NoW UPDATE: AWAY UP NORTH!

   

AS WE ENTER the doldrum days of summer, an event happening TODAY (Friday) merits some discussion, namely the summit in Alaska between the U.S. president Donald Trump and Russia’s president Vladimir Putin. MSM is abuzz with predictions and possibilities, chiefly around ending the Ukraine-Russia war on terms Ukraine and the Europeans, and the Americans, can live with. We shall see, but I’m not expecting any breakthrough or ceasefire in the conflict coming out of today’s talks, what with Russia’s and Ukraine’s positions so far apart.

SINCE THE MAIDAN COUP in 2014, Ukraine has gradually become a NATO member in all but name, having been trained and equipped by Western militaries to operate seamlessly with NATO armies when the time came for it to become the thirty-third member of the U.S. led military alliance. As a NATO member, Ukraine could host intermediate-range missile arrays along its border with Russia, something Moscow regards as unacceptable and an existential threat.* For Russia, any post-conflict, rump Ukraine would have to be neutral¹, with limits on the size of its military, its weaponry, etc. Its government would have to be purged of Banderites and neo-Nazi elements, and have legal safeguards established to protect the rights of minorities, including Russian speakers and ethnic Russians. Ukraine would have to withdraw its forces from the remaining sectors it holds in the Donbass and acknowledge Russian sovereignty over the the eastern oblasts, including Crimea. And any treaty must be signed by a legitimate government in Kiev, not Zelensky's, because his term in office expired in 2024, yet he remains in power, citing marshal law as the reason new elections cannot be held.

Thus, neutrality, “denazification”, new elections, and territorial annexations are must haves for Moscow and I don't see Putin compromising much around any of them. He doesn't have to, he's winning.

So, it’s doubtful Zelensky and his yapping band of EU cheerleaders will find Russia’s list of demands acceptable, and the war will continue. In the coming weeks, Russia may advance to the Dnieper River as Ukraine's armies collapse. They may move on Odessa or Kiev. Or both. At that point all bets are off.

 

👉I DON’T SEE an end to the bloody, three-plus-years of war other than on the battlefield (the Alaska summit notwithstanding). Russia will take the Ukrainian territory it needs to ensure its security. Besides, Zelensky won’t agree to any of Russia’s demands and the meeting in Anchorage, Alaska, as far as ending the war, will probably be a wet squib. Nevertheless, the fact that Russia has sent a large delegation to the summit suggests there may be parallel discussions in other areas, for example improving U.S. and Russian relations (e.g., a permanent ambassador to Moscow; upgrades to Russia’s diplomatic mission in Washington, etc.); sanctions relief; trade talks, and hopefully strategic arms treaty initiatives, like a commitment to renew the New Start treaty that’s set to expire in February 2026.

👉WE WILL HAVE TO wait and see what comes out of the Alaskan summit. At least they’re talking and not throwing spitballs at each other!

 

 

CHEERS, JAKE. ____________________________________ 

 

* What do you think the Americans would do if China were to install medium-range ballistic missiles at Windsor, Ontario? It’s only 610 km to Washington as the missile crow flies. Answer: They would turn Windsor into an ashtray!

 

1. Ukraine declared itself to be a neutral, non-aligned nation in its founding constitution, after it gained its independence following the dissolution of the USSR in 1991. 

 

RANT: TOMORROW

 

TOMORROW (August 6) is the eightieth anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing by the United States, the first time a nuclear weapon was used in war. (The bombing of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, was the last time such a weapon was used. So far.) Much has been written about these two Japanese cities, destroyed by America’s atom bombs, because they represent the ultimate of cautionary tales. If we treat nuclear weapons, of whatever size, as somehow ‘useable’ in a conflict, as tactical weapons that can draw a line in the sand to make your opponent stop and reconsider their actions, and if we assume such weapons can be contained on a battlefield and not spread to a broader, even a global, conflagration, then we are kidding ourselves. Escalation is almost guaranteed following a nuclear detonation, particularly if the other side is also a nuclear power. 

 

The BBC recently published an interesting article on a subset of victims of the Hiroshima bombing, namely Koreans living in the city at the time. Of Hiroshima's 420,000 people, 120,000 were Korean (IIUC the population statistics from the article). In addition, of the immediate dead following the detonation, which was some seventy-thousand people, 20% were Korean. 

