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Abolishing the First Amendment - Read by Eunice Wong

This article is read by Eunice Wong, a Juilliard-trained actor, featured on Audible's list of Best Women Narrators. Her work is on the annual Best Audiobooks lists of the New York Times, Audible, AudioFile, & Library Journal. www.eunicewong.actorText originally published July 28, 2025.The Chris Hedges Report is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Full Text: I testified at the New Jersey state capital in Trenton last week against Bill A3558, which would adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which conflates anti-Zionism with antisemitism.“This is a dangerous assault on free speech by seeking to criminalize legitimate criticism of Israeli policies,” I said. “The Trump administration’s campaign to ostensibly root out antisemitism on college campuses is clearly a trope to shut down free speech and deport non-citizens, even if they are here legally. This bill falsely conflates ethnicity with a political state. And let’s be clear, the brunt of repression on college campuses is directed against students and faculty who oppose the genocide in Gaza, 3,000 of whom were arrested and hundreds of whom were censored, suspended or expelled. Many of these students are Jewish. What about their rights? What about their constitutional protections?”“I have had numerous relationships with Israeli journalists and political leaders,” I went on. “I knew, for example, former Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin who negotiated the Oslo peace agreement. Rabin was assassinated in 1995 by an Israeli ultranationalist who opposed the peace accord. Rabin stated bluntly on numerous occasions that the occupation was harmful to Israel. Israeli colleagues frequently criticize Israeli policies in the Israeli press in language that would be defined as antisemitic by this bill.”“For example,” I continued, “the Israeli journalist Gideon Levy, who served in the Israeli army and writes for the newspaper Haaretz, has called for sanctions to be imposed on Israel to stop the slaughter in Gaza, saying ‘Do to Israel what you did to South Africa.’”“Omer Bartov, who served as an Israeli company commander in the 1973 war, is Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Brown University,” I said. “He stated in an article on July 15 in The New York Times that his ‘inescapable conclusion has become that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people.’”“These kinds of statements, and many more I can quote from Israeli colleagues and friends, would see them under this bill criminalized as antisemites,” I added.Committee chairman Robert Karabinchak, a Democrat, muted my microphone, banged his hammer for me to stop and allowed gaggles of Zionists, who openly harassed and insulted Muslims in the room, to jeer and shout me down.There I was arguing that this bill would curtail my free speech, at the same time I was being denied free speech.You can see my full testimony here.This cognitive dissonance defines the United States and Israel.The committee chairman also muted Raz Segal, the Israeli historian and genocide scholar and, in an especially callous move, chastised Mehdi Rabee, whose 14-year-old brother Amer was killed by Israeli soldiers in April 2025.“My 14-year-old brother who was from Saddlebrook, New Jersey, was murdered by the IDF,” Mehdi, his voice shaking with emotion, told the committee. “All he was doing was picking olives from an olive tree with his friends, which we have been doing as Palestinians for thousands of years. My brother, whom I will never see again, my brother who my parents will never watch graduate from high school or college. Assemblywoman Swain, my father and the Palestinian-American Community Center tried reaching out to you over and over. And all that we were met with was nothing but silence. Given your silence, you should not have the right to even consider voting for this bill until you meet with my family, who are under your district.”“I am going to ask you to stick to the bill,” Karabinchak interrupted.“This bill puts at risk my First Amendment right to criticize Israel for what they have done to my brother,” he went on. “I have a right to call Israel whatever I want to call it. When their policies mirror that of the Nazis, I have a right to call it as it is. I call on you to vote no in remembrance of my brother.”You can see Mehdi’s statement here.Karabinchak, angered that supporters gave Rabee a standing ovation, reduced all testimonies critical of the bill from three minutes to one minute.“Time is down to one minute,” he told the crowd of about 400 in the committee and four overflow rooms. “I’m going to ask everybody now to speak, who wants to speak, is going to say ‘I oppose the bill’ or ‘I support the bill.’”He paused.“Let’s have some more claps,” he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Let’s be happy now, right? I didn’t throw you out like I said I was going to. So now you just stifled the other people who have a right to speak. That’s what you just did! Understand what you did! Okay? One minute. One minute. That’s it. And I’m not going to be nice and say let’s rap it up. I’m going to shut the mic off. ”Our sin was that we dared to mention the unmentionable – the genocide in Gaza.The Zionists in the room were verbally and physically abusive to the Muslims who had come to oppose the bill. One Zionist repeatedly shoved himself into the bodies of those outside the state capital holding a rally against the bill.You can see his harassment here.Amy Gallatin, who is on the commission of the West Orange Human Relations Commission, “established by municipal ordinance in 1992 in order to create and foster values of diversity, equity and inclusion among groups in the community,” pulled up pictures on her iPad in one of the overflow rooms and said to those seated around her “Look, it’s Mohammed!”You can see her Islamophobic hate speech here.When Rabbi Yitzchok Deutsch made an emotional plea to save the people of Gaza Lisa Swain of District 38 and Assemblyman Avi Schnall of District 30, both Democrats, snickered and laughed as he spoke.You can see their reactions to Rabbi Deutsch here.Zionists, who painted lurid pictures of Jews living under harassment and in fear for their lives, and of Nazism supposedly running amok on the streets of New Jersey, were not muted, although their statements were hyperbolic to the extreme and often a product of over-active imaginations. They openly salivated at the adoption of the bill, which they said would give law enforcement the tools to criminalize those who engage in hate speech, which, if you read the “contemporary examples of antisemitism,” that accompany the IHRA, include speech that criticizes Israeli policies.The IHRA has been adopted by 35 states, the District of Columbia and universities such as Harvard and Columbia.“The IHRA working definition of antisemitism includes protected criticism of Israel and its policies,” writes the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). “For example, the definition declares that ‘denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor,’ ‘drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis,’ and ‘applying double standards by requiring of [Israel] a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation’ are all examples of antisemitism.”“If the Department of Education were to adopt this definition, and investigate universities for Title VI complaints based on it, college and university administrators would likely silence a range of protected speech including criticism of the Israeli government’s treatment of Palestinians, analogies likening Israeli policies to those of Nazi Germany, or sharing differing beliefs about the right to a Jewish state,” the ACLU continues. “People may disagree about whether such speech is antisemitic, but that debate is irrelevant to the First Amendment, which prohibits the government from censoring or penalizing core political speech.”U.S. attorney Kenneth S. Stern — a self-professed Zionist and the lead drafter of what became the IHRA definition of antisemitism — laments that the IHRA has been “grossly abused” to “restrict academic freedom and punish political speech,” including “pro-Palestinian speech.”The five committee members, who had clearly made up their minds before they entered the packed hearing room, unanimously passed the measure, which will go to the floor of the State Assembly for a vote. They will, like all politicians who bow before the dictates of the Israel lobby, no doubt, be compensated for their perfidy.America, like Israel, exists in a parallel reality. It denies the stark and incontrovertible reality of the live-streamed genocide. It slanders anyone, including Israeli holocaust scholars such as Professor Segal, as antisemites.I know, sadly, where this goes. I witnessed it in the many dictatorships I covered as a foreign correspondent for two decades in Latin America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. Those of us who fight for an open society are silenced, attacked as traitors and criminals. We are blacklisted, censored and at times, locked up. If we