that Iran’s ‘prize’ was simply letting one Iraqi oil tanker pass thru the closed Strait of Hormuz. But that rumor Trump trumpeted has not been confirmed and likely never occurred. A third bizarre Trump statement is that Iran called him to negotiate the war’s end…presumably on Trump’s terms.

One has to go back 81 years to Hitler’s Berlin bunker ravings to hear such delusional statements from a world leader trying to imagine away his loss in a war only an unhinged leader would have started.

Where is the 25th Amendment when we desperately need it?

Walt Zlotow  West Suburban Peace Coalition

 Israel’s primary role in Iran war scrubbed from mainstream media

 

No Israel, no Iran war. That fact is AWOL from any coverage of criminal US, Israeli war destroying Iran, US Gulf States bases and possibly the world economy.

 

Destroying Iran as a hegemonic rival preventing their Middle East expansion of Greater Israel has been Israel’s objective for decades. But the small country of Israel, without billions in US firepower and participation could never accomplish their cherished goal. What to do? Put tremendous carrot and stick pressure on Donald Trump to achieve Israel’s Middle East supremacy.

 

They came close to getting George W. Bush to take out Iran after Bush demolished Afghanistan and Iraq back in 2003. But Bush stopped his war crazed Veep Dick Cheney from pulling the Iran war trigger.

 

Obama was a huge problem for Israel. Instead of attacking Iran he made peace with it…or tried to. His leadership in creating the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) put the end to any concern that Iran was developing nuclear weapons. Which they never were. It should have stopped Israel’s lust to destroy Iran. But it didn’t. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu embarked on a relentless propaganda campaign to destroy the JCPOA.

 

His dream was realized when Trump succeeded Obama in 2017. A year later Trump, likely following Netanyahu’s orders, withdraw from the JCPOA, putting Iran regime change back in play.

 

When Biden succeeded Trump in 2021, Netanyahu garnered another complacent ally in the White House. Biden did nothing to rejoin the JCPOA and normalize relations with Iran. But the Israeli genocide in Gaza, fully supported and funded by Biden, put Iran on back burner.

 

Enter Donald Trump back in power in 2025. Within 9 months he secured a ceasefire in Gaza. Palestinian genocide switched places with Iran on the forefront of destruction. Iran moved into Trump’s crosshairs to please his Israeli masters.

 

Had Harris succeeded Biden, likely no Iran war. Unlike Trump, Harris was neither as fully funded by the Israel Lobby nor possibly subject to Israeli blackmail threatening to expose Trump’s peccadillos.

 

But Trump, totally in the bag for Netanyahu’s plan to destroy Iran, was fine with issuing imaginary warnings about Iran being an imminent threat to America requiring unprovoked attack. The 12 day war last June was a prelude to the Trump, Netanyahu tag team attack last month going for broke. It broke all right…but for US, Israeli defeat, not Iran’s.

 

So how do we know Israel instigated, promoted, demanded Trump launch his second criminal attack on Iran in 8 months? In one of the most astonishing revelations of presidential criminality in US history, Trump’s top counterterrorism official, Joe Kent, publicly quit 18 days into Trump’s Israeli inspired war. Kent, who reported to Directory of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, did more than just quit. He released a long statement laying out how Iran posed no imminent threat to America.

 

Mainstream news briefly mentioned Kent’s resignation and moved on. He was essentially banished from print, digital and television news. Why? Couple of reasons. Not a single person in the Trump administration could refute Kent’s accusation. The veracity of his argument was substantiated by Kent’s boss Tulsi Gabbard. At a Senate hearing, she refused to refute or criticize Kent. When asked if Iran posed an imminent threat to America, Gabbard, whose job it is to determine imminent threats, punted, saying it was only Trump who could determine imminent threats. One Senator pondered if Gabbard had any notion of what her job requirement was.

 

A bigger reason Kent disappeared from scrutiny is what mainstream media did not report. Kent laid the blame for Trump’s criminal invasion of Iran squarely on Israel and its American lobby. His full statement should have been splashed on every front page, every lead story on cable news 

 

“I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.”

 

Early in this administration, high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media deployed a misinformation campaign that wholly undermined your America First platform and sowed pro-war sentiments to encourage a war with Iran. This was a lie and is the same tactic the Israelis used to draw us into the disastrous Iraq war.”

 

“As a veteran who deployed to combat 11 times and as a Gold Star husband who lost my beloved wife Shannon in a war manufactured by Israel, I cannot support sending the next generation off to fight and die in a war that serves no benefit to the American people nor justifies the cost of American lives.”

