Trump Has Replaced International Law With the Rule That Might Makes Right

The only answer to Trump’s savage moves is resistance, the kind of resistance that is rising not only throughout the Global South but also in places such as Minnesota.


Women march with a sign depicting US President Donald Trump with bloodied hands in Tehran on February 11, 2026, during a rally marking the 47th anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution.
(Photo by AFP via Getty Images)

Walden Bello
Mar 15, 2026

Foreign Policy In Focus

In the second year of Donald Trump’s second term, beginning with the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on January 2, 2026, followed by the war of choice he has waged against Iran alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the US president has continued his demolition of the 80-year-old global order set up by Washington in the aftermath of the Second World War.

That dying regime is a structure of rules, practices, and policies maintaining the hegemony of the United States and the rest of the capitalist West that was promoted with the rhetoric of freedom, free trade, and democracy. In remarkably candid words, the gap between the reality of this so-called multilateral order and the ideology that justified it was captured by the leader of a country, Canada, whose elite benefited from it. In his speech in Davos on January 20, 2026, Prime Minister Mark Carney admitted:
For decades, countries like Canada prospered under what we called the rules-based international order. We joined its institutions, we praised its principles, we benefited from its predictability. And because of that, we could pursue values-based foreign policies under its protection.

We knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false, that the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient, that trade rules were enforced asymmetrically. And we knew that international law applied with varying rigor depending on the identity of the accused or the victim.

This fiction was useful, and American hegemony, in particular, helped provide public goods, open sea lanes, a stable financial system, collective security, and support for frameworks for resolving disputes.

So, we placed the sign in the window. We participated in the rituals, and we largely avoided calling out the gaps between rhetoric and reality.

The order Carney describes is over, with the hegemon replacing its rules and practices, already unfair to the Global South as they were, with the unilateral exercise of coercion and force, with no rules at all except the rule that might makes right. Perhaps the essence of the new order is best captured by the words of US Defense Secretary Peter Hegseth during the US-Israeli bombing of Teheran: “This was never meant to be a fair fight, and it is not a fair fight. We are punching them while they’re down, which is exactly how it should be.”

In the first three months of 2026, Trump has already succeeded in dismantling the political fictions of the old regime, among them the central principle of the United Nations that expressly prohibits “the threat of the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.” The kidnapping of Maduro and the assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei were the hegemon’s announcement to the world that no country is exempt from outright, brazen intervention should Trump see it fit to do so, and there would not even be the fig leaf of constructing a “Coalition of the Willing” to prettify it, as George W. Bush did prior to his invasion of Iraq in 2003. Nor were foreign territories belonging to close allies, such as Greenland, immune from annexation should Trump decide it is in the US national interest to grab them.

Despite denunciations and votes against its aggressive initiatives at the General Assembly, through its veto power at the Security Council and its threat to withhold its financial contributions to the organization’s budget, the United States has neutered the UN.

Transforming the Multilateral Economic Regime

But before dismantling the political-military fiction of the old regime, Trump assaulted its economic fiction in 2025. More accurately, he resumed the transformation of the multilateral economic order that he began during his first presidency, from 2017 to 2021. During that earlier period, he continued the policy of his predecessor, Barack Obama, of blocking appointments and reappointments to the Appellate Court of the World Trade Organization (WTO), effectively paralyzing the body. But even more brazenly, he declared a unilateral trade war against China, undermining the system of rules and conventions of global trade that the United States led in institutionalizing in 1994, with the founding of the WTO.

In 2025, Trump expanded what he did not hesitate to call his “trade wars” to some 90 other countries. Among them were 50 African countries, some of whom received some of the highest, most punitive tariff increases in the world, like Lesotho (50%), Madagascar (47%), Mauritius (40%), Botswana (37%), and South Africa (30%). There was little rhyme or reason to the rates imposed, though in the case of South Africa, it was partly as punishment for bringing Israel to the International Court of Justice for committing genocide in Gaza.

Trump’s rhetoric is aggressive, brazen, and full of bluster, but let’s not be fooled. His is a defensive imperialism, a fighting retreat.

Foreign aid as an instrument of US policy was a pillar of the old international regime. As Thomas Sankara, one of Africa’s foremost fighters for liberation, pithily observed, “He who feeds you controls you.” To please his far-right base, which did not see foreign aid as important for the maintenance of US hegemony and viewed it as a waste of resources, Trump in one of his first acts—undertaken with Elon Musk, the world’s richest individual—abolished the Agency for International Development (USAID). This move drew divergent responses from progressives and liberals. For some, this was a tragedy since USAID programs were allegedly funding important public health and reproductive health projects in the Global South. For others, it was no loss at all since most of the funds for these initiatives went to pay the US contractors delivering or managing them.

Despite their crowing about doing away with foreign aid, Trump and Musk did not make any move to dismantle or reduce the flow of US funds to the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and regional development banks through which the bulk of US money for dominating the Global South via “development assistance” or “structural adjustment” was funneled. Most likely, the rationale was to hold these so-called multilateral organizations in reserve for the aggressive exercise of American power via Washington’s controlling interest or veto power in these institutions should this become necessary in the future.

In the meantime, these institutions continue to maintain poverty-creating structural adjustment programs, especially in Africa, promote wrong-headed “export-led industrialization” efforts even as the United States imposes massive punitive tariffs on imports from the Global South, and block all efforts to solve the massive indebtedness of developing countries to the tune of over $11.4 trillion, which threatens a rerun of the Third World debt crisis of the early 1980s.

Washington’s Sphere of Influence: Regional or Global?

Last November, the Trump administration released National Security Strategy 2025, which announced that the United States would focus its military, political, and economic initiatives to making the Western Hemisphere the primary US sphere of influence. Even before the release of the memorandum, Trump had announced US plans to annex Greenland and the Panama Canal.

Moreover, the “Trump Corollary” to the old Monroe Doctrine made it clear that this would mean aggressively putting an end or countering the activities of non-regional actors such as China in the hemisphere. Shortly after the National Security Strategy went public, the kidnapping of Maduro made it clear that Washington would not hesitate to brazenly intervene in the affairs of any sovereign state in the region, in violation of the central founding principle of the United Nations.

