‘I miss our land. Chernobyl broke us’: The families who lost their homes after world’s worst nuclear accident
For 40 years, the residents of northern Ukraine and southern Belarus have grappled with the devastating effects of the world’s worst nuclear accident. They tell Alex Croft about the day that their lives were changed forever
25 April2026, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/chernobyl-40-years-family-reel-hostages-b2963417.html EXCELLENT PHOTOS
lena Maruzhenko remembers her mother sobbing when Soviet police told them to evacuate their home in the village of Korogod in northern Ukraine.
Just 12km away, a reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant had exploded, sending a shaft of blue light into the night sky and throwing clouds of radioactive material into the surrounding area.
Local authorities told Olena and their mother that they would only need to leave their home for three days. They had no idea that the worst nuclear disaster in history had unfolded.
“We believed we would definitely return,” Olena recalls to The Independent as the world marks the 40th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster.
“The 26 April, 1986, is a date that is forever etched in my memory with black sadness. We could not imagine leaving our homes without knowing where to go.”
Olena and her mother were among 350,000 people who were evacuated from the Chernobyl exclusion zone. Hundreds of buses were sent to ferry workers from Pripyat, an industrial city created to house workers from the nearby plant located around 100km north of Kyiv.
The disaster began when reactor number 4 at the power plant exploded at 1.23am, after a test went catastrophically wrong.
In the days that followed, a massive and uncontainable release of radioactive material spread across Europe. Firefighters and workers were exposed to lethal radiation as they attempted to contain the blaze. Thousands of animals were mercifully slaughtered as residents were evacuated from nearby towns.
The Soviet government sought to downplay the scale of the accident.
In the 40 years since Chernobyl, thousands of people have suffered devastating health consequences due to high radiation exposure, including thyroid cancer.
Vast areas were contaminated by the radiation, devastating the region’s environment. Luscious green forests turned a reddish brown, while vital soil for agriculture was polluted for decades.
Korogod was once a town surrounded by forests, rivers and lakes that provided rich sources of mushrooms, berries, fish and herbs sold in bustling local markets. After the disaster, it became a grey and decrepit ghost town in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, a 30km area restricted to human habitation.
The official Soviet death toll, given in 1987, was 31. But after including those who suffered lasting health effects, the toll is significantly higher.
The husband of Natalia Dykun, another resident of Korogod, was one such person. He was diagnosed with cancer after the disaster and eventually died from the disease.
“We became hostages of the Chernobyl disaster,” she says. “The treatment did not help and he died very young. In almost every house near us, someone from the family began to get sick, and later almost every family lost a relative to cancer.”
Natalia was 28 at the time of the explosion. She recalls the silence from the Soviet authorities causing “great harm”, with residents “completely unprotected, both morally and physically”.
Most residents from the towns near Chernobyl only truly understood the scale of what had happened when they discovered new towns were being built to house them.
Natalia says she was “devastated” to see a new village being built in an open field with “no forest or water nearby”. Her home used to be surrounded by nature.
Olga Mikhalova was only 15 when she learned she would never be returning home. “The accident and evacuation changed us forever,” she says.
“Family ties were broken, neighbourly ties. We would not wish this on anyone.”
Olena, who was living with strangers in the aftermath of the tragedy, watched the news in tears when she found out new homes were being built. “I still dream of my village, my native house. I miss our land. The Chernobyl accident broke us.”
Slavutych, a planned city on the western bank of the Dnieper River, still houses around 20,000 people. It was built for those evacuated from the abandoned city of Pripyat, perhaps the most famous of those evacuated after the explosion. Chilling images of Pripyat, including its haunting abandoned fairground, are an enduring symbol of the lives and communities lost in just a matter of hours.
“When we realised that we would not return home, it was very difficult for us, the young, to come to terms with this, and it was even more difficult for the older generation,” says Olga. “This is a tragedy for many generations.”
As war rages in Ukraine, with Russian forces playing fast and loose around Chernobyl and the southern Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, experts have told The Independent that we are closer than ever to another nuclear disaster.
For those who have suffered the most catastrophic effects of a nuclear accident, this is unthinkable.
“As a person who survived the evacuation, I feel especially acute anxiety when war touches nuclear facilities,” Olena says. “This causes fear and incomprehension, why humanity, having had such an experience, is taking risks again.”
Natalie fears for the future generations. “This irresponsibility of the enemy and the risks for the surrounding world of a repeat of the disaster are very frightening and we are in constant stress and fear. We are no longer afraid for ourselves, but for our children and grandchildren.
“Irresponsibility and insecurity in relation to nuclear energy and infrastructure is a crime before the whole world.”
Is President Trump mentally unstable? (Part 2)
25 April 2026 John Lord , https://theaimn.net/is-president-trump-mentally-unstable-part-2/
In 2017, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, a book edited by Dr Bandy X. Lee, presented the assessments of 27 psychiatrists, psychologists, and other mental health professionals, argued that Trump’s mental condition constituted a “clear and present danger” to the nation.
However, it is important to acknowledge the ethical debate within the mental health community regarding the public diagnosis of political figures. On one side, proponents of speaking out argue that when a leader’s behaviour appears to threaten public safety or welfare, mental health professionals have a “duty to warn,” even if it means commenting without a direct evaluation.
They believe that their responsibility to the public outweighs traditional restrictions. On the other side, critics invoke the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) Goldwater Rule, emphasising that publicly diagnosing a public figure without a face-to-face assessment and consent undermines professional ethics, risks personal bias, and can erode trust in the profession. This debate remains unresolved, with experts divided over what best serves ethical standards and public interest.
The APA’s Goldwater Rule cautions professionals against offering a diagnosis without a personal examination and proper authorisation. This ongoing controversy reflects broader concerns about professional ethics, public responsibility, and the challenges of analysing the mental health of high-profile leaders.
In 2021, some members of Trump’s own Cabinet, shocked by the violence at the Capitol on January 6 and his slow response, discussed whether to use the 25th Amendment to remove him from office because of concerns about his mental fitness.
During his 2024 campaign, he attacked Kamala Harris and then launched into a wild and confusing rant:
“She destroyed the city of San Francisco, it’s – and I own a big building there – it’s no – I shouldn’t talk about this, but that’s OK, I don’t give a damn because this is what I’m doing. I should say it’s the finest city in the world – sell and get the hell out of there, right? But I can’t do that. I don’t care, you know? I lost billions of dollars. You know, somebody said, ‘What do you think you lost?’ I said, ‘Probably two, three billion. That’s OK, I don’t care.’ They say, ‘You think you’d do it again?’ And that’s the least of it. Nobody. They always say, I don’t know if you know. Lincoln was horribly treated. Uh, Jefferson was pretty horrible. Andrew Jackson, they say, was the worst of all, and he was treated worse than any other president. I said, ‘Do that study again, because I think there’s nobody close to Trump.’ I even got shot! And who the hell knows where that came from, right?”
These persistent displays of paranoia, his continuing ICE raids, his use of the Justice Department to target his enemies, his shameless corruption rage, volatility, delusions, vengefulness, foul-mouthed posturing, his bottomless vengeance toward Iran and the Pope and increasing detachment from reality directly undermine the expectations of mental stability and sound judgment outlined in the thesis.
As such, they provide substantial evidence that calls into question the President’s capacity to fulfil the responsibilities and demands of the office.
Why did Trump and Vance pick a fight with Pope Leo? His exchange with the Pope was unsightly, unnecessary and regrettable.
