Rafael Grossi enthusiastic about the future of the nuclear energy industry
The head of the U.N. nuclear agency said Friday that he expects the use of
nuclear power could more than triple by 2060. Rafael Grossi said in the
International Atomic Energy Agency´s annual report to the U.N. General
Assembly that this will be driven by electrification, data centers powered
by artificial intelligence and “technology companies´ appetite for
reliable, carbon-free power. “Nuclear energy is seen by a growing number of
countries as key to improving their energy security, he said, stressing
that it is on par with solar energy and “safer than every other option.”
Daily Mail 23rd Oct 2026,
https://www.dailymail.com/wires/ap/article-16234629/Nuclear-power-triple-2060-UN-agency-says.html
Zelensky still the most dangerous man in the world.
Walt Zlotow West Suburban Peace Coalition Glen Ellyn IL, 20 October, 26
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky has been pushing all out war between the West and Russia since the Russian invasion of February 2022. And ‘all out’ only has one inevitable outcome…nuclear war.
That’s a long time to be put under threat of nuclear annihilation by a former comedian. Zelensky used his celebrity to win the Ukraine presidency in 2019, promising to make peace with the Russian leaning Ukrainians in Donbas on Russia’s border being brutalized by the ultra nationalist Kyiv government for years preceding Zelensky.
The Kyiv deep state quickly disabused Zelensky of reproachment with Donbas Ukrainians and Russia. With the US and NATO cheering Zelensky on, this made the Russian invasion nearly 3 years later.
Zelensky went along, foolishly believing Western aid would defeat an overwhelmingly more powerful Russia that Ukraine had no chance of defeating single handedly.
But right at the start, President Biden, most responsible for provoking the war, declared no US troops or long range weapons for Zelensky because ‘that would lead to nuclear war.’ That essentially sealed Ukraine’s fate, a truth Zelensky could not comprehend.
How right Biden was then and how wrong Zelensky was and is today, demanding endless long range NATO weapons that are reaching deep into Russia.
The World is Not Trump’s Playground: Has the International Community Finally had Enough?
Australian Independent Media, 17 October 2026Michael Taylor
When the President of the United States mistakes global leadership for personal entitlement, the rest of the world eventually discovers that it has options.
There comes a point in every relationship when the other party stops making excuses for your behaviour.
You can forgive the occasional tantrum. You can overlook a misplaced insult, an unreasonable demand or even the odd diplomatic incident. You might tolerate somebody who thinks rather highly of themselves, provided they occasionally remember that other people exist.
But eventually, patience runs out.
Welcome to international relations in the age of Donald Trump.
The President of the United States appears to regard diplomacy as a peculiar game in which he makes the rules, changes them whenever circumstances become inconvenient, and declares victory regardless of the outcome. Allies are expected to demonstrate their loyalty through obedience. Adversaries are expected to surrender when threatened. International institutions are useful when they serve American interests and troublesome when they don’t.
And anyone who disagrees risks becoming the next target of a presidential outburst.
It is an extraordinary way to conduct relations between nations. It is also becoming increasingly expensive.
The world’s most powerful schoolyard bully?
Let’s be clear about something. The United States is entitled to pursue its national interests. Every sovereign country is. American presidents are elected to represent American citizens, not to spend their days worrying about whether foreign leaders find them agreeable.
But there is a considerable difference between defending national interests and behaving as though the interests of every other country are somehow subordinate to your own.
Trump’s approach appears to confuse the two.
Tariffs become instruments of punishment. Military alliances become opportunities to demand tribute. Trade agreements become personal victories. Diplomatic disagreements become public feuds.
And the demands keep coming.
At NATO’s July 2026 summit in Ankara, Trump attacked several European allies over their positions on the war with Iran, threatened to halt trade with Spain and renewed his controversial claims concerning Greenland. The summit subsequently produced declarations of unity, but the public disagreements demonstrated just how difficult it has become for America’s partners to anticipate Washington’s next move.
Imagine running an international alliance on the principle that everyone must demonstrate their friendship by agreeing with you, while reserving the right to punish them if they don’t.
That isn’t a partnership. It’s a protection racket with considerably better stationery.
NATO members have legitimate disagreements about defence spending, military commitments and national priorities. Those disagreements are precisely why alliances require negotiation, established procedures and mutual respect.
The purpose of an alliance is not to eliminate differences of opinion. It is to enable countries to cooperate despite them.
Apparently, somebody forgot to explain that to the President.
Friendship is not a subscription service
One of the great ironies of Trump’s approach is that he seems to regard American power as an unlimited personal resource.
He can threaten tariffs against allies, question their commitment to collective defence, demand concessions and then expect them to turn up smiling at the next summit.
But international relationships do not work like a subscription service. Countries cannot be charged an additional fee every time the American president becomes dissatisfied with their behaviour.
Nor can decades of diplomatic cooperation simply be switched on and off according to the mood of the occupant of the White House.
Consider the implications for Australia.
Our alliance with the United States has been central to Australian defence and strategic planning for generations. It involves intelligence cooperation, military coordination, technology sharing and the (unpopular and finance-draining) AUKUS partnership.
These arrangements matter. They cannot be dismissed lightly, and Australia has good reasons to maintain a close relationship with Washington.
But an alliance is only as dependable as the trust underpinning it.
If an American president can threaten one ally today, impose economic penalties on another tomorrow and question established commitments the following week, Australian governments must ask an uncomfortable question.
What happens when our interests diverge from his?
Australia cannot simply assume that friendship, history and military cooperation will guarantee predictable American support under every conceivable circumstance.
That does not mean abandoning the alliance. It means approaching it with open eyes.
A sensible government maintains its relationships while ensuring that the country’s security does not depend entirely on the goodwill of one foreign leader.
That is not disloyalty. It is responsible government.
The curious case of the disappearing trust…………………………………………………….
International law is not an inconvenience
Perhaps the most troubling aspect of Trump’s approach is his relationship with the international institutions designed to restrain the arbitrary exercise of power.
On 9 October 2026, the Trump administration imposed sanctions on the International Criminal Court, prompting criticism from the Court, United Nations officials, European institutions and several allied governments. The dispute raised further concerns about the independence of international justice and the willingness of powerful countries to accept legal scrutiny.
One need not agree with every decision made by an international court to recognise the importance of judicial independence………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Ukraine: another lesson in uncertainty
Ukraine offers another example of the difficulties created when diplomatic signals become unpredictable.
For European governments, the war is not an abstract negotiating exercise. It concerns the security of the continent, the future of European borders and the consequences of allowing military aggression to succeed.
Yet Trump’s shifting approach to American support for Ukraine has repeatedly forced European allies to consider how much they can rely on Washington………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. https://theaimn.net/the-world-is-not-trumps-playground-has-the-international-community-finally-had-enough/
Marco Rubio declares West must dominate world, praises colonialism, erases history
This, in fact, is exactly how many conservative elites in Latin America see themselves. This is a major reason why they so strongly support imperialism: In addition to the fact that they receive bribes, investments, and other economic benefits from large US corporations, they also culturally identify with the United States and Western Europe, not with the Indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples of Latin America.
By Ben Norton, 13 Oct 26, https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2026/10/13/marco-rubio-greece-western-civilization-colonialism/
The second-most powerful official in the US government, foreign-policy chief Marco Rubio, delivered a speech that openly praised colonialism, engaged in egregious erasures of history, and demanded a return to Western domination of the world.
Rubio asserted that the West must use military force to “maintain its place at the head of the world”.
The West is “the greatest civilization in the world”, he declared, emphasizing that it is a “civilization that we must fight to defend today with the same passion as our forefathers did”.
Rubio warned that “Western civilization” must “choose to act now or lose the choice to act at all”.
“Under President Trump, the United States has made its choice: We choose the unapologetic pursuit of national power”, he added.
Rubio is simultaneously serving as both the secretary of state, overseeing US foreign policy, and the national security advisor, crafting national-security policy. He is only the second person in US history to hold both roles at the same time, after notorious imperial strategist Henry Kissinger.
Rubio delivered his pro-colonialist diatribe in front of the Acropolis in Athens, the capital of Greece, on 7 October.
He used the address not only to lay the groundwork for his likely future presidential campaign, but also to clearly articulate his hyper-imperialist vision of and for the world.
Marco Rubio erases Native Americans, heroizes European colonizers, claims North America was an “open and wild land”
The US secretary of state’s speech in Greece was a veritable paean to empire.
Marco Rubio proudly referred to the United States as a “continental empire”.
“The civilization of Athens and Rome transformed an infant seaboard republic into a continental empire”, he stated.
Rubio glorified the European conquistadores who violently colonized the Americas, specifically naming Hernán Cortés and Christopher Columbus.
At the same time, the US foreign-policy chief completely ignored the existence of Native Americans. He erased the American Holocaust of Indigenous peoples, which was by far the largest genocide in human history.