However, with its joint assault with Israel against Iran beginning February 28, Trump appeared to be forcefully telling everyone that the United States was not departing from the old liberal containment paradigm’s perspective that the whole world was Washington’s sphere of influence, as NSS 2025 seemed to have implied. Although Trump’s volatile personality is a factor behind his shifting moves, it is becoming increasingly clear that so long as an operation does not involve sending in ground troops and relies mainly on air power or naval power, Trump is willing to use US military power anywhere in the world, as he has done not only in Iran but also in northern Nigeria, with his bombing of Islamist forces there on December 25, 2025, calculating that with few soldiers returning home in body bags, the US public could be easily pacified into accepting new foreign military engagements.

Trump and Israel

But also central in accounting for Trump’s moves is the strong influence of Israel, as evidenced not only by the joint US-Israeli assault on Iran but also his full support of Netanyahu’s genocidal campaign against the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank and his sponsorship of a US-led ethnic cleansing operation in Gaza via his deliberately misnamed “Board of Peace.”

A great majority of the people of the United States oppose the war on Iran. Even key figures in the MAGA Movement, such as Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson, and Marjorie Taylor Greene, have complained that Trump’s recent actions in Venezuela and the Middle East represent his going back on his electoral promise never to get the United States into another “forever war.” Indeed, Carlson has denounced the Iran operation as “Israel’s war,” in which the United States has no business being involved.

Perhaps there is no better explanation for Trump’s subservience to Netanyahu than that provided by a leading figure of the American far right: Curt Mills, executive director of the American Conservative. According to Mills, Trump is
not saying no to Israel because he is fundamentally too agreeable or because he’s fundamentally corrupted. He’s agreeable. He is too close to them politically. And I think, yeah, I think he’s somewhat afraid of them. Why is he afraid of them? I think they’re an intimidating society. And I think people are afraid of Mossad. I think people are afraid of Israeli influence in foreign policy, they are afraid what it can do to people’s careers.

Whatever the cause or causes of his allowing himself to be lured into a war on Iran, it is now clear that this misadventure is a massive miscalculation that might lead to some fractures in his base.

To place things in perspective, though, Israel’s overweening influence began way before Trump. The United States forced the creation of the European settler colony by the United Nations in 1947. Since then, like Frankenstein’s monster, the creature has gradually but surely come to control its creator through the powerful Zionist lobby in Washington, to the point that subservience to its wishes has become a central characteristic of both Democratic and Republican administrations.

Trump, the Global South, and the Crisis of Capital

Whatever might be his immediate motivations, Trump’s moves are mainly directed at people and countries in the Global South—Palestine, Nigeria, Venezuela, Iran, and Cuba—the last of which he has threatened to assault next or strangle into submission. There is a logic to this strategy since it is mainly the Global South that has shifted the balance of global power and created the crisis of US hegemony. Among the landmarks in this historic process have been the rise of China to becoming the second most powerful economy in the world; the massive defeats of US arms in Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan over the last 25 years; the rise of Iran as a regional power despite all the efforts of the United States and Israel to contain it; the ability of developing countries to stymie the WTO as an engine of trade liberalization; and the rise of the BRICS as a potential counterweight to the Western alliance.

Also central to the weakening of the hegemon has been the deepening crisis of the global capitalist regime of which Washington has been the global policeman, the key manifestations of which are the deindustrialization of the United State and Europe, the financialization of the leading capitalist economies where speculation rather than production has become the investment of choice, the astounding rise in global income and wealth inequality, and the sharpening contradiction between planetary survival and the ever more intensive drive for profits.

Trump’s regime of unilateralism is a savage world. But there is no going back to the old regime of US hegemony exercised through a multilateral order systematically biased against the Global South behind a façade of liberal democratic rhetoric.

Trump’s rhetoric is aggressive, brazen, and full of bluster, but let’s not be fooled. His is a defensive imperialism, a fighting retreat, a response to the overextension of American economic and political power and the comprehensive failure of capitalism to respond to the needs of humanity and the planet. The only answer to Trump’s savage moves is resistance, the kind of resistance that is rising not only throughout the Global South but also in places such as Minnesota, where people have rallied beyond race and ethnicity to form effective communities of solidarity to stop the brutal assault on migrant families.

The Italian thinker Antonio Gramsci had a saying related to the troubled 1930s that is also apt for our times: “The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born. Now is the time of monsters.” Trump’s regime of unilateralism is a savage world. But there is no going back to the old regime of US hegemony exercised through a multilateral order systematically biased against the Global South behind a façade of liberal democratic rhetoric. For the Global South, indeed, for all who are partisans of justice, peace, and planetary survival, there is no choice but to bravely meet the challenge of navigating the turbulent waters of this period of transition to get to the haven of a new global order that will serve the common interest of humanity and the planet, though there is no certainty regarding when or even if that arrival will come.


© 2023 Foreign Policy In Focus


Walden Bello
Walden Bello is the co-founder and current senior analyst of the Bangkok-based Focus on the Global South and the International Adjunct Professor of Sociology at the State University of New York at Binghamton. He received the Right Livelihood Award, also known as the Alternative Nobel Prize, in 2003, and was named Outstanding Public Scholar of the International Studies Association in 2008. His books include: "Counterrevolution: The Global Rise of the Far Right" (2019) and "Capitalism's Last Stand?: Deglobalization in the Age of Austerity" (2013).
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A Free Palestine Is the Key to Mid-East Peace

If true justice prevails in Palestine, it will inevitably prevail in Lebanon, in Syria, and beyond. The exhausted branding of the Middle East as a “war-torn region” will finally vanish.


A Free Palestine march is shown on December 16, 2023 In Eldorado Park, South Africa.
(Photo by Laird Forbes/Gallo Images via Getty Images)


Ramzy Baroud
Mar 15, 2026

Common Dreams

Let us imagine a liberated Palestine. Let us consider how justice for the Palestinian people would reshape not only the region but, indeed, the entire globe.