Korean nationals were in Hiroshima as part of a conscripted work force or else they had come there to escape poverty in their homeland. Note: Korea had been a colony of Imperial Japan for some thirty years prior to WWII and tens of thousands of its citizens were dragooned into supporting Japan's war effort, in its factories and other sectors needing manpower. Following the bombing, the conscripts were given tasks like retrieving and burning the dead. This exposed them, disproportionately, to dangerous levels of radiation.

 

Granted, the dangers of radiation poisoning were not well known at the time, still the Koreans were treated as essentially slave labour before, during, and for a time, after the war. Many of the survivors returned home and many suffered the aftereffects of radiation exposure with higher rates of cancer, heart and kidney disease, etc. According to one survivor, a Mr. Shim:

 

“Koreans were second-class citizens – often given the hardest, dirtiest and most dangerous jobs… In the aftermath of the bomb, this distribution of labour translated into dangerous and often fatal work for Koreans in Hiroshima. Korean workers had to clean up the dead… At first, they used stretchers, but there were too many bodies. Eventually, they used dustpans to gather corpses and burned them in schoolyards. It was mostly Koreans who did this. Most of the post-war clean-up and munitions work was done by us." (BBC)

 

SCORES of returnees, including Mr. Shim, settled in Hapcheon, a small county in South Korea, dubbed “Korea’s Hiroshima” because so many survivors chose to live there. Long term studies of the survivors suggest higher than normal mortality rates when compared to Japanese survivors, and higher rates of disease and genetic disorders affecting their second and third generation descendants. Eighty years on and the peoples of two countries live with life altering effects stemming from the detonation of a single atomic bomb. Imagine the effects today’s nuclear arsenals would have on our cities should they ever be used.

👉Let’s hope that never happens.🙏

 

Cheers, Jake.

   

[The Day After and Threads are a couple of movies that should scare the pants off any viewer. Both depict life in a city following a nuclear attack. Hang on to yer knickers!]

 

 

 

RANT: RUB-A-SUB-SUB: THEM’S FIGHTIN’ WORDS!

  

 

WE ALL KNOW how hurtful name calling can be. It makes the recipient cry, or it can fire them up to punch back with words or fists. And mean tweets? We’ve all had them (well, I haven’t, but no matter). They’re like digital gauntlets thrown down or, better yet, smacked across the kisser of the addressee for all to read. Like a red flag to a bull, they've launched flame wars across the internet ever since ARPANET was born in the early 1970s.

Today, of course, name calling and mean tweets are the daily slings and arrows we all face online if we engage in anything other than posting cute kitten pics on our personal blogs. If we get a mean tweet or a half-star rating on whatever it is we post for review, then it’s BAMB! We come back with a zinger of our own. Folks, it’s one thing for losers those who have lots of time on their hands to wield sharp words like Ninja warriors brandishing ninjatō swords in battle. But, after a while, if you're like most people it's ho-hum. Time to scroll on. Except, if you’re the notoriously thin-skinned President of the United States that mean tweet is another matter altogether. 

 

SO, LAST WEEK, there was a flame war on social media between President Trump and Dimitry Medvedev, the former Russian president and current Deputy Chair of the Russian Security Council. Medvedev, who loves to troll Western elites, got a rise out of Donald Trump when he mocked Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on Indian goods into the US as a penalty for India continuing to import Russian oil. Trump responded (on Truth Social), calling the economies of Russia and India “dead” and that his tarriff warnings should be taken seriously. Medvedev responded by saying that Russia and India were far from dead and reminded the American president that Russia has a "dead hand" and that Trump should not forget about it. The Russian was referring to the “dead hand” strategic defence system first activated in the 1980s. It ensures a launch of Russia’s ICBM missile force should there be a decapitation strike on Moscow. [BOAKYAG time. Ed.] It’s definitely provocative trolling but just that--trolling. Just words in the ether. Nothing more.

 

👉EXCEPT TRUMP,* called Medvedev’s X-post a “threat” and announced last Friday that he was repositioning two “nuclear submarines” closer to Russian shores (presumably one in the North Atlantic, the other in the Pacific). Whether they are nuclear “armed” or merely nuclear “powered” is unknown. Instead of an angry reply to Medvedev’s comment, Trump decides to threaten Russia with nukes.¹

👉WHAT THE FUCK?!! Moving subs closer to Russian shores and shortening the time SLBMs (Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles) take to reach their targets, how is this a good thing? If you think Russia is treating this as a joke, you’re either kidding yourself or you’re an ostrich with your head in a hole and your feathery ass in the air! Think about it: WWIII because of a mean tweet! Perhaps we don’t deserve to exist as a species if this is the best and brightest we have leading us. Sometimes I feel like I'm living in an idiocracy. Or at least next door to one. Just sayin'.