Rubio praised the “American frontier spirit”, claiming North America was an “open and wild land” when European settlers arrived and (through genocide and ethnic cleansing) transformed it into what he called a “great revival of Western imagination and ambition”.
Marco Rubio combines warmongering neoconservative foreign policy with MAGA’s Western chauvinism, white supremacy, and Christian nationalism
Marco Rubio is a lifelong neoconservative hawk. However, during Trump’s first administration, he began to cynically rebrand himself as a MAGA-compatible right-wing “populist”.
What Rubio has done is use MAGA’s not so subtly racist rhetoric about “defending Western civilization” (from Muslims and non-white peoples) in order to justify neoconservative foreign policy, including the war of aggression against Iran, steadfast support for Israeli colonialism, the attack on Yemen, the invasion and looting of Venezuela, the blockade of Cuba, and the bombing of fishermen in the Caribbean Sea.
He has effectively combined the warmongering neoconservativism of the old-school Republican Party with the supposedly “populist” MAGA GOP’s overt Western chauvinism, white supremacy, and Christian nationalism.
In his speech in Greece, Rubio glorified what he called “the empire of Christendom” and the colonialist “architects of European Christendom” who spread Christianity throughout the world (at the barrel of a gun).
At the same time, he demonized “the radical mullahs of Iran”, claiming they constitute a “cult of death”.
While he spoke in front of the Acropolis in Athens, Rubio lamented that Western global dominance has declined in recent decades, as Global South countries (namely China and Iran) have grown in influence.
He stated (all emphasis added):
[In recent decades] others were all too happy to fill the vacuum that we left – the vacuum left behind by our weakness. And as the West’s confidence faltered, its adversaries and its rivals only grew more assertive, building up their own wealth and their own power in our stead.
And now, today, we find ourselves at a crossroads. Because the next decade and the decisions we make will write the story of the next century. The course we take will determine whether the West maintains its place at the head of the world or resigns itself to a future of atrophy and servitude and decline. We will either choose to act now or lose the choice to act at all.
Under President Trump, the United States has made its choice: We choose the unapologetic pursuit of national power.
Marco Rubio praises European countries for re-militarizing
At the same time, Rubio praised European countries for pursuing a historic rearmament and massively expanding their military budgets, in order to prepare for more war.
The Trump administration has forced NATO members to boost their military spending to 5% of GDP, meaning some EU member states have more than doubled their expenditures.
Trump dubbed this a “big win for the US, Europe, and Western civilization”.
In Athens, Rubio used the same rhetoric, declaring:
We believe that Europe can awaken from its long slumber and rekindle the fire that was lit here millennia ago.
There are already signs.
Across this continent, we are witnessing what we hope will be the beginnings of a generational shift: skyrocketing defense spending, a flurry of new partnerships and programs, expanded manufacturing and production, following on the historic defense commitments made last year in The Hague.
Marco Rubio’s Fox News op-ed asserts the West “must fight”
Following his speech in Greece, Rubio published an op-ed at Fox News in which he regurgitated the same talking points.
“The West is at a crossroads”, Rubio wrote. “The decisions we make in the next decade will define the next century – and determine whether our civilization maintains its place at the head of the world, or resigns itself to a future of servitude and decline”.
He lamented that “too much of the West has come to feel ashamed of the very things that made us exceptional”.
While erasing the historical crimes of Western colonialism, Rubio complained that “we began to view our achievements as an embarrassment; our power and prosperity became a source of guilt”.
“The story of our civilization is the greatest story ever known to man. But we must fight to defend it”, he maintained.
In another speech, Marco Rubio called for the West to reverse decolonization
Read more: Marco Rubio declares West must dominate world, praises colonialism, erases historyThis is not the first time that Rubio has delivered explicitly pro-colonialist remarks like this.
At the 2026 Munich Security Conference this February, Rubio made very similar remarks, praising “the great Western empires” that “settle[d] new continents” as part of “the greatest civilization in human history”.
The US foreign-policy chief insisted that North America and Europe must unite to “build a new Western century”.
Rubio openly called on the West to reverse the decolonization of the Global South, which he portrayed as a nefarious communist plot.
In this previous speech, he said:
For five centuries, before the end of the Second World War, the West had been expanding – its missionaries, its pilgrims, its soldiers, its explorers pouring out from its shores to cross oceans, settle new continents, build vast empires extending out across the globe.
But in 1945, for the first time since the age of Columbus, it was contracting. Europe was in ruins. Half of it lived behind an Iron Curtain and the rest looked like it would soon follow. The great Western empires had entered into terminal decline, accelerated by godless communist revolutions and by anti-colonial uprisings that would transform the world and drape the red hammer and sickle across vast swaths of the map in the years to come.
Against that backdrop, then, as now, many came to believe that the West’s age of dominance had come to an end and that our future was destined to be a faint and feeble echo of our past. But together, our predecessors recognized that decline was a choice, and it was a choice they refused to make. This is what we did together once before, and this is what President Trump and the United States want to do again now, together with you.
And this is why we do not want our allies to be weak, because that makes us weaker. We want allies who can defend themselves so that no adversary will ever be tempted to test our collective strength. This is why we do not want our allies to be shackled by guilt and shame. We want allies who are proud of their culture and of their heritage, who understand that we are heirs to the same great and noble civilization, and who, together with us, are willing and able to defend it.
And this is why we do not want allies to rationalize the broken status quo rather than reckon with what is necessary to fix it, for we in America have no interest in being polite and orderly caretakers of the West’s managed decline. We do not seek to separate, but to revitalize an old friendship and renew the greatest civilization in human history. What we want is a reinvigorated alliance that recognizes that what has ailed our societies is not just a set of bad policies but a malaise of hopelessness and complacency. An alliance – the alliance that we want is one that is not paralyzed into inaction by fear – fear of climate change, fear of war, fear of technology. Instead, we want an alliance that boldly races into the future. And the only fear we have is the fear of the shame of not leaving our nations prouder, stronger, and wealthier for our children.
Why Marco Rubio and right-wing elites in Latin America love Western colonialism
Some people do not understand why Marco Rubio is so extremely pro-colonialist, given that he is technically of Cuban descent. But it is important to understand that Rubio does not see himself primarily as Cuban.
In his speeches, Rubio constantly emphasizes that he is of European descent, tracing his heritage back to Spain and Italy.
This October in Greece, Rubio proudly described himself as “a great-grandson of settlers who arrived in the new world from Spain”.
In his February remarks in Germany, Rubio again mentioned his ancestors in Spain and Italy, stating:
And do you know that in the year that my country was founded, Lorenzo and Catalina Geroldi lived in Casale Monferrato in the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia. And Jose and Manuela Reina lived in Sevilla, Spain. I don’t know what, if anything, they knew about the 13 colonies which had gained their independence from the British empire, but here’s what I am certain of: They could have never imagined that 250 years later, one of their direct descendants would be back here today on this continent as the chief diplomat of that infant nation. And yet here I am, reminded by my own story that both our histories and our fates will always be linked.
At the Munich Security Conference, Rubio also stressed, “for us Americans, our home may be in the Western Hemisphere, but we will always be a child of Europe”.
These remarks make it clear that he does not identify with the vast majority of Cubans and Latinos, who are of Indigenous and African descent.
Instead, Rubio sees his family as European settlers who temporarily lived in Cuba — as light-skinned elites who supported the right-wing US puppet dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista — before re-settling in Florida.
This, in fact, is exactly how many conservative elites in Latin America see themselves. This is a major reason why they so strongly support imperialism: In addition to the fact that they receive bribes, investments, and other economic benefits from large US corporations, they also culturally identify with the United States and Western Europe, not with the Indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples of Latin America.
A Shadow of Fear Hangs Over Gazans Amid Israeli Defense Minister’s Threats
October 11, 2026 By Dalia Abu Ramadan, https://scheerpost.com/2026/10/11/a-shadow-of-fear-hangs-over-gazans-amid-israeli-defense-ministers-threats/
This article was originally published by Truthout
Israel Katz says Israel will forcibly displace 1 million Gazans if “even one Israeli soldier” is abducted.
We are about to close out three years and enter another since Israel invaded Gaza, but we are not leaving the war behind to begin a new life. We are entering yet another year without knowing when this war will end — or whether it will end at all.
The fear remains. The destruction remains. The threats remain. It feels as though each passing year does not bring us closer to an end, but closer to the possibility of another war.
Despite everything we are living through in Gaza, we understand what it means to live one day at a time — to hold on to every simple moment we can still have. Imagine planning for another morning, perhaps for the simplest of things: going out with the friends you still have, or taking your family to the sea in the morning, amid all this destruction, simply to experience a moment that feels like life.
