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Making London councils allies in the campaign to oppose Britain’s nuclear expansion

7 Apr 26, https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/article/making-london-councils-allies-campaign-oppose-britains-nuclear-expansion

As weapons return to Suffolk and defence spending soars, London CND is pressing local candidates to oppose nuclear expansion and support the UN ban treaty. SALLY SPIERS explains.

LONDON Region CND has launched a campaign to make London nuclear weapon-free. There are compelling reasons for local council candidates to oppose the expansion of Britain’s nuclear weapons by promising to sign up to the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).

US nuclear weapons have returned to Britain for the first time since their complete removal in 2008. These weapons have been sited at US air base Lakenheath in Suffolk, approximately 75 miles from London. The majority of voters are opposed to US nuclear weapons being stationed in the UK, according to a 2025 YouGov poll.

In addition, Keir Starmer has announced Britain is buying 12 nuclear-capable jets (F-35As) from the United States. These are equipped to carry and fire the same nuclear weapons that are based at Lakenheath.


These weapons will not in any way be an independent nuclear deterrent. The US president must authorise the use of these missiles. Buying them and having them on our territory meshes us even deeper into US foreign policy.

We have all witnessed President Donald Trump threatening Nato countries to get them to enter a crazy illegal war of his making. US foreign policy is aggressive, expansionist, threatening to its allies and it is highly unpopular with British people.

We cannot believe for one minute these jets and weapons will protect the security of the people of these islands.

Given the proximity to London, it seems more likely they actually constitute a threat to Londoners from either attack or accident. Councils have a duty to ensure their residents are safe. Opposing Britain’s nuclear expansion and supporting the TPNW is an obvious first step in fulfilling this duty.

And then there’s the cost. The nuclear capable jets that Britain is buying are estimated to cost £80 million each, almost £1 billion in total. When he first announced the increased spending on defence, John Healey argued the money would secure British high-skilled jobs.

Whether you are convinced by this argument or not, it is clear that this £1bn is going to secure high-skills jobs in Indianapolis where the jets will be built, not Britain.


LONDON Region CND has launched a campaign to make London nuclear weapon-free. There are compelling reasons for local council candidates to oppose the expansion of Britain’s nuclear weapons by promising to sign up to the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).

US nuclear weapons have returned to Britain for the first time since their complete removal in 2008. These weapons have been sited at US air base Lakenheath in Suffolk, approximately 75 miles from London. The majority of voters are opposed to US nuclear weapons being stationed in the UK, according to a 2025 YouGov poll.

In addition, Keir Starmer has announced Britain is buying 12 nuclear-capable jets (F-35As) from the United States. These are equipped to carry and fire the same nuclear weapons that are based at Lakenheath.

These weapons will not in any way be an independent nuclear deterrent. The US president must authorise the use of these missiles. Buying them and having them on our territory meshes us even deeper into US foreign policy.

We have all witnessed President Donald Trump threatening Nato countries to get them to enter a crazy illegal war of his making. US foreign policy is aggressive, expansionist, threatening to its allies and it is highly unpopular with British people.

We cannot believe for one minute these jets and weapons will protect the security of the people of these islands.

Given the proximity to London, it seems more likely they actually constitute a threat to Londoners from either attack or accident. Councils have a duty to ensure their residents are safe. Opposing Britain’s nuclear expansion and supporting the TPNW is an obvious first step in fulfilling this duty.

And then there’s the cost. The nuclear capable jets that Britain is buying are estimated to cost £80 million each, almost £1 billion in total. When he first announced the increased spending on defence, John Healey argued the money would secure British high-skilled jobs.

Whether you are convinced by this argument or not, it is clear that this £1bn is going to secure high-skills jobs in Indianapolis where the jets will be built, not Britain.

In mid-March, London Councils which speaks for all London authorities, described the financial situation of our councils as being “extremely challenging.” They “are grappling with a £1bn budget shortfall this year.”

How can prospective councillors not question the expenditure on nuclear-capable jets? There cannot be a single council in this country that has the resources to mend potholes effectively. Our councils need that money to provide basic services that keep the capital functioning.

Incredibly, neither decision — bringing US nukes back nor expanding our own nuclear capabilities — has been debated in Parliament. War is most definitely on people’s minds. Last year, voters identified defence as the fourth-most important concern for them.

The only way this concern seems to be discussed is in terms of increased spending on defence. But these important matters could be discussed in council chambers if councillors were willing to consider signing up to the TPNW or even making their mayors a mayor for peace.

This would send an important message to the government that is entirely in line with the view of the majority of the British public.

There is movement. It seems likely Green candidates will support the TPNW at council level. Labour candidates must be feeling the burn from the Greens and other parties. Supporting the TPNW will be a popular move with voters and Labour candidates would be foolish to ignore it.


London CND is asking voters to write to their council candidates to urge them to sign their support for the TPNW.

Councils and individual councillors can sign the cities pledge of the International Campaign for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons, the authors of the TPNW.

Mayors can sign up to mayors for peace. Cities and mayors throughout the world, and particularly Europe, have already signed. What a coup it would be for peace if London and London Councils were to sign.


Further information on how to support the London CND campaign is available on the London CND website Make London Nuclear Free Campaign, “London’s TPNW Pledge” www.londoncnd.org.

Sally Spiers is vice-chair of London CND.

April 13, 2026 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, UK | Leave a comment

The Iranian people achieved decisive victory against America’s criminal war on them


Walt Zlotow West Suburban Peace Coalition Glen Ellyn IL, 10 Apr 26, https://theaimn.net/the-iranian-people-achieved-decisive-victory-against-americas-criminal-war-on-them/

The Chicago Tribune’s editorial ‘There has been no victory yet for the Iranian people’ represents an astonishing betrayal of the urgent need to condemn President’s criminal war on Iran. The Trib’s focus is not on the 42,000 Iranian buildings damaged or destroyed, of which 36,000 were residential homes. The No mention of the school bombed killing over 150 little girls, among over 3,000 dead Iranians Trump murdered in his senseless war. Absent was any mention the US began the war with a heinous war crime, greenlighting Israel’s assassinating Iranian ruler Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Stating the Trib was “relieved” Trump didn’t kill off Iranian civilization as threatened, a genocidal war crime, without the most urgent of condemnations is deplorable.

The Trib states both the US and Iran declaring victory is “hardly surprising.” That certainly applies to Trump’s America which can never admit defeat, but not Iran. They punched back with astonishing effectiveness. Their tens of thousands of well-hidden missiles shot down US planes, sent aircraft carriers scurrying beyond their range, badly damaged US Gulf States bases requiring thousands of US personnel to be relocated to hotels.
Result? Trump cried uncle and entered into a tenuous ceasefire without achieving a single of the shifting war objectives.

Worse yet? The US war failure shut down the Strait of Hormuz, cutting off a fifth of the worldwide oil supply. This has sent the world economy teetering toward recession, if not depression.