can escape in time, we are forced into exile. As we are silenced, the sycophants, grifters, Christian fascists, billionaires, Zionists and thugs, elevated to the highest positions in the federal government by the Trump White House, are rewarded with absolute power, luxury and debauchery.Our corporate-indentured ruling class has no genuine political ideology. Political parties are a farce, a species of entertainment to beguile the population in our pretend democracy. Liberalism, and the values it claims to represent, is a spent and bankrupt force.The burlesque in the committee room in Trenton was another depressing reminder that there is little now that will halt our path towards an authoritarian state, not the press, not the universities, not the courts, which cannot enforce the few rulings made by courageous judges, not the political class, including the Democratic Party, and not the electoral process.We must resist, if only to assert our integrity and dignity, if only to stand in solidarity with the oppressed, if only to slow the consolidation of tyranny, if only to revel in the small pyrrhic victories that resistance alone makes possible.But we should not be fooled.Thanks for reading The Chris Hedges Report! This post is public so feel free to share it.The Chris Hedges Report is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit chrishedges.substack.com/subscribe

The Gaza Riviera - Read by Eunice Wong

This article is read by Eunice Wong, a Juilliard-trained actor, featured on Audible's list of Best Women Narrators. Her work is on the annual Best Audiobooks lists of the New York Times, Audible, AudioFile, & Library Journal. www.eunicewong.actorText originally published July 26, 2025.The Chris Hedges Report is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Full Text: Israelis do not see the images of skeletal corpses of Palestinian children who they have starved to death as a curse. They do not see the slain families they gun down at food hubs — designed not to deliver aid but lure starving Palestinians into a massive concentration camp in the south of Gaza in preparation for deportation — as a war crime. Israelis do not look at the savage bombing and shelling that kill or wound dozens of Palestinian civilians, where an average of 28 children die daily, as anything extraordinary. They do not see the wasteland of Gaza, pulverized by bombs and methodically being torn down by bulldozers and excavators, leaving virtually the entire population of Gaza homeless, as barbaric. They do not see the destruction of water purification plants, decimation of hospitals and clinics, where doctors and medical staff are often unable to work because they are weak from malnutrition, as savage. They do not blink at the assassinations of doctors as well as journalists, 232 of whom have been murdered for trying to document the horror.Israelis have blinded themselves morally and intellectually. They view the genocide through the lens of a bankrupt media and political class that tells them only what they want to hear and shows them only what they want to see. They are intoxicated by the power of their industrial weapons and license to kill with impunity. They are drunk on self-adulation and the fantasy that they are the vanguard of civilization. They believe that the extermination of a people, including children, condemned as human contaminants, makes the world, especially their world, a happier and safer place.They are the heirs of Pol Pot, the killers that carried out the genocides in East Timor, Rwanda and Bosnia and, yes, the Nazis. Israel, like all genocidal states — no population since World War II has been dispossessed and starved with such speed and ruthlessness – has a final solution that would have earned the stamp of approval from Adolf Eichmann.Starvation was always the plan, the preordained final chapter of the genocide. Israel methodically set out from the beginning of the genocide to destroy sources of food, bombing bakeries and blocking food shipments into Gaza, something it has accelerated since March, when it severed nearly all food supplies. It targeted the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) — on which most Palestinians depended on for food — for destruction, accusing its employees, without providing evidence, of being involved in the attacks of Oct. 7. This accusation was used to give funders such as the United States, which provided $422 million to the agency in 2023, the excuse to halt financial support. Israel then banned UNRWA.Over 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli soldiers and U.S. mercenaries in the chaotic scramble to get one of the few food packages distributed during the brief blocks of time, usually an hour, at the four aid sites set up by the Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, according to the U.N. Human Rights Office.Once Gaza was turned into a moonscape after 21 months of saturation bombing, once Palestinians were forced to live in tents, under crude tarps or in the open air, once clean water, food and medical aid became nearly impossible to find, once civil society was obliterated, Israel began its grim campaign to starve the Palestinians out of Gaza.One in three people in Gaza are going multiple days without eating, according to the U.N.Starvation is not a pretty sight. I covered the famine in Sudan in 1988 that took an estimated 250,000 lives. There are streaks in my lungs — scars from standing amid hundreds of Sudanese who were dying of tuberculosis. I was strong and healthy and fought off the contagion. They were weak and emaciated and did not.I watched hundreds of skeletal figures, ghosts of human beings, trudge at a glacial pace across the barren Sudanese landscape. Hyenas, accustomed to eating human flesh, routinely picked off small children. I stood over clusters of bleached human bones on the outskirts of villages where dozens of people, too weak to walk, had laid down in a group and never got up. Many were the remains of entire families.The starved lack enough calories to sustain themselves. They eat anything to survive — animal feed, grass, leaves, insects, rodents, even dirt. They suffer from constant diarrhea. They have trouble breathing because of respiratory infections. They rip up tiny bits of food, often spoiled, and ration it in a vain attempt to hold off the gnawing hunger pains.Starvation reduces the iron needed to produce hemoglobin, a protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen from the lungs to the body, and myoglobin, a protein that provides oxygen to muscles, coupled with a lack of vitamin B1, which affects heart and brain function. Anemia sets in. The body, in essence, feeds on itself. Tissue and muscle waste away. It is impossible to regulate body temperature. Kidneys shut down. Immune systems crash. Vital organs atrophy. Blood circulation slows. The volume of blood decreases. Infectious diseases such as typhoid, tuberculosis and cholera become an epidemic, killing people by the thousands.It is impossible to concentrate. Emaciated victims succumb to mental and emotional withdrawal and apathy. They do not want to be touched or moved. The heart muscle is weakened. Victims, even at rest, are in a state of virtual heart failure. Wounds do not heal. Vision is impaired with cataracts, even among the young. Finally, wracked by convulsions and hallucinations, the heart stops. This process can last up to 40 days for an adult. Children, the elderly and the sick expire at faster rates.This is the future Israel has preordained for the two million people in Gaza.But it is not the future Israelis see. They see paradise. They see an ethno-nationalist Jewish state where Palestinians, whose land they stole and occupied and whose people they have subjugated and forced into an apartheid existence, do not exist. They see cafes and hotels rising up where thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of bodies lie buried under the rubble. They see tourists frolicking on the Gaza beachfront, a vision enhanced by an Artificial Intelligence-generated video uploaded to social media by Israeli Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology, Gila Gamliel. It is what a Gaza devoid of Palestinians would look like, echoing the absurdist AI video posted by Donald Trump.In the new video, carefree Israelis eat at seaside restaurants. Anchored in the sparkling Mediterranean are luxury yachts. Gleaming hotels and office high rises, including a Trump Tower, dot the beachfront. Attractive residential neighborhoods stand where now there are broken, jagged mounds of concrete. The video shows Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, as well as Trump and Melania, strolling along the seaside.Gamliel, like other Israeli leaders and Trump, cynically uses the term “voluntary emigration” to describe the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. This omits the stark choice Israel actually offers the Palestinians — leave or die.Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has called for a “security annexation” of the northern Gaza Strip and vowed that Gaza will become an “inseparable part of the State of Israel.” He made the remarks at a Knesset conference called “The Gaza Riviera — from vision to reality,” which presented proposals for the building of Jewish colonies in Gaza. Smotrich said Israel would “relocate Gazans to other countries,” and that Trump endorsed the plan.Israeli Minister of Heritage Amichai Eliyahu, who once proposed dropping a nuclear bomb on Gaza, declared that “All Gaza will be Jewish.” The Israeli government “is racing ahead for Gaza to be wiped out,” Eliyahu said. He described Palestinians as Nazis. “Thank God, we are wiping out this evil. We are pushing this population that has been educated on ‘Mein Kampf.’”Genocidal killers embrace fantasies of eradicating a native population and expanding their ethnonationalist state. The Nazis carried out their genocidal assault, which included mass starvation, on Slavs, Eastern European Jews and other indigenous people, dismissed as Untermenschen, or subhumans. Colonists were then to be shipped to Central and Eastern Europe to Germanize the occupied territory.These killers do not reckon with the darkness they unleash. The upscale beachfront properties dreamt of by Israel will never appear, just as the modern, exclusively Serb capital, with its golden domed cathedral, imposing presidency building, 15-story clock tower, state-of-the-art medical center and national theater with a 72-foot revolving stage was never built on the ruins of Bosnia.Rather, there will be ugly apartment blocks, populated by the usual miscreants, proto-fascists, racists and mediocrities who live in the Jewish colonies in the West Bank. These ultranationalists, who have formed rogue militias to seize Palestinian land and joined the Israeli army in murdering over 1,000 Palestinians in the West Bank since Oct. 7, will define Israel. They are the Israeli version of the 3-million-strong Pancasila Youth — Indonesia’s equivalent of the Brown Shirts or the Hitler Youth — that in 1965 helped carry out the genocidal mayhem that left half a million to one million dead.These rogue militias, equipped with automatic weapons provided by the Israeli government, lynched Saifullah Musallet, a 20-year-old Palestinian-American, who was attempting to protect his family’s land two weeks ago. He is the fifth U.S. citizen killed in the West Bank since Oct. 7.Once these Israeli goons and thugs are done with the Palestinians, they will turn on each other.The genocide in Gaza signals the abolition, for Israelis as well as Palestinians, of the rule of law. It marks the obliteration of even the pretense of an ethical code. Israelis are the barbarians they condemn. If there is any warped justice in this genocide it is that Israelis, once they finish with the Palestinians, will be forced to live together in moral squalor.Thanks for reading The Chris Hedges Report! This post is public so feel free to share it.PhotosChris HedgesChris Hedges, a former Pulitzer Prize winning foreign correspondent for the New York Times and best selling author of 'Empire of Illusion', stands next to a window for a portrait, Princeton, NJ, November 2010. Hedges is also the author of 'Death of the Liberal Class' and is a columnist for Truthdig. (Photo by Oliver Morris/Getty Images)TOPSHOT-PALESTINIAN-ISRAEL-CONFLICT-GAZA-AIDTOPSHOT - Palestinians gather at an aid distribution point set up by the privately-run Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), near the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on June 25, 2025. (Photo by Eyad BABA / AFP) (Photo by EYAD BABA/AFP via Getty Images)Right Wing Supporters Take Part In March Towards GazaSOUTHERN ISRAEL, ISRAEL - JULY 30: An explosion is seen in the northern Gaza Strip as right-wing activists observe from a vantage point during a rally calling to resettle the Northern Gaza Strip on July 30, 2025 in Southern Israel, Israel. Reports in the Israeli press suggest that President Netanyahu has promised far-right politicians in the coalition government that Israel will begin to resettle North Gaza in the near future. (Photo by Amir Levy/Getty Images)Israeli army withdraws from Al-Shifa Hospital in GazaGAZA CITY, GAZA - APRIL 1: A woman mourns as the Palestinians gather around the burned and destroyed Al-Shifa Hospital after the Israeli attacks as Israeli forces withdrew from Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, Gaza on April 1, 2024. (Photo by Dawoud Abo Alkas/Anadolu via Getty Images)TOPSHOT-ISRAEL-PALESTINIAN-GAZA-CONFLICTTOPSHOT - Israeli soldiers prepare tanks at an Israeli army deployment area near the Israel-Gaza Strip border for a potential ground operation in the Palestinian coastal enclave on November 20, 2012. AFP PHOTO / JACK GUEZ (Photo by JACK GUEZ / AFP) (Photo by JACK GUEZ/AFP via Getty Images)IDF Soldiers Remain On The Gaza Border After CeasefireISRAEL/GAZA, ISRAEL - NOVEMBER 22: Israeli soldiers laugh and dance to music provided by visiting Hassidic Jews who visited to show their support to soldiers at the border with the Gaza Strip on November 22, 2012 close to the northern Gaza Strip border with Israel. (Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)An undated photo of genocidal leader Pol Pot (L) wANLONG VENG, CAMBODIA: An undated photo of genocidal leader Pol Pot (L) with former Khmer Rouge foreign minister Ieng Sary (C) recovered from the guerilla's former stronghold of Anlong Veng by Agence France-Presse reporter Reach Sambath on March 28 1998. The picture was believed to be taken in China in the late 1970's, according to Pich Chheang, former Khmer Rouge ambassador to China. Man on the right is unidentified. AFP PHOTO (Photo credit should read AFP via Getty Images)Prime Talking5th November 1975: Foreign Minister Ernesto Melo Antunes with his Indonesian counterpart Adam Malik outside the Portuguese Embassy in Rome, discussing the civil war on the Portuguese island of Timor. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)Hitler And Goebbels Being Saluted(Original Caption) 10/31/1933.Berlin, Germany- Chancellor Adolf Hitler & Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels (left) receiving the cheers and Nazi salutes of their followers in the Berlin sports Palast where they opened the campaign of Hitler's government to get the support of the citzens for their program for the nation.The ballots for this election do not contain names of candidates for this or that office.Food distributed to Palestinians struggling with hunger in GazaGAZA CITY, GAZA - AUGUST 01: Palestinians, including children gather with cooking pots to receive hot meals distributed by a charitable organization in the Al-Ansar area of western Gaza City on August 1, 2025. The food distribution comes amid severe hunger and humanitarian crisis caused by ongoing Israeli attacks. (Photo by Abdalhkem Abu Riash/Anadolu via Getty Images)Ethiopian RefugeesAn Ethiopian woman from Eritrea and her starving children sit in a hospital tent located in a refugee camp in eastern Sudan. (Photo by Peter Turnley/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images)SUDAN-FAMINEAn elderly woman and some children shown in a file photo dated 03 November 1988 waiting by an empty bowl in Juba, southern Sudan, four days after their last meal. The international medical charity Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF-Doctors without Borders) warned 08 June of famine in southern Sudan's Bahr el-Ghazal state and called for urgent measures to avert disaster. (Photo by ALEXANDER JOE / AFP FILES / AFP) (Photo by ALEXANDER JOE/AFP FILES/AFP via Getty Images)ISRAEL-IRAN-POLITICSIranian crown prince Reza Pahlavi (L), whose father was the shah overthrown in the 1979 Islamic revolution, alongside Israel's Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel visit the Sorek Desalination Plant, south of Tel Aviv, on April 19, 2023. (Photo by JACK GUEZ / AFP) (Photo by JACK GUEZ/AFP via Getty Images)TOPSHOT-ISRAEL-ARGENTINA-POLITICS-DIPLOMACY-PARLIAMENTTOPSHOT - Israel's (L to R) Foreign Minister Gideon Saar and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attend the address of Argentina's President to a session of the Israeli parliament (Knesset) at its headquarters in Jerusalem on June 11, 2025. (Photo by Menahem KAHANA / AFP) (Photo by MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP via Getty Images)Amichai Eliyahuhttps://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Amichai_Eliyahu.jpgIsraeli settlers march to Gaza border, demand resettlementISRAEL - JULY 30: Jewish settlers and far-right activists march from Sderot toward the northern border of Gaza, calling for the re-establishment of settlements in the territory, on July 30, 2025, in Israel. Chanting slogans such as "We are returning to Gaza," the demonstrators carried Israeli flags throughout the march. (Photo by Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu via Getty Images)Sumpah Pemudahttps://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HUT_Sumpah_Pemuda_.jpg This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit chrishedges.substack.com/subscribe

The Persecution of Francesca Albanese - Read by Eunice Wong