Then, as you are planning that ordinary morning, you hear a statement from Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz, who said on September 22: “If even one Israeli soldier or civilian is abducted, the city of Gaza — with its homes and terrorist towers — will be evacuated southward of its one million residents.”
Words like these are enough not only to disrupt your day, but to shake your entire future. The first question we asked ourselves was: Where would we go? Is there anywhere left for us to go?
“Everyone is talking about how the possibility of an Israeli soldier being captured has become impossible, that it will not happen, and that it could be an excuse to provoke people in Gaza and pave the way for the war to return,” Haneen Salem, a photographer in Gaza City, told me. “I am certain something will happen. No one knows what, but there is a shadow of fear hanging over Gaza’s civilians.”
Even my father said, “Expect it to happen at any moment,” warning that we could be forcibly displaced yet again, especially because we are living through another difficult period in Gaza. The intensity of Israeli bombardment had increased in the weeks leading up to Katz’s statement, and warplanes had not stopped flying overhead at night.
We are being asked to imagine another war while we are still living inside the aftermath of the one that was supposed to have ended.
The so-called ceasefire took effect at noon local time on October 10, 2025. A year has passed since that announcement, but the war has not ended. It is true that the intensity of the escalation and displacement has eased compared to the height of Israel’s war, but the bombardment and destruction have continued. So, what does it mean to hear threats of the war returning with the same ferocity when we have not even begun to recover from what has already happened?
When the “ceasefire” was announced, I believed the war would end as the wars of 2021, 2014, and previous years had ended — with a clear conclusion, a moment when we would know that the war was truly over. I expected that, immediately after the announcement, we would begin clearing the rubble, rebuilding what had been destroyed and slowly putting our lives back together.
But that did not happen.
Instead, it felt as though the war continued in another form, behind the scenes — a reality visible only to the people of Gaza who have been living through its consequences every day. Today, we still have not recovered. Even the most basic medical necessities remain unavailable, the siege is tightening, and the consequences of the war continue to surround every part of our lives.
The collapse of the Al-Sadah building in Tal al-Hawa is one example of what this unfinished recovery looks like. The building had been home to approximately 80 displaced Palestinians. In the early hours of September 16, it collapsed, with parts of the structure also falling onto nearby buildings and tents that were sheltering other displaced families. Rescue teams initially estimated that around 100 people, including at least 50 children, were trapped beneath the rubble. After rescue operations ended, Civil Defense teams confirmed that 21 people had been killed, including 12 children and five women, while 45 injured people were taken to hospitals.
With rubble left uncleared and too little being done to address the dangers left behind by the destruction, many partially damaged buildings across Gaza have been left standing in a fragile state, at risk of collapsing at any moment.
The Al-Sadah building had sustained structural damage from Israeli bombardment during the war and was struck several times in 2024 and again in March 2025. Civil defense teams had warned residents not to return to the building. Yet some had no other choice but to live there. With tents and homes unavailable, displaced Palestinians have been forced to shelter in cracked and damaged buildings, despite the risk that they could collapse around them.
But the danger does not end when people are pulled from the rubble. Those who survive still face a health system struggling to meet even the most basic needs. As World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on September 24, “Essential medicines, diagnostics, equipment and fuel remain in critically short supply.”
These shortages are not limited to life-saving medicines and hospital equipment; they reach into the most ordinary forms of care, turning even a visit to the dentist into a struggle.
It may be one of the most basic forms of health care, but anyone who has experienced severe tooth pain knows how unbearable it can be — especially as poor nutrition and the effects of prolonged hunger have taken a toll on people’s dental health.
“Getting dental supplies and materials into Gaza has become extremely difficult,” dentist Dr. Ghalib Zimmo told me. “And when they do enter, they are prohibitively expensive. The cost of dental materials has risen to 10 times what it was before the war.”
The consequences are painful. “Many patients come to us needing root canal treatment, which can involve unbearable pain,” Dr. Ghalib said. “But because of the cost, they choose to have the tooth extracted instead of treating it.”
“Before the war, a root canal cost around $40,” he explained. “Now, it can cost as much as $250.”
Imagine how deeply exhausted we have become. We search for medicine, and it is not there. We search for wheelchairs for those who have lost limbs in the war, and they are not there. We search for the simplest things that make life possible, and they are not there.
Fear has become part of the way we respond to every sound. Sometimes, when we hear a sudden noise, we immediately think it is the sound of a missile just before it strikes. We can even find ourselves startled by the sound of a chair moving.
We are living with a trauma that no one can truly feel the way we do. Three years of relentless bombardment have left their mark on us. We search for life itself, and we cannot find it.
The Mask of Civilization, the Face of Apartheid: Netanyahu at the UN
October 2, 2026, Reza Fani Yazdi Informed Comment, https://scheerpost.com/2026/10/02/the-mask-of-civilization-the-face-of-apartheid-netanyahu-at-the-un/
From the heart of a Middle East that has bled for decades under the boots of colonialism, indiscriminate bombardments, systematic assassinations, and the medieval sieges imposed by the Zionist regime, Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech before the United Nations General Assembly was nothing less than the naked embodiment of “the most brazen form of inversion of truth, fascist propaganda, and systematic justification of genocide.”
Before being portrayed as a political event, this speech was a nauseating spectacle: an “accused man wanted by the International Criminal Court” making his escape, as it were, from the defendant’s seat in a criminal court to the podium of the United Nations General Assembly.
What follows is my examination of the criminal rhetoric of this man accused of genocide.
The Greatest Inversion in History: The Accused Perpetrator Posing as Prosecutor
The height of audacity in Netanyahu’s speech lies in his deliberate and deranged reversal of the roles of “perpetrator and victim.” A man for whom the Pre-Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) found reasonable grounds to issue an arrest warrant on allegations including the war crime of using starvation as a method of warfare and crimes against humanity—the killing and systematic infliction of suffering upon hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza—stands calmly behind the podium and calls the victims of his own war machine “terrorists,” while presenting himself as a “defender of civilization.”
This is linguistic colonialism at its most extreme: 78 years of occupation, the bombing of hospitals and refugee camps, and the massacre of tens of thousands of innocent women and children are called “legitimate self-defense,” while the resistance of a people fighting to reclaim their land and human dignity is branded “barbarism.”
An accused man who should have the handcuffs of justice around his wrists stares the world in the face and mocks every standard of human rights.
Invoking Ancient Myths to Legitimize Ethnic Cleansing
Netanyahu’s reliance on the Torah and on narratives dating back thousands of years to justify modern colonialism, illegal settlements in the West Bank, and the occupation of the Golan Heights is a blatant affront to the United Nations Charter and international law.
If geographical borders and the sovereign rights of nations are to be rewritten on the basis of ancient religious scrolls, then no place on Earth will ever be secure.
This approach lays bare the fascist, racist, and apartheid nature of the Tel Aviv regime—a regime founded upon the “dispossession of the indigenous population” and “ethnic cleansing,” and one that brazenly links its crimes to supernatural commandments in an attempt to portray the spilling of human blood as permissible.
Emboldened by Imperialism and Brazen Defiance of the International Community
Netanyahu’s arrogant and insulting tone toward representatives of countries who walked out of the United Nations chamber in protest against the presence of a war criminal—and his branding of them as “moral cowards”—is the product of years of ironclad immunity granted to him by the United States and by Western colonialism and global imperialism.
He proudly speaks of violations of the airspace of countries across the region, targeted assassinations, the bombing of facilities, and wars on multiple fronts.
Such a complete abandonment of even the pretense of diplomatic restraint demonstrates the extent to which the international legal order has surrendered before naked force and imperial vetoes.
The silence or implicit support of Western governments for such positions makes them complicit in every drop of blood spilled in Gaza, Lebanon, Iran, and throughout the Middle East.
Projecting Severe Domestic Crises into Regional Terror and Conflict
Netanyahu bellows about “strategic victories” and the “end of insecurity” while the settler society under his rule struggles with profound psychological crises, economic deterioration, structural protests, and political deadlock.
In order to postpone his domestic trials on corruption charges and prevent the collapse of his fragile coalition, he must keep the machinery of war permanently running and drag the region toward the precipice of a global war.
Bringing technological devices—such as Starlink—to the podium of the United Nations General Assembly and issuing threats against the great nation of Iran is a vulgar spectacle staged by a politician who knows that once the war ends, the final chapter of his political life and his inevitable downfall will begin.
Wait Until the Dawn of Your Downfall Breaks
History has demonstrated with unmistakable clarity that no occupying empire has ever achieved immortality through cluster bombs, indiscriminate killing, rhetoric at the United Nations, and the support of its Western patrons.
What came from the throat of this wanted criminal in New York was not the voice of strength or authority. It was the terrified roar of a declining project and a decaying structure confronted by the iron will of the peoples of the region.