This is not a conversation about a “political solution” in the narrow, bureaucratic sense. Such solutions require no particular genius: True justice can only occur when the Palestinian people are granted the totality of their rights and the fulfillment of their political aspirations.

Equally true is the reality that no such justice can manifest so long as Israel remains committed to its current Zionist ideology—a framework predicated on racial supremacy and the systematic eradication of the Indigenous Palestinian Arab population. Once the shackles of this ideology are broken, the exact political mechanics become secondary; history suggests that the future would lean toward a shared coexistence rather than a continuation of the current segregation along ethnic lines.

To some, discussing a liberated Palestine now may appear slightly—though not entirely—removed from the current war ravaging the region. It is a war that, if not permanently halted, will continue to devastate the peoples of the Middle East, inviting further militarization, runaway defense spending, and cycles of violence. On the contrary, this is the most critical discussion we can have today.

A just peace will invite more than just the absence of war; it will invite opportunity, reconstruction, a collective regional rise, and—most importantly—the restoration of hope.

In his seminal documentary, the late Australian journalist and filmmaker John Pilger summed up the centrality of Palestine to the Middle East in these prescient words:
A historic injustice has been done to the Palestinian people, and until Israel’s illegal and brutal occupation ends, there will be no peace for anyone—Israelis included.

These are not mere words of posturing; they are an undeniable historical truth. Palestine has remained the beating heart of every Middle Eastern war and every persisting conflict. For Israel, the occupation has served as the linchpin for its military incursions across borders. For Palestine’s neighbors and allies, it remains the unhealed wound of a region historically unified by political, cultural, linguistic, and religious continuity.

Even during periods when Palestine was seemingly relegated to the periphery of regional diplomacy, Israel was keen to remind its neighbors that its designs were never limited to the Palestinians alone. Whether in historic Palestine or the Shatat (Diaspora), the Zionist project has always signaled broader ambitions.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has explicitly confirmed this expansionist intent, recently declaring that he is on a “historic and spiritual mission” to realize the vision of a “Greater Israel.” By openly connecting with a map that swallows Palestinian land and threatens the sovereignty of neighboring Arab states, he has made it clear that the erasure of Palestine is merely the first step in a much larger colonial design.

The current war confirms this centrality. Its origins, the ensuing political discourse, and the clashing visions of a “post-war” reality all pull Palestine back to the center of the global stage. To discuss Palestine as if it were an isolated issue—as some unfortunately do—is a profound historical mistake. Conversely, to discuss the future of the Middle East without centering Palestine is equally delusional.

Therefore, we must insist on the Palestinian discussion now more than ever. Once a just outcome to the Palestinian struggle is achieved, the positive shock waves will transform the region. Only then can we move from a state of perpetual warfare to a future rooted in genuine, collective liberation.

That said, do not expect a list of dry political recipes to follow. We already know, instinctively, what justice for Palestinians looks like. The freedom to live, to be treated with equality, to enjoy sovereignty, and to demand accountability and respect—these do not require exhaustive citations of international legal or humanitarian law. These are natural rights; they flow through us, individually and collectively, as surely as the blood in our veins.

The fact that Israel and its enablers refuse to respect international law, or to adhere to any common humanitarian principle, is no fault of the Palestinians or the other victims of Israeli aggression. The moral and legal burden must be shouldered entirely by those who have abused, disregarded, and dismantled the international legal order for far too long.

Today, the Palestinians—much like the people of Lebanon, Syria, and other nations across the region—are doing exactly what every oppressed nation must do: They are remaining steadfast. This Sumud is the key, now more than ever before. The ultimate outcome of this conflict will not be determined by lopsided death tolls or the sheer scale of structural destruction, but by the unyielding resilience of the people. History is a patient teacher; it tells us that if the rightful owners of the land hold their ground, they will eventually win.

Richard Falk, the former United Nations Special Rapporteur on Palestinian Human Rights and a prominent legal scholar, refers to this phenomenon as winning the “War of Legitimacy.” It is a war fought not with fighter jets, but with the moral clarity of those who refuse to disappear.

If true justice prevails in Palestine, it will inevitably prevail in Lebanon, in Syria, and beyond. The exhausted branding of the Middle East as a “war-torn region” will finally vanish. A just peace will invite more than just the absence of war; it will invite opportunity, reconstruction, a collective regional rise, and—most importantly—the restoration of hope.

This is not a desperate wish whispered in a time of darkness. It is the only way out.


Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.


Ramzy Baroud
Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of the Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of five books including: "These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons" (2019), "My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story" (2010) and "The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle" (2006). Dr. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA), Istanbul Zaim University (IZU). His website is www.ramzybaroud.net.
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 ZIONIST IMPERIALISM

Israel planning to invade southern Lebanon

Israel is preparing plans for a major ground offensive in southern Lebanon aimed at pushing Hezbollah north of the Litani River after a large-scale rocket attack on northern Israel escalated regional tensions. / bne IntelliNews

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By bne IntelliNews March 15, 2026

Israel is preparing plans for a large-scale ground offensive into southern Lebanon aimed at pushing the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah away from the border and dismantling its military infrastructure, according to US and Israeli officials cited by Axios and The Times of Israel.

The operation under discussion would seek to seize territory south of the Litani River, which runs across southern Lebanon and has long served as a strategic dividing line in previous conflicts between Israel and Hezbollah. Officials said the plan gained urgency after Hezbollah launched more than 200 rockets at northern Israel on March 12 in an attack that Israeli officials said was coordinated with Iranian missile strikes.

“We are going to do what we did in Gaza,” a senior Israeli official told Axios, referring to Israel’s campaign to destroy militant infrastructure. “The goal is to take over territory, push Hezbollah’s forces north and away from the border, and dismantle its military positions and weapons depots in the villages,” the official said.

The report comes as Israel has begun reinforcing its northern military command. The Israel Defence Forces said chief of staff Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir had ordered a “broad reinforcement” of troops in the Northern Command “as part of strengthening readiness for various offensive and defensive scenarios”.

According to the military, the deployment will include units from the standing army, including the 98th Division with two brigade-level combat teams and combat engineering battalions. Reserve forces from the 252nd Division are expected to deploy to Gaza to replace regular units being shifted north.

