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Peace Without Denuclearisation? Kim Challenges U.S. To Rethink Nuclear Stance

Oyeronke Oyerinde, 5 Oct 25, The Organisation for World Peace

North Korea’s Kim Jong Un has declared that he is open to dialogue with Washington if the United States drops its demand for denuclearisation, which he previously stated he would never accept. During a recent speech at the Supreme People’s Assembly, Kim insisted that his country’s nuclear arsenal is essential for survival, calling recent proposals from the U.S. and South Korea “disingenuous” attempts to weaken his regime. Yet, striking a different note, he also expressed “fond memories” of U.S. President Donald Trump, with whom he held three unprecedented summits. Kim’s statements mark his first direct reference to Trump since the start of Trump’s second presidency in January, raising speculation that Pyongyang sees him as the only credible partner for renewed talks. Rachel Minyoung Lee, an analyst at the Stimson Center, described Kim’s comments as “an invitation to Trump to rethink U.S. policy on denuclearisation.”……………………………………………………………………………

Despite sharp rhetoric, Kim notably did not renounce the 2018 Singapore Declaration, which laid out goals for peacebuilding, new U.S.-North Korea relations, and eventual denuclearisation. This suggests that space for dialogue still exists, though only if both sides are willing to temper their demands. For the U.S., this could mean considering interim steps such as freezes or arms-control-style agreements, as part of a broader peace framework.

The alternative is an escalating arms race on the peninsula. South Korea warns that North Korea is close to developing a missile capable of striking the continental U.S. with a nuclear warhead, a milestone that could trigger further militarisation and raise the risk of miscalculation. Meanwhile, sanctions continue to exact a toll on ordinary North Koreans, worsening food shortages and isolating a population already cut off from much of the world.

The path to peace and security in Northeast Asia cannot rest on ultimatums that no side will accept. Peace is dependent on creative diplomacy: freezing nuclear development, reducing military exercises, opening humanitarian channels, and fostering trust through incremental agreements. Kim’s statement is a challenge, but also an opportunity. If the U.S. and its allies can move from absolutist positions towards pragmatic steps, dialogue could resume. The Korean peninsula has suffered too long under the shadow of war, and what is needed now is not maximalist posturing but the courage to take its first, fragile steps toward peace. https://theowp.org/peace-without-denuclearisation-kim-challenges-u-s-to-rethink-nuclear-stance/

October 6, 2025 Posted by | North Korea, politics international | Leave a comment

Trump says Putin’s offer on nuclear arms control ‘sounds like a good idea’

By Andrea Shalal, October 6, 2025, Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Chizu Nomiyama, https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/trump-says-putins-offer-nuclear-arms-control-sounds-like-good-idea-2025-10-05/

  • Summary
  • Putin proposed voluntary limit on nuclear arsenals last month
  • US-Russian ties strained despite Trump-Putin summit in August
  • Putin warned US against sending long-range missiles to Ukraine

WASHINGTON, Oct 5 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday said Russian President Vladimir Putin’s offer to voluntarily maintain limits on deployed strategic nuclear weapons “sounds like a good idea.”

Putin last month offered to voluntarily maintain limits capping the size of the world’s two biggest nuclear arsenals set out in the 2010 New START accord, which expires in February, if the U.S. does the same.

“Sounds like a good idea to me,” Trump told reporters as he departed the White House, when asked about Putin’s offer.

Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia last week had said Moscow was still waiting for Trump to respond to Putin’s offer to voluntarily maintain the limits on deployed strategic nuclear weapons once a key arms control treaty expires.

Any agreement on continuing to limit nuclear arms would stand in contrast to rising tensions between the United States and Russia since Trump and Putin met in Alaska in mid-August given reported incursions of Russian drones into NATO airspace.

Speaking in a video clip released on Sunday, Putin warned that a decision by the United States to supply long-range Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine for strikes deep into Russia would destroy Moscow’s relationship with Washington.

U.S. Vice President JD Vance said last month that Washington was considering a Ukrainian request to obtain missiles that could strike deep into Russia, including Moscow, though it is unclear if a final decision has been made.

Trump, who has expressed disappointment in Putin for not moving to end the war in Ukraine, was not asked directly on Sunday about the prospect of supplying Tomahawks to Ukraine.

“This will lead to the destruction of our relations, or at least the positive trends that have emerged in these relations,” Putin said in a video clip released on Sunday by Russian state television reporter Pavel Zarubin.

One U.S. official and three other sources told Reuters that the Trump administration’s desire to send long-range Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine may not be viable because current inventories are committed to the U.S. Navy and other uses.

