Tag: perpetual war

Ukrainian Defenses Overwhelmed by Russian Steady Advances on Two Fronts

With an acute shortage of military supplies and – more importantly – of human resources, the Ukrainian army has an increasingly hard job defending against the Russian forces exerting pressure at multiple points along the 745-mile-long front line.

Presently, Moscow’s offensives are focused on two main areas: in the northern Sumy and Kharkov regions, and in the eastern Donetsk oblast – and as a result, Kiev’s reserve troops are having difficulties plugging the holes in the overwhelmed defenses.

And, as if that was not bad enough, Russia is about to expand operations to the new Ukrainian region of Dnipropetrovsk.

Associated Press reported:

“Kremlin forces are steadily gaining ground in the strategic eastern logistics hub of Pokrovsk, the capture of which would hand them a major battlefield victory and bring them closer to acquiring the entire Donetsk region. The fighting there has also brought combat to the border of the neighboring Dnipropetrovsk region for the first time.”

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Censored BBC Documentary Exposes Israel’s War On Gaza’s Doctors.

Recently, the documentary “Gaza: Doctors Under Attack,” which was prevented from being aired on the British state-funded media outlet BBC, was acquired by the British channel “Channel 4” and the independent news outlet Zeteo for release.

Having seen the documentary, it is not surprising that it was censored – it is a horrific and deeply disturbing investigation into Israel’s systemic war on Gaza’s healthcare system, part of the wider genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

In this article, I will summarize some of the most shocking and disturbing revelations from the film.

Israel’s War On Gaza’s Hospitals.

The film- narrated by journalist Ramita Navai– begins with Navai noting that “Every one of Gaza’s 36 main hospitals has been attacked, forced to evacuate or destroyed, and Israel has been killing the very people trying to keep the healthcare system alive, it’s doctors and medics, despite healthcare workers being protected under international law”.

The film focuses on investigating specific cases, the Israeli attacks at Al Shifa hospital, the Indonesian hospital, Al Adwa Hospital, Nasser Hospital and Kamal Adwan Hospital.

Starting with Al Shifa, the documentary notes that the order was given to evacuate the hospital in 2023.

Dr Mohammed Abu Salmiya, the lead director at Al Shifa hospital, is interviewed in the documentary and recounts that “We ignored these messages as much as we could not forget that we work at Al Shifa hospital. Because it was the backbone of the entire health system in Gaza. By stopping al-Shifa from operating, you have disabled the whole health system in Gaza. As we did not abide by the messages, they started sending us rockets.”

As Ramita Navai notes, “On November 3rd (2023) , an Israeli strike hit a convoy of ambulances exiting the (Al Shifa) hospital. The Palestinian Red Crescent said 15 people were killed, and at least 60 were injured.”

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This Is Israel’s War – Not Our War

President Trump, to his credit, demanded a ceasefire between Israel and Iran. Both countries agreed to it. Then, the president became very angry with Israel because, as he said, “As soon as we made the deal, they came out and they dropped a load of bombs the likes of which I’ve never seen before.”

But as I write this column, the ceasefire is still in effect. I hope it lasts. However, just two days before the ceasefire, we dropped ten 30,000-pound bunker bombs on Iran, a country that had not even shot one bullet at us.

Please, God, let this be the end of our involvement in the war between Israel and Iran.

This is Israel’s war. It is not our war. Netanyahu and Israel First neocons led us into a very unnecessary war in Iraq that cost the lives of so many young Americans, and led to the blinding and maiming of thousands more. It was not worth their sacrifice.

Donald Trump was elected as president in 2016 primarily because of his opposition to the war in Iraq, and because he promised to put America First.

The overwhelming majority of Americans – both Democrats and Republicans – do not want this country stuck in another war in the Middle East.

This is not our war; it is Netanyahu’s war. The very respected foreign policy expert and Columbia professor, Jeffrey Sachs, a Jew, has described Netanyahu as “one of the most violent and dangerous people in this world.”