Israeli authorities have also urged thousands of civilians in parts of southern Lebanon to evacuate, signalling concern that hostilities could intensify in border areas where Hezbollah has built extensive networks of tunnels, weapons depots and fortified positions.

The prospect of a ground operation would revive memories of previous Israeli incursions into Lebanon. After the 1982 Israel-Lebanon war, Israel maintained a security zone in southern Lebanon for nearly two decades before withdrawing in 2000 following prolonged guerrilla warfare with Hezbollah and allied groups.

Under the ceasefire that followed fighting along the border after the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks, Lebanon committed to ensuring Hezbollah forces withdrew north of the Litani River, though Israeli officials have repeatedly said the measure was not fully implemented.

Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem said the group was prepared for a prolonged confrontation. “We have prepared ourselves for a long confrontation, and God willing, they (Israelis) will be surprised on the battlefield,” Qassem said in a televised address on March 14.

Lebanon was drawn more directly into the regional conflict after Hezbollah launched attacks on Israel following US and Israeli strikes that killed Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, widening a war that has increasingly involved multiple Iranian-backed groups across the region.

A humanitarian crisis is unfolding in Lebanon with over 850,000 – one in seven of the population - displaced since the outbreak of war in the region two weeks ago and a year since the last conflict uprooted over a million Lebanese from their homes.

The conflict between Hezbollah and Israel reignited on March 2 after it fired rockets on Israel provoking a harsh counter reaction. Most Lebanese were hoping Hezbollah would not respond to the attack on Iran. The government is using Lebanon’s largest sports stadium as a makeshift shelter to house the increasing numbers without accommodation.

The Israeli army has killed 103 children, and wounded 326 more kids, in Lebanon in the past 11 days. Israel killed 773 people overall, and wounded 1,933, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry.

Israel has invaded southern Lebanon on multiple occasions in the past:
 

1919: Chaim Weizmann: "the Litani was 'essential to the future of the Jewish national home'."

1941: Ben-Gurion & Moshe Dayan advocated Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon up to the Litani.

1948: During the war, Ben-Gurion thought the Litani should be Israel's northern border; Israel occupied Lebanese territory, withdrew to Ras al-Naqura line due to diplomatic pressure.

1950s: Prime Minister Moshe Sharett wrote in his diary that Moshe Dayan's plan for the control of the Litani River was to "'enter Lebanon … the territory south of the Litani will be annexed to Israel.'"

1978: the Israeli army invaded south Lebanon up to the Litani River. A UN resolution forced withdrawal back to the border.

1982: Israel re-invades Lebanon, occupies the territory south of the Litani River, besieges Beirut, slaughtering thousands of civilians. Facilitated Sabra and Shatila massacres

1982-2000: Israel occupies southern Lebanon south of the Litani River, giving rise to Hezbollah, founded in 1982 in response to the Israeli invasion and belligerent military occupation of Lebanon.

2006: Israel re-invaded Lebanon again, but suffered heavy losses m, failing to re-occupy it.

2024-present: On 1 October 2024, Israel invaded Southern Lebanon again, tried to occupy the south, but couldn't advance very far due to heavy resistance, so instead bombs & terrorizes the country on a daily basis since.

‘They Were All I Had’: Lebanese Father Buries Parents, 4 Daughters Killed by Israeli Bombing

One journalist said that “the massacres are multiplying” as IDF bombing kills hundreds of Lebanese and Palestinian civilians, and US-Israeli strikes kill and wound thousands of Iranians.


This Lebanese man—who was wounded in the same Israeli airstrike that killed his parents, four daughters, and other relatives—speaks to an Al Jazeera reporter on March 13, 2026.
(Photo by Al Jazeera screen grab)

Brett Wilkins
Mar 13, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

A grieving Lebanese father said he buried his parents, four young daughters, and other relatives on Friday after they were killed by an Israeli airstrike—one of many that have wiped out families in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran.

“I lost four of my children, four daughters, they were all I had,” the unidentified man—whose face and head were visibly injured from what he said was the same Israeli strike—told Al Jadeed TV, an independent Lebanese outlet. “Four daughters: Zainab, Zahraa, Maleeka, and Yasmine.”



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“And my mother and father,” he added. “Praise be to God. God’s greatness is abundant.”

According to Al Jazeera, the man’s brother-in-law and nephew were also killed in the strike.

“The Israeli enemy says every day that it is targeting infrastructure,” he told the Qatar-based news network. “Is this the infrastructure?”

It was a devastating scene repeated in other parts of Lebanon, including the south, were a distraught mother on Friday reportedly buried five sons killed by Israeli bombing, and in the Ghobeiry neighborhood of central Beirut earlier this week, when an Israeli airstrike destroyed the home of the Hamdan family, reportedly killing father Ahmad Hamdan, his three daughters, and two grandchildren. As of Tuesday, Hamdan’s wife was missing beneath the rubble of their bombed-out home.



As in Gaza—where officials say that more than 2,700 families have been erased from the civil registry during Israel’s ongoing genocide and around 6,000 other families have only a single surviving member—entire Lebanese families have been wiped out by Israeli strikes since October 2023.

In one such strike on the Maronite Christian village of Aitou in October 2024, members of four generations of one family were killed, with 22 victims ranging in age from a 4-month-old infant to a 95-year-old great-grandmother.



More than 800,000 Lebanese have also been forcibly displaced by Israel’s assault and attendant evacuation orders. On Friday, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), or Doctors Without Borders in English, issued a statement highlighting the war’s impact on families.

“We are seeing a similarity to what we saw in the past two and a half years in Gaza: broad evacuation orders, constant displacement of thousands of families, and systematic bombing on densely populated areas,” said MSF Lebanon coordinator Lou Cormack. “After 15 months of a fragile ceasefire that failed to stop the violence in Lebanon, families are once again trapped between fleeing or facing bombs.”

Israel says it is attacking Lebanon to stop Hezbollah rocket and other attacks, which have killed dozens of Israeli civilians and wounded even more.