 

 

 Cheers, Jake. ____________________________________ 

 

* I think we should consider the possibility that Trump is losing his marbles. Such a dangerous, pig-headed decision suggests to me that the American president is increasingly non compos mentis. Is America so  lacking in leadership that they must pick candidates from nursing homes? This is crazy! Thank our lucky stars there’s someone with a normal brain in the Kremlin! 

 

1. Recall that Trump recently okayed the transfer of nuclear bombs from America to an American base in Great Britain, the first time in nearly twenty years that B61-12 gravity bombs have been deployed there. Provocative? Yes. A threatening gesture? You bet. And you can rest assured that's how the Russians view such a move. And an American four-star general commented last week how NATO could overrun the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad lickety-split. These are not signals of diplomacy, tolerance and good will. Earlier, in June, there was Ukraine's "Operation Spiderweb" and those drone attacks on Russia's strategic bomber fleet. Also that month, NATO member states (including Canada) agreed to increase defence spending to 5% of GDP by 2035. 😆  What message is Russia to take from all this? Our 'betters' are playing with fire. And all of us are liable to get burned.☮

 

[For a discussion on this serious matter, watch the short interview George Galloway has with Scott Ritter, former  United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) weapons inspector, author and commentator, here at the 1:07:57 mark of Galloway’s YouTube show. If Scott is worried, all of us should be worried.]

 

 

RANT: NUKES AND NUTTS PART ONE

 

  

NEXT WEEK MARKS the eightieth anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9 respectively, the only time nuclear weapons were used in wartime. Today, our planet hosts nine nations who have nuclear weapons in their arsenals. Five of those nations (Britain, China, France, Russia, United States) are signatories to the 1970 NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty), along with 191 non-nuclear weapon states (NNWS). The four nuclear weapon possessing states (NWS) that are NOT signatories to the Cold War treaty are: India, Pakistan, North Korea (it left the NPT in 2003 to develop nuclear weapons) and Israel (undeclared). South Sudan is a NNWS that has also NOT signed the treaty.

Under the NPT, only the above five NWS are allowed to possess nuclear weapons since their stockpiles accrued prior to 1970 when the terms of the NPT came into force; the rest must comply with treaty obligations and pledge they will only develop technologies and facilities dedicated to the peaceful use of nuclear energy, eschewing the acquisition of nuclear weapons.* Signatories also agree NOT to share nuclear weapons technology with other states, nor transfer nuclear weapons outside their territories. Signatories to the treaty that violate its terms are subject to sanctions and political pressure from the UNSC (United Nations Security Council). To tamp down the spread of nuclear weapons, the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) provides a clearing house for technical information and support for countries that develop civilian nuclear programs. The NPT also requires that treaty members open their nuclear facilities to inspection by the IAEA to ensure no nuclear material is diverted toward weapons production.

 

[On June 12, 1982, the largest protest in American history converged in New York, as an estimated one million protestors marched from Central Park to the United Nations to demand an end to nuclear weapons.]  

 

IN GENERAL, this system has kept in check the “horizontal” spread of nuclear weapons by offering assistance through commercial and financial organizations, and through the IAEA’s nuclear technology training programs. However, the  “vertical” spread of the ‘Big Five’ NWS in creating large stockpiles of warheads and bombs, leaves the NPT open to charges of hypocrisy and unfair treatment, where the ‘Big Five’ have capitalized on their early adoption of nuclear weapons to ‘corner the market’ on nuclear weapons technology, with the IAEA there to ensure certain technologies in nuclear energy production are withheld from signatory nations that might lead them to, for example, enrich uranium to weapons-grade purity. India objected to the closed nuclear ‘club’ and went ahead with its own program in the mid-1970s. Pakistan followed India, developing its nuclear weapons, also outside the NPT. It should be noted that nuclear weapons states are required to adopt policies that would decrease their stockpiles over time. During the 1960s, 70s and early 80s, the USSR and American caches of nuclear weapons were in the tens of thousands. The early SALT1 and SALT2 (Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty) treaties and the more comprehensive START and NewSTART (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) between the United States and the USSR (later Russia) brought nuclear armories of both countries down to roughly 5,200 warheads apiece, either deployed, in storage, or in the process of decommissioning.

