Occupation and Slaughter: Netanyahu and Taking Over Gaza
9 August 2025 Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.net/occupation-and-slaughter-netanyahu-and-taking-over-gaza/
To say that Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had lost the plot is to assume he ever had one. With a dearth of ideas as to how to come up with a “final solution” to the Palestinian problem, he has received a majority approval from his cabinet colleagues to take over Gaza City. It took a late-night meeting with the security cabinet lasting some ten hours.
A statement released on the morning of August 8 from his office mentioned a five-point plan intended to defeat Hamas and conclude the war. None of this is an improved version of what has come before: the intended disarming of Hamas, the return of all hostages, demilitarising the Gaza Strip, assuming security control of the territory and creating “an alternative civil administration that is neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority.”
There is also not much difference here from recent proposals made by the French President Emmanuel Macron, UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, with one fundamental difference: the Israelis want no current Palestinian representative authority to govern the people they so loathe. What all the proposals share is a core belief that the Palestinians be reduced to subordinate status, forever policed and monitored by watchful authorities. Their representatives are to be vetted by the Israelis and any number of international partners. Genuine sovereignty can sod off.
The Israeli military has announced that it “will prepare to take control of Gaza City while providing humanitarian aid to the civilian population outside the combat zones.” Little change then given the current model of aid distribution that features daily massacres of the desperate and the starving overseen by trigger itchy personnel from both the IDF and the obscenely named Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. OHCHR, the United Nations human rights office, claims that at least 1,373 Palestinians seeking food have been killed since May 27, 859 in proximity of the GHF’s distribution points. Another 514 have perished along the routes traversed by food convoys.
The UN Human Rights chief Volker Türk has done his best to reiterate a certain ghastly obviousness in the plan. The military takeover “runs contrary to the ruling of the International Court of Justice that Israel bring its occupation to an end as soon as possible, to the realisation of the agreed two-State solution and to the right of Palestinians to self-determination.” The takeover would entail further escalation, resulting in “more massive forced displacement, more killing, more unbearable suffering, senseless destruction and atrocity crimes.”
The IDF’s chief of staff, Lt. General Eyal Zamier, is not a fan of the plan, concerned that itwould do more to imperil the surviving Israeli hostages held in the Strip. The New York Times reports that the country’s military leadership would prefer a fresh ceasefire, with the IDF suffering from the effects of attrition from the conflict. The head of Israel’s National Security Council, Tzachi Hanegbi, is in furious agreement: such an operation would further endanger the surviving Israeli hostages. Mossad’s director, David Barnea, also adds his name to the list of sceptics.
Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid did not shy away from excoriating the cabinet decision, something he called “a disaster” that would breed further disasters. The far-right figures of Itamar Ben–Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich had “dragged” the Prime Minister into a strategy that would lead to the death of the hostages and Israeli troops while costing billions to the Israeli taxpayer.
An announcement from Hamas proved suitably contemptuous of the latest Netanyahu gambit. “We warn the criminal occupation that this criminal adventure will cost it dearly. It will not be a walk in the park. Our people and their resistance are resilient to defeat or surrender, and Netanyahu’s plans, ambitions, and delusions will fail miserably.” The group also thought it fitting to name the United States as “fully responsible for the occupation’s crimes, due to its political cover and direct military support for its aggression.”
In a turn up for the books for those opposing Netanyahu’s blood-soaked adventurism, some of Israel’s closest allies are going beyond muttering criticism. Modest as it is, Germany has announced that weapons exports to Israel for use in the Strip had been suspended “until further notice.” (Between 2020 and 2024, the country accounted for a third of Israel’s arms imports.) A statement from German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, while acknowledging the usual proviso that Israel had “the right to defend itself against Hamas terrorism,” expressed concern that “even tougher military action by the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip” undermined prospects for releasing the hostages and pursuing negotiations for a ceasefire. Merz further warned that Israel “not take any further steps toward annexing the West Bank.”
For his part, Starmer called Israel’s “decision to further escalate its offensive in Gaza […] wrong, and we urge it to reconsider immediately. This action will do nothing to bring an end to this conflict or to help secure the release of the hostages. It will only bring more bloodshed.”
Türk, if somewhat hollowly, demands an end to the war in Gaza with a rosy vision: an arrangement where Israelis and Palestinians are “allowed to live side by side in peace.” Admirable as this aspiration is, optimistic in its transcendence, it misunderstands the currency of hate and vengeance currently traded in Netanyahu’s cabinet and swathes of the Israeli populace. This is not a matter of side by side, but above and below, living in a state of permanent conflict, suppression and suspicion.
From boots to orbits: Army develops space skills amid growing battlefield reliance on satellites
The service is launching “40 Delta” military occupational specialty to build expertise in space domain operations
by Sandra Erwin, August 6, 2025, https://spacenews.com/from-boots-to-orbits-army-develops-space-skills-amid-growing-battlefield-reliance-on-satellites/?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Top stories%3A NASA s commercial space station pivot%2C China tests crewed lunar lander&utm_campaign=SNTW 8%2F8%2F2025
The U.S. Army will begin recruiting soldiers for its first dedicated enlisted specialty in space operations. This is part of a broader push by the service to build organic expertise as satellites become increasingly critical to modern ground warfare….
…The initiative comes as military leaders increasingly view space capabilities as essential to ground operations, driven in part by lessons from the conflict in Ukraine, where electronic jamming, cyber threats and satellite-denied environments have become routine challenges for forces.
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — The U.S. Army will begin recruiting soldiers for its first dedicated enlisted specialty in space operations. This is part of a broader push by the service to build organic expertise as satellites become increasingly critical to modern ground warfare.
Army officials at the Space & Missile Defense Symposium this week said the 40 Delta (40D) Space Operations Specialist military occupational specialty is moving from planning to implementation, with full operations expected by October 2026.
Lt. Gen. Sean Gainey, head of the Army’s Space and Missile Defense Command, said the service is just weeks away from the official launch of the new specialty. The goal is to “build long-term, institutional knowledge and to retain noncommissioned officers (NCOs) with space expertise,” Gainey said.
The 40D program was approved in December and will begin accepting applications early next year, with selection boards starting in May, according to Command Sergeant Major John Foley, the Army’s senior enlisted leader for space operations. Selected soldiers will receive specialized training in Colorado Springs to become space operations specialists.
The initiative comes as military leaders increasingly view space capabilities as essential to ground operations, driven in part by lessons from the conflict in Ukraine, where electronic jamming, cyber threats and satellite-denied environments have become routine challenges for forces.
Organizational structure
Beyond the new enlisted specialty, the Army is developing what it calls a “space branch” – a professional category similar to existing branches like Infantry, Armor and Artillery. Foley said the space branch would initially encompass about 1,000 enlisted soldiers and officers and would allow space professionals to advocate for programs and resources. The branch is not officially in place yet but should be coming soon, he added.
These organizational changes build on the evolution of the 1st Space Brigade and expansion of “multidomain” task forces, which Gainey identified as significant developments in Army space capabilities. These units have integrated space operations with ground maneuver formations through exercises and collaboration with special operations and cyber elements, giving soldiers hands-on experience in spectrum awareness and techniques to deceive and disrupt adversaries’ satellite use.
The Army’s own labs also have produced weapons like BADGR, a portable system that combines surveillance sensors and jamming devices for electronic attack missions. Brig. Gen. Don Brooks, deputy commander for operations at the Army Space and Missile Defense Command, said five BADGR prototypes have been delivered to Army units based on feedback from ground forces requesting specialized equipment for “electronic attack.”
A joint endeavor, not a turf war
The Army’s push to develop internal space expertise has drawn criticism from some observers who view it as creating a “mini Space Force” that could duplicate the newer service’s mission. Army leaders have pushed back against such characterizations, emphasizing their goal is to cultivate organic space competencies rather than compete with the Space Force.
Army officials argue that having soldiers on the ground who understand space-based assets and can immediately translate satellite data, communication support and threat warnings into real-time action is essential for modern warfare. They contend that waiting for external support, even from an expert service like the Space Force, is often impractical when ground units need instant solutions integrated into their tactical operations.
The Army continues to rely on the Space Force for satellite launches, advanced systems and global networks, but maintains that a land component with skilled space professionals can make the entire joint force more capable and resilient.
Gen. Stephen Whiting, head of U.S. Space Command, offered support for the Army’s approach during remarks at the symposium. “I’m gratified to see that all of our military services are understanding the criticality of space,” Whiting said. “The Army recognizes that for maneuver elements to be successful, that there needs to be soldiers who understand space.”
Whiting emphasized that the Space Force maintains its “global space mission to provide space capabilities to the entire force and also to protect and defend capabilities in the domain,” while acknowledging that “all of our services have real institutional strengths.” Rather than viewing the Army’s efforts as competitive, Whiting said, “I don’t see it as being an overlapping and competitive set of responsibilities … but I do see them being complimentary.”
“Memories that do not heal”: the legacy of uranium mining at Laguna Pueblo.
Following passage of the Radiation and Exposure and Compensation Act expansion, which includes post-1971 miners for the first time, Searchlight spoke with three tribal members whose lives were changed forever by a toxic industry.
SEARCHLIGHT NEW MEXICO, by Aviva Nathan, August 8, 2025
On July 25, I drove to the Pueblo of Laguna to speak with Loretta Anderson, Millie Chino and Vincent Rodriguez, steering members of an advocacy group called the Southwest Uranium Miners Coalition Post-71. Anderson co-founded the organization in 2014 to fight for the expansion of paid benefits — to uranium workers who entered the industry after 1971 — under the Radiation Exposure and Compensation Act (RECA), the 1990 law created to provide financial support to people exposed to radiation from atomic weapons testing as well as the milling, mining and transporting of uranium.
