Caitlin Johnstone
Caitlin’s Newsletter

They Lied About The School Bombing In Iran, And They're Going To Keep On Lying. And Other Notes

An ongoing internal US military investigation has reportedly found the United States responsible for a Tomahawk missile strike on an Iranian girls’ school which killed at least 175 people at the beginning of the US-Israeli onslaught.

Remember all the hasbarists and empire apologists who said it was a misfired Iranian missile that hit the school. Remember how aggressively and uniformly they all pushed this lie, including the president of the United States. Then understand that they’re going to keep lying like this throughout the entire war.

Remember Secretary of War Pete Hegseth boasting about how the US has gotten rid of “stupid rules of engagement” intended to protect civilians, tough talking about how “This was never meant to be a fair fight, and it is not a fair fight. We are punching them while they’re down, which is exactly how it should be.”

Those words land a bit different now that we know he was talking about mass murdering little girls.

Caitlin Johnstone
Caitlin’s Newsletter

● It’s not okay for grown adults to believe the United States wages wars to promote humanitarian interests and bring freedom and democracy to oppressed populations.

● It’s not okay for grown adults to believe that US soldiers fight and die to protect their country and its citizens.

● It’s not okay for grown adults to believe US military interventionism in the middle east has anything to do with women’s rights or making life better for women.

● It’s not okay for grown adults to believe good things come from the US military attacking middle eastern nations and toppling their governments.

● It’s not okay for grown adults to believe the US government tells the truth about its wars and the reasons it wages them.

● It’s not okay for grown adults to believe the US are the Good Guys who are fighting evil Bad Guys like the heroes in a children’s cartoon show.

● It’s not okay for grown adults to believe the US government is less murderous and tyrannical than the Iranian government.

● It’s not okay for grown adults to swallow obvious atrocity propaganda about horrific actions allegedly perpetrated by a US-targeted government.

● It’s not okay for grown adults to consume western news media about a war without extreme skepticism about all the information they’re being fed.

● It’s not okay for grown adults to believe the US fights wars for self-defense.

Caitlin Johnstone
Caitlin’s Newsletter

Iran is better than the United States. The United States is worse than Iran. This is true not because Iran is especially good, but because the United States is especially evil.

Iran isn’t blanketing a major metropolis with military explosives, killing over a thousand people, including hundreds of children. The United States is doing this with its partner in crime, Israel.

Iran isn’t continuously bombing and invading countries around the world, toppling governments, circling the globe with hundreds of military bases, targeting civilian populations with siege warfare, and brandishing nuclear weapons at its enemies in the name of securing planetary domination. Only the United States is.

The US empire is the single most murderous and tyrannical power structure on earth, by an extremely massive margin. No one else comes anywhere remotely close. Not Iran. Not anybody. Every government in the world is morally superior to the most evil government, and the most evil government is the United States.

Whenever I say this, I get US empire apologists going “We’re only the ones fighting the wars and dropping the bombs because we happen to be the ones with the power to do so!”

But that’s false. The US isn’t the world’s most vicious government because it happens to be the most powerful; it’s the most powerful government because it’s the most vicious. It’s the power structure that was willing to do whatever it takes to rule the world, no matter how profoundly evil.

Caitlin Johnstone
Caitlin’s Newsletter

The US-Israeli war on Iran rages on. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been killed. Iran has been hammering US military bases in the region with missiles and drones, and oil prices are already beginning to rise as the IRGC cuts off the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation for the attacks.

US soldiers have already begun to die. US Central Command reports that three American service members were killed in combat, with five seriously wounded — and it should here be noted that “seriously wounded” can mean permanently brain damaged, comatose, or otherwise rendered severely handicapped for the rest of their lives.

Trump said during an interview with The Daily Mail that he now expects this war to last “four weeks or so”, and that he expects US casualties to continue. I have said it before and I will say it again: every single American soldier who dies in this war was killed by Trump and Netanyahu. The US and Israeli governments bear sole responsibility for their deaths.

Caitlin Johnstone
Caitlin’s Newsletter

President Trump has shared a text message that was sent to him by Mike Huckabee, the deranged Christian Zionist who serves as the current US ambassador to Israel, and it is one of the creepiest things I have ever seen in my life.

The text reads as follows:

There are so many weird, creepy things about this message. The intensity. The religious fanaticism. The groveling, self-debasing obsequiousness, clearly designed to appeal to Trump’s enormous ego. But by far the most disturbing part was the reference to Truman in 1945 — a nod to the last and only time a national leader used nuclear weapons against an enemy state.