 

FUN FACT: The NewSTART treaty was renewed during the Obama presidency in 2010, but is set to expire next year, unless Trump and his band of sad-sack clowns are foolish enough NOT to negotiate with the Russians for an extension to NewSTART. Without this treaty, there could very well begin a new arms race, and China—not a signatory to the treaty—may grow its own inventory of nuclear weapons to add to the mix. This is a very disturbing scenario, and one would think there would be growing public concern. But it is not on most people's radar. "Meep-meep!"

 

IN THE POST-WWII YEARS, the ‘Big Five’ nations¹ (Britain, China, France, Russia, United States) had economies large enough to establish both civilian and military nuclear programs.² They had emerged victorious from the war and called the shots from their position on the UN Security Council. Between themselves they established nuclear protocols and agreements. Imperfect treaties though all these were, nevertheless, they acted as a brake on a runaway arms race and promoted saner nuclear weapons arrangements. But times have changed, nine nations have nuclear weapons now and more may follow. We face the possibility that loose cannons in one or more governments may open the proverbial barn door, and we may not be able to close it, this time.

 

I SAW BY OPEN WINDOW

I saw by open window.

I saw a sky so blue.

I saw there in the distance

The line the bomber drew.

I heard the earth still breathing.

And then I heard it sigh.

I heard its heart stop beating,

Beneath an azure sky.

 

  

Cheers, Jake.  ____________________________________

 

* INTERESTINGLY, South Africa is the only country to have developed an indigenous nuclear weapons program and then given it up in 1990 to join the NPT. In the 1980s, apartheid SA developed several nuclear bombs (probably with help from Israel) to ward off the USSR which supported liberation movements inside South Africa like the ANC (African National Congress). Today, both countries are partners and founding members of the BRICS coalition. [How times change! Ed.]

 

1. The ‘Big five’ nations also happen to be the five permanent members of the powerful United Nations Security Council. Go figure.

 

2. Eighty years on from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the ‘secrets’ of building nuclear bombs and reactors is pretty much an open secret. There are some tricks-of-the-trade around enrichment processes and configuring nuclear warheads onto missiles that will fly, and so on. But many nations that have mature nuclear programs, like Canada for instance, could enrich U-235 to weapons-grade Pu but choose not to because of cost (it’s expensive to build nuclear weapons that have only one use (hopefully!) and that’s to sit in their silos. Whereas nuclear power stations can contribute to the economy by providing cheap³ electricity to run industries, etc. There are also treaty obligations as in the NPT, for instance, which come with penalties should the terms of the treaty be breached, not to mention complaints and diplomatic rows from concerned neighbours.

WHEN you enter the ‘club’, the rules of the game change, your international relationships change, and not necessarily for the better. For example, Israel has nuclear weapons—an open secret—but hasn’t formally declared itself a NWS. If it did NOT have nukes, it would have had to behave like a normal and relatively sane country, knitting together relations with its neighbours and coming to workable solutions internally on how to govern itself. I see nuclear weapons as a distorting factor in Israeli society and politics. Thus, Israel becomes a threat to its neighbours and moves like a wrecking ball through international law. It gets away with too many things it wouldn’t be able to, under normal circumstances. And that’s not good for anyone, including Israel.

 

FUN FACT: Following the June bombings of its nuclear facilities, Iran, suspicious that the IAEA leaked information to the Israelis about their nuclear program and the names of some of their scientists,  ordered the agency to leave. However, it remains a member of the NPT. Should it be attacked again, it will probably withdraw from the treaty and secretly work on a Bomb. It may then declare itself a Nuclear Weapons State or it may keep its status a secret, like Israel. MIT professor Ted Postol says for all intents and purposes Iran is ALREADY a NWS and should be treated as such, like all NWS are treated—with kid gloves. What a bizarro world we have!

 

3. I’m not so sure how ‘cheap’ nuclear power is when you factor in the humongous construction and maintenance costs, not to mention disposal of the highly radioactive waste, something NO ONE has yet found an answer. (Ship it to Mars, perhaps? Elon, what say ye?) There are approximately 440 reactors in 31 countries operating today. 

 

 

NoW UPDATES: DROP YER COCKS AND GRAB YER SOCKS!

 

THEY SAY A WEEK IN POLITICS is a very long time, and these past couple of weeks have certainly shown there is a lot of truth in that old chestnut. The recent drama in the Middle East seems like it’s been going on forever, and what everyone feared might happen finally came to pass when the maniacs in Tel Aviv launched missile and drone barrages into Iran ostensibly to cripple Iran’s nuclear research capabilities, but it’s plain to see Israel’s goal is, and has always been, regime change in the predominately Shia Muslim country of ninety million.

