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nuclear weapons
Breaking: the Earth! So Where Are the Headlines?
Thanks to both Donald Trump and the media, most of the time all too many of us barely sense that, as I write this and you read it, the slow-motion equivalent of atomic weapons is going off on this planet of ours.
Sep 09, 2025
Imagine for a moment a nuclear weapon exploding over… well, you name it: Pakistan, India or, for that matter, Ukraine, Russia, or the United States. I guarantee you one thing: The news headlines would be (and I use the word advisedly) explosive for days (weeks, months?) on end, assuming of course that any media was left to cover it. And yet, here’s the strange thing: At this very moment, the slow-motion equivalent of a vast nuclear explosion is occurring over this planet of ours and, remind me, where are the stunning headlines? Where is the shock? Why is it so eternally passing news (or no news at all)?
Why doesn’t climate change make the headlines, except in the rarest of cases (or—itself a rare case—in the Guardian, which has an actual “climate crisis” section highlighted atop its daily online edition)? Yes, in the mainstream media, you can certainly read about the melting glaciers and surging glacial lake near Juneau, Alaska, or the floods and growing rainy season in northern China, or the stunning heat and fires this summer in Europe, or the Trump administration’s assault on wind power, or the recent unbelievable nights of record temperatures in the Middle East and, if you want, you can add it all up yourself. But don’t wait for our media to do the same, not in the sort of continuous headline-busting fashion that might suit the unfolding disaster we increasingly face on this planet of ours, even if in the weather equivalent of slow motion. And when climate change is indeed in the news, it’s rare indeed—unlike, say, the Covid-19 epidemic once upon a time—for it to be covered on a global basis. When was the last time, for instance, that you saw all the fierce or even record fires on this planet put together in a single article? Yes, I know, on occasion there are indeed overview stories about climate change, but compared to the daily screaming headlines about whatever passing thing US President Donald Trump did or said days (or even hours) ago, they barely exist.
In news terms, in fact, his second presidency might be considered the news equivalent of an atomic explosion. Think of him, if you want, as President Headline, hour after hour, day after day, week after week, month after month, without cease and in a way no other American president has ever truly been treated. In fact, in news terms, his presidency has been distinctly atomic, both figuratively and, in some sense, literally. After all, he’s been determined to ensure that fossil fuels in America (and the world) remain the energy source of choice and, when it comes to his career as president, an explosive financial resource of the never-ending moment. (In that context, no one should be shocked that the fossil-fuel industry invested an estimated $445 million in supporting and influencing his last election campaign and those of his followers in Congress.)
No surprise, then, that the second time around, he’s made quite an effort to expand oil, gas, and coal production in this country, including signing “four executive orders in April to help revive the beleaguered and polluting coal industry.” Meanwhile, he’s been doing his damnedest to set back green energy in any way imaginable, including by putting in place new Treasury Department “restrictions on tax subsidies for wind and solar projects.” And that is just to start down a long list. The Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that his handouts to the fossil fuel industry will cost Americans $80 billion over the next decade and, of course, they’ll cost the planet we live on so much more.
All too sadly, thanks to both Donald Trump and the media, most of the time all too many of us barely sense that, as I write this and you read it, the slow-motion equivalent of atomic weapons is going off on this planet of ours. Meanwhile, the president remains everybody’s screaming headline (both literally and figuratively) every day of the week. And yes, he does indeed matter. But does he truly matter as much as the almost literal, if slow-motion, end of the world, at least as we’ve known it all these endless centuries, that he’s taking such a distinctive (if generally underreported) hand in bringing about? I don’t think so. Unfortunately, judging by the past election (and so much else), I seem to be in the distinct minority in this country when it comes to such subjects.