At Laguna, the mines deformed the hills into tiered sites of extraction that are still gray from the uranium. Infrastructure that was built for the mining still remains, now in a state of disrepair. In the wake of mining, what was once a hill collapsed into a contaminated green pond that smells like methane. (The mine in question, called Jackpile Mine, was the largest open-pit uranium mine in the world and operated both underground and open-pit areas.) Anderson’s late husband, Roy Cheresposy, was a miner. Chino lost her husband, James, another miner, in 2023. Vincent Rodriguez was also a miner.
Our conversation took place while we drove around various sites on pueblo land that were affected by mining that happened here between 1953 and 1982. It followed the recent RECA expansion that’s part of President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, passed on July 4. This legislation, for the first time, will compensate post-1971 uranium workers, offering a one-time payment of $100,000 to New Mexico workers who meet certain criteria related to exposure and health consequences. Compensation will be overseen by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ); the agency has yet to release the new RECA application forms.
The urgent desire of downwinders and uranium workers to be compensated after decades of waiting has been seized upon by lawyers, home health care companies and other third parties that hope to get a slice of the pie for themselves. Already, there has been a cacophony of misinformation and rumors of unlawful solicitation. (For details on how the application process should work, see our sidebar about frequently asked questions.) Right now, it’s difficult to estimate how much will be paid in expanded compensation. Since Reca was first passed, more than $2.7 billion has been awarded.
While potential applicants are in limbo, the physical source of harm remains unattended. The Jackpile Mine, which was declared a Superfund site in 2013, is vacant, but it’s still exposed and quietly lethal. Meanwhile, members of the steering committee have expressed concern that uranium mining could begin again shortly, given the Trump administration’s eagerness to expand uranium mining, which includes efforts to fast-track the opening of mines in New Mexico. Susan Gordon, a coordinator with the Multicultural Alliance for a Safe Environment, adds that further steps are required of companies before they can start mining again in this state.
Land and memory converged as Anderson, Chino and Rodriguez spoke about the history and intimate impact of uranium mining in Laguna Pueblo. The following transcript is edited for clarity and length.
As I drove onto Laguna land, which sits around 50 miles west of Albuquerque, Anderson drove ahead of me and contextualized the landscape over the phone. I’ve added Chino’s comments from a trip on the same roads a few hours later.
Millie Chino: They used to have sheep camps along these hills, years ago before the mining started. But once it started, they couldn’t herd anymore, because of the blasting and all the production going on. Many of our people were farmers and sheepherders and cattle workers.
Lorretta Anderson: There was no acknowledgement of the harm being done by the mines. That’s the terrible part. If you look up at those hills, you can see where the gray clay is. That gray color is uranium.
That was where the mines were. Part of it, anyway. They did do a reclamation at one time, but they only put on a thin layer of dirt. They didn’t clean it up. That dirt all has to have blown away already. The people who did the reclamation are sick. They didn’t have any protective gear.
Chino: On your left, you’ll see the housing area where the supervisors of the mines and their children and families lived. We’ve been told they’re all deceased. Even their children, they died of cancers. My mom worked there as a housekeeper for one of the big shots. Both my parents passed away from radiation diseases.
Anderson: On the right, you can see the arroyo. Now it’s highly contaminated. It’s seeping down the Rio San Jose. Uranium contaminated our Mesita Dam. And there’s a little lake here that’s highly contaminated. That is a hot spot. They don’t know what to do with it. If you stop here, you will see that the horses, cattle and all the animals drink off that area where it’s highly contaminated.
Now we’re entering the village of Paguate. People here are very sick. They’re suffering and dying. The majority of our people were working at the mines. From January 1, 1972, the uranium mining industry just expanded so much, and everybody was employed there at that point. I was living in Seama Village. I live about 11 miles from the mines, down in the valley. I’m in the farthest village, actually. We have six villages in Laguna Pueblo.
We arrived at Chino’s house. In her living room, she read from a poster she’d made.
Chino: These are recollections of my childhood memories, and I’ve titled it, “Memories That Do Not Heal.” The recollections of childhood memories living in Paguate village are of pain, heartbreak and anger. Anger. Uranium mining operations began near our village in the 1950s. A frightening sound became an everyday event. A dynamite blasting happened at least twice per day. When the blasting occurred, everything vibrated. The village shook. The houses built with rock and mud were affected by the vibrations. The pictures that hung on the walls fell.
As children, we were so curious and excited by the loud explosive booms coming from the uranium mine. We figured out the blasting schedule. We gathered at the edge of the village to observe the huge billowing of dust clouds after the blast. The clouds of dust drifted over the village and settled on everything. Women dried fruit and meat outside their homes. Families ate the contaminated food, not knowing the eventual consequences. Years passed. The continued blasting caused cracks in the walls of homes. The outdoor oven walls cracked. The women could not bake bread, roast corn or cook. Today, there are no ovens to be used as they once were. They are in disrepair. As mining operations continued, miners and community members were exposed to the toxic environment.
The Jackpile Mine closed in 1982. Since then, we’ve lived with the knowledge that many community members are sick and dying from cancers. Kidney and respiratory diseases. My beloved spouse, a Vietnam veteran, parents and other relatives passed away from the uranium diseases. These are memories of my childhood growing up in the village so near to the uranium mine.
Anderson: Once you disrupt uranium — and the government knew this — you can’t do anything to stop it from contaminating people. You just open up a porthole of illnesses and diseases. And that’s what our people are suffering from right now. They don’t know how to stop the contamination. There’s nothing they can do. It’s awful. It’s headed down the Rio San Jose, which is going toward Albuquerque and Las Lunas and Belen. And they can’t stop it.
They only have given us until 2027 to file RECA claims. That’s not enough time. Right now, I’m working with over 500 living miners, trying to get them going. We have all these attorneys and home health care groups that are causing so much havoc throughout the community. I told people: Don’t answer them. Do not give out your information. The city of Grants right now is just craziness.
We had a meeting recently and went through everything — and we told everybody to hold off. Our people are calling me asking how to apply, and to get tested, but right now the Radiation Exposure Screening and Education Program at the University of New Mexico is just swamped, because so many people are trying to get tested. I’m telling everyone to get a disc and a radiology report from their doctor, and then we can have the pulmonologist from RESEP read it, so he can do a B-read, in which a diagnosis is made from looking at an X-ray, to determine if miners qualify for compensation………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… https://searchlightnm.org/radiation-exposure-compensation-act-expansion-trump-one-big-beautiful-bill-act-new-mexico-laguna-pueblo-uranium-miners-jackpile/?utm_source=Searchlight+New+Mexico&utm_campaign=5a9ee266ce-8%2F8%2F2025+%E2%80%93+%E2%80%9CMemories+that+do+not+heal%E2%80%9D&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8e05fb0467-5a9ee266ce-395610620&mc_cid=5a9ee266ce&mc_eid=a70296a261
Microsoft helping Israel spy on millions of Palestinians since 2021: Report
Israel’s notorious Unit 8200 was given access to Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform for use in storing recordings of phone calls made by Palestinian civilians
AUG 7, 2025, https://thecradle.co/articles-id/32391
Israel has been using a
Microsoft cloud platform to store massive amounts of data and intelligence on Palestinians in both the occupied West Bank and Gaza, according to a new investigation carried out by +972 Magazine, Local Call, and The Guardian.
The investigation reveals that Microsoft’s chief executive met in 2021 with the commander of Israel’s notorious Unit 8200 – the military intelligence unit involved in the pager terror attacks against Lebanon and other covert operations across the region.
Unit 8200 chief Yossi Sariel convinced Microsoft’s Satya Nadella to grant Israeli military intelligence access to a “customized and segregated area” inside the Azure cloud platform, according to The Guardian.
It then began building “a sweeping and intrusive system that collects and stores recordings of millions of mobile phone calls made each day by Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.”
Microsoft says its chief executive was unaware of what data would be stored on the platform. Yet the report cites a cache of leaked Microsoft documents and interviews with nearly a dozen employees of the company and of Unit 8200 – revealing the storage of everyday communications and data on the daily lives of regular Palestinian civilians.
Three Unit 8200 sources said the platform helped pave the way for many deadly airstrikes in Gaza, and Israeli army operations in the occupied West Bank.
Other sources say Tel Aviv needed Microsoft due to a lack of storage space and computing power to carry out its espionage plans.
Israel hoped to intercept, record, and store “a million calls an hour,” according to intelligence sources.
The system was designed to be placed on Microsoft servers under layers of security developed by the company with directives from Unit 8200.
According to the leaked documents, droves of sensitive information are inside the company’s data centers in Ireland and the Netherlands.
The Guardian reported earlier this year that Israel relied on Microsoft tech for its genocidal campaign against Gaza. An internal review carried out by the company claimed “no evidence” that its Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems or cloud platforms were used for harm.
“The company had held conversations with Israeli defense officials and stipulated how its technology should be used in Gaza, insisting Microsoft systems must not be employed for the identification of targets for lethal strikes,” a company source told The Guardian this week.
Unit 8200 sources confirmed, however, that “intelligence drawn from the enormous repositories of phone calls held in Azure had been used to research and identify bombing targets in Gaza.”
“When planning an airstrike on an individual located within densely populated areas where high numbers of civilians are present, officers would use the cloud-based system to examine calls made by people in the immediate vicinity,” they added.
