Ellie Chowns, Green Party MP for North Herefordshire. CC image Wikipedia.
Responding to recent international developments in the Middle East, Latin America and the Caribbean, Dr Ellie Chowns, leader of the Parliamentary Green Party, said:
“Just weeks ago we saw Trump and Netanyahu launch illegal strikes against Iran in the midst of ongoing negotiations, endangering countless civilian lives and dragging the entire surrounding region into chaos. Despite the clear human cost of this flagrant breach of international law, the UK Government did not condemn the initial attacks made by the US and Israel. On the contrary, Keir Starmer has continued to stress Britian’s allyship with these two nations – and in allowing the US to use UK military bases for ‘defensive’ action, has risked dragging the UK further into an illegal war.
“The US and Israel have continuously flouted international law with apparent impunity. Whether concerning Israel’s genocide in Gaza and illegal settlement expansion in the West Bank or the US’s unilateral attacks on Venezuela in the name of oil imperialism, the UK Government has refused to pursue appropriate action against these nations for breaching international law or to re-evaluate their status as allies to Britain.
“This permissiveness has not tempered the two countries. Following the strikes on Iran, Israel has expanded their ground campaign in Lebanon, displacing a million people throughout the country and seemingly preparing for prolonged occupation of southern Lebanon. Trump has intensified his threats against Cuba following the collapse of the island nation’s energy grid under a US-imposed oil blockade, declaring just yesterday that he believes he will ‘take’ the country and ‘could do anything [he] want[s] with it.’
“This cannot continue. The Green Party calls on the UK Government to make clear to Trump and Netanyahu the UK will not accept breaches of international law, to withdraw permission for the US to use UK military bases, and to refuse any further complicity in this illegal war. Furthermore, we reiterate our calls for the UK to halt all arms sales to and military cooperation with the Israeli Government, to drive independent investigations into war crimes committed and support justice mechanisms for victims, and to impose sanctions on government officials responsible for breaches of international law.”
Keir Starmer explains that UK is participating defensively in Trump and Israel’s criminal war for Israel’s genocidal expansion in Iran and states that he supports Zionism “without qualification”. Starmer said it here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.
Rescue workers carry a severely injured man after pulling him from the rubble following a strike in southern Tehran, Iran, March 13, 2026
GERMAN revolutionary socialist Karl Liebknecht, who was shot in the back by Freikorps forces in Berlin’s Tiergarten in January 1919, described imperialism and militarism as destructive forces acting as a “cyclone” and a “vampire.”
He stated: “Capitalism is war; socialism is peace.”
Today, Liebknecht’s words are prescient precisely because the cyclone of death and destruction displayed by US imperialism’s vampiric mission to suck up wealth around the world, from Venezuela to Iran, contrasts with the real achievements of socialist China, which has not been at war since 1979.
The permanent state of war extolled by Donald Trump’s grotesque demand to boost Pentagon spending by 150 per cent to $1.5 trillion to create his “dream military,” constitutes more military spending than the military budgets of China, Russia and Iran combined.
Yet with global stock markets inflated by vast quantities of fictitious capital, Trump’s militarist boasts assume a critical role in keeping share prices high.
In Europe too, militarism is the strategic choice of political elites. In November 2025, the EU introduced its Military Mobility Package for swift and efficient movement of military assets and personnel across borders through a “Military Schengen” — war without frontiers.
A year ago in March 2025, EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen announced “ReArm Europe” — subsequently rebranded as “Security Action for Europe” because “Safe” sounds much nicer — €800bn of EU military spending for war in Ukraine.
…
Despite the enthusiasm of generals, arms dealers and bourgeois politicians for cutting public education, healthcare, housing and civil infrastructure investment to pay for arms spending, no European government has yet succeeded in the wholesale switch of public spending from welfare to warfare necessary to satisfy their demands.
This weekend’s Stop the War Coalition conference in London is a welcome opportunity to reinforce the message that adorns the masthead of this newspaper, “For Peace and Socialism.”
The demand that increasingly unites trade unionists and peace campaigners across the world, is for welfare, not warfare.
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Protestors stand on an image depicting US President Donald Trump during a gathering to protest against the US and Israel attack of Iran and the killing of the Supreme leader in front of the US Embassy in Ankara on March 1, 2026. (Photo by Adem Altan/AFP via Getty Images)
“Trump’s illegal war on Iran and the rule of law,” said one pair of campaigners, “establish an intolerable pattern of egregious abuses of power, directly threatening our constitutional order, our safety, and our way of life.”
After the unprovoked bombing of Iran over the weekend by the United States and Israel—strikes that included the unlawful assassination of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Hosseini Khamenei—the call for US President Donald Trump to be impeached and removed from office has grown as the straightest path to hold the US leader to account for the attacks which policy and human rights experts have condemned as a serious war crime.
