The World Can Have Peace Or Israel, But Not Both
And Other Notes
Caitlin Johnstone, Apr 09, 2026, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/the-world-can-have-peace-or-israel?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=193682839&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Israel is already aggressively sabotaging the Trump administration’s two-week ceasefire with Iran by slaughtering huge numbers of civilians in Lebanon, a nation which is explicitly off-limits for any attack under the ceasefire conditions agreed to by Tehran.
The US and Israel are trying to claim that Lebanon is not part of the ceasefire agreement, but Pakistan, whom the US appointed to mediate the agreement, says this is false. The New York Times reports that the White House took part in Pakistan’s public messaging which explicitly included Lebanon in the ceasefire conditions, before changing its tune after Israel attacked.
Iran has reportedly responded to these violations by again halting traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.
This serves as yet another reminder that the world can have peace or it can have Israel — but it cannot have both. Israel is a genocidal apartheid state whose entire existence is premised upon a strategy of unceasing violence and abuse in the middle east. As long as that state continues to exist in its present iteration, peace will never be attainable.
❖
If your job hired a guy who kept getting into fights with your coworkers and saying it’s because they are racist against him, for a week you might believe him.
After a month, you’d have doubts.
After two months, you’d realize he’s probably just an asshole.
Israel has been doing this for eighty years.
Democrats in the House and Senate are finally moving on a War Powers Act to stop the US president from going to war with Iran, and I’d say better late than never but at this point that would barely even be true.
Democrats like Chuck Schumer and Chris Murphy are currently slamming the president not for his horrifying mass atrocities in Iran but for losing the Strait of Hormuz and failing to achieve objectives like completely disarming their conventional missile program.
As I have said here previously, it’s clear that the reason the Democratic Party failed to oppose Trump’s warmongering with Iran was because they supported it too.
The actual, official 2024 Democratic Party platform accused Trump of “fecklessness and weakness” for failing to go to war with Iran during his first term. Kamala Harris labeled Iran the #1 enemy of the United States. In their 2024 debate, Harris repeatedly slammed Trump for being too soft on America’s enemies and announced that she “will always give Israel the ability to defend itself, in particular as it relates to Iran and any threat that Iran and its proxies pose to Israel.”
I’ve seen a lot of people trying to argue that Trump’s depravity in Iran proves everyone should support Democrats, but it’s clear the Democratic Party is just the more polite-looking face on the same evil power structure.
The Grayzone’s Wyatt Reed has an article out about a freakish BBC article which cited an anonymous Iranian who allegedly told them he supports the US and Israel “hitting energy infrastructure, using an atomic bomb, or leveling Iran.” Following public outcry, the quote was removed and replaced with completely different words — initially without any editor’s note of any kind.
Reed documents how the BBC reporter behind the story, Ghoncheh Habibiazad, is a London-based Iranian monarchist with an extensive history of agitating for regime change war against her home country, including with the US government propaganda operation Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
Last month The Times ran an article titled “Some Iranians say one thing’s worse than bombs: no bombs”. Western powers are always aggressively pushing this self-evidently false claim that people in empire-targeted countries want bombs dropped on them, in much the same way slavery proponents argued that Africans were happiest as slaves because God made it their nature to serve.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: it’s impossible to have enough disdain for the western press.
Israel Carpet Bombs Lebanon After Announcement of Iran Ceasefire
Israeli forces announced on Wednesday that it struck 100 sites in Lebanon over 10 minutes.
By Sharon Zhang , Truthout, April 8, 2026
Israeli forces launched some of the most intense bombardments of Lebanon in recent years on Wednesday, striking Beirut and towns and cities across the country just hours after a ceasefire deal that reportedly includes Lebanon was announced.
The Israeli military announced on Wednesday that it targeted over 100 sites with strikes over just the course of 10 minutes in Lebanon. The UN also reported that it has recorded over 60 locations struck. The intensity of the strikes was unprecedented in recent times, one Al Jazeera reporter said, reminiscent of the scale of Israel’s invasion of Beirut in 1982 or Israel’s beeper attack in 2024.
Video of the strikes circulated online. One showed a massive fire in the wreckage of destroyed buildings in Beirut, sending plumes of dark smoke into the air. Another video purportedly taken in Beirut showed the top floors of a building completely destroyed and smoking, while the streets below were covered in flaming debris…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Since the latest escalation in Lebanon on March 2, Israeli strikes have killed over 1,450 people, including 126 children, Lebanese officials have said. Israel’s bombardments and expanded ground invasion have displaced 1.2 million people, or over a fifth of the population, in just weeks. https://truthout.org/articles/israel-carpet-bombs-lebanon-after-announcement-of-iran-ceasefire/
100 Strikes in 10 Minutes: Lebanon Bombed as Gaza Burns and Journalists Are Killed
April 8, 2026 , Joshua Scheer, https://scheerpost.com/2026/04/08/100-strikes-in-10-minutes-lebanon-bombed-as-gaza-burns-and-journalists-are-killed/
Al Jazeera English reports that Israel has carried out one of its most intense assaults on Lebanon since March 2, unleashing a rapid and coordinated wave of airstrikes that hit roughly 100 locations in just 10 minutes on April 8. The scale and سرعة of the bombardment underscore a sharp escalation in the conflict, raising urgent concerns about civilian safety, infrastructure destruction, and the potential for a wider regional crisis. The strikes reflect not only a show of overwhelming military force but also a deepening instability that threatens to push the situation beyond containment, with devastating humanitarian consequences to follow.
With more from Eye on Palestine reports extensive destruction following an intense and unprecedented wave of Israeli bombardment, with more than 100 airstrikes striking the Lebanese capital, Beirut, and multiple مناطق across the country. The масштаб and ferocity of the attacks have left widespread devastation in their wake, raising alarm over civilian casualties and the deepening humanitarian crisis as entire neighborhoods are reduced to rubble.
The killing of journalists is not collateral damage—it is the silencing of truth in real time.
While Israeli forces were busy carrying out attacks on Lebanon today, they also found time to kill yet another journalist. In 2025 alone, more than 120 journalists were killed worldwide, with the Committee to Protect Journalists reporting that Israel was directly responsible for two-thirds of those deaths. This is an unspeakable record—one that must not be ignored, but exposed and condemned.
Today on April 8, 2026, in Gaza City, Mohammed Washah, a correspondent for Al Jazeera, was killed in an Israeli airstrike that targeted his vehicle along Al-Rashid Street in western Gaza. He was not on a battlefield carrying a weapon—he was documenting one, doing the work of bearing witness as the world watched from afar.
His killing comes amid a day of overwhelming devastation across Gaza, where relentless bombardment has reduced neighborhoods to rubble, overwhelmed hospitals, and pushed civilians deeper into crisis. The scale and intensity of today’s attacks reflect a pattern of destruction that extends beyond military targets, raising urgent questions about the protection of civilians, journalists, and the very possibility of reporting from within the strip.
When journalists are killed, it is not only a life lost—it is a lens shattered. It is fewer images, fewer stories, fewer truths reaching the outside world. And in that silence, destruction becomes easier to carry out, and harder to challenge.