Israel has relied heavily on western tech firms for mass surveillance and attacks on Palestinians.
In March, +972 Magazine and Local Call revealed that Unit 8200 developed a ‘Chat GPT-like’ tool programmed to compile massive collections of intercepted Palestinian communications.
The tool was trained to understand colloquial Arabic and uses large amounts of Palestinian phone calls and text messages obtained through surveillance.
“The IDF has become increasingly dependent on the likes of Microsoft, Amazon, and Google to store and analyze greater volumes of data and intelligence information for longer period,” Israeli sources told The Guardian in January this year.
Advanced facial recognition technology has also played a leading role in the forced disappearance and abduction of scores of Palestinians in Gaza by Israel.
Earlier this year, Google announced plans to acquire the Israeli cloud security startup Wiz in a $32 billion deal. The Israeli startup was founded by and consists of members of Unit 8200.
Last year, Google fired dozens of employees after they staged a series of sit-in protests across the US to oppose Project Nimbus, which aims to provide the Israeli army with advanced AI and cloud services.
Who’s Protecting the Moon?
By Nina Beety, Global Research, May 12, 2020, https://www.globalresearch.ca/who-protecting-moon/5712564
“Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth,” – Henry David Thoreau
The moon is in trouble. And so are we.
Bruce Gagnon:
NASA is not really looking for the ‘origins of life,’ as it tells school children today. Instead, it is laying the groundwork for a new gold rush that will drain our national treasury and enrich the big corporations that now control our government. It is beyond time for the American people to wake up to the shell game underway.[1]
Americans haven’t awoken, despite the environmental damage these projects already inflict and the peril to Earth’s future and that of other planets. That damage will dramatically escalate with the U.S. Space Force and Artemis Accords.
The moon is key to the U.S. and other countries for commercial mining, military bases to control access to Earth and space, and for launching military and commercial conquest of space. On April 6, President Trump issued an executive order directing the Secretary of State to “take all appropriate actions to encourage international support for the public and private recovery and use of resources in outer space”.
“Americans should have the right to engage in commercial exploration, recovery, and use of resources in outer space, consistent with applicable law. Outer space is a legally and physically unique domain of human activity, and the United States does not view it as a global commons.” [2]
The Artemis Accords are being drafted to establish legal justification for commercial space resource extraction, exploitation, and ownership [3] (reminiscent of the Bush administration memos by Yoo, Bybee, and Bradbury on torture). They would be an international pact for “like-minded nations”, foregoing the United Nations treaty process.
Vice President Mike Pence:
“The United States has always been a nation of restless pioneers, from those Americans who crossed the western frontier to settle in California to those who first stepped onto the Moon. We are ever striving to explore uncharted lands, reach new horizons, and venture into the unknown.
Today, we are renewing the legacy of those courageous space pioneers and all they represent. As part of our re-engagement in human space exploration, the Trump administration’s policy is to return to the moon by 2024, ensuring that the next man and the first woman on the moon will both be American astronauts. From there, we plan to put men and women on Mars.
To accomplish this next big leap, we will develop the technologies to live on the moon for months and even years. We will learn how to make use of resources that the moon has to offer. That includes mining oxygen from the lunar surface and rocks to fuel reusable landers, extracting water from the permanently shadowed craters of the south pole, and developing a new generation of nuclear-powered spacecraft that will help us fly further and faster than ever before. [4]
Former Nazi Major General Walter Dornberger, head of Hitler’s V1 and V2 program, told Congress in 1958 that America’s top space priority ought to be to “conquer, occupy, keep, and utilize space between the Earth and the Moon.”[5] The Apollo missions were the first phase — on-site assessments to gather samples, run experiments, and test human interaction with the lunar environment.
Since 1959, lunar missions and crashes by the U.S., China, Russia, Japan, India, Israel, and European Union have left over 413,000 pounds of debris and toxic substances on the formerly pristine lunar surface,[6] including 96 bags of bacteria-laden human excrement dumped by the Apollo missions.[7] Apollo also left a nuclear generator on the moon.[8]
Governments have intentionally hit the moon 22 times as part of experiments and conducted 17 other post-mission crashes. The U.S. did the majority — 16 post-mission crashes and 14 intentional strikes, including the 2009 LCROSS hit, equivalent to 1.5 tons of TNT, to blast 350 tons of rock and dust and create a six-mile-high cloud for data gathering and public relations. That mission cost $49 million, and NASA’s Ames Research celebrated with an all-night party.[9] In the 1950s, the U.S. even planned to drop an atomic bomb on the moon — Project A119 – but cancelled it as too risky.[10]
Why should the moon be protected? There are many reasons.
The moon
stabilizes Earth’s rotation- has a major role in maintaining the Earth’s magnetic field
- regulates the climate
- creates the tides
- affects plant cycles and likely affects all biology and human cycles in profound ways
- regulates the procreation of some creatures, including coral [11]
The light of the moon is essential for life, and the moon may well be a stabilizing force for every living being on the planet,
The moon is also a sovereign body with its own rights, and it belongs to no one. It is revered by Earth–based indigenous peoples and has been considered a living, sentient being by people worldwide throughout human history. The moon and earth’s self-protective systems demonstrate far more intelligence, wisdom, and life than “civilized” society understands.[12]
None of this matters to NASA, the U.S. government, other countries, and related businesses. Laser-focused on their mission objectives, with virtually no checks or public oversight, they wield the ultimate in “big toys.” The United States alone budgets millions of tax dollars every year to develop space technology for future outposts and has spent billions on the Artemis Program. For their space program, the overarching priorities are American supremacy, empire, and profit — the unflinching mandate of manifest destiny projected into space.
The United States is by far the biggest threat to space and the moon.
When you don’t initiate the boys, they burn down the village. — African saying
The 1979 United Nations Moon Treaty prohibits military bases and national appropriation of territory but only minimally protects the moon environmentally. It enshrines depredation “on the basis of equality” — “The Moon and its natural resources are the common heritage of mankind.” [13] Former astronaut Harrison Schmidt, who formed his own company to mine the moon, complained the treaty would “complicate private commercial efforts.”[14] He was not alone. The U.S. did not sign, and only 18 nations have ratified it.
“…the United States does not consider the Moon Agreement to be an effective or necessary instrument to guide nation states regarding the promotion of commercial participation in the long-term exploration, scientific discovery, and use of the Moon, Mars, or other celestial bodies. Accordingly, the Secretary of State shall object to any attempt by any other state or international organization to treat the Moon Agreement as reflecting or otherwise expressing customary international law.” [15]
Companies such as Bechtel and Bigelow Aerospace [16] are securing contracts from the FAA and other agencies to own land on the moon and mine the moon. Helium-3, used for nuclear fusion, may be worth $3 billion per metric ton, and there are millions of tons of helium-3 in the moon’s upper layer. This is one cause of the new gold rush to the moon.[17] Lunar water deposits are being assessed to see if they can provide drinking water for military and commercial bases there. Moon tourism is being pursued internationally.[18] A Japanese startup even wants to put billboards on the moon.[19]
Trump Signs Executive Order to Support Moon Mining, Tap Asteroid Resources
There are direct and immediate impacts to Earth from these space programs. They accelerate climate change and will eventually torch the climate if allowed to continue. Each fossil-fuel-burning rocket launch not only uses toxic chemicals and causes toxic fallout. They also put particulate matter and exhaust into the atmosphere, and destroy part of the ozone layer.[20]
For example, before leaving Earth’s atmosphere, each shuttle spewed thousands of pounds of metals and other chemicals into the air, including lithium, nickel, mercury [21], bismuth, manganese, aluminum, iron, and zinc. “People think of a shuttle launch as a short-term, finite event, but each launch expels a huge amount of debris into the atmosphere with the potential for long-term effects on the surrounding ecosystem. The plume contains hydrogen chloride, a strong acid. After launches, the pH of the [nearby] lagoons may plummet for a short time, rendering the water nearly as caustic as battery acid.” — John Bowden, environmental chemist at Hollings Marine Laboratory in Charleston, S.C., 2014 [22]
The Earth and its atmosphere have never experienced the sheer volume of launches planned. Dramatically worsening this are the thousands of rockets to put Wi-Fi and 5G satellites into earth orbit that began last year by Elon Musk/SpaceX and others.[23]
This is sheer insanity.
Congress continues to divert more taxpayer dollars into these extremely costly space projects — the next moon visit could cost trillions. This resource extraction from taxpayers robs cities, counties, and states of critical financial resources to solve real problems right here, especially now, while ignoring the planetary environmental cost.
Where are the environmentalists, the biologists, the ocean scientists, and consumer advocates?
We must break out of the NASA trance. Everything that is done to the moon has repercussions to Earth. “National security” is protecting Earth and the moon.
Human history with empires and invaders that subjugate and plunder is being repeated again, with an addiction to “command and control” permeating these space programs. These values and policies are opposed to life, peace, and a future. The Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space just sponsored a webinar on these plans “War in Space — Weaponising the final frontier”.[24]
The film “Independence Day” got it wrong, and Pogo got it right – the enemy is human. Tell children the truth: astronauts are not heroes.
Humans must repair Earth and themselves first with all available creativity and resources, and the COVID19 shutdown has worsened everything. If humans are incapable of fixing the dire messes they’ve created on Earth, incapable of stopping wars, incapable of living cooperatively with their neighbors, then they cannot go off planet or contaminate anything else.
The future is at stake. The moon must be defended. Shut NASA and these space ventures down.