Trump claims to have experienced a religious transformation after surviving an assassination attempt last year. Nuclear weapons and doomsday cultism are poor bedfellows. I really hope this is just some bizarre madman diplomacy and not an accurate reflection of something that is actually occurring inside the president’s mind as he pushes toward direct confrontation with Iran.

Caitlin Johnstone
Caitlin’s Newsletter

Our Leaders Couldn't Fix Our Problems If They Wanted To (And They Don't Want To)

Our leaders are not going to fix the worst problems in our world. They couldn’t if they wanted to. And they don’t want to.

Our leaders are not wise or insightful. They’re not even particularly intelligent. Our society is led by plutocrats who only know how to make more money, by unelected empire managers who only know how to dominate and control, and by elected politicians who only know how to say the right words and make the right bargains in order to get themselves elected.

These people are not capable of curing our civilization of its dysfunction. They don’t have the necessary skills or attributes. Even if they weren’t a bunch of evil sociopaths who are only in the positions they’re in because of their willingness to collaborate with the agendas of oligarchy, war, militarism, imperialism, ecocide, exploitation, oppression and planetary domination, they don’t even have the personal characteristics necessary to do things like end poverty, rescue our biosphere, bring about world peace or give rise to human thriving. They’d have no idea where to start.

Caitlin Johnstone
Caitlin’s Newsletter

Pay attention to what little we can learn about how these freaks conduct themselves behind closed doors. By all means. But don’t forget to also pay attention to the evils they openly inflict.

❖ They launched a live-streamed genocide in full view of the entire world.
❖ They’re openly targeting civilian populations with siege warfare in Iran and Cuba in full view of the entire world.
❖ They openly kidnapped the president of a sovereign nation in full view of the entire world.
❖ They deliberately provoked a horrific and dangerous proxy war in Ukraine in full view of the entire world.
❖ They spent years actively backing Saudi Arabia’s monstrous genocidal atrocities in Yemen in full view of the entire world.
❖ They’re plundering and exploiting the resources and labor of the global south in full view of the entire world.
❖ They’re killing the biosphere we all depend on for their own enrichment in full view of the entire world.
❖ They’re circling the globe with hundreds of military bases to secure planetary domination in full view of the entire world.
❖ They engage in nuclear brinkmanship and wave around armageddon weapons like pistols in full view of the entire world.
❖ People go homeless and die of exposure while billionaires buy private islands and choose the next president in full view of the entire world.
❖ Weapons manufacturers lobby for wars and then profit from the death and destruction they cause in full view of the entire world.
❖ The president of the United States has repeatedly admitted to being bought and owned by the world’s richest Israeli in full view of the entire world.
❖ The US Treasury Secretary has been repeatedly admitting that the US deliberately sparked the violence and unrest in Iran by methodically immiserating the population via economic warfare, in full view of the entire world.

Caitlin Johnstone
Caitlin’s Newsletter

The real violent extremists are the oligarchs and imperialists who run the US-centralized empire from both mainstream parties. Not Antifa. Not trans people. Not anti-genocide activists. Not protesters against ICE.

The extremists who are inflicting the real violence and abuse in our world are the ones committing genocide, starting wars, backing blockades, imposing starvation sanctions, arming proxy conflicts, circling the planet with hundreds of military bases, and flirting with nuclear armageddon.

Caitlin Johnstone
Caitlin’s Newsletter

I don’t know what to say today. We are ruled by abusive monsters.

There’s so much cruelty. So much abuse.

You’d think all this evidence that we are ruled by deranged psychopaths would unite us against them, but it doesn’t. The population is more angrily, bitterly divided against itself than ever.

Caitlin Johnstone
Caitlin’s Newsletter

Nobody’s buying the old song and dance anymore. Maybe the people are finding a little magic of their own.

If I spoke critically of something abusive that India was doing in Kashmir, would you expect me to be accused of an anti-Hindu hate crime?

If you criticized an Indian military operation, would you have to preface it with “I don’t hate Hindus or their religion and am not the slightest bit Hinduphobic”?

If there was worldwide opposition to something that Indian military forces were doing, would you expect western governments to start frantically churning out laws to ban that opposition because it was making members of the Hindu community feel unsafe?

Would it ever in your wildest imaginings occur to you that a criticism of the violent actions of the government of India could in any way be interpreted as an attack on the Hindu faith and the membership of that religion? You can probably see where I’m going with this.