Journalist Lylla Younes told Democracy Now! on Friday that “the massacres are multiplying” in Lebanon, pointing to an Israeli airstrike on a Sidon home that reportedly killed at least 8 people and wounded at least 9 others.

“We saw Syrian refugees, displaced, already killed; 7 killed in a massacre in Tamnin in the Beqaa Valley; a massive massacre in Nabi Chit, also in the Beqaa Valley, when the Israelis tried to do a nighttime incursion by helicopter,” Younes said.

Lebanon’s Health Ministry said Friday that an Israeli strike on a health center in Bourj Qalawayh, southern Lebanon killed 12 medics.



Lebanese officials said Friday that 773 people—including 103 children—have been killed by Israeli forces since March 2. This, in addition to Israel’s 2023-25 attacks on Lebanon that killed more than 4,000 people, including nearly 800 women and over 300 children.

In Iran, authorities said more than 1,300 civilians have been killed and over 10,000 others injured by US and Israeli bombing since February 28. More than 200 women and over 200 children have reportedly been killed.

Most of the 175 or more Iranians killed in a February 28 cruise missile strike on a girls’ school in Minab—an attack that was almost certainly carried out by the United States—were children, according to Iranian government and medical officials and international investigations.



Israeli attacks on Iran during last year’s 12-Day War also killed more than 1,000 Iranians, including 436 civilians, while Iranian counterstrikes killed 28 people in Israel.

In Gaza, 28 months of Israel’s assault—for which the country is facing a genocide case at the International Court of Justice and its prime minister is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity—have left more than 250,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing and around 2 million others forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened.

US-led wars in the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa have resulted in the deaths of more than 900,000 people—including over 400,000 civilians—since 2001, according to the Costs of War Project at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs.

Stories from families devastated by Israel’s war on Lebanon are as common as they are heartbreaking.



“I was sleeping when the Israeli jet bombed the area,” one Lebanese teenager told the independent outlet [comra]. “My father, my mother, my sister-in-law, and her children were killed.”

“I saw my father torn to pieces,” he added. “I wish I had died instead of seeing my father like that.”

NAKBA 2.0

Israeli Forces Kill Parents and 2 Children in West Bank, Beat Surviving Children

“Targeting an entire family in this savage manner reveals the true nature of the Israeli occupation and its policies based on killing and extermination, destruction and displacement,” the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.

Relatives bid farewell to Ali Khaled Bani Odeh, 37; his wife Waad Othman Bani Odeh, 35; and their two children, 5-year-old Mohammad and 7-year-old Othman, who were killed by Israeli occupation forces during a raid on the town of Tammun, south of Tubas, in the northern West Bank on March 15, 2026.
(Photo by Ayman Nobani/picture alliance via Getty Images)

Olivia Rosane
Mar 15, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

The Israeli Defense Forces killed a Palestinian couple and two of their children in the West Bank on Sunday, on one of the deadliest days for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank in weeks.

The soldiers opened fire on a car in the village of Tammun in which 37-year-old Ali Khaled Bani Odeh, his 35-year-old wife Waad, and their four sons Mohammad, Othman, Mustafa, and Khaled were traveling. Odeh, Waad, 5-year-old Mohammad, and 7-year-old Othman were shot in the head and died, leaving behind two injured children.

“We came under direct fire, we ⁠didn’t know the source. Everyone in the car was martyred, except my brother Mustafa and me,” one of the surviving children, 12-year-old Khaled, told Reuters from the hospital.

He said that after the shooting was over, the Israeli soldiers pulled him out of the car and began to beat him, telling him, “We killed dogs.”

“These crimes occur within a systematic policy pursued by the occupation authorities using lethal force against Palestinian civilians.”

The soldiers also beat his other surviving brother, according to Al Jazeera.




The Israeli military said that it had been operating in Tammun to make arrests on “terrorist” charges and that soldiers had fired on a vehicle when it accelerated toward them, according to Reuters. It said it was reviewing the incident.

Al Jazeera journalist Nida Ibrahim said that the family had been totally shocked by the shooting.

“The extended family says the father and the mother did not know that Israeli forces were there as they were in a Palestinian car,” she said.

The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the killing on social media as a “terrifying arbitrary execution crime that targeted an entire Palestinian family inside their vehicle.”

The Israeli soldiers also prevented Red Crescent workers from reaching the family, the ministry said, leading to the families’ “deliberate and cold-blooded execution.”

The ministry continued: “The Ministry affirms that targeting an entire family in this savage manner reveals the true nature of the Israeli occupation and its policies based on killing and extermination, destruction and displacement, amid a systematic impunity, and it further affirms that these crimes, concurrent with the escalation of settler crimes and their organized terrorism in the occupied West Bank, are not isolated incidents, but part of a comprehensive and systematic aggression aimed at exterminating the Palestinian people and displacing them, in clear exploitation of the escalation occurring in the region.”

In a statement issued on social media, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) also blamed the deaths on the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, which has been deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice.

“This escalation in these crimes comes as a direct result of the expansion of shooting instructions in the Israeli army, the rising violence of settlers amid the prevalence of an impunity policy, and the entrenchment of ethnic cleansing amid unprecedented international silence,” PCHR said.

It continued: “While the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights condemns the unjustified murder crimes committed by occupation forces and settlers, it affirms that these crimes occur within a systematic policy pursued by the occupation authorities using lethal force against Palestinian civilians, in flagrant violation of the principles of necessity and distinction that form fundamental pillars of international humanitarian law and international human rights law. Moreover, they come as part of a pattern aimed at terrorizing citizens, intimidating them, and entrenching ethnic cleansing policies, and replicating acts of genocide, albeit in a less overt manner.”

Also on Sunday, Israeli settlers killed a Palestinian man in Nablus Governorate, making him the sixth man killed by settlers since the US and Israel launched their war on Iran. Movement restrictions imposed due the war have emboldened setters to attack, knowing that ambulances will be delayed in reaching their victims, human rights advocates and healthcare workers told Reuters.

In total, Israeli settlers and soldiers have killed 25 Palestinians in the West Bank since the beginning of the year, PCHR said.