Trump’s acceptance of Iran’ s 10 point ceasefire plan as a basis for upcoming negotiations verifies Trump’s catastrophic loss. It requires end to US criminal war with no further attacks on Iran, Iranian nuclear enrichment facilities and defensive missile arsenal. US to leave the Middle East. US to end all sanctions on Iran. US to pay reparations for war damage.

Most disappointing in the Trib’s Iran war editorial is regurgitating Trump’s “three justifiable reasons….for this war” All three are nonsense. Did it occur to the Trib Editorial Board that if those reasons were truly justifiable, the Trib should be encouraging Trump to press on to total victory?

The editorial concludes “that inevitably leads us to an accounting that little has been achieved. A hollow victory at a heavy price.” Indeed, nothing was achieved but senseless death and destruction, the US possibly on the way out of the region, and the world economy in jeopardy from the US handing over the Strait of Hormuz to an emboldened and soon to be prosperous Iran.

Sure sounds like a resounding Iranian victory and US loss to this observer.

April 13, 2026 Posted by | media, USA | Leave a comment

Anas Sarwar’s ‘nuclear plot would hammer Scottish bill payers’

THE SNP have hit out at Anas Sarwar’s plans for new nuclear power stations in
Scotland. The Scottish Labour leader vowed on Wednesday to end the SNP’s
“ideological block” on new nuclear power stations in Scotland if he
were to become first minister – insisting this is costing jobs and
leaving households with higher energy bills.

“The SNP have chosen
misinformation and scaremongering on nuclear power – leaving Scotland
with less energy security, higher bills and fewer jobs,” he added.
Nuclear power is a key dividing line between Labour and the SNP, who are
staunchly opposed to the construction of any new nuclear stations in
Scotland.

But now, the SNP have highlighted the findings from a Norwegian
government commission which said that Norway should refrain from
introducing nuclear power at present amid its still plentiful hydropower
supply and cheaper alternative new energy sources. SNP depute leader Keith
Brown hit out at Sarwar’s comments and said the plans would “hammer
Scottish bill payers”.

 The National 9th April 2026,
https://www.thenational.scot/news/26007456.anas-sarwars-nuclear-plot-hammer-scottish-bill-payers/

April 13, 2026 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

US, Israel Insist Iran Ceasefire Doesn’t Apply In Lebanon, Which Suffers Huge Airstrikes

Zero Hedge, by Tyler Durden, Thursday, Apr 09, 2026

srael has made clear that it doesn’t see the newly declared US-Iran ceasefire as applying to its war in Lebanon, where it is still trying to destroy Hezbollah. The White House too has made its stance clear that it doesn’t apply, but President Trump has stated his intent to take care of a Lebanon ceasefire separately. 

The military has unleashed hell on Beirut, southern Lebanon, and the eastern Bekaa valley overnight and through Wednesday – with Beirut suffering some of the worst aerial bombardments of the wa

Pakistan, however, has said that the ceasefire does extend to the Israel-Hezbollah conflict. But the Israeli military (IDF) is as usual letting the bombs do the talking, and is largely ignoring the diplomatic side of things.

Israel on Wednesday reportedly struck over 100 Hezbollah (and civilian) targets within a mere 10 minutes across Beirut, the south of the country, and Bekaa.

Viral images and videos have shown massive smoke plumes lingering above the densely populated Lebanese capital. The surprise attack on busy commercial locations unleashed panic in the streets – and a full casualty accounting has not been immediately forthcoming .

Below is an outline of some of the earlier reported attacks, via Al Jazeera:……………………………………………………………..

Here’s how the same regional outlet described it, noting that Lebanese TV has said the attacks have claimed “many lives”:  “Israel has launched a surprise attack with dozens of air strikes across Lebanon, one of the largest military assaults in the history of the conflict.” The report stated, “Air raids targeted residential buildings, mosques, vehicles and cemeteries across the country.”

Lebanon’s Minister of Social Affairs, Haneed Sayed, told the Associated Press that the wide-ranging strikes mark a “very dangerous turning point.”

She described: “These hits are now at the heart of Beirut… Half of the sheltered (internally displaced persons) are in Beirut in this area,” she said, adding that she had just driven by the areas hit.”

Hezbollah did not immediately join the Iran war until weeks in following the late February start of Trump’s Operation Epic Fury. However, by the middle it began sending a significant amount of rockets on northern Israel.

Importantly, President Trump has on Wednesday told PBS that his view is Lebanon is not part of the Iran ceasefire deal “because of Hezbollah” – but “that will get taken care of too”. He called what’s happening in Lebanon “a separate skirmish”. https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/beirut-suffers-biggest-bombardment-war-israel-insists-iran-ceasefire-doesnt-apply

April 13, 2026 Posted by | Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

At last, a hint of backbone in Australia’s foreign policy

9 April 2026 Michael Taylor, https://theaimn.net/at-last-a-hint-of-backbone-in-australias-foreign-policy/

For months, many of us have watched in frustration as our government responded to Gaza with caution, equivocation, and a reluctance to break from the familiar script of deference to powerful allies. It has felt, at times, like moral clarity was being carefully managed rather than clearly expressed.

Which is precisely why Anthony Albanese’s sudden intervention on Lebanon lands with such force.

By urging that Lebanon be included in any Middle East ceasefire, the Prime Minister has done something rare in modern Australian foreign policy: he has stepped, however briefly, out of line. Not dramatically. Not defiantly. But unmistakably.

This is not just a policy position – it is a signal.

A signal that Australia may be willing to acknowledge what much of the world can already see: that this is not a series of neatly contained conflicts, but a widening humanitarian crisis stretching from the ruins of Gaza Strip to the streets of Beirut. A signal that civilian suffering is not selective, and that our concern for it should not be either.

And yet, it is impossible to ignore the contrast.

Because while this newfound clarity extends to Lebanon, the same certainty has too often been absent when it comes to Gaza. The language has been softer, the urgency more muted, the moral line less clearly drawn. For many Australians, that inconsistency has not gone unnoticed – or unchallenged.

And perhaps most striking of all, it is a signal that the Prime Minister has finally “read the room.”

Because the room has changed. Public patience has thinned. Across Australia – including among Labor’s own supporters – there has been a growing unease with the language of balance when the images on people’s screens tell a far more unbalanced story. People are not asking for perfection, nor for reckless gestures. But they are asking for something that feels increasingly rare in public life: honesty, consistency, and the courage to apply our values evenly.

In that context, this moment feels different.

It feels like a government, or at least a Prime Minister, beginning to find his footing – beginning to speak not just as an ally, but as a representative of a public that expects more than quiet alignment and careful phrasing.

Whether this is the start of something more substantial, or merely a brief departure from the script, remains to be seen. Governments have a way of snapping back into old habits. The gravitational pull of alliance politics is strong, and Australia has rarely resisted it for long.

But for now, credit where it is due.