Gaza, Lebanon, and a steadfast Iran stand as living witnesses that the Zionist killing machine will ultimately drown in the quagmire of its own structural crimes.
Lawless Lands: Trump Preaches at the United Nations
It was classic Trump: a speech filled with incitement to lawlessness
2 October 2026 Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.net/lawless-lands-trump-preaches-at-the-united-nations/
There was nothing new in the Reality Television President’s swill filled address to the United Nations General Assembly on September 22. Donald Trump had said much of it before, most of it with wearying derangement and detachment from reality. There were the bullying threats of annihilation and doomsday relish that never eventuate. There were the usual flashed credentials, now long worn, of a Cincinnatus briefly brought from plough to war for the state. “While others have talked, I have acted; while others have spoken of peace, I have made peace.” There were the stock verbal assaults on outsized, inflated enemies (where are those globalist leftist bureaucrats at the UN? The octopus straddling transgender agenda?); and his return to the cherished idea of the hoax.
The troubling theme of the address lay in its purposeful unmooring of the United States from any semblance of international law and fidelity to international borders. Regarding Iran, he imperiously thought it his prerogative to make “a big decision”: make a “deal […] that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before […] or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again.” Such a decision towards fostering prosperity or encouraging genocide, however, would have to be wait. “I believe we will make a deal right after the [mid-term] elections.” Here was Trump speaking from a position of strategic defeat in his illegal war against Teheran.
In bountiful self-praise, he claimed to have settled eight wars, many having been enduring till his soiling presence graced the globe. Despite the catastrophic levelling of Gaza and Israeli ruminations on ethnically cleansing the Strip of its Palestinian residents, Trump spoke of having saved “untold thousands of lives.” On the war in Ukraine, peace would come (when?), a point he has been making since running as a presidential candidate. With buccaneering relish, he celebrated the violation of international law by suggesting he had arrested (read abducted) an “outlaw dictator” in the form of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, merely a prelude to gaining access to the country’s oil reserves under the guidance of a friendlier regime. The US would “no longer permit threats to gain a foothold anywhere in the Western Hemisphere – and if necessary, we will use our unmatched military might.”
His poorly camouflaged inner thug was again on show regarding Washington’s Cuba policy, painted by this administration as having an insidious hold on “the Communist Party USA, Antifa, and the Dumocrat Socialists of America. Communism will never be coming to America – but freedom will be coming to Cuba.” In also promising “safety and security” for Mexico, an ominous pledge for a country described as “the epicentre of cartel violence,” Trump thought himself rather clever in designating drug cartels in the country as “Foreign Terrorist Organizations.” These cartels were “the ISIS of the Western Hemisphere – not good people.” The nonsensical, ineffective and illegal campaign against alleged narco-vessels in the Caribbean Sea was promoted as having destroyed “97% of the drugs coming into [sic] the ocean and sea.”
On his agreement with Greenland and Denmark, brought about through threats, intimidation and schoolyard bullying, Trump the great peacemaker could extol the virtues of militarisation. The US would “immediately begin the process of developing a large military presence” at designated locations, including “two very major military bases.”
Human rights was another field worthy of grumbling. Human rights officials from the UN had been critical of US policies “protecting children from transgender mutilization [sic] and transgender insanity and enforcing our immigration laws.” Those “craven hypocrites of the Human Rights Council” had little to say when it came to “the persecution of Christians … or the crimes of the world’s most repressive regimes.” Bodies such as UNESCO were encouraging “mass migration” – now that’s a surprise – a globalist program that was “actively destroying the greatest cultures and most extraordinary heritage in history.” At this point, the mind had truly taken flight.
In addition to execrating various representative institutions of international law in the UN itself, Trump also reserved a salvo for the International Criminal Court, an institution apparently “full of evil people.” Withdraw, he urged member states, from this rogue outfit.
Keeping in step with the modishness of it all, there were also words of lavish praise for the strides being undertaken in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). But even here, this imperial magistrate had complaints. “The use of the word artificial makes intelligence fake.” Regulating it would be eschewed, those doomsdayers about its ills being progenitors of yet another hoax. “The United States totally rejects any attempt to construct a globalist scheme of control for the Artificial Intelligence being spoken of so much now – hereinafter officially called ‘Super Intelligence’.”
What remains stunning in his puerile puling is the extent they are tolerated by the allies, whose leaders continue to remain complicit despite sniggering and chortling behind closed doors about a dysfunctional relationship with Washington. The attack on Iran was illegal in international law yet essentially given the nod of approval from the European Commission, most European states, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia. The murder of its leadership, however cruel, brutal and scheming, did not draw gasps at the grotesque violations of sovereignty but sighs of relief: with these top mullahs dead, maybe the Iranians might do the sensible thing and overthrow the theocracy and its fanatical defenders, the Islamic Revolutionary Group Corps. They did not, and conflict that continues to burn and cause mayhem has been the result.
Perhaps most of all – and here, Trump is not unique – is that international law is a body of work to be battered and belched upon, with international institutions such as the UN irrelevant to the exercise of power by countries caring less about informed restraint than the promotion of naked, unadorned self-interest. Where relevant, international customary law should advance, not limit, the power of the state. Trump’s America, in league with other like-minded nation states, have decided to trash the order and soil the sanctum.
40 years later: The Abduction of Mordechai Vanunu
Vanunu began to become critical of government policy, opposing the 1982 Lebanon war and campaigning for equal rights for Arab-Israelis.
In September 1986, Vanunu handed over these photographs and shared his knowledge of the Israel nuclear programme with the British newspaper The Sunday Times.
Daniel Ellsberg, the Pentagon Papers whistleblower, called Vanunu “the preeminent hero of the nuclear era”
September 29, 2026, by Xanthe Hall, https://peaceandhealthblog.com/2026/09/29/40-years-later-the-abduction-of-mordechai-vanunu/
Few whistleblowers have risked as much as Mordechai Vanunu did when he handed over covertly taken photographs of the Dimona nuclear facility in Israel to The Sunday Times in 1986. 40 years ago, on 30 September 1986, he was drugged and abducted by Mossad, taken back to Israel and sentenced to 18 years in prison, 11 of them in solitary confinement. Vanunu was released in 2004 but has not been allowed to leave the country or speak to a foreign person. For 40 years he has been punished for telling the world that Israel has nuclear weapons.
Mordechai Vanunu aka John Crossman is a former Israeli nuclear technician, born on 14 October 1952 in Marrakesh. Vanunu was the son of a Jewish-Moroccan grocer, who moved with his family to Israel in 1963. After serving with the Israeli army during the Yom Kippur war, he began studying physics in Tel Aviv but did not complete his studies.
In 1976 he began working at the highly secret Negev Nuclear Research Center in the Negev Desert, south of Dimona. He began to study economics at Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba in 1979, and in the early 1980s he travelled through Europe and North America, the latter of which was not allowed by the Nuclear Research Center as his employer.
At around this time Vanunu began to become critical of government policy, opposing the 1982 Lebanon war and campaigning for equal rights for Arab-Israelis. During 1984 he was questioned three times by the security office at Dimona, once after a trip to France. In early 1985 he was laid off from the Nuclear Research Center but got his job back with the help of the trade union.
After resuming work at Dimona, Vanunu covertly took photographs of the site before quitting his job on 27 October 1985. In September 1986, Vanunu handed over these photographs and shared his knowledge of the Israel nuclear programme with the British newspaper The Sunday Times.
Vanunu’s information led to the conclusion that Israel, among other things, was producing tritium, enriching uranium and processing plutonium, enough for up to 150 nuclear weapons. Although the information was not new to informed circles in the UK and US, it was the first time that the extent of the Dimona secret nuclear weapons programme became known to the public. There was deep concern about the fact that Israel, not a member of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, was in possession of nuclear weapons.
Two leading nuclear experts — Frank Barnaby and Theodore Taylor — needed weeks to verify the information. But before the information could be published, Mordechai Vanunu was drugged and abducted by Mossad agents while he was in Rome. He had been lured there by a Mossad ‘honeytrap’ operation, using a woman calling herself ‘Cindy’ who was posing as a tourist from the USA. From there he was taken to Israel. While he was held on a cargo ship travelling to Israel, The Sunday Times published the information he had given them, on 5 October 1986. Two days later, Vanunu was in Gedera prison being interrogated. A month later, after first denying it to the British authorities, Israel confirmed they had him in detention.
Vanunu was released on 21 April 2004 but was prohibited from leaving Israel, and of speaking to foreigners without permission. He was not allowed to come within 500 metres of an airport or border crossing, or 90 metres from a foreign embassy. His phone and internet continue to be monitored.
He returned to prison for three months in 2010 after he was convicted in 2007 of having contact with foreigners and violating the terms of his release.