Nina Beety is an investigative writer and public speaker on governmental policy, the environment, and wireless radiation hazards. She has written two reports for officials on Smart Meter problems which are on her website www.smartmeterharm.org. She lives in California.
Notes
[1] 2006. Bruce Gagnon is co-founder of Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space.
The AUKUS Submarine Deal is Dead
National Security Journal, By Andrew Latham, 7 Aug 25
– Key Points and Summary – The central promise of the AUKUS security pact—to provide Australia with nuclear-powered submarines—is reportedly no longer viable due to a severe crisis in the U.S. and UK defense industrial bases.
-The U.S. Navy is struggling to build and maintain its own submarine fleet and cannot spare any Virginia-class boats, while the UK’s industry has no surplus capacity to make up the shortfall.
-This leaves Australia facing a dangerous capability gap.
-As a result, Canberra is now forced to upgrade its aging Collins-class submarines and fast-track its own domestic submarine production, a process that will take over a decade.
The AUKUS Submarine Deal Looks RIP
The central element of AUKUS was always the promise to provide Australia with nuclear-powered submarines. According to the terms of the agreement, the US would provide Australia with at least three Virginia-class boats, and the UK and Australia would begin development on their own SSN-AUKUS platform. This plan is no longer viable.
The United States can’t provide the submarines; the United Kingdom can neither make up for the shortfall nor co-develop such a submarine in a reasonable timeframe; and Canberra must now face the unpleasant truth that the promises made in 2021 were more fantasy pledges than realistic commitments.
…………………..there was a tacit acknowledgement all along that a nuclear submarine program was more than a propulsion system—it was an entire industrial ecosystem. It needs an industrial base, a trained workforce, a secure supply chain, and, most critically, decades of institutional memory. AUKUS made the assumption that the United States could build Virginia-class submarines for itself and its AUKUS partners. That is no longer a reasonable assumption.
The US Navy is two boats short of its target force, it’s fielding a rate of barely 1.2 boats a year (far short of a two-per-year benchmark), and it has a chronic maintenance backlog that leaves a third of its force in port. It is unable to uprate its skilled labor pool, reactor modules, or dry dock capacity, and there is no margin in the shipyards even with billions in new money being injected into the program. Canberra had pledged US$2bn by the end of 2025 to help build up US industrial capacity. The yards at Groton and Newport News have no space to spare even for that investment. The bottleneck is a systemic one.
Admiral Daryl Caudle was frank in testimony last month. The US industrial base, he testified, would have to double its attack submarine output for America to meet its obligations under the AUKUS agreement with Australia and the United Kingdom. In April, the Pentagon initiated a 30-day review to see if it could simultaneously meet the needs of the US Navy and the Australian demand. Four months later, the review is still not public, but the answer is already clear: the US cannot do both. It cannot, even if it wanted to, turn over one or two boats to Australia, because the Navy has none to spare. Even if it did, the optics of transferring high-end submarines to another country while its own force contracts would be impossible for Congress to accept.
And the UK simply cannot provide subs in place of the promised but undeliverable American boats. The Royal Navy has already made an in-principle commitment to the SSN-AUKUS program. Still, Britain’s existing submarine program, which produces the Astute-class submarine, has suffered from years of delays, budget overruns, and production shortfalls since it was first launched. And BAE Systems, the prime contractor in the British submarine industry, has minimal spare capacity to increase the rate of production beyond its existing domestic orders. In short, there are no surplus subs—and, more importantly, no realistic possibility of any near-term export of nuclear-powered boats to Australia before the 2040s. Political will aside, industrial capacity isn’t there. The UK cannot bail out the US shortfall, and the AUKUS partnership as a viable trilateral supply chain has effectively ceased to exist. That, in turn, leaves Australia with no option but to fast-track its submarine industrial base; a process which it is already doing, quietly but steadily.
Canberra is already responding. The Collins-class submarines, at more than 20 years old, are being upgraded and their lifespan extended………………………. Australia will not be launching a domestically built nuclear submarine before the late 2030s. That is a decade away. The capability gap is real, and the risk profile is increasing.
The idea that the US could transfer a Virginia-class boat or two to make good the gap was floated early on. The politics have since moved against it. Congress is increasingly dubious about hardware transfers when the state of American readiness is already so poor. The Navy itself is against anything that would take boats from its already underpowered undersea fleet. The situation is not in flux: it is set. Washington cannot deliver what it promised. The internal Pentagon review, which has already been provided to Congress, reportedly makes that clear. The language might be diplomatic; the reality is not…………………………………………………… https://nationalsecurityjournal.org/the-aukus-submarine-deal-is-dead/
How industry is positioning itself for the giant Golden Dome budget.
…What emerges from these individual fundraising rounds, tests and production increases…is companies who see a generational windfall…
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| PART 3 | AUGUST 6, 2025 |
Welcome to the third part of our four-part newsletter series on the funding, technology and mission of the Golden Dome missile defense initiative, where we break down the highly ambitious space-based military program, from its history to its planned architecture to its budget and to the role of AI. We’ll keep you up to date on what stands to become one of the most expansive military defense systems in United States history.
Today, we’ll talk more about industry’s visions for Golden Dome, and how some companies are already positioning themselves to win Pentagon contracts.
Almost immediately after President Donald Trump announced the idea that came to be known as Golden Dome, space and defense companies started making their case for how their technology could be a fit for the program.
| As a result, industry officials have several visions for what Golden Dome might include and how it might work. While Gen. Michael Guetlein, recently appointed program manager for Golden Dome of America, only recently kicked off a 60-daysprint to deliver an architecture, some of the pitches and procurements already out there may offer ideas on the range of possibilities and the technologies involved. |
| Many of the defense industry’s largest players have started touting a vision for Golden Dome. Among them: L3Harris is touting its history and pedigree to develop part of the system. The company has built a missile-tracking satellite that successfully demonstrated the ability to track a hypersonic missile from space, the Missile Defense Agency confirmed April 25. L3Harris has also recently expanded its manufacturing capabilities, ramping up its ability to produce infrared sensing payloads — a central technology for the Golden Dome missile-defense shield that relies heavily on space-based capabilities. In addition, the company announced plans to leverage its AI partnerships with Palantir and Shield AI in the interest of securing Golden Dome contracts. And in July, L3Harris named Rob Mitrevski, who recently oversaw the company’s expansion of infrared sensor payload production capacity, as president of Golden Dome strategy and integration — signalling the company’s intent to steer its growing portfolio of work on Golden Dome. |
Northrop Grumman, too, is discussing its experience as a lead contractor for the Space Development Agency’s Tracking Layer. In a recent interview with SpaceNews, Raymond Sharp, vice president of Northrop Grumman’s missile defense solutions business unit, said the company is “all in” on Golden Dome, and hopes to cement a systems-integrator role that goes beyond supplying components. The company would incorporate modular networking technologies that it’s already developed for other military contracts into Golden Dome concepts to demonstrate “plug-and-play” integration — a key requirement for a system expected to absorb a range of sensors, weapons and decision-support software from across the industrial base.
Northrop also intends to offer components — in a second-quarter earnings call, CEO Kathy Warden said the company is significantly ramping up solid rocket motor production and plans to offer a space-based interceptor concept soon, saying that ground-based tests are already happening. During an Aug. 5 meeting with reporters, Northrop Grumman executives said the company’s billion-dollar investment in solid rocket motor production facilities put the company in a strong position to capitalize on the demand likely to be generated by Golden Dome.
Similarly, Lockheed Martin announced it hopes to conduct orbital tests of space-based interceptors, which is thought to be a key part of Golden Dome, in 2028. However, the company has not clarified whether those interceptors will rely on kinetic or directed energy weaponry and probably won’t announce those details until an architecture is released.
| Booz Allen Hamilton unveiled a concept for a megaconstellation of 2,000 smallsats operating as an artificial intelligence-powered network that the company is calling “Brilliant Swarms.” The company said the satellites would serve as both detection systems and as “kill vehicles” that would de-orbit targets by physically slamming into them — no space-based missiles required. The project is also expected to attract disruptors to the Pentagon’s business. Reutersreported in April that executives from SpaceX, Anduril and Palantir met with the Trump administration to pitch a Golden Dome architecture that involves a constellation of 400 to 1,000 missile detecting and tracking satellites and another constellation of 200 attack satellites that would target and disable missiles with lasers or with missiles of their own. The trio is reportedly being considered a frontrunner for Golden Dome, though SpaceX CEO Elon Musk disputed Reuters’ claims and those reports came prior to the public dissolution of Trump and Musk’s relationship. More recently, Reuters reported that the administration is looking to expand the companies involved in Golden Dome to reduce reliance on SpaceX. Officials have reached out to companies like Amazon, Rocket Lab and Stoke Space about participating in the effort in an attempt to reduce the role SpaceX would play. |
At the same time, more traditional space companies are also now seeing a potential lane for defense work. For example, Voyager is working to paint a clear line between the technology it’s already been building and the presumed needs for an advanced missile defense system. Voyager plans to offer up its propulsion technology — the company has developed a solid propulsion roll control system designed to stabilize a missile’s flight trajectory — to Golden Dome. Voyager has also pitched edge computing systems it’s developing in partnership with Palantir.
Redwire, which includes spacecraft, sensors and digital engineering systems, is also offering up many of its core technology for Golden Dome.