Despite all these warning signs, his Cabinet members and aides keep their heads down. Republican members of Congress pretend not to notice, and his billionaire supporters dare not speak of his rapid decline. Media coverage of the President’s conduct remains contested.
Some critics argue that significant portions of the media engage in “sanewashing,” thereby downplaying or rationalising the President’s erratic behaviour. Others point out that both partisan and mainstream outlets have at times foregrounded his controversial statements and actions, which suggests a level of critical scrutiny.
This divergence highlights the unevenness of media responses: while certain outlets may frame the President’s behaviour as authentic or a populist connection, others interpret it as evidence of instability and potential danger.
These framing choices shape both public opinion and elite responses by influencing how the general population perceives these actions and how policymakers justify their stances. Ultimately, this complexity in media coverage reflects deeper debates over the press’s responsibilities and the challenges of interpreting signs of instability at the highest levels of government.
But some people on the political right, including longtime Trump supporters, have had enough.
Former Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene says Trump’s threat to destroy Iran’s civilisation is “not tough rhetoric, it’s insanity.” Far-right podcaster Candace Owens calls him “a genocidal lunatic.”
Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones says Trump “does babble and sounds like the brain’s not doing too hot.” Ty Cobb, a White House lawyer during Trump’s first term, says Trump is “clearly insane.” Former Trump White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham says, “he’s clearly not well.”
The public is starting to notice. Sixty-one per cent of Americans think he’s become more unpredictable as he gets older, while only 45 per cent say he is “mentally sharp and able to deal with challenges.”
For the good of the country and the world, we need to face the truth. Based on his actions and words, the most powerful man in the world seems unfit for the job because of mental instability.
We are all endangered. What happens if, in a fit of rage, he presses the nuke button and “chucks a wobbly”? Is hewatching the “football” with the atomic codes in his lap? Who’s ready to stop him to save the world?
It is not as though Congress doesn’t have the power to dismiss this ratbag. They could “Impeach” him now.
In conclusion, the 25th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States explicitly provides a constitutional mechanism for removing a President deemed unable to discharge the powers and duties of the office. This provision underscores Congress’s responsibility to act decisively in the face of clear evidence of presidential incapacity.
However, in practice, there are significant political and procedural barriers to invoking the 25th Amendment. The process requires the Vice President and a majority of the Cabinet to agree that the President is unfit, which can be difficult to achieve given political loyalties and fear of reprisals.
Even if this initial hurdle is cleared, the President can contest the decision, and ultimately, it falls to a supermajority in Congress to resolve the dispute. These requirements make the real-world use of the 25th Amendment extremely challenging, especially in a polarised political environment.
As such, while the 25th Amendment serves as a critical safeguard for the stability of American democracy and global security, its practical application remains fraught with obstacles.
The untold race to escape Chernobyl: A nuclear disaster. Families surrounded by deadly radiation. Then one woman risked her life to save 45,000 people.
By IMOGEN GARFINKEL – SENIOR FOREIGN NEWS REPORTER and PERKIN AMALARAJ, FOREIGN NEWS REPORTER, 22 April 2026 , https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-15748163/The-untold-race-escape-Chernobyl-nuclear-disaster-Families-surrounded-deadly-radiation-one-woman-risked-life-save-45-000-people.html
Radiation is an odourless, invisible killer, with the potential to surge through the body and tear it apart on a cellular level, irreversibly damaging DNA.
When reactor number four at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded in April 1986, debris emanated radiation at a level of 10,000 roentgens per hour – enough to cause a fatal dose to anyone who stood nearby for a matter of minutes.
Firefighters made the ultimate sacrifice on April 26, absorbing unprecedented amounts of the poison as they battled to put out the enormous flames of history’s most devastating nuclear accident.
As a gigantic radioactive cloud began spreading over the world – infecting 40 per cent of Europe and even stretching into northern Africa and north America – one woman found herself in the eye of the storm.
Maria Protsenko, garbed in just a blouse, skirt and sandals, was personally responsible for orchestrating the mass evacuation of Pripyat’s 45,000 civilians, emptying the devastated Soviet city of any sign of life.
She was previously the chief architect of the city, having lovingly designed neighbourhoods for young families, but in a split second she became a kind of grim reaper, sweeping away all the civilisation she had helped to create.
Recounting the fateful day to the makers of the TV series ‘Chernobyl: Inside the Meltdown’ on National Geographic, Protsenko transports herself back 40 years ago and tells of the wounds that haven’t left her.
‘For the first time in my life, I was not building a city, I was burying it forever,’ she said, reflecting on the scale of destruction. ‘This is not only a man-made disaster, it is a catastrophe that broke the lives of thousands of people.’
By 11am the day after the explosion, a mass evacuation was announced and scheduled for 2pm, but by that point it was too late.
Some of those living closest to the power plant had already received internal radiation doses in their thyroid glands of up to 3.9Gy – roughly 37,000 times the dose of a chest x-ray – after breathing radioactive material and eating contaminated food
Immediately after the accident, thyroid cancer was particularly rampant in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia, with 5,000 cases diagnosed among those who were children and adolescents at the time of exposure.
Today, Pripyat is an eerie ghost town of cavernous kindergartens, abandoned houses and sports halls left to decay, having been declared too radioactively dangerous for human habitation for at least 24,000 years.
Protsenko wore no protective clothing as she led the vast evacuation operation, standing on a bridge overlooking the city while 1,500 buses picked up families district by district.
She stayed up all night designing intricate maps, allowing her to execute the mammoth task with tactical precision, not leaving anyone behind in the industrial wasteland.
‘At 2pm the first bus arrived… I was standing there in my blouse and my skirt, and I had sandals on my bare feet. I had no protective gear,’ she told the documentary.
Only thick sheets of lead or massive concrete blocks would have prevented her from being contaminated.
‘All that radioactive dust was rising and got on my bare feet and my legs. That’s why they were so itchy. Can you imagine how much radioactive dust was flying from that place, at that time?’
But at that point, no one could understood the scale of the tragedy – not yet.
Girls and boys played together in the street as they waited for their livesaving convoys, not yet grasping the fact that the evacuation wasn’t temporary and they may never see each other again.
Many didn’t have a chance to say goodbye before they vanished from each other’s lives forever, turning from neighbours to refugees in one simple journey.
‘We evacuated nearly 45,000 people. Without panicking and noise, we evacuated the entire city,’ Protsenko said.
She is still haunted by the memory of one woman, who watched her intensely from the bus window as she was torn away from her community.
‘She didn’t just look at me, she turned her head, following me with her stare.
‘There was something in her face, like she was screaming inside: “What is this?! Where am I going?!”‘
While she was helping the city’s inhabitants escape, Protsenko had no idea she was exposing herself to so much lethal radiation.
‘At that moment, I was not only not afraid, I did not even think about it,’ she said.
It was only after the disaster that the architect remembered how she had spent hours absorbing the toxic fallout near the Red Forest, breathing in countless particles of contaminated dust as convoys rolled past.
‘The thing is, radiation does not make noise like exploding bombs. It does not burn like a fire. It has no smell. You do not feel it immediately, it kills quietly, slowly. And there is no awareness at all that you are in danger,’ she said.
Following the evacuation, she developed a persistent cough, headaches, dryness in her mouth and intense itching in her legs – but still did not grasp that she had likely absorbed a significant dose of radiation.
Now aged 80, she’s still living with the long-term impact of the disaster.