In choosing to speak up for Lebanon – and in doing so, gently but clearly diverging from the positions of allies such as the United States under Donald Trump – Anthony Albanese has shown a flicker of something Australians have been waiting to see.

Not a break with our allies. Not a dramatic realignment.

Just something quieter – and, perhaps, more important.

A willingness to stand, at least for a moment, on our own two feet.

April 13, 2026 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, politics international | Leave a comment

Defra plots faster planning process for Sizewell C nuclear plant

Defra plots faster planning process for Sizewell C nuclear plant and
Teesside SAF refinery. Planning decisions for major clean energy projects
to be accelerated by appointment of Environment Agency as single lead
environmental regulator, according to Defra.

Business Green 8th April 2026
https://www.businessgreen.com/news/4528039/defra-plots-faster-planning-process-sizewell-nuclear-plant-teesside-saf-refinery

April 13, 2026 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

The Eve Of A Radical Evil

Trump, and especially the language he uses, is a particularly vile, vicious and sick example of American barbarity. But his behaviour so far has been consistent with other presidents who have bombed countries back to the Stone Age.

Nate Bear, Apr 08, 2026, https://www.donotpanic.news/p/the-eve-of-a-radical-evil

We are on the eve of a radical evil.

Tonight Trump’s deadline for Iran to surrender or be faced with the destruction of its critical energy and national infrastructure expires.

Just the fact that the president of the United States can set a ‘deadline’ for massive war crimes which leaves the world counting down the hours and speculating about nuclear weapon use, after starting a war of aggression, should be enough to end US hegemony forever.

This kind of ultimatum should be viewed as so unhinged, so beyond the pale, so outside the bounds of anything approaching normal diplomatic behaviour that no country in the world should want anything to do with it. Embassies should be closing, US troops should be ordered to leave the nearly 800 bases in 80 countries at which they’re stationed, and these facilities shut down.

The fact none of this has ever been a possibility shows us how US hegemony is a true plague on the world. It shows us how so few states are legitimately sovereign, and how so many willingly line up behind the crimes of empire. And it shows us that those states which are sovereign get targeted for regime change precisely because they are sovereign.

This, ultimately, was Iran’s only crime. It’s original sin.

When, nearly 50 years ago, the country ended a western-backed system of dictatorial monarchism and pursued a sovereign path, it brought to life a material reality that is forbidden under US empire. The material successes Iran has created over the last near 50 years, including independent financial systems, digital systems, and military systems, all achieved while under crushing western sanctions, are not allowed. And Iran is being punished for this.

Iran is being punished for its resistance, for its ingenuity, for its sovereignty.

This is the reason the US-Israel is bombing Iran’s premier universities and research facilities, and murdering its scientists.

The MIT of Iran was bombed this weekend.

These are centres of non-western excellence and learning which produce the minds that demonstrate what can be done outside the US-Zionist orbit. These places, and the people they train, have enabled Iran to successfully decouple from western hegemony. They have enabled modern Iranians to not just inherit a proud, 6,000-year-old civilisation, but to build on the achievements of their predecessors.

And because the Persian civilisation is such a successful one, because modern Iran has shepherded that civilisation so skillfully, Trump is threatening to kill it. Literally. In the most murderously deranged turn of a murderously deranged period, Trump said this morning that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.”

Every journalist, every politician who reproduced anti-Iran propaganda led us to this point.

Every reference to “the regime,” every reference to “peaceful protests,” every failure to mention that the protestors were armed by the west to provoke an insurrection (which Trump just admitted), every fake “internet shutdown” story, every dubious angle used to foment anti-Iran sentiment led us to this point.

And every single person, from liberal politicians to journalists at the Guardian, the BBC, CNN, the New York Times, and all those Iranian exiles who demanded Iran be bombed and helped cultivate the ground for this war of aggression, are culpable.

Yesterday an Iranian exile who writes for the BBC, Ghoncheh Habibiazad, suggested, quite unbelievably, that Iranians actually want to be nuked.

After an outcry on social media, the quote was changed, which itself raises questions about whether those words were ever said or not.

Regardless, publishing a quote from someone in a country under a murderous assault saying they hope they get nuked is an extraordinarily depraved depth to plumb. And even if it was said, it is effectively the voicing of suicidal ideation and by any journalist ethic or standard should never be printed.

But this is the sickness of imperial stenographers.

This is where we are now.

And of course there is speculation in his threat to kill “a whole civilization” that Trump is hinting at using a nuclear weapon. Maybe he is. Maybe they will. They’ve done it before, after all, the only country to have ever done so. If he does, the world should never be the same again.

But even if the US doesn’t use a nuclear weapon, even if the US-Israel ‘only’ go through with the threat to destroy all of Iran’s critical national infrastructure, the world should never be the same again.

And even if he doesn’t go through with it and an unlikely ceasefire deal is agreed, the world should never be the same again.

Enough is enough of degenerate American empire and its crazed, out-of-control genocidal Jewish colony.

The impunity of empire has to end. It has to. Because while it remains an empire, the US will always be the greatest threat to global peace and stability. No president since the US became an imperial power has been able to sit atop such a massive amount of hardware and not order the mass murder of innocent people.

Not one.

It’s baked in.

Trump, and especially the language he uses, is a particularly vile, vicious and sick example of American barbarity. But his behaviour so far has been consistent with other presidents who have bombed countries back to the Stone Age.

And even if he uses a nuclear weapon, he won’t be unique.

Thinking about the long arc of American violence for two seconds should make us incredulous that the country was ever sold to us as a stabilising force, as the leader of the “free world,” as a symbol of humanitarian values.

Anyone who ever fell for this has been utterly hoodwinked and made a fool of.

It really is time to end empire, Zionism and the control it has over the world. Whether you’re in the US, the global north or south, a central task must be to find and elevate new leaders who can extricate us from this rule.

And doing this won’t be possible without breaking people out of their legacy media bubble and educating them about the huge lies they’ve been told regarding the benevolence of the US and the evils of the official enemy.

We’re all going to suffer when the fuel starts to dry up and the economic crisis coming down the pipe as a result of US impunity really hits. The crisis is coming, and it is certain.

And now we are at the precipice of a horror being loosed on Iran that would take the country decades to recover from.

For our collective humanity, such a horror would be an everlasting stain inviting the rightful judgement and condemnation of many generations to come.

We’re on the eve of a radical evil, and whatever happens tonight, nothing should ever be the same again.

April 13, 2026 Posted by | Religion and ethics, USA | Leave a comment

“Because They’re Animals”: Donald Trump, the War on Iran, and the Rules Nobody’s Enforcing

Now to the heart of it. A reporter asks Trump how bombing Iran’s power plants and bridges would not constitute a war crime.

Trump’s reply: “Because they’re animals.”

“Do you know what a war crime is? A war crime is letting Iran have a nuclear weapon.”

In two sentences, the logic of the school-yard bully becomes foreign policy.