 

Every person in the Trump administration, every person in the military not controlled by the Israel Lobby knows Kent spoke the truth. We’re left with a failed war of choice, the supreme international crime, killing thousands, blowing up the Middle East and possibly crashing the world economy. All this inspired by a country of 9 million people manipulating a country of 349 million people

 

Mainstream media disgraces public debate and discussion vital for a sane foreign policy by suppressing Kent’s irrefutable truths on Israel’s role in the Iran war.

Walt Zlotow  West Suburban Peace Coalition  Glen Ellyn IL 

 

Republicans tell Trump, ‘Destroy US economy, please destroy it’

 Republicans tell Trump, ‘Destroy US economy, please destroy it’

A new Reuters/Ipsos poll finds 77% of Republican voters support Trump’s criminal war on Iran. Every one of them driving a car is now paying an extra buck per gallon for gas. That price will continue moving one way…up.

But the war they support will create much more economic chaos than gas prices. Unless ended soon on Iran’s sensible terms, it will raise the price of everything these Republican deadenders buy, pushing the US into recession along with the entire world. Maybe even Depression.

Why most Republicans support this madness will forever remain mystery. Are they gobbling up Trump’s deranged propaganda Iran was within a couple of weeks of nuking the homeland? Are they simply following any policy, no matter how senseless and self-destructive, cult leader Trump conducts? Do they love that Trump is slaughtering the ‘other’ in this case Shi’ite infidels in the hated country of Iran? Do they view the war as 47 yearlong retribution for Iran taking 66 US embassy hostages for 444 days? Are they so stupid they cannot connect Trump’s failed war to their looming economic destruction? Are they seeking End Times from the Middle East blowing up, raising them to heaven? Are they Israel Firsters supporting Israel’s master plan to wipe out Iran, its last hegemonic rival in the region?

Maybe all of the above.

And Democratic voters? Alas, they are not perfect. A whopping 6% also support the war. Maybe that 6% voting war support gave the wrong answer on party affiliation.

Walt Zlotow West Suburban Peace Coalition

West Suburban Peace Coalition's March Educational Forum will focus on the vicious Trump administration campaign to destroy the Cuban revolution.

 West Suburban Peace Coalition's March Educational Forum will focus on the vicious Trump administration campaign to destroy the Cuban revolution.

How? by cutting off nearly everything needed including oil to keep the economy from collapsing.  Cuba's 11 souls must suffer starvation, degraded health, shortage of everything needed to sustain life in order for Trump to complete America's 66 year campaign to return Cuba to US colonial status. Tune in on Zoom Wednesday to her how international solidarity is responding.  

Topic: International Solidarity in Response to the US Strangling Cuba

When: Wednesday, March 25, 7:00 PM Central Standard Time

Speaker: Stanfield Smith

Stansfield Smith, Director at ChicagoALBASolidarity.org has been promoting Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua solidarity movements for nearly 50 years. He's been publishing the Venezuela & ALBA Weekly News since 2013. 

Zoom Link:  https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83417835716?pwd=rBsbVMB6ldR3Ry4OYr6jjvvMa9qFy8.1

Contact Walt Zlotow, 630 442 3045,  zlotow@hotmail.com for further information. 

Why US likely losing war on Iran

 Why US likely losing war on Iran

Iran has destroyed 10 advanced US radar systems that are crucial for identifying and destroying incoming Iranian missiles and drones. Three major bases lost their radar to Iranian missiles as well as radar protecting the US embassy in Baghdad. So desperate is the US for critical radar, they’ve scooped up high tech radars from South Korea to fill the breach. South Korea is not happy. Without sufficient radar, US bases, Gulf States oil facilities, US ships, and especially Israel become blind to thousands of Iranian missiles and drones.

US bases have been hit at least 25 times, but US censorship of damage hides this this unfolding disaster from the US public.

Knowledgeable observers believe the US will run out of missiles and drone interceptors before Iran runs out of offensive weaponry. They also believe the US likely has less than month of weaponry to continue round the clock bombing. US bases, Gulf States oil facilities and Israeli military and civilian infrastructure all geographically compact making them easily accessible to attack. Iran smartly spread their tens of thousands of missiles and drones thruout Iran’s 676,000 square miles, forcing Trump and Netanyahu to play ‘Whack a Mole.’

Trump’s colossal failure to collapse the Iranian regime shouldn’t surprise since Trump’s single victory plan was for the Iranian people to overthrow their Islamic regime within a few days after Trump assassinated supreme leader the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. That was stupid on steroids. Iran’s 90 million beleaguered souls rallied round their government determined to fight to the death rather than surrender to monstrous attackers US and Israel.

