Hello, this is Ben Norton with moderate rebels, and this is a special emergency episode

in response to the Trump administration's criminal act of war against Iran and also Iraq.

The UN Special Operateur on extrajudicial executions has said very clearly

that the Trump administration's drone strike, killing Iranian top general Kassam Soleimani,

and also the Iraqi commander, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, that this is a clearly illegal act, and it also again a blatant act of war against both

Iran and Iraq.

So here at the gray zone, Max Blumenthal, my co-host and I, along with our colleague

Aaron Mate, we held a live stream discussion along with the journalist

Rania Kalak. Rania is an excellent reporter who lives in Lebanon, and it reports extensively on the

Middle East and on the role of U.S. meddling, U.S. intervention, and how it has destabilized the

entire region. So we held this emergency discussion on YouTube in a two-hour live stream,

and we talked about a variety of issues, including the U.S. Act of War against Iran and Iraq.

We also talked about Rania's reporting on the ground

in Iraq and ISIS. ISIS was defeated by this Iranian general Qasem Soleimani that Trump has just killed.

And ISIS was also defeated by the Iraqi military with commanders like al-Mohandis who is also killed by this

Trump drone strike so this attack is helping ISIS's remnants helping al-Qaeda

and other Salafi jihadist extremists in the region so we talk about that we

also talk about the war in Syria which is, related. And we conclude the discussion talking about

media coverage and how the mainstream corporate media is, of course, totally going along,

beating the drums of war, helping to justify Trump's blatant act of aggression. And we also

talk about how even some alternative media outlets, which claim to

hold people in power accountable, which claim to be subversive and adversarial, are actually,

...