Trump is touring a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, the George H.W. Bush, off the coast of Virginia on Sunday, and will give a speech on a second carrier, the Harry S. Truman, later.

Tomahawk cruise missiles have a range of 2,500 kilometres (1,550 miles). If Ukraine got the missiles, the Kremlin and all of European Russia would be within target.

October 6, 2025 Posted by | politics international, Russia, USA | Leave a comment

Iran says nuclear cooperation with IAEA ‘no longer relevant’

Iranian FM warns that Europe has ‘eliminated justification for talks’ with UN nuclear watchdog after triggering snapback sanctions.

By Elis Gjevori and News Agencies, 5 Oct 2025, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/10/5/iran-says-nuclear-cooperation-with-iaea-no-longer-relevant

Iran’s foreign minister has declared that cooperation with the United Nations nuclear watchdog is “no longer relevant” after Western countries reinstated international sanctions on the country.

“The Cairo agreement is no longer relevant for our cooperation with the IAEA,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Sunday, referring to a deal signed last month with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)

That agreement had laid out a framework for renewed inspections and monitoring after Tehran suspended cooperation following Israeli and United States attacks on its nuclear facilities in June.

However, the deal lost significance after Britain, France and Germany – all signatories to the 2015 nuclear accord – triggered the return of UN sanctions, accusing Iran of breaching its commitments, claims which Tehran has rejected.

“The three European countries thought they had leverage in their hands, threatening to implement a snapback,” Araghchi told foreign diplomats in Tehran. “Now they have used this lever and seen the results. The three European countries have definitely diminished their role and almost eliminated the justification for negotiations with them.”

He added that the European trio “will have a much smaller role than in the past” in any future talks over Iran’s nuclear programme.

Double standards

Tehran has accused the IAEA of double standards, saying the agency failed to condemn Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear sites despite its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Western states, led by the US and supported by Israel, have long accused Iran of seeking nuclear weapons – allegations Tehran strongly denies. Iran insists its programme is purely civilian and that it retains the right to enrich uranium under the NPT.

Some Iranian lawmakers have suggested withdrawing from the NPT altogether, though President Masoud Pezeshkian has maintained that Iran will remain committed to its treaty obligations.

Araghchi said Tehran’s “decision regarding cooperation with the agency will be announced”, without elaborating, but noted that “there is still room for diplomacy”.

Talks between Iran and the US that began in April to revive a broader nuclear agreement collapsed after Israeli attacks in June targeted Iranian nuclear, military and residential sites.

Tehran has since accused Washington of sabotaging diplomacy and demanded guarantees and recognition of its rights before any potential resumption of negotiations.

Iran has repeatedly denied seeking a nuclear weapon, while Israel is widely believed to possess an undeclared nuclear arsenal of dozens of atomic bombs.

October 6, 2025 Posted by | Iran, politics international | Leave a comment

They Really Think They’ll Be Able To Propagandize The World Into Liking Israel Again.

Caitlin Johnstone, Oct 06, 2025, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/they-really-think-theyll-be-able?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=175387550&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

It’s cute how the Zionists think they’ll be able to manipulate and propagandize the world into liking Israel again.

Yeah, saturate all online platforms with weird-faced influencers telling us Israel is awesome. That’ll make us forget those years of genocidal atrocities.

Sure, buy up the social media platforms that young people are using so you can censor criticism of Israel. That’ll convince them that Zionism is cool.

Go on, take control of CBS and make Bari Weiss the boss. That’ll make us forget all those videos of mutilated Palestinian children.

Right, use Zionist oligarchs and influence operations to manipulate governments and institutions into crushing free speech which opposes a genocidal apartheid state. That’ll get everyone supporting the genocidal apartheid state.

Propaganda is an effective tool of mass-scale psychological manipulation, but it isn’t magic. It isn’t going to miraculously erase what people know in their bones to be true.

In order to successfully propagandize people you need to first get them to trust you, and then you need to feed them narratives which appeal to the cognitive biases they already hold. Nobody trusts Israel apologia anymore, and people’s biases are now stacked squarely against the Zionist entity. They’ve got nothing to work with and nowhere to start from.

If a coworker you hate came up to you and started stealing stuff off your desk while telling you he’s your friend and that he would never steal from you, you’re not going to believe him no matter how many words he says to you. No matter how skillful a manipulator he is, no matter how eloquent his words are, nothing he says will trump your first hand observations of your material reality.