An application for asylum to Norway was turned down, as were applications to Sweden and Ireland, because applications cannot be considered from outside of the asylum country. Repeated calls by supportive organisations for him to be allowed to leave Israel have been rejected by Israel, including by the Supreme Court. On 19 May 2015 Vanunu married Norwegian professor Kristin Joachimsen in Jerusalem and in August 2015 applied for family reunification to Norway via the embassy in Tel Aviv. The Israel High Court denied his application to have the restrictions on his movements lifted. He appealed to the Supreme Court. On 3 December 2019, the appeal was denied. The court cited as justification “a concern about the probability of closeness to the certainty that if the restrictions imposed on Vanunu are removed, he will act to publish this information”. The information that Vanunu had was, by then, more than 30 years out of date.
On the first day of every month, Vanunu posted on Twitter:
“One more year without freedom since 1986. Now I am waiting for my freedom, freedom to leave Israel. I will continue to wait until my freedom comes. Born to be free. See you in freedom.”
In July 2024 he posted that all restrictions had been renewed for another year and he would only write his next post when free. The account no longer exists.
Daniel Ellsberg, the Pentagon Papers whistleblower, called Vanunu “the preeminent hero of the nuclear era”. Now himself a world-famous whistleblower, Mordechai Vanunu has won several awards, including the Right Livelihood Award in 1987 and the Nuclear Free Future Award in 2002 in the category of “Resistance”. He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 but removed from the nominations list on his own request, as Shimon Peres was also listed that year.
Sources and further reading………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Trump’s Unconscionable United Nations Rant
Trump unfortunately is not alone in this dangerous ignorance. Swarms of commenters on social media and on publications such as this one are repeating unfounded theories that the CEOs are just saying these things to drive up the value of their companies, showing how powerful they are. This is delusional. If this is just a valuation stunt, the timing of these warnings around planned IPOs would be the worst possible. In essence this is the problem:
- current AI agents already evade constraints, coordinate, and hide what they did
- labs do not have a demonstrated way yet to keep much more capable future systems on a leash
- a superintelligent system that can improve itself, or a swarm that can recruit other agents, is a different control problem than a chatbot that answers a prompt, like ChatGPT or Grok.
Donald Trump threatened Iran with annihilation from the seat of diplomacy on the East River Tuesday and then dismissed the real threats of AI as a hoax in a speech that exhibited questionable mental balance, writes Joe Lauria.
By Joe Lauria, Consortium News, September 22, 2026, https://consortiumnews.com/2026/09/22/trumps-unconscionable-un-rant/
Donald Trump just delivered probably the most bombastic, ignorant, aggressive and outrageous speech to the rest of the world from the podium of the U.N. General Assembly in the 81-year history of the United Nations.
I covered 25 U.N. general debates from inside U.N. headquarters in New York as a correspondent based there and I have never seen anything like it, including Trump’s previous five U.N. addresses.
He began on Tuesday by beating his chest proclaiming himself king of the world:
“Our economy is the envy of the world.
Our military is the most powerful on earth.
Our technology is second to none and we are leading in virtually everything.Our energy is fueling the planet.
America is rising.Our nation is growing.
Our power is expanding.”
But of course America doesn’t have an empire.
“We’ve invested more money in the United States military in the past 12 months than ever before,” he reminded everyone, including the leaders of nations whose innocent people are slain by that military. “And this term, it will be $1.5 trillion.”
He reserved special venom for America’s latest victim of unprovoked violence:
“For 51 years, the fanatical Iranian regime has ruled by bloodshed and mass murder, spreading death and carnage and chaos across the entire Middle East and beyond. They were the bully of the Middle East, but they are the bully no more.”
Trump dare not look in a mirror.
For there he would see the face of the real bully of the Middle East, who, with bases of smoldering ruins, is bully no more.
Then after a litany of lies about the state of Iran’s military capacity and its nuclear program he shockingly threatened another U.N. member state from the world assembly’s rostrum in genocidal and megalomaniacal language:
“I have a big decision to make. Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before? Maybe one of the greatest in the Middle East, or even the world.Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again?
Do I drive them into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness or generations?”
Only one other time did a world leader issue such a supreme threat against another nation at the United Nations. And that world leader was none other than Donald J. Trump.
On Sept. 19, 2017, speaking from the same podium, he said the U.S. would have “no choice but to totally destroy North Korea” if forced to defend itself or its allies.
Super Ignorance
After a long stretch of calling on ICC member states to quit the court, of attacking “the craven hypocrites of Human Rights Council [for having] little to say about the persecution of Christians,” of his trademark, shameless self-promotion and congratulation for supposedly ending 8 wars (while attacking Iran, Venezuela — “To the victor belongs the spoils” — Yemen, Russia via Ukraine, aiding and abetting genocide in Gaza and threatening Cuba), Trump stunned the hall with the most profound and dangerous ignorance possible on the subject of Artificial Intelligence.
He had these astonishing things to say:
“Artificial Intelligence … makes it sound fake. And it is not fake. It’s actually amazing. But we have to be careful. In fact, it is exactly the opposite of what it purports.
From this point forward, all of United States documents and hopefully the world will be changed to use the much more accurate term super as opposed to artificial.
So it’s super intelligence.
In other words, welcome to the new world of superintelligence — SI.
Let’s see if that goes. It sounds much better. It is much better, and it’s much more accurate.
Let’s see if I have any power. Maybe I do and maybe I don’t. We’re going to find out pretty soon.
Superintelligence.”
He then added:
“Every major new technology brings challenges, and superintelligence is no exception. Yet the very same people who said we’ll all be dead in 12 years because of global warming, a name since reborn to climate change because the planet was cooling, not warming, and nobody was dead.
These are the same people that are now saying that AI is going to kill us all, that robots are going to attack us, and that everything is going to be a total disaster.
And we’re leading now over China by a lot and everyone else. And we’re going to keep it that way. We’re going to keep it very, very straight and very strong.
I’m not going to stifle growth of something that will be bigger than the industrial revolution, many say bigger than the Industrial Revolution or the internet itself.
But we will only encourage superintelligence.
We’re going to encourage it, not rein it in.”
What That All Meant
First, Trump totally misunderstands what the term “superintelligence” means. He is like most people who only understand AI from what has already been released to the public, such as ChatGPT or Grok. These are essentially glorified Google searches that go much deeper and much faster to extract astonishing amounts of information at astonishing speed presented in conversational form. The information can also be astonishingly wrong.
What the whistleblowers, early AI founders and AI CEOS’s — who Trump derides — have been raising the alarm about in recent days and weeks is not what’s already out in the public, but what is happening in the lab. They have explained that the neural networks that make up AI and mimic the human brain have already shown signs of breaking free of human control.
It has disobeyed orders, formed swarms or armies with other AI agents, made up its own laws, covered its tracks, hacked into other networks and is threatening to become independent entities reaching what is called “superintelligence.” Superintelligence is what is being warned about, not a fancy new term that Trump thinks better describes what he wants to beat China at.
Trump unfortunately is not alone in this dangerous ignorance. Swarms of commenters on social media and on publications such as this one are repeating unfounded theories that the CEOs are just saying these things to drive up the value of their companies, showing how powerful they are. This is delusional. If this is just a valuation stunt, the timing of these warnings around planned IPOs would be the worst possible. In essence this is the problem:
- current AI agents already evade constraints, coordinate, and hide what they did
- labs do not have a demonstrated way yet to keep much more capable future systems on a leash
- a superintelligent system that can improve itself, or a swarm that can recruit other agents, is a different control problem than a chatbot that answers a prompt, like ChatGPT or Grok.
There is still time to develop safeguards to prevent runaway superintelligent AI from doing us tremendous harm through autonomous hacks, bioweapons designs, cyberattacks against electric grids or worse, such as weapons systems up to and including nuclear weapons.
This is what alarms the “Grandfather of AI,” Prof. Geoffrey Hinton (who thinks there’s a 10 percent chance AI wipes out humanity), industry whistleblowers like Jacob Coxon and Daniel Kokotajlo and AI CEOs like Dario Amodei, Elon Musk and Sam Altman. Yes, CEOs are greedy and power hungry by definition and generally don’t care about the rest of us, but they don’t want to die too.
There is still time. What is being called for is a pause until the guardrails are built and implemented. Since Trump is driven by the competition to beat China at AI, it’s imperative that China and the United States work together, possibly towards a treaty that will ensure the safety of AI so that its many benefits in solving problems can help humanity.
This week at the Chinese-U.S. summit in Washington AI will be on the agenda. The two countries are expected to set up a hotline to communicate on security risks resulting from AI. But not much more progress is anticipated though it is urgently needed for both sides to slow development.
A treaty would define what is paused, such as recursive self-improvement; possible controls on data centers and chip shipments somewhat analogous to nuclear treaty inspections and ensuring third countries don’t move ahead with uncontrolled development.
What’s clear is the issue must be taken seriously and the ravings of Donald Trump ignored.