‘I am no longer 40… my health is no longer what it used to be… all as a result of the radiation exposure I received long ago.’
She added: ‘No one would envy it.’
While some degree of exposure was inevitable to everybody in the vicinity of the accident, the Soviet authorities didn’t help matters by underplaying the tragedy in its immediate aftermath – ultimately slowing down the evacuation.
Despite the explosion in the early hours of April 26, life in the city initially continued as normal, with children outside playing and parents going about their errands, unaware that they were at the centre of a nuclear catastrophe.
‘The night was clear, warm, and quiet. The residents of the city were peacefully asleep and knew nothing yet about the disaster that had occurred,’ Protsenko said.
‘Information about the radiation situation was kept in strict secrecy.’
When she was tasked with leading the evacuation, even she hadn’t grasped the scale of the calamity, but she knew she had a job to do.
‘By 6pm… we had practically evacuated the entire population of the city,’ she said.
Within a few hours, it was done, and Pripyat would never be the same again.
By that time, she was one of the last people left in the uninhabitable wreckage of a town. ‘The city became empty… no lights were on… it felt a little eerie.’
The Chernobyl disaster isn’t contained to a single day, but went on to redefine the lives of hundreds of thousands of people all over the world.
Investigations ultimately concluded that faulty protocols in the plant’s design and poorly trained personnel were responsible for the explosion, which blew the 1,000-ton steel lid off the reactor – the same weight as three 747 passenger planes.
In the weeks and months that followed the accident, scores of firefighters, engineers, military troops, police, miners, cleaners and medical personnel – collectively known as ‘liquidators’ – were sent to the destroyed power plant in an effort to control the blaze and core meltdown.
In Belarus, 40,049 liquidators were registered to have cancers by 2008 along with a further 2,833 from Russia. In Ukraine, disability among the workers soared, with 68 per cent regarded healthy in 1988, compared to 26 years when only 5.5 per cent were still in good physical condition.
As well as coping with physical sickness, Protsenko is still grappling with the day to day consequences of Russian authoritarianism.
n 2022, she was forced to flee Ukraine in a wheelchair with her daughter and their kitten, following Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion.
And with Putin’s callous disregard for safety, having launched a major offensive to capture the area around Chernobyl just days into his invasion – only to abandon it weeks later – only time will tell how far the long shadow the nuclear plant casts will stretch.
Chernobyl: Inside the Meltdown airs on National Geographic on Sunday 26th April from 4pm
Chernobyl first-responder reveals lifelong health damage 40 years after working in deadly radiation zone
Sergei Belyakov worked as a ‘biorobot liquidator’ cleaning up Chernobyl after its 1986 nuclear meltdown.
LAD Bible, 19 Apr 2026 , Brenna Cooper
In April 1986, Sergei Belyakov was fishing along the Dnieper River when he noticed that the water level had dropped significantly, a sign of an industrial accident further upstream.
Just days before, he’d seen the state news broadcaster briefly mention an incident at Chernobyl, a nuclear power plant in the north of the country.
“They were casually saying there was an accident at the nuclear power plant, and there were a few casualties, but it had all been taken care of,” Sergei recalled.
The assistant professor initially believed there had been some form of industrial accident at the plant, but what would unfold would go on to be one of the worst nuclear disasters in history.
Chernobyl disaster: 40 years on
In the early hours of the morning on 26 April 1986, technicians at Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Pripyat, Ukraine, were performing a routine test on the reactor when a fatal design flaw caused it to explode, releasing more than 100 radioactive elements into the atmosphere.
The consequences of the explosion would be catastrophic, with harmful radiation spreading as far north as Sweden and even reaching the US East Coast.
Four decades on from the disaster, National Geographic has released a four-part documentary series, titled Chernobyl: Inside the Meltdown, featuring first-hand accounts from those who witnessed the disaster and its aftermath.
After initially attempting to cover up the worst of the disaster, government officials leaned on national pride and propaganda to entice volunteers to help in the cleanup.
Around 600,000 people, referred to as liquidators, were drafted in from across Ukraine and the wider Soviet Union to assist with the clean-up, each receiving a radiation dose of 2000 roentgen an hour, equivalent to four times the lethal dose, in exchange for their work.
Sergei, then an assistant professor from the Ukrainian State Chemical Technology University in Dnipro, was one of such volunteers. Believing his background in military chemistry would be beneficial to the clean-up, Sergei travelled to the exclusion zone and worked for several weeks between July and September. With the job title of ‘biorobot liquidator’, Sergei’s work involved turning over top-level soil, spraying down buildings and shovelling graphite from the roof of reactor No. 4.
His work on the roof brought him just footsteps away from the open reactor, an area where experts say just 30 to 45 seconds of exposure would be lethal. With only a respirator and two sheets of lead for protection, Sergei made six trips up onto the roof – and the health consequences of his work still linger today.
“I still have some [problems], yes,” Sergei explained in an interview with LADbible. “Strangely enough, now, after all these years, and it’s… this is one of the things people don’t realise, that how radiation hits you.”
The impact of radiation exposure on his health was near instant. Aged 30 at the time, he began to experience immediate headaches, nasal congestion and difficulty looking into the sunlight.
After his 42 days in the exclusion zone ended, Sergei returned home with 1,000 Rubles, roughly £2,500 in today’s money and the equivalent of ‘five times’ his monthly salary at the time.
However, the health issues would continue. A ‘high-level’ basketball player before the explosion, Sergei also suffered with ‘severe fatigue’, with it taking around ‘a year and a half’ for the university professor to get back onto the court.
“[My] immune system suffered, I had problems with [my] kidneys,” he said.
“[I] had problems with my liver, my blood work was laughable at the time when I came back. I mean, white blood cells were miserable.”……………………………………………………………
The Expanding Presidency of Donald J. Trump
20 April 2026 Roswell, https://theaimn.net/the-expanding-presidency-of-donald-j-trump/
There was a time – not so long ago – when the office of President of the United States seemed a sufficiently demanding role. Nuclear codes, global alliances, the occasional domestic crisis. A full plate, you might think.
Not anymore.
In what can only be described as a remarkable outbreak of geopolitical multitasking, Donald Trump has recently expanded the scope of his ambitions well beyond the traditional constraints of nation, constitution, or reality.
Take Iran, for example. According to the President, Iranian leaders have floated the idea of him becoming their next Supreme Leader. It’s a curious development. For decades, the Islamic Republic has resisted Western influence with near-theological rigidity – yet apparently, all it took was the right real estate developer from Queens to make them reconsider the entire ideological foundation of the state.
One imagines the internal debate in Tehran:
“Shall we continue our centuries-old religious governance model?”
“Or… hear me out… Trump?”
Then there’s Europe.
Trump has claimed that European Union leaders have, in effect, looked across the Atlantic and thought, “Yes, that man – he should be President of Europe.” This will no doubt come as news to European leaders themselves, many of whom are currently busy disagreeing with him on matters as trivial as war, diplomacy, and reality.
Still, it’s a touching thought. A continent of 450 million people, dozens of languages, and centuries of political complexity – quietly waiting for a single American strongman to step in and tidy things up.
And why stop there?
In a further display of linguistic optimism, Trump has reportedly suggested he could quickly learn Spanish and run for President of Venezuela – and win, of course. This is, on reflection, the most plausible of the claims – if only because it acknowledges one minor obstacle (language) before immediately dismissing it.
One can picture the campaign launch:
“Muchas gracias. Nobody speaks Spanish better than me. The best Spanish. Tremendous Spanish.”