This article is read by Eunice Wong, a Juilliard-trained actor, featured on Audible's list of Best Women Narrators. Her work is on the annual Best Audiobooks lists of the New York Times, Audible, AudioFile, & Library Journal. www.eunicewong.actorText originally published July 9, 2025.The Chris Hedges Report is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Full Text: When the history of the genocide in Gaza is written, one of the most courageous and outspoken champions for justice and the adherence to international law will be Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur, who today the Trump administration is sanctioning. Her office is tasked with monitoring and reporting on human rights violations that Israel commits against Palestinians.Albanese, who regularly receives death threats and endures well-orchestrated smear campaigns directed by Israel and its allies, valiantly seeks to hold those who support and sustain the genocide accountable. She lambasts what she calls “the moral and political corruption of the world” that allows the genocide to continue. Her office has issued detailed reports documenting war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank, one of which, called “Genocide as colonial erasure,” I have reprinted as an appendix in my latest book, “A Genocide Foretold.”She has informed private organizations that they are “criminally liable” for assisting Israel in carrying out the genocide in Gaza. She announced that if true, as has been reported, that the former British prime minister David Cameron threatened to defund and withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC) after it issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant, which Cameron and the other former British prime minister Rishi Sunak could be charged with a criminal offense for, under the Rome Statute. The Rome Statute criminalizes those who seek to prevent war crimes from being prosecuted.She has called on top European Union (EU) officials to face charges of complicity of war crimes over their support for the genocide, saying that their actions cannot be met with impunity. She was a champion of the Madleen flotilla that sought to break the blockade of Gaza and deliver humanitarian aid, writing that the boat which was intercepted by Israel, was carrying not only supplies, but a message of humanity.You can see the interview I did with Albanese here.Her latest report lists 48 corporations and institutions, including Palantir Technologies Inc., Lockheed Martin, Alphabet Inc. (Google), Amazon, International Business Machine Corporation (IBM), Caterpillar Inc., Microsoft Corporation and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), along with banks and financial firms such as BlackRock, insurers, real estate firms and charities, which in violation of international law, are making billions from the occupation and the genocide of Palestinians.You can read my article on Albanese’s most recent report here.Secretary of State Marco Rubio condemned her support for the ICC, four of whose judges have been sanctioned by the U.S. for issuing arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant last year. He criticized Albanese for her efforts to prosecute American or Israeli nationals who sustain the genocide, saying she is unfit for service as a special rapporteur. Rubio also accused Albanese of having "spewed unabashed antisemitism, expressed support for terrorism, and open contempt for the United States, Israel, and the West." The sanctions will most likely prevent Albanese from travelling to the U.S. and will freeze any assets she may have in the country.The attack against Albanese presages a world without rules, one where rogue states, such as the U.S. and Israel, are permitted to carry out war crimes and genocide without any accountability or restraint. It exposes the subterfuges we use to fool ourselves and attempt to fool others. It reveals our hypocrisy, cruelty and racism. No one, from now on, will take seriously our stated commitments to democracy, freedom of expression, the rule of law or human rights. And who can blame them? We speak exclusively in the language of force, the language of brutes, the language of mass slaughter, the language of genocide.“The acts of killing, the mass killing, the infliction of psychological and physical torture, the devastation, the creation of conditions of life that would not allow the people in Gaza to live, from the destruction of hospitals, the mass forced displacement and the mass homelessness, while people were being bombed daily, and the starvation — how can we read these acts in isolation?” Albanese asked in an interview I did with her when we discussed her report, “Genocide as colonial erasure.”The militarized drones, helicopter gunships, walls and barriers, checkpoints, coils of concertina wire, watchtowers, detention centers, deportations, brutality and torture, denial of entry visas, apartheide existence that comes with being undocumented, loss of individual rights and electronic surveillance, are as familiar to desperate migrants along the Mexican border, or attempting to enter Europe, as they are to Palestinians.This is what awaits those who Frantz Fanon calls “the wretched of the earth.”Those that defend the oppressed, such as Albanese, will be treated like the oppressed.Thanks for reading The Chris Hedges Report! This post is public so feel free to share it.Photos Chris HedgesChris Hedges, a former Pulitzer Prize winning foreign correspondent for the New York Times and best selling author of 'Empire of Illusion', stands next to a window for a portrait, Princeton, NJ, November 2010. Hedges is also the author of 'Death of the Liberal Class' and is a columnist for Truthdig. (Photo by Oliver Morris/Getty Images)NATO Foreign Ministers Meeting April 2024BRUSSELS, BELGIUM - APRIL 03: Britain's Foreign Secretary David Cameron speaks to the press after his arrival at NATO headquarters on the first day of the NATO Foreign Ministers' meeting on April 03, 2024 in Brussels, Belgium. The meeting of foreign ministers from NATO countries coincided with the 75th anniversary of the alliance's founding. (Photo by Omar Havana/Getty Images)The State Visit Of The President Of The Republic Of Korea - Day 1LONDON, ENGLAND - NOVEMBER 21: Britain's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, right, and David Cameron, the Foreign Secretary, left, walk across Horse Guards parade for the Ceremonial Welcome by King Charles and Queen Camilla for the President of Korea Yoon Suk Yeol and First Lady, Kim Keon Hee, on November 21, 2023 in London, England. The President of Korea Yoon Suk Yeol is on a four-day State visit to Britain. (Photo by Frank Augstein - WPA Pool/Getty Images)'Freedom Flotilla' And Greta Thunberg Prepare To Depart Italy For GazaCATANIA, ITALY - JUNE 01: The bow of the Madleen ship, featuring an illustration inspired by the Palestinian flag, ready to set off from the port of San Giovanni Li Cuti on June 01, 2025 in Catania, Italy. (Photo by Fabrizio Villa/Getty Images)'Freedom Flotilla' And Greta Thunberg Prepare To Depart Italy For GazaCATANIA, ITALY - JUNE 01: Greta Thunberg with part of the crew of the ship Madleen, shortly before departure for Gaza, during the press conference in San Giovanni Li Cuti on June 01, 2025 in Catania, Italy. (Photo by Fabrizio Villa/Getty Images)Senators Meet For Their Policy Luncheons On Capitol HillWASHINGTON, DC - MAY 10: Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) leaves the Senate Chamber following a vote at the U.S. Capitol on May 10, 2023 in Washington, DC. Republican and Democratic Congressional leaders met with President Joe Biden at the White House yesterday to continue to negotiate how to raise the debt limit. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)TOPSHOT-US-ISRAEL-POLITICS-DIPLOMACY-TRUMP-NETANYAHUTOPSHOT - US President Donald Trump shakes hands with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on April 7, 2025. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP) (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)PALESTINIAN-ISRAEL-CONFLICT-FOODPalestinians shove to receive a hot meal at a charity kitchen in the Mawasi area of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on July 22, 2025. The head of Gaza's largest hospital said 21 children have died due to malnutrition and starvation in the Palestinian territory in the past three days, amid a devastating assault by Israeli forces. (Photo by AFP) (Photo by -/AFP via Getty Images)TOPSHOT-PALESTINIAN-ISRAEL-US-BARRIER-TRUMPTOPSHOT - A man walks past graffiti depicting US President Donald Trump on the controversial Israeli separation barrier in the West Bank town of Bethlehem on August 4, 2017. (Photo by Musa AL SHAER / AFP) (Photo by MUSA AL SHAER/AFP via Getty Images)Emergency Ministerial Conference on Global Leaders Convene in BogotaBOGOTA, COLOMBIA - JULY 15: Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanes attends the Emergency Ministerial Conference on Palestine at the San Carlos Palace in Bogota, Colombia, on July 15, 2025. (Photo by Juancho Torres/Anadolu via Getty Images) This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit chrishedges.substack.com/subscribe

Trump, Epstein and the Deep State - Read by Eunice Wong