That’s what it’s like at this point. They’re trying to throw a bunch of language at us in order to convince us that we haven’t seen what we’ve seen, haven’t experienced what we’ve experienced, and don’t know what we know. And they assume it will work because the language they’re throwing at us is being circulated in high volumes and costs a lot of money.

It won’t work, though. Even if propaganda could convince us that we haven’t seen what we’ve seen and don’t know what we know, propaganda only works if you don’t know it’s happening to you. These past two years have made even relatively apolitical members of the public acutely aware that there is an aggressive campaign to manipulate their perception of the state of Israel, and that anyone pushing them to support that state is untrustworthy. Nobody’s going to buy into the propaganda if they don’t trust the source.

Now that everyone’s aware that Israel is paying influencers $7,000 per post to churn out propaganda on its behalf, whenever you see a video online of some young social media-savvy personality promoting pro-Israel narratives you see their replies flooded with memes and jokes about their $7k jackpot. From now on whenever some sunglasses-wearing zillennial shows up going “Israel is surrounded on all sides by Islamofascists and you think JEWS are the problem? Uhh, no babe. Walk with me,” everyone’s going to go “Found one of those $7k posts.”

It just doesn’t work. Psychological manipulation only goes so far. There’s only so much that clever language can do to decouple someone’s mind from their direct experience of material reality.

This is where Israel went wrong in alienating the liberal Zionists. They needed people at the table who understood how normal human beings think, who could help the Israel project walk the delicate line between apartheid abuses papered over with propaganda and full-scale atrocities which would alienate the world. Instead they decided to go all in with the Smotriches and Ben-Gvirs, trusting that the propaganda machine which had served them so well all those decades would continue to carry them through any international upset they might cause.

It hasn’t turned out that way. The world’s eyes are open to what Israel is, and they are never going to close again. You can’t take off the Mickey Mouse mask, show the kids the snarling Freddy Krueger face underneath it, and then put the mask on and hope they start calling you Mickey again. Nobody’s going to forget what you showed them.

October 6, 2025 Posted by | Israel, spinbuster | Leave a comment

Right-wing Czech politician who promised to cut aid to Ukraine takes lead in parliamentary election .

 04 Oct 2025, https://www.sott.net/article/502181-Right-wing-Czech-politician-who-promised-to-cut-aid-to-Ukraine-takes-lead-in-parliamentary-election

The right-wing party of agriculture billionaire Andrej Babis, branded ‘Czech Trump’ by local media, has taken the lead in his country’s parliamentary election.

Partial results were released by the Czech Statistical Office several hours after the polls closed across the central European country of 11 million earlier on Saturday.

With ballots from 20% of voting districts counted, Babis’ opposition ANO (Yes) party was ahead with 39.7% of the vote, followed by the Spolu (Together) group led by Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala with 19.1%, the agency said.

Babis has been campaigning on a promise to stop Czech military assistance to Kiev, unlike Fiala, who has been a staunch supporter of Ukraine in its conflict with Russia.

The 71-year-old, who served as prime minister between 2017 and 2021, has been particularly critical of Prague’s ammunition initiative for Kiev, calling it “overpriced” and insisting that it should be handled by NATO.

He has spoken out against Ukraine’s membership in the EU, as well as Brussels’ handling of immigration and the Green Deal.

The Western media has warned ahead of the vote that with Hungary and Slovakia already refusing to provide military aid to Kiev and advocating for a diplomatic end to the conflict, Babis’ victory in the Czech Republic could tip Central Europe even further away from Brussels on Ukraine and other key issues.

October 6, 2025 Posted by | EUROPE, politics, Ukraine | Leave a comment

45K gallons of radioactive water to be dumped into Hudson River from Indian Point nuclear plant

Shane Galvin Oct. New York Post, 2, 2025, 

Roughly 45,000 gallons of radioactive water from a defunct plant north of New York City will be discharged into the Hudson River after a federal court ruling struck down a state environmental law.

US District Judge Kenneth Karas sided with company Holtec International over New York State in a ruling issued last week that reversed the 2023 “Save The Hudson” law which sought to prevent the company from muddying the Hudson’s waters.

Holtec sued the Empire State last year, arguing that only the federal government had the right to regulate discharge of the Indian Point plant’s nuclear waste, which amounted to the 45,000-gallon sum, The New York Times reported……………………………………..