****************************************************

On the evening of April 7, ninety minutes before his own deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face the destruction of every power plant and bridge in the country, Trump announced a two-week ceasefire, brokered by Pakistan. He called it “a big day for world peace.” He writes on Truth Social that the US would help ease the “traffic buildup” in the Strait of Hormuz.

“Big money will be made,” he adds.

Not peace. Not Iranian sovereignty. Not the rule of law. Big money.

9 April 2026 David Tyler, https://theaimn.net/because-theyre-animals-donald-trump-the-war-on-iran-and-the-rules-nobodys-enforcing/

“Operation Epic Fury” sounds like a fourteen-year-old boy who has been playing too much Call of Duty. It’s a perfect fit for the Peter Pan that Donald Trump has running the Pentagon; a former Fox & Friends weekend anchor whose less-than-stellar career so far provides a vital clue to the chaos, the incompetence, and the claque of yes-men that the forty-seventh president calls a cabinet.

Pete Hegseth is the most instructive appointment of the Trump era; an age defined by the Queen Bee principle, in which the president surrounds himself with a cast of flawed, diminished and pliable no-hopers, all chosen not for what they can do but for what they cannot: outshine Trump.

Outshine? It’s a recipe for disaster. As Michael Wolff notes on The Daily Beast, Trump’s minions have been stripped of all agency. They exist to reflect, to amplify, to affirm. The Queen Bee does not want talent in the hive. Talent is a threat. What the Queen Bee wants is an audience.

It is a principle that explains, not merely Hegseth, but the entire cabinet. The pliable Marco Rubio, who once pitched himself as a conviction politician, before a U-turn on immigration and now a dutiful echo; the parade of loyalists and flatterers installed wherever independent thought once lived. The forty-seventh president has not assembled a government so much as his own grotesque private freak show. He has set up a type of fairground mirror.

Hegseth is the mirror made flesh; a Fox News viewer’s fantasy of military authority, all jaw, scripture and manic bellicosity, set up to run the world’s largest military by a sloth who watches more television than any commander-in-chief in history and mistakes the performance of strength for the thing itself.

The Secretary of War wears his Christianity on his sleeve while ordering triple-tap strikes on schools. Who else could read the Sermon on the Mount and concluded that the relevant takeaway is fire for effect. Blessed are the meek, for they shall be massacred in the second and third pass?

The career officers who built their professional lives on the laws of armed conflict; on the painstaking, unglamorous discipline of distinguishing combatants from civilians, of proportionality, of the rules that separate a military from a mob, look at Hegseth and see not a commander but a mascot. His win-at-all-costs approach, his square-peg religiosity jammed into the very round hole of Pentagon culture, his enthusiasm for what the US military calls the double-tap, a cruel war crime; all of it has offended men and women who have spent careers trying to conduct war within its legal and moral constraints.

But Hegseth was not appointed to satisfy career officers. He was appointed to perform a feeling; the flag-waving, scripture-quoting, testosteronic bovver boy of the culture war translated directly into actual war, with actual children in actual schools. The career officers are not the audience. The Fox News viewer is the audience. And for that audience, Pete Hegseth is not a square peg at all.

He is, God help us, a perfect fit.

A Name for This War: The War of Donald’s Ear

Now let us give this war the name it deserves, because “Operation Epic Fury” is a preposterous pose, and history has always rewarded those who name things honestly.

History also has a fine tradition of naming wars after the absurdity of their origins. The War of Jenkins’ Ear, a preposterous 1739 conflict triggered when a British sea captain waved his own severed ear at Parliament, gave posterity one of its most deliciously deranged casus belli, (an act or situation that justifies a war). In that spirit, let’s go with the War of Donald’s Ear.

The ear in question is the pink shell-like ear Donald Trump lent, with almost indecent willingness, to two shady characters who had been whispering into it for years: Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, and Mohammed bin Salman, Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. Two men who would not rest, who would not sleep soundly in their palaces, until they saw Iran bombed back into one of the Stone Ages. Two men with everything to gain from American military power and nothing to lose; since it would be American soldiers, not Israeli or Saudi ones, doing most of the dying.

The difference between Jenkins and Trump is instructive. Jenkins lost his ear involuntarily at sea. Trump lent his eagerly, in the White House Situation Room, over a slide deck, over a phone call, over an intelligence tip whispered at exactly the right moment by exactly the right man. And ninety million Iranians are paying the price. As is Trump, although he’ll try to put it on the slate.

How the War Was Sold: Two Homicidal Maniacs and One Pliable Ear

The backstory of how this war began is as tawdry as it is consequential.

Netanyahu’s campaign to drag America into war with Iran can be traced, in its current iteration, to a meeting in the White House Cabinet Room on February 4, the first visit of his second Trump era. He reminded Trump that Iran had plotted to assassinate him, then walked through a detailed slide deck arguing Iran was racing toward a nuclear threshold.

“Look, Donald,” Netanyahu told him, “You can’t have a nuclear Iran on your watch.” He paused for dramatic effect and looked the president directly in the eye.

That’s not diplomacy. That’s a sales pitch, with Trump’s vanity as the product being sold.

Netanyahu showed Trump a video featuring potential post-regime leaders, including Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s last shah; Iran’s government-in-waiting, neatly packaged, ready for installation. Trump’s response: “Sounds good to me.”

Within hours, American intelligence officials were tasked with evaluating the Israeli proposal. The CIA Director used a single word to describe Netanyahu’s promised popular uprising: “farcical.” Trump dismissed the finding. Regime change was, he said, “their problem.” What mattered were the parts he believed could be executed: striking Iran’s leadership and dismantling its military.

Bibi lit the fuse. On February 23, Netanyahu rang Trump with a stunning intelligence tip: Iran’s supreme leader and his top advisers were all meeting at one location in Tehran that Saturday morning. They could all be obliterated in a single devastating airstrike. One phone call. A narrowing window. Two men who had found each other, and a war that had been looking for an excuse.

Not to be outdone was MBS, the other man at the ear, acting the reluctant ally while pulling every available string behind the velvet curtain. The Washington Post reports that the Saudi Crown Prince made many private calls to Trump urging military action, even while publicly signalling support for diplomacy.

MBS privately warned Trump that inaction would leave Tehran “stronger and more dangerous.” The Saudi Foreign Ministry, naturally, denied everything; the same government that is currently hosting the American troops, intercepting the Iranian missiles, and absorbing the strikes that make the war possible.


Netanyahu brought ideology, targeting data, and the moral authority of a country under direct Iranian missile fire. But he couldn’t write a cheque covering the near-billion-dollar daily operating cost of the war. MBS could. And that capacity, the ability to make the most expensive military operation since Iraq financially palatable to a president who measures every relationship in transactional terms, is why the Saudi model was winning the Oval Office even as Netanyahu’s rhetoric dominated the airwaves.

As one analyst put it with some precision: Netanyahu brought the ideology and MBS brought the chequebook, and to Trump, the chequebook is everything.

Two men, two agendas, one pliable ear.