In Gaza, where Israeli strikes at first declined following the beginning of the Iran war, the death toll is rising again. On Sunday, Israeli strikes killed nine police officers in Zawayda and a pregnant woman, her husband, and son in Nuseirat.

Trump EPA Risks Health of Millions With Giveaway to Corporate Polluters That Use Cancer-Causing Gas

“Walking back key regulations for ethylene oxide sterilizer facilities is essentially giving a highly polluting industry a get-out-of-jail-free card,” said one campaigner.

A Sterigenics facility that uses ethylene oxide is shown in Vernon, California on August 4, 2022.
(Photo by Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

Jessica Corbett
Mar 13, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

While US Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin on Friday presented a proposed policy change as a demonstration of the Trump administration’s commitment to “ensuring lifesaving medical devices remain available,” public health advocates warned that relaxing rules on emissions of the cancer-causing gas ethylene oxide puts millions of Americans at risk.

As The New York Times explained: “The move revived a long-running debate about the paradoxical effects of ethylene oxide on public health. While it plays a crucial role in sterilizing lifesaving medical devices like pacemakers and syringes, long-term exposure can cause leukemia and other types of cancer among people who work in or live near medical sterilization facilities.”



‘Direct Attack on the Health of Americans’: Trump EPA Greenlights More Mercury Pollution



US Youth, Climate Coalition Sue to Stop Trump EPA ‘From Torching Our Kids’ Future’

The EPA proposal would amend the Biden administration’s 2024 National Emissions Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants for facilities that use ethylene oxide, which the agency estimated would have eliminated over 90% of dangerous pollution from the gas. The previous policy was cheered by organizations including Earthjustice, which sounded the alarm on Friday.

“The 2024 standards would have delivered enormous public health benefits. EPA knows that ethylene oxide is carcinogenic and determined that sterilizers can install effective and affordable pollution controls,” said Earthjustice senior attorney Deena Tumeh. “EPA has no basis to repeal this well-supported rule. By rolling back the rule, the Trump EPA is bending the knee to the sterilizer industry at the expense of millions of people’s health.”

Darya Minovi, a senior analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists’ (UCS) Center for Science and Democracy, similarly stressed that “this dangerous decision puts people across the United States and in Puerto Rico at a higher risk of breathing dangerous fumes known to cause respiratory irritation, nausea, blurred vision, headaches, and various cancers. Children are especially vulnerable to the cancer-causing harms of ethylene oxide exposure.”

As Minovi detailed:
According to UCS analysis, nearly 14 million people in the United States live within five miles of at least one commercial sterilization facility, and more than 10,000 schools and childcare facilities fall within those areas. These communities are disproportionately made up of people of color or those who do not speak English as a first language...

This decision is a reckless and self-serving handout to big industry, which asked for this rule to be rolled back. This process sidestepped community input from the start and is an affront to communities that have unknowingly lived with ethylene oxide exposure for decades. These actions show, yet again, that this administration has little to no regard for the health and welfare of working people or any interest in protecting children from exposure to toxic chemicals.

Minovi declared that “ethylene oxide emissions controls need to be strengthened—not dismantled,” an argument echoed by Jane Williams, executive director of California Communities Against Toxics and chair of the Sierra Club National Clean Air Team.

“Walking back key regulations for ethylene oxide sterilizer facilities is essentially giving a highly polluting industry a get-out-of-jail-free card. Sterilizers are some of the largest, most toxic chemical manufacturing facilities in the country,” said Williams. “Rather than regressing on key protections, these facilities need even more controls in place to ensure the safety of workers and nearby communities.”




People who live near sterilizer facilities also spoke out against the proposed rule, which now faces a 45-day public comment period.

“We understand that industry applied heavy pressure to weaken the previously finalized rule. We also understand that industry remains more concerned with their profits than the lives of those who live near sterilizer facilities, like my community in Laredo,” said Tricia Cortez, executive director of Rio Grande International Study Center in Texas.

“Sterilizer facilities like Midwest must be held accountable for their dangerous, cancer-causing emissions,” she said. “We need an EPA that works to protect us, the people, not financial interests and corporations that continue to cause so much harm to so many.”

Victor Alvarado, founder and coordinator for Comité Diálogo Ambiental, said that “I remember the EPA informing us that Steri-Tech’s ethylene oxide emissions in my hometown of Salinas, Puerto Rico, were so high that we had one of the highest rates of toxic air cancer risk in the United States... Eliminating the new protections against ethylene oxide emissions is unjust.”

The EPA proposal comes after President Donald Trump in July signed a series of proclamations easing pollution rules for over 100 facilities focused on energy, chemical manufacturing, iron ore processing, and sterile medical equipment. His “regulatory relief,” as the Republican called it, applied to dozens of sterilization plants.

The Southern Environmental Law Center and Natural Resources Defense Council responded by filing a federal lawsuit on behalf of CleanAIRE NC, Sustainable Newton, Savannah Riverkeeper, and Virginia Interfaith Power & Light.

“We always knew the presidential exemptions issued last year were part a broader plan to put the interests of corporate polluters above the health and well-being of American families,” Sustainable Newton president Maurice Carter said Friday. “But we won’t stop fighting to protect our community by demanding commonsense, reasonable measures that even the EPA has said would reduce harmful emissions by 90% and lower cancer risks by 92%.”

17 Reasons to Tell Trump: “You’re Fired!”

It is long overdue for the Democrats in Congress to lay the groundwork for impeaching President Donald Trump and removing him from office.


A woman holds a sign with the words “You’re fired!” in a protest by demonstrators who have gathered in the center of Frankfurt under the slogan “No Kings,” directed against US President Donald Trump and the policies of the US government on June 14, 2025.
(Photo by Boris Roessler/picture alliance via Getty Images)

Ralph Nader
Mar 15, 2026

Common Dreams

Tyrant Trump’s favorite snarl is “You’re Fired!” That was his bellow on “The Apprentice” television program. Subsequently, he told hundreds of thousands of federal civil servants and contractors, “You’re Fired!” Shame on the pitiful Democratic Party that allowed him to regain the presidency last year.