However, I doubt that if, between his two presidencies, the media had dealt with the catastrophic development of climate change as it should have, a man who wildly favors the production of oil, natural gas, and coal—the ultimate sources of most of the greenhouse gas emissions now blanketing the planet—would ever have been elected president a second time. Generally, though, unlike Donald Trump or, say, the war in Ukraine, climate change gets only the equivalent of a second thought or a passing mention in the stream of daily news. Who cares if, with such a distinctive helping hand from our president, we’re in the process of essentially devastating this planet as a livable place for humanity and so much else?
Heading for a “Global Nuclear Winter”?
I don’t, however, want to focus on Donald Trump alone, which would mean taking credit away from the rest of us. As a start—and give us full credit here—it’s no small thing that, in our time, we humans have come up with two distinct and painfully distinctive ways of doing in planet Earth. Consider it something of a genuine miracle (though all too seldom written about) that the atomic way hasn’t been used again since the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were obliterated on August 6 and 9, 1945, to end World War II. It’s almost less than human of us to have let 80 years go by without taking another shot at obliterating something atomically.
Mind you, that hasn’t stopped eight more countries from developing devastating, potentially world-ending nuclear arsenals (with, undoubtedly, more to come). As of now, there are an estimated 12,000 or so nuclear weapons of various kinds on this planet—enough, that is, to do in an almost unimaginable number of planets. Worse yet, two of the countries that possess them, India and Pakistan, only recently came close to launching a full-scale war with each other, even exchanging rounds of conventionally armed missiles, before agreeing to a ceasefire. And keep in mind that, if those countries were to use nuclear weaponry against each other in what would still pass for a “limited” nuclear war, it would most likely result not just in almost unimaginable local destruction but planetary devastation. Massive clouds of dust from those nuclear explosions could potentially block the sun, leaving us in what has come to be known as a global “nuclear winter” in which more than 2 billion people on this planet might indeed die.
It should be so much stranger than it feels at this moment to be living in a time when a slow-motion apocalypse of an almost unimaginable sort is actually taking place and with a distinctly world-ending president in the White House.
And although he’s seldom thought of that way, Donald Trump isn’t just a distinctly dystopian president but a potentially end-of-the-world one, too. No, I’m not even thinking about that recent moment when he announced that he was moving two US nuclear submarines armed with nuclear missiles closer to… oops, I almost wrote the Soviet Union (and that shows you how desperately old I am—slightly older, in fact, than the first use of nuclear weapons on this planet). Yes, the correct word is, of course, Russia or, as he put it, closer to the “appropriate regions” in response to what he termed “highly provocative” comments by former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
And consider that not just a threatening but a potentially world-ending gesture. (No matter that he himself has long been disturbed by atomic weaponry, warning repeatedly of the possibility of “World War III.”) And don’t forget that, only recently, this country also decided to once again station some of its nuclear weaponry in Great Britain (already a nuclear power). Of course, Russian President Vladimir Putin responded to those submarine comments by insisting that his country “no longer considers itself bound by a self-imposed moratorium on the deployment of nuclear-capable intermediate range missiles.” And mind you, at this moment, China has the third largest and fastest growing arsenal of all.
In some sense, given the ongoing growth of such arsenals and the spread of such weaponry across much of the planet (not to speak of the recent US and Israeli attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities), the danger of nuclear conflict seems distinctly on the rise.
A Coming Hell on Earth?
Someday, if we humans are even here to remember the Trumpian moment in history and that first method of ultimate destruction hasn’t been used again, humanity will undoubtedly find itself facing the second version head-on. After all, whatever he might not (yet) have done when it comes to nukes, Donald Trump has gone all in on that second global nightmare. Think of it as his urge to create a world not of nuclear winter but of climate-change summer.
Or perhaps it would be better and more bluntly accurate to simply think of our future as a distinct and potentially all too literal hell on Earth. Just imagine the global heat, fires, floods, you name it, that are in our future. Yes, some countries are indeed working hard to put in place other forms of energy that won’t throw greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and turn this planet into an inferno and a half, but even the ones doing so aren’t doing it faintly fast enough.