Indian Point, which sits on the Hudson River about 35 miles north of Manhattan, was closed in 2021 after years of public outcry from the local community over environmental concerns…………………… https://nypost.com/2025/10/02/us-news/45k-gallons-of-radioactive-water-to-be-dumped-into-hudson-river-from-indian-point-nuclear-plant/

October 6, 2025 Posted by | USA, wastes, water | Leave a comment

Another ageing Royal Navy nuclear-armed submarine completes a 200-day patrol amid fears absence of replacements will make epic voyages ‘the new normal’

Daily Mail, By BY MARK NICOL DEFENCE EDITOR, 3 October 2025

An ageing Royal Navy nuclear submarine has completed a 200-day patrol amid fears of shortages of alternative vessels.

The Vanguard class submarine was welcomed back to port with her hull covered in slime and barnacles.

The marine growth indicated how long the submarine – which carries the UK’s nuclear deterrent – had spent submerged.

Nuclear submarines remain undetected by spending the majority of their time on patrol at very slow speed. This is to minimise their noise signature.

Biofouling as it is also known, can also indicate a submarine has been operating in either shallower or warmer waters.

Nuclear submarine patrols are being extended as Navy chiefs await new vessels.

This submarine was understood to have spent 203 days at sea. Earlier this year another spent 204 days at sea.

While only last year another Vanguard-class submarine broke the 200 day barrier for the first time. At least ten patrols are understood to have exceeded five months.

The trend for extended patrols is dangerous according to Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, the recently retired former Chief of the Defence Staff (CDS).

In his final speech he decried the decrepit state of the Royal Navy’s subsurface fleet at a time when the world is getting more dangerous.

In September Admiral Sir Tony said: ‘Our armed forces are not as strong as we would wish. There is something wrong when governments profess the nuclear deterrent at sea is our highest priority but our sailors are having to put to sea for extraordinarily long patrols in some of the most complex machines on the planet that are beyond their original design life.’……………………….

The oldest of the Vanguard class submarines first put to sea 33 years ago. The vessels have a recommended service life of 25 years.

The physical strain on the Vanguard class submarines is mirrored by the psychological effects on their crews of spending six months and longer at sea.

Each submarine has a crew of around 130 sailors and officers

Experts have also warned of the growing risk of a catastrophic accident as parts are being cannabalised from other submarines which are more than 30 years old…………………………….

The shortage of submarines is also compounded by the length of time it takes to conduct repairs.

The Vanguards will be replaced by Dreadnought submarines – but these are not expected to enter service before the early 2030s……………………… https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15159175/Another-ageing-Royal-Navy-nuclear-armed-submarine-completes-200-day-patrol-amid-fears-absence-replacements-make-epic-voyages-new-normal.html

October 6, 2025 Posted by | safety, UK | Leave a comment

Sellafield nuclear workers to strike over pay

 ITV 3rd Oct 2025, https://www.itv.com/news/border/2025-10-03/sellafield-nuclear-workers-to-strike-over-pay

Construction workers at the Sellafield nuclear site are to strike from Saturday in a dispute over pay.

Unite said 1,500 of its members, including electricians, joiners and welders, at the Cumbria site will walk out until 13 October.

The union said other nuclear projects pay premiums it wants Sellafield to match, and it warned of further industrial action if the dispute is not resolved.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “Our members are highly skilled workers operating in an extremely challenging environment.

“That this is the most significant industrial action at Sellafield in recent history speaks volumes about the levels of feeling among the workforce.”

As well as the strikes, a continuous overtime ban will start on 14 October.

October 6, 2025 Posted by | employment, UK | Leave a comment

Panic in Israel as Hamas agrees to release all of the hostages

Laura and Normal Island News, Oct 04, 2025, https://www.normalisland.co.uk/p/panic-in-israel-as-hamas-agrees-to?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1407757&post_id=175259462&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ln98x&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

In a worrying turn of events, Hamas has agreed to release all remaining prisoners in accordance with Donald Trump’s peace proposal. The plan will involve the de-radicalisation and disarmament of Gaza, but not the de-radicalisation and disarmament of Israel. Nevertheless, Netanyahu feels Israel is being unfairly picked on.

Trump has instructed Netanyahu to immediately halt all bombing of Gaza, but Netanyahu has sensibly ignored him and continued bombing throughout the night. Be honest, who would miss the opportunity for some last minute mass murder? Not a Zionist, that’s for sure.

Understandably, Hamas’ announcement has been met with horror in the Israeli war room which has successfully held off a peace deal for two years so it can kill as many Palestinians as possible.

Israel only had to sacrifice half of the hostages to achieve this goal and would be quite happy to sacrifice the other half for two more years of slaughter. It is therefore drawing up emergency plans to derail the peace process and blame Hamas. I’m told a false flag is not off the table.