What is unfolding in Gaza and Lebanon cannot be viewed as separate crises—they are chapters of the same expanding catastrophe. From the shattered streets of Gaza City to the bombed neighborhoods of Beirut, the pattern is unmistakable: overwhelming force, collapsing civilian infrastructure, and entire populations pushed deeper into fear and displacement. The scale of destruction across both غزة and لبنان signals not just parallel conflicts, but a widening regional trauma where the lines between battlefield and المدني life are erased. As the violence stretches across borders, so too does the human cost—binding these tragedies together in a single, escalating reality that the world can no longer afford to treat in isolation. Even as the opposition party in the United States—the Democratic Party—refuses to even say the words
Trump’s vaunted 14 day ceasefire barely lasted 14 hours
Walt Zlotow West Suburban Peace Coalition Glen Ellyn IL, Apr 9 2026
Israel, not happy that Trump abandoned their lust to destroy Iran as a hegemonic rival, blew up the two week ceasefire Pakistan negotiated Tuesday.
How? By launching a massive bombing campaign on Beirut Lebanon killing over 200 and injuring over 500. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said “The two-week ceasefire does not include Lebanon,” Trump called it “a separate skirmish. Yeah, they were not included in the deal, because of Hezbollah. Veep Vance called Iran’s claim the ceasefire included Israeli attacks on Lebanon “a misunderstanding.”
Netanyahu, Trump and Vance all lied as Pakistan’s Prime Minister , Mian Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif, who mediated the ceasefire deal, said it includes Lebanon. Iran’s parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, didn’t mince words in blasting US, Israeli perfidy upending the ceasefire “The deep historical distrust we hold toward the United States stems from its repeated violations of all forms of commitments — a pattern that has regrettably been repeated once again,” He noted that President Trump announced the ceasefire by stating Iran’s 10 point proposal “was a good basis for negotiations.” Next day Trump had his press spokesperson Caroline Leveatt proclaim that Trump had the proposal “throne in the garbage.”
As a result Israel’s grisly bombardment on Beirut with Trump’s support and death weapons made a mockery of the ceasefire on Day One. Iran has announced the Strait of Hormuz will remain closed till the ceasefire is truly implemented. The world economy will continue to head downward. Thousands will suffer and die. Vance and the two amateur diplomates Jarad Kushner and Steve Witkoff he’s supervising, may fine empty Iranian chairs at the planed ceasefire negotiations in Pakistan tomorrow.
And the Big Fool in the White House, like the crazed captain demanding his troops continue crossing the impassable Big Muddy, will bellow ‘Push on.’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXnJVkEX8O4&t=3s
Trump pivots from “destroying Iranian civilization” to complete surrender in one day
Walt Zlotow West Suburban Peace Coalition Glen Ellyn IL , Apr 8, 2026, https://theaimn.net/trump-pivots-from-destroying-iranian-civilization-to-complete-surrender-in-one-day/
Even a mentally degraded Donald Trump had to face reality. The US lost the war intended to destroy Iran as a hegemonic rival to Israel in the region.
He cancelled his announced war crimes to “destroy Iranian civilization” and agreed to a two week ceasefire as a prelude for negotiating permanent peace based on Iran’s 10 point peace plan. Note that is not Trump’s 15 point peace plan which would have given Trump complete victory.
Here’s some of what Trump’s ceasefire acknowledges.
A guarantee that Iran will not be attacked again.
A permanent end to the war, not just a ceasefire.
An end to Israeli strikes in Lebanon and against Iranian allies.
The lifting of all US sanctions on Iran.
Iran agreeing to reopen the Strait of Hormuz
US to leave the Middle East
End to US sanctions on Iran and release of frozen Iranian assets
In his delusional state, Trump announced the cease fire due to his astonishing claim his “war has already met and all Military objectives, and we are very far along with a definitive Agreement concerning long term PEACE with Iran, and PEACE in the Middle East.”
Iran announced the ceasefire “does not signify the termination of the war. Our hands remain upon the trigger, and should the slightest error be committed by the enemy, it shall be met with full force,”
Major hurtles must be overcome before the ceasefire holds and genuine peace can be negotiated. Israel is horrified by this development upending their 4 decade lust to destroy its Iranian hegemonic rival. It’s reported they are still bombing Iran and Iran is retaliating. No keen observer is optimistic the ceasefire will hold.
But it is not likely the US, clearly defeated in every make up war aim they floated to justify criminal war that killed thousands, damaged every US base in the region, brought the worst damage to Israel in its 78 years, and is crushing the world economy, can ever restart this deranged madness.
But with Trump in charge…you can never say never.
US, Israel Insist Iran Ceasefire Doesn’t Apply In Lebanon, Which Suffers Huge Airstrikes
Zero Hedge, by Tyler Durden, Thursday, Apr 09, 2026
srael has made clear that it doesn’t see the newly declared US-Iran ceasefire as applying to its war in Lebanon, where it is still trying to destroy Hezbollah. The White House too has made its stance clear that it doesn’t apply, but President Trump has stated his intent to take care of a Lebanon ceasefire separately.
The military has unleashed hell on Beirut, southern Lebanon, and the eastern Bekaa valley overnight and through Wednesday – with Beirut suffering some of the worst aerial bombardments of the wa
Pakistan, however, has said that the ceasefire does extend to the Israel-Hezbollah conflict. But the Israeli military (IDF) is as usual letting the bombs do the talking, and is largely ignoring the diplomatic side of things.
Israel on Wednesday reportedly struck over 100 Hezbollah (and civilian) targets within a mere 10 minutes across Beirut, the south of the country, and Bekaa.
Viral images and videos have shown massive smoke plumes lingering above the densely populated Lebanese capital. The surprise attack on busy commercial locations unleashed panic in the streets – and a full casualty accounting has not been immediately forthcoming .
Below is an outline of some of the earlier reported attacks, via Al Jazeera:……………………………………………………………..
Here’s how the same regional outlet described it, noting that Lebanese TV has said the attacks have claimed “many lives”: “Israel has launched a surprise attack with dozens of air strikes across Lebanon, one of the largest military assaults in the history of the conflict.” The report stated, “Air raids targeted residential buildings, mosques, vehicles and cemeteries across the country.”
Lebanon’s Minister of Social Affairs, Haneed Sayed, told the Associated Press that the wide-ranging strikes mark a “very dangerous turning point.”
She described: “These hits are now at the heart of Beirut… Half of the sheltered (internally displaced persons) are in Beirut in this area,” she said, adding that she had just driven by the areas hit.”
Hezbollah did not immediately join the Iran war until weeks in following the late February start of Trump’s Operation Epic Fury. However, by the middle it began sending a significant amount of rockets on northern Israel.
Importantly, President Trump has on Wednesday told PBS that his view is Lebanon is not part of the Iran ceasefire deal “because of Hezbollah” – but “that will get taken care of too”. He called what’s happening in Lebanon “a separate skirmish”. https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/beirut-suffers-biggest-bombardment-war-israel-insists-iran-ceasefire-doesnt-apply
“Because They’re Animals”: Donald Trump, the War on Iran, and the Rules Nobody’s Enforcing
Now to the heart of it. A reporter asks Trump how bombing Iran’s power plants and bridges would not constitute a war crime.
Trump’s reply: “Because they’re animals.”
“Do you know what a war crime is? A war crime is letting Iran have a nuclear weapon.”