Take China. Its green energy emplacement, its solar and wind power, is not just greater than that of any other country on the planet, but all of them combined. What it’s done in terms of the building of new green energy facilities couldn’t be more stunning, as is its production of electric cars (at the moment unparalleled on this planet, with more than 60% of such vehicle sales globally). And yet, before you start to feel too upbeat, consider this as well: No country, not even all the rest of them put together, burns more coal than China or is putting in place the number of new coal-powered plants that country is still planning to open. In 2023, it accounted for 95% of new coal construction, a trend that seems to have continued to the present. Can you even believe it?
And then, think of my own country, the (increasingly dis-)United States of America. It had done remarkably little when it came to getting rid of fossil fuels even before Donald Trump entered the White House a second time. After all, it was already the globe’s largest producer of crude oil and exporter of natural gas when Joe Biden became president and, despite his administration’s modest attempts to deal with climate change, oil and gas production were—yes!—even higher when he left office (as was true of Donald Trump in his first term).
And so it goes, it seems. It should be so much stranger than it feels at this moment to be living in a time when a slow-motion apocalypse of an almost unimaginable sort is actually taking place and with a distinctly world-ending president in the White House raising a storm daily (about anything but climate change). Yes, the fires, floods, heatwaves, and droughts are all growing more intense on planet Earth. And on a globe that, in its own fashion, appears to be going to (an all too literal) hell in a handbasket, Donald Trump seems distinctly ready and willing to make that reality so much worse. Even if no atomic weapons are ever used, it seems as if we’re nonetheless heading for what might be thought of as the very opposite of a global nuclear winter. Think of it as a global climate change summer, a slow-motion version of hell on Earth.
Can you believe it? I’m sweating at the very thought of it.
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'We Will Not Be Silent:' Hearing Stilled Voices of the Gaza Genocide
As Israel routinely murders the healthcare workers and journalists who witness its genocide, we must raise our own voices in protest.
Sep 08, 2025
In his last minutes of freedom before Israel Defense Forces arrested him, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, clad in a medic's white coat, walked alone toward two Israeli tanks. His captors awaited him amid the rubble of Gaza's Kamal Adwan hospital. An artist swiftly created a dramatic poster showing Dr. Safiya striding through the ruins of the hospital he directed. The artist, David Solnit, recently updated the poster's caption. It now reads: Free Dr. Abu Safiya Eight months in prison Dec. 27, 2024 - August 27, 2025.
Dr. Safiya had already endured agonizing losses at the Kamal Adwan hospital. In late October 2024, an Israeli drone attack killed his son, also a doctor. In a November 2024 attack on the hospital, Dr. Safiya was wounded by shrapnel, but continued working, insisting he would not close the hospital. He witnessed his colleagues being humiliated, beaten, and marched off to prison. By December 27, 2024, when Dr. Safiya's ordeal as a prisoner began, most hospitals in Gaza were nonfunctional.
On August 28, 2025, Dr. Safiya's lawyer, Ghaid Ghanem Qassem, visited him in the Ofer Prison. She reports he has lost one-third of his body weight. While imprisoned in in the Sde Teiman military Detention Center, located in an Israeli military base in the Negev desert, he showed signs of torture. Subjected to beating with electric shocks and batons, he sustained blows which may also cause him to lose his right eye. Yet his message remains intact:
I entered in the name of humanity, and I will leave in the name of humanity… We will remain on our land and continue to provide healthcare services to the people, God willing, even from a tent.
Regimes conducting a genocide have more than one reason to eliminate brave professionals attempting, life by precious life, to undo their inhuman work: Doctors not only seek to slow down the dying, but they, like the journalists the Israeli regime so frantically targets, are specially positioned and specially qualified to accurately report on the intensity and nature of Israel's extermination campaign. Silencing the citizens most capable of reporting on genocidal savagery is a key objective of genocide.