The unprovoked, June 13 attacks by Israel targeting Iranian missile defenses, military installations, defense industries and assassinations of high-ranking army personnel and nuclear scientists occurred while Iran and the United States were in negotiations to work out an agreement on Iran’s civilian-only nuclear power system that everyone could live with. In fact, Steve Witkoff, Donald Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, was to meet with Iranian officials the next day. Since then, both sides have been lobbing drones, ballistic and cruise missiles against the other in a tit-for-tat arrangement.*

The Americans entered negotiations to resolve issues around Iran's nascent  nuclear power generation system which would include indigenous nuclear fuel enrichment capabilities, something the Iranians saw as their legal right under the international   NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty) of which Iran is a signatory in good standing. This, however, was bug-a-boo for both the Americans and the Israelis who felt Iran would secretly enrich uranium to levels where the radioactive fuel could be used to make a nuclear bomb, despite assessments from the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) on-site inspectors in Iran, and from American intel agencies, even Israel’s Mossad, all concurring that Iran was not developing a nuclear weapons program. Just last March, the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), Tulsi Gabbard, testified before Congress that Iran was not working on a nuclear bomb.

IN REALITY, the June 13 attacks fulfilled a decades-long desire by Israel to take out their chief rival for dominance in the region. Some commentators even suggest that the talks with Iran, begun shortly after Donald Trump became president, were a smoke screen, that the negotiations were a façade to lull Iran into a false sense of security so Israel could launch a surprise, “decapitation” strike. It’s hard  to disagree, given that President Trump, instead of being furious with the Israelis for disrupting his peace talks, praised PM Netanyahu, saying he’d known of the impending operation. The next several days saw calibrated attacks and counterattacks on military and civilian infrastructure between Iran and Israel until a week later when the other shoe dropped. 

 

IN THE EARLY MORNING HOURS of Saturday, June 21, American heavy bombers and submarines launched cruise missiles striking three Iranian nuclear facilities including the large, underground “Fordow” laboratories. On Friday, the American emperor president said he would take “two weeks, within two weeks” to decide whether or not to use American forces against Iran directly. And, again, it’s hard to see his pronouncement as anything other than another subterfuge, masking the launch of B-2 heavy bombers loaded with fourteen 30,000 lbs. GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators (MOPs) munitions, the next day. Incidentally, planning for the sortie was begun during the Biden administration, so hardliners in the U.S long had their eye on Iran’s nuclear sites. It is still too early to assess the damage from Saturday’s attacks, but there is evidence that the plants had been largely evacuated. According to the IAEA, which has staff monitoring, there does not appear to be any radioactivity released after bombardments by Israeli and American aircraft, which suggests either the enriched uranium had been removed or that the strikes were largely ineffective in damaging the facilities located deep underground.

Talks between Tehran and Washington have been suspended until the attacks against Iran stop.

 

👍HOLD THE PRESSES! I hope you won't get whiplash with all these rapidly changing events, but a ceasefire has just been brokered by the American president between Israel and Iran. Both sides almost immediately accused the other of infractions to the deal hammered out in the early hours of Tuesday morning, June 24, but President Trump apparently read PM Netanyahu the 'riot act', prompting Israeli jets to turn around before they attacked Tehran. That's good news. 😂 

 

SOME TAKEAWAYS from this overall foreign policy FUBAR are:

👉Donald Trump, the “peace” President, has just started (and perhaps ended?) another Middle Eastern war (bombing Iran). Regardless of what happens, he ‘owns’ it. Like he owns Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Lebanon and Syria and any other country Israel decides to invade with its arsenal of American-made weapons and political 'cover'.  He came into office with a mandate to end foreign wars. So far, it’s “Promise (not) kept!” Ukraine's still on fire [He owns that, too. Ed.] Iran's starting to boil, and Gaza is dying. And his supporters are beginning to notice.

👉Attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities is a sure way to incentivize Iran to develop a nuclear weapon as a deterrence against just such attacks. (And, to make the Israelis think twice before using nukes against them.)⁺

👉Air bombings, the only realistic intervention America can muster against Iran,  will not ensure regime change, or even conclusively eliminate Iran’s nuclear laboratories. By the way, under international law it is illegal to attack nuclear sites. But when did legal niceties ever stop Tel Aviv? Or Washington, for that matter.

👉If it comes down to a war of attrition between Iran and Israel, Iran has the advantage in terms of withstanding a prolonged siege. Israel, not so much.