Tom Friedman, the longtime New York Times columnist and also a Jew, wrote in his column of May 9 that “Netanyahu is not our friend.”

Israel claimed it had killed Iran’s top eight generals and its nine leading nuclear scientists even before the U.S. dropped its bombs.

Israel also claimed it had destroyed Iran’s ground-based air defense capabilities and had achieved total air superiority even before we got involved.

If their claims are true, Israel was already winning this war. They started this war, let them finish it – without us.

Israel supposedly had two main goals in invading Iran: To stop Iran’s nuclear weapons program and to foster regime change there.

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Ukraine nuclear power plant alert as ALL external electricity cables helping keep reactor fuel cool go DOWN

All external power lines supplying electricity to the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP ) in Ukraine were down on Friday, the U.N. nuclear watchdog said.

Ukraine has blamed Russian shelling for severing the last power line at the plant, which is not operating but still requires electricity to keep its nuclear fuel cool and radiation levels safe.

The power plant, Europe’s biggest, has switched to running on diesel generators, the International Atomic Energy Agency said.

The IAEA has repeatedly warned of the risk of a catastrophic accident at Zaporizhzhia, which is located near the front line in the war in Ukraine.

Its six reactors are shut down, but the nuclear fuel inside them still needs to be cooled, which requires constant power.

‘Ukraine’s ZNPP lost all off-site power at 17:36 today, 9th time during military conflict and first since late 2023,’ the IAEA said on X. 

‘The ZNPP currently relies on power from its emergency diesel generators, underlining (the) extremely precarious nuclear safety situation.’

Ukraine’s energy minister, German Galuschenko, wrote on Telegram that a Russian strike had cut the plant off.

‘The enemy struck the power line connecting the temporarily occupied (Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant) with the integrated power system of Ukraine.’

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Renewing a Desecrated Declaration of Independence

In 1776, Thomas Paine set a revolutionary tone rejecting the King: “But where, say some, is the King of America? … as far as we approve of monarchy… in America the law is king.”

The American Revolution replaced the authority of a sovereign with the authority of a written Constitution and a people who govern themselves. Paine’s vision was the bedrock of the American Revolution, a declaration that no person — not a king, not a president, not a general — would stand above the law. 

Today, nearly 250 years later, that vision is dimming, not because the words have faded, but because the institutions meant to uphold them have withered. And at the heart of this erosion is a truth too many fear to speak: we are witnessing the collapse of the implicit moral principles of the Declaration, the American promise of liberty under law.

The conduct of America’s current chief executive recalls the cadence of the usurpations of George III, iterated in the July 4, 1776, Declaration of Independence. We have arrived at a George III moment.

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On July 4, 1945: The Man Who Tried To Halt the Atomic Bombings

On July 4, 1945, the great atomic scientist Leo Szilard finished a letter that would become the strongest (and one of the very few) real attempts at halting President Truman’s march to using the atomic bomb – which was two weeks from its first test at Trinity – against Japanese cities.

It’s well known that as the Truman White House made plans to use the first atomic bombs against Japan in the summer of 1945, a large group of atomic scientists, many of whom had worked on the bomb project, raised their voices, or at least their names, in protest. They were led by the Szilard. On July 3, he finished a petition to the president for his fellow scientists to consider, which called atomic bombs “a means for the ruthless annihilation of cities.” It asked the president “to rule that the United States shall not, in the present phase of the war, resort to the use of atomic bombs.”

The following day, July 4, he wrote this cover letter (below). The same day, Leslie Groves, military chief of the Manhattan Project, wrote Winston Churchill’s science advisor seeking advice on how to combat Szilard and his colleagues. The FBI was already following Szilard. The bomb would be dropped over Hiroshima on August 6.

July 4, 1945

Dear _______________

Enclosed is the text of a petition which will be submitted to the President of the United States. As you will see, this petition is based on purely moral considerations.