Top-down visions
Some aspects of what will become Golden Dome are likely already underway; last week we mentioned that BAE Systems had won a $1.2 billion Space Force contractfor 10 medium Earth orbit missile (MEO) tracking satellites. The satellites will become part of the Resilient Missile Warning Tracking Epoch 2, which marks the second phase of the Space Force’s program to develop a missile-tracking network in MEO. The constellation is intended to help defend against evolving missile threats, particularly hypersonic weapons that have become a key focus for U.S. defense planners, and as a result will be integrated into the overall Golden Dome project.
| Several other space industry firms are presenting themselves as capable of handling the work necessary for building the Golden Dome. Take Rocket Lab, which in recent months took several steps to expand into the military sector and pursue coveted status as a prime contractor for the Pentagon and a worthwhile partner for high-value contracts. Those steps include a $275 million acquisition of Geost, which produces electro-optical and infrared (EO/IR) sensor payloads that are already used in U.S. military satellites, with plans for more acquisitions down the road. |
| Other companies have been busy raising funds or ramping up their own capabilities, such as Sophia Space, which raised $3.5 million in pre-seed funding to develop orbiting data centers, which it hopes to demonstrate as useful for Golden Dome through a memorandum of understanding with Axiom Space. Apex recently raised money in a $200 million Series C, which it will use to increase satellite bus production — similarly arguing that they would be useful for missile defense. And Quantum Space raised $40 million to develop its national security-focused Ranger spacecraft, also hiring to its executive team former Defense Department official Richard Matlock, who previously worked in missile defense. What emerges from these individual fundraising rounds, tests and production increases — whether it’s Virgin Galactic’s work on suborbital spaceplanes or Ursa Major’s contract to test a hypersonic-capable engine — is companies who see a generational windfall. |
Uncertainty about the scope of Golden Dome translates to uncertainty about which firms and which technologies will make their way into the program. It also means it’s way too early to guess who the winners will be. But with the size of Golden Dome’s $25 budget, many space companies will look to show off their capabilities.
follow all our coverage at SpaceNews.com,
$10 billion, 10 year US Army contract elevates Palantir to defense contracting royalty.
Crashes the multibillion-dollar DoD party alongside Boeing, Lockheed, and Raytheon.
Brandon Vigliarolo. Fri 1 Aug 2025 , https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/01/palantir_us_army_contract/
There are no official criteria for what constitutes membership in the upper echelon of the US military industrial complex, but a $10 billion deal that consolidates dozens of contracts under a single blanket purchase agreement sure makes it seem like Palantir has earned entry.
The US Army announced on Thursday that, rather than continue to buy Palantir products on one of 75 different contracts the branch has with the data analytics software company, it’s awarding a ten-year Enterprise Agreement (EA) with the aforementioned cap of $10 billion. Like a standard blanket purchase agreement, the deal allows the Army to buy what it needs from Palantir over the course of a decade.
It doesn’t appear that the Army is awarding Palantir any new contracts based on the press release or a procurement notice published about the contract in May. According to that document, the Army had figured out that it’s doing so much business with Palantir over so many separate procurement actions that it’s wasting a lot of time and money.
“Consolidating these efforts under an EA will streamline future modifications and task orders under a single set of ordering instructions and terms and conditions,” the May publication pointed out. “Instead of managing dozens of contracts with varying terms, the government will empower a single team to manage the contract.”
With 75 active contracts between the Army and Palantir, it’s nearly impossible to track down what exactly the Army is using from Palantir, though we do have some ideas.
Palantir won its first major defense contract from the Army in 2019 when it scored $800 million to work on new battlefield intelligence software for the branch. It also scored contracts to build things like mobile battlefield intelligence trucks, and the Pentagon tapped it to develop the Maven Smart System after Google backed out of the deal following employee protests.
More broadly, Palantir offers various data analytics tools and suites, any number of which may be in use.
Beyond the US Army and the DoD, Palantir has also worked with US Immigration officials to develop deportation software, at the IRS to help it with new software initiatives, and even at US-backed mortgage broker Fannie Mae, where the company’s code has been put to use detecting fraud.
Palantir has found itself in US President Donald Trump’s good graces thanks to CEO Alex Karp’s previous comments about his opposition to “woke” ideology, support for DOGE, and comments about “powering the West to innate superiority.” This latest contract will likely do little to assuage conspiracy-minded fears that Palantir is gobbling up and monetizing government data for the benefit of Trump and a coterie of right-wing billionaires.
By scoring an EA, Palantir finds itself in the company of defense contractors like Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and Lockheed Martin – an elite club, to be sure.
Palantir declined to comment on this story beyond pointing to the Army press release, while the US Army didn’t immediately respond to questions.
YouTube bans prominent Zelensky critic
Former TV host Diana Panchenko had more than 2 million subscribers when her account was deleted.
9 Aug 25, https://www.rt.com/russia/622688-youtube-ban-zelensky-critic/
YouTube has removed the 2-million-subscriber account of exiled Ukrainian Journalist of the Year Diana Panchenko, a fierce critic of Vladimir Zelensky.
In 2023, Kiev imposed personal sanctions on the former TV presenter and started criminal proceedings against her for her alleged anti-Ukrainian reporting.
Panchenko has long criticized Zelensky for rampant corruption in Ukraine, as well as his clampdown on freedom of speech. She has also condemned Kiev’s military actions in Donbass since 2014, and later accused the former actor of dragging the nation into a “forever war.”
“Diana Panchenko @Panchenko_X is one of the most famous women in Ukraine, former Journalist of the Year and opponent of the grossly corrupt Zelensky regime,” Irish journalist Chay Bowes wrote on X on Friday.
“YouTube just banned her and erased her account. She had 2 million followers,” he wrote. “The most dangerous weapon is Truth.”
Panchenko’s YouTube account is deleted as of the time of writing, but an archived snapshot shows that at least 2.09 million people subscribed to her channel as of last month.
Youtube, which is owned by Google, has extensively cracked down on and banned Russian media channels, as well as large pro-Moscow private accounts since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict.
Panchenko has also routinely criticized Kiev’s crackdown on alternative narratives in Ukraine.
Soon after the escalation of the conflict in 2022, Zelensky shut down multiple television channels associated with his political opposition and consolidated some of the country’s largest networks into a single 24/7 broadcast called the United News TV Telemarathon.
Australia to chart its own course on Palestinian statehood, without Trump’s say-so.
Trump’s return to the White House has already shifted global diplomatic currents, with several leaders recalibrating their positions to maintain favour. By declaring that Australia’s decision will not be subject to U.S. approval, Albanese is signalling a willingness to resist that pressure – even if it means copping criticism from one of the country’s most powerful media empires.
9 August 2025 Michael Taylor, https://theaimn.net/australia-to-chart-its-own-course-on-palestinian-statehood-without-trumps-say-so/
Australia’s decision on whether to recognise a Palestinian state will not be dictated by Washington – and that, apparently, was enough to attract howls of condemnation and disapproval from sections of the Murdoch media.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese confirmed this week that he was unlikely to consult with U.S. President Donald Trump before making any decision on recognition. It’s a simple case of Australia acting in Australia’s national interest, emphasising that the issue will be decided in Canberra, not in the White House.
The reaction from the Murdoch media was swift and fierce. Headlines and opinion columns framed Albanese’s stance as a diplomatic snub to a “key ally,” warning of potential damage to the Australia–U.S. relationship. The coverage fits a familiar pattern: when leaders diverge from U.S. policy – especially under a Republican president – Murdoch media frequently portrays it as reckless or unpatriotic.
At the heart of the dispute is a deeper question of sovereignty. Critics argue that Australia should stand firm on charting its own foreign policy, particularly on sensitive Middle East matters, which have been shaped for decades by complex international law and humanitarian concerns. Recognition of a Palestinian state has long been debated within Australia, with supporters citing the need for a two-state solution and opponents warning of diplomatic repercussions with Israel and the United States.
Trump’s return to the White House has already shifted global diplomatic currents, with several leaders recalibrating their positions to maintain favour. By declaring that Australia’s decision will not be subject to U.S. approval, Albanese is signalling a willingness to resist that pressure – even if it means copping criticism from one of the country’s most powerful media empires.
In a political environment where foreign policy is often filtered through the prism of domestic politics and media narratives, Albanese’s comments draw a sharp line: Australia will make its own call. The real question is whether the public sees that as principled independence – or unnecessary defiance.
Either way, the stance taps into a deeper tradition in Australian foreign policy: the belief that while alliances matter, sovereignty matters more. From Whitlam’s recognition of China to Howard’s refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocol, Australia has occasionally charted its own course against the preferences of powerful allies. Albanese’s decision – or even just his refusal to seek Trump’s blessing – may yet be remembered as another of those moments.
No Nukes for Power, Posturing or Destruction
Karl Grossman, COUNTERPUNCH, August 8, 2025
(This is a presentation, titled “No Nukes for Power, Posturing or Destruction,” that I gave at the 2025 Hiroshima-Nagasaki Commemorative Event on Long Island this week organized by the South Country Peace Group and co-sponsored by other peace organizations and also religious institutions including the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Stony Brook; Bellport United Methodist Church; and Old South Haven Presbyterian Church. Peace groups included Pax Christi LI; LI Alliance for Peaceful Alternatives; North Country Peace Group; Veterans for Peace Long Island Chapter 138; and Peace Action New York State).
“We are in the hands of lunatics and at the crossroads of time,” Dr. Helen Caldicott said several years ago. A medical doctor, the author of books including Nuclear Madness published in 1978 and The New Nuclear Danger out three years ago, she declared: “It’s time we rise up and say ‘this is our world, we want to live.’”
It’s high time, very high time.
Indeed, we’re now on borrowed time.