In two sentences, the logic of the school-yard bully becomes foreign policy.
****************************************************
On the evening of April 7, ninety minutes before his own deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face the destruction of every power plant and bridge in the country, Trump announced a two-week ceasefire, brokered by Pakistan. He called it “a big day for world peace.” He writes on Truth Social that the US would help ease the “traffic buildup” in the Strait of Hormuz.
“Big money will be made,” he adds.
Not peace. Not Iranian sovereignty. Not the rule of law. Big money.
9 April 2026 David Tyler, https://theaimn.net/because-theyre-animals-donald-trump-the-war-on-iran-and-the-rules-nobodys-enforcing/
“Operation Epic Fury” sounds like a fourteen-year-old boy who has been playing too much Call of Duty. It’s a perfect fit for the Peter Pan that Donald Trump has running the Pentagon; a former Fox & Friends weekend anchor whose less-than-stellar career so far provides a vital clue to the chaos, the incompetence, and the claque of yes-men that the forty-seventh president calls a cabinet.
Pete Hegseth is the most instructive appointment of the Trump era; an age defined by the Queen Bee principle, in which the president surrounds himself with a cast of flawed, diminished and pliable no-hopers, all chosen not for what they can do but for what they cannot: outshine Trump.
Outshine? It’s a recipe for disaster. As Michael Wolff notes on The Daily Beast, Trump’s minions have been stripped of all agency. They exist to reflect, to amplify, to affirm. The Queen Bee does not want talent in the hive. Talent is a threat. What the Queen Bee wants is an audience.
It is a principle that explains, not merely Hegseth, but the entire cabinet. The pliable Marco Rubio, who once pitched himself as a conviction politician, before a U-turn on immigration and now a dutiful echo; the parade of loyalists and flatterers installed wherever independent thought once lived. The forty-seventh president has not assembled a government so much as his own grotesque private freak show. He has set up a type of fairground mirror.
Hegseth is the mirror made flesh; a Fox News viewer’s fantasy of military authority, all jaw, scripture and manic bellicosity, set up to run the world’s largest military by a sloth who watches more television than any commander-in-chief in history and mistakes the performance of strength for the thing itself.
The Secretary of War wears his Christianity on his sleeve while ordering triple-tap strikes on schools. Who else could read the Sermon on the Mount and concluded that the relevant takeaway is fire for effect. Blessed are the meek, for they shall be massacred in the second and third pass?
The career officers who built their professional lives on the laws of armed conflict; on the painstaking, unglamorous discipline of distinguishing combatants from civilians, of proportionality, of the rules that separate a military from a mob, look at Hegseth and see not a commander but a mascot. His win-at-all-costs approach, his square-peg religiosity jammed into the very round hole of Pentagon culture, his enthusiasm for what the US military calls the double-tap, a cruel war crime; all of it has offended men and women who have spent careers trying to conduct war within its legal and moral constraints.
But Hegseth was not appointed to satisfy career officers. He was appointed to perform a feeling; the flag-waving, scripture-quoting, testosteronic bovver boy of the culture war translated directly into actual war, with actual children in actual schools. The career officers are not the audience. The Fox News viewer is the audience. And for that audience, Pete Hegseth is not a square peg at all.
He is, God help us, a perfect fit.
A Name for This War: The War of Donald’s Ear
Now let us give this war the name it deserves, because “Operation Epic Fury” is a preposterous pose, and history has always rewarded those who name things honestly.
History also has a fine tradition of naming wars after the absurdity of their origins. The War of Jenkins’ Ear, a preposterous 1739 conflict triggered when a British sea captain waved his own severed ear at Parliament, gave posterity one of its most deliciously deranged casus belli, (an act or situation that justifies a war). In that spirit, let’s go with the War of Donald’s Ear.
The ear in question is the pink shell-like ear Donald Trump lent, with almost indecent willingness, to two shady characters who had been whispering into it for years: Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, and Mohammed bin Salman, Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. Two men who would not rest, who would not sleep soundly in their palaces, until they saw Iran bombed back into one of the Stone Ages. Two men with everything to gain from American military power and nothing to lose; since it would be American soldiers, not Israeli or Saudi ones, doing most of the dying.
The difference between Jenkins and Trump is instructive. Jenkins lost his ear involuntarily at sea. Trump lent his eagerly, in the White House Situation Room, over a slide deck, over a phone call, over an intelligence tip whispered at exactly the right moment by exactly the right man. And ninety million Iranians are paying the price. As is Trump, although he’ll try to put it on the slate.
How the War Was Sold: Two Homicidal Maniacs and One Pliable Ear
The backstory of how this war began is as tawdry as it is consequential.
Netanyahu’s campaign to drag America into war with Iran can be traced, in its current iteration, to a meeting in the White House Cabinet Room on February 4, the first visit of his second Trump era. He reminded Trump that Iran had plotted to assassinate him, then walked through a detailed slide deck arguing Iran was racing toward a nuclear threshold.
“Look, Donald,” Netanyahu told him, “You can’t have a nuclear Iran on your watch.” He paused for dramatic effect and looked the president directly in the eye.
That’s not diplomacy. That’s a sales pitch, with Trump’s vanity as the product being sold.
Netanyahu showed Trump a video featuring potential post-regime leaders, including Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s last shah; Iran’s government-in-waiting, neatly packaged, ready for installation. Trump’s response: “Sounds good to me.”
Within hours, American intelligence officials were tasked with evaluating the Israeli proposal. The CIA Director used a single word to describe Netanyahu’s promised popular uprising: “farcical.” Trump dismissed the finding. Regime change was, he said, “their problem.” What mattered were the parts he believed could be executed: striking Iran’s leadership and dismantling its military.
Bibi lit the fuse. On February 23, Netanyahu rang Trump with a stunning intelligence tip: Iran’s supreme leader and his top advisers were all meeting at one location in Tehran that Saturday morning. They could all be obliterated in a single devastating airstrike. One phone call. A narrowing window. Two men who had found each other, and a war that had been looking for an excuse.
Not to be outdone was MBS, the other man at the ear, acting the reluctant ally while pulling every available string behind the velvet curtain. The Washington Post reports that the Saudi Crown Prince made many private calls to Trump urging military action, even while publicly signalling support for diplomacy.
MBS privately warned Trump that inaction would leave Tehran “stronger and more dangerous.” The Saudi Foreign Ministry, naturally, denied everything; the same government that is currently hosting the American troops, intercepting the Iranian missiles, and absorbing the strikes that make the war possible.
Netanyahu brought ideology, targeting data, and the moral authority of a country under direct Iranian missile fire. But he couldn’t write a cheque covering the near-billion-dollar daily operating cost of the war. MBS could. And that capacity, the ability to make the most expensive military operation since Iraq financially palatable to a president who measures every relationship in transactional terms, is why the Saudi model was winning the Oval Office even as Netanyahu’s rhetoric dominated the airwaves.
As one analyst put it with some precision: Netanyahu brought the ideology and MBS brought the chequebook, and to Trump, the chequebook is everything.
Two men, two agendas, one pliable ear.
“Because They’re Animals”: The Quote That Should Haunt the World
Now to the heart of it. A reporter asks Trump how bombing Iran’s power plants and bridges would not constitute a war crime.
Trump’s reply: “Because they’re animals.”