It may very well be that the decision of the President whether or not to use atomic bombs in the war against Japan will largely be based on considerations of expediency. On the basis of expediency, many arguments could be put forward both for and against our use of atomic bombs against Japan.

Such arguments could be considered only within the framework of a thorough analysis of the situation which will face the United States after this war and it was felt that no useful purpose would be served by considering arguments of expediency in a short petition.

However small the chance might be that our petition may influence the course of events, I personally feel that it would be a matter of importance if a large number of scientists who have worked in this field went clearly and unmistakably on record as to their opposition on moral grounds to the use of these bombs in the present phase of the war.

Many of us are inclined to say that individual Germans share the guilt for the acts which Germany committed during this war because they did not raise their voices in protest against these acts. Their defense that their protest would have been of no avail hardly seems acceptable even though these Germans could not have protests without running risks to life and liberty. We are in a position to raise our voices without incurring any such risks even though we might incur the displeasure of some of those who are at present in charge of controlling the work on “atomic power”.

The fact that the people of the people of the United States are unaware of the choice which faces us increases our responsibility in this matter since those who have worked on “atomic power” represent a sample of the population and they alone are in a position to form an opinion and declare their stand.

Anyone who might wish to go on record by signing the petition ought to have an opportunity to do so and, therefore, it would be appreciated if you could give every member of your group an opportunity for signing.

Leo Szilard

What happened next? Well, the petition gained from than 180 signatures—Oppenheimer obviously not one, and actively discouraged others – but was then delayed in getting to President Truman by Gen. Leslie Groves, military head of the Manhattan Project, until the A-bombs were ready to use, in early August. Groves also commissioned a poll of atomic scientists, which found that over 80% favored a demonstration shot only – so he squelched that, too. Much more in my 2020 book: The Beginning or the End: How Hollywood – and America – Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.

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Independence From Empire Day 2025

We are independent of London, but are we independent of Washington? Is there more freedom when governed by one tyrant 3,000 miles away or by 3,000 tyrants a few miles away?
Does government today remotely resemble the values articulated on July 4th 1776?

When the president of the United States bombs the lawful facilities of a foreign country that pose no threat whatsoever to American national security and does so without a congressional declaration of war as the Constitution requires; when thousands of non-violent folks in America are arrested by masked federal agents without warrants and kicked out of the country without due process; when troops patrol the streets of a large city in defiance of federal law; when both major political parties support mass surveillance, undeclared foreign wars and borrowing trillions of dollars a year to fund a bloated government — nearly all of which is nowhere countenanced by the Constitution — we can safely conclude that personal liberty in our once-free society has been radically diminished and is in the twilight of its existence.

Two hundred and forty-nine years ago this week, Thomas Jefferson was fuming in his rented rooms in Philadelphia as the Continental Congress was softening the tone of his final draft of what would become the most critical document and radical articulation of the origins of human freedom in American history. [Read Jefferson’s first draft.]

The Declaration of Independence is an indictment of King George III as well as a manifestation of limited government and maximum individual freedom.

Though the final version dropped some of Jefferson’s more bellicose language, the document as we know it is largely his — not only his lofty language but also the three principal Jeffersonian values that it manifests.

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Kyiv On Fire As Russian Pummels Ukrainian Capital

Russian missiles and drones are attacking the capital of Ukraine – Kyiv.

Kyiv International Airport is apparently one of the main targets. Ukrainian air defense assets have been known to be located at the airport.

The attacks come after the phone call today between Russian President Putin and President Trump. POTUS said he was not happy after the call.

It looks like Moscow has decided to push for complete destruction of Ukraine’s military capability to resist, prior to suing for peace. This decision may be based on the Ukrainian destruction of Russian strategic nuclear aircraft just weeks ago.

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Deputy Head Of Russian Navy Killed In Ukraine Missile Strike

In a rare battlefield development, a very high-ranking general officer for Russia’s military has been killed by Ukrainian forces, and it actually happened on Russian soil.