Bombing alone almost never wins a war, something true thruout the century long history of aerial bombing. Now Trump cannot tolerate a long war of attrition because he’s put the world into a possible economic death spiral by near totally disrupting flow of precious Middle East oil. That’s why he’s secretly seeking an off ramp from military, economic and political catastrophe. Having insulted and disparaged nearly every country on earth, he finds himself without an ally except his partner in criminal war Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Of course, Trump could miraculously pull out victory from the jaws of defeat closing in on him. But with Iranian missiles and drones raining down on mostly defenseless US bases and oil infrastructure in the Gulf States, and giving Israel a taste of the massive destruction they visited on Gaza…the smart money is on Iran.

Walt Zlotow West Suburban Peace Coalition Glen Ellyn IL

Iran to Trump: ‘You started the war…we’re going to finish it

 Iran to Trump: ‘You started the war…we’re going to finish it

Speculation abounds Trump is seeking an off ramp to his failed war to destroy the Iranian regime, neutering Iran as an Israeli hegemonic Middle East rival.

His golfing buddy turned world’s worst diplomatic negotiator Steve Witkoff is believed to have texted Iranian leaders to discuss an off ramp to Trump’s failed war destroying US bases in the region, bombing Israel nonstop, killing US service personnel and edging the world economy to recession if not depression. 

Iran’s response? They’re not responding to Witkoff’s texts. 

Iran’s position is ‘Fool me once (June 2025) shame on America. , Fool me twice (last month), shame on Iran. Try and fool me a third time to exit your failed war? Ha ha, no more negotiations for the most duplicitous country on earth.’ 

Here’s Iran’s non-negotiable terms for Mr. Witkoff and Mr. Trump. Close your Middle East bases and get out of the region. End your criminal war on the Iranian people who will never capitulate to your existential threat. End all economic sanctions on Iran. Pay reparations for the hundreds of billions in damage to Iran.

Can Trump’s criminal war defeat Iran? Yes, Iran could run out of missiles devastating US bases, Gulf States oil facilities and the Israeli homeland. Iran could simply collapse under most ghastly, murderous bombing campaign this century. 

But by the time that occurs the US and world economy will be so degraded it may take months, if not years to recover. Trump will be left to emulate Pyrrhus of Epirus, who, after his victory over the Romans in 279 BC exclaimed, "One more victory over the Romans  and we are completely done for.”

Walt Zlotow  West Suburban Peace Coalition  Glen Ellyn IL 

With Chuck DeVore commentary, Chicago Tribune goes all in for Trump’s criminal US war on Iran

 With Chuck DeVore commentary, Chicago Tribune goes all in for Trump’s criminal US war on Iran

 

Been reading the Chicago Tribune for 75 years. Never before have I read Tribune commentary that fully supports a criminal US war. That streak ended today upon reading former US Army intelligence officer Chuck DeVore’s commentary “The US has the ability to achieve victory in Iran.” 

 

DeVore justifies Trump’s dastardly attack for “two reasons: because we had to and because we had the ability to achieve victory.” Neither is remotely true. The verdict of history will put Trump’s deranged and likely failed war on Iran down as a criminal war of choice, the supreme international crime. The verdict worldwide, with the exception of criminal war partner Israel, is already putting their stamp of criminality on Trump’s war.

 

The US has no ability to achieve victory. Why? Because Trump and his war council have no effective response to Iran’s robust defense systematically destroying US military assets in the region, bombing Israel round the clock in retaliation, and choking off the world’s oil and other resource supplies presaging worldwide recession.

 

Indeed, Trump and his war council have no articulated plan of victory because their only one was Iran capitulating in 3 days once they assassinated Iran’s leader the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. That had the opposite effect…galvanizing Iran’s 90 million souls to resist the US, Israeli existential threat to their existence. They will never surrender and never quit resisting Trump’s criminal war.  

 

In a stunning development yesterday as DeVore’s deplorable commentary went to press, Trump’s top counterterrorism officer Joe Kent resigned in protest against Trump’s criminal war with this irrefutable rationale:

 

“I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war. Early in this administration, high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media deployed a misinformation campaign that wholly undermined your America First platform and sowed pro-war sentiments to encourage a war with Iran. This was a lie and is the same tactic the Israelis used to draw us into the disastrous Iraq war. As a veteran who deployed to combat 11 times and as a Gold Star husband who lost my beloved wife Shannon in a war manufactured by Israel, I cannot support sending the next generation off to fight and die in a war that serves no benefit to the American people nor justifies the cost of American lives.”