This article is read by Eunice Wong, a Juilliard-trained actor, featured on Audible's list of Best Women Narrators. Her work is on the annual Best Audiobooks lists of the New York Times, Audible, AudioFile, & Library Journal. www.eunicewong.actorText originally published July 12, 2025.The Chris Hedges Report is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Full Text: The refusal by the Trump administration to release the files and videos amassed during investigations into the activities of the pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, should put to rest the absurd idea, embraced by Trump supporters and gullible liberals, that Trump will dismantle the Deep State. Trump is part of, and has long been part of, the repugnant cabal of politicians – Democrat and Republican – billionaires and celebrities who look at us, and often underage girls and boys, as commodities to exploit for profit or pleasure.The list of those who were in Epstein’s orbit is a who’s who of the rich and famous. They include not only Trump, but Bill Clinton, who allegedly took a trip to Thailand with Epstein, Prince Andrew, Bill Gates, hedge fund billionaire Glenn Dubin, former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson, former Secretary of the Treasury and former president of Harvard University Larry Summers, cognitive psychologist and author Stephen Pinker, Alan Dershowitz, billionaire and Victoria’s Secret CEO Leslie Wexner, the former Barclays banker Jes Staley, former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak, the magician David Copperfield, actor Kevin Spacey, former CIA director Bill Burns, real estate mogul Mort Zuckerman, former Maine senator George Mitchell and disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, who reveled in Epstein’s perpetual Bacchanalia.They also include law firms and high-priced attorneys, federal and state prosecutors, private investigators, personal assistants, publicists, servants and drivers. They include the numerous procurers and pimps, including Epstein’s girlfriend and daughter of Robert Maxwell, Ghislaine Maxwell. They include the media and politicians who ruthlessly discredited and silenced the victims, and strong armed anyone, including a handful of intrepid reporters, seeking to expose Epstein’s crimes and circle of accomplices.There is a lot that remains hidden. But there are some things we know. Epstein installed hidden cameras in his opulent residences and on his private Caribbean island, Little St. James, to capture his high-powered friends engaging in sexual romps and abuse of teenage and underage girls and boys. The recordings were blackmail gold. Were they part of an intelligence operation on behalf of the Israeli Mossad? Or were they used to ensure that Epstein had a steady source of investors who funneled him millions of dollars to avoid being outed? Or were they used for both? He shuttled underage girls between New York and Palm Beach on his private jet the Lolita Express, which was allegedly outfitted with a bed for group sex. His coterie of famous friends, including Clinton and Trump, are recorded as traveling on the jet numerous times on released flight logs, although many other flight logs have disappeared.Epstein’s videos are in the vaults of the FBI, along with detailed evidence that would rip back the veil on the sexual proclivities and callousness of the powerful. I doubt there is a client list, as Attorney General Pam Bondi claims. There is also no single Epstein file. The investigative material amassed on Epstein fills many, many boxes, which would bury Bondi’s desk and probably, if collected in one room, dominate most of the space in her office.Did Epstein commit suicide, as the official autopsy report claims, by hanging himself in his jail cell on August 10, 2019 at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City? Or was he murdered? Since the cameras recording activity in his cell the night were not functional, we do not know. Michael Baden, a forensic pathologist hired by Epstein's brother, who served as the chief medical examiner for New York City and who was present at the autopsy, said he believes Epstein's autopsy suggests homicide.The Epstein case is important because it implodes the fiction of deep divisions between Democrats, who had no more interest in releasing the Epstein files than Trump, and the Republicans. They belong to the same club. It exposes how the courts and law enforcement agencies collude to shield powerful figures who engage in crimes. It lays bare the depravity of our exhibitionist ruling class, accountable to no one, free to violate, plunder, loot and prey on the weak and the vulnerable. It is the tawdry record of our oligarchic masters, those who lack the capacity for shame or guilt, whether dressed up as Donald Trump or Joe Biden.This class of ruling parasites was parodied in the first-century satirical novel “Satyricon” by Gaius Petronius Arbiter, written during the reigns of Caligula, Claudius, and Nero. As in Satyricon, Epstein’s circle was dominated by pseudointellectuals, pretentious buffoons, grifters, con artists, petty criminals, the insatiable rich and the sexually depraved. Epstein and his inner circle routinely engaged in sexual perversions of Petronian proportions, as The Miami Herald investigative reporter Julie Brown, whose dogged reporting was largely responsible for reopening the federal investigation in Epstein and Maxwell, documents in her book “Perversion of Justice: The Jeffrey Epstein Story.”As Brown writes, in 2016 an anonymous woman, using the pseudonym “Kate Johnson,” filed a civil complaint in a federal court in California alleging she was raped by Trump and Epstein when she was thirteen, over a four-month period, from June to September 1994.“I loudly pleaded with Trump to stop,” she said in the lawsuit about being raped. “Trump responded to my pleas by violently striking me in the face with his open hand and screaming that he could do whatever he wanted.”Brown continues:Johnson said that Epstein invited her to a series of ‘underage sex parties’ at his New York mansion where she met Trump. Enticed by promises of money and modeling opportunities, Johnson said she was forced to have sex with Trump several times, including once with another girl, twelve years old, whom she labeled ‘Marie Doe.’Trump demanded oral sex, the lawsuit said, and afterward he “pushed both minors away while angrily berating them for the ‘poor’ quality of the sexual performance,” according to the lawsuit, filed April 26 in U.S. District Court in Central California.Afterward, when Epstein learned that Trump had taken Johnson’s virginity, Epstein allegedly ‘attempted to strike her about the head with his closed fists,’ angry he had not been the one to take her virginity. Johnson claimed that both men threatened to harm her, and her family if she ever revealed what had happened.The lawsuit states that Trump did not take part in Epstein’s orgies but liked to watch, often while the thirteen-year-old “Kate Johnson” gave him a hand job.It appears Trump was able to quash the lawsuit by buying her silence. She has since disappeared.In 2008, Alex Acosta, who at the time was the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, negotiated a plea deal for Epstein. The deal granted immunity from all federal criminal charges to Epstein, four named co-conspirators and any unnamed “potential co-conspirators.” The agreement shut down the FBI probe into whether there were more victims and other powerful figures who took part in Epstein’s sex crimes. It halted the investigation and sealed the indictment. Trump, in what many consider an act of gratitude, appointed Acosta as Secretary of Labor in his first term.Trump contemplated pardoning Ghislaine Maxwell after she was arrested in July 2020, fearing she would reveal details of his decades-long friendship with Epstein, according to Trump biographer Michael Wolff. In July 2022, Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison.“Jeffrey Epstein’s closest relationship in life was with Donald Trump…these were two guys joined at the hip for a good 15 years. They did everything together,” Wolff told host Joanna Coles on The Daily Beast Podcast. “And this is from sharing, pursuing women, hunting women, sharing at least one girlfriend for at least a year in this kind of rich-guy relationship with each other’s planes, to Epstein advising Trump on how to cheat on his taxes.”The legal anomalies, including the disappearance of massive amounts of evidence incriminating Epstein, saw Epstein avoid federal sex-trafficking charges in 2007, when his attorneys negotiated the secret plea deal with Acosta. He was able to plead guilty to lesser state charges of soliciting a minor for prostitution.The prominent men accused of engaging in Epstein’s carnival of pedophilia, including Epstein’s attorney Dershowitz, viciously threaten anyone who seeks to expose them. Dershowitz, for example, claims that an investigation which he has refused to make public, by the former FBI director Louis Freeh, proves he had never had sex with Epstein’s victim Virginia Giuffre, who was trafficked at 17 to Prince Andrew. Giuffre, one of the few victims to publicly take on her abusers, said she was “passed around like a platter of fruit” among Epstein and Maxwell’s friends, until at the age of 19 when she escaped. She “committed suicide” in April 2025. Dershowitz has sent repeated threats to Brown and her editors at The Miami Herald.Brown continues:[Dershowitz] kept referring to information that was contained in sealed documents. He accused the newspaper of not reporting “facts” that he said were in those sealed documents. The truth is, I tried to explain, newspapers just can’t write about things because Alan Dershowitz says they exist. We need to see them. We need to verify them. Then, because I said “show me the material,” he publicly accused me of committing a criminal act by asking him to produce documents that were under court seal.This is the way Dershowitz operates.What disturbs me the most about Dershowitz is the way that the media, with few exceptions, fails to critically challenge him. Journalists fact-checked Donald Trump and others in his administration almost every day, yet, for the most part, the media seems to give Dershowitz a pass on the Epstein story.In 2015, when Giuffre’s allegations first became public, Dershowitz went on every television program imaginable swearing, among other things, that Epstein’s plane logs would exonerate him. “How do you know that?” he was asked.He replied that he was never on Epstein’s plane during the time that Virginia was involved with Epstein.But if the media had checked, they could have learned that he was indeed a passenger on the plane during that time period, according to the logs.Then he testified, in a sworn deposition, that he never went on any plane trips without his wife. But he was listed on those passage manifests as traveling multiple times without his wife. During at least one trip, he was on the plane with a model named Tatiana.Epstein donated money to Harvard and was made a visiting fellow in Harvard’s Department of Psychology, although he had no academic qualifications in the field. He was given a key card and pass code, as well as an office in the building that housed Harvard’s Program for Evolutionary Dynamics. He referred to himself in his press releases as “Science Philanthropist Jeffrey Epstein,” “Education activist Jeffrey Epstein,” “Evolutionary Jeffrey Epstein,” “Science patron Jeffrey Epstein” and “Maverick hedge funder Jeffrey Epstein.”Epstein, replicating the pretensions and vacuity of the characters who were parodied in the “Dinner with Trimalchio” chapter of Satyricon, organized elaborate dinner gatherings for his billionaire friends, including Elon Musk, Salar Kamangar and Jeff Bezos. He dreamed up bizarre schemes of social engineering, including a plan to seed the human species with his own DNA by creating a baby compound at his sprawling ranch in New Mexico.“Epstein was also obsessed with cryonics, the transhumanist philosophy whose followers believe that people can be replicated or brought back to life after they are frozen,” Brown writes. “Epstein apparently told some of the members of his scientific circle that he wanted to inseminate women with his sperm for them to give birth to his babies, and that he wanted his head and his penis frozen.”The Epstein story is a window into the moral bankruptcy, hedonism and greed of the ruling class. This crosses political lines. It is the common denominator between Democratic politicians, such as Bill Clinton, philanthropists, such as Bill Gates, the billionaire class, and Trump. They are one class of predators and grifters. It is not only girls and women they exploit, but all of us.Thanks for reading The Chris Hedges Report! This post is public so feel free to share it.PhotosChris HedgesChris Hedges, a former Pulitzer Prize winning foreign correspondent for the New York Times and best selling author of 'Empire of Illusion', stands next to a window for a portrait, Princeton, NJ, November 2010. Hedges is also the author of 'Death of the Liberal Class' and is a columnist for Truthdig. (Photo by Oliver Morris/Getty Images)Donald TrumpDonald Trump (L), owner of the New Jersey Generals, of the U.S. Football League, said 10/18 his league’s $1.32 billion antitrust suit against the national Football League will crack “one of the great monopolies in the is country.” At right is his attorney Roy Cohn.Robert MaxwellBritish media proprietor Robert Maxwell (1923 - 1991), UK, 21st November 1973. (Photo by Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)"Chinese Box" ScreeningGhislaine Maxwell attends "Chinese Box" Screening at the Paris Theater in New York City on November 22, 1997. (Photo by Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images)Bob Woolmer Death Investigation ContinuesKINGSTON, JAMAICA - MARCH 27: A CCTV camera operates in the Pegasus Hotel in Jamaica where Pakistan Coach Bob Woolmer was found dead a week ago, March 27, 2007 in Kingston, Jamaica. A murder investigation is now under way into the death of Bob Woolmer after the post-mortem results proved that Bob Woolmer's death was due to asphyxia as a result of manual strangulation. (Photo by Clive Rose/Getty Images)Messy Retro Desk - stock photoIntentionally aged wide angle photo of a cluttered desk with old monitor. High dynamic range photo. (by DaveLongMedia)Dr. Michael Baden Testifying(Original Caption) WASHINGTON: Dr. Michael Baden, chief medical examiner of New York City, uses drawing during testimony before the House Assassination Committee 9/7 on the shooting of President Kennedy demonstrating the path of the bullet through Kennedy's head.Bust of Claudius(Original Caption) Claudius, Roman Emperor. 41-54 A. D.Bust Of Roman Emperor Nero(Original Caption) Bust of the Roman Emperor Nero (37-68 A.D.). The bust is in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence. Undated.CPJ's 29th Annual International Press Freedom AwardsNEW YORK, NEW YORK - NOVEMBER 21: Julie K. Brown speaks onstage at the Committee to Protect Journalists' 29th Annual International Press Freedom Awards on November 21, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images)President Donald Trump Departs White House For Midwest TripWASHINGTON, DC - JULY 12: Labor Secretary Alex Acosta stands with U.S. President Donald Trump while announcing his resignation to the media at the White House on July 12, 2019 in Washington, DC. Acosta has been under fire for his role in the Jeffrey Epstein plea deal over a decade ago when he was a U.S. Attorney in Florida. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)Author Michael Wolff Discusses His Controversial New Book On Trump AdministrationPHILADELPHIA, PA - JANUARY 16: Author Michael Wolff discusses his controversial book on the Trump administration titled "Fire and Fury" on January 16, 2018 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Trump's lawyer had previously sent a cease-and-desist letter to the author and publisher of the book claiming that it was defamatory and libelous and should not be published or distributed. (Photo by Jessica Kourkounis/Getty Images)Ghislaine MaxwellTenerife, Mort du magnat et homme politique britannique Robert Maxwell. Ici, sa fille Ghislaine Maxwell sur le yacht de son père "Le Lady Ghislaine". Elle sera, au début des années 2000, la compagne de l'homme d'affaires Jeffrey Epstein (Photo by Mathieu Polak/Sygma/Sygma via Getty Images)Trump, Knauss, Epstein, & Maxwell At Mar-A-LagoFrom left, American real estate developer Donald Trump and his girlfriend (and future wife), former model Melania Knauss, financier (and future convicted sex offender) Jeffrey Epstein, and British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell pose together at the Mar-a-Lago club, Palm Beach, Florida, February 12, 2000. (Photo by Davidoff Studios/Getty Images)Senate Impeachment Trial Of President Trump ContinuesWASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 29: Attorney Alan Dershowitz, a member of President Donald Trump's legal team, speaks to the press in the Senate Reception Room during the Senate impeachment trial at the U.S. Capitol on January 29, 2020 in Washington, DC. Wednesday begins the question-and-answer phase of the impeachment trial that will last up to 16 hours over the next two days. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)Donald Trump Holds Campaign Rally At Madison Square Garden In NYCNEW YORK, NEW YORK - OCTOBER 27: Tesla and X CEO Elon Musk raises his hands as he takes the stage during a campaign rally for Republican presidential nominee, former U.S. President Donald Trump, at Madison Square Garden on October 27, 2024 in New York City. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)International Center For Journalists 2012 Awards DinnerWASHINGTON, DC - NOVEMBER 13: Salar Kamangar poses for a photo during the International Center for Journalists 2012 Awards dinner at the Ronald Reagan Building on November 13, 2012 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Kris Connor/Getty Images)British PM Boris Johnson Meets With Amazon Founder Jeff BezosNEW YORK, NEW YORK - SEPTEMBER 20: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos arrives for his meeting with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson at the UK diplomatic residence on September 20, 2021 in New York City. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images) This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit chrishedges.substack.com/subscribe