Netanyahu has launched an investigation to establish why the IDF failed to murder all of the Hamas negotiators before they could agree to peace. This was an enormous and unforgivable oversight.

While Netanyahu and his accomplices are worried a peace deal could mean they face jail, Israelis are torn on the idea of a ceasefire. On the one hand, they don’t give a fuck about those prisoners, but on the other hand, they have bombed everything there is to bomb several times over, and taking selfies among the rubble gets old. Mass slaughter is even making some of them feel sad.

One Zionist was told the pang he felt when he squished children with a bulldozer might have been a conscience, although it was probably self-pity. Either way, he was promptly arrested, and we don’t talk about him anymore. His family has destroyed all pictures of him.

Given the serious risk of self-pity spreading among IDF ranks, perhaps it really is time to end this thing, and I can go back to doing anything other than satirising a fucking genocide. Palestinians have no idea how hard my life is.

Let’s just end this thing now and pat ourselves on the back for a job well done…

It’s fair to say Israel has achieved many things throughout this genocide. For example, it has destroyed 80% of the buildings, 86% of the farmland, 90% of the cattle, 89% of water and sanitation infrastructure, 100% of desalination plants, and it has made Gaza more or less unliveable. Israel has killed so many civilians that the world lost count.

Israel didn’t stop at Gaza either. It killed a load of people in the West Bank and Syria and Yemen and Iran and Qatar and Lebanon. Who remembers the time when Israel’s pagers took the eyeballs of doctors and nurses and all of the nicest people laughed? Good times.

The relentless bombing campaign was not Israel’s only achievement though. Israel successfully colonised TikTok, the social media app that was promised to God’s chosen people 3,000 years ago. Israel is carrying out a Nakba on TikTok by culling everyone who has ever used the word “AIPAC”. Needless to say, AIPAC does not exist and it’s racist to say otherwise.

Mahmoud Abbas says he is willing to make regular child sacrifices to Israel in exchange for the Gaza presidency, but he has been told his services will not be needed. If a peace deal can be agreed, we have the exciting prospect of Tony Blair ruling Gaza from afar without the consent of Palestinians.

We need someone with the ability to eliminate all evidence of genocide. It’s gonna take the most ghoulish person imaginable to erase hundreds of thousands of corpses and act like they never existed. Needless to say, Blair is just as keen to harness the souls of the dead as he was to steal oil in Iraq.

Once the peace deal is in place, Palestinians will kindly be allowed to live in tents with minimal rations and occasional bombings until they get fed up and leave. At this point, Blair will be given a Nobel Peace Prize and all mentions of Palestine will be erased from the history books. Sadly though, Netanyahu will probably be in jail on corruption charges. Life can be so unfair x

October 5, 2025 Posted by | Israel, politics | Leave a comment

  Trump says Hamas ‘ready for peace’, tells Israel to stop bombing Gaza

By Alastair McCready, Umut Uras and Urooba Jamal, 4 Oct 20254 Oct 2025, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2025/10/4/live-trumps-tells-israel-stop-bombing-gaza-after-hamas-ceasefire-reply

Hamas has submitted its response to US President Donald Trump’s peace plan, with the group agreeing to hand over administration of the enclave to Palestinian technocrats and free all Israeli captives.

The Palestinian group’s response did not address the crucial issue of its disarmament, but it said it was willing to “immediately enter” peace negotiations through mediators.

In a video address following Hamas’s statement, President Trump said the development was “unprecedented”, before cautioning that it’s important to get the “final word down in concrete”.

Trump also said he believes Hamas is ready for a “lasting peace”, as he called on Israel to “immediately stop bombing Gaza” in a post on his Truth Social platform.

Israel has continued its deadly bombardment of Gaza, killing at least 72 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip on Friday, according to medical sources.

Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 66,288 people and wounded 169,165 since October 2023. Thousands more are believed to be buried under the rubble. A total of 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the October 7, 2023, attacks and about 200 were taken captive.

October 5, 2025 Posted by | Gaza, Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

After Bombing Boats, Trump Tells Congress US Is in ‘Armed Conflict’ With Drug Cartels.

“This is not stretching the envelope,” said a retired judge advocate general lawyer. “This is shredding it. This is tearing it apart.”

 October 3, 2025, Jessica Corbett, https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-venezuela

President Donald Trump’s administration claimed that the United States is in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels in a confidential notice to Congress this week intended to justify his deadly bombings of alleged smuggling boats in the Caribbean.