With a regional war in the Middle East that was already boiling from Gaza to Lebanon and from Syria to Yemen now exploding in the wake of the US-Israeli attacks on Iran, Globe and Mail columnist Debra Thompson on Sunday called Trump “the most dangerous man on the planet.”
“Rather than ending wars,” Thompson notes, “Trump has initiated military action eight times, carrying out attacks in seven countries (Syria, Iraq, Iran, Nigeria, Yemen, Somalia, and Venezuela) in 2025.” Such a pattern of violence and warmongering should make clear that failure to restrain Trump has only emboldened him.
“The recurring danger in this latest presidential aggression is that there are no guardrails, no constraints, and no post-hoc justification,” writes Thomson, “other than that Mr. Trump is the President of the United States and can do whatever he wants.”
But American presidents cannot simply do whatever they want. According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll out Sunday, less than 25% support the president’s aggression against Iran. In the first wave of the US military attack, an Iranian school for girls was bombed, killing over 108 civilians, mostly children.
While some congressional lawmakers are pushing for a vote this week on a War Powers Resolution to curtail US military operations against Iran, others are demanding more robust action from Congress to bring Trump’s war-making to an end.
Has any member of congress called for Trump to be impeached? If they claim he should have asked permission before starting a war but aren't committed to filing articles of impeachment they are engaging in political theater.
“Under Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, only Congress has the power to declare war, as well as to raise and support armies, provide and maintain a navy, and fund and regulate the military,” declared novelist and political activists Stephen King on Saturday. “Impeach the SOB.”
Mike Hersh and Alan Minsky, respectively the communications director and executive director of the Progressive Democrats of America, argued in a Sunday op-ed for Common Dreams that “Trump’s illegal, unconstitutional war on Iran is not only a moral and humanitarian disaster, but also a profound constitutional crisis.”
According to Hersh and Minsky:
Trump’s illegal war on Iran and the rule of law establish an intolerable pattern of egregious abuses of power, directly threatening our constitutional order, our safety, and our way of life. These intertwined crises cry out for an immediate, decisive response by the Congress and the US public.
Therefore, PDA demands that all members of Congress, Democrats, Republicans, and Independents alike, uphold their oath of office to defend our constitutional republic. The Constitution offers one and only one remedy when President a repeatedly breaks the law and arrogantly refuses to abide by the limits on the power clearly laid out in the Constitution. That remedy is impeachment, followed by removal from office.
Matt Duss, executive vice president for the Center for International Policy, said that US lawmakers, as well as the American people they represent, “must also be ready to hold the president and his administration accountable for this breach of US and international law.”
“The failure to hold past presidents liable for war crimes and related violations of our own laws has helped lead to this dangerous moment, with a seemingly unrestrained president endangering millions of lives with impunity,” warned Duss. “The forever wars and the imperial presidency must finally come to an end.”
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US President Donald Trump speaks to the press before he departs the White House in Washington, DC en route to Corpus Christi, Texas on February 27, 2026.(Photo by Celal Gunes/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“Trump ran on an explicitly anti-interventionist platform when he ran for president,” noted one critic. “He lied to the American people.”
As the world braces for a possible US war on Iran and people in Venezuela, Nigeria, and Yemen still reel from recent US attacks, President Donald Trump—the self-proclaimed “peace president” who has bombed more countries than any other American administration—said Friday that the United States may launch a “friendly takeover” of Cuba.
“The Cuban government is talking with us, they’re in a big deal of trouble, as you know,” Trump told reporters outside the White House before departing for Texas. “They have no money. They have no anything right now. But they’re talking to us, and maybe we’ll have a friendly takeover of Cuba.”
“We could very well end up having a friendly takeover of Cuba,” he added.
BREAKING: Trump floats a “friendly takeover” of Cuba while he pushes the U.S. closer to war in Iran. Trump ran on an explicitly anti-interventionist platform when he ran for president. He lied to the American people. pic.twitter.com/zs58bXb7Mw
— Trump Lie Tracker (Commentary Account) (@MAGALieTracker) February 27, 2026
Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío posted on social media Friday that “the US maintains its fuel embargo against Cuba in full force, and its impact as a form of collective punishment is unwavering.”
“Nothing announced in recent days changes this reality,” he added. “The possibility of conditional sales to the private sector already existed and does not alleviate the impact on the Cuban population.”
Trump’s comments sparked criticism on social media, with one X user writing: “A ‘friendly takeover’ is an interesting phrase in international diplomacy. If the US is discussing Cuba’s future, I’m sure [Russian President] Vladimir Putin is suddenly very interested in the definition of friendly’ too.”
University of North Texas, Dallas political science professor Orlando Pérez said on X that “more often than not, [Trump’s] mouth is his worst enemy.”
“This BS plays into the hands of hard-liners on both sides of the Florida Straits and reduces chances of a negotiated deal,” he added. “Why would anyone in Cuba agree to a deal that leads to a US ‘takeover’?”