War Deja Vu - Read by Eunice Wong

This article is read by Eunice Wong, a Juilliard-trained actor, featured on Audible's list of Best Women Narrators. Her work is on the annual Best Audiobooks lists of the New York Times, Audible, AudioFile, & Library Journal. www.eunicewong.actorText originally published June 19, 2025Full text: There are few differences between the lies told to ignite the war with Iraq and the lies told to ignite a war with Iran. The assessments of our intelligence agencies and international bodies are, as they were during the calls to invade Iraq, airily dismissed for hallucinations.All the old tropes have been resurrected to entice us into another military fiasco. A country that poses no threat to us, or to its neighbors, is on the verge of acquiring a Weapon of Mass Destruction (WMD) that imperils our existence. The country and its leaders embody pure evil. Freedom and democracy are at stake. If we do not act now the next smoking gun will be a mushroom cloud. Our military superiority assures victory. We are the saviors of the world. Massive bombing, an updated version of Shock and Awe, will bring peace and harmony.We heard these canards leading up to the 2003 war in Iraq. Twenty-two years later they have been resurrected. Anyone who advocates for negotiations, for diplomacy and peace, is a stooge for terrorists.Did we learn any lessons from the fiascos in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria, not to mention Ukraine?All the ghouls who sold us these past wars on false pretenses, such as conservative talk show host Mark Levin, Max Boot — who writes, “that strategic imperative argues for bombing Fordow,” where Iran’s nuclear enrichment program is buried underground — David Frum, John Bolton, Gen. Jack Keane, Newt Gingrich, Sean Hannity and Thomas Friedman, have returned to saturate the airwaves with breathless fearmongering.Never mind that their grand plan to topple the Taliban in Afghanistan and then invade and replace the regimes in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Libya, Sudan, Somalia — and finally in Iran — blew up in their faces. Never mind that their lust for war left hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions dead and drained trillions from the U.S. Treasury. Never mind the sheer idiocy of their arguments. Their megaphones are secure. They are dutiful shills for the war industry, brain dead neoconservatives and genocidal Zionists, who believe in the magical regeneration of the world through violence, ignoring catastrophe after catastrophe.Forget the intelligence community’s Annual Threat Assessment that “Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme leader Khomeini has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003,” something reiterated by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi this week. Forget that Benjamin Netanyahu, for almost three decades, has been breathlessly warning that Iran is on the cusp of producing a nuclear weapon. Forget that the preemptive attack on Iran by Israel is a war crime, not to mention the bombings of a hospital, ambulance and journalists. Forget the hundreds of Iranian civilians Israel has slaughtered in its waves of airstrikes. Forget that Israel launched its attack on Iran as the sixth round of negotiations on nuclear enrichment between the U.S. and Iran were set to take place in Oman. Forget that it is the Israeli prime minister, not the leader of Iran, who is subject to an arrest warrant, accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Forget that Israel, in the midst of carrying out a campaign of genocide against the Palestinians, possesses at least 90 nuclear weapons — built in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) — and blocks inspections by the IAEA. Forget that Donald Trump ripped up the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2018, an agreement to limit Iran’s nuclear program, which Iran was abiding by. Forget that Washington and London orchestrated the 1953 coup to topple Iran’s democratically elected government, the first in the region, and installed the compliant Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi into power. Forget that the U.S., along with Israel, trained and equipped the SAVAK, the Shah’s savage secret police.Bomb! Bomb! Bomb!Iran’s purported nuclear weapons program is the evidence-free equivalent of Saddam Hussein’s mythical WMDs and alliance with Al-Qaeda.The invasion and occupation of Iraq, which led to the deaths of over 4,000 U.S. soldiers and Marines and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians, resulted in widespread destruction, regional instability and gave birth to a range of fanatical extremist groups, including the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The assurances — that our invasion would implant democracy in Baghdad, which would emanate outwards across the Middle East, that we would be greeted as liberators and that the oil revenues would pay for the reconstruction — were a fantasy dreamed up by the George W. Bush administration and Washington think tanks. These shills for endless war do not grasp the mechanism or the consequences of war. They are culturally, historically, and linguistically illiterate about the countries they attack. Iraq. Afghanistan. Libya. Syria. Iran. I doubt they can tell the difference.These cheerleaders of war, once they are proven wrong, are adept at issuing mea culpas. They assure us of their good intentions. They did not mean to peddle disinformation. They only wanted to keep the world safe from “evildoers” and protect our national security. No one, even those within the Bush and now Trump administrations, are intentionally dishonest. It is not their fault if they act on flawed intelligence. The problem is one of judgment, not virtue. They are good people.But this, perhaps, is the biggest lie. The intelligence assessments used to justify the war against Iraq were cooked up by a cabal of lunatic neoconservatives and rabid Zionists because they did not like the assessments of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and other intelligence agencies. Now another cabal, dominated by Israel-firsters, is concocting bogus intelligence assessments to justify a war with Iran. These wars are not prosecuted in good faith. They are not based on a careful and rational assessment of verifiable intelligence. They are utopian visions severed from reality where our own intelligence agencies are ignored along with international bodies such as the United Nations, WMD inspectors or the IAEA.The history of modern Iran is the history of a people battling tyrants propped up and funded by Western powers. The brutal crushing of legitimate democratic movements over the decades resulted in the 1979 revolution that brought the Iranian clerics to power. The new Islamic government of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini championed Islam and argued for standing up to “arrogant” world powers and their regional allies, who would oppress others – including Palestinians – to serve their own interests.“The central story of Iran over the last 200 years has been national humiliation at the hands of foreign powers who have subjugated and looted the country,” Stephen Kinzer, the author of “All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror,” told me. “For a long time the perpetrators were the British and Russians. Beginning in 1953, the United States began taking over that role. In that year, the American and British secret services overthrew an elected government, wiped away Iranian democracy, and set the country on the path to dictatorship.”“Then, in the 1980s, the U.S. sided with Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq war, providing him with military equipment and intelligence that helped make it possible for his army to kill hundreds of thousands of Iranians,” Kinzer said. “Given this history, the moral credibility of the U.S. to pose as a promoter of democracy in Iran is close to nil.”You can see an interview I did with Kinzer about Iran here.How would we react if Iran orchestrated a coup in the U.S. to replace an elected government with a brutal dictator, who for decades persecuted, assassinated and imprisoned democracy activists? How would we react if Iran armed and funded a neighboring state, as we did during the eight year war with Iraq, to wage war against us? How would we react if Iran shot down one of our passenger jets as did the USS Vincennes (CG49) — caustically nicknamed the “Robocruiser” by the crews of other American vessels — when in July 1988 it fired missiles at a commerical aircraft filled with Iranian civilians, killing all 290 passengers, including 66 children? How would we react if Iranian intelligence services sponsored terrorism within the U.S., as our and Israel’s intelligence services do in Iran? How would we react if these state-sponsored terrorist attacks included suicide bombings, kidnappings, beheadings, sabotage and “targeted assassinations,” of government officials, scientists and other Iranian leaders? How would we react