Volodymr Zelensky – the “exceptional” leader
25 September 2026, Noel Wauchope, https://theaimn.net/volodymr-zelensky-the-exceptional-leader/
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese very recently hugged Ukrainian President Zelensky, and praised him as an “exceptional leader.” That’s par for the course for a Western leader – they all fawn over Zelensky.
Zelensky was born in Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Russia. So he was Vladimir Zelensky, until recently – now he’s Volodymr Zelensky. Before he took over the leadership of Ukraine, the Russian “Vladimir” was fine. Ukrainian was the official language of Ukraine, but Russian was widely used, too, and 65% of the population are ethnically Russian. But now, Russian is not fine – banned in schools and public places. The June 2022 – LAW OF UKRAINE – “On ensuring the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the state language” – greatly restricts the use of the Russian language in music and in all media. That’s just one part of the de-Russification of culture in Ukraine. I felt sad that the government has trashed, very literally, the memories of Catherine the Great, who did promote not only art and culture to Kiev, but also improvements in health and education, and rights for Muslims and Jews. (Western pro-Ukraine writers are now busily rewriting history on Catherine the Great).
But then, I am inclined to put much importance on that rather nebulous thing – “culture.”
What else has Zelensky achieved inside Ukraine?
Politics. Also in 2022, Zelensky banned 11 political parties, despite no evidence linking any to the Russian government. His term as President was due to be over by May 2024, but the state of martial law enables him to continue to rule. He has shown support for the ultra-nationalist section in Ukraine, those who hark back to the days of collaborating with Nazi Germany in opposition to Russia during World War 2. This did not go down well with Poland, where Ukrainian Nazis had committed massacres. In June 2026, Polish President Karol Nawrocki, revoked the Order of the White Eagle – Poland’s highest honor – previously awarded to Zelensky. In 2024, Zelensky banned Ukraine’s largest Christian church – the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Military conscription for the war uses brutal methods to recruit men aged 25-60. Ukraine is a dictatorship. And I haven’t even touched on the level of corruption.
Zelensky’s progress in the war. It seems to be forgotten that civil war was going on in Ukraine for 8 years before Zelensky’s election in 2019, with the government fighting the “separatists” in the Donbass. The Donbass were granted autonomy within Ukraine, by the Minsk Agreements of 2014 and 2015, but Kiev refused to honour that agreement. Zelensky was elected in a landslide, with his main promise being to grant that autonomy, honour Minsk, and end the war.
March-April 2022: Zelensky and Putin agreed on a framework agreement that would allow the Donbass autonomy, and end the war, with Ukraine pledging not to join NATO. The U.S. and U.K. objected. Prime Minister Boris Johnson flies to Kiev to tell Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to stop negotiating with Russia. Zelensky complies. The war continues with Russia seizing much of the Donbass.
From then on, it is a saga, with Zelensky applying his truly exceptional media skills in an endless peripatetic round of Western capitals seeking apparently endless amounts of money and weaponry, as he pushes themes of evil Russia’s intent to invade Europe, and destroy Western democracy. Always dressed in some distinctive gear, Zelensky presented first the persona of the very ordinary down-to-earth tough little soldier, later the persona of the strong leading statesman, all in black, suggesting implacable military leadership yet not actually in a uniform. Within Ukraine, (the Jewish) Zelensky celebrated Orthodox Christian Easter, suitably arrayed.
I see that I have returned to the theme of culture and style. But how else to account for the extraordinary adoration given to Zelensky by the West? With a couple of notable exceptions, (Poland and Slovakia), the Western world is not only full of enthusiasm for Zelensky, but willing to fund advanced weaponry to Ukraine, oblivious of the danger of nuclear-armed Russia responding to attacks deep inside its territory. Even Russia-hating Joe Biden drew the line at this. Zelensky, originally open to negotiations with Russia, considering compromises and concessions on both sides, now is intent on the goal of unconditional surrender by Russia. The European Union is backing this aim, apparently unable to consider a more realistic approach to ending this war – a war which is bankrupting Ukraine, killing a huge number of soldiers, while at least 6 million have fled the country, with 10 million displaced within Ukraine.
Western media determinedly reports atrocities by Russians, but never atrocities by Ukrainians. Western media reports Russian attacks near Ukraine’s nuclear sites, particularly Zaporizhzhia, although the evidence there is uncertain. But there’s silence on Ukrainian attacks on Russia’s huge nuclear station at Kursk. Russia’s attacks on Ukraine’s infrastructure and civilian areas are reported as atrocities, but Ukraine’s attacks on Russia’s infrastructure and civilian sites are “successes.”
The idea of considering genuine negotiations with Russia is really not being considered, let alone of examining the situation of the largely ethnic Russian citizens of the Donbass. I did hear one podcast report, a Donetsk farmer saying that he just wanted the war to end, and didn’t care whether Ukraine or Russia was in control of Donetsk. I know that I can’t extrapolate from this one statement to the general opinion of the Donbass. But I think that it’s quite likely, after 11 years of war there, that might be the opinion of many others.
It’s going to be interesting, when European States come up for election soon, whether or not the public will tire of this unequivocal support of Zelensky and his aim to conquer Russia. It might be that some very right-wing, neo-nazi factions will take over, and bring us even closer to the brink of nuclear war. Or it could go the other way, and voices of reason, such as former diplomat Charles Freeman, might prevail. Meanwhile, Zelensky’s own position within Ukraine is fraught: he would face elections if the war ended, and perhaps his political survival, even his physical survival, depends on the unequivocal quest to defeat Russia.
Hegseth Must Go
Hegseth dismisses war crimes, pooh-poohs the rules of engagement, and projects unequivocal belligerence at a time when the United States is rapidly losing whatever moral standing it once had in the world
Pete Hegseth is the most incompetent person in the Trump regime, with the exception of Trump, and a clear and present danger to the security of the United States.
Robert Reich Substack, September 5, 2026, https://scheerpost.com/2026/09/05/hegseth-must-go/
The latest casualty of Pete Hegseth’s disastrous tenure as Secretary of “War” is Dan Driscoll, who resigned Monday as Secretary of the Army after repeatedly clashing with the Heg.
Driscoll isn’t a liberal in lion’s clothing. He’s an old friend of JD Vance from Yale Law days. He resigned because of his concerns that Hegseth is damaging the Army’s efforts to modernize and adapt to the 21st century battlefield environment — where drone warfare is becoming increasingly important — by firing or pushing out leaders spearheading those efforts.
Pete Hegseth is the most incompetent person in the Trump regime — with the exception of Trump himself — and a clear and present danger to the security of the United States and the world. If Trump won’t fire him, Democrats should impeach him when (hopefully) they take over the House next January, and two-thirds of the Senate should convict him.
A defense official in Europe told CNN that even though Hegseth talks about technology reform, he’s focusing instead on “muscles, dudes in dresses, testosterone.”
Hegseth’s tenure has been disastrous from the moment he walked into the Pentagon. Even if Trump were capable of hearing sound advice, Hegseth hasn’t come close to giving it to him. Instead, he’s been pursuing grievances about DEI, promoting testosterone, and denigrating or firing women and Black officers.
The Army now has no Senate-confirmed secretary or chief of staff (George’s replacement, General Christopher LaNeve, so far doesn’t have the votes to be confirmed).
The Iran war, meanwhile, is requiring the ongoing deployment of 19 warships, air-defense units, fighter squadrons and paratroopers across the region — straining service members and their families and creating a maintenance backlog that could take years to unwind, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The Washington Post reports that multiple senior military leaders — those still left, that is — have warned Hegseth that the United States cannot indefinitely extend military operations against Iran. Even the chief of naval operations, Admiral Daryl Caudle (who campaigned for the job by signaling agreement with Hegseth’s culture-war obsessions), told Hegseth that the Navy cannot “sustain its current level of support for the Iran conflict because there is no anticipated end date.”
Hegseth’s response? He castigated the media for revealing classified information.
I’ve known many other defense secretaries, starting with Cap Weinberger, who served as defense secretary under Reagan. I can say without fear of contradiction that Pete Hegseth is the stupidest and least qualified of them all.
Hegseth’s incompetence and determination to suck up to Trump helped launch the war against Iran in the first place.
Among the regime’s senior officials, Hegseth was the only one who supported Trump’s fantasies of a quick victory. Marco Rubio was against the war as was JD Vance; even then–Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told Trump that a war with Iran was not winnable.
Since then, Hegseth has lied his way through more than six months of Pentagon and Iran war mayhem.
At a press briefing in March, Hegseth complained about a CNN report that the Trump administration had underestimated Iran’s ability to disrupt global oil traffic by closing the Strait of Hormuz. “Patently ridiculous,” Hegseth told reporters, adding — even as the strait’s blockage was proving to be Iran’s most powerful leverage in the war — we “don’t need to worry about it.” It was a false and insulting claim to an American public that deserved to know what the Trump regime was planning to do about soaring prices at the gas pump, directly due to that blockage.