It is long overdue for the Democrats in Congress to lay the groundwork for impeaching President Donald Trump and removing him from office. Trump provides them with the impeachable evidence openly and brazenly every day. No president in history has ever declared that “then I have Article II, where I have the right to do anything I want as president.” No president has ever dared to say, as did Trump in an interview with Reuters on January 15, 2026, that “…when you think of it, we shouldn’t even have an election” and meant it.

Based on their detailed declaration against King George III in the Declaration of Independence (1776) and the congressional safeguards in the Constitution drafted in 1787, our Founders, were they members of Congress today, would unanimously vote articles of impeachment against Trump for rampant constitutional lawlessness.

Here are 17 articles of Impeachment against dictator Trump that many constitutional law scholars would endorse, drafted by constitutional law specialist and practitioner, Bruce Fein. (For the full text of the articles of Impeachment, here.)

Ask these lawmakers if they are waiting for Trump to use the Insurrection Act to order the military to seize the state voting machinery and repress the vote in the contested states or districts?

ARTICLE 1—WAR POWER-MURDER-PIRACY

ARTICLE 2—MILITARIZATION OF DOMESTIC LAW ENFORCEMENT

ARTICLE 3—SERIAL UNCONSTITUTIONAL DETENTIONS AND DEPORTATIONS

ARTICLE 4—BRIBERY

ARTICLE 5—RETALIATION AGAINST CONSTITUTIONALLY PROTECTED SPEECH OR ASSOCIATION

ARTICLE 6—ABUSE OF THE PARDON POWER—SABOTAGING THE RULE OF LAW

ARTICLE 7—ILLEGALLY CRIPPLING OR DEFUNDING PROGRAMS TO PROTECT CONSUMERS, THE NEEDY, WORKERS, AND THE ENVIRONMENT

ARTICLE 8—USURPATION OF THE CONGRESSIONAL POWER OF THE PURSE

ARTICLE 9—CONTEMPT OF CONGRESS—SECRET GOVERNMENT

ARTICLE 10—PERVERTING LAW ENFORCEMENT TO PERSECUTE POLITICAL OPPONENTS AND BENEFIT FRIENDS

ARTICLE 11—SUSPENDING OR DISPENSING WITH LAWS

ARTICLE 12—FLOUTING SECTION 1 OF THE 14TH AMENDMENT

ARTICLE 13—SPECIOUS NATIONAL EMERGENCY—FOREIGN TERRORIST ORGANIZATION DECLARATIONS

ARTICLE 14—DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN EMOLUMENTS CLAUSES

ARTICLE 15—CHRONIC DECEIT AIMING AT DICTATORSHIP

ARTICLE 16—TREASON

ARTICLE 17—MEGALOMANIA-HUBRIS

Already, a growing majority of the American people want Trump Impeached. They are feeling the impact where they live, work, and raise their families of Trump’s dictatorial, corporatist regime, which is endangering, weakening, and wrecking America! The criminal, illegal, unconstitutional war against Iran and the continuing full backing of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s genocide against the Palestinians and the Israeli bombing of Lebanon’s civilian population and occupying southern Lebanon will only increase the hardships on the American people. US soldiers are also being ordered to illegally obey illegal orders. Six Members of Congress who served in the military issued a video statement that said, “You must refuse illegal orders.” Representatives said in the video, “No one has to carry out orders that violate the law or our Constitution.”

Send these articles of Impeachment with your own thoughts and demands to your two senators and your representative by letter, email, or voicemail. (The Congressional switchboard number is 202-224-3121). You can also call local congressional offices to voice your concerns to your member of Congress. Ask them when will they exercise their constitutional duties. What further criminal outrage, program, and police state power will move them to catch up with the demands of the people back home?

Ask these lawmakers if they are waiting for Trump to use the Insurrection Act to order the military to seize the state voting machinery and repress the vote in the contested states or districts? He has already noted this limitless power in his first term and more recently.

There are only 535 members of Congress. Flood them with your demands to literally save our Republic and the Constitution for which it stands. Otherwise, WITH TRUMP AND HIS DANGEROUSLY UNSTABLE PERSONALITY, IT IS ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE, MUCH WORSE, HERE AND ABROAD.

Take charge, people, one by one, citizen group by citizen group! Use your sovereign power under the Constitution.

‘Serious Threat to the First Amendment’ as Trump Admin Wins First Antifa Terror Charge

“A case like this helps the government kind of see how far they can go in criminalizing constitutionally protected protest,” one legal advocate said.


Signs supporting protesters charged with domestic terrorism over an anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement protest are seen outside the courtroom in Fort Worth, Texas on March 11, 2026.
(Photo via DFW Support Committee/X)

Olivia Rosane
Mar 15, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

The government has largely won its first case bringing material-support-for-terrorism charges against protesters alleged to belong to “antifa,” which President Donald Trump designated as a domestic terror group in 2025 despite the fact that no such organized group exists and the president has no legal authority to designate organizations as domestic terror groups.

A federal jury in Fort Worth, Texas agreed on Friday to convict eight people of domestic terrorism because they wore all black to a protest outside Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Prairieland Detention Facility in Alvarado, Texas on July 4, 2025, at which one of the protesters shot and wounded a police officer. Legal experts say the verdict could bolster attempts by the administration to stifle dissent.

“A case like this helps the government kind of see how far they can go in criminalizing constitutionally protected protests and also helps them kind of intimidate, increase the fear, hoping that folks in other cities then will think twice over protesting,” Suzanne Adely, interim president of the National Lawyers Guild, told The Associated Press.

The administration promised it would be the first such case of many.

“The US lost today with this verdict.”

“Antifa is a domestic terrorist organization that has been allowed to flourish in Democrat-led cities—not under President Trump,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement Friday. “Today’s verdict on terrorism charges will not be the last as the Trump administration systematically dismantles Antifa and finally halts their violence on America’s streets.”

The trial revolved around a nighttime protest at which participants planned to set off fireworks in solidarity with the around 1,000 migrants detained inside the Prarieland ICE facility. Some participants brought guns, which is legal in Texas, as The Intercept reported.