This past Friday, President Trump stated: “Based on the highly provocative statements of the former president of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev…now…deputy chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, I have ordered two nuclear submarines to be positioned in the appropriate regions.”
Medvedev, upon Trump’s demand reducing a ceasefire deadline in Russia’s war on Ukraine, said Trump was playing an “ultimatum game” with Russia. “Each new ultimatum is a threat and a step towards war. “Not between Russia and Ukraine, but with his own country.”
Medvedev said Trump should “revisit his favorite movies about the living dead and recall just how dangerous the mythical ‘Dead Hand’ can be.”
Russia’s “Dead Hand” system, as has been reported in recent days, is an automatic nuclear retaliation mechanism going back to the Cold War designed to launch a counterstrike even if the Russian leadership is wiped out in a first strike.
Trump shot back: “Tell Medvedev, the failed former President of Russia, who thinks he’s still president, to watch his words. He’s entering very dangerous territory!”
Russian President Putin of course has repeatedly threatened the use of nuclear weapons by Russia since its invasion of Ukraine.
Meanwhile, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un earlier was present when, as the headline of the Associated Press dispatch reported, “North Korea launches new intercontinental ballistic missile designed to threaten the U.S.,” said North Korea “will never change its line of bolstering up its nuclear forces.”
Indeed, “We are in the hands of lunatics and at the crossroads of time.” By the skin of our teeth, the world, since the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 80 years ago, has avoided a global nuclear holocaust.
But as the heading of the announcement on January 28, 2025 of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, it’s Doomsday Clock is: “Closer than ever: It is now 89 seconds to midnight.” The Bulletin defines midnight on its Doomsday Clock as “nuclear annihilation.”
The announcement by the Bulletin, founded by Albert Einstein and former Manhattan Project scientists including J. Robert Oppenheimer immediately following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, began: “In 2024, humanity edged ever closer to catastrophe. Trends that have deeply concerned” the Bulletin have “continued, and despite unmistakable signs of danger, national leaders and their societies have failed to do what is needed to change course. Consequently, we now move the Doomsday Clock from 90 seconds to 89 seconds to midnight—the closest it has ever been to catastrophe” since being set up in 1947.
The Bulletin’s announcement continued: “Our fervent hope is that leaders will recognize the world’s existential predicament and take bold action….In setting the Clock one second closer to midnight, we send a stark signal: Because the world is already perilously close to the precipice, a move of even a single second should be taken as an indication of extreme danger and an unmistakable warning that every second of delay in reversing course increases the probability of global disaster.”
It went on: “In regard to nuclear risk, the war in Ukraine, now in its third year, looms over the world; the conflict could become nuclear at any moment because of a rash decision or through accident or miscalculation….The countries that possess nuclear weapons are increasing the size and role of their arsenals, investing hundreds of billions of dollars in weapons that can destroy civilization.”
“Blindly continuing on the current path is a form of madness,” it said. “The United States, China, and Russia have the collective power to destroy civilization. These three countries have the prime responsibility to pull the world back from the brink, and they can do so if their leaders seriously commence good-faith discussions about the global threats outlined here. Despite their profound disagreements, they should take that first step without delay. The world depends on immediate action.”
“After 80 years, nuclear threat remains grave,” was the headline of a piece this week by Ira Helfand of the International Steering Group of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.
Helfand began: “As we approach the 80th anniversary of the U.S. bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki…on Aug 6 and 9, respectively, the danger of nuclear war is great and growing….The world can no longer indulge in the denial which has marked our thinking since the end of the Cold War. Nuclear war is a real and present danger that we must acknowledge and confront.”
“A large-scale nuclear war between the United States and Russia, according to best available science, would kill hundreds of millions of people in the first afternoon, and lead to a global famine that kills some 6 billion people, three quarters of humanity, in the first two years,” it continued. “Even a more limited nuclear war, as might have taken place between India and Pakistan, could trigger a global famine that kills 2 billion people worldwide, including 130 million in the United States.”
I host a television program broadcast nationally and a while back interviewed Commander Robert Green formerly of the British Navy. He said: “I do feel that we’re in more dangerous times than in the Cold War at the moment and people don’t realize it.”
He was deeply involved in British readiness to use nuclear weapons……………………………
He said there has been a “systematic effort to play down the appalling side effects and ‘overkill’…with even the smallest modern nuclear weapons,” how they are “not weapons at all. They are utterly indiscriminate devices that combine the poisoning horrors of chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction, plus effects…of radioactivity, with almost unimaginable explosive violence.” Green is devoted to working for a “nuclear-free world.”
There is an illusion, a false notion that continues in many government quarters and among those with a vested interest in nuclear weapons—that nuclear war is feasible and winnable.
In my book, Cover Up: What You Are Not Supposed to Know About Nuclear Power, I quote from Legacy of Hiroshima, a book by Edward Teller, “father” of the hydrogen bomb.
Teller asserts that “we can survive a nuclear attack.” There is “no doubt” that millions of people would die, he concedes, but “most people” can be saved. ……………………………….
Nuclear power provides a direct link to nuclear weaponry. With more nations having the ability to construct nuclear weapons—and any country with a nuclear power facility has the materiel and trained personnel to make nuclear weapons—the likelihood of this luck running out is high. Any nuclear power facility can serve as a nuclear bomb factory……………………………………………………………………………………………………………… https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/08/08/no-nukes-for-power-posturing-or-destruction/
Fire safety improvements required at Dungeness A
Sam Williams, 7 Aug 25, https://www.kentonline.co.uk/romney-marsh/news/fire-safety-improvements-required-at-power-station-328268/
Fire safety failings have been uncovered at a nuclear site in Kent, prompting a formal enforcement notice from the UK’s watchdog.
The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) issued the notice to Nuclear Restoration Services (NRS) following inspections at its Dungeness A site on Romney Marsh.
Inspectors identified several safety shortfalls in the Fill House facility, a building used to retrieve and manage nuclear waste.
According to the ONR, issues were found with the site’s risk assessment, fire safety protocols, firefighting arrangements, and fire detection systems.
Tom Eagleton, ONR superintending inspector, said: “Fire safety is important in order to protect workers and the public, and we expect the necessary standards to be maintained at all times.
“This enforcement notice sets out the specific improvements that must be made by NRS to ensure adequate fire safety provisions are in place.
“We will continue to monitor NRS’ progress in addressing these issues in line with the relevant legislation.”
The enforcement action has been taken under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. NRS has been given a deadline of September 30, 2025, to rectify the problems and meet the required standards.
The Christian Zionist View of Foreign Policy Is Holy War.
Christian Zionists see Israel as the focus of US foreign policy — a handy euphemism for US empire.
By Sara Gabler , Truthout, August 6, 2025, https://truthout.org/articles/the-christian-zionist-view-of-foreign-policy-is-holy-war/?utm_source=Truthout&utm_campaign=7925a4b885-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2025_08_06_09_12&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bbb541a1db-7925a4b885-650192793
You’re very much into God in this room and that’s very nice,” President Donald Trump told a group of business leaders at a July 14 luncheon hosted by the White House Faith Office. In attendance were dozens of corporate executives, including Hobby Lobby CEO David Green and oil billionaire Albert Huddleston, along with senior administration officials. “You’re more than just CEOs and business leaders and entrepreneurs. You’re stewards on divine assignment,” praised Paula White-Cain, the former televangelist who leads the White House Faith Office.
It seemed like a strange group of people to invite to the first-ever Faith Office luncheon, an office with the stated mission of ensuring religious groups can “compete on a level playing field for grants, contracts, programs, and other Federal funding opportunities.” But this was a gathering for Christian nationalists who believe that the United States was founded as a “Christian nation”; that the government should reflect Christian values (narrowly defined as white evangelical Protestant values); and that businesses such as Hobby Lobby can impose religious beliefs.
“We believe God is raising up business leaders who don’t separate faith from enterprise, but who see their platforms and their pulpits as their businesses and their instruments for eternal impact,” stressed White-Cain. This was not an ecumenical or interfaith message because, unsurprisingly, the Faith Office’s leaders are all Christians, and their “faith” is the political ideology of white Christian nationalism.
In true prosperity gospel form, Trump assured the CEOs and cabinet members: “Together we’re going to continue the fight for Judeo-Christian values of our Founding Fathers, we’ll grow our economy, we’ll protect our children.”
Trump’s language about Judeo-Christian values is also operative in another extremist ideology at work in his administration: Christian Zionism. Whereas Christian nationalism gives Trump and his supporters a shared language to talk about issues like so-called “anti-Christian bias” and “parental choice,” Christian Zionism gives them a language to make their support of Israel the focus of U.S. foreign policy — a handy euphemism for U.S. empire.
Cashing In on Spiritual Blessings
Christian Zionists believe that Israel is God’s “chosen” nation whose lands should be returned to the Jews, and they base their unwavering support of Israel and the Israeli government on literal readings of the Christian Bible. They often turn to a passage in the book of Genesis in which God promises the patriarch Abraham protection and prosperity, telling him: “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse.” Christian Zionists interpret “great nation” in an ahistorical way, conflating the Bronze Age “nation of Israel,” the modern-day nation state of Israel, the Israeli government, and Jews, all of whom, they say, become God’s “chosen people.”
Pastor John Hagee, the founder of Christians United for Israel (CUFI), an organization with over 10 million members, loves to quote these verses. During CUFI’s 2025 national summit this summer, Hagee repeated this passage several times, building to a moral fervor in his warbling voice to announce: “We’re trying to be loyal to the state of Israel and loyal to the word of God.”