if, like Israel, a country attacked us based on a hypothesis, an attack that is illegal under the U.N. charter, which forbids preemptive war?The pimps of war who orchestrate these military fiascos have risen once again from the crypt. They migrate like zombies from administration to administration. They are ensconced in think tanks — Project for the New American Century, American Enterprise Institute, Foreign Policy Research Initiative, The Atlantic Council and The Brookings Institution — funded by corporations, the Israel lobby and the war industry. They are puppets jerked up and down by their masters, given megaphones by a bankrupt media, urging us forward from one quagmire to the next.The old faces and the old lies are back, exhorting us into another nightmare.The Chris Hedges Report is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Thanks for reading The Chris Hedges Report! This post is public so feel free to share it.Photos TOPSHOT-UN-SECURITY COUNCIL-POWELL VIAL 2TOPSHOT - US Secretary of State Colin Powell holds up a vial that he said was the size that could be used to hold anthrax as he addresses the United Nations Security Council 5 February, 2003 at the UN in New York. (Photo by Timothy A. CLARY / AFP) (Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images)Iranian Supreme Leader Ali KhameneiTEHRAN, IRAN - MAY 10: (----EDITORIAL USE ONLY MANDATORY CREDIT - 'IRANIAN LEADER PRESS OFFICE / HANDOUT' - NO MARKETING NO ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS - DISTRIBUTED AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS----) Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamanei attends an event in Tehran, Iran on May 10, 2025. (Photo by IRANIAN LEADER PRESS OFFICE/Anadolu via Getty Images)Baghdad Under SiegeBAGHDAD, IRAQ - MARCH 21: (USA and Canada SALES ONLY) Fires rage on the west bank of the Tigris river on March 21, 2003 in Baghdad, Iraq as hostilities between U.S. led Coalition forces and the Iraqi Regime continue. (Photo by Mirrorpix/Getty Images) GETTY IMAGES HAS EXCLUSIVE RIGHTS TO THIS IMAGE IN NORTH AMERICARadio Hall Of Fame 2018 Induction CeremonyNEW YORK, NY - NOVEMBER 15: Inductee Mark Levin speaks on stage during Radio Hall Of Fame 2018 Induction Ceremony at Guastavino's on November 15, 2018 in New York City. (Photo by Michael Kovac/Getty Images for Radio Hall of Fame )Max Boot at the 2024 Library of Congress National Book Festival on August 24, 2024https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Max_Boot_at_the_2024_Library_of_Congress_National_Book_Festival_on_August_24,_2024_(cropped).jpgPoliticon 2017 - Day 1David Frum speaks during Politicon at the Pasadena Convention Center in Pasadena, California on July 29, 2017. Politicon is a bipartisan convention that mixes politics, comedy and entertainment. (Photo by: Ronen Tivony) (Photo by Ronen Tivony/NurPhoto via Getty Images)John Bolton Joins NCRI-US Conference Examining Iran's Nuclear AgendaWASHINGTON, DC - AUGUST 17: Former National Security Adviser John Bolton speaks at a panel hosted by the National Council of Resistance of Iran – U.S. Representative Office (NCRI-US) at the Willard InterContinental Hotel on August 17, 2022 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)House Homeland Security and Foreign Affairs Committee Hearing on TerrorismUNITED STATES - NOVEMBER 18 - Ret. Gen. Jack Keane, Chairman of the Board of the Institute for the Study of War, listens during a House Homeland Security and Foreign Affairs Committee joint hearing on "on examining the rise of radicalism, growing terrorist sanctuaries, and the threat to the U.S. homeland," on Capitol Hill, in Washington, Wednesday, November 18, 2015. (Photo By Al Drago/CQ Roll Call)Newt Gingrich Speaking to PressHouse Speaker Newt Gingrich speaks to the press about term limits at the U.S. Capitol. (Photo by © Wally McNamee/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)Gov. Ron DeSantis Visits "Hannity"NEW YORK, NEW YORK - SEPTEMBER 13: Sean Hannity host a live taping of Hannity at Fox News Channel Studios on September 13, 2023 in New York City. (Photo by Steven Ferdman/Getty Images)"Women In The World: Stories And Solutions" Summit - Day 2NEW YORK - MARCH 13: Thomas L. Friedman attends day 2 of the "Women In The World: Stories and Solutions" Summit at Hudson Theatre on March 13, 2010 in New York City. (Photo by Marc Bryan-Brown/WireImage)Intelligence Chiefs Testify To House Select Committee On IntelligenceWASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 26: Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard testifies during an annual worldwide threats assessment hearing at the Longworth House Office Building on March 26, 2025 in Washington, DC. The hearing held by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence addressed top aides inadvertently including Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief for The Atlantic magazine, on a high level Trump administration Signal group chat discussing plans to bomb Houthi targets in Yemen. (Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)International Atomic Energy Agency Holds Annual Board MeetingVIENNA, AUSTRIA - SEPTEMBER 11: Rafael Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, arrives for a meeting of the Board of Governors at IAEA headquarters on September 11, 2023 in Vienna, Austria. (Photo by Thomas Kronsteiner/Getty Images)Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Front)WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 10: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Front) addresses the joint session of US Congress as the Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R) and US Vice President Al Gore (L) listen 10 July at the Capitol in Washington DC. Netanyahu called on Europe and Asia to join efforts to isolate Iran and Iraq and prevent them from developing nuclear capabilities that he warned would bring catastrophe. AFP Photo Travis HEYING A (Photo credit should read Travis HEYING/AFP via Getty Images)Israel Holds Successful Test Of Arrow Anti-Missile MissileISRAEL - DECEMBER 2: In this photo released by Israel Aircraft Industries, an Arrow II anti-missile missile is successfully launched December 2, 2005 from an unnamed military base in central Israel. (Photo by IAI via Getty Images)TOPSHOT-IRAQ-UNRESTTOPSHOT - Military helicopters fly over the Green Zone area in Baghdad following a loud explosion early on October 18, 2010. Violence in Iraq has plunged dramatically since its peak in 2006-2007 but casualties from insurgent and military action still remain part of daily life. AFP PHOTO / SABAH ARAR (Photo by SABAH ARAR / AFP) (Photo by SABAH ARAR/AFP via Getty Images)Islamic State/Iraq/Syria: A masked Islamic State soldier poses holding the ISIL banner somewhere in the deserts of Iraq or Syria. ISIL publicity image, 2015Islamic State/Iraq/Syria: A masked Islamic State soldier poses holding the ISIL banner somewhere in the deserts of Iraq or Syria. ISIL publicity image, 2015. (Photo by: Pictures from History/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)Rumsfeld, Libby And CheneyWASHINGTON, UNITED STATES - SEPTEMBER 5:Vice President Dick Cheney (left) with Chief of Staff to the Vice President, Scooter Libby (centre), and Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, outside the Pentagon briefing room September 5, 2002 in Washington, DC. (Photo by David Hume Kennerly/Getty Images)Tehran MarchDemonstrators guided by clergymen in Tehran, during the Iranian Revolution, 19th January 1979. As many as 17 million people up and down the country marched peacefully to demand the removal of the Shah and the return of Ayatollah Khomeini. (Photo by Kaveh Kazemi/Getty Images)IRAN-POLITICS-REVOLUTION-ANNIVERSARYThis handout picture provided by the office of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei shows him praying inside the tomb of the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in Tehran on January 30, 2025, ahead of the 46th anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. (Photo by KHAMENEI.IR / AFP via Getty Images)Exiled Shah Reads Telegram(Original Caption) 8/22/1953-Rome, Italy- Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi is flanked by reporters, as he reads a telegram urging him to return to Tehran. After five days in exile in Rome, the ruler of Iran was notified that Mossadegh's coup was thwarted and that it was safe to return.IRAN-COUP D'ETAT-MONARCHISTESDes manifestants monarchistes qui viennent d'incendier un journal gouvernemental, défilent sur l'Avenue Chah Abbas en plein centre de Téhéran le 26 août 1953. Le Shah d'Iran est rentré d'Italie le 22 août, où il était en exil, après la réussite du coup d'Etat pour restaurer la monarchie. (Photo by - / INTERCONTINENTALE / AFP) (Photo by -/INTERCONTINENTALE/AFP via Getty Images)Saddam Hussein with Soldiers in North IraqIraqi leader Saddam Hussein visits soldiers in northern Iraq. (Photo by Jacques Pavlovsky/Sygma via Getty Images)USS Vincenneshttps://www.history.navy.mil/about-us/leadership/director/directors-corner/h-grams/h-gram-020/h-020-1-uss-vincennes-tragedy--.html This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit chrishedges.substack.com/subscribe