“Do you know what a war crime is? A war crime is letting Iran have a nuclear weapon.”
In two sentences, the logic of the school-yard bully becomes foreign policy.
If they’re animals, the Geneva Conventions don’t apply. If they’re animals, the laws of war; built on the foundational premise that all human beings, even enemy civilians, retain their humanity, simply dissolve. If they’re animals, the hospitals, the schools, the power plants, the desalination systems that ninety million people depend on to survive are all legitimate targets. All just pest control. Or a lawn to mow, Netanyahu’s quip about killing Palestinians, a term popularised by Israeli strategists Efraim Inbar and Eitan Shamir.
This is not accidental rhetoric. This is not a man speaking loosely in the heat of a press conference. This is the oldest move in the genocidal play-book, deployed with the full authority of the presidency of the United States: strip the humanity first, then strip the rights.
History is not subtle on this point. The Holocaust required the prior dehumanisation of Jews as Untermenschen, subhuman, before the camps became possible. American slavery required the legal and cultural denial of Black humanity before it could be systematised across generations.
Rwanda required the Tutsi to be called inyenzi, cockroaches, on the radio before the machetes came out. Aboriginal peoples of this continent were excluded from the national census; not counted among the people of their own country, until the 1967 referendum, within the living memory of people who are still alive and still waiting for a treaty.
Every act of mass extermination, every system of organised dispossession in human history, has been preceded by exactly this move: the removal of the human designation from the people who are about to be killed, displaced or enslaved.
Trump knows this, or his minders do, and they are using it anyway. Calling ninety million Iranians “animals” is not bluster. It is preparation. It is the ideological infrastructure of atrocity, laid in public, on camera, before a press corps that largely moved on to the next story.
Congressman Ro Khanna calls Trump on it: “He is threatening the entire destruction of a civilisation. He is calling Iranians animals.” Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi calls for Trump’s removal from office. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer calls him “an extremely sick person.”
And the global chorus of leaders that should have followed? The rebuke from allied capitals that the moment demanded? The chorus, in the main, did not come. What came instead was the dopamine hit; the next outrage, the next deadline, the next Truth Social post, and the world scrolled on.
Two-Week Trump: The Art of the Infinite Pause
Which brings us to a pattern which will be familiar to every Trump-watcher around the world.
On the evening of April 7, ninety minutes before his own deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face the destruction of every power plant and bridge in the country, Trump announced a two-week ceasefire, brokered by Pakistan. He called it “a big day for world peace.” He writes on Truth Social that the US would help ease the “traffic buildup” in the Strait of Hormuz.
“Big money will be made,” he adds.
Not peace. Not Iranian sovereignty. Not the rule of law. Big money.
The two-week ceasefire is not a ceasefire. It is not diplomacy. It is not a step toward peace. It is the rhetorical equivalent of what Trump has always done when he wants to defer something forever: he makes it sound imminent. Before he puts it off forever.
Two weeks. Always two weeks. Two weeks from now the healthcare plan will be unveiled. Two weeks and the infrastructure bill will be ready. Two weeks and there’ll be a deal with Iran. In Trump’s universe, a universe in which, as observers of his cognitive trajectory have noted with increasing alarm, two weeks may genuinely feel like forever, the two-week pause is the art of the infinite deferral dressed as decisive action.
The purpose is clear and consistent: exhaust the opposition, blunt the momentum of outrage, reset the news cycle, and leave the underlying situation precisely unchanged while claiming credit for statesmanship.
Iran, meanwhile, holds the one card of genuine leverage that no amount of bombing can remove: the Strait of Hormuz, through which twenty percent of the world’s daily oil supply passes. For as long as that strait stays closed, Iran has a seat at the table. The two weeks will expire. Another deadline will be announced. The bombs, or the threat of bombs, will resume. And Trump, having declared victory, will declare it again.
The ceasefire is the intermission. The war is the show.
Part Two, tomorrow, A Whole Civilisation Will Die To
This article was originally published on URBAN WRONSKI WRITES
Trump accelerates new nuclear warhead production, nearly doubles funding for plutonium “pit” bomb core production.
The Pentagon has always explicitly rejected “minimum-deterrence” in favor of keeping “counterforce” capabilities to wage nuclear war. This is why the U.S. has thousands of nuclear weapons and a $2 trillion “modernization” program to keep them forever. Indefinitely maintaining and expanding nuclear capabilities is contrary to the 1970 NonProliferation Treaty
None of this future pit production is to maintain the safety and reliability of the existing stockpile, but instead is entirely for new-design nuclear weapons
The Trump 2027 budget speeds up this backwards trend. For nuclear warhead production:
April 6, 2026, Jay Coghlan, Nuclear Watch, New Mexico, https://nukewatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Trump-Accelerates-Nuclear-Warhead-Production-PR.pdf
Santa Fe, NM – The Trump Administration has released military budget numbers for the federal fiscal year 2027 (which begins October 1, 2026). This still current fiscal year 2026 is already a record breaker for military spending at one trillion dollars. Trump now proposes nearly $1.5 trillion in military spending in FY 2027, of which $1.1 trillion is base funding for the Department of War and an additional $350 million is through so-called budget reconciliation.
On top of all this, Trump will likely seek $200 billion in supplementary appropriations for the war in Iran, for a potential total of $1.7 trillion in military spending in FY 2027 (a 70% increase above FY 2026). At the same time, there is a 10% across-the-board cut to non-military spending. Much of the remaining discretionary funding for education, wildfire protection, environmental regulations, health care, etc., will be constrained by a focus on border control and immigration enforcement.
Trump proposes $53.9 billion for the Department of Energy (DOE) in FY 2027. Sixty-one per cent ($32.8 billion) is for its semi-autonomous nuclear weapons agency, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). DOE’s Office of Science is gutted by $1.1 billion which “eliminates funding for climate change and Green New Scam research.” DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy is eliminated. Nationwide cleanup of legacy Cold War radioactive and toxic wastes at DOE sites is cut by $386 million to $8.2 billion ($3 billion of which is reserved for the Hanford Site; other site-specific cleanup budget numbers are still not yet available).
With respect to the Department of Energy’s nuclear weapons agency, the Trump FY 2027 budget:
“… focuses NNSA on its most important mission—producing a robust, credible, and modern nuclear deterrent that protects the American people. The United States must maintain and expand its set of nuclear capabilities that allow the President flexibility to protect the homeland and deter adversaries. Specifically, the Budget makes strong investments to develop new warheads that would bolster deterrence, modernize NNSA’s supporting infrastructure, and extend the life of existing warheads.”
The Pentagon has always explicitly rejected “minimum-deterrence” in favor of keeping “counterforce” capabilities to wage nuclear war. This is why the U.S. has thousands of nuclear weapons and a $2 trillion “modernization” program to keep them forever. Indefinitely maintaining and expanding nuclear capabilities is contrary to the 1970 NonProliferation Treaty, which required the nuclear weapons powers to “to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament…” After more than a half-century that has never even begun. An NPT Review Conference, held every five years, is scheduled to begin April 27 at the United Nations. It is widely expected to fail for the third time over fifteen years to make any progress whatsoever toward nuclear disarmament.