Of course, this raises an obvious question: if Trump can be Supreme Leader of Iran, President of Europe, President of Venezuela and President of the United States, what’s left?
Australia, perhaps?
There was, after all, a moment a few years ago when the question – however jokingly – was asked whether Trump could be elected Prime Minister of Australia. It was dismissed at the time as absurd. A constitutional impossibility. A category error.
But that was before we learned that national borders, political systems, and basic plausibility are, in fact, optional.
At this rate, it may be prudent for the rest of the world to prepare.
Not diplomatically. Not militarily.
But administratively.
Because somewhere, in some future press conference, it seems entirely possible we will hear:
“I’ve had a lot of people – great people – come up to me and say, ‘Sir, have you considered becoming Secretary-General of the United Nations?’ And I said, you know, I hadn’t… but maybe I should.”
And honestly, at this point, who among us would even blink?
Trump and Netanyahu: Two Madmen Playing God
When deranged leaders invoke divine catastrophe as a political instrument, it is not only their enemies who are consumed. Unless they are stopped, we will all be victims of these two psychopaths.
Jeffrey D. Sachs, Apr 06, 2026, Common Dreams, https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/netanyahu-trump-psychopaths-war-criminals?utm_source=Common+Dreams&utm_campaign=05f9359cac-Top+News+%7C+Thu.+1%2F8%2F26_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-c56d0ea580-601318790
Here is Donald Trump’s Easter message to the world:
Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP
Donald Trump and his partner in war crimes, Benjamin Netanyahu, are jointly waging a war of murderous aggression against Iran, a nation of 90 million people. They are in the grip of three cascading pathologies. The first is personality: both are malignant narcissists. The second is the arrogance of power: men who possess the power to command nuclear annihilation and feel, in consequence, no restraint. The third, and most dangerous of all, is religious delusion: two men who believe, and are told daily by those around them, that they are messiahs doing God’s work. Each pathology exacerbates the others, so that together they put the world in unprecedented dangerThe result is a glorification of violence not seen since the Nazi leaders. The question is whether the world’s few grownups—responsible national leaders who remain committed to international law and are willing to say so—can restrain them. It will not be easy, but they must try.
Let us start with the underlying psychological disorder. Malignant narcissism is a clinical term, not an insult. The social psychologist Erich Fromm coined the phrase in 1964 to describe Adolf Hitler, as a merger of pathological grandiosity, psychopathy, paranoia, and antisocial personality into a single character structure. The malignant narcissist is not merely vain. He is structurally incapable of genuine empathy, constitutionally immune to guilt, and driven by paranoid conviction that enemies surround him and must be destroyed. Already back in 2017, psychologist John Garnter and many other professionals were warning of Trump’s malignant narcissism.
When power faces no limit, the only remaining internal check is conscience. And the psychopath has no conscience.
Several respected psychologists and psychiatrists have evaluated Trump for psychopathy using the standardized Hare Scale and have come up with scores well above the diagnostic cutoff. See, for example, here. Psychopathy is best characterized as a lack of conscience or compassion for other human beings.
Both Trump and Netanyahu fit this profile with precision. Trump’s psychopathy was on full display when US forces destroyed a civilian bridge in Tehran, of no military significance, with at least eight civilians killed and 95 or more injured. Trump did not grieve. He gloated and promised more destruction. Netanyahu’s Passover address similarly contained not one word for the dead. No pause. No shadow of doubt. Only the triumphant catalog of enemies he has destroyed.
Paranoia drives the threat that Trump and Netanyahu have manufactured. Trump’s own Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, testified in writing that Iran’s nuclear program had been “obliterated” and that the intelligence community “continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon.” The IAEA stated flatly there was no evidence of a bomb. Trump’s own counterterrorism official resigned in protest, writing that “we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.” The paranoid does not need a real threat. He will make one up if he must, to match his feelings of exaggerated fear.
The Machiavellianism operates without shame. Trump told the world that diplomacy was always his “first preference,” while boasting in the same breath about ripping up the nuclear deal with Iran: “I was so honored to do it. I was so proud to do it.” He destroyed the diplomatic framework with his own hands, then blamed Iran for the wreckage. He then admitted, casually, that the war has no self-defense rationale: “We don’t have to be there. We don’t need their oil. We don’t need anything they have. But we’re there to help our allies.” Under the UN Charter, self-defense is the only legal basis for force. Trump has confessed that no such basis exists.
There is a particular deformation that power inflicts on certain personalities, and it is especially acute when the power in question is unbounded or seems to be so. With the command of nuclear arsenals, Trump and Netanyahu do not experience the world as others do. The availability of nuclear weapons, for these malignant narcissists, is not a burden of responsibility but an extension of their grandiose selves: I can do anything. I can level anything. Watch me. There will be no self-restraints by Netanyahu and Trump on this delusional grandiosity.
Trump and Netanyahu do not experience the world as others do.
Trump has completely internalized this sense of impunity. On April 1, he stood before the cameras and promised to bomb Iran “back to the Stone Ages, where they belong.” The phrase “where they belong” is the verdict of a man who feels divinely licensed to judge the worth of 90 million people and dehumanizes them without hesitation. He has repeatedly threatened to destroy Iran’s civilian electrical infrastructure—a war crime under the laws of armed conflict, announced openly as a negotiating position, to a global audience that mostly changed the channel.
Netanyahu commands a state with an estimated 200 nuclear warheads, has never signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and operates under no international inspection regime. He has watched Trump wield American military power with unchecked aggression and concurs that there are no consequences. The second madness feeds the third: when power faces no limit, the only remaining internal check is conscience. And the psychopath has no conscience.
The lack of conscience is the most dangerous pathology of the three, because it is the one that removes the last possible internal brake. The strategist who wages an unjust war may eventually calculate that the costs exceed the gains and stop. The malignant narcissist who wages war for ego may eventually exhaust the ego’s demands and stop. The psychopath escalates because there are no limits.
And, if you can believe, it gets even worse. Both Trump and Netanyahu are would-be messiahs. They are self-proclaimed agents of God. For them, stopping the war on Iran would mean God was wrong. And the self-proclaimed messiah cannot be wrong, either, because the messiah and God have become, in the grandiose psyche, effectively the same.
Both Trump and Netanyahu have claimed this messianic identity explicitly. Trump has called himself “the chosen one.” Regarding the assassination attempt on Trump in 2024, he declared, “I felt then and believe even more so now that my life was saved for a reason. I was saved by God to make America great again.” Netanyahu, in his address on the eve of Passover, did not merely invoke God. He appropriated God’s role in the Exodus narrative—enumerating ten “accomplishments” of what he calls the “War of Redemption” and naming each one a plague. The killing of Ayatollah Khamenei he named the “Plague of the Firstborn.” He then warned the world:
After the ten plagues of Egypt, I remind you that Pharaoh still tried to harm the People of Israel, and we all know how that ended.
In the Book of Exodus, that ending is the drowning of Pharaoh’s entire army. Netanyahu was threatening the annihilation of Iran, on television, in the language of holy scripture.
Surrounding each of these men is a court of flatterers and fanatics whose function is to sustain the delusion and prevent reality from entering their consciousness.
