“Based on what I’ve seen, it was done by Iran.” When Donald Trump spoke on Air Force One about the bombing of a school in southern Iran, he was, of course, lying.

That is what Trump does but in the attack on Iran he has also tapped into the American fantasy about their righteousness that can only be fully displayed through military force.

When Stanley Kubrick made Dr Strangelove, he was fascinated by what he saw as ‘the delicate balance of terror’ that was part of the Cold War. To give his satire power he realised it needed ‘inspired lunacy’.

That inspired lunacy now drives Trump’s military strikes where satire is meaningless and death is what happens to other people.

On Free State, we look at how far America will go in Iran. What happens when Trump loses interest? What happens when Netanyahu wants something else?

Let us know what you think - info@freestatepodcast.com

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Professor Charles Knowles is a very smart man. He is a surgeon and clinical researcher. He is able to apply logic and reason to find solutions to most things. But logic and reason made no sense when it came to his own drinking.

On Free State today Charles Knowles explains why we drink and why we drink too much.

He talks to Dion about his own struggles and why there is a genetic reason for many people drinking.

They discuss the line of Kurt Vonnegut that ‘Alcoholics Anonymous is America’s greatest contribution to the 20th century’ and Charles explains why modern science agrees with Vonnegut.

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When a US submarine torpedoed an Iranian warship in the Indian Ocean, 150 Iranians were believed to have been killed. ‘It thought it was safe in international waters,” Pete Hegseth the US’s self styled Secretary of War proclaimed. “Instead it was sunk by a torpedo, a quiet death.”

More than a thousand civilians have been killed since the US and Israel launched their offensive. This is a campaign they are advancing ‘without mercy’ Hegseth said.

On Free State today we look at what the US, Israel and Donald Trump want.

Are their aims of total control in the Middle East achievable? Or will the ambitions of the US and their allies spiral out of control as they have before but not before there is endless human misery?

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