US troops were told war on Iran was ‘all part of God’s divine plan’, watchdog alleges
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/03/us-israel-iran-war-christian-rhetoric
Religious freedom group says 200 troops sent complaints of superiors using extremist Christian rhetoric to justify war
US military commanders have been invoking extremist Christian rhetoric about biblical “end times” to justify involvement in the Iran war to troops, according to complaints made to a watchdog group.
The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) says it has received more than 200 complaints from service members across all branches of the armed forces, including the marines, air force and space force.
One complainant, identified as a noncommissioned officer (NCO) in a unit that could be deployed “at any moment to join” operations against Iran, told MRFF in a complaint viewed by the Guardian that their commander had “urged us to tell our troops that this was ‘all part of God’s divine plan’ and he specifically referenced numerous citations out of the Book of Revelation referring to Armageddon and the imminent return of Jesus Christ”.
“He said that ‘President Trump has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth’”, the NCO added.
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/03/us-israel-iran-war-christian-rhetoric
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Experts Worldwide Agree: US-Israel Attack on Iran a Clear Violation of International Law
Original article by Brad Reed republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
“Before more children are burned alive or buried under rubble, this lawless war must end.”
Experts on international law throughout the world have concluded that the unprovoked US-Israeli attack on Iran that began on Saturday is illegal.
Adil Ahmad Haque, a Rutgers Law School professor, wrote an analysis for Just Security published on Monday that called the attacks by the US and Israel a “manifest violation of the United Nations Charter,” which “prohibits the use of force against another State unless that use of force is authorized by the UN Security Council or is a necessary and proportionate act of individual or collective self-defense in response to an armed attack.”
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Haque also argued that Iran, in responding to the attacks, violated the UN Charter by launching drone strikes against US allies throughout the Middle East, even though none of those nations had taken part in the US-Israeli operations.
“The United States, Israel, and Iran, have each violated international law,” Haque concluded. “Hundreds of civilians have paid the price. Before more children are burned alive or buried under rubble, this lawless war must end.”
Marko Milanovic, a University of Reading School of Law professor, wrote at the blog of the European Journal of International Law that the US-Israeli strikes are “manifestly illegal” and “as plain a violation of the prohibition on the use of force in Article 2(4) of the UN Charter as one could possibly have.”
Milanovic also said that, leaving legality aside, the war would likely create a humanitarian disaster.
“Maybe, maybe, something good will come out of this… although I very much doubt it,” he wrote. “It is far more likely that many innocent people are about to die, in Iran and possibly in Israel, and that their deaths will be for nothing.”
The Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) condemned the attacks on Iran as illegal under international law and dismissed any claims by US and Israel that they were necessary to liberate Iranians from a tyrannical government.
“Claims that launching an unprovoked and illegal attack is about defending human rights ring hollow,” CIEL wrote, “when military strikes have already killed hundreds of civilians and intensified suffering as violence escalates—particularly when those same human rights are flagrantly violated by the US and by Israel, both domestically and abroad. Bombs do not yield peace, democracy, climate justice, or human rights.”
Amnesty International secretary general Agnès Callamard described the US-Israeli attack as “a grave threat to multilateralism and to the integrity of the international legal order.”
Callamard also said the international community needed “to intensify diplomatic efforts to prevent further military escalation to avert additional civilian harm, and halt any further crimes under international law against populations who have already endured decades of repression.”
Human rights organization DAWN demanded that the UN General Assembly call an emergency session to declare the Iran attack a violation of the UN Charter.
Omar Shakir, executive director of DAWN, said that the war is also illegal under the US Constitution, which states that the US Congress has the power to declare war.
“This war is patently illegal,” Shakir said, “and it must be stopped.”
Original article by Brad Reed republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
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- ‘Shameless’: Critics Hammer Pete Hegseth for Claiming ‘We Didn’t Start’ War on Iran ›
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Corbyn Accuses Starmer Government of ‘Echoing Tony Blair’s Obedience to Washington’
Original article by Stephen Prager republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
“Blair dragged the UK into an illegal war that triggered a spiral of hatred, conflict, and misery,” Corbyn said. “Twenty-three years later, another Labour prime minister is doing his best to follow in Blair’s footsteps.”
As UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer allows British bases to be used as part of the US-Israeli war against Iran, the former leader of his Labour Party says he’s making the same mistake that another Labour PM made 23 years ago.
Jeremy Corbyn, the socialist member of Parliament who led Labour from 2015 to 2020, said on Tuesday that Starmer was “echoing Tony Blair’s obedience to Washington”, referring to the then-prime minister’s decision in 2003 to join US President George W. Bush’s war in Iraq.