“Because They’re Animals”: The Quote That Should Haunt the World

Now to the heart of it. A reporter asks Trump how bombing Iran’s power plants and bridges would not constitute a war crime.

Trump’s reply: “Because they’re animals.”

“Do you know what a war crime is? A war crime is letting Iran have a nuclear weapon.”

In two sentences, the logic of the school-yard bully becomes foreign policy.

 If they’re animals, the Geneva Conventions don’t apply. If they’re animals, the laws of war; built on the foundational premise that all human beings, even enemy civilians, retain their humanity, simply dissolve. If they’re animals, the hospitals, the schools, the power plants, the desalination systems that ninety million people depend on to survive are all legitimate targets. All just pest control. Or a lawn to mow, Netanyahu’s quip about killing Palestinians, a term popularised by Israeli strategists Efraim Inbar and Eitan Shamir.

This is not accidental rhetoric. This is not a man speaking loosely in the heat of a press conference. This is the oldest move in the genocidal play-book, deployed with the full authority of the presidency of the United States: strip the humanity first, then strip the rights.

History is not subtle on this point. The Holocaust required the prior dehumanisation of Jews as Untermenschen, subhuman, before the camps became possible. American slavery required the legal and cultural denial of Black humanity before it could be systematised across generations.

Rwanda required the Tutsi to be called inyenzi, cockroaches, on the radio before the machetes came out. Aboriginal peoples of this continent were excluded from the national census; not counted among the people of their own country, until the 1967 referendum, within the living memory of people who are still alive and still waiting for a treaty.

Every act of mass extermination, every system of organised dispossession in human history, has been preceded by exactly this move: the removal of the human designation from the people who are about to be killed, displaced or enslaved.


Trump knows this, or his minders do, and they are using it anyway. Calling ninety million Iranians “animals” is not bluster. It is preparation. It is the ideological infrastructure of atrocity, laid in public, on camera, before a press corps that largely moved on to the next story.

Congressman Ro Khanna calls Trump on it: “He is threatening the entire destruction of a civilisation. He is calling Iranians animals.” Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi calls for Trump’s removal from office. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer calls him “an extremely sick person.”

And the global chorus of leaders that should have followed? The rebuke from allied capitals that the moment demanded? The chorus, in the main, did not come. What came instead was the dopamine hit; the next outrage, the next deadline, the next Truth Social post, and the world scrolled on.

Two-Week Trump: The Art of the Infinite Pause

Which brings us to a pattern which will be familiar to every Trump-watcher around the world.

On the evening of April 7, ninety minutes before his own deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face the destruction of every power plant and bridge in the country, Trump announced a two-week ceasefire, brokered by Pakistan. He called it “a big day for world peace.” He writes on Truth Social that the US would help ease the “traffic buildup” in the Strait of Hormuz.

“Big money will be made,” he adds.

Not peace. Not Iranian sovereignty. Not the rule of law. Big money.

The two-week ceasefire is not a ceasefire. It is not diplomacy. It is not a step toward peace. It is the rhetorical equivalent of what Trump has always done when he wants to defer something forever: he makes it sound imminent. Before he puts it off forever.

Two weeks. Always two weeks. Two weeks from now the healthcare plan will be unveiled. Two weeks and the infrastructure bill will be ready. Two weeks and there’ll be a deal with Iran. In Trump’s universe, a universe in which, as observers of his cognitive trajectory have noted with increasing alarm, two weeks may genuinely feel like forever, the two-week pause is the art of the infinite deferral dressed as decisive action.

The purpose is clear and consistent: exhaust the opposition, blunt the momentum of outrage, reset the news cycle, and leave the underlying situation precisely unchanged while claiming credit for statesmanship.

Iran, meanwhile, holds the one card of genuine leverage that no amount of bombing can remove: the Strait of Hormuz, through which twenty percent of the world’s daily oil supply passes. For as long as that strait stays closed, Iran has a seat at the table. The two weeks will expire. Another deadline will be announced. The bombs, or the threat of bombs, will resume. And Trump, having declared victory, will declare it again.

The ceasefire is the intermission. The war is the show.

Part Two, tomorrow, A Whole Civilisation Will Die To

This article was originally published on URBAN WRONSKI WRITES 

April 12, 2026 Posted by | Iran, USA, weapons and war | 1 Comment

Norwegian Nuclear Committee says no to nuclear power in Norway

It is too expensive, Norway lacks the necessary expertise, and the process takes too long, according to the Committee. It unanimously rejects nuclear power.

Johannes Enli Kalleberg and NTB ‎, 8 April, 26, https://energywatch.com/EnergyNews/Renewables/article19180637.ece

The government-appointed Norwegian Nuclear Committee – which has consisted of experts in physics, technology, economics, law, ethics, and social sciences – will submit its report to Norwegian energy minister Terje Aasland on Wednesday after a year and a half of work.

In the report “Nuclear Power in Norway? Advantages, Disadvantages, and Prerequisites,” the committee arrived at the following two main recommendations:

  • Norway should not initiate a full-scale nuclear power process at the current moment.
  • But we should build up expertise that will make it easier to make such a decision in the future.

Extensive support

A key rationale is economics. The committee’s calculations show that nuclear power, even under the most optimistic assumptions, requires electricity prices of at least NOK 1.13 (EUR 0.10) per KWh to cover costs. The estimated long-term electricity price in Norway is NOK 0.50-0.80.

“If nuclear power is to be established in Norway, private investors must find it profitable to invest in nuclear power. In that case, investment costs must be 70-80% lower,” the report states.

The committee points out that this aligns well with the situation in Sweden and Finland. There, major energy companies such as Vattenfall and Fortum say they cannot build new nuclear power plants without extensive government support.

”However, the committee does not see any sound socio-economic justifications for the government to support the establishment of nuclear power in Norway.”

Not before the 2040s

A time-consuming process also argues against nuclear power. Even if Norway decided go ahead with nuclear construction today, the committee estimates that production is not realistic before the mid-2040s at the earliest. First, legislation, regulatory frameworks, and professional communities must be developed.

”In any case, nuclear power production will not come in time to help achieve the Paris Agreement’s 2050 goals, and we must expand other sources in the meantime. And we have other alternatives. These include upgrading hydropower plants and expanding wind and solar power,” the committee concludes.

The committee also warns that the prospect of future nuclear power could hinder the development of these alternatives.

”If there is a prospect of nuclear power coming to Norway in 20 years, it will become less profitable to build other types of power plants. With nuclear power, we thus risk having less power and less transition in the coming decades.”

100,000 years

Much of the Norwegian debate has centered on small modular reactors (SMRs). The committee is skeptical of these as an immediate solution: no factories have been established, no models have been standardized, and it is highly uncertain how affordable SMRs will be.

The committee also highlights the management of spent fuel as a major challenge. Spent fuel emits harmful radiation for thousands of years, and there is international consensus that it must be stored at a depth of around 500 meters in stable rock for 100,000 years.

Finland is the only country in the world to have completed such a repository.