In one of the most egregious efforts to eliminate a key eye witness, Israeli naval forces, on May 10, 2025, killed 12-year-old Mohammed Saeed al-Bardawil, who, as a passerby alongside his father, had witnessed Israel's March 23rd pre-dawn execution of 15 unarmed emergency rescue workers. The murdered paramedics had driven their clearly marked ambulances to a spot where they intended to retrieve victims of an earlier attack. The bullets that killed them were fired over six minutes as Israeli soldiers advanced to shoot directly into the survivors' heads and torsos, afterwards using earth-moving equipment to bury their corpses and vehicles. On that day, Mohammed and his father were detained and made to lie face down near a burning ambulance. He is listed as a source in a well-documented New York Times video on the massacre, dated May 2. Eleven days later, an Israeli gunboat fired on his father's fishing boat, killing Muhammed in his father's presence off the coast of Gaza's southern Rafah governate.
Almost daily, new faces appear in an assemblage of photos showing hundreds of journalists Israel has killed.
It was two weeks ago, on August 25, that Israel killed Reuters camera operator Hussam Al Masri and 19 others, four of them also journalists, in a series of double-tap precision-guided aerial attacks on buildings and a stairway of the Al Nasser Hospital. Al Masri was easily targetable as he broadcast a live video feed from a Reuters outpost on a top hospital floor. Describing the second wave of the attack, Jonathan Cook writes: "And when Israel struck 10 minutes later with two coordinated missiles, it knew that the main victims would be the emergency workers who went to rescue survivors from the first strike and journalists—al-Masri's friends—who were nearby and rushed to the scene… Nothing was a 'mishap.' It was planned down to the minutest detail."
Snipers and weaponized drone operators routinely kill Palestinians who courageously continue to don bullet proof press jackets, set up cameras, and report on Israel's atrocities. Israel refuses entry to foreign journalists, and when brave, grieving, impassioned young Palestinians insist on carefully documenting their people's agony for Western news outlets, Israel carefully targets them using the traceable phone and broadcasting equipment necessary to their work, before posthumously branding them Hamas operatives. Craven Western officials watch from within Israel's patron states, discounting brown lives on whatever flimsy pretexts white authorities offer them. Almost daily, new faces appear in an assemblage of photos showing hundreds of journalists Israel has killed.
Healthcare workers and journalists who are still alive do their work amid struggles to prevent their families, their colleagues, their neighbors, and of course themselves, from deaths not just by direct massacre but by militarily imposed starvation and its handmaiden, epidemic disease. Surgeons speak of being too weak to stand throughout an operation. Reporters document their own starvation.
Palestinians long for protection, but even the prospect of United Nations mandated protective forces carries terrifying possibilities. What if "peacekeepers" assigned to monitor Palestinians collect data the Israelis will use to control them? Weaponized "stabilizing forces," equipped with US surveillance technology, could be used to target, imprison, assassinate, and starve even more Palestinians.
In the summer of 1942, in Munich, Germany, five students and one professor summoned astonishing courage to defy a genocidal regime to which we, reluctantly, have to look if we want to find a racist cruelty comparable to that currently seizing not just Israel's leadership but, in poll after poll, strong majorities of its non-native population. The students' collective, called The White Rose, distributed leaflets denouncing Nazi atrocities. "We will not be silent" was the final line of each leaflet. Hans Scholl, age 24, and his sister, Sophie Scholl, age 21, hand delivered the leaflets to their university campus in February of 1943. The Gestapo arrested them after a janitor spotted them disseminating the leaflets. Four days later, Hans and Sophie, as well as their colleague Christopher Probst, were executed by guillotine.
With Israel's nuclear arsenal capable of outkilling the Nazi regime over the course of a few minutes, and in the process inciting humanity's final war; and with its leadership and populace radicalized through decades of fascist impunity to the point of endorsing not just a genocide but multiple, preemptive military strikes upon most of its neighbors at once, we may well be arriving at the moment when, as a result of our having let Israel assassinate, with impunity, the reporters of its crimes, there will be no one in the outside world left to receive reports.