 

The Chicago Tribune should remove Chuck DeVore’s commentary from their website. It should publish an editorial condemning Trump’s criminal war on Iran and demanding its end.

 

The damage Trump has done to Iran, Israel, US bases in the region and soon the worldwide economy will reverberate for months, possibly years. The least the Chicago Tribune can do is stop supporting this madness and atone for doing so by abandoning that support and calling for its end.

 

Walt Zlotow  West Suburban Peace Coalition  

DePetris’ Chicago Tribune commentary on Iran war stunning in its obfuscation of Trump’s unfolding criminal catastrophe

DePetris’ Chicago Tribune commentary on Iran war stunning in its obfuscation of Trump’s unfolding criminal catastrophe 

Chicago Tribune foreign affairs correspondent Daniel DePetris in Tuesday’s commentary “The war in Iran is beginning to grate on Donald Trump” tells Trib readers nothing of value on Trump’s criminal war on Iran. 

Iran, Israel and US bases in the region are being bombed night and day with missiles and drones. Over 1,500 are dead including 13 Americans. The Strait of Hormuz is shut down spiraling the world economy downward with no end in sight. The US may be on the cusp of being pushed out of the region because our Gulf State partners have lost all confidence America can protect them from its senseless war engulfing them. Also gone is help from any country America has called upon to prop up its failed regime change offensive. Worst of all, Trump is now a pariah worldwide for launching a criminal war, the supreme international crime. In a just world he’d be headed to the dock at The Hague.  

Yet DePetris spends over 900 words focusing on how Trump is both surprised and flummoxed by his utter failure to cruise to victory within 3 days. No mention how the war is essentially lost. No condemnation of the war being an international crime. Indeed, DePetris signals his tacit support for the war by helpfully repeating US propaganda touting the war’s successes. “According to the Pentagon, Iranian ballistic missile launches are down by 90%. Iranian drone attacks have been reduced even more. Approximately 100 Iranian vessels have been destroyed”. 

DePetris’ statement that “the war is not going according to plan” is a colossal understatement. But claiming “Inexplicably, the White House seemed caught off guard that Iran, with its leaders seeking sheer survival, would quickly escalate by taking shots at the Middle East’s oil infrastructure and clogging up the region’s key waterway” is nonsense. 

There was nothing inexplicable about the unfolding catastrophe Trump blundered into. Any independent, honest analyst would have predicted that. As Joe West, America’s top counter terrorism expert said in announcing his resignation: “I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby” Nothing inexplicable about Trump being “caught off guard” by his decision to invade that backfired spectacularly when the Israeli and American war promoters were the only ones in the room planning it. 

Chicago Tribune readers need and deserve thorough, reasoned analysis of the ongoing war on Iran. They will never get it from Daniel DePetris. 

Walt Zlotow  West Suburban Peace Coalition  Glen Ellyn 

US Congress near totally complicit in Trump’s criminal Iran war

 US Congress near totally complicit in Trump’s criminal Iran war

There are 533 congresspersons (2 vacancies) all of whom have allowed Trump to launch his immoral, criminal war on Iran that has failed. Not a single one called out Trump’s criminality before his clear, obvious decision to invade.

Virtually all 271 Republicans are either supportively silent about its criminality or are, like Senator Lindsey Graham and Senator Ted Cruz, ecstatic Trump finally launched the war they have e spent years promoting. Even the lone antiwar Republicans, Senator Rand Paul and Representative Tom Massie, avoid calling out Trump’s criminality by focusing on his usurping Congress’ constitutional power to declare war.

Aside from fanatical Democratic war supporter Senator John Fetterman, the other 261 Democrats oppose the war for two political reasons. They support Rand Paul and Tom Massie’s constitutional argument regarding Congressional primacy in declaring war. But they are more motivated by using the war’s failure and rising US gas prices to demolish the Trump presidency and regain Democratic control of Congress this November. Their cynicism ignoring Trump’s international law criminality killing thousands including 13 US military, causing massive destruction in Iran, Israel and the Gulf States, pushing the world economy into decline is both stunning and reprehensible.

President Trump is a monstrous war criminal who, in a just world, would be answering to his war crimes in the dock at The Hague. But the 533 cowardly congresspersons who either support Trump’s war crimes or simply use them to collapse his presidency are near fully complicit in them. When the war ends and the wages of his sins are totaled up, President Trump can look toward the 533 congresspersons on Capitol Hill and beam…’Couldn’t have done it without you.’