Trump’s Court: Hegseth, Huckabee, and the Christian Nationalists
Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense, has turned the Pentagon into a theater of holy war. He sports a Jerusalem Cross tattoo on his chest and the words “Deus Vult,” “God Wills It,” the battle cry of the medieval Crusades, on his arm. He hosts monthly Christian worship services in the Pentagon’s auditorium. He has asked the American people to pray “every day, on bended knee” for military victory in the Middle East “in the name of Jesus Christ.” At one of these services, he prayed aloud for US troops to inflict:
Overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy … We ask these things with bold confidence in the mighty and powerful name of Jesus Christ.
At a press briefing on the Iran war, Hegseth said the United States “negotiates with bombs.” He described Iran’s leaders as “religious fanatics” seeking nuclear capability for “some religious Armageddon,” while presiding over monthly prayer services at the Pentagon and declaring that “the providence of our almighty God is there protecting those troops.” He appears to have no awareness of the mirror he is holding up. A defense secretary who prays for “overwhelming violence” in the name of Jesus, while calling his enemies religious fanatics, has defined the word “projection.”
Mike Huckabee, the US Ambassador to Israel, provides the theological architecture. A Baptist minister and avid Christian Zionist, Huckabee believes the Israel-Iran conflict is the fulfillment of biblical prophecy—a necessary step toward the Rapture and the second coming of Christ. He sent Trump a message—which Trump then posted on social media—comparing the moment to Truman in 1945 and the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan, urging Trump to listen to “HIS voice,” meaning God.
In an interview, Huckabee was asked about the biblical land grant stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates—encompassing Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and parts of Saudi Arabia and Iraq—and whether Israel had a divine right to it all. His answer was direct: “It would be fine if they took it all.”
Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Smotrich, for his part, posted on social media: “I ♥ Huckabee.” Christian Zionist pastor John Hagee, whose organization Christians United for Israel has been a major driver of US evangelical support for Israel’s wars, looked at the Iran war and said simply: “Prophetically, we’re right on cue.” Franklin Graham, at a White House Easter prayer service, fed Trump’s messianic delusions: “Today the Iranians, the wicked regime of this government, wants to kill every Jew and destroy them with an atomic fire. But you have raised up President Trump. You’ve raised him up for such a time as this. And Father, we pray that you’ll give him victory.”
Netanyahu’s Court: Ben-Gvir, Smotrich, and the Messianic Settlers
On the Israeli side, the inner court is composed of two figures whose radicalism is so extreme that they were considered political pariahs until Netanyahu used their votes to stay in power. Itamar Ben-Gvir, the National Security Minister, is an admirer of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, whose Kach party was designated a terrorist organization. Bezalel Smotrich, the Finance Minister, draws his ideology from Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook, who taught that Israel’s 1967 military victory was divinely mandated and that the settlement of Palestinian territory is the will of God. Together, they hold 20 seats in Netanyahu’s 67-seat coalition. They do not merely advise the prime minister, they share in his messianic beliefs and vision.
Ben-Gvir has used his control of the Israeli police to enable settler paramilitaries operating against Palestinians in the West Bank. He has consistently blocked ceasefire negotiations and has openly claimed credit for delaying them. He pushed for Jewish ritual rights on the Temple Mount in defiance of a status quo maintained for decades, a move Israeli security officials warned would lead directly to bloodshed. In August 2023 he declared: “My right, and my wife’s and my children’s right to get around on the roads in Judea and Samaria, is more important than the right to movement for Arabs.” The United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Norway, Slovenia, the Netherlands, and Spain have all sanctioned him for inciting violence, yet the United States, under Marco Rubio, defended Ben-Gvir and criticized those sanctions.
Smotrich is the more methodical of the two: less theatrical and more dangerous. He has systematically transferred civilian governance of the West Bank from the Israeli military to his own ministry, channeling hundreds of millions of shekels to settler infrastructure while Palestinian Authority budgets are deliberately strangled. He has directed his office to formulate “an operational plan for applying sovereignty” over the West Bank. During the Iran war, he called for Israel to annex southern Lebanon up to the Litani River, declaring that the war “needs to end with a different reality entirely.” Smotrich’s ideology draws on Kook’s teaching that the settlement enterprise is not political but sacred—a divine obligation that must be completed regardless of international law, Palestinian rights, or the opinion of the world. The 1967 borders, in this theology, are not a temporary military reality. They are God’s unfinished business.
The world’s grownups must try to stop the madness.
Neither Ben-Gvir nor Smotrich was anything more than a fringe extremist before Netanyahu legitimized them by bringing them into government and his inner court. He gave them power over Israeli society, and they gave him the religious-nationalist firepower to call his wars a divine mission.
Into this landscape of holy war, one voice has spoken with world-saving grace and clarity. Pope Leo XIV has consistently called for an end to the violence. During a Holy Thursday Mass in Rome, he addressed the arrogance of power:
We tend to consider ourselves powerful when we dominate, victorious when we destroy our equals, great when we are feared. God has given us an example — not of how to dominate, but of how to liberate; not of how to destroy life, but of how to give it.
On Palm Sunday, the pope was again direct, saying that Jesus “does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them.” Hegseth followed up by holding another worship service at the Pentagon, where he again prayed for “overwhelming violence” in Christ’s name.
Professor John Mearsheimer has stated precisely that the crimes now being committed by Trump and Netanyahu are the same crimes for which the Nazi leadership was hanged at Nuremberg: aggressive war, annexation of foreign territory, deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure, and collective punishment. This is not rhetorical excess. These are legal categories. The Nuremberg Tribunal called the crime of aggression the “supreme international crime”—the one that “contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole”—because it is the crime that makes all the other crimes possible. These men have confessed to it, publicly, in speeches carried by international broadcasters.
The institutional mechanisms that exist to prevent exactly this kind of catastrophe, including the UN Security Council, the International Criminal Court, the non-proliferation regime, and the laws of armed conflict, are being actively subverted by the United States.
And yet the world’s grownups must try to stop the madness. The multilateral effort in Islamabad, including the foreign ministers of Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, working alongside the China-Pakistan five-point peace initiative, is an important start. It should be joined by the full weight of the BRICS nations, the UN General Assembly, and every state that wishes to live in a world governed by rules rather than by the delusions of two malignant narcissists.
When deranged leaders invoke divine catastrophe as a political instrument, it is not only their enemies who are consumed. We will all be the victims of Netanyahu’s plagues and Trump’s bombing of Iran to the stone ages, unless other leaders place limits on these two madmen.
US negotiator in 2015 Iran nuclear deal says Donald Trump ‘delusional’ on nuclear and regime change.
By Paul Johnson, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04-03/us-negotiator-in-iran-nuclear-deal-says-trump-delusional/106527524
In short:
Donald Trump’s claims about regime change and Iran’s nuclear threat have been called into question.
Former US special envoy to Iran Robert Malley described Mr Trump’s address to the nation this week as “delusional”.
He raised concerns the US would be committing war crimes if it followed through on Mr Trump’s threats.
US President Donald Trump is “delusional” and “seeking to deceive his audience” when it comes to what he claims is the success of the Iran war.
Those are the words of Robert Malley, who in 2015, under the Obama administration, was one of the lead negotiators on the Iran nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Action Plan.
When Mr Trump addressed the United States on Thursday with a speech full of bluster and bravado, he made claims of dismantling a regime, destroying Iran’s alleged nuclear capabilities and ruining the Islamic Republic’s navy and air force.
Mr Trump also blamed the previous Biden administration for leaving the United States “dead and crippled”.
Mr Malley, who served under Mr Biden as special envoy for Iran, spoke to 7.30 in the wake of Mr Trump’s comments on the war — a war that, despite being successful in killing previous supreme ruler Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several regime leaders, has caused global economic pain.