CUFI’s Christian Zionist message puts the prosperity gospel on steroids by yoking the U.S.’s material and spiritual success not just to the faith of its CEOs or political leaders, but to its support of the state of Israel. This reflects a desire on the part of Christian Zionists to write the United States into a biblical narrative. Because they struggle to find biblical grounds to explain the U.S.’s place in God’s divine plan, they’ve created a scenario in which American evangelical Christians become the champion of God’s original “chosen people,” and therefore reap God’s blessing.
And Dealing Out Curses
Christian Zionists then layer on a 19th-century apocalyptic theology known as “premillennial dispensationalism.” It’s a theory about how the world will end, and those who follow it believe that the return of Jews to Zion is a precondition for the rapture, tribulation, second coming of Christ, and the apocalypse. The establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, the conquering of the Old City of Jerusalem in 1967, and now the annexation of Palestinian territory and destruction of Gaza all are interpreted by Christian Zionists as the fulfillment of biblical prophecy.
Though there were and are theological debates about the apocalypse, premillennial dispensationalism gained currency. In the early 2000s, the Left Behind series of adult and young adult novels about new Christians living through the tribulation popularized these views and demonstrated how this version of Christian Zionism was far from fringe. These ideas cropped up again after the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023. They surfaced yet again after the U.S. bombed Iran on June 21 — when evangelical Christians in the U.S. started commenting with glee about how we were entering the “end times.”
The disgraced evangelical pastor Mark Driscoll was one figure claiming geopolitical and spiritual victory after the June bombing. On his YouTube channel he decried Iran, repeated worn racist tropes about “jihadists,” and said that it was time for the U.S. to cut off the “head of the snake” (meaning Iran, which Driscoll claimed is backing Hamas) in order to trigger the battle of Armageddon. Driscoll said that for this to happen, “Iran needs to be obliterated.”
Hagee also focused on Iran at the CUFI summit and quoted from Isaiah 62:1, which says, “For Zion’s sake will I not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest,” to rationalize ending the peace process and sending more military aid to Israel. He repeated multiple times that, “Israel and Israel alone is the only friend we have in the Middle East,” further entrenching the orientalist idea of “civilized nations” (the U.S. and Israel) embattled against “uncivilized” religious and ethnic “others.” Both Driscoll and Hagee use the Bible to make their anti-Muslim and anti-Arab racism morally permissible.
For many lay Christian Zionists, the idea of a “holy war” between Israel and Iran has become their primary way of understanding U.S. foreign policy. And holy war can give America First-ers a rationale for supporting the U.S. wars in the Middle East, which would otherwise clash with their isolationist beliefs. We see this when Driscoll claims that the bombing of Iran is doubly successful because the U.S. has protected Israel and put no “boots on the ground” in the process. But this doesn’t mean that there were or are no U.S. troops or interests in the region. As Annelle Sheline of the Quincy Institute notes, there are plenty of U.S. contractors in the region causing further violence. In June, the U.S. deployed warships and aircraft to the Mediterranean Sea and the region to defend Israel. Further, nearly 40,000 U.S. troops are stationed in the Middle East across almost 30 bases, according to one count.
The fetishization of Jewish people and their history, the gatekeeping around what it means to be Jewish and attacks on anti-Zionist Jews, and Christians’ belief that Jews will have to convert to Christianity in order to be saved are all actual instances of antisemitism. Hagee has even promoted the idea that Hitler was a Jew. And at the CUFI summit, Hagee called for the passing of the “Antisemitism Awareness Act,” which uses the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism to effectively silence speech, against the wishes of the IHRA’s author. As lawyers Itamar Mann and Lihi Yona write, Christian nationalists, not Jewish people, serve to benefit from this proposed policy.
The fact that Israel is actively engaged in the genocide of Palestinians doesn’t seem to bother Christian Zionists because they believe in “the Jewish people’s right to return to their homeland,” which includes Gaza and the West Bank (or as Mike Huckabee, a Christian Zionist and now ambassador to Israel, prefers to call it, “Judea and Samaria”) — a settler and Christian Zionist revisioning of geography and language. As historian Thomas Lecaque writes, Christian Zionists “make the murder of Israelis and Palestinians — including children — about them and their religious ideas.”
Supremacist Ideology at Work
Christian Zionism was at the core of the lessons of my childhood in an evangelical community in Texas. I prayed for the “persecuted church” in the Middle East and longed to go on a Holy Land vacation. I watched John Hagee on TV and read books on spiritual warfare. I didn’t know any Jewish people, and, though my church put on a yearly Seder, it was only a kind of cultural tourism, an appropriation of a Jewish ritual.
I learned that Christian Zionists have little interest in actual, living Jewish people; they treat Jews as pawns on the way to Christians’ spiritual blessing or instrumental to the fulfillment of ancient prophetic texts. It took years to see this ideology for what it really was: supremacist and nationalist. There was a reason I wasn’t taught the history of the Bible or U.S. empire: Christian Zionist theology crumbles under the weight of fact and history. But in order to fully leave that world behind, I had to physically leave, get an education, and meet people who were different from me.
Repetition With a Difference
Christian Zionists’ rhetoric of holy war isn’t new and has shaped U.S. foreign policy since the 1970s, as American Studies scholar Amy Kaplan documented. Hal Lindsey and Tim LaHaye wrote best-selling books about the impending apocalypse and introduced several generations of evangelicals to the importance of Israel in political life. Other leaders like Jerry Falwell supported Menachem Begin’s 1981 strike on Iraq’s nuclear reactor and opposed the Oslo Accords of 1993, further entrenching Christian Zionists within the Republican Party. Hagee backed the transfer of the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in 2018. And the movement’s Islamophobia was revived by 9/11 and the Iraq War.
But what is new for Christian Zionists is Donald Trump. He is more than willing to use Christian Zionist prosperity-gospel messaging as a cover for the settler colonial project of turning the Gaza strip into the “Riviera of the Middle East.” Sending bombs and fighter jets to Israel is making this possible, and it’s a plan that has the support of Israeli politicians. If you’re Trump, supporting Israel is simply good for business, and he can bring his Christian base along by letting the Christian Zionists explain away war, ethnic cleansing, and genocide as spiritual matters.
The Satanic Nature of the Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
August 6, 2025 By Edward Curtin / Behind the Curtain, https://scheerpost.com/2025/08/06/the-satanic-nature-of-the-atomic-bombings-of-hiroshima-and-nagasaki/
“The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid ‘dens of crime’ that Dickens loved to paint…But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice.”– C. S. Lewis, author’s preface, 1962, The Screwtape Letters
American history can only accurately be described as the story of demonic possession, however you choose to understand that phrase. Maybe radical “evil” will suffice. But right from the start the American colonizers were involved in massive killing because they considered themselves divinely blessed and guided, a chosen people whose mission would come to be called “manifest destiny.” Nothing stood in the way of this divine calling, which involved the need to enslave and kill millions of innocent people that continues down to today. “Others” have always been expendable since they have stood in the way of the imperial march ordained by the American god. This includes all the wars waged based on lies and false flag operations. It is not a secret, although many Americans, if they are even aware of it, prefer to see it as a series of aberrations carried out by “bad apples.” Or something from the past. Most know nothing about it, for they have never opened a history book.
Our best writers and prophets have told us the truth: Thoreau, Twain, William James, MLK, Fr. Daniel Berrigan, et al.: we are a nation of killers of the innocent. We are conscienceless. We are brutal. We are in the grip of evil forces.
The English writer D. H. Lawrence said it perfectly in 1923, “The American soul is hard, isolate, stoic and a killer. It has never yet melted.” It still hasn’t.
When on August 6 and 9, 1945 the United States killed 200-300 thousand innocent Japanese civilians with atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they did so intentionally. It was an act of sinister state terrorism, unprecedented by the nature of the weapons but not by the slaughter. The American terror bombings of Japanese cities that preceded the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – led by the infamous Major General Curtis LeMay – were also intentionally aimed at Japanese civilians and killed hundreds of thousands of them.
Is there an American artist’s painting of Tokyo destroyed by the firebombing to go next to Picasso’s Guernica, where estimates of the dead range between 800 and 1,600?
In Tokyo alone more than 100,000 Japanese civilians were burnt to death by cluster bombs of napalm. All this killing was intentional. I repeat: Intentional. Is that not radical evil? Demonic? Only five Japanese cities were spared such bombing. Sixty-seven cities were fire-bombed.
As a conclusion to such bombings, in August 1945 the atomic bombings were an intentional holocaust, not to end the war, as the historical record amply demonstrates, but to send a message to the Soviet Union that we could do to them what we did to the residents of Japan. President Truman made certain that the Japanese willingness to surrender in May 1945 was made unacceptable because he and his Secretary-of-State James Byrnes wanted to use the atomic bombs – “as quickly as possible to ‘show results’” in Byrnes’ words – to send a message to the Soviet Union.
So “the Good War” was ended in the Pacific with the “good guys” killing hundreds of thousand Japanese civilians to make a point to the “bad guys,” who have been demonized ever since. Shortly after, in September 1945 the U.S War Department made plans to wipe out the U.S.’s ally, the Soviet Union, with a massive nuclear strike aimed at 66 major cities. Professor Michel Chossudovsky documents it here.
Satan always wears the other’s face.
Many Baby Boomers like to say they grew up with the bomb. They are lucky. They grew up. They got be scared. They got to hide under their desks and wax nostalgic about it. Do you remember dog tags? Those 1950s and 1960s? The scary movies?