The Trump 2027 budget speeds up this backwards trend. For nuclear warhead production:
• A feasibility study for a new B61-13 limited earth-penetrating bomb is funded at $46.4 million in FY 2027. A full budget request of $1 billion is expected for FY 2028 followed by an average of $870 million for each fiscal year 2029 – 2031.
• The W80-4 warhead for the Long-Range Stand-Off weapon (i.e., air-launched cruise missile) is funded at $1 billion in FY 2027. There is an average of $970 million in projected costs for each fiscal year 2028-2031.
• No funding is requested in FY 2027 for the W80-5 warhead for the Sea-Launched Cruise Missile. However, there is an average of $1.4 billion in projected costs for each fiscal year 2028-2031.
• The W87-1 nuclear warhead program is for the new Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile, with likely multiple warheads for each missile (which is particularly dangerous and destabilizing). The Sentinel ICBM itself is already massively over budget. The W87-1 warhead program is increased 41% from $650 million in FY 2026 to $913 million in FY 2027, with an astounding average of $3.5 billion in projected costs for each fiscal year 2028-2031.
• The submarine-launched W93 nuclear warhead program, which the United Kingdom has actively lobbied for, is increased 37% from $807 million in FY 2026 to $1.1 billion in FY 2027. There is an average of $1.95 billion in projected costs for each fiscal year 2028-2031.
• There is a new “Future Programs” budget line item of $99.8 million in FY 2027 for feasibility studies for other new-design nuclear weapons, followed by an average of $92 million for each fiscal year 2028-2031.
Plutonium “pit” bomb core production: Plutonium pits are the essential “triggers” for modern nuclear weapons. Pit production has been the chokepoint for resumed industrial-scale nuclear weapons production by the U.S. ever since an FBI raid investigating environmental crimes stopped operations at the Rocky Flats Plant in 1989.
Trump’s FY 2027 budget proposes:
An 83% increase in funding for pit production at the Los Alamos National Laboratory from $1.3 billion in FY 2026 to $2.4 billion in FY 2027. There is an average of $2.3 billion in projected costs for each year FY 2028-2031. NNSA has directed LANL to double pit production to at least 60 pits per year because of increasing delays at the Savannah River Site (SRS).
• An 87% increase in funding for pit production at SRS from $1.2 billion in FY 2026 to $2.25 billion in FY 2027. There is an average of $2.5 billion in projected costs for each year FY 2028-2031. The Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility’s upper range in estimated costs is now $25 billion, which would make it by far the most expensive building in U.S. history. Gloveboxes at SRS for canceled “dilute and dispose” of surplus plutonium are being diverted to “purification instead of disposition” to create feedstock for manufacturing new plutonium pits. There is only one glovebox left at SRS to process and remove excess plutonium, which could lead to resumed legal conflict with the State of South Carolina.
Total “Plutonium Modernization” for expanded plutonium pit production at both sites is increased 87% from $2.6 billion in FY 2026 to $4.9 billion in 2027. There is an average of $5.1 billion in projected costs for each year FY 2028-2031.
None of this future pit production is to maintain the safety and reliability of the existing stockpile, but instead is entirely for new-design nuclear weapons. This is despite the fact that in 2006 independent experts found that pits have serviceable lifetimes of at least 100 years. The average age of pits is now around 43 years. NNSA has avoided any full pit lifetime studies since 2006 (however, a new one is reportedly pending).
At least 15,000 pits are already stored at NNSA’s Pantex Plant. The independent Government Accountability Office has repeatedly reported that NNSA has no credible cost estimates for pit production, its most expensive and complex program ever. New pits cannot be tested because of the existing international testing moratorium, which could erode confidence in the stockpile. Or, conversely, new pits could prompt the U.S. to resume testing (which Trump has already threatened), after which other nuclear weapons powers would surely follow, thereby rapidly accelerating the new nuclear arms race.
Other nuclear weapons production programs:
• The “Tritium and Defense Fuels” program is increased by 79% from $520 million in FY 2026 to $881 million in 2027. There is an average of $1.8 billion in projected costs for each fiscal year 2028-2031.
“Non-Nuclear Capability Modernization” for non-nuclear components manufacturing, primarily at the Sandia National Laboratories, is increased 130% from $195.5 million in FY 2026 to $449 million in FY 2027. There is an average of $370 million in projected costs for each fiscal year 2028-2031.
• “Weapons Dismantlement and Disposition” is increased 10% from $82.3 million in FY 2026 to $90.7 million in FY 2027 (a mere 1.3% of total warhead funding). Rather than being a worthy step toward nuclear disarmament, the stated objective of weapons dismantlements is to “recover critical components and materials to support existing weapon programs, Naval Reactors, and other national priority missions.” There is an estimated backlog of up to 1,500 retired warheads to dismantle and dispose. However, NNSA’s Pantex Plant is so busy rebuilding existing nuclear warheads with new military capabilities that dismantlements have been at a historic low since the end of the Cold War.
In all, NNSA’s budget category of “Total Weapons Activities” is increased 35% from $20.4 billion in FY 2026 to $27.4 billion in FY 2027. There is an average of $29 billion in projected costs for each fiscal year 2028-2031.
Jay Coghlan, Director of Nuclear Watch, commented, “New nuclear weapons won’t give us more security as our nation is being hollowed out by tax cuts for the ultrarich, cuts to domestic programs, and the gutting of programs to address adverse climate change. It is way past time for the nuclear weapons powers to honor their obligations under the 1970 NonProliferation Treaty to negotiate verifiable nuclear disarmament instead of keeping nuclear weapons forever. We should be cleaning up, not building up new nuclear weapons.”
Sources:……………………………………………………………..
Creating bases on the Moon
April 07, 2026, Bruce Gagnon, https://space4peace.blogspot.com/2026/04/creating-bases-on-moon.html
Video on original
NASA outlines this $20 billion project to build bases on the moon.
The speaker in the video mentions RTG’s – which are nuclear power sources for the base. The nuclear industry views space as a new market. Imagine the dirty nuclear fabrication process at DoE labs across the country and then a series of launches that could be a disaster for life on Earth if there are accidents on take off.
The US has had a plan for military base control of the moon since the 1950’s.
The US (and some allies) are in a race to take control of the moon before China & Russia can get there.
In this 1989 Congressional study ‘Military Space Forces’ they discuss the Earth-Moon gravity well and state that who ever covers the top of the well would be able to control access on and off the planet earth. This has relevance not only for deciding who can control the Earth below, but also who can mine the sky, etc.
Thus all of this is connected to current US mission to the moon.
Moon has helium-3 and water which the competitors will want to control. So we now face a duplication of the current global war system on Earth moving into space.
Mars has magnesium, cobalt, uranium, etc and the nuclear-powered rovers driving around Mars are doing planetary mapping and soil ID operations.
Everyone says that a moon-based colony would be a launch pad for deeper space exploration and mining operations so again ‘control’ becomes a priority for those who have such ambitions.
I find it sad that we have competing space missions, goals, and priorities.
I’d wish we’d go off into space when we were a more mature human race here on Earth rather than carrying the ‘bad seed of war, greed, and environmental degradation’ that we’ve sown into the depths of our Mother Earth.
I’d rather we had a global informed debate about what kind of seed we should carry into space when we do go – and then go as united and clear thinking Earth people. Like envisioned in Star Trek.