That pain has been caused by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) choking the shipping, particularly of oil, through the Strait of Hormuz.
The war was started under the premise of what Mr Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said was an imminent nuclear threat posed by Iran.
Where are ceasefire talks up to?
On Thursday, the US president said the deal that Mr Malley worked on under Barack Obama was a “disaster”.
Mr Malley told 7.30 the remarks made by the president about the Iranian nuclear threat were not true, especially in light of Mr Trump’s 2025 declaration that the US had decimated Iran’s nuclear capabilities through a series of strikes in June that year.
“There is simply no truth to that,” Mr Malley told 7.30.
“It’s extraordinary how he’s now saying that after he claimed that he’d obliterated Iran’s nuclear program less than a year ago.
“He’s now saying that they still were at the doorstep of acquiring a nuclear weapon, which he claims they would’ve used immediately.
“There’s not a single fragment of that claim that is accurate.”
Malley questions regime change
He also rubbished Mr Trump’s repeated claims that the war in Iran had resulted in regime change, something Australia’s own prime minister, Anthony Albanese, would not do on 7.30 on Monday night.
The regime change Mr Trump is claiming to have enacted is replacing former supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei with his son, Mojtaba Khamenei.
The change may also lead to an increased role for the IRGC.
Mr Malley said, if anything, this might now be a more hardline Iranian regime that has a renewed reason for prejudice against the US.
“Nobody sees any truth in that,” Mr Malley said when asked about Mr Trump’s assertions about regime change in Tehran.
“Much of the prior Iranian leadership has been killed, but the people who are now in power are, if anything, more radical, more hardline, more determined to confront the United States.”
“The notion that this is a more … rational, more pragmatic regime … this is just him projecting to try to justify the fact that his war was a success and, whenever it ends, to be able to say that he achieved sort of, as a side benefit, a regime change that he claims he was never seeking.
“Every word in that statement of his is just delusional and seeking to deceive his audience.”
Concerns about war crimes
Among the major parts of Mr Trump’s speech were further threats against Iran.
In particular, Mr Trump said the US assault would step up over the next few weeks.
“We are going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks,” Mr Trump said.
“We’re going to bring them back to the Stone Ages, where they belong.”
Mr Malley, a seasoned diplomat, said that rhetoric was very concerning and should not be normalised.
“Just listening to him, [it is disturbing] how normalised it’s become to have a president threaten to commit war crimes, which is what bringing Iran back to the Stone Age would be, on behalf of an unlawful war,” he told 7.30.
“He seems to be driven by this notion that if the US has the capability to do something militarily, it can do it and it will do it if he thinks that Iran is not capitulating or is not responding to his every demand.
“I think we should pause a bit and think the most powerful man on Earth has just threatened to destroy not a government, not military sites, but a country on behalf of a war that he still is not able to justify.”
Mr Trump has also been struggling to justify the economic cost.
The US has unleashed billions of dollars’ worth of weaponry in what some have said is a war for oil but it has not been able to free up the Strait of Hormuz.
Mr Malley says for Iran, despite its major losses, that will be a key takeaway.
“The one thing that the gift, if you will, that this war has offered Iran, which is they’ve discovered that if they want, they have this mastery of the Strait of Hormuz,” he said.
“They always had it implicitly in a latent form. Now they have it physically, practically, and you don’t need that much to be able to discourage ships or discourage insurance companies from insuring anyone who wants to go through the strait without Iranian consent.”
The Warmongers Will Never Admit They Were Wrong And Will Never Learn From Their Mistakes
Cait;in Johnstone, 20 Mar 26, https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?tab=rm&ogbl#inbox/WhctKLcDqcPgHJwXCXxhJgcDpJZFXpkgKlZRLMBbTfNgLndgLLjFjSMrWXffFBwHrWcdXkb
| Trump’s former national security advisor John Bolton has a tweet that’s got me absolutely fuming right now.“In 2018–2019, I made the case for regime change in Iran as often as I could. Voices in Trump’s orbit often cited Iran’s capacity to close the Strait of Hormuz as a reason against regime change. Trump has been fully aware this is a possibility, and yet did not prepare,” Bolton posted. |
Can you believe this shit? Dude’s like “Hey, Trump should have known this war would be hard because people tried to warn him not to listen to me!”
Motherfucker THIS WAS YOUR WAR. You were THE “bomb Iran” guy! You made it your entire personality for DECADES. Over the years I’ve used your name God knows how many times whenever I needed an example of a Beltway swamp monster who’s got a throbbing hard-on for war with Iran. Now you’ve finally got it and it’s going exactly as badly as everyone said it would, and you’re like “Yeah well he should’ve known better, people tried to warn him about the Strait of Hormuz”? Fuck you.
These professional warmongers never, ever learn from their errors. Many years after the Iraq invasion turned out to be a disaster, John Bolton was still out there telling the media he believed it was a “resounding success,” conceding only “mistakes that were made subsequently” to the ousting of Saddam Hussein.
They never admit they were wrong. They never admit that their war was a bad idea. They only ever acknowledge that it didn’t happen in exactly the way they imagined it happening in their minds. They live in this fantasy world where all their war agendas would unfold beautifully so long as they could personally control every molecule of matter involved in how it happens, completely ignoring that this is impossible and any war is always going to have an unfathomable number of moving parts you can’t control.
In their eyes the wars are never wrong, they’re only ever executed incorrectly. US military interventionism can never fail, it can only be failed.
Bolton doesn’t even seem to have any idea what Trump could have done differently to stop Iran from closing the Strait of Hormuz. I listened to an NPR interview the other day where he slammed Trump for not having “done the planning in advance” to prevent the Iranian blockade, but he never at any time outlined what Trump could have done to accomplish this. He just said there was “a huge hole in the planning” and that “they apparently didn’t take as seriously as they should have the potential to mine the Strait of Hormuz,” without ever saying what they could have done.
These are the kinds of minds they have spearheading the US empire’s wars.
All the worst people are getting exactly what they want, and it turns out they don’t even want it, like Elon Musk tweeting “Whoever said ‘money can’t buy happiness’ really knew what they were talking about” last month. They’re getting everything they asked for and it’s making everyone miserable, and it’s not even making THEM happy.
The imperial status quo elevates the worst among us. The least wise. The least insightful. The least compassionate. The least deserving. The least qualified.
We need drastic revolutionary change, and we need it now.e doesn’t know. He himself, Mister Iran War, had no plan for how to carry out this war without disastrous consequences for the US and its allies. He’s spent his entire blood-soaked career pushing for a war he never had any idea how to actually carry out.
According to Pete Hegseth “They are toast”
The language matters. “They are toast” is not the language of statesmanship. It is the language of certainty – the kind that precedes catastrophic miscalculation.
We have seen this before. We know how it ends.
5 March 2026 Dr Andrew Klein, https://theaimn.net/they-are-toast/
“They are toast”: A Critical Analysis of Pete Hegseth’s Press Conference and the Dangerous Rhetoric of Endless War
Introduction: The Performance
On 4 March 2026, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stood at a Pentagon podium and delivered what can only be described as a performance. Flanked by Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Hegseth spoke for nearly an hour about Operation Epic Fury – the ongoing US-Israeli military campaign against Iran.
His language was not the measured cadence of a statesman. It was the swagger of a cable news host, which he once was. It was the bravado of someone who believes that confidence can substitute for clarity, and that bravado can replace strategy.