Sam Levine explained in The Guardian what happened next:
Shortly after arriving at the facility, two or three of the protesters broke away from the larger group and began spray painting cars in the parking lot, a guard shack, slashed the tires on a government van, and broke a security camera. Two ICE detention guards came out and told the protesters to stop. A police officer arrived on the scene shortly after and drew his weapon at one of the people allegedly doing vandalism. One of the protesters was standing in the woods with an AR-15 and hit him in the shoulder. The officer would survive.

At first, the federal government charged those arrested after the event with “attempted murder of a police officer,” according to NOTUS.

However, that changed after Trump’s designation of antifa as a terror group in September and the release of National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7), which directs federal law enforcement to target left-leaning groups and activities. The next month, the government’s case expanded to include terrorism charges.

“This wouldn’t be a terrorism case if it weren’t for that memo,” one defense lawyer told NOTUS on background.

The prosecution argued that the fact that the protesters wore black clothes to the protest was enough to convict them of material support for terrorism.

“Providing your body as camouflage for others to do the enumerated acts is providing support,” Assistant US Attorney Shawn Smith said during closing arguments, as The Intercept reported on Thursday. “It’s impossible to tell who is doing what. That’s the point.”

The defense, meanwhile, warned the jury about the free speech implications of the charge.

“The government is asking you to put protesters in prison as terrorists. You are the only people who can stop that,” Blake Burns, an attorney for defendant Elizabeth Soto, said, according to The Guardian.

“When the villain is a made-up boogeyman then the target becomes ‘anyone who disagrees with Trump’—and this is the result.”

Ultimately, the jury decided to convict eight defendants of material support for terrorism as well as riot, conspiracy to use and carry an explosive, and use and carry of an explosive. However, they dismissed attempts by the state to argue that the protest constituted a pre-planned ambush and charge four people who had not shot at the police officer with attempted murder and discharging a firearm during a crime. Only Benjamin Song, the alleged shooter, was charged with one count of attempted murder and three counts of discharging a firearm.

The jury also convicted a ninth defendant, Daniel Rolando Sanchez Estrada, of conspiracy to conceal documents. Sanchez Estrada, who was not at the protest, had simply moved a box of zines out of his wife’s home after she was arrested for the protest, according to The Intercept.

“The US lost today with this verdict,” Sanchez Estrada’s attorney, Christopher Weinbel, said, as AP reported.

Support the Prarieland Defendants said in a statement, “Everything about this trial from beginning to end has proven what we have said all along: This is a sham trial, built on political persecution and ideological attacks coming from the top.”

However, the group commended the solidarity that had sprung up among the defendants and their allies and vowed to continue to support them.

“We have a long journey ahead of us to continue fighting these charges along with the state level charges,” they said. “What happens here sets the tone for what’s to come. We are here and we won’t give up.”


Outside observers warned about the implication for the right to protest under Trump.

“Remember all the people who dismissed the alarm over NSPM-7 because ‘ANTIFA isn’t even a real organization’? We told you that didn’t matter. When the villain is a made-up boogeyman then the target becomes ‘anyone who disagrees with Trump’—and this is the result,” said Cory Archibald, the co-founder of Track AIPAC [American Israel Public Affairs Committee].

Content creator Austin MacNamara said: “The Prairieland trial was given almost zero media coverage because of the blatant lies by DHS [Department of Homeland Security] and Police. This verdict now sets a precedent for criminalization of dissent across the board. Noise demos, Black-Bloc, pamphlets/zines/red cards, all of this can be used to imprison you.”

Academic Nathan Goodman wrote that convicting people of terrorism based on clothing was a “serious threat to the First Amendment.”

The verdict gives new poignancy to what defendant Meagan Morris told NOTUS ahead of the jury’s decision: “If we win, I think it shows that Trump’s mandate is not working, that the people understand that you can’t criminalize, you know, First and Second Amendment-protected activities. And I think if we lose, then… a lot of the country is OK with what’s going on. And it will be a much darker time, it’ll just signify a much increased crackdown on political opposition and free speech.”

Journalists stunned after report reveals who helped shape Trump's major military operation in Venezuela

Alexander Willis
March 15, 2026 

RAW STORY

FILE PHOTO: President Donald Trump speaks with White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and Secretary of State Marco Rubio during military operations in Iran, at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, on February 28 (The White House/Social Media/Handout via REUTERS)

The Trump administration’s unprecedented military operation in Venezuela earlier this year that resulted in the capturing of President Nicolás Maduro was shaped, at least in part, by former Chevron executive Ali Moshiri, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday, a revelation that left several journalists stunned.

“Every once in a while you read a story that pulls back the curtain on how the world really works and it takes your breath away,” wrote The New York Times columnist Lydia Polgreen Sunday in a social media post on X.

Revealed for the first time by the Journal, Moshiri reportedly advised the CIA months ahead of the Trump administration’s attack and takeover of Venezuela on who should replace Maduro in his absence. Despite conservatives championing Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Machado as Maduro’s clear successor, Moshiri advised against it, and instead backed Venezuela's then-Vice President Delcy Rodríguez.

Just hours after the Trump administration had successfully captured Maduro, President Donald Trump dismissed the idea of Machado leading the country, arguing that she lacked the “support or respect within the country,” a remark consistent with the advice Moshiri had given his administration months prior.

While Moshiri left Chevron in 2017 and ended his consulting relationship with the company in 2024, his advice may still go on to generate significant revenue for the oil giant, investigative journalist Antonia Juhasz argued Sunday in a social media post on X.

“Chevron's man in [Venezuela] (a CIA informant) told Trump to ditch democracy and go for Rodriguez 'cause she'd secure the oil,” Juhasz wrote.

The New York Times investigative reporter Kenneth Vogel echoed that same sentiment, arguing on Sunday that Moshiri’s advice would likely end up enriching Chevron greatly.“The secret CIA assessment that called for Trump to side with Maduro’s longtime deputy, rather than the democratic opposition, was based on the advice of a former Chevron executive,” Vogel wrote in a social media post on X. “The oil company stands to profit from Trump’s decision to heed that advice.”