In an exclusive interview with Raw America’s Thom Hartmann, retired Major General Paul Eaton — who commanded Iraqi military training operations during Operation Iraqi Freedom — declared the U.S. attack on Iran illegal and unconstitutional.
“Is it an illegal attack on Iran? It is, in my eyes,” General Eaton told Raw America. “We have not followed what our own Constitution tells us to do.”
Before we bring you the details: Raw America is Raw Story and Really American’s people-powered response to MAGA’s takeover of American media. We aren’t tied to the puppet strings of a billionaire. We answer to you. A retired general told us exclusively that this war is illegal and our troops are Saudi proxies. You won’t see this on CNN. Independent journalism isn’t a luxury right now. It’s a necessity. Become a paid subscriber today.
What General Eaton said next should send a chill through every American who has a son, daughter, spouse, or parent in uniform: this war isn’t being fought for us. It’s being fought for the Saudis.
“It looks like we are doing the job for the Saudis,” General Eaton told Raw America. “That’s not an appropriate use of America’s armed forces. And that’s essentially what’s happening here.”
A two-star general who served in Iraq told us that American forces’ attack on Iran will most benefit the Saudis, just as the Trump family is cutting billion-dollar deals across the Middle East.
General Eaton drew a devastating parallel to the catastrophe of Iraq. Eaton said that President George W. Bush’s Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld forbade CENTCOM from planning for the occupation of Iraq. He sees the same fatal arrogance playing out right now with Iran. A country of 90 million people, with no plan for what comes next.
“I have no evidence that the Trump administration has thought this through,” Eaton told Hartmann.
Eaton also confirmed that the Hegseth purges of senior military officials have effectively neutralized any internal resistance to unconstitutional orders. The administration fired the senior JAGs, the military’s own lawyers, at the very beginning of Trump’s second term. They cleared the legal infrastructure out so no one inside the system could formally object when the time came.
The military, Eaton told Raw America exclusively, will now “stay foxhole defilade: keep their heads down, shut up and color.”
Our troops volunteered to serve their country. But as General Eaton put it: “They did volunteer, but they did not volunteer for stupid. And we gave stupid direction during the second Iraq war, and we’re about to do it again, or are doing it again, right now.”
There is no congressional authorization for this war. Not even the weak Authorization to Use Military Force that George W. Bush secured before Iraq. One man is making this decision. One man is sending Americans to die. And Congress, dominated by Republicans in both chambers, is doing nothing about it.
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Want more of our exclusive interview? Watch Thom’s full interview above.
Now to the rest of what they don’t want you to know.
War-a-Lago: Trump Parties at Black-Tie Gala As Troops Warned They May Die
You’d think a president who just launched America’s first full-scale war since 2003 might spend the evening in the Situation Room. Instead, Donald Trump spent Friday night popping into a flashy black-tie gala at his own Mar-a-Lago club.
The gala was hosted by Place of Hope, a “faith-based” nonprofit for children and families. Attendees posted photos of Trump stopping by in the same white USA trucker hat he wore while telling the country he’d launched the war on Iran. Guests enjoyed cocktail hour, a dinner auction, and dance performances, all while bombs fell on Iranian cities.
Hours later, Trump posted a video in which he admitted that “the lives of courageous American heroes may be lost, and we may have casualties.”
He said it in a trucker hat without a tie.
This is the man who campaigned as the “Peace President.” The man whose entire MAGA pitch was “no new wars.” Even his own base is turning. Former congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, exiled from MAGA for months, wrote that Trump “has joined the neocons” and predicted this would be “the end of MAGA.”
Epstein’s Doctors: A Network of Complicity
While Trump drops bombs on Iran, the Jeffrey Epstein files keep detonating here at home.
The New York Times reported today that Epstein cultivated a stable of elite doctors who didn’t just treat the convicted sex trafficker. They helped him control and manipulate the young women he was abusing. Some are affiliated with the most prestigious medical institutions in the country.
A plastic surgeon from Mount Sinai stitched up a 35-stitch head wound on a young woman on Epstein’s dining room table. Not in an emergency room. On a dining room table, because an ER would have raised questions Epstein didn’t want answered. A medical ethics expert at Johns Hopkins called it “breathtaking.”
An internist in West Palm Beach whom Epstein called “internist to the world’s wealthy” helped Epstein and two women get treated for gonorrhea. But he deliberately sent the women to an ER so their cases wouldn’t be tied back to Epstein.
“That way I do not have to report the cases to health department including contacts,” the doctor texted. When Epstein asked if the women had revealed the source of their infections, the doctor assured him: “They say a friend overseas.”
A dentist at Columbia examined a young woman Epstein sent him and found severe tooth decay, two black front teeth, and the need for 11 fillings and braces. Instead of discussing treatment, the dentist asked Epstein’s staff how much work the financier was willing to pay for.
“He doesn’t know how much work you want done on this girl,” the assistant wrote. Columbia terminated the dentist’s appointment earlier this month.
When Epstein enrolled several women in a members-only concierge ER, they weren’t even listed by name. Just “assistants 1-5 without using names,” which an accountant told Epstein “gives you more flexibility.”
When one woman confronted Epstein about her doctors sharing her private medical information with him, he dismissed her. The doctors, he said, “take the time to make sure I’m happy.”
These aren’t back-alley operators. These are doctors at Mount Sinai, Columbia, and prestigious Manhattan practices — who broke patient privacy laws and treated Epstein as their real client while the women he was abusing were treated as his property.
Trump Says He’s ‘Entitled’ to Illegal Third Term
And while launching an unauthorized war and partying at his own club, Trump also found time Friday to float an unconstitutional third term.
“Maybe we do one more term. Should we do one more?” he asked a crowd in Corpus Christi, Texas, to roaring applause. “Well, we are entitled to it.”
The 22nd Amendment limits presidents to two terms: period. But his allies are already at work. The Washington Post reported this week that right-wing activists are drafting an executive order that would give the president “extraordinary power over voting.” This could potentially include banning mail-in ballots and voting machines ahead of the 2026 midterms under the debunked pretext of Chinese election interference.
Senator Lindsey Graham and Steve Bannon have both backed a third Trump term. Democracy Docket published a leaked draft of the voting order, which it described as “riddled with errors.” MSNBC national security contributor Marc Polymeropoulos called it what it is: “batshit authoritarianism.”
A president launching an illegal war while floating a constitutional coup. This is the moment we’re in.
This is why Raw America exists. An unauthorized war with no congressional approval. A convicted sex trafficker’s network of medical enablers. A president partying at his own resort while warning troops they may die. And now, open talk of abolishing term limits and seizing control of elections.
Corporate media won’t connect these dots for you. Not when their billionaire owners are cutting deals with the same regime pushing us toward another endless war. Not when their advertisers profit from the defense industry. Not when newsroom leadership is terrified of upsetting MAGA power brokers who are consolidating control over American media.
This is how it works. Beat the drums for war. Normalize it. Treat it as strategy instead of human cost. And make sure no one asks who benefits.
Raw America was built to break that cycle.
We answer to readers, not weapons contractors. Not oligarchs. Not political strongmen demanding loyalty. When Trump escalates conflict abroad while his allies tighten their grip on major newsrooms at home, that is not separate. It is the same story: power protecting power.
If you are tired of watching corporate outlets sanitize war and soften authoritarianism, this is the moment to act.
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We’ll be here hard at work, all weekend. Over and out.
—John & Justin, for Raw America