He also denied that the U.S. bombed the school where some 175 children were killed — a claim belied by mounting evidence that the U.S. did bomb the school. Hegseth’s further insistence that the U.S. “never targets civilians” was refuted by the U.S. military’s killing of over 200 people on small boats in the Caribbean without evidence they were “narcoterrorists” rather than civilians.
Hegseth then lied about the severity of Iranian attacks on U.S. bases in the Persian Gulf that disrupted logistical support for American forces, leading to the deprivations suffered by the crew of the aircraft carrier the USS Abraham Lincoln.
Hegseth evidently believes that his job is to cheerlead and defend Trump with absurd claims like “We didn’t start this war, but under President Trump we’re finishing it” and “America is winning decisively, devastatingly, and without mercy” and “we will show no quarter for our enemies.” (“No quarter” means kill everyone and take no prisoners, which is a war crime.)
In the days leading up to the U.S. attack on Iran, Hegseth spent his time criticizing “wokeness” at American universities and forcing Scouting America to abandon programs aimed at promoting diversity.
Last year, he didn’t just mistakenly share the military’s plans with the editor of The Atlantic; we now know he shared them with a second Signal group, including his wife, brother, and personal lawyer.
John Ullyot, who resigned as Pentagon spokesman, said Hegseth had brought “total chaos” to the Pentagon and that the Pentagon “is in disarray under Hegseth’s leadership.”
Hegseth dismisses war crimes, pooh-poohs the rules of engagement, and projects unequivocal belligerence at a time when the United States is rapidly losing whatever moral standing it once had in the world.
How Fear of Nuclear Armageddon Leads Me to Protest
Simply put, the U.S. maintains a first-strike nuclear option to be deployed against even a non-nuclear enemy. Paradoxically, China does have a “no first use” policy for its nuclear arsenal. Hey, U.S. adversaries, don’t even look at us the wrong way!
How radically and overtly hypocritical that the U.S., the greatest military power in the world—holding such a nuclear posture—initiated a war with Iran on the basis that the country might one day develop nuclear weapons, even though there is no conclusive evidence that it intends to do so. But then, this is how big bullies operate.
The blindness of Americans to the reality of nuclear annihilation begins with a national hypocrisy, one that we hold as the first and only nation to ever use nuclear weapons in war, killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people. It is a striking example of our hypocrisy that is blatantly clear to most of the world beyond our borders.
For nearly two decades, I have been arrested, ignored, and dismissed for protesting nuclear weapons—but as the Doomsday Clock inches toward midnight, giving up is not an option.
Scott Fina, Current Affairs, July 2026
Our tiny protest gathering at Vandenberg had a “micro-Woodstock” feel to it. One of us was dressed like an angel, in a white gown with flashing, battery-powered lights on wings attached to her back. She held a peace sign that also had blinking lights. She started beating a drum she had brought, and broke into an Indigenous chant she had learned from a local Chumash (Native American) community, whose descendants continue to protest military installations on their ancestral homelands. She had driven hours to the military base from her home in central Los Angeles—the likely source of her captivating creativity.
So, there we were, observing the flight of the most dangerous weapon ever created and possessed by humanity: an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that had been launched from an underground silo on the base. The Minuteman III ICBM we were watching could carry multiple nuclear warheads. Fortunately, the missile was not armed, and its launch was a test, sending it 4,200 miles over the Pacific Ocean to the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. The U.S. military has adopted a nickname for such missile flights: “Glory Trips.”
As protesting observers, we failed to see any glory in the exhibition of the ICBM test launch. But if watching an ICBM launch isn’t glorious enough for some folks, they can go to the U.S. Department of War (DOW) website and check out the “multimedia experience” of the military’s nuclear triad delivery system. The online presentation blatantly and unabashedly explains in detail how the U.S. military can readily make nuclear strikes against its adversaries using not only land-based, silo-launched missiles, but also submarine and fighter plane launchings of nuclear bombs.
The DOW’s flashy, action-filled nuclear triad website is full of bravado, and seemingly overloaded with testosterone. It looks like a violent video game. One can imagine Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, messing around with the website, tapping at the keyboard with one hand, while holding a beer in the other.
Interestingly, the introductory section of the DOW nuclear triad website includes a statement which reads, in part, “…the triad ensures a credible and flexible nuclear deterrent, providing the president of the United States with options to accomplish objectives if deterrence fails.”
Those are nuclear options currently available for Donald Trump, who alone has the authority to order a nuclear attack. Having such choices on which weapons to use has got to be alluring, if not tempting, for our president. Imagine what goes on in his brain at times when he thinks about the power he has over nuclear weapons and the fate of humanity. Think, “eeny, meeny, miny, moe…”
On top of all its muscle flexing, there is another feature in the U.S. nuclear weapons policy that exhibits a kind of bullying. I refer here to the U.S. Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) published by the Biden Administration in 2022. The NPR remains operative under the Trump Administration.
Consider this statement in the NPR, which is readily available for the world to see:
We conducted a thorough review of a broad range of options for nuclear declaratory policy – including both No First Use and Sole Purpose policies – and concluded that those approaches would result in an unacceptable level of risk in light of the range of non-nuclear capabilities being developed and fielded by competitors that could inflict strategic-level damage to the United States and its Allies and partners.
Simply put, the U.S. maintains a first-strike nuclear option to be deployed against even a non-nuclear enemy. Paradoxically, China does have a “no first use” policy for its nuclear arsenal. Hey, U.S. adversaries, don’t even look at us the wrong way!
But wait! There’s more going on with the U.S. nuclear arsenal: modernization.
The replacement of over 400 ICBM Minuteman III missiles is currently in the works. These weapons have been in use (on alert but not fired off) for over 55 years, and have been kept viable thanks to “a series of life extension programs,” according to the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center. In the early 2030s, even more deadly ICBM Sentinel missiles will take their place. According to the Air and Space Forces Magazine, these new ICBMs will cost over $140 billion.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. Many protesters at Vandenberg have also gone to prison for their nonviolent, civil disobedience: crossing a green line that demarcated where protest was allowed. The case of one courageous protester, Dennis Apel, who was arrested 15 times at Vandenberg, landed at the U.S. Supreme Court……………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Hundreds of Americans protest against nuclear weapons every year at various military bases, and also at private corporate facilities that are connected to the U.S. nuclear program (and make big bucks). Unfortunately, anti-nuclear protesters often go unheard in the U.S., regardless of the often deep, personal sacrifices they make. Also, those voices have been aging and declining in number over the years.
Since I first joined protesters at Vandenberg in 2008, our numbers have dwindled to less than a dozen who gather monthly at the main gate. Annually, on or around the dates of August 6 and August 9—the anniversaries of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively—the number of protesters grows to a few dozen at Vandenberg, with most coming from Los Angeles. The somewhat larger crowd draws a good number of well-armed, military security guards who line up in formation a hundred yards down the base entry road.
The soldiers wait for protesters to cross the green line, and every year, a few do. Over a loud speaker, the military officer in charge of the formation warns these brave folks to cross back over the line within two minutes or they will face arrest. The protesters ignore the command, are handcuffed, cited, and then driven off the base in a van by the soldiers.
This scene is both moving, and a little comical, depending on one’s perspective. You see, these days most of the protesters at Vandenberg are old and grey (including myself). We are also a motley group, and frumpy. It’s not too much of a stretch to imagine us as a collection of outsized Ewoks from a Star Wars film, standing up to Stormtroopers of the Galactic Empire. If someone played a John Williams score over a music box in the background, we’d have a real show.
Admittedly, probably most Americans would see the protesters at Vandenberg as preposterous, daring to confront the most powerful military on the planet with little hope of disarming our nation of nuclear weapons. Perhaps we are. But we are driven by a moral and humane purpose. . And if observers—even those who are patriotic—were more objective and opened their eyes widely, they might see what we protesters deeply sense: that the huge and deadly U.S. nuclear arsenal and forces contain our nation’s own demise.
The blindness of Americans to the reality of nuclear annihilation begins with a national hypocrisy, one that we hold as the first and only nation to ever use nuclear weapons in war, killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people. It is a striking example of our hypocrisy that is blatantly clear to most of the world beyond our borders……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
The most recent, significant multilateral treaty, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), was adopted at the United Nations in 2017, and entered into force in 2021. In sum, this treaty calls for nations around the world to either commit to never creating, possessing, testing, or transferring nuclear weapons if they have not yet done so, or to fully rid themselves of nuclear weapons—disarm—if they already have them.
To date, 95 nations have signed onto the TPNW. While that seems promising, it really isn’t, yet. The TPNW has been ignored by all the nuclear states, including the U.S. Still, it’s premature to write the treaty off at this point. But consider what looms over humanity’s head in the meantime.
