OUR DAILY THREAD: Bibi & Donnie's Military Adventure
Nice country you have here. It’d be a shame if something bad happened to it.
Iran announced it had chosen Khamenei’s successor.
Israel immediately announced its intention to kill that person.
They didn’t know who it was or what the new leader intended to do. In fact, that death sentence was ordered before the then-unidentified new leader said or did anything. None of that mattered. Anybody other than Trump’s hand-picked leader was already a dead Ayatollah walking.
Let’s be clear about what this means.
Israel is asserting the right to preemptively kill a sovereign nation’s top governmental and religious leader in perpetuity. Who the person is and what they’ve done doesn’t matter. The human being who assumes the role is irrelevant to Israel. It has given itself a kinetic veto and it intends on using it. And you can bet this also applies to every Iranian official and cleric in perpetuity. Iran is Israel’s bombing range now and anyone living within range is subject to summary execution by airstrike. As a result, a nation has been robbed of its borders and its right to self-determination and its sovereignty.
The truth is that there is no inherent sovereignty in this global protection racket Trump and Netanyahu are hyperscaling before our eyes. Nor are there universal human rights. In a world of preemptive killing, no human has an inherent right to exist. Everything is arbitrary. And two self-appointed arbiters are currently demonstrating to the world that they can and will shoot first and ignore questions later. Trump has even bragged about pretending to negotiate in good faith while secretly organizing sneak attacks.
It’s how the US reportedly set-up Israel’s assassination of Khamenei. The Iranians were lulled into believing negotiations were real. They were not. And no, I am not taking Steve Witkoff at his word. They knew Iran’s red lines in negotiations and made sure the bridge they were selling was a bridge too far. Honestly, does anyone actually believe Netanyahu would participate in a negotiated deal? After “yearning” for this bloodletting for “40 years”?
Not when he’s got Kushner managing diplomacy, a religious zealot running the Pentagon and Miriam’s $200 million dollar man in the White House. If you look back at the timeline … it appears that this has been the plan all along, right down to grabbing Venezuela’s oil before a potential oil shock.
Understandably, some of Trump’s devotees prefer to think Bibi twisted his arm during his many visits to the White House. While it might explain why Trump has broken the most important promises he made to war-weary Americans, it doesn’t match his conduct since returning to the White House.
So far, Trump has bombed seven countries: Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Venezuela, Nigeria and Somalia. Of those, Somalia appears to be his favorite target. The incomparable Dave DeCamp keeps track of Somalia for Antiwar.com:
The Trump administration has overseen a major escalation in US airstrikes in Somalia, which came after President Trump loosened the rules of engagement for the US military in early 2025. AFRICOM launched at least 124 airstrikes in Somalia in 2025, shattering the previous annual record for US airstrikes in the country, which President Trump set at 63 during his first term in 2019.
We’re just nine weeks into 2026 and he’s already bombed Somalia at least 41 times. In addition to adding context to his ongoing feud with Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), it also exposes what a complete and utter fraud his promises have been.
Frankly, he gave away the game during the lead-up to rechristening the Defense Department to the War Department. In explaining the change back in September of last year Trump said, “Defense is too defensive; we want to be offensive too.”
As George W. Bush once said, “Mission accomplished.”
Not coincidentally, the mission Bush accomplished was to bomb the hell out of yet another regime Netanyahu wanted the United States to change. Like he did with Iran, Netanyahu repeatedly warned that Iraq was a threat. He even testified before Congress in the months leading up to an illegal invasion of a bystander nation that posed to imminent threat to the United States.
The main difference between Iraq then and Iran now is the effort W’s administration put into convincing the world to join the “Coalition of the Willing.” They spent a year making their case to the international community. Yes, their case was specious. And yes, they lied about aluminum tubes and yellowcake and the danger of waiting for the “smoking gun” confirmation of Saddam’s phony nuclear program which, W said with a straight face, “could come in the form of a mushroom cloud."
They even sent then-Secretary of State Colin Powell to the UN Security Council to lie about Iraq’s bogus mobile bioweapons labs. He humiliated himself. But at least he had the humility to be humiliated.
The same cannot be said of Netanyahu and Trump.
They don’t care enough to bother with quaint notions like building consensus or persuading the public. And they don’t care about the treaties their nations signed when the world decided “Never Again.”
Instead, they are using their combined military superiority to nullify the UN Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Geneva Conventions. Netanyahu wrote the epitaph for the “Post-War Order” when he laid waste to an entire society in the Gaza Strip and did so while invoking a Biblical call to exterminate an entire people … a call he invoked again when the bombs started dropping on Iran.
Trump followed up by summarily executing people at sea and then using that as a pretext for taking Venezuela’s leader, its oil and now its gold. And now he and Bibi are using violence, the threat of violence and extortion to divide the world into two camps: With Trump and against Trump.
It was on display on Saturday when, even as the Israelis were intentionally poisoning the air around Tehran by targeting oil refineries, Trump launched his latest product—the America’s Shield Counter-Cartel Coalition:
“The heart of our agreement is a commitment to using lethal military force to destroy the sinister cartels and terrorist networks once and for all. We’ll get rid of ‘em. We need your help. You have to just tell us where they are. We have, we have amazing weaponry, as you probably noticed over the last short period of time.”
The choice for South and Central American nations is simple—toe the line or suffer the same fate as Venezuela or Iran. Toeing the line means making a “commitment to using lethal force,” which means allowing the US military to hunt down and “get rid of” the cartels and terrorists in your nation. Just open your nation’s door and show us where the bad guys are and we’ll do the rest. If so, you will be in Trump’s good graces.
Your reward will be avoiding punishment.
UK Prime Minister Kier Starmer just got schooled on the rules in Trump’s International System Of Rewards And Punishments. Stuck between the wishes of his constituents and Trump’s expectations, Starmer tried to have both ways. Now he looks weak and silly and he will be forced to genuflect and pay tribute in some way to get back into the Rewards column.
As the protection racket expands to Cuba and Panama or any nation unable to defend themselves against the US war machine and, in the Middle East, the increasingly seamless military partnership between the IDF and the Pentagon, every US ally going forward is going to be forced to decide if they want to endure the punishment that will come if they stand on principles like human rights, national sovereignty and the Laws of War. - jp
US forces strike an alleged drug boat in Eastern Pacific, killing 6
https://www.stripes.com/theaters/us/2026-03-08/us-alleged-drug-boat-strike-21000771.html
After sinking Iranian ship, did the US Navy commit a war crime?
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/sinking-iran-ship-war-crime/
Human Rights Watch calls for war crimes probe after deadly attack on Iran girls’ school
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/human-rights-watch-calls-for-war-crimes-probe-after-deadly-attack-on-iran-girls-school/3854956
WATCH: Trump sidesteps responsibility for deadly strike on Iranian girls’ school
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-trump-sidesteps-responsibility-for-deadly-strike-on-iranian-girls-school
Fox News Analyst: ‘I Think the President Knows’ the U.S. Bombed Iranian School
https://www.mediaite.com/media/tv/fox-news-analyst-says-i-think-the-president-knows-the-u-s-bombed-elementary-school-despite-denial/
Trump Floats ‘Friendly Takeover’ of Cuba — With Marco Rubio Running the Show
https://www.mediaite.com/media/news/trump-floats-friendly-takeover-of-cuba-but-says-it-may-not-be-friendly-either/
How failed nuclear talks became a death trap for Khamenei
https://www.indiatoday.in/world/story/how-failed-nuclear-talks-became-a-death-trap-for-khamenei-us-israel-strikes-iran-2876254-2026-03-01