The children of Hiroshima and Nagasaki who died under our bombs on August 6 and 9, 1945 didn’t get to grow up. They couldn’t hide. They just went under. To be accurate: we put them under. Or they were left to smolder for decades in pain and then die. But that it was necessary to save American lives is the lie. It’s always about American lives, as if the owners of the country actually cared about them. But to tender hearts and innocent minds, it’s a magic incantation. Poor us!
Fat Man, Little Boy – how the names of those atomic bombs echo down the years to the now fat Americans who grew up in the 1950s and who think like little boys and girls about their country’s demonic nature. Innocence – it is wonderful! We are different now. “We are great because we are good”; that’s what Hillary Clinton told us. The Libyans can attest to that. We are exceptional, special. The 2020 election was said to prove that if we can defeat Mr. Pumpkin Head and restore America to its “core values,” all will be well.
Now that they were restored with Biden’s support for the U.S. proxy war against Russia via Ukraine and the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians, delusionary Trump 2024 voters might be learning that those core values are bipartisan. “We are great because we are good,” goes the mantra. We kill, therefore we are. There is a straight line from the nuclear bombing of Japan to the arrant U.S. support for Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians.
Perhaps you think I am cynical. But understanding true evil is not child’s play. It seems beyond the grasp of most Americans who need their illusions. Evil is real. There is simply no way to understand the savage nature of American history without seeing its demonic nature. How else can we redeem ourselves at this late date, possessed as we are by delusions of our own God-blessed goodness?
But so many Americans play at innocence. They excite themselves at the thought that with the next election the nation will be “restored” to the right course. Of course there never was a right course, unless might makes right, which has always been the way of America’s rulers. Today, as in 2016, Trump is viewed by so many as an aberration. He is far from it. He’s straight out of a Twain short story. He’s Vaudeville. He’s Melville’s confidence man. He’s us. Did it ever occur to those who are fixated on him that if those who own and run the country wanted him gone, he’d be gone in an instant? He can tweet and tweet idiotically, endlessly send out messages that he will contradict the next day or minute, but as long as he protects the super-rich, accepts Israel’s control of him, and allows the CIA-military-industrial complex to do its world-wide killing and looting of the treasury, he will be allowed to entertain and excite the public – to get them worked up in a lather in pseudo-debates. And to make this more entertaining, he will be opposed by the “sane” Democratic opposition, whose intentions are as benign as an assassin’s smile.
Look back as far as you can to past U.S. presidents, the figureheads who “act under orders” (whose orders?), as did Ahab in his lust to kill the “evil” great white whale, and what do you see? You see servile killers in the grip of a sinister power. You see hyenas with polished faces. You see pasteboard masks. On the one occasion when one of these presidents dared to follow his conscience and rejected the devil’s pact that is the presidency’s killer-in-chief role, he – JFK – had his brains blown out in public view. An evil empire thrives on shedding blood, and it enforces its will through demonic messages.
Resist and there will be blood on the streets, blood on the tracks, blood in your face.
Despite this, President Kennedy’s witness, his turn from cold warrior to an apostle of peace in the final year of his presidency, remains to inspire a ray of hope in these dark days. As recounted by James Douglass in his masterful JFK and the Unspeakable, Kennedy agreed to a meeting in May 1962 with a group of Quakers who had been demonstrating outside the While House for total disarmament. They urged him to move in that direction. Kennedy was sympathetic to their position. He said he wished it were easy to do so from the top down, but that he was being pressured by the Pentagon and others to never do that, although he had given a speech urging “a peace race” together with the Soviet Union. He told the Quakers it would have to come from below. According to the Quakers, JFK listened intently to their points, and before they left said with a smile, “You believe in redemption don’t you?” Soon Kennedy was shaken to his core by the Cuban missile crisis when the world teetered on the brink of extinction and his insane military and “intelligence” advisers urged him to wage a nuclear war. Not long after, he took a sharp top-down turn toward peace despite their fierce opposition, a turn so dramatic over the next year that it led to his martyrdom. And he knew it would. He knew it would when he gave his extraordinary American University Commencement Address on June 10, 1963.
So hope is not all lost. There are great souls like JFK to inspire us. Their examples flash here and there. But to even begin to hope to change the future, a confrontation with our demonic past (and present) is first necessary, a descent into the dark truth that is terrifying in its implications. False innocence must be abandoned. Carl Jung, in “On the Psychology of the Unconscious,” addressed this with the words:
It is a frightening thought that man also has a shadow side to him, consisting not just of little weaknesses – and foibles, but of a positively demonic dynamism. The individual seldom knows anything of this; to him, as an individual, it is incredible that he should ever in any circumstances go beyond himself. But let these harmless creatures form a mass, and there emerges a raging monster; and each individual is only one tiny cell in the monster’s body, so that for better or worse he must accompany it on its bloody rampages and even assist it to the utmost. Having a dark suspicion of these grim possibilities, man turns a blind eye to the shadow-side of human nature. Blindly he strives against the salutary dogma of original sin, which is yet so prodigiously true. Yes, he even hesitates to admit the conflict of which he is so painfully aware.
How can one describe men who would intentionally slaughter so many innocent people? American history is rife with such examples up to the present day. The native peoples, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Gaza, Ukraine, Iran, etc. – the list is very long. Savage wars carried out by men and women who own and run the country, and who try to buy the souls of regular people to join them in their pact with the devil, to acquiesce to their ongoing wicked deeds. Such monstrous evil was never more evident than on August 6 and 9, 1945.
Unless we enter into deep contemplation of the evil that was released into the world with those bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we are lost in a living hell without escape. And we will pay. Nemesis always demands retribution, as the ancient Greeks said. We have gradually been accepting rule by those for whom the killing of innocents is child’s play, and we have been masquerading as innocent and good children for whom the truth is too much to bear. “Indeed, the safest road to Hell is the gradual one,” Screwtape, the devil, tells his nephew, Wormwood, a devil in training, “the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.” That’s the road we’ve been traveling, as Trump’s second term is showing us, as he facilely and recklessly talks of nuclear war and makes moves that make it more likely.
The projection of evil onto others works only so long. We must reclaim our shadows and withdraw our projections. Only the fate of the world depends on it.
No more Hiroshimas
Why is our response to atomic horror to arm up and ignore other atrocities, asks Linda Pentz Gunter.
For 80 years, the Hibakusha (survivors) of the United States atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, have been warning the world — “never again”. Never again should such weapons of terror be used, on civilians or on anyone. Never again should human beings treat other human beings as sacrificial and expendable. Peace is the only way forward, they plead.
Now it is 80 years since those two terrible days on August 6 and 9, 1945, when the United States chose to end the lives of what would eventually become at least 200,000 people in a callous public relations exercise to prove its might to the Soviet Union. Today, those Hibakusha still alive must surely be asking: “why haven’t you been listening?”
Even though the world has not used nuclear weapons again in war, the nine official nuclear-armed nations went on to “test” their nuclear weapons more than 2,000 times on other innocent communities mostly far away from their own — including in the Pacific, Australia, the Sahara and Kazakhstan — and even, in the case of the US, on its own people in Nevada. The very first atomic victims were of course those downwind of the July 16, 1945 Trinity test in New Mexico that launched the atomic age and the nuclear arms race.
Thanks to luck or grace but certainly not wisdom, we have not yet arrived at the finish line of nuclear annihilation. But we have not won the race to eliminate nuclear weapons, either. Despite international efforts, first with the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) of 1968 and then the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons that entered into force in 2021, nuclear weapon nations are arming up, not drawing down.
The United States already has 5,428 nuclear weapons but is looking at spending around $95 billion a year on the euphemistically named “modernization” of its nuclear arsenal, code for “expansion”. For example, the US has ordered the development of a new B61-13 nuclear gravity bomb, just one part of a significant rebuild.
The Russian arsenal remains the world’s largest with 5,580 nuclear weapons. Russia claims to have tested new nuclear weapons, including undetectable ones, and the US has accused Russia of planning to develop a space-based anti-satellite nuclear weapon, something the Russians deny. China has also increased the number of its nuclear warheads from the low 200s to approximately 500.
France, which possesses 290 operational nuclear warheads – the fourth largest inventory in the world – is also “modernizing” its nuclear weapons systems. This year, it chose to allocate at least 14 percent of its defense budget to nuclear “deterrence” operations, up from 12.5 percent in 2020.
The UK government announced in June 2025 that it would purchase twelve nuclear-capable F-35A fighter jets from the US and raise its spending on defence to 5 percent of the national GDP by 2035. The UK is also replacing its Vanguard nuclear-armed submarines with a new class of Dreadnought submarines equipped with Trident II D-5 missiles, at an estimated cost of at least $42 billion.
By July 2025, there were clear indications that US nuclear weapons, specifically the B61-12 thermonuclear gravity bomb, were already back in Britain at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk, actually a US Air Force base despite its misleading name.
North Korea, India and Pakistan show no intention of abandoning their nuclear weapon programs. Israel, the only undeclared nuclear weapon state, endowed with a unique status by the United Nations of having to neither confirm nor deny the existence of its atomic arsenal, has anywhere between 80 to 200 nuclear weapons.(South Africa remains the only country ever to develop and then dismantle its nuclear weapons.)
Other countries aspire to join the Nuclear Club, but they disguise their plans under the pretext of civil nuclear power programs. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Before long, most of the Hibakusha will be gone. They will join the other ancestors from past and now present atrocities, who stare back at us with horror, asking us “why are you still letting this happen?” https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2025/08/06/no-more-hiroshimas/
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