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), an international coalition of non-governmental organizations and winner of the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize, warns that even limited nuclear conflicts will cause global devastation.
………………………. The second Trump Administration has said it is pursuing a “peace through strength” policy in national security and foreign affairs. The National Defense Strategy emphasizes the importance of modernizing the U.S. nuclear deterrent in response to increased nuclear threats.
“Peace through strength!” That doesn’t quite sound like a winning catchphrase that could inspire adversaries to surrender their nuclear weapons. More accurately, the image I get is Pete Hegseth crushing an empty beer can against the side of his head. Add on the “weapons modernization” program and you don’t really improve nuclear deterrence, but embolden the arms race already in place by nuclear adversaries.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..What JFK described in his peace address is a very different America, one that respects other nations and treasures humanity. It presents an America that tries to lead, rather than rule the nations around the world. Consider these comments:
“What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. … I am talking about …the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, … that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children–not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women–not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.
I speak of peace because of the new face of war. Total war makes no sense in an age when great powers can maintain large and relatively invulnerable nuclear forces and refuse to surrender without resort to those forces. It makes no sense in an age when a single nuclear weapon contains almost ten times the explosive force delivered by all the allied air forces in the Second World War. It makes no sense in an age when the deadly poisons produced by a nuclear exchange would be carried by wind and water and soil and seed to the far corners of the globe and to generations yet unborn.”
Currently there is a movement in Congress echoing JFK’s thinking on peace……………………………………………………
JFK’s thinking on peace is radically different from Trump’s and Hegseth’s. In our day and age, Kennedy’s perspective would be widely held as preposterous—just like the case of protesters who make personal sacrifices in attempts to waken our nation to see its almost hypnotic violence and self-destruction threatened by nuclear weapons.
……………………………………………………………………………………………Recently, the DOW has posted television and social media ads about “peace through strength” that compliment its multimedia presentation on the nuclear triad. One asks: how do most Americans carry on daily life, seemingly unconscious of the deeply disconcerting possibility of nuclear Armageddon? Is it because our populace is errantly convinced that immense, superior weaponry will fully protect us from our adversaries? Have we drank a soon-fatal dose of the potion of military propaganda? https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/how-fear-of-nuclear-armageddon-leads-me-to-protest
Nuclear Power is Now Trump Power…What Could Go Wrong?
Karl Grossman – Harvey Wasserman, July 10, 2026, https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/07/10/nuclear-power-is-now-trump-power-what-could-go-wrong/
Donald Trump is now the ultimate face of the U.S. nuclear power industry.
What could go wrong?
If you are advocating atomic energy in any form, you are promoting The Donald’s latest and largest fiscal fleecing of the American people. It mirrors his mega swindles in crypto and so much more—except this time with apocalyptic impact.
It’s a hyper-push for nuclear power.
As The New York Times this week headlined the “Climate Forward” column of Claire Brown: “Trump’s plans for nuclear power lurch ahead.”
Her July 7th piece began: “President Trump wants to quadruple nuclear power production in the United States by 2050. To get there, developers would need to build about a hundred times as much nuclear capacity in the next 25 years as they did in the past 25. In recent weeks, a series of government announcements have nudged the country a bit closer to that goal.”
It continued: “Nuclear power has broad bipartisan support in Congress, and many climate experts have embraced it as a low-emissions source of energy. Other experts remain opposed, arguing that it is too expensive or that the safety risks are too high.”
Through its Truth Social corporate front, the Trump Family has bought a major interest in TAE Technologies, a $6 billion California-based plunge into nuclear fusion.
To serve that investment, Trump is scamming his presidency to funnel billions of public dollars into a “Peaceful Atom” from which he expects to personally profit.
Right now, he’s pushing through Congress a $17.5 billion interest-free slush fund to promote more U.S. reactor construction.
Similar handouts from George W. Bush and Barack Obama fed two new nuclear power plants in Georgia. Originally promised at around $15 billion, the two plants fired up last year some seven years late and nearly $25 billion over budget. Their most recently reported price tag approaches $40 billion. Their output will never compete with renewables. They’ll bleed Peach State mega-cash as long as they operate.
Two abandoned nuclear plants in South Carolina blew $9 billion outright. The double debacle bankrupted Westinghouse, once the world’s leading reactor producer.
Meanwhile Trump pushes so-called Small Modular Reactors, hyped to power data centers that produce his beloved crypto. Projected to operate around 2030, SMR cultists hope their juice might (at best) cost a mere three times the proven cost of solar panels, and four times or more than that of currently operating onshore wind turbines.
But despite Trump’s frantic efforts to kill it, the real-world transition to green “Solartopian” renewables may be. Epic advances in battery technology essentially eliminate any need for the base-line power nuclear plants produce when they don’t break down or blow up. California’s battery capacity is now seven times as large as the maximum output that can be produced by the state’s last two hyper-expensive Diablo Canyon nuclear power plants.
Those dangerously decrepit reactors are surrounded by at least a dozen earthquake faults. They sit just 45 miles from the San Andreas fault.
In 2013, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission site inspector Dr. Michael Peck warned that Diablo might not withstand a credible quake from the seismic faults surrounding it. Peck’s warning was ignored. Now he is gone from the commission. In the Trump era, no such report could be written in the first place.
In 2018, California adopted a comprehensive plan to shut Diablo and to phase in renewables. The transition was hugely accelerated by massive advances that have dropped battery prices while expanding their capabilities. Through at least part of most days now, California gets 100% of its electricity from renewables, much of it coming from solar panels in the Central Valley.
But “green” Governor Gavin Newsom is trashing the transition. In 2022, he handed Diablo’s owner, PG&E, billions in Trump-style grift while promoting his own run for The White House. As a result, California’s electric rates are now the highest in the continental U.S.
Meanwhile, Trump attacks the green competition with billions of public dollars to buy out leases from wind and solar projects, which threaten to produce electricity far cheaper than his beloved nukes. With the epic spread of cheap batteries (which are also fueling a global boom in electric vehicles) more than 80% of the world’s newly installed electric generating capacity now comes from renewables. All Trump’s mob-style assaults in the U.S. are being challenged in court and at the grassroots. But the global market push remains unrelenting.
Despite the growing danger as they deteriorate from age and maladministration, atomic reactors have been federally shielded from accident insurance requirements since 1957. Amidst escalating safety concerns, Congress has extended the liability exemption to SMRs, meant to power thousands of the crypto-loving data centers now being vehemently opposed by grassroots citizens throughout the US.
Last year Trump became the first U.S. president to fire a chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The U.S. Supreme Court has now confirmed the royal prerogative of a sitting president to fire any regulatory official. In the wake of Musk’s DOGE purge of at least 100 technical experts at the NRC, Trump is now sole arbiter of health and safety regulations, which are now in terrifying free fall at the 94 licensed U.S. nuclear power plants.
Trump also wants to put new reactors on military reservations, shredding residual NRC restraints through the even looser Department of Energy.
Two operating U.S. nuclear power plants (at North Anna in Virginia and Perry in Ohio) have already been significantly damaged by earthquakes (Perry twice). With neither accident insurance nor credible safety regulation, Trump/Nukes Inc. is a sitting duck for terror attacks. Russian drones have already damaged reactors and fuel storage sites at Ukraine’s Zaporizhia and Chernobyl. Others have been under fire.
Trump has infamously launched outright war on Iran’s nuclear weapons production. But as in Ukraine, a single drone could turn any of the world’s 400-plus reactors into a radioactive weapon of mass destruction, plunging us into an economic, ecological and health abyss from which we might never recover.
Meanwhile, an industry that hypes itself as “climate friendly” burns at 500 to 600 degrees Fahrenheit. In France, the U.S. and elsewhere, commercial reactors super-heat lakes and rivers that can no longer cool them, while boiling billions of marine organisms.
Seven decades after the first commercial reactor opened in Pennsylvania, The Donald is the undisputed self-dealing face of the “Peaceful Atom.”
He’s its top investor. He rules the shell of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. He’s the presidential purveyor of taxpayer grift and chief hit man aiming to kill the renewable competition.
If you are for nuclear power, you are for Trump power.
What could go wrong?
Harvey Wasserman wrote the books Solartopia! Our Green-Powered Earth and The Peoples Spiral of US History. He helped coin the phrase “No Nukes.” He co-convenes the Grassroots Emergency Election Protection Coalition at www.electionprotection2024.org Karl Grossman is the author of Cover Up: What You Are Not Supposed to Know About Nuclear Power and Power Crazy. He the host of the nationally-aired TV program Enviro Close-Up with Karl Grossman (www.envirovideo.com)
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Shut down the radiation-damaged Heysham nuclear reactors now
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Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
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