Meanwhile, dozens of civil society groups on Friday sent a letter to Congress urging lawmakers “to press the Trump administration to reverse its aggressive policy towards Cuba.”
“Instead, Congress should call on the administration to expand humanitarian relief, support political and economic engagement, and foster a more vibrant private sector that can deliver a better quality of life for the Cuban people,” added the groups, which include Alianza Americas, American Friends Service Committee, CodePink, Demand Progress, Peace Action, Presbyterian Church USA, RootsAction, United Church of Christ, and Win Without War.
Trump’s remarks Friday came in response to a question from NBC News senior White House correspondent Gabe Gutierrez regarding Wednesday’s incident in which Cuban maritime defense forces killed four men and captured six others during a shootout with a Florida-registered speedboat allegedly carrying weapons intended for what Havana called “an infiltration for terrorist purposes.” South Florida has long been a base for right-wing Cuban exiles who have launched numerous terror attacks against the Cuban people and international tourists on the island, including by speedboat strafings.
Trump did not clarify his comments, seemingly suggesting that moves to topple Cuba’s socialist government—which has outlasted a dozen US presidents—could be freshly afoot. Since Cubans overthrew a brutal US-backed dictatorship in 1959, the United States or allied exile forces tried to assassinate former Cuban President Fidel Castro hundreds of times, backed an ill-fated invasion at Bay of Pigs, served as a base for perpetrators of some of the hemisphere’s worst terror attacks, and even hatched a plan to detonate a nuclear bomb high above the island to convince its people that the return of Jesus Christ was nigh and the only thing standing in the way of the so-called “Second Coming” was Castro.
A 64-year US economic embargo on Cuba, which Trump recently worsened by cutting off fuel, has been a leading force crippling Cuba’s economy and is now being blamed for a soaring infant mortality on the island.
Friday’s remarks by Trump came as Iranians and people across the Middle East and beyond are bracing for a possible US attack on Iran—the second in as many years—and less than than two months after the president ordered the bombing and invasion of Venezuela during an operation that ended with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro abducted and jailed in United States, where he is expected to face trial for dubious narco-trafficking charges.
If the US strikes Cuba, it will be the 11th country attacked during Trump’s two terms in office. The president—who says he deserves a Nobel Peace Prize—has ordered attacks on Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela, and Yemen, and has bombed dozens of boats allegedly transporting drugs in international waters in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean.
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Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi shakes hands with his Cuban counterpart, Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, in Beijing on February 5, 2026. (Photo by Lin Jian/X)
“China firmly supports Cuba in safeguarding national sovereignty and security and opposing external interference,” a Beijing spokesperson said.
As the Trump administration weaponizes its economic privation of the Cuban people in hopes of ousting their socialist government, China on Tuesday reaffirmed its pledge to help alleviate the island’s worsening oil shortage.
Emboldened by his recent abduction of socialist Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on legally dubious “narco-terrorism” charges, President Donald Trump is ratcheting up pressure on a people already ravaged by 64 years of what many critics call Washington’s “economic terrorism” and decades of actual terrorism committed by US-based right-wing Cuban exiles.
Cut off from the Venezuelan petroleum that provided around 75% of Cuba’s imported oil just a few years ago, the island is suffering a worsening energy emergency. The Cuban government has responded by strictly rationing fuel and seeking alternate sources of oil such as Mexico and, to a lesser extent, Russia.
“I would like to stress again that China firmly supports Cuba in safeguarding national sovereignty and security and opposing external interference,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said during a press conference.
“China stands firmly against the inhumane actions that deprive the Cuban people of their right to subsistence and development,” he added. “China will, as always, do our best to provide support and assistance to Cuba.”
As is usually the case when Washington tightens the screws on Cuba, everyday Cubans are suffering the most.
“You can’t imagine how it touches every part of our lives,” Marta Jiménez, a hairdresser in Cuba’s eastern city of Holguín, told CodePink co-founder and frequent Common Dreams opinion contributor Medea Benjamin, who traveled to Cuba last week with a group to deliver 2,500 pounds of lentils.
“It’s a vicious, all-encompassing spiral downward,” Jiménez continued. “With no gasoline, buses don’t run, so we can’t get to work. We have electricity only three to six hours a day. There’s no gas for cooking, so we’re burning wood and charcoal in our apartments. It’s like going back 100 years.”
“The blockade is suffocating us—especially single mothers,” she added, “and no one is stopping these demons, Trump and [Secretary of State] Marco Rubio.”
The United Nations General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly every year but once since 1992 to condemn the US blockade on Cuba. Last October, the UNGA voted 165-7 against the embargo, with 12 abstentions.
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Rescue workers carry a severely injured man after pulling him from the rubble following a strike in southern Tehran, Iran, March 13, 2026