👉The ceasefire brokered on Tuesday suggests a couple of things:

The American air strikes on three Iranian nuclear installations may have been for show. A bit of theatre. Why do I say this? Recall that in the days leading up to bombings, fleets of trucks were seen at the installations, suggesting critical machinery and nuclear fuel were taken and hidden elsewhere. The Iranians even said the sites had been emptied of critical material and personnel. Recall last summer when Iran launched its first wave of drone and missile attacks against Israel in response to Israeli targeted attacks on Iranian military personnel and diplomats. The Iranians 'telegraphed' the time and routes of their counterattack so the majority of drones and missiles could be taken out by Israel's "Iron Dome" defense grid. A couple of missiles reached their targets. Point made: We can hurt you if we want; now it's time to deescalate. 

A SIMILAR CASE can be made for this summer's American bombings of Iranian nuclear sites. The Americans saying, in effect: we can hurt you, so stop attacking Israel and agree to a ceasefire. Done and done. This also suggests that Israel could not effect regime change in Iran or destroy its nuclear program without U.S. assistance. Hence the kabuki  theatre of "destroying" a (non-existent) nuclear weapons program. 

👉A final point suggesting the events of the last few days was theatre and face-saving demonstrations was Iran's so-called 'counterattack' in response to America's 'attack' on its nuclear installations. The Iranians lobbed a few missiles into an American base in Qatar, across the Persian Gulf. "No significant damage" or injuries. They blew up some sand, but point made. You hit us, we hit you. A nothing burger of a counterstrike when Iran could have flattened the Qatari base. Done and done. Now the ceasefire.

  

INCIDENTALLY, the reason Iran enriched uranium in their plants to 60% of weapons-grade¹  in the first place was to use it as a bargaining chip in negotiations with the United States to gain relief from sanctions that had been imposed on the country for years. Let's see if there are discussions down the road whereby Iran gives up its enriched uranium  cache for sanctions relief.

 

IT'S A WIN-WIN-WIN SCENARIO  for the United States, Iran and Israel: The U.S. can crow about its superior military might and the efficacy of its 'big stick' diplomacy; Iran can gain a path forward to establishing a civilian nuclear power industry and gain sanctions relief; Israel can claim to have eliminated the threat of a future Iranian "bomb" [Even though what it really wants is to destroy Iran as a functioning state. Ed.] And for now, Israeli aggression is muzzled at least with respect to Iran.

Please folks, take the wins!

 

Cheers, Jake. _____________________________________ 

 

* The barrages have inflicted damage on both sides, but the question is whether Israel can stick it out in the long run, given Iran’s size, both in terms of land mass and population. Israel is a small country. Targets there are closely spaced and difficult to camouflage. Needless to say, Israel is experiencing unprecedented levels of damage to its cities and infrastructure. [Ain't karma  a bitch! Ed.] 

 

+ IT'S BEEN OVER TWENTY MONTHS since Israel’s genocidal campaign of ethnic cleansing in the Gaza Strip began, and Palestinians there are still being starved and murdered, dozens every day, as they are corralled into the southern city of Rafah where the so-called ‘humanitarian’ aid organization, the Gazan Humanitarian Foundation, which has been roundly condemned by the UN and other legitimate aid organizations as a cruel “weaponization” of aid relief run by armed mercenaries using inadequate food distribution networks whose "aid centres" are venues for daily massacres by the IDF (Israeli Defense Force). Iran has not wavered in its support of the Palestinian people. Their plight remains the moral issue of our time. War crimes are committed there daily, and in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and now with Israel’s maniacal wars in Lebanon, Syria, and now Iran.

 

👉TWO REASONS Israel gets away with this illegal and depraved behaviour is because the United States backs it, in the UNSC for example, vetoing UN sanctions against the apartheid state. They, literally, get away with murder!

The second reason is: Israel has nukes, an estimated cache of 90 to 200 warheads. Israel has never declared it's nuclear  weapons program and is not a signatory to the NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty) unlike Tehran which is a signatory. If Israel cannot deter Iran’s daily drone and missile attacks, which have continued unabated since June 14, and if the country's stability is in question, there is a possibility,  some say probability, it will use nuclear weapons. [See above update: "Hold the Presses.] It may also target Iran’s deep underground nuclear facilities with nukes. And if  the Israeli nuclear arsenal is unleashed, then all of us are crossing the Rubicon, whether we want to or not. 

 

1. Uranium has to be enriched to 90% purity to make a Bomb.