Democrats in Congress and legal officials have been challenging the legality of the three military strikes Trump announced last month. A woman who identified herself as the wife of one of the at least 17 people extrajudicially killed in the US bombings said her husband was a fisher.

“Congress was notified about the designation by Pentagon officials on Wednesday,” according to The Associated Press, one of several outlets that obtained the notice. The New York Times reported that it “was sent to several congressional committees.”

NewsNation‘s Kellie Meyer posted the full memo on social media: https://x.com/KellieMeyerNews/status/1973817299053269376?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1973817299053269376%7Ctwgr%5Eed7e0a4e5fa28e5d3a356b95835b5dd3057f6b22%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2Ftrump-venezuela

After citing a relevant section from the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2024, the notice describes decades of law enforcement efforts to stem the flow of illicit narcotics into the United States as “unsuccessful,” and says that cartels “illegally and directly cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands of American citizens each year.”

“The president determined these cartels are nonstate armed groups, designated them as terrorist organizations, and determined that their actions constitute an armed attack against the United States,” the document continues. Trump also “determined that the United States is in a non-international armed conflict with these designated terrorist organizations” and directed the US Department of Defense, which he has dubbed the Department of War, “to conduct operations against them.

“The United States has now reached a critical point where we must use force in self-defense and defense of others against the ongoing attacks by these designated terrorist organizations,” adds the memo, which notes the second strike on September 15.

Lawmakers and legal experts again challenged the administration’s claim that, as the notice put it, Trump directed the bombings under “his constitutional authority as commander in chief and chief executive to conduct foreign relations.”

As the Times reported:

Geoffrey S. Corn, a retired judge advocate general lawyer who was formerly the Army’s senior adviser for law-of-war issues, said drug cartels were not engaged in “hostilities”—the standard for when there is an armed conflict for legal purposes—against the United States because selling a dangerous product is different from an armed attack.

Noting that it is illegal for the military to deliberately target civilians who are not directly participating in hostilities—even suspected criminals—Mr. Corn called the president’s move an “abuse” that crossed a major legal line.

“This is not stretching the envelope,” he said. “This is shredding it. This is tearing it apart.”

New York University School of Law professor Ryan Goodman, who served as special counsel to the general counsel of the Defense Department during the Obama administration, said on social media that Corn was “completely right.”

“Drug cartels not = ‘armed conflict,‘” Goodman added, stressing that the “people killed” in such strikes “are civilians.”

Rutgers University law professor Adil Haque similarly pushed back on social media, saying: “The United States is not in a ‘non-international armed conflict’ with drug cartels. Cartels are not organized as armed groups, nor are they engaged in intense hostilities. These are dangerous criminal organizations and should be confronted using law enforcement tools.”

Members of Congress also publicly weighed in, including Senate Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Jack Reed (D-RI), who said that “every American should be alarmed that President Trump has decided he can wage secret wars against anyone he labels an enemy. Drug cartels must be stopped, but declaring war and ordering lethal military force without Congress or public knowledge—nor legal justification—is unacceptable.”

At least two of the strikes have occurred off the coast of Venezuela, elevating fears of an armed conflict with the country.

“Trump’s actions are illegal, unconstitutional, and dangerous,” Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said in response to the new memo. ”He is leading us willy-nilly into war with Venezuela. I have ‘determined’ that this is a terrible idea.”

October 5, 2025 Posted by | Legal, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Israel Raids Global Sumud Flotilla, Abducts Over 400 Volunteers, Group Says.

“This is an unlawful abduction, in direct violation of international law and basic human rights,” the flotilla said.

By Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg , Truthout, October 2, 2025, https://truthout.org/articles/israel-raids-global-sumud-flotilla-abducts-over-400-volunteers-group-says/

Overnight on Wednesday, Israeli soldiers raided more than a dozen boats carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza, blocked the ships’ communications, and abducted more than 400 volunteers from 47 countries.

During the raid, Israeli forces attacked volunteers with water cannons and doused them with “skunk water,” according to a press release issued by the flotilla. The volunteers were reportedly taken to the large naval vessel, the MSC Johannesburg, but the lawyers representing the volunteers have been given “minimal updates,” as per the press release.

“This is an unlawful abduction, in direct violation of international law and basic human rights,” the group said, adding that “intercepting humanitarian vessels in international waters is a war crime.”

“[D]enying legal counsel and concealing the fate of those seized compounds that crime,” the group continued.