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“Ignoring the wisdom of ordinary people who could see the catastrophe ahead, Blair dragged the UK into an illegal war that triggered a spiral of hatred, conflict, and misery. More than a million Iraqi men, women, and children paid the price.” Corbyn wrote in a Tuesday piece for the democratic socialist publication Tribune.
Infamously pledging to Bush, “I will be with you, whatever,” Blair helped to promote the false claims that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. And despite a lack of support from the United Nations, he joined Bush’s “coalition of the willing,” committing 46,000 British troops to the war.
“This was the last time a Labour prime minister blindly backed the wishes of the US and its warmongering president,” Corbyn said. “Twenty-three years later, another Labour prime minister is doing his best to follow in Blair’s footsteps and drag us into a catastrophic, illegal war.”
Unlike Bush, US President Donald Trump has not yet put boots on the ground in Iran, instead waging a destructive campaign of aerial bombings and missile strikes that have taken out the nation’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and other senior Iranian officials.
As of Monday, the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), a US-based monitor of human rights in Iran, reported that at least 742 civilians had been killed since Saturday by US and Israeli attacks, with nearly 1,000 injured and more than 600 deaths still under review.
While Starmer has stressed that the UK “had no role” in launching the war, he has lent credence to the questionable case the US and Israel have made to justify it, including emphasizing that Iran “must never have nuclear weapons.”
Iran has always contended its nuclear program was not for military purposes, and it had no desire to produce a nuclear weapon. Prior to Saturday’s strikes, reports indicated that Iranian negotiators had offered to give up the nation’s entire stockpile of enriched uranium.
And though he has accused Iran of launching “indiscriminate strikes” across the Gulf, Starmer has been reticent to criticize similar actions by the US and Israel, which have had vastly larger death tolls, including the bombing of a girls’ school that reportedly killed 165 people, most of them girls between ages 7 and 12, and attacks on several hospitals.
One day after the first strikes were conducted, and following mounting pressure from Trump, Starmer announced that he’d given the US approval for “specific, limited defensive” use of three Royal Air Force (RAF) bases—Fairford in England, Akrotiri in Cyprus, and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean—in order to destroy Iran’s missiles “at source” after a drone hit Akrotiri, causing minimal damage.
However, Starmer continued to claim that the UK had learned the “mistakes of Iraq,” and “will not join offensive action now.”
Corbyn said that Starmer’s insistence that bases would only be used “defensively” was merely “meaningless vocabulary that reveals Starmer’s contempt for the intelligence of the British people.”
In Parliament on Monday, Starmer said that “the use of the bases is to allow the US to use its ability to take out the ability of Iran to launch the attacks in the first place.”
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday used similar reasoning to justify launching the war, explaining that Iran was likely to retaliate against a planned Israeli attack and that it therefore posed an “imminent threat” to US personnel even though that threat was contingent on Israel attacking first.
Corbyn described the idea of a “preemptive strike” as a contradiction in terms. “Under this convoluted reasoning,” he said, “almost any attack on anybody can be classified as a defensive measure. Starmer’s words are Newspeak—and cannot shield his government from complicity in the devastation ahead.”
Like in the United States, the British public has expressed low support for American and Israeli actions against Iran. According to a YouGov poll published on Monday, 49% disapprove of US military action, compared to 28% who support it. Fewer than 1 in 5 Labour voters said they supported it.
Voters also said they oppose their government’s involvement. Compared with just 32% of Brits who said they supported letting the US use British bases, 50% said they opposed it.
“For too long, Britain has blindly followed the US as it indulges in disastrous imperial fantasies,” Corbyn said, noting the UK’s continued support for Israel over two years of US-sponsored genocide in Gaza.
Corbyn is now an independent MP who co-founded a new political party after being thrown out of Labour in 2020 over dubious accusations of antisemitism, which he has alleged stem from his strong criticism of Israel.
“It’s time to forge a different path. Now is not the time to try to rescue a ‘special relationship’ characterised by impunity, genocide, and war,” he said. “Now is the time to forge an independent foreign policy based on international law and peace.”
Original article by Stephen Prager republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
- ‘Unlike the United States,’ Says Security Chief, Iran ‘Has Prepared Itself for a Long War’ ›
- ‘Shameless’: Critics Hammer Pete Hegseth for Claiming ‘We Didn’t Start’ War on Iran ›
- ‘Cuba’s Next,’ Says Lindsey Graham as Illegal Trump-Israel War on Iran Kills Hundreds ›
- Trump Says Bombing of Iran to Continue ‘Uninterrupted’ After Reported Killing of Supreme Leader ›
- ‘Bombs Will Be Dropping Everywhere’: Trump Launches Illegal Regime Change War Against Iran ›
- Damning CNN Supercut Exposes GOP Doublespeak About Trump’s Iran War | Common Dreams ›