”Accidents can have major consequences and necessitate very strict safety requirements that apply specifically to nuclear power […] It is a challenge that we do not know what the probability is, and that it is difficult to assess what consequences an accident might have.”

Knowledge – not power plants

Nuclear power is not, however, entirely negative. The committee points out that it is possible to produce large amounts of stable, emission-free power in a small area over a long period. The fact that it is not dependent on sun and wind is also a plus.

The report makes it clear that building expertise in nuclear power is important.

This involves strengthening academic environments at universities, participating more actively in international cooperation, staying up to date on technological developments, and considering cooperation with Sweden and Finland.

”Therefore, we think the smartest thing we can do today is to build knowledge, not power plants,” the committee writes.

On June 21, 2024, the Ministry of Energy appointed the committee that has examined nuclear power as a potential energy source in Norway. The goal has been to review and assess various aspects of a possible future establishment of nuclear power in Norway.

This article was provided by our sister media in Norway, EnergiWatch.
English edit by Christian Radich Hoffman.

April 12, 2026 Posted by | EUROPE, politics | Leave a comment

The Empire Backs Down, For Now

Caitlin Johnstone, Apr 08, 2026, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/the-empire-backs-down-for-now?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=193539985&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

Trump has announced a two-week ceasefire with Iran after previously threatening to exterminate their “entire civilization”, citing “a 10 point proposal from Iran” as the reason for the climb-down.

Trump and his cronies are spinning this as a colossal victory for the United States and framing Tehran’s 10-point plan as a major capitulation to the president’s threats. But some reporters are noting that Iran has had the same terms on the table for weeks — which would mean that it is in fact the White House who is backing down.

Hours before the president’s announcement, Drop Site’s Ryan Grim posted a TikTok video arguing that Trump could save face while walking back from his apocalyptic threats by simply accepting Iran’s 10-point peace plan and acting like it’s a new proposal the Iranians had only just put forward. Grim argued that Trump could get away with this because the western media have been completely ignoring Iran’s stated terms for a ceasefire this entire time.

Interestingly, this appears to have been precisely what Trump wound up doing. After previously rejecting Iran’s proposals as “not good enough”, the president turned around and framed the Iranian offer as a brand new response to the pressures his administration was able to impose upon them.

All the way back on March 28, Drop Site News reported the following:

“Among Iran’s terms for permanently ending the war are a longterm guarantee that the U.S. and Israel will not attack Iran again and that any ceasefire also apply to Lebanon, Iraq and Palestine; reparations for the damages done to Iran during the war; sanctions relief; and that Iran retain control over the Strait of Hormuz.”

These are the same terms Iran is claiming it pressured the US to accept today. Iranian state media outlet Press TV cited Iran’s supreme national security council as saying “Iran achieved historic victory by forcing criminal US to accept its 10-point plan. US has accepted Iran’s control over Strait of Hormuz, enrichment right, removal of all sanctions.”

The New York Times reports the following:

“Two senior Iranian officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive negotiations, said the proposal included a guarantee that Iran would not be attacked again, an end to Israeli strikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon and the lifting of all sanctions.

“In return, Iran would lift its de facto blockade of the key shipping route through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran would also impose a fee of roughly $2 million per ship that it would split with Oman, which sits across the strait. Iran would use its share of the proceeds to reconstruct infrastructure destroyed by American and Israeli attacks, rather than demand direct compensation, according to the plan.”

So as things stand right now this certainly looks like a humiliating defeat for the empire. Iran gets a lot of things it didn’t have before the war, including tolling the Strait of Hormuz and relief from the US sanctions that have been crushing its economy for years, while the empire gets to resume its shipping for a hefty fee and pretend it just rescued the world from a nuclear Iran.

Quite the turnaround from a White House that just last month was saying “There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!”

Quincy Institute’s Trita Parsi, who always has great insights regarding western warmongering toward Iran, writes the following:

“I cannot emphasize this enough. A new dynamic will be at play when the US and Iran meet in Islamabad to negotiate a final deal based on Iran’s 10-point plan: Trump’s failed war has eliminated the potency of American military threats in US-Iran diplomacy. The US can still issue threats, but everyone will know that they no longer carry much weight. Essentially, war with Iran was tried and failed. As a result, negotiations will have to be based on genuine compromises from both sides, rather than coercion from either side.

There are of course many, many reasons to be pessimistic. The US and Israel have demonstrated time and time again that they will attack Iran during negotiations, and even if the US holds up its end of the bargain we can always see Israel sabotage the deal with its own aggressions. By now Iran has to know that the only way to protect itself from Israel is to impose costs for Israeli aggression on the entire western world; Tehran will have us all heating our homes with trash fires and growing carrots in our backyards if the west can’t find a way to rein in Israel.

For what it’s worth, Zionist Twitter is in absolute meltdown right now, with notorious Israel apologists like Laura Loomer, Eve Barlow and Eli David rending their garments in outrage that the killing has ended with Iran positioned as it is. I’m as skeptical about this ceasefire as anyone, but the fact that the world’s worst people are in meltdown about it right now does provide a faint glimmer of hope.

We shall see.

April 12, 2026 Posted by | Iran, Israel, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

14 April – Zoom -Nuclear Power is Not the Solution

Nuclear Power is Not the Solution – (Apr 15, 2026 01:00 AM  in  Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney)

Join the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) on Tuesday, April 14th for a timely webinar exploring the risks associated with nuclear power and challenging the myth that it offers a simple, safe, carbon-free solution to the climate crisis. Taking place in the context of the 40th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and the upcoming Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference, this discussion will reflect on past lessons while looking ahead to a nuclear-free future.


Taking place in the context of the 40th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and the upcoming Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference, this webinar will explore the risks associated with nuclear power and challenge the myth that it offers a simple, safe, carbon-free solution to the climate crisis.

Expert speakers include:

  • Linda Pentz Gunter, Beyond Nuclear, highlighting overall dangers of nuclear power
  • Dr. Paul Saoke, IPPNW Kenya, highlighting reflections from his 2025 book on extractive practices of uranium mining across the continent
  • Tim Jusdon, Nuclear Information and Resource Service, highlighting nuclear power expansion in response to AI energy needs
  • Vladimir Slyviak, Ecodefense, highlighting Zaporizhzhia and risks in war zones
  • Moderator: Laura Wunder, IPPNW Germany

April 12, 2026 Posted by | Events | Leave a comment

Trump’s Genocidal Threats on Iran Are Enabled by a Vast Apparatus of Destruction

most people with common sense are speculating whether Trump will use one of the United States’ 3,700 nuclear weapons on Iran. Let us not forget that Israel — the only actually nuclear-armed state in the region, the one that’s spent nearly three years now committing genocide against Palestinians and is currently wiping out entire villages in Lebanon — also has an estimated 90 nuclear weapons.

“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” Trump threatened.