“I stand before you today with one unmistakable message about Operation Epic Fury – America is winning decisively, devastatingly, and without mercy,” he declared.
“They are toast – and they know it,” he said of Iran’s leadership.
“We are punching them while they are down, which is exactly how it should be.”
This article examines Hegseth’s statements against the available evidence. It contrasts the rhetoric with reality. And it asks the question that no one at that press conference thought to ask: what happens next?
What Hegseth Actually Said
The full transcript of Hegseth’s remarks reveals a pattern of escalation framed as inevitability.
The “Toast” Declaration
“They are toast and they know it. Or at least, soon enough, they will know it.”
This was not a one-off line. Hegseth returned to it repeatedly, framing the conflict as a foregone conclusion. “The Iranian air force is no more. The Iranian navy rests at the bottom of the Persian Gulf. Combat ineffective, decimated, destroyed, defeated – pick your adjective. It is no more.”
The Control of Airspace
“We will fly all day, all night, day and night, finding, fixing and finishing the missiles and defence industrial base of the Iranian military.”
Hegseth claimed the U.S. and Israel would have “uncontested airspace and complete control” of Iranian skies within days.
The Torpedo Claim
In a particularly dramatic moment, Hegseth announced that a U.S. submarine had sunk an Iranian warship named the Soleimani – a vessel named after the Iranian general killed by U.S. drone strike in 2020.
“An American submarine sunk an Iranian warship that thought it was safe in international waters. Instead, it was sunk by a torpedo, quiet death – the first sinking of an enemy ship by a torpedo since World War II.”
He added: “Looks like POTUS got him twice.”
The Assassination Claim
Hegseth also revealed that U.S. forces had killed an Iranian official allegedly involved in a plot to assassinate President Trump.
“The leader of the unit who attempted to assassinate President Trump has been hunted down and killed. Iran tried to kill President Trump and President Trump got the last laugh.”
He acknowledged that this was not the focus of the operation, and that Trump never raised it as a priority. But “I ensured, and others ensured, that those who were responsible for that were eventually part of the target list.”
The “Not Endless” Promise
In a brief moment that seemed designed to preempt criticism, Hegseth insisted: “This is not Iraq. This is not endless. I was there for both. Our generation knows better, and so does this president.”
He promised “no nation-building quagmires, no democracy-building exercise, no politically correct wars.”
The Reality Check
Hegseth’s rhetoric is forceful. But force is not the same as truth.
The Contradiction on Endings
Hegseth declared the war “not endless” while simultaneously refusing to define any endpoint. Asked about the timeline, he deflected:
“President Trump has all the latitude in the world to talk about how long it may or may not take. Four weeks, two weeks, six weeks.”
Gen. Caine was more direct: “We expect to take additional losses.”
This is the classic language of wars that become endless. There is no exit strategy because there is no defined objective beyond “destroy” and “defeat” – terms that are infinitely elastic.
The Casualty Count
While Hegseth boasted of American dominance, the human cost continued to mount:
- 787 confirmed dead in Iran, with 1,009 emergency teams deployed
- Six U.S. service members killed in action
- Three U.S. fighter jets shot down by Kuwaiti air defences in an “apparent friendly fire incident“
- 87 bodies recovered by Sri Lanka’s navy from the sunken Iranian warship
Hegseth’s “they are toast” rhetoric obscures the reality that toast cuts both ways.
The Intelligence Gap
Perhaps most troubling: in closed-door briefings with congressional staff, Pentagon officials acknowledged that there was no intelligence indicating Iran was preparing to launch a pre-emptive strike against U.S. forces before the American and Israeli attacks.
This directly contradicts the administration’s public justification that the operation was necessary to eliminate “imminent threats.”
The Constitutional Question
Congress has not authorised this war. The Senate is set to vote on a War Powers resolution that would limit Trump’s authority to conduct additional strikes – the first formal attempt by Congress to weigh in on a campaign launched without its approval.
Senator Tim Kaine’s words are worth remembering: “I pray so hard for my colleagues to exercise the judgment that this is not the right time for more war.”
The Regional Spread
Hegseth presented the conflict as contained. In reality:
- Iran and Hezbollah launched coordinated missile attacks on Israel
- UAE air defences intercepted three ballistic missiles and more than 120 drones
- Qatar shot down 10 drones and two cruise missiles
- Strait of Hormuz – through which 20% of global oil passes – is now under Iranian threat
This is not a contained operation. This is a regional conflagration.
The Language Problem
The Tone
Even Hegseth’s supporters might wince at the language. A forum commenter captured the sentiment:
“The tone of these White House press conferences and the rhetoric within them is incredible. If you didn’t know you’d assume they were the rabid dictatorship in this scenario.”
Another wrote:
“Listening to Hegseth on the ITV news. Putting it mildly, he is not very statesmanlike. Phrases like ‘they are toast’ etc. It should be embarrassing, but he is (as ITV has just said) gleeful.”
This is not diplomacy. It is theatre.
The Iraq Echo
Hegseth repeatedly invoked the Iraq war as a contrast – “this is not Iraq” – while using language that eerily echoes the early days of that conflict. The promise of “no nation-building” sounds remarkably like the assurances that preceded two decades of exactly that.
When Hegseth says “this is not endless,” one recalls the similar assurances made about Afghanistan, about Iraq, about every war that was supposed to be quick and clean and never was.
The Assassination Framing
The claim about killing the Iranian official involved in the Trump assassination plot is particularly striking. Hegseth acknowledged it was never a priority, never raised by the president, yet it became part of the target list.
This suggests mission creep before the mission has even fully begun.
What Iran Says
Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian responded with words that stand in stark contrast to Hegseth’s bravado:
“We tried, with your help, to avoid war through diplomacy, but the American-Zionist military attack left us no choice but to defend ourselves. We respect your sovereignty and still believe peace in the region must be ensured by the countries of the region.”
This is the language of a nation that understands it cannot win a conventional war but can make it costly enough that the other side eventually tires.
Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Majid Takht-Ravanchi was more pointed:
“Time is not of the essence. We will do whatever necessary to protect our sovereignty and our people – no matter what.”
The Unanswered Questions
Hegseth’s press conference raised more questions than it answered:
- What is the definition of victory? If the goal is to destroy Iran’s missile program and navy, what happens when those are rebuilt – as they inevitably will be?
- What is the exit strategy? There is none articulated. “Not endless” is not a plan.
- Who governs Iran after Khamenei? Trump admitted that potential successors were killed in the strikes. What fills the vacuum?
- What about the 115,000 Australians still stranded in the region? The first repatriation flight has landed, but most remain.
- Why no congressional authorisation? The Constitution requires it. The administration has ignored it.
The Forum Wisdom
Sometimes the most insightful analysis comes not from experts but from ordinary people watching the same press conferences we watch.
Victoria wildlife guide
“The tone of these White House press conferences and the rhetoric within them is incredible. If you didn’t know you’d assume they were the rabid dictatorship in this scenario.”
“Lads, it’s bone spurs.”
The last comment is a reference to Trump’s Vietnam-era deferments. It’s a reminder that those who send others to war rarely feel its weight themselves.
What This Means for Us
The language matters. “They are toast” is not the language of statesmanship. It is the language of certainty – the kind that precedes catastrophic miscalculation.
We have seen this before. We know how it ends.
But we also know something else: we are not helpless. We watch. We document. We prepare. We protect our own.
Sources………………………………………
Is Zelensky still the most reckless, dangerous leader in the world?