Imagine the money for human development on Earth we’d save if we went as one people rather than competing national blocs spending massive amounts of taxpayer funds.
This has been the work of the Global Network since our founding in 1992 – to help usher in such a needed global consciousness, debate and organizing.
We also need a renewed effort to create international space law that bans weapons/war in space, regulates launches into the shrinking and contested parking spaces in Lower Earth Orbit (LEO), renewed treaties for the planetary bodies and determining just who can benefit from resource extraction in space.
Let’s not create a new ‘Wild West Show’ in space.
Why an attack on Bushehr nuclear plant would be catastrophic for the Gulf
The US and Israel have repeatedly hit the nuclear power plant, raising risks of radioactive contamination far beyond Iran’s borders.
By Al Jazeera Staff, 5 Apr 2026, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/5/why-an-attack-on-bushehr-nuclear-plant-would-be-catastrophic-for-the-gulf
Iran’s only functioning nuclear plant, the Bushehr power plant, has come under repeated attacks in the ongoing Israel and US war on Iran, raising fears of a possible nuclear incident that could prove “catastrophic” across all Gulf countries.
The latest attack on the plant came on Saturday, after missiles hit a location close to the plant, killing one security guard and causing damage to a side building, according to the state-run Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran (AEOI) which has condemned the strike.
In a statement criticising the attack, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi claimed the Bushehr facility had now been “bombed” four times since the war erupted on February 28. He criticised what he said was a “lack of concern” for nuclear safety on the part of the United States and Israel.
On Monday, the AEOI asked the United Nations nuclear oversight body to also explicitly condemn the attacks on Bushehr. The organisation’s head, Mohammad Eslami, said the attacks were “a clear violation of international law and an instance of a war crime” in a letter to Rafael Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Nuclear experts and regional authorities have long sounded the alarm over the incredible damage that bombing Bushehr would do, not just to Iran and Iranians, but to neighbouring countries as well.
Here’s what to know about the Bushehr plant and why its safety is paramount:
What is the Bushehr plant?
The Russia-built Bushehr plant is a nuclear power plant located in the coastal city of Bushehr, which has a population of 250,000.
Work on it initially started in 1975 by German companies, but it was eventually finished in 2011 by Russia’s atomic energy ministry. To date, hundreds of Russian personnel are stationed in Bushehr, with some having been evacuated following recent strikes.
It’s the first nuclear power plant in the Middle East, with one operational reactor. Bushehr Unit 1 currently provides about 1,000MW to the national grid. Two additional reactor units are expected to be operational by 2029.
What would happen if Bushehr were attacked?
Iranian officials say Bushehr has now been attacked four times in the course of the US-Israel war on Iran.
That’s separate from an initial strike on February 28, when the US and Israel first launched attacks, sparking off the war. Strikes hit Bushehr city, a few hundred metres from the plant.
A strike on a nuclear reactor or storage pools for used fuel would cause the release of radiological particles, specifically the hazardous isotope Caesium-137, into the atmosphere.
These can be spread far beyond the release point by wind and water and can contaminate food, soil, or drinking water sources for decades. Close exposure to such material would burn the skin and increase cancer risks.
What has the UN nuclear watchdog said about strikes targeting Bushehr?
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations’ atomic watchdog, has been warning against targeting the plant for months.
During Israel’s 12-day war on Iran last year, IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi told the UN Security Council that an Israeli strike on the Bushehr power plant could trigger a regional catastrophe.
Directly hitting the plant, which tonnes of nuclear material, could “result in a very high release of radioactivity”, with “great consequences” beyond Iran’s borders, Grossi warned, calling for “maximum restraint”.
A strike on the lines supplying electricity to Bushehr, which keep the cooling system operating, could cause a reactor meltdown and trigger a radioactive leak, he said. Evacuation orders would have to be issued within several hundred kilometres of the plant, extending to countries outside Iran.
He said authorities would also have to administer iodine to those within the area and potentially restrict food supplies due to possible radioactive contamination. Areas beyond the immediate danger zones would then have to be monitored as well for hundreds of kilometres.
Grossi, in the wake of the latest attack on Saturday, reiterated calls for restraint
What are the risks of water contamination for the Gulf?
There are also fears that damage at Bushehr could contaminate the waters of the entire Gulf region. Radioactive contamination would affect marine life in the area, and the Gulf’s shallowness could see the negative effects remain over a long period, research finds.
It would also affect drinking water supplies. Most Gulf countries lack groundwater and rely heavily on desalination of seawater. But desalination plants are not inherently built to filter radioactive material, and not all plants at the moment have the technologies required.
Alan Eyre of the Middle East Institute told Al Jazeera that academic research has shown that the concentration of radioactive material at Bushehr might not be enough to cause Chornobyl-level disasters, referencing the 1986 tragedy in then-Soviet Ukraine.
But “more serious is the threat of radioactive material in the water because once you get an appreciable amount of radioactivity in the water, that precludes desalination”, he said, explaining that high radioactive material could halt desalination altogether.
Last year, Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani revealed in an interview with right-wing US media personality Tucker Carlson that a hit on the plant would affect “all of us”.
Sheikh Mohammed said that Qatar, which is about 190km (118 miles) south of Iran, had simulated the possible effects of a Bushehr attack. Authorities found that the sea would be “entirely contaminated” and the country would “run out of water in three days”, he said.
“No water, no fish, nothing… no life,” he added.
Is there a law against targeting civilian nuclear facilities?
Yes, there are international frameworks protecting nuclear facilities during conflict. Launching attacks on energy or nuclear facilities while knowing it could cause extensive loss of life and environmental damage is a war crime.
Article 56 (Protocol I) of the Geneva Conventions prevents the targeting of “works and installations containing dangerous forces”, including those containing nuclear material.
Warring parties are also meant to differentiate between facilities serving civilians, as opposed to military targets. The Bushehr plant provides electricity for national use.
The IAEA’s guidelines similarly prohibit indiscriminate targeting of a nuclear facility. They include that countries must avoid physically hitting reactors and stored fuel, that they must ensure the safety of staff, ensure power to the grid to prevent reactor core melt, and have systems in place to monitor radiation.
Has the Western response been muted compared to Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia?
Iran’s Aragchi on Saturday called out Western nations for failing to speak up about the possible dangers of targeting Bushehr in the same way they did over Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant during the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.
“Remember the Western outrage about hostilities near Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine?” he said in a post on X. “Radioactive fallout will end life in GCC capitals, not Tehran,” he added.
Russia attacked the plant in March 2022 using heavy tanks and artillery, causing a major fire. In reaction, the United Kingdom and Ukraine called an emergency UN Security Council meeting.
The UN, the US, the EU, and dozens of other countries issued immediate statements condemning the action. NATO warned that any radioactive fallout reaching a member state would trigger its collective defence mechanism.
French President Emmanuel Macron later spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin about the incident and requested that IAEA staff be allowed to monitor the occupied site.
The European Union has not, in this instance, commented on the attacks on Bushehr. Russia, which has scores of staff there, has meanwhile issued a statement raising concern and “strongly condemning the atrocity”.
What nuclear accidents have happened in the past?
COMMENT. This section of this article is a gross understatement.
and
Japan’s Fukushima nuclear reactors melted following an earthquake in 2011.