Major General Mikhail Gudkov, deputy commander of the Russian Navy and a brigade leader in the Ukraine war, has been confirmed dead in Russia’s Kursk region, according to a statement Thursday by a Kremlin official.

The news broke when Russian and Ukrainian military Telegram channels reported that Gudkov was killed along with 10 other soldiers in a Ukrainian strike targeting a command post in Korenevo, which lies near the Ukrainian border.

Gudkov is among the highest-ranking Russian military figures killed by Ukrainian forces since the conflict began. A slew of international headlines are reporting his death on Thursday.

Reuters reports the following, citing a Russian regional governor:

Kozhemyako, who said he had spoken to Gudkov a lot over the years, said in a statement that Gudkov had been killed “carrying out his duty as an officer” along with others, and expressed his condolences to the dead men’s relatives.

“When he became Deputy Chief of the Navy, he did not stop personally visiting the positions of our marines,” Kozhemyako said on Telegram.

The 42-year old general had only been promoted by President Putin to the number two command spot over the Navy in late March, according to the Institute for the Study of War think tank.

According to more emerging details in regional media, “An obituary posted by a Russian Navy servicemen’s organization states that on July 2, 2025, the Ukrainian Armed Forces launched a missile strike on the command post of the 155th Marine Brigade.”

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Could NATO Burden-Sharing Be a Subtle Snare for the United States?

Both Donald Trump and his legions of critics in Europe are celebrating the outcome of the latest NATO summit.  The centerpiece of NATO’s renewed image of solidarity was an agreement among all Alliance members (except Spain) to boost their annual defense outlays to at least 5 percent of their yearly gross domestic product (GDP).  Although NATO officials portrayed this commitment as a purely voluntary step, it appeased Trump’s long-standing demands for greater financial “burden-sharing” within the Alliance.

Hawks on both sides of the Atlantic may cheer this development, but advocates of a genuine “America first” foreign policy for Washington have little reason to celebrate.  Indeed, more burden-sharing has a disturbing potential to entangle the United States in a growing array of dangerous quarrels between Europe (especially NATO’s East European members) and Russia.  Thus, there could be more Ukraine-style proxy wars in our future.

European leaders apparently were willing to make major concessions to secure America’s continued entanglement in the continent’s security affairs.  They even let Trump take his propaganda victory lap following the U.S. attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, despite continued misgivings in some European capitals about the wisdom of his action.  They gave the U.S. leader an even more impressive, albeit implicit, diplomatic victory lap regarding Alliance defense spending.  This theme had dominated Washington’s transatlantic agenda during Trump’s first term, when he pressured the allies to fulfill repeated pledges they had made over the years to spend at least 2 percent of GDP on defense.  During the 2024 U.S. presidential campaign, his demand escalated to 5 percent – the same figure that NATO summit leaders have now adopted.

Despite any superficial appearances, the outcome of the June 2025 NATO summit was not good for the American people.  A meaningful debate in the United States on the future of Washington’s transatlantic policy should not focus on the issue of burden-sharing.  America’s principal need is not for more burden-sharing within NATO; our republic needs a strategic divorce from NATO.

Despite hoary propaganda about NATO being an alliance of equals, there was always a yawning gap between that image and the reality of U.S. hegemony.  The United States invariably  called the shots on Alliance policy regarding security issues that U.S. leaders deemed truly important anywhere in the world.

An especially graphic demonstration of how the transatlantic power relationship worked in practice came during the Cuban Missile crisis during the autumn of 1963.  John F. Kennedy’s administration dispatched former ambassador W. Averell Harriman to meet with French President Charles De Gaulle about the alarming situation.  Near the end of the session, De Gaulle asked Harriman if he was consulting with him about U.S. policy or “informing” him.  Harriman conceded that Washington was merely informing its ally. The United States would make the final decision unilaterally, based on America’s best interests.

One consequence of that confirmation of Washington’s dominance within NATO was that France promptly developed and deployed an independent strategic nuclear deterrent and withdrew from NATO’s military structure, thus asserting an independent role for France.

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