By Negin Owliaei , Truthout, April 7, 2026

Somehow, in a war already bent on turning Iran into a failed state, Donald Trump’s threats against the country have become increasingly disturbing. For days now, Trump has threatened to bomb key civilian infrastructure in Iran, from bridges to power plants. On April 5, in a terrifying screed, he wrote: “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped in one, in Iran.” He went on to say, “Open the Fuckin’ Strait you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell — JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.”

He doubled down on that threat the next day, when a reporter asked how his threatened strikes would not amount to a war crime. “They’re animals and we have to stop them,” he said. He also attempted to justify himself by suggesting that he was calling for Iranian liberation. “They want to hear bombs because they want to be free.”

Finally, on the morning of April 7, he issued his most chilling threat yet: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.”

These statements, from a man who directs the incomprehensibly lethal power of the U.S. military, should make the world stop. For me, personally, it does feel like the world has stopped: What do you do in the hours between the moment the president of the United States threatens to annihilate your homeland and the time he has vowed to conduct the actual act? Trump is holding an entire nation hostage. But, somehow, the rest of the world continues on. The markets chug along. Congress continues to be in recess, with dissent confined largely to social media posts. It is hard not to feel like we have failed some critical test of the bounds of our own humanity.

Now, as the entire world waits to see what kind of fate a single man will inflict upon an entire nation, we have entered new territory. As I type these words, most people with common sense are speculating whether Trump will use one of the United States’ 3,700 nuclear weapons on Iran. Let us not forget that Israel — the only actually nuclear-armed state in the region, the one that’s spent nearly three years now committing genocide against Palestinians and is currently wiping out entire villages in Lebanon — also has an estimated 90 nuclear weapons.

The nuclear threat is animating for its sheer terror, and for good reason. Some military experts have cast doubt on the U.S.’s ability to use a nuclear weapon against Iran. Other political pundits, meanwhile, suggest that this is a perfect example of Trump making a maximalist threat in order to seek a better negotiating position.

But to pretend that this is the limitation of the threat — that, if a nuclear weapon is not deployed, we have somehow won something crucial — is to miss the point. The U.S. and Israel have already inflicted mass death upon Iran in the form of conventional missiles. In terms of specifically nuclear threats, Iran’s nuclear power plant at Bushehr has come under repeated attack during this aggression. Mainstream U.S. media outlets have largely moved past the fact that Israel bombed fuel depots in Iran, causing oil to rain down from the skies — a chemical attack if there ever was one.

Trump’s threats to bomb power plants and bridges and civilian infrastructure more broadly are already terrifying enough as it is. And Trump’s language alone is monstrous. It is genocidal and should be treated as such; threatening genocide, legal experts are pointing out, is itself a war crime.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… On the first day of the war, we learned that the earliest reported casualties of U.S.-Israeli aggression were kids going to school, and eventually found they were killed while huddled together in a prayer room, their bodies hit with a U.S.-made and delivered missile. I wrote then that “we in the U.S. need to reckon with the fact that so much of our state wealth, capacity, and technology goes toward burying children in rubble.” We still need to do that, desperately.

We also need to address the dehumanization that persists in every single aspect of American life — from politics to culture to media — that has sent us down the path in which Trump can threaten to annihilate a civilization and we find ourselves with few answers about how to stop it. By calling for the death of a civilization, Trump is making the goal explicit. But decades of sanctions paved the way for his words. Politicians on both sides of the aisle who have and continue to frame Iran as a particular threat, even as a “cancer,” have made this possible. The media outlets that uncritically platform those racist tirades bear responsibility, too. Sadly, Iranians in the diaspora who insisted that their fellow country people were desperate for bombs — some of whom continue to call for further violence against their people — played a role here as well.

…………………………………………………………………………….. Trump might be able to threaten a civilization with mass death. But there is an entire apparatus that makes those threats credible — from the whole spectrum of the U.S. political establishment constantly voting to fuel the war machine, to the international organizations that shaped international law to favor the powerful, to the media that downplay and obfuscate the viciousness of U.S. empire. A civilization that allows these threats to repeat unabated should question whether, somewhere along the way, it was the one that actually died. https://truthout.org/articles/trumps-genocidal-threats-on-iran-are-enabled-by-a-vast-apparatus-of-destruction/?utm_source=Truthout&utm_campaign=ca3edbadaa-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2026_04_07_09_29&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bbb541a1db-ca3edbadaa-650192793

April 12, 2026 Posted by | Religion and ethics, USA | Leave a comment

Prominent New York synagogue hosts presentation on why U.S. Jews should support the ethnic cleansing of Gaza

Benjamin Anthony’s speech at New York’s influential Park Avenue Synagogue, where he argued that U.S. Jews need to support ethnic cleansing in Gaza, illustrates how the American Jewish community has embraced Israeli racism and brutality.

By Philip Weiss  Mondoweiss, April 2, 2026 

The American press does its best not to cover savage Israeli views of Palestinians, but a leading New York synagogue gave an honored platform to those views ten days ago. It hosted an Israeli advocate with connections in its government who argued for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, and said American Jews need to support that operation.  

Benjamin Anthony said that all “Palestinian Arabs” in Gaza pose such a threat to Israel that the international community should use “muscular diplomacy” with Egypt so as force the population out of Gaza into an “enclave” in the Sinai peninsula. 

“I believe the international community would very handily be able to create some sort of enclave for the…Gazans in the Sinai peninsula. And then we might have the breathing room to think about long-term solutions.” 

Though those two million Gazans would likely be displaced again, into African countries, said Anthony, the leader of an Israeli think tank called the MirYam Institute. 

“I think someone like [Egyptian president] Sisi would likely move the Gazans along from the Sinai peninsula in the event that he didn’t want to build a place for them there, and you would probably see them dispersed through the continent of Africa quite quickly.”

Anthony’s argument is widely shared by Israelis (according to a 2025 poll), and it only received mild push back from Eliot Cosgrove, a leading conservative rabbi in the U.S., who had brought Anthony, his first cousin, onto the synagogue dais.  

Cosgrove called the scheme “very intriguing,” but protested that Anthony was conflating “Hamas with the entire Gaza population.” And that by creating a refugee population with a “narrative”, Israel was practically and morally kicking the can down the road. Speaking “as a proud Zionist,” Cosgrove said the scheme is not in Israel’s interest.

Anthony insisted that no Gazans could be trusted because Gazan civilians cheered the atrocities against Israelis on October 7. Cosgrove folded his hand: “Well, I love you, and I disagree with you, but let’s move on.” 

Cosgrove ended the hour-long dialogue by thanking Anthony “for fighting the good fight” and “for representing our people.”

I must point out that if a speaker called for Israeli Jews to be displaced because Palestinians are unsafe with Jews living there, that person would instantly face serious, perhaps career-ending, repercussions. Recall what happened to Helen Thomas, an accomplished reporter of Lebanese ancestry, when she said that Israeli Jews need to “go home,” back to Europe. She was forced to retire in 2010. 