Some 160,000 residents were evacuated to avoid radiation risks. There was one recorded death from lung cancer as a result of clean-up activities later in 2018. However, the stress of evacuation, trauma, and general disruption at the time of the disaster led to thousands of deaths.
In the April 1986 Chornobyl disaster, a reactor exploded during tests, resulting in a massive explosion that blew off the facility’s heavy roof and resulted in a fire that burned for days.
High levels of radiation were released in the explosion. Some 30 people died at the time of the blast or in the immediate aftermath. About 20,000 others would later develop thyroid cancer, especially children. More than 300,000 were evacuated, and the area is still largely deserted.
Inside Iran’s ‘underground fortress’: How Iran’s missile bases survive most powerful US and Israeli bombs
Aastha Sharma, News 24, Fri, 03 Apr 2026, https://www.sott.net/article/505568-Inside-Irans-underground-fortress-How-Irans-missile-bases-survive-most-powerful-US-and-Israeli-bombs
While Donald Trump claimed that Iran’s capabilities were mostly destroyed, data shows that Iran continues to launch a high number of missiles and drones without major decline.
A recent report by U.S. intelligence agencies says that Iran still has strong attack capabilities, even after more than a month of U.S. and Israeli strikes. According to the report, nearly half of Iran’s missile launchers are still intact, and it also has thousands of one-way attack drones. A source said that Iran is still capable of causing major destruction across the region. In addition, Iran still has a large number of missiles and coastal defense cruise missiles, which could play an important role in controlling the Strait of Hormuz.
Claims vs Reality: What Did the U.S. President Say?
The U.S. President, Donald Trump, claimed that Iran’s missile and drone capabilities have been almost destroyed. However, the actual situation appears different. Since February 28, Iran has launched around 6,770 missiles and drones targeting Jordan, Gulf countries hosting U.S. military bases, and Israel. The pace of these attacks has remained steady without any major decline. Iran has carried out the highest number of attacks on the UAE. According to the Institute for National Security Studies, Iran launched 600 missiles and 765 drones at Israel alone. In the past week, 215 drones and 200 missiles were fired.
If Iran’s missile capacity had really been reduced by 90%, these numbers would have dropped below 25%. But the figures remain above 30%, showing that Iran’s strike power is still strong.
Where Is Iran Hiding Its Missiles?
Iran has built large underground facilities known as “missile cities” over the past several years. These are located deep inside the Zagros and Alborz mountains, with tunnels and bunkers reaching depths of up to 500 meters. Missiles are stored, fueled, and even launched directly from these underground bases.
The largest missile city is in Khorramabad in Lorestan province. Another major site is in Tabriz in East Azerbaijan. Important missile storage areas are also located near Kermanshah, Isfahan, and in nearby islands and hilly regions around Tehran. Some of these sites are believed to be hidden under civilian areas for added protection.
Why Are U.S. ‘Bunker-Buster’ Bombs Failing?
These underground tunnels are extremely strong and cannot be easily destroyed by regular airstrikes. The U.S. and Israel have mainly targeted surface-level launchers and entry points, but the stockpiles hidden deep inside remain largely safe. U.S. intelligence estimates that only about one-third of Iran’s missile stock has been confirmed destroyed. Another one-third may be damaged or buried, but the remaining stockpile is still significant.
Where Did Iran Get So Many Missiles?
1. Large Existing Stockpile:
Before the war began, Iran already had one of the largest ballistic missile arsenals in the Middle East, with an estimated 2,500 to 3,000+ missiles and thousands of drones, including low-cost Shahed-136 drones.
2. Domestic Production:
Iran manufactures its own missiles and drones, with some factories located underground. Drones, in particular, are cheap and can be produced quickly.
3. Mobile Launchers and Decoys:
Iran uses mobile transporter-erector launchers, which can be easily moved and hidden. It also uses decoys (fake targets) to confuse enemy strikes.
4. Foreign Assistance:
In the past, Iran received designs and parts from countries like North Korea, Russia, and China. However, new supplies are difficult during the current conflict, so most attacks rely on existing stock and domestic production.
Iran’s Strategy: Fighting an Underground War
Iran’s strategy is clearly based on underground warfare. While U.S. and Israeli airstrikes are damaging surface infrastructure, the “missile cities” hidden inside mountains are still providing Iran with the ability to continue attacks. How long the war will last now depends largely on which side runs out of stockpiles first.
Area around Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant has been attacked for the fourth time.
The area around Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant has been attacked for
the fourth time during the current war, Iranian officials say, as the US
and Israel continue to target energy and other industrial sites. One of the
plant’s employees was killed in the attack, Iran’s Atomic Energy
Organisation said. It blamed the US and Israel for the attack, but neither
country has confirmed carrying it out. Bushehr is Iran’s only operational
nuclear power plant and was completed with Russia’s help. The International
Atomic Energy Agency – the UN’s nuclear watchdog – said it had been
informed of the strike and had expressed “deep concern”.
BBC 4th April 2026, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y90jl8veyo
The Myth that Won’t Die: “War is Good for the Economy”
the problem with the obsession with unemployment. Employment by itself should not matter, but employment on what?. If people are exchanging their work for money but not producing goods valued by others, that amounts to wasted resources, money, and labor.
Carlos Boix, 4 April 2026, https://mises.org/mises-wire/myth-wont-die-war-good-economy
War is the ultimate government intervention. It is the excuse for all kinds of evils to be imposed on the governed. From confiscation through taxes and inflation to restriction of freedom of speech and the redirection and even nationalization of whole industries, nothing increases state power such as war.
As the state is predatory and produces nothing of use, it is the ultimate impoverishing situation. From an ideological point of view, it is even worse, mixing love for one’s culture and homeland with the state itself. It reduces individual’s resistance to loss of liberty and creates in their minds the myth of the protecting government.
There is also another insidious idea that a lot of people hold: That is that war has economic and other benefits, not to certain individuals or groups, but to the community at large. It is worth examining these supposed benefits to show that no, war does not benefit the community, it is just death and destruction.
Economic Stimulus
As with all government stimulus, this is just a redirection of resources. Instead of adapting to current resources, what a war stimulus does is to increase money and credit at unprecedented levels to pay for exorbitant government spending. This just means that real resources are taken from the community in the form of inflation and taxes and spent away on things the community does not want.
It is similar to getting all your savings and any credit you can get and spending it. For a while it appears that you are more affluent, until those resources are spent. Fiscal stimulus causes the same waste of savings and capital which, for a while, look to have stimulated the economy. But this is just spending. Soon there are not enough resources left and reality asserts itself. Once enough resources have been wasted, there are not enough to sustain the party, no matter how much money the government prints. If it continues to print, they create a hyperinflation period. If they stop, we get a recession.
The way the stimulus is done is also important. As it is done through banking credit, the temporal analysis of entrepreneurs is completely altered. A decrease in interest rates makes it look as if there are more resources saved. The problem is that the way entrepreneurs experience this is generally with an increase in demand. Those who do not respond—seeing it as unsustainable—will struggle to meet demand and will lose clients to other businesses and will still be hit hard in the downturn. Hence, most entrepreneurs will have to ride the wave and try to adapt when the crash comes.