Walt Zlotow West Suburban Peace Coalition Glen Ellyn IL , 24 Jan 26
Every day Ukraine sinks deeper into shattered rump state status. Every day brings more death, lost territory and degraded living conditions with no hope of prevailing against Russia.
Yet, instead of settling on Russia’s terms to end the war, end more casualties, end more lost land, Ukraine President Zelensky keeps shuttling between Europe and the US begging for weaponry to take the war deep into Russia.
The US has already bailed on investing in Ukraine’s lost cause. Europe is edging closer to bailing as well even as they continue the lie that a Ukraine victory is critical to keeping Russia from marching westward into NATO countries. They know the war is lost but cannot publicly admit that truth. In addition, without the US, they don’t have sufficient military resources to have any meaningful impact on the outcome.
Near four years into Ukraine’s demise, Zelensky may simply be delusional that Ukraine can prevail in expelling Russia from lost territories. It’s more likely he’s simply taking orders from his ultra-nationalist Kyiv handlers to keep demanding weaponry to continue Ukraine’s lost cause.
Zelensky’s recklessness was epitomized by his refusal to conclude the Istanbul Agreement with Russia in April 2022 that would have ended the 2 month conflict with a minimum of casualties, no lost territory and economy intact. All Zelensky had to do was give up NATO membership, guarantee Ukraine neutrality between Europe and Russia, and grant regional autonomy to the Russian cultured Ukrainians in Donbas being brutalized by Kyiv for 8 long years.
But instead of statesmanship, Zelensky chose recklessness, acquiescing in US, UK demands to keep the war going till Russia was defeated with US, NATO weaponry. But even with over $200 billion in such aid, Ukraine is nearing collapse, running out of soldiers that its western backers will never replace. $200 billion yes, but not one drop of western blood.
Zelensky’s recklessness in destroying Ukraine is exceeded by his dangerousness, putting the world at risk of nuclear war every day now for nearly 4 years. Every NATO bomb, tank, missile, gun given to Zelensky to attack Russia continues the threat of nuclear war between Russia and NATO. This was most irresponsibly demonstrated in 2022 when an errant Ukraine missile landed in Poland killing two Polish citizens. Zelensky immediately claimed it was a Russian missile which could have triggered a direct Article 5 NATO response against Russia. Tho the US quickly refuted Zelensky’s false claim, Zelensky has never wavered from demanding long range NATO weapons to attack deep into Russia, a prescription for all out NATO, Russia war that could go nuclear.
Continuing Ukraine’s inevitable collapse while keeping the whole world hostage to the possibility of nuclear war makes Volodymyr Zelensky the most reckless and dangerous leader in the world.
One excavator, 10,000 bodies, a sea of rubble: inside Gaza’s effort to retrieve and bury its dead
Under the relative calm of a ceasefire, Civil Defense crews in Gaza are undertaking the monumental feat of recovering thousands of bodies still trapped under the rubble.
By Tareq S. Hajjaj December 25, 2025 https://mondoweiss.net/2025/12/one-excavator-10000-bodies-a-sea-of-rubble-inside-gazas-effort-to-retrieve-and-bury-its-dead/
Fatima Salem waits outside anxiously, as rescue crews dig through the rubble of her family’s home in Gaza City on December 15th. With bated breath, she clings to the hope that all 60 of her family members – brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, and grandchildren – who were buried under the rubble after an Israeli airstrike targeted their building, will be rescued.
But this was not a typical rescue operation, and Fatima was not waiting for signs of life. She knew everyone was dead. That’s because the airstrike on her family’s home happened almost exactly two years ago, on December 19, 2023, just two months into the genocide.
The 60 members of the Salem family are some of an estimated 10,000 Palestinians whose bodies remain trapped under the extensive rubble across the Gaza Strip. Due to two years of active Israeli bombardment, the targeting and killing of civil defense crews, and the lack of heavy duty machinery required to excavate the tons of concrete rubble, rescue missions in Gaza have been largely stalled.
But on December 15, the Civil Defense in the Gaza Strip announced the start of a long recovery process of bodies that have remained under the rubble for two years. The operations are focused only on the areas in the Gaza Strip not actively being occupied by the Israeli military, which accounts for roughly half of the territory.
The first rescue mission was for the Salem family in Gaza City.
“Here I lost every person dear to me; they are the closest people to me—my brothers and sisters and their families. I lost everyone in this place,” Fatima Salem cried. When she heard about the rescue mission, she rushed to the scene of the destroyed building, where the souls of her relatives had remained trapped for two years.
She said that her family was targeted on December 19, 2023, after they fled from northern Gaza to Gaza City due to the intensification of shelling and fighting in their residential area. They found refuge in a building whose residents had evacuated, and gathered there with their children and families. No one who was in the building at the time of the bombing survived.
“I want to see them, to embrace them, to bid them farewell,” she said as she stood before rows of bones and skulls wrapped in white plastic shrouds, laid out on the ground in front of her. Some have been identified by their present surviving relatives, while others have not yet been identified.
Omar Suleiman, a member of the forensic department at the Civil Defense, was working at the scene of the Salem family. He described a painstaking process of trying to identify and record the identities of the deceased, saying that crews are documenting descriptions of the condition of the bodies in terms of form, height, and the level of decomposition they have reached, along with preserving a DNA sample when possible.
According to videos published by the Civil Defense on its Telegram channel, what is recovered from the remains of the martyrs is sometimes only bones, not always complete skulls, but rather bones from the chest and the feet, making identification a difficult matter.
According to Suleiman, the level of decomposition in the bodies was very high, which made it difficult for families to identify them. The lack of tools and technology for advanced DNA testing has also made the identification process more difficult. He said that crews were working “with very limited tools and under difficult and exhausting conditions.”
Civil Defense crews say they recovered all the bodies from the building, all belonging to the martyrs of the Salem family, in addition to 17 more bodies buried in the vicinity around the building. After two years, Fatima Salem was finally able to bid farewell.
Thousands of bodies, limited resources
In Khan Younis in southern Gaza, on December 20, recovery operations began in areas of the city, starting with the martyrs of the Abu Hilal family. They were killed on August 13, 2025.
Huda Abu Hilal, in her 20s, was the sole survivor of a strike that targeted her family’s home on August 13, 2025. Though she was inside the building at the time, just before the airstrike, Huda’s mom had asked her to go downstairs for something. At that moment, the home was bombed, and everyone except Huda was killed.
“All my family was killed except me—my mother and father, my sisters, and their children—all of them were martyred,” she told Mondoweiss, adding that because her neighborhood remained under an evacuation order after the bombing, crews were not able to access her home to rescue her family.
At the site, Samah Hamad, head of the forensic department of the Civil Defense, described the challenge ahead for crews.
He said that in Khan Younis alone, there are 75 destroyed buildings with hundreds of bodies buried under the rubble that need to be recovered. Many of the buildings, he said, are located in the area behind the ‘yellow line’ that are inaccessible to Palestinian crews. But even in the areas that they can access, the rescue mission is slow moving.
Hamad notes that the slowdown in these operations is due to the fact that all crews in the Gaza Strip are working with very limited equipment, as only one large excavator is being used in multiple cities and areas in the Strip.
For the past two months since the ceasefire was announced, Huda said she would pass by the rubble of the home often, even if just to recite a prayer for her family still trapped beneath the rubble, hoping that they would be rescued soon.
“Now I can honor my martyred family by burying them, and we can move them to graves and make visiting them a habit,” Huda said.
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