The silence we allow ourselves today may soon be involuntary, and absolute. Let us summon up a fraction of Dr. Safiya's, of young Mohammad's, of Sophie Scholl's and Hussam al-Masri's courage and speak while we can.
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Land-Based ICBMs: America’s Maginot Line
Instead of updating these missiles in the prairie states, policymakers should create jobs by building a clean energy infrastructure of wind turbines and solar panels.
Sep 07, 2025
Here’s a lesson from the past. During the 1930s, France built the Maginot Line in hopes of deterring an anticipated invasion from Nazi Germany. The line ran north from the point where France touches Switzerland but stopped at the Belgian border, where the Belgians objected to its continuation to the English Channel.
But Nazi Germany never intended to invade by way of the Franco-German border. Instead, it did exactly what Imperial Germany did in World War I by cutting into France through Belgium. France fell in six weeks.
Since then, the Maginot Line has been a byword for military stupidity. Regular readers of this column probably know all of this, but what’s interesting now is that America has created its own Maginot Line: the land-based intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) system in Montana, Wyoming, and North Dakota, complete with a new generation of missiles—the Sentinels—now under construction.
Several justifications have been offered for the continued operation of this latter-day Maginot Line. Many of our federal officials, both in and out of the armed forces, believe that land-based ICBMs are a necessary part of a triad of land, air, and sea-based weapons which can best assure our safety from a potential enemy attack. They argue that if a potential enemy has several missile systems to contend with, it will have to spread its own forces too thinly to defeat us. Thus any attack on its part will fail.
However, any usefulness which land-based missiles have vanishes when one remembers how vulnerable they are. They’re set in stationary underground silos whose locations are well known. For them to be effective, we would have to fire them at an enemy before his missiles could hit us. The result of this situation is a world on hair-trigger alert, complete with a strong temptation to launch a so-called preemptive nuclear strike which would escalate into a world war.
Another rationale which proponents of land-based ICBMs offer is that even if the missiles are impractical as weapons, they would act as a nuclear sponge. An enemy would have to waste so many missiles attacking our ICBMs that our population, infrastructure, and government centers would be spared while our sea and air missiles would destroy his country entirely. The delusion in this case is that nuclear war is winnable.
Replacing an infrastructure that threatens wholesale death would be a job creating and community-sustaining infrastructure which promotes life.
But the nuclear sponge argument fails to account for both the adjacent and downwind effect of any large-scale nuclear exchange, which would bring forth a nuclear winter deadly enough to kill hundreds of millions, if not billions, of human beings. In fact, each nuclear superstate has enough firepower to wipe out almost all life on Earth six or seven times over. Any single part of their missile systems—air, sea, or land—would be more than enough for the grisly work.
The final assertion which proponents of land-based missile systems offer is that of economic security. Building, maintaining, and updating those missiles creates jobs. Even if the missiles themselves are worthless and provocative, there are entire communities whose well-being depends on keeping these systems up and running. The alternative is economic collapse, given the relative lack of natural wealth on the high plains of Montana, Wyoming, and North Dakota, where they are based.
Forgotten in that claim is that the high prairie is a cornucopia of wind and sunlight, a pair of resources on which to build a clean energy infrastructure of wind turbines and solar panels which would answer the challenge of global warming. Replacing an infrastructure that threatens wholesale death would be a job creating and community-sustaining infrastructure which promotes life. As the National Priorities Project has shown over and over again, the number of jobs so created would double the number created by the Sentinel program.
How to do it? We already know how to build, operate, and maintain wind turbines and solar panels, the materials for which have become less expensive by the year. Build them now, and do it at a pace which keeps people at work while we put our own worthless and dangerous contemporary Maginot Line in the past, alongside the long-failed, historical Maginot Line. Whatever remains of them can serve us as both a monument to and a caution against our own sometime stupidity.
We need not be so stupid.
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