This situation does not increase resources or make the community better off, it will waste resources and impede sustainable improvement. Overall, the community will be poorer afterwards. The idea that this kind of stimulus is positive is completely misguided.
Full Employment
When we visited Berlin, we were told the story of Communist Berlin, in which a person was paid to make a note every day of the clocks in Alexanderplatz. This is the problem with the obsession with unemployment. Employment by itself should not matter, but employment on what. If people are exchanging their work for money but not producing goods valued by others, that amounts to wasted resources, money, and labor.
This is the problem with public employment. Instead of a positive, it is a waste of resources. The government necessarily takes resources from the productive sphere—real resources that people demand—and redirects them to uses that people do not demand, such as filling forms, making military uniforms, or making munitions.
So yes, the government could tax or inflate enough to employ everyone in an economy, but that employment would take resources from the community, not add to them. They would just be wasting potential. This kind of use of employment just makes everyone poorer. This is what war full employment looks like.
At the beginning it gives the impression of full employment, but when the war finishes, the subsequent spike in unemployment is not because the government is not spending, but because the community has been depleted of resources.
Technological Advances
The idea that war fosters innovation and advances of technology is contrary to reality. It comes from those eager to justify war and see positive inventions against an imaginary counterfactual in which these innovations did not happen. Very few compare wartime to peacetime innovations. Those who do have shown that, at best, the rate of innovations is altered but changes little overall, and, at worst, there is a decline in inventiveness.
But here is the catch. This innovation is misallocated. Instead of innovations to better serve the customers, innovation during wartime serves the government and is intended to improve weapons and destructive power. Weapons and destructive power do not improve the quality of life of the people.
By redirecting research mainly to military use, there is a huge opportunity cost that few take into account. If we take the null effect on overall innovation and the focus on military innovation during wartime, we can safely say that wartime produces a reduction in technological advances and improvement of production effectiveness.
Social and Political Change
A typical example of beneficial social change is the entry of women in the workforce, wrongly attributed to the wartime economy during WWII. I say wrongly attributed because if we study labor market changes in countries that did not participate in WWII, such as Spain, we can see the same trend of female participation in the labor market. This is just another private social trend that people attribute to government intervention. The reality is that these social changes were already happening and defenders of war attribute them to government and to war itself.
Another counterfactual is the comparison with other wars. Why did WWII change the social status of women but the Franco-Prussian war of the 1870’s did not? Or even earlier wars?
Political change is sometimes presented as a benefit of war. How this is even argued is a mystery, but the idea is that war can topple an oppressive regime and create something better. Recent events show the contrary. Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan are all examples of wars that have either not caused a regime change or caused a chronic unstable civil war that has made the situation worse for the population.
In those countries in which regimes were, say “benign,” wars created an ideological shift towards more state power, the acceptance of more state intervention, and less individual freedom. Some people consider this a positive but, to me, all these are negative effects. Politically, war only benefits the government.
Conclusion
War has no positive effects. Mises wrote, “What distinguishes man from animals is the insight into the advantages that can be derived from cooperation under the division of labor.” And, “The market economy involves peaceful cooperation. It bursts asunder when the citizens turn into warriors and, instead of exchanging commodities and services, fight one another.”
This new war between the governments of Israel, the US, and Iran will be just like all other wars, negative in all its aspects.
Trump’s $1.5 Trillion Pentagon Budget Will Make US Weaker
Passing this proposed budget would be a recipe for endless war, while undermining the nation’s ability to address the truly pressing problems at home that demand our urgent attention.
William Hartung, Apr 03, 2026, Common Dreams, https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/1-5-trillion-pentagon-budget
It has been reported that the Pentagon on Friday will release a proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2027 of almost $1.5 trillion, with approximately $1.15 trillion in discretionary spending contained in the department’s regular annual budget and an additional $350 billion dependent on Congress including it in a separate budget reconciliation bill.
Whatever vehicles the administration chooses to promote this huge increase, it will be doubling down on a failed budgetary and national security strategy. If passed as requested, $1.5 trillion in Pentagon spending—in a single year–will make America weaker by underwriting a misguided strategy, funding outmoded weapons programs, and crowding out other essential public investments.
The current war in the Middle East is a case study in the ineffectiveness of an overreliance on military force in seeking to make America or the world a safer place. In his first term, President Trump abandoned a multilateral agreement that was effectively blocking Iran’s path to a nuclear weapon. Six years later, in his second term, the president initially justified his disastrous intervention against Iran as being motivated by fears of that very same program.
Diplomacy worked. Reckless resort to force does not, as evidenced by the devastating human, budgetary, and global economic consequences of the current Middle East war. Passing a $1.5 trillion Pentagon budget would be a recipe for endless war.
Meanwhile, other, non-military investments needed to protect the lives and livelihoods of Americans are being sharply reduced. By one account, the first week of the war on Iran cost $11.6 billion. That’s more than the Trump administration proposed for the annual budgets of the Centers for Disease Control and the Environmental Protection Agency combined for this year. Yet addressing the climate crisis and the need to prevent future outbreaks of disease are essential to the safety and security of Americans.
The administration has also reduced our available tools of influence on the foreign policy front by decimating the Agency for International Development, laying off trained diplomats at the State Department, and withdrawing from major international agreements. This leaves force and the threat of force as virtually the last tools standing for promoting U.S. security interests.
The Pentagon doesn’t need more spending, it needs more spending discipline. Spending billions of dollars on a Golden Dome system that can never achieve the President’s dream of a leak proof missile defense system is sheer waste, as is continuing to lavish funds on overpriced, underperforming combat aircraft like the F-35, or multi-billion dollar aircraft carriers that are vulnerable to modern high speed missiles.
The truth is, there are not enough factories, or skilled workers, or materials to effectively spend such a huge increase. It will be a recipe for waste, fraud and abuse.
1 This Month
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
of the week–London Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Tell the Ukrainian Government to Drop Prosecution of Peace Activist Yurii Sheliazhenko
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
-
Archives
- April 2026 (181)
- March 2026 (251)
- February 2026 (268)
- January 2026 (308)
- December 2025 (358)
- November 2025 (359)
- October 2025 (376)
- September 2025 (257)
- August 2025 (319)
- July 2025 (230)
- June 2025 (348)
- May 2025 (261)
-
Categories
- 1
- 1 NUCLEAR ISSUES
- business and costs
- climate change
- culture and arts
- ENERGY
- environment
- health
- history
- indigenous issues
- Legal
- marketing of nuclear
- media
- opposition to nuclear
- PERSONAL STORIES
- politics
- politics international
- Religion and ethics
- safety
- secrets,lies and civil liberties
- spinbuster
- technology
- Uranium
- wastes
- weapons and war
- Women
- 2 WORLD
- ACTION
- AFRICA
- Atrocities
- AUSTRALIA
- Christina's notes
- Christina's themes
- culture and arts
- Events
- Fuk 2022
- Fuk 2023
- Fukushima 2017
- Fukushima 2018
- fukushima 2019
- Fukushima 2020
- Fukushima 2021
- general
- global warming
- Humour (God we need it)
- Nuclear
- RARE EARTHS
- Reference
- resources – print
- Resources -audiovicual
- Weekly Newsletter
- World
- World Nuclear
- YouTube
-
RSS
Entries RSS
Comments RSS
nuclear-news 