Anthony’s toughness had a goal. He’d come to “implore” American Jews to support Israel and America’s war with Iran as a war for the Jewish future in America. Trump is a unique leader who has taken action, he said. The next president could be anti-Israel.

“My feeling is that the entire Zionist project, and dare I say the fate of world Jewry not just Israeli Jewry, but diaspora Jewry as well, rests on the outcome of this war against Iran,” Anthony said. “You don’t need to be a pollster to know where the [Israeli] people are. On the fight against Iran, there is near unanimity behind the idea that this regime needs to come to an end.”

In fact, Anthony’s militaristic view is echoed in the American Jewish community. The leading Jewish organizations have commended the U.S. and Israel for going to war.

But non-Zionist and anti-Zionist Jewish groups have opposed the war. The liberal Zionist group J Street has also done so and called on American Jews to speak out against the war so as to show Americans that Jews are not pushing the war. J Street’s leader acknowledged that pro-Israel groups played “a role in setting the table for Trump’s decision,” but warned that those lobbying actions could make Jews the “scapegoat for failure.” 

American Jews must oppose “the overwhelming majority of [the Israeli] people” and declare that this war “was not in our interest, and that it was not pursued in our name,” Jeremy Ben-Ami said

No such concern was evident at the Park Avenue Synagogue on March 20. Benjamin Anthony called on American Jews to stand “shoulder to shoulder” with Israeli Jews in an “absolute” war that will end all the other wars, so as to ensure “the long-term survival of the state of Israel.”

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. The marvel of Anthony’s appearance is that our press routinely gives Israelis and American Zionists a pass when they express extreme ideas. Anthony says he has consulted White House officials (he does not say which administration) and Israelis with similar views, such as Ron Dermer, who come and go at the Trump White House, according to Trump’s former counter-terrorism chief who lately resigned over the misguided U.S. policy. 

The tragedy for me of this Passover is that the American Jewish community rolls out the red carpet for racist talk, because they are “proud Zionists.” So a thuggish Israeli endorses brutal policies against Palestinians in a leading New York synagogue, and the response is We love you. https://mondoweiss.net/2026/04/prominent-new-york-synagogue-hosts-presentation-on-why-u-s-jews-should-support-the-ethnic-cleansing-of-gaza/

April 12, 2026 Posted by | Religion and ethics | Leave a comment

US Satellite Firm Blacks Out Iran War Images Per US Government Request

by Alan Mosley | April 5, 2026, https://news.antiwar.com/2026/04/05/us-satellite-firm-blacks-out-iran-war-images-per-us-government-request/

Planet Labs says it will “indefinitely withhold” satellite visuals of Iran and the wider Middle East war zone after a request from the US government and the Trump administration. In an email to customers, the firm said it is shifting to a “managed distribution” model, releasing imagery only case-by-case for “urgent, mission-critical requirements,” or when release is deemed “in the public interest.” Planet also said it will withhold imagery dating back to March 9, and it expects the policy to remain in effect until the conflict ends.

On March 6, Planet Labs announced a mandatory 96-hour delay on new imagery collected over the Gulf states, arguing that near-real-time pictures could be exploited to “endanger allied, NATO, and civilian personnel.” That measure later expanded into a 14-day delay, described by Planet as an extension of the earlier hold. By March 30, Al Jazeera’s Digital Investigations unit was reporting that independent verification had become harder as commercial providers restricted satellite imagery.

Satellite imagery matters because, unlike press briefings, it can corroborate damage, assess patterns of targeting, and check narratives that would otherwise be accepted on authority. Reporting by the Global Investigative Journalism Network describes how open-source teams used satellite imagery and videos to probe contested incidents during this war, quoting Bellingcat’s head of research warning that a “two-week delay” slows verification and reduces the certainty investigators can reach while events are still developing. It also quotes the Defense Secretary saying, “Open source is not the place to determine what did or did not happen.”

Despite the insinuation that open source investigative journalism is less credible, even mainstream news organizations utilize such tools in their reporting. For example, Reuters has also used satellite imagery in its war coverage, including sharing said imagery and post-strike visuals with a munitions researcher in reporting on the strike on a girls’ school in Minab which killed over 170 people, mostly children. While later reporting added that the strike may have involved outdated targeting intelligence, it is worth noting that the president claimed “without evidence” that Iran was responsible.

One can concede that operational security is real and still recognize that “trust us” is an unsafe substitute for public evidence. In mid-March, the White House claimed Iran’s ballistic-missile capacity was “functionally destroyed,” with “complete and total aerial dominance,” while reporting in the same period described continued missile incidents and interceptions. But the Trump administration’s claim of total control over Iranian airspace seems dubious when countered with reports of military losses, such as the downing of multiple aircraft just since the start of April.

The blackout of satellite imagery from the region is not a story about one firm’s products or customer service. It is a reminder that foreign intervention tends to produce domestic control, often without the drama of a formal censorship order. The same state that wages war can narrow the evidence available to judge that war. The predictable result is that the public is pushed to take the word of the administration’s spokesmen at face value, without timely means to verify or falsify their claims.

Alan Mosley is a historian, jazz musician, policy researcher for the Tenth Amendment Center, and host of It’s Too Late, “The #1 Late Night Show in America (NOT hosted by a Communist)!” New episodes debut every Wednesday night at 9ET across all major platforms; just search “AlanMosleyTV” or “It’s Too Late with Alan Mosley.”

April 12, 2026 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Trump threatened a civilisation – We must respond to nuclear threats

International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), Melissa Parke, 8 April 26

Yesterday, US President Donald Trump threatened to escalate the US and Israeli war on Iran to the point that, in his own words, “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” Vice President JD Vance further warned that the United States might have to use “tools it hasn’t used so far”. These were barely veiled references to nuclear weapons.

Mercifully, Trump stepped back before the deadline. A temporary ceasefire was brokered, with Iran agreeing to reopen the Strait of Hormuz for two weeks. The new deadline is April 21.Click to teach Gmail this conversation is not important

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) is alarmed and appalled by President Trump’s threat. It warrants unequivocal condemnation by all who value peace, international law, and human rights. The brokered temporary ceasefire, while welcome in itself, does not change the fact that a nuclear threat was made by the US president. The logic of one person having the ability to destroy an entire people, at any time, for any reason, remains fully intact.

But there is an alternative. 99 states have joined the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. They have made a categorical choice to condemn any and all nuclear threats, whether implicit or explicit, and irrespective of the circumstances. They are working actively towards the elimination of nuclear weapons. Those who know best the horror that nuclear threats present are actively protesting against them. ANT-Hiroshima held protests at the Atomic Bomb Dome yesterday to call for an end to the hostilities.

Nuclear weapons are not a force of nature, they are a political choice. And that means we, too, have a choice. Demand that your government condemns Trump’s threat. Demand that it makes clear: nuclear threats are unacceptable. And if your country has not yet joined the TPNW, demand that it does so.

April 12, 2026 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

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