The Global Sumud Flotilla set sail in August, carrying volunteers from more than 40 countries on dozens of civilian boats filled with humanitarian aid for Gaza, including baby formula, medicine, and prosthetic limbs. As a result of Israel’s genocide, Gaza has the largest population of child amputees per capita in the world.

The flotilla posted several prerecorded messages from volunteers stating their name, their country of origin, and that they had been abducted by Israeli forces.

Among the people aboard the flotilla were Nkosi Zwelivelile “Mandla” Mandela, Nelson Mandela’s grandson; European Parliament Member Emma Fourreau; and climate justice activist Greta Thunberg. The raid on the Global Sumud Flotilla occurred on the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, the day of atonement. Israel largely shuts down for the holiday, but that did not stop the raid or its attacks on Gaza.

Israel’s raid on the boats sparked demonstrations overnight throughout the world, and Italian unions have called for a general strike on Friday in solidarity with the flotilla. The unions held a general strike just weeks ago in support of the flotilla.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) called Israel’s raid on the Global Sumud Flotilla “an act of piracy meant to sustain its genocide.”

“Every nation that pays lip service to international law should condemn this illegal attack on the Global Sumud Flotilla and take their own steps to forcibly break the siege of Gaza,” CAIR Deputy Executive Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell said in a statement.

Earlier this week, more than a dozen U.S. lawmakers called on the Trump administration to protect the volunteers onboard the flotilla’s ships.

“The law is clear: any attack on the Global Sumud Flotilla or its civilians is a clear and blatant violation of international law,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio. “The United States has an obligation to protect its citizens from foreign attack.”

The lawmakers also demanded that the administration “address the issue at root of this voyage: the brutal Israeli blockade and genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza.”

The flotilla said they will not be deterred by Israel’s illegal attacks on the flotilla.

“We have to make it clear: They take one boat, we sail with 40,” the group posted on Instagram. “They try to stop us, we escalate. Take the streets, take the ports, take the seas.”

October 5, 2025 Posted by | civil liberties, Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Money to oversee nuclear weapons safety will start running low after 8 days, Energy secretary says

The National Nuclear Security Administration will need to ramp back its work, which ranges from maintaining the weapons arsenal to international non-proliferation efforts.

Politico, By Kelsey Tamborrino, 10/03/2025 

Energy Secretary Chris Wright is warning that the agency within the Energy Department that oversees the safety and reliability of the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile has only enough funding to operate at full strength for about eight more days because of the ongoing government shutdown.

“Eight more days of funding, and then we have to go into some emergency shutdown procedures, putting our country at risk,” Wright said Thursday evening on Fox News, referring to the National Nuclear Security Administration.

Prior to federal cuts imposed earlier this year, NNSA had more than 65,000 federal workers and contractors across the country responsible for a wide range of activities from maintaining the nuclear arsenal to international non-proliferation work and overseeing the U.S. Navy’s nuclear operations.

In its recent shutdown plan, the Energy Department said it would maintain the NNSA’s weapons-focused staff who operate “critical control operations systems,” as well as employees who work on tasks such as stemming the spread of nuclear weapons, but it did not offer figures on how many people that includes…………………………………………………………….

The shutdown poses the second risk this year to the NNSA, after cuts instituted by Elon Musk’s DOGE removed too many people, forcing DOE to call back some terminated workers at the NNSA. Those DOGE appointees were reportedly unaware of the NNSA’s role in overseeing national security………………………………………………………. https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/03/nuclear-energy-nnsa-00592883

October 5, 2025 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

Under Trump, Criticism Is Now Criminal

Jim Naureckas, FAIR, October 3, 2025

After the killing of right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk, President Donald Trump (9/10/25) escalated his war on free speech, calling for criminalizing criticism of himself:

“It’s a long past time for all Americans and the media to confront the fact that violence and murder are the tragic consequence of demonizing those with whom you disagree day after day, year after year, in the most hateful and despicable way possible. For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers and criminals.

This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now. My administration will find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence, including the organizations that fund it and support it, as well as those who go after our judges, law enforcement officials, and everyone else who brings order to our country.“

To spell it out: “Demonizing”—which is to say, criticizing—people with whom you disagree is “directly responsible” for Kirk’s death. Note that this is about criticizing people that you disagree with—”you” presumably being one of “those on the radical left”—as Trump has built a wildly lucrative political career out of demonizing those he disagrees with, and he’s not about to stop now. It’s the “wonderful Americans” like Kirk whom you aren’t supposed to criticize.

Trump promises “this kind of rhetoric”—the “radical left” kind—will “stop,” because the government will “find each and every one who contributed to this atrocity.” This includes all those who used their speech to “go after our judges,” cops and “everyone else who brings order.”

This is, in short, a declaration that the idea of free speech is over—despite Trump going on to list “free speech” first among “the American values for which Charlie Kirk lived and died.” Where once you had the right to criticize those who “bring order,” now such reckless rhetoric is punishable as direct support for “terrorism”—a word that under the US legal system authorizes draconian police powers……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. https://fair.org/home/under-trump-criticism-is-now-criminal/

October 5, 2025 Posted by | civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Can Warriors Stop Endless Wars?

The Role of Veterans in Movements for Peace and Justice

By William D. Hartung. Tom Dispatch, September 30, 2025

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, the former “Fox and Friends” cohost, claims to be obsessed with making the Pentagon and the military services about “the warfighter.” His main approach to doing so is a deeply misguided campaign to reduce “distractions” like commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion (the dreaded “DEI”). No matter that the purpose of DEI is to combat White supremacist attitudes, misogyny, and anti-gay and anti-trans violence in the ranks.

All such forms of discrimination are, in fact, already present in the U.S. military, and the way to build a cohesive defense force is certainly not by allowing them to run wild and be seen as acceptable or “normal” behavior. The best way to build a stronger, more unified military would, of course, be to make people feel welcome regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, or gender identification. That would, in fact, be the only way to build a military that reflects the nation it’s charged with defending. DEI, after all, is not an irritating slogan. It’s an attempt to right historic wrongs in the service of a more effective military and a more unified populace. And it’s one thing to suggest that current approaches could be made more effective, but quite another to demonize them in the name of forging “better” warfighters.


In short, the Hegseth method is bound to prove destructive. Count on this, in fact: it will only weaken our military, not strengthen it. The result, if Hegseth’s efforts succeed, will indeed be a Whiter, more aggressive armed forces, and quite likely one significantly more loyal to the current occupant of the Oval Office than to the Constitution.

Ex-Warriors for Peace

Thankfully, Hegseth’s vision is not shared by many of the veterans of America’s disastrous post-9/11 wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. The eye-opening documentary What I Want You to Know presents the views of just such veterans about their service and about the meaning of the conflicts they fought in. Almost to a person (no, not “a man”!), they said the following four things:

– They don’t know why they were sent to the places where they fought

– They did not believe the U.S. could win the war they were sent to fight

– Their government lied to them

– They were forced to do things that will haunt them for the rest of their lives

It took courage for such veterans to go on camera and offer the unvarnished truth about the disastrous wars they helped to fight. They are, of course, far from alone, but as one of the producers of the film told me, many veterans are reluctant to discuss such feelings and insights publicly. Some don’t want to reflect on the idea that the wars they fought in were disastrously misguided and didn’t end in anything resembling an American victory. Others fear political retribution. Still others prefer to keep such conversations among their fellow vets, in large part because they feel that people who haven’t served can’t fully understand what they went through.


It’s little wonder that many vets keep their feelings about their long years in service within a close circle of friends and other veterans. But whether they choose to speak out publicly or not, a striking number of them are now either antiwar or “war skeptical,” questioning whether some of our recent conflicts were faintly worth fighting in the first place.

Don’t misunderstand me on this. There are indeed veterans speaking out against such unnecessary, unjust wars (past or future). Fifteen of them, for instance, contributed chapters to Paths of Dissent, a volume edited by Quincy Institute co-founder Andrew Bacevich and U.S. Army veteran Daniel Sjursen. A description of a 2023 webinar marking the release of the book caught its main theme perfectly:

“[T]hese soldiers vividly describe both their motivations for serving and the disillusionment that made them speak out against the system. Their testimony is crucial for understanding just how the world’s self-proclaimed greatest military power went so badly astray.”

There are also entire organizations, including Veterans for Peace (VFP), Common Defense, and About Face: Veterans Against the War, devoted to ensuring that such endless wars remain over and crafting an American foreign policy grounded in diplomacy and defense rather than in a quest for global military dominance. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Isn’t it finally time for a respectful national dialogue about what constitutes an adequate defense and how to balance military preparations with other urgent national needs? Of course, having any such conversation, given the present deep divisions in American society, will be a challenge in its own right. But the alternative is a continuation of some variation of the devastating wars of the post-9/11 period, and such new and perilous conflicts will involve boots on the ground, air strikes, or the endless arming of repressive regimes. https://tomdispatch.com/can-warriors-stop-endless-